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By Root 640 0

of palate, sinus, and throat, that Winston had no more to do with what happened to me in Paris than the scenery had. But here it was, starting on me again the same way it had before, and I knew she had called it on me the way it was written in the big score, and that no pillow or anything else could shut it out. I closed my eyes, and I was going down under the waves, with something coming up at me from below. Panic caught me then. I hadn't heard her go out, and I called her. I waited, and called again. There wasn't any answer. My head was under the pillow again pretty soon, and I must have slept because I woke up with the same horrible dream, that I was in the water, going down, and this thing was coming at me. I sat up, and there she was, on the edge of her bed, looking at me. It was gray outside. "Christ, you're there." But some kind of a sob jerked out as I said it, and I put out my hand and took hers.

"It's all true."

She came over, sat down beside me, stroked my hair, held my hand. "Tell me. You no lie, I no fight."

"There's nothing to tell...Every man has got five per cent of that in him, if he meets the one person that'll bring it out, and I did, that's all."

"But you love other man. Before."

"No, the same one, here, in Paris, all over, the one son-of-a-bitch that's been the curse of my life."

"Sleep now. Tomorrow, you give me little bit money, I go back to Mexico--"

"No! Don't you know what I'm trying to tell you? That's out! I hate it! I've been ashamed of it, I've tried to shake it off, I hoped you would never find out, and now it's over!"

I was holding her to me. She began stroking my hair again, looking down in my eyes. "You love me, Hoaney?"

"Don't you know it? Yes. If I never said so, it was just because--did we have to say it? If we felt it, wasn't that a hell of a sight more?"

All of a sudden she broke from me, shoved the dress down from her shoulder, slipped the brassiere and shoved a nipple in my mouth. "Eat. Eat much. Make big tow!"

"I know now, my whole life comes from there."

"Yes, eat."

Chapter 11

We didn't get up for two days, but it wasn't like the time we had in the church. We didn't get drunk and we didn't laugh. When we were hungry, we'd call up the French restaurant down the street and have them send something in. Then we'd lie there and talk, and I'd tell her more of it, until it was all off my chest and I had nothing more to say. Once I quit lying to her, she didn't seem surprised, or shocked, or anything like that. She would look at me, with her eyes big and black, and nod, and sometimes say something that made me think she understood a lot more about it than I did, or most doctors do. Then I'd take her in my arms, and afterward we'd sleep, and I felt a peace I hadn't felt for years. All those awful jitters of that last few weeks were gone, and sometimes when she was asleep and I wasn't, I'd think about the Church, and confession, and what it must mean to people that have something lying heavy on their soul. I had left the Church before I had anything on my soul, and the confession business, to me then, was just a pain in the neck. But I understood it now, understood a lot of things I had never understood before. And mostly I understood what a woman could mean to a man. Before, she had been a pair of eyes, and a shape, something to get excited about. Now, she seemed something to lean on, and draw something from, that nothing else could give me. I thought of books I had read, about worship of the earth, and how she was always called Mother, and none of it made much sense, but those big round breasts did, when I put my head on them, and they began to tremble, and I began to tremble.

The morning of the second day we heard the church bells ringing, and I remembered I was due to sing at the Sunday night concert. I got up, went to the piano, and tossed a few high ones around. I was just trying them out, but I didn't have to. They were like velvet. At six o'clock we dressed, had a little something to eat, and went down there. I was in a Rigoletto excerpt, from the second act,