Place in the City (14 page)

She wanted to undress, turn off the light; she wanted to sleep, but now the children were in bed, she had no strength left. She could only lie on her back and stare straight up at the ceiling.

Why had Shutzey chosen her to go to the club? Why had her husband fallen into the river and drowned himself? Why did she have to go on and on?

She couldn't take her own life. Lying there, she looked at the gas-jet, and considered how simple it would be. But she couldn't do it. She wasn't afraid; if she were afraid, she would have done it long ago; if she were afraid, she would have died at the club. But she wasn't; she was strong, too strong. The hardest race is to the strong, to the powerful and beautiful, to the splendid man-things that are the greatest of all beasts. She didn't think that, exactly, but she knew that it was beyond her power to take her own life. She would live and live, until her son became one of them, until he reached out with his own strong hands. Then she closed her eyes; she didn't want to think any more.

She lapsed into a state that was neither sleep nor consciousness, rather a vague borderland, where, though she knew things, she was able to retreat into a certain numbness. She lay like that for a long time.

In all, her large beautiful body gathered strength. Hurt heals, and then hurt passes away. As much as it would be hurt again, it would still heal.

The children slept; if she thought of anything, she thought of how the children had appeared when she came into the room, Peter on his chair and Sasha curled at his feet.

J
ESSICA
laughed, because she had won from the beginning. Shutzey was a brute, but he was her brute. He was as much hers as any of his whores were his; body and soul, it would be, if Shutzey had a soul.

She was all alone in her room. Alice was a fool, because Alice had thrown herself away. What was the point in getting married? If your man went down, he dragged you down with him; and if he went up, he certainly couldn't stay up forever. A clever woman knew how to hold on going up, and leave go on the way down. And Marion with her priest was no better. A priest was straw and wax. Unconsciously, when she thought of the priest, she pressed her hands to her own body. Warm flesh needed warm flesh.

When she came into the house, her father looked at her, as if she were all he had to hold onto. Her mother put her arms around Jessica and kissed her.

“Jessie,” she whispered—“Jessie, dear.”

Well, her mother was right, her father, too. She would make their fortunes. She would give them whatever they wanted, and still have more for herself. She would learn to play with dolls, strong dolls that fought with you.

While she undressed, she admired herself in the mirror. She was beautiful; she didn't need men to tell her that she was beautiful. She followed her motions as her body came into view. Someday, Shutzey would have that. She knew better than to imagine that you could stand off a man like Shutzey forever. But Shutzey would not be the only one, nor would it ever be his to claim. There would be other men, better men than Shutzey, who was only a brute, withal a powerful one.

She bent and stepped in front of the mirror, saw years ahead when she would admire her beauty in the same way, when men would admire it and come crawling on their knees to her.

She looked at herself, laughing, because she had no doubts. She threw herself on the bed, stretched her body taut, and admired it. Then she lay on her stomach, put her chin on her palms, and smiled.

M
EYER
went back to bed, but he couldn't get warm. He kept moving from place to place, stretching out his feet and then pulling them back. When his wife moved over toward him, to warm him with her body, she felt the chill in his.

“Meyer, you're cold,” she said. “I'll go and get another blanket.”

“I'm not cold.”

“You're cold. Let me get another blanket?”

“Don't I know myself if I'm cold or hot? Should I tell you I'm cold if I'm not cold? My God, leave me alone and let me sleep!”

“All right, Meyer. Don't excite yourself.”

But she was thinking that he shouldn't have gotten out of bed to call after Alice. The draft might have given him a cold already, and he was in no mood to be sick. Now he was brooding on it, brooding over the money.

“Meyer?” she whispered.

“Yeah?”

“You shouldn't worry.”

“Well—who's worrying? Is it you or me who is worrying? Why don't you let me sleep?

“All right, Meyer, sleep.”

Then there was silence for a few minutes; then Meyer moved closer to her and pushed back the covers. “I can't,” he muttered. “I think how she ran off in the night with that drunken goy. God only knows where she is now. Of me, she doesn't think—but in the middle of the night she runs away with that Danny.”

“She told us, Meyer,” his wife said gently.

“Yeah—”

“She'll come back. You'll see, Meyer. What did she do after all that was so terrible? So long as she's happy, it's enough, yes—?”

“She's no daughter of mine.”

“Meyer, you're talking crazy.”

“She's no daughter of mine,” he repeated. “She's out of my life. Do you understand? I'm through with her, all finished with her. Now let me sleep.”

“Meyer?”

“I say let me sleep! My God, am I going to have no peace all through the night?”

“Meyer—he ain't a bad boy.”

“Don't talk about it!”

“All right.”

“Go to sleep!”

“I'm sleeping, Meyer.”

He groaned, turned away from her.

Y
OU MAY SAY
that because this is a fable, all things begin and end in the cul-de-sac. But the point is this: that this evening is none so different from any other. If the people pass like shadows, you may rest assured that there will be more like them—so like them—in this same Apple Place. A folk-tale grows in that way; although it may be that this one came because the poet died. You see, until he died, nobody knew that he was a poet. But after he died, they read his diary; that's romance.

But I go ahead in telling the story. It is still night, or rather the early hours of the morning; the snow has stopped, and the good citizens sleep. Any person who walks the street now is open to suspicion. He has done something; he has become a part of the great mystery of night, which always has been and always will be the greatest of all mysteries. He may have murder or pain or happiness. on his soul, or he may have a great weariness; but rest assured that he has one of them.

Any sound is more than a sound at this hour; if it is only a whisper, it lingers on in the cold, cracking air; if it is a thunderbolt, it blasts terror into every person who hears it.

T
HE MUSIC MASTER
stood at the door of Anna's room, watching her dress and pack. The door was open about six inches; he stood in the darkness of the hallway, watching her, dumb and silent, wondering how one person could so hurt another who loved her.

At the moment, he was entirely apathetic, numb, merely a receptacle for impressions. He might have been watching a cheap movie for all the emotion it aroused in him other than a dull gnawing wonder.

She was leaving him; she was going to steal away and leave him, because now his usefulness was over. That was why she had spoken to him the way she had. She would go with the poet, probably. Now he remembered how often she visited the poet, took him things to eat, and returned sometimes with some of his books. But he hadn't ever remotely suspected; the poet was sick, that's all.

He watched her until she was dressed and packed; then he dropped his head and walked back to his piano. He sat down on the stool, and caressed the keys lovingly. His fingers fell into the accustomed motions; he struck a few chords, and then he began to play, slowly, without thinking of what he was playing. And as he played, his face contorted, as shade after shade of agony and pain passed across it.

“Claus—” he said.

Then the pain went into his fingers, and it was only with a great effort that he continued to play.

“Claus—”

Music was the only thing now. He played on frantically, as if something were speeding away from him and he was attempting to catch it. But while he played, his body was oddly stiff, and his head sank lower and lower.

“Go ahead, Anna,” he muttered.

Then he thought of the poet, and for the first time since he had seen her packing, he had a sensation of impotent rage.—That it should have been the poet, a weak, sickly slug, whose entire existence was a mockery of life. He did nothing, the poet; he had no reason for living. He lay in his room week after week, depending upon the food Anna brought him. He was rotten to the core, without strength, without beauty or purpose.

“Anna,” Claus whispered, “Anna, why did you do it? Why, my Anna? Couldn't you see what he is? Couldn't you tell what he wanted you for?”

Bringing his hands down with a crash, he leaned back, gasping for breath. His head was reeling. Then he became very, very calm. He rose and went to his desk; there he opened a drawer and took out a large army automatic, unwrapped it from its oily flannel covering, and hefted it in his hand. Then he laid it on the desk. Remember, now he was calm, dreadfully calm; still he did not know exactly what he would do with the gun. Perhaps he only thought of taking his own life.

He stood there staring at the gun as if mesmerized, until he heard the outside downstairs door open and close. Then he grabbed the gun and ran to the door. At the door, he hesitated, and he opened it slowly. He stood on top of a high stoop; a flight of brownstone, snow-covered steps led down to the street. It was no longer snowing, and the white street was bright with the reflected light of the lamp and the stars. Directly underneath him, the poet stood with his wife. They were beginning to walk down the street.

“Anna!” Claus shouted.

They stopped. It seemed to Claus that they stood there for hours, just stood there in the snow. Then, very slowly, they turned around. Claus could see the poet's face clearly; it had a strange, knowing look upon it, a wise look,—and for some reason it appeared to Claus that the poet was laughing at him. Anna stared at him steadily. If Anna was laughing at him too—

“Where are you going?” he demanded, biting each word sharp and walking down the steps as he spoke. “Where are you going, my Anna? Why are you leaving me like this—without a word?”

Anna shook her head; she couldn't speak; she simply shook her head and stared at him.

“She's going with me,” Edwards answered. “You'd better put that gun away.”

“Anna—don't you know?” Claus asked. “Don't you know—Anna? You believe him?”

“She loves me,” Edwards said. “You can't stop her now. You've hurt her enough. She loves me—and she's going with me. You can't stop us.”

But Claus seemed to hear nothing the poet said. He onlystared at Anna, steadily, and then again he asked her:

“Where are you going?”

“Come, Anna,” Edwards said.

He turned to go, taking her arm, but she stood where she was, staring at Claus, looking from his face to the gun he held in his hand.

“Anna.”

“Why?” Claus asked her.

“Come on, Anna,” Edwards said. “He won't harm you. Don't be afraid of the gun. Come, Anna. I tell you he'll never harm you again.”

“Have I harmed you?” Claus wanted to know.

“Let me go,” she whispered.

“You want to go with him?” Claus said. “You want to go with him and leave me—”

“Yes.”

“I see—”

“I love him,” Anna blurted out suddenly. “Don't you see that I love him? My God, what have I ever done to you? I love him—so let me go.”

“Yes.”

“Come, Anna.”

“Anna!”

She had half-turned away, but now she faced him again, and Claus saw that she was as beautiful as she had ever been in any of his dreams. He saw how her lips were parted, how her face was flushed from the cold. Even his presence could not take away the flush.

He loved her. Always, that would be the moving impulse in his life, that he had loved one thing with all his heart. But she couldn't go away—not with him. She couldn't.

His heart was bursting, his head swelling larger and larger. Inside of him, something was screaming, “No—no—no—no—”

But his head was all swollen and hot, and sharp flames were beating into his brain. In his hand, the gun was icycold.

“Anna!” he cried.

Then the gun was exploding. He hardly knew or understood how that was;—only he was standing there while the gun exploded in his hand. Four times it exploded, blasting away the silence of the night.

With the force of the first bullet, Anna was hurled back; the other three shots ground her into the snow. The poet stood paralyzed, his face a dreadful mask.

Claus took the gun in both his hands, stared at it, grinding his lower lip between his teeth, shook his head. Once, he cried: “Anna!”

Then he began to run. He ran on until he faded into the night.

T
HE BLAST
of the gun shook the street to its foundations. The sound echoed and re-echoed, roared away finally into terrible and trembling silence.

John Edwards had seen the flame stab out of the gun. Men do not think at such a time; there are men of action, and they act, but men do not think. And John Edwards was not a man of action. He stood as if he were made of stone until Claus had disappeared into the night.

But he knew Anna was shot; that much he realized from the moment the gun smashed away the silence. The bullets were finding Anna, but further than that he could not reason.

Then—oh, so slowly—he turned to her. Anna lay in the snow, an arm bent beneath her, the other thrown out over her head. Her legs were twisted crookedly, and she lay without moving, her eyes wide open, seeming to stare up at the stars and the sky. Already, the snow on either side was stained with pink. Her coat was open, and underneath, on her gray suit, there was a dark, uneven blotch.