The Cannibal Heart

15

He didn’t tell Evelyn; he didn’t have to. Though she wasn’t aware of what had happened on the sundeck, she had read, surely and expertly, the signs of guilt: too much or too little silence, a forced laugh, a shift of glance, a sudden change in an old habit. The last sign was the most striking — for the first time since they’d come here, Mark had shaved and dressed very carefully before breakfast.

She kept the knowledge to herself, letting it grow inside like a tumor hidden, temporarily, under a whole and healthy skin.

During breakfast she was very cheerful, paying special attention to Jessie but not missing a flicker of Mark’s eyelids. Mrs. Wakefield had eaten early and had already gone upstairs with her notebook to finish listing the contents of the bedrooms.

“Don’t dribble like that, Jessie,” Evelyn said. “We don’t want the place to be swimming in oatmeal.”

“My manners are better when I’m out.”

“Well, pretend you’re out then. Pretend you’re at — how about Schrafft’s?”

Schrafft’s was fine. She pretended that she was dining alone at Schrafft’s on porridge-sherbet; her mother and father were total strangers, and Luisa, coming in with the coffee, was the cross waitress who wouldn’t get a tip.

“Here’s the coffee,” Luisa announced, as if she had just barely been able to survive the grueling journey from kitchen to dining room. “Mama says it’s terrible this morning because the water’s beginning to smell again. We may not have any water at all pretty soon unless it rains.”

“I’m sure it will,” Evelyn said. “Let’s hope so.”

“It never rains here in June. Do you want anything else besides the coffee?”

“No, thanks, Luisa.”

The cross waitress disappeared, and the total strangers began to talk.

“Mark, did you see that necklace Luisa’s wearing?”

“Sorry, I didn’t notice.”

“It looks like the same one Mrs. Wakefield had on that first day she came.”

“Maybe it is. Who cares?”

“I don’t actually care, darling,” Evelyn said pleasantly, “only it seems odd that she’d let Luisa wear it. It looks rather expensive.”

“Mrs. Wakefield gave it to her,” Jessie said, forgetting she was at Schrafft’s. “For keeps.”

“You’re not making that up, angel?”

Jessie never made anything up, and said as much, with virtuous indignation. “I know for a fact because she almost traded it to me for the watch, only not quite.”

“In any case,” Mark interrupted, “it’s not your business, Jessie. It’s not ours either, for that matter. Let’s drop the subject.”

“Well, really,” Evelyn said, widening her eyes. “Surely it’s a perfectly innocent subject — unless you know more about it than I do?”

“I know nothing about it.”

“Then why get so touchy? Jessie, sweet, if you’ve finished, you may go now.”

She hadn’t finished, but she rose anyway, and sped for the door. She knew what was coming. The total strangers weren’t total strangers anymore. They were her mother and father, and they were going to have an argument.

“All right, let’s have it,” Mark said. “Let the brave front fall and we’ll see what’s behind it.”

“Not a thing.”

“That’s the way you’re going to play it, is it?”

Impulsively she reached out and touched his coat sleeve. “Mark, why do you talk to me lately as if I were your enemy?”

“If I do, then I’m sorry. I apologize.”

“What good’s an apology? I’d like to know where I stand.”

“Where you’ve stood for the last twelve years. You’re my wife, and I wouldn’t give you up for all the other women in the country.”

She turned away, biting her lip. “Those are nice words, but the way you say them makes me want to bawl.”

“You have no reason to bawl, Evelyn,” he said quietly. “Perhaps I don’t act the dashing lover as well as I did ten years ago, but I do love you. I think you’re sweet and bright and amusing, and I couldn’t imagine anyone else I’d rather see every day.”

“But... Now let’s have the but.”

“Can’t think of any...”

“I can,” she said. “But along comes a woman like Mrs. Wakefield — or Patty — one of these dreamy June-moon-soon gals who’s made a mess out of her life — and what happens? You want to rescue her or make it all up to her or something. And immediately I begin to look like something that crawled out from under the floorboards.” She hesitated. “Hell, darling, I can be dreamy, too. June, moon, soon, swoon. See?”

“I’ve never been unfaithful to you.”

“You’ve come pretty close, though.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Patty and Mrs. Wakefield?”

“Patty and Mrs. Wakefield. Right.”

She was silent for a moment before she let out a queer little cry. “What am I sitting here for? Why don’t I do something about it? Could I... no, I don’t suppose I could.”

“Could what?”

“Talk you out of it. You know, sort of analyze her so she won’t look quite so good to you.”

He smiled, very slightly. “She doesn’t look so good to me. You’re a funny girl.”

“Listen, Mark. Do you really have a crush on her? I mean when you look at her, do you — do you want her?”

“No.” It was the first lie he told, and he told it as much for her sake as his own.

“You wouldn’t admit it anyway.”

“Probably not.”

She said, after a time, “I wish you weren’t so honest. Sometimes I think that people who bend over backward to be honest only do it to be... to be cruel.”

“If I lied, though, you’d think up stronger words for me than cruel.”

“I guess.”

“It’s a case of hell if I do and hell if I don’t.”

She poured his coffee and passed it across the table. “I suppose you think I’m unreasonable?”

“No more than the average woman.”

“What would you do if the situation was reversed, and some tall dreamy guy with sideburns came along and decided I was pretty cute.”

“Lots of them have, though I can’t remember any with sideburns.”

“I asked you a serious question.”

“Very well. I’d probably ask him to park elsewhere. And if he didn’t — and if he wasn’t too big — I’d take a poke at him.”

“The subtle approach, eh? God, men have simple minds.”

“Can you think of something better?”

“I’ll try.”

He looked faintly irritated. “Don’t make a fool of yourself, will you? Don’t — humiliate yourself.”

“If I don’t do it myself, other people might do it for me.”

“Listen, Evelyn. Lay off, will you? She’s leaving tomorrow anyway. There’s not a chance in the world that we’ll ever see her again.”

But, even as he spoke, the words were incredible to him. It seemed utterly impossible that she would not walk into his life again somewhere.

Evelyn was talking, but the words he heard came from his memory and had been spoken by Mrs. Wakefield: 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...

Evelyn found Luisa in the lathhouse beyond the shed. Luisa was sitting on the dusty potting table, singing to herself. Her voice was full and sweet, like a choir boy’s, and when she sang she smiled, pleased at the sound of herself floating out the slatted walls and roof. She sang very loud, to cover the crowing of the rooster in the chicken pen and the ceaseless gossip of the old hens.

In former years the lathhouse had been one of Luisa’s favorite places to sit and dream. Then, the air had been heavy with the smell of damp earth, and filled with the expectancy of growth. Seedlings sprouted everywhere, in flats and coldframes and flower pots; the hose dripped, and the earthen floor was cool and moist.

The hose hung now on a nail, unused, in a blur of spider webs. Under the folds of Mrs. Wakefield’s old gardening gloves, a black widow slept, in dark innocence. The ground was hard and dry as stone, and the only thing that grew was a stunted pelargonium in a flower pot. Its single bloom matched the color of Luisa’s dark-red lips.

In the sterile dryness of the lathhouse Luisa sang. She did not stop when she saw Evelyn. She looked away and finished her sad cheap little song.

“That was pretty,” Evelyn said.

Luisa tossed her head, flushing. She didn’t want her voice to be called pretty. Terrific, or super, or divine — these were the words that would find an echo in her mind. Pretty was an insult.

She said, “I’m supposed to be practicing.”

“I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

“If I don’t keep practicing so Mama can hear me I’ll have to go in and do the dishes or something.”

It was an invitation to leave, but Evelyn ignored it. Pushing aside a box of withered bulbs, she sat down on the bench along the wall. Dust rose from the bulbs like a sigh.

“Mayn’t I listen?” Evelyn said.

“I can’t sing if anyone listens. Last year at school I was supposed to be on the Christmas program. I had a costume and everything — an angel costume — only at the last minute I lost my voice. I was scared people would laugh at me.”

“Why?”

“I looked so funny. The costume was pure white, and I looked... I looked just like a nigger in it. Angels are supposed to be blonde.”

“It was silly to feel like that. You have a beautiful complexion. Why, my goodness, other girls your age spend weeks and weeks trying to get a tan like yours.”

“It isn’t a tan,” Luisa said woodenly. “I’m this color all over. I was born with it. In the winter the other girls get white again, and I stay like this.” She added, with a sudden frown, “You don’t understand. You sort of talk to me like you talk to Jessie. I’m not a child. I’m old enough to get married and have a baby. And if I can’t think of any other way, that’s what I’ll do.”

“Any other way to do what?”

“Leave here and go to a city.”

“I live in a city. It has its faults.”

“At night everything is bright, though,” Luisa said. “That’s the part I’d like best. And the people. Just think, every time you go outdoors meeting different people and seeing what they wear and everything. Out here, it’s gotten so I even appreciate Jessie sometimes.”

The roof of the lathhouse was hexagonal, and the sun, squeezing between the slats, divided Luisa into stripes.

“You’ll soon be leaving,” Evelyn said. “The house is up for sale.”

“No one will buy it when they find out about the water shortage. And even if it is sold I don’t believe my father will ever start a restaurant in town. He doesn’t know anything about restaurants. All he ever was before was a caretaker.” She kicked the leg of the table with her shoe, in quick rhythm, keeping time to the quick rhythm of resentment beating within her. “Maybe we’ll end up going away with her.”

Evelyn hesitated. She was sorry in advance for what she was going to do, but nothing could have stopped her. She said, “That would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

“I’d hate it.”

“Why, I thought you and Mrs. Wakefield were old friends. She gave you that gorgeous necklace, didn’t she?”

“Only so I wouldn’t — only for business reasons.”

“Luisa — only so you wouldn’t do what?”

“She don’t want anyone to know about Billy and Mr. Wakefield.”

“What about them?”

“I’m not supposed to tell,” Luisa said. “I’m scared to.”

“Are you afraid she’ll take the necklace away from you? Or worse than that?”

“I don’t know. I’m just scared, is all. She gives me the creeps. Billy did, too. I used to have to play with him until Miss Lewis said it wasn’t good for me. Miss Lewis was the only one Mrs. Wakefield would listen to. She knew she had to, she’d be sunk without her.” She broke off with a sharp sound almost like a laugh. “She didn’t fool Miss Lewis or me when she went into that sweet, sympathetic act, the way you were trying to do a minute ago.”

“I’m glad I didn’t fool you,” Evelyn said, rising, and brushing off the back of her skirt. “It was worth trying, though. Maybe some day you’ll understand.”

“I understand already.”

Luisa slid down from the table. She was as tall as Evelyn and as fully developed. The seventeen years that stood between them were like the pleats of a fan that could be folded and unfolded but were always joined at the base.

At the base, they were two women with a common enemy.

“He was funny in the head,” Luisa said, fingering the necklace. “Billy, I mean. He was born that way. He couldn’t hardly talk, not so anyone could understand much except Mrs. Wakefield and Miss Lewis. He couldn’t even stand up alone until he was over three, and sometimes he just sat for hours with his tongue kind of sticking out. He was awful. I hated to be near him. Miss Lewis didn’t mind, though. She used to pet him and call him nicknames like Billy-boy and Old Timer.”

Evelyn remembered the first night that Mrs. Wakefield had spoken of Billy: My son was very fond of music... Billy and I were traveling... All the references had seemed to indicate that Billy had been a little different from ordinary sons, a little superior.

“Mr. and Mrs. Wakefield used to fight about him,” Luisa said. “Not at first, when he was little; but later, when I got old enough to hang around and listen, I often heard them arguing. Mr. Wakefield always talked quiet, but she used to cry and carry on until he agreed with her.”

“What did they argue about?” Evelyn said, feeling, as yet, no pity for Mrs. Wakefield. The boy Billy was still too shadowy; he wasn’t a real child who had to be fed and clothed and supervised and given affection.

“Mr. Wakefield wanted her to put Billy in a special school, so then the two of them could go away and live some place like normal people. But she wouldn’t leave. All the time she lived here she never went further away than town, and then she was always in such a hurry to get home that she didn’t get half the things on the list and my father’d have to go back again next day.”

“Did Mr. Wakefield stay here all the time, too?”

“No. He had something to do with shipbuilding, and he used to go away sometimes up to San Francisco and Seattle. But this is a funny thing: every time he came home something had happened, like Billy falling and hurting his knee, or Mrs. Wakefield getting an abscess on her tooth, or the filter system breaking down.”

The wind slipped through the laths and stirred the dust.

“Every night he was away he sent her a telegram,” Luisa said. “She kept them all in the hall desk. When he died she read them all through again and burned them in the incinerator. Before the inquest some men came and poked into everything, even the incinerator, and all of Mr. Wakefield’s drawers and his desk.”

“What were they looking for?”

“A note. The man said it would make it easier for everyone if they could find a note from Mr. Wakefield saying he was going to kill himself.”

“Did they find one?”

“No. There wasn’t any.”

Through the slits between the laths they saw Mr. Roma coming down the path, carrying the pails of chicken mash. He passed on without a glance into the lathhouse. When he opened the gate of the chicken pen the hens squawked and clucked and took nervous little leaps into the air like fat and ancient ballerinas.

“I better go on with my practicing now,” Luisa said, “so they’ll hear me.”

“I’ll go in a minute. What was the result of the inquest?”

“They said he killed himself.”

Evelyn said, from the doorway, “Thanks, Luisa. I don’t know how it will help, but thank you, anyway.”

“I didn’t do it for you,” Luisa said, frowning. “I did it against her.”

“Same difference. You’re not frightened anymore, are you?”

“Not a bit.”

“That’s good. After all, she’s just an ordinary woman. I expect we’re both rather silly to hate her so much. We should feel sorry for her.”

She didn’t convince Luisa, and she didn’t convince herself.

She had now in her possession some of the facts that Mrs. Wakefield had been trying to hide, but she didn’t know how to use them. It would be difficult to admit to Mark that she had pumped the information out of a bewildered adolescent girl. As for the facts themselves, she had no way of knowing how he would react; he might be shocked, or repelled, or his attraction for Mrs. Wakefield might only be strengthened by pity.

It was, finally, Luisa herself who forced the issue.

Luisa perceived in the situation an opportunity to change her role from a common tattletale to a martyr. Taking off the necklace in her room, she saw herself as a pure and nunlike creature kneeling before an altar of truth. She put the necklace in a box left over from Christmas and gave it to Evelyn to return to Mrs. Wakefield.

She felt delightfully holy for the rest of the morning.