Donna Tartt - The Secret History

Posters; dried flowers in a beer mug; the luminous glow of her stereo in the dark. It was all too familiar from my suburban youth, yet now seemed unbelievably remote and innocent, a memory from some lost Junior Prom. Her lip gloss tasted like bubble gum. I buried my face in the soft, slightly acrid-smelling flesh of her neck and rocked her back and forth – babbling, mumbling, feeling myself fall down and down, into a dark, half-forgotten life. J| I woke at two-thirty – according to the flashing, demonic red of a digital clockface – in an absolute panic. I'd had a dream, nothing scary really, in which Charles and I were on a train, trying to evade a mysterious third passenger. The cars were packed with people from the parry – Judy, Jack Teitelbaum, Jud in his cardboard crown – as we lurched through the aisles. Throughout the dream, however, I'd had a feeling that it was all unimportant, that I actually had a far more pressing worry if only I could remember it. Then I did remember, and the shock of it woke me up.

It was like waking from a nightmare to a worse nightmare. I sat up, heart pounding, slapping at the blank wall for the light switch until the terrible realization dawned on me that I was not in my own room. Strange shapes, unfamiliar shadows, crowded horribly around me; nothing offered any clue to my whereabouts, and for a few delirious moments I wondered if I was dead. Then I felt the sleeping body next to mine. Instinctively I recoiled, and then I prodded it gently with my elbow. It didn't move. I lay in bed for a minute or two, trying to collect my thoughts; then I got up, found my clothes, dressed as best as I could in the dark, and left.

Stepping outside, I slipped on an icy step and pitched, face forward, into more than a foot of snow. I lay still for a moment, then raised myself to my knees and looked about in disbelief. A few snowflakes were one thing, but I had not thought it possible for weather to change as suddenly and violently as this. The flowers were buried, and the lawn; everything had disappeared.

An expanse of clean, unbroken snow stretched blue and twinkling as far as I could see.

My hands were raw and my elbow felt bruised. With some effort, I got to my feet. When I turned to see where I'd come from, I was horrified to realize I'd just walked out of Bunny's own dorm. His window, on the ground floor, stared back at me black and silent. I thought of his spare glasses lying on the desk; the empty bed; the family photographs smiling in the dark.

When I got back to my room – by a confused, circular route -1 fell on my bed without taking off my coat or shoes. The lights were on, and I felt weirdly exposed and vulnerable but I didn't want to turn them off. The bed was rocking a little, like a raft, and I kept a foot on the floor to steady it.

Then I fell asleep, and slept very soundly for a couple of hours until I was awakened by a knock at the door. Seized by fresh panic, I fought to sit up in the tangle of my coat, which had somehow got twisted around my knees and seemed to be attacking me with the force of a living creature.

The door creaked open. Then no sound at all. 'What the hell is wrong with you?' said a sharp voice.

Francis was in the doorway. He stood with one black-gloved hand on the knob, looking at me like I was a lunatic.

I stopped struggling and fell back on my pillow. I was so glad to see him I felt like laughing, and I was so doped up I probably did. 'Francois,' I said idiotically.

He shut the door and came over to my bed, where he stood looking down at me. It was really him – snow in his hair, snow on the shoulders of his long black overcoat. 'Are you okay?' he said, after a long, derisive pause.

I rubbed my eyes and tried again. 'Hi,' I said. 'I'm sorry. I'm fine. Really.'

He stood looking at me with no expression and did not answer.

Then he took off his coat and laid it over the back of a chair. 'Do you want some tea?' he said.

'No.'

'Well, I'm going to go make some, if you don't mind.'

By the time he was back I was more or less myself. He put the kettle on the radiator and helped himself to some tea bags from my bureau drawer. 'Here,' he said. 'You can have the good teacup. There wasn't any milk in the kitchen.'

It was a relief to have him there. I sat up and drank my tea and watched him take offhis shoes and socks. Then he put them by the radiator to dry. His feet were long and thin, too long for his slim, bony ankles; he flexed his toes, looked up at me. 'It's an awful night,' he said. 'Have you been outside?'

I told him a little about my night, omitting the part about the girl.

'Gosh,' he said, reaching up to loosen his collar. 'I've just been sitting in my apartment. Giving myself the creeps.'

'Heard from anyone?'

'No. My mother called around nine; I couldn't talk to her.

Told her I was writing a paper.'

For some reason my eyes strayed to his hands, fidgeting unconsciously on the top of my desk. He saw that I saw, forced them down, palms flat. 'Nerves,' he said.

We sat for a while without saying anything. I put my teacup on the windowsill and leaned back. The Demerol had set off some kind of weird Doppler effect in my head, like the whine of car tires speeding past and receding in the distance. I was staring I across the room in a daze – how long, I don't know – when gradually I became aware that Francis was looking at me with an intent, fixed expression on his face. I mumbled something and got up and went to the bureau to get an Alka-Seltzer.

The sudden movement made me feel light-headed. I was standing there dully, wondering where I'd put the box, when all of a sudden I became aware that Francis was immediately behind me, and I turned around.

His face was very close to mine. To my surprise he put his hands on my shoulders and leaned forward and kissed me, right on the mouth.

It was a real kiss – long, slow, deliberate. He'd caught me off balance and I grabbed his arm to keep from falling; sharply, he drew in his breath and his hands went down to my back and before I knew it, more from reflex than anything else, I was kissing him, too. His tongue was sharp. His mouth had a bitter, mannish taste, like tea and cigarettes.

He pulled away, breathing hard, and leaned to kiss my throat.

I looked rather wildly around the room. God, I thought, what a night.

'Look, Francis,' I said, 'cut it out.'

He was undoing the top button of my collar. 'You idiot,' he said, chuckling. 'Did you know your shirt's on inside-out?'

I was so tired and drunk I started to laugh. 'Come on, Francis,'

I said. 'Give me a break.'

'It's fun,' he said. 'I promise you.'

Matters progressed. My jaded nerves began to stir. His eyes were magnified and wicked behind his pince-nez. Presently he took them off and dropped them on my bureau with an absent clatter.

Then, quite unexpectedly, there was another knock at the door. We sprang apart. His eyes were wide. We stared at each other, and then the knock came again.

Francis swore under his breath, bit his lip. I, panic-stricken, gi) ^=«rc«t _.-.^ziitiiji, uut fig made a quick, shushing gesture at me I with his hand.

'But what if it's -?' I whispered. -*

I had been about to say 'What if it's Henry?' But what I was actually thinking was 'What if it's the cops?' Francis, I knew, was thinking the same thing.

More knocking, more insistent this time.

My heart was pounding. Bewildered with fear, I crossed to my bed and sat down.

Francis ran a hand through his hair. 'Come in,' he called.

I was so upset that it took me a moment to realize it was only Charles. He was leaning with one elbow against the door frame, his red scarf slung into great careless loops around his neck. When he stepped in my room I saw immediately that he was drunk. 'Hi,' he said to Francis. 'What the hell are you doing here?'