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

“No.”

“Then I think you’re a terrible little woman talking that way about your husband,” she said, walking away. Mrs. Copperfield hung her head and went back to stand beside Mr. Copperfield.

“Why do you speak to such dopes?” he asked.

She did not answer.

“Well,” he said, “for Heaven’s sake, look at the scenery now, will you?”

They got into a taxicab and Mr. Copperfield insisted on going to a hotel right in the center of town. Normally all tourists with even a small amount of money stayed at the Hotel Washington, overlooking the sea, a few miles out of Colon.

“I don’t believe,” Mr. Copperfield said to his wife, “I don’t believe in spending money on a luxury that can only be mine for a week at the most. I think it’s more fun to buy objects which will last me perhaps a lifetime. We can certainly find a hotel in the town that will be comfortable. Then we will be free to spend our money on more exciting things.”

“The room in which I sleep is so important to me,” Mrs. Copperfield said. She was nearly moaning.

“My dear, a room is really only a place in which to sleep and dress. If it is quiet and the bed is comfortable, nothing more is necessary. Don’t you agree with me?”

“You know very well I don’t agree with you.”

“If you are going to be miserable, we’ll go to the Hotel Washington,” said Mr. Copperfield. Suddenly he lost his dignity. His eyes clouded over and he pouted. “But I’ll be wretched there, I can assure you. It’s going to be so God-damned dull.” He was like a baby and Mrs. Copperfield was obliged to comfort him. He had a trick way of making her feel responsible.

“After all, it’s mostly my money,” she said to herself. “I’m footing the bulk of the expenditures for this trip.” Nevertheless, she was unable to gain a sense of power by reminding herself of this. She was completely dominated by Mr. Copperfield, as she was by almost anyone with whom she came in contact. Still, certain people who knew her well affirmed that she was capable of suddenly making a very radical and independent move without a soul to back her up.

She looked out the window of the taxicab and she noticed that there was a terrific amount of activity going on around her in the streets. The people, for the most part Negroes and uniformed men from the fleets of all nations, were running in and out and making so much noise that Mrs. Copperfield wondered if it was not a holiday of some kind.

“It’s like a city that is being constantly looted,” said her husband.

The houses were painted in bright colors and they had wide porches on the upper floors, supported beneath by long wooden posts. Thus they formed a kind of arcade to shade the people walking in the street.

“This architecture is ingenious,” remarked Mr. Copperfield. “The streets would be unbearable if one had to walk along them with nothing overhead.”

“You could not stand that, mister,” said the cab-driver, “to walk along with nothing over your head.”

“Anyway,” said Mrs. Copperfield, “do let’s choose one of these hotels quickly and get into it.”

They found one right in the heart of the red-light district and agreed to look at some rooms on the fifth floor. The manager had told them that these were sure to be the least noisy. Mrs. Copperfield, who was afraid of lifts, decided to go up the stairs on foot and wait for her husband to arrive with the luggage. Having climbed to the fifth floor, she was surprised to find that the main hall contained at least a hundred straight-backed dining-room chairs and nothing more. As she looked around, her anger mounted and she could barely wait for Mr. Copperfield to arrive on the lift in order to tell him what she thought of him. “I must get to the Hotel Washington,” she said to herself.

Mr. Copperfield finally arrived, walking beside a boy with the luggage. She ran up to him.

“It’s the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said.

“Wait a second, please, and let me count the luggage; I want to make sure it’s all here.”

“As far as I’m concerned, it could be at the bottom of the sea — all of it.”

“Where’s my typewriter?” asked Mr. Copperfield.

“Talk to me this minute,” said his wife, beside herself with anger.

“Do you care whether or not you have a private bath?” asked Mr. Copperfield.

“No, no. I don’t care about that. It’s not a question of comfort at all. It’s something much more than that.”

Mr. Copperfield chuckled. “You’re so crazy,” he said to her with indulgence. He was delighted to be in the tropics at last and he was more than pleased with himself that he had managed to dissuade his wife from stopping at a ridiculously expensive hotel where they would have been surrounded by tourists. He realized that this hotel was sinister, but that was what he loved.

They followed the bellhop to one of the rooms, and no sooner had they arrived there than Mrs. Copperfield began pushing the door backwards and forwards. It opened both ways and could only be locked by means of a little hook.

“Anyone could break into this room,” said Mrs. Copperfield.

“I dare say they could, but I don’t think they would be very likely to, do you?” Mr. Copperfield made a point of never reassuring his wife. He gave her fears their just due. However, he did not insist, and they decided upon another room, with a stronger door.

* * *

Mrs. Copperfield was amazed at her husband’s vivacity. He had washed and gone out to buy a papaya.

She lay on the bed thinking.

“Now,” she said to herself, “when people believed in God they carried Him from one place to another. They carried Him through the jungles and across the Arctic Circle. God watched over everybody, and all men were brothers. Now there is nothing to carry with you from one place to another, and as far as I’m concerned, these people might as well be kangaroos; yet somehow there must be someone here who will remind me of something … I must try to find a nest in this outlandish place.”

Mrs. Copperfield’s sole object in life was to be happy, although people who had observed her behavior over a period of years would have been surprised to discover that this was all.

She rose from her bed and pulled Miss Goering’s present, a manicuring set, from her grip. “Memory,” she whispered. “Memory of the things I have loved since I was a child. My husband is a man without memory.” She felt intense pain at the thought of this man whom she liked above all other people, this man for whom each thing he had not yet known was a joy. For her, all that which was not already an old dream was an outrage. She got back on her bed and fell sound asleep.

When she awoke, Mr. Copperfield was standing near the foot of the bed eating a papaya.

“You must try some,” he said. “It gives you lots of energy and besides it’s delicious. Won’t you have some?” He looked at her shyly.

“Where have you been?” she asked him.

“Oh, walking through the streets. As a matter of fact, I’ve walked for miles. You should come out, really. It’s a madhouse. The streets are full of soldiers and sailors and whores. The women are all in long dresses … incredibly cheap dresses. They’ll all talk to you. Come on out.”

* * *

They were walking through the streets arm in arm. Mrs. Copperfield’s forehead was burning hot and her hands were cold. She felt something trembling in the pit of her stomach. When she looked ahead of her the very end of the street seemed to bend and then straighten out again. She told this to Mr. Copperfield and he explained that it was a result of their having so recently come off the boat. Above their heads the children were jumping up and down on the wooden porches and making the houses shake. Someone bumped against Mrs. Copperfield’s shoulder and she was almost knocked over. At the same time she was very much aware of the strong and fragrant odor of rose perfume. The person who had collided with her was a Negress in a pink silk evening dress.