Earthbound

  She didn’t answer and he nodded. “Well, perhaps you would,” he said. “Perhaps I’d better make a different plan.”

  Her smile was gone. She looked at him suspiciously.

  “Perhaps I’d better have you committed,” he said.

  She started to speak but he cut her off. “Believe me, it’s possible,” he said. “A lot of people in Los Angeles know my wife, know the way she behaves.” He shook his head as if pitying her. “You couldn’t convince them in a hundred years. When they see how you behave, they’ll be lining up for blocks to commit you.”

  He clamped his hand on her wrist. “Do you know what it is to be committed, Marianna? Let me tell you. It won’t be only me watching you. I’d make a mistake, sooner or later. I’d overlook something, fall asleep, blunder somehow and you’d get away. But you won’t get away from them, Marianna. In an institution, there’ll be an entire staff of people to keep you under lock and key. I’ll tell them you’re violent, suicidal. They’ll put you in a straitjacket and keep you locked in a little room with bars on the window. There’ll be no men. I’ll tell them you’re a sexual psychopath. You’ll never have a man again.” He leaned in close. “All you’ll have is shock treatments. Baths in icy water. Constant supervision and confinement. Oh, you won’t like it, Marianna. You won’t like it at all.

  “On the other hand,” he said, “if you’ll leave my wife, I’ll take her home and you can have this house again. I’m not concerned about your soul now, I don’t give a damn about your soul. As far as I’m concerned, you can stay here forever. Your sister isn’t going to live much longer. When she’s gone, there’ll be no interference at all, you can do whatever you please.”

  He paused. “Make up your mind,” he said, then. “I’m losing patience. Take your choice: this house and your freedom—or being locked up for good.”

  She shuddered violently. I’m winning! David thought. “Make up your mind!” he ordered.

  Her smile was such a shock to him that his face went blank before he could prevent it.

  “Well,” she said. She shrugged. “If that’s what you want to do with me, I can’t stop you. If you want to have your wife put in a straitjacket and locked in a room with bars on the window, I can’t prevent it.”

  “Marianna—”

  “I’m not Marianna, darling. You’ve made a mistake. I’m Ellen: your wife.” Her look of distress bordered on satire. “And you’re going to lock me up,” she said. “You’re going to put me away for good.”

  He knew that he was trembling but he couldn’t stop. She’d beaten him again. She knew full well that he could never put Ellen in an institution, that the threat had been a pointless one. Dear God, there’s no way out, he thought in anguish.

  “What’s the matter, darling?”

  “All right” he said. “I won’t commit you.”

  “Oh.” She looked at him with mocking sympathy. “And it was such a good idea.”

  “I already had a good idea”

  “Oh, yes. You’re going to keep me tied up—no, locked up, isn’t it? That’s right. You’re going to keep me in a closet all day and drugged all night. Except, of course, as you said, you’ll blunder. You’ll make a mistake; overlook something. Then I’ll be gone. Driving into Port Jefferson, maybe even New York.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yes; oh. Oh, David. I’ll go to a bar and pick up a man, maybe two men. I’d like that; two at once.” She flicked her tongue at him. “That’s what you’ve taught me, you see. Your Ellen’s not a prude anymore. She’s going to taste the wine of life. To the dregs—David, little David.”

  “Port Jefferson,” he said. “New York.”

  “Go on, tie me to the couch,” she told him. “Lock me in a closet. Drug me.”

  Port Jefferson; New York, he thought. Something there. “I intend to,” he said. He studied her face and, suddenly, it came to him. “But not here,” he finished. Jarring to his feet, he hauled her up and started pulling her toward the door.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Caught off-guard, her voice betrayed sudden alarm. He was right! She started holding back. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking you home, what else?”

  She stiffened. “What?”

  “It’s simple; don’t you understand?” He heard her bare feet squeaking on the floor boards as she tried to brake herself. “I’m taking you home.”

  “You’re not taking me any—!”

  “But I am!” he cut her off. “Right out of this house!”

  She swung too suddenly for him to avert the blow, he staggered as her flattened hand smashed against his cheek. He almost lost his grip, the studio wheeling around him, darkness gushing at the fringes of his sight. He heard her shout, “Let go of me!” and, reacting blindly, swung at her. She lurched back, gasping, as he slapped her face.

  “You can’t go, can you?!” he cried. “You’re afraid to leave!”

  She tried to hit him again. This time, he blocked it with his left arm, wincing as their wrists collided; she hissed and dropped her hand. Even as her face was twisted by the pain, he slapped her a second time. With a cry of shock, she floundered aside. David yanked her back so sharply that her head snapped. He began to drag her toward the hall again. “Let’s see how tough you are when you’re a hundred miles from here,” he said. “A thousand; three thousand!”

  She flung herself against him, face distorted by pain-wrenched fury. It was a maniac who fought him—scratching, kicking, biting, shrieking at him with demented hate. David struggled with her doggedly. Achieving a grip at last, he twisted her right arm behind her back until she froze. “You’re Marianna, aren’t you?” he said.

  “Let go.”

  “You’re Marianna, aren’t you?”

  “God damn you!”

  “Aren’t you?” He twisted harder; it was Ellen’s arm but it had to be done. She screamed. “Let go of me, you bastard!”

  “Aren’t you?!”

  She clenched her teeth and started whining hideously.

  “All right.” He shoved her toward the door. “I’ll take you home then.”

  She recoiled berserkly, the whine increasing in volume until it flooded from her lips in a piercing scream. David set his mind against the terrifying sound and kept on pushing. They were almost to the door now.

  “No!” she shrieked. “Don’t take me out of here!”

  “You’re Marianna, aren’t you?!”

  “Don’t take me out of here!”

  “You’re Marianna, aren’t you?!”

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!” She started crying wretchedly and David stopped. Thank God, he thought.

  “Please let go of me,” she begged.

  He loosened his grip but did not release her. “Let go of my wife then.”

  “I can’t.”

  He twisted her arm again. “You can.”

  She shook her head, groaning.

  “Get out of her or I swear I’ll take you away.”

  “Stay here,” she pleaded, “I’ll do anything you say.”

  “Let go of my wife!”

  “I can’t!” The words erupted into a scream of agony as he twisted her arm.

  “Damn you, let her go!” he raged.

  Her sudden, reactive blow caught him by surprise, her left elbow battering into his cheek with concussive force. David cried out and staggered to his right, clutching at his face. Pain shot through his cheek and eye in jagged, fiery lines.

  “I won’t!” she raged. “You’ll never make me! I’m too strong for you! I can do anything I want! I made you go after your wife that morning, then made you stop so I could use your body for myself! Every time you tried to take her, I kept you from it! I control you! You can’t do anything I don’t want you to do! Do you want to know why I said goodbye to you so cheerfully? Because I knew you’d never leave! I put your wife to sleep and had you again! I can do anything I want!—anything!”

  “Not now you can’t,” he answered shakily, still half blinded by the p
ain. “You’re in that body and it’s all you have; and now I know your secret. You’re afraid to leave the area you knew in life. But I can make you leave.” He started toward her groggily.

  She backed off, glaring at him. “Get away from me.”

  “Get out of her,” he said.

  “All right!” A frightening smile twisted back her lips. “I’ll get out. But if I can’t have the body, you won’t either!” Whirling, she rushed toward the windows.

  David stumbled after her, then held back. Trembling fitfully, he watched her turn at the window and laugh at him. “All right!” she said. She fisted her hands as though to drive them through the glass. He couldn’t breathe, his heartbeats so gigantic that his body jolted. He forced himself to stand immobile.

  She looked confused. Obviously, she expected him to chase her.

  “Well?” he asked. “What are you waiting for?”

  Her mouth slipped open and, despite the pain and dread, he knew that he had gambled right again. She wanted Ellen’s body too much to destroy it.

  “All right!” she cried. She turned and raised her hands. David stiffened, leaning forward. After a while, he leaned back, releasing steamlike breath. “You can’t,” he said.

  The sob that broke in her was as pitiable as it was appalling. “Oh, God,” she moaned. “Oh, God, oh, God. To live again. To be in flesh. Nobody knows—the agony; the pain! Bodiless! Useless! God!” she screamed. “I want my body! Take my soul but give me back my body!”

  Groaning dementedly, she sank to her knees, clutching at the window sill. He had never heard such a sound in his life. In spite of everything, he thought: God help her, she’s in torment. Whatever she had done to him was nothing in comparison to what she had done to herself. How could her sister hate such a pitiful creature? Earthbound, he thought how terrifying a description. To have eternity waiting and yet, of one’s own accord, to create a prison in which the soul must lodge in everlasting desolation. Surely, this was Hell.

  He walked unevenly to where she knelt and crouched beside her. “Marianna?”

  She could only weep.

  “Go on,” he said. “Don’t stay here anymore. There’s nothing here but sorrow.”

  She shook her head.

  “Yes,” he said. “You’ve been here long enough. Don’t profane yourself any longer. Go on.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t, I can’t.”

  “Why, Marianna?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “The dark.” She raised her face and stared upward with a look of terror. “The dark,” she said. “The punishment”

  “How do you know—?”

  “I know!” she cried. “I know what’s out there! Darkness! I’m afraid of it! I won’t go there alone!” She turned to face him, cheeks glistering with tears, eyes round with dread. “No matter what you do to me, I won’t go there alone.”

  He swallowed dryly. “What if you’re not alone?” he asked. He felt unreal again.

  “If I’m—not alone?”

  “Will you leave my wife if I go with you?” Suddenly, it was the only answer and he knew it. She was like a child—terrified, irrational. No amount of threatening would avail him now. He recognized her terror. There was only one way to dispel it; one way he could save Ellen.

  She was staring at him, an expression of uncertain hope on her face. “You’ll go with me?”

  David braced himself against the waves of dizziness that pulsed across his brain. “I will,” he said.

  She shuddered. “Will you—hold my hand?” she asked.

  “I will.” He stood up, feeling numbed and strange, the imminence of death around him like a cloud. He wasn’t frightened though; that was the strangest part of all. He felt as he had that day—inspired and transcended. He reached down and took her hand; he helped her up. “Leave her now,” he said. “Come with me. I’ll take care of you.”

  “Don’t lie to me,” she begged. “Please don’t lie to me.” She sounded so afraid, so like a terror-stricken child that David caught his breath and smiling at her, clenched his left hand and drove it through the window next to him.

  The cut was deep yet he hardly felt it. Looking down, he saw blood spilling out across his palm. “Oh,” he said. He shivered. “God.” He closed his eyes, holding her hand tightly. Forgive me, he thought. He drew in shaking breath and clenched his teeth. The pain was starting now. Ellen; it’s for you, he thought. I love you and I give you life. “For you,” he whispered. He lowered his arm and, after several moments, opened his eyes. “Leave her now,” he said.

  His face went blank.

  She was smiling at him.

  “What?” he mumbled.

  She glanced at his wrist.

  “What?” He felt himself begin to weave.

  “You’re bleeding, David.”

  “Leave her!”

  She jerked her hand away. “I’ve changed my mind,” she said.

  He began to stagger, caught himself.

  “I just realized that, after you’re gone, I can have the body all to myself,” she said.

  “Marianna—!” He stumbled toward her but she backed off, smiling. The room spun sideways and, crying out, he toppled to the floor, gasping at the pool of blood he landed in. “No!” He tried to stand but couldn’t. “Marianna, please—!”

  “Oh,” she said with mocking sympathy. “Poor David. He’s going to die.” She smiled again. “And I’ll be all alone with this beautiful body. My sister won’t be able to chase men away from the cottage anymore. I can have all the men I want.”

  Something flickered across David’s mind—a wavering streak of clarity. “The cottage,” he said. He forced himself to stand. “The cottage …”

  “Yes, the cottage,” she said. “The wonderful, marvelous cottage.”

  The room swam around him as he started toward her. Still, his mind was growing clearer by the moment; as blood and life ran from his wrist, awareness kept increasing strangely. “You talk about Port Jefferson, New York,” he said. “That’s not the way it is at all though, is it? You can’t drive to either of them. You can’t even go out to the car, can you?”

  A look of wary resistance tensed her face and she backed away from him. “What are you talking about?” She tried to sound contemptuous but couldn’t; fear was straining at her voice.

  “You’re a prisoner here.” The clarity was full now, there was no question in his mind. “Even in my wife’s body, you can’t leave the cottage.” He was aware of speaking through clenched teeth, of breathing laboredly. But he knew: he knew. “You died here and no matter what you want to do, you have to stay here.”

  “You’re a fool,” she answered. But her face was pale, she kept retreating.

  With a sudden, willful burst of strength, David lunged at her. She tried to jump back but her bare feet slipped on the wooden floor and she lost her balance, falling to one knee. David grabbed her right wrist with his right hand and hauled her back up. “What are you doing?” she asked. Her voice was faint.

  He didn’t speak but started pulling her toward the broken window. Darkness swirled up from the floor at him; he willed it off. He’d do this, then he’d die. It was the one thing he had strength to accomplish.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded. She tried to hold him back but couldn’t. There was a fierce strength in his will that went beyond the failing of his body. He dragged her now, his eyes intent on the window, his left wrist spattering a jagged trail of blood along the floor.

  “No.” She started twisting, kicking. “No!”

  “Yes!” The roar of his voice made her suddenly limp. “We’re leaving you behind!”

  She tried to scream in protest but there was no time. Her scream became one of stark, consuming horror as he dragged her up onto the couch and, hugging her against himself, leaped backward, shattering the window and pulling both of them into the darkness and the rain, downward toward the wet san
d, David holding Ellen on top of him so that, when they landed, he would die and she would live.

  Seconds later, there was impact, pain and sweeping blackness.

  EPILOGUE

  David stared across the bedroom. Through the picture window, he could see the blue-green glowing of the pool, the glitter of the city lights below. How far away he felt from that cottage in Logan Beach. It seemed another world. The only tangible evidence that it existed at all was the dark red scar across his wrist.

  Beyond that, it seemed the recollection of a dream—indistinct and fading. A ghost in his life? His life was here in Sherman Oaks. With Ellen who was, at the moment, showering. With Mark who was spending the night with a friend in Malibu. With Linda and Bill and his grandson, Peter David, who, this very afternoon, had been on his lap, laughing with delight. These were the rudiments of his existence, solid and precise.

  He looked at his wrist. The scar would grow less apparent in time, the memory diminish. Even now, eight months later, he could not, accurately, recall that night; it had been too distorted, too bizarre. Then, too, there had been only blackness from the time he’d been knocked unconscious until he’d woken in a hospital room, his wrist stitched and bandaged, Ellen sitting by his bedside, looking at him anxiously; weeping as he smiled. The fall had been virtually harmless to her, only shaking her up; somehow she’d gotten him to an emergency hospital.

  Lasting memories began at that point, the clearest of these to do with the plane ride home and with his telling Ellen about Marianna and what had happened in that period from Thursday afternoon on. The four-plus hours on the jet had been, if anything, more painful than the four-plus days in Logan Beach for he had had to watch her face reflecting, one by one, each pain and sorrow she’d experienced during that time.

  From that day, to this moment, something had left their relationship. What it was he wasn’t sure—a spark, perhaps. In other respects, their marriage was much sounder. There were no more secrets; none that he was conscious of, at any rate. They spoke now, aired their griefs and voiced their differences, their attitudes. The marriage seemed secure. If something had gone from it, he had to accept that something as having been expendable. For he would not go back to the way things had been. Lacking a better word, the “spark” might have disappeared but, in its place, was a depth of understanding and mutual respect which had not been there before. As far as he was concerned, that was nothing but improvement.