Jane Bowles - My Sister's Hand in Mine - The Collected Works of Jane Bowles

“I should think you’d go and hike in the woods, instead of sitting at the Coffee Pot. Men who don’t like other men usually take to nature, I’ve heard.”

“I’m not interested in nature, beyond the ordinary amount.”

They settled into silence for a while. Then she began to question him again. “Don’t you feel uneasy, knowing that most likely you’re the only man at the Coffee Pot who feels so estranged from his fellows?”

He seated himself near the window and half smiled. “No,” he said. “I think I like it.”

“Why do you like it?”

“Because I’m aware of the estrangement, as you call it, and they aren’t.” This too he had answered many times before. But such was the faith they had in the depth of the mood they created between them that there were no dead sentences, no matter how often repeated.

“We don’t feel the same about secrets,” she told him. “I don’t consider a secret such a great pleasure. In fact, I should hesitate to name what my pleasure is. I simply know that I don’t feel the lack of it.”

“Good night,” said Frank. He wanted to be by himself. Since he very seldom talked for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time, she was not at all surprised.

She herself was far too excited for sleep at that moment. The excitement that stirred in her breast was familiar, and could be likened to what a traveler feels on the eve of his departure. All her life she had enjoyed it or suffered from it, for it was a sensation that lay between suffering and enjoyment, and it had a direct connection with her brother’s lies. For the past weeks they had concerned the Coffee Pot, but this was of little importance, since he lied to her consistently and had done so since early childhood. Her excitement had its roots in the simultaneous rejection and acceptance of these lies, a state which might be compared to that of the dreamer when he is near to waking, and who knows then that he is moving in a dream country which at any second will vanish forever, and yet is unable to recall the existence of his own room. So Lila moved about in the vivid world of her brother’s lies, with the full awareness always that just beyond them lay the amorphous and hidden world of reality. These lies which thrilled her heart seemed to cull their exciting quality from her never-failing consciousness of the true events they concealed. She had not changed at all since childhood, when to expose a statement of her brother’s as a lie was as unthinkable to her as the denial of God’s existence is to most children. This treatment of her brother, unbalanced though it was, contained within it both dignity and merit, and these were reflected faithfully in her voice and manner.

He sat at a little table in the Green Mountain Luncheonette apathetically studying the menu. Faithful to the established tradition of his rich New England family, he habitually chose the cheapest dish listed on the menu whenever it was not something he definitely abhorred. Today was Friday, and there were two cheap dishes listed, both of which he hated. One was haddock and the other fried New England smelts. The cheaper meat dishes had been omitted. Finally, with compressed lips, he decided on a steak. The waitress was barely able to hear his order.

“Did you say steak?” she asked him.

“Yes. There isn’t anything else. Who eats haddock?”

“Nine tenths of the population.” She spoke without venom. “Look at Agnes.” She pointed to the table next to his.

Andrew looked up. He had noticed the girl before. She had a long freckled face with large, rather roughly sketched features. Her hair, almost the color of her skin, hung down to her shoulders. It was evident that her mustard-colored wool dress was homemade. It was decorated at the throat with a number of dark brown woollen balls. Over the dress she wore a man’s lumber jacket. She was a large-boned girl. The lower half of her face was long and solid and insensitive-looking, but her eyes, Andrew noted, were luminous and starry.

Although it was bitterly cold outside, the lunch room was steaming hot and the front window had clouded over.

“Don’t you like fish?” the girl said.

He shook his head. Out of the corner of his eye he had noticed that she was not eating her haddock. However, he had quickly looked away, in order not to be drawn into a conversation. The arrival of his steak obliged him to look up, and their eyes met. She was gazing at him with a rapt expression. It made him feel uncomfortable.

“My name is Agnes Leather,” she said in a hushed voice, as if she were sharing a delightful secret. “I’ve seen you eating in here before.”

He realized that there was no polite way of remaining silent, and so he said in an expressionless voice, “I ate here yesterday and the day before yesterday.”

“That’s right.” She nodded. “I saw you both times. At noon yesterday, and then the day before a little later than that. At night I don’t come here. I have a family. I eat home with them like everybody else in a small town.” Her smile was warm and intimate, as if she would like to include him in her good fortune.

He did not know what to say to this, and asked himself idly if she was going to eat her haddock.

“You’re wondering why I don’t touch my fish?” she said, catching his eye.

“You haven’t eaten much of it, have you?” He coughed discreetly and cut into his little steak, hoping that she would soon occupy herself with her meal.

“I almost never feel like eating,” she said. “Even though I do live in a small town.”

“That’s too bad.”

“Do you think it’s too bad?”

She fixed her luminous eyes upon him intently, as if his face held the true meaning of his words, which might only have seemed banal.

He looked at the long horselike lower half of her face, and decided that she was unsubtle and strong-minded despite her crazy eyes. It occurred to him that women were getting entirely too big and bony. “Do I think what’s too bad?” he asked her.

“That I don’t care about eating.”

“Well, yes,” he said with a certain irritation. “It’s always better to have an appetite. At least, that’s what I thought.”

She did not answer this, but looked pensive, as if she were considering seriously whether or not to agree with him. Then she shook her head from side to side, indicating that the problem was insoluble.

“You’d understand if I could give you the whole picture,” she said. “This is just a glimpse. But I can’t give you the whole picture in a lunchroom. I know it’s a good thing to eat. I know.” And as if to prove this, she fell upon her haddock and finished it off with three stabs of her fork. It was a very small portion. But the serious look in her eye remained.

“I’m sorry if I startled you,” she said gently, wetting her lips. “I try not to do that. You can blame it on my being from a small town if you want, but it has nothing to do with that. It really hasn’t. But it’s just impossible for me to explain it all to you, so I might as well say I’m from a small town as to say my name is Agnes Leather.”

She began an odd nervous motion of pulling at her wrist, and to his surprise shouted for some hotcakes with maple syrup.

At that moment a waitress opened the door leading into the street, and put down a cast-iron cat to hold it back. The wind blew through the restaurant and the diners set up a clamor.

“Orders from the boss!” the waitress screamed. “Just hold your horses. We’re clearing the air.” This airing occurred every day, and the shrieks of the customers were only in jest. As soon as the clouded glass shone clear, so that the words GREEN MOUNTAIN LUNCHEONETTE in reverse were once again visible, the waitress removed the iron cat and shut the door.