Джеймс Кейн - Galatea

His face went white as usual, and he licked his lips in a way I hadn’t seen. But he said nothing until she’d drifted into the alcove and sat down at the table, to wait until we would come in. Then he said: “Duke, we’ll eat right here. In the kitchen, just us two.” And then, in a rotten way, raising his voice to make sure it carried: “That health food, stews and stuff like that, leaves kind of an odor.”

From where I was I could see and I strictly didn’t hear. He got out the white metal table and set it for two, with doilies all very snappy. He ladled my soup in a two-handled cup, put crackers on my butter plate. He served the lamb and carved it, ladled his own soup, took his place at the table, and waved me to my seat. She came in, looked at the lamb very interested, and listened while he talked, to the oven it seemed like, on how some roasts are better broiled, and some steaks better roasted. But he didn’t get up, and he didn’t get a third chair.

She turned to me and waited, and when I made no move to sit down she raised one foot and kicked. The table hit the deck with a crash you could hear a mile. She said: “Val, you and Duke will eat your dinner, if you eat your dinner, in the alcove, when it pleases me to drink my coffee.”

“You do this to me? Before Duke?”

“You spoke to Duke about an odor.”

She was walking around by then, her right hand at her belt once more, and once more he took what she said. Because once more here was the eye of a Hollis, and once more he couldn’t meet it. So we ate in the breakfast nook, or alcove as she called it, or went through the motions thereof. But all that, except for the table, was kind of a retake on other brawls, and wasn’t what shook me up. The unexpected part, to me, was she’d lost still more weight, so it swept over me, as she swayed around in front of him, that inside that blubber, once I’d melted it off, was a shape to set you nuts. I had never once suspected it.

From then on, my life was simply a hell. Because while I’d known that I loved her, that was love of a different kind. It was friendship, which in a way is deeper than love, as it’s there in spite of fat, and in spite of anything. This was all that and more besides, so it was more like insanity.

You can live insane if you have to, but not forever, and one day I woke up I was near the end of the plank, and had better watch what was next. It was an October morning, with the mug gone and the weather fine, and began by the water tank. I had run the pump, but we’d had a drought, and the well couldn’t take it, to use my usual system, which was pump till the tank was full, as shown by the overflow pipe squirting out. I had to pump half full, and do it somewhat by guesswork, so after I cut I would have to climb up, throw open the vent on its hinges, and gauge with a bamboo pole I had hung up there on a nail. As I started down, here she came from the house, and I may have stalled on the ladder, to watch her a second or two. She wasn’t quite normal yet, but was something to see just the same, round, strong, beautifully put together, with a high-born tilt to her head. In place of the waddle was a graceful, swaying walk, and in place of the crawl stroke was this way she had with her hands, of putting the right one to her belt, just over the hip, and letting the other one swing. In her tan skirt, maroon sweater, and maroon shoes, she looked more Spanish than ever.

When I was down, I asked if there was something she wanted, and at first she didn’t answer, but stood staring at the ladder. Then she said she was going to church and wanted me to drive her. I said: “That would be nice, wouldn’t it? First you play hooky, and then, lo and behold, you’re back, but not on a Sunday, on a weekday, and not with your husband, but with a tall, thin guy who somewhat favors a fighter.”

“I didn’t mean the church up in the city that Val and I go to. I mean my own. The one in St. Mary’s City.”

“You mean down in the party-line belt, where nobody ever tells anyone, as it might be heard and repeated?”

She thought that over, very dark, looking at the yellow Maryland sunlight. Then: “Duke, I have to go. Couldn’t you park somewhere so you wouldn’t be noticed? And wait for me? While I go in? To be — alone with myself?”

“Can’t you drive yourself down?”

“I want you with me.”

“I’m paid to work.”

“It’s not yet nine, and we’ll be back by lunchtime, easy. We’ll not be missed, no matter who calls or comes.”

But she knew, I think, I couldn’t say no to her, and around nine thirty we started, me at the wheel of her car, which by that time had the attachments removed, she curled up in one corner, a rug over her legs. She kept staring at southern Maryland, which was mainly cutover tobacco, with yellow suckers growing out of the stalks, some corn, quite a few flocks of turkeys, and scrub woods that gave off a wild-grape smell. We swung right at T.B., where 5 runs on 301, and rolled on down to Waldorf, eight or ten miles. Passing the Association warehouse, she cut her eyes hard left, in case Bill would show, but once we were by, she said take it easy. Then: “My, what a change, Duke! Waldorf used to be nothing. A station, a store, and a hotel. Now look. Houses everywhere — and hope.”

“And cocktail bars.”

“It always had liquor.”

“And bandits.”

“It always had gambling.”

She said there was a poker game that went on fifty years, “and one time a fellow won twelve hundred dollars in a jackpot. He hired a car, went to Washington, got four girls from C Street, and rode them right back to Waldorf. He commenced whooping and hollering and carrying on until his money was gone, and it was a scandal. He had no regard for his family.”

“Well?”

“It’s all part of it.”

“Part of what, Mrs. Val?”

“Everything. Me, maybe. He was no doubt some relation. Almost all of them are. I told you, till the university got busy, taught us, and all, it was a tragic land. It was — so poor. Poor, poor land, poor, poor people. Only difference is, these people are proud.”

We turned left at the Waldorf light, where 5 leaves 301 and runs by itself again, and started through the village. But she suddenly told me to stop by an open place in front of a store. When I had pulled in she said: “My mother has told me often that on this very spot an old man made his living. He had a cart and two runty oxen, a yoke of yellow scrubs. He’d come to town every Saturday, with a silver dollar he had, dented up from what he’d do with it, and smooth from the rub of his pocket. He’d look around, find him a stranger, and offer to bet. He’d throw down his silver dollar, and the bet was he could roll his cartwheel on top of it and swing his cart clear around. If he came off the dollar, the stranger could pick it up. If he stayed on, the stranger owed him one dollar. So the whole town would gather, and he’d sing his oxen around: ‘Come yay , come gee , come petty whoa , come yo! ’ Some drivers sang Haw for the swing to the left, but mostly they sang petty whoa . It was a sight, my mother says, with those steers moving like ballet dancers, first the right foot over, then the left foot under, their heads swinging low in the yoke, always to the left, as seems to be natural to them, as the old man knew, of course. They never let him down and always won him his dollar. But the awful part was he lived on that dollar all week. It was all the money he had — and that was part of it, too.”

Something seemed to be gnawing her, and I didn’t quite get what it was, but it was wonderful to be with her, and to know she wanted to be with me. I went on, but we’d gone just a few hundred yards past the village when she told me to stop again. She stared at a side road and said: “Wilkes Booth came that way. Beyond is the Mudd house, still standing. Dr. Mudd set his leg, and was sent down to the islands, though he wasn’t guilty at all. Mudd’s a Charles County name, and the family still lives here. Mudds and Beans and Carricos. I hear Beans live in Texas. Dr. Semmes is a Charles County name. He’s the same family as the one who commanded some Confederate ship, I forget which one it was.”