Carla (14 page)

He had to live. She worked feverishly, her mind churning with anger and worry. If he died, she was as responsible as if she had taken a gun and killed him. If she hadn't been so rotten to him he wouldn't have taken her the way he did, and then he wouldn't have tried to kill himself.

What a strange man he was! He was such a weird mixture of toughness and tenderness, a man who could master a woman and then feel so upset over his actions that he would try to take his own life. She wanted to take his head in her lap and run her fingers through his hair, telling him, over and over that everything was going to be all right. Oh, he
had
to live!

After a little more than ten minutes she stopped her movements for a moment, and he began to breathe by himself. She watched carefully but the breathing continued and grew progressively stronger and more assured. A few moments later he groaned softly, and seconds later he turned his head to one side and looked into her eyes. He stared at her for what seemed hours; then his eyes closed.

“What are you doing here?” he asked weakly.

“I—You tried to kill yourself!”

“So what?”

“I saved you.”

“Why?”

“I—”

He raised himself up on one arm and looked at her again. “Why the hell couldn't you just let me die?” he demanded hoarsely. “What did you come for, anyway? To get me arrested? Hell, you could have just let me die. That would have been revenge enough, wouldn't it?”

“You don't understand,” she said.

“I understand. I understand, damn it. You don't want me but you get a kick out of driving a man mad. All right—you got me. But can't you just go away and leave me done? I'm sorry about this afternoon, if that matters. I'm sorry, but I just flew off the handle and I couldn't help myself. I went crazy wanting you and wanting to get even with you and I couldn't stop. But I won't bother you again, Carla. I won't go near you, if only you'll stay far away from me.”

She wanted to say something but she didn't know where to begin. The gas smell was almost gone now, and the more familiar odor of cabbage and perspiration began to filter in through the open door. As her nostrils filled with the smell, she became aware of the room itself which she hadn't noticed before. It was shabby, shabby and run-down and cheap. It was almost identical to her bedroom of several years ago, and despite her distaste she felt strangely at home there.

“Please go away,” he went on. “What do you want from my life? I won't try to kill myself again, Carla. You don't have to worry about that, if that's what's bugging you. But can't you leave me alone?”

“Danny,” she said softly, saying his name for the first time. “Danny, you just don't understand.”

“What's there to understand.”

“Will you let me explain?”

“Go ahead,” he said sourly.

“I didn't come to have you arrested,” she begun. “I didn't even think of that, Danny. I came because there was something very important to tell you. You may not want me in the same room with you but I'm going to tell you this and you're going to listen. I'm a hard woman to get rid of when I get determined.

“I want to tell you that I love you, Danny.” Her voice grew husky and she felt her eyes go moist, and she reached out with one hand and let her fingers play with his hair like a kitten with a ball of yarn.

“I love you,” she repeated. “Maybe I loved you ever since I met you but I didn't see it until this afternoon. I didn't let myself see it, dear. I grew up in a room very much like this one and I couldn't even conceive of loving a man who lived in this sort of place. I tried to keep myself from loving you. But I couldn't.

“And this afternoon—This afternoon you showed me what kind of a man I needed. I suppose some women would hate a man for what you did but it made me see how much I love you. You're the kind of man I need, Danny.

“That's what I wanted to tell you, Danny. Now if you still want me to go, I'll go.”

For a moment neither of them spoke. Then, his voice little more than a whisper, he said, “I'll never want you to leave me, Carla.”

She moved closer to him on the bed and placed his head in her lap. Her fingers massaged the muscles in his neck and shoulders. She thought how
strong he
was and how easy it was to hurt him, both at once. And she thought how much she loved him.

“Never leave me, Carla.” His face was buried in the folds of her skirt and she felt his mouth against her thighs when he spoke.

“I won't,” she said.

“We're going to get married,” he said dreamily. “I'm going to marry you and we'll find a decent place to live and I'm going to work hard to get you pregnant.”

“Ummmmmm.”

“That won't be work,” he continued. “Probably be fun, a good deal of fun. I think I'll like it.”

“Ummmmmm.”

“And I'll work sixteen hours a day making money for you to spend and make love to you the other eight hours. That ought to be nice.”

“That's a lot of work.”

“So what?”

“But when will you sleep?”

“In the winter.”

She giggled. “You're a little silly,” she said. “I guess you're a little bit nuts but it doesn't matter because I love you. Will you really make love to me eight hours a day?”

“Of course.”

“Honest?”

“I'll punch a time clock if I have to.”

She giggled again. “That's a good idea,” she said.

“Carla,” he said—just her name, but he made it sound like a prayer. He reached up and took her head in his hands, his fingers entangling themselves in her long hair. She stretched out on the bed beside him and put her mouth very close to him.

“I love you,” she said.

He kissed her—not with force and fire but with a soft and beautiful tenderness she had never known. She felt her whole body begin to glow in a very wonderful way. It was not passion, but it was far more than passion. She wanted him to give her pleasure, but even more she wanted to give him pleasure, to make it good and beautiful for him. He kissed her again and his tongue was warm and delicious in her mouth.

“Danny,” she said, “be gentle with me. Don't hurt me.

He unzipped her skirt and took it off, and she helped him slip her panties down over her hips to her knees. His hand moved from her waist to her knee and back again, and he pressed his lips to her breast and kissed her.

“Danny—”

“Sshhh,” he whispered. He removed his clothes and she saw that his body was hard and brown from the sun.

He took her, and it was brand-new and perfect and wonderful. They soared higher and higher on the crest of a magical wave, higher and higher until they reached the top and it was finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and entering Heaven and everything she had ever imagined and things she had never dared to even dream.

They reached the top of the wave together and they fell away from it together, tumbling together into an all-covering blanket of wooly blackness.

For a moment they were two people.

Then they were one, and nothing else in the whole world mattered.

Chapter Fourteen

THE NEXT TWO DAYS
were almost perfect. They would have been perfect if she could have spent every single moment with Danny, but they were practically perfect even though the two had only their afternoons together. Carla found an incredible plateau of peace and contentment. She was a whole woman now, and she knew the joy that comes of giving one's self completely and withholding nothing. It was a supreme joy, an unparalleled joy. Danny was everything to her and she loved him with a fervor that never failed to surprise her.

At the same time, she realized that their arrangement could easily become difficult—if only because it forced Danny to close the station for a few hours every afternoon. If they continued that way, it would only be a matter of time before the company checked on him and found out that he was taking time off, time that belonged to the company. He was supposed to keep the station open from seven in the morning to seven at night, and he generally stayed open until ten or eleven. But now he closed up at two and sometimes failed to reopen until six or later.

She was at home now, waiting for Ronald to come home for dinner. She had a book in her lap but the print swam before her eyes and she had to read paragraphs over and over before she understood them, Her mind was on Danny, not on the book.

Danny wanted her to marry him. Marriage to Danny would be a wonderful thing, she knew, because the type of love they had between them was the type which grew and grew through exposure and development. While the novelty would wear off a little at a time, the pleasure of getting more and more attuned to a loved one would replace the loss of novelty many times over. She could tell this already, and it made the prospect of becoming Danny's wife a very attractive one.

But when she closed her eyes and remembered the relative squalor of the little room on Sagerties Avenue, some of the splendor of the picture vanished. Of course they would not live in a place like that. Danny lived there only because he was trying to save as much of his salary as possible. But they would live in a place almost as bad, and she would not have a car to drive or a closet full of clothes to wear. She could see herself getting old while still young from sweating over a hot stove and scrubbing floors and bearing children.

If she had never been poor these things might not have mattered. But Carla had been poor, and she knew how miserable she could be under those circumstances. And for this reason she wasn't too anxious to divorce Ronald and plunge headlong into marriage to Danny—a marriage that would constitute the end of luxury.

She hadn't made a decision. She explained in detail about Ronald's case—which was going before the jury the following day—and Danny understood that any divorce plans and proceedings would have to wait until the case was won or lost. He assumed that she would marry him then, of course, but she had been cautious not to say so in so many words.

When Ronald came home that evening there was a strained look about him. The rigours of the case were telling on him, and for the first time he looked acutely old to her, old and tired and worn out. He was almost silent throughout dinner, answering her tentative questions with nods or shakes of his head and an occasional grunt.

When dinner was over they remained at the table for coffee and a cigarette. For several minutes each smoked in silence and sipped at the coffee; then Ronald looked up suddenly and cleared his throat.

“Carla,” he began, “there's something I want to discuss with you.”

She panicked momentarily: had he found her out? But then she saw from the expression on his face that it was something else that was bothering him.

He drew on his cigarette and closed his eyes for a moment. When he began talking he spaced his words carefully and spoke softly, almost in a monotone.

“I've been unfair to you,” he said. “I've expected an impossible course of behaviour from you, and just recently I've come too see how grossly unjust these expectations have been.

“I'm an old man, Carla. I always considered myself young and vigorous, but this damned case is telling on me. It's gilding the lily to say that I'm not as young as I used to be; however, that's the plain truth of the matter. I'm not.”

“I don't see—”

“Let me finish. I like to think of myself as the successful lawyer with the lovely young wife. I am that, in a way—but there's another side to the picture. I'm also an impotent old man, and my lovely young wife is party to a pretty damned unnatural bargain. And when I see that side of the picture—well, I can't say I think very much of myself.”

He stopped for a moment but she didn't interrupt. She could see how it was hurting him to say these words, how hard it was for him to talk about his age and impotence. She put out her cigarette and waited for him to continue.

“You're a young woman, Carla. I've been unfair, as I've said. But I don't mean to be unfair any longer. Money and clothing aren't enough; I don't want my wife to be kept in a damned cage all her life like some animal in a private zoo. You deserve a good deal more than that.”

“I … I don't understand.”

“Don't you? Let me explain. I don't want you to cut yourself off from … from sex, Carla. I want you to feel free to take a lover if you wish—in fact, I'd prefer it if you did. Perhaps you already have; if so, that's your business. You have a right to a full life and an impotent man has no right in the world to feel cheated upon if he's made a cuckold.

“I'm serious about this, Carla. I wouldn't feel cuckolded, because I wouldn't feel that you were being unfaithful to me. And I'd rather have you sleep with another man than lose you entirely, or have you grow to hate me.”

“I could never hate you.”

He smiled. “Don't be too sure about that. But at any rate I want you to know how I feel about the situation. I have just two requests to make. First of all, I want you to be as discreet as possible about any affairs you have. I don't suppose I have to tell you this, but it's especially important now with the case practically on the fire. You know how quickly the case would go to hell if anything were made public.

“Secondly, I don't want you to tell me about … whatever you do. Although I can accept and even approve of it, I'm as human as anyone else. So … don't tell me about it.”

He broke off abruptly and looked down at the tablecloth. Carla felt the tears coming to her eyes. He was such a good man, so sincerely good. She had never fully appreciated him before, not as she appreciated him now after what he had said. She wanted to say something but she couldn't find the right words.

“Ronald,” she said finally, “I love you very much.”

He smiled. “You're a wonderful woman, Carla.”