Part 25 (2/2)
THE GERMAN OFFICER: But this is all speculation. We do not know that his s.e.xuality is the cause of his bifurcation.
THE POET: Nor do we know that he is in fact bifurcated. We know nothing about him. If we did, we shouldn't need to speculate.
THE GERMAN OFFICER: But I believe that this exercise of yours could become a dangerous undertaking. To add one unverified-and unverifiable-hypothesis to another is not, I think, the way to discover truth.
THE POET: And yet we do it every day, all of us. We live our lives amid a wilderness of unverified hypotheses. About the world, about our fellow man, about ourselves. I merely suggest that for a moment we do so deliberately, and see where it leads us.
THE GERMAN OFFICER: Into great troubles, I fear.
THE POET (smiling, unfazed): Those are the only sort worth troubling over. So, let us a.s.sume that the man is unconscious of this other self. And let us a.s.sume that this other self is, in some way, his own tormented s.e.xuality. Let us a.s.sume that he has walled it off because he is positively terrified of the s.e.xual side of his nature.
THE JOURNALIST (rudely interrupting): Well, that lets me out. He slaps his stomach vulgarly and leers at the Countess.
THE POET (suavely ignoring all this): The question then becomes, what would cause him to take such an extraordinary psychological step? What would cause him to so fear his own s.e.xuality?
THE DISCIPLE (blurting it out):His parents.
All heads turn toward the young man, who blushes and flutters his eyelashes, as though himself startled by his statement, or as though embarra.s.sed at having interrupted the Poet's methodical Socratic presentation.
THE DISCIPLE (rather defensively): Well, it's obvious, isn't it? I mean, they're the ones who give approval from the start. Or who don't. And if they disapproved strongly enough, of the way he was, if they were really vicious about it, wouldn't that somehow change him?
For an embarra.s.sed moment no one says a word. It is as if all the others share, with the Poet, the feeling that the Disciple has revealed more about himself and his own family life, and more about his own s.e.xuality, than he intended to. It is the Countess who comes to the young man's rescue.
THE COUNTESS: I think that I should agree. I spoke of this yesterday with Marshal Greegsby. I think that madness of this sort, perhaps of any sort, can be traced back to the early years of life. But I believe that the important element in this matter is viciousness. The more physically brutal are the parents, the more likely they are to produce brutality in their offspring. I have seen this happen, many times.
THE POET: What, then, of Gilles de Rais? He appeared perfectly normal until the death of Joan of Arc. It was only after this that he embarked upon a life of utter wickedness and depravity.
THE BUSINESSMAN (looking confused): Who was Jeels da Ray?
THE POET (lucidly explaining): A knight of France. He was evidently in love with Joan. After the English burned her at the stake-an old English tradition, one that they have never really forgiven themselves for abolis.h.i.+ng-Gilles retired to his estate and began a career of really quite astonis.h.i.+ng cruelty. He tortured young peasant boys, hundreds of them, apparently, and then, with the help of his servants, savagely raped and murdered them.
THE BUSINESSMAN (looking ill): Aw, jeez. Aw, come on, Oscar.
THE COUNTESS: But we know nothing of the early years of Gilles de Rais. Perhaps he had been brutally ill treated himself. Perhaps his madness lay dormant until the shock of Joan's death.
THE POET: I've always believed, about Gilles, that after Joan's death he became not so much mad as unmoored. What sort of a world was it, I think he asked himself, whose G.o.d could allow the execution of a woman he loved, a woman who had saved France, a woman he believed to be a saint? I believe that by his wickedness he was trying to determine the limits, the boundaries, of this new universe. And perhaps the same might be true of our murderer. Perhaps he too is testing for, probing at, the limits of his world.
THE GERMAN OFFICER: Murder as a philosophical inquiry? But Mr. Wilde, you cannot have it both ways. You cannot on the one hand a.s.sume an insane hidden self, and then a.s.sume that this hidden self is conducting an investigation into the nature of reality.
THE POET: I a.s.sume nothing. I merely, for a time, play with an idea or two. (Ideas being, at the moment, all the Poet has to play with.) THE JOURNALIST: This is garbage. (Heads turn.) First of all, you don't know anything about this murderer. You said so yourself. You haven't got a single fact to start making up theories with.
THE POET: Facts would only confuse us.
This clever sally is met with a gratifying set of smiles from the Countess, the German Officer, and the Disciple. The Businessman still looks fairly ill.
THE JOURNALIST: Second, it looks to me like you're all forgetting that what you're talking about here is one of us. Me, or von Hesse, or Vail, or Rudd.i.c.k, or you, Wilde. Everyone's being real civilized and sophisticated about it, but what you're all saying is that one of us is a murderer. A killer. You can really believe that after we've been together all this time?
THE GERMAN OFFICER: It has not been actually for long, Mr. O'Conner. A few weeks is hardly time enough for any human being to know another. An entire life, perhaps, is not time enough.
THE JOURNALIST (speaking with a vehemence and a venom that seem uncalled for): I don't buy that. I think you can size a person up, good or bad, in a couple of hours. And I don't buy this ”hidden self” thing either. I think this guy, whoever he is, and I don't think he's one of us, is killing these women just because he wants to. You don't need any fancy psychological theories to figure him out. Killing is what he does. It's what he wants to do. But if you really buy the idea that he's one of us, then you'd be better off forgetting theories, and start trying to decide what you're going to do about it. And it looks to me like there's nothing you can do about it. Nothing at all.
THE GERMAN OFFICER (quietly): There is one possibility. (Heads turn once again. The Poet is reminded of spectators at a tennis match.) We could divide ourselves into pairs. Each of us would remain, at all times, with his a.s.signed partner. This way, at least, none of us would have an opportunity to commit any further atrocities.
THE JOURNALIST (with another leer): Great. I'll take the Countess.
THE BUSINESSMAN: Hey!
THE GERMAN OFFICER(faintly smiling): What you suggest is impossible. And Countess de la Mole is of course beyond suspicion.
THE JOURNALIST: Why? You don't know anything about this killer. If it could be one of us, it could just as easily be the Countess.
THE BUSINESSMAN: Listen, O'Conner, I'm warning you- THE JOURNALIST (disgustedly): Ah, forget it. Pairing up is a crazy idea anyway. Think about it. Who wants to spend the rest of the tour shackled to anybody here? (Yet another leer.) Except to the Countess, naturally. And the other thing is, if I really believed that one of you was a murderer, I for d.a.m.n sure wouldn't want to sleep in the same room with any of you.
THE GERMAN OFFICER: The killer has never struck against a man.
THE JOURNALIST (once again speaking with an untoward vehemence, as though interpreting the German Officer's remark asa personal attack): How do we know that? Maybe there are dead men rotting away back in El Paso and San Francisco. Maybe they haven't been found yet, or maybe Grigsby just doesn't know about them. And even if this guy hasn't killed a man, so far, how do you know that he's not gonna start? How do we know that one night he's not gonna go even crazier and kill his roommate, just so he can go out and kill another woman? You don't know it. Like I said, you don't know anything. Do any of you really want to take a risk like that?
The Disciple and the Businessman look at one another and then, in unison, their glances fall away.
THE GERMAN OFFICER: I would of course accept this risk.
The Journalist snorts and opens his flask to take a drink.
THE JOURNALIST: Yeah, but who's gonna accept it with you? More silence. No one moves. The German Officer looks at the others and, after a moment, sadly frowns. And the Poet abruptly realizes that although the trip may continue, although they may all remain together over the countless miles that stretch from here to New York City, the tour as it has been const.i.tuted-seven people sharing meals and transport and time and also a simple, a commonplace, really a rather ba.n.a.l belief: a belief in the essential humanity of one another-all that is over. The killer, whoever he is, has killed this as well.
And killed, too, this particular dramatic piece. Pity. Exeunt the Poet, pursued by a bear.
AFTER DOCTOR BOYNTON LEFT Grigsby's office, Grigsby walked out into the anteroom and strapped on his gun. Behind him, Carver Peckingham swung his long legs down to the floor and lowered his chair-quietly, maybe thinking that if he did it softly enough, Grigsby wouldn't notice that his feet had been perched atop the desk.
”You goin' out again, Marshal?” Carver asked him.
”Yeah.” He pulled the sheepskin coat up over his shoulders and turned to the deputy. ”I'm not gonna be back again today, prob'ly, and tomorrow I'm goin' outta town. You mind the store for me, okay, Carver?”
Carver was leaning forward eagerly in his chair. ”Sure, Marshal. Where you goin'?”
”Not sure yet.” Best that Carver didn't know. The deputy couldn't tell a lie to save his life, and tomorrow, one way or another, Greaves would be looking for Grigsby.
Grigsby looked around the anteroom, glanced at the door to his office, and wondered whether he'd ever see any of it again.
He turned to Carver. ”Greaves'll maybe give you a hard time tomorrow.”
When he discovered Grigsby gone tomorrow, Greaves would think that he'd run out. That bothered Grigsby some, Greaves thinking he'd turned yellow. But with all the tour members, including the killer, leaving town, Grigsby knew he had to follow them.
Another thing. Maybe Judge Sheldon would be able to get Grigsby recalled tomorrow, and maybe he wouldn't. But if he did manage it, the only way Grigsby might be able to get his job back (which maybe he'd want to, and maybe he wouldn't) was to figure out who the killer was.
Carver smiled up at him. ”Don't you worry none, Marshal. I can take care of myself.”
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