Part 45 (1/2)
”Oh, I'm aware! It was old Labouisse. I knew about that long ago.”
”And it didn't matter to you?”
”Of course I was shocked, but there was nothing I could do about it. Anyway, I've learned at last that people aren't always what they seem.”
”A child knows that, Miriam.”
”Not always. Girls brought up as they are here don't get to know much about the world, or what lies under smiles and courtesies.” She took a deep breath. ”What did I know about you, Andre? I'm beginning to think I don't know you at all.”
”What the devil can you mean?”
”Oh, it's not your fault! No, it's not. Because you don't know me, either. We never opened ourselves to each other.”
Andre's eyebrows went up. ”Oh? I should have said we did, very much so.”
She flushed. There it was again, that humiliating wave of hot red rising into her scalp.
”There are other ways beside just-”
”Just the body, you mean? Why don't you say it? Miriam, I don't understand what's wrong tonight, what's happening. You're different.”
”Oh, yes, but you are, too. Or else I'm only seeing things I never saw before. You come down here to this ruination and talk the way you do! There's cruelty in it! Pelagie's home is burned and gone. She's lost a son. Rosa's lost one, and every cent she had in the world, besides. Gabriel had all their funds in Confederate bonds, and they're worth nothing.”
”The more fool Gabriel,” Andre said contemptuously. ”If he'd had any sense, he'd have moved his money to a New York bank.”
If you love him, Gabriel said, then that's the way it is. I only wanted to be sure, in case ... She had felt his cheek against her hair. A military band played a glum march down on the dismal street ... I went with Lee at the start. I gave my word.
She almost screamed, ”Don't you say that! Don't you call Gabriel a fool! He believed in something, maybe enough to give his life for it.”
”Your face! Look at your face! Why, it's on fire! One might think you were in love with the man!”
”If you had believed in something!” she cried, ignoring his words. ”What is life worth if you don't believe in something?”
”But I do believe! I believe in pleasure! In love and pleasure. They go together. We're here such a little time! I want to get as much as I can out of my time! It's as simple as that. Doesn't it make sense?”
The old caressing smile appealed for response. She met it thoughtfully.
”After all, Miriam, I've never hurt anyone, have I? Never in my life, not that I know of, anyway.”
Not that he knew of. The hurt he was giving now, he would not understand, she saw that clearly; his comely blond face wore a look of puzzlement, with no comprehension of anything she had said all that evening.
Yes, a man for pleasure, welcome in dark times and places whether in a marriage without love or in the upheaval of a war. But he had nothing else to give. Nor had she anything left to give to him. The need was past. That's what it was. The need was past.
And she could have wept for him, wept for them both.
”Miriam ... don't stare like that. You're frowning, as if I were some sort of villain.”
”I'm sorry,” she said quickly, ”I don't mean to frown. Of course you're not a villain, you never were. It's just that, only that ...”
There was a long silence, in which eyes searched eyes.
Then Andre said, very slowly, ”Just that there's another man, I think. That's it, isn't it?”
In a lightning stroke everything is changed; one sees what one never saw before; desire is gone; the man who stands here is a stranger and always has been, although one didn't know it until now.
When she did not answer he demanded, seizing her hands, ”Is there? Is there?”
She wanted so much not to wound him, only to make him see that they two had never been matched and never would be.
And she said, ”There isn't anyone else, Andre. It's only that we're not-not matched. That's all it is.”
He dropped her hands. ”Not matched! I can't believe what I'm hearing!”
”I know. I can hardly believe it, either.”
And again there was silence between them, while all around the sleeping home the rain fell, roaring.
”You always were a Puritan,” Andre said at last. ”A Bible Puritan, like your brother. Strange, because you don't look like one. At least, you didn't use to! Maybe that contradiction was the fascination. Who knows?” His voice roughened. ”But there has to be more to this than you're telling me! Then it is another man. It's Carvalho. That's why you defended him when I called him a fool.”
”You're wrong, Andre. Quite wrong.”
She was drained. She suffered beneath his gaze, which kept studying her from the soiled hem of her old dress to her tired, bent head. A spark of light fell on the splendid ring which still lay on the table before her. It looked pathetic to her, a symbol of abandonment flung there on the bare wood. It had arrived so proudly in its velvet box.
Andre struck his fist impatiently into his palm. She knew the gesture. It meant that he wanted a solution, a quick answer.
”Is there anything I can do? You know me, Miriam. I can't stand all this vagueness, you with that mournful face. Just tell me whether there's anything you want me to do.”
”There isn't anything,” she answered miserably.
”Well, then, I suppose there's no point in my waiting here like this, is there? I might as well go the way I came. Fast.” He swept the ring up and tucked it into his pocket.
Miriam touched his sleeve. ”Don't hate me, Andre.”
”I don't hate you. I couldn't, ever. I'm only sorry for you, Miriam, not even angry as I ought to be for this waste of my time, making this journey for nothing.”
”I didn't know before. I really didn't know until today. Believe me.”
”I believe you. It seems as though I didn't know you either, doesn't it?” He gave her a wry smile. ”I just hope you're not making a terrible mistake that you'll regret when it's too late.”
”If I am, so be it. I can't help it.”
The rain stopped abruptly, and a humid wind out of the lonely night blew through the windows. Andre peered into the darkness.
”I'll take the night boat back to New Orleans.”
She would have liked to bring order into this severance, to round it out diminuendo, as in music, to end with a quiet chord.