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

“You like things which are not what other people like, don’t you? I would like to have this experience of loving an older woman. I think that is sweet, but I really am always in love with some nice man. It is lucky for me, I think. Some of the girls, they can’t fall in love any more. They only think of money, money, money. You don’t think so much about money, do you?” She asked Mrs. Copperfield.

“No, I don’t.”

“Now we rest a little while, yes?” The girl lay down on the bed and motioned to Mrs. Copperfield to lie down beside her. She yawned, folded Mrs. Copperfield’s hand in her own, and fell asleep almost instantly. Mrs. Copperfield thought that she might as well get some sleep too. At that moment she felt very peaceful.

They were awakened by a terrific knocking at the door. Mrs. Copperfield opened her eyes and in a second she was a prey to the most overwhelming terror. She looked at Pacifica, and her friend’s face was not very much more reassuring than her own.

“Callate!” she whispered to Mrs. Copperfield reverting to her native tongue.

“What is it? What is it?” asked Mrs. Copperfield in a harsh voice. “I don’t understand Spanish.”

“Don’t say a word,” repeated Pacifica in English.

“I can’t lie here without saying a word. I know I can’t. What is it?”

“Drunken man. In love with me. I know him well. He hurt me very bad when I sleep with him. His boat has come in again.”

The knocking grew more insistent and they heard a man’s voice saying:

“I know you are there, Pacifica, so open the bloody door.”

“Oh, open it, Pacifica!” pleaded Mrs. Copperfield, jumping up from the bed. “Nothing could be worse than this suspense.”

“Don’t be crazy. Maybe he is drunk enough and he will go away.”

Mrs. Copperfield’s eyes were glazed. She was becoming hysterical.

“No, no — I have always promised myself that I would open the door if someone was trying to break in. He will be less of an enemy then. The longer he stays out there, the angrier he will get. The first thing I will say to him when I open the door is: ‘We are your friends,’ and then perhaps he will be less angry.”

“If you make me even more crazy than I am I don’t know what to do,” said Pacifica. “Now we just wait here and see if he goes away. We might move this bureau against the door. Will you help me move it against the door?”

“I can’t push anything!” Mrs. Copperfield was so weak that she slid along the wall onto the floor.

“Have I got to break the God-damned door in?” the man was saying.

Mrs. Copperfield rose to her feet, staggered over to the door, and opened it.

The man who came in was hatchet-faced and very tall. He had obviously had a great deal to drink.

“Hello, Meyer,” said Pacifica. “Can’t you let me get some sleep?” She hesitated a minute, and as he did not answer her she said again: “I was trying to get some sleep.”

“I was tight asleep,” said Mrs. Copperfield. Her voice was higher than usual and her face was very bright. “I am sorry we did not hear you right away. We must have kept you waiting a long time.”

“Nobody ever kept me waiting a long time,” said Meyer, getting redder in the face. Pacifica’s eyes were narrowing. She was beginning to lose her temper.

“Get out of my room,” she said to Meyer.

In answer to this, Meyer fell diagonally across the bed, and the impact of his body was so great that it almost broke the slats.

“Let’s get out of here quickly,” said Mrs. Copperfield to Pacifica. She was no longer able to show any composure. For one moment she had hoped that the enemy would suddenly burst into tears as they do sometimes in dreams, but now she was convinced that this would not happen. Pacifica was growing more and more furious.

“Listen to me, Meyer,” she was saying. “You go back into the street right away. Because I’m not going to do anything with you except hit you in the nose if you don’t go away. If you were not such hot stuff we could sit downstairs together and drink a glass of rum. I have hundreds of boy friends who just like to talk to me and drink with me until they are stiffs under the table. But you always try to bother me. You are like an apeman. I want to be quiet.”

“Who the hell cares about your house!” Meyer bellowed at her. “I could put all your houses together in a row and shoot at them like they were ducks. A boat’s better than a house any day! Any time! Come rain, come shine! Come the end of the world!”

“No one is talking about houses except you,” said Pacifica, stamping her foot, “and I don’t want to listen to your foolish talk.”

“Why did you lock the door, then, if you weren’t living in this house like you were duchesses having tea together, and praying that none of us were ever going to come on shore again. You were afraid I’d spoil the furniture and spill something on the floor. My mother had a house, but I always slept in the house next door to her house. That’s how much I care about houses!”

“You misunderstand,” said Mrs. Copperfield in a trembling voice. She wanted very much to remind him gently that this was not a house but a room in a hotel. However, she felt not only afraid but ashamed to make this remark.

“Jesus Christ, I’m disgusted,” Pacifica said to Mrs. Copperfield without even bothering to lower her voice.

Meyer did not seem to hear this, but instead he leaned over the edge of the bed with a smile on his face and stretched one arm towards Pacifica. He managed to get hold of the hem of her slip and pull her towards him.

“Not as long as I live!” Pacifica screamed at him, but he had already wrapped his arms around her waist and he was kneeling on the bed, pulling her towards him.

“Housekeeper,” he said, laughing, “I’ll bet if I took you out to sea you’d vomit. You’d mess up the boat. Now lie down here and stop talking.”

Pacifica looked darkly at Mrs. Copperfield for a moment. “Well then,” she said, “give me first the money, because I don’t trust you. I will sleep with you only for my rent.”

He dealt her a terrific blow on the mouth and split her lip. The blood started to run down her chin.

Mrs. Copperfield rushed out of the room. “I’ll get help, Pacifica,” she yelled over her shoulder. She ran down the hall and down the stairs, hoping to find someone to whom she could report Pacifica’s plight, but she knew she would not have the courage to approach any men. On the ground floor she caught sight of a middle-aged woman who was knitting in her room with the door ajar, Mrs. Copperfield rushed in to her.

“Do you know Pacifica?” she gasped.

“Certainly I know Pacifica,” said the woman. She spoke like an Englishwoman who has lived for many years among Americans. “I know everybody that lives here for more than two nights. I’m the proprietor of this hotel.”

“Well then, do something quickly. Mr. Meyer is in there and he’s very drunk.”

“I don’t do anything with Meyer when he’s drunk.” The woman was silent for a moment and the idea of doing something with Meyer struck her sense of humor and she chuckled. “Just imagine it,” she said, “‘Mr. Meyer, will you kindly leave the room? Pacifica is tired of you. Ha-ha-ha— Pacifica is tired of you.’ Have a seat, lady, and calm down. There’s some gin in that cut-glass decanter over there next to the avocados. Would you like some?”

“You know I’m not used to violence,” Mrs. Copperfield said. She helped herself to some gin, and repeated that she was not used to violence. “I doubt that I shall ever get over this evening. The stubbornness of that man. He was like an insane person.”

“Meyer isn’t insane,” said the proprietress. “Some of them are much worse. He told me he was very fond of Pacifica. I’ve always been decent to him and he’s never given me any trouble.”