The Moviegoer - Walker Percy [74]
“I see how I could live in a city!” Kate cries. She turns to face me and clasps her hands behind my waist.
“How?”
“Only one way. By your telling me what to do. It is as simple as that. Why didn’t I see it before?”
“That I should tell you what to do?”
“Yes. It may not be the noblest way of living, but it is one way. It is my way! Oh dear sweet old Binx, what a joy it is to discover at last what one is. It doesn’t matter what you are as long as you know!”
“What are you?”
“I’ll gladly tell you because I just found out and I never want to forget. Please don’t let me forget. I am a religious person.”
“How is that?”
“Don’t you see? What I want is to believe in someone completely and then do what he wants me to do. If God were to tell me: Kate, here is what I want you to do; you get off this train right now and go over there to that corner by the Southern Life and Accident Insurance Company and stand there for the rest of your life and speak kindly to people—you think I would not do it? You think I would not be the happiest girl in Jackson, Mississippi? I would.”
I have a drink and look at her corner. The moonlight seems palpable, a dense pure matrix in which is embedded curbstone and building alike.
She takes the bottle. “Will you tell me what to do?”
“Sure.”
“You can do it because you are not religious. God is not religious. You are the unmoved mover. You don’t need God or anyone else—no credit to you, unless it is a credit to be the most self-centered person alive. I don’t know whether I love you, but I believe in you and I will do what you tell me. Now if I marry you, will you tell me: Kate, this morning do such and such, and if we have to go to a party, will you tell me: Kate, stand right there and have three drinks and talk to so and so? Will you?”
“Sure.”
Kate locks her arms around my chest, wrist in hand, and gives me a passionate kiss.
Later, just as I knew it would, her precious beauty leaves her flat and she is frightened. Another trip to the washroom and now she stands swaying against me as Sieur Iberville rocks along through north Mississippi. We leave spring behind. The moon hangs westering and yellow over winter fields as blackened and ancient and haunted as battlegrounds.
“Oh oh oh,” Kate moans and clings to me. “I feel awful. Let’s go to your roomette.”
“It’s been made up.”
“Then we’ll lie down.”
We have to lie down: the door opens onto the bed. Feeling tender toward her, I embrace her and tell her that I love her.
“Oh no,” says Kate and takes hold of me coarsely. “None of that, bucko.”
“None of what?”
“No love, please.”
I misunderstand her and pull away.
“No no. Don’t leave either,” she says, holding me and watching me still.
“All right.”
“Just don’t speak to me of love, bucko.”
“All right, but don’t call me bucko.”
Her black spiky eyes fall full upon me, but not quite seeing, I think. Propped on one hand, she bites her lip and lets the other fall on me heavily, as if I were an old buddy. “I’ll tell you something.”
“What?”
“The other day I said to Merle.” Again the hand falls heavily and takes hold of me. “What would you say to me having a little fling? He misunderstood me and gave me the business about a mature and tender relation between adults etcetera etcetera—you know. I said, no no, Merle, you got it wrong. I’m talking about some plain old monkey business—” she gives me a shake, “—like a comic book one of your aunt’s maids showed me last week in which Tillie the Toiler and Mac—not the real Tillie, you understand, but a Frenchy version of Tillie—go to an office party and Tillie has a little set-to with Mac in the stockroom and gets caught by Whipple. I told Merle about it and said: that’s what I mean, Merle, how about that?”
“What did Merle say?”
Kate doesn’t seem to hear. She drums her fingers on the sill and gazes out at the rushing treetops.
“So—when all is said and done, that is the real thing, isn’t it? Admit it. You and the little Hondurian on the second floor with her little book, in the morning, in the mid-morning,