Walker Percy - The Moviegoer

Reticence, therefore, hardly having a place in a document of this kind, it seems as good a time as any to make an end.

The day before Lonnie died, Kate took a notion to pay him a visit. Ordinarily I pick her up at Merle’s office, drop her off at her stepmother’s and drive downtown where I transact a few odds and ends of business for her, my aunt, at Uncle Jules’ office. But today we have only to walk across the street from Merle’s office to Touro Infirmary.

I had my doubts about Kate’s idea. It was an extravagant womanish sort of whim, what I call privately a doubling, or duplication: like the time she took a notion to fly to Dallas in a state of rapture and hear Marian Anderson; it sounded to her like the sort of thing one might well do. I don’t mean she worries about what is the fashionable thing to do; no, it just sounded like a good thing to do — what one does under the circumstances if one is the sort of person who etc etc — so she did it. Also: she had not seen Lonnie since the onset of his illness and although I tried to prepare her for the change, she was not prepared.

Afterwards in the street, she went stumbling ahead of me, knuckles in her mouth and blind with tears.

“Oh my God, how dreadful.”

“I shouldn’t have let you go.”

“It was like a blow in the face.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That poor little boy — he’s so hideously thin and yellow, like one of those wrecks lying on a flatcar at Dachau. Why is he so yellow?”

“He’s got a hepatitis.”

“How can you be so cold-blooded? Are you going to be thick-skinned and bumptious like a medical student? How I hate that! He’s dying, Binx!”

“I know.”

“What was that he whispered to you?”

“He told me he had conquered an habitual disposition.”

“What is that?”

“He also said you were a very good-looking girl.”

“He breaks my heart!” We walk in silence. “And his poor parents. Did you see the way Mr Smith stepped out into the hall and dashed the tears from his eyes like a countryman?”

“Yes.”

“It is so pitiful.”

She stops to blow her nose. Her heavy gunmetal hair is separated by a wide ragged part. I kiss the thick white skin of her scalp. “You are very good-looking today.” In the past year, she has fattened up; her shoulders are sleek as a leopard.

Kate is horrified. “Please don’t.” She plucks at her thumb. “There is something grisly about you.”

“I have to find the children.” When Lonnie took a turn for the worse early this morning, my mother had to bring all the children with her, all but Jean-Paul. They’ve been sitting in the car since eight o’clock.

Thérèse catches sight of me and sticks her sharp little face out the window. “How is Lonnie?” she asks, trying a weaving motion.

“He is very sick.”

“Is he going to die?” Thérèse asks in her canny smart-girl way.

“Yes.” I sit around backwards to see them. Kate smiles in at them and stands a ways off. “But he wouldn’t want you to be sad. He told me to give you a kiss and tell you that he loved you.”

They are not sad. This is a very serious and out-of-the-way business. Their eyes search out mine and they cast about for ways of prolonging the conversation, this game of serious talk and serious listening.

“We love him too,” says Mathilde with a sob.

“Kiss us first!” cry Donice and Clare from the back seat.

Mathilde sobs in my neck and Thérèse eyes me shrewdly. “Was he anointed?” she asks in her mama-bee drone.

“Yes.”

“Very good.”

Only the two girls are sad, but they are also secretly proud of having caught onto the tragedy.

Donice casts about. “Binx,” he says and then appears to forget. “When Our Lord raises us up on the last day, will Lonnie still be in a wheelchair or will he be like us?”

“He’ll be like you.”

“You mean he’ll be able to ski?” The children cock their heads and listen like old men.

“Yes.”

“Hurray!” cry the twins, but somewhat abstractly and more or less attentive to the sound of their own voices.

“Listen,” I say, laughing at them. “How would you like to go up to Audubon Park and ride the train?”

“Yes! Yes!”

“Then wait a minute. I’ll be right back.”

“Binx, we love you too!” cries Donice for the fun of it and leans way out the window. “Will you come to see us?”

“Sure. Now hush up. I want to talk to Kate.”

Kate looks back at the car. “You were very sweet with them.”

“Thanks.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. Will you do me a favor?”

“What?”

“I’ll be up here all day with Lonnie and the children. Will you go downtown for me and pick up some governments at the office? Your mother has decided again to keep them at home. She thinks that if war comes, her desk is safer than the vault. Will you go?”

“Alone?”

“Yes. You can ride the streetcar down St Charles. It is nice sitting by an open window.”

“I wouldn’t know what to ask for!”

“You don’t have to. I’ll call Mr Klostermann and he’ll hand you an envelope. Here’s what you do: take the streetcar, get off at Common, walk right into the office. Mr Klostermann will give you an envelope — you won’t have to say a word — then catch the streetcar at the same place. It will go on down to Canal and come back up St Charles.”

“I don’t have any money.”

“Here.”

She considers the quarter in her palm. “Here’s the only thing. It’s not that I’m afraid.” She looks at a cape jasmine sticking through an iron fence. I pick it and give it to her.

“You’re sweet,” says Kate uneasily. “Now tell me …”

“What?”

“While I am on the streetcar — are you going to be thinking about me?”

“Yes.”

“What if I don’t make it?”

“Get off and walk home.”

“I’ve got to be sure about one thing.”

“What?”

“I’m going to sit next to the window on the Lake side and put the cape jasmine in my lap?”

“That’s right.”

“And you’ll be thinking of me just that way?”

“That’s right.”

“Good-by.”

“Good-by.”

Twenty feet away she turns around.

“Mr Klostermann?”

“Mr Klostermann.”

I watch her walk toward St Charles, cape jasmine held against her cheek, until my brothers and sisters call out behind me.