Джеймс Кейн - The Enchanted Isle

So then she was laughing and Mr. Wilmer was there, sitting on the bed, patting her. “The sun’s coming up,” he said.

“And I can go home again!”

“Mother? You mean, to Hyattsville?”

I omit I was somewhat surprised, because why she’d be going back there I didn’t exactly see. But she said, “Home to me now is Lacuvidere, the place Ben took me to Thursday, when we got married — the house he built by his lake, up there in Frederick County, the house we both built by the lake, those beautiful golden days when Steve would be in New York and we could do things together. Mandy, he phoned one friend from Dover, telling the news, but that one friend was enough. When we got there and he carried me over the threshold, suddenly music started, and then there they all were with candles, his friends, bringing us into our home. For three hours they warmed us and cheered us and loved us. I couldn’t have faced them again if Ed Vernick had shot off his mouth. That’s what I mean, that ‘I can go home again!’”

“Well, Mother, he didn’t shoot it off.”

“That’s right, thanks to me.”

She gave me a little hug, then jumped up and whipped off her nightie, so except for the bow in her hair, she had nothing on at all. She was simply beautiful. She opened the closet and took out a dress, a dark red one of gros-grained silk. But then she took out another, a dark blue with black binding on it at neck, sleeves, and hem. She said, “Mandy, I got it for you yesterday, after you left.” Then she undressed me, so except for the ribbon in my hair, I was as naked as she was. We both stood in front of the mirror, she giving me kisses and slaps and slaps and kisses, a lot. And two funny things I noticed: first, except in the face and hair, I was practically her twin in height, size, and shape, something I hadn’t known. And second, Mr. Wilmer just sat there and smiled, making no move to go, and she let him. That seemed the funniest of all, when I thought about it later. I mean he didn’t go and I didn’t mind; I didn’t know why. I didn’t have a stitch on, and yet it seemed all right that he should be there looking on. Of course, not for long. I slipped into fresh underwear and the beautiful dress, feeling quite proud of myself at how I was going to look, going to sign my confession. When we were all dressed and breakfast was on the way up, she said, “Mandy, when this is all over, we’ll have a surprise for you, one I think you’re going to like. But first things first. Let’s wind this awful thing up before we start something else.”

We all three went down soon as we finished breakfast, said hello to Steve in the coffee shop, walked around to Mr. Clawson’s, and then taxied to City Hall, where Mr. Haynes’s office was. When we got there the same girl was there, the one who had worked the stenotype, as well as the tape recorder. Mr. Haynes brought us all in his private office and she handed him some papers, not yet stapled together, that seemed to be my confession. He read it, though pretty fast, as though he’d seen it before, and then gave it to me, saying, “Yes, Mandy, I think it’s in order now. Will you sign it, here at the end, on the line she’s marked with an X. Then initial each page.”

But, like I told Mrs. Minot, curiosity killed the cat, and I wanted to read what I’d said. It was not what I’d said at all! It was all different and left out about the gun and how scared Rick and I were. It had in about the mink coat, but nothing about Rick backing out, or trying to, before being made at gunpoint. It was loused from beginning to end, and I yelped, “It’s not what I said. It’s been doctored!”

“Yes, Mandy? In what way doctored?”

Mr. Haynes was very cold, but I told him. More than I’ve put in here. By that time Mr. Clawson had had a look, and he chimed in too: “What’s the big idea, Jack? Having Mandy’s statement rewritten?”

“Well, we generally do. You have to pull it together so it makes some kind of sense.”

“It made plenty of sense as she said it.”

“Not to a jury it wouldn’t.”

“Since when is a jury so dumb?”

That was Mother, sounding like ground glass in a blender. By that time she’d had a look too, and she went on, “I’ve had to sit in court while cases were being tried, and my observation was not that juries were dumb, but that they weren’t — that that was the trouble with them, from the lawyer’s point of view. Could it be that you rewrote Mandy’s statement as a way of convicting that boy?”

“I’ve said why I had it rewritten.”

“You have indeed.”

“You doubt my word?”

He was pretty ugly about it, but she said, “Come here.”

He didn’t move, and she went over to him. She leaned close, patted his cheek, and said, “You don’t look like no lion tamer.”

“Just like a lying son of a bitch?”

He laughed and she laughed, telling him, “You go wash your mouth out with soap! Why, the very idea, saying something like that in mixed company! And good-looking as you are, and truthful-looking! You stop cutting your eye at me, or I’ll be falling for you! Where’s the typescript? Of the tape? From the recording machine? She’ll sign that, and that’s all she’ll sign, or we’re starting all over again.”

“Mr. Wilmer, you have a persuasive wife.”

“Oh, she generally gets her way.”

“And a damned beautiful wife.”

“She’ll pass in a crowd, no doubt.”

“Pass in it? She’ll light it up like a star shell.”

By that time he had motioned to the girl, who got another paper out of her dispatch case, a thick one, all stapled up in a blue cover. Mother took it, glanced through it, flipping the pages over, and said, “OK, this is it. Mandy? Do you have a pen?”

So I signed, the girl stamped her notary seal on and signed, after having me raise my right hand and asking did I solemnly swear that the statement I had given here was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That seemed to be it. Mr. Haynes looked at Mother and said, “Mrs. Wilmer, since you are so very good-looking, and since your eyes do turn me to putty, I’ll kick in with some very good news. It made the A.P. wire.”

“What did? And what’s the A.P. wire?”

“The story was sent out by the Associated Press. It hit them funny, the rude awakening you got on your wedding night.”

“OK, but what’s good about it?”

“It means that papers have it all over the country, so that boy will see it and, if he has any sense, surrender.”

“Oh. Yes, I guess that would help.”

“It’ll be the end of this thing!”

“Or maybe not, Mr. Haynes.”

“What makes you say that, Mandy?”

“He doesn’t have any sense.”

So then we all had lunch — Mr. Clawson, Mr. Haynes, Mr. Wilmer, Mother, and I — at Marconi’s again, but I kept thinking of Steve, and when I mentioned him, Mr. Wilmer called the hotel, had him paged, and invited him. And he came. And Marconi’s is a wonderful place, which did it big for Mr. Wilmer, and I loved the dishes they served but don’t remember their names. So once again Mr. Wilmer begged me to stay and said we’d paint the town red, he, Mother, and I, “for a real Saturday night” and “when I say red I mean red. If there’s one thing Baltimore has, it’s bucketfuls of red paint.” But Steve’s face spoke to me, and I said I’d go back with him. Then, from the look on Mother’s face, I knew she still had hopes that I would fall for him in more than a daughterly way. But Mr. Wilmer was frowning, not seeming to like it so much.

Anyhow, Steve and I drove home and hardly were in the house before things commenced to happen. First, of course, was the phone, and that was my first experience with the obscene call from some guy. You’ve no idea what they said, and you know you ought to hang up, and yet what you do is hang on from not believing what they’ll say next. Then the doorbell, with people there you hadn’t seen in a year, or thought of in all that time — beginning with Mrs. Minot, still nosing around for some dirt, asking if Mother got married and why I’m not held in jail. I told her, “Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies,” and Steve told her, “You’ll have to excuse us, please, we’re awfully tired.”