CHAPTER XVII
On the low coffee table in front of Deane was a bowl of yellow roses. She had broken off one of the blossoms and was slowly, abstractedly pulling it to pieces. Listlessly she allowed the golden petals to fall to the floor.
“Why didn’t you tell me of Drew’s love letter earlier, Martin?” she asked.
“It was an invitation,” he answered. “I shouldn’t have shown it at all.”
Deane lit a cigarette nervously.
“But what did you do?—I mean—oh!” she cried out, hiding her face in her hands.
Martin shook his head but did not speak.
“And now,” continued Deane, “you insist on meeting him in the Bowery.”
“Yes,” Martin nodded.
“But it isn’t like Drew to go to such a terrible place. Why did you agree to such a rendezvous?”
“I don’t know, except that he sounded sincere and almost desperate over the phone.”
“Howdidhe sound?” asked Deane. “Remember, I know him.”
“Cool on the surface, but determined,” answered Martin, “and worried—no, not worried; just rather desperate.”
“Youcan’tgo!” cried Deane. “I’ve been driven through the place at night. It’s terrifying; a street of yellow lanterns, and figures huddled in shadow like fallen bric-a-brac.”
“I must go,” said Martin.
“Won’t you stay, for me?”
Martin pressed his hand against his temple.
“Yes, Deane,” he answered at last.
“Thank God!” she said. “There is something cruel in the air to-night.” Then, relieved, she asked, “What happened to Rio?”
Martin regarded her so long and steadily that she flushed, looking a little frightened. At last he answered, “The driver helped me get him into the cab and he slept all the way to my place. When I got him on the bed with his shirt off, he awoke in great pain and I smelt a curious odor that came from his back. I’m sure the thorns of the whip held some kind of drug. Rio said they felt like fishhooks and that he was dizzy a moment before he fell on the floor. It’s odd the way Drew is able to handle him. They fought like two dancers.”
Deane’s face was white and she spoke quietly, as though faint.
“I believe you enjoyed it. How can you be so impersonal?”
Martin put his chin in his hands. How could twopeople, close in passion, united in mind, lapse into these subtle quarrels? There was no basis. The quarrel was an excuse for something deeper.
Analyzing himself, Martin tried to find the fault within him. Coldly, impersonally, he reviewed the scene, not sparing himself in any way. It was impossible. Deane had subtly forced the argument. Deeply, actually, she had been the aggressor. Martin accepted this with no pleasure. Deane would not intentionally wound him.Not intentionally.The phrase gathered meaning. Unconsciously she had created the picture. Why? Nothing on the surface. Nothing of which she was conscious. Rather, some deep-seated demand for pain. Pain for herself and for him. A hunger to wound and be wounded. Martin shook his head helplessly. From his chair he could see Deane sitting quietly serene, apparently indifferent. No. It was a simulated indifference. A strange play with no tenable motive. She must be as aware of the chasm between them as he. Out of this isolation she was drawing something. Something that fed her. It was inexplicable to Martin, for Deane was not a tyrant. She was, however, feminine. And now, the roots of all womanhood shone grimly through. Martin wondered, hesitated, and spoke.
“Deane, are you well? I mean,” he continued, “is it the time of the moon, you know?”
Deane was casual.
“Yes, Martin.” Her voice was tolerant.
“Well, then,” he said, “I should have been more considerate.”
“Don’t be impossible,” Deane exclaimed. “My condition has nothing at all to do with our discussion.”
“I’m inclined to believe, Deane, that it has everything to do with it.”
“That is ridiculous,” she answered, flushing. “It isn’t nice.”
Martin looked at her closely. Deane’s eyes were implacable. Cold, glassed-in, the poisonous shell moved around her. He could not reach her. He thought quickly, fantastically, in his unhappiness. The period. The time of the moon. The time eggs swell and burst into a live stream. In his vision he watched a flood of red, elliptical objects swing in a gigantic arch from heaven to earth. Rolling and whispering through the dark air, they poured in a fast tide past his aching eyes. Redolent of life, acrid with blood, they cried from the great sky-womb into the whirling land. Symbolic of woman’s supremacy, the scarlet bank lightened, faded and died, that it might live again.
“Deane!” cried Martin. “I have seen the secret.”
“What secret, Martin?”
“The secret that you have a secret. That you have a secret that I will never know. That no man will ever know. It is your earth-quality, your heritage as a woman. A glory and a pride, and I have confused it.”
Deane turned her dark, lovely eyes toward him.
“What do you mean?” she asked, and a tiny nerve close to her mouth quivered.
Martin laughed. He had the key. He had turned the key and the glass had broken. Gone was the poisonous mist and doubt from Deane’s eyes.
“I mean that there is a completeness in woman that man will never have,” he said, with quiet conviction. “A secret that man will never fully understand. A secret that women are not aware of—consciously. A pact of woman in the woman that is not revealed until the life-flow moves from their bodies. A pact so complete, so magnificent, that man takes on his true perspective—an interloper.”
Deane turned and hugged him to her. Her hair fell over his shoulder—burned him.
“You’re crazy,” she said. But there was warmth in her voice, and love, and some belief.
“I’m not crazy,” said Martin, kissing her. He held her proudly, and looked at her and kissed her again. He was arrogant of his weakness and proud of her strength. He was that way, whether he was wrong, or right. And there was the man, and there was the woman.
It was quite dark and raining when Martin left Deane’s. The wind, cold and full of smoke, sifted into his nostrils. Halfway down the block he pressed against the wall, partly out of the storm, and lit a cigarette. The glare of the match showed his calm features. Shieldinghis cigarette from the downpour with his hand, he walked slowly toward the Bowery.
As he turned into Third Avenue he became, once more, aware of a madman’s world. Little dwarfs with sour, twisted faces uplifted in the rain implored with mocking smiles a cigarette; and when he gave it he could feel the jeers carried after him by the wind. Soon he went into Bowery Lane and a blind man stumbled into him.
“You’re not real,” said Martin. “Don’t ever believe that you’re real.”
“What?” cried the man, tapping the street with his stick. “You scoundrel,” he went on, “let me go! I’ll call the damned police, curse them!” And he walked on swiftly, tapping his cane through the mist.
Martin continued along the Bowery until he saw a saloon. He crossed the street and went inside wondering if he had time for a drink. Looking at his watch he saw that he was far too early for his appointment with Drew.
“Step up, Mac,” called out a fat, red-faced gentleman at the bar. “Name it, and I’ll buy it.”
“Thanks,” said Martin. “I’ll have a Bass Ale.”
“To my little lady I left in the west!” said the florid man, a few tears trickling down the side of his pudgy nose. “Ain’t that right, Allie?” he continued, turning to a slab-headed man next to him.
“Yeah,” replied Allie, looking Martin over.
The three men lifted their glasses. Allie belched and took a package of baking soda from his pocket. He dumped a teaspoonful into the remainder of his beer and stirred it. Swallowing this concoction with some effort, he turned to Martin.
“It takes a goddam acid out,” he said earnestly. “It don’t give a gas like a plain goddam beer—” he stopped to belch again.
Martin nodded in agreement.
“I must be going now,” he said, “but before I do, kindly have a drink on me.”
Allie insisted on a third which Martin thanked him for, but put down untouched after seeing the fellow cleverly add an astonishing portion of “mickey” to it.
The men were sullen as he said goodnight, and a little way down the street Martin knew he was being followed by them. He ducked around a corner and into a doorway for a moment, but they were even closer behind him as he started on. Ahead of him four men were huddled on a stoop out of the rain, the light from a yellow lamp streaking their greasy features. Martin thought momentarily of Deane’s weird description, then looking back and seeing Allie and his friend closing in upon him, he went directly to the little group on the doorstep and addressed them earnestly.
“It’s cold,” he said. “A smoke for the soul’s sake,” he continued, handing some cigarettes around, one at a time, to the greedy, shaking fingers. One cigarette wasnow left in the case, and one man was left out. “I just came down from Heaven, sir,” Martin said to the man quite solemnly. “They told me that worldly goods were without blessing unless freely given.” He handed the cigarette to the man, who backed slightly away, but who accepted it nevertheless. All the men lit up and formed a thinly protective group against Martin, who heard one of them whisper, “The kid’s cracked. Hope he ain’t got no ‘shiv.’ Religion guys go fast wit’ a knife.”
Another, a giant in a white shirt and dark coat said, “Don’t squawk. Lookit a kid’s face in a lamp. God!—a smoke is sweet! Lookit a kid.” They all studied Martin whose uplifted face and exalted eyes seemed far away from them. They talked on quietly among themselves as the rain streaked down Martin’s cheeks unnoticed.
By this time Allie and his companion had reached the little group.
“Hello, Pal,” said Allie, addressing Martin.
Martin did not answer, but turned to his new friends.
“These men are evil,” he said in a deep, resonant tone. “The very lips of the Devil are among us!” Martin lifted his voice into an hysterical pitch as he noticed with curiosity the strange effect of his words upon the men about him.
The giant with the coat carefully hung the dripping garment on a railing, and the dirty shirt and muscular reach of his arms showed in the yellow, muckish light.
“Amen!” he cried, and advanced slowly toward Allie.
“Amen, amen!” echoed through the group behind him. The little fat man ran crying into the heavy rain; but it was with singular detachment that Martin watched the giant he had converted, strike tirelessly the broken form of Allie until the body was dumped, face down, in the swirling length of gutter.
Martin strode to the hard-breathing giant, placed his hand on the fellow’s damp shoulder and said softly, “It was a message! It has been answered.” And he went silently into the rain again.
A square away he paused and looked at a large clock. Once more he saw that in his impatience he was ahead of time. The cold rain had now penetrated the shoulders of his coat and Martin felt the steam rising from his hot body. What did Drew want in this undesirable section? Accustomed as Martin was to certain ways of life, he could not help but feel the disease of this unnatural quarter. He stood on the corner of Bowery and Pell—the Chinese street—a mimeographed edition of its former tong retreat and underground silence. It was true, a small group of thin-lipped, older men with their discreet smoke-houses and their hatchet-men survived. But the list was growing smaller so swiftly that the aroma of opium now had a death-like stench. The neon lights of New America had quickly dispelled the shadows and the soft lanterns of oriental intrigue. Martin looked across the street toward the little theater on the corner.It was half hidden by rain, but he could faintly see the line of trade in front of it. As the fog deepened, sailing lower under Brooklyn Bridge, Martin could hear the tangled music of a victrola somewhere nearby. The singsong lady of Shanghai was mute behind the stalls. But her Tiao-wu chords brought about by twangy, cut-off strings and yellow pipes as high as reeds can go, caused him to reflect upon the ancient wailing destined to wail forever....
Suddenly he felt his arm seized and the hard mouth of a gun pressed into his back.
“Don’t make a mistake,” said a harsh, low voice.
Martin dropped swiftly on his hands and brought his heels upward, barely missing the other’s chin. The fellow chuckled.
“Still good with your feet, eh, Martin,” he said. “Damn your French foot! It nearly got me!”
Martin squatted by the gutter as he rinsed his stinging hands in the pure flow of rainwater. Getting up, he rubbed his sore shoulders.
“You’ve gone to hell, Duke,” he said. “You weren’t this bad when I left Panama. You should have stuck to reefers. What is it now?”
“The Duke” drew his fingers slowly under his nose, then brought up his coat collar to hide his face, pretending to shake.
Martin smiled, shook hands with his friend whose uproarious laughter followed this act, and pulled himalong to a tea-shop on Pell Street. Inside, he ordered coffee while the Duke took Chow Mein with tea.
Martin leaned on the table.
“It’s good to see you,” he said. “Heroin can’t hurt you, apparently.”
“Yes, it can,” said the Duke, nervously pressing a small blue butterfly which was tattooed on his wrist. “Sometimes it hits me like dynamite, and I’ll go on a mad rob for a dollar. But it’s worse when I get cop-fever. Then I go back to my room—Christ!” he said, wiping his face. “Sometimes I crawl back of the dresser. Say—maybe I get peddled the wrong junk?” He looked at Martin hopefully.
“No,” said Martin, “the stuff is all right. You know your contact.” But he was beginning to see certain signs in The Duke’s eyes even now. “Get the tea down,” he continued, “and we’ll move out. Where’s your room?”
With a grotesque, frightening look, the Duke sat up.
“I’m cut short,” he said, the sweat breaking out on his face. “God, Mart!—get me back to my room! Jesus!—it’s the snow!... Cut off the cold wind, Mart!—it’s down on my head!” The Duke’s white face seemed blue in the yellow light. “God, Mart!... Mate!—ah!” he cried, the perspiration running from his forehead in streams.
Martin snapped his fingers at the Chinese waiter who was watching The Duke with placid, averted eyes, took a bill from his pocket and laid it on the table.
“Quickly—where does my friend live?” he asked.
“I do not know, sir,” the waiter smiled.
Martin added another bill to his account.
“Where might he live?” he asked soberly, adding, “when the man is sick, we are all brothers.”
“I would not live against that proverb,” said the waiter. “The hotel is directly across the street—there—” The Chinaman pointed to a large bulb, glowing, but marked with age. “His room may be ascertained at the desk,” he added, bowing low.
“Thanks,” said Martin, as The Duke got to his feet, the horrified turmoil within pressing out through his eyes. He clung to the arm of his friend, but once inside the hotel, tried to dash to the stairs. He was stopped, however, by a quiet little gray-headed Chinese clerk.
“Let me get him up,” Martin said to the man. “I’ll see about his rent later.”
“We do not want Mr. Duke,” said the clerk mildly. He was wearing octagonal glasses which were useless but for their dignity.
“Then I must ask you for his room for only a few minutes,” continued Martin.
“A woman waits for him also,” said the Chinaman.
Martin became cold, as though he were facing a crisis of his own.
“Please show me his room,” he insisted, and perhaps it was his unequivocal stare that made the Chinese submit graciously to his demand.
The cranky elevator stopped and Martin helped The Duke into the hall.
As they approached his room a slim woman—a beautiful Eurasian, so Martin judged by the hall’s dim light, stepped from the door and ran at him.
“Fag!” she cried, as she tried to strike his face.
Martin wrapped her long hair around his wrist, and holding his friend and the woman, entered the room.
The Duke ran to the window, looking out.
“I’ll jump!” he said. “This rat-hole’s too crowded. It’ll call the police.” He stood, bending down to the sill.
“Go ahead,” said Martin, watching him closely, his hand still wrapped in the beautiful long blue hair of the squirming girl.
“No, I’ll hide from them,” cried the Duke, and he began to crawl under the carpet.
The Eurasian, slant-eyed, watched him. Then quickly she turned to Martin.
“Babee!” she said, in a Dutch accent, her yellow eyes lifted to his. “Come with me. Let my hair go.”
Martin saw that The Duke, now flat under the carpet was quiet, and he loosened his own wrist from the woman’s soft hair.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“It is Siedred!”
“A mongrel boy,” he said, his teeth closing and unclosing. “Where do you wish me to go?”
“To my room.”
“In this hall?”
“It is so.”
Martin looked once more at the shaking body under the carpet and took the girl by the waist.
“Come,” he said.
The Eurasian led him from the room, across the hall and to another door which she unlocked silently. Once inside, she turned the lock again and laid the key upon a table.
Breathing without restraint, she slipped her blouse over her head and snapped the buttons from her skirt. As she looked at Martin, her breast filled, then fell, then rose again until Martin, impatient, lifted her and tossed her on the bed, laughing.
“I love you,” cried the native girl as she felt his pointed tongue.
“You are so hot,” replied Martin. “This is not love.”
“It is, it is!” the woman insisted. “Touch me again!”
“Siedred,” said Martin.
“What?”
“Siedred.” He pulled the long cord of the lamp which hung above them. There was a frantic sound of broken clothes, of sighs too distressing, of a single, smothered scream.
“Oh, oh!” Siedred cried.
And out in the corridor, besieged by following tears and moans, Martin crept down the stairs into the street.Unquestioning, he waited before the tiny theater for Drew’s arrival.
As Martin watched, a limousine drew up before the theater and stopped. Drew, his friend, stepped out. He made no sign, but pulled down his hat and turned up the collar of his coat, bringing it under his chin. Then he observed the trade, beckoning at last to a roughly dressed youngster with golden skin and frightened eyes. As he helped the lad into his car, he closed the door upon him, and turning to Martin who stood so quietly in the rain, Drew removed his hat, keeping it off until the water spilled over his blond, pinned hair. His lips spelled “Night.” He bowed slightly and entered the car, closing the door as Martin started toward him. As the limousine passed, Martin could see his mocking, tired face.