Leaning forward, she said, “Go on.”
“When I was there—it was a desolate place, I suppose, though I did not find it so. When I was there, I felt … the very greatest exhilaration. The world seemed filled with possibility. My marriage seemed filled with possibility. A promised land—” He stopped once more.
Blanche said gently, “A promised land? Do you mean the place—or your marriage?”
“Oh, both,” he replied. “The place, and my marriage—at that point they felt to me connected. I believed. I hoped—a promised land. My wife—” His voice broke.
Blanche saw him bend his head, then cover his face with his hands. She watched him break, this man whose composure had never previously faltered. He did not speak again. She could see that he tried to silence the sounds of his grief. Tears came to her eyes; quietly she sat there, letting him weep.
Some while later, when he was calmer, she rose to her feet. She knew he would not want to look at her, and that it would shame him to know she had seen him like this, exposed, and vulnerable, all the waste of the years in his face.
She touched his arm gently.
“Stay there,” she said. “Stay by the window. I’m going to sing to you. You like it when I sing.” She hesitated. “It’s why I’m here, I guess—I see that now. Because of my voice. I’ll sing you lieder—the way I did that first night.”
Standing in the center of the room, she drew in her breath. Her voice moved, up and then down the octaves. She tossed back her showgirl curls and began on the lieder, in her angel’s voice. Unquestionable purity. Stern, facing a window and a lighted city, neither of which he saw, listened to the notes: high, clear, sweet, pure, true. He saw himself, and his wife, walking through the snow along a narrow pathway. They came to a balustrade rail and looked out at a beautiful wilderness.
We could have all this….
And so they might have once—he believed that still. But not now; now, too many years had passed, and too many wrongs had been committed. By himself, he knew, as well as by his wife. If their marriage had become a prison, a kind of hell, he, too, was to blame.
Lack of trust on his part; pride; a will so trained he could not let his heart speak. Might it have been different, had he not feared to express love? Perhaps, he thought sadly—but no more than perhaps.
He could feel the music now, opening out, offering to him the consolation of art, welcoming him, note by pure note, to a finer place. This, at least, he had still; this at least remained undestroyed. He thought, with a sense of surprise, there was another world; its promise was here, in this music and in this voice. With this realization he felt the sense of the greatest release, as if the door of his prison swung back, and there at last—beyond the figure of his wife—was the freedom he sought, the peace, and the refreshment as well as the loneliness of an isolated place.
When Blanche had finished her singing, he embraced her once. She knew, he thought, that they would not be meeting here again. She accepted it, as he had known she would. He pressed her hands, thanking her for the gift of her voice. He left.
Leaving the apartment building, he crossed the avenue. This he never did, and the departure from a settled routine caught his watcher off guard. In a hasty way the man turned to fix his eyes on a shop window; Stern, as he passed him, gave a courteous bow and raised his hat.
That night, when he and his wife returned from the dinner party, they sat together for a while. Stern held a glass of whisky; Constance played with her two small dogs. One was Box, now old (and indeed, as Constance had said, grown fat); the other was a pug, a recent acquisition. Their conversation was at first desultory; Stern lapsed into silence. He sipped his drink. Constance, kneeling on the carpet, toyed first with this dog, then with that. She seemed to Stern both in high spirits—as she often was when new mischief was afoot—and curiously tense.
She spoke of her forthcoming visit to England; of a christening; of Acland. Acland she mentioned with some emphasis. Stern made no comment. He was listening to the lieder as sung to him that afternoon. Inside the lieder he was safe.
“Well, Box, what do you think?” Constance said, picking up her Pomeranian and kissing him on the nose. “Shall I go to England? Shall I make Montague very, very cross? Shall I make him jealous? He gets very jealous indeed when I talk about Acland—have you noticed that? Oh, you have—what a
clever
little dog! You’re not jealous, are you? You don’t mind whom I love—”
“Constance, don’t be childish.” Stern set down his whisky glass. “You pet those dogs too much. You’re turning them into lapdogs.”
“They like it.” Constance gave him a sulky look. “Don’t you, darlings? You see? They do. Box just gave me a kiss.”
“Constance, it’s late. I’m going to bed.”
“Don’t you want to talk about England? I think you do, really. I can tell from your face.”
“There is nothing to discuss. I have asked you not to go—”
“Asked me?” Constance put Box down. “Oh, you always
ask.
It’s so boring. Why don’t you
tell
me not to go? Forbid me? That’s what you’d like to do, after all. You can’t bear the thought of my going. Every time I mention Acland’s name—such a black look!”
“You exaggerate. I have no intention of forbidding you to do anything. You must make the choice.”
“I’ve made it—I’ve told you. You can’t stop me. I will go. It just might be amusing if you forbade it, that’s all. Then I could see whether I dared to defy you—”
“Constance, stop playing foolish games. If you want a husband who behaves like a tyrannical father, you should have married someone else.”
“Should I indeed?” Constance, all movement a moment before, became very still. She turned upon Stern a set and calculating glance. Stern, married long enough to know that this expression would be followed by theatrics, by an outburst of some kind, stood up.
“Maybe you’re right. I should have married someone else,” she went on in a thoughtful voice. “Maybe I should have married Acland. I could have, you know. A snap of the fingers! As easy as that.”
“Do you think so? I rather doubt that.”
Stern, moving toward the door, paused, then looked back. Constance remained crouched on the floor. Her eyes glittered. With a sense of exhaustion, Stern watched her anger gather. He could see it coiling in her body, tight as a spring.
“What do you know? Nothing.” One of her small hands clenched, then unclenched. “You’re unimaginative, Montague. You’d never be able to understand Acland and me—all you know is that Acland is a threat.”
“A threat?” Stern frowned. “To me, or to you?”
“To you, of course.” Constance sprang up. “How could Acland be a threat to me?”
“Oh, when we invent people, they are always a threat. I know that. I learned the lesson firsthand.”
“Invent? Invent? You think I invent Acland? What a fool you are.” Constance tossed her head. “How dare you say that. You’re dull. You understand making money—nothing else. Acland and I are close. This close!” She pressed her two hands together. “We always were. Like twins—no, closer than twins. Shall I tell you something—something I never told you before? You know why I am bound to him? Because Acland was the
first
.”
Stern considered this piece of information. He had expected it, or something similar; it was part, he supposed, of the next twist.
“Yes. Well, Constance, it’s a little late for such dramatic revelations. I shall go to bed.”
“You don’t believe me?”
Stern looked at his wife. Anger, as always, increased her beauty. It made her eyes shine; it brought color and radiance to her face.
“No, my dear. I don’t believe you.”
“It is true!”
“I think you would like it to be true. Wishing does not alter-facts. I imagine that if you had consummated your relationship with Acland, you would have tired of him, as you tire of everyone else. As it is—”
“Sex? You think it’s a matter of sex? How stupid you are! A vulgarian, after all, with a mean little imagination.”
“Possibly. On the other hand, you pursue sexual gratification with considerable energy, and I suspect you find it remains elusive. Despite your claims. I warned you once, of that.”
“I pursue what I cannot find with you—that’s natural enough.”
“My dear. There is no point in hurling accusations back and forth as to my virility or your frigidity. Let’s just say I am sorry to have disappointed you in that respect. However, it is late, and we have had this conversation before, many times—”
“And if I loved Acland—what then?” Constance took a step forward. “That would spoil all your careful bargains, wouldn’t it? Lovers are permitted—but not love! Only you could think up a contract like that and imagine it was workable. You always wanted me bridled. You always wanted me on a leash—”
“Constance, you are mixing your metaphors.”
“You set down all the provisos, and you expect me to abide by them. Why should I? They stifle me. They close me in so I can’t breathe, so I can’t be myself. But if I loved someone—I’d be free of you then. There! Just like that! One might tire of a lover—not of someone one loves.”
“Do you think so?” Stern looked at her, a certain regret in his voice. “I disagree. I think it quite possible—to tire of someone one loved.”
The quietness with which he spoke seemed to disconcert Constance. She stepped back from him. She bent down, picked up one of her dogs, and fondled it. She kissed it on the head. She looked up at her husband. She gave a small, tight smile.
“Did you fuck Blanche Langrishe today, Montague? You were at the apartment quite some time, so presumably you did. More than once. You can’t have imagined I believed in that South African, surely?”
“I was not very concerned whether you believed or not.”
“Oh, but I thought we had an agreement—no secrets between us! Yet you have been seeing that woman for months, and never mentioned it once.”
“My dear, you know all my secrets. I knew it was only a matter of time before you found out.”
“Well, indeed. A little singer, with dyed hair, who comes from Queens. Not what I would have expected from you, Montague—a man of your refined tastes. Still, I expect you find her gratifying in bed. A cheap little whore with her eye on your wallet. What is it you like about her, Montague? I long to hear. It can hardly be her intelligence, I think. What is it? Her chorus-girl legs? Her tits? Her ass? Or is she simply very good in the hay?”
Stern still paused by the door. An expression of distaste came upon his face.
“You should not speak in that way,” he said in the same quiet voice he had used before. “The words—you choose such ugly words. Cheap ones. I have always disliked it when you speak in that way. The words … don’t suit you.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I forgot. You have such gentlemanly tastes. A woman is not supposed to know such words, let alone use them. I mustn’t say
fuck,
is that it, Montague? Oh, no, of course I may say it—but only to you, in bed. That’s a little hypocritical, don’t you think? After all, it’s a perfectly good verb. It’s what you do. You go to your apartment, and you fuck your little whore, twice a week. Then you pay her off, I suppose. Or do you just give her presents—vulgar presents? Yid presents? Like the ones you give to me?”
Constance advanced on him as she spoke. Stern watched her approach. The closer she came, the smaller she appeared. His tiny, angry, hurting, vulgar wife. Her anger pulsed in the air; it snapped in her eyes, flew out from her hair. Her voice had risen. The pug, always terrified of such scenes, fled for cover. It crouched under the legs of a chair, then peeped out.
“You’re frightening the dogs, Constance,” Stern said in a polite voice. “Don’t shout. The dogs dislike it. I dislike it. And the servants will hear you.”
“Fuck the servants. Fuck you. Fuck the damned dogs. I hate both of them, anyway. You gave them to me, and I hate them. A rhinestone collar and a red leash—only you could choose something like that. You have East End taste, did you know that? Common taste. And you are common, too—oily manners, stupid foreign affected bows. Do you think you can pass yourself off as European, a gentleman? People laugh at you, Montague, behind your back—and I laugh too. You know what I say? I say, ‘Oh, you’ll have to forgive him. He can’t help it. He knows no better. He grew up in a slum. He’s a common little Jew.’”
Constance had never before made such a taunt. Perhaps she knew she had gone too far. Perhaps something in Stern’s expression—a hardening of the features, a contempt in the eyes—frightened her. She gave a cry. She covered her face with her hands.
“Oh, God, oh, God, I’m so unhappy. I hurt so much. I wish you’d hit me—why don’t you hit me? I know you want to. I can see it in your eyes—”
“I have no desire to hit you. None.”
Stern turned toward the door. Constance clasped his arm. She attempted to drag him back.
“Please—look at me. Can’t you understand? I don’t mean all those things. I say them to hurt you, that’s all. It’s the only way I ever reach you, when I hurt you. You’re so cold—at least when you’re angry there’s some response. It’s better than nothing. I’m jealous, that’s all. There—does that please you? I’m sure it does. You want to hurt me too. And you do. I can’t bear to think of it. It’s so unlike you. It’s so sordid and predictable and small. Taking an apartment, lying about appointments, and that girl! Such a cheap girl. Such a cheap name. Blanche—I hate her name. At least I showed some discrimination with my lovers—in a way, they’re a compliment to you. But you—you pick up a cheap little tart off the streets—”
“She is not a tart.” Stern opened the door. “And Blanche is only her stage name. Her real name is Ursula.”
“Ursula?”
For some reason, this seemed to distress Constance very much. She stepped back from her husband, and looked at him with an expression of childish woe.
“Ursula. Ursula. Ursula what?”
“That need not concern you.”
“It does, though. It does concern me. It is a good name—as good as Constance. I feel as if … as if it erases me.”
“My dear. I should forget it. Go to bed and get some sleep.”
“No, wait, just tell me one more thing—”