The Chapman Report, page 40
“I’m making sense—for the first time, yes—I’ll meet you.”
“Your family—”
“I don’t care. You’re my family?”
“Sarah, I’m going down with a crew. There’ll be no women. I couldn’t—”
“I’ll take the next flight, then. Where will you be?”
“All over the place. I’ll be busy every minute.”
“Where will you be? There’s got to be one place.”
“The Reforma Hotel,” he said unhappily. “I wish you wouldn’t, Sarah. I wish you’d sleep on it, think about it.”
“No.”
“I can’t keep you from coming to Mexico, of course not—”
“You can keep me from coming. Tell me you don’t love me. Tell me you don’t want me, ever again. Tell me that.” There was a momentary silence. “I can’t tell you that, but—” Someone was knocking at the study door.
“I have to hang up now,” she whispered. “I’ll see you.”
She returned the receiver to the cradle, set down the telephone, straightened the scarves so that they covered her tights, and opened the study door. It was Geoffrey holding up two drinks.
“Scotch or bourbon? Your choice of weapons.”
“Bourbon.”
He extended the glass in his left hand, and she accepted the drink.
“I thought you needed it,” he said.
She smiled wanly. “Mata Hari doesn’t,” she said. “But I do.”
* * *
The first guests had begun to depart at twelve-thirty, and by twelve forty-five Kathleen and Paul had taken their leave of the Harnishes and were headed toward Kathleen’s house a dozen blocks away.
Kathleen had enjoyed the dinner, and so had Paul, both fully aware that this had been their formal social debut as partners. Now, remembering incidents at the party, they laughed, and Paul hardest at the memory of the Palmers so drunk, enacting an impromptu playlet of Dr. Chapman interviewing Lucrezia Borgia on her sexual behavior.
Kathleen shook her head. “Imagine, if they had known you were one of the interviewers.”
“She would have gone ahead anyway. She was tanked.” Kathleen looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “You weren’t offended?”
Paul chuckled. “I wish I’d written that skit… . Hell, no. We’re fair game.”
Turning into Kathleen’s street, they both fell silent as if by mutual consent. The thinnest slice of moon hung high above the street lights, circled by dots that were stars sparkling on and off. On either side of the thoroughfare, casting weird silhouettes on the street, the rows of eucalyptus bowed respectfully, like ancient retainers. In the unstirred air remained the faint exotic odor of gardenia bushes.
Paul bent the car into Kathleen’s driveway, and in a moment they were before her entrance. He turned the ignition key, and the motor lost its voice to the cadence of the crickets in the grass.
Kathleen pulled her mink stole about her, then folded her hands in her lap, and turned to face Paul. “I’d ask you in, but it’s so late.”
Paul’s eyes watched her face. “What did our host say? Romney’s portrait—the most beautiful face ever put to canvas? Someday, we’ll see, and then I’ll show you—not half as beautiful as you, Kathleen.”
“Don’t say things like that, Paul, unless you mean them.”
“I love you, Kathleen.”
“Paul…I—”
She closed her eyes, red lips trembling, and he embraced her and kissed her. After a while, as he kissed her cheeks, and eyes and forehead, and hair, and found her mouth again, she took his hand in her own and brought it to her chest, and then pressed it down beneath the veiled bodice and inside her brassiere. Gently, he caressed the soft breast, then withdrew his hand and touched her hot cheek with his fingertips.
“Kathleen, I love you. I want to marry you.”
Her eyes were open, and, suddenly, she sat up, staring wordlessly at him. Her eyes were odd, almost frightened.
“I’m supposed to leave Sunday,” he said, “but Dr. Chapman owes us vacations. I could ask to stay. We could fly to Las Vegas—or a church, if you like—”
“No,” she said.
Paul did not conceal his astonishment. “I thought—I’m trying to say I love you, all the way—and I thought—it seemed to me that you felt—”
“I do, I do—but not now.”
“I don’t understand you, Kathleen.”
Her head was bowed. She did not speak.
“Kathleen, I’ve been a bachelor a long time. I knew that when it finally happened, it would be right. I knew it—and I know it now, this moment here. You’re right, and I’m right, and I think we should be together for the rest of our lives.”
She looked up. There was a secret misery in her face that he had not seen before. “I can’t now—I want you, but not now—and don’t ask me to explain.”
“But this makes no sense. Is it your first husband?”
“No.”
“Then what is it, Kathleen? This is the most important moment in our lives. There can be no secrets. Tell me what’s bothering you, just tell me—get it over with—and then we can have each other.”
“I’m too tired, Paul.” She opened the car door, and before he could speak again, she was standing in the driveway. “I can’t answer you, because I can’t. Don’t ask for logic. I’m too tired now to talk—just too tired.”
She turned and went swiftly to the door. She inserted the key, and hurried inside, and closed it against him, not once looking back.
Paul sat behind the wheel, unmoving, for many minutes. He tried to understand, but without information, without logic, without communication, there was no understanding. The incredibility of the situation overwhelmed him. For most of thirty-five years, he had sought this woman, this delicate, ethereal Romney portrait, and after the endless odyssey, the trial by loneliness, he had found her. Yet, he had found no one, no person, but an image that had neither substance nor reality. He could not possess, he realized, what did not exist. The weight of the disappointment crushed him.
He turned the ignition key and started the car. Sick at heart, sick beyond breathing, he drove through The Briars toward the refuge of the only reality that held back no secrets, offered no disappointments—the refuge of numbers, cold and clear, even welcoming warm in their calm and orderly array.
12
HAVING COMPLETED A short letter to Gerold Triplett in San Francisco, and a long letter to her mother in Beloit, Wisconsin, Benita Selby sat at her desk in the corridor on the second story of The Briars’ Women’s Association and tried to determine what she should undertake next. Since it was too early to clean out the desk, she decided that she would make the final California entry in her journal.
With some difficulty, Benita worked the journal out of her handbag, cracked the booklet open on the desk, peeled the pages slowly, fleetingly admiring some gem of perception, until she reached the first of the few remaining blank pages.
Taking pen in hand, she began to write under Saturday, June 6: “Well, toot the trumpets, the Last Day of Judgment is here. Because of several cancellations this past week, as expected, today will be an abbreviated day of interviewing. Dr. Chapman, Horace, and Paul are scheduled for four interviews apiece, from ten-thirty this morning until five-thirty this afternoon. That will conclude 187 interviews of married women in The Briars and 3,294 nationwide in fourteen months. That will end the married female survey, as far as field work is concerned. Cass is still ill. He was miserable all yesterday, and this morning early, he drove off to see his doctor again. Dr. Chapman is working in the conference room, preparing his notes for tomorrow morning’s network television program, Borden Bush’s ‘The Hot Seat,’ in which he is the guest of honor who discusses his work with three experts in his line. The network says Trendex expects the largest morning audience this year. Dr. Chapman said to me, `It is very important, Benita,’ and he is giving it his all. The rest of us are free tomorrow to pack and do as we please, until the streamliner leaves Union Station at seven-fifteen in the evening. I will buy presents for Mom, Mrs. McKassen, who’s been so helpful, and the girls at school …”
The sound of leather heels on the corridor floor stayed Benita’s penmanship, and she looked up to see Paul Radford approaching. He appeared overheated, carrying his suit coat on his arm, and unusually absorbed. Hastily, Benita closed her journal and pushed it into the handbag.
“Good morning, Paul. Hot, isn’t it?”
“Murder.”
“But at least not humid and sticky, like the East. I’d love to live here, someday—or maybe north, like San Francisco—wouldn’t you?”
“I haven’t thought about it. Am I the first here?”
“Dr. Chapman’s in the conference room. Cass went to his doctor, and—oh, Paul, someone’s waiting for you.”
He had started for the conference room, but now he came back to the desk, surprised.
“For me? Who?”
“Mrs. Ballard.”
He threw his coat over the other arm. “Where is she?”
“I put her in your office. You won’t be using it for another half hour.”
Paul moved toward his office. “Has she been here very long?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes.”
“See that we’re not disturbed.”
He continued into the office. He expected to find her in the chair, but she was leaning against the wall, legs crossed and arms folded over her bosom, smoke curling from the cigarette between the fingers of one slender hand. She was staring at the side of the brown folding screen when he entered, and she greeted his entrance without a smile.
“Kathleen—”
“Good morning, Paul.”
She wore a sleeveless magenta silk dress, and for that moment of elegant loveliness, he forgave her for upending a life of tidiness and making it one of chaos and turmoil. Yet, though she was present before him of her own initiative, he could not forget her enigmatic elusiveness of the night before. He tried to arrest the curve of rising hope. Through the restless night and bleak dawn, he had almost made the adjustment to a future that must perforce continue lonely. He would not permit himself another cycle of optimism because he would not suffer another fall into solitude.
“If I’d known you were coming here—” he said.
“I called the motel. You were out.”
“I was walking.”
“Then I phoned Miss Selby and came over.”
He indicated the chair, noticing that there were already two cigarette butts in the ceramic tray. “Why don’t you sit down, Kathleen?”
She passed before him, eyes on the brown screen, and finally sat. “Why do you use a screen?”
“Dr. Chapman worked without one in the beginning, during the adolescent study, but finally decided that face-to-face interviews were too inhibiting for the subject. He thinks it’s better this way.”
“I don’t think so. Perhaps, if there had been no screen between us—” she hesitated— “it might have been easier.”
“Wouldn’t you have been embarrassed?”
“At first, yes. But when a person is looking at you, it’s—” She halted and drew twice on her cigarette.
“It’s what, Kathleen?” he asked.
She raised her head toward him. “I’m trying to explain something to you, Paul—something terribly important—and I’m trying to lead into it gracefully.” She shrugged. “I think that’s impossible.”
“Does it have to do with the way you reacted last night?”
“Yes, entirely.”
“By the time the sun came up this morning, I’d decided that you wanted me a little, but not enough, not enough to be forever. I’m extremely possessive, Kathleen. I think you may have guessed that. It would have to be forever.”
“How does one ever know before? How can one be sure?”
“When you’ve waited as long as I have, you’re sure.”
“You’re being unrealistic, Paul. I’ve been married. Once, I wasn’t, and then I was. There’s a tremendous difference. Momentarily, you think someone is right, and you say forever, but afterward, forever becomes—what?—it becomes snoring, and bad breath in the morning, and diarrhea, and menstrual cramps, and fights over money, and sucking your teeth, and hair curlers, and the same tired one in bed, imperfect, saying the same words, reacting the same way—forever. That’s forever, too.”
“I’m no child, Kathleen. I’ve known many women—, “Not like that—not forever.”
“I’ve just finished listening to a good portion of three thousand of them.”
“The questions you ask don’t always bring the…the full answers.”
“I’m surprisingly bright, Kathleen. I can project a laconic answer to the ultimate fact—”
“To the ultimate disillusion?”
“That would never happen to us. Even if passion becomes habit, and high regard or affection, let’s say, it may be what should evolve with the passing years. Isn’t a long intimacy, a total intimacy, enough foundation?”
“Is it? I don’t know.”
“Why are you here, Kathleen?”
“You proposed to me last night. I didn’t say no. If I had said no, I wouldn’t be here.”
“You didn’t say yes, either. Matrimony requires full affirmation on both sides.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible on my part. I suspect it isn’t. I think this is one of those…those encounters where you meet, and dream a little, and go on your separate ways. Because you never knew you’d meet, and, besides, nature didn’t equip you, prepare you, for the encounter. It wasn’t fated to be. Like the sperm missing the egg.”
“Is that how you feel?”
“About myself. Not you. I feel you came prepared. I’m the one who’s not equal to it.”
He was silent.
Angrily, Kathleen ground her cigarette stub into the tray. “Hell—circles—around and around I go. I’m here because, dammit, you’ve got to know.”
There was a tentative rapping on the glazed door pane. Paul muttered a curse under his breath, strode to the door, and yanked it open.
Benita Selby recoiled. “I…I’m sorry, Paul, but Dr. Chapman wants to see you right away. I told him, but he insists. He’s all steamed up about something. He said to break in on you.”
“Can’t you tell him to wait a minute?”
“You tell him. Not me.”
Exasperated, Paul said, “All right. I’ll be right in.” He left the door open as he turned into the room. “Kathleen—”
“I heard. You go ahead, please.”
“Will you wait? I want to know.”
“I’ll wait. I’ll be right here.”
He nodded gratefully and hurried into the corridor.
In the conference room, Dr. Chapman was pacing near the far end of the table in a state of uncontrolled agitation. Paul shut the door and went to him.
“Where’s Cass?” asked Dr. Chapman. “Have you seen Cass?”
“He was going to the doctor.”
“He says. Three days ago, I sent him to an internist, Perowitz, a friend of mine. Out on Wilshire. Cass said he went, and this morning, he left to see the doctor again.”
Paul waited. Dr. Chapman resumed angrily.
“I worried about him all morning—we are leaving tomorrow—so I called the motel. They said he’s still out. So I telephoned Perowitz to find out if it’s serious. You know what Perowitz told me?”
Paul had not the faintest idea.
“He’s never seen or heard of Cass Miller. Do you understand, Paul? Cass has been bluffing us. He’s never been to a doctor. I’m beginning to suspect he wasn’t even ill.”
“There must be some logical explanation.”
“You’re damn right. There’d better be. And that’s what we’re going to find out right now. You and I—we’re going out on a Cass hunt, and when I find him, well, he’d better have his reasons, and they’d better make sense, or he’s through, right now, today, through.”
Paul glanced at the wall clock. “We have interviews in eighteen minutes.”
“Benita can have them wait. I want to settle Cass right now.”
“Where do we begin?”
“Never mind. I want to question the clerk at the motel and the gas station attendant where he takes the Dodge.”
He went to the door. Paul followed him into the corridor. “Are you sure you need me, Doctor?”
Dr. Chapman did not hide his vexation. “Look, Paul, I think this is important enough to investigate personally. Certainly, it’s not what the head of ‘a project is expected to do. But I’ve never looked upon Cass, or you or Horace, for that matter, as subordinates or employees. We’re partners, and when one of us founders, is derelict in duty, it affects and involves all of us.” He caught his breath. “Certainly, I need you. How do I know what’s happened to him? Maybe he’s drunk. Maybe it’ll take two of us.”
It was Paul’s turn to be irked by what he considered an unnecessary chastisement. “Okay,” he said curtly. “Let me get my coat.”
Paul entered his office. Kathleen had not moved from the chair. She sat staring at the screen, smoking. She looked at him as he picked up his coat.
“Kathleen, I’m sorry. A minor crisis. Dr. Chapman needs me with him on a mission. Then, the interviews—”
“That’s all right. But I do want to talk to you today.” She hesitated, and seemed suddenly tired and uncertain. “If you want to.”
“I want to. I’m finishing here around five-thirty. No, it’ll be later now. Probably closer to six. Can I just come right over?”
“Yes.” She held up the cigarette. “May I finish this before leaving?”
“Take your time. The office will be empty another half hour or more.”
He bent, brush-kissed her forehead, and hastened out to join Dr. Chapman.
* * *
It was after ten o’clock, and Sarah Goldsmith still sat at the antique slant-top desk writing the final draft of the note.
Her matching gray airline luggage, packed after the children had gone off to school and Sam had clumped off to a meeting in Pomona, had been hastily packed and now rested inside the front door. The telephone call to the sitter service had been made, and there would be someone to use the key under the rubber mat and be on hand to greet the children. All that was left was the note. Sarah had written it three times and discarded three versions, and this was the last, for the passenger plane to Mexico City took off in two hours, and the airport was a long drive.
