A Covenant with Death (26 page)

“That's what I want to talk to you about,” I said.

“Me? You're fooling.”

“Yes,” I said. “I'm fooling. Twelve-thirty be all right?”

“Yes. Yes, that'll be fine. It'll be nice to see you.”

“It'll be fun,” I said. “See you then.”

“Bye bye,” she said.

“Bye bye,” I said, and hung up.

My mother's mouth was set in hard lines. She vanished into the kitchen.

She condescended to join me after half an hour. I was sunk down in a stuffed chair, immersed in Barron v. Baltimore, a decision not only irrelevant to my problem but downright silly on its own merits, or demerits: old John Marshall, the Pooh-Bah, holding that the first ten amendments had to be honored by the Federal government but not by the states!

“You just can't do it,” she said. “You can't go chasing off after a skirt at a time like this.”

“Please.”

“What's the matter with you, anyway? You've got a good mind and no sense at all. Sometimes you act like an old man and sometimes you're still a child.”

I set down the book, and studied her. “You really think I'm chasing a skirt.”

“I know you are. I know you and I don't understand you.”

“That last is true enough,” I said.

We sat in silence for some moments.

“You've got a man's life on your hands,” she said.

A sigh was all I could manage; then I said, “Be quiet now and pay attention.”

“That's what I want you to do,” she said. “Pay attention.”

“Shut up,” I said. “Listen, for a change.” She was distrustful. “This is a remarkable house, full of good things, good people, good echoes and shadows, and a man can be comfortable here. But maybe I should have gone somewhere else a long time ago. Because you're hard to take sometimes. You're a professional mother the way John is a professional Indian. You have to be wiser and stronger than anybody, so I have to humor you. Pop did too, and he didn't mind, but it made him uneasy—I know that—that I never told you off. I think he half expected some wild coming-of-age declaration from me.” Her face was troubled; she set down her cigar and folded her hands in her lap. The light was behind her and she resembled a stone idol, grave, unmoving, but her eyes were bright and alert. “I thought it was fun, though, and I still do. Like a vaudeville act. But right now isn't a time for vaudeville. Not a time to make me feel like less than I am. I don't need advice, and I don't need wholesome maternal solicitude. I don't even need love, and the last thing I need is Rosemary. What I need is a cloud to sit on so I can see everything that's ever happened. I have Bryan Talbot to worry about, and the sovereign authority of this state, which I have sworn to uphold, and the future of the human race, and my own life, my own rock-bottom self. All dumped in my lap at once because in a certain month of a certain year I happen to be exercising a profession I wasn't even sure until this week I cared for. All I need from you is ‘Ben, I never realized until now how deep and wise you are, and I know you can handle this.' So what do I get? Lectures on morality. I don't mean to hurt you; you're a hell of a good kid and I'd do anything to keep you from pain and I don't want to inflict it myself. But you've got to stop being a high priestess. You can start again next week. Right now you've got to leave me alone.”

“You're a nasty boy,” she said. “Insulting an old lady like that.” She got out of her chair and came to kiss me on the cheek. “Sorry,” she said lightly, and tightened her mouth to keep back tears, and quavered, “Damn it, I wish Graeme were here.”

“I'd have to send him away too,” I said wearily.

“No. He'd keep out of your way. And he'd keep me out of your way. That's why I wish he was here.” She was crying. “I miss him and I'm going to read in bed.” At the door she turned and blinked, and tried to smile. “Ben,” she said, “I never realized until now how deep and wise you are. You can handle this,” and we grinned and she went on upstairs, blubbering.

I drove to Albuquerque the next morning, my mind full of Talbot, and when I parked near Tobias's I had almost forgotten what I wanted to say to Rosemary. I was early and ordered a glass of pineapple juice and sat reading a newspaper. The waitress was a pretty Indian girl of about eighteen with a magnificent dimpled smile. I could not help comparing her with Rosemary and remembering Stendhal: It is passion that we really want; beauty only furnishes possibilities. But the waitress did not linger. Overhead fans drew lazy circles; the customers were cool and quiet and the checkered tablecloths were fresh and summery. From my corner table I could see the street, and Rosemary was handsome striding in the sunlight. She wore a dark blue dress, some sort of small print, and I remember my wry surprise at her white gloves. Also at my own calm. She smiled when she saw me and I stood up and we shook hands, at arm's length; whether she was afraid that I would sweep her into my savage embrace and bend her back over the oysterettes I never knew. We sat facing each other.

“Well!” she said. “You look very good. I thought you'd be all nervous.”

“About?”

“About Talbot and everything.”

“Oh, yes. That's quite a case. How have you been?”

“Just fine.”

“Shall I get you some fruit juice?”

“Oh, yes.”

I beckoned the waitress and ordered.

It was a pleasant luncheon. A tall, dark, presentable gentleman with a flawless blonde companion. Old ladies would cluck and simper. The head waitress interrupted twice to be sure we were happy, and blessed us with her eyes. Rosemary chattered. She was hoping to spend two weeks in California. She had never seen the ocean. We discussed a recent tragedy in New York: eight hundred and thirty-six thousand gallons of beer, plus four thousand of ale, had been flushed through the city's sewers when a disused brewery was sold. Mr. Rockefeller had celebrated his eighty-fourth birthday, attending services on his estate; there were fifteen children present and after church he had presented each with a shiny new nickel.

We were on the ice cream when she asked, “Are you mad at me?”

“No.”

“Why did you want to see me?”

“Well,” I said, “I think I wanted to apologize.”

She pouted. “That's not very gallant.”

“Not for that.” I smiled. “I wouldn't apologize to God himself for that. No. It's just that I think you were about half right, what you said last time. But you were also half wrong. I feel, well, responsible for you.”

“You shouldn't,” she said. “I think we were very nice together in some ways. I didn't mean that you took advantage of me or anything like that.”

“No. That isn't what I meant either.”

The waitress brought our coffee and I smiled at her; she was obliged to smile back and I saw the pretty dimples again.

I leaned forward to touch Rosemary's hand. “Look. I don't even know you and I never tried to. That's what I wanted to apologize for. I don't know if you're a Democrat or a Republican, or if you roll toothpaste from the bottom or flatten it out, or if you have moods, or if you loved your father and mother, or even if you want children, or how many. I thought I was taking you on faith but I was really not even man enough to be interested. That's what I'm sorry about. That's what you were right about. I made love to you and even there I never asked you what you liked or didn't like.” She blushed and sipped at her coffee. “I was a lousy lover, wasn't I.” That may have been what hurt most.

“I don't know,” she said. “I have no basis for comparison.” I really don't believe she knew what I meant.

“But you were wrong too,” I said.

“I know. I didn't know much about you either. You kind of swept me off my feet.” She met my glance. “You know, most of it was my fault. Because I let you do things that were going to hurt me, and then I blamed you for it.”

“It was more than that,” I said. “You didn't like me from the start, except as something exotic. And maybe a chance to find out what it was all about, and I suppose it seemed somehow safe, because I was a judge. You're a scared little girl, though, and that's bad. Do you know, you would never look at me? At—well, you know. At the
real
me.” I grinned.

She turned fire-engine red and looked around like a thief. No one peered through a lorgnette or brandished a parasol; thunder did not roll.

“I want you to have a good life,” I said. “You've got to learn to prance.” I hesitated, searching for words that would not frighten her, and scratched my head absently.

“Don't scratch your head at the table,” she said.

“Yes. That's what I mean. Let's see.” I stared off at nothing for a few seconds, and saw the waitress again. “Here. You were really talking about a kind of respectability, and how it was wrong of me to love, or to
think
I loved, if I couldn't go all the way, with a house and a car and pretty curtains. And then I got sore and walked out I wondered about that later. And I think I was mad because you were making us less important than things. Listen,” and I took her hand, “maybe you were right about making love on the stairs and such; but it's better than being a thing. Don't be a thing. Don't ever think there's anything more important than loving somebody. Mayonnaise or cars or a handsome face or anything else. That's what I came to tell you because I'm afraid I may have spoiled love for you. Please don't let that happen.”

“Oh, I'm sure I'll marry,” she said, and smiled, sweetly and imperviously. “Did you ever notice that men always look
into
a cup when they're drinking coffee, but women always look
over
it?”

That was the last time I saw Rosemary. I left her in defeat and almost in despair, and I remember her not because I loved her so well but because I loved her so badly.

I was home by five and called John, who told me that Dietrich and Parmelee would wait upon my pleasure Monday morning. I took a quiet highball with my slavishly silent mother, and shared with her a thick steak and mounds of soft-fried onions. Then I returned to the briefs. At about eleven that night I went into the study and placed paper, pencils, pen and ink on my father's desk. I am there now, seated at the same desk, and I remember rubbing its worn, smooth surface as if I hoped that its virtue would pass to my right hand. I went to the kitchen for a glass, to the pantry for a bottle of Ignacio's harsh red wine, and to the living room for a box of his cigars. I returned to the study, and sat down, and poured a glass of wine, and lit a cigar, and wrote for nine hours. Early of a Sabbath morn I went to my office, and for two hours I typed, and it was done. I strolled home wearily in a shower of sun and church-bells.

16

I was alone in chambers. I had sent John away. My chest was tight and my limbs were heavy; toes and fingers tingled, and I was conscious of each short, shallow breath; like a man in fever, fearing hysteria, I clenched my hands and concentrated, counted the knots in the paneling, the books on the shelves, the beat of my heart. Discite Justitiam. A glass of water eased me. I removed my jacket and went to the closet, groping for the robe; it slipped off the hanger and fell, and lay wadded on the floor while I stared down at it. I picked it up and brushed it off and carried it to the window, and stood looking out over an empty lot and the sycamores like sentries. Sparrows fluttered and gossiped. No angel descended on a shaft of light with words of cheer.

Monday morning. And our hero heavy with regret: for a misspent youth, for a reckless heart and a feckless mind, for stealing fire. It is stage fright, I told myself. Nothing more. And the omens are good: you have a cool day and a cielo aborregado, the mackerel sky of good augury and fair weather. That you could not eat breakfast is only to be expected. Stage fright and nothing more. Now robe yourself.

I emerged woodenly from the wings and entered a full courtroom. Faceless, they rose. Eyeless, they stared. Enthroned, I nodded; they sat. Harvey chanted. I smoothed the folded sheets of paper. “Is there anything you wish to say before I proceed?” The lawyers said, “No, Your Honor.” Talbot was intent. I met his eye.

My voice held steady as I identified the decision; for that I was grateful. It would be gratifying and wholesome now to remember that I thought of my father, or of some great man, and took heart; but I thought of nothing and no one. I was conscious of silence, and as I read my voice grew stronger against the silence before me; I seemed to feel larger, and higher, and the people below me seemed to dwindle, as though I were addressing them from a mountaintop. This is the greater part of what I read to them, and toward the end I could taste again the wine and cigars:

“… In the instant case the facts are not at issue. Defendant was indicted and duly convicted, in open court and by a jury of his peers, of murder in the first degree. The sentence of death by hanging was mandatory, as was appeal. Appeal was denied. During execution of the sentence, by a duly authorized agent of the state and in the presence of the required witnesses, defendant freed himself momentarily and attacked that agent, deliberately and with malice aforethought. As a direct result of that attack the agent died, and execution of the sentence was postponed, as required by statute. Within hours new and irrefutable evidence proved beyond doubt defendant's innocence on the original charge. Defendant was immediately acquitted by order of the Court, non obstante veredicto, as permitted by statute. He was then charged with the murder of the state's hangman. He pleaded not guilty by reason of self-defense. He moved to waive his right to trial by jury, and he moved for immediate judgment by this Court. Motions were granted.…

“The cases cited by counsel are apposite but not perfectly so. In Dennison defendant, driving alone at night, was flagged down by an officer in civilian dress driving an ordinary unmarked automobile; frightened, fearing robbery or other danger, he refused to halt, committed several violations of the law in his flight, and inadvertently caused the death by accident of the pursuing officer. He was held innocent of manslaughter, and indeed of all violations committed subsequent to his first encounter with the officer. But here the charge was not murder, and defendant could not reasonably have been expected to know that the authority of the state was involved. In Somerville defendant seriously wounded a uniformed officer in resisting arrest for a crime he had not committed, and was found guilty on several counts; but he had declined to avail himself of the many reasonable safeguards and opportunities for exculpation and redress provided by law, and his life was not at stake. Perhaps Hastings, in the cold print of the record, best approximates the instant case: defendant, apprehended on his farm by a sheriff and arrested for the crime of murder, resisted arrest, shot the sheriff to death, and wounded a deputy. He was later executed though it had been shown that he was innocent of the original murder and that the sheriff had known of his innocence. What the record does not emphasize is that Hastings was a Negro in the Deep South, that the sheriff was known to have vituperated him publicly again and again, and that he had little if any expectation of escaping execution for the original murder; that society was clearly—to any reasonable outsider—in the process of violating Hastings's natural and legal rights: of, in short, murdering him. We suggest that Hastings is no precedent at all.…