Welcome to the Monkey House - Kurt Vonnegut [12]
"What are you talking about?" said Helene.
"Once the show’s over," said Lydia, "whatever you thought Harry was just evaporates into thin air."
"I don’t believe it," said Helene.
"I admit it’s hard to believe," said Lydia.
Then Helene got a little sore. "Anyway, why tell me about it?" she said. "Even if it is true, what do I care?"
"I—I don’t know," said Lydia, backing away. "I—I just thought you might find it interesting."
"Well, I don’t," said Helene.
And Lydia slunk away, feeling about as frowzy and un-loved as she was supposed to feel in the play. After that nobody said anything more to Helene to warn her about Harry, not even when word got around that she’d told the telephone company that she didn’t want to be moved around anymore, that she wanted to stay in North Crawford.
So the time finally came to put on the play. We ran it for three nights—Thursday, Friday, and Saturday—and we murdered those audiences. They believed every word that was said on stage, and when the maroon curtain came down they were ready to go to the nut house along with Blanche, the faded sister.
On Thursday night the other girls at the telephone company sent Helene a dozen red roses. When Helene and Harry were taking a curtain call together, I passed the roses over the footlights to her. She came forward for them, took one rose from the bouquet to give to Harry. But when she turned to give Harry the rose in front of everybody, Harry was gone. The curtain came down on that extra little scene—that girl offering a rose to nothing and nobody.
I went backstage, and I found her still holding that one rose. She’d put the rest of the bouquet aside. There were tears in her eyes. "What did I do wrong?" she said to me. "Did I insult him some way?"
"No," I said. "He always does that after a performance. The minute it’s over, he clears out as fast as he can."
"And tomorrow he’ll disappear again?"
"Without even taking off his makeup."
"And Saturday?" she said. "He’ll stay for the cast party on Saturday, won’t he?"
"Harry never goes to parties," I said. "When the curtain comes down on Saturday, that’s the last anybody will see of him till he goes to work on Monday."
"How sad," she said.
Helene’s performance on Friday night wasn’t nearly so good as Thursday’s. She seemed to be thinking about other things. She watched Harry take off after curtain call. She didn’t say a word.
On Saturday she put on the best performance yet. Ordinarily it was Harry who set the pace. But on Saturday Harry had to work to keep up with Helene.
When the curtain came down on the final curtain call, Harry wanted to get away, but he couldn’t. Helene wouldn’t let go his hand. The rest of the cast and the stage crew and a lot of well-wishers from the audience were all standing around Harry and Helene, and Harry was trying to get his hand back.
"Well," he said, "I’ve got to go."
"Where?" she said.
"Oh," he said, "home."
"Won’t you please take me to the cast party?" she said.
He got very red. "I’m afraid I’m not much on parties," he said. All the Marlon Brando in him was gone. He was tongue-tied, he was scared, he was shy—he was everything Harry was famous for being between plays.
"All right," she said. "I’ll let you go—if you promise me one thing."
"What’s that?" he said, and I thought he would jump out a window if she let go of him then.
"I want you to promise to stay here until I get you your present," she said.
"Present?" he said, getting even more panicky.
"Promise?" she said.
He promised. It was the only way he could get his hand back. And he stood there miserably while Helene went down to the ladies’ dressing room for the present. While he waited, a lot of people congratulated him on being such a fine actor. But congratulations never made him happy. He just wanted to get away.
Helene came back with the present. It turned out to be a little blue book with a big red ribbon for a place marker. It was a copy of Romeo and Juliet. Harry was very embarrassed. It was all he could do to say "Thank you."
"The marker