Джеймс Кейн - Career in C Major and Other Fiction

Doris laughed as she said it, and it wasn’t supposed to be such a hell of a dirty crack. It was just a preliminary. I could give you the rest of the talk, almost word for word, the way she intended it to go. First Cecil was supposed to look surprised, and then Doris would apologize, and laugh some more, and say it was only intended as a joke. Then it would come out about Lorentz, and Doris would say please, please, he didn’t mean a thing to her — really. And then would come the real dirty crack, something that would mean Lorentz wasn’t really worth having, and if Cecil was interested in him she could have him, and welcome.

That was how it was supposed to go, I can guarantee you, knowing Doris. But it never got that far. Cecil winced like she had been hit with a whip. Then she looked me straight in the eye, the first time she had, all day. “Leonard, why did you lie to me?”

“I didn’t.”

“You did. You let me go to her, and you swore you hadn’t told a word—”

She tried to bite it back. It wasn’t what I said. It was the look on Doris’ face that stopped her. She knew, then, what Doris had really meant, but it was too late. We all three stood there, and Doris looked first at Cecil, and then at me. Then she gave a little rasping laugh, and her eyes were as hard as glass. “... Ah — so that was what you were doing in Rochester, and Syracuse, and Columbus, and Chicago, and—”

“I—”

“Don’t give me that foolish story again, about looking things over. I’ve followed her. I’ve followed her whole career since — I know everything she’s done! She sang in all those places, and you—! The fool that I was! I never once thought of it!”

Cecil licked her lips. “Mrs. Borland, I’m sure I’ve never meant a thing to your husband—”

“Miss Carver, I don’t believe you.”

Cecil closed her eyes, opened them again, grabbed for the one last thing she could say. “We saw quite a lot of each other, that’s true. We could hardly help that. We were singing together. We were singing in the same opera company, and—”

Doris gave a shrieking laugh, and half the room stopped talking and turned around. Gwenny came up, Doris put her head on her shoulder and kept on with that laugh. Then she turned to them all. “Oh my... isn’t that funny? If they took a trip together — I don’t mind. It means nothing to me — let them enjoy life while they’re young. But darlings! Singing together! In the same — I can’t stand it! Imagine Leonard — singing — ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Gwenny decided to play it funny. She laughed too. A few others laughed. Then she decided to get witty. “Perhaps he’ll sing us something! — From Pagliacci!”

If that was what she said, I think I could have stood it. But that wasn’t it. That was only what she thought she said. What she really said was, “From Polly-achy,” and at the dumb, ignorant way she pronounced that word, something in me cracked. All the rotten, phoney, mean, cruel stuff I had taken off Doris, and all the stuff I had taken off Gwenny and her kind, came swelling up in my throat, and I knew I was going to kick over the apples or bust. I turned to Gwenny. “Since you ask me, I think I will.”

I went in the dining room and found Wilkins. He hadn’t heard any of it. “Feeling like playing for me?”

“Sure. What’ll it be?”

“How about the Prologue from Pagliacci?”

“The Prologue it is.”

We went in and there was a laugh, and they all started to whisper. He started the introduction, and they looked at each other, and looked at me, and looked at Doris. They were her friends, remember, not mine. Cecil came over. “I wouldn’t, baby. It was awful, but — I wouldn’t. You’ll regret it.”

“Maybe.”

She went away, and I started to sing. At the first Si può Doris sank into a chair. She didn’t turn white. She turned gray. I went on. Maybe Tibbett can do it better than I did it that day, but I doubt it. He couldn’t take the interest in it, you might say, that I took. I rolled it out and my head felt light and dizzy, because I could see every note of it going like a knife into her heart. When I got to the andante I gave it the gun, and when I reached the high A flat I stepped into it with a smile on my face, and held it, and swelled it, until the room began to shake, then I pulled it in, and cut. I closed it out solemn as I knew, as though a real performance was about to start, and I wanted them to get it all straight.

Wilkins played the finish, and waited. Nothing happened. They sat there like they were frozen, and then they began to talk, as if I wasn’t there. He looked up at me, like he was in a madhouse or something. I smiled at him, and bowed three times, the way I was taught, center, left and right. Then I went over and poured myself a drink. When I turned around, Doris was leaving the room. She walked like she had just gone blind.

I don’t know how I got out of there. But pretty soon I was down on the twelfth floor, where you change from the private elevator that runs up to the penthouse, to the main cars. Cecil was there, with Wilkins. She was leaning against the wall talking, with her head back against it, and her eyes closed, and he was standing close, listening to her like he thought somebody must be crazy. When they saw me they stopped. We went down, and when we got on the street a cab came up. He offered us a lift, but he had a dinner date uptown instead of down, so I told him to take the cab and I sent the doorman after another one. He went off, and I stood there looking Cecil up and down, and decided she was what I wanted in the way of a woman, and that I was going to hook up with her for the rest of my life. Maybe the love part wouldn’t be so hot, anyway on my part, but I had had all I wanted of that. She was decent and you could stick to her, and not feel you had a viper on your chest every time you put your arms around her. I hooked my arm in hers, and pressed it, and tried to get over what I felt.

The doorman came, riding the running board of the cab, and I put her in. I fished in my pocket to tip him, but when I tried to get in, the cab was moving away, and all I could see was a gloved hand waving at me from the window. In another second it was gone.

I started down the street. Then I wondered where I was going. Here I had just made a decision that was to change my whole life, and now it seemed to have evaporated into thin air. I crossed Park, and headed for home. My legs felt queer, and I couldn’t seem to walk straight. I remembered I had had four drinks. Then I heard myself laugh. It was like hell the four drinks.

I let myself in, and the hall was dark, and upstairs I could hear Evelyn crying. I opened my mouth to call, and nothing came out of it. I groped for the switch. Then I heard a rustle behind me. I half turned, and felt something horrible coming at me. It hit me. She was panting like an animal, and got my face with both hands at once, I went down, and those claws raked me. I must have let out some kind of a yell, because one hand grabbed my mouth, and the other hand raked me again. I tried to throw her off, and couldn’t. She held me, and pounded my head against the floor. Then I felt myself being beaten with something. The marks afterward showed it was the heel of her shoe. And all the time she was talking to me, not loud, but in a terrible whisper: “... You would do that to me... You beast... You swine... You can have her... What do I care who you have... But that... But that... Get out of here... Get out of here! Get out of here!.. ”

Her voice rose to a scream at that, and upstairs both children began to wail, and I threw her off, and got the door open, and staggered down the steps to the street.

Next thing I knew, I was in Central Park, on a bench. I still had the light topcoat on, that I had worn to the party, but I didn’t have my hat. The coat sleeve was down over my hand. I felt the shoulder. It was torn. Something tickled my mouth. I brushed it off, and it was blood. Then I saw blood on the coat. I took out my handkerchief, and my whole face was running blood. I wiped it, and wiped it again, until the whole handkerchief was nothing but a red rag, and it kept on bleeding. I tried to think where I was going to go. I couldn’t go to a good hotel. I remembered a dump on Twenty-third Street, where I had once made a speech to a banquet of equipment manufacturers, flagged a cab, and went down there.