The Moviegoer - Walker Percy [83]
The house was no different this morning. The same chorus of motors, vacuum cleaners, dishwasher, laundromat, hum and throb against each other. From an upper region, reverberating down the back stairwell, comes the muted hollering of Bessie Coe, as familiar and querulous a sound as the sparrows under the eaves. Nor was Uncle Jules different, except only in his slight embarrassment, giving me wide berth as I passed him on the porch and saying his good morning briefly and sorrowfully as if the farthest limit of his disapproval lay in the brevity of his greeting. Kate was nowhere to be seen. Until ten o’clock my aunt, I know, is to be found at her roll-top desk where she keeps her “accounts.” There is nothing to do but go directly in to her and stand at ease until she takes notice of me. Now she looks over, as erect and handsome as the Black Prince.
“Yes?”
“I am sorry that through a misunderstanding or thoughtlessness on my part you were not told of Kate’s plans to go with me to Chicago. No doubt it was my thoughtlessness. In any case I am sorry and I hope that your anger—”
“Anger? You are mistaken. It was not anger. It was discovery.”
“Discovery of what?”
“Discovery that someone in whom you had placed great hopes was suddenly not there. It is like leaning on what seems to be a good stalwart shoulder and feeling it go all mushy and queer.”
We both gaze down at the letter opener, the soft iron sword she has withdrawn from the grasp of the helmeted figure on the inkstand.
“I am sorry for that.”
“The fact that you are a stranger to me is perhaps my fault. It was stupid of me not to believe it earlier. For now I do believe that you are not capable of caring for anyone, Kate, Jules, or myself—no more than that Negro man walking down the street—less so, in fact, since I have a hunch he and I would discover some slight tradition in common.” She seems to notice for the first time that the tip of the blade is bent. “I honestly don’t believe it occurred to you to let us know that you and Kate were leaving, even though you knew how desperately sick she was. I truly do not think it ever occurred to you that you were abusing a sacred trust in carrying that poor child off on a fantastic trip like that or that you were betraying the great trust and affection she has for you. Well?” she asks when I do not reply.
I try as best I can to appear as she would have me, as being, if not right, then wrong in a recognizable, a right form of wrongness. But I can think of nothing to say.
“Do you have any notion of how I felt when, not twelve hours after Kate attempted suicide, she vanishes without a trace?”
We watch the sword as she lets it fall over the fulcrum of her forefinger; it goes tat’t’t on the brass hinge of the desk. Then, so suddenly that I almost start, my aunt sheathes the sword and places her hand flat on the desk. Turning it over, she flexes her fingers and studies the nails, which are deeply scored by longitudinal ridges.
“Were you intimate with Kate?”
“Intimate?”
“Yes.”
“Not very.”
“I ask you again. Were you intimate with her?”
“I suppose so. Though intimate is not quite the word.”
“You suppose so. Intimate is not quite the word. I wonder what is the word. You see—” she says with a sort of humor, “—there is another of my hidden assumptions. All these years I have been assuming that between us words mean roughly the same thing, that among certain people, gentlefolk I don’t mind calling them, there exists a set of meanings held in common, that a certain manner and a certain grace come as naturally as breathing. At the great moments of life—success, failure,