Waltz Into Darkness (52 page)

The
waltz resumed, the slow and terrible waltz of death, there on those
steps.

"Up,"
he pleaded. "Let me go up. The door. Have mercy."

Her
voice was all compassion, she wept with honey. "Come back with
me. My love. My poor dear. My husband." Her eyes too. Her hands,
staying him so gently, so gently, he scarcely knew it.

"Be
content," he wept weakly. "You've done enough. Give me this
one last chance-- Don't take it from me--"

"Do
you think I would hurt you? Do you trust a stranger more than you
would me? Don't you believe I love you, at all? Do you really doubt
it that much ?"

He
shook his head bewilderedly. When the body's strength is spent, the
mind's discernment dulls with it. Black is white and white is black,
and the last voice that spoke is the true one.

"You
do love me? You do, Bonny? In spite of all?"

"Can
you ask that?" Her lips found his, there in broad daylight, in
open street. Never was there a tenderer kiss, breathing such
abnegation. Light as the wings of moths. "Ask your heart, now,"
she whispered. "Ask your heart."

"I've
thought such terrible things. Bad dreams they must have been. But
they seemed so real at the time. I thought you wanted me out of your
way."

"You
thought I was the cause of--your being ill like this?" Gambler
to the end. She drew a step aside, the step that he had wanted her to
take before. "My arms are here. The door is there above you. Now
go to whichever one of us you want the most."

He
took a swaying step toward her, where she now stood. His head fell
upon her breast in ineffable surrender. "I am so tired, Bonny.
Take me home with you."

Her
breath stirred his hair. "Bonny will take you home."

She
led him down the step, the one step toward salvation that was all he
had been able to achieve.

Here
and there, about them, the walks, the near one and the far, were
dotted with a handful of curious passersby, halted in their tracks to
watch the touching little scene, without knowing what it was about.

As
he and she turned their way, these, their interest palling, set about
resuming their various courses. But she called to one man, the
nearest among them, before he could make good his departure.

"Sir!
Would you try and find us a carriage? My husband is ill, I must get
him home as soon as I can."

She
would have moved a heart of stone. He tipped his hat, he hastened off
on his quest. In a moment or two a carriage had come spanking around
the lower turn, her envoy riding upright on the outside step.

It
drew up and he helped her, supporting Durand on the one side while
she, strong for all her diminutive height, sustained him bravely on
the other. Between them they led him gently to the carriage, saw him
comfortably to rest upon its seat; the stranger having to step up and
into it backward, to do this, and then descend again from its
opposite side after he had relinquished his hold on him.

She,
settling down beside Durand, reached out and placed her own hand
briefly atop the back of her anonymous helper's in accolade of
tremulous gratitude. "Thank you, sir. Thank you. I do not know
what I should have done without you."

"No
one could do less, madam." He looked at her compassionately.
"And may God be with the two of you."

"I
pray He will," she answered devoutly as the carriage rolled off.

Behind
it, on those same disputed steps, as it receded, a man now stood
astraddle, a black bag in his hand, gazing after it with cursory
interest, no more. He shrugged in incomprehension and completed his
ascent, readying his key to put it to the door.

In
the carriage on their brief run homeward no one could have been more
solicitous.

"Lean
down. Rest your head upon my lap, love. That will ease the jarring of
the springs."

And
in a moment, or so it seemed, they were back again at their own door;
his ldng Calvary was undone, gone for nothing. He felt no pang; so
complete, so narcoticizing, was the illusion of her love.

The
driver, now, was the one to help her getting him down. And then she
left him for a moment in his charge at their gate. "Stay here a
moment, dear; hold to the post, until I find money to pay him. I came
out without my purse, I was in such a fright over you." She ran
in alone, the doorway stood empty for a brief while--(and he missed
her, for that moment, he missed her)--then she came back again, still
at full run, paid off the driver, took Durand into her sole charge.

Up
onto the porch floor, a last receding flicker of the white sunlight
draining off their backs, and in. A sweep of her arm, and the door
was closed again behind him. Forever? For the last time?

Down
the long dim hall, past the antlered hatrack, to the foot of the
stairs. Every inch had once cost a drop of blood.

But
love enfolded him, held him in its arms, and he didn't care. Or
perhaps it was death already; and at onset of death you don't care
either sometimes.

Then
up the stairs a dragging step at a time. Her strength was superb, her
will to help him indomitable.

At
the landing, as the final turn began, he panted: "Stop here a
moment."

"What
is it?"

"Let
me look back a moment at our sitting room, before we go up higher. I
may never see it again. I want to say goodbye to it." He pointed
with a wavering hand, out over the slanted rail. "See, there's
the table that we sat by, so many evenings, before-this came upon me.
See, there's the lamp, the very same lamp, that I always knew--when I
was young and not yet married--would shine upon my wife's pretty
face, just across from me. And it's shone on yours, Bonny. I thank it
for that. Must it never shine on you for me again, Bonny?" His
fingertips traced its outline, there against the empty distance that
separated it from him. "The lamps of home, the lamps of love,
are going out. For me they'll never shine again. Goodbye-"

"Come,"
she said faintly.

Back
into the room again; the bier receiving back its dedicated dead.

She
helped him to the bed, and eased him back upon it. Then drew up his
feet after him. Took off his shoes, his coat, but nothing else. Then
brought the covers slowly up and over him, sideward, like a winding
sheet.

"Are
you comfortable, Lou? Is your bed smooth enough?" She put hand
to his brow. "This foolish foray of yours has cost you all your
strength."

His
eyes were fixed on her with a strange, melting softness. Like the
eyes of a wounded dog, begging its release.

She
turned hers away, then irresistibly they were drawn back again. "Why
are you looking at me like that, my dear? What are you trying to say
?"

He
motioned to her with one finger to bend closer.

She
inclined her head a little the better to hear what he had to say.

He
reached up falteringly and stroked the fringe, the silken blonde
bangs that curved before her cool smooth forehead.

Then
he struggled higher, onto an elbow, as if cast upward by the ebb tide
that was leaving him behind so rapidly.

"I
love you, Bonny," he whispered fiercely. "No other one, no
other love. From first to last, from start to finish. And beyond.
Beyond, Bonny; do you hear me? Beyond. It will not end. I will, but
it will not."

Her
face came nearer still, slowly, uncertainly; like that of one dipping
toward a new experience, feeling her way. Something had happened to
it, was happening to it; he had never seen it so soft before. It was
as if he were seeing another face, never born, peering shyly through
the mask that had stifled it all these years; the face that should
have been hers, that might have been--but that never had. The face of
the soul, before the blasts of the world had altered it beyond
recognition.

It
came close to his, falteringly, through strange new latitudes of
emotion, never traveled before.

There
were tears in her eyes. It was no illusion; he saw them.

"Will
a little love do, Lou ?"

"Any
amount."

"Then
there was a moment in which I loved you. And this is it."

And
the kiss, unforced, unsolicited, had all the bitter sweetness, the
unattainable yearning, of a love that might have been. And he knew,
his heart knew, it was the first she had ever really given him.

"That
was enough," he smiled, content. "That was all I've ever
wanted."

Claiming
her hand, holding it in his, he fell into an uneasy sleep, a fever
oblivion, for a while.

When
he awoke, the dregs of daylight were settling in the west, like a
fine white ash; the day was past. Her hand was still in his, and she
was sitting there, her face toward him. She seemed not to have moved
in all those hours, to have endured it, this thing new to her--pain
for someone else's sake--without demur; to have kept her vigil with
no company other than the sight of his deathbound face--and whatever
thoughts that had brought her.

He
released her hand. "Bonny," he sighed, agonized. "Get
me another of those tonics, now. I am ready for it. It's better--that
you do, I think--"

Involuntarily,
she drew her head back sharply for a moment. Held her gaze to his.
Then at last inclined it again to where it had been before.

"Why
do you ask for it now? I haven't offered it."

"I'm
in pain," he said simply. "I can't endure much more of it."
And turned a little this way, then turned a little that. "If not
in kindness, then in charity--"

"Later,"
she said evasively. "Don't talk that way, don't say such
things."

Sweat
started out on his face. His breath hissed through his nostrils.
"When I did not want them, you urged them on me-- Now that I
plead with you, you deny me--" He heaved his body upward, then
allowed it to fall back again. "Now, Bonny, now; I can't bear
any more. This is as good a time as any. Why wait for the night to be
further advanced? Oh, spare me the night, Bonny, spare me the night
It is so long--so dark--so lonely--"

She
stood slowly, absently rubbing her frozen hand. Then with even
greater slowness moved toward the door. She opened it, then stopped
there to look back at him. Then went out.

He
heard her going down the stairs. And twice he heard her stop, as
though impulse had flagged; and then go on again, as she fanned it
back to life once more.

She
was gone about ten minutes in all. Ten minutes of hell, while flames
licked at him all over.

Then
presently the door opened and she had returned. She was carrying it
in her hand. She came to him and set it down upon the stand, a little
to the side of him, beyond easy reach.

"Don't--
Not yet--" she said in a stifled voice, when he tried to reach
for it. "Let it wait a while. A little later will do."

She
lit the lamp, and then went over by the fireplace to fling the match
away. Then she remained there by it, looking down into it. He knew
she was not looking at anything there was there before her to see;
she was in a revery that saw nothing.

His
revery, on its part, saw everything. Everything again. Again he
waltzed with her at Antoine's on their wedding night--"A waltz
in sunlight, love; in azure, white and gold." Again her playful
query sounded through their marriage door-- "Who knocks"
"Your husband." Again she stood revealed against the
lighted midnight entryway--"Come into your wife's bedroom,
Louis." Again they walked the seafront promenade at Biloxi, arm
in arm, and the breeze swept off his hat, and she laughed to see him
chase it, herself a spinning cyclorama of windswept skirts. Again he
raised his arms above her sleeping form to let hundred dollar bills
flutter down upon it. Again--

Again,
again, again--for the last time.

The
truly cruel part of death is not the end of the body; it is the
expiration of all memories.

A
bright light, like a hot, flickering, yellow star, burned through the
ghostly mesh of his death dreams. He looked over and she was standing
sideward to the fireplace, holding a burning brand outthrust toward
it in her hand. Yet not a stick or twig; it was a scroll of tightly
furled paper. And as the flame slowly slanted upward toward her hand,
she deftly reversed it, taking it now by the charred end that had
already been consumed and allowing the other to burn.