Уолтер Мосли - John Woman

There was a music room and library; bedrooms on different floors with a spiral ladder that connected them. And for when Nesta decided to go out on her own there was a cottage in the backyard that she could come back to whenever she wanted.

“What does that all sound like?” Senta said when she’d finished.

John lifted her hands to kiss them. A moment later a black-suited guard appeared at a doorway behind her.

“Is it time?” Senta asked the guard.

“Yes,” the man said.

“Next time will be about you,” she promised.

John kissed her again and she departed.

After Senta left, John expected Marle to come and bring him back to his cell.

But when Marle did not return John understood that there was more company to come; though he couldn’t imagine a better visitor than Senta.

When the outer door opened again, the guard ushered in Ron Underhill.

“Thirty-five minutes,” the guard told Ron. “Or you can knock.”

Ron nodded and the sentry left.

John stood to meet his surprise guest.

The university gardener sported a black suit that fit his slender frame quite well. He wore a white dress shirt with buttoned cuffs that came down half an inch beyond the jacket sleeves, and an orange tie with three blue diamonds stitched down the center. His shoes were black with a dull shine. John thought that Underhill had this ensemble for funerals.

The men shook hands.

“How are you, Professor Woman?” the gardener asked.

“Locked up.”

“They treating you okay?” The look on the older man’s face seemed to add weight to the question, as if he might do something if the answer was not positive.

“Can’t complain. The food’s bad but it’s the best they can do I’m sure.”

“Why don’t we have a sit-down?” Ron suggested.

The gardener’s body was slight, like that of the coyote that stalked John after the accident. His hands were large and powerful. He was what people call a white man though his skin was a ruddy amber color from day after day under the desert sun.

Not knowing quite what to say John stated simply, “Well... here we are.”

“Yes indeed. You never know where you’ll end up in this life,” Underhill opined. “Every day we think we know what’s waiting for us but it’s always something else.”

There came another lull in the conversation.

“I’m a little surprised to see you here, Mr. Underhill,” John said at last. “I mean I hardly know you and no one else from the school has come. Mr. Pepperdine paid for my lawyer but that’s all the contact I’ve had with NUSW.”

“That Willie’s a good poker player.”

“You know him?”

“He likes hydrangeas and I cultivate some in the biology department’s greenhouse. We play poker there for pennies sometimes. He always walks away with a dollar or more of my money. That’s how the rich stay rich, I guess.”

“Thank you for coming. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“I like the way you talk, Professor Woman. You play with ideas that most people treat with devotion. At first you sound almost sacrilegious but then it’s clear as day that you care. I believe that when you wake up in the morning you’re wondering where the day will go. So when I heard that they’d put you in jail I decided to come out here and tell you I believe in you and to keep your confidence up.”

“But what if I’m guilty?” John smiled.

The gardener returned the grin. “You see? You always twist things around in a light way. Here I am trying to comfort you and there you are making me laugh.”

“Thank you, Ron, but you didn’t answer my question.”

“If you killed a man that doesn’t mean you’re a murderer. If you murdered a man it doesn’t mean you didn’t have good reason. I like you, Professor Woman. I came out to Phoenix to look you in the eye and tell you so.”

Underhill’s smile held both power and conviction. There was certainty in this man. John was reminded of one of his father’s frequent admonishments: the hierarchy of history rarely documents its greatest heroes — they are too busy doing to waste time on legacy.

“I wish I had some cards,” John said, “and some pennies to lose.”

“That’s all right. I know you got another visitor. She was very kind to insist I went first.”

Ron Underhill stood up easily, exhibiting the graceful posture of a much younger man.

“See ya,” he said giving a friendly salute. Then he walked to the door and knocked, it opened and the gardener passed through.

In the few minutes while John waited for the next visitor, he thought about the almost magical feeling he experienced considering where the visitors’ door led. He’d been locked up for only a short while but he was already feeling keen nostalgia for freedom: unlocked doors and unmonitored locomotion down empty streets; good food on china plates; and a telephone with pencil and paper close at hand.

The door opened once more and Carlinda Elmsford walked through followed by the guard.

“I’ll be watching,” he warned her.

He’d merely given Ron Underhill a time limit. But the multiracial student was another matter.

John did not remember climbing out of his chair.

Carlinda’s eyes fell upon him registering mild shock.

She approached him but stopped a finger’s span beyond reach.

“You haven’t shaved,” she said. She had on jeans and a frilly pink blouse. Her auburn hair was pulled back and she wore no makeup.

“No razors in here.”

John took a step forward and she a step back.

“You don’t want me to touch you?” he asked.

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“Why’s that?”

“Can we sit down?”

John chose a chair. Before sitting Carlinda took something from her right-front pants pocket and placed it on the table. It was a small spiral-bound notepad with a short pencil threaded through the plastic wire coil.

“Thank you,” John said. “That was very thoughtful. How’d you know I’d want this?”

“One time my father was arrested for hitting my mom. He had to spend sixty days in the county jail. The only thing he wanted was pencil and paper. He wrote her letters and she took him back.”

“You’ve never talked much about your parents.”

Carlinda glowered in response. It was as if she resented his saying anything to suggest they were connected. But there she was, visiting him in jail. Didn’t that speak volumes about their relationship?

“I told Arnold about us,” she said concentrating on the tabletop.

“Why?”

“One day when we were eating in the cafeteria he told me he’d always loved me, even when I wasn’t with him. He said we were soul mates and I realized it was true. Soul mates don’t keep secrets from to each other...”

“What did he say, I mean, when you told him about us?”

“He was mad that you lied to him.”

“Wasn’t he angry that you lied?” John asked.

“I never did. I just refused to talk to him about it.”

“How did he take it when you did tell him?”

“It drives him crazy I was seeing you both at the same time. He’s been studying New York statutes trying to see if there’s any chance they’d execute you.”

“That’s severe.”

“He’s always asking me about you.”

“Asking what?”

“What we did in the bed together. How big your penis is. Whenever we do anything new he wants to know if I learned it from you.”

“And what do you say when he asks all that?”

“I tell him the truth.”

“But why would you want to hurt him like that?”

“He likes it.”

“He likes being hurt?”

“I can tell by the way he makes love to me. He was never so passionate before. He never wanted to experiment at all. But now he’s after me all the time. Almost every night I wake up to him kissing me.”