Galatea

Chapter VII

“Duke, can I ask a favor?”

“Of course, Mrs. Val, anything.”

“It’s about my lunch when you fix it.”

“Something the doctor ordered?”

“I mustn’t have any pie.”

It was next afternoon, with Val gone, the doctor gone, Bill gone, and Marge gone, and most of the excitement over, meaning wires, calls about the cars I’d delivered, and pictures on the society page. Before leaving, Marge had dressed her, in pink of some sort, and I had moved her, by getting her into the chair she used in the kitchen and sliding her along on the carpet, as of course she still couldn’t put any weight on her feet. I was about to get her lunch, but her three o’clock lunch, one I hadn’t heard of until today. Her appetite, she said, had come back, since the pain was gone.

She explained, very chatty: “Dr. Semmes doesn’t think much of pastry, and wants me to lay off it, he says. But — he didn’t mention ice cream — of course it’s really a dairy product — and I’m sure it’ll be all right. It’s in the pantry freeze, Duke, all kinds of different flavors. Will you find me a pint of strawberry? And soften it up just a little? In the oven, a few minutes?... Oh well, make it two. A natural food can’t hurt me.”

I don’t know what hit me funny about it, unless she talked too much, or it seemed queer ice cream was in and pie wasn’t. Also, I wondered why Marge, before leaving, hadn’t said something about it, as she had talked to the doctor. I asked if this meant a diet, and this filthy little four-letter word got kind of a shocked silence. Then: “Well, no, Duke, nothing like that, I hope. Dr. Semmes knows my trouble, and would be the first to remind me I have to keep up my strength. It’s just — I had a taste in my mouth — something I’ve had before — I told him about it today. He thinks — they always have to blame something — the pastry could be the cause. I suppose it is — the least little bit rich.”

She looked me in the eye, as a cat does when you suspicion him, and can’t imagine, even with feathers on his nose, why you’re picking on him. I reminded myself how her nature changed when this subject came up, and how even Bill, much as he seemed to love her, never said any different. I studied her, and all of a sudden remembered a guy I had trained, who also had a taste that had to be treated. I said: “You mean, Dr. Semmes made tests? That you wanted kept from Marge? That you rang him just now, after Bill and Marge left, to get the answer in private? Is that it, Mrs. Val?”

“What do you mean, tests?”

“You’re throwing sugar, aren’t you?”

“Sugar? Sugar?”

“In your water, sugar.”

“You dare say that to me?”

“I do, yes.”

“Duke, you may go.”

“I won’t.”

She reached for the phone, which I had put beside her, but I covered it with my hand and set it out of her reach. She started to cuss, sounding much like Bill, and I hardly knew the sweet person I loved so deep. She asked: “Are you by any chance insinuating that I have the diabetes?”

I told her, quite slow, taking my time: “I’m not. I’m insinuating a whole lot worse. At your age, which Bill says is twenty-three, you have, or should have, a hundred per cent normal pancreas, able to supply the juice, or insulin as it’s called, for a normal woman. A woman of one hundred and twenty pounds. Short as you are, one hundred and ten. But it cracks up supplying insulin to four hundred pounds of blubber. I didn’t say diabetes, but the windup’ll be the same. Lady, you’re going to die.”

“I don’t weigh four hundred pounds!”

“What do you weigh?”

“None of your damned business!”

“Over two hundred and sixty, though. That was the first thing I noticed, when I got the first aid from your bathroom — the pair of identical scales, tucked under the cabinet. Because two hundred and sixty is as far as one scale goes, and to weigh, you had to have two. I bet that was a sight, you standing sprat-legged, weighing yourself by halves.”

She got so furious she cried, but I kept driving them in. I said: “As a matter of fact, you’re dying now. Your heart nearly went out when you fell in the hole. It’s laboring now, supplying blood to all that lard, though from your looks I would say it was normal. Your pancreas can’t take it, your ankles are near the end, and your kidneys will make the K. O. One of these days you’ll topple on your face, and Mr. Val will go around bragging of the custom-made casket he got you, as of course no regular casket would fit.”

For some reason that reached her, and she moaned and closed her eyes. Then: “I’ve known I must die, I’m resigned. I do the little I can, my mite of good on this earth, until I hear the call. I’ve asked you: isn’t that enough? Do I everlastingly have to be told? Can’t I die in peace? How often do I have to say it? It’s glandular! It’s an affliction! There’s no cure, and—”

“It’s not glandular.”

“...What?”

“You heard me, I think.”

“And what, then, is it?”

“You. You and your dishonest soul. You, that haven’t the guts to say no to your gut.”

“Listen, I may be weak, and we’re right back where we started. If it’s not glandular, why can’t they find any cure?”

“They can. They have.”

“Funny they wouldn’t tell me.”

“They have, I think. As Dr. Semmes tried to tell you today. But you can’t hear them, can you? You kid yourself they may mean pie, but not ice cream — oh no.”

“And what is this wonderful cure?”

“Don’t eat so goddam much.”

She turned white, not at the words, but the sense, at the fear of not having food. I wouldn’t have been human then if I didn’t go get her lunch. I heated her up two take-outs, warmed her ice cream, found some chocolate sauce, melted it, poured it on top of the cream, found maraschino cherries, put them on top, so I had a tray that looked like something in movies. I set it beside her and said: “There you are, meat, cream, sugar, everything. You’re trying, as you lie there, to make yourself heave it at me, but with the character you got, what you’re going to do is eat it. Aren’t you?”

“And I thought I had a friend.”

“Friend? What you want is a pallbearer.”

She started to cry, and I squatted there, to be plastered with goo if that was what she wanted. She didn’t do any plastering. She ate the last slice, the last crumb, the last drop.

I took the tray, came back, and asked if there’d be something else. She said I could pack, as she’d have to tell her husband of the things I had said, and he’d have to let me go. I felt myself go numb, as that threw me back to the officer, my confession, and what all that might mean. I hated to eat her crow, but after some seconds, when the scare of the bars had done its work, I did. I said: “I have talked very plain, but as you said just now, we once said we were friends, and I spoke for your own good. If you’re bound you must tell Mr. Val, there’s nothing I can say, but before you do, I’d like to tell you more — about myself — my days in the ring — what I learned there — so you’ll know I can help you — if you’ll only let me.”

But her face only got meaner, and, fear or no fear, you can take just so much. I said: “How’d you like to go to hell?” Then I flung out, went to the cottage, and packed.

But the thought of her ankles rode me, especially on certain angles, like her being helpless to get to the bath-room, and maybe needing to go, so I went back, as though to borrow the phone. I said, if Mr. Val had to be told, I’d rather do it myself, and picked up the receiver to dial. She said: “Duke, will you put that down? And sit here, where we can talk?”

“I apologize.”

“I had it coming, and more.”

I put the receiver back and moved the phone where she could reach it. I pulled a chair over and sat down facing her. She touched her tongue to her teeth, said: “I have that taste again. Not sweet — just a queer, gray sensation. And my ears ring a little. As though frogs were here.”

“The sugar in that sundae—”

“I know, I know.” And then: “Part of it’s lying, Duke, to myself, and taking it out on you. But part of it’s fear. Of not having the food I so desperately need.”

“You so desperately want.”

“It’s some little bit need.”

“It’s not.”

“All right, then—”

It must have been a minute before she could make herself whisper: “Want.” Then, after another minute: “Now tell me. About yourself.”

“I couldn’t hit.”

“I know. Not that I’d want you to.”

“I couldn’t hit, but I wouldn’t give up, and that spells punk, or, in other words, sparring partner. But then I got the idea I’d make that racket pay. So I did. I trained guys for title fights, guys that had to make weight. You understand about that?”

“Not very well, I’m afraid.”

“They got divisions, each a different weight, like fly, bantam, feather, light, welter, middle, light heavy, and heavy. Each division carries a title, worth plenty of dough. But some guys, who’d be rich at 160, but are bums at 175, are like you. They can’t, or think they can’t, make the weight. That’s where I came in. I talked to doctors, read in libraries, listened to stuff, and got it down to a science. I was the guy, out there in the West, who could take that 175-pound bum, work on him five or six weeks, and make him a champ at 160. I had all the work I could do... Listen, stupid, for you I could do the same.”

“I haven’t the — guts, you called it.”

“You think you’re the only one?”

I grabbed her shoulder, shook it, and said: “Every fatso on earth is like that from not having guts — but my business was giving them guts. I know how. Don’t you want to step out of that grease? Don’t you want to be free of it? To walk without folding up? To run? To look like other people? To be able to go in a store, see a dress that you like—”

“Shut up.”

“You finish it up.”

“You got a sireen song, Mr. Webster.”

There’s such a thing as knowing when to shut up, because guts are found inside, and can’t be laced on like gloves. I said nothing for some time, and she lay there, her arms folded over her eyes. Then: “Duke, I’ll try it. I’ll put myself in your hands, with the same trust I have in you always — on one condition.”

“Which is?”

“I’ll be facing two fights. One with myself. On that you’ve offered your help and I accept it. The other is — my fight alone. On that I must have your promise you’ll keep out. It must be my fight alone.”

After what Bill had said, I thought I knew what she meant. I said: “Are you sure you’ll have that fight? It seems to me that anyone would be only too glad—”

“Duke, it’s pride. In food. In emancipating Woman with a capital W — and Woman includes me. In something a lifetime is dedicated to. That’s part of it. But there are other parts too, that I can’t go into. Duke, I must have your word.”

“Look. On this subject, in addition to know-how, I’m one hell of a salesman. I had to be. That’s where you begin. I could make with the explaining so—”

“Duke, no!”

She wasn’t impatient, she was terrified. She said: “Unless you promise me, unless it’s to be secret between us, unless I can be sure that not even my family knows until I’ve won — if I win — it’s off. We don’t start. Have I made it clear?”

“...If that’s the deal, Mrs. Val—”

“It is, it has to be.”

“Then, that’s it.”

We shook and she held my hand, so we were closer than ever. And yet, as I write it now, I wish I believed it was quite as good as it looks. On her part it was, I know. But on my part, if she had a taste in her mouth, I had one too, and it wasn’t gray, it was yellow. Just once that afternoon I had remembered what Val could do to me, or I thought he could do. And maybe, even pressing her hand, I may have been slightly relieved to be standing clear of that fight, to be glad I wasn’t involved.