A Jest of God - Margaret Laurence [72]
Even if I could find a hangman ready to my hand, could I have it done? Would it kill me, in one way or another, even if I went on living?
Nick – if I couldn’t speak with you, all right. I would accept that. If only I could be with you and hold you. If I could lie very quietly beside you, all night, and then the pain would go away.
This is the highway, girl,
Can’t move slow –
He called Julie’s first husband prince of the highway. I said “That’s terrible.” Meaning, to die like that, in a game. And he said, “Why? He got what he wanted.” Hector Jonas said my father got the life he wanted most. I don’t know what they’re talking about. As though people did get what they wanted. They don’t know what they’re talking about. Left to myself, would I destroy this only one? I can’t bear it, that’s all. It isn’t to be borne. I can’t face it. I can’t face them.
The faces of the dancing children are hovering around me, but I don’t seem to see them clearly. Do I know them? Do they know me? It doesn’t appear so. They don’t look at me. They are looking at one another, naturally, and don’t see me. Thank God for that, anyway. I’m anonymous, as though I weren’t here. And now I feel I’m not here, and I wouldn’t mind if they looked in my direction, whatever expression was on their faces. It would prove something.
In the lobby of the Queen Victoria, I can partially see the three old men. They’re drowsing, I think, and their eyes are closed. That’s why I can’t see them properly, because their eyes are closed.
What am I going to do? I’ll have to write to him. He’ll know. He’ll know where I can go to get it done. Why would he know? There’s no reason why he should. He wouldn’t know any more than I, likely. How can I write, anyway? What would I say? I didn’t do anything to stop this happening – or next to nothing – and now it’s happened and it is my fault but save me anyway. Help me. Nick – please –
No. He can’t. No one. There isn’t anyone. I’m on my own. I never knew before what that would be like. It means no one. Just that. Just – myself.
– Rachel. She looks up, startled, and he is standing there. Standing here, right in the Parthenon Café. His face shows a concealed anxiety and also relief. “I’ve been looking for you – it’s not going to work, all this running away, is it, darling, neither on your part or mine – we’re just going to have to –”
He’s a hundred miles away. I haven’t even got his address. I could get it from his father.
– Nestor Kazlik is setting the white quart bottle down at the doorstep. She comes out and the old man looks up and smiles, recognizing through all the changes the child who used to catch rides on the milk sleigh in winter. “Mr. Kazlik, I’ve got some books I promised to send – and I seem to have lost his –”
I couldn’t write to him. What if his wife saw the letter? No. That’s not what troubles me. What do I care right now what she’d say or feel, or how it would affect him? But I know what he’d say, that’s the thing. “You knew better than that, darling – you must have known better than that.” There is no reply to that one.
My elbows are on the red arborite booth table, and I’m breathing the smoke-saturated air of the Parthenon, and listening to the noise, the jazz, the din, then listening for it and realizing it’s not there. The bold children have gone, and even in here I’m by myself. It’s late, and from the kitchen comes the clash of cutlery and cups, as Miklos cleans up for the night. I don’t know how long I’ve been