“French logic is very simple. Whatever the French do is logical because the French are doing it. That’s the really unbeatable advantage French logic has over all others.”
“I see,” she said, and laughed again. “I hope you read the play before your friend consulted the stars. Is it a good part?”
“It’s the best part,” he said, after a moment, “that I’ve ever had.”
Again, briefly, he heard the typewriter bell. Cass lit a cigarette, offered one to Eric, and lit it for him. “Are you going to settle here now, or are you planning to go back, or what?”
“I don’t,” he said, quickly, “have any plans for going back, a lot — maybe everything — depends on what happens with this play.”
She sensed his retreat, and took her tone from him. “Oh. I’d love to come and watch rehearsals. I’d run out and get coffee for you, and things like that. It would make me feel that I’d contributed to your triumph.”
“Because you’re sure it’s going to be a triumph,” he said, smiling. “Wonderful Cass. I guess it’s a habit great men’s wives get into.”
Weeping and crying, tears falling on the ground.
The atmosphere between them stiffened a little, nevertheless, with their knowledge of why he had allowed his career in New York to lapse for so long. Then he allowed himself to think of opening night, and he thought, Yves will be here. This thought exalted him and made him feel safe. He did not feel safe now, sitting here alone with Cass; he had not felt safe since stepping off the boat. His ears ached for the sound of Yves’ footfalls beside him: until he heard this rhythm, all other sounds were meaningless. Weeping and crying, tears falling on the ground. All other faces were obliterated for him by the blinding glare of Yves’ absence. He looked over at Cass, longing to tell her about Yves, but not daring, not knowing how to begin.
“Great men’s wives, indeed!” said Cass. “How I’d love to explode that literary myth.” She looked at him, gravely sipping her whiskey, without seeming to taste it. When I got to the end, I was so worried down. “You seem very sure of yourself,” she said.
“I do?” He was profoundly astonished and pleased. “I don’t feel very sure of myself.”
“I remember you before you went away. You were miserable then. We all wondered—I wondered — what would become of you. But you aren’t miserable now.”
“No,” he said, and, under her scrutiny, blushed. “I’m not miserable any more. But I still don’t know what’s going to become of me.”
“Growth,” she said, “is what will become of you. It’s what has become of you.” And she gave him again her oddly intimate, rueful smile. “It’s very nice to see, it’s very — enviable. I don’t envy many people. I haven’t found myself envying anyone for a long, long time.”
“It’s mighty funny,” he said, “that you should envy me.” He rose from the sofa, and walked to the window. Behind him, beneath the mighty lament of the music, a heavy silence gathered: Cass, also, had something to talk about, but he did not want to know what it was. You can’t trust nobody, you might as well be alone. Staring out over the water, he asked, “What was Rufus like — near the end?”
After a moment, he turned and looked at her. “I hadn’t meant to ask you that — but I guess I really want to know.”
Her face, despite the softening bangs, grew spare and contemplative. Her lips twisted. “I told you a little of it,” she said, “in my letter. But I didn’t know how you felt by that time and I didn’t see any point in burdening you.” She put out her cigarette and lit another one. “He was very unhappy, as — as you know.” She paused. “Actually, we never got very close to him. Vivaldo knew him better than — than we did, anyway.” He felt a curious throb of jealousy: Vivaldo! “We didn’t see much of him. He became very involved with a Southern girl, a girl from Georgia—”
Found my long lost friend, and I might as well stayed at home!
“You didn’t tell me that,” he said.
“No. He wasn’t very nice to her. He beat her up a lot—”
He stared at her, feeling himself grow pale, remembering more than he wanted to remember, feeling his hope and his hope of safety threatened by invincible, unnamed forces within himself. He remembered Rufus’ face, his hands, his body, and his voice, and the constant humiliation. “Beat her up? What for?”
“Well — who knows? Because she was Southern, because she was white. I don’t know. Because he was Rufus. It was very ugly. She was a nice girl, maybe a little pathetic—”
“Did she like to be beaten up? I mean — did something in her like it, did she like to be — debased?”
“No, I don’t think so. I really don’t think so. Well, maybe there’s something in everybody that likes to be debased, but I don’t think life’s that simple. I don’t trust all these formulas.” She paused. “To tell the truth, I think she probably loved Rufus, really loved him, and wanted Rufus to love her.”
“How abnormal,” he said, “can you get!” He finished his drink.
A very faint, wry amusement crossed her face. “Anyway, their affair dragged on from bad to worse and she was finally committed to an institution—”
“You mean, a madhouse?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In the South. Her family came and got her.”
“My God,” he said. “Go on.”
“Well, then, Rufus disappeared — for quite a long time, that’s when I met his sister, she came to see us, looking for him — and came back once, and—died.” Helplessly, she opened one bony hand, then closed it into a fist.
Eric turned back to the window. “A Southern girl,” he said. He felt a very dull, very distant pain. It all seemed very long ago, that gasping and trembling, freezing and burning time. The pain was distant now because it had scarcely been bearable then. It could not really be recollected because it had become a part of him. Yet, the power of this pain, though diminished, was not dead: Rufus’ face again appeared before him, that dark face, with those dark eyes and curving, heavy lips. It was the face of Rufus when he had looked with love on Eric. Then, out of hiding, leapt his other faces, the crafty, cajoling face of desire, the remote face of desire achieved. Then, for a second, he saw Rufus’ face as he stared on death, and saw his body hurtling downward through the air: into that water, the water which stretched before him now. The old pain receded into the home it had made in him. But another pain, homeless as yet, began knocking at his heart — not for the first time: it would force an entry one day, and remain with him forever. Catch them. Don’t let them blues in here. They shakes me in my bed, can’t sit down in my chair.
“Let me fix you a fresh drink,” Cass said.
“Okay.” She took his glass. As she walked to the bar, he said, “You knew about us, I guess? I guess everybody knew — though we thought we were being so smart, and all. And, of course, he always had a lot of girls around.”
“Well, so did you,” she said. “In fact, I vaguely remember that you were thinking of getting married at one point.”
He took his drink from the bar, and paced the room. “Yes. I haven’t thought of her in a long time, either.” He paused and grimaced sourly. “That’s right, I certainly did have a few girls hanging around. I hardly even remember their names.” As he said this, the names of two or three old girl friends flashed into his mind. “I haven’t thought about them for years.” He came back to the sofa, and sat down. Cass watched him from the bar. “I might,” he said, painfully, “have had them around just on account of Rufus — trying to prove something, maybe, to him and to myself.”