Джеймс Кейн - The Moth

Then I asked her again, and after that again, and if there was anyone else she danced with I don’t know who it was. Supper was served in the main dining room, where the hotel celebration was going on, and the party orchestra moved in there, hitting it up at one end of the room with the main orchestra at the other, so of course that meant I danced with her all the time. When the bugle blew and then both orchestras started Auld Lang Syne, I danced her out in the hall and around a corner, and as the clock struck twelve I kissed her. Her lips were hot and wet and soft. They said one thing and one thing only, and I let them say it. Then somebody ran by with a horn and we broke. “Jack, I’ll have to go back.”

“This hallway is no good.”

“My studio might be better.”

“Hey, what’s this?”

“If you had come around, I’d have showed it to you.”

“I’ve been away. What kind of a studio?”

“Music.”

“Where?”

“Here. In the hotel. Just a suite, but they fixed it up for me. The piano is a Christmas present. It’s a Steinway.”

“Yeah, that we’d expect.”

“Well, it’s the best make there is.”

“Of course. When do I see this studio?”

“... You want to see it?”

“Sure.”

“When?”

“Why — whenever.”

“Tonight?”

“Why not — this morning?”

She looked at me and I danced her back in the dining room and pulled her up against me so hard I wonder she could breathe. She began to whisper. I was to say good night when the rest did, and get my things from the check room, and go out, and on up the street toward my car. But then in the basement of the hotel, on the Charles Street side, I was to find a door, with steps leading down to it. Over the sill was a key, and I was to let myself in and take a turn to the right and keep on to the freight elevator in the rear, and wait. So I followed instructions. The party began breaking up pretty soon, and I shook hands with her father and mother and asked for little Helen, who was spending the holidays with cousins in Trenton, relatives of the Cartaret the hotel was named after. Mr. Legg, as I’ve said, is a bit on the stuffy side, a slim little man with a white mustache that looked like something in an oil painting, but he patted me on the shoulder and acted friendly. Mrs. Legg was a gray-haired woman, kind of heavy-set, with light china-blue eyes that have the same trick Margaret’s have, of never quite looking at you with a little set smile. She’s a cold dame, but she kept me there five minutes at least, asking me questions about myself, especially whether I sang any more, and seemed to think it was a good idea I had quit. Then she told me all about Margaret’s playing, and how “splendid” it had become, but how, nevertheless, she wanted my “opinion.” What that was worth I couldn’t quite see, but I was to find out. Then I shook hands with Margaret, and made a little speech that everybody could hear, about the wonderful time I’d had, and how I wished her the best for the coming year.

It seemed a year before there was nobody on Charles Street and I could slip down the steps and find the key and let myself in. It was dark down there, but I could see that on my left was a door leading into the barber shop, and on my right a concrete passage that went past furnaces, pumps, and electrical stuff. I turned right, like she said, and came to a cross passage, at the rear of the hotel, that led to the freight elevator, off in a corner. I went over to it, and I could see the car through the glass but she had said wait and I did. I don’t know how long I waited, but it seemed that hell must at least be frozen over and thawed out again before I heard something. There’d be a click, then steps, then another click. All of a sudden I knew it was a watchman with his clock, and that he was down there, in the basement, where I was. I had a panicky two seconds, but then, as easy as I could, I opened the car door, stepped in, and coaxed it shut again. Then I stooped down, below the glass. The steps came on and stopped, then after a click went away. Then the car moved and I was going up.

At the eighth floor I could see her, through the glass. When I got out she began more whispering. I was to give her a head start, then slide around to 819 and go in without buzzing or knocking. When I had that straight she took a long look around and ducked around a corner, with a tiptoe, guilty look. I counted twenty, then followed along, watching the numbers. The door to 819 was open a crack, and I stepped in and closed it after me. Then arms were around me and lips were against mine and she was pressing up against me and trembling. It was dark, but by the light from the street I could see a grand piano, some chairs, and at the far end of the room, a sofa. I carried her to it, held her close, and kissed her some more. She locked her arms around me and kept kissing me and catching her breath in little short gasps. “... You surprised, Jack?”

“At you?”

“That I can be so — demonstrative.”

“Not with the it that you carried around.”

“Really, Jack?”

“You always did get me.”

“You never said anything.”

“Did anything, you really mean.”

“Well, you never did.”

“With pigtails hanging down your back?”

“I’m as old as you.”

“You’re still pretty young.”

“You really liked me?”

“Why, I used to stand in the wings while you were playing Rachmaninoff Prelude and think how I’d like to put my arms around you, from behind, while your hands were there on the keyboard, and—”

“Yes, Jack? And—?”

“Like this.”

With that I made my first grab at something that meant business. She pushed my hand away, but I found a zipper, and slid it and it slid pretty easy. Then she stiffened. “... Somebody’s outside.”

She pulled up the zipper and I snapped on a light. She wiped my face with her handkerchief. There came a knock on the door. “Who’s there?”

“Your milk, darling.”

It was Mrs. Legg’s voice and Margaret let her in. When she saw me she acted surprised, but no more than surprised. “Well, of all things!”

“Had to see the studio, you know.”

“But of course!”

“Pretty.”

“Lovely!... Pet, you mustn’t forget this any more! She’s started skimmed milk, Jack, and it’s done such wonders for her, slendered her down so her figure is divine. One wouldn’t believe it’s one and the same girl!”

“It’s taken weight off her all right.”

“Well, Mother, do sit down.”

“No, it’s getting late — well, just for a minute.”

She talked of the party, and how nicely the boys had knocked off the music, and quite a few things, and you’d have thought that a guy and a girl and a studio at three thirty in the morning were just one of those things that happened. But her eyes were cold, and they meant go, so after a couple of minutes I looked at my watch and gave an imitation of a whistle. Then we were in the hall and then in the elevator, going down.

“Jack, how did she—”

“Don’t blame me. I laid low, even when—”

“I know you did! How could she know we were there? I told the board no calls until noon, then hung the don’t-disturb card on the door, and I know nobody saw me go up—”

“I even ducked the watchman.”

Margaret never paid much attention to what went on in the hotel, but later on, I found out if she had painted a green line from her bedroom to 819 she couldn’t have left a plainer trail than by the don’t-disturb card and the call block through the exchange, two smoke screens the old lady always kept an eye on. And when she pulled the freight car up to the eighth floor, which was reserved for women alone, and left it there, that made it simple. But we didn’t know about any of that then, and all we did was stand there in the lobby and whisper, have a quick kiss good night, and make a date.