The Other Side of Midnight (7 page)

On her first day off Noelle phoned Israel Katz and made a date to meet him for lunch.

“I’m pregnant,” she told him.

“How do you know? Have you had any tests?”

“I don’t need any tests.”

He shook his head. “Noelle, a lot of women think they are going to have babies when they are not. How many periods have you missed?”

She pushed the question aside, impatiently. “I want your help.”

He stared at her. “To get rid of the baby? Have you discussed this with the father?”

“He’s not here.”

“You know abortions are illegal. I could get into terrible trouble.”

Noelle studied him a moment. “What’s your price?”

His face tightened angrily. “Do you think everything has a price, Noelle?”

“Of course,” she said simply. “Anything can be bought and sold.”

“Does that include you?”

“Yes, but I’m very expensive. Will you help me?”

There was a long hesitation. “All right. I’ll want to make some tests first.”

“Very well.”

The following week Israel Katz arranged for Noelle to go to the laboratory at the hospital. When the test results were returned two days later, he telephoned her at work. “You were right,” he said. “You’re pregnant.”

“I know.”

“I’ve arranged for you to have a curettage at the hospital. I’ve told them that your husband was killed in an accident and that you are unable to have the baby. We’ll do the operation next Saturday.”

“No,” she said.

“Is Saturday a bad day for you?”

“I’m not ready for the abortion yet, Israel. I just wanted to know that I could count on you to help me.”

Madame Rose noticed the change in Noelle, not merely a physical change, but something that went much deeper, a radiance, an inner glow that seemed to fill her. Noelle walked around with a constant smile, as though hugging some wonderful secret.

“You have found a lover,” Madame Rose said. “It shows in your eyes.”

Noelle nodded. “Yes, Madame.”

“He is good for you. Hold onto him.”

“I will,” Noelle promised. “As long as I can.”

Three weeks later Israel Katz telephoned her. “I haven’t heard from you,” he said. “I was wondering if you had forgotten?”

“No,” Noelle said. “I think of it all the time.”

“How do you feel?”

“Wonderful.”

“I’ve been looking at the calendar. I think that we had better go to work.”

“I’m not ready yet,” Noelle said.

Three weeks passed before Israel Katz telephoned her again.

“How about having dinner with me?” he asked.

“All right.”

They arranged to meet at a cheap café on the rue de Chat Qui Peche. Noelle had started to suggest a better restaurant when she remembered what Israel had said about interns not having much money.

He was waiting for her when she arrived. They chatted aimlessly through dinner and it was not until the coffee arrived that Israel discussed what was on his mind.

“Do you still want to have the abortion?” he asked.

Noelle looked at him in surprise. “Of course.”

“Then you must have it right away. You’re more than two months pregnant.”

She shook her head. “No, not yet, Israel.”

“Is this your first pregnancy?”

“Yes.”

“Then let me tell you something, Noelle. Up until three months, an abortion is usually an easy matter. The embryo has not been fully formed and all you need is a simple curettage, but after three months”—he hesitated—”it’s another kind of operation, and it becomes dangerous. The longer you wait, the more dangerous it becomes. I want you to have the operation now.”

Noelle leaned forward. “What’s the baby like?”

“Now?” He shrugged. “Just a lot of cells. Of course, all the nuclei are there to form a complete human being.”

“And after three months?”

“The embryo starts to become a person.”

“Can it feel things?”

“It responds to blows and loud noises.”

She sat there, her eyes locked onto his. “Can it feel pain?”

“I suppose so. But it is protected with an amniotic sac.” He suddenly felt an uneasy stirring. “It would be pretty hard for anything to hurt it.”

Noelle lowered her eyes and sat staring at the table, silent and thoughtful.

Israel Katz studied her a moment and then said shyly, “Noelle, if you want to keep this baby and are afraid to because it will have no father…well, I would be willing to marry you and give the baby a name.”

She looked up in surprise. “I have already told you. I don’t want this baby. I want to have an abortion.”

“Then, for Christ’s sake, have it!” Israel shouted. He lowered his voice as he realized that other patrons were staring at him. “If you wait much longer, there isn’t a doctor in France who will do it. Don’t you understand? If you wait too long, you could die!”

“I understand,” Noelle said quietly. “If I were going to have this baby, what kind of diet would you put me on?”

He ran his fingers through his hair, bewildered. “Lots of milk and fruit, lean meat.”

That night on her way home Noelle stopped at the corner market near her apartment and bought two quarts of milk and a large box of fresh fruit.

Ten days later Noelle went into Madame Rose’s office and told her that she was pregnant and asked for a leave of absence.

“For how long?” Madame Rose asked, eyeing Noelle’s figure.

“Six or seven weeks.”

Madame Rose sighed. “Are you sure what you are doing is the best thing?”

“I’m sure,” Noelle replied.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Nothing.”

“Very well. Come back to me as soon as you can. I will ask the cashier to give you an advance on your salary.”

“Thank you, Madame.”

For the next four weeks Noelle never left her apartment, except to buy groceries. She felt no hunger and ate very little for herself, but she drank enormous quantities of milk for the baby and crammed her body with fruit. She was not alone in the apartment. The baby was with her and she talked to him constantly. She knew it was a boy just as she had known she was pregnant. She had named him Larry.

“I want you to grow to be big and strong,” she said as she drank her milk. “I want you to be healthy…healthy and strong when you die.” She lay in bed every day plotting her vengeance against Larry and his son. What was in her body was not a part of her. It belonged to him and she was going to kill it. It was the only thing of his that he had left her, and she was going to destroy it just as he had tried to destroy her.

How little Israel Katz had understood her! She was not interested in a formless embryo that knew nothing. She wanted Larry’s spawn to feel what was going to happen to him, to suffer, as she had suffered. The wedding dress was hanging near her bed now, always in sight, a talisman of evil, a reminder of his betrayal.
First, Larry’s son, then Larry
.

The phone rang often, but Noelle lay in bed, lost in her dreams until it stopped. She was sure that it was Israel Katz trying to reach her.

One evening there was a pounding on the door. Noelle lay in bed, ignoring it, but finally when the pounding continued, she dragged herself up and opened the door.

Israel Katz was standing there, his face filled with concern. “My God, Noelle, I’ve been calling you for days.”

He looked at her bulging stomach. “I thought you might have had it done somewhere else.”

She shook her head. “No. You’re going to do it.”

Israel stared at her. “Haven’t you understood anything I told you? It’s too late! No one’s going to do it.”

He saw the empty bottles of milk and the fresh fruit on the table, then looked back at her. “You
do
want the baby,” he said. “Why won’t you admit it?”

“Tell me, Israel, what’s he like now?”

“Who?”

“The baby. Does he have eyes and ears? Does he have fingers and toes? Can he feel pain?”

“For Christ’s sake, Noelle, stop it. You talk as if…as if…”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head in despair. “I don’t understand you.”

She smiled softly. “No. You don’t.”

He stood there a moment, making up his mind.

“All right, I’m putting my ass in a sling for you, but if you’re really determined to have an abortion, let’s get it over with. I have a doctor friend who owes me a favor. He’ll…”

“No.”

He stared at her.

“Larry’s not ready yet,” she said.

Three weeks later at four o’clock in the morning, Israel Katz was awakened by a furious concierge pounding on his door. “Telephone, Monsieur Night Owl!” he yelled. “And tell your caller that it is the middle of the night, when respectable people are asleep!”

Israel stumbled out of bed and sleepily made his way down the hall to the telephone, wondering what crisis had arisen. He picked up the receiver.

“Israel?”

He did not recognize the voice at the other end of the phone.

“Yes?”

“Now…” It was a whisper, disembodied and anonymous.

“Who is this?”

“Now. Come now, Israel…”

There was an eeriness to the voice, an unearthly quality that sent a chill down his spine. “Noelle?”

“Now…”

“For Christ’s sake,” he exploded. “I won’t do it. It’s too late. You’ll die, and I’m not going to be responsible. Get yourself to a hospital.”

There was a click in his ear, and he stood there holding the phone. He slammed the receiver and went back to his room, his mind churning. He knew that he could not do any good now, no one could. She was five and a half months pregnant. He had warned her time and time again, but she had refused to listen. Well, it was her responsibility. He wanted to have no part of it.

He began to dress as fast as he could, his bowels cold with fear.

When Israel Katz walked into her apartment, Noelle was lying on the floor in a pool of blood, hemorrhaging. Her face was dead white, but it showed no sign of the agony that must have been racking her body. She was wearing what appeared to be a wedding dress. Israel knelt at her side. “What happened?” he asked. “How did—?” He stopped, as his eyes fell on a bloody, twisted wire coat hanger near her feet.

“Jesus Christ!” He was filled with a rage and at the same time a terrible frustrating feeling of helplessness. The blood was pouring out faster now, there was not a moment to lose.

“I’ll call an ambulance,” and he started to rise.

Noelle reached up and grabbed his arm with surprising strength, and pulled him back down to her.

“Larry’s baby is dead,” she said, and her face was lit with a beautiful smile.

A team of six doctors worked for five hours trying to save Noelle’s life. The diagnosis was septic poisoning, perforated womb, blood poisoning and shock. All the doctors agreed that there was little chance that she could live. By six o’clock that night Noelle was out of danger and two days later, she was sitting up in bed able to talk. Israel came to see her.

“All the doctors say that it is a miracle you’re alive, Noelle.”

She shook her head. It was simply not her time to die. She had taken her first vengeance on Larry, but it was only the beginning. There was more to come. Much more. But first she had to find him. It would take time. But she would do it.

The growing winds of war that were blowing across Europe were reduced to no more than gentle, warning zephyrs when they reached the shores of the United States.

On the Northwestern campus, a few more boys joined the ROTC, there were student rallies urging President Roosevelt to declare war on Germany and a few seniors enlisted in the Armed Forces. In general, however, the sea of complacency remained the same, and the underground swell that was soon to sweep over the country was barely perceptible.

As she walked to her cashier’s job at the Roost that October afternoon, Catherine Alexander wondered whether the war would change her life, if it came. She knew one change that she had to make, and she was determined to do it as soon as possible. She desperately wanted to know what it was like to have a man hold her in his arms and make love to her, and she knew that she wanted it partly because of her physical needs, but also because she felt she was missing out on an important and wonderful experience. My God, what if she got run over by a car and they did a post mortem on her and discovered she was a virgin! No, she had to do something about it. Now.

Catherine glanced around the Roost carefully, but she did not see the face she was looking for. When Ron Peterson came in an hour later with Jean-Anne, Catherine felt her body tingle and her heart begin to
pound. She turned away as they walked past her, and out of the corner of her eye she saw the two make their way to Ron’s booth and sit down. Large banners were strung around the room, “TRY OUR DOUBLE HAMBURGER SPECIAL”…“TRY OUR LOVER’S DELIGHT”…“TRY OUR TRIPLE MALT.”

Catherine took a deep breath and walked over to the booth. Ron Peterson was studying the menu, trying to make up his mind. “I don’t know what I want,” he was saying.

“How hungry are you?” Jean-Anne asked.

“I’m starved.”

“Then try this.” They both looked up in surprise. It was Catherine standing over the booth. She handed Ron Peterson a folded note, turned around and walked back to the cash register.

Ron opened the note, looked at it and burst into laughter. Jean-Anne watched him coolly.

“Is it a private joke or can anyone get in on it?”

“Private,” Ron grinned. He slipped the note into his pocket.

Ron and Jean-Anne left shortly afterward. Ron didn’t say anything as he paid his check, but he gave Catherine a long, speculative look, smiled and walked out with Jean-Anne on his arm. Catherine looked after them, feeling like an idiot. She didn’t even know how to make a successful pass at a boy.

When her shift was up, Catherine got into her coat, said good night to the girl coming in to relieve her and went outside. It was a warm autumn evening with a cooling breeze skipping in off the lake. The sky looked like purple velvet with soft, far-flung stars just out of reach. It was a perfect evening to—what? Catherine made a list in her mind.

I can go home and wash my hair
.

I can go to the library and study for the Latin exam tomorrow
.

I can go to a movie.

I can hide in the bushes and rape the first sailor who comes along
.

I can go get myself committed
.

Committed
, she decided.

As she started to move along the campus toward the library, a figure stepped out from behind a lamp post.

“Hi, Cathy. Where you headed?”

It was Ron Peterson, smiling down at her, and Catherine’s heart started to pound until it began to burst out of her chest. She watched as it took off on its own, beating its way through the air. She became aware that Ron was staring at her. No wonder. How many girls did he know who could do that heart trick? She desperately wanted to comb her hair and fix her makeup and check the seams of her stockings, but she tried to let none of her nervousness show. Rule one: Keep calm.

“Blug,” she mumbled.

“Where are you headed?”

Should she give him her list? God, no! He’d think she was insane. This was her big chance and she must not do a single thing to destroy it. She looked up at him, her eyes as warm and inviting as Carole Lombard’s in
Nothing Sacred
.

“I didn’t have any special plans,” she said invitingly.

Ron was studying her, still not sure of her, some primeval instinct making him cautious. “Would you
like
to do something special?” he said.

This was it. The Proposition. The point of no return. “Name it,” she said, “and I’m yours.” And cringed inwardly. It sounded so corny. No one said, “Name it and I’m yours” except in bad Fannie Hurst novels. He was going to turn on his heel and walk away in disgust.

But he didn’t. Incredibly, he smiled, took her arm and said, “Let’s go.”

Catherine walked along with him, stunned. It had been as simple as that. She was on her way to getting laid. She began to tremble inside. If he found out she
was a virgin, she would be finished. And what was she going to talk about when she was in bed with him? Did people talk when they were actually doing it, or did they wait until it was over? She didn’t want to be rude, but she had no idea what the rules were.

“Have you had dinner?” Ron was asking.

“Dinner?” She stared up at him, trying to think. Should she have had dinner? If she said yes, then he could take her right to bed and she could get it over with. “No,” she said quickly, “I haven’t.”
Now why did I say that? I’ve ruined everything
. But Ron did not seem upset.

“Good. Do you like Chinese food?”

“It’s my favorite.” She hated it, but the gods certainly weren’t going to count a little yellow lie on the biggest night of her life.

“There’s a good Chinese joint over on Estes. Lum Fong’s. Do you know it?”

No, but she would never forget it as long as she lived.

What did you do the night you lost your cherry?

Oh, I went to Lum Fong’s first and had some Chinese food with Ron Peterson
.

Was it good?

Sure. But you know Chinese food. An hour later, I was sexy again
.

They had reached his car, a maroon Reo convertible. Ron held the door open for Catherine, and she sat in the seat where all the other girls she envied had once sat. Ron was charming, handsome, a top athlete. And a sex maniac. It would make a good title for a movie.
The Sex Maniac and the Virgin
. Maybe she should have held out for a nicer restaurant like Henrici’s in the Loop and then Ron would have thought,
This is the kind of girl I want to take home to Mother
.

“A penny for your thoughts,” he said.

Oh, great!
All right, so he wasn’t the most brilliant conversationalist in the world. But that wasn’t why she was here, was it? She looked up at him sweetly. “I was
just thinking about you.” She snuggled against him.

He grinned. “You really had me fooled, Cathy.”

“I did?”

“I always thought you were pretty standoffish—I mean, not interested in men.”

The word you’re fumbling for is lesbian
, Catherine thought, but aloud she said, “I just like to pick my time and place.”

“I’m glad you picked me.”

“So am I.” And she was. She really was. She could be certain that Ron was a good lover. He had been factory-tested and approved by every horny coed within a radius of a hundred and fifty miles. It would have been humiliating to have had her first sexual experience with someone as ignorant as she was. With Ron she was getting a master. After tonight she would not be calling herself Saint Catherine any longer. Instead she would probably be known as “Catherine the Great.” And this time she would know what the “Great” stood for. She would be fantastic in bed. The trick was not to panic. All the wonderful things she had read about in the little green books she used to keep hidden from her mother and father were about to happen to her. Her body was going to be an organ filled with exquisite music. Oh, she knew it would hurt the first time; it always did. But she would not let Ron know. She would move her behind around a lot because men hated for a woman to just lie there, motionless. And when Ron penetrated her, she would bite her lip to conceal the pain and cover it up with a sexy cry.

“What?”

She turned to Ron, appalled, and realized she had cried aloud. “I—I didn’t say anything.”

“You gave a kind of funny cry.”

“Did I?” She forced a little laugh.

“You’re a million miles away.”

She analyzed the line and decided it was bad. She must be more like Jean-Anne. Catherine put her hand
on his arm and moved closer. “I’m right here,” she said.

She tried to make her voice throaty, like Jean Arthur in
Calamity Jane
.

Ron looked down at her, confused, but the only thing he could read in her face was an eager warmth.

Lum Fong’s was a dreary-looking, run-of-the-mill Chinese restaurant located under the Elevated. All through dinner they could hear the rumble of the trains as they ran overhead rattling the dishes. The restaurant looked like a thousand other anonymous Chinese restaurants all over America, but Catherine carefully absorbed the details of the booth they were seated in, committing to memory the cheap, spotted wallpaper, the chipped china teapot, the soy-sauce stains on the table.

A little Chinese waiter came up to the table and asked if they wanted a drink. Catherine had tasted whiskey a few times in her life and hated it, but this was New Year’s Eve, the Fourth of July, the End of her Maidenhood. It was fitting to celebrate.

“I’ll have an old-fashioned with a cherry in it.”
Cherry! Oh, God!
It was a dead giveaway.

“Scotch and soda,” Ron said.

The waiter bowed himself away from the table. Catherine wondered if it were true that Oriental women were built slantwise.

“I don’t know why we never became friends before,” Ron was saying. “Everyone says you’re the brightest girl in the whole goddamned university.”

“You know how people exaggerate.”

“And you’re damned pretty.”

“Thank you.” She tried to make her voice sound like Katherine Hepburn in
Alice Adams
and looked meaningfully into his eyes. She was no longer Catherine Alexander. She was a sex machine. She was about to join Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Cleopatra. They were all going to be sisters under the foreskin.

The waiter brought the drink and she finished it in one quick nervous gulp. Ron watched her in surprise.

“Easy,” he warned. “That’s pretty potent stuff.”

“I can handle it,” Catherine assured him, confidently.

“Another round,” he told the waiter. Ron reached across the table and caressed her hand. “It’s funny. Everybody at school had you wrong.”

“Wrong. No one at school’s had me.”

He stared at her.
Careful, don’t be clever
. Men preferred to bed girls who had excessively large mammary glands and gluteus maximus muscles and exceedingly small cerebrums.

“I’ve had a—thing for you for a long time,” she said, hurriedly.

“You sure kept it a secret.” Ron pulled out the note she had written and smoothed it out. “Try our Cashier,” he read aloud, and laughed. “So far I like it better than the Banana Split.” He ran his hands up and down Catherine’s arm and his touch sent tiny ripples down her spine, just like the books said it would. Perhaps after tonight she would write a manual on sex to instruct all the poor, dumb virgins who didn’t know what life was all about. After the second drink Catherine was beginning to feel sorry for them.

“It’s a pity.”

“What’s a pity?”

She had spoken aloud again. She decided to be bold. “I was feeling sorry for all the virgins in the world,” she said.

Ron grinned at Catherine. “I’ll drink to that.” He lifted his glass. She looked at him sitting across from her obviously enjoying her company. She had nothing to worry about. Everything was going beautifully. He asked if she would like another drink, but Catherine declined. She did not intend to be in an alcoholic stupor when she was deflowered.
Deflowered? Did people still use words like deflowered?
Anyway, she wanted to remember every moment, every sensation.
Oh, my
God! She wasn’t wearing anything! Would he? Surely a man as experienced as Ron Peterson would have something to put on, some protection so she wouldn’t get pregnant. What if he was expecting the same thing? What if he was thinking that a girl as experienced as Catherine Alexander would surely have some protection? Could she come right out and ask him? She decided that she would rather die first, right at the table. They could carry her body away and give her a ceremonial Chinese burial
.

Ron ordered the dollar seventy-five six-course dinner, and Catherine pretended to eat it, but it might as well have been Chinese cardboard. She was beginning to get so tense she couldn’t taste anything. Her tongue was suddenly dry and the roof of her mouth felt strangely numb.
What if she had just had a stroke?
If she had sex right after a stroke, it would probably kill her. Perhaps she should warn Ron. It would hurt his reputation if they found a dead girl in his bed. Or maybe it would enhance it.

“What’s the matter?” Ron asked. “You look pale.”

“I feel great,” Catherine said, recklessly. “I’m just excited about being with you.”

Ron looked at her approvingly, his brown eyes taking in every detail of her face and moving down to her breasts and lingering there. “I feel the same way,” he replied.

The waiter had taken the dishes away, and Ron had paid the check. He looked at her, but Catherine couldn’t move.

“Do you want anything else?” Ron asked.

Do I? Oh, yes! I want to be on a slow boat to China. I want to be in a cannibal’s kettle being boiled for dinner. I want my mother!

Ron was watching her, waiting. Catherine took a deep breath. “I—I can’t think of anything.”

“Good.” He drew the syllable out, long and lastingly so that it seemed to put a bed on the table between them. “Let’s go.” He stood up and Catherine followed.
The euphoric feeling from the drinks had completely vanished and her legs began to tremble.

They were outside in the warm night air when a sudden thought hit Catherine and filled her with relief.
He’s not going to take me to bed tonight. Men never do that with a girl on the first date. He’s going to ask me out to dinner again and next time we’ll go to Henrici’s and we’ll get to know each other better. Really know each other. And we’ll probably fall in love—madly—and he’ll take me to meet his parents and then everything will be all right…and I won’t feel this stupid panic
.