Such Is My Beloved (7 page)

 

ELEVEN

I
n a little upstairs Chinese restaurant in the early spring evening, Ronnie, Midge and Lou were having a sandwich and a cup of coffee. They were sitting by the window and could see the street below, see the crowds moving slowly under the brilliant electric lights and the women on the pavements who had discarded their fur coats now and had on brightly colored cloth coats for spring and Easter time. Midge was wearing her gray dress and gray shoes and Ronnie, too, had on the black dress the priest had given her. But the girls to-night were meditative and solemn. Even Lou was worried. On Midge's small round face there was a look of dreadful uneasiness, and a scared trembling inside her that did not show itself because she never moved, nor smiled, nor spoke. Even her head was held rigid and motionless. Her eyes looked too brilliant and her face was a little thinner now than it had been two weeks ago. Every few moments, she stared wonderingly at Ronnie, begging her to say something comforting or something that would make her laugh and forget why the three of them were having such a solemn conference.

“Never mind, kiddo. It's really nothing,” Ronnie said. “It's just a matter of a little while and then you're right back again fresh as a daisy. I know.”

“If you take my advice,” Lou said, leaning over the table and patting Midge's hand, “you'll go to a hospital and take the treatments and make it all in a day's work. Don't you see, kiddo?”

“Do you hear what Lou's saying, kid? Lou knows.”

“I'm just giving you the straight dope, cold, and not trying to soften it up,” Lou said.

“I guess that's what I'd better do,” Midge said. She tried to smile. She tried to feel reasonable, but the mounting dread within her was terrifying her as though she were a frightened little girl. She began to look at both of them helplessly.

“Will they hurt me?” she asked.

“Lou says it's nothing. It's just like having a cold, Midge.”

“It used to be something to really worry about,” Lou said. “But that was years ago. But it's nothing now, baby.”

“I told you Lou would say that, Midge. It's nothing at all now,” Ronnie said.

But Midge was so gloomy that Ronnie began to try and amuse her in many little ways. She folded her hands piously across her chest. “Ah, poor child, it's a great pity. Now if you'd just say a little prayer. If you would just think of me occasionally.”

Midge smiled slightly. They had often mocked the priest in this way. Ronnie went on eagerly, “Won't you come and see me some time, child?”

“Yes, Father,” Midge said, nodding her head and turning her eyes up angelically.

“Have you been baptized, child?”

“Ah, yes, indeed, Father. Three or four times, once last night and once the night before. And when I get some money I'm going to get drunk some more.”

“Ah, but they are not good baptisms, my girl. Was the thing done properly?”

“As well as they could do it, Father. I am a small girl and you ought not to expect too much of me.”

“If you would not try so hard, but just listen to the dictates of your heart.”

“I have listened, Father.”

“And what did you hear, child?”

“I heard the footsteps of my lord.”

“And were they coming closer?”

“Oh yes, Father, closer and closer.”

“And then what did you do, child?”

“I said the old man's coming and if I'm caught like this with my skirts up it'll look like a hard winter, I mean a cold winter, Father.” With her head tilted to one side, Midge was making silly faces she thought appropriate to a pious woman, and then both girls began to snicker, and Lou let out a deep roaring laugh. “That's swell,” he said. “You ought to team up and go into vaudeville. Keep on. Give us some more. The poor old duffer. Drag me in on this some way, won't you? I ought to be able to get my finger in for something, don't you think, kid? I've got a good heart, too, don't you think, Ronnie?”

But Midge, looking at him vacantly for a moment said irritably, “Let's get out of here in a hurry. I get fed up on the stuff,” and they got up and left the restaurant. As soon as they were in the street, walking slowly up among the crowd that was enjoying the mildness of the first spring evenings, the last bit of eagerness for mockery of the priest went out of Midge.
She heard Lou still trying to continue the conversation and the laughter about the priest; she heard Ronnie replying rapidly, saw her leaning on Lou's arm in her eagerness to hear more of his wit that kept them both laughing, and while Midge walked on and heard these sounds, on these streets where she had walked so often, in the neighborhood where she wandered every evening, she felt she could hardly drag herself along. She was looking straight ahead, but she kept seeing a long row of impenetrable faces. Sometimes she tried to remember and study these faces as if she might pick out and remember the one that was the cause of her sickness now. Her body began to feel so heavy and tired that she did not want to see anything, she did not even want to see the row of bright windows, the rooming houses, or the Cathedral on the corner; she longed to be able to close her eyes tight so she would not keep seeing hundreds of brutal faces and groping for one among them. “What will become of me? What can I do? Who will look after me? Who will pay the bills? Who will keep me?” she kept asking herself. “Maybe if I had got a job a few months ago it would not be like this now, but there was no job. There was nothing. There is nothing really now. No one's walking beside me, there's no street, no sound, there's nothing.” And there seemed to be only darkness and numbness within her and all around her. Out of this darkness came a flicker of life, first a hatred for every one she had taken to the hotel, and then a breathless hope that she would go out that evening and find someone who would want her, who would go away content and then later begin to dread that night and be full of hate for her. But the resentment was so strong in her it could not last. She grew full of fear, dreadfully scared of the mockery she had been making with Ronnie a few minutes ago. “I didn't mean anything, God. If I only could get better, if I only would be
all right afterwards, I'd go away, maybe back to Montreal and live at home. I've always really believed in you, God. I'm just scared now, that's all. Just don't be too hard on me, God.” And as she kept on walking beside Ronnie and Lou, quite clearly she heard them laughing, she felt the night air, she saw the streets again.

In the hotel, when they had thrown off their coats, the three of them were dispirited for a moment, though Lou was still determined to go on burlesquing the priest. This kind of mockery made him very jolly. As he stood in the middle of the floor looking around for something he might use as a stage prop, he grinned and practised raising his heavy eyebrows, shooting them up high on his forehead, then lowering them and bowing his head slightly. He wanted to find something in the room that would look like a Roman collar, but nothing attracted him. In the end he took out his handkerchief, tied it around his neck and looking very much like a gunman he went to the door and pretended to be coming into the room. In a deep, hollow voice, he said, “Am I disturbing you, girls? Go right ahead with whatever you're doing. I'll just sit here and take it all in. I've got my eye on one of you little sisters, but I'm not telling you which one it is. That's a surprise I'm keeping till I get her alone. Let us pray.”

“You don't look like Father Dowling at all, Lou,” Ronnie said. “What do I look like? Take a good look at me.”

“You look like you might be going to hold up a bank.”

“I thought I looked as if I might be going to lift up a skirt.”

As soon as she heard Father Dowling's name, Midge wished he would come that night to see them, and she was not wishing now out of any regret for mockery, or feeling of
uneasiness, but it seemed to her that neither Lou nor Ronnie, nor anybody else but him in the city could understand the way she was feeling.

“Does Lou seem to you to be very funny to-night?” she asked Ronnie. “He's a cute fellow always, I know, but does he seem funny to you?”

“What's the matter with him, Midge? Why have you got your knife in Lou?”

“I'm sick sitting here listening to him. Why don't you tell him to take a run around the block?”

“You know what's the matter with that dame,” Lou said. “She's worried. Count out anything she says. Anyway, who the hell's this Father Dowling? What do you think he's after? What's there in it for him? The trouble with Midge is she just wants to play him herself.”

“You're crazy, Lou. She never asks him for no more than he gives me.”

“How do you know what she's getting out of him? Is she telling you? I don't trust that dame.”

“If you don't get out of here, Lou, I'll throw that bottle at you,” Midge said. “I'm sick listening to you. You come hanging around here cutting in on every penny Ronnie makes and God knows what for. I could never see you for trees. Now get out of here quick.”

But Lou walked over slowly and stood beside her, thinking of beating her as he had once beaten her before when she had caused trouble between him and Ronnie. “I'll smack you, sister. I'll smack you down and give you plenty,” he said solemnly. But Ronnie grabbed hold of him by the arm and said, “Please, Lou, go on out. Do it for me. Can't you see she's feeling bad and things look blue for the poor kid. Go on, honey. She's feeling like a nut now.”

Lou glowered at both of them, then he turned, and, with a lofty contempt for women, he picked up his hat and coat and rushed out without putting them on.

And Ronnie sat down beside Midge and said, “Gee, kid, I wish you wouldn't try and get Lou sore on me. I don't know what I'd do without Lou. I don't want ever to be without him. See, baby?”

“I didn't want to cause any trouble, Ronnie.”

“I know. I know the way you're feeling. You ain't no trouble.”

“You know the way I'm feeling? I don't know as you do. To-day I read my teacup. I saw a ship, or it might have been a tombstone.”

“Aren't you sure it was a ship?”

“I say it might have been a ship but I thought it was a tombstone and that means I'm going to die.”

“How do you know you're going to die? You can't believe in teacups, not in all you see in teacups, but if it was me…”

“If it was you…”

“I'd say, what's the difference, kiddo. Supposing you die, where are you? And supposing you live, where are you? And you can't always go by teacups.”

“That's why I say it might have been a ship. Is that some one at the door?”

“Some one's tapping on the door.”

“Sh, sh, sh, I'll die if I see a soul. I don't want to see a soul.”

“Maybe it's Lou,” Ronnie said.

“It can't be Lou. I know Lou and you know Lou, he'd come right in. Maybe it's the priest.”

“It might be the priest.”

“Then he'll come back. I know the priest.”

“There he goes. I can hear him on the stair.”

“I'm glad he's gone. I want to be alone. I'd like to sit and figure it out. It might have been a ship, but it looked like a tombstone. Sit down, Ronnie, and don't keep listening. Talk and talk and talk to me.”

 

TWELVE

L
ou left the hotel, walking slowly, with his head down, and even if he had to walk all night, he intended to think through the problem clearly. For days he had felt the simplicity, comfort and security of his life being menaced. There had been for a long time a fine orderliness about his life that made him feel honest and almost respectable. As he shuffled along slowly, he couldn't figure out why the priest wanted to disturb a life that had become so pleasant. He felt uneasily that he might lose Ronnie; to-night in the hotel there had been a quarrel about the priest. “I'd like to wring Midge's neck,” he thought. “I never did like her. She's a little snip.”

Lou had never felt so insulted and injured; he longed to go home and talk to his mother and sister, only he felt sure they would look at him dumbly with silent, white faces. The last time he had gone home his mother, a little woman, who was too old to work, had screamed, “You're no son of mine. Lord help me. You're a rebuke from God for some sin of my youth. Get out of here, you scamp.” Then his thin-faced sister, Gertie, had tried to push him out of the house and he had found it necessary to take hold of her by the neck till she had
struggled and panted and in a weak whisper promised to keep her hands off him. Of course, Lou knew his family really loved him. Even on that night, after the shouting and pushing, he had stayed with them for two or three hours, patting his mother's back and kissing her; and he had put his arms around Gertie, too, and finally, after he had talked persuasively a long time, they had begun to understand that it was difficult in these hard times for a young man to find steady employment. They had begun to speak tenderly; they had wanted to loan him money. His mother, breathing hard and saying, “Dear, oh dear, where did I put it?” had hunted all over the house for her purse, and Gertie had run upstairs and come down eagerly with a smile and a two-dollar bill.

But Lou knew that if he went home now, they would try again to keep him out of the house. Instead of thinking about his family, he began to remember with a wonder and tenderness the first time he had ever met Ronnie. Two years ago it was; a pal of his, phoning him at three o'clock in the morning, had got him out of bed and the friend had said he was at a party, where there was a girl who felt sure she would like Lou just from hearing them all talking about him. “I've been telling her about you, Lou. She wants a fellow and she thinks you sound mighty fine. She wants a fellow with class and plenty of nerve.” Lou had got dressed and had gone to the party and had met Ronnie. Lou was not surprised to learn that the girl had heard so many fine stories about him; he was really astonished to find that he liked her so very much.

“We just seemed to be thrown together by what you might call fate. Just like two peas in a pod,” he thought. “So I'm not going to stand for anybody cutting in.” Walking with his shoulders held so that his whole body was leaning back, he felt like a strong, powerful man. Though he stared defiantly at
anybody who noticed him, he remained puzzled and worried. Never in his life had he felt so indignant, and there was such strength within him that he forgot he was a little fellow, and said, “I'll see this thing right through, myself.”

When he crossed the road at the corner, heading for the club over the restaurant, the light shone on his sober, worried face and threw a long shadow of him on the road, with one hand in his pocket, his narrow shoulders still thrust back.

In the poolroom he went from one table to another, staring at the green surfaces of the tables under the pyramids of white light, grinning at friends, passing on restlessly till at last he sat down all alone on the bench by the wall. He hardly looked up even when some one spoke to him. Here he was a man whom everybody respected. He never asked assistance; no one was a better pool player; he was never in trouble with the police; he was a little man, but very tough and afraid of nobody, who sat there facing a problem as if he knew the high regard his friends had for him, and it was an obligation to preserve this respect. A big man in a peak cap, Red Hertz, an old friend with two or three women on a string, and vast experience with all kinds of trouble, came up and sat down beside him and tried to talk about the horses, but Lou shook his head ruthlessly and went on making his plan. Then he got up slowly, smiled very coldly at Red Hertz, said, “I'll be seeing you,” and was thinking, “I'll talk right to that priest's face and let him know where he stands. I've got my life, and he's got his. Everything used to go along smoothly enough.”

Once again he looked around at his friends; not one could help him; not one of them had ever faced such a situation. So he left the poolroom, touching his hat as a polite gesture to two fellows who called out to him, and went out to the street, breathing much easier because there was a sound plan building
itself up in his head. On the way back to the hotel he walked almost sedately, feeling like a very competent man.

The proprietor, who saw him coming in, beckoned to him. “Come here, Lou,” he called. Mr. Baer, a man Lou admired, who had never been arrested for anything, had a very quiet manner, a cynical smile and talked usually in a whisper that sometimes got hoarse, but was always confidential. From the girls he firmly took money for the rooms, but still, if they had a bad week, he was not insistent, he gave them credit, and in this way kept them contented and yet always in debt to him. He never lost money, because he was such a good judge of a girl's character.

“What do you want, Mr. Baer?” he asked.

“You'd better not go upstairs. That priest is up there.”

“That's fine,” Lou said flatly. “Then I'm going up. He's the guy I want to see.”

“What's the use of making trouble?”

“I'll not make trouble, only those girls may start taking him seriously. Then where do I come in? Where do you come in? I'm not the guy to take that lying down.”

“I'm laughing, Lou. There's no chance of that.”

“It would be fine if they didn't, but I don't like the look of him. You can't tell about priests. I don't like priests.”

“Hey, Lou, come here. You're a sensible guy, a man like myself, that's why I like you. Listen to this. Don't make any trouble around here, and get this into your head. It's all the same to me whether they take a rabbit or a priest or a czar of Russia up there, so long as they make it pay. Do you see?”

Lou still felt strong and eager and capable of developing his own plan, but he glanced at Mr. Baer very cautiously and said, “Maybe you're right.” So he did not go upstairs. He began to see that it was better to have Ronnie get as much
money as she could from the priest, and while he smiled coldly at Mr. Baer, he began to weigh the profit from the transaction against the possibility of the priest persuading Ronnie to leave him. “I don't know what I'd do without the kid now. We're used to each other,” he thought uneasily.

Then he grinned all over his face as he remembered suddenly, “Say, what would she do without me? What on earth would the kid do without me? She'd be weaker than a kitten.” So then he felt absolutely sure of her and he smiled, showing his teeth, and stuck out his chest and began to swagger out to the street. He felt very strong and sure of himself again. He enjoyed this new strong feeling of security all the way back to the poolroom.