Collected Stories Page 18

  He ran from the room, I heard him running downstairs and out of the building. I went to the alcove window and watched him spinning wildly around in the street. He was crazed with fury. A waiter from the Chinese restaurant came out and caught at his arm, a drunk from a bar reasoned with him. He sobbed and lamented and wandered from door to door of the ancient buildings until the drunk had maneuvered him into a bar.

  The landlady and a fat old Negress who worked on the place removed the young man’s mattress from his bed and lugged it into the courtyard. They stuffed it into the iron pit of the incinerator and set it afire and stood at respectful distance watching it burn. The landlady wasn’t content with just the burning, she made a long speech at the top of her voice about it.

  It’s not bein’ burned because of no bugs, she shouted. I’m burnin’ this mattress because it’s contaminated. A T.B. case has been on it, a filthy degenerate and a liar!

  She went on and on until the mattress was fully consumed, and after.

  Then the old Negress was sent upstairs to remove the young man’s belongings. It had begun to rain and despite the landlady’s objections the Negress put all of the things beneath the banana tree in the courtyard and covered them with a discarded sheet of linoleum weighted down with loose bricks.

  At sundown the young man returned to the place. I heard him coughing and gasping in the rainy courtyard as he collected his things from under the fantastic green and yellow umbrella of the banana tree. He seemed to be talking about all the wrongs he had suffered since he had come into the world, but at last the complaints were centered upon the loss of a handsome comb. Oh, my God, he muttered. She’s stolen my comb, I had a beautiful comb that I got from my mother, a tortoiseshell comb with a silver and pearl handle on it. That’s gone, it’s been stolen, the comb that belonged to my mother!

  At last it was found, or the young man gave up the search, for his talk died out. A wet silver hush fell over the house on Bourbon as daylight and rain both ended their business there, and in my room the luminous dial of a clock and the misty gray of the alcove were all that remained for me of the visible world.

  The episode put an end to my stay at the house. For several nights after that the transparent grey angel failed to appear in the alcove and sleep had to come without any motherly sanction. So I decided to give up my residence there. I felt that the delicate old lady angel had tacitly warned me to leave, and that if I ever was visited by her again, it would be at another time in another place—which still haven’t come.

  October 1943 (Published 1948)

  Oriflamme

  Immediately on waking that morning she felt the gravity of flesh which had virtually pinned her to her bed for weeks now mysteriously lifted away from her during the night. Some heavy sheath of air had unwound from her and had been replaced by atmosphere of an impalpable and electric kind. It could be the weather, changing from sullen to brilliant. All articles of glass in the room were pulsating with that brilliance as her body was with a renewed vitality.

  Thoughtlessly she stretched her hand to the bedside phone, wanting to speak to someone; then the voices of the few people she knew rang dissonantly in her ears; there was not one voice among the babble of voices that she wanted to separate from the others, no, this morning’s lightness couldn’t be trusted to them. Which of them would be likely to say to her. Yes, I know what you mean, I understand what you’re saying. The air is different this morning.

  For there was a conspiracy of dullness in the world, a universal plan to shut out the resurgences of spirit which might interfere with clockwork. Better to keep your elevation unseen until it is higher than strangers’ hands can reach to pull you down to their level.

  She put the telephone down and sat on the edge of her bed. The little unsteadiness she felt in rising was not due to weakness but to this astonishing lack of gravity. Now here was a peculiar thing. Until this moment she had not understood the meaning of her illness. It was all the same thing, sickness and fatigue and all attritions of the body and spirit, it all came from the natural anarchy of a heart that was compelled to wear uniform.

  She went to her closet. It was full of discreetly colored and fashioned garments which all appeared the same style and shade and appeared to be designed for camouflage, for protective concealment, of that anarchy of the heart. She had lived up till now a subterranean existence, not only because she had employment in the economy basement of Famous-Barr, under the forbidding scrutiny of Mr. Mason and countless strangers who pinned her to the counter as illness had lately pinned her to the bed, but because she had not trusted the whisper in her that said, The truth has not yet been spoken!

  Could she speak it?

  There is speech and there are verbal symbols. The telephone had warned her against the first, but as she looked at the closet with its garments for winter, so appropriately descended from the backs of sheep, it occurred to her that revolution begins in putting on bright colors.

  She left the closet and returned to the wardrobe trunk where lighter clothes were preserved for lighter seasons. She tore it open, breathing heavily with excitement. Disappointment was there also. The clothes smelt of camphor and none of them had a really challenging air.

  She slammed the closet door shut, having snatched from it the first dress that came to her reach.

  Obviously it was necessary to get hold of something new…

  She tore off her nightgown and stood shivering in front of the chilly closet mirror. How thin she was! No wonder she never looked really well in clothes. They could not express the mysterious delicacy of her body. It was white but not white. It was blue spilled delicately over white. And there were glints of silver and rose. Nobody knew about that. Only one person had ever seemed to suspect it. The high school dance in Grenada, Mississippi. That red-faced boy who beat the kettledrum so loudly and not in tempo and his virtuosity with the percussion had made Miss Fitzgerald so mad she had dragged him off the platform and slapped him and he had grinned and started dancing alone. She herself had then edged out a little from the corner she sat in, watching the couples dance. She was shy and had not been well lately. He had spun over to where she was standing and had wordlessly seized her and spun her with him around the yellow gymnasium and though she had started coughing and tasted the hot, metallic flavor of blood in her mouth, he had not let her go: not till they had gone clear around the room to the Blue Danube and had come to the festooned entrance. Then he had taken her arm and led her out. She tried to conceal the red stain on the hand that she had coughed into as soon as he had released her. But it was dark in the hall, nearly dark, and the two or three out there were grinning toward the brilliant entrance of the gymnasium.

  Still not speaking, he jerked her into another door. In there it was all dark completely and smelt of sweaty clothes. They banged against something that rang out like an ugly, toneless bell, the metal door of a locker. He backed her against it and pinioned her there while his hands explored her body. It was thrilling and shameful. Thrilling then and shameful afterward. Guy was the red boy’s name. He had dropped out of school a week or two after this and had disappeared from Grenada. He was not heard of again until the following year when it became known that he had met with an accident on a freight train somewhere in the West. Had lost both legs. And later it became known that he was dead and that his widowed mother had said she was glad of it because he had broken her heart with his vagrant existence…

  Thinking of him she had always thought of those beautiful paper lanterns and crepe-paper ribbons that hung defeated in the yellow gymnasium…

  But that was so long ago now!

  Outside!

  It was indeed a new season if not a new world. The air had been given those shots which the doctor suggested. The blue was not only vivid but energetic. And there was white, too, the sort of white that her hidden body was made of. A mass of bonny white cloud stood over the Moolah Temple. It suddenly made up its mind and started moving. It moved now over the Langan & Taylor Sto
rage. A nude young bather it was. An innocent white sky-lounger had taken off clothes and become a body that floats. And I shall, too. Or am already floating. Floating. The power of anarchy moves me. I have both legs. No accident has deprived me of forward motion. If chance is blind, it is still not set against me. And so I move. Past Langan & Taylor Storage and Hartwig’s Beauty Salon. Past the doctor’s suggestion, Go slowly and you‘ll go far. I am looking for something. But that means hesitation and I can’t wait. He didn’t and lost his legs. I still have mine and they’re bearing me forward. I want, and will have, the banner that he let go of. The first that I see. Desire is. Wearing apparel. See and have on, that quickly. The white sky-lounger, capricious runner in heaven, has dropped a red dress somewhere. For me to put on and become her eternal sister. Oh, where? Not far off, Anna! The window is blazing with it already. Across the avenue, yes! In Paris Designs! The window is blazing with it. Correct as a go sign. Grab it!

  She couldn’t speak for a minute, her throat was too full of breathlessness—or breath.

  I want that dress, she panted, the red one displayed in the window!

  Very well, miss.

  I haven’t much time, please hurry!

  I’m doing my best. It’s a little bit difficult getting things out of the window.

  Then let me do it!

  That won’t be necessary, the woman said coldly.

  She now had the flag and was gingerly folding it up.

  Her hands were gray. They were alien to the fabric as mice to roses. Their touch would wither it, dampen it, smother its flame.

  Anna snatched the silk from her.

  Don’t wrap it up, madam! I want to put it on now!

  The woman fell back as if cold water had drenched her.

  But this is red silk, a dress for the evening, miss!

  I realize that but I want to put it on now! Where is your dressing room?

  Here, but—

  Anna swept by her and plunged into the dim closet. The dress was all wine and roses flung onto her body.

  Take by surprise and the world gives up resistance.

  She paid the woman.

  The blowing street took part in her celebration. She moved, she moved, in a glorious banner wrapped, the red part of a flag!

  It flashed, it flashed. It billowed against her fingers. Her body surged forward. A capital ship with cannon. Boom. On the far horizon. Boom. White smoke is holy. Nobody understands it. It goes on, on, without the world’s understanding. Red is holy. Nobody understands it. It goes on, on, without the world’s understanding. Blue is holy. Blue goes on without the world’s understanding. Flags are holy but nobody understands them. Flags go on without the world’s understanding. Boom. Goes on without the world’s understanding. The heart can’t wait. Revolts without understanding. Boom. Goes on. Without the world’s understanding…

  The red silk raised and lowered beneath her with power, the effortless power of wings that bore her forward. Into the brilliant new morning. No plan. No waiting. She moved without a direction. Direction was unimportant. The world was lost. She felt it slipping behind her, a long way back. There was only Mr. Mason still in view. But even he was beginning to fall back now. Could not keep up his paunchy satyr pursuit. When young he could run. That season he first appeared at Famous-Barr, he was just out of college. He moved with a spring, was jaunty, inclined to jokes. The cloves on his breath were exciting. His manicured fingers were just removed from a fireplace. In locker-room blackness they might have been like Guy’s, exploring, demanding, creating life in the blood. But the lights were never turned out in the bargain basement, and that one time they went to the Loew’s State Theater, his fingers had not adventured beyond her knee. The bus going home had been so everlasting. They ran out of talk and a self-conscious coldness developed. Before they reached the place where she got off, they were strangers. Her throat was so tight that she had distrusted her voice. At the door he said. Well, this has been nice. Miss Kimball. And she, unable to open her mouth or her heart, had flung herself sobbing, not on the bed but on the floor—as soon as she heard his feet going down the steps.…The next day he had been jollier than ever. But with a difference. Why pretend? There is a failure with people. And that is why some people become so savage and tear at life and leave it in shreds and tatters. Because in gentleness there is failure so often. If you can’t whisper, then it is wise to shout. Better to have it broken and violated but still in your clasp than never to have at all. In the end perhaps they understand more than you think and some remember and there is a fleshless reunion…

  He’d worn not well in the five years that had followed. When things don’t change, their sameness becomes an accretion. That is why all society puts on flesh. Succumbs to the cubicles and begins to fill them. The bargain basement had put fat on Mr. Mason. The change boxes took his youth and gave him quarters. Some other girl now was employed at counter seven. Well, let her have it, the Pepperel and percale, and Mr. Mason. And give her the scissors, give her the spool of tape. She would have assurance. A competent Miss she would be. She would cut through cloth with the long, sure stroke of an oarsman. As I cut now through the novel brilliance of morning! I, I am the red silk of a flag! Let nobody stop me till I have—

  She had become a little disoriented. Before her stood a gigantic equestrian statue. Her chin just reached the top of the granite pediment. There were the hooves on the level with her eyes. It looked as though the horse was about to step on her. Her eyes traveled upward to study the towering figure. All green it had turned with an ancient, mossy greenness. It bore a shield and elevated a sword. The look was fierce and compelling. Who was this stranger, this menacing giant on horseback? Her eyes descended to gaze at the inscription. Saint Louis it said. Ah, yes, the name of the city. No wonder she felt so breathless. She had climbed to the highest point in the park, and now if she turned to look in the other direction, all of the city named for this ruthless horseman would stretch underneath, to the east as far as the river. She would not turn. The city had never pleased her. The terrible horseman over the heads of people was image enough of what she felt in the city. Her hope had died in a basement of this city. Her faith had died in one of its smug churches. Her love had not survived a journey across it. She would not turn to face the sprawling city. Instead she would move across to that public fountain. No longer swiftly. What am I dragging behind me? Twenty-eight years and all those institutions…

  Now here is the fountain. But, no, it isn’t a fountain. It is a shallow cement bowl for sparrows. But even the sparrows have found it a false invitation. The bowl is dry. It contains a few oak leaves disintegrating. And all this green. I wasn’t prepared for green. The green has to be taken gently. Not swallowed but sipped the way birds do water if bowls aren’t dry. But all at once in a gulf of green too quickly! All men have known, adventurers and pilgrims, that green is the stuff that sweeps you down and under. Cannot be trusted, is eager to overwhelm you. A butterfly boat that a child lets go in the dusk is safer than I in the middle of this green breaking. Go slowly now. The earth is still horizontal. But awfully windy. There’s too much sky to let go of and too much to keep. But friendlier than this avalanche of green. Now, where has she gone, that amiable young sky pilgrim, that innocent nude without any avoirdupois? Oh, yes, I see her. A long way off to the left. She has made good progress! And I? I’ve come to the—

  No. Sit down on that bench over there till my breath comes back. This pain reminds me of school inoculations…

  Close to the one where the birds were disappointed, Anna herself was all at once a fountain. The foam of a scarlet ocean crossed her lips. Oh, oh. The ocean the butterfly boat is a voyager on…

  The green of leaves, the scarlet ocean of blood, together they wash and break on the deathless blue. It makes a flag—but nobody understands it…

  January 1944 (Published 1974)

  The Vine

  The woman’s body beside him while he slept was something he felt with the faint and thought
less sentience of plants to sunlight; when it was gone, when she had left the bed, he knew the same blind, formless want that plants must feel without that warmth about them. While they slept there was a continuity between their bodies that he had grown to depend upon. In winter he never had quite heat enough in his own flesh; he always had to borrow a little from hers—there was always some contact between them, his knees curved into hers, his arm wrapped vinelike across her shoulders. But even when the nights were excessively warm, as they now were in late summer, his hand or his foot must remain in touch with some part of the woman. This was essential to his feeling of security. When the contact was broken, though he didn’t awake, the comfort of sleep was lost and he turned fretfully this way and that, sometimes muttering her name aloud— Rachel—Rachel. If she was still in the room, she would return to the bed and then, her temporary loss having stirred in him a sleepy desire, he would take her body almost as a child takes the breast of its mother, a sort of blind, instinctive, fumbling possession that hardly emerged from the state of sleep—the way that plants expand into sunlight with that sweet, thoughtless gratitude that living matter feels for what sustains its being.