Lilith (47 page)
“Yes. Thank you.” He sits clenching and loosening his hands. His eyes close slowly with a look of great fatigue. I lay my hand on his shoulder and after a moment stand up.
“I enjoyed the music very much. I’d like to hear some more of it soon.”
“Yes.”
“I know it’s very upsetting to you; but I hope you’ll decide not to see her any more. I’m sure it’s the wisest thing to do.” He does not reply. I stand uneasily, looking down at his bowed head, and realize suddenly that I have no very clear idea of why I am doing this to him. Can it be that I honestly wish to do him good, to protect him from my own fate? It is possible, I think; for as I watch his silent suffering I am aware of a feeling of love for him which is very powerful—the feeling of devotion, of respect, of intensely shared distress, which one must have, I imagine, for a beloved brother. We are really very much alike. So much so that perhaps the bitterly humiliating things I have invented to say to him are a form of self-contempt, or even a way of preserving, however brutally, his mirror-image of myself from Lilith. I do not know, at all, and have no desire to inquire too closely. I go to the door, turning back briefly to say, “Thank you for the music, Warren. Good night.”
He raises his head slightly, saying with difficulty, “You’ve always been very kind to me, Mr. Bruce. I hope you know how much I appreciate it.”
“I wish I deserved it,” I say, and go out into the rainy evening.
“Is that the shop?” It is Bea’s voice.
“Yes.”
“Vincent?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, hi. Listen, is Greta there yet?”
“No, there isn’t anybody here.”
“Well, when she comes in ask her to ring me, will you? She’ll have to take over this morning. I’m up here at Hillcrest, trying to help out about Warren. I’ll probably be here all morning; they’re trying to get his parents now.”
After a short pause I ask in a frozen voice, “Why are they trying to get his parents?”
“Didn’t you hear about it? Oh, God, it’s awful, Vincent. He killed himself last night.” There is a dreadful pause. “Vincent?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry to spring it on you like this. I thought you would have seen someone this morning. It’s shocking, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Be sure and let Greta know.”
“Yes.”
“I’ll see you at lunchtime. Bye.”
“Bea,” I say suddenly.
“Yes?”
“Where is he?”
“He’s up here, in the clinic.”
“Can I see him?”
“Yes. Do you mean right now?”
“Yes.”
“All right. I’ll wait for you at the desk, then. You’d better leave a note for Greta.”
“Yes, I will.”
I set down the phone and stare out of the window at the buzzards flying against the summer sky; how beautiful they are to observe—what grace and excellence, what indolent yet ardent loops and swift, spiraling descents, what long poised planes of shimmering, gliding flight, what delicately woven arabesques, all made in tribute to an unseen mound of carrion.
I write out a note for Greta and stand it up against the phone cradle; then, separated from the morning sunlight by my fine cool web of dread, like a moist, shining caul, I walk down the road to Hillcrest past the dew-dark mulberry trees.
Bea is standing at the desk in the broad, hotel-like foyer. She advances toward me as I enter, holding out her hands to me in a lovely gesture, intimate yet dignified, which makes me feel a wave of bitter affection for her.
“I’m sorry, Vincent. I know how fond you were of him.”
“What did he do?” I ask.
“Oh, it’s terrible. Are you sure you want to know?”
“Yes.”
“He got a kitchen knife from somewhere—he must have brought it in from Stonemont, I guess—and held the point of it against his chest and then fell down full-length onto the floor.” She closes her eyes for a moment and I feel her fingers tighten about my own.
“And he was always so afraid of getting hurt,” I say. “Little cuts and bruises, and things like that.”
“Yes, I know.”
‘When did it happen?”
“About four o’clock this morning, I think. Mrs. Larch found him when she was making her final check at five, and Dr. Donaldson said he’d been dead about an hour.”
“I’d like to just see him for a minute. I never said goodbye to him properly.”
“Yes. He’s upstairs. Do you want to come up?”
“Yes.”
We go up silently in the elevator and along the corridor to the clinic. A nurse opens the door to admit us to Warren’s room. He is lying in a white metal bed, his face utterly drained of color, his long fine hands with their ragged nails resting on the sheet. I stand looking down at him impatiently; it is not his face I have come to see, but his wound. But Bea and the nurse are here—I cannot bare it before them, and there is no adequate pretext to be alone with him. Yet I want to see his wound. I feel that if I remember it exactly, and apply my mind to it forever, if I meditate upon it unceasingly, as long as I live, I can perhaps, in some small degree, atone. But I see that this is impossible, so I turn away from the bed, saying only, “I think you ought to cover his hands. He didn’t like people to see his fingers.”
“I will, Vincent.”
She says goodbye to me at the door. “I don’t think I’ll get away till noon. You’ll tell Greta to make up the schedule?”
“Yes.”
“I’d keep this away from the patients until Dr. Lavrier tells me what to say. Some of the Field House people may have seen the commotion this morning, but I don’t think any of them actually know. Just be noncommittal if they ask.”
“Yes.”
I leave Hillcrest and walk back to the Lodge with the sensation of being supported by some volatile and exotic element which swarms all about me and preserves me from collapse. I am sure I should fall face downward in the road if I were not supported by this mysterious atmosphere. Part of my resistance seems to be derived from breathing it, as well; for it is quite different from the air I breathed yesterday. It sends a bitter nourishment along my nerves with every breath I draw—little tingling flashes of inspired fortitude.
I have this peculiarity: very often, in moments of stress, I hear (I must actually invent them myself, of course, but the effect is that of hearing them) all kinds of sagacious voices clamoring within me, manufacturing epigrams, homilies, bits of abbreviated wisdom and advice of every description, abstract and practical, derived from my predicament; just as if there dwelt within me a gang of noisy aphorists who rejoiced at every such opportunity. I hear one of these voices now, repeating obstinately and pontifically: “You must fill yourself with the sky to bear the sky”; and I nod at this banality, much as a drunken man nods at the most abject platitude.
I must see Lilith immediately; this is the only certainty I have, and I am most crucially in possession of it. For what? Approval? Solace? Guidance? I think only to see her, to be aware of her tangled golden hair and wild violet eyes. Only the beautiful, unequivocal havoc of her presence can make this outrage congruous. Only by suffering the bewilderment of her beauty can I be saved.
I increase the pace of my strangely sustained walk to a mild trot, ignoring the O. T. meeting entirely as I hurry past the shop toward the main building. The elevator ascent of only one floor seems interminable. I do not stop at the floor office, but go directly down the corridor to Lilith’s room.
I am aware, the moment I enter, that she has watched me approaching from her window, for she has risen to meet me and stands in the center of the floor, staring, her look of anticipation overshadowed by a totally foreign one of fear. She has drawn her hair back behind her ears in an oddly formal way, and stands stroking it with nervous abstraction. I close the door behind me and move toward her, recklessly ignoring the danger of an intrusion. She withdraws quickly—a movement which startles and pains me.
“What do you want?” she whispers.
“I want to touch you. Don’t move away. Give me your hand.”
She yields it strengthlessly, watching as I lift her hands and kiss them with gentle frenzy, murmuring, “Lilith, help me. Help me.”
Her fingers are cool as porcelain; my lips tremble upon them.
“Vincent, what is it? Why are you trembling like that? They’ll come in. What is it?” She clenches my hand suddenly with her own, her fingers hardening like stone. “Is Mother here?”
“Your mother?” I raise my head confusedly.
“Yes. I saw the ambulance. Is she here?”
“Your mother isn’t here.”
“But I saw the ambulance this morning, very early, hours ago. They came to get Ronnie, didn’t they? They’ve taken him away.” Her eyes have become dark with desperation.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I say. “No; they didn’t come for Ronnie.”
“But I saw them take him out, on a stretcher, with a white blanket over him. So still. I was watching from the window. Why are you lying? You always lie to me.”
“It wasn’t Ronnie. I don’t know who he is, but it wasn’t him.”
“It wasn’t Ronnie? Are you sure? You mustn’t lie to me.”
“I’m sure,” I say. “It was Warren.”
“Warren?” She stares at me for a moment, her eyes wandering slightly as she struggles to solve some terrible inward complexity. “You said it was Warren. Oh, Warren. You mean that gentle one, with the beautiful hands. Who made me the box. Have I shown you my lovely box?”
“Yes.”
“Oh yes, of course I did. And we’re going walking, aren’t we? You’re going to take us walking.”
“No.”
“But you promised, Vincent. You said in a day or two. But you mean he’s sick, don’t you? Isn’t that what you mean? When he’s better, then.”
“He’s dead.”
“Of course, he has another one of his colds. But when he’s better you’ll take us walking in the field where all those yellow flowers are. I’ll lead the way, because I know the way best, and we’ll walk in yellow joyflowers, perhaps even by the sea. On a special path I know, by the sunflower sea. Because you promised we could. You promised me.”
“He’s dead,” I murmur with dull, brutal insistence, shaking my head in hopeless emphasis. Why does she feign this stupid bewilderment? Why will she not understand? She has promised to help me; she has told me of her strength and promised to help me when I needed it. I have most need of blessing now. I raise my eyes to hers with a ruined, hopeless look of supplication. But whose face is this I see? Not a splendid, triumphant queen’s, but a child’s—an anguished, terrified, lost child. I am suddenly stricken with fear.
“Lilith,” I whisper, “don’t you understand me? Don’t you know what I’ve done? He’s dead. He committed suicide.”
“Oh, no. No, no. I don’t understand what you’re saying. You’re lying to me.”
“I told him you despised him. I said you called him a ‘stupid, fawning creature.’ I was crazy with jealousy. It was because I loved you. Don’t you understand? You have to help me, Lilith.”
She shakes her head with desperate denial, retreating from me toward the window seat, her face gone pale, her eyes enormous glittering jewels of dread.
“Oh, you mustn’t! How wicked of you to lie to me! How wicked of you to say such terrible things!”
“I couldn’t bear to think about what you wanted me to do. I couldn’t stand it. So I told him those things. But it was right, wasn’t it? It was what you really wanted me to do; I know it was.”
“Oh, no, no. What terrible things you say to me! You think it was because I loved him, don’t you? But it isn’t true. That isn’t why they die.” She backs away from me as I follow her across the room, holding out her hands to fend me away from her. But I am filled with savage, importunate determination; I am hardly aware of—or else I desperately ignore—her frightened protestations. I clutch at her hair and clothing, as if drowning in the mysterious element which surrounds me.
“I’ve just seen him!” I whisper with hectic, half-forged exultation. “I’ve just come from his room. You should have seen how innocent he looked, lying there. Like a child. You would have been so proud of me, Lilith, because I’ve done what you wanted me to. You must say it. Say it!
Say how proud you are of me
!” I seize her wrists in my hands, but she sinks before me onto the window seat, her head dropping forward, her golden hair swinging from side to side in anguish.
“It wasn’t because I loved him. It wasn’t! It was because of that aspic on the glass plates down there in the garden; it looked just like blood. That was why he did it. I don’t kill things I love. I don’t! You’re lying if you say that!” She moans softly, lifting one hand to tangle her fingers in her hair, her body gone limp with grief. I kneel on the floor before her, forcing my head into her lap, burying my face in the cleft of her thighs, taking her wandering hands to press them fiercely against my cheeks, mumbling soft, hysterical demands.
“And now you have to love me forever, because of what I’ve done for you. You see how much I love you? No one else would have done that for you. But I have. I’ll do anything you ask me to, Lilith. Tell me what I must do now. Tell me.”
“Oh, please, leave me alone. You mustn’t say these terrible things to me. Leave me alone—please, please.”
She goes on moaning comfortlessly, swinging her head from side to side in a restless, agonized way. My fear greatens suddenly, like a vivid, swiftly blossoming flower. I lift my head to look at her and rise quickly, fondling and stroking her with little cold nervous gestures of my hands.