Part 5 (1/2)

It was foggy on Bunker Hill, but not downtown. The streets were deserted, and the sound of her heels on the sidewalk echoed among the old buildings. She tugged my arm and I bent down to hear what she wanted to whisper.

95.'You're going to be so marvellous!' she said. 'So wonderful!'

I said, 'Let's forget it now. Let's just walk.”

She wanted a drink. She insisted upon it. She opened her purse and waved a ten dollar bill. 'Look. Money! I have lots of money!'

We walked down to Solomon's Bar on the corner, where I played the pin games. n.o.body was there but Solomon, who stood with his chin in his hands, worried about business. We walked to a booth facing the front window, and I waited for her to sit down, but she insisted I get in first. Solomon walked over for our order.

'Whiskey!' she said. 'Lots of whiskey.'

Solomon frowned.

'A short beer for me,' I said.

Solomon was watching her sternly, searchingly, his bald spot crinkling from a frown. I could sense the consanguinity, and I knew then that she was Jewish too. Solomon went back for the drinks and she sat there with her eyes blazing, her hands folded on the table, her fingers twining and untwining. I sat trying to think of some way of dodging her.

'A drink'll fix you up fine,' I said.

Before I knew it she was at my throat, but not roughly, her long fingernails and short fingers against my flesh as she talked about my mouth, my wonderful mouth; oh G.o.d, what a mouth I had.

'Kiss me!' she said.

'Sure,' I said. 'Let's have a drink first.'

She clenched her teeth.

'Then you too know about me!' she said. 'You're like the rest of them. You know about my wounds, and that's why you won't kiss me. Because I disgust you!'

I thought, she is crazy; I've got to get out of here. She kissed me, her mouth tasting of liverwurst on rye. She sat back, breathing with relief. I took out my handkerchief and wiped the sweat from my forehead. Solomon returned with the drinks. I reached for some money, but she paid quickly. Solomon went back for the change, but I called him back and handed him a bill. She fussed and protested, pounding her heels and fists. Solomon lifted his hands in a gesture of hopelessness and took her money. The moment his back was turned I said, 'Lady, this is your party. I've got to go.' She pulled me down and her arms went around me and we fought until I thought it was absurd. I sat back and tried to think of another escape.

Solomon brought back the change. I took a nickel from it and told her I'd like to play the pin game. Without a word she let me pa.s.s and I got up and walked over to the machine. She watched me like a prize dog, and Solomon watched her like a criminal. Then I won on the machine, and I called Solomon to come over and check the score.

I whispered, 'Who is that woman, Solomon?' He didn't know. She had been there earlier in the evening, drinking a great deal. I told him I wanted to go out the back way. 'It's the door on the right,' he said.

She finished her whiskey and hammered the table with the empty gla.s.s. I walked over, took a sip of beer, and told her to excuse me a minute. I jerked my thumb towards the men's room. She patted my arm. Solomon was watching me as I took the door opposite the men's room. It led to the storeroom, and the door to the alley was a few feet beyond. As soon as the fog smothered my face I felt better. I wanted to be as far away as possible. I wasn't hungry but I walked a mile to a hotdog stand on Eighth Street and had a cup of coffee to kill time.

96.97.I knew she would go back to my room after she missed me. Something told me she was insane, it could have been that she had too much liquor, but it didn't matter, I didn't want to see her again.

I got back to my room at two in the morning. Her personality and that mysterious smell of old age still possessed it, and it was not my room at all. For the first time its wonderful solitude was spoiled. Every secret of that room seemed laid open. I threw open the two windows and watched the fog float through in sad tumbling lumps. When it got too cold I closed the windows and, though the room was wet from the fog and my papers and books were filmed with dampness, the perfume was still there unmistakably. I had Camilla's tam-o-shanter under my pillow. It too seemed drenched with the odour, and when I pressed it to my mouth it was like my mouth in that woman's black hair. I sat in front of the typewriter, idly tapping the keys.

As soon as I got started I heard steps in the hall and I knew she was coming back. I turned off the lights quickly and sat in the darkness, but I was too late, for she must have seen the light under the door. She knocked and I did not answer. She knocked again, but I sat still and puffed on a cigarette. Then she began to beat the door with her fists and she called out that she would start kicking it, and that she would kick it all night long, unless I opened it. Then she started kicking it, and it made a terrible noise through that rickety hotel, and I rushed over and opened the door.

'Darling!' she said, and she held out her arms.

'My G.o.d,' I said. 'Don't you think this has gone far enough? Can't you see I'm fed up?'

'Why did you leave me?' she asked. 'Why did you do that?'

'I had another engagement.'

'Darling,' she said. 'Why do you lie to me like that?'

'Oh nuts.'

She walked across the room and pulled the page from my typewriter again. It was full of all manner of nonsense, a few odd phrases, my name written many times, bits of poetry. But this time her face broke into a smile.

'How wonderful!' she said. 'You're a genius! My darling is so talented.'

'I'm awfully busy,' I said. 'Will you please get out?'

It was as though she hadn't heard me. She sat on the bed, unb.u.t.toned her jacket, and dangled her feet. 'I love you,' she said. 'You're my darling, and you're going to love me.'

I said, 'Some other time. Not tonight. I'm tired.'

That saccharine odour came through.

'I'm not kidding,' I said. 'I think you'd better go. I don't want to throw you out.'

'I'm so lonely,' she said.

She meant that. Something was wrong with her, twisted, gus.h.i.+ng from her with those words, and I felt ashamed for being so harsh.

'Alright,' I said. 'We'll just sit here and talk for a while.'

I pulled up the chair and straddled it, with my chin on the back, looking at her as she snuggled on the bed. She wasn't as drunk as I thought. Something was wrong with her and it was not alcohol and I wanted to find out what it was.

Her talk was madness. She told me her name, and it was Vera. She was a housekeeper for a rich Jewish family in Long Beach. But she was tired of being a housekeeper. She had come from Pennsylvania, fled across the country because 98 99.her husband had been unfaithful to her. That day she had come down to Los Angeles from Long Beach. She had seen me in the restaurant on the corner of Olive Street and Second. She had followed me back to the hotel because my eyes 'had pierced her soul'. But I couldn't remember seeing her there. I was sure I had never seen her before. Having found out where I lived, she had gone to Solomon's and got drunk. All day she had been drinking, but it was only that she might become reckless and go to my room.

'I know how I revolt you,' she said. 'And that you know about my wounds and the horror my clothes conceal. But you must try to forget my ugly body, because I'm really good at heart, I'm so good, and I deserve more than your disgust.'

I was speechless.

'Forgive my body!' she said. She put her arms out to me, the tears flowing down her cheeks. 'Think of my soul!' she said. 'My soul is so beautiful, it can bring you so much! It is not ugly like my fles.h.!.+'

She was crying hysterically, lying on her face, her hands groping through her dark hair, and I was helpless, I didn't know what she was talking about; ah, dear lady, don't cry like that, you mustn't cry like that, and I took her hot hand and tried to tell her she was talking in circles; it was all so silly, her talk, it was self-persecution, it was a lot of silly things, and I talked like that, gesturing with my hands, pleading with my voice.

'Because you're such a fine woman, and your body is so beautiful, and all this talk is an obsession, a childish phobia, a hangover from the mumps. So you mustn't worry and you mustn't cry, because you'll get over it. I know you will.'

But I was clumsy, and making her suffer even more, because she was down in an inferno of her own creation, so 100.far away from me that the sound of my voice made the hiatus seem worse. Then I tried to talk to her of other things, and I tried to make her laugh at my obsessions. Look lady, Arturo Bandini, he's got a few himself! And from under the pillow I drew out Camilla's tam-o-shanter with the little ta.s.sle on it. 'Look lady! I've got them too. Do you know what I do, lady? I take this little black cap to bed with me, and I hold it close to me, and I say: ”Oh I love you, I love you, beautiful princess!”' And then I told her some more; oh, I was no angel; my soul had a few twists and bends all its own; so don't you feel so lonely, lady; because you've got lots of company; you've got Arturo Bandini, and he's got lots to tell you. And listen to this: Do you know what I did one night? Arturo, confessing it all: do you know the terrible thing I did? One night a woman too beautiful for this world came along on wings of perfume, and I could not bear it, and who she was I never knew, a woman in a red fox and a pert little hat, and Bandini trailing after her because she was better than dreams, watching her enter Bernstein's Fish Grotto, watching her in a trance through a window swimming with frogs and trout, watching her as she ate alone; and when she was through, do you know what I did, lady? So don't you cry, because you haven't heard anything yet, because I'm awful, lady, and my heart is full of black ink; me, Arturo Bandini, I walked right into Bernstein's Fish Grotto and I sat upon the very chair that she sat upon, and I shuddered with joy, and I fingered the napkin she had used, and there was a cigarette b.u.t.t with a stain of lipstick upon it, and do you know what I did, lady? You with your funny little troubles, I ate the cigarette b.u.t.t, chewed it up, tobacco and paper and all, swallowed it, and I thought it tasted fine, because she was so beautiful, and there was a spoon beside the plate, and I put it in my pocket, and 101.

every once in a while I'd take the spoon out of my pocket and taste it, because she was so beautiful. Love on a budget, a heroine free and for nothing, all for the black heart of Arturo Bandini, to be remembered through a window swimming with trout and frog legs. Don't you cry, lady; save your tears for Arturo Bandini, because he has his troubles, and they are great troubles, and I haven't even begun to talk, but I could say something to you about a night on the beach with a brown princess, and her flesh without meaning, her kisses like dead flowers, odourless in the garden of my pa.s.sion.

But she was not listening, and she staggered off the bed, and she fell on her knees before me and begged me to tell her she was not disgusting.

'Tell me!' she sobbed. 'Tell me I am beautiful like other women.'