Robert Coover - Gerald's Party

‘It’s very rare. To fall in love in a dream, I mean …’

‘I know. And you can take my word for it, it’s a very dangerous sort of love. A kind of possession, really. Like all lovers everywhere, I was given to violent extremes of passion and desire, but they had no living object. Though my beloved was less even than a phantom, I loved her more than life itself, which without her was unbearable, and more phantasmal than my dreams. My appetite declined, I was easily distracted, easily enraged. Never more so than when awakened from sleep. It was, at that time, all I longed for: the chance — the only chance — to be with her again. I spent more and more of my life in bed, forcing sleep, searching for her through half-real, half-nightmarish landscapes, begging her to reappear. She did so only rarely but often with a certain timeliness: without her insights I probably would have failed utterly at my neglected work and lost my position on the force. She rescued me from that. But not from my mad passion, as boundless and ultimately as barren as that vast plain where first we met. I once asked her whence she came. “From far away, in another place,” she replied, and again I was sure she meant “time.” I never dared to try to touch her after what had happened that first time, though once she …’ Again a racking sigh broke from the Inspector’s chest, and his face seemed momentarily flushed and swollen, his eyes feverish.

‘I understand …’

‘Finally, fearing for my sanity, I consulted a specialist, a psychiatrist who had often assisted us in cases requiring the interpretation of dreams. He convinced me that my original insight had been the correct one: she was indeed the truth. Only not an abstract external truth, mysteriously turning up from nowhere, but the more complex and profound truths I carried within. I had to admit that everything she had said I had probably intuited myself, in some form or another, but, through timidity or professional caution, or even fear or shame perhaps, I had hidden these thoughts away in some deep recess of my inner self: she was the figurative representation of the beauty, the serenity, that attends their release from what he in his profession called repression. Once I had been able to accept that, though I loved her still and would never love another, she at least and at last disappeared from my dreams, allowing me to return to the waking world, and I never … saw her … again.’ He was beginning to choke up. He pressed his trembling fingers to his brows, as though trying to stop his head from splitting open there, took a deep rasping breath. ‘Until … until tonight …!’

‘Oh dear!’

‘That girl … down there!’ She reached for him as he began to sob. ‘In the — gasp! — the silvery frock! ’

‘Now, now …’

‘It was her! I know it was!’ he wept. ‘ I’ve missed her so! Boo hoo! And now …! ’

‘That’s right, let the tears come, you’ll feel better.’

‘ Oh m’um—! ’ His chest heaved and he pitched forward into her lap, burying his face there, just as someone or something hit the door with tremendous force, making us all jump.

My mother-in-law swung round to glower at me — then they hit it again. The whole room shook, a string of pennants fell, a crack appeared above the door. ‘ Stand back! ’ someone shouted — it sounded like the tall cop, Bob.

‘ It’s not locked! ’ I yelled, lurching for the knob — but too late, the door gave way with a splintering crash, and Bob and Fred tumbled head over heels into the room. They leaped up and sprang at the bed, pitching the mattress over, Mark and all. ‘ Hey, wait—!! ’

‘ We can’t wait, we got a hot tip! ’ hollered Fred, scrabbling through the bedclothes and under the bed. I rushed over to help my mother-in-law pull Mark out from under the mattress — his eyes were wide open but so far he hadn’t let out a peep. He didn’t even seem to know where he was. Or who I was as I picked him up. ‘ There it is! ’ cried Bob.

They ripped Peedie out of his arms and tore it apart, flinging the stuffing into the air like snow. Now Mark did open up: he began to scream at the top of his lungs. The Inspector was on his feet, his back to us, cleaning out his nose with Ginger’s kerchief; he turned to scowl over his shoulder at Mark with reddened eyes. My mother-in-law took him, still howling, from my arms: ‘ Now see what you’ve done!’ she fumed.

‘It ain’t in there,’ said Fred; not on the bookshelf now either, I noticed. All that was left of the rabbit was a limp rag. Fred looked up at the people crowding into the room behind me (‘What’s happening?’ a woman called from out in the hall — ‘They’re beating up the kid!’), then shrugged: ‘Ah well, win a few, lose a few. Here, boy.’ He handed the empty pelt back to Mark, who shrank away (‘Yeah? Let me see!’), shrieking in terror.

There was no turning him off now, he was completely out of control. My mother-in-law, in an ice-cold rage, snatched the rag out of the cop’s hands and started gathering up the stuffing, Mark (‘I love it!’ someone exclaimed) still kicking and squalling madly in her arms. ‘Before you go, you can put that mattress back!’ she ordered, and with a murmur of sullen ‘Yes’m’s,’ the two officers dutifully heaved it back on its box springs again.

‘What’s the matter with that damned child?’ Inspector Pardew complained, brushing irritably at his gray suit.

‘I’ll go get his mother,’ I offered, not knowing what else to do. Mark, I knew, could scream like that for hours. Fred looked up at me with raised brows, glanced at Bob, who looked away. ‘ And the bedding!’ my mother-in-law commanded. ‘We ain’t housemaids,’ Bob grumbled, but they did as they were told.

‘That young man needs a little discipline,’ remarked Pardew gruffly, nodding at his cops.

I pushed out through the jam-up in the splintered doorway (Patrick was out there, pacing nervously: ‘Do you think I can go in now?’ he asked Woody), thinking that what I needed right now was a long cold drink. It was what my mother always said whenever my father began to wax philosophical. He was never very happy on such occasions; that always made him feel a lot worse. She tried it on me once when I started to tell her what I wanted to be when I grew up; I could imagine how he felt. Of course, an excess of philosophy was not exactly my problem right now (‘Oops! excuse me, Gerry,’ said Wilma, catching me in the ribs with her elbow, ‘is Talbot in there?’), but something of the rotten moods that always attended my father’s disquisitions was working its way deep inside me — sometimes on long family drives it got almost unbearable, and (Mark was still shrieking, Pardew was shouting, his assistants shouting back, I was surrounded by drunk and irascible guests, sour boozy breaths, total strangers, the guy with the TV camera shoved past me like he owned the place, my house was coming down around my ears) it was almost unbearable now, such that when Kitty touched my forearm at the head of the stairs, I nearly threw her down them. ‘There’s someone,’ she whispered. ‘ What—?! ’ I bellowed angrily. ‘In there,’ she said, shying from my outburst and (‘Oh, get off your high horse,’ my mother would say, my father having just remarked that ‘Beauty is like the rescue of an enchained maiden from some monster from the deeps — but Truth is that poor damned beast,’ ‘and fix me a cold drink!’) nodding toward the sewing room. ‘Waiting for you.’ ‘Ah …! Sorry …’

I could hardly move. I’d all but given up and now, suddenly … No, no, it’s often like that, I reminded myself, my heart pounding: Don’t be afraid. But I was afraid. I’d waited too long: now (‘And Goodness is the reckless stupidity of the maiden,’ he’d add, turning to me with the cocktail shaker in his hands, ‘the beast’s wistful surrender …’) it seemed unreal. And just an arm’s reach away. I stepped toward the door, ordering my legs to move. The air was heavy near the bathroom, it was almost like swimming. ‘Alison—?’ I whispered. The door was a couple of inches ajar: the lights were out, it was dark inside. I saw the peckersweater on her finger then and, after a quick glance down at the landing (it was empty), followed it in.