Hamilton, Donald - Novel 01 (25 page)

 
   
"Come
on," he said, turning her. "Come
on,
let's
get you in a tub of hot water."

 
   
He
felt her take hold of herself and stop it. "I don't ... know ..." she
gasped. "I don't know if ... I want to see any more water!"

 
   
"Good
girl," he said, grinning mechanically as he pushed her ahead of him into
the narrow rear stairway.

 
   
She
stopped inside the door as they came into the room. He turned on the light, and
she walked, after a moment, across the room to the dresser and, pushing back
her damp hair with one hand, stood looking at
herself
.
Branch went past her into the bathroom to start the water running in the tub.
When he came back she had turned to look at herself from the rear. He went to
her and set her up straight, unfastened the still bright ornate gold buttons of
her jacket, and slipped the jacket off.

     
"Get a move on," he said.
"If you want the first one."

 
   
She
looked at him and looked sideways at the mirror and made a short harsh sound in
her throat that ended as a giggle. Her fingers fumbled for the fastenings of
her skirt; and suddenly she was tugging at the waistband with all her strength,
heedless of the pain as the cloth cut into her; the wool yielded abruptly down
the side and she ripped it to the hem and put her foot into it and burst the
hem apart. Branch stepped back as, kicking the mass of cloth across the
room,
she reached for the jacket he was holding.

     
"Cut it out," he said.
"You're going to need this. You can't run around in
nothing
but a silk dress." Her face became slowly sane again. He patted her rear.

     
"Hurry up," he said.

 
   
She
went and opened the bathroom door. The bathroom was cloudy with steam.

     
"Don't do that," she said over
her shoulder.

     
"Do what?"

 
    
She
did not look at him. "I don't ..." she said. "I want to feel
that I don't have to let anybody ... Just for a little while."

     
"Sorry," he said. "I didn't
mean anything personal."

     
He felt very tired, but after the door had
closed behind her he could not stop moving about aimlessly; hanging her jacket
on a wire hanger above the radiator, trying to brush it clean but the wool was
still damp; and he sat down on the bed and undressed quickly and, wrapping his
bathrobe about him, pulled off his socks and examined his feet, rose again,
found a pair of nail scissors in his toilet kit, and returned to the bed to
trim the broken blisters. In the bathroom the water had ceased to run and he could
hear the girl splashing in the tub; then silence.

 
   
In
the silence he could hear the remote sound of the wind in the trees outside;
but when you were ashore the wind was not a matter of any importance. Nor did
you ashore retain the feeling of aloneness, and of being dependent only on
yourself, and of power. You could only think about how it had been out there
and feel satisfied. He looked at his ragged feet and grinned a little. It did
not annoy him to look at his feet any longer. They were not really in bad shape
and the matter was taken care of.

 
   
He
limped to the bathroom door, opened the door, and went inside.

 
   
Jeannette
Duval's voice said, "Come in, darling," with a trace of irony.

 
   
He
closed the door behind him and the steamy warm dampness of the tiny room
enveloped him. Always such small places, he thought, a hotel room filled by a
double bed, a cellar five feet ten inches under the beams, a boat's cabin. In
the bathroom there was barely space enough to stand surrounded by washbasin,
bathtub, radiator, and water closet.

     
She had turned to look at him, her long
body folded relaxed into the abbreviated tub, only her knees and her head
showing above the soapy water. Her wet dark hair, decked with soap, was twisted
into a precarious knot on the top of her head. There were two deep scratches on
her face and her left cheek was colored and swollen where Paul
Laflin
had struck her, but she did not really look too bad:
she looked clean and, without a trace of makeup, quite young; almost as young
as the girl in the picture Madame
Faubel
carried.

 
   
"Isn't
it awful?" she said, smiling up at him cautiously, as if it hurt
her a
little to smile.
"And my legs.
... I don't know what I'm going to do. I haven't even any stockings to cover
them up with."

 
   
"You
haven't any anything," he said, "until I get your suitcase from down
the hall." He turned away from the question in her eyes and filled the
washbasin with warm water. "Are you all right?" he asked. "I
mean ..."

     
"I know what you mean, darling. I'm
quite all right. I don't want to think about it, but I'm all right."
   
"Kind of rugged, eh?" he said.
"Fate worse than death and stuff."

 
   
"It
was rather cold," she said, and sat up, groping for soap and washcloth in
the water that surrounded her. There was a large blue welt on her arm just
above the elbow and her breast was curiously marked. I should have drowned
them, Branch
thought,
I really should have drowned
them.

 
   
He
asked abruptly, "Well, what are you going to do now?" He was aware
that she had looked at him quickly, as he went on: "He'll be getting into
Baltimore
in three-four hours.
They'll grab him and ship him back. He's probably lucky. There was a little too
much breeze out there to pick up a man in the water, particularly if he didn't
dare show a light."

 
   
After
a long pause her voice said, "I don't care. It was just something I had to
do."

     
"You're not going to
... ?"

 
   
"No.
I will not be waiting outside the prison gates for Louis."

 
   
He
bent over the washbasin and washed and rinsed his face until the taste of salt
was completely replaced by the taste of soap. He dried himself with a towel and
turned to look at her again.

     
"Well ..." he said.

     
She asked, "What are you going to do
now, Philip?"

     
"Get your suitcase," he said,
willfully obtuse. Then, she waiting unsmiling for his answer, he said,
"I'm going home.
Home to mama."

 
   
"And
you are going without me, aren't you, Philip?" she said, smiling a little.
"That's what you are trying to say, isn't it?"

     
"Yes," he said.

 
    
"Because of Louis?
Or because of what those men
... ?"

 
   
He
asked, "What would I do with you? Keep you for a pet?"

 
   
"I
could get a
divorce "
she said quietly. "It
shouldn't be very difficult under the circumstances." He could see the
restrained anger in her eyes.

     
"It's too damned complicated,"
he said.

 
    
"You
don't have to worry about ... any consequences," she said. "I am
twenty-four years old and I have been married. There will be no little
Laflins
or
Hahns
. And I am quite
all right."

     
He watched her shiver a little and
sink
back into the warm water, her face turned away from
him. Her voice was remote when she spoke again, and she did not look at him.

 
   
"You
had better put on some pajamas if you're going to get my things. Your legs are
a bit startling like that."

     
"I'm sorry...." he began
awkwardly.

 
   
"Please
get my things, Philip," she said wearily. She turned her bruised face
towards him. "And I would like
that
two hundred
dollars you were going to give me, darling. If you still ..."

 
   
"Yes,"
he said.
"Of course."
He passed a comb
quickly through his hair and turned to flee.

     
"Philip."

     
"Yes." He paused at the door to
look back.

 
   
"I'm
very tired of being an adventuress, darling," she said.

 
   
"Oh,
for God's sake!" he cried. "For God's sake, leave it alone. It's no
good."

SHE
WAS STILL IN THE TUB when he returned with the suitcase, which he set on top of
the radiator. She glanced at him and reached forward to open the drain.

 
   
"Did
you have any trouble?" she asked without interest.

 
   
He
shook his head. "I said I was Georges. She opened the door and popped back
into bed. I went in, got the suitcase, and walked out again before she'd got
over the shock."

     
"Strange little girl," Jeannette
Duval
said."She
was in a concentration camp,
they told me, Branch said. "Full of psychoses, neuroses, and ulcers."
He corrected himself: "No, it was the woman who had the ulcers. She's got
something else wrong with her.
Beside the psychoses.
She's full of those.
Just a little breeding ground for psychoses."

     
They were being very matter-of-fact about
it now, and it was all settled, and he said briskly after a moment: "You'd
better hurry up. One of these days they're going to drift ashore and head this
way
... .
"
     

     
"Aren't y
  
ou
afraid
they'll-
"

     
"No," he said. "I can
handle them."

     
She smiled a little. "You're very
confident."

     
"I'm too damned tired to be
scared," be said.
"Of anything.
But if you
want a decent start on them ..."

 
   
He
watched her rise and
draw
a towel about herself
without haste as the water ran out around her feet.

 
   
"You're
not being very polite," she said, rubbing herself with the towel.
"You do not have to stare at me. Sometimes you act very much like an
inquisitive small boy, Philip, a little boy who is trying very hard to act like
a man but does not always
know
how."

     
He made himself laugh as he turned away.
"Run one for me, will you?" he said over his shoulder. "Make it
good and hot."

     
"All right,
darling."

 
   
He
closed the door behind him and leaned against it for a moment, closing his
eyes. Think of waking up to that every morning, he told himself, trying to make
a joke of it: how would you like to meet that tongue across the table every
morning.

 
   
Opening
his eyes, he saw the small girl that he had left sitting bolt upright in bed,
now sitting primly on a straight chair beside the door of his room. She had
taken time to pull a dress on, the brown print silk dress with the small
buttons down the bodice, the upper third of which were unfastened; and the
laces of her low-heeled shoes were untied. Her hair was untidy about her
crowded small pale face and she looked small and slovenly and, in spite of what
he knew about her, cheaply wanton. The small
Mauser
rested on the thin silk of her dress where the skirt did not quite reach her
knee. Seeing the gun, he realized that he had taken one emotion for another.
This was a different kind of excitation.

     
"I thought I locked the door,"
he said softly.

 
   
Behind
him he heard the last gurgle as the water ran out of the tub, a sloshing sound
as Jeannette Duval rinsed away the traces of
soap,
and
the heavy rush of water as she opened the taps to draw his bath for him.

     
"I have a key," Constance
Bellamann
said.

     
"You would."

     
"Where are they?" she asked.

 
   
"About
six miles south of Signal Point," Branch said.
"If
they haven't hit shore yet."

     
The gun moved a little. "You killed
them."

     
"No," Branch said. "We just
walked home from the ride." He went to the bed and sat down facing her.

 
    
"You
killed them," the small girl whispered. "You wouldn't be here if you
hadn't killed them. Where is the man? Is he in there, too?"

     
In the bathroom, over the steady rushing
of water into the tub, he could hear a rhythmic whipping sound as Jeannette
Duval dried her hair with a towel. She would not be hearing their conversation.
The noise of running water would be filling the tiny bathroom.

 
   
"No,
she's alone," he said, and suddenly he knew that this was true. She was
quite alone.

 
   
He
sat looking at the smaller girl. He had once been sorry for her, but there was,
after all, something she could do about it. She did not have to run around with
a gun making a damned fool of
herself
. Somewhere she
had a family. There were relief organizations. There were the three of them in
the boat who would be returning to take care of her in their fashion. She was
not alone unless she wanted to be alone. The other girl had no choice.

 
   
"It
was quite rough out there," Branch said slowly. "Not dangerous, if
you took your time, but I gave her full ahead when we got out clear of the
river, and they thought it was a hurricane. Madame tried to order me back. I
laughed at her. If she'd shot me they would all have drowned. Both men got
seasick and I locked them into the cabin. I ran into the red sector of Signal
Point Light and Madame got rattled when the light turned red. Perhaps she
thought it was some kind of an omen. I took the gun away from her and wrecked
the engine and we went over the side and waded ashore. The last I saw of them
they were drifting about south southwest. If they had sense enough to stay with
the boat they ought to be coming ashore any time now."

     
Constance
Bellamann
smiled a little. "You are lying to me. You killed them."

     
He looked at the small eye of the
Mauser
, which trembled a little, and he felt the familiar
tightness inside him. Crazy little bitch, he thought, ought to have her fanny
paddled.

     
"Just because all your friends are
kill-crazy ..." he said.

 
   
"You
have no right to talk about us," she said. "You have no right to call
us names."

 
   
He
smiled at the gun. "I should have drowned them," he said. "But
they were so helpless out there it was a little pathetic. Like little children.
Paul couldn't even steer a straight course in the river. It's just like an
automobile, he said, and the boat started to go in circles. They had to ask me
please to take over again. I never had so much fun in my life. I should spoil
it by killing them...."

 
   
"Be
quiet," she said sharply. "We will wait until she comes out."

 
   
Presently
he looked at the traveling clock on the bedside table. It read five-twenty, but
the electric light in the room made it impossible to know if there was daylight
behind the drawn blinds. But the hotel was awakening a little and a milk wagon
clattered down a distant street and cans were rattled in some alley. Then the
water stopped running in the bathroom and the door opened.

     
"It's ready for you,
dar
-"

     
"We've got company," he said.

 
   
He
watched her come slowly into the room, her disfigured face contracting a little,
suddenly bitterly weary. She stood fastening the small gold buttons of her
black silk dress; then smoothed the tunic over her hips and tied the belt about
her waist, standing very tall and slender in high heels.

 
   
"My
God, darling," she said. "Don't tell me there's another one."

 
   
He
felt strangely proud of her. She had, as the chinless man had once pointed out,
no instinct for martyrdom. If there was a way out
she
would take it. But now, seeing no way out, she faced the gun without
hesitation, perhaps a little unnecessarily contemptuous of it, overdoing it a
little, but as unafraid as one could ask of an intelligent person faced with
death.

 
   
"Both
of us?" she asked, and smiled. "Won't that be cozy?"

 
   
The
small girl got to her feet abruptly. "You are so funny, Madame
Duval," she said viciously.
"So very funny!"

 
   
Branch
stood up. Constance
Bellamann
swung to point the gun
at him.

 
   
"You
can give me the gun now," he said and, walking forward quickly: "
Rasch
! Die
Pistole
!
Gib
sie
mir
!"
He snapped his fingers impatiently. "Quick before I take it away from you,
you lousy little French tramp, or I'll beat your goddamned ears off...."
The girl shrank back against the wall and dropped the
Mauser
into his outstretched hand.

 
   
He
felt his whole body break into uncontrollable trembling and, throwing the gun
to the bed, he struck her with all his strength, open-handed, on the side of
the head. She fell to the door and crouched there, staring up at him.

     
"Get
  
the
  
bloody
  
hell
  
out
  
of
  
here,
     
Branch
  
gasped, "Before I take your pants down and give you a good licking.
Go on. Scram. Beat it!" He jerked the door open. The small girl picked
herself up and edged herself along the wall past him. The side of her face had
turned a dull red where he had struck her.

     
"
Bitte
?"
she whispered, glancing at the door.

     
"
Jawohl
,"
he said.
"
Heraus
."

 
   
She
darted out. He closed the door behind her and leaned against it, trembling.
"It's a good thing ..." he gasped. "It's a good thing the
Gestapo had
them
well trained." He let his breath
go out in a long sigh. "Jesus," he said. "Jesus Christ. I don't
like guns."

 
   
"Come
on, darling," Jeannette Duval said, taking his arm. "You had better
sit down."

 
   
He
let her lead him to the bed, and sat down, and picked up the gun; and laughed
bitterly. "I've been giving them back and throwing them away and still I
wind up with one," he said. He glanced at the girl, who had seated herself
beside him. "You'll notice I waited until you came in, so that you could
see how brave I was."

 
   
"Yes,"
she said. "I noticed." She was smiling a little, her face relaxing
slowly from the strain.

 
   
"Showoff
Branch
,,"
he said. "Bigmouth Branch.... Poor
kid," he said, "I hope she doesn't throw a fit or jump out of a
window. Did you see the way she reacted? I've been sitting here trying to
remember my German. I couldn't remember anything. I figured it would go better
in German.... She must have been through hell, all right," he said.
"Like a trained poodle.
Did you see how she asked
permission before leaving the room? Makes you want to retch
,,
doesn't it? I didn't mean to hit her. It was just a sort of reflex. I don't
like to be scared...." He made himself stop talking. After a while he
said, "God, I'm tired, Jeannette" He felt her hand begin to stroke
his hair and then draw back, and he turned slowly to look at her. "I
should go now," she said.

     
"Yes."

     
"Do you ... want me to go?"

 
   
"No,"
he said. "But you'd better go just the same," he said.

 
 
   
He sat quite still and presently felt her
rise and go away from him. It was some time before she returned, wearing the
wool jacket over her black silk dress, and carrying the suitcase. He glanced at
her and rose, went to the dresser, and came back with a sheaf of bills, which
he put in her hand. Then he laid Constance
Bellamann's
pistol on top of the bills and closed her fingers over it.

     
"You might need that," he said.
"I don't know how to use it."