Part 5 (2/2)

'Of course you are! You're really very beautiful!'

I tried to lift her, but she clung to me frantically, and I couldn't do anything but try to soothe her, but I was so clumsy, so inadequate, and she was so far down in the depths beyond me, but I kept trying.

Then she started again about her wounds, those ghastly wounds, they had wrecked her life, they had destroyed love before it came, driven a husband from her and into another woman's arms, and all of this was fantastic to me and incomprehensible because she was really handsome in her own way, she was not crippled and she was not disfigured, and there were plenty of men who would give her love.

She staggered to her feet and her hair had fallen on her face, the strands of hair pasted against her tear-soaked cheeks; her eyes were blotchy and she looked like a maniac, sodden with bitterness.

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'I'll show you!' she screamed. 'You'll see for yourself, you liar! liar!'

With both hands she jerked loose her dark skirt and it fell into a nest at her ankles. She stepped out of it and she was really beautiful in a white slip and I said it. I said, 'But you're lovely! I told you you were lovely!'

She kept sobbing as she worked at the clasps of her blouse, and I told her it wasn't necessary to take off any more; she had convinced me beyond a doubt and there was no need for hurting herself further.

'No,' she said. 'You're going to see for yourself.'

She couldn't release the clasps at the back of the blouse, and she backed towards me and told me to unclasp them. I waved my hand. 'For G.o.d's sake, forget about it,' I said. 'You've convinced me. You don't have to do a strip act.' She sobbed desperately and seized the thin blouse with her two hands and ripped it from her with one jerk.

When she began to lift her slip I turned my back and walked to the window, because I knew then she was going to show me something unpleasant, and she began to laugh at me and shriek at me and point her tongue at my worried face. 'Ya, ya! See! You know already! You know all about them!'

I had to go through with it, and I turned around and she was nude except for hose and shoes, and then I saw the wounds. It was at the loins; it was a birthmark or something, a burn, a seared place, a pitiful, dry, vacant place where flesh was gone, where the thighs suddenly became small and shrivelled and the flesh seemed dead. I closed my jaws and then I said, 'What - that? Is that all, just that? It's nothing, a mere trifle.' But I was losing the words, I had to say them quickly or they would never form. 'It's ridiculous,' I said. 'I hardly noticed it. You're lovely; you're wonderful!'

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She studied herself curiously, not believing me, and then she looked at me again, but I kept my eyes on her face, felt the floating nausea of my stomach, breathed the sweetish thickish odour of her presence, and I said again that she was beautiful, and the world slipped out like a whimper, so beautiful she was, a small girl, a virgin child, so beautiful and rare to behold, and without a word, and blus.h.i.+ng, she picked up her slip and drew it over her head, a crooning and mysterious satisfaction in her throat.

She was so shy all at once, so delighted, and I laughed to find the words coming easier now, and I told her again and again of her loveliness, of how silly she had been. But say it fast, Arturo, say it quickly, because something was coming up in me, and I had to get out, so I told her I had to go down the hall a minute and for her to dress while I was gone. She covered herself and her eyes were swimming in joy as she watched me leave. I went down to the end of the hall to the landing of the fire-escape, and there I let go, crying and unable to stop because G.o.d was such a dirty crook, such a contemptible skunk, that's what he was for doing that thing to that woman. Come down out of the skies, you G.o.d, come on down and I'll hammer your face all over the city of Los Angeles, you miserable unpardonable prankster. If it wasn't for you, this woman would not be so maimed, and neither would the world, and if it wasn't for you I could have had Camilla Lopez down at the beach, but no! You have to play your tricks: see what you have done to this woman, and to the love of Arturo Bandini for Camilla Lopez. And then my tragedy seemed greater than the woman's, and I forgot her.

When I got back she was dressed and combing her hair in front of the little mirror. The torn blouse was stuffed inside her coat pocket. She seemed so exhausted and yet so serenely 104.

happy, and I told her I would walk downtown with her to the Electric Depot, where she would catch a train for Long Beach. She told me no, I wouldn't have to do that. She wrote out her address on a piece of paper.

'Some day you'll come to Long Beach,' she said. 'I will wait a long time, but you'll come.'

At the door we said goodbye. She held out her hand, it was so warm and alive. 'Goodbye,' she said. 'Take care of yourself.'

'Good bye, Vera.'

There was no solitude after she left, there was no escape from that strange scent. I lay down and even Camilla who was a pillow with a tam-o-shanter for a head seemed so far away and I could not bring her back. Slowly I felt myself filling with desire and sadness; you could have had her, you fool, you could have done what you pleased, just like Camilla, and you didn't do anything. All through the night she mangled my sleep. I would wake up to breathe the sweet heaviness she had left behind, and touch the furniture she had touched, and think of the poetry she had recited. When I fell asleep I had no recollection of it, for when I awoke it was ten in the morning and I was still tired, sniffing the air and thinking restlessly of what had happened. I could have said so much to her, and she would have been so kind. I could have said, look Vera, such and such is the situation, and such and such happened, and if you could do such and such, perhaps it would not happen again, because such and such a person thinks such and such about me, and it's got to stop; I shall die trying, but it's got to stop.

So I sit around all day thinking about it; and I think about a few other Italians, Casanova and Cellini, and then I think about Arturo Bandini, and I have to punch myself in the head.

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It.

I begin to wonder about Long Beach, and I say to myself that perhaps I should at least visit the place, and maybe Vera, to have a talk with her concerning a great problem. I think of that cadaverous place, the wound on her body, and try to find words for it, to fit it across the page of a ma.n.u.script. Then I say to myself that Vera, for all her flaws, might perform a miracle, and after the miracle is performed a new Arturo Bandini will face the world and Camilla Lopez, a Bandini with dynamite in his body and volcanic fire in his eyes, who goes to this Camilla Lopez and says: see here, young woman, I have been very patient with you, but now I have had enough of your impudence, and you will kindly oblige me by removing your clothes. These vagaries please me as I lie there and watch them unfold across the ceiling.

One afternoon I tell Mrs Hargraves that I shall be gone for a day or so, Long Beach, some business, and I start out. I have Vera's address in my pocket, and I say to myself, Bandini, prepare yourself for the great adventure; let the conquering spirit possess you. On the corner I meet h.e.l.lfrick, whose mouth is watering for more meat. I give him some money and he dashes into a butcher's shop. Then I go down to the Electric Station and catch a Red Car for Long Beach.

Chapter Twelve.

The name on the mailbox was Vera Rivken, and that was her full name. It was down on the Long Beach Pike, across the street from the Ferris Wheel and the Roller Coaster. Downstairs a poolhall, upstairs a few single apartments. No mistaking that flight of stairs; it possessed her odour. The banister was warped and bent, and the grey wallpaint was swollen, with puffed places that cracked open when I pushed them with my thumb.

When I knocked, she opened the door.

'So soon?' she said.

Take her in your arms, Bandini. Don't grimace at her kiss, break away gently, with a smile, say something. 'You look wonderful,' I said. No chance to speak, she was over me again, clinging like a wet vine, her tongue, like a frightened snake's head, searching my mouth. Oh great Italian Lover Bandini, reciprocate! Oh Jewish girl, if you would be so kind, if you would approach these matters more slowly! So I was free again, wandering to the window, saying something about the sea and the view beyond. 'Nice view,' I said. But she was taking off my coat, leading me to a chair in the corner, taking off my shoes. 'Be comfortable,' she said. Then she was gone, and I sat with my teeth gritted, looking at a room like ten million California rooms, a bit of wood here and a bit of rag there, the furniture, with cobwebs in the ceiling and 107.

dust in the corners, her room, and everybody's room, Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego, a few boards of plaster and stucco to keep the sun out.

She was in a little white hole called the kitchen, scattering pans and rattling gla.s.ses, and I sat and wondered why she could be one thing when I was alone in my room and something else the moment I was with her. I looked for incense, that saccharine smell, it had to come from somewhere, but there was no incense burner in the room, nothing in the room but dirty blue overstuffed furniture, a table with a few books scattered over it, and a mirror over the panelling of a Murphy bed. Then she came out of the kitchen with a gla.s.s of milk in her hand. 'Here,' she offered. 'A cool drink.'

But it wasn't cool at all, it was almost hot, and there was a yellowish sc.u.m on top, and sipping it I tasted her lips and the strong food she ate, a taste of rye bread and Camembert cheese. 'It's good,' I said, 'delicious.'

She was sitting at my feet, her hands on my knees, staring at me with the eyes of hunger, tremendous eyes so large I might have lost myself in them. She was dressed as I saw her the first time, the same clothes, and the place was so desolate I knew she had no others, but I had come before she had had a chance to powder or rouge and now I saw the sculpture of age under her eyes and through her cheeks. I wondered that I had missed these things that night, and then I remembered that I had not missed them at all, I had seen them even through rouge and powder, but in the two days of reverie and dream about her they had concealed themselves, and now I was here, and I knew I should not have come.

We talked, she and I. She asked about my work and it was a pretence, she was not interested in my work. And when I 108.

answered it was a pretence. I was not interested in my work either. There was only one thing that interested us, and she knew it, for I had made it plain by my coming.

But where were all the words, and where were all the little l.u.s.ts I had brought with me? And where were those reveries, and where was my desire, and what had happened to my courage, and why did I sit and laugh so loudly at things not amusing? So come, Bandini - find your heart's desire, take your pa.s.sion the way it says in the books. Two people in a room; one of them a woman; the other, Arturo Bandini, who is neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring.

Another long silence, the woman's head on my lap, my fingers playing in the dark nest, sorting out strands of grey hair. Awake, Arturo! Camilla Lopez should see you now, she with the big black eyes, your true love, your Mayan princess. Oh Jesus, Arturo, you're marvellous! Maybe you did write The Little Dog Laughed, but you'll never write Casanova's Memoirs. What are you doing, sitting here? Dreaming of some great masterpiece? Oh you fool, Bandini!

She looked up at me, saw me there with eyes closed, and she didn't know my thoughts. But maybe she did. Maybe that was why she said, 'You're tired. You must take a nap.' Maybe that was why she pulled down the Murphy bed and insisted that I lie upon it, she beside me, her head in my arms. Maybe, studying my face, that was why she asked, 'You love somebody else?'

I said, 'Yes. I'm in love with a girl in Los Angeles.' She touched my face. 'I know,' she said. 'I understand.' 'No you don't.'

Then I wanted to tell her why I had come, it was right there at the tip of my tongue, springing to be told, but I 109.

knew I would never speak of that now. She lay beside me and we watched the emptiness of the ceiling, and I played with the idea of telling her. I said, 'There's something I want to tell you. Maybe you can help me out.' But I got no farther than that. No, I could not say it to her; but I lay there hoping she would somehow find out for herself, and when she kept asking me what it was that bothered me I knew she was handling it wrong, and I shook my head and made impatient faces. 'Don't talk about it,' I said. 'It's something I can't tell you.'

'Tell me about her,' she said.

I couldn't do that, be with one woman and speak of the wonders of another. Maybe that was why she asked, 'Is she beautiful?' I answered that she was. Maybe that was why she asked, 'Does she love you?' I said she didn't love me. Then my heart pounded in my throat, because she was coming nearer and nearer to what I wanted her to ask, and I waited while she stroked my forehead.

'And why doesn't she love you?'

There it was. I could have answered and it would have been in the clear, but I said, 'She just doesn't love me, that's all.'

'Is it because she loves somebody else?'

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