Hangsaman (22 page)

After they had gone down the stairs and turned, a door ahead of them showed light in the small space of its opening; it was very late, because there was no other light from any room along the hall, and the hall and bathroom lights were turned out down here as well as upstairs. Natalie thought without wishing to at all of the cautious giggling thing that had gone soundlessly from one light to another, turning off each, for whatever dark reason, before coming unerringly in the dark to Natalie's bed. “Here now,” the voice said, still with that flat giggling undertone, “now we can all listen together, and sit tight next to the wall and then we can hear what they are saying, only be very careful when you laugh to put your hands over your mouth. Little girl? Little girl?” It was a loving call and Natalie, waiting and held outside the lighted doorway, wanted to call too, “Little girl?” Then, “She's fallen asleep again, they're always like that. Leave them for a minute and they're gone asleep. Little girl? Come on, we've got to
hurry
.”

She pulled Natalie violently in through the open doorway into the lighted room, and then closed the door very carefully behind them. “Little girl?” she said lovingly. The bed was rumpled and she went over, still calling, “Little girl?” and giggling, and turned the blankets back, lifted the pillow and looked under it, and then, giggling, looked under the bed. “Little girl?” she asked. “Little girl?” Then, saying, “Come
on
, please hurry, we'll never be able to hear a
thing
,” she looked quickly into the closet and then into the dresser drawers, pulling out the angora sweater, the real lace slip, and cartons of cigarettes and unassorted shoes, the money carelessly thrown inside. “Little girl?” She turned to Natalie and said helplessly, “She was here a minute ago. I can't imagine where she went—I told her to
wait
for me. Look, she left her coat.” Natalie, staring at the jacket that had been reported stolen a week or so before, was still not able to speak. “Little girl? Where do you suppose she went? Little
girl
.”

Natalie opened her mouth, still not knowing what she was going to say.

“Well, come
on
, then,
any
way, it will serve her right if we start without her, only remember they're listening and don't make a
sound
. Hold your hands over your mouth when you laugh and don't run around the floor because they're right outside, and they hear
every
thing. Little girl? Come on over here, right down on the floor next to the wall and do what I do—anyone could
tell
you've never been here before but we'll excuse you this time and whatever you hear don't make a sound because then
they
'll hear
you
. Listen to her . . . she's singing.”

Very quietly, in acute fear, Natalie was backing to the door. When she felt the panels behind her back, she opened it without a perceptible sound, her hand behind her, and opening it still behind her, backed farther into the hall and closed the door in front of her face, shutting out all the light in the hall but feeling more at ease in the darkness; she was on the first floor of the house, she knew, and up two flights of stairs—oh, interminable!—was her own room again and a safe light she might turn on.

Backing away from the doorway, she stumbled over nothing and almost fell against the opposite wall. I must be very calm, she told herself; it is only, after all, a question of finding my own room in the dark, and if on the way I can find a light switch for anywhere, the halls, the stairs, the bathrooms, so much the better, and if I do not get frightened and try to run I will not fall on the stairs, and if I do not fall on the stairs she will never hear that I have gone, and why doesn't anyone wake up and come and help me?

Then, of course, she heard again, “Little girl?” and the door opened and the light came out into the hall, and Natalie, turning to run in any direction, realized too late that she had come the wrong way and in the darkness was pursued by sly brushing footsteps not on the way to the stairs and her own room but on the way to the front door. In the darkness, the light from the room left far behind her, she heard the soft giggle and felt almost the seeking hand brush her face and heard very close, and softly, “Little girl?”

And then mercifully she found the latch to the front door and it opened more easily than she had even prayed it would, and as it swung before her she thought, This will set off the burglar alarm, and almost laughed as she slammed it tight behind her.

It was incredible and of course still a dream to be running freely and in her pajamas with the shameful black-and-red scotties on them, barefoot first over the gravel of the walk, and then primitively over the wet grass, and to be under the trees with everything dark around her. She thought then, I will go back when the sun is out and they are all awake and I can tell them about it, and then she thought she heard wailing from the house behind her, “Little girl?” and knew a sudden horrible shock when, going across the grass under the trees she saw in the moonlight a figure coming toward her.

Standing helplessly, thinking, Now, I cannot run, this is the time, she said, “Who?”

“Is there something wrong?” asked the girl Tony.

Wednesday

Madam:

Unless you comply with the following conditions, and without fail, I shall have a black vengeance to wreak upon you:

1. Enclosed find check for twenty-five dollars. (That is a condition I deem it not overdifficult to meet.)

2. Cash this check. (Any rich acquaintance will do.)

3. With the money thus secured, buy yourself a round-trip ticket to this place. (Try the bus station for this.)

4. Pack a toothbrush, whatever books you need, a pencil and paper, and two chocolate bars in a small valise, put on your coat and hat, and go directly to the place where buses congregate. (This is the most complicated of all, but if you do these things one after another, in the order in which I have stated them, you should have little or no trouble; I recommend, however, that you do them in
strict
order; it would be most unorthodox for you to go first to the place of buses, for instance, and
then
try to pack your bag.)

5. Get on the first bus that will bring you here. (Ask the driver, if you are puzzled, or, better still, pin a label on the lapel of your coat and he will see that you are delivered.)

Meet these small conditions, sign my book in blood, and I shall turn over to you my key to all the treasures of this world, including, very possibly, some small amount of information of John Milton (1608–74) and a cordial invitation to escort you, in person, to any and all future dances. Fail, as I say, to meet these my conditions, and upon you shall fall the wrath of one who has never yet feared to make his presence known. Did I remember to put in the check? Yes. Good.

Dad

Sir:

I hear and obey. Arrive Saturday afternoon 2:30. Thanks for the check.

Love,

Natalie

Tomorrow morning was Friday and biology lab, and it was past eleven now; anyone desiring to get up at seven and yet have eight hours' sleep should be at least ready for bed: teeth brushed, hair done, clothes for the morrow set out. And, leaning forward, her face terribly bright and alert and terribly terribly interested in what Arthur Langdon was saying, Natalie sought hopefully for a state of frozen unconsciousness, perhaps drunken, perhaps only the little swift precious moment that slipped her from a dull world into a bright one; she nodded intelligently at what Arthur was saying, and thought, People have had heart attacks and died without realizing anything more than what is probably that brightly flashing second of knowing you are dead. People have managed to do it.

“I'm not at all sure what I really do believe,” Arthur was saying, and, “When you consider that art itself is a process of . . .”

“Dearest,” said Elizabeth Langdon, who had almost overnight, it seemed, adopted a dogged persistence of displayed affection, and a hearty, throaty-voiced sort of intelligence, in order, it seemed, to give the impression that she and Arthur were still newlyweds and insanely in love, “dearest, couldn't it be said, actually, that with reference to—oh dear, I sound so stupid—but
any
way . . .”

I could slip right away, Natalie thought. I could die here, with my eyes wide open and my mouth parted admiringly, and my glass poised in stunned admiration halfway to the chair arm; I could die right here. Or I could pretend I was going to be sick and sneak off home to bed. Or I could even speak, say something so very unkind that they would all listen, and nod at me the way I nod at them.

“Although, actually . . .” Arthur said. He frowned, weighing his glass as well as his words, while his wife leaned forward breathlessly, and Natalie, embarrassed at having been thinking while other people were talking, closed her eyes briefly and said, “Someday someday someday,” to herself.

“I have never been able to come round to the way of thinking that would . . .”

Is something going to happen? Natalie wondered. Has he gone too far, and will someone be witty at his expense? Oh dear, she thought, I wish I'd been listening and watching, instead of closing my eyes; something has led to something else, and I've missed the beginning and shall have to smile vacantly; is something going to happen?

She thought sadly of how empty lives must be where something was not going to happen. No one seemed to be particularly witty at Arthur's expense, and so whatever was going to happen was apparently still on its way, choosing its own moment, building for its own effect, so that it should be neither too soon nor too late, neither an anticlimax nor a cause.

Is it just that something is going to happen to
me?
Natalie wondered. She closed her eyes again experimentally; was she falling asleep while Arthur Langdon was talking and while the Langdons' guests, students and faculty members sitting together as though in social pleasure, listened with civility? I shall walk out onto the porch, Natalie thought. As a penance for closing my eyes twice, I have been directed to stand up in my chair, dislodging the ashtray that sits on the arm, I have been directed to move, trying to be unobtrusive but watched with gratitude by everyone in the room, I shall go to the door and someone will say, “Natalie?” and I will turn around and smile vaguely and pass quietly through the doorway and out onto the porch. Later I shall find that I have to come back, and again, the only large movement in the room, I shall find everyone watching me while Arthur pauses in his sentence, regarding me thoughtfully and testing, in a fraction of a second, ways of using me as an example. “Take Natalie, now; she has been gone, and come back, and did anyone . . . ?” “If Natalie had not entered the room at that minute, then, would the thought of her . . . ?” “Natalie is wearing light blue; now, if we assume that the color we believe to be light blue . . .”

Now, she thought. I shall move now, but she did not. No one looked at her at the moment, and the thought of the strength required to draw every eye in the room to her direction wearied her for a moment, so that the order to her muscles to arise, counteracted halfway, brought her convulsively out of her chair in an abrupt movement that spilled the ashtray onto the floor. Then, while Arthur waited patiently in mid-paragraph, she collected the cigarette butts and the burnt matches, thinking as she did so, Ungainly, awkward, clumsy—and she left the ashes. Elizabeth Langdon watched her without expression; she needs some more positive explanation of what I am doing, Natalie decided, before she estimates it and decides on a reaction, particularly in this new personality of hers, which still does not fit her very well. Perhaps she wants to be angry at someone and is trying to see if I am the one; I could so easily be a good person for Elizabeth to hate, and also I am the only person now standing in this room, and Elizabeth is usually angry at the largest moving target; Arthur cannot mention me now because the course of his argument is planned out for the next paragraph and it does not include me; he is probably, however, going ahead with the other parts of his mind to construct a new paragraph for use when I come back.

She set the ashtray back on the arm of the chair where she would be sure to knock it off again when she sat down after coming back, and threaded her way tactfully and gracelessly through the people sitting on the floor, excusing herself to those in chairs as though they were a higher order of being; she avoided spilling a drink that sat on the floor, and stepped in an ashtray. Someone took advantage of her movement to begin a paragraph of his own. “On the other hand,” his voice began from another part of the room, “while this is all very true, you can hardly call it a complete picture of the problem. Take Kafka, for instance—I think you mentioned him as an example, and—”

There were never any real silences in this conversation, except for the involuntary secret moment of dismay everyone felt at seeing Natalie move; these people—although there seemed to be so many of them, there were only nine or ten—all carried with them, seemingly, arguments of their own, arguments against the invisible, always-defeated antagonist who mocked ineffectually from the darkness of the bedroom at night, the bathroom wall, the window beyond the typewriter. They all carried their arguments well, and spoke when they could, and laughed occasionally, and sometimes found themselves in agreement with one another, although always the mocking antagonist needed to be conquered again, and, conquered, returned, in the face in the mirror, the logs in the fire, with his ceaseless nagging.

“I was just about to explain that point,” Arthur Langdon said, his voice overriding the other. “When, for example, we consider the whole question as one purely of . . .”

Natalie sighed as she reached the small foyer, and found the door ahead, and the porch beyond, and the cool night air awaiting her; with the door shut it was not possible to hear Arthur's voice.