Sanctuary

9

The room was dark. The woman stood inside the door, against the wall, in the cheap coat, the lace-trimmed crepe nightgown, just inside the lockless door. She could hear Gowan snoring in the bed, and the other men moving about, on the porch and in the hall and in the kitchen, talking, their voices indistinguishable through the door. After a while they got quiet. Then she could hear nothing at all save Gowan as he choked and snored and moaned through his battered nose and face.

She heard the door open. The man came in, without trying to be silent. He entered, passing within a foot of her. She knew it was Goodwin before he spoke. He went to the bed. “I want the raincoat,” he said. “Sit up and take it off.” The woman could hear the shucks in the mattress as Temple sat up and Goodwin took the raincoat off of her. He returned across the floor and went out.

She stood just inside the door. She could tell all of them by the way they breathed. Then, without having heard, felt, the door open, she began to smell something: the brilliantine which Popeye used on his hair. She did not see Popeye at all when he entered and passed her; she did not know he had entered yet; she was waiting for him; until Tommy entered, following Popeye. Tommy crept into the room, also soundless; she would have been no more aware of his entrance than of Popeye’s, if it hadn’t been for his eyes. They glowed, breast-high, with a profound interrogation, then they disappeared and the woman could then feel him, squatting beside her; she knew that he too was looking toward the bed over which Popeye stood in the darkness, upon which Temple and Gowan lay, with Gowan snoring and choking and snoring. The woman stood just inside the door.

She could hear no sound from the shucks, so she remained motionless beside the door, with Tommy squatting beside her, his face toward the invisible bed. Then she smelled the brilliantine again. Or rather, she felt Tommy move from beside her, without a sound, as though the stealthy evacuation of his position blew soft and cold upon her in the black silence; without seeing or hearing him, she knew that he had crept again from the room, following Popeye. She heard them go down the hall; the last sound died out of the house.

She went to the bed. Temple did not move until the woman touched her. Then she began to struggle. The woman found Temple’s mouth and put her hand over it, though Temple had not attempted to scream. She lay on the shuck mattress, turning and thrashing her body from side to side, rolling her head, holding the coat together across her breast but making no sound.

“You fool!” the woman said in a thin, fierce whisper. “It’s me. It’s just me.”

Temple ceased to roll her head, but she still thrashed from side to side beneath the woman’s hand. “I’ll tell my father!” she said. “I’ll tell my father!”

The woman held her. “Get up,” she said. Temple ceased to struggle. She lay still, rigid. The woman could hear her wild breathing. “Will you get up and walk quiet?” the woman said.

“Yes!” Temple said. “Will you get me out of here? Will you? Will you?”

“Yes,” the woman said. “Get up.” Temple got up, the shucks whispering. In the further darkness Gowan snored, savage and profound. At first Temple couldn’t stand alone. The woman held her up. “Stop it,” the woman said. “You’ve got to stop it. You’ve got to be quiet.”

“I want my clothes,” Temple whispered. “I haven’t got anything on but.……”

“Do you want your clothes,” the woman said, “or do you want to get out of here?”

“Yes,” Temple said. “Anything. If you’ll just get me out of here.”

On their bare feet they moved like ghosts. They left the house and crossed the porch and went on toward the barn. When they were about fifty yards from the house the woman stopped and turned and jerked Temple up to her, and gripping her by the shoulders, their faces close together, she cursed Temple in a whisper, a sound no louder than a sigh and filled with fury. Then she flung her away and they went on. They entered the hallway. It was pitch dark. Temple heard the woman fumbling at the wall. A door creaked open; the woman took her arm and guided her up a single step into a floored room where she could feel walls and smell a faint, dusty odor of grain, and closed the door behind them. As she did so something rushed invisibly nearby in a scurrying scrabble, a dying whisper of fairy feet. Temple whirled, treading on something that rolled under her foot, and sprang toward the woman.

“It’s just a rat,” the woman said, but Temple hurled herself upon the other, flinging her arms about her, trying to snatch both feet from the floor.

“A rat?” she wailed, “a rat? Open the door! Quick!”

“Stop it! Stop it!” the woman hissed. She held Temple until she ceased. Then they knelt side by side against the wall. After a while the woman whispered: “There’s some cottonseed-hulls over there. You can lie down.” Temple didn’t answer. She crouched against the woman, shaking slowly, and they squatted there in the black darkness, against the wall.