Puzzle for Pilgrims (5 page)

She dropped onto the couch without being asked, tucking her legs under her. She had the imperial rudeness of the well-heeled Midwestern girl who assumes that it’s a privilege for any man to have such a combination of femininity and fortune in his house. I tried to remember where she came from. Pittsburgh? Chicago? And the money? Ham? Soft drinks?

“Tequila?” I said. “I’m afraid it’s all I have.”

She nodded. She took a long jade cigarette-holder from her pocketbook, fitted a cigarette into it, and lit it. The cigarette-holder was preposterous. But you couldn’t laugh at her. Her eyes were too alive and there was a controlled excitement in her that changed the atmosphere of the room, somehow made it dangerous.

I pushed a glass across to her and sat down on a chair near her, holding my own glass.

She lifted the glass to me and said, “
Salud.”

“Salud.”
I said, “Why have you come? Things didn’t go too well between us at the bullfight.”

“I know.” She smiled a bright smile with nothing in it except that incalculable excitement. “I know. It was my fault. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that about Iris.”

“You shouldn’t.”

“I shouldn’t have said it because it was against my own interests.” She leaned forward sharply. “You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?”

“Do we have to go into who loves who?”

“You love her. You want her back. I love Martin.”

“You do?”

“Oh, you don’t believe that. You’ve been listening to them. The filthy things they say. Can’t you see through them? Can’t you see they’re only trying to make me the villain to justify themselves? I love Martin. He’s the only man I ever loved.”

Her eyes were trying to be little-girl eyes, wide and hurt. There was a plangency too in her voice.

“I was so good to him. I believed in his talent. I gave him everything. When I met him he was nothing, living in a filthy little room with Marietta, penniless, bumming drinks at Paco’s from the tourists, consorting with the Mexicans, the boys who work in the silver mines, the lowest type of Mexicans.”

She turned her head. “They left England when the war started because Martin was afraid of being drafted into the Army. I think there were other reasons too. The family disowned them. It’s a good family. But they disowned them. They had no money, nothing. He wrote the book, but he didn’t make anything on it, not a cent. I wanted to save him from the awful, squalid life he’d dropped into. I wanted him to have everything he should have. And he took everything. Everything I offered he took. Why I’ve given him thousands and thousands of dollars in cash. And I can prove it. I made him sign IOU’s. I did that for his own good, to give him some conception of decency about money. I have the IOU’s. I can prove it.” She turned with a sharp movement to pick up her pocketbook. I thought she was going to search through it and produce the IOU’s to prove it.

I said, “Okay. I believe you. You gave him thousands of dollars. You love him.”

“I love him.” She shook the heavy gold hair passionately. “I love him. And I’m never going to divorce him—never.”

“And what if he doesn’t love you?”

“Love me?” She laughed. “Of course he doesn’t love me. He hates me. He hates me because he knows he owes everything to me. He knows I called his bluff. I gave him everything a writer could want, he couldn’t write. I gave him everything a man could want, and he flunked that too. I made him see himself for what he is, a sham, an emptiness—a nothing.”

“Such language about the man you love.”

“Why shouldn’t I say it? It’s true. And it doesn’t make any difference. He’s mine. He belongs to me. I’m going to get him back.”

I lit a cigarette, my head aching faintly. “Okay. You’re going to get him back. But why bother to tell me about it?”

“Because I want you to know. You see, I have a plan. It’ll work. I’ll get Martin back. Then you’ll have Iris again.”

“Thank you.”

“You do want her, don’t you?” She leaned toward me again over the coffee table, her eyes hungry. “Maybe you don’t. Maybe you feel the way I feel, that a woman like that doesn’t deserve to—”

“Let’s not talk about Iris. You’ve got a plan. Tell me your plan.”

I knew pretty much what it was, of course. I had no plan myself, just to let her talk and see which way the wind lay. I didn’t like anything about it. Not so much what she was saying, but the aura around her. They had always said she was dangerous, and the danger was as evident as a perfume or a scarf knotted at her tiny neck. I couldn’t analyze it. I just knew that her reactions were unstable, not like reactions I knew. She was unpredictable—and desperate.

“It’s something they did,” she said. She wore a heavy silver bracelet on her left wrist. As she moved, it clattered. “He and Marietta. Marietta’s his sister. You know that?”

I nodded.

“Marietta’s worse than he is. She’s bad, really bad. And they were so nastily close. She was his evil genius, really.” Her lips curled in a smile of remembered satisfaction. “At least I managed to break that up.”

“And how did you do it?” I asked casually. I didn’t want her to think I was interested in Marietta one way or the other.

“By telling him the truth about her.”

“And the truth about Marietta?”

Her tiny hand plucked the cigarette stub out of the holder and tossed it into an ash tray. “That she’s a bum.” She giggled. It sounded like water dribbling from a leaky faucet. “He wouldn’t believe it at first, not until I showed him some of the men she’d made fools out of, made him see it had to be true. And he hates her now. It’s all vanity. He thought he was the only man for her. He couldn’t abide thinking of his sister playing hooky from worshiping at his shrine. He couldn’t bear to think that all the time she’d been even worse than him—just a tramp.”

I thought of Marietta’s cool, snowbound beauty. I thought of Marietta never getting to the top of the cowslip hill. I thought of the citrus-grower from Southern California with the big, self-confident hands and the gun.

“It’s something they did,” she said again. Her left hand, with the ponderous bracelet sagging at the bird wrist, was clutching her tucked-in legs so that she was in a small, tight ball on the couch. “Something with a tourist in Taxco. Before our marriage. The police thought it was a guide. They were never sure. But I know. I can break it to the police. I can get them both jailed. I have proof.”

She was always talking about having proof. I had a vision of her ceaselessly pattering around, the doll nose poking out from under the canopy of hair, peering in closets, scurrying through desks, finding proof against other people. I wondered, vaguely, if she was telling the truth, if Martin was really a shoddy crook. Not that it mattered. Iris would have stuck to him if he’d murdered his mother.

“And I told him,” she was saying. “I told her too—Marietta. I went to them both and I told them what I know. I told them I’d go to the police tomorrow if Martin didn’t come back.” She turned from profile to face me with a smile that was sure of itself and sure of my delighted approval. “That’s my plan. That’s what I want you to know. I’m going to the police tomorrow if Martin doesn’t come back.”

It was then that I began to despise this little disturbed girl. I despised her for the pleasure she took in her own infantile craftiness and for the stupidity of her malice. She said she loved her husband. She didn’t, of course. I knew Iris was right now. He was just another thing she had bought, and the losing of it galled her vanity. She said she wanted him back and yet, to get him back, she was prepared to do something that would cement his hatred of her into a permanent mold. She made no sense. Nothing made sense about her except a desire to destroy, blind as an owl’s eyes in the sunlight. But because I despised her, I didn’t minimize the potential danger in her. Martin wouldn’t go back. She would go to the police. All hell would break loose—unless I could do something.

I crossed to the couch and sat down beside her. With the white throat and the small head, tilted backwards by the mass of hair, she had a strange sensuality which didn’t excite me but which made me aware of its existence.

I said, “You think Martin will come back tomorrow?”

“If he’s scared enough.”

“And that’ll satisfy you, having him back on those terms?”

“Yes,” she said and to me there was something almost obscene in the monosyllable.

“And if he’s not scared enough?”

She laughed. “Oh, he may try to kill me. So may Marietta.” She leaned toward me, her thin fingers gripping my wrist. The laughter was out of her eyes now, and there was something else there that was almost excitement. “I mean that, you know. It’s true. What I’ve done, it’s dangerous. Because they’re utterly unscrupulous, both of them. I can send them to jail. They know that. And I haven’t changed my will yet. I’ve left everything to Martin. They know that too. Oh, yes, they may try and kill me. So may Iris. She’s so hot for him, so eaten up with him. If she knew she couldn’t get him any other way…”

To me, that seemed the very apogee of fake.

In my distaste I forgot to handle her.

I said, “Have you ever been kicked very hard in the pants?”

Her wide eyes blinked up at me. “Kicked? Me?”

“Don’t you see what you’re doing. Haven’t you the faintest idea about yourself?”

“Have I?” Her eyes were still excited. Something about their expression brought back memories of her jumping up from her seat at the bullfight, clapping her little hands, staring at the gay, festooned banderillas flapping like deplumed feathers out of the bull’s bleeding back. “Have I? Tell me, Peter, tell me about me.”

“It’s quite elementary.”

“Is it? Is it? What am I?” Her face was almost touching my shoulder. “What am I?”

“Principally,” I said, “you’re a bitch. A classic example of a rich bitch. You bought a poor man who didn’t want you, because you smelled a bargain genius. You lost him. And once you’d lost him, you became nothing—just another piece of unwanted woman. You can’t bear being off the center of the stage. You had to get back. And because you hadn’t any legitimate reason to get back, you had to do it by mean little ruses, threats, scenes, wielding feeble little whips, trying to destroy people’s happiness, fiddling with danger like a child playing with firecrackers. You don’t want Martin. You just want attention. And a lousy job you’re making of it. In the last half hour, you’ve been the heartbroken wife, the avenging fury, and now—the potential murderee. That’s too many roles. You want me to think you’re interesting. I don’t. I think you’re a goddam bore. If I were you, know what I’d do?”

She didn’t seem to be mad. She had moved even closer, uncurling her little legs. Her golden hair was brushing the lapel of my coat.

“No, Peter. No. What would you do if you were I?”

“I’d go back to Chicago or Pittsburgh or wherever it is and sit on my pile of dollars until another man comes along who’s stupid enough to think the money’s worth the gamble. Marry him. After that, do anything you want with him. I won’t be interested because by then you’ll be out of my life.”

She had half closed her eyes. She had surprisingly heavy lids, like a doll’s. She sank toward me. Her arms slid up me; her hands, with the thick bracelet on the thin wrist, twined around my neck.

“You think that, Peter? You really think that?”

I put my hands on her small waist to push her away. Suddenly her lips dug into mine.

“You understand me,” she breathed. “I thought you would. When I first saw you at the bullfight, I thought you’d understand me. Such shoulders. A fighter’s jaw. A man’s face.”

“For God’s sake.” I was angry because she’d fooled me. I’d never expected this.

Her lips slid to mine again. She was slumped against me. She was surprisingly heavy for her smallness, like the eyelids. She was crooning words of endearment. She wanted me. She needed a real man like me, someone who was strong, who could slap her down. She’d always known weak men, men like Martin sapping her strength, making her the strong one. She didn’t want to be strong. She didn’t want to boss. She wanted to be bossed, she wanted to be kicked. Her body against mine was warm, but it wasn’t real warmth, it was like the warmth of a fever. It was repulsive to me, just as the soft, monotonous coo of her voice was repulsive.

I pushed her away. I held her there, my hands on her arms. She stared back at me glassily, her lips half parted.

“You don’t want me,” she said.

“No,” I said.

“Why?” Her eyes flashed with weak venom. “It’s Iris.”

“I didn’t say so.”

“You’ve got someone else?” Her little hands flashed down, gripping my wrists. “There’s someone else. The woman with the glass, the woman with the cigarette butts.”

I said, “It’s none of your business whether there is or not.”

“Who is she?” Her nails were digging into the skin of my wrists. I flicked her hands off. “Who is she? Tell me.”

“You’d better go home,” I said. “Throw Martin and Marietta in jail. Foul up everything. Go on. You’re not worth bothering about.”

“Tell me who she is.” Tears were staining her cheeks, hot tears of fury. “Why should everyone get something but me? Why am I always left out? Why should you have someone else?” She stamped her foot against the carpet. “Tell me who she is.”

She’d had a stray sex impulse. She hadn’t been able to satisfy it. It was like having a lunatic on my hands. Maybe it wasn’t like. Maybe it was actually having a lunatic on my hands.

I got up. I slung an arm around her and dragged her up too. I went for the yellow coat, picked it off the floor, and threw it around her shaking shoulders.

“You’d better go home.”

She stood there, her hands clenched at her sides.

“Who’s the woman? I’ve got to know. Who’s the woman?”

The door opened then. I heard the
velador
muttering, “
Gracias, Señorita.”
I turned around.

Marietta had come into the room.

She came toward us, tall, impeccable. The dark, clean hair hung loose around her shoulders. Seeing her over Sally’s disordered face was like a draught of spring water after a mouthful of dust. She had never looked lovelier, but I wished she hadn’t chosen this of all moments to come.