J. Donleavy - Wrong Information is Being Given Out at Princeton

DEATH IN

THE DOLL’S HOUSE

The gray sky turning dark and glowering. I could feel Dru stiffen next to me and her walk become hurried. And in sensing her anguish, it was as if Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings scratched across my brain to express her soul’s terrible pain with violins screaming out their raging notes. As it had come to me on that earlier day of tragic occurrence, when another young girl had died and left a darkened red stain on the bus station floor. And now on this very day with my own publicity a cipher of conspicuous ignominy. Referred to as an “out-of-work composer.” Yet no one can claim more resolve to achieve my purpose nor can feel stronger in the fight I shall fight. With a strength even greater than that power held by the richest woman on earth. Who could hire a crane to lift the Empire State Building right up out of its foundations and put it somewhere else like Max’s Chicago with a live elephant dancing on top. And garbed as Dru was, people looked at us as we passed in case she might be the famed reclusive Hollywood actress rumored to live a bit farther south on this East Side of town.

“Please, Stephen, tell me. Tell me that everything is meaningless. That there are no other worlds out beyond the sky that we will ever be able to take a spaceship to. I don’t want to believe that nothing matters. Even though it doesn’t.”

And as I watched the random faces pass and for the glint of knives, I was trying to think of an answer to everything not being meaningless. Especially having such recent firsthand information on the meaningful. Something to eat and somewhere to sleep. And if you were extra-lucky, a concert grand piano or a more portable violin to play. Then you could go on dreaming to thunderous applause with an orchestra having performed Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in D Major. Shouts for an encore and flowers flooding the stage. And we pass another newsstand and even a vendor calling out, “Read all about it.”

“Oh God Stephen, it’s everywhere. Stacked on the newsstands all over New York.”

And what could be meaningful to all these people going by. Who can for a nickel read about burning death spelled out in the paper. Because there it was. Shouted out to the world. Happening to the rich and privileged. On the heels of the secret quiet death of Max. And to another lovely girl, in the bus station where wrong information was being given out at Princeton. Then Sylvia’s death. To which she calmly walked. Back to her most private little refuge, now to be seen in ruins by everyone including my favorite sister. Then by my whole family which wasn’t invited to the wedding and never met her. My mother who prays with her rosary beads every day, said even Protestants deserve a prayer and will say Hail Marys for the repose of Sylvia’s soul. And philosophize, saying that children brought with them adversity which could wear out the heart with worry. And now I am as if I were a ship, bow-on crashing through a vast ocean’s wild waves. Unleashing broadside salvos over the horizon. Not knowing in my turret if they will sink the enemy. And where you, if it’s you they’re aiming at, crouch low. It will do you no good at all if a shell direct hits. Just creates the dead to slip into the deep. And the victor on the sea swells rides away.

Walking now two of us in sorrow with her hand in mine. A gust of wind and first drops of rain falling. Waiting for the lights to change to cross west on Lexington Avenue. This widow. Who I was certain was now so sad that despite her gentle inebriation, she would never again be merry. But in just less than a minute I was wrong. As we reached Park Avenue on the corner where the Ritz Tower rose into the sky, her mood and disposition abruptly changed. Just as it did when she became the rigid schoolmarm, removing her sunglasses and gimlet eyed winking unwelcomingly at me. Now suddenly grabbing my arm, she stopped on the sidewalk. Mascara smeared around her reddened eyes.

“Dru, what’s the matter.”

“The matter is that I suddenly feel so awfully horny and desperately badly in need of a fuck.”

“Holy cow, Dru.”

“Put your arm around me, please. Give me a squeezing hug. And come on. Let’s go. Flag that taxi, sailor.”

Grabbing my arm. Her arm linked tighter around mine. Her fingers closed over my wrist, squeezing hard. As I open up the taxi door and shut it closed. Joining the flow of yellow Checker cabs up Park Avenue. As the rain now belts down and the taxi driver waits to ask, “Where do you want to go, folks,” and then the quiet reflection on this destination of a side street off Sutton Place. And now I was counseling myself. Not to break down and sink in an awful sea of guilt. That the wonderful word sailor sounded comforting to hear. And softened the sound of the words horny and fuck coming from Dru’s lips. Remembering when she said during our first clutching in bed together, “Of course, darling, when you want to be fucked by somebody, then you forget all your worries and all their faults.” Jesus Christ Almighty, whatever you expect from a woman, don’t believe it. Because it is always going to be something else you didn’t expect. And if you were expecting it soon, it would always be later. Or expecting it later, it would always be sooner.

Nearby steps up to a little park overlooking the river, the taxi stopping down this side street off Sutton Place. And some more of what I never expected. Paying the fare, which would now, less two dimes, leave me again flat miserable broke. And the taxi driver scratching his head, delivering two servants to their destination, because that’s where they worked.

“Just follow me, Stephen.”

Dru producing a key, we entered the black steel door and along to the service elevator. She slumped back against the elevator wall, her head bowed as we went up to her floor. And gently smiled as we stepped out on the landing to her pantry door where the delivery boy had masturbated in front of her. Gilbert taken ill and in the hospital with pneumonia. Other staff in the Adirondacks. The apartment empty. Dru casting her coat and hat aside, locking the door behind her, and taking my hand as we entered and went through the kitchen. Past a pile of chopped vegetables on the table. Tempted I was to put hand to and take and chew the healthy end of an unchopped carrot. But instead snatched three grapes from a bunch in a basket. As Dru grabbed a bottle by the neck and briefly put it to her lips.

“Don’t be shocked, Stephen. I often swig from the bottle.”

Chew down my grapes as we pass ormolu-mounted mahogany commodes and go to the end of the longest hall and up the stairs where she led me to a spartan and nunlike bedroom, the windows looking out onto the East River below. And suddenly she retreated.

“Oh no. Not here. Let’s go to the music room. We can listen and have some music.”

Pulled by the hand I followed her back down the stairs and along the hall, over the splendor of rugs and parquet and past the paintings and a Canaletto scene of Venice I’d not seen before. The doors of the music room closing behind us. Out the windows the sky darkening with a storm and the glass streaked with rain. Dru going to her record player.

“I want to dance.”

Bach’s Suite No. 2 in B Minor. Then over by the window, Dru lifting her sweater over her head and undoing her skirt and casting them aside. Now her under-clothing and stockings dropped to the floor, her lithe body twirling around in the middle of this room, in a sinuous dance. And a shiver of recognition of Sylvia. Then as the record ended and I was licking my lips watching her, she crossed to the piano to sit to the keys.

“Stephen, I’ve practiced and played from this whole pile of scores. I wish I could play as beautifully as you do.”