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

“I’m having fun,” she continued unexpectedly. “It’s a long time since I’ve had any fun. I’ve been too busy getting the garage into shape. Then there’s Bozoe trouble. I’ve kept to the routine. Late Sunday breakfast with popovers and home-made jam. She eats maybe six of them, but with the same solemn expression on her face. I’m husky but a small eater. We have record players and television. But nothing takes her mind off herself. There’s no point in my getting any more machines. I’ve got the cash and the good will, but there’s absolutely no point.”

“You seem to be very well set up,” said Sis McEvoy, narrowing her eyes. “Here’s to you.” She tipped her glass and drained it.

Janet filled Sister’s glass at once. “I’m having a whale of a good time,” she said. “I hope you are. Of course I don’t want to butt into your business. Bozoe always thought I pored over my account books for such a long time on purpose. She thought I was purposely trying to get away from her. What do you think, Sis McEvoy?” She asked this almost in a playful tone that bordered on a yet unexpressed flirtatiousness.

“I’m not interested in women’s arguments with each other,” said Sis at once. “I’m interested in women’s arguments with men. What else is there? The rest doesn’t amount to a row of monkeys.”

“Oh, I agree,” Janet said, as if she were delighted by this statement which might supply her with the stimulus she was after. “I agree one thousand percent. Remember I spend more time in the garage with the men than I do with Bozoe Flanner.”

“I’m not actually living with my husband because of my temper,” said Sis. “I don’t like long-standing relationships. They disagree with me. I get the blues. I don’t want anyone staying in my life for a long time. It gives me the creeps. Men are crazy about me. I like the cocktails and the compliments. Then after a while they turn my stomach.”

“You’re a very interesting woman,” Janet Murphy announced, throwing caution to the winds and finding it pleasant.

“I know I’m interesting,” said Sis. “But I’m not so sure life is interesting.”

“Are you interested in money?” Janet asked her. “I don’t mean money for the sake of money, but for buying things.”

Sis did not answer, and Janet feared that she had been rude. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings,” she said. “After all, money comes up in everybody’s life. Even duchesses have to talk about money. But I won’t, any more. Come on. Let’s shake.” She held out her hand to Sis McEvoy, but Sis allowed it to stay there foolishly, without accepting the warm grip Janet had intended for her.

“I’m really sorry,” she went on, “if you think I was trying to be insulting and personal. I honestly was not. The fact is that I have been so busy building up a reputation for the garage that I behave like a savage. I’ll never mention money again.” In her heart she felt that Sis was somehow pleased that the subject had been brought up, but was not yet ready to admit it. Sis’s tedious work at the combination tearoom and soda fountain where they had met could scarcely make her feel secure.

Bozoe doesn’t play one single feminine trick, she told herself, and after all, after struggling nearly ten years to build up a successful and unusual business I’m entitled to some returns. I’m in a rut with Bozoe and this Sis is going to get me out of it. (By now she was actually furious with Bozoe.) I’m entitled to some fun. The men working for me have more fun than I have.

“I feel grateful to you, Sis,” she said without explaining her remark. “You’ve done me a service. May I tell you that I admire your frankness, without offending you?”

Sis McEvoy was beginning to wonder if Janet were another nut like Bozoe Flanner. This worried her a little, but she was too drunk by now for clear thinking. She was enjoying the compliments, although it was disturbing that they should be coming from a woman. She was very proud of never having been depraved or abnormal, and pleased to be merely mean and discontented to the extent of not having been able to stay with any man for longer than the three months she had spent with her husband.

“I’ll read you more of Bozoe’s letter,” Janet suggested.

“I can’t wait,” said Sis. “I can’t wait to hear a lunatic’s mind at work first-hand. Her letter’s so cheerful and elevating. And so constructive. Go to it. But fill my glass first so I can concentrate. I’d hate to miss a word. It would kill me.”

Janet realized that it was unkind of her to be reading her friend’s letter to someone who so obviously had only contempt for it. But she felt no loyalty — only eagerness to make Sis see how hard her life had been. She felt that in this way the bond between them might be strengthened.

“Well, here it comes,” she said. “Stop me when you can’t stand it any more. I know that you expected me to come back. You did not feel I had the courage to carry out my scheme. I still expect to work it out. But not yet. I am more than ever convinced that my salvation lies in solitude, and coming back to the garage before I have even reached Massachusetts would be a major defeat for me, as I’m sure you must realize, even though you pretend not to know what I’m talking about most of the time. I am convinced that you do know what I’m talking about and if you pretend ignorance of my dilemma so you can increase efficiency at the garage you are going to defeat yourself. I can’t actually save you, but I can point little things out to you constantly. I refer to your soul, naturally, and not to any success you’ve had or to your determination. In any case it came to me on the bus that it was not time for me to leave you, and that although going to Massachusetts required more courage and strength than I seemed able to muster, I was at the same time being very selfish in going. Selfish because I was thinking in terms of my salvation and not yours. I’m glad I thought of this. It is why I stopped crying and got off the bus. Naturally you would disapprove, because I had paid for my ticket which is now wasted, if for no other reason. That’s the kind of thing you like me to think about, isn’t it? It makes you feel that I’m more human. I have never admired being human, I must say. I want to be like God. But I haven’t begun yet. First I have to go to Massachusetts and be alone. But I got off the bus. And I’ve wasted the fare. I can hear you stressing that above all else, as I say. But I want you to understand that it was not cowardice alone that stopped me from going to Massachusetts. I don’t feel that I can allow you to sink into the mire of contentment and happy ambitious enterprise. It is my duty to prevent you from it as much as I do for myself. It is not fair of me to go away until you completely understand how I feel about God and my destiny. Surely we have been brought together for some purpose, even if that purpose ends by our being separate again. But not until the time is ripe. Naturally, the psychiatrists would at once declare that I was laboring under a compulsion. I am violently against psychiatry, and, in fact, against happiness. Though of course I love it. I love happiness, I mean. Of course you would not believe this. Naturally darling I love you, and I’m afraid that if you don’t start suffering soon God will take some terrible vengeance. It is better for you to offer yourself. Don’t accept social or financial security as your final aim. Or fame in the garage. Fame is unworthy of you; that is, the desire for it. Janet, my beloved, I do not expect you to be gloomy or fanatical as I am. I do not believe that God intended you for quite as harrowing a destiny as He did for me. I don’t mean this as an insult. I believe you should actually thank your stars. I would really like to be fulfilling humble daily chores myself and listening to a concert at night or television or playing a card game. But I can find no rest, and I don’t think you should either. At least not until you have fully understood my dilemma on earth. That means that you must no longer turn a deaf ear to me and pretend that your preoccupation with the garage is in a sense a holier absorption than trying to understand and fully realize the importance and meaning of my dilemma. I think that you hear more than you admit, too. There is a stubborn streak in your nature working against you, most likely unknown to yourself. An insistence on being shallow rather than profound. I repeat: I do not expect you to be as profound as I am. But to insist on exploiting the most shallow side of one’s nature, out of stubbornness and merely because it is more pleasant to be shallow, is certainly a sin. Sis McEvoy will help you to express the shallow side of your nature, by the way. Like a toboggan slide.”