Part 8 (1/2)

But there were ways and means, and that sick man out in the desert was going to get his too. I'll get you, Sammy. I'll cut you to pieces, I'll make you wish you were dead and buried a long time ago. The pen is mightier than the sword, Sammy boy, but the pen of Arturo Bandini is mightier still. Because my time has come, Sir. And now you get yours.

I sat down and read his stories. I made notes on every line and sentence and paragraph of it. The writing was pretty terrible, a first effort, clumsy stuff, vague, jerky, absurd. Hour after hour I sat there consuming cigarettes and laughing wildly at Sammy's efforts, gloating over them, rubbing my hands together gleefully. Oh boy, would I lay him low! I jumped up and strutted around the room, shadow-boxing: take that, Sammy boy, and that, and how do you like this left hook, and how do you like this right cross, zingo, bingo, bang, biff, blooey!

I turned around and saw the crease on the bed where Camilla had been seated, the sensuous contour where her thighs and hips had sunk beneath the softness of the blue chenille bedspread. Then I forgot Sammy, and wild with longing I threw myself upon my knees before the spot and kissed it reverently.

141.

'Camilla, I love you!'

And when I had worn the sensation to vaporous nothingness, I got up, disgusted with myself, black awful Arturo Bandini, black vile dog.

I sat down and grimly went to work on my letter of criticism to Sammy.

Dear Sammy, That little wh.o.r.e was here tonight; you know, Sammy, the little Greaser dame with a wonderful figure and a mind for a moron. She presented me with certain alleged writings purportedly written by yourself. Furthermore she stated the man with the scythe is about to mow you under. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances I would call this a tragic situation. But having read the bile your ma.n.u.scripts contain, let me speak for the world at large and say at once that your departure is everybody's good fortune. You can't write, Sammy, I suggest you concentrate on the business of putting your idiotic soul in order these last days before you leave a world that sighs with relief at your departure. I wish I could honestly say that I hate to see you go. I wish too that, like myself, you could endow posterity with something like a monument to your days upon this earth. But since this is so obviously impossible, let me urge you to be without bitterness in your final days. Destiny has indeed been unkind to you. Like the rest of the world, I suppose you too are glad that in a short time all will be finished, and the ink spot you have splattered will never be examined from a larger view. I speak for all sensible, civilized men when I urge you to burn this ma.s.s of literary manure and thereafter stay away from pen 142.

and ink. If you have a typewriter, the same holds true; because even the typing in this ma.n.u.script is a disgrace. If, however, you persist in your pitiful desire to write, by all means send me the pap you compose. I found at least you are amusing. Not deliberately, of course.

There it was, finished, devastating. I folded the ma.n.u.scripts, placed the note with them inside a big envelope, sealed it, addressed it to Samuel Wiggins, General Delivery, San Juan, California, stamped it, and shoved it into my back pocket. Then I went upstairs and out of the lobby to the mailbox on the corner. It was a little after three o'clock of an incomparable morning. The blue and white of stars and sky were like desert colours, a gentleness so stirring I had to pause and wonder that it could be so lovely. Not a blade of the dirty palms stirred. Not a sound was to be heard.

All that was good in me thrilled in my heart at that moment, all that I hoped for in the profound, obscure meaning of my existence. Here was the endlessly mute placidity of nature, indifferent to the great city; here was the desert beneath these streets, around these streets, waiting for the city to die, to cover it with timeless sand once more. There came over me a terrifying sense of understanding about the meaning and the pathetic destiny of men. The desert was always there, a patient white animal, waiting for men to die, for civilizations to flicker and pa.s.s into the darkness. Then men seemed brave to me, and I was proud to be numbered among them. All the evil of the world seemed not evil at all, but inevitable and good and part of that endless struggle to keep the desert down.

I looked southward in the direction of the big stars, and I knew that in that direction lay the Santa Ana desert, that under the big stars in a shack lay a man like myself, who 143.

would probably be swallowed by the desert sooner than I, and in my hand I held an effort of his, an expression of his struggle against the implacable silence towards which he was being hurled. Murderer or bartender or writer, it didn't matter: his fate was the common fate of all, his finish my finish; and here tonight in this city of darkened windows were other millions like him and like me: as indistinguishable as dying blades of gra.s.s. Living was hard enough. Dying was a supreme task. And Sammy was soon to die.

I stood at the mailbox, my head against it, and grieved for Sammy, and for myself, and for all the living and the dead. Forgive me, Sammy! Forgive a fool! I walked back to my room and spent three hours writing the best criticism of his work I could possibly write. I didn't say that this was wrong or that was wrong. I kept saying, in my opinion this would be better if, and so forth, and so forth. I got to sleep about six o'clock, but it was a grateful, happy sleep. How wonderful I really was! A great, soft-spoken, gentle man, a lover of all things, man and beast alike.

Chapter Fifteen.

I didn't see her again for a week. In the meantime I got a letter from Sammy, thanking me for the corrections. Sammy, her true love. He also sent some advice: how was I getting along with the Little Spick? She wasn't a bad dame, not bad at all when the lights were out, but the trouble with you, Mr Bandini, is that you don't know how to handle her. You're too nice to that girl. You don't understand Mexican women. They don't like to be treated like human beings. If you're nice to them, they walk all over you.

I worked on the book, pausing now and then to re-read his letter. I was reading it the night she came again. It was about midnight, and she walked in without knocking.

'h.e.l.lo,' she said.

I said, 'h.e.l.lo, Stupid.'

'Working?' she said.

'What does it look like?' I said.

'Mad?' she said.

'No,' I said. 'Just disgusted.'

'With me?'

'Naturally,' I said. 'Look at yourself.'

Under her jacket was the white smock. It was spotted, stained. One of her stockings was loose, wrinkled at the ankles. Her face seemed tired, some of the lip rouge having 145.

vanished. The coat she wore was dotted with lint and dust. She was perched on cheap high heels.

'You try so hard to be an American,' I said. 'Why do you do that? Take a look at yourself.'

She went to the mirror, studied herself gravely. 'I'm tired,' she said. 'We were busy tonight.'

'It's those shoes,' I said. 'You ought to wear what your feet were meant to wear - huaraches. And all that paint on your face. You look awful - a cheap imitation of an American. You look frowsy. If I were a Mexican I'd knock your head off. You're a disgrace to your people.'

'Who are you to talk like that?' she said. 'I'm just as much an American as you are. Why, you're not an American at all. Look at your skin. You're dark like Eyetalians. And your eyes, they're black.'

'Brown,' I said.

'They're not either. They're black. Look at your hair. Black.'

'Brown,' I said.

She took off her coat, threw herself on the bed and stuck a cigarette in her mouth. She began to rumble and search for a match. There was a pack beside me on the desk. She waited for me to hand them to her.

'You're not crippled,' I said. 'Get them yourself.'

She lit a cigarette and smoked in silence, her stare at the ceiling, smoke tumbling from her nostrils in quiet agitation. It was foggy outside. Far away came the sound of a police siren.

'Thinking of Sammy?' I said.

'Maybe.'

'You don't have to think of him here. You can always leave, you know.'

146 She snubbed out the cigarette, twisted and gutted it and her words had the same effect. 'Jesus, you're nasty,' she said. 'You must be awfully unhappy.'

'You're crazy.'

She lay with her legs crossed. The tops of her rolled stockings and an inch or two of dark flesh showed where the white smock ended. Her hair spilled over the pillow like a bottle of overturned ink. She lay on her side, watching me out of the depth of the pillow. She smiled. She lifted her hand and wagged her finger at me.

'Come here, Arturo,' she said. It was a warm voice.

I waved my hand.

'No thanks. I'm comfortable.'

For five minutes she watched me stare through the window. I might have touched her, held her in my arms; yes, Arturo, it was only a matter of getting out of the chair and stretching out beside her, but there was the night at the beach and the sonnet on the floor and the telegram of love and I remembered them like nightmares filling the room.

'Scared?' she said.

'Of you?' I laughed.