“I mean it, all right,” she said.
“I’m going to get in the front seat so you two can talk,” said Henry. He told the chauffeur to stop the car, and changed his seat.
“If you’ll take me back,” said Celeste. “If you don’t think I disgraced you.”
“You mean with the Albridge guy?”
“Yes. It got in one of the columns,” she said.
“I know that. Well, there were other times when I could have gotten in the columns. You know that.”
“Yes, and there were other times when I could have gotten in the columns. Did you know that?”
“I wasn’t in much of a position to say anything,” he said.
“How much did you know?” she said.
“Well, I always thought you had a thing with George Ballow.”
“It wasn’t just a thing,” she said. “Whenever you went off to Palm Springs and didn’t take me, or any of those other trips you used to take, I’d ask George to come and stay with me. And he nearly always did. But after George died I wasn’t so lucky. Some of the others weren’t as nice as George. None of the others were as nice as George.”
“Were there that many?”
“There were quite a few. Maybe even more than you had, because you’d have the same girl for a year at a time, and I always had different men.”
“It’s been quite a marriage,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Both of us doing these hateful things to each other—and to ourselves. I don’t think you ever loved anyone else, and I know I didn’t.”
“If it was as bad as that I don’t understand why you objected to leaving California?”
“Well, I don’t object now. I can’t wait to get out of here. Betty Bond put me out of her house, and they were getting ready to put me out of the hotel. The last few days I’ve been afraid to think. If you and Henry hadn’t arrived today, I don’t know what I’d have done, but it would have been pretty awful. I was just about ready to start on dope—all that was left. Liquor and sex weren’t enough for me. What else was there? Sleeping pills, but I was afraid of them. An overdose, and I’d die. The strange thing is that I didn’t want to die, to commit suicide. I may be self-destructive, but I also have a strong will to live. Maybe I just haven’t reached the point of degradation where I have to commit suicide. When I had the operation, if you hadn’t stood by me I might have committed suicide. Or if they hadn’t gotten rid of the cancer. But you did stand by me, and they did get all the cancer, and my will to live came back full force. I don’t know why it should be so strong in me, all things considered. I certainly wouldn’t argue with anybody that said I was better off dead than alive. What am I? I’ve never done anything, I’ve never been anything. I contribute nothing, I have no talent. I haven’t even produced an idiot child to prove that I can produce something. If I read about myself in a novel, I’d say, ‘There is a woman we can all do without.’ The only thing I can think of is that God must be keeping me alive till He gets around to me, and then—oh, boy! Will I be in for it!”
“God? You don’t often mention God,” he said.
“We’re very close. I don’t believe in Him, but we have frequent conversations. Dialogs. When you have no one else to talk to, the natural thing is to talk to God. Even if you don’t believe in Him, it’s so much better than talking to yourself. Even though you are talking to yourself. I hope you’re not going to tell the man to drive to the nearest nut-house.”
“You’re not ready for the nut-house. Or if you are, so am I. I’ve had conversations with God too.”
“You? But you’ve never had any religion at all. At least I was brought up a Catholic.”
“You forget I went to a very strict school, run by very strict—Presbyterians, I think they were. Anyway, we had to say prayers. I heard about God. We had Bible readings and morning prayers, compulsory chapel six days a week. We didn’t have to go to chapel on Saturday, but some boys went anyway. The athletes. They’d go and pray that they didn’t get hurt in the football game, or drop the baton in the relay race. I was never one of those that prayed when I didn’t have to, but I knew about God. I’d heard of Him, plenty.”
“And you prayed the night before you got the Academy award. I remember that,” she said. “My talking with God was different. Half the time I was arguing with Him.”
“Did God ever win an argument with you?”
“No,” she said.
“No, and I guess I never did either,” he said.
“You won more arguments with me than God ever did,” she said.
“If I did it was because I was paying the bills. I never won any argument with you that didn’t have something to do with money. I was never able to change your mind about anything.”
“You have now,” she said.
“No I haven’t,” he said. “You’re not going back to New York on account of anything I said. Face the facts. You’re going back because you want to get away from California. You don’t want to take the next step downward.”
She was silent, and he went on. “You see, if you don’t face the facts you’re always going to want to come back. You mustn’t in any way think that I won an argument with you. You must fully believe that you got fed up, you were disillusioned, you saw what was next for you. It’s like the time you had an operation, only in this case you’re the surgeon. I’m standing by you, as I did before, but you are performing the operation. If you’re not fully convinced of this, you’re always going to have some lingering doubt about New York, about California. You’ll want to give California one more try. You mustn’t have any mental reservations about that. You know it’s just possible that you’re attracted by the degradation, as you call it.”
“It’s more than possible,” she said. “I am.”
“Oh, then you see that?”
“Of course I see it. I’m not the first woman to be attracted to bad things.”
“Well, there was Eve, in the Garden of Eden,” he said.
“And you don’t have to go back that far,” she said. “I give you Betty Bond—”
“No thanks,” he said.
“—who wants everything neat and tidy, meals on time and all that. But she loves evil, really loves it. If Arthur knew how she spends her afternoons, and where, and with whom!”
“Old stuff, about women like Betty,” he said.
“Not old stuff to Arthur, though.”
“Well, when he finds out, whenever that is, the newspapers will have a field day, some lawyers will be buying some new Cadillacs, and the husbands of Betty’s friends will look at their wives and wonder. I guess I’m lucky in that respect. You’ve told me all I need to know.”
“I never thought you’d take it as well as you seem to. Why?”
“Fifteen or twenty years ago I wouldn’t have,” he said. “Ten years ago, five years ago. But that was before I gave up picture business. While I was still a big movie star, unquote, I couldn’t afford to have the world know that you were two-timing me and getting away with it. I would have slapped you with a divorce suit and made you look pretty bad. But getting out of pictures changed my attitude. Getting out of pictures and living in New York. There nobody cares what we do, and I don’t have to care how I look to the public. That’s what’s so nice about being private people. Out here, as long as I hung around, nobody would ever believe that I’d given up pictures. And it’s true that as long as I stayed here, I was probably open to the first good offer. But moving to New York gave me a new kind of freedom and I don’t want to live anywhere else. That may be why I’m more tolerant of what you’ve told me than I would have been otherwise. Tolerant sounds pompous—”
“I was going to say,” she said.
“When what I really mean is that I’m enjoying life, in New York, and when you’re enjoying life yourself, you’re less inclined to be critical of other people.”
>
“Can’t you just be nice and say that even if I do behave like a tramp, I’m your wife?”
“All right, I’ll say that,” he said.
“I don’t want to go back under false pretenses, on your side or mine. Being fed up with California isn’t going to make me fall in love with New York, the way you have. The only thing I can promise you is that I’ll stop nagging you about going back to California. That isn’t much, but it’s something. We’re getting too old to demand perfection.”
“And we probably wouldn’t know it if we saw it,” he said.
They returned to New York, and they are there now. He takes his walk to Sixtieth Street and puts in the time until evening. She is drunk at seven o’clock, and he is alone with the TV and his reading until past midnight. He knows that when he has turned out his light she waits a little while and goes to the sitting-room and has some more to drink. Back in her bedroom she leaves the light on all night long. She cannot sleep unless the light is on. Oh, it is not a very bright light.
(1966)
THE PUBLIC CAREER OF MR. SEYMOUR HARRISBURG
Seymour M. Harrisburg put away the breakfast dishes and took off his wife’s apron and hung it in the kitchen closet. He frowned at the clock, the face of which was an imitation dinner plate, and the hands of which were a knife and fork. He tiptoed to the bedroom, put on his vest, coat and hat, and with one glance at the vast figure of his wife, he went to the door of the apartment. Opening the door he looked down and saw, lying on the floor, the half-clad body of Leatrice Devlin, the chorus girl who lived in the adjoining apartment. Thus began the public career of Seymour M. Harrisburg.
Miss Devlin was quite dead, a fact which Mr. Harrisburg determined by placing his hand above her heart. His hand roved so that no mistake was possible. The body was clad in a lacy negligee, and part of Miss Devlin’s jaw had been torn away by a bullet or bullets, but she had not been disfigured beyond recognition.
Mr. Harrisburg, observing that there was some blood on his hand, wanted to run away, but it was five flights down to the street in the automatic elevator. Then his clear conscience gave him courage and he returned to his apartment and telephoned for the police. He readily agreed not to touch anything and not to leave, and sat down to smoke a cigarette. He became frightened when he thought of what was lying on the other side of the door, and in desperation he went to the bedroom and shook his wife.
“Get the hell out of here,” said Mrs. Harrisburg.
“But, Ella,” said Mr. Harrisburg. “The girl next door, the Devlin girl, she’s been murdered.”
“Get out of here, you little kike, and leave me sleep.” Mrs. Harrisburg was a schicksa.
His repetition of the news finally convinced Mrs. Harrisburg, and she sat up and ordered him to fetch her bathrobe. He explained what he had come upon, and then, partly from his recollection of what he had seen, and partly from the complicated emotion which his wife’s body aroused, he became ill. He was in the bathroom when the police arrived.
They questioned him at some length, frankly suspicious and openly skeptical until the officer in charge finally said: “Aw, puup, we can’t get anything out of this mugg. He didn’t do it anyhow.” Then as an afterthought: “You sure you didn’t hear anything like shots? Automobile back-firing. Nothing like that? Now think!”
“No, I swear honest to God, I didn’t hear a thing.”
Shortly after the officers completed the preliminary examination, the medical examiner arrived and announced that the Devlin woman had been dead at least four hours, placing her death at about 3 A.M.
Mr. Harrisburg was taken to the police station, and submitted to further questioning. He was permitted to telephone his place of employment, the accounting department of a cinema-producing corporation, to explain his absence. He was photographed by four casual young men from the press. At a late hour in the afternoon he was permitted to go home.
His wife, who also had been questioned by the police, had not missed the point of the early questions which had been put to Mr. Harrisburg. Obviously they had implied that there might have been a liaison between her husband and Miss Devlin. She looked at him again and again as he began to make dinner. To think that a hardboiled man like that cop could have believed for one minute that a woman like Devlin would have anything to do with Seymour. . . . But he had thought it. Mrs. Harrisburg wondered about Seymour. She recalled that before their marriage he was one of the freshest little heels she ever had known. Could it be possible that he had not changed? “Aah, nuts,” she finally said aloud. Devlin wouldn’t have let him get to first base. She ate the meal in silence, and after dinner she busied herself with a bottle of gin, as was her post-prandial custom.
Mr. Harrisburg, too, had noticed the trend of the official questions, and during the preparation of the meal he gave much speculative thought to the late Miss Devlin. He wondered what would have happened if he had tried to get somewhere with her. He had seen two or three of the men she had entertained in her apartment, and he felt that he did not have to take a back seat for any of them. He deeply regretted the passing of Miss Devlin before he had had an opportunity to get around to her.
At the office next morning Mr. Harrisburg realized that the power of the press has not been exaggerated. J. M. Slotkin himself, vice president in charge of sales, spoke to Mr. Harrisburg in the elevator. “Quite a thing you had at your place yesterday,” said Mr. Slotkin.
“Yes, it sure was,” said Mr. Harrisburg.
Later, after he had seated himself at his desk, Mr. Harrisburg was informed that he was wanted in the office of Mr. Adams, head of the accounting department.
“Quite a thing you had at your place yesterday,” said Mr. Adams.
“Yes, it sure was,” said Mr. Harrisburg. “Geez, I’ll never forget it, reaching down and feeling her heart not beating. Her skin was like ice. Honest, you don’t know what it is to touch a woman’s skin and she’s dead.” At Mr. Adams’ request Mr. Harrisburg described in detail all that had taken place the preceding day.
“Well, you sure got in all the papers this morning, I noticed,” said Mr. Adams. “Pictures in every one of them.” This was inaccurate, but certainly Mr. Harrisburg’s picture had been in five papers.
“Yes,” said Mr. Harrisburg, not knowing whether the company applauded this type of publicity.
“Well, I guess it’s only a question of time before they get the man that did it. So any time you want time off to testify, why, only say the word. I guess they’ll want you down at headquarters, eh? And you’ll have to appear at the trial. I’ll be only too glad to let you have the time off. Just so you keep me posted,” said Mr. Adams with a smile.
Throughout the day Mr. Harrisburg could not help noticing how frequently the stenographers found it necessary to go to the pencil sharpener near his desk. They had read the papers, too, and they had not missed the hints in two of the smaller-sized journals that Mr. Harrisburg knew more than he had told the police. Hardly a moment passed when Mr. Harrisburg could not have looked up from his work and caught the eye of a young woman on himself. At lunch time Mr. Harrisburg was permitted and urged to speak of his experiences. The five men with whom he lunched almost daily were respectfully attentive and curious. Mr. Harrisburg, inspired, gave many details which he had not told the police.
The only unpleasant feature of the day was his meeting with Miss Reba Gold. Miss Gold and Mr. Harrisburg for months had been meeting after business hours in a dark speakeasy near the office, and they met this day. After the drinks had been served and the waiter had departed Mr. Harrisburg got up and moved to Miss Gold’s side of the booth. He put his arm around her waist and took her chin in his hand and kissed her. She roughly moved away. “Take your hands off me,” she said.
“Why, Reba, what’s the matter?” said Mr. Harrisburg.
“What’s the matter? You don’t think I didn’t get it what they said in the papers this
morning. You and that Devitt or whatever her name is. Ain’t I got eyes?”
“Geez, you don’t mean to tell me you believe that stuff. You don’t mean to tell me that?”
“I certainly do. The papers don’t print stuff like that if it ain’t true. You could sue them for liable if it wasn’t true, and I don’t hear you saying you’re going to sue them.”
“Aw, come on, don’t be like that,” said Mr. Harrisburg. He noticed that Miss Gold’s heart was beating fast.
“Take your hands off me,” she said. “I and you are all washed up. It’s bad enough you having a wife, without you should be mixed up with a chorus girl. What am I, a dummy, I should let you get away with that?”
“Aw, don’t be like that,” said Mr. Harrisburg. “Let’s have a drink and then go to your place.”
“Not me. Now cut it out and leave me go. I and you are all washed up, see?”
Miss Gold refused to be placated, and Mr. Harrisburg permitted her, after a short struggle, to depart. When she had gone he ordered another drink and sat alone with his thoughts of Miss Devlin, with whose memory he rapidly was falling in love.
The next day he purchased a new suit of clothes. He had been considering the purchase, but it now had become too important a matter for further postponement. What with being photographed and interviewed, and the likelihood of further appearances in the press, he felt he owed it to himself to look his best. He agreed with his wife that she likewise was entitled to sartorial protection against the cruelty of the camera, and he permitted her to draw two hundred dollars out of their joint savings account.
In the week that followed Mr. Harrisburg made several public or semi-public appearances at police headquarters and other official haunts. He was photographed each time, for the Devlin Mystery had few enough characters who could pose. The publicity increased Mr. Harrisburg’s prestige at the office, Mr. Adams being especially kind and highly attentive each time Mr. Harrisburg returned to tell what line of questioning the authorities were pursuing. Miss Gold alone was not favorably impressed. She remained obdurate. But Mr. Harrisburg had found that Mr. Adams’ secretary, who was blonde and a Gentile, was pleased to accompany Mr. Harrisburg to the speakeasy, and was not at all the upstage person she seemed to be in the office.