Джеймс Кейн - Mildred Pierce

He broke off, sat down, and began cursing, first softly, then with rising vehemence. Sensing something wrong, she asked: “What is it, Wally?”

“Bert.”

“What’s he got to do with it?”

“Original incorporator.”

“Well?”

“He’s an original incorporator, and you’re married to him, and there goes your restaurant, and the prettiest deal I’ve had a chance to put across since Pierce Homes folded.”

It was ten minutes before Mildred could get through her head the ramifications of community property, and the fact that Bert, by merely being married to her, would be co-owner of the restaurant, and therefore subject to a ruling. Then she argued about it, indignantly and passionately, but she could see by Wally’s face that the point was serious. He left presently, saying he would talk to his colleagues and look up the law, and she went to bed frantic lest this, her first big chance, would be lost on a legal technicality. She had a recurrence of her bitter fury against Bert, and the way he seemed to thwart her at every turn. Next night Wally was back, looking more cheerful. “Well, it’s O.K., but you’ll have to get a divorce.”

“Is that the only way?”

“Well? Bert left you, didn’t he?”

“I wish there was some other way.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know how Bert’s going to act about it. You never can count on Bert. If it was just his heart, that would be all right. But he’s got some twist in his head, and you never know what he’s going to do. He might make trouble.”

“How?”

“He’d think of some way.”

“There’s no way. If he’ll let you get a divorce on the ground of cruelty, do it nice and quiet, all well and good. If he gets tough, you spring that Biederhof woman on him, and he’s got to give way, because on infidelity he can’t block it. You don’t ask him. You tell him.”

“It takes a year, doesn’t it?”

“You getting cold feet?”

“No, but if it’s no use, why do it?”

“It takes a year before your decree becomes final. But as soon as it’s entered, that ends the community property, and that’s all you’ve got to worry about.”

“Well — I’ll see him.”

“Cut out that ‘well’ stuff. Look, Mildred, you might as well get this thing cleaned up. Because even if it wasn’t for this federal thing, you’d hardly dare go into business, still married to Bert. You don’t know where he gets his money. For all you can tell, you’d no sooner hang out a sign than you’d have more judgments and attachments and garnishees slapped on you than you could count. You’d be broke before you started. But, soon as you shake Bert, you’re all right.”

“I said I’d see him.”

“If it’s money that’s worrying you, forget it. In court, I’ll represent you myself, and the rest of it’s nothing. But get going. The deal’s hot, and you haven’t got one day to lose.”

Next Sunday, when the children were invited to dinner by the Pierces, Mildred knew Bert was coming over. She had sent word to him that she wanted to see him, and this obviously was an arrangement that would insure his finding her alone. She started her pies early, in the hope she would be done before he got there, but she was up to her elbows in dough when he walked in the kitchen door. He asked how she had been, and she said just fine, and she asked how he had been, and he said he couldn’t complain. Then he sat down quite sociably and watched her work. It was some time before she could bring herself to broach the subject, and when she did broach it, she did so after considerable beating around the bush. She told about the model home, and the legal points involved, and quoted Wally in places that became difficult. Then, gulping a little, she said: “So, it looks as though we’ve got to get a divorce, Bert.”

He received this statement with a very grave face, and waited a long time before he spoke. Then he said: “That’s something I’ll have to think about.”

“Have you any particular objections?”

“... I’ve got plenty of objections. For one thing, I belong to a church that’s got some pretty strict rules on this matter.”

“Oh.”

She couldn’t keep the acid out of her voice as she spoke. That he should bring up his perfunctory connection with the Episcopal church struck her as pretty farfetched, particularly as her understanding was that what his church objected to wasn’t divorce itself, but remarriage of divorced persons. But before she could make the point, he went on: “And I’d have to know more about this deal of Wally Burgan’s. A whole lot more.”

“What have you got to do with that?”

“You’re my wife, aren’t you?”

She turned away quickly, thrust her hands into the dough, tried to remember that arguing with Bert was like arguing with a child. Presently she heard him saying: “I probably know ten times as much about federal taxes as Wally Burgan does, and all I can say is it sounds to me like a lot of hooey. It comes down to a straight question of collusion: Is there any, or isn’t there? In all cases involving collusion, the burden of proof is on the government, and in this case there can’t be any proof, because I can testify, any time they call me, that there wasn’t any.”

“Bert, don’t you see that it isn’t a question of proving anything to a court, one way or another? It’s whether they let me have the property or they don’t. And if I don’t get a divorce, they won’t.”

“No reason for them to act that way at all.”

“And what am I going to tell Wally?”

“Just refer him to me.”

Bert patted his thighs, stood up, and seemed to regard the discussion as closed. She worked furiously at the dough, tried to keep quiet, then wheeled on him. “Bert. I want a divorce.”

“Mildred, I heard all you said.”

“What’s more, I’m going to get one.”

“Not unless I say the word.”

“How about Maggie Biederhof?”

“And how about Wally Burgan?”

In his palmiest days as a picture extra, Bert never did such a take’m as he did at that moment, with the dough doing service as a pie. It caught him square in the face, hung there a moment, then parted to reveal tragic, injured dignity. But by the time it had cascaded in big blobs to the floor, dignity had given way to hot anger, and he began to talk. He said he had friends, he knew what was going on. He said she ought to know by now she couldn’t pull the wool over his eyes. Then he had to go to the sink to wash his face, and while he clawed the dough away, she talked. She taunted him with not making a living for his family, with standing in her way every time she tried to make the living. He tried to get back to the subject of Wally, and she shrilled him down. He said O.K., but just let her try to bring Maggie Biederhof into it, and see what happened to her. He’d fix it so she’d never get a divorce, not in this state she wouldn’t. As she screamed once more that she would have a divorce, she didn’t care what he did, he said they’d see about that, and left.

Mrs. Gessler listened, sipped her tea, shook her head. “It’s the funniest thing, baby. Here you lived with Bert — how long was it? — ten or twelve years, and still you don’t understand him, do you?”

“He’s got that contrary streak in him.”

“No he hasn’t. Once you understand Bert, he’s not contrary at all. Bert’s like Veda. Unless he can do things in a grand way, he’s not living, that’s all.”

“What’s grand about the way he acted?”

“Look at it, for once, the way he looks at it. He doesn’t care about the church, or the law, or Wally. He just put all that in to sound big. What’s griping him is that he can’t do anything for the kids. If he has to stand up in court and admit he can’t pay one cent for them, he’d rather die.”