After dinner we sat down in the living room with coffee and brandy. Addie excused herself from the room, and when she came back she was carrying—
TC: Two guesses?
JAKE: She handed it to me, and said: “This is what I wanted to discuss with you.”
(Jake’s thin lips manufactured a smoke ring, then another. Until he sighed, the only sound in the room was the meowing wind clawing at the window.)
You’ve had a long trip. Maybe we ought to call it a night.
TC: You mean you’re going to leave me hanging out here?
JAKE (seriously, but with one of his mischievously ambiguous grins): Just until tomorrow. I think you should hear Addie’s story from Addie herself. Come along; I’ll walk you to your room.
(Oddly, sleep struck me as though I’d been hit by a thief’s blackjack: it had been a long journey, my sinus was troubling me, I was tired. But within minutes I was awake; or, rather. I entered some sphere between sleep and wakefulness, my mind like a crystal lozenge, a suspended instrument that caught the reflections of spiraling images: a man’s head among leaves, the windows of a car streaked with venom, the eyes of serpents sliding through heat-mist, fire flowing from the earth, scorched fists pounding at a cellar door, taut wire gleaming in the twilight, a torso on a roadway, a head among leaves, fire, fire, fire flowing like a river, river, river. Then a telephone rings.)
MAN’S VOICE: How about it? Are you going to sleep all day?
TC (the curtains are drawn, the room is dark, I don’t know where I am, who I am): Hello?
MAN’S VOICE: Jake Pepper speaking. Remember him? Mean guy? With mean blue eyes?
TC: Jake! What time is it?
JAKE: A little after eleven. Addie Mason’s expecting us in about an hour. So jump under the shower. And wear something warm. It’s snowing outside.
(It was a heavy snow, thick flakes too heavy to float; it fell to the ground and covered it. As we drove away from the motel in Jake’s car, he turned on his windshield wipers. Main Street was grey and white and empty, lifeless except for a solitary traffic light winking its colors. Everything was closed, even the Okay Café. The somberness, the gloomy snow-silence, infected us: neither of us spoke. But I sensed that Jake was in a good mood, as though he was anticipating pleasant events.
His healthy face was shiny, and he smelled, a bit too sharply, of after-shave lotion. Though his hair was rumpled as ever, he was carefully dressed—but not as though he was headed for church. The red tie he wore was appropriate for a more festive occasion. A suitor en route to a rendezvous? The possibility had occurred to me last night when I’d heard him talking to Miss Mason; there was a tone, a timbre, an intimacy.
But the instant I met Adelaide Mason, I crossed the thought right out of my mind. It didn’t matter how bored and lonely Jake might be, the woman was simply too plain. That, at least, was my initial impression. She was somewhat younger than her sister, Marylee Connor, who was a woman in her late forties: her face was a nice face, amiable, but too strong, masculine—cosmetics would only have underlined this quality, and very wisely she wore none. Cleanliness was her most attractive physical feature—her brown bobbed hair, her fingernails, her skin; it was as though she bathed in some special spring rain.
She and her sister were fourth-generation natives of the town, and she had been teaching school there since she left college; one wondered why—with her intelligence, her character and general sophistication, it was surprising that she hadn’t sought a vaster auditorium for her abilities than a schoolroom full of six-year-olds. “No,” she told me, “I’m very happy. I’m doing what I enjoy. Teaching first grade. To be there at the beginning, that’s what I like. And with first-graders, you see, I get to teach all subjects. That includes manners. Manners are very important. So few of my children ever learn any at home.”
The rambling old house that the sisters shared, a family inheritance, reflected, in its warm soothing comfort, its civilized solid colors and atmospheric “touches,” the personality of the younger woman, for Mrs. Connor, agreeable as she was, lacked Adelaide Mason’s selective eye, imagination.
The living room, mostly blue and white, was filled with flowering plants, and contained an immense Victorian birdcage, the residence of a half-dozen musical canaries. The dining room was yellow and white and green, with pine-plank floors, bare and polished mirror-bright; logs blazed in a big fireplace. Miss Mason’s culinary gifts were even greater than Jake had claimed. She served an extraordinary Irish stew, an amazing apple and raisin pie; and there was red wine, white wine, champagne. Mrs. Connor’s husband had left her well-off.
It was during dinner that my original impression of our younger hostess began to change. Yes, very definitely an understanding existed between Jake and this lady. They were lovers. And watching her more attentively, seeing her, as it were, through Jake’s eyes, I began to appreciate his unmistakable sensual interest. True, her face was flawed, but her figure, displayed in a close-fitting grey jersey dress, was adequate, not bad really; and she acted as though it was sensational: a rival to the sexiest film star imaginable.
The sway of her hips, the loose movements of her fruity breasts, her contralto voice, the fragility of her hand-gestures: all ultra seductive, ultra feminine without being effeminate. Her power resided in her attitude: she behaved as though she believed she was irresistible; and whatever her opportunities may have been, the style of the woman implied an erotic history complete with footnotes.
As dinner ended, Jake looked at her as if he’d like to march her straight into the bedroom: the tension between them was as taut as the steel wire that had severed Clem Anderson’s head. However, he unwrapped a cigar, which Miss Mason proceeded to light for him. I laughed.)
JAKE: Eh?
TC: It’s like an Edith Wharton novel. The House of Mirth—where ladies are forever lighting gentlemen’s cigars.
MRS. CONNOR (defensively): That’s quite the custom here. My mother always lighted our father’s cigars. Even though she disliked the aroma. Isn’t that so, Addie?
ADDIE: Yes, Marylee. Jake, would you like more coffee?
JAKE: Sit still, Addie. I don’t want anything. It was a wonderful dinner, and it’s time for you to quiet down. Addie? How do you feel about the aroma?
ADDIE (almost blushing): I’m very partial to the smell of a good cigar. If I smoked, I’d smoke cigars myself.
JAKE: Addie, let’s go back to last Thanksgiving. When we were sitting around like we are now.
ADDIE: And I showed you the coffin?
JAKE: I want you to tell my friend your story. Just as you told it to me.
MRS. CONNOR (pushing back her chair): Oh, please! Must we talk about that? Always! Always! I have nightmares.
ADDIE (rising, placing an arm around her sister’s shoulder): That’s all right, Marylee. We won’t talk about it. We’ll move to the living room, and you can play the piano for us.
MRS. CONNOR: It’s so vile. (Then, looking at me) I’m sure you think I’m a dreadful sissy. No doubt I am. In any event, I’ve had too much wine.
ADDIE: Darling, what you need is a nap.
MRS. CONNOR: A nap? Addie, how many times have I told you? I have nightmares. (Now, recovering) Of course. A nap. If you’ll excuse me.
(As her sister departed, Addie poured herself a glass of red wine, lifted it, letting the glow from the fireplace enhance its scarlet sparkle. Her eyes drifted from the fire to the wine to me. Her eyes were brown, but the various illuminations—firelight, candles on the table—colored them, made them cat-yellow. In the distance the caged canaries sang, and snow, fluttering at the windows like torn lace curtains, emphasized the comforts of the room, the warmth of the fire, the redness of the wine.)
ADDIE: My story. Ho-hum.
I’m forty-four, I’ve never married, I’ve been around the world twice, I try to go to Europe every other summer; but it’s fair to say that except for a drunken sailor who went berserk and tried to rape me on a Swedish tramp steamer, nothing of a bizarre nature has ever happened to me until this year—the week before Thanksgiving.
My sister and I have a box at the post office; what they call a “drawer”—it’s not that we have such a lot of correspondence, but we subscribe to so many magazines. Anyway, on my way home from school I stopped to pick up the mail, and in our drawer there was a package, rather large but very light. It was wrapped in old wrinkled brown paper that looked as if it had been used before, and it was tied with old twine. The postmark was local and it was addressed to me. My name was precisely printed in thick black ink. Even before I opened it I thought: What kind of rubbish is this? Of course, you know all about the coffins?
TC: I’ve seen one, yes.
ADDIE: Well, I knew nothing about them. No one did. That was a secret between Jake and his agents.
(She winked at Jake, and tilting her head back, swallowed all her wine in one swoop; she did this with astonishing grace, an agility that revealed a lovely throat. Jake, winking back, directed a smoke ring toward her, and the empty oval, floating through the air, seemed to carry with
