Waltz Into Darkness

64

Suddenly she had turned, thrown herself toward him. He hadn’t known the human form could move so quickly. But she was so deft, she was so small. Her hand flashed out, a white missile before his face. The tumbler was gone from his grasp. Glass riddled on the floor somewhere offside beyond his ken.

Her face seemed to melt into shapeless weeping lines, like a face seen through rain running down a pane. She caught him to her convulsively, crushing his face against her soft breast. He hadn’t known her embrace could hold that much strength. She’d never loved him enough to exert it to the full before.

“Oh, merciful God,” she cried out wildly. “Look down and forgive me! Stop this terrible thing, turn it back, undo it! Lou, my Lou! Only now I see it! Oh, my eyes are open, open now at last! What have I done?”

She dropped to her knees before him, as she had that night in Biloxi when they first came together again. But how different now; how false, how studied her pleas, her posture then, how inconsolable her passion of remorse now, a veritable paroxysm of penitence, that nothing, no word of his, could assuage.

Her sobbing had the wild, panting turbulence of a child’s, strangling her words, rendering her almost incoherent. Perhaps this was a child crying now, a newborn self in her, a little girl held mute for twenty years, only now belatedly finding voice.

“I must have been mad— Out of my mind— How could I have listened to such a scheme? But when I was with him, I saw only him, never you— He brought out that old bad self in me— He made wrong things seem right, or just something to snicker at—”

Her fingers, pleading, traced the outlines of his face; trembling, felt of his lips, of his lidded eyes, as if seeking to restore them to what they had been. Nothing, no voracious kisses seeking him out everywhere, no splurge of teardrops falling all over him, could bring him back.

“I’ve killed you! I’ve killed you!”

And rebel to the end, fell prone and beat upon the floor with her fist, in helpless rebellion at the trickery fate had practised on her.

Then suddenly her weeping stopped. As suddenly as though a stroke of fear had been laid across her bowed head. Her pummelling hand stilled.

Her head came up. She was bated, she was watchful, she was crafty. Of what he could not tell. She turned and looked behind her at the window, in dreadful secretive apprehension.

“Nobody shall take you from me,” she said through clenched teeth. “I’ll not give you up. Not for anyone. It’s not too late, it’s not! I’m going to get you out of here, where you’ll be safe— Hurry, get your things. We’ll go together. I have the strength for the two of us. You’re going to live. Do you hear me, Lou? You’re going to live — yet.”

She sidled up beside the window, creeping along the wall until she had gained an outer edge of it; then peered narrowly out, using the slit between curtain edge and wall. He saw her nod slightly to herself, as if in confirmation of something she had expected to see.

“What is it?” he whispered. “Who’s out there?”

She didn’t answer. Suddenly she drew her head back sharply, as if fearful she had been detected just then from the outside.

“Shall I put out the lamp?” he asked.

“No!” She motioned to him horrified. “For God’s sake, no! I was to have done that. It will be taken for a signal that — it’s over. Our only chance is to go now, and leave it still on, as if — as if we were here yet.”

She came running back to him, yet not forgetting even as she did so to throw still another backward glance of dread at the window; she settled down beside him with a billowing-out of her dress, took hold of his untended foot, raised it, while he still strove valiantly with the first.

“Quickly, your other shoe! There, that’s all— No time for more.”

She helped him quit his sitting position on the edge of the bed, held him upright on his feet beside her, like some sort of an inanimate mannikin or rigid toy soldier that would fall over if her hands quitted him for just an instant and left him to himself.

“Lean on me, I’ll help you. There! There! Move your feet, that’s it! Oh, Lou, try this one time more. Just this one time more. You did it before. This time we’re together, we’re going together. This time it’s our love itself that’s running away — for its very life.”

He smiled at her, as the floor slowly crept by beneath their tottering feet, inch by painful inch.

“Our love,” he whispered bravely. “Our love, running away. Where are we going?”

“Any train, anywhere. Only let us get out of this house—”

She struggled heroically with him, as though she were the spirit of life itself, contesting with the spirit of death that sought to possess him. Now holding him back when he inclined too far forward, now drawing him on when he swayed too far backward. Out the room door and along the upper hall. But on the stairs once she nearly lost him. For a moment there was a terrible equipoise while he hung forward, threatening to topple downward, all the way downward, head first, and she strained her small body backward to the last ounce of its strength, striving to regain the balance that had been incautiously lost.

Not a whimper came from her in that frightful moment, and surely had he gone downward to his own destruction, she would have clung to him to the end, gone down with him to her own, rather than release him. But a strength came into her arms that had never been in them before, and slowly her squeezing pull, her embrace of desperation, righted him, drew him back against her, and equilibrium was regained.

And then, as they rested half-recumbent against the rail a moment, she with her back to it, he with his head pillowed on her breast, she found time to stroke his hair back soothingly from his brow and whisper: “Courage, love. I will not let you fall. Is it very hard for you?”

“No,” he murmured wanly, rolling his eyes upward toward her downturned face above him, “because you are with me.”

Downward once more then, more cautiously this time, step by mincing step, like a pair of ballet dancers locked in one another’s arms, pointed toe following pointed toe in a horrid, groping, blinded sort of pas de deux.

As they neared the bottom, were within one last step of it, she suddenly stopped, frozen. And in the silence, over the rise and fall of their two breaths, they both heard it.

There was a low, urgent tapping going on against the front door. Very stealthy it was, very secretive. Meant only to be caught by a single pair of ears, no other. A pair forewarned to expect it, to listen for it. Two fingers at the most, perhaps only one, kept striking at the woodwork; scratching at it, scraping at it, it might almost have been said, so softened was their impact.

A peculiar whistle sounded with it. Also modulated very low, very guardedly. Little more than a stirring of the breath against a wavering upper lip. Plaintive, melancholy, like the sound of a baby owl. Or a lost wisp of night wind trying to find its way in.

It was intermittent. It waited. Then sounded again. Waited. Sounded again.

“Sh, don’t make any noise!” He could feel her arms tighten protectively about him. As if instinctively seeking to safeguard him against something. Something that she understood, knew the meaning of, he didn’t. “The back way,” she breathed. “We’ll have to go out by there— Hold your breath, love. For the love of heaven, don’t make a sound or — we’ll both be dead in here where we stand.”

Cautiously, straining against one another, as much now to insure their mutual silence as before now it had been to maintain his uprightness, they quitted the stairs, crept rearward on the lower floor, into the dining room. She halted him there for a preciously spared moment, to reach for a decanter of stimulant, give it a twisting shake, extract the glass stopper and moisten his lips with it, while she still continued to hold him within the curve of her other arm.

“I’m afraid to give you too much,” she mourned. “You are so spent.”

“My love’s beside me,” he promised, as if speaking to himself. “I won’t fail.”

They moved on into the unlighted kitchen beyond, swimming submerged in the blue tide of night, but with the curtained glass square of its door, the back way out, peering at them, distinguishable in the dimness.

He heard the bolt scrape softly back beneath her diligently groping fingers. Then the door moved inward, and the coolness of escape was grateful in their faces.

The last sound behind them, traveling through the whole length of the house from its front, was that low tapping, recommencing again after a grudging wait. A little more hurried now than before, a little more insistent. And with it the whistle, with its secretive message, that seemed to say: “Open to me. Open. You know who I am. You know me. Why do you delay?” A little sharper now, a little more importunate, as its patience shortened.

He did not ask her who it was. There were so many things in life, it was too late now to ask, too late now to know. There was only one thing he wanted to know, he needed to know, and that at long last had been told him: she loved him.

They floundered out into the backyard of their house, and out through the gate that led into it, from the lane that ran behind the backs of all these houses; down that to its mouth, and from there onto the sideward street. Then along that, and around the turn, and into the street that ran behind the one their house had faced upon.

“The station,” she kept saying. “The station— Oh, try, Lou. It’s just a few short streets ahead. We’ll be safe, if we can only reach it. There’s always someone there, day or night— There are lights there, no one can hurt us there. A train— Any train, to anywhere—”

Any train, his heart kept saying in time to its desperate pounding, to anywhere.

On and on and on, two lurching figures, breaths sobbing in their throats; reeling drunken, yes, drunken with the will to live and love, in peace. No eye to see them, no hand to help them.

It was in sight already, across the open square ahead, the station square, the hub of the town, — or so she told him, he could no longer see that far before him — when suddenly the combination of their overtaxed strengths gave out, her arms, her will, could do no more, and he fell flat there in the dust beside her.

She tried desperately to bring him up again, but she’d weakened so that his inertness could only bring her down half recumbent beside him, instead, as if he were pulling at her, not she at him. “Don’t waste time,” he sighed. “I can’t— Not a step further.”

She struggled upright again, drove fingers distractedly through her hair, looked this way, that.

“I’ve got to get you in out of the open! Oh, my love, my love, we may be caught yet if we stay here too long—”

Then bending to his face, to give him courage with a kiss, ran on and left him there where he was. She disappeared into a building fronting on the square, with a lighted gas bowl over its doorway and the legend: “Furnished Rooms for Travelers.”

In a moment she returned to view again, beckoning to someone within to hasten out after her. She came running back toward him, without waiting, holding her skirts with both hands at once, bunched forward and aloft to give her feet the freedom they needed. Behind her appeared a shirtsleeved man, struggling into his coat as he emerged. He set out after her.

“Here,” she cried. “Over this way. Here he is.”

He joined her beside the loglike figure on the ground.

“Help me get him to one of your rooms.”

The man, a beefy stalwart, lifted him bodily in both arms, turned with him to face toward the lodging house. She ran around him from one side to the next, trying to be of help, trying to take hold of Durand’s feet.

“No, I can manage,” the man said. “You go first and hold the door.”

The black sky over the station square, pocked with stars, eddied about this way and that just over Durand’s upturned eyes. He had a feeling of being very close to it. Then it changed to gaslight pallor on a plaster ceiling. Then this slanted off upward, gradually dimming, and he was being borne up stairs. He could hear the quick tap of her deft feet, pressing close behind them, in the spaces between his carrier’s slower plod. And once he felt his dangling hand caught up swiftly for a moment by two small ones, and the fervent print of a pair of velvety lips placed on it.

“I’m sorry it’s so high up,” the man said, “but that’s all I have.”

“No matter,” she answered. “Anything. Anything.”

They passed through a doorway, the ceiling dark at first, then gradually brightening to tarnished silver following the soft, spongy fluff of an ignited gas flow. Their shadows swam about on it, then blended, faded.

“Shall I put him on the bed, madam?”

“No,” Durand said weakly. “No more beds. Beds mean dying. Beds mean death.” His eyes sought hers, as the man lowered him to a chair, and he smiled through them. “And I’m not going to die, am I, Bonny?” he whispered resolutely.

“Never!” she answered huskily. “I’ll not let you!” She clenched her tiny fists, and set her jaw, and he could see sparks of defiance in her eyes, as if they were flint stones.

“Shall I get you a doctor, madam?” the man asked.

“Nothing more this minute. Leave us alone together. I’ll let you know later. Here, take this for now.” She thrust some money at him through the door. “I’ll sign the registry book later.”

She locked it, came running back to Durand. She dropped before him in an imploring attitude.

“Louis, Louis, did I once want money, did I once want fine clothes and jewels? I’d give them all at this minute to have you stand strong and upright on your legs before me. I’d give my very looks themselves—” she clawed at her own face, dragging its supple cheeks forward as if seeking to transfer it toward him, “—and what more have I to give?”

“Make your plea to God, dear, not to me,” he said faintly, gently. “I want you as you are. I wouldn’t change you even for life itself. I don’t want a good woman, a noble woman. I want my vain, my selfish Bonny— It’s you I love, the badness and the good alike, and not the qualities they tell us a woman should have. Be brave in this: don’t change, ever. For I love you as I know you, and if God can love, then He can understand.”

The tears were streaming in reckless profusion from her eyes, she who had never wept in all her life; the tears of a lifetime, stored up until now, and now splurging wildly forth all in one burst of regret.

His fingers reached tremulously to trace their course. “Don’t weep any more. You’ve wept so much these past few minutes. I wanted to give you happiness, not tears.”

She caught her breath and struggled with it, restraining it, quelling it. “I’m so new at love, Louis. It’s only a half-day now. Only a half-day out of twenty-three years. Louis,” she asked like a child in wonderment, “is this what it’s like? Does it always hurt so?”

He remembered back along their story, spent now. “It hurts. But it’s worth it. It’s love.”

A strange snorting sound came from the outside, somewhere near by, through the closed window, as if a great bull-like beast, hampered with clanking chains, were muzzling the ground.

“What was that?” he asked vaguely, raising his head a little.

“It’s a train, out there somewhere in the dark. A train, coming into the station, or shuttling about in the yards—”

His arms stiffened on the chair rests, thrusting him higher.

“Bonny, it’s for us, it’s ours. Any train, to anywhere— Help me. Help me get out of here. I can do it, I can reach it—”

She had lived by violence all her life; by sudden change, and swift decision. She rose to it now on the instant, she was so used to it. She was ready at a word. Instantly her spirit flared up, kindled by his.

“Anywhere. Even New York. You’ll stand by me there if they—”

She thrust her arm around behind him, helped him rise from the chair. Again the endless flight was about to recommence. Tight-armed together, they took a step forward, toward the door. A single one—

He fell. And this time there was a finality to it that could not be mistaken. It was the fall to earth of the dead. He lay there flat, unresisting, supine, waiting for it. He lay face up, looking at her with despairing eyes.

Her face swiftly dipped to his.

“No time,” he whispered through immobile lips. “Don’t speak. Put your lips to mine. Tell me goodbye with that.”

Kiss of farewell. Their very souls seemed to flow together. To try to blend forever into one. Then, despairing, failed and were separated, and one slipped down into darkness and one remained in the light.

She drew her lips from his, for sheer necessity of breathing. There was a smile of ineffable contentment left on his, there where her lips had been.

“And that was my reward,” he sighed.

His eyes closed, and there was death.

A shudder ran through her, as though the throes of dying were in her herself. She shook him, trying to bring back the motion that had only just left him, but left him forever. She pressed him to her, in desperate embrace that he was no longer within, only some dead thing he had left behind. She pleaded with him, called to him. She even tried to make a bargain with death itself, win a delay.

“No, wait! Oh, just one minute more! One minute give me, and then I’ll let him go! Oh, God! Oh, Someone! Anyone at all! Just one more minute! I have something I want to tell him!”

No desolation equal to that of the pagan, suddenly bereft. For to the pagan, there is no hereafter.

She flung herself downward over him, and her hair, coming unbound, flowed over him, covering his face. The golden hair that he had loved so, made a shroud for him.

Her lips sought his ear, and she tried to whisper into it, for him alone to hear. “I love you. I love you. Can’t you hear me? Where are you? That is what you always wanted. Don’t you want it now?”

In the background of her grief, distant, dim, unheeded, echoes seemed to rise around her. A muffled pounding on the door, clamoring voices backing it, conjured there now, at just this place, this moment, who knows how? Perhaps by long-pent suspicions of neighbors overflowing at last into denunciation; perhaps that other crime in Mobile long, long ago, overtaking them at last — too late, too late. For she had escaped, just as surely as he had.

“Open, in there! This is a police order! Open this door, do you tear?”

Their meaning could not impress, their threat could not affright. For she was somebody else’s prisoner now. She had escaped them.

Moaning anguished into a heedless ear: “Oh, Louis, Louis! I have loved you too late. Too late I have loved you.”

The knocking and the clamor and the grief faded out, and there was nothing left.

“And this is my punishment.”

The soundless music stops. The dancing figures wilt and drop. The Waltz is done.