Evan Hunter - Nobody Knew They Were There

“You always lecture me. You’re like the old man of the mountain, wisdom, wisdom. And you never smile.”

“I’m smiling now.”

“Are you?” she says, and reaches up to touch my mouth in the darkness. “Yes, you are. That deserves a kiss.” She kisses me immediately and passionately. I am surprised by her ardor. But she holds the kiss for only an instant, and then breaks it, and falls back against the pillow. She is silent for a very long time. I do not touch her. We lie side by side without touching. I can hear her breathing. I can also hear a clock ticking on Gwen’s dresser. At last, in a very small voice, Sara says, “This isn’t easy for me.” She sounds on the edge of tears. I sit up and study her face. Her eyes are closed. I touch her jaw with my fingertips. She does not open her eyes.

“You really are just a very young girl, aren’t you?” I whisper.

“What did you think I was?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You’re twice my age,” she says. “I wasn’t even born when you were my age.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not even born! ” she says.

“Are you going to cry, Sara?”

“I never cry, I told you that.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Go back to wherever you came from.”

“I can’t do that.”

“I know you can’t Why’d you have to come here?”

“Sara…”

“Oh, Sara, Sara, Sara, Sara, stop saying my name. I’m sick of you saying my name. I’m sick of you.”

“I’ll leave. I’ll get dressed and leave.”

“I don’t want you to leave.”

“What do you want, Sara?”

“Oh, shit,” she says, and gets out of bed.

“Where are you going?”

“To take out my contacts,” she says. “I forgot to take out my fucking contacts.”

Sometime just before dawn, I tell Sara that I love her. She does not answer. We have made love and dozed, sleeping in each other’s arms. I cannot keep from kissing her. I kiss her asleep or awake, and her lips respond, asleep or awake. But when I tell her I love her, she does not answer.

“Sara,” I whisper. “Did you hear me? I love you.”

“I’m very sleepy, Arthur,” she says. “Can’t we sleep? Can’t we please sleep? I have an exam Tuesday.”

“This is only Saturday.”

“Tuesday,” she says.

“What?”

“Tuesday,” she repeats.

“No. Saturday.”

“Go to sleep, Arthur. You have to leave soon. Gwen’ll be back.”

“What time is she coming back?”

“I don’t know. Soon. Go to sleep.”

“The hell with her.”

“You have to leave.”

“Why?”

“She’s a virgin.”

“So?”

“Go to sleep, Arthur.”

I do not go to sleep. Instead, I begin kissing her again.

“Arthur, don’t excite me,” she says.

“Why not?”

“I’m very sleepy. Don’t you ever sleep, Arthur?”

“I'm the “We-Never-Sleep Collection Agency,” I tell her.

“What’s that?”

“That’s Room Service. ”

“What are you talking about, Arthur?”

“A play.”

“What?”

“A play. Room Service. ”

“I never heard of it,” she says. “Arthur, please don’t do that”

“Please don’t do what?”

“Whatever you're doing there. Just quit it”

“No.”

“If you don't, Arthur, I’ll never forgive you.”

“Don’t forgive me.”

“I won’t,” she says.

“Then don’t,” I say.

“I’ll never forgive you,” she whispers and rolls in tight against me. She makes love with neither artifice nor skill. Like an idiot savant, she reels off the algebraic formulas of sex with innocent passion, accepting my own fierce ardor with abandon, responding to it with such violence that we seem to climb each other, mountains both, scaling as we cling and hold, as though afraid we will tumble into an abyss, surprised at last by an unexpected summit, gasping for breath in the thin high air.

“Did you come?” I whisper to her.

“What do you mean when you say that?” she asks. She is covered with sweat, limp, her arms akimbo, her legs spread.

“When I say what?”

“That. What you just said. Do you mean did I get there?”

“I’ve never heard it said that way before.”

“It’s what Roger says.”

“Getting there?”

“Is half the fun, Roger says.”

“You know something?”

“What?”

“If you mention Roger one more time…”

“Roger, Roger, Roger,” she says, and giggles, and rolls over and goes to sleep.

At ten-thirty, we hear a car in the driveway and think it is Gwen returning. As it turns out, it is only one of the medical students. But I am dressed in a wink, and am already putting on my coat. Sara comes into the kitchen in her nightgown and asks if I want some coffee.

“No, thank you,” I say. “Will I see you tonight?”

“Maybe,” she says.

“Sara…”

“Maybe,” she repeats, and comes down the flight of steps with me and lets me out into the cold morning, and locks the door behind me.

There is a message waiting for me at the hotel. It says that Hester Pratt called at eleven-thirty last night and wishes me to call her at once. I do not call her at once. Instead, I order orange juice and coffee, and then I shave and change my clothes, and then I call her. She says it is urgent that she and I meet at her home within the hour. I jot down the address and tell her I will be there in twenty minutes. Then I drink a second cup of coffee, and call Sara’s apartment. The line is busy. I try it again just before I leave the room. This time, there is no answer.

It is a clear cold day. I feel very good this morning. My follower is not with me. Did I scare him off last night? Or is it simply a matter of too much Lucille? I must get to the bridge today to determine where I shall place my charges. And I must inquire about purchasing explosives. I walk with a good brisk step. A young girl in a Navy pea jacket and a long trailing purple muffler smiles at me, and I smile back and think myself terribly handsome.

Hester lives about half a mile from the hotel, and I am chilled when I reach her home. It is quite unlike what I expected, a good modern house with a great deal of native stone and heavy wooden beams and large areas of glass. The carved entrance door looks Spanish, the one false note in an otherwise architecturally valid building. Hester answers my ring and leads me into a living room dominated by a huge stone fireplace. Professor Raines sits on a stone ledge set into the fireplace wall. Sara is in a blue chair near a huge brass kettle that serves as a wood scuttle. I am surprised to see her. I realize only now (despite Hester having told me it was urgent) that this meeting is important; else why would our recording secretary be here? Sara looks sleepy. She studies me as I enter the room, but she neither smiles nor acknowledges my presence in any other way. Raines, too, seems preoccupied. I take off my coat and go directly to the fire, holding out my hands for warmth. Behind me, Hester says, “Let’s begin, shall we? Sara, are you ready?”

I notice for the first time that Hester is wearing slacks. Her voice is harsh, she raps out her words like a dock foreman. It is to be that sort of meeting. I gird my loins. “Ready,” Sara says.

“Mr. Sachs,” Hester says, “we would like to know in detail how you plan to blow up the bridge over Henderson Gap.”

“I don’t know yet I haven’t been back to the bridge since the last time we met.”

“Because you were being followed, is that correct?”