William Faulkner - Mosquitoes

“Pete’s all right, I guess.”

“You keep yourself all cluttered up with men, don’t you?” the other asked curiously.

“Well, you got to do something,” Jenny defended herself.

“Bunk,” the niece said roughly, “bunk. You like petting. That’s the reason. Don’t you?”

“Well, I don’t mind,” Jenny answered. “I’ve kind of got used to it,” she explained. The niece expelled her breath in a thin snorting sound and Jenny repeated, “You’ve got to do something, haven’t you?”

“Oh, sweet attar of bunk,” the niece said. In the darkness she made a gesture of disgust. “You women! That’s the way Dorothy Jameson thinks about it too, I bet. You better look out: I think she’s trying to take Peter away from you.”

“Oh, Pete’s all right,” Jenny repeated placidly. She lay perfectly still again. The water was a cool dim sound. Jenny spoke, suddenly confidential.

“Say, you know what she wants Pete to do?”

“No. What?” asked the niece quickly.

“Well — Say, what kind of girl is she? Do you know her very good?”

“What does she want Pete to do?” the other insisted.

Jenny was silent. Then she blurted in prim disapproval, “She wants Pete to let her paint him.”

“Yes? And then what?”

“That’s it. She wants Pete to let her paint him in a picture.”

“Well, that’s the way she usually goes about getting men, I guess. What’s wrong with it?”

“Well, it’s the wrong way to go about getting Pete. Pete’s not used to that,” Jenny replied in that prim tone.

“I don’t blame him for not wanting to waste his time that way. But what makes you and Pete so surprised at the idea of it? Pete won’t catch lead poisoning just from having his portrait painted.”

“Well, it may be all right for folks like you all. But Pete says he wouldn’t let any strange woman see him without any clothes on. He’s not used to things like that.”

“Oh,” remarked the niece. Then: “So that’s the way she wants to paint him, is it?”

“Why, that’s the way they always do it, ain’t it? In the nude?” Jenny pronounced it nood.

“Good Lord, didn’t you ever see a picture of anybody with clothes on? Where’d you get that idea from? From the movies?”

Jenny didn’t reply. Then she said suddenly, “Besides, the ones with clothes on are all old ladies, or mayors or something. Anyway, I thought—”

“Thought what?”

“Nothing,” Jenny answered, and the other said:

“Pete can get that idea right out of his head. Chances are she wants to paint him all regular and respectable, not to shock his modesty at all. I’ll tell him so, tomorrow.”

“Never mind,” Jenny said quickly, “I’ll tell him. You needn’t to bother about it.”

“All right. Whatever you like. . Wish I had a cigarette.” They lay quiet for a time. Outside water whispered against the hull. The Victrola was hushed temporarily and the dancers had ceased. Jenny moved again, onto her side, facing the other in the darkness.

“Say,” she asked, “what’s your brother making?”

“Gus? Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“I did, only—”

“What?”

“Only he didn’t tell me. At least, I don’t remember.”

“What did he say when you asked him?”

Jenny mused briefly. “He kissed me. Before I knew it, and he kind of patted me back here and told me to call again later, because he was in conference or something like that.”

“Gabriel’s pants,” the niece murmured. Then she said sharply, “Look here, you leave Josh alone, you hear? Haven’t you got enough with Pete and Mr. Talliaferro, without fooling with children?”

“I’m not going to fool with any children.”

“Well, please don’t. Let Josh alone, anyway.” She moved her arm, arching her elbow against Jenny’s soft nakedness. “Move over some. Gee, woman, you sure do feel indecent. Get over on your side a little, can’t you?”

Jenny moved away, rolling onto her back again, and they lay quiet, side by side in the dark. “Say,” remarked Jenny presently, “Mr. — that polite man—” “Talliaferro,” the other prompted. “—Talliaferro. I wonder if he’s got a car?”

“I don’t know. You better ask him. What do you keep on.asking me what people are making or what they’ve got, for?”

“Taxicabbers are best, I think,” Jenny continued, unruffled. “Sometimes when they have cars they don’t have anything else. They just take you riding.”

“I don’t know,” the niece repeated. “Say,” she said suddenly, “what was that you said to him this afternoon?”

Jenny said, “Oh.” She breathed placidly and regularly for a while. Then she remarked, “I thought you were there, around that corner.”

“Yes. What was it? Say it again.” Jenny said it again. The niece repeated it after her. “What does it mean?”

“I don’t know. I just happened to remember it. I don’t know what it means.”

“It sounds good,” the other said. “You didn’t think it up yourself, did you?”

“No. It was a fellow told it to me. There was two couples of us at the Market one night, getting coffee: me and Pete and a girlfriend of mine and another fellow. We had been to Mandeville on the boat that day, swimming and dancing. Say, there was a man drownded at Mandeville that day. Pete and Thelma, my girlfriend, and Roy, this girlfriend of mine’s fellow, saw it. I didn’t see it because I wasn’t with them. I didn’t go in bathing with them: it was too sunny. I don’t think blondes ought to expose themselves to hot sun like brunettes, do you?”

“Why not? But what about—”

“Oh, yes. Anyway, I didn’t go in swimming where the man got drownded. I was waiting for them, and I got to talking to a funny man. A little kind of black man—”

“A nigger?”

“No. He was a white man, except he was awful sunburned and kind of shabby dressed — no necktie and hat. Say, he said some funny things to me. He said I had the best digestion he ever saw, and he said if the straps of my dress was to break I’d devastate the country. He said he was a liar by profession, and he made good money at it, enough to own a Ford as soon as he got it paid out. I think he was crazy. Not dangerous: just crazy.”

The niece lay quiet. She said, contemplatively, “You do look like they feed you on bread and milk and put you to bed at sun-set every day. . What was his name? Did he tell you?” she asked suddenly.

“Yes. It was—” Jenny pondered a while. “I remembered it because he was such a funny kind of man. It was. . Walker or Foster or something.”

“Walker or Foster? Well, which one was it?”

“It must be Foster because I remembered it by it began with a F like my girlfriend’s middle name — Frances. Thelma Frances, only she don’t use both of them. Only I don’t think it was Foster, because—”

“You don’t remember it, then.”

“Yes, I do. Wait. . Oh, yes: I remember — Faulkner, that was it.”

“Faulkner?” the niece pondered in turn. “Never heard of him,” she said at last, with finality. “And he was the one that told you that thing?”

“No. It was after that, when we had come back to N.O. That crazy man was on the boat coming back. He got to talking to Pete and Roy while me and Thelma was fixing up downstairs, and he danced with Thelma. He wouldn’t dance with me because he said he didn’t dance very well, and so he had to keep his mind on the music while he danced. He said he could dance with either Roy or Thelma or Pete, but he couldn’t dance with me. I think he was crazy. Don’t you?”

“It all sounds crazy, the way you tell it. But what about the one that said that to you?”