Маргарет Миллар: The Listening Walls

Amy crossed the room uncertainly, wanting to turn back, but wanting even more to be reassured that Wilma was all right, not drunk, not nervous. This is the wrong place for her. Tomorrow we’ll go to Cuernavaca as the doctor suggested. It will be more restful, there will be no homesick Americans.

“Why there you are,” Wilma said, very loudly and gaily. “Come on, sit down. I’d like you to meet a fellow San Franciscan. Joe O’Donnell, Amy Kellogg.”

Amy acknowledged the introduction with a slight nod and sat down. “So you’re from San Francisco, Mr. O’Donnell?”

“That’s right. But call me Joe. Everybody does.”

“I somehow got the impression you were from New York.”

O’Donnell laughed and said easily, “Woman’s intuition?”

“Partly.”

“Partly the sport jacket, maybe. I had it tailored in New York. Brooks Brothers.”

Brooks Brothers, my foot , Amy thought. “Indeed? How interesting.”

“Let’s have a drink,” Wilma said. “You sound too sober, Amy dear. Sober and mad. You’re always getting mad; you just don’t show it like the rest of us.”

“Oh, stop it, Wilma. I’m not mad.”

“Yes, you are.” Wilma turned to O’Donnell and put her hand on his sleeve. “You want to know what she’s mad about? Do you?”

“I can take it or leave it,” O’Donnell said lightly.

“Sure you want to know.”

“You’re drunk.”

“A little. A very very very little. Make up your mind. Do you want me to tell you what she’s mad about?”

“All right, spill it and get it over with.”

“She thinks — Amy is always thinking, it’s a very bad habit — she thinks I have designs on her husband because I bought him a silver box.”

O’Donnell grinned. “And have you?”

“Of course not,” Wilma said vigorously. “Rupert’s like a brother to me. Besides, I like to buy things for people. Sometimes, when I’m feeling good, that is. Other times I get depressed and stingy and I wouldn’t give the time of day to a blind man.”

“Right now you’re feeling good, eh?”

“Very good. Let me buy you a drink. Or perhaps you’d like a silver box?”

“We could start with the drink.”

“O.K. Waiter! Waiter! Three tequilas with lime.”

“Wilma,” Amy said. “Listen. Why don’t we go and have dinner?”

“Later, later. I’m not hungry right now.”

“I am.”

“You go and have dinner, then.”

“No. I’ll wait for you.”

“All right, wait. Just don’t sit there looking mad. Try to be cheerful.”

“I’m trying,” Amy said grimly, “harder than you think.”

O’Donnell’s smile was becoming a little strained. The evening wasn’t turning out as he’d planned — a few free drinks, some talk, perhaps a small loan. One woman he could usually handle nicely. Two women, especially two women who didn’t like each other, might become a burden. He wished there were some quick, quiet way of ditching them both without any hurt feelings. Hurt feelings could result in complaints to the manager, and he didn’t want the welcome mat pulled out from under him. The bar was his headquarters. He never got into any trouble. The Americans who came in were always glad to set up drinks for a fellow Friscan or New Yorker or Chicagoan or Angeleno or Milwaukeean or Denverite. Some of the cities he claimed as home he had visited. The others he’d read about or heard about. He’d never been to San Francisco but he’d seen many pictures of the Golden Gate Bridge, Fisherman’s Wharf and the cable cars. That was enough real information. The rest he could fake, including an address if he was asked for one. He always used the same address, Garden Street, because every city had a Garden Street.

“Eleven-twenty-five Garden Street,” he told Amy. “You probably never heard of it. It’s over on the east side of town. Or it was. They may have torn the whole district down by now and put up hotels or department stores. Are the cable cars still running?”

“Some of them,” Amy said.

“It makes me homesick just thinking about them.”

“Does it?” She wondered what place he was really homesick for; a farm in Minnesota, perhaps, or a little desert town in Arizona. She knew she would never find out. She couldn’t ask and he wouldn’t tell. “Is there anything to stop you from going home, Mr. O’Donnell?”

“Just a small matter of money. I’ve had some bad luck at the track.”

“Oh.”

His smile widened until it seemed almost genuine. “Yes. I’m a naughty boy, Mrs. Kellogg. I gamble. I have to.”

“Oh?”

“There’s no other way of making money. I can’t apply for any job without working papers and so far I haven’t been able to get any working papers. Say, this is beginning to sound like Be-Sorry-For-Joe O’Donnell night. Let’s can it. Let’s talk about you. What have you two ladies been doing for amusement in Mexico City?”

“Amusement?” Wilma lifted her brows. “I hardly know the meaning of the word anymore.”

“We’ll have to change that. How long will you be here?”

“We leave tomorrow,” Amy said. “For Cuernavaca.”

“That’s too bad. I was hoping to show you...”

“Cuerna — who?” Wilma said loudly to Amy.

“Cuernavaca.”

“And we leave tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Are you out of your mind? We just got here. Why in God’s name should we take off for a place I never even heard of, Cuern — whatever it is?”

“Cuernavaca,” said Amy patiently.

“Stop repeating it. It sounds like a disease of the spine.”

“It’s supposed to be very beautiful and...”

“I don’t care if it’s the original Garden of Eden,” Wilma said. “I’m not going. What put such a crazy idea in your head anyway?”

“The doctor suggested it, for the sake of your health.”

“My health is fine, thank you. You look after your own.”

The drinks came and O’Donnell sat without embarrassment while Wilma paid for them. A year ago, or two years, he might have been a little embarrassed. Now he was merely tired. The two ladies were, as he’d feared, becoming a burden. He wished they would go to Cuernavaca right away, tonight.

He said firmly, “No visitor to Mexico should miss Cuernavaca. Cortés’ palace is there, and the cathedral, just about the oldest cathedral in the republic. And birds, thousands of singing birds. If you like birds.”

“I hate birds,” Wilma said.

He went on to describe the climate, the tropical foliage, the beautiful plazas, until he realized that neither of the two women was paying the slightest attention to him. They had begun to argue again, about a man called Gill, and what Gill would think if he walked in right now, or if he ever found out.

O’Donnell got up and left.

Consuela quit work at eight o’clock and went down to the service entrance where her boyfriend was supposed to meet her. He wasn’t there, and one of the kitchen help told her he’d gone to the jai alai games.

Consuela cursed his pig eyes and his black heart and returned to her broom closet, determined on revenge. It wasn’t much of a revenge but it was all she could think of, to stay in the closet all night and let him worry about her and wonder why she didn’t come home and where she was.

She made herself as comfortable as possible on a bed of towels. There was no ventilation in the closet but Consuela didn’t mind this. The night air was bad anyway. It caused consumption, and if you had consumption you couldn’t get into the United States. The immigration authorities wouldn’t give you any papers.

She dozed off and dreamed that she was on a bus going to Hollywood. Suddenly the bus stopped and a bearded man who looked a little like Jesus opened the door and said, “Consuela Juanita Magdalena Dolores Gonzales, you have consumption. You must get off the bus immediately.” Consuela flung herself at his feet, weeping and pleading. He turned away from her sternly, and she began to scream.