"There's some cigarettes under here and a book of matches. You want them or not?"
"No," I said.
She sucked them in. I had no idea what time it was. My fingernails in the machine. The hair of my belly and balls curled in the sheets in the hallway. She attached a small brush to the pipe and cleaned the blinds.
"That's a Vaculux, isn't it? My father used to handle that account. That was years ago. He's growing a beard now. Just the thought of it makes me uncomfortable."
"I just do my job," she said.
She left quietly then, one more irrelevant thing that would not go unremembered. My feet were still up on the chair. Inaction is the beginning of that kind of knowledge which has as its final end the realization that no action is necessary. It works forward to itself and then back again and there is nothing more relaxing and sweet. The chambermaid had left the door open and Sullivan was standing there in her gypsy trenchcoat. We smiled at each other. If I stayed in that chair long enough they would all come to me, chancellors, prefects, commissioners, dignitaries, wanting to know what I knew that could be of use.
"Come to view the body?" I said.
"May I sit down?"
"Please."
She sat at the head of the bed, on the pillow, imitating the characteristics of my own posture, knees high and tight, hands folded over them. Above her on the wall-a gap between the printed words-was a lithograph of an Indian paddling a canoe on a mountain lake. I have said much earlier that in describing Sullivan I would try to avoid analogy but at that moment she seemed herself an Indian, an avenging squaw who would descend the hill after battle to tear out the tongues of dead troopers so they would not be able to enjoy the buffalo meat of the spirit world. Daughter of Black Knife she seemed, a workmanlike piece of murder.
"I hope you didn't miss me this morning, David. I couldn't sleep so I walked back out to the camper. I didn't think you'd mind."
"What took place? What occurred or happened? It seems to have slipped my mind."
"It stopped raining and the fantasies came out to play. Your home movie had put you in a state of anguish. I tried to console you. You wanted to be drenched in sin and so I made it my business to help you along. Old friends have obligations to each other. David, I truly love you and hate you. I love you because you're a beautiful thing and a good boy. You're more innocent than a field mouse and I don't believe you have any evil in you, if that's possible. And I hate you because you're sick. Illness to a certain point inspires pity. Beyond that point it becomes hateful. It becomes very much like a personal insult. One wishes to destroy the sickness by destroying the patient. You're such a lovable cliche, my love, and I do hope you've found the center of your sin, although I must say that nothing we did last night struck me as being so terribly odd."
"Kiss my ass," I said.
"Do you need any money?"
"Brand tell you to ask me that?"
"He said you were running low. I have some. We're bound to bump into each other again. You can pay me back then."
"I can manage, Sully."
"Where are you going?"
"West, I guess."
"I hate to think of you all alone out there, David. Honest, I really do love you in my own spidery way. You'll have no one to talk to. And no one to play games with. And the distances are vast. We're parked right across the street. Come with us."
"Where?"
"Back to Maine. Then home."
"What about Brand? Will he stay in Maine?"
"He hasn't decided," she said. "It all depends on his auntie Mildred. If she comes across with some money he may try Mexico. Otherwise he goes back to the garage. His only real hope is to return to combat. I've suggested he re-enlist. I'm convinced it's the only way he'll survive. You've got to confront the demons here and now. Right, leftenant?"
"There aren't any demons bothering me," I said. "My problem is immense, as we both know, but it's strictly an ethnic one. I don't have any Jewish friends. How do you know so much about Brand?"
"He tells me things."
"Has he told you about his novel? The Great American Sheaf of Blank Paper."
"He whispered the sad details."
"When was this?" I said.
"That very first night in Maine."
"I don't seem to remember you two being alone at any point in the evening."
"He came into the room."
"The one you and I were sleeping in?"
"Yes."
"I see."
"And he knelt by my bed and whispered things to me. Sad little things. He wanted me to know the truth. I guess he thought it would make for a happier trip. I gave him absolution of course."
"And then you moved over and let him get into bed with you."
"That's correct," she said.
"And I was right across the room. A deep sleep it was indeed. And you two have been swinging ever since?"
"Here and there."
"I see."
"Yes," she said.
"What I don't understand are the logistics of the thing. How did you manage it?"
"We grasped at every fleeting opportunity. It was like the springtime of urgent love. While we were on the road it wasn't at all easy. Things picked up when we got here."
"What about Pike?"
"Guard duty," she said.
"And the first time was that night in Maine and I was right across the room."
"It was really quite funny, David. You were snoring like Lyndon Baines Johnson."
"I don't snore. I do not fucking snore."
What followed had its aspects of burlesque humor, a touch of stylized sadism, bits of old tent shows and the pie in the face. I swung my legs over the arm of the chair and pushed myself up over it and onto the floor. Sullivan got off the bed and we were both standing now. In her soiled torn trenchcoat she seemed to belong in a demonstration thirty years overdue.
"Wait here," I said. "I want to take leave of the others. Handclasp of manly comrades. We'll drink to destiny."
"And what will you and I drink to, David?"
"My health, of course."
I climbed into the back of the camper. Pike and Brand were playing gin rummy. Pike was talking about the dingo dogs of Australia and he did not look up when I came in. I stood behind him, put my hands on his shoulders and squeezed very hard. Finally he had to stop talking.
"The lady wants you."
"What for?" he said.
"Room 211. You'd better haul ass, colonel."
He got up slowly and left and I took his folding chair, turning it around first so that my crossed arms rested on its back as I faced Brand across the small table. He was wearing a khaki fatigue jacket. I was wearing rugged corduroy trousers and a blue workshirt.
"She told me," I said.
"Who told you what?"
"Sully told me that you two have been playing doctor and nursey."
"So what."
"That took balls when you consider that we're old friends, you and I, and she was with me if not in name then certainly by implication."
"Balls help," he said.
"I've known her for years. You can't just move in like that."