But it was late. She was in no condition to recognize signs such as these, and in no mood to heed them. Shrugging off the darkness that had settled upon the street, she pushed her way inside and moved wearily down the hall.
She felt cheated. Buddy had not shown up tonight, nor had she been able to reach him by telephone. The party had proved enjoyable enough without him – she had known most of the people there and had given her phone number to one of the host's friends who'd been eyeing her all evening and had come to her near the end – but afterward, on the cab ride home, she had grown depressed again, weighed down by a vague sense of betrayal. Carol was away for the weekend, all excited over some guy she hadn't even slept with, and for the first time in months she and Buddy could have had the apartment to themselves without the need to keep their lovemaking out of Carol's sight or to endure her lonely envy. Instead, she was coming home alone; the night was all but wasted.
The streetlamp by her doorway had been dead almost a week. The moon had long been lost behind the rooftops. Her mind still fogged by alcohol, she had overtipped the driver and stumbled from the cab, bruising her knee as she stepped down. She paused now in the middle of the hall to rub it, then walked blindly on. Something shrank within her as she remembered what awaited her upstairs, the dark and silent rooms, the emptiness beside her in the bed.
Turning toward the elevator, she nearly tripped again over a shapeless bundle of rags that, hidden by shadow, had been heaped up against the rear wall. She mouthed a curse. Just as soon as she got the money together she was going to move out of this rat hole. She'd had enough of garbage in the halls.
As she pulled open the elevator's scarred black metal door, the bundle rose and followed her inside.
She turned, her stupor lifting, to find a gaunt and wrinkled old woman beside her, filthy-looking and impossibly stooped, the back bent almost double. The face, too, was averted, as if in deference or fear, but by the light of the one bare bulb that dangled from the ceiling Rochelle made out a mass of stringy hair, deep creases and discolorations in the skin, and, clenched as if praying, a pair of plump little hands. It was the hands that bothered her most.
Pressing the button for her floor, she edged away. The metal door slid shut. 'Do you belong here?' she heard herself demand. Her voice was harsh within the little car.
The figure made no answer. But as the car jerked upward, something stirred beneath its rags.
'I asked you a question!' snapped Rochelle. 'If you don't belong here-'
She gasped. The figure had turned toward her and was beginning to straighten up. Overhead, with an almost audible pop, the bulb in the ceiling winked out. There was time for one brief, desperate scream that echoed through the blackness of the car – and then the plump little hands closed over her throat.
The night was filled with the sound of crickets, a vast and mindless machine grinding without end. Lightning bugs gleamed above the grass. Bats darted under the eaves of the barn. In the light from the kitchen the apple tree's branches were bright against the darkness.
Freirs looked disconsolately toward the sky, wondering, now that it was too late, if he should have asked Carol to come out for a stroll. But it was not a time for strolling; the night was dark and unpleasant, the moon half concealed behind clouds. And anyway, how obvious it would have been to resort to such a ruse, and how humiliating if she turned him down.
No, there'd been nothing he could say or do – not in front of the Poroths. There was no way he could have invited her out. It would have seemed too much like pleading.
Brooding over the patronizing little peck on the cheek she'd given him, he slunk back to his room.
Somehow I didn't think I'd be writing this tonight. I suppose I had visions of Carol with me, beside me, all night long… Instead she's up there in the farmhouse right now, about to sleep the sleep of the virtuous in that tacky little room, while I'm alone out here, scribbling the night away in this goddamned journal amp; trying to lose myself in the dubious consolations of prose.
It's probably my own fault. She was probably embarrassed to do anything in front of the Poroths, amp; I didn't encourage her enough And maybe she really was tired…
If only I'd asserted myself more. If only I hadn't behaved like such a goddamned gentleman, she'd be here beside me now. Wish to hell she didn't have to go back to the city tomorrow.
And now I've also got a headache, thanks, no doubt, to Rosie's wine.
Damn.
He took out his anger on the bugs. He spent half an hour going over his room, spray can in hand, looking for them.
He found them, too. As many times as he'd gone over the room -the corners by the ceiling, the spaces around the window frames, the cracks beneath the sills – he always found new ones. There was no keeping them out.
Whenever he saw an insect, he blasted it with the spray. Spiders, doused with it, curled up like men in despair, clutching their knees; he almost could have felt sorry for them, if only their brown legs hadn't been so hairy and their eyes so cruel. He blasted some large beetles that were clinging to the screens, trying to push their way in; they convulsed and dropped away, disappearing. He watched a lot of daddy longlegs curl up and die, and fat, bloated caterpillars wriggle. He tended not to kill the moths out there – they seemed so vulnerable, so hopeful, like humans, striving toward the light beyond the screen, bodies pale against the surrounding darkness -unless their banging annoyed him.
The ones he really liked, however, were the fireflies; he felt a little sorry when he sprayed a few by mistake as they clung to the wire. When he sprayed them, they'd glow, and that cold light wouldn't wink off, it would just keep glowing, glowing much too long, till at last it faded away.
Thais the only clue, he decided. The dead ones don't wink.
At that moment, the singing began. He could hear it from the farmhouse, coming faintly through the night. The Poroths were going through their hymns.
He had heard them do this before: their evening devotions, they called it. But he'd never heard them singing as late as this, and never with such intensity. They must be atoning for the glass or two of wine, he decided. Big sin!
'Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,
Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt,
Yonder on Calvary's mount outpoured,
There where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.'
The rug had been rolled up; Sarr and Deborah were on their knees on the bare plank floor, watched by three of the cats. Their hands were clasped before them; their eyes were shut tight. They seemed to be beseeching something they could see inside their heads.
'Dark is the stain that we cannot hide,
What can avail to wash it away?'
Their voices rose louder and louder as they worked themselves into the song.
'Look! there is flowing a crimson tide;
Whiter than snow you may be today.'
Briefly Sarr thought of Carol in the next room; her crimson hair would be pressed against the whiteness of the pillow.
'Grace, grace, God's grace,
Grace that will pardon and cleanse within…'
He threw himself into the song, singing all the louder to regain the feeling that was gone.
'Grace, grace, God's grace,
Grace that is greater than all of our sin.'
Carol had been almost asleep when the singing started. She roused for a moment, but she was so tired – curious, she couldn't remember the last time she'd been so tired – that moments later she was slipping again into sleep, incorporating the words of the hymn into her dream.