Ideal (10 page)

He bowed again, swiftly, precisely. He said:

“Miss Gonda, had we met two centuries ago, I would have laid my sword at your feet. Unfortunately, this age does not believe in swords.
But my life and my house are at your feet, gratefully, for the great honor of being selected to help you.”

“Thank you.”

She sat down and tore her hat off wearily, and it dropped from her hand to the floor. He hurried to pick it up. He walked to the windows and drew the curtains. He said:

“You are safe here, with me. As safe as in one of those castles my ancestors had to protect that which was most precious to them.”

“Now give me a cigarette.”

He offered his open cigarette case, struck a flame in his dark metal lighter with its golden crest, held it out to her steadily, and his eyes glanced straight into hers, into those wide, pale eyes that looked so calm and open, concealing a mystery he could not pierce.

He sat down, facing her, leaning on the arm of his chair, the light of a lamp on his golden hair. He said:

“Do you know that it is really I who must thank you? Not only for coming, but for coming tonight of all nights.”

“Why?”

“It is strange. One might almost think that there is some providence watching over us. Perhaps, you have taken one life in order to save another.”

“I have?”

“You have killed a man. Please excuse me for mentioning this, if it is unpleasant to you. But please understand that it is not said in the spirit of reproach. After all, men make entirely too much of the fact of murder. There is more honor in having killed than in being one worth being killed.”

“But you did not know Granton Sayers.”

“And I do not have to know. I know you. The great mistake has always been in thinking that a life is a precious entity equal to all other
lives. When, as a matter of fact, there are lives that cannot be replaced by millions of others through centuries to come. Men hunt a murderer, when the first, the only question, should be whether the murdered one was worth leaving alive. In this case, how could he have been, if
you
found it necessary to kill him? In that alone, whoever he was, whatever he had done, is the justification of what men may call your crime. One thousand lives—what are they beside one hour of yours?”

“But you do not know me.”

He was leaning toward her, and the cigarette dropped, unnoticed, from his fingers.

“I know what you can tell me about yourself. I know that world into which you have been thrown and what it has done to you. But I know something that has kept you out of its reach. Something which I wish I did not see. Something I can't help seeing. Only I can't name it.”

“What is it?” she asked softly. “My beauty?”

“Beauty is one of those words that seem to mean so much, but when you think of it, it means nothing whatever. I have looked at all that men call beauty—and I've longed for some nonexistent boric acid to wash my eyes.”

“My wisdom?”

“I have listened to all that men call wisdom—and I have heard nothing more valuable than how to clean my fingernails.”

“My art?”

“I have watched all that men call art—and I have yawned. If I were allowed to make one request to the all-powerful Messiah of this world—if such existed—I would beg him, on my knees, for a cure to stop me from yawning. Only that can never be granted.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don't know. Something that needs no name, no explanation. Something to which the proudest, the weariest head bows reverently.
You have given yourself to a graceless world and to many graceless men. I know that. But something has kept you still out of their reach. Something. What is it?”

“A hope,” she whispered.

He rose. He paced up and down the room. His steps had the light, exultant swing of youth. His eyes were tired no longer; they were eager, sparkling, alive. He stopped suddenly before her.

“A hope! Who doesn't have that? Man has always known, deep in his heart, that his life is not what it should have been. He has always gone forth on glorious, doomed crusades. But he has always returned empty-handed. Because he has never had a chance. It's a hopeless quest and one gets so tired! I have seen all men call their virtues. I have seen all they call their vices and I have enjoyed the vices to forget their virtues. But I still have that in me which has eyes for the real, the only life possible, that which still keeps me alive. That which is the highest. You.”

“Are you sure,” she whispered, “are you sure you want me?”

“You'll know the answer,” he replied, “tomorrow.”

He stood before her, his eyes blazing.

“I've told you you have saved a life tonight. You have. I was ready to end it. But not now. Not now. I have something worth fighting for. We have to flee—both of us. We'll run away to where men's claws will never reach us. I want nothing but to serve you. Nothing, but to be a knight such as my ancestors were. They would envy me, if they could see me. For my Holy Grail is of this earth. It is real, alive, possible. Only even they may not understand. No one will understand. It will remain only for the two of us. Only for you and me.”

“Yes,” she whispered, and her eyes were on him, and her eyes were open, trusting, surrendering, “only for you and me.”

He smiled suddenly, a wide, brilliant smile, his teeth sparkling. He said, very simply:

“I hope I haven't frightened you by being so terribly serious. Please forgive me. You're trembling. Are you cold?”

“A little.”

“I'll make a fire.”

He threw logs into the marble fireplace, struck a match, and knelt, watching the flames crackle, leap in the air.

She rose and walked across the room, her hands crossed behind her head, and when their eyes met they smiled as if they had known each other for a very long time.

He walked to the table with the glasses.

“May I?” he asked.

She nodded.

He filled the glasses. She took off her coat, threw it on a chair, took her glass. She stood across the table from him, leaning with one knee on the soft, low arm of a chair, swaying back a little, her shoulders very thin under the tight black satin of a long blouse with a stern, high collar. He noticed her breasts, very close to him, under the blouse, covered only by the soft, lustrous black silk.

She raised the glass in her long, slender fingers and drank a little, throwing her head back slightly, her hair very blond on her black shoulders. Then she lowered her glass. He emptied his at once, and refilled it.

“Are you afraid of airplanes?” he asked, smiling. “Because we'll have to travel a great deal.”

“Terribly.”

“Well, you'll have to get used to them. I'll see to that.”

“Will you be very severe with me?”

“Terribly.”

“I am very difficult, you know. You will have to get me a lot of chocolate. I love chocolate.”

“Only one bar a day.”

“No more?”

“Positively not.”

“I am terrible on stockings. I ruin four pairs a day.”

“You'll have to learn to darn them.”

She walked lazily across the room, her glass in hand, as if she felt quite at home. He refilled his glass again, and stood by the fireplace, watching her. Her movements were slow. Her body leaned backward a little. He could see the play of every muscle under the long black blouse. He asked:

“Do you always lose your gloves and handkerchiefs?”

“Always.”

“That won't do.”

“No?”

“No.”

“I also lose my rings. Diamond ones.”

“I'll certainly have to put a stop to that. You can lose the pearl ones, well, maybe also the ruby ones. But not the diamonds.”

“How about the emeralds?”

“Well, I don't know. I'll think about that.”

“Oh, please!”

“No, I can't promise.”

She sat down on a davenport by the fire and stretched out her feet, and her slender little heels were red in the glow. He sat down on the floor, crossing his legs, his glass in hand, and little flames twinkled in the glass. They talked, swift words dropping as sparks; they laughed softly, happily.

Somewhere far downstairs, a clock chimed three times.

“Oh, I didn't know it was so late,” he said, rising. “You must be tired.”

“Yes. Very.”

“You must go to bed. At once. You can have my bedroom. I'll sleep here, on the davenport.”

“But—”

“But of course. I'll be perfectly comfortable. This way, please. You can use some of my pajamas. They may not fit very well, but I'm afraid there's not much of the night left. And we'll have to get up early.”

At the bedroom door, she stopped. She raised her glass.

“Tomorrow,” she said.

“Tomorrow,” he answered, raising his.

She stood at the door, slender, fragile, her face tranquil, innocent, young, her lips like those of a saint.

“Good night,” she whispered.

“Good night.”

She extended her hand. He raised it, slowly, hesitantly, and his lips touched lightly, reverently, the soft, transparent blue-white skin. . . .

There was a heavy silence in the building, the silence of deep rugs, soft drapes, and men lost in sleep. There was a heavy silence in the city beyond, the silence of empty pavement and dark houses. Dietrich von Esterhazy lay on the davenport, his hands crossed under his head, and looked at the window. A last red glow breathed, jerking, in the fireplace. He could see a trembling red spot in the darkness, in her glass left on a table. He could breathe, as a shadow, as the ghost of a fragrance, her faint perfume that still remained around him.

He turned restlessly on his couch and drew his steamer rug higher under his arms. He closed his eyes. In the dark waves that rolled vaguely under the eyelids he tried to press down tightly, a lustrous spot shimmered, a spot of light on black silk over a firm young breast.

He opened his eyes. The room was dark. In the shadows of its black corners he could see a long, tight blouse descending to slender hips.

He seized the arm of the couch; he thought he was going to leap up.

He closed his eyes. He could see her walking across the room, he could see the shoulders thrown back, every motion of her legs crossing each other, clearly, precisely, exactly the movement of the hand raising the glass to her lips.

He brushed his hair off a damp forehead.

He buried his face in the pillow, not to smell that perfume he hated suddenly; the pillow where she had sat, still warm with the warmth of her body.

He jumped up. He walked uncertainly to the table, found his glass in the darkness, poured it so full that the cold liquid ran over his trembling fingers, over the table, and he heard heavy drops thudding dully against the carpet.

He drank it all at once, throwing his head back. He stood, clutching the empty glass, his eyebrows drawn grimly together, his eyes on the closed door.

He returned to the couch. He fell down, kicking the rug to the floor. He could not breathe.

Why should he care what would happen then, afterward? Why should he care what she'd think of him? He saw the black satin, soft, lustrous, round. His lips burnt with the touch of that white skin. Why should he care?

He rose. He walked, slowly, steadily, to the closed door. He threw it open.

She lay dressed, on his bed, and her one hand hung over the edge, white in the darkness. She jerked her head up and he could guess her eyes on the pale blot of her face. She felt his teeth sinking into her hand.

She struggled ferociously, her muscles tense, hard, sharp as an animal's.

“Keep still,” he whispered hoarsely into her throat. “You can't call for help!”

She did not call for help. . . .

He lay still, limp, exhausted. His eyes were accustomed to the darkness. He saw her face. She laughed suddenly, softly, fearfully. He looked at her. She was no longer the fragile saint with the tranquil, unfathomable eyes. Her glistening lips were parted. Her eyes were half closed. She was the reckless, infamous woman he had seen on the screen. Her hand brushed softly the hair on his forehead. The caress was an insult.

Then she rose. He saw her gathering her clothes, dressing swiftly, silently.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

She did not answer.

“Where are you going? . . . You can't go. . . . You can't go out. . . . Don't you know it's dangerous? . . . Where can you go? . . .”

She did not seem to hear.

He felt suddenly that his voice was weak, that he had no strength to move, that words were hopeless. The darkness beyond the window was spreading slowly, over his room, over his brain, over the coming morning.

He did not move when she crossed the room and he heard the door opening and closing after her.

He did not move when he heard her laughter, loud, reckless, moving away down the
corridor.

“Dear Miss Gonda,

This letter is addressed to you, but I am writing it to myself. Perhaps it will answer something that I cannot understand, something I have to know. There are so many things that I don't understand. Sometimes I think that I am a person who should never have been born. This is not a complaint. I am not afraid and I am not sorry. Only I am so bewildered, and I have to know.

I do not understand men, and they do not understand me. They live and seem to be happy. But to me—all they live for, all they talk of is only a vague blot without meaning, a blot that does not even understand the word ‘meaning.' To them I say—all I want are sounds from a
language they were not born to speak. Which of us is right? Does it matter? Only—can there ever be a bridge?

That for which I'd give—happily—all of the life I may have, to the last day, they forget so easily for the sake of what they call living. That which they call living—I couldn't stand one moment of it, not one second. What are they? Are they muddled, halfhearted, unfinished creatures, a riddle with but one answer: lies? Or are they the sane, the real, the must-be, while I'm only a distorted freak that should not be allowed to exist?

I can't even say what it is I want of life. I know only what I want to feel, but I've never found that which could make me feel it. I want to feel, maybe only for a second, something for which there is no human word, maybe an ecstasy, but that doesn't express it, a feeling that needs no reason and no explanation, a feeling complete, absolute, when one can be the end and the justification of all existence, a moment of life that would be life itself condensed. I want nothing more. I can want nothing less.

But if I spoke of it—what answer would I get? I would hear a lot about children, about dinner, about football, about God. Are they empty words? Or am I an empty creature that can never be filled?

I have often wanted to die. I want it now. It's not despair or rebellion. I want to go calmly and quietly and willingly. There is no place for me in the world. I cannot hope to change it. I have not even the right to want it changed. But I also cannot change myself. I cannot accuse the others. I cannot say that I am right. I don't know. I don't care to know. But I have to leave a place for which I am not fitted.

Only there's something holding me here. Something that I am waiting for. Something that must come to me before I go. I want only to know one living moment, but one moment of that which is
mine
, not theirs, one moment of that which their world has never held. I want only to know that it exists, that it can exist.

Do you wonder why I am writing all this to you? It is because when I look at you on the screen, I know what it is that I want of life. I know what life is not, what it could have been. I know what is possible.

And I want to tell it to you, even though you may not bother to read this, or, reading it, may not understand. I do not know what you are. I am writing to what I think you could have been.

Johnnie Dawes

Main Street

Los Angeles, California”

O
n the night of May 5th, Johnnie Dawes lost his job of night shipping clerk in a wholesale house.

The manager coughed, cleaned his left eye with his fingernail, rolled something between his fingers, wiped them on his shirt, and said:

“Business being what it is, we find we have to let some of you fellows go. Come again in a couple months or so. But I can't promise nothing.”

Johnnie Dawes received his check for the last twelve days. He had been working part-time. The check wasn't much. When he walked out, the manager said to a clerk who had not been fired, a heavy fellow with a red, pimpled face:

“There goes one kid I don't aim to ever see again. Stuck-up little snot. Makes a regular guy feel creepy.”

Johnnie Dawes walked out into the street, silent and empty in the early hours of the morning. He raised the collar of his patched coat and pulled his cap low over his eyes. He plunged forward, as if diving into icy water.

It was not the first job he had lost. Johnnie Dawes had lost many jobs in his short twenty years. He always knew his work, but no one seemed to notice. He never laughed and smiled seldom. He never knew any good jokes to tell and never seemed to have anything to say. No one had heard of a girl he had ever taken to the movies, and no one knew what he had had for breakfast, if any. When there was a crowd of fellows celebrating at the corner beer joint, he was never in it. When there was a crowd of fellows laid off, he was always included.

He walked swiftly, his hands in his pockets. His lips were a thin line over a square chin. His cheeks were hollow, with gray shadows under sharp cheekbones. His eyes were clear, quick, astonished.

He was going home, not that he had to go; he could keep on walking, and never come back, and no one, no one in the whole wide world, would ever know the difference. In a few hours, there would be morning. There would be another day. He could lie in his garret and sleep. Or he could get up and start out through the streets, any streets. It would be all the same.

He had to look for another job. He had to spend endless, weary days to find a job to spend endless, weary days without meaning. He had held many of them.

There had been a murky hotel with dim halls that smelt of rotting cloth; he had climbed narrow stairways, in a tight uniform that did not fit, answering sharp bells from musty rooms, his big, clear eyes looking steadily into hot perspiring faces. The manager had said that he was too shy.

There had been a drugstore with a fly-spotted mirror behind a long
counter that smelt of stale onions, and he had worn a white cap over one ear, and mixed ice-cream sodas in streaked shakers, the muscles of his face frozen as if under a mask of white wax. The manager had said he was too unfriendly.

There had been a restaurant with spotted, checkered tablecloths and a Special Lunch 20 Cents sign on a faded pasteboard on the wall where people sat with their elbows on the tables; and the hamburgers frying in the kitchen filled the room with a smoky haze; and he had carried trays of greasy dishes high over his head, trudging sideways through the crowd, his elbows aching, his spine numb, Johnnie Dawes who dreamed of life condensed and wondered at the wishes of men. The manager had said he was not a good mixer.

In between, there had been a handful of nickels growing lighter and lighter in his pocket, a cup of coffee, then nothing but a dull ache in his stomach and his belt drawn tight; a bed for fifteen cents a night in a long room smelling of sweat and Lysol; then a park bench and a newspaper over his head, and behind his closed eyes—the song of life without answer. There was no one to ask for help, and no one had asked to help him. Once, a lady in a mink coat had suggested dryly that a normal, responsible young man could always work his way through college, provided he worked hard, and become a respectable teacher or dentist, provided he had ambition. He had no ambition.

He walked swiftly. His steps rang against cement, against stone cubes piled high to a black abyss above. In the gray tunnels with long bands of graying floor streaked with morning dampness, in the silence of a city that seemed to twist its dead passageways underground, no whisper rustled to meet him, no echo, no movement. He was alone.

He stopped at a narrow brick building. Greenish streaks spread like whiskers under its blackened sills, like traces of refuse poured out of its narrow windows. On the dark bricks of a side wall, white letters spoke
of a chewing tobacco, and rags of a faded poster spoke of a circus. Over the door was a sign with letters missing: R
O MS A D BEDS.
Under it was a dusty glass plaque with a faded inscription: D
E
L
U
XE
B
EDS 20 CENTS.

There was no elevator. There were no lights on the stairs. He went up slowly, his hand following a cold iron bannister. He rose many floors, stopping once in a while, choking.

On the second landing from the top, a door opened and a crack of light fell across the stairs. The old landlady stood, shivering in a faded bathrobe, greasy at the elbows, gray hair hanging over swollen eyes, a gnarled hand on the doorknob.

“So it's ye, is it?” she hissed in a high, cracked voice. “Don't think ye can sneak upstairs. I've been waitin' for ye, Ay'ave. It's me rent Ay'm after, and ye know it. Come across now or ye don't go up.”

The rent had been due for ten days. He drew the check from his pocket and handed it to her. It was all he had. He was too weary to argue. He knew the check was not enough.

“Ye been fired?”

“Yes, Mrs. Mulligan.”

“No good, that's what ye are, no good. It's a born bum, ye are. Ye get outta here in the mornin'. Out ye go. Hear me?”

“Yes, Mrs. Mulligan.”

He had passed her, he had risen three steps, when she croaked:

“It's small wonder ye ain't got no money never. Runnin' around with wimmen!”

He stopped.

“Women?” he asked. “What women?”

“Aw, it ain't no use playin' the wooden saint with me!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Well,” she spluttered, spitting hair out of her mouth, “there's one waitin' for ye up in yer room right now!”

“A . . . what?”

“A dame.”

“You mean . . . a woman?”

“Ay mean a woman. What d'ye think? A elephant? A swell dame, too.”

“You don't mean in
my
room?”

“Well, Ay let her in meself. She asked for ye.”

“Who is she?”

“Ay'll ask ye that! She stinks like a lady, too.”

He swung up the stairs, up two more landings, to his garret. He threw the door open.

A candle was burning on the table. The woman rose slowly and her head almost touched the low, slanting ceiling. Her hair seemed to light the room.

Johnnie Dawes recognized her. He was not surprised. He said, no hesitation and no question in his voice:

“Good evening, Miss Gonda.”

“Good evening.”

Her eyes were fixed on his, her glance like an anchor flung into his dark pupils, groping for support. It was Kay Gonda's eyes that looked surprised.

He asked simply, as if the matter of her presence were not unusual at all:

“Did you have a hard time climbing those stairs?”

She answered, “A little. All climbing is hard. But it's usually worth it.”

He took off his coat. He was very calm, only his movements were slow, as if his muscles were unreal, as if his hands were floating, without weight, like in a dream.

He sat down, and she walked toward him suddenly, and took his face in her hands, her long fingers on his cheeks, raising it slowly, and she asked:

“What's the matter, Johnnie?”

He answered:

“Nothing—now.”

“You must not be so glad to see me.”

“I'm not—glad. It isn't that. I knew you'd come.”

“When you wrote to me?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I need you.”

“I've seen many people tonight, Johnnie. And I'm glad I did. But now . . . I don't know . . . perhaps I'm sorry that I came here.”

“Why?”

“Perhaps . . . I'd rather you had not seen me.”

“Why?”

“Your eyes, Johnnie. . . . They see too much of what is not.”

“Of what could be.”

“I don't know, Johnnie. . . . I am so tired! Of everything.”

“I knew that when I looked at you on the screen.”

“Do you still think so?”

“Yes. More than ever.”

She walked across the room. She fell wearily on his narrow iron cot with its coarse gray blanket. She said, looking at him, her lips smiling, a smile that was not gay, not friendly:

“People say I am a great star, Johnnie.”

“Yes.”

“People say I have everything one can wish.”

“Have you?”

“No. But why do you know it?”

“Why do you know I know it?”

“You are never afraid when you speak to people, are you, Johnnie?”

“Yes. I am very afraid. Always. I don't know what to say to them. But I am not afraid—now.”

“I am a very bad woman, Johnnie. Everything you've heard about me is true. Everything—and more. I came to tell you that you must not think of me what you said in your letter.”

“You came to tell me that everything I said in my letter was true. Everything—and more.”

She threw her hat on the bed and ran her fingers through her hair, her long, white fingers on her high, white temples.

“I've been the mistress of every man in the studio. Every one that wanted me. The lower, the better.”

“I know.”

“Once, very long ago, I was a servant. Do you know what that means? You get up in the morning and you don't know why you must live that day. But you don't die. And you don't live. But you hear something, a strange thing, life calling to you. And you have no answer. Then I thought I must forget. Everything. Close my ears and go straight through. Take everything from men, everything they had to offer, and laugh at them and at myself. I took it. All of it. The lowest they had. To make me like they were. To make me forget. But I still hear it. I still hear that which no one can give me. Why do I hear it? What's crying it to me?”

“Yourself.”

“Myself! I am nothing. Nothing anymore! . . . Do you know that I get fifteen thousand a week?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know that I have two hundred pairs of shoes?”

“I suppose so.”

“And diamonds. By the handful?”

“I suppose so.”

“Do you know that my pictures are shown in every town in the world?”

“And people look at them, people whom you don't want to see you.”

“They pay money, millions to see me. But do I mean anything to them?”