Strangers on a Train

  “Yeeee-hooo!” yelled the redheaded fellow.

  “Yeeee-hooo!” Bruno yelled back. “I’m a Texan!”

  “Katie?” Miriam leaned forward on the giraffe’s neck, and her gray skirt got round and tight. “See that fellow over there in the check shirt?”

  Bruno looked. He saw the fellow in the checked shirt. He looked a little like Guy, Bruno thought, and thinking of this, he missed what Miriam said about him. Under the bright lights, he saw that Miriam was covered with freckles. She looked increasingly loathesome, so he began not to want to put his hands on her soft sticky-warm flesh. Well, he still had the knife. A clean instrument.

  “A clean instrument!” Bruno shouted jubilantly, for no one could possibly hear him. His was the outside horse, and next to him was a boxed double seat thing made out of swans, which was empty. He spat into it. He flung away the rest of the frankfurter and wiped the mustard off his fingers on the horse’s mane.

  “Casey would waltz with the strawberry blonde, while the band—played—aaaawn!” Miriam’s date sang out with vehemence.

  They all joined in and Bruno with them. The whole merry-go-round was singing. If they only had drinks! Everybody should be having a drink!

  “His brain was so loaded, it nearly exploded,” sang Bruno at the cracking top of his lungs, “the poor girl would shake with alaa-arm!”

  “Hi, Casey!” Miriam cooed to Dick, opening her mouth to catch the popcorn he was trying to throw into it.

  “Yak-yak!” Bruno shouted.

  Miriam looked ugly and stupid with her mouth open, as if she were being strangled and had turned pink and bloated. He could not bear to look at her, and still grinning, turned his eyes away. The merry-go-round was slowing. He hoped they would stay for another ride, but they got off, linked arms, and began to walk toward the twinkling lights on the water.

  Bruno paused under the trees for another little nip from the nearly empty flask.

  They were taking a rowboat. The prospect of a cool row was delightful to Bruno. He engaged a boat, too. The lake looked big and black, except for the lightless twinkles, full of drifting boats with couples necking in them. Bruno got close enough to Miriam’s boat to see that the redheaded fellow was doing the rowing, and that Miriam and Dick were squeezing each other and giggling in the back seat. Bruno bent for three deep strokes that carried him past their boat, then let his oars trail.

  “Want to go to the island or loaf around?” the redheaded fellow asked.

  Petulantly, Bruno slumped sideways on the seat, waiting for them to make up their minds. In the nooks along the shore, as if from little dark rooms, he heard murmurs, soft radios, laughter. He tipped his flask and drained it. What would happen if he shouted “Guy!”? What would Guy think if he could see him now? Maybe Guy and Miriam had been out on dates on this lake, maybe in the same rowboat he sat in now. His hands and the lower part of his legs tingled cozily with the liquor. If he had Miriam here in the boat with him, he would hold her head under the water with pleasure. Here in the dark. Pitch dark and no moon. The water made quick licking sounds against his boat. Bruno writhed in sudden impatience. There was the sucking sound of a kiss from Miriam’s boat, and Bruno gave it back to them with a pleasurable groan thrown in. Smack, smack! They must have heard him, because there was a burst of laughter.

  He waited until they had paddled past, then followed leisurely. A black mass drew closer, pricked here and there with the spark of a match. The island. It looked like a neckers’ paradise. Maybe Miriam would be at it again tonight, Bruno thought, giggling.

  When Miriam’s boat landed, he rowed a few yards to one side and climbed ashore, and set his boat’s nose up on a little log so it would be easy to recognize from the others. The sense of purpose filled him once more, stronger and more imminent than on the train. In Metcalf hardly two hours, and here he was on an island with her! He pressed the knife against him through his trousers. If he could just get her alone and clap his hand over her mouth—or would she be able to bite? He squirmed with disgust at the thought of her wet mouth on his hand.

  Slowly he followed their slow steps, up rough ground where the trees were close.

  “We cain’t sit here, the ground’s wet,” whined the girl called Katie.

  “Sit on mah coat if y’wanta,” a fellow said.

  Christ, Bruno thought, those dumb Southern accents!

  “When I’m walkin’ with m’honey down honeymoon lane . . . ,” somebody sang, off in the bushes.

  Night murmurs. Bugs. Crickets. And a mosquito at his ear. Bruno boxed his ear and the ear rang maddeningly, drowning out the voices.

  “. . . shove off.”

  “Why cain’t we find a place?” Miriam yapped.

  “Ain’t no place an’ watch whatcha step in!”

  “Watcha step-ins, gals!” laughed the redheaded fellow.

  What the hell were they going to do? He was bored! The music of the merry-go-round sounded tired and very distant, only the tings coming through. Then they turned around right in his face, so he had to move off to one side as if he were going somewhere. He got tangled in some thorny underbrush and occupied himself getting free of it while they passed him. Then he followed, downward. He thought he could smell Miriam’s perfume, if it wasn’t the other girl’s, a sweetness like a steamy bathroom that repelled him.

  “. . . and now,” said a radio, “coming in very cautiously . . . Leon . . . Leon lands a hard right to the Babe’s face andlistentothecrowd!” A roar.

  Bruno saw a fellow and a girl wallowing down there in the bushes as if they were fighting, too.

  Miriam stood on slightly higher ground, not three yards away from him now, and the others slid down the bank toward the water. Bruno inched closer. The lights on the water silhouetted her head and shoulders. Never had he been so close!

  “Hey!” Bruno whispered, and saw her turn. “Say, isn’t your name Miriam?”

  She faced him, but he knew she could barely see him. “Yeah. Who’re you?”

  He came a step nearer. “Haven’t I met you somewhere before?” he asked cynically, smelling the perfume again. She was a warm ugly black spot. He sprang with such concentrated aim, the wrists of his spread hands touched.

  “Say, what d’you—?”

  His hands captured her throat on the last word, stifling its abortive uplift of surprise. He shook her. His body seemed to harden like rock, and he heard his teeth crack. She made a grating sound in her throat, but he had her too tight for a scream. With a leg behind her, he wrenched her backward, and they fell to the ground together with no sound but of a brush of leaves. He sunk his fingers deeper, enduring the distasteful pressure of her body under his so her writhing would not get them both up. Her throat felt hotter and fatter. Stop, stop, stop! He willed it! And the head stopped turning. He was sure he had held her long enough, but he did not lessen his grip. Glancing behind him, he saw nothing coming. When he relaxed his fingers, it felt as if he had made deep dents in her throat as in a piece of dough. Then she made a sound like an ordinary cough that terrified him like the rising dead, and he fell on her again, hitched himself onto his knees to do it, pressing her with a force he thought would break his thumbs. All the power in him he poured out through his hands. And if it was not enough? He heard himself whimper. She was still and limp now.

  “Miriam?” called the girl’s voice.

  Bruno sprang up and stumbled straight away toward the center of the island, then turned left to bring him out near his boat. He found himself scrubbing something off his hands with his pocket handkerchief. Miriam’s spit. He threw the handkerchief down and swept it up again, because it was monogrammed. He was thinking! He felt great! It was done!

  “Mi-ri-am!” with lazy impatience.

  But what if he hadn’t finished her, if she were sitting up and talking now? The thought shot him forward and he almost toppled down the bank. A firm breeze met him at the water’s edge. He didn’t see his boat. He started to take any boat, changed his mind, then a couple
of yards farther to the left found it, perched on the little log.

  “Hey, she’s fainted!”

  Bruno shoved off, quickly, but not hurrying.

  “Help, somebody!” said the girl’s half gasp, half scream.

  “Gawd!—Huh-help!”

  The panic in the voice panicked Bruno. He rowed for several choppy strokes, then abruptly stopped and let the boat glide over the dark water. What was he getting scared about, for Christ’s sake? Not a sign of anyone chasing him.

  “Hey!”

  “F’God’s sake, she’s dead! Call somebody!”

  A girl’s scream was a long arc in silence, and somehow the scream made it final. A beautiful scream, Bruno thought with a queer, serene admiration. He approached the dock easily, behind another boat. Slowly, as slowly as he had ever done anything, he paid the boatkeeper.

  “On the island!” said another shocking, excited voice from a boat. “Girl’s dead, they said!”

  “Dead?”

  “Somebody call the cops!”

  Feet ran on the wooden dock behind him.

  Bruno idled toward the gates of the park. Thank God he was so tight or hung over or something he could move so slowly! But a fluttering, unfightable terror rose in him as he passed through the turnstile. Then it ebbed quickly. No one was even looking at him. To steady himself, he concentrated on wanting a drink. There was a place up the road with red lights that looked like a bar, and he went straight toward it.

  “Cutty,” he said to the barman.

  “Where you from, son?”

  Bruno looked at him. The two men on the right were looking at him, too. “I want a Scotch.”

  “Can’t get no hard liquor round here, man.”

  “What is this, part of the park?” His voice cracked like the scream.

  “Can’t get no hard liquor in the state of Texas.”

  “Gimme some of that!” Bruno pointed to the bottle of rye the men had on the counter.

  “Here. Anybody wants a drink that bad.” One of the men poured some rye in a glass and pushed it over.

  It was rough as Texas going down, but sweet when it got there. Bruno offered to pay him, but the man refused.

  Police sirens sounded, coming closer.

  A man came in the door.

  “What happened? Accident?” somebody asked him.

  “I didn’t see anything,” the man said unconcernedly.

  My brother! Bruno thought, looking the man over, but it didn’t seem the thing to do to go over and talk to him.

  He felt fine. The man kept insisting he have another drink, and Bruno had three fast. He noticed a streak on his hand as he lifted the glass, got out his handkerchief, and calmly wiped between his thumb and forefinger. It was a smear of Miriam’s orangey lipstick. He could hardly see it in the bar’s light. He thanked the man with the rye, and strolled out into the darkness, walking along the right side of the road, looking for a taxi. He had no desire to look back at the lighted park. He wasn’t even thinking about it, he told himself. A streetcar passed, and he ran for it. He enjoyed its bright interior, and read all the placards. A wriggly little boy sat across the aisle, and Bruno began chatting with him. The thought of calling Guy and seeing him kept crossing his mind, but of course Guy wasn’t here. He wanted some kind of celebration. He might call Guy’s mother again, for the hell of it, but on second thought, it didn’t seem wise. It was the one lousy note in the evening, the fact he couldn’t see Guy, or even talk or write to him for a long while. Guy would be in for some questioning, of course. But he was free! It was done, done, done! In a burst of well-being, he ruffled the little boy’s hair.

  The little boy was taken aback for a moment, then in response to Bruno’s friendly grin, he smiled, too.

  At the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad terminal, he got an upper berth on a sleeper leaving at 1:30 A.M., which gave him an hour and a half to kill. Everything was perfect and he felt terribly happy. In a drugstore near the station, he bought a pint of Scotch to refill his flask. He thought of going by Guy’s house to see what it looked like, debated it carefully, and decided he could. He was just heading for a man standing by the door, to ask directions—he knew he shouldn’t go there in a taxi—when he realized he wanted a woman. He wanted a woman more than ever before in his life, and that he did pleased him prodigiously. He hadn’t wanted one since he got to Santa Fe, though twice Wilson had gotten him into it. He veered away right in the man’s face, thinking one of the taxi drivers outside would be better to ask. He had the shakes, he wanted a woman so badly! A different kind of shakes from liquor shakes.

  “Ah don’ know,” said the blank, freckle-faced driver leaning against his fender.

  “What d’you mean, you don’t know?”

  “Don’ know, that’s all.”

  Bruno left him in disgust.

  Another driver down the sidewalk was more obliging. He wrote Bruno an address and a couple of names on the back of a company card, though it was so close by, he didn’t even have to drive him there.

  thirteen

  Guy leaned against the wall by his bed in the Montecarlo, watching Anne turn the pages of the family album he had brought from Metcalf. These had been wonderful days, his last two with Anne. Tomorrow he left for Metcalf. And then Florida. Mr. Brillhart’s telegram had come three days ago, saying the commission was still his. There was a stretch of six months’ work ahead, and in December the commencement of their own house. He had the money to build it now. And the money for the divorce.

  “You know,” he said quietly, “if I didn’t have Palm Beach, if I had to go back to New York tomorrow and work, I could, and take anything.” But almost as he said it, he realized that Palm Beach had given him his courage, his momentum, his will, or whatever he chose to call it, that without Palm Beach these days with Anne would give him only a sense of guilt.

  “But you don’t have to,” Anne said finally. She bent lower over the album.

  He smiled. He knew she had hardly been listening to him. And, in fact, what he had said didn’t matter, as Anne knew. He leaned over the album with her, identifying the people that she asked about, watching amusedly as she examined the double page of his pictures that his mother had collected, from babyhood to about twenty. He was smiling in every one of them, a shock of black hair setting off a sturdier, more careless-looking face than he had now.

  “Do I look happy enough there?” he asked.

  She winked at him. “And very handsome. Any of Miriam?” She let the remaining pages slip past her thumbnail.

  “No,” Guy said.

  “I’m awfully glad you brought this.”

  “My mother would have my neck if she knew it was in Mexico.” He put the album back in his suitcase so he wouldn’t possibly leave it behind. “It’s the most humane way of meeting families.”

  “Guy, did I put you through much?”

  He smiled at her plaintive tone. “No! I never minded a bit!” He sat down on the bed and pulled her back with him. He had met all of Anne’s relatives, by twos and threes, by dozens at the Faulkners’ Sunday suppers and parties. It was a family joke how many Faulkners and Weddells and Morrisons there were, all living in New York State or in Long Island. Somehow he liked the fact she had so many relatives. The Christmas he had spent at the Faulkners’ house last year had been the happiest of his life. He kissed both her cheeks, then her mouth. When he put his head down, he saw Anne’s drawings on the Montecarlo stationery on the counterpane, and idly began to push them into a neat stack. They were ideas for designs that had come to her after their visit to the Museo Nacionale this afternoon. Their lines were black and definite, like his own rough sketches. “I’m thinking about the house, Anne.”

  “You want it big.”

  He smiled. “Yes.”

  “Let’s have it big.” She relaxed in his arms. They both sighed, like one person, and she laughed a little as he wrapped her closer.

  It was the first time she had agreed to the size of the house. The
house was to be Y-shaped, and the question had been whether to dispense with the front arm of it. But the idea sang in Guy’s head only with both arms. It would cost much, much more than twenty thousand, but Palm Beach would bring a flock of private commissions, Guy expected, that would be fast, well-paid jobs. Anne had said her father would like nothing better than to make them a wedding present of the front wing, but to Guy that seemed as unthinkable as removing it. He could see the house shining white and sharp against the brown bureau across the room. It projected from a certain white rock he had seen near a town called Alton in lower Connecticut. The house was long, low, and flat-roofed, as if alchemy had created it from the rock itself, like a crystal.

  “I might call it ‘The Crystal,’” Guy said.

  Anne stared up reflectively at the ceiling. “I’m not so fond of naming houses—houses’ names. Maybe I don’t like ‘Crystal.’”

  Guy felt subtly hurt. “It’s a lot better than ‘Alton.’ Of all the insipid names! That’s New England for you. Take Texas now—”

  “All right, you take Texas and I’ll take New England.” Anne smiled, stopping Guy in his tracks, because in reality she liked Texas and Guy liked New England.

  Guy looked at the telephone, with a funny premonition it was going to ring. He felt rather giddy in his head, as if he had taken some mildly euphoric drug. It was the altitude, Anne said, that made people feel that way in Mexico City. “I feel as if I could call up Miriam tonight and talk to her and everything would be all right,” Guy said slowly, “as if I could say just the right thing.”

  “There’s the telephone,” Anne said, perfectly serious.

  Seconds passed, and he heard Anne sigh.

  “What time is it?” she asked, sitting up. “I told Mother I’d be back by twelve.”

  “Eleven-seven.”

  “Aren’t you sort of hungry?”