Джеймс Кейн - The Moth

“O.K. If I can put a little water in it, I’ll have that other drink.”

“Help yourself.”

The kitchen door squeaked, and in hardly a second it squeaked again. Then Dasso said: “Jim.”

“Yeah?”

“That kettle’s hot.”

There was the longest silence I ever heard, then the front door opened, and footsteps sounded outside, going around the house, but of only one person. How long we stood it I don’t know. We just stood there and stood there and stood there. After a while her hand tightened on mine, and then loosened. Then her breath began to come in gasps. I knew she’d pass out if I didn’t do something. I opened the door.

He was facing us, in one of the beach chairs on the other side of the gas log. When she staggered out of there, he sat like a stone. But when he could see who I was, he jerked up on his elbows for maybe a second, like he could hardly believe his eyes. Then he leaned back. But he didn’t only lean. He shriveled into his clothes, so that what had been a big man seemed small.

She sat on the table, and poured a spoonful of liquor into one of the glasses, drank it, and shivered. I sat down somewhere. It was a long time before anything was said, and then he said: “This is why you wouldn’t sing for me?”

“I guess so, Mr. Branch.”

“And it started then, that Sunday?”

“Yes.”

He turned to her: “Hannah, why didn’t you tell me?”

“How could I?”

“But — there’s nothing you can’t tell me.”

“Would I stab a knife into you?”

“But I think you’ve forgotten, it was what we said. I told you if ever there came anything you were to tell me. There’s nothing I couldn’t forgive you, Hannah — except not being frank with me. That makes me feel — all alone — left out of your life. I don’t know anything to do about it.”

“I’m sorry, Jim.”

It came to me they weren’t acting like a man and his wife. They were acting like a father and his child. Instead of taking her by the throat, or me by the throat, or somebody by the throat, he was reasoning with her, being noble, or whatever it was. And she, instead of roaring around and asking what he was going to do about it, was acting meek and sorry and lowly, like some kid that played hooky from school. I said: “Can I say something to you two people?”

Neither one of them said anything, but I kept at it: “Never mind what I have to do with this. You know when you’re a heel or you don’t. But as to how things were before I got here, all I can say is that I think Hannah turned to you, Mr. Branch, at a time when she was pretty low about her father, and that what she reached for, even if she didn’t know it, wasn’t a husband, but somebody to take the place of her father, and that’s why—”

He cut me off: “We’ve been all over that.”

“Yes, Jack. Naturally.

“You mean you knew it?”

They didn’t answer me, and then she began talking to him: “It all seemed so simple, Jim, and so wonderful, the way you said it. My father was gone, and you wanted to be a father to me, and take care of me, and see that no harm ever came — and you did. How could I try to tell you you didn’t? You did everything you said you’d do, but you were a little late. I looked like a little girl to you, and some ways I was, but there were other ways you didn’t know about. There were those years in college, and the years right after — and then I wasn’t a little girl any more. I was a wild dame, looking for a good time, and plenty grown-up. Oh, I was honest enough. I wanted our life the way we said, and I felt saintly, the way a woman ought to feel. But when I was alone, I’d want to be wild again, and then — I popped off one day, that’s all. It’s not Jack’s fault. At least he wouldn’t keep on wearing a surplice, and singing for you. You’ve got to say that for him.”

“I haven’t chided him... or you.”

He poured himself some liquor, and I thought he drank it off pretty quick. Then he had some more. Then he asked her if her car was here, and when she said it was in the garage, he said he and she could take that and Dasso would drive me to the ranch, then gave her a little pat and said it was time they were getting home. She didn’t move. He said it again, with all kinds of explanations about how of course he would forgive her, and more of the same, until my teeth began to go on edge, though I wanted her to make it up with him. She still didn’t hear him, then started to cry. He started to cry. I wanted to cry. He poured himself another drink and drank it, then had another and another. Then Dasso was there, tapping him on the shoulder, saying come on, the new shift was coming on, they’d have to go. He got to his feet, picked up the bottle, drained the last of it, tried to set it down, and missed. I picked it up, put it on the table. He picked up the cork, put it back in the bottle. It took him five minutes. Then he went reeling to the door, Dasso’s arm around him.

When I heard them drive off I lit the gas, went out in the kitchen and made coffee, and made her drink some. Then I put her to bed. I spread a blanket over her. I found a blanket for myself, wrapped it around me, and camped in a chair. When the sun came up, she was asleep, but I was still sitting there, trying to figure where I was at with my life, if any.

The Sunday after that I slept late, as spring means work on a fruit ranch, and I’d had a hard week. Around ten o’clock, when I strolled over from breakfast, church bells were ringing somewhere, and I had a wild notion to sing in the choir because I felt like it, and at last have peace, even if it hadn’t much glory attached to it, or much pay. It had been a week since I’d seen her, and it seemed that maybe I never would again, and that I could forget about her, and everything she’d mixed me up with, and especially Branch. It wasn’t all hope, either. One night, on a trip to Whittier with the light truck, I had taken a sneak to have a peep at the well. It was just like it had been, with the rotary table going around in the middle, a driller camped at the drum, roughnecks standing around, and Dasso off to one side, giving orders. It looked like she didn’t need me, and I might be out. That suited me fine. Because coming home that Monday morning, with her at the wheel saying nothing and the gray damp drifting in from the ocean, I’d had a bad time. It had hit me all in a lump as it hadn’t before, that it was all very well to talk mean to her, and maybe she was cold and maybe she was wild and maybe she was bad, but it took two to cook up the kind of cross we had tried to get away with, and here at last I tumbled that one of them might be me. But a week had gone by, and I’d heard nothing from her, and there was no getting around it, I might be out.

This Sunday morning, though, I had hardly gone in the bunkhouse before there came a rap on a horn, fast, sharp, and nervous. I went out, and there she was, in the car. I walked over and said: “Well stranger, where you been keeping yourself?”

“Jack, I’ve been keeping myself a good many places, and I’m fine, and it’s a beautiful day, but — will you please get in so we can talk as we go and not take the whole day about it?”

“We in a hurry or something?”

“All hell has broken loose.”

“... What kind of hell?”

“At the well! Will you get in, so we can go?”

I got in, and we whizzed to 101, and were leveled off for Long Beach before she went on: “It’s the police, and what they’re threatening to do to us if we don’t take care of the mud. It’s — all over the place and you’ll have to do something about it.”

“All over what place?”

“The street!”

“If I’m to help, say something.”