Native Son - Richard Wright [109]
His thoughts came back to the room. What about Bessie? He listened to her breathing. He could not take her with him and he could not leave her behind. Yes. She was asleep. He reconstructed in his mind the details of the room as he had seen them by the glow of the flashlight when he had first come in. The window was directly behind him, above his head. The flashlight was at his side; the gun was lying beside the flashlight, the handle pointing toward him, so he could get it quickly and be in a position to use it. But he could not use the gun; that would make too much noise. He would have to use a brick. He remembered hoisting the window; it had not been hard. Yes, that was what he could do with it, throw it out of the window, down the narrow air-shaft where nobody would find it until, perhaps, it had begun to smell.
He could not leave her here and he could not take her with him. If he took her along she would be crying all the time; she would be blaming him for all that had happened; she would be wanting whiskey to help her to forget and there would be times when he could not get it for her. The room was black-dark and silent; the city did not exist. He sat up slowly, holding his breath, listening. Bessie’s breath was deep, regular. He could not take her and he could not leave her. He stretched out his hand and caught the flashlight. He listened again; her breath came like the sleep of the tired. He was holding the covers off her by sitting up this way and he did not want her to get cold and awaken. He eased the covers back; she still slept. His finger pressed a button on the flashlight and a dim spot of yellow leaped to life on the opposite wall. Quickly, he lowered it to the floor, for fear that it might disturb her; and as he did so there passed before his eyes in a split second of time one of the bricks he had glimpsed when he had first come into the room.
He stiffened; Bessie stirred restlessly. Her deep, regular breathing had stopped. He listened, but could not hear it. He saw her breath as a white thread stretching out over a vast black gulf and felt that he was clinging to it and was waiting to see if the ravel in the white thread which had started would continue and let him drop to the rocks far below. Then he heard her breathing again, in, out; in, out. He, too, breathed again, struggling now with his own breath to control it, to keep it from sounding so loud in his throat that it would awaken her. The fear that had gripped him when she had stirred made him realize that it would have to be quick and sure. Softly, he poked his legs from beneath the blanket, then waited. Bessie breathed, slow, long, heavy, regular. He lifted his arm and the blanket fell away. He stood up and his muscles lifted his body in slow motion. Outside in the cold night the wind moaned and died down, like an idiot in an icy black pit. Turning, he centered the disc of light where he thought Bessie’s face must be. Yes. She was asleep. Her black face, stained with tears, was calm. He switched off the light, turned toward the wall and his fingers felt over the cold floor for the brick. He found it, gripped it in his hand and tiptoed back to the pallet. Her breath guided him in the darkness; he stopped where he thought her head must be. He couldn’t take her and he couldn’t leave her; so he would have to kill her. It was his life against hers. Quickly, to make certain where he must strike, he switched on the light, fearing as he did so that it might awaken her; then switched it off again, retaining as an image before his eyes her black face