The victim (22 page)

up and returned the rag to its pipe beneath the sink. He was moving chairs into place when he saw a comb on the carpet. It must have been the mate to the one the woman had fastened in her hair. Studying it, he could not help breathing its odor. It was a white comb, white bone, its teeth darkened yellow in an uneven fringe. On one side it was decorated with a diamond-shaped piece of glass; on the other, the bit of glass had fallen out of its setting. He did not linger over the comb very long; he let it fall into the waste-basket. He recalled the women in the wrangle he had watched on the corner several weeks back and even reflected that she might have been one of them. She might, easily. After all, where had Allbee picked her up? Probably in a tavern in the neighborhood. A breeze blew through the flat while he swept the ashes from the rug. It brought the cold and vacancy of the outside into the room. Nevertheless, the smell of the comb occasionally returned, coming over him with some fragment of what had occurred that evening in its wake, like a qualm. It must have been frightening, sickening for her to hear the crash of the door and then to run out of bed--still another bed. And even granting that she could endure roughness better than another (many a woman would have cried from terror or sheer mortification), he was sorry to have subjected her to it. He found himself regretting the whole incident because of her and almost wished that he had listened to Allbee and gone away. He could have attended to him later. A few impressions of her remained vividly with Leventhal--the heaviness of her figure in the skirt, the way she had crouched to work her foot into the shoe, the look he had received from her queerly shaped eyes. It now struck him that there was more amusement in it than fear, and he could see, too, how with a grain of detachment it was possible for her to find the incident amusing. He began to remember how Allbee had stumbled in pulling up his pants and how comically he had held out the woman's stockings to her. It was low, it was painful, but it was funny. He grinned, his eyes dilated and shone; he gave way explosively to laughter, driving the broom at the floor. "The stockings! Those damn stockings! Standing there without a stitch and passing those stockings!" He broke suddenly into a cough. When he was done laughing and coughing, his face remained unusually expressive. Yes, and he ought not to leave himself out of the picture, glaring at them both. Meanwhile, Allbee was burning, yet trying to keep his head. The woman must have grasped that he did not dare say what he felt. Perhaps he had been boasting to her, telling lies about himself, and that was why his predicament amused her. But when he sat down for a moment on the bed, all the comedy of it was snatched away and torn to pieces. He was wrong about the woman's expression; he was trying to transform it into something he could bear. The truth was probably far different. He had started out to see what had happened with her eyes and had ended by substituting his own, thus contriving to put her on his side. Whereas, the fact was that she was nearer to Allbee. Both of them, Allbee and the woman, moved or swam toward him out of a depth of life in which he himself would be lost, choked, ended. There lay horror, evil, all that he had kept himself from. In the days when he was clerking in the hotel on the East Side, he had been as near to it as he could ever bear to be. He had seen it face on then. And since, he had learned more about it out of the corner of his eye. Why not say heart, rather than eye? His heart was what caught it, with awful pain and dread, in heavy blows. Then, since the fear and pain were so great, what drew him on? He picked up the broom and returned to his tasks. As he bent on trembling legs to brush up the ashes, he was thinking, "Maybe I didn't do the right thing. I didn't know what it was. I don't yet. And there had to be a showdown sooner or later. What was I going to do with him? He hated me. He hated me enough to cut my throat. He didn't do it because he was too much of a coward. That's why he was pulling all those stunts instead. He was pulling them on himself as much as on me, and the reason for that was that he hated himself for not having enough nerve, but by clowning he could pass off his own feelings.--All that stuff, the mustard and going on his knees and all that talk. That's what it was for. I had to do something with him. I suppose I handled it badly. Still, it's over; that's the main thing..." The chairs did not look quite as they did when Mary arranged them; the bed was unevenly made. A swath of ashes still remained on the rug. However, things began to right themselves and it soothed him to be busy. He opened a can of vegetable soup and set it on the stove. While it was heating, he washed the dishes and, for the first time in weeks, turned on the radio simply to hear a voice. The phone rang. It was Max, calling, he said, from a drugstore on Fourteenth Street. He did not want to come unannounced a second time. A good thing, too, Leventhal thought; he would not have answered the doorbell. He was finishing his soup ten minutes later, when Max arrived. Elena had agreed at last to leave New York. That was his news. He was coming from Pennsylvania Station where he had picked up the reservations. Villani's brother, a secondhand dealer on Bleecker Street, was buying the furniture. "It'll cost us twice what we're getting to buy new things down there," he said. "Ah, you don't want this stuff." "What's the matter with it? Shipping is too high, that's all." Then he smiled at Leventhal. "So...?" he said. "You mean I was mistaken about Elena." "I sure do. And about the old lady." "Oh. Well, you caught me in a bad mood the other night, Max. I'm not always like that. I hope I didn't hurt your feelings." The lines radiating out from Max's eyes deepened. "Oh, I got a kind of a kick out of the way you built up the old woman," he said. "I'm glad you finally got Elena to come around. It's going to be all to the good. I'm glad for Phil's sake, especially. When you're settled we'll come down and visit." "Sure, you'll be welcome. Anytime. Is she going to be back soon?" Leventhal noticed that Max did not mention Mary by name. Like Elena, he probably did not know what her name was. "Mary? Just as soon as I can get her to come. I'm going to phone her tonight." "Your radio's on pretty loud. Got a drive on against spooks?" They smiled together. "I guess I really don't know where I'm at when she's away." Max poured himself a glass of water, declining to sit down for coffee. "Too many things to take care of," he said. He pulled his hat down. His sideburns were long and ill-trimmed, overgrowing his ears. "I'll see you off," said Leventhal. "When are you leaving?" "Friday, four o'clock on the Natchez Prince." "I'll be on hand." After talking to his wife, Leventhal prepared for bed in a kind of intoxication. He walked up and down the room, undressing, and stopped before her picture on the desk and caressed her face with his thumb over the glass. Under the arch of his chest, he felt a thick, distinct stroke that seemed to him much slower than the actual, remote, jubilant speeding of his heart. His legs were melting with excitement. Mary was probably packing her bags, for she had promised to leave on the earliest train tomorrow. From the way she spoke, he realized that she had been waiting for him to make this call. When he said, "Can you come soon?" she replied, "Tomorrow," with an eagerness that astonished him. She would arrive very early on Tuesday, if the Labor Day crowd did not delay her too much. Meanwhile, he had to attend to the flat; she had to find it as she had left it. Half an hour ago he had thought it passable. Now it looked appallingly dirty. He slipped a coat over his pajamas and was about to go down to see Mrs Nunez. But he remembered in time that the Nunez' had a telephone and turned back. As usual, he chided himself; the easiest, sensible way came to him last. He found the number in Mary's alphabetized book and dialed it. In a moment he heard her aspirated Spanish "'Allo?" The thing was quickly arranged: she would be up in the morning. After hanging up, he silently apologized to her for his suspicion. But there was no place in his present mood for penitence or even for thought. He locked the front door. He ought to have spoken to Nunez about the broken chain while he was on the wire. And for that matter Allbee still had a key; the lock should be changed. He had not retained the number, and he picked up the book again and then decided to let the thing go until morning. Explanations were necessary. Why was the chain broken? Why did a perfectly good lock have to be taken out? He had to have time; he could not invent reasons on the telephone. He got into bed, piled the pillows against the wall, and sat with a magazine in his lap. He did not read; he had no desire to, and besides nothing took shape before his eyes. Restlessly, he turned the pages and heard the interminable sleepy sigh of the steam in the radiators and the intermittent shock of the subway beneath the house. Finally he threw down the magazine and turned face down on the pillow. His impatience made him groan. He could hardly bear to lie still. Over and over again he saw the station platform, the cars in the tunnel, and made out Mary's face in the crowd of passengers--her hat, her light hair, and last of all her face. He embraced and kissed her, and asked, "Did you have a good trip?" Would that do? He struggled over a choice of greetings. Then once more he imagined himself running on the platform. It was unendurable. He resolved to go to sleep and he turned off the lamp. But as soon as he had done this, he rose--the room was not entirely dark because the light was burning in the bathroom--and dragged the heavy desk chair to the door. He fixed the back of it tightly under the knob and returned to bed. "For God's sake," he muttered, "let me get a night's rest." There was a pallor on the windows; the moon had risen. Standing on the bed, he drew the curtains and dropped down. He pulled the blanket over his head and soon he was asleep. At first he slept deeply, but after a time he began to stir. He was too warm; he threw some of his covers off; his legs moved as if unwilling to be relaxed, and once or twice he was on the point of jumping up and turning on the lamp. But he held his head down between the pillows obstinately and presently he began to dream. He was on a boardwalk in broad, open, blue summer weather. The sea was flaring on his right and the shore blackened with bathers. On his left, there was an amusement park with ticket booths, and he saw round yellow and red cars whipping around and bumping together. He entered a place that resembled a hotel--there was a circular veranda where people sat looking at the bay--but proved to be a department store. He was here to buy some rouge for Mary. The salesgirl demonstrated various shades on her own face, wiping off each in turn with a soiled hand towel and bending to the round mirror on the counter to draw a new spot. There was a great, empty glitter of glass and metal around them. What could this possibly be about? Leventhal wondered. For he was perfectly sure he had once seen a chart with all the colors. This work was unnecessary. Nevertheless, he watched her smearing the rouge on her sharp face and did not interrupt her. The odor of the towel had from the beginning seemed familiar. He made so strong an effort to identify it that he half roused himself, aware, all at once, that the odor came from his bed. His eyes were open and his unshaven chin rustled on the pillow. Could the woman's scent have penetrated the slip and the ticking? He raised his head, feeling stifled, and saw the dazzling wall of the bathroom, the yawning clothes hamper, the black fin of the scale. He thought he could hear the steam in the pipes, and yet the room was not warm. He shivered and lit the lamp. His heart nearly burst with fear, for the chair was down and the front door gaping. There were movements in the kitchen. He hunched forward in the gathered bedclothes, listening, and the wires of the spring sang out. His terror, like a cold fluid, like brine, seemed to have been released by the breaking open of something within him. "My God!" he cried to himself. His mouth was parched and the taste of his lips was like that of dried blood. But what if the chair had slid down and the door opened by itself? And what if the kitchen were empty? His nerves again, his sick imagination. But why nerves--as an excuse for his cowardice? So that he would not have to go to the kitchen to investigate? Had he locked the door? He was ready to swear to it. And if it was open now, it was because Allbee, who had a key, had opened it. Leventhal's legs were braced to spring, but he held back, feeling that to be deceived now through his nerves would crush him. But suddenly he rushed from bed, dragging the sheets in which his foot had caught. He kicked free and ran into the kitchen. He collided with someone who crouched there, and a cry came out of him. The air was foul and hard to breathe. Gas was pouring from the oven. "I have to kill him now," he thought as they grappled. He caught the cloth of his coat in his teeth while he swiftly changed his grip, clutching at Allbee's face. He tore away convulsively, but Leventhal crushed him with his weight in the corner. Allbee's fist came down heavily on his neck, beside the shoulder. "You want to murder me? Murder?" Leventhal gasped. The sibilance of the pouring gas was almost deafening. "Me, myself!" Allbee whispered despairingly, as if with his last breath. "Me...!" Then his head shot up, catching Leventhal on the mouth. The pain made him drop his hands, and Allbee pushed him away and flung out of the kitchen. He stumbled after him down a flight of stairs, trying to shout and bruising his naked feet on the metal edges of the treads. He heard Allbee jump and saw him running into the foyer. Seizing a milk bottle from a neighbor's sill, he threw it. It smashed on the tiles. He raced back to turn off the gas. He feared an explosion. By the wildly swinging light, he saw a chair placed before the open oven from which Allbee apparently had risen when he ran in. Leventhal threw open the front-room window and bent out, tears running down his face in the cold air. The long lines of lamps hung down their yellow grains in the gray and blue of the street. He saw no one, not a living thing. When he had had enough air, he limped to the bathroom. He had bitten his tongue and he rinsed his mouth with peroxide. In spite of the struggle, the revolting sweetness of the gas like the acrid sweetness of sewage, the numbness in his neck, and, now, the sight of blood, he did not seem greatly disturbed. He looked impassive, under the cloud of his hair. He
rinsed and spat, washed out the sink, wiped the stains from the mouth of the peroxide bottle, and went to pick up the sheets he had dragged to the floor. By the time he had remade the bed, the flat was nearly free of gas. Though he scarcely thought that Allbee would be back again, he shut the door and barricaded it with the dresser. He would sleep undisturbed; he cared about nothing else. Drowsily, he went to check the stove again, to make sure no more gas was escaping. Then he dropped onto the bed. He was still sleeping at eleven o'clock when Mrs Nunez arrived to start the cleaning. Her repeated knocks woke him.