All These Condemned Read online

  I knew I would deal with Paul from now on, and sensed that he would retain our association. I had nothing to fear. I kept telling myself that. Nothing at all to fear.

  It did not become quite horrible for me until they were all assembled and went back and forth in their boats, dragging for her body. I envisaged the cruel hooks seeking her flesh. I have always been too imaginative, I believe.

  I could not watch it. I had been told by a uniformed and rather officious young man that I could not leave. I went to my room. I wished to ignore the whole episode. I donned my treasured flannel robe and sat in the deep chair in my room in darkness and smoked my pipe and tried to think of the work that would face me once I returned to my office. But all the time I was aware of them out there, with their lights and boats and hooks and their snickerings. I knew that it would be in the papers and that Mr. Howey would feel it necessary to call me in for one of his little chats.

  I used to feel that he liked me. He does not seem to like me any more. He cannot claim that I do not do my work. It was, of course, Wilma Ferris who poisoned him about me. That is not fair. I did not seek out the Ferris account. What Mr. Howey does not seem to realize is that I can be most effective when I handle those accounts where business is conducted on the proper plane. You should be a gentleman in business relationships. Calmness and careful thought can be much more effective than all the self-conscious bustling about in the world. A good quiet lunch and a brandy and a discussion of business problems. I never asked for the Ferris account. I have never felt entirely competent to handle it because I was never able to talk properly to that damnable woman. She seemed to be forever laughing at me. And I do not consider myself to be a ludicrous man. I am educated. I am rather well set up. I have health and, I trust, a certain dignity.

  I did not ask for the account, and had it not been given to me to handle, I should probably, even now, be on much better terms with Lucius Howey. It is quite clear to me that she poisoned him against me. Deliberately, maliciously.

  I do not understand such people. One must have good will. At times, naturally, I have been forced to deal firmly with underlings in order to protect myself. But good will is my credo. If all my accounts were such reliable conservative old firms as Durbin Brothers, life could be very enjoyable. We agree on the media. I never attempt to force them to increase their total bill. We are in complete agreement on the dignity of the copy. And what finer program to support can there be? Their Citizens’ Forum improves the mind. The Durbin Brothers consider it a privilege to support the Forum. They are my idea of the business person who is aware of his obligations to the society in which he lives. True, it is a rather small account. But an excellent product. Excellent.

  They would never be guilty of the sort of behavior that Wilma was guilty of that hideous day when I took the new copy to her apartment at her request. I had toned down some of the obvious floridities in it. And I had repaired some rather clumsy layouts. She was expressionless as she read the copy. I could not guess her reaction.

  And then she had torn it all to bits and scattered them on the floor. I did not know her well. I made some sound of dismay.

  She came over to me, her face contorted, and leaned so close to me that I leaned back in alarm. She called me Buster. She said, barely opening her mouth to say it, “Buster, you need some of the facts of life underlined for you, don’t you? That was supposed to be perfume copy. With that senile drivel you couldn’t sell sachet to your maiden aunt. All you got to do in that copy is to tell the girls that if they smell better they’ll be had more often.”

  “Really, Miss Ferris!”

  “Don’t boggle at me, you stuffed shirt. I said sexy copy and I want sexy copy. In my perfume line, I’m not selling smells. I’m selling sex. If that distresses you, Dorn, go paddling off and I’ll get somebody who can understand what I’m talking about. Maybe you don’t approve of sex, you bloodless old nanny goat.”

  “I cannot permit you to talk to me in this manner.”

  “I’ve heard tell you used to write fair copy. Get over to that desk and write something remotely usable or you’re going to be known in advertising alley as the boy who bungled the Ferris account.”

  There was nothing I could do. Actually the woman alarmed me. She kept me there for three hours. Finally I turned out something she liked. I more than half expected the magazines to turn it down. To my astonishment, they took it without comment.

  We had similar scenes later. I could never guess how she would react. And most of the time I was off balance because I was wondering why she should give the constant impression of laughing at me. She had to dominate me. I sensed that. And I could not prevent her doing it.

  I actually believe that my helpless feeling of being dominated was what finally led me into the ultimate mistake there at her apartment. I really believe that I was finally reversing our roles by regressing to that most basic of male-female relationships. And, believing that, I spent a fool’s hour in that ripest of gardens, believing that I was inflicting my will on her, enjoying to the utmost her really remarkable favors and then, to my complete horror, as I began dressing, fully expecting warmth from her, and a certain humility, she sat on the edge of her bed and began snickering and finally collapsed in helpless laughter. For a long time she could not tell me what amused her. When she could speak, she said she had imagined some rather coarse, crude things, most of them to do with my mode of dress and my behavior, though I have always felt that I behaved with the dignity of a gentleman.

  So the expected reversal of roles led only to greater humiliation.

  I know she poisoned Mr. Howey against me.

  I cannot understand a person like that.

  I am totally glad she is dead.

  I am very glad.

  I rejoice.

  And I am not afraid.

  Six

  (RANDY HESS—BEFORE)

  I TOLD NOEL that Wilma expected us both for the week end, and that started another of our dry, bitter little quarrels. There is no ranting and raving. Just a sour quietness. It was not always this way. Not before Wilma. My nerves used to be better. My wife and I are almost strangers. It seems a long time since we have laughed together. And that did not matter to me very much before Gilman Hayes came on the scene, six months ago. He displaced me nearly entirely in one area of my usefulness to Wilma. I think of that and wonder how I have managed to give up all pride and decency. And I wonder why I am willing to trade day after day of the humiliating tasks she gives me just for the sake of those brief rare times when she opens her arms.

  I think of myself and wonder that I can feel so devoid of shame. I think I used to be a proud man. I have that memory. But it’s a memory that seems to belong to some other person.

  She is not bad. She is not evil. People make a mistake when they say she is evil and malicious. She is merely Wilma. I remember one time when she talked to me in a voice I had not heard before.

  “I was a fat kid, Randy. A horrible fat kid. My bones are big and there was a lot of padding on the bones. My God, I ate all the time. And I hated the way I looked. I was ugly.” She spoke quietly beside me in her bed, her profile clear against the red mist high over the city. “I used to dream that a fairy godmother would come along. She would have a wand. She would touch me on the forehead and she would tell me I was beautiful. And, in the dream, I would run, run, run to the mirror, my heart in my throat, and I’d look in and there I’d be, the same fat Wilma. I used to hate my fairy godmother. Maybe that’s what started me on this cosmetics thing, Randy. I’ve wondered about that. Magic wand. Say, make a mental note of that, will you? For the stick perfume. It might be good. I’m too relaxed to think about it right now. I guess it did other things, being fat and ugly like that. You see, I’d see the little golden girls going to their parties. I’d hide. Sometimes, when I was brave, I’d throw mud. There was a boy they all had crushes on. My God, I had a crush on him too. My heart used to go thud-thud just seeing him in the school halls. And it was so damn
ridiculous. I told my psychiatrist about all this.”

  “What did he say?”

  She rolled over and up onto her elbows, half over me, one large perfect breast eclipsing half the world. “He said, Randy, that he could isolate the cause for my so-called nymphomania. He says there is absolutely no physiological basis for it. He says there very seldom is. It’s because usually a person wanted to be loved so badly. And there’s some obstacle. Mine was the way I looked. My God, underneath I was a mess. All a bunch of crazy longings. And that family of mine! Brother. They’d crack you for nothing, just for walking by. Funny, thinking about it, about spending the rest of your life getting even. He said that was what I was doing. That I resented the male. He hadn’t noticed me when I wanted to be noticed. He said it was too bad, because now I can’t really love anybody. Hell, I guess I don’t miss that. I asked him why I needed so much physical love. He said it was just a symbol. He said that given time, he could cure me. And I thought about that and told him I would go along as is, thank you very much. So you see, Randy. I really hate you. Can you believe it?”

  And, looking up at her, I could believe it. And yet understand her. Yet pity and love the child she had once been.

  And pity myself for having been standing in the right place and time to have been run down by this implacable female machine, and still know that it was no excuse for me. She had merely uncovered a basic sensuality, a masochistic weakness in me that I had not suspected.

  She seldom talked that way to me. My role was more generally that of whipping boy.

  There was another time. “Does Noel know about this, Randy?”

  “I haven’t told her, if that’s what you mean.”

  “But she knows?”

  “I’m pretty sure she does.”

  “Doesn’t that make you feel bad? Wouldn’t you like to give all this up and try to make her happy again?”

  “I know that’s what I should do.”

  “But you’re going to keep on with this, aren’t you?”

  “Yes. I guess I am.”

  “Tell me why you are.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tell me why you’re not going to give this up.”

  “Because … I can’t.”

  “That’s what I wanted you to say. Let me tell you about the others, Randy. Don’t you want to listen to me?”

  “Please don’t, Wilma.”

  “I like to talk about them. Like I talk to them about you.”

  “Stop it, Wilma.”

  “I’ll stop it. Tell me what you are. Are you weak?”

  “Weak and vile and foul.”

  “And ashamed?”

  “No. Not ashamed.”

  “Should you be?”

  “Yes, I should be. What I’m doing is a sin in the eyes of man and God.”

  “That sounded nice. You must say it again sometime. But right now we’ll stop talking, won’t we, Randy? Right now, darling, we’ll stop talking. Won’t we? Won’t we?”

  And there was no escape, as there never was. As though I needed vileness. As though I sought degradation. As though I had to go on punishing myself for inconceivable crimes, for a guilt that had not yet been explained to me. And I wondered if I would ever kill her. It was the only possible release. She did not tire of the little humilities. The emptying of her ash trays. Sorting her clothes for the cleaners. Taking care of her shoes. Picking up after her. She was a robust animal and she casually littered the rooms in which she lived. She liked to have me tell her about how important I used to think I would become. Sometimes she made me tell her those old dreams while I was making up her bed while she sat at the dressing table, watching me in the mirror.

  I knew of her other affairs. She made certain that I knew of them. Ears should be able to be closed, like eyes. But I was not deposed. I had the most of her and that had to be enough. Until she took unto herself Gilman Hayes.

  “He’s no good, Wilma. You’ve got to get rid of him.”

  “We’ll have a nice talk about him. As though you were my girl friend, Randy.”

  “He’s no good.”

  “He’s a fabulous artist, my dear.”

  “Who says so?”

  “Steve Winsan says so. I’m paying him to say so in the right places. The places where it counts. Be good, Randy. And be patient. He’s a very arrogant young man, and a very splendid animal, and after he has been properly broken to the halter, we shall send him on his way and forget about him.”

  “He’s costing you too much money.”

  “You nag me like an old hen, Randy dear. Be your sweet and patient self, and Wilma will be back soon. Poor Gil has the absurd idea he’s doing me some sort of a favor. That’s a little attitude I shall manage to correct. And then, because he’s a bit dull, we’ll send him on his way, older and wiser.”

  She had told me the list for this week end. Hayes and the Dockertys and Steve and Judy and Wallace Dorn. There was one small gain in this Hayes affair. It had given me time to go over her accounts. And I did not like what I saw. I had a talk with her on Tuesday. I tried my best to frighten her. I made it strong. She smiled and ticked the things off on her fingers.

  “Rent the Cuernavaca house. Check. Get a smaller apartment here. Maybe. Drop Gil and cancel out Steve’s efforts for both of us. Check. Stop spending so much on other things. Check. And you know, dear, as long as we’re making changes, I’m getting awfully tired of Judy and Wallace Dorn, too. I think I’ll make some changes. And wouldn’t you say you’re an expense to me too?”

  “That’s up to you to decide,” I told her.

  “Brave Randy. So very casual about it. Get Mavis on the phone for me, dear.”

  “Were you serious about … letting me go too?”

  “Now you’ve spoiled it by getting anxious. You just be a good boy this coming week end. Then we’ll see. Get Mavis, and while I’m talking, you can leave for the day. Gil will be along soon. Poor dear, he just detests finding you here. I don’t think he likes you at all.”

  Noel and I drove up on Friday, chatting with the faintly evasive formality of people who meet on a train. She looked very trim and pretty, but for me it was like looking at a picture of a girl I had known once upon a time. There was nothing personal in looking at her. The whole world was dry and vague and flat. The only vividness in the world, the only reality, was a demanding body that was labeled Wilma and in which there would be another time of forgetfulness, of the great blindness that surpasses all regrets.

  I timed the trip so that we could arrive early. Gilman Hayes had come up with Wilma in her car. They were there when we arrived. Wilma had told me the room we would have, so I carried our luggage in. I believe that she has told José that I am a person of very small importance and not to help me. He even mixes and serves my drinks with an almost detectable reluctance. It is a typical example of her small methods.

  After Steve Winsan arrived I could tell by the way he kept glancing at me that he wanted a word with me. I suspected what it was. When he found a chance to ask me, I agreed. He was fool enough to treat me with contempt. I was firm with him, wishing all the time that Wilma had given him no hint of danger. And then he was shrewd enough to put his finger directly on Wilma’s personal threat to me. After vaguely threatening me. He is an alert and dangerous man, perfectly capable of using any weapon he can find. But I couldn’t think of any weapon available to him. Wilma had said he was out. And she is not the sort who changes her mind.

  Mavis was as gushingly tiresome as usual. Judy Jonah was almost herself, but I sensed tiredness in her. Paul Dockerty seemed rather out of place in our little group. Once upon a time I might have been, also. Gilman Hayes was at his obnoxious best, insulting the ones he didn’t ignore. There was a lot of strain in the air. It looked like a bad week end. It made me nervous. I tried to keep remembering what the doctor had told me. Take it slow and easy. Try to relax whenever you can. But my doctor had never spent a week end with Wilma Ferris. She creates strain. She feeds on it. She d
eliberately creates cross-purposes, misunderstanding.

  Wallace Dorn was his normal pompous self. Noel sat as though she had deliberately taken herself out of the group. Wilma is always almost excessively sweet to her. We drank and we ate and they played games. I wandered around and watched, and drank too much. Mavis danced with Gilman Hayes. It was not an entirely pretty thing to watch.

  I was glad when the evening ended. Noel went to bed early. She was asleep in her bed when I went to our room. I undressed and lay in the darkness, feeling as if my nerves had poked out through my skin, waving in the night, sampling all the emotions that moved through the big house. I paired them off. Perhaps Steve had found his way to Judy’s room. Paul and Mavis would be rightly together. And Gilman and Wilma. All the dark blinding plungings, while I lay bloodless. The rustlings and kissings, while I lay dead. It was all there was. They gave you the big words, the philosophical words. Man’s destiny. And then you learned the only destiny was function. Be born, breed, and die. And of the three, there was only one over which you had control. Function of man. And, with us, an empty function. A sterile sensation, creating not. Destiny and function in a dark house, in the nerve-end night while my long untouched wife lay deep in her silver dreamings, deep in the precise and immaculate imaginings of her viscid brain, the unused body composed and still, and the blood moving within her and the oxygen molecules trundling along the crowded corridors. It was a secret I could tell her. There is nothing left but function, my bride. Nothing but that. No big words any more. No pride and no shame. No honor and no dishonor. Nothing but the body and its needs and the forgetfulness of filling its needs. I lie here dead and know that I am dead. And with so little effort I could take Wilma with me. To hell. Why did I say that? If there is only function, then there is no hell. No temptation, no evil. Just the pretenses we build for ourselves in order to make life endurable to a limited extent. Because we need those fictions. Were we ever to come face to face with the ultimate meaninglessness, we would die. As I have died in so many little ways over so long a time that there is nothing left.