William Gaddis - J R

He came out of the booth pulling his tie closed at the throat, his voice constricted in the call — Amy…? as though that had constricted it, knotted his voice and his face in consternation as hers filled with her smile, her arms extended open passing him where he sank back against the booth and then into it watching her come half to her knees to embrace the boy who stood away quickly in embarrassment to pick up a suitcase, straighten the school blazer, as he caught the dangling phone — like, like one of those old Shirley Temple movies, Jack Haley goes in one side of the revolving door and she comes out the other but Christ, Tom? Imagine having her, having anybody that glad to see you? Eigen? hello…?

And the glass of the shuddering door caught her eyes and her profile framing the boy’s stooping close as they passed with her arm to his shoulders to catch — I can recite The Charge of the Light Brigade.

— Let’s hurry, Francis.

— Half a league, half a league, half a league onward why are we hurrying?

— Let’s just hurry.

— Into the valley of death rode the…

— Did you eat something on the train, Francis?

— A cheese sandwich, it was a whole dollar just cheese and bread. Cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left of them, cannon in front of them volleyed…

— Let’s go this way for a cab.

— Volleyed and thundered. Where are we going, home first?

— Yes.

— Is Papa there?

— He’ll be home late tonight. He’s been away.

— At Geneva?

— Why Geneva?

— He asked me if I’d like to live at Geneva. Into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell…

— Here’s a cab.

— Can he take me to the hockey game tomorrow?

— I thought we might go to the Cloisters.

— What’s that.

— A sort of museum, she said, and got his bag in pausing, before she followed, for a look back.

— Mister Merton hates me Mama.

— Who’s Mister Merton?

— My math teacher, he hates me.

— I’m sure he doesn’t hate you Francis.

— He does too. Look at that movie, can we go to that?

— We’ll see.

— Would you want to live at Geneva Mama?

— I don’t know, Francis.

— If you could live anywhere you wanted in the whole world where would you live?

— I don’t know, she said, staring at his back, at the back of his head where he sat at the edge of the seat looking out the window, until they stopped and doormen of different sizes in interchangeable livery opened doors.

— Where am I going to sleep? he dropped his bag in the foyer.

— In your cubby I suppose, where you always do.

— Everything here’s always so neat and shiny it never looks like anybody lives here.

She’d put her bag down on the sofa and there, from half under one of its white leather cushions, picked up a black lace brassiere, and her bag again. — I’m just going to put on some lipstick, then we can go out… In the bedroom she pulled open the first drawer she came to, one filled with shirts evenly stacked, and laying some of them back to stuff the brassiere away from sight stared at a studio portrait theatrically highlighted and shadowed and, as she pulled it forth, lavishly inscribed.

— Mama…?

— Just a moment Francis. She opened her lipstick.

— Half a league, half a league, half a league onward…

When he came in she was finishing her eyes. — Don’t you want to wash before we go out Francis?

— I did once already. Can we go to that movie?

— We’ll see.

At the first museum he said — Is that really worth a million dollars? At the next, — I guess he didn’t have time to finish it… and at dinner — can I have steak? Later, — You know what I used to think Mama? if I didn’t talk now, if I kind of saved it up and didn’t talk, that then I’d be able to talk after I’m dead.

She leaned toward him abruptly in the dark cab. — Francis? You don’t want to live in Geneva do you?

— Would you be there?

— I, I should think you’d want to stay where you are, in school where, where your friends are…

— I haven’t got any friends, he said without turning from the window, sitting that way at the edge of the seat looking out until they stopped, and a doorman opened the door. — Is Papa home yet?

— We’ll see.

He pushed the door in as soon as she’d turned the key, ran into the dark foyer and stopped. — When will he be here?

— Probably not till after you’re asleep. You’ll see him in the morning.

— Can I watch television till he comes?

— It’s late, you’d better get to bed. You’ll see him in the morning.

— Can I read before I turn the light off?

— For a few minutes… she came down for his quick embrace, standing, watching him go, till a bathroom door closed and she turned for the bedroom to undress in the dark, and lie awake, half awake in the dark, and then awake at the sound of the bedroom door, opening in the dark.

— Francis?

— Amie?

— Lucien?

— He is here? Francis?

— In the cubby, he’s asleep. Don’t wake him now.

— I? I don’t wake him.

— I told him he’d see you in the morning. I hope you can do something with him, take him somewhere tomorrow. There’s a hockey game he wants you to take him to.

— Hockey game… a shoe dropped to the floor, then coins spilling, rolling off the carpet. — Hockey game, eh?

— He says he hasn’t any friends.

— He has what?

— No friends, at school. He says he has no friends… bedsprings strained in the dark, and were still. — Lucien?

— Eh?

— He said you talked to him about moving to Geneva, living in Geneva… Lucien?

— Eh?

— Well what have you told him, what are you…

— Perhaps he goes there to school some day, in Geneva.

— Yes but you can’t, someday maybe but you can’t simply take him…

— Look Amie… Bedsprings strained abruptly under weight coming up in the dark, — you are always afraid. So he went to Genève with no friend? He must not also be always afraid Amie, until something is settled…

— Well why won’t you then! Why won’t you settle things?

— I? Yes, I wait for the lawyer, this one of your father, tell him. The Nobili settlement? I still wait, tell him.

— I’ve never heard of it it doesn’t…

— Yes, I still wait, tell him.

— I don’t know what you’re talking about Lucien.

— The boy, yes?

She lay awake, half awake in the dark, then awake at the sound of the bedroom door opening, the rustle across the carpet, the faint figure paused between the beds and then, as she started to one elbow and caught her breath, and sank back, the strain of the springs across the gap, and the toss of covers on the bed there.

When she waked it was empty. She’d sat up and looked over in the cut of sunlight, and said — Francis? But it was only a swirl of blankets, and she got up slowly and went into the bathroom to dress. A man’s shirt hung from the shower rod, a boy’s lay crumpled on the floor and she reached to hang them on the hook on the bathroom door where, when she swung it closed, a douche dangled. She washed quickly and dressed, threw the shirts on a bed, and leaned across the high chest of drawers to follow the line of her lips in the mirror with a barely discernible lipstick, of her lids with black eyeliner, looked at herself for a moment and abruptly pulled open the shirt drawer and took out the portrait, paused the eyeliner over the opulent décolletage, and then drew a huge mustache over the pouting lips and thrust it back under the shirts. There was a note on the table in the foyer. It was signed love, F. and she read it three times in the cab downtown. The doors opened silently. She pushed 15 and ascended alone to The Light Cavalry Overture as far as 3, where the doors opened silently on youth unbuttoned to the waist shifting packages to enter and press 5 and stare into the top of her dress until they opened silently and he ran a hand up 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 before they closed behind him, to open silently on her alone at 6, and close, and open silently at 7, and close, and then at 8, at 9, at 10 she suddenly got out, pressed the up button and stood there waiting till, behind her now, doors opened on him waiting, and closed as she recovered her quick step forward to turn and press the up button again, and then again behind her doors opened silently on youth here white buttoned to the throat and black above it wheeling a cart of interoffice mail back for her entrance, staring at black backs of hands the bar or two mounting a Spanish rhythm for his exit at 11, the door closing silently behind him suddenly seized and held and now, as it closed, she caught her breath and her eyes away from the glistening chest and buttons flung loosely undone down it for those on the wall panel orderly numbered but for one reading simply, Doors, another Alarm, The Peanut Vendor seething through the palm sized screen above, an idly scratching hand thrust down the front of denims burnished where it moved hidden as the other, empty, rose behind her gasped against the waist high rail there for — You like to give head? posed in a tone as vacant as the face she fled for the lobby length explosion of blacks streaked with mad reserve on white doors opening silently on a coatless figure askew there as though he’d just burst free from the painting’s restless labyrinth like a demented Virgil for the amorphous Dante surfacing behind him, dropping a briefcase of Gladstone bag design square before her in collision to stare, with apologetic fixity blurred by rimless lenses, into the top of her dress.