Джеймс Кейн - Root of His Evil [= Shameless]

I took from my handbag the bank book showing the deposit I had made as treasurer of the union, as well as the small account book which gave the names of the members, and all other records insofar as I had anything to do with them. I then made out a check payable to him covering the whole amount and laid it all down in front of him. “There. I think you’ll find that everything balances, and you can endorse the check over to whoever is elected to take over my duties.”

“Well, Well, well. I never saw such a grim face in my life or such neat columns of figures. What is this, Carrie?”

“I’m quitting as treasurer of the union.”

“Tut, tut.”

“I can’t go on with it.”

“I wasn’t asking you to go on with it, and I’ve little interest today in the treasurer of the union. It’s a sweet red-haired girl I have my mind on, but — let’s get it over with. What’s come up between you and the union? They settled the strike, by the way.”

“Nothing’s come up between me and the union, but I think I’m going into business and I have to square up all accounts.”

“You’ve walked out on Grant, Lula and the union. All right, besides business, now what?”

“...I don’t know.”

“I do. You take off your hat and stay here.”

He was so simple and honest, and it seemed so fine, after all the turmoil and mean schemes I had faced, that I ached to take off my hat, as he said, and let him take charge of me from then on. But I knew the pain inside of me wouldn’t stop if I did. Yet now I knew he was a part of my life, something he had not really been before, and that I had to be honest with him. I got up, put my arms around him, pulled his head down and kissed him. “I want to say something.”

“I’m listening to you, Carrie.”

“I think you’re swell.”

“Go on.”

“I think you mean more to me than I ever realized you did. I think in a little while I’ll be able to think about you in the way you want me to, and then perhaps I’ll mean still more to you.”

“If that’s possible.”

“It’s possible... But now — I’ve got to face the thing out. You’re wrong if you think I married Grant for money, position or anything else except the one reason you would respect. I... loved him — and you have to let me get through this in my own way.”

“Then I’m not to see you?”

“I want to see you. You’ll have to let me see you — because I haven’t anybody else. But — oh, I’m all mixed up.”

“We’ll talk about the weather, is that it?”

“Yes. And I’m afraid we’ll talk about Grant too, and I’ll be a terrible nuisance, and—”

“I’ve a fine idea. We won’t talk at all. Would you like that?”

I pulled him to me again and we stood there for a few minutes, very close, not talking at all.

There was no taxi when I went out on the street so I started to walk, but I had a sensation in my legs as though I were made of air and would go floating off some place. In spite of what I had said to him at the end it was Lula and the union I kept thinking about, and I knew I had cut every tie that bound me to the world I had left.

When I came in sight of the apartment house I began to walk faster, then I made myself slow down and fought off the hope I could not help feeling within me. Yet my heart almost stopped beating when I entered the apartment and heard somebody moving about in the bedroom. I paused a moment and pulled myself together, especially so there would be no smile on my face or anything, for I did not want to appear too eager. Then, as casually as I could, I went in there.

Steamer trunks, shirts and suits of clothes were piled all over the bed and a strange woman, in a maid’s uniform, was standing at the chest of drawers, taking everything out. When she saw me she stopped what she was doing and looked very frightened. It was a moment or two before I could speak. “What are you doing here?”

“We come for Mr. Harris’s things.”

She spoke with a German accent and I was slow in understanding her, but the “we” caught my ear. “What do you mean, ‘we’? Who else is here with you?”

“Mrs. Harris, Miss.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know, Miss. She come. She is here.”

I went in the living room and she was already coming toward me, her arms outstretched. “My dear! I called you. I called you three times. But then the dear boy had to have something to wear and I—”

“You borrowed his key and sneaked in when you knew I wasn’t here. Because of course you called — three times.”

When I said that she somehow changed her mind about putting her arms around me but she kept the smile on her face, turned to a chair and started to sit down, at the same time taking charge of me in a very patronizing way. “Sit down, Carrie. I can see we have things to tell each other.”

I picked up the chair from behind her and pushed it back against the wall so she almost fell down, so at any rate the grand manner had a crimp put in it. “I do the inviting around here. Suppose we stand up.”

“Very well, my dear.”

“So you’ve finally taken Grant away from me?”

“Not I... oh, not I. I don’t think he told you, he’s so kind he couldn’t bear to hurt anybody — but he still loves Muriel, Carrie.”

“He never loved Muriel.”

“Ah, if you only knew—”

“I know all I want to know or need to know. After a month of insulting me, of scheming against me, of torturing Grant in every way that you know, you’ve finally succeeded in making two people unhappy and breaking up their marriage, in doing everything you started out to do. You’ve come here for his clothes and personal effects, and all I have to say to you is, take them and get out.”

I stepped very close to her as I said that and I trembled with a desire to slap her face. If I hadn’t already slapped Lula’s face I would have done it, but somehow I couldn’t just go around slapping faces. She started to say something, then didn’t, and stood there with the smile still hanging on her face, but it was beginning to be weak and frightened. I pointed to the bedroom. “Get in there with your maid. Make it as quick as you can and when you’re ready to go you may give me the key that you let yourself in with. I’ll not let you leave here until I have it.”

“Yes — certainly.”

She called the elevator boys to help her take the trunks down and when she had gone it was my turn to storm around there and act like a lunatic all by myself. I broke out into a perfect hysteria of rage and kept weeping and moaning because I hadn’t slapped her face. If I had I think my whole future life would have been different, because it would have satisfied me and from then on I would have had no impulse to do anything against her. But I hadn’t slapped her face, and all I could feel was a rising surge of fury against her. She was the only person in my life I had ever hated, and from then I could feel nothing but an obsession to get back at her.

Around three or four o’clock came the reaction. I began to cry and lay down on the sofa, trying to stop. When I did I remembered that I not only hadn’t had any sleep but I hadn’t had anything to eat either. I went in and bathed my eyes, then went out. At some lunch room down on Second Avenue I had a sandwich and a glass of milk.

When I came out on the street again I remembered standing there looking around, trying to decide which was uptown and which was downtown. I have no recollection of going back to the apartment or of what I did when I got there. The next thing I knew it was night and I was lying on the bed, still dressed and feeling as though I had been in some kind of stupor. But what woke me was that I was cold. I got up, took off my clothes, put on my pajamas and went back to bed again, under the covers this time. Grant flitted through my mind but I didn’t cry or feel badly that he wasn’t there. I seemed incapable of feeling anything, and next thing I knew it was morning.