Happy New Year, Herbie and other stories
- Автор: Хантер Эван
- Год: 1963
- Язык: английский
- Год: Simon and Schuster
- Жанр: Современная русская и зарубежная проза
Электронная книга - «Happy New Year, Herbie and other stories». Краткое содержание книги:
“The one with me,” he said flatly.
“I suppose.”
“Do you really have to catch a train?”
“Yes.”
“What time?”
“Well...”
“I’d like to make love to you,” he said.
“Bobby, don’t...”
“I’d like to very much.”
“Please.”
“Have I insulted you?”
“No.”
“You always seemed insulted by the fact that I desired you. You should have been flattered.”
“I was.”
“I always felt as if I were violating you. I imagine that was part of your appeal.”
“And I always felt like something of a whore and, strange as it may sound, I think that was part of your appeal.” She laughed and sipped at her martini. “I suppose every woman has to feel like a whore at one time or another in her life.” She looked at the open mouth of the glass. “This really is quite strong.”
“You really are quite lovely,” he said seriously.
The conversation stopped. He looked at her, and she returned his solemn gaze. He smiled abruptly.
“So, what else is new?” he asked.
“Oh, you know,” she said, “little things.”
“Like what?”
“We bought a station wagon.”
“Oh. Have you learned to drive?”
“Yes.” She grinned. “It would make things easier now, wouldn’t it? Meeting you, I mean. My knowing how to drive.”
“Immeasurably,” he said, returning her grin. “Have another drink, won’t you?”
“No, no, I really can’t.”
“Are you afraid of me?” He tweaked an imaginary mustache.
“Yes,” she said.
“Really?” He seemed surprised. “What on earth for?”
“You hurt me. I can’t be hurt again. It took me a long time to get over the way you hurt me.”
“I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“I think you did want to. I sat by the phone after you’d hung up, and I tried to keep from crying, but I couldn’t. I—” She shook her head. “What difference does it make?”
“It was better that way,” he said. “If I’d seen you, I’d never have been able to end it.”
“Why did you suddenly feel compelled to end it?” she asked. “I thought we—”
“We were getting too involved. I was beginning to think of you too often.”
“I thought of you every minute, from the first day we met.”
“Well...”
“Every minute,” she repeated. “You were burned into my mind. I went around in a cloud, and the cloud was you, the things you said, the touch of your hands, the way you...” She hesitated. “I... I never stopped thinking of you. I was never alive except when I was with you. One night I... I put a loaf of bread into the garbage pail instead of the breadbox. Isn’t that silly? And he said, ‘What’s the matter with you?’ And I couldn’t answer him. I wanted to scream, ‘Bobby is the matter with me!’ ” She paused. “And now you tell me you were getting too involved. I was hopelessly involved the moment I laid eyes on you. I never stopped being involved.”
“Women love... differently from men,” he said lamely.
“Do they?” She studied his solemn face. “You killed me when you left, Bobby. I was utterly dead. It took me a long while to become alive again.”
“I was stupid, I suppose. It’s just... if I’d only met you ten years earlier. If—”
“If,” she said.
“I was stupid,” he said again. “I should never have let you get away from me.”
She looked at her watch. “I have a train to catch,” she said.
“Lois!” He caught her hand. She felt the electric warmth of his fingers, and suddenly she was trembling.
“Bobby, I... I must go. He expects me.”
“No,” he said. “Listen to me. I want you. I still want you.”
“No.” She shook her head. “Please, no, no...”
“I love you, Lois. I didn’t realize just how much until I saw you again.”
“Bobby...”
“Tell me the truth! Were you really alive again? Were you really alive until you saw me again this afternoon, until we met?”
“No,” she admitted. “I wasn’t. I wasn’t really alive.”
“I won’t let you get away this time. This time I’ll keep you forever.”
“Keep?” she asked. “Forever?” And the words together had a hollow, futile ring to them. She raised her eyes to meet his. He smiled tentatively.
“We’re together again, darling,” he said. “Don’t you see?”
“And where... where does it lead this time?”
“Does it have to lead some place?” he asked. “Hell, we’ll let it lead wherever it wants to. How’s that? Anywhere! Everywhere!”
She watched the excitement on his face, and she said nothing.
“I’ve got the car in town,” he said, beginning to plot already. “It’ll take me a minute to get it. You can call him at the office, can’t you? Tell him you’ve been delayed. I’ll have you home by seven, the latest. You can call him, can’t you?”
“You know I can call him,” she said.
“What’ll you tell him? The trains? They were always good. A delay in Penn Station. How’s that?”
She studied him across the table, studied the immature mouth, and the glowing eyes, and the eager forward tilt of his body, studied all the things she had loved, all the things she had carried inside her, buried deep in her memory since the night he’d called to end it. She studied him, and she realized of course that he’d been absolutely right, she hadn’t been alive again, not really alive again until this meeting with him this afternoon. And it seemed to her now that this meeting had been a necessary thing, a part of the plot they’d once shared, something without which she would never have known really complete happiness ever again.
She sighed heavily and pushed back her chair, lifting her purse from the table.
“There’s a phone at the end of the bar,” he said, smiling.
“I saw it when we came in,” she answered.
“Hurry,” he said, his smile widening.
“No,” she answered.
“What?”
“I have a train to catch, Bobby. Thank you for everything.”
“What? But... but you admitted... you admitted you were alive again. You said—”
“I am,” she answered, and then, seeing his puzzlement, she touched his face gently and said, “Bobby, Bobby. Thank you, Bobby.”
She turned and left him at the table, and she heard the hollow click of her high heels as she walked out of the lounge and into the street.
The wind had grown stronger.
It made her eyes tear, but only until she grew accustomed to it.
The Prisoner
They were telling the same tired jokes in the squadroom when Randolph came in with his prisoner.
Outside the grilled windows, October lay like a copper coin, and the sun struck only glancing blows at the pavement. The season had changed, but the jokes had not, and the climate inside the squadroom was one of stale cigarette smoke and male perspiration. For a tired moment, Randolph had the feeling that the room was suspended in time, unchanging, unmoving and that he would see the same faces and hear the same jokes until he was an old, old man.
He had led the girl up the precinct steps, past the hanging green globes, past the desk in the entrance corridor, nodding perfunctorily at the desk sergeant. He had walked beneath the white sign with its black-lettered DETECTIVE DIVISION and its pointing hand, and then had climbed the steps to the second floor of the building, never once looking back at the girl, knowing that in her terror and uncertainty she was following him. When he reached the slatted rail divider, which separated the corridor from the detective squadroom, he heard Burroughs telling his old joke, and perhaps it was the joke which caused him to turn harshly to the girl.