She didn’t know why she spoke, except that it seemed insane, not human, for him to go off like that without a word and for her to lie silent watching him go. All she said was:
“You might as well say goodbye.”
Nearly to the door he turned and looked at her, his shoulders pulled down by the heavy bags.
“I’m leaving an overcoat and two suits; I haven’t room for them,” he said. “I’ll send someone for them tomorrow. Why should I say goodbye? I don’t want to say anything to you, goodbye or anything else.”
His tone was incredible; Lora shivered at it, struck by an odd uncomfortable fancy: it was as if a man done to death, rotting in his coffin, should suddenly, at sight of his murderer, open his mouth to let the fumes of his defeated hate mingle with the other unpleasant odors suitable to the circumstances. She shivered and said nothing, though an instant before it had occurred to her to say this at least, “I have three dollars and the rent will be due day after tomorrow.” Surely she could say that much; but it remained uncertain whether she would actually have got it out before he disappeared, for just as he put down one of the suitcases to reach for the knob the doorbell rang sharply, startling them both. He pulled the door open, and a girl stepped in; it was Janet Poole from the flat below. She stood there glaring at Steve, small and dark, sharp-featured, her little black eyes pinning him to his spot.
“You’re a lousy bastard,” she said with certitude.
“Get out of my way,” Steve said, picking up the other suitcase.
“Good god,” she went on, “if they squirted skunk-juice all over you it would be a big improvement.” She turned to Lora. “Do you know what? Anne’s down at the door waiting for him; they’re going off. I don’t know which is worse, leaving you like this or taking that poor kid — it’ll be something to think about while I knit. From this day on I’m either a Lesbian or a nun, I don’t care which; if you ever catch me with a man again you can geld me without even a local; I’ll watch it with pleasure.”
Steve was trying to push past her but, hampered by the suitcases, couldn’t make it.
“If I don’t spit on you,” she continued, feet spread out, refusing to budge, “it’s only because I’m a little particular about my excretions. What am I doing? Relieving my mind. I’ve been trying to hammer sense into her, and it’s no use. She must have necrophilia.”
Lora was thinking, all I need to do is tell her how Steve got exempted from the draft. Ha, wouldn’t she jump on that though! All right, I’ll tell her, why shouldn’t I? Then I wouldn’t have to worry; it would take him about one minute to get the suitcases unpacked and his bathrobe back on the door. He must be crazy, he knows very well I could do that just with one word to her, or anyone, and it would be all up.
She said nothing. Janet Poole was still paying her respects to Steve in her colorful and expressive idiom, until all at once he charged, head-on, with the suitcases held in front of him for battering-rams, knocking her into the hall with some violence, but without apparent injury, for she continued to relieve her mind. Lora could hear him lumbering downstairs, with Janet’s unceasing fire following him from the landing. Then there was a pause, during which all other sounds were lost beneath Janet’s voice now raised to a shout, and finally there came from below the slam and rattle of the outer door closing, and all was suddenly silent.
Janet appeared in the open door.
“Shall I stay?” she asked abruptly.
Lora shook her head. “Please not now.”
“All right. See you later.”
She reached in to close the door, and then was gone.
XI
Lora, lying on the couch in precisely the same position as when Steve had entered a brief fifteen minutes earlier, heard faintly through the closed door the quick nervous rhythm of Janet’s footsteps descending the stairs. Then her ears, despoiled of that diversion, caught at other sounds: other tenants’ voices that came from the court through the open window in the bedroom, the pattering of an animal’s feet — she had never known whether it was a cat or a small dog — on the floor above which topped her ceiling, the rumble of a distant elevated train, the confused medley from the street. For a while nothing was alive but her ears; she had no thoughts or feelings, not even the feeling of herself as a phenomenon; she was neither conscious nor unconscious.
Then she stirred and turned over on her side, and the sounds all at once ceased to exist; her brain awoke. “How do you do,” she said aloud, “you’ve done it this time, haven’t you, darling.” A thought darted at her: how about Steve’s overcoat and two suits? He wore good clothes; the tailor at the corner could probably get a good price for them. Or what about his false information to the draft board? Weren’t rewards offered for things like that? Momentarily the idea diverted her, and she smiled into space; then, frowning, she turned to serious considerations. She might get a loan from Janet Poole, or Mrs. Crosby at the tea-room, or even Mr. Pitkin. She pictured herself making the request, and her frown deepened; she would almost rather steal than borrow; however, it was just as well to have the possibilities in mind in case of desperate emergency. Surely there were other means.
Again she spoke aloud, more for the companionship of her own voice than anything else. “Money is the root of all evil,” she said clearly and distinctly. Ha, it hasn’t any roots, she thought, it’s like that plant in the picture in geography in school which went crawling around through trees without any roots of its own. It was in school too that she had written the sentence, money is the root of all evil, in a clear round hand which, according to the teacher, however legible she might painfully make it, never did sufficiently slant.
I still write that way, she thought, only I almost never write.
The chief difference between her school days and the present, she reflected, was that then other people had always been on hand to point out her mistakes, whereas now she had to find them out for herself. Childhood, so it seemed, had been nothing but an endless process of fresh discoveries of the remarkable and often bewildering boundaries of the permissible. The hardest part of it had been the unbelievable confusion: a thing perfectly all right in one place was utterly wrong in another; actions strictly prohibited in school were overlooked, even encouraged, at home. It changed with people, too; one teacher would smile indulgently at something which another severely reprimanded. And as for time, that was the most confusing of all; you never knew today whether yesterday’s rules still held, you simply had to try it out and see; whereas on Tuesday Mother snatched the scissors out of your hand the minute you picked them up, on Wednesday she sat and placidly read a book while you clipped all the arms and legs off your paper dolls. In the end you felt despairingly that the jungle of complications was much too vast and intricate for any exploration you might attempt; you gave up all idea of rules and fastened a wary eye on each situation as it presented itself. That simplified the problem enormously; if Mother’s face looked like this, for instance, you let the scissors alone; if like that, you used them for any reasonable purpose that occurred to you. Obviously, the point was Mother’s face, not the scissors at all.