Mosquitoes

  “Look around and see if Eva’s got some somewhere.” The niece raised her head. “Go on: look in her things, she won’t mind.”

  Jenny hunted for cigarettes in a soft blond futility. “Pete’s got some,” she remarked after a time. “He bought twenty packages just before we left town, to bring on the boat.”

  “Twenty packages? Good Lord, where’d he think we were going? He must have been scared of shipwreck or something.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Gabriel’s pants,” the niece said. “That’s all he brought, was it? Just cigarettes? What did you bring?”

  “I brought a comb” —Jenny dragged her little soiled dress over her head; her voice was muffled—“and some rouge.” She shook out her drowsy gold hair and let the dress fall to the floor. “Pete’s got some, though,” she repeated, thrusting the dress beneath the dressing table with her foot.

  “I know,” the niece rejoined, “and so has Mr. Fairchild. And so has the steward, if Mark Frost hasn’t borrowed ’em all. And I saw the captain smoking one, too. But that’s not doing me any good.”

  “No,” agreed Jenny placidly. Her undergarment was quite pink, enveloping her from shoulder to knee with ribbons and furbelows. She loosened a few of these and stepped sweetly and rosily out of it, casting it also under the table.

  “You aren’t going to leave ’em there, are you?” the niece asked. “Why don’t you put ’em on the chair?”

  “Mrs.—Mrs. Wiseman puts hers on the chair.”

  “Well, you got here first: why don’t you take it? Or hang ’em on those hooks behind the door?”

  “Hooks?” Jenny looked at the door. “Oh. . . . They’ll be all right there, I guess.” She stripped off her stockings and laid them on the dressing table. Then she turned to the mirror again and picked up her comb. The comb passed through her fair, soft hair with a faint sound, as of silk, and her hair lent to Jenny’s divine body a halo like an angel’s. The remote Victrola, measured feet, a lapping of water, came into the room.

  “You’ve got a funny figure,” the niece remarked after a while, calmly, watching her.

  “Funny?” repeated Jenny, looking up with soft belligerence. “It’s no funnier than yours. At least my legs don’t look like birds’ legs.”

  “Neither do mine,” the other replied with complacence, flat on her back. “Your legs are all right. I mean, you are kind of thick through the middle for your legs; kind of big behind for them.”

  “Well, why not? I didn’t make it like that, did I?”

  “Oh, sure. I guess it’s all right if you like it to be that way.”

  Without apparent effort Jenny dislocated her hip and stared downward over her shoulder. Then she turned sideways and accepted the mute proffering of the mirror. Reassured, she said, “Sure, it’s all right. I expect to be bigger than that, in front, some day.”

  “So do I—when I have to. But what do you want one for?”

  “Lord,” said Jenny, “I guess I’ll have a whole litter of ’em. Besides, I think they’re kind of cute, don’t you?”

  The sound of the Victrola came down, melodious and nasal, and measured feet marked away the lapping of waves. The light was small and inadequate, sunk into the ceiling, and Jenny and the niece agreed that they were kind of cute and pink. Jenny was quite palpably on the point of coming to bed and the other said:

  “Don’t you wear any nightclothes?”

  “I can’t wear that thing Mrs. What’s-her-name lent me,” Jenny replied. “You said you were going to lend me something, only you didn’t. If I’d depended on you on this trip, I guess I’d be back yonder about ten miles, trying to swim home.”

  “That’s right. But it doesn’t make any difference what you sleep in, does it? . . . Turn off the light.” Light followed Jenny rosily as she crossed the room, it slid rosily upon her as she turned obediently toward the switch beside the door. The niece lay flat on her back gazing at the unshaded globe. Jenny’s angelic nakedness went beyond her vision and suddenly she stared at nothing with a vague orifice vaguely in the center of it, and beyond the orifice a pale moonfilled sky.

  Jenny’s bare feet hissed just a little on the uncarpeted floor and she came breathing softly in the dark, and her hand came out of the dark. The niece moved over against the wall. The round orifice in the center of the dark was obscured, then it reappeared, and breathing with a soft blond intentness Jenny climbed gingerly into the berth. But she bumped her head anyway, lightly, and she exclaimed “ow” with placid surprise. The bunk heaved monstrously, creaking; the porthole vanished again, then the berth became still and Jenny sighed with a soft explosive sound.

  Then she changed her position again and the other said: “Be still, can’t you?” thrusting at Jenny’s boneless, naked abandon with her elbow.

  “I’m not fixed yet,” Jenny replied without rancor.

  “Well, get in then, and quit flopping around.”

  Jenny became lax. “I’m fixed now,” she said at last. She sighed again, a frank yawning sound.

  Those slightly dulled feet thudthudded monotonously overhead. Outside, in the pale darkness, water lapped at the hull of the yacht. The close cabin emptied slowly of heat; heat ebbed steadily away now that the light was off, and in it was no sound save that of their breathing. No other sound at all.

  “I hope that was the last one, the one I killed,” Jenny murmured.

  “God, yes,” the niece agreed. “This party is wearing enough with just people on it. . . . Say, how’d you like to be on a party with a boatful of Mr. Talliaferros?”

  “Which one is he?”

  “Why, don’t you remember him? You sure ought to. He’s that funny-talking little man that puts his hands on you—that dreadful polite one. I don’t see how you could forget a man as polite as him.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Jenny, remembering, and the other said:

  “Say, Jenny, how about Pete?”

  Jenny became utterly still for a moment. Then she said innocently, “What about him?”

  “He’s mad at you about Mr. Talliaferro, isn’t he?”

  “Pete’s all right, I guess.”

  “You keep yourself all cluttered up with men, don’t you?” the other asked curiously.

  “Well, you got to do something,” Jenny defended herself.

  “Bunk,” the niece said roughly, “bunk. You like petting. That’s the reason. Don’t you?”

  “Well, I don’t mind,” Jenny answered. “I’ve kind of got used to it,” she explained. The niece expelled her breath in a thin snorting sound and Jenny repeated, “You’ve got to do something, haven’t you?”

  “Oh, sweet attar of bunk,” the niece said. In the darkness she made a gesture of disgust. “You women! That’s the way Dorothy Jameson thinks about it too, I bet. You better look out: I think she’s trying to take Peter away from you.”

  “Oh, Pete’s all right,” Jenny repeated placidly. She lay perfectly still again. The water was a cool dim sound. Jenny spoke, suddenly confidential.

  “Say, you know what she wants Pete to do?”

  “No. What?” asked the niece quickly.

  “Well—Say, what kind of girl is she? Do you know her very good?”

  “What does she want Pete to do?” the other insisted.

  Jenny was silent. Then she blurted in prim disapproval, “She wants Pete to let her paint him.”

  “Yes? And then what?”

  “That’s it. She wants Pete to let her paint him in a picture.”

  “Well, that’s the way she usually goes about getting men, I guess. What’s wrong with it?”

  “Well, it’s the wrong way to go about getting Pete. Pete’s not used to that,” Jenny replied in that prim tone.

  “I don’t blame him for not wanting to waste his time that way. But what makes
you and Pete so surprised at the idea of it? Pete won’t catch lead poisoning just from having his portrait painted.”

  “Well, it may be all right for folks like you all. But Pete says he wouldn’t let any strange woman see him without any clothes on. He’s not used to things like that.”

  “Oh,” remarked the niece. Then: “So that’s the way she wants to paint him, is it?”

  “Why, that’s the way they always do it, ain’t it? In the nude?” Jenny pronounced it nood.

  “Good Lord, didn’t you ever see a picture of anybody with clothes on? Where’d you get that idea from? From the movies?”

  Jenny didn’t reply. Then she said suddenly, “Besides, the ones with clothes on are all old ladies, or mayors or something. Anyway, I thought—”

  “Thought what?”

  “Nothing,” Jenny answered, and the other said:

  “Pete can get that idea right out of his head. Chances are she wants to paint him all regular and respectable, not to shock his modesty at all. I’ll tell him so, tomorrow.”

  “Never mind,” Jenny said quickly, “I’ll tell him. You needn’t to bother about it.”

  “All right. Whatever you like. . . . Wish I had a cigarette.” They lay quiet for a time. Outside water whispered against the hull. The Victrola was hushed temporarily and the dancers had ceased. Jenny moved again, onto her side, facing the other in the darkness.

  “Say,” she asked, “what’s your brother making?”

  “Gus? Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

  “I did, only—”

  “What?”

  “Only he didn’t tell me. At least, I don’t remember.”

  “What did he say when you asked him?”

  Jenny mused briefly. “He kissed me. Before I knew it, and he kind of patted me back here and told me to call again later, because he was in conference or something like that.”

  “Gabriel’s pants,” the niece murmured. Then she said sharply, “Look here, you leave Josh alone, you hear? Haven’t you got enough with Pete and Mr. Talliaferro, without fooling with children?”

  “I’m not going to fool with any children.”

  “Well, please don’t. Let Josh alone, anyway.” She moved her arm, arching her elbow against Jenny’s soft nakedness. “Move over some. Gee, woman, you sure do feel indecent. Get over on your side a little, can’t you?”

  Jenny moved away, rolling onto her back again, and they lay quiet, side by side in the dark. “Say,” remarked Jenny presently, “Mr.—that polite man—” “Talliaferro,” the other prompted. “—Talliaferro. I wonder if he’s got a car?”

  “I don’t know. You better ask him. What do you keep on .asking me what people are making or what they’ve got, for?”

  “Taxicabbers are best, I think,” Jenny continued, unruffled. “Sometimes when they have cars they don’t have anything else. They just take you riding.”

  “I don’t know,” the niece repeated. “Say,” she said suddenly, “what was that you said to him this afternoon?”

  Jenny said, “Oh.” She breathed placidly and regularly for a while. Then she remarked, “I thought you were there, around that corner.”

  “Yes. What was it? Say it again.” Jenny said it again. The niece repeated it after her. “What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know. I just happened to remember it. I don’t know what it means.”

  “It sounds good,” the other said. “You didn’t think it up yourself, did you?”

  “No. It was a fellow told it to me. There was two couples of us at the Market one night, getting coffee: me and Pete and a girlfriend of mine and another fellow. We had been to Mandeville on the boat that day, swimming and dancing. Say, there was a man drownded at Mandeville that day. Pete and Thelma, my girlfriend, and Roy, this girlfriend of mine’s fellow, saw it. I didn’t see it because I wasn’t with them. I didn’t go in bathing with them: it was too sunny. I don’t think blondes ought to expose themselves to hot sun like brunettes, do you?”

  “Why not? But what about—”

  “Oh, yes. Anyway, I didn’t go in swimming where the man got drownded. I was waiting for them, and I got to talking to a funny man. A little kind of black man—”

  “A nigger?”

  “No. He was a white man, except he was awful sunburned and kind of shabby dressed—no necktie and hat. Say, he said some funny things to me. He said I had the best digestion he ever saw, and he said if the straps of my dress was to break I’d devastate the country. He said he was a liar by profession, and he made good money at it, enough to own a Ford as soon as he got it paid out. I think he was crazy. Not dangerous: just crazy.”

  The niece lay quiet. She said, contemplatively, “You do look like they feed you on bread and milk and put you to bed at sun-set every day. . . . What was his name? Did he tell you?” she asked suddenly.

  “Yes. It was—” Jenny pondered a while. “I remembered it because he was such a funny kind of man. It was . . . Walker or Foster or something.”

  “Walker or Foster? Well, which one was it?”

  “It must be Foster because I remembered it by it began with a F like my girlfriend’s middle name—Frances. Thelma Frances, only she don’t use both of them. Only I don’t think it was Foster, because—”

  “You don’t remember it, then.”

  “Yes, I do. Wait. . . . Oh, yes: I remember—Faulkner, that was it.”

  “Faulkner?” the niece pondered in turn. “Never heard of him,” she said at last, with finality. “And he was the one that told you that thing?”

  “No. It was after that, when we had come back to N.O. That crazy man was on the boat coming back. He got to talking to Pete and Roy while me and Thelma was fixing up downstairs, and he danced with Thelma. He wouldn’t dance with me because he said he didn’t dance very well, and so he had to keep his mind on the music while he danced. He said he could dance with either Roy or Thelma or Pete, but he couldn’t dance with me. I think he was crazy. Don’t you?”

  “It all sounds crazy, the way you tell it. But what about the one that said that to you?”

  “Oh, yes. Well, we was at the Market. There was big crowd there because it was Sunday night, see, and these other fellows was there. One of them was a snappy-looking fellow, and I kind of looked at him. Pete had stopped in a place to get some cigarettes, and me and Thelma and Roy was crowded in with a lot of folks, having coffee. So I kind of looked at this goodlooking fellow.”

  “Yes. You kind of looked at him. Go on.”

  “All right. And so this good looking fellow crowded in behind me and started talking to me. There was a man in between me and Roy, and this fellow that was talking to me said, Is he with you? talking about the man sitting next to me, and I said, No, I didn’t know who he was. And this fellow said, How about coming out with him because he had his car parked outside . . . Pete’s brother has a lot of cars. One of them is the same as Pete’s . . . And then . . . Oh, yes, and I said, where will we go, because my old man didn’t like for me to go out with strangers, and the fellow said he wasn’t a stranger, that anybody could tell me who some name was, I forgot what it was he said his name was. And I said he better ask Pete if I could go, and he said, Who was Pete? Well, the,e was a big man standing near where we was. He was big as a stevedore, and just then this big man happened to look at me again. He looked at me a minute, and I kind of knew that he’d look at me again pretty soon, so I told this fellow talking to me that he was Pete, and when the big man looked somewheres else a minute this fellow said that to me. And then the big man looked at me again, and the fellow that said that to me kind of went away. So I got up and went to where Thelma and Roy was, and pretty soon Pete came back. And that’s how I learned it.”

  “Well, it sure sounds good. I wonder—Say, let me say it sometimes, will you?”

  “All rig
ht,” Jenny agreed. “You can have it. Say, what’s that you keep telling your aunt? something about pulling up the sheet or something?” The niece told her. “That sounds good, too,” Jenny said magnanimously.

  “Does it? I tell you what: You let me use yours sometime, and you can take mine. How about it?”

  “All right,” Jenny agreed again, “it’s a trade.”

  Water lapped and whispered ceaselessly in the pale darkness. The curve of the low ceiling directly over the berth lent a faint sense of oppression to the cabin, but this sense of oppression faded out into the comparatively greater spaciousness of the room, of the darkness with a round orifice vaguely in the center of it. The moon was higher and the lower curve of the brass rim of the port was now a thin silver sickle, like a new moon.