Джеймс Кейн - Root of His Evil [= Shameless]

They stood there looking at us and for a moment I didn’t know what to do and didn’t much care what I did, to tell the truth, as I was so happy over the great load that had been lifted from my mind, but Mr. Holden took charge in a most impressive way. He bowed as though he were in some royal palace, and without waiting for me to introduce him he recalled himself to Grant and there was nothing for Grant to do but introduce Mr. Holden to his mother, which he did very coldly. On their side it was all very stiff and snooty, but this didn’t feaze Mr. Holden a bit. He laughed and said: “We’re celebrating a deliverance.”

“Oh?”

Grant tried to sound casual but the quick way he turned his head showed he was quite curious.

“Yes, the lovely Lula has had an offer of employment, has accepted it, and taken her sad farewell. Not that it didn’t break her heart. But she went.”

Mrs. Harris sat down at this piece of news, stared at Mr. Holden and seemed to turn into a block of ice. But Grant, as it finally got through his head, started to laugh and said: “So. She took it. And I thought that Brooklyn job was a phony.”

“Oh, it wasn’t the Brooklyn job. My, my, the lady had all sorts of offers, didn’t she? All tributes to her sterling character, no doubt. No, this was still another job. I had the honor of being bearer of the happy tidings and now, having discharged my historic function, as Trotsky would have put it, I’ll be on my way.”

He got up, but Grant still stood between him and the door and didn’t move. They were facing each other for a moment, and then Grant laughed again. “Holden, I think you’re a liar.”

“Others have thought so but I’ve survived it.”

“I think Carrie called you up and asked you to get that nuisance out of here so she could sidestep all these imaginary issues she’s been raising. Right?”

“Since I’m already called a liar my testimony on that point would be worthless.”

“Anyway, thanks — and let’s have a drink.”

“More coffee would be fine.”

I felt so happy I almost forgot it was I who had to make the coffee, since what I had already served was cold by now, and then when I did go out in the kitchen I couldn’t remember where anything was and it all took me a long time. But when I finally did get back with the coffee, and an old-fashioned with Scotch for Mrs. Harris and rye and seltzer for Grant, things were very unpleasant in there. Mrs. Harris’s voice sounded shrill, as it had that afternoon at the cocktail party, and she was telling Grant that since she had gone to all this trouble to give the girl work she thought the least that was due her was that she be consulted before anything was done about Lula. Grant told her she was forgetting that the only person who had any real say in the matter was Lula and that it was a free country and that Lula had done what she wanted to do. I said nothing, but served the things I had brought, and was so glad I had turned the tables on her that I didn’t trust myself to say anything at all. Grant was happy too, although of course he never for a moment penetrated what his mother was up to, and wanted to smooth things down. He raised his glass to Mr. Holden, who raised his coffee cup. Then he raised his glass to me and I raised my coffee cup, but when he raised his glass to Mrs. Harris she made no move toward her old-fashioned but went right on with her tirade. Then Grant, Mr. Holden and myself sipped in silence while she talked, getting louder all the time, and then Grant got impatient with her and began to talk back, saying it was his home, not hers, and I sat back and wondered whether I could purr if I tried.

During all of this Mr. Holden said not a word but coldly studied her. She had got up by now and was yelling down at Grant, where he still sat taking quick gulps out of his highball and nervously drawing at a cigarette. Mr. Holden got up, went over to where they were and put his arms around her. She jerked around, raised her face to his, and her eyes were simply horrible to see. But he smiled down at her, laid his fingers on her cheek and patted it. “Now why get excited? They’re two misguided youngsters, wholly incapable of dealing with the simplest problem, but we don’t care, do we?”

“Oh, don’t we?”

“No — let’s leave them to stew in their own juice, which is really what they want to do, for some reason beyond my comprehension. Let’s go and have dinner, you and me. I’ll forsake my principles and drink a bottle of wine with you, a pale white wine which will pick up the color of your hair... Yes?”

Her eyes grew large and soft, and her whole face took on a dreamy, yielding look. She didn’t answer him at once, but looked away from him as though she were seeing stars somewhere in the distance, then took his hand in hers and spoke in a whisper: “I just love the pale white wines.”

They barely took time to say their goodbyes, and then were gone. I suppose he was doing it all for me, and yet I couldn’t escape a little twinge of jealousy, or whatever it was, as I watched them go down in the elevator, she looking up at him, he still smiling down at her, for I had probably come to regard him as my property, even if I was married, and I somehow hated the idea of her taking him away from me. But when I went back to the living room I forgot all about that. Grant was still sitting there, a horrible look on his face. For the first time in my life I knew I was looking into the eyes of a killer. I suddenly remembered what Mr. Hunt had told me about Grant’s jealousy, and realized why Mrs. Harris had gone out with Mr. Holden and who that look of death was meant for. I was face to face with the real spectre that haunted my marriage.

I prefer not to tell the details of the scene that followed, of what he said, which sounded like the ravings of a lunatic, or of his threats to strangle his mother and Mr. Holden to death. It was frightful and lasted until a late hour. I tried to get him to go out with me for dinner but he wouldn’t even hear me, and so I fixed something with what was in the icebox and got him to eat a little of it. But when he quieted down it was even worse, for he seemed to have decided on something, I didn’t know what. About eleven o’clock he flung out of the apartment and I at once telephoned Mr. Hunt, to warn him that there might be trouble. Mr. Hunt thanked me and hung up very quickly, and then it was my turn almost to go insane from worrying about what was going to happen. About half past twelve I got a call from Mr. Hunt saying that Grant had been to his mother’s house and that there had been a terrible fight, but that fortunately Mr. Holden had already gone home after bringing her back from dinner and that, for the moment at least, there would be no violence. Some time after that Grant came home and I managed to get him to bed, but once more there came an outbreak of those sobs which had aroused in me such a peculiar mixture of contempt and pity.

For the next two or three days he hardly seemed to know I was around, and then took to leaving the apartment, as he had while Lula was there. To make it worse, Mr. Holden did not stop taking Mrs. Harris to dinner once but kept on going around with her. But a columnist got hold of it, for of course a society woman going around with a labor leader was news, and if Grant had been insane before, he turned into a gibbering idiot now. Through a phone call that came in for him one day, when I heard a secretary at the other end say something while I was holding the line, I discovered that he had employed private detectives to trail his mother, and then I knew I had to act.

I called Mr. Holden, got him at his hotel, and pleaded with him not to see Mrs. Harris any more. He listened and laughed. “This is what I’ve been waiting for, Carrie. It makes my heart sing. So it does matter to you, when I start trotting around with another woman?”