Hangsaman (21 page)

“I want to die,” she said once.

“Don't be silly,” Natalie. said, and added, “we all want to die, I suppose, from the minute that we're born.”

“No,” said Elizabeth, “
I
want to
die
.”

It was difficult for Natalie to think clearly, walking across the dark campus under the trees with Elizabeth. For one thing, it had suddenly come to Natalie that when people were sober they repudiated everything they had done when they were drunk, and when they were drunk they repudiated everything they had done when they were sober. Natalie felt this to be very profound, and she worried over it, thinking, How silly I was to be frightened before, talking to Arthur, and what I should have said was . . .

“I want to die,” Elizabeth said. “I wish I were Anne.”

“I wish
I
were Anne,” Natalie said, and thought,
That,
I hope, is not true—except that she
did
wish that she were Anne, and the recollection of Anne bent over, listening intimately to Arthur Langdon speaking, had everything to do with the desire.

“You know,” said Elizabeth wanderingly, stopping under a tree to point at Natalie, “Anne is a bitch and I used to be a bitch and now I'm not any more.” She began to cry; Natalie could hear her, although it was too dark to see. “Goddam little bitch,” Elizabeth said.

The Langdons had left a light on in the foyer of their apartment. Natalie could see it and recognize it from halfway across the campus, and she blushed in the darkness to think of how often she had gone past the apartment and thought that Arthur lived there. “Six proud walkers,” she said obscurely.

“Bed,” Elizabeth said.

“Bed,” Natalie said. As they approached the apartment Elizabeth began to sag again, and Natalie had to put an arm around her to support her. Suppose I were Arthur, she thought, unwillingly, and suppose I
wanted
to do this . . .

“Dark,” Elizabeth said.

And suppose she were one of my students and I wanted badly to marry her, and suppose we were walking in the darkness just like this and I thought
now, no,
and suppose just the touch of her shoulder under my arm, so strong and firm across the weak flesh, suppose just that touch and that feeling, and suppose in the darkness she turned slightly toward me so that . . .

“Natalie?” sid Elizabeth. “Are we nearly in bed?”

“Nearly,” Natalie said. “Only a little way now.”

And suppose, suppose, only suppose, that in the darkness and in the night and all alone and under the trees, suppose that here, together, without anyone ever to know, without even so much as a warning, suppose in the darkness under the trees . . .

“I want to die,” Elizabeth said.

*   *   *

Natalie did not, mercifully, have to undress her. Once in her own home where she had gone staggering to bed alone so often, Elizabeth seemed to know by a molelike instinct what to do, and while Natalie worried in the brightly lighted kitchen over coffee and which burner to use on the stove, Elizabeth disappeared silently into the bedroom and took off her clothes. “Natalie?” she called at last, and Natalie came running, to find Elizabeth, in her own nightgown, in her own bed.

It was the first time Natalie had ever visited the Langdons' bedroom, and, while she had never been shocked at the twin beds in the bedroom of her mother and father, she was at this time grieved over the understanding that Arthur Langdon insisted upon—so young, so pretty—maintaining at night a space of floor between himself and Elizabeth.

“Are you comfortable?” Natalie asked. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Good night,” Elizabeth said, and held up her face for Natalie to kiss her.

Hesitantly, Natalie moved around the foot of Arthur Langdon's bed and to the side of his wife's bed and femininely kissed Elizabeth upon the forehead.

“Good night,” Natalie said. “Sleep well.”

“Good night, darling,” Elizabeth said.

“Good night, darling,” Natalie said. She tiptoed around the foot of Arthur's bed and stood for a minute looking at Elizabeth already asleep in her bed before she turned out the light.

*   *   *

On her way back across the campus she did not find anything particular in her mind to identify this evening beyond others marked in other ways. There was a strong feeling of triumph and an odd feeling of vengeance, and once when she stopped under a tree and leaned her head against its firm rough trunk she whispered softly, “I know, I know.” But that was all; beyond that she seemed to have nothing to say to herself. Without question she left the tree, satiated with the night and the stars indistinctly seen, and went on to the house where she lived, without ever troubling herself to look back at the light from the foyer of the Langdons' apartment, which she had left on, after some thought, for Arthur to find his way home again.

She went back into her own house, and quietly up the stairs, realizing with a shock from the sounds of voices in other rooms that it was still very early, perhaps not more than ten o'clock. She went immediately to the rooms which Vicki and Anne shared and found—as she had known without question, coming up the stairs—that they were dark.

She went on up the stairs to her own dark room with its locked door, the room which she had left, carefully dressed, at some time in the late afternoon, her own safe dear room, where she might sit by herself without interruption, and, as she entered with her key in her hand, she saw even in the darkness the white paper of the note on the desk.

“Thanks very much,” it said. “How was Lizzie? V.”

Tuesday

My dear captive princess,

It is as much as any knight can do, these days, to keep in touch with his captive princesses, let alone rescue them. For one thing, I find my armor much too tight; it has rusted since I last wore it in combat, and I cannot for the life of me remember where I last saw my sword. I think of you, princess, languishing in your tower, peering anxiously forth from the narrow windows, wringing your long white hands and pacing the floor in your long white gown, looking constantly out at the long winding road below, out to where it disappears among the mountains far beyond your tower . . . I keep thinking of you looking, and waiting, with no knight coming. And of course I
shall
come eventually, with or without armor; perhaps I can find me a reputable tinsmith (although the tinsmiths themselves are not at all what they used to be) who will fashion for me some snow-white armor and a helmet to which I can attach some small insignia of yours—your old hockey stick, perhaps, with which I can also defend myself if need be. Or half a dozen pages from a learned quarterly, which might not prove so fine a means of defense, but would certainly mark me unerringly as a knight errant. (This last is a joke depending entirely upon your knowledge of word roots. I have wasted too many jokes on you to let them pass now without identification.) I am not quite sure, moreover, how to attack the dragon which guards your towers; does he ever sleep? Can he be bribed? Drugged? Enticed away? Or must I fight him, after all? Or, worse still,
is
there a dragon? You are surely not confined only by magic? I positively will
not
battle a sorcerer.

Your mother insists that I include in this letter the statement that she has sent you a black evening dress with, I believe she said, off-the-shoulder-sleeves. She remarks sadly that that was what
she
always used to want, and I truly believe that it was an entirely goodhearted and unselfish gesture, that your mother honestly has sent you a black evening dress with off-the-shoulder-sleeves because, considering more than she usually does, she thought it the most wonderful gift a mother could possibly send her daughter.

You have probably found easier ways of evading enchantments than I shall ever learn. It has always been my opinion, you know, that princesses are confined in towers only because they choose to stay confined, and the only dragon required to keep them there was their own desire to be kept. And I further believe, now, that if you erect a tower, princesses will flock to it demanding to be locked up therein. So why do you not gratify your mother and myself, and, I believe, even your brother, by spending a weekend with us soon? If you let me know when you choose to escape the dragon's ceaseless vigilance, I shall send you train fare, operating upon your mother's theory that it would be the nicest thing anyone could send
me
.

Your devoted,

Dad

Saturday

Dear Sir Knight,

It was not you, then, caroling lustily under my window these three nights past? Nor one of your emissaries? I fear me that the enchantment surrounding my tower is too strong for you, and that my rescue will not be effected for a thousand years—by which time, I wot, I shall be somewhat older and grayer than I am now. At any rate, if it is not a dragon guarding me, it is something very like, something called a Maiden Lady (and, her name being Miss Nicholas, she is of course also yclept Old Nick) which, breathing fire, stamps around at the end of its own chain restraining more adventurous damsels from the straying.

I mean, I can't come home for a while yet. If there is any enchanter it is Arthur Langdon, who confidently expects that I will write him a thousand words about Milton by next Wednesday. What is there to say about Milton? I thought of comparing him with King Lear but it looked too hard.

There is a very strange character around here who would interest you very much. She is always off by herself somewhere, and when I asked someone about her they laughed and said, “Oh, that's that girl Tony Something.” I keep seeing her around and I think I would like to meet her.

Tell Mother I got the dress and it's beautiful. Don't tell her I have no place to wear it. I didn't get invited to the Tech Dance, which is Friday night, but then neither did most of the girls I've met around here. Apparently you have to know people here before you come, so that you don't start out fresh making friends. Anyway, I feel sort of crestfallen about it, but when I watch the other girls who were not invited, and listen to them talking, I feel better because at least I haven't managed to think of an
excuse
. They all say things like well, they didn't
want
to go anyway, and they were
asked
, of
course
, but the boy was such an awful dancer they turned him down . . . and so on. I don't have any excuse except I wasn't asked. Anyway, tell Mother thanks very very much for the dress; I tried it on and it was lovely. Everyone said it was very becoming to me.

Speaking of magic, I figure that now I have once mentioned that I would like to meet that girl Tony, I will certainly meet her soon. I have discovered that all you have to do is notice a thing like that concretely enough to say it, as in a letter like this, for it to happen. I suppose once I meet her I will be disappointed.

As soon as I can write a thousand words of counter-enchantment, I will come home for a day or so. The sorcerer has a way of casting further spells on young women who ignore his simple ones. And I don't really
like
Milton—do you? Write and tell me what is good about him.

Lots of love to you and Mother,

Natalie

It had the feeling of middle-of-the-night when Natalie was awakened, and she thought for a minute, not coherently, that perhaps she was never to get a full night's sleep again, and wasn't it fine that she didn't mind being awakened if it was exciting, and then she opened her eyes into actuality and heard the urgent soft voice in her ear. “Wake up,” it said, “oh, please, wake up.” It was a whisper and without personality and, saying over and over again, “Please, please wake up,” it was terrifying.

“What?” said Natalie, hearing her own voice loud in the room.

“Wake up, please, and be quiet—and
hurry
.”

“I'm awake,” Natalie said. It was unusually dark and the figure beside her bed was unidentifiable; this then is the time, Natalie thought, the time is upon us, this is the occasion I have been living until, when crisis and danger and terror are upon us all, and we are awakened in fear and run for safety; who has been thoughtful enough to remember me in the general flight? Fire? she wondered as she had before, and, War?

“What is it?” she whispered.

“
Hurry
.”

“I'm
hurrying
,” Natalie said, reaching in the darkness for her bathrobe, feeling with her feet for slippers; then, suddenly, she heard through the darkness the soft giggle and with it felt the first cold actual fear. War, at least, and fire, were possibilities. This, the giggle, was here in her own room.

“What is it?” Natalie said again.

“Come
on
. And
hurry
.” Again the giggle. “You don't need your
bath
robe, come
any
old way. I'm naked—but hurry.”

“Listen,” Natalie said, fumbling her hand for the light cord, but her hand was taken in another hand and she was pulled firmly, and the vague figure and the faint enduring giggle led her to the door. Natalie was without her slippers and without her bathrobe and in the cotton pajamas her mother had chosen for her, and on the pajamas was a pattern of black-and-red scotty dogs, and the door into the hall showed further darkness instead of the usual night lights from the stairways and the bathrooms.

“I turned them out, the lights,” said the voice ahead. “But
hurry
.”

“What for?” said Natalie, following down the dark hall.

Again the quiet giggle. “
You
needn't think you're the only one,” she said. “Wait till I show you what
I've
got.” They were passing rooms in the darkness, Natalie knew, where girls slept peacefully, with their eyes closed and their hands relaxed against the pillows; why, she thought almost hysterically, why don't I just
scream?
and knew with humor that she did not know how; screaming was in itself an act perfected by few, a sort of coloratura not given to the many; screaming was not something the Natalies might do unprepared. If I were really very frightened, Natalie thought, following barefoot the naked figure ahead, I might yell, or shout, but never deliver a telling scream; then I am not really very frightened, she thought, since I am not able to make any kind of a sound at all, but only follow blind and dry through these black spaces and of course I am dreaming, of course, of course; how profoundly interested I am in all this, she thought. “And,” the voice was going on ahead, “you can lie very still and not move and not say anything and you can hear everything and even though they think you're there they don't know who you are and they go right ahead. And even when they come right into my room I just look at them and I say, ‘Go ahead with what you were saying because
I
certainly don't care,' and then they go away because of course when they are right in my room they certainly can't, can they? And there's this little girl and she came into my room and she said, ‘May I please sleep with you tonight?' and I said, ‘Of course you may only I have to get up early in the morning but it's four hours before I have to get up so you go right to sleep,' and she got into my bed and she fell right asleep and she had these lovely little animals with her, like birds, or squirrels, only they had no tails, and she set them in a row at the foot of the bed and there were six of them all in a row and she made the most beautiful pictures on the wall, this
little
girl, and wait till you see them and when you hear them you'll know what I mean.” Down the stairs, in the darkness, feeling barefoot for one step after another, and the voice ahead continuing, “And of course her mother and father are leaning up against the window and they're listening too and they can't hear a thing because we talk so softly and they try and try to listen and we only whisper and you know this is the same little girl who came before and who comes all the time and she sleeps in my bed.”