The Cannibal Heart

14

Toward morning the sea lion moved inshore and cried.

Mark woke at the first sound as if he had been unconsciously waiting for the signal. It wasn’t morning yet, but the darkness was greying, and the air in the room felt heavy with moisture.

He pulled aside the drapes and saw that the fog had come in during the night. It floated in wisps through the window, but over the sea it hung thick, smothering the new day and muffling the solitary cry of the sea lion. The sound worried him. It seemed to be a cry for help, and he wondered whether the sea lion was wounded or whether it was looking for its lost young or a straying mate.

Putting on his robe he went out through the French door to the narrow platform built along the second story of the house. The platform served both as a sundeck and as a protection from the heat for the lower rooms. No one used it as a sundeck because one of the arms of the live oak tree had reached out and grown over it, dropping its prickly leaves and stony little acorns at the insistence of the wind. But it was a pleasant place to read in the afternoons or to smoke a final cigarette before going to bed.

The old tree was quiet in the fog, biding its time. It would outlive the drought, defeat the wind, drink the fog. It would not rust, like the iron railing of the deck which was wet to Mark’s touch and blistered with rust from the fogs of other years.

The cry of the sea lion hung in the air, trapped in the mist. Mark tried to visualize the sea lion, but the only image his mind evoked was the image of Mrs. Wakefield submerging, coming up, and submerging again with a flick of her black fins.

In the flare of the match Mark’s face was melancholy. Somewhere in the invisible sea something alive needed help, something with a heartbeat as strong as his own, and blood as rich. He felt a sense of pity and of kinship with the sea lion that he had never experienced before.

A door opened and shut.

“Mr. Banner?”

He turned, almost expecting to see her wearing her face glass and the grotesque duck’s-feet, with her wet hair streaming behind her like eel grass. She came toward him, her head brushing against the overhanging branch of the oak tree. An acorn fell like a stone, and the leaves rustled resentment.

“You heard it, too?” she said hesitantly.

“Yes. It woke me up.”

“It is a real sea lion then. I thought — Mr. Roma said that... Well, it doesn’t matter now, except I’m glad it’s real.”

She leaned against the railing, a yard or more distant from him. But the fog was as intimate as a sheet, wrapping them together against the outside world. He could hear every breath she took, and every rustle of silk under the polo coat she had belted tight around her.

“Why are you glad it’s real?” he said.

“I can’t tell you. You might laugh at me.”

“Is it written into the constitution that no one can laugh at you?”

She raised her chin. “All right, I’ll tell you. Mr. Roma heard the sea lion, only he thought it was me crying. He thought it was me crying in a dream. Isn’t that funny?”

“Not very. Why did you believe him?”

“Because when I woke up I really had been crying.”

“What about?”

“I can’t remember.”

In the intimacy of the fog he felt he could reach over and touch her memory and it would unfold into his hand.

“Could I have a cigarette?” she said.

He gave her one and lit it. “I thought you didn’t smoke.”

“I don’t. Just on special occasions.”

“Why is this a special occasion?”

“Oh, the fog, I guess,” she said with a vague gesture. “And being up so early, and — oh, everything.”

“Am I included in the ‘oh, everything’?”

She looked directly at him, and the cigarette glowed in her mouth for an instant like a third and fiery eye. “What do you suppose?”

“I suppose I am. Why did you follow me out here?”

“I couldn’t sleep. I heard you come out and I wanted someone to talk to.”

“Well, start talking,” he said soberly.

“I’ve... I’ve forgotten what I was going to say.”

“Say anything. I want to hear you talk.”

She turned away, shaking her head.

The sea lion began again, and they both looked quickly toward the vanished sea, as if startled but relieved by a sound from the outside world.

“He’s at it again,” Mark said, the relief evident in his voice. “He might have been injured by a shark.”

“Oh, no. He’s only playing.”

“It’s a hell of a time to play.”

“He doesn’t care. Sea lions are very gay creatures. They like to tease. Once, years ago, John and I tried to catch one, or at least get close to him. He teased us for over an hour, letting us get just so close, and then diving under and coming up a hundred feet away. I could have sworn he was laughing at us. His face didn’t change expression but he seemed to be chuckling inside, like a very old and dignified gentleman at the Yale Club looking at the cartoons in Esquire.”

“I frequently read Esquire at the Yale Club.”

“Don’t tell me things like that about yourself.”

“Aren’t you interested?”

“Yes, but I don’t want to hear them. I don’t like to think of you as having... having another life, belonging to clubs and working in an office and going home in the evenings to a family.”

“How do you want to think of me?”

“Just the way you are now, standing here, with no background at all.”

“I can’t stand here forever.”

“No. But I wish... I wish you could.”

He was silent a moment. The fog had begun to lift, and in the east a faint pink glow announced the coming of the sun.

“I’m beginning to get an idea about you,” he said at last. “It’s not a nice one.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“You’re going to make trouble for me. Trouble is your middle name.”

Her eyes looked huge in the dim light. She pulled her coat collar high on her throat, as if to make it less naked, less vulnerable. “Why do you say that? Why do you look at me like that?”

“I’m catching on. You like to own things, don’t you?”

She seemed relieved at his answer. “Oh. Oh, is that all?”

“That’s enough. Why are you smiling?”

“I’m happy.”

“Are you?”

“I like talking to you, out here in the fog like this. It’s much nicer than lying in bed, thinking.”

“And crying...”

“Sometimes I cry. Not often, anymore. It’s so useless, and afterwards I can’t breathe, and my eyes are swollen.”

“I hate to think of you crying.”

“You’re so funny,” she said, smiling. “One minute you’re so cynical and hard, the bristling male. And the next minute you’re quite gentle.”

“Have you never affected other people like that?”

“No.”

“Not even your husband?”

“No. John was always gentle.”

“Did you own him, too?”

“What... I don’t understand.”

“I meant, the way you own Roma and his wife. In a quiet ladylike way, of course — pulling the strings so cautiously the marionettes don’t jump, they waltz.”

She wasn’t angry. “That’s an absurd idea.”

“You own Roma, anyway. You even taught him how to talk. Don’t you see how he copies you?”

“I can’t help that.”

“Tell me, did he change in the year you were away? Did you find him perhaps a little different?”

“Why? I don’t see what you’re driving at.”

“Mice don’t always play when the cat’s away, but they change. They become a little freer, more relaxed...”

“Please don’t spoil things,” she whispered. “Please, Mark.”

“Oh, Christ,” he said, and rubbed the side of his jaw impatiently.

The rough scratching sound was pleasant to her. She wondered how sharp his whiskers were and whether they would hurt her skin if he kissed her. But it was almost too late now, and too light. The fog still brooded in the treetops, but the sea was visible, flowing silver in the dawn. She would have liked the fog to come down again like a giant cataract growing over the eye of the sun. She wanted a whole new blind day for herself and Mark.

She stood, shivering. It was almost too late. Mr. Roma would be getting up soon, and Jessie, and Carmelita. Soon every room in the house would be filled with people, or the threat of people. The minutes were bursting like bubbles before her eyes.

“I’d better go in now,” she said painfully.

“You’ll miss the sunrise.”

“I’ve seen others.”

“Maybe this one will be different.”

She pulled her coat close around her. “I thought it might be, too, for a while. But it’s the same old one.”

“Don’t go in,” he said.

They stood at the rusted railing, side by side, and watched the sun climb slowly up the sky. The sea turned rosy, and the head of the sea lion was a black speck, a quarter-mile from shore. He had stopped barking, silenced by the shift from night to day.

“I can’t stay here,” she said, “and I can’t leave. Do you ever feel like that?”

“I do at this moment.”

“It’s silly to say now that I wish I’d never met you. But I do wish it, with all my heart. It was only by the merest fluke that I learned you were alive, and now I can never forget it. I feel that I could... I could almost kill you.”

“Don’t talk like that.”

“Not for revenge — only so I wouldn’t have to go away from you and keep thinking of you going on as usual without me, reading Esquire at the Yale Club. I don’t want you to be alive without me.”

“Those are funny love words.”

“Are they?”

Her hands gripped the railing; they were quite large, and one of the knuckles on her right hand protruded more than the others, as if it had once been broken and had mended crookedly. He took her hand and held the crooked knuckle against his heart.

“I couldn’t stand it,” she said, “to walk on a city street and always be expecting to meet you; to look up at a plane and wonder if you’re in it; to watch every window on a passing train. Are those such funny love words?”

“No.”

“When I’m gone will you wonder like that about me? Will you?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

She tore her hand out of his grasp and backed away from him.

He said, “If you can’t bear to hear the truth, don’t ask for it.”

She spat the word back at him. “Truth!”

“That’s it. I’m trying to be honest with you. What do you want...? A couple of quick seductions good for a few tear drops on the pages of your diary? Or do you want to lock me up in your house? Either way, it’ll be a first-class mess. Wash the dreams out of your eyes and you’ll see it for yourself. I know, I’ve been in a mess like this before,” he said grimly, “and I’ve learned a little. I nearly lost my family for the sake of a woman whose face I can’t even remember anymore.”

“Can’t you?”

“I remember she had three kids.”

“And that’s all?”

“Yes.”

“I hate you,” she whispered. “I hate you!”

“That’s better than watching train windows,” he said.

He sounded perfectly under control. But he knew that if she came over and touched him, he would forget his own words and make her forget them, too.

She went back into the house, shielding her crumpling face with her hand.

He smoked another cigarette and watched the sunrise and wondered what would happen if he told Evelyn.