(1961) The Chapman Report (40 page)

He tore the chenille spread and maroon blanket off the bed, undoing part of the white linen sheeting that had been tucked in beneath, and dropped both to the floor. Then he threw the pillow aside.

“I like plenty of room,” he said. He favored her with the lipless smile. “What about you, honey?” “What about me?”

He went to her, half lifting her from her feet, and pressing his mouth hungrily to her own. Arousal surfaced slowly through the vapor layers of intoxication. It wasn’t the kiss, but the pressure against her sore breasts and his hand on her hip. He released her, and they both labored for breath. “Let’s go, honey,” he said.

He began unbuttoning his shirt. She moved slowly toward the bed, intending to undress, but finally just standing there. The momentary urge to copulate had diminished, and what was left was the apathetic void. Behind the dizziness in her temples, there was a sobering, and the unadorned bed was less inviting. No desire stirred her-no desire to see him naked and taut, for there had been so many; no desire to be joined with .him, for there had been

too many. Why was she here? If she told him, explained, maybe there was hope. “Hey, honey-” he said.

She turned wearily, intent upon logic and reason, and then she saw his endless, hairless, bony frame, and knew it was futile. She had wound up the machine; it must run down. “… what’s holding you. Come on.”

With sad regret, she took the bottom of her sweater and slowly, slowly, began to draw it up across her brassiere. “Hurry it up, dammit!”

He was over her, grabbing the sweater, yanking it over her head. His hands were behind her, trying to unfasten the brassiere, and finally, powerfully, ripping it apart. As it fell to the floor, and her enormous breasts burst free, she tried to protest. But his hands were on her, painfully, and she was off her feet and harshly on the bed. “Wash, don’t-” “Goddammit-“

Her nylon pants were being torn roughly down her thighs. He was beside her, and over her. “My stockings-” she gasped. “To hell with that.” “No, please-“

She tried to rise. She mounted an elbow. She only wanted to explain. There was a certain code to love, and a lady didn’t lie unclad except for stockings. The stockings were indecent, absolutely indecent.

His arm fell like a crowbar on her throat, and her head slammed into the mattress. His hands were gritty on her breasts, and she moaned for the indignity of the stockings.

Once, opening her eyes, she saw him and was frightened. “Don’t hurt me,” she cried.

His voice was anger, impatience, passion. An animal chant dinned against her ears, and she closed her eyes, sinking in the darkness, offering her flesh so that the death would come sooner, and the pain be ended.

At last, the expected sensation-skin peeling before the scalpel, she thought, lacerating, lacerating, but soon healing, soon healing-and she was grateful because the sensation was now bounded, now limited, now familiar, now known. Her body recoiled and recoiled from the rhythmical beat, but it continued interminably, unceasingly, until the searing agony was joined by pleasure, so that agony and pleasure were one and the same, and at last her hands grasped his back. “I love you, Horace,” she murmured.

But later, it was done, and she felt limp and victorious, even in this defeat. For she had always given, as she told the man behind that foolish screen, and tonight he had given, but she had not. The pleasure of this dominated any other pleasure she had known.

She turned her head on the mattress and looked off. Wash was buckling his belt.

He saw her and grinned. “You’ll do, kid. Want a drink?”

She shook her head. “Take me home.” She started to rise, but he came to her and pushed her down gently. “Not so fast,” he said. “It’s not polite to eat and run.” She lay back, weak and groggy, and watched as he went to the door and opened it. Through the doorway, the mingled sounds of clattering chips and indistinct voices came to her.

Wash called off. “Okay, Ace-you’re on.”

Suddenly, a stranger came through the doorway-not a stranger, but the Roman face with curled hair. Shocked, she reached for something to cover herself, but there was nothing but her hand.

“Sa-ay now,” said the Roman face.

Wash formed the lipless smile. “Bardelli, tonight you are a man.”

Bardelli began to remove his shirt. Naomi sat up. ‘What do you think I am?” she shrieked at Wash.

She tried to swing off the bed, but Wash caught her by the shoulders and pressed her backward. She flayed at him with her fists, until he grabbed her forearms and pushed her flat.

“Guess you didn’t make her happy,” said Bardelli. “Too much fight left.”

Naomi tried to scream, but Wash stifled it with his arm. “Come on, you old bastard,” he called behind him. “This is a tiger.”

Unable to move her arms or cry out, Naomi thrashed her legs wildly. But someone pinned them down, and above Wash’s arm she saw the Roman face with curled hair, and in a moment the curls were on her face and the garlic mouth on her mouth. She twisted and squirmed, and once she saw Wash grinning from the door, and after that she saw only the Roman face. She kicked him, and he grunted, and smashed his palm across her face. She sobbed, and tried to bite, and again felt the sting of his big hand, and after a while, she stopped fighting, and he stopped slapping, and she let him handle her as he would a rag doll.

Again, it was interminable, the stitching pain, the cramped pain, the savage violence of it accompanied by a door somewhere opening, closing, opening, closing, and far away voices entreating Bardelli to get on with it, get on with it, and the Roman face hung from above like a contorted lantern, curls greasy and wet.

And when it was done, she could not rise. No will on earth could make her lift her racked flesh. And now the victory of not giving was no victory at all. She lay panting, her huge pointed breasts heaving, her eyes staring and waiting. Her innards had been scooped hollow of resistance, and she lay prostrated, staring and waiting.

The door opened and closed, and there was laughter, and there was the thick nose and the chewing jaw and hands on her breasts and thighs on her thighs … Lavine, Lavine … and now the black one, Sims not Nims, Sims she had learned at last, and shutting her eyes, she remembered there had been one like this one before-when?-the bartender, the intellectual who read so many books and told her that the race problem in the South stemmed from the psychotic fear white men had that, black men were better endowed… . Sims, don’t, Sims, until she screeched hoarsely … and when she opened her eyes, it was no longer. Sims but a pimpled flour face twitching … and during this, she sank into unconsciousness… .

When she opened her eyes, she was upright, propped upright between Wash and Sims, who was driving. Both windows were open, and the wind was cool as a brook. “You all right?” Wash was asking. “We’re taking you home.” She looked down and saw that someone had dressed her. Real gentlemen, real gentlemen-for a lady fair.

“Now don’t go flipping on us,” Wash was saying. “Any ol’ sawbones will tell you five’s no worse than one. What little girls got don’t wear out. Only listen, honey-you’re-well, you got to be careful-one of the boys, he-you’ve been hurt a little-but nothing serious, nothing at all. Hey, Sims, over there, pull up there.”

She felt the car swerve, and jarringly halt, engine idling. Wash opened the door. “We’re letting you off a few doors away, honey, in case somebody’s waiting up.” He offered to help her out, but she didn’t move. “Lend a hand, Sims.” Together, pulling and pushing, they maneuvered her out of the car. Wash propped her against a tree. He pointed off. “That way, honey.” He offered his mock smile and inclined his head. “Thank you for the evening.”

After the car had gone, she remained against the tree. At last, she stretched a leg, to see if it would move, and she saw that her stocking was below her knee, torn and stained.

She began to run, stumbling forward, sobbing and running.

When she reached her lawn, she collapsed, dropping in a heap on the cool, moist grass, wailing uncontrollably.

But then she heard footsteps on the pavement, muffled on the grass, approaching swiftly. She tried to stop crying, and lifted her head, expecting a policeman and finding herself not at all surprised that it was Horace who was beside her, saying something she could not understand, before she shut her eyes and brain to all sensibility.

AT TEN MINUTES after eight on Thursday morning, Kathleen Ballard, in answer to Paul Radford’s urgent summons of almost an hour earlier, arrived at Naomi Shields’ house and was admitted by Paul.

The reason for the emergency was still not clear to Kathleen, except that Paul had said on the telephone that Naomi had been on a date with some hoodlum, had been mistreated, had been put to bed by her doctor, and that a friend or neighbor was needed to stay with her until the registry found an available nurse.

Although Kathleen was not a close friend of Naomi’s, and saw her infrequently (the last time had been the occasion of Dr. Chapman’s lecture at the Association), she had responded immediately. Her private feelings about Naomi had always been ambivalent: at once a secret kinship for another who had been married and was now husbandless, and a secret discomfort in the presence of one whose unrestrained sexuality(if all those terrible stories were true) had become standard parlor gossip in The Briars. Now, for Kathleen, another element had been added. She had met Horace at lunch yesterday and learned that he was formerly Naomi’s husband, and because she liked Horace (and, in fact, everyone and everything associated with Paul), she was compelled to look upon Naomi as an official member of the new circle into which she had been drawn.

“How is she?” Kathleen asked as she entered Naomi’s attractive but obviously decorated Chinese-modern living room, and realized with surprise that it was unfamiliar to her.

“Dozing,” said Paul. “She was heavily sedated last night. She’ll be all right.” For a moment, he enjoyed Kathleen’s morning face.

Conscious of his eyes fixed upon her, Kathleen lifted her fingers to her cheek. “I must be a sight. I hardly had time to make up.” She glanced off worriedly. “Is there anything I can do for Naomi?”

“Nothing, for the moment, except standing sentry,” said Paul. “I can’t tell you how grateful we are, Kathleen. Horace and I don’t know Naomi’s friends. We didn’t know where to turn.” “You did the right thing.” “What about Deirdre?”

“I dropped her at school on the way and left a note for Albertine to watch for the car-pool auto at noon and stay on until I returned. Have you had breakfast?” “I don’t remember.”

“You’ve got to have something. Let’s find the kitchen.” There were neither eggs nor bacon in the refrigerator, and the bread in the white metal box was several days old. Dirty dishes filled the sink. Kathleen dropped two slices of bread in the toaster, prepared coffee, and then washed and dried several dishes. As she worked, Paul settled himself on a dinette chair with a grunt and explained what had been happening.

Several times, since Horace had learned Naomi lived in The Briars, he had called upon her, but not once had he found her home. Last night he had tried again, and when again she was not present, he had parked before her porch, determined to await her return. After midnight, she had appeared on her lawn, drunk and mauled. Horace had carried her inside, revived her, learned the name of her physician, and called him. The doctor had come at once, and had . reported that, except for requiring three stitches, her injury was

mainly psychic. He had recommended that she be placed in a sanitarium and be given intensive psychiatric treatment. He had left the names of several analysts, and by daybreak, Horace, exhausted and confused, had telephoned Paul for his advice.

“What could I tell him?” Paul said to Kathleen as she served the buttered toast and coffee. “We’re strangers out here. And, knowing what I know of Naomi, it was something you just don’t play by ear. Of course, Dr. Chapman has the best medical connections, but Horace and I agreed that this was something we had best leave him out of. He’d have immediately worried about the newspapers. This was strictly Horace’s personal matter, to be handled as quietly as possible. Then I remembered Dr. Victor Jonas.”

Kathleen, seating herself across from Paul, remembered Dr. Jonas, too. Paul had spoken of him with affection on one of their first dates.

“And even though, technically, he was Dr. Chapman’s adversary, I knew Naomi’s problem was in his area and that he could be trusted. So I called him from the motel and explained the situation, and I met him here. And then I called you.” “Is Dr. Jonas here now?”

“In the back, talking to Horace. I told Horace to accept whatever he has to say.”

There was little to add. They drank their coffee in silence. Kathleen remembered the time when her sister had been in the hospital to have her adenoids and tonsils removed, and after the surgery, while her sister was in the recovery room, she and her parents had gone down to a cafeteria and had sat in the early morning drinking coffee, and it had smelled like this. But then, placing it in time, she realized that it must have been her parents’ coffee that smelled like this. She would have had milk.

They heard footsteps, and Dr. Victor Jonas came into the kitchen. Paul tried to stand, but Dr. Jonas kept him down with a hand on his shoulder, acknowledged the introduction to Kathleen with a warm smile, and decided that he would pour himself some coffee. Consciously, Kathleen had to cease staring at him: his rumpled hair and suit, and the prow of a nose, made him seem so unprofessional and eccentric.

“Horace just went to look in on her,” said Dr. Jonas as he brought his coffee to the table and sat. “I think he understands what must be done.”

“Is there hope for her?” Paul wanted to know.

“Maybe,” said Dr. Jonas.

Paul and Kathleen exchanged a glance, he perturbed, she perplexed, for they had expected the usual confident social platitude which ranged from “of course” to “where there’s life, there’s hope.” Paul had momentarily forgotten, and Kathleen did not yet know, Dr. Jonas’ habit of candor.

‘What does that mean?” asked Paul.