Another Country (49 page)

“You may ask,” she said. “I may not answer. You’ve waited a very long time, it seems to me, to ask me questions. Maybe you’ve waited too long.” They stared at each other. And she saw, with a sense of triumph that made her ill, that, yes, she was stronger than he. She could break him: for, to match her will, he would be compelled to descend to stratagems far beneath him.

And her mind was filled again with that bright, blue field. She shook with the memory of his weight, her desire, her terror, and her cunning.
Not here. Where? Oh, Richard
. The cruel sun, and the indifferent air, and the two of them burning on a burning field. She knew that, yes, she must now surrender, now that she had him; she knew that she could not let him go; and, oh, his hands, his hands. But she was frightened, she realized that she knew nothing:
Can’t we wait? Wait. No. No
. And his lips burned her neck and her breasts.
Then let’s go to the woods. Let’s go to the woods
. And he grinned. The memory of that grin rushed up from its hiding place and splintered her heart now.
You’d have to carry me, or I’d have to crawl, can’t you feel it?
Then,
Let me in Cass, take me, take me, I swear I won’t betray you, you know I won’t!

“I love you, Cass,” he said, his lips twitching and his eyes stunned with grief. “Tell me where you’ve been, tell me why you’ve gone so far away from me.”

“Why
I,
” she said, helplessly, “have gone away from
you?
” The smell of crushed flowers rose to her nostrils. She began to cry.

She did not look down. She looked straight up at the sun; then she closed her eyes, and the sun roared inside her head. One hand had left her— where his hand had been, she was cold.

I won’t hurt you.

Please.

Maybe just a little. Just at first.

Oh. Richard. Please.

Tell me you love me. Say it. Say it now.

Oh, yes. I love you. I love you.

Tell me you’ll love me forever.

Yes. Forever. Forever.

He was looking at her, leaning on the bar, looking at her from far away. She dried her eyes with the handkerchief he had thrown in her lap. “Give me a cigarette, please.”

He threw her the pack, threw her some matches. She lit a cigarette.

“When was the last time you saw Ida and Vivaldo? Tell me the truth.”

“Tonight.”

“And you’ve been spending all this time— every time you come in here in the early morning— with Ida and Vivaldo?”

She was frightened again, and she knew that her tone betrayed her. “Yes.”

“You’re lying. Ida hasn’t been with Vivaldo. She’s been with Ellis. And it’s been going on a long time.” He paused. “The question is— where have
you
been? Who’s been with Vivaldo while Ida’s been away— till two o’clock in the morning?”

She looked at him, too stunned for an instant, to calculate. “You mean, Ida’s been having an affair with Steve Ellis? For how long? And how do
you
know that?”

“How do
you— not
know it?”

“Why— everytime I saw them, they seemed perfectly natural and happy together—”

“But many of the times you say you’ve been with them, you couldn’t have been with them because Ida’s been with
Steve!
”

She still could not quite get it through her head, even though she knew that it was true and although she knew that precious seconds were passing, and that she must soon begin to fight for herself. “How do you
know?
”

“Because Steve told me! He’s got a real thing about her, he’s going out of his mind.”

Now, she did begin to calculate— desperately, cursing Ida for not having given her warning. But how could she have? She said, coldly, “Ellis at the mercy of a great passion—? don’t make me laugh.”

“Oh, I know you think we’re made of the coarsest of coarse clay, and are insensitive to all the higher vibrations. I don’t care. You
can’t
have been seeing much of Ida— that I know. Have you been seeing much of Vivaldo? Answer me, Cass.”

She said, wonderingly— for it was
this
she could not get through her head: “And Vivaldo doesn’t
know
—”

“And you don’t, either? You’re the only two in town who don’t. What mighty distractions have you two found?”

She winced and looked up at him. She saw that he was controlling himself with a great and terrible effort; that he both wanted to know the truth, and feared to know it. She could not bear the anguish in his eyes, and she looked away.

How could she ever have doubted that he loved her!

“Have you been seeing a lot of Vivaldo? Tell me.”

She rose and walked to the window. She felt sick— her stomach seemed to have shrunk to the size of a small, hard, rubber ball. “Leave me alone. You’ve always been jealous of Vivaldo, and we both know why, though you won’t admit it. Sometimes I saw Vivaldo, sometimes I saw Vivaldo with Ida, sometimes I just walked around, sometimes I went to the movies.”

“Till two o’clock in the morning?”

“Sometimes I’ve come in at midnight, sometimes I’ve come in at four! Leave me alone! Why is it so important to you now? I’ve lived in this house like a ghost for months, half the time you haven’t
known
I was here— what does it matter now?”

His face was wet and white and ugly. “
I
have lived here like a ghost, not you. I’ve known you were here, how could I not know it?” He took one step toward her. He dropped his voice. “Do you know how you made your presence known? By the way you look at me, by the contempt in your eyes when you look at me. What have I done to deserve your contempt? What have I done, Cass? You loved me once, you loved me, and everything I’ve done I’ve done for you.”

She heard her voice saying coldly, “Are you sure? For me?”

“Who else? who
else?
You
are
my life. Why have you gone away from me?”

She sat down. “Let’s talk about this in the morning.”

“No. We’ll talk about it now.”

He walked about the room— in order, she sensed, not to come too close to her, not to touch her; he did not know what would happen if he did. She covered her face with one hand. She thought of the ginger-colored boy and the Puerto Rican, Eric blazed up in her mind for a moment, like salvation. She thought of the field of flowers. Then she thought of the children, and her stomach contracted again. And the pain in her stomach somehow defeated lucidity. She said, and knew, obscurely, as she said it, that she was making a mistake, was delivering herself up, “Stop torturing yourself about Vivaldo— we have not been sleeping together.”

He came close to the chair she sat in. She did not look up.

“I know that you’ve always admired Vivaldo. More than you admire me.”

There was a terrible mixture of humility and anger in his tone, and her heart shook; she saw what he was trying to accept. She almost looked up to reach out to him, to help him and comfort him, but something made her keep still.

She said, “Admiration and love are very different.”

“Are they? I’m not so sure. How can you touch a woman if you know she despises you? And if a woman admires a man, what is it, really, that she admires? A woman who admires you will open her legs for you at once, she’ll give you anything she’s got.” She felt his heat and his presence above her like a cloud; she bit one knuckle. “You did— you did, for me, don’t you remember? Won’t you come back?”

Then she did look up at him, tears falling down her face. “Oh, Richard. I don’t know if I can.”

“Why? Do you despise me so much?” She looked down, twisting the handkerchief. He squatted beside the chair. “I’m sorry we’ve got so far apart— I really don’t even know how it happened, but I guess I got mad at you because— because you seemed to have so little respect for”— he tried to laugh— “my success. Maybe you’re right, I don’t know. I know you’re smarter than I am, but how are we going to eat, baby, what else can I do? Maybe I shouldn’t have let myself get so jealous of Vivaldo, but it seemed so logical, once I thought about it. Once I thought about it, I thought about it all the time. I know he must be alone a lot, and— and you’ve been alone.” She looked at him, looked away. He put one hand on her arm; she bit her lip to control her trembling. “Come back to me, please. Don’t you love me any more? You can’t have stopped loving me. I can’t live without you. You’ve always been the only woman in the world for me.”

She could keep silence and go into his arms, and the last few months would be wiped away— he would never know where she had been. The world would return to its former shape. Would it? The silence between them stretched. She could not look at him. He had existed for too long in her mind— now, she was being humbled by the baffling reality of his presence. Her imagination had not taken enough into account— she had not foreseen, for example, the measure or the quality or the power of his pain. He was a lonely and limited man, who loved her. Did she love him?

“I don’t despise you,” she said. “I’m sorry if I’ve made you think that.” Then she said nothing more. Why tell him? What good would it do? He would never understand it, she would merely have given him an anguish which he would never be able to handle. And he would never trust her again.

Did she love him? And if she did, what should she do? Very slowly and gently, she took her arm from beneath his hand; and she walked to the window. The blinds were drawn against the night, but she opened them a little and looked out: on the lights and the deep black water. Silence rang its mighty gongs in the room behind her. She dropped the blinds, and turned and looked at him. He sat, now, on the floor, beside the chair that she had left, his glass between his feet, his great hands loosely clasped below his knees, his head tilted up toward her. It was a look she knew, a listening, trusting look. She forced herself to look at him; she might never see that look again; and it had been her sustenance so long! His face was the face of a man entering middle age, and it was also— and always would be, for her— the face of a boy. His sandy hair was longer than usual, it was beginning to turn gray, his forehead was wet, and his hair was wet. Cass discovered that she loved him during the fearful, immeasurable second that she stood there watching him. Had she loved him less, she might have wearily consented to continue acting as the bulwark which protected his simplicity. But she could not do that to Richard, nor to his children. He had the right to know his wife: she prayed that he would take it.

She said, “I have to tell you something, Richard. I don’t know how you’ll take it, or where we can go from here.” She paused, and his face changed.
Be quick!
she told herself. “I have to tell you because we can never come back together, we can never have any future if I don’t.” Her stomach contracted again, dryly. She wanted to run to the bathroom, but she knew that that would do no good. The spasm passed. “Vivaldo and I have never touched each other. I’ve”—
be quick!
— “been having an affair with Eric.”

His voice, when he spoke, seemed to have no consciousness behind it, to belong to no one; it was a mere meaningless tinkle on the air: “Eric?”

She walked to the bar and leaned on it. “Yes.”

How the silence rang and gathered! “Eric?” He laughed. “
Eric?
”

It’s his turn now,
she thought. She did not look at him; he was rising to his feet; he stumbled, suddenly drunken, to the bar. She felt him staring at her— for some reason, she thought of an airplane trying to land. Then his hand was on her shoulder. He turned her to face him. She forced herself to look into his eyes.

“Is that the truth?”

She felt absolutely cold and dry and wanted to go to sleep. “Yes, Richard. That’s the truth.”

She moved away and sat down in the chair again. She had, indeed, delivered herself up: she thought of the children and fear broke over her like a wave, chilling her. She stared straight before her, sitting perfectly still, listening: for no matter what else was lost, she would not give up her children, she would not let them go.

“It’s
not
true. I don’t believe you. Why Eric? Why did you go to him?”

“He has something— something I needed very badly.”

“What is that, Cass?”

“A sense of himself.”

“A sense of himself,” he repeated, slowly. “A sense of himself.” She felt his eyes on her, and also felt, with dread, how slowly the storm in him gathered, how long it would take to break. “Forgive your coarse-grained husband, but I’ve always felt that he had no sense of himself at all. He’s not even sure he knows what’s between his legs, or what to do with it— but I guess I have to take that back now.”

Here we go,
she thought.

She said, wearily, helplessly, “I know it sounds strange, Richard.” Tears came to her eyes. “But he’s a very wonderful person. I know. I know him better than you do.”

He said, making a sound somewhere between a grunt and a sob, “I guess you
do
— though
he
may have preferred it the other way around. Did you ever think of that? You must be one of the very few women in the world—”

“Don’t, Richard. Don’t. It won’t change anything, it won’t help.”

He came and stood over her. “Let’s get this straight. We’ve been married almost thirteen years, and I’ve been in love with you all that time, and I’ve trusted you, and, except for a couple of times in the army, I haven’t had anything to do with any other woman. Even though I’ve thought about it. But it never seemed worth it. And I’ve worked, I’ve worked very hard, Cass, for you and our children, so we could be happy and so our marriage would work. Maybe you think that’s old-fashioned, maybe you think I’m dumb, I don’t know, you’re so much more—
sensitive
than I am. And now— and then—” He walked over to the bar and set his glass down. “Suddenly, for no reason, just when it begins to seem that things are really going to work out for us, all of a sudden— you begin to make me feel that I’m something that stinks, that I ought to be out of doors. I didn’t know what had happened, I didn’t know where you’d gone— all of a sudden. I’ve listened to you come into this house and go and look at the boys, and then crawl into bed— I swear, I could hear every move you made— and I’d stay on in the office like a little boy, because I didn’t know how,
how,
to come close to you again. I kept thinking, She’ll get over it, it’s just some strange kind of feminine shift that I can’t understand. I even thought, my God, that maybe you were going to have another baby and didn’t want to tell me yet.” He bowed his head on the bar. “And, Jesus, Jesus— Eric! You walk in and tell me you’ve been sleeping with Eric.” He turned and looked at her. “How long?”