Reflections in a Golden Eye (6 page)

But in spite of this he could not hate Alison. Nor could he truly hate his wife. Leonora
maddened him to insanity, but even in the wildest fits of jealousy he could not hate her
any more than he could hate a cat, or a horse, or a tiger cub. The Captain walked around
in his study and once he gave the closed door a fretful kick. If that Alison finally made
up her mind to divorce Morris, then how would it go? He could not bear to contemplate this
possibility, so distressed was he at the thought of being left alone.

It seemed to the Captain that he heard a sound and he stopped short. The house was still.
It has been mentioned before that the Captain was a coward. Sometimes when he was by
himself he was overcome by a rootless terror. And now, as he stood in the silent room, it
seemed that his nervousness and distress were not caused by forces within himself and
others, things that in some measure he could control but by some menacing outward
circumstance which he could only sense from a distance. Fearfully the Captain looked all
about the room. Then he straightened his desk and opened the door.

Leonora had fallen asleep on the rug before the fire in the sitting room. The Captain
looked down at her and laughed to himself. She was turned over on her side and he gave her
a sharp little kick on the buttocks. She grumbled something about the stuffing for a
turkey, but did not awake. The Captain bent down, shook her, talked into her face, and
finally got her on her feet. But like a child who has to be aroused and taken to the
toilet the last thing at night, Leonora bad the gift of being able to remain asleep even
while standing up. As the Captain led her ponderously to the stairs, her eyes were closed
and she still grumbled about the turkey.

'I'll be damned if I'll undress you,' the Captain said.

But Leonora sat where he had left her on the bed, and after watching her for several
minutes he laughed again and took off her clothes. He did not put a nightgown on her, for
the bureau drawers were in such a mess he could not find one. Besides, Leonora always
liked sleeping 'in the raw,' as she called it. When she was in bed, the Captain went up to
a picture on the wall that had amused him for years. It was a photograph of a girl of
about seventeen, and at the bottom there was written the touching inscription: 'To Leonora
with Oodles of Love from Bootsie.' This masterpiece had adorned the walls of Leonora's
bedrooms for more than a decade, and had been carried halfway around the globe. But when
questioned about Bootsie, who for a time had been her roommate in a boarding school,
Leonora said vaguely that it seemed to her that she had once heard Bootsie had drowned
some years ago. Indeed, after pressing her about this matter, he found she did not even
remember this Bootsie's lawful name. And yet, simply because of habit, the picture had
hung on her wall for eleven years. The Captain looked once again at his wife as she lay
sleeping. She was hot natured and already the cover had been pushed down below her naked
breasts. She smiled in her sleep, and it occurred to the Captain that she was now eating
the turkey she had prepared in her dream.

The Captain used Seconal, and his habit was of such long standing that one capsule had no
effect on him. He considered that with his hard work at the Infantry School it was a great
imposition for him to have to lie awake at night and get up jaded the next morning.
Without sufficient Seconal his slumber was light and wrought with dreams. Tonight he
decided to treat himself to a triple dose, and he knew that then he would drop immediately
into a blunt, sodden sleep that would last six or seven hours. The Captain swallowed his
capsules and lay down in the dark with pleasant anticipation. This quantity of the drug
gave him a unique and voluptuous sensation; it was as though a great dark bird alighted on
his chest, looked at him once with fierce, golden eyes, and stealthily enfolded him in his
dark wings.

Private Williams waited outside the house until the lights had been out for almost two
hours. The stars were faded a little and the blackness of the night sky had changed to a
deep violet. Still, however, Orion was brilliant and the Big Dipper shone with a wonderful
radiance. The soldier walked around to the back of the house and quietly tried the screen
door. It was fastened from the inside, as he knew it would be. However, the door was
slightly loose and when the soldier inserted the blade of his knife in the crack he was
able to raise the hook latch. The back door itself was not locked.

Once inside the house the soldier waited for a moment. All was dark and there was not a
sound. He stared about him with his wide, vague eyes until he was accustomed to the
darkness. The plan of the house was already familiar to him. The long front hall and the
stairs divided the house, leaving on one side the large sitting room and, farther back,
the servant's room. On the other side were the dining room, the Captain's study, and the
kitchen. Upstairs to the right there was a double bedroom and a small cubicle. To the left
were two bedrooms of medium size. The Captain used the large room and his wife slept
across the hall from him. The soldier walked carefully up the stairs, which were carpeted.
He moved with deliberate composure. The door of The Lady's room was open, and when he
reached it the soldier did not hesitate. With the lithe silence of a cat he stepped inside.

Green shadowy moonlight filled the room. The Captain's wife slept as her husband had left
her. Her soft hair lay loosened upon the pillow and her gently breathing chest was half
uncovered. A yellow silk spread was on the bed and an open flask of perfume sweetened the
air with a drowsy scent. Very slowly the soldier tiptoed to the side of the bed and bent
over the Captain's wife. The moon softly lighted their faces and he was so close that he
could feel her warm, even breath. In the soldier's grave eyes there was at first an
expression of intent curiosity, but as the moments passed a look of bliss awakened in his
heavy face. The young soldier felt in him a keen, strange sweetness that never before in
his life had he known.

He stood in this way, bent close over the Captain's wife, for some time. Then he touched
his hand to the window sill to steady himself and very slowly squatted down beside the
bed. He balanced himself on the broad balls of his feet, his back held straight, and his
strong delicate hands resting on his knees. His eyes were round as amber buttons and his
bangs lay in a tangled mat on his forehead.

On a few occasions before this Private Williams had had this look of suddenly awakened
happiness in his face, but no one on the post had seen him then. If he bad been seen at
such a time he would have beep court martialed. The truth was that in his long ramblings
through the forest of the reservation the soldier was sometimes not alone. When he could
get leave from work in the afternoon, he took a certain horse from the stables with him.
He rode about five miles from the post to a secluded spot, far from any paths, that was
difficult to reach. Here in the woods there was a flat, clear space, covered with a grassy
weed of the color of burnished bronze. In this lonely place the soldier always unsaddled
his horse and let him go free. Then he took off his clothes and lay down on a large flat
rock in the middle of the field. For there was one thing that this soldier could not do
without the sun. Even on the coldest days he would lie still and naked and let the
sunlight soak into his flesh. Sometimes, still naked, he stood on the rock and slipped
upon the horse's bare back. His horse was an ordinary army plug which, with anyone but
Private Williams, could sustain only two gaits a clumsy trot and a rocking horse gallop.
But with the soldier a marvelous change came over the animal; he cantered or single footed
with proud, stiff elegance. The soldier's body was of a pale golden brown and he held
himself erect Without his clothes he was so slim that the pure, curved outlines of his
ribs could be seen. As he cantered about in the sunlight, there was a sensual, savage
smile on his lips that would have surprised his barrack mates. After such outings he came
back weary to the stables and spoke to no one.

Private Williams squatted by the bed in The Lady's room until almost dawn. He did not
move, or make a sound, or take his eyes from the body of the Captain's wife. Then, as the
day was breaking, he balanced himself again with his hand on the window sill and got up
carefully. He went down the stairs and closed the back door cautiously behind him. Already
the sky was a pale blue and Venus was fading.

Alison Langdon had lived through a night of torment. She did not sleep until the sun came
up and the bugle sounded reveille. During those long hours many eerie thoughts had
troubled her. Once just at dawn she even fancied, she was almost sure, that she saw
someone come out of the Pendertons' house and walk off into the woods. Then, soon after
she finally got to sleep, a great racket awakened her. Hurriedly she put on her bathrobe,
went downstairs, and found herself confronting a shocking and ridiculous spectacle. Her
husband was chasing Anacleto round and round the dining room table with a boot in his
hand. He was in his sock feet, but otherwise completely uniformed for Saturday morning
inspection. His sword banged against his thigh as he ran. They both stopped short when
they saw her. Then Anacleto hastened to take refuge behind her back.

'He did it on purpose!' the Major said in an outraged voice. 'I'm already late. Six
hundred men are waiting for me. And look, just please take a glance, at what he brings me!'

The boots indeed were a sorry sight. It looked as though they had been rubbed over with
flour and water. She scolded Anacleto and stood over him as he cleaned them properly. He
wept piteously, but she found the strength of mind not to console him. When he had
finished, Anacleto mentioned something about running away from home and opening a linen
shop in Quebec. She carried the polished boots up to her husband and handed them to him
without a word, but with a look that took care of him also. Then, as her heart bothered
her, she went back to bed with her book.

Anacleto brought her up her coffee and then drove over to the Post Exchange to do the
marketing for Sunday. Later in the morning, when she had finished her book and was looking
out the window at the sunny autumn day, he came to her room again. He was blithe, and had
quite forgotten the scolding about the boots. He built up a roaring fire and then quietly
opened the top bureau drawer to do a bit of meddling. He took out a little crystal
cigarette lighter which she had had made from an old fashioned vinaigrette. This trinket
so fascinated him that she had given it to him years ago. He still kept it with her
things, however, so that he would have a legitimate reason for opening the drawer whenever
he wished. He asked for the loan of her glasses and peered for a long time at the linen
scarf on the chest of drawers. Then with his thumb and forefinger he picked up something
invisible and carefully carried this speck over to the wastebasket. He was talking away to
himself, but she paid no attention to his chatter.

What would become of Anacleto when she was dead? That was a question that worried her
constantly. Morris, of course, had promised her never to let him be in want but what
would such a promise be worth when Morris married again, as he would be sure to do? She
remembered the time seven years ago in the Philippines when Anacleto first came to her
household. What a sad, strange little creature he had been! He was so tormented by the
other houseboys that he dogged her footsteps all day long. If anyone so much as looked at
him he would burst into tears and wring his hands. He was seventeen years old, but his
sickly, clever, frightened face had the innocent expression of a child of ten. When they
were making preparations to return to the States, he had begged her to take him with her,
and she had done so. The two of them, she and Anacleto, could perhaps find a way to get
along in the world together but what would he do when she was gone?

'Anacleto, are you happy?' she asked him suddenly.

The little Filipino was not one to be disturbed by any unexpected, intimate question.
'Why, certainly,' he said, without a moment's consideration. 'When you are well.'

The sun and firelight were bright in the room. There was a dancing spectrum on one of the
walls and she watched this, half listening to Anacleto's soft conversation. 'What I find
it so difficult to realize is that they know,' he was saying. Often he would begin a
discussion with such a vague and mysterious remark, and she waited to catch the drift of
it later. 'It was not until after I had been in your service for a long time that I really
believed that you knew. Now I can believe it about everybody else except Mr. Sergei
Rachmaninoff.'

She turned her face toward him. 'What are you talking about?'

'Madame Alison,' he said, 'do you yourself really believe that Mr. Sergei Rachmaninoff
knows that a chair is something to be sat on and that a clock shows one the time? And if I
should take off my shoe and hold it up to his face and say, “What is this, Mr. Sergei
Rachmaninoff?” then he would answer, like anyone else, “Why, Anacleto, that is a shoe.” I
myself find it hard to realize.'

The Rachmaninoff recital had been the last concert they had heard, and consequently from
Anacleto's point of view it was the best. She herself did not care for crowded concert
halls and would have preferred to spend the money on phonograph records but it was good
to get away from the post occasionally, and these trips were the joy of Anacleto's life.
For one thing they stayed the night in a hotel, which was an enormous delight to him.

'Do you think if I beat your pillows you would be more comfortable?' Anacleto asked.

And the dinner the night of that last concert! Anacleto sailed proudly after her into the
hotel dining room wearing his orange velvet jacket When it was his turn to order, he held
the menu up to his face and then completely closed his eyes. To the astonishment of the
colored waiter he ordered in French. And although she had wanted to burst out laughing,
she controlled herself and translated after him with the best gravity she could assume
as though she were a sort of duenna or lady in waiting to him. Because of his limited
French this dinner of his was rather peculiar. He had got it out of the lesson in his book
called 'Le Jardin Potager,' and his order consisted only of cabbage, string beans, and
carrots. So when on her own she had added an order of chicken for him, Anacleto had opened
his eyes just long enough to give her a deep, grateful little look. The white coated
waiters clustered about this phenomenon like flies, and Anacleto was much too exalted to
touch a crumb.