Hunger and Thirst (52 page)

“Oh
darling,”
Sally gasped, “I’m so happy you’re back. I’ve missed you. So terribly.”

“I’ve missed you too, Sal.”

“I hope so, Oh, I hope so.”

They sat on her bed and she snuggled against him as he put his arms around her. She raised her lovely soft face and kissed his cheek. “Sweetheart,” she said.

He looked down at her. She was bronzed. Even the red of her lips seemed pale against her skin. She was wearing a low cut pink dress with revealed her figure, as beautiful as ever.

She kept on glancing at him every few seconds as if she were afraid he’d disappear if she didn’t keep looking to make sure he stayed.

“Thank you, darling,” she said softly.

“What for?” he asked.

“For coming back to me.”

“Oh, Sal.”

She leaned forward and her soft lips brushed over his. He pulled her against himself and held tight.

“It seems so long since I was in your arms,” she said.

They didn’t say anything then. He kissed her temple and looked down at the swell of copper colored flesh where the bodice of her dress fell away. He didn’t want to do anything but sit there with her in his arms. He was perfectly content for the first time in months.

“I love you, Erick,” she said, “I always will.”

Then, as if relieved to have said it, she sighed deeply and rested against him.

Then she lifted her face again and looked into his eyes. Her hands moved up and she stroked his cheeks very slowly and gently. She leaned over and kissed his mouth over and over, barely touching her mouth to his. She whispered love into his ear. She kissed his eyes and cheeks. And, suddenly, he grabbed her wrists and pulled her close to him as he kissed her.

“I have missed you Sal, I
have
,” he muttered.

Her warm arms slid around his back. He could feel the heat of them through his shirt.

“Oh, thank you, thank you,” she whispered, almost fiercely.

They sat in silence, every once in a while shifting a little to get still closer to each other, their arms tightening, their bodies pressing harder against each other’s. Tiny sounds of love filled her throat. He felt a severe desire to tell her he loved her.

But he didn’t.

“I’m too obvious,” she said, “Leo says I am. Is that all right?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t help it. I want you to know just how I feel. I can’t hide it.”

He kissed her cheek.

“When you didn’t call last night, Leo said you were probably out with another girl.”

“Good old Leo.”

“Oh, I don’t care anyway. I don’t care if you go out with a hundred girls as long as you keep some time for me.”

“Sally.”

“No, really,” she said, pouring her love at his feet, “I don’t mind if you go out with anyone else. Just keep seeing me too, once in a while. You don’t have to call me all the time. When you get tired of me, don’t call. Only call me when you want to. We’ll do what you want to do. I’ll be anything you say.”

The words tumbled from her lips, warm and eager.

“Sally.” It was all he could say. He held her tightly. The girl was throwing herself at him. If she really meant it, his mind suggested, you could …

He shunted aside the thought.

“You shouldn’t talk like that,” he said, “You know how spoiled I am. You’ll make it worse.”

“I can’t do anything else,” she said, “I can’t be strong with you. Maybe another girl could. But I love you so much, I just have to tell you and I just want to do anything you say.”

She seemed to know his thoughts for she said then, “I trust you.”

Then they started to plan out the coming term

“Shall I get season tickets for the Drama Workshop plays?”

“Oh, yes!”

“And we’ll go to the concerts together.”

“Yes! And dances too, Erick?”

He smiled. “And dances too.”

He began to feel a rare sensation of genuine happiness. It made him want to open his arms and embrace the world. He was happy being with her, making plans, settling the future.

Once more he began to feel the bubbling excitement in her that had more or less amused him the first times they’d gone out together. It filled her to the brim, this intense love and enjoyment of life. It transferred itself to him. He could almost feel it like a flow into his body, a transfusion of spirit. Her vitality spread upon him. She was life for him. He felt it strongly. She was what he needed more than anything else. A clear and shiny lens through which to see the world anew.

Happiness such as he had rarely experienced came to him that afternoon. Sometimes, alone, he had experienced an ecstasy of ambition, a delight of mental effort. But these feelings always drained him in the end. He had to rest in between them. The happiness she gave him was its own source, its own renewal.

The moments flew by that afternoon. The details obscured there were so many and his head so whirled with excitement and happiness.

What stood out clearly was the glow in her eyes and the steady rush of warm delight he felt in being with her. Happiness swelled in him until he felt he would burst if he did not shout it out to everyone. He felt secure with her, at ease with her, without need of anything else than her touch, her smile, the gentle impelling of her love.

* * * *

One evening Sally and Erick went over to the house of Sally’s singing teacher.

As they were going up the path to the door, a cab ground to a stop in back of them.

“Is this Professor Walton’s house?” asked a voice from the back of the cab. Sally said it was.

A young girl came up behind them as they stood waiting for Professor Walton to answer the doorbell.

“Hello,” said Sally.

“Hello,” said the girl, a little timidly.

Professor Walton carne to the door and they all went in. The girl was several inches shorter than Sally, Erick noticed. Mr. Walton introduced as Melissa Crane.

They all took chairs. Two other male students were there. Sally introduced them to Erick. Then they listened to recorded singing.

Melissa sat in a soft chair near the record player. She was wearing a light green dress. Her figure was exquisite, Erick saw. He noticed her legs as she crossed them. Sally and he were sitting across from her on a couch, next to Professor Walton.

They sat in silence through a series of songs. Then most of them talked about the vocal technique and Erick sat in silence, listening. Melissa and he were the only ones who didn’t have anything to say. It made him feel a common ground with her.

She seemed interested though. Her green eyes moved around from speaker to speaker. She’s lovely, he thought. Dark, dark hair. Something about her face. Gentle. Yet vitally strong.

“Erick?” Professor Walton was asking.

“What?”

“Anything you’d like to hear?”

“Uh. How about, have you got Scriabne’s
Poem of Ecstasy?”

“Yes.” Professor Walton stood up. Erick’s eyes touched Melissa’s for a second and held them. He felt his breath catch.
Then caught again, in time with yours
.

“What’s that honey?” Sally asked, too loudly, he thought. Don’t call me honey! His mind exploded, I wish I were alone.

“Scriabne.”

“Is it good?” So anxious. So interested in what he had to say.

“I don’t know,” he said hastily, “I never heard it, that’s why I want to hear it.”

She was silent then and the fingers on his arm seemed to go limp. He felt uncomfortable. I’m sorry, his mind apologized, but for Christ’s sake, don’t hang on me. Eat your cake and have it too, chanted his mind.

The music began. “Tell me if you think it’s religious music,” said Professor Walton.

Erick fell away with it. And knew right away that Mr. Walton was joking. The music wasn’t religious in any sense. It was a sensuous mass of sound. He felt it in his blood.

This isn’t music, his mind declared, it’s part of thought. An opiate that dulls and expands yet leaves no remorse. He felt himself shiver and recalled what Lynn said once about music listeners being like smokers. The true smoker, Lynn had said, does not show his reactions in an overt manner. The smoke is inhaled deeply and not much comes back out. It is not like the sniff-snort puffings of the neophyte smoker. The nicotined fumes are drunk in and savored deeply in the far passages of the lungs. There is no wild exhalation and the enjoyment is expressed only with the eyes; the face generally is a blank. The enjoyment is within.

Thus is it with the music listener, Lynn had said. This music is inhaled deeply. There is no combination of listening and overt action. No whistling or humming or movements of extremities. The body and face are placid. The music is taken down deep and there it stirs. Only in the eyes can the tale be read.

His eyes fell on Melissa again. They could not help but gravitate toward her, his glance was weighted in her direction. He ran his eyes over her body. It was as lovely as Sally’s, just a little less robust. Look at those eyes, said his mind. Those eyes. And features carved delicately with a loving and expert hand.

He felt Sally’s eyes on him as the music surrounded. He could tell she was looking at him now without even glancing aside. He didn’t know when the ability had become full-blown. But it was there.

She gazes for the thousandth time on me, he thought. What is she thinking? There he sits, damn him, my only rival, his career. I could help him if he only knew. But he must be as free as air. I know that and still love him. It is tragic.

Did she think that?

He kept looking at Melissa.

The music ended. “Religious?” Professor Walton asked.

“Carnal,” Erick said.

They all laughed. There was conversation a while. Erick didn’t pay much attention to it. All he kept thinking was that it would be better if Sally were not there. It didn’t occur to him that he would never have been invited there at all if it hadn’t been for Sally. Desires overshadowed reason. He didn’t want Melissa to think he was engaged to Sally. They had such an easy air of familiarity between them. They might even be married. The thought made him shiver. He found himself displaying his left hand prominently so she could see there was no ring.

He listened carefully when she spoke. She was a freshman student.

She must be no more than eighteen, he decided. Quite a drop from Sally’s twenty-four.

After a while they all had cocoa and crackers. Melissa brought cups to Sally and him. He felt a chill as she smiled at him. “Thank you,” he said. “You’re welcome,” she said and her voice sounded mysterious to him.

The cocoa burned in his throat. He tried to talk with Sally but he couldn’t get interested in anything she said. He was beginning to feel the same eating hunger he’d felt the first time he met Sally. It was an emotion he distrusted. An enervating loss of mind. Something he could intellectually curse but something that made the world different in spite of everything.

Going home on the bus, they were silent. When they got off, Sally said,

“What are you thinking about, darling?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve been away from me all night.”

“Sorry.” He took her arm. It was from habit, not desire.

“Why do you stand for me?” he said, conscious of the fact that he had more belligerence in his voice than amusement.

“Because I love you so,” she said.

He closed his eyes for a second. She was a she-devil, he thought, in the way she knew how to get to him every time. He put his arm around her and looked into her eyes and forgot about Melissa for a moment.

“I kick you around and you still say that,” he said.

“Just a faithful old shoe,” she said.

On the porch she asked him if he was coming in. “I can’t, Sally,” he said, “I have to get up early tomorrow.”

“Oh,” she said quietly, “all right.”

He put his arms around her.

“Sweetheart,” he said, “Do you want me to fall asleep in class and tumble out of the chair?”

She laughed sadly and pushed her face into his shoulder.

“Oh me,” she murmured. He lifted her chin and kissed her.

“Oh, I love you,” she murmured.

“Sally.”

“Go home,” she said, “Go to bed. And dream of me cold and alone.”

“I’ll stay if it’s that bad.”

She smiled. “No. Thank you for taking me home.”

“Good night, Sally.”

He couldn’t sleep for several hours. Lynn was snoring delicately in his bed. But even when Lynn turned over and the noise stopped, Erick lay awake, eyes shut, trying to see Melissa’s face in his mind again.

At least, he told himself, it shows me I’m capable of emotion toward a girl. I’m still human to that extent. And it must be more than physical attraction. Sally has as much of that but I don’t even pretend to love Sally.

And now this girl with her angel face reduced him to thoughts of love. It was pathetic that’s what it was, spoke up the Ned Sparks of his intellect. He drank down mental draughts for months on end. Then in one swoop, he was gone. One unknowing flap of eyelashes and he was a dead duck. From one extreme to the other.

Perhaps that was the cachet.

He stretched his body taut and then relaxed. He listened to the silence and made believe he was back in his army tent after a grueling day on the obstacle course. The branches rustling outside were the swaying Georgia pine tree branches high above. The mattress was softer than the ground but he could pretend. He fell asleep and dreamed that he was trying to get over to that chair by the record player. But people kept putting obstacles in the way and he couldn’t get close enough to see her face.

* * * *

He walked right by her in Sociology class.

He didn’t realize it for a second. It was only at the last moment that he recognized her and returned her smile hastily. Then, instead of taking the empty seat beside her, he walked back about five rows, his heart beating rapidly, cursing himself.

He looked at her after he sat down. Once she turned around and looked around the class room without looking at him. Maybe she disliked him, he thought. But why? He consulted memory. He hadn’t done anything particularly odious at Professor Walton’s house that night. Had he?

All through class he had the insane fear that when he got to speak to her he wouldn’t have the courage to ask her to attend the first Workshop play with him. His heart kept beating violently, his hand shook so that he couldn’t write his notes. When the class bell rang, he almost jumped out of the seat.