Into The Night (4 page)

She had thought she would be gray, not only gray of hair, but with an overall faded, gray aspect. The word "mother" was no doubt what had formed this image in her mind. Having lost her own at an early age, she had had no contemporary, day-to-day experience with one. To her they were all of one type, not individuals. Quite the contrary, the overall aspect of Starr's mother was dark. Everything about her was black. Her hair was the unlikely and unlifelike black of tar, so that almost certainly some sort of vegetable dye must have been applied to it to keep it that even. Perhaps its use initiated years before, and had now become merely a habit rather than a vanity. Her clothes were black without exception; not a fleck of color showed on her anywhere. But this of course would be because of Starr's passing. Her brows were heavily black. And in this case naturally so. They were almost like little tippets of black sealskin pasted above her eyelids. And lastly her eyes were black. Black as shoe buttons. But very mobile shoe buttons.

Madeline had thought that her figure would be ample, plump, maternal. She was rail-thin, scrawny. That she would be slowmoving, perhaps even impeded in gait. Her step was sprightly, that could be seen at a glance; it was at the other end that the advancing years had assailed her. She was acutely, cruelly roundshouldered. So that, although she was of a fair height, she was made to seem short, even stunted.

"Mrs. Bartlett?" Madeline whispered. She had to whisper because of the alacrity with which she had bounded back up the stairs.

"Yes," she said, turning the black eyes on her. They had great sorrowing pleats under them, Madeline saw. "Did you want me? Were you the one who rang?"

"Yes, I was," Madeline said.

They came a little nearer to one another now.

"Do I know you?" the older woman said.

"No, you don't," Madeline replied quietly.

She thought, it's not kind of me to prolong this. Tell her at once, don't keep her waiting.

"I knew Starr," she said then.

Two emotions, primary emotions, swept over the older woman's face, one right after the other. They were as obvious, as vivid, as though they were two separate, revolving gelatin slides, each one throwing its light on her face in turn. First joy. Just plain unadulterated joy. The name itself, the beloved name. Someone who knew her. Someone who was a friend of hers. Someone who could tell of her. Then grief. Just plain abysmal grief. Not she herself, only someone who had known her. Not she herself, only someone who could tell of her.

Her mouth opened. And open like that, its edges flickered, fluttered, as if it were trying to close itself again. And her eyes hurt so. Showed such hurt within them, one should say.

"Come in," was all she said. And rather calmly. At least it was not tremulous.

Madeline went first, at her almost unnoticeable little gesture.

She followed and closed the door after them both.

It was a small elbow-shaped apartment of two rooms. That is to say, the two rooms were not in a straight line with one another; one was at right angles to the other, leading off in a different direction. The first one was the only one she could see as she entered. It was clean, but far from tidy. There was no dust or litter, but there was far too much of everything in it. It was overcrowded. Or else perhaps, because it was a small room, it gave that impression.

"Sit down," Mrs. Bartlett said. "No, not in that one. This one's better. The spring's broken in that."

Madeline changed accordingly.

She kept thinking, She used to live here. This is where she lived. Here, where I am now. And because of me, she doesn't live here anymore. She doesn't live anywhere anymore. I did that. I. How can I face those black eyes looking at me right now? How can I look into them?

"You haven't given me your name," Mrs. Bartlett said, smiling at her. She rested her hand endearingly on Madeline's shoulder for a minute.

"Madeline Chalmers," Madeline said. "Murderess. Your daughter's murderess." But only the first part passed her lips.

"Did you know her long?" Mrs. Bartlett said. A jet cross at the base of her neck blinked in the reflected sunlight, as though it had just shed a tear.

"It seems longer--than it was. Much longer. A lifetime."

The answer, carefully chosen as it was, made no impression. Mrs. Bartlett had averted her head, suddenly, sharply. "Excuse me a minute," she said in a racked voice. "I'll be right back." She went through the doorway--it was an opening really, it had no door-- turned right, and went into the next room, the bedroom apparently. She'd gone in there to cry, Madeline knew.

She heard no sound, and tried not to, in case there had been any. But there wasn't any.

It didn't make it easier for her, this temporary digression. She tried to take her mind up, looking at little things. Little things that really didn't interest her.

One of the lamps, because there was an insufficiency of outlets no doubt, had its cord hoisted and plugged into a socket in the ceiling fixture. The wall, at least on the one side facing her, was in two shades of green. Most of its surface a fading yellowing green, like peas when they've begun to wither and dry up. And then in the middle of this, an oblong patch of a much darker green, looking as fresh as if it had just been dampened with water. A vacant nail protruded from the middle of it, giving the explanation. A picture had once hung there long ago, and then been moved. Before the window there was a brilliantly bright stepladder. But not a real one, a phantom stepladder of fuming sun motes, placed there as though for some angel in domestic service to step up on and hang the curtains. Its luminous slats were made by the openings in the fire-escape platform outside the window above.

On the roof, visible only in a slanting diagonal that cut across one upper corner of the window, a woman was hanging wash. You could hear the pulley squeak querulously each time she paid out more rope to herself, but not see her or the wash.

Mrs. Bartlett came back again. You could not tell she had been crying.

"Let me get you something," she said. "I'm forgetting myself. Would you like some coffee?"

"Nothing, please," Madeline begged her with utmost sincerity. Almost with abhorrence. "I just came here to talk to you, really I did."

"You wouldn't refuse Starr's mother, now would you?" the other woman said winningly. "It won't take a minute. Then we can sit and talk." She went into a narrow little opening, almost like a crevice, over at the far side of the front door, and Madeline could hear water running, first resoundingly into the drumlike hollow of a porcelain sink, then smotheredly into tin or aluminum. Then she heard the pillow-soft fluff that ignited gas gives.

Mrs. Bartlett came back again. For the first time since she'd admitted her, she sat down with Madeline.

"You look tired," Madeline remarked compassionately.

"I don't sleep much anymore since she's gone," she said unassumingly. "At nights, I mean. That's why I have to sleep when I can. I was napping when you rang, that's why it took me so long to open the door."

"I'm sorry," Madeline said contritely. "I would have come some other time."

"I'm glad you came when you did." She patted Madeline's arm and gave a little snuggle within her chair that was pure anticipation. "You haven't told me a word about her yet."

"I don't know where to begin," Madeline said. And it was true.

"Was she happy?"

"That," Madeline said with infinite slowness, "I don't know. Don't you?"

"She didn't tell me," Mrs. Bartlett said simply.

"Was she happy when she was here with you?"

"She was at first. Later on--I'm not so sure."

Madeline thought, There could be something there. But how to get it out?

"Did she have any particular--ambitions, that she ever spoke of to you?"

"All girls are ambitious. All young things are. Not to be ambitious is not to be young at all." She said it sadly.

"But any in particular?" Madeline persisted.

"Yes," Mrs. Bartlett said. And then again, "Yes." And then she stopped as if mulling it over.

Madeline waited, breath held back.

"Wait a minute," cautioned Mrs. Bartlett, getting up. "I hear the coffee bumping." She went out to get it.

Madeline softly let her breath out, like a slow tire leak. Oh, damn this coffee break, she thought. Just when we seemed to be getting somewhere.

Mrs. Bartlett bustled with cups and saucers and spoons, and a glass holding little lumps of sugar (she kept them in a water tumbler in lieu of a bowl), and it was impossible to continue consecutively. Whatever ground had been on the point of being gained, which was the most she could say for it, was lost again for the time being.

Mrs. Bartlett sat there and sipped, and the black eyes watched Madeline over the rim of the tipped cup, but in a friendly, trusting manner.

I can't eat her bread, Madeline thought. Meaning the beverage. Her gorge rose. I'm a murderess. I can't sit here taking food and drink with her. I killed her daughter. It's inconceivable, abominable, to do this.

"Don't you like it?" Mrs. Bartlett asked ruefully.

Madeline forced some into her mouth. And that was all she could do.

"I think I understand," said Mrs. Bartlett softly, after a great while. For the first time since they'd met, she dropped her eyes, lowered them away from Madeline's face.

Madeline removed the saucer from below its cup, and let the mouthful of coffee she had already absorbed run back on it again. This wasn't just a gesture of sentimental delicacy. Her throat had closed up; she would have strangled on just one swallow of the blood-warm liquid. She set the cup and saucer aside.

Mrs. Bartlett moved, very tactfully, very inconspicuously now, and suddenly the cups were gone from sight.

When she came back, Madeline had moved to another chair and was briefly sheltering her eyes with the edge of her hand.

"You -are- a real friend," Mrs. Bartlett said in gentle admiration. "You -are-." And she said it a third time. "You -are-."

"Yes," Madeline said with bitter mockery. "Yes. Oh, yes."

They were silent for a short while. Then abruptly Madeline turned around toward her--one shoulder had been turned away until now--and said, "You know how it happened, I suppose?"

The older woman seemed to shrink lower in her chair. Settle, like something deflating. "Yes, I know," she said. "They told me." And then she whispered, "A shot--on the street." Whispered it so low that Madeline couldn't hear the words at all. But she knew what they were, because those were the words that belonged in that place. And the lip movements imaged them, fitted them.

After a while Madeline started to ask her, "Did you--?" Then didn't know how to say it.

"Did I what?" prompted Mrs. Bartlett, eyes on the floor.

"Did you--go there, did you go in to the city, when they notified you? Did you--bring her back with you? Is she resting out here?"

"I couldn't go in myself," Mrs. Bartlett said, quite simply, eyes still downcast. "You see, I'm all alone here. I wasn't in any condition to--I had to take to my bed the first few days after I received the news."

Madeline winced.

"But Mr. Thalor, he's the funeral director, was very kind, he arranged everything, took charge of everything, for me. He had her brought back here, and saw about purchasing a plot. I didn't have enough money to buy one outright, but they're letting me pay for it on the installment plan, a little at a time."

Madeline couldn't repress a shudder.

"It sounds terrible, I know," Mrs. Bartlett admitted. "But what can you do, when death strikes suddenly like that, and you're not prepared for it? I'd always thought that I'd go first, and she'd take care of things like that for me. I never dreamed I'd--be the one to bury her." She knitted a tiny fist, white and fragile as an ivory carving, and pressed it just over one eye.

Madeline saw that she had reached the end of her fortitude for the present. There was nothing to do but wait for another time.

She rose to her feet, and said, "I hope I haven't--I didn't mean to hurt you like this."

The little clenched fist was before her lips now, stifling them, crushing them in. She nodded her head a little, but whether in forgiveness or just in acknowledgment of the apology, Madeline couldn't know.

"May I come again?" she asked. "May I talk to you some more?" Again the muted figure nodded, but this time the meaning was plain.

As she passed by her on her way to the door, Madeline let her hand come to rest upon her shoulder for a moment, in the futile, only, consolation she could give her. The little fist opened, fluttered upward like a bird spreading its wings, came to rest upon the solacing hand.

From the doorway, as she softly drew the door closed after her, Madeline looked back. Other than that one little gesture, she hadn't moved, she hadn't turned her head to watch her go. Madeline could only see her from the back, the light making a sort of blurry, soft focus about the outline of her head, sitting there, still there. Feeling only, breathing only. Life in death. Or death in life.

There are two deaths I am responsible for, Madeline told herself accusingly, and not just one. This one too. The death of a heart.

When she approached the little five-story apartment building the next day, Madeline was at first startled and then somewhat uneasy to see the familiar black-garbed figure of Mrs. Bartlett standing waiting in the shade of the green canvas door canopy, which extended out to the edge of the sidewalk. It was obvious by the way she kept turning every so often, first to look up the street in one direction, then down it in another, that she was waiting for someone to come along. And Madeline knew that someone must be herself. The shortest way from her own hotel had brought her along the opposite side of the street, she knew the older woman had not yet observed her (there was an almost unbroken line of cars parked along that side, screening her), and for a moment she had an impulse to turn around and go back again before she had been noticed.

Why was she waiting for her like that, hatted, out before the house? Was she taking her somewhere with her? Did she want her to meet other relatives, other members of the family? But hadn't that been Madeline's very purpose in seeking her out in the first place, to establish leads through her, other contacts? Then why the skittishness, why the timidity?