Authors: James Jones
“It used to ease me,” Gwen smiled. “Of something. Of life. Or myself. I only come in the summer. I wouldn’t want to come in the winter. It would be horrible in winter.” They sat so long they had to almost run back to the car to get warm.
She took him to other private places of hers, too, but mostly they spent the evenings—and the days—hugging the huge roaring fire in the big, old fireplace and looking out at the never unfrozen weather, talking interminably of literature, and of life, and how you could never quite seem to pin it down to a reasonability that you could write about, and how the moment you thought you had it it was gone. They worked over his steadily accumulating manuscripts with dogged perseverance, or ate the strange peculiar delicious meals Gwen concocted. It was the worst cold spell for that time of year, everybody said, that Illinois had had in years.
He never spoke to her of sex, at least, not at first. He was content just to be with her and to see that ever-increasing light of personal, explicit love, that shone out of her face and was directed at him—at David Herschmidt.
It was just about this time—the middle of December—that the news came from Gwen’s female editor friend at New Living Literature in New York that NLL (as the lady always referred to it in her letters) was accepting Dave’s story “The Confederate” for publication—both in her own anthology of “novellas” and in the NLL biannual collection of current writing. There was a check for $500 from the NLL biannual collection, and one for $250 from the “novella” anthology.
And so it was that the first time sex did rear its ugly head, it was a mistake—a mistake due to an excess of triumphant exuberance and of warm grateful love. When he left that evening, Dave took the money and deposited it in the savings account where he had been keeping the monthly checks from his share of the taxi service—but not before he had made his exulting proposition to Gwen of what he thought they ought to do with the money; and been refused.
The letter from Gwen’s friend was not an especially long one, and most of it was taken up with technical details. The NLL biannual collection would be out some time in February; the anthology of “novellas” would not be brought out until some time next summer. Consequently, they might expect the page proofs for the NLL biannual collection to arrive sometime soon. She hoped they would, the lady editor friend went on to say, go through these and return immediately upon arrival, as this would not leave too much time for the printers to make changes or corrections. The friend went on to say, in part, that
“we believe David Herschmidt possesses a considerable and provocative, if rather macabre, talent which shows fine promise. It might even be that someday David Herschmidt will develop into a writer of real stature. In spite of a number of technical flaws, the story shows an unusual grasp of social and character formulae. And we are pleased to be able to publish this story of his which shows such penetrating, if rather bizarre, insight.”
“What the hell does all that gibberish mean?” Dave said irritably.
“It means,” Bob smiled, “that she thinks you are a good writer—but does not at all grasp what you are about, and so takes refuge in techniques. And so she probably also resents you. But not enough to keep from wanting to publish anything else you might write. Which is the nicest compliment any writer ever gets from a New York literary person.”
Bob had been much in evidence—during those times they spent at the house—and yet never did he seem to be obtrusive. He ate with them, and talked with them, and drank with Dave, and yet he always seemed to be absent at those closer, warmer times when it was better for him not to be there. That was the way it was this time. He was there when the letter was opened in anxiety and read with exultation, and moments later—in the flush of victory—he was gone.
So they two were alone, that peculiar lovers’ light on their faces. They were sitting at the big table in the kitchen, the fire in the fireplace blazing, the letter lying there between them on the table. It was then that Dave made his elated proposition.
“Look!” he said, waving the two checks under Gwen’s nose happily. “Seven hundred and fifty bucks. Let’s you and me take this money and make us a trip somewhere. To Indianapolis. Or Chicago. Or maybe New Orleans. We’ll blow the whole thing and have ourselves a real wonderful time.”
Gwen was smiling at him and did not answer.
“Well, come on!” he said. “What do you say?”
“It’s wonderful of you to ask me,” Gwen said. “But I couldn’t possibly go, Dave. It just isn’t possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because, for one thing, I can’t leave my classes. I couldn’t possibly just take off from school in midterm and go off someplace.”
“Yes, but Christmas vacation will start in a week or so. We can go then.”
Gwen shook her head slowly, still smiling at him with a sad, sweet, intensely bright lovers’ light shining from her eyes. “I couldn’t leave Bob like that, just to fend for himself? Especially over the holidays.”
“Oh, hell! Of course you could. He wouldn’t care. Besides he can take care of himself probly better than you can.”
Again she shook her head. “I just couldn’t do it.”
“Don’t you
want
to go?” Dave said. “Is that it?”
“I— I’d love to go,” she said smiling sadly.
“Well, don’t look so miserable about it,” he grinned. “All right then, let me ask Bob. If he says it’s all right with him, then will you go?”
“No!” Gwen said, her smile changing to a straightened mouth. “No, you mustn’t say anything to Bob. You must promise me you won’t.”
“Okay, I promise.” And once again she was smiling. “But he must know all about us, Gwen. About how we feel. He couldn’t sit around and watch us looking at each other, a man of his sensitivity, without knowing.”
“If you asked him, he would say he didn’t care, even if he did. No, Dave, I couldn’t leave him alone. Besides,” she added, “what is there for him to know?”
“What is there for him to know!” Dave said. “Gwen, you love me. You know you do. It sticks out all over your face, just like it sticks out all over mine that I love you. Even a blind man could see it.”
Gwen lowered her eyes. After a second, she reached out for the letter between them.
“You do love me,” Dave insisted. “Don’t you?”
She looked up for a moment then dropped her lashes back down again. “Yes— I love you,” she said with such a shy, helpless, almost frightened look of self-exposure on her face that it brought Dave’s heart leaping up into his throat with both sympathy and triumph.
“Why?” he demanded, wanting to hear all the fine things she saw in him that made her love him.
She looked up at him again, straightly, with no shiftiness. “I guess,” she said; “I suppose because you’ve had such a miserable unhappy time of it in your life. And because you’re such a horrible goddamned
fool.”
She toyed with the corner of the letter nervously.
“Well,” Dave said, feeling his smile of encouragement stiffening a little. “Well—”
“I suppose that’s why all women love all men,” Gwen said, “don’t you? Because they’re such idiotic fools they need taking care of.”
“I’m not lookin no gift horses in the mouth,” Dave said. “I love you because you’re all the things I’d like to be, but am not: good, kind, honest, sensitive, self-sacrificing. Look; let’s go away for just two or three days, and be
back
for Christmas. We could have a wonderful time in Chicago on this,” he said, waving the checks.
“Oh, you really are a fool!” she said.
“But why? School gets out next week. You’ll have over a week till Christmas. We could be back in plenty of time.”
“I don’t want to! You don’t understand! I can’t!” Gwen cried. She put her face in her hands but then immediately took them away again. “I have to stay with Dad,” she said.
“Do you hate sex?” Dave said suddenly.
“I— I don’t know,” she said. Then she amended herself. “No. No, I don’t hate it. But I don’t like it. Sex destroys love; look around you and see if it doesn’t,” she said suddenly, a light beginning to grow in her eyes, a light of love, and something else: curious hopefulness.
“Listen,” she said, almost as if mentally grasping at something. “
‘It is Anguish. I long conceal from you to let you leave me, hungry, but you ask the divine Crust and that would doom the Bread . . .’”
It sounded like some quote from something. “‘. . .
I was reading a little Book—because it broke my heart I want it to break yours. Will you think that fair? I often have read it, but not before since loving you. I find that makes a difference—it makes a difference with all. . . . The withdrawal of the Fuel of Rapture does not withdraw the Rapture itself.’”
If it was a quote, she must have read it many times, because she did not hesitate over a single word.
“No,” she said, her eyes almost luminous with that light of love and curious hopefulness. “It does not withdraw the Rapture; it enhances it. Don’t you see? Let’s keep what we have. Let’s not destroy it. Sex kills love.”
“What kind of silly damned books have you been reading?” Dave said.
“Oh, but it’s true! Sex does kill love. Millay said it:
‘Let me lie down lean, with my thirst and my hunger.’
And I love you too much to kill our love.” And then, as if she had just remembered something, some of the passion went out of her voice, and she said: “Because you see, I know. I’ve had the sex. More than enough of it. And always, always, it destroys the love.”
“That’s an awful lot to ask of a man,” Dave said.
“Oh, you
are
a fool!” Gwen said. “Well; is it too much?” she said, her face lighting up again with such a warm, luminous love for him that in his own emotion Dave felt that
nothing
would be too much.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know. No, no. No, it’s
not
too much.”
“Look at us,” Gwen said. “We’re both nearly forty. It’s too late for either of us to remold ourselves now. You’re a gambler. I’m a schoolteacher. What could we make of that together? Nothing! The only thing that draws us together at all is our mutual concern for writing. And our love,” she said softly. “We couldn’t make a life of that. But oh!” she said ecstatically, “oh, what a wonderful life we could have together the other way, without complicating it all with sex. The things we could do! The fun and joy we could have!” She peered at him bright-eyed, love for him filling her eyes and face.
“Yeh,” Dave said heavily. “Yes.”
“You take your money home with you, my darling,” Gwen smiled. “Put it in the bank. Or spend it on yourself. And it will be just as if we’d had our trip to Chicago anyway.
“Don’t forget you’re invited over for Christmas now,” she smiled at him as he left. “Just in case you get any wild ideas in your head.” And—although he did not know it, of course—after he was gone she went and put her head down on the table and wept. They were all such fools, all of them. Didn’t they ever see anything? Why couldn’t they be forceful? Why couldn’t they be positive?
Dave brooded over his new problem for several days. He did not stop going over to see her, and he did not say anything further to her about it. But it was something entirely new in his experience. Here was a woman who loved him, deeply; he had even gotten her to admit it, to say the point-blank phrase “I love you;” and still he could not get her to sleep with him. It wasn’t even a matter of personal pride and triumph anymore, like it had been at first. He himself was as much in love with her now as she was with him, and he desired her, physically, mentally, spiritually, as every lover desires his beloved. Hell, was that wrong? Sometimes he hungered for her so much it was just plain unbearable, almost. He had never believed such brain-shaking powerful emotions lurked below the surface of himself. Finally, he went to Bob about it.
There were only two or three days left until Christmas vacation at the college and after that she would be home all the time herself, so he had to go before then. He drove over early one afternoon before school was out and accosted Bob out in his heated workshop. Since the topic was Bob’s own daughter and her love and desire for him as well as his desire and love for her, about which he could not very well be explicit, he had to adopt a sort of general philosophical approach and the whole conversation wound up as an abstract discussion of life and writing, and incidentally of love and desire. It might have been laughable, if he had not been in such deadly earnest.
Bob, who was always quick to sense those things that were below the surface, indicated a tall stool and sat down on another one himself, and this was where they sat, and talked, surrounded by sawdust and workbenches and Bob’s power tools.
“I just thought I’d come over and talk awhile,” Dave said. “I’ve got a problem—a technical one—I can’t solve.”
“Yes?” Bob said with that curiously youthful life-eagerness. “Well, perhaps I might be of some help to you. What is it?”
“Well, for one thing, you always seem so happy,” Dave said. “Nothing ever seems to bother you. Why is that?”
“Ah! but you only think that,” Bob smiled. “Things do bother me. In fact, I might say everything bothers me. After all, that’s my profession, you know.”
“Sure, but in spite of that you have some quality of—of, I don’t know—of serenity, or something, that I don’t have. In any given situation, you seem to have the ability to accept it. I can’t do that.”
Bob smiled sadly. “I’m afraid you are romanticizing me. You mustn’t do that. You’ve seen me drunk here, when things seemed so bad I couldn’t stand them any other way.”
“I know that,” Dave said. “But still, that other thing is there, too; and you know it as well as I do. What is it?”
Bob shrugged. “The advancement of age, I expect. When you get so old, you can accept many things you could not before.”
“No; not true. I know lots of older people who aren’t that way. In fact, that’s just what I mean. Look at me: I’m thirty-seven; and already I’m brooding about when I will die, cease to exist. But that doesn’t ever seem to worry you, at over seventy.”
“Well,” Bob smiled, “a discussion of that would take a long time and cover many things, all of my life and everything I’ve read, in fact—and there is no assurance that it would help you anyway. Surely, that doesn’t have anything to do with the technical problem you mentioned?