Лоуренс Блок - Ariel

“The Bible. What else do you do in a motel room? Just commit adultery and read the Bible.”

“Do you think of this as adultery?”

She turned toward him, crossed one leg over the other. “Well, what else would you call it? I don’t think of it as a sin, if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s what I meant.”

“Well, I don’t. This book would tend to disagree with me, however. The Living Bible. That’s what it seems to call itself. Evidently the good old King James version is the Dead Bible.”

“What is it, modern English?”

“Modern and not terribly grammatical.” She closed the book, put it down on the lamp table. “If you’re going to read a Bible it ought to be full of thees and thous and begats. When it starts to sound like the host of a morning television talk show it loses me completely. The mystery is gone, and then what’s left?”

“Like when they took the Latin out of the Mass.”

“That’s right, you’re Catholic. I tend to forget that.”

“Lapsed Catholic. And I can’t blame it on Vatican Two, either. I was gone before they changed the Mass. We’d better get going, don’t you think?”

“I suppose so. You want to take a shower, don’t you? Or do you want to carry my spoor back to Elaine?”

“Your spoor. Like some jungle beast.”

“That’s the idea.”

He showered thoroughly but quickly, toweled dry, and emerged to find her already dressed. “And now the gentleman puts on his clothes,” she intoned, “and the charming couple will be on their way. The gentleman will return to his office — you are going back to your office?”

“Yes.”

“—while the lady goes back to her haunted house. God.”

“It bothers you, doesn’t it?”

“More than ever. I’m living in a hostile environment. Getting away from it just makes me aware of how unpleasant it is. I spend a couple of hours with you in this room or one like it and it’s neutral, it’s uncomplicated and safe. Then I walk through that door and there’s a presence in that house that hits me like a two-by-four between the eyes. Haven’t you felt it yourself?”

He shook his head. “But I don’t have to live with it,” he said. “And I haven’t really been inside your house except for the first time.”

“And you don’t have to live with her.”

“You mean Ariel.”

“Obviously. Who else?”

In the car, heading back into town, he said, “You hardly ever call her by name, have you noticed that? It’s always she or her or the child. ” “I’m aware of it.”

“Any particular reason?”

“I don’t know. It just turned out that way.”

“Since Caleb’s death? Or before it as well?”

“Before it. Since his birth. Maybe even before that. There’s been a gradual change in my attitude toward her.”

“Did you love her originally?”

“Yes. Wait, I’m not sure of that. I thought I loved her because we’d adopted her and therefore I was supposed to love her like my own child and therefore I was determined to feel what I was supposed to feel. Once Caleb was born, well, I certainly couldn’t deny that I felt something for him I had never felt for her.”

“What do you feel toward her now?”

“I don’t know. She spooks me.”

“What does that mean? Are you afraid of her?”

“We talked about it. I can’t get rid of the feeling—”

“That she was responsible for Caleb’s death. I know that, and we both know that all it is is a feeling. But let’s deal with present time. Are you afraid of her now?”

“I don’t know.”

“And I don’t know what you mean by that.”

She turned to him, unhooking her seat belt so she could face him, tucking her right foot under her left thigh. “I don’t know means I don’t know,” she said levelly. “You know the cliché about adoption, don’t you? You never know what you’re getting.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“My mother used to say don’t put money in your mouth because you never know where it’s been.”

“Everybody’s mother used to say that.”

“Well, I don’t know where the child’s been. I got her and I don’t know what I’ve got. She’s strange, dammit, and it’s not a familiar strangeness, it’s not my strangeness or David’s strangeness, it’s something uniquely hers and I don’t know what it adds up to. Am I afraid of her? God, I don’t know. I don’t know if I should be or not. Maybe she’ll murder me in my sleep. Maybe she’ll poison my food. Maybe she just gives off an evil presence, the same as that godforsaken house.” She fumbled in her bag, found a cigarette. “And maybe I’m just overreacting to Caleb’s death, and the child’s normal and innocent, and I ought to take David’s advice and lie down on Gintzler’s couch and tell him all my nice Freudian dreams.”

“Is that what you want to do?”

“No.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to keep on keeping on, I guess.” She plugged in the dashboard lighter, lit her cigarette when it popped out. “I want to spend as much time as possible with you in nice clean sterile anonymous motel rooms. Incidentally, I want to start paying half.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

”But I want to.” She reached into her purse again, counted out some money. He shook his head impatiently. “Then I pay for the room next time,” she said. “Agreed?”

“If you insist.”

“I insist.”

“Fair enough. Who picked out the name?”

“Huh?”

“Who decided to name her Ariel?”

“I did. I picked both names. Why?”

“They’re unusual.”

“I’m partial to unusual names. I was then, anyway. Odd names and old houses.”

“Ariel and Caleb,” he said, and frowned in thought. “Ariel and Caliban,” he said. “How’s that?”

“From The Tempest. You know the play?”

“I must have read it. I took a Shakespeare course in college. Ariel and what?”

“Caliban. Ariel was the airy spirit who served Prospero. Caliban was a primitive type, lived in a cave, something like that.”

“I wasn’t thinking of the play when I named them. Unless I made some unconscious connection while I was pregnant with Caleb, thinking that it was a name that went with Ariel. Except I didn’t, really. I found it in a long list of biblical names in a book on what to name the baby, and most of them were about as appetizing as Ahab and Nebuchadnezzar and Onan. Can you imagine calling a child Onan?”

“Somebody named a canary Onan. I think it was Dorothy Parker. Because he spilled his seed on the ground.”

“I’ll bet it was Dorothy Parker. Shadrach, Meshach and What’s-his-name. They were all like that, or else they were very ordinary, and then I saw Caleb and I was struck by it. What did you say Caliban was? A primitive type? Sort of a noble savage?”

“Hardly that. He tended to lurk and howl. I think he symbolized the evil of man’s basic nature.”

She laughed shortly. “Then I got them backwards,” she said. “Didn’t I?”

That night Jeff and his wife played bridge with a couple who lived a block away. Jeff was an aggressive player, his chief fault a slight tendency to overbid, a natural outgrowth of his enthusiasm for the game. One of the things he liked about it, he had often thought, was that it was one of the few things he and Elaine did well together.

But this night the game had lost its savor for him. He played well because he could do so automatically, but a part of his attention was focused inward. He would look at Elaine, seated across the table from him, and he would think of Roberta, and his mind would find it difficult, and a little pointless, to concentrate on jump overcalls and cue bids.