Another Country Read online

  “You’re asking a lot.”

  The men on the sidewalk looked at them with a kind of merciless calculation, deciding that they were certainly unattainable, that their studs or their johns were waiting inside; and, anyway, three white policemen, walking abreast, came up the Avenue. Cass felt, suddenly, exposed, and in danger, and wished she had not come. She thought of herself, later, alone, looking for a taxi; but she did not dare say anything to Ida. Ida opened the doors, and they walked in.

  “We’re really not dressed for this place,” Cass whispered.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Ida said. She stared imperiously over the heads of the people at the bar, into the farther room, where the bandstand seemed to be, and the raised dance floor. And her arrogance produced, out of the smoke and confusion, a heavy, dark man who approached them with raised eyebrows.

  “We’re with Mr. Ellis’s party,” said Ida. “Will you lead us to him, please?”

  He seemed checked; seemed, indeed almost to bow. “Oh, yes,” he said. “Please follow me.” Ida moved back slightly, to allow Cass to go before her, giving her the briefest of winks as she did so. Cass felt overcome with admiration and with rage, and at the same time she wanted to laugh. They walked, or, rather, marched through the bar, two lone and superbly improbable women, whose respectability had been, if not precisely defined, placed beyond the gates of common speculation. The place was crowded, but at a large table which gave the impression, somehow, of taking up more than its share of space, sat Steve Ellis, with two couples, one black and one white.

  He rose, and the waiter vanished.

  “I’m delighted to see you again, Mrs. Silenski,” he said, smiling, holding out that regal hand. “Each time I see Richard, I beg to be remembered to you— but has he ever given you any of my messages? Of course not.”

  “Of course not,” Cass said, laughing. She felt, suddenly, unaccountably, extremely lighthearted. “Richard simply has no memory at all. But I kept imagining that you would come back to see us, and you never have.”

  “Oh, but I will. You’ll be seeing much more of me, dear lady, than you have the courage to imagine.” He turned to the table. “Let me introduce you all.” He gestured toward the dark couple. “Here are Mr. and Mrs. Barry— Mrs. Silenski.” He bowed ironically in Ida’s direction. “Miss Scott.” Ida responded to this bow with an ironical half-curtsey.

  Mr. Barry rose and shook their hands. He wore a small mustache over narrow lips; and he smiled a tentative smile which did not quite mask his patient wonder as to who they were. His wife looked like a retired showgirl. She glittered and gleamed, and she was one of those women who always seem to be dying to get home and take off their cruel and intricate and invisible lacings. Her red lower lip swooped or buckled down over her chin when she smiled, which was always. The other couple were named Nash. The male was red-faced, gray-haired, heavy, with a large cigar and a self-satisfied laugh; he was much older than his wife, who was pale, blonde and thin, and wore bangs. Ida and Cass were distributed around the table, Ida next to Ellis, Cass next to Mrs. Barry. They ordered drinks.

  “Miss Scott,” said Ellis, “spends a vast amount of her time pretending to be a waitress. Don’t ever go anywhere near the joint she works in— I won’t even tell you where it is— she’s the worst. As a waitress. But she’s a great singer. You’re going to be hearing a lot from Miss Ida Scott.” And he grabbed her hand and patted it hard for a moment, held it for a moment. “We might be able to persuade those boys on the stand to let her sing a couple of numbers for us.”

  “Oh, please. I didn’t come dressed for anything. Cass picked me up at work, and we just came on as we were.”

  Ellis looked around the table. “Does anyone object to the way Miss Scott is dressed?”

  “My God, no,” said Mrs. Barry, swooping and buckling and perspiring and breathing hard, “she’s perfectly charming.”

  “If a man’s word means anything,” said Mr. Nash, “I couldn’t care less what Miss Scott took it into her beautiful head to wear. There are women who look well in— well, I guess I better not say that in front of my wife,” and his heavy, merry laugh rang out, almost drowning the music for a few seconds.

  His wife did not, however, seem to be easily amused.

  “Anyway,” said Ida, “they’ve got a vocalist, and she won’t like it. If I was the vocalist, I wouldn’t like it.”

  “Well. We’ll see.” And he took her hand again.

  “I’d much rather not.”

  “We’ll see. Okay?”

  “All right,” said Ida, and took her hand away, “we’ll see.”

  The waiter came and set their drinks before them. Cass looked about her. The band was out, the stage was empty; but on the dance floor a few couples were dancing to the juke box. She watched one large, ginger-colored boy dancing with a tall, much darker girl. They danced with a concentration at once effortless and tremendous, sometimes very close to one another, sometimes swinging far apart, but always joined, each body making way for, responding to, and commenting on the other. Their faces were impassive. Only the eyes, from time to time, flashed a signal or acknowledged an unexpected nuance. It all seemed so effortless, so simple; they followed the music, which also seemed to follow them; and yet Cass knew that she would never be able to dance that way; never. Never? She watched the girl; then she watched the boy. Part of their ease came from the fact that it was the boy who led indisputably— and the girl who followed; but it also came, more profoundly, from the fact that the girl was, in no sense, appalled by the boy and did not for an instant hesitate to answer his rudest erotic quiver with her own. It all seemed so effortless, so simple, and yet, when one considered whence it came, it began to be clear that it was not at all simple: on the contrary, it was difficult and delicate, dangerous and deep. And she, Cass, who watched them with such envy (for first she watched the girl, then she watched the boy) began to feel uneasy; but they, oddly, on the gleaming floor, under the light, were at ease. In what sense, and for what reason, and why would it be forever impossible for her to dance as they did?

  Mr. Barry was saying, “We have been hearing the most wonderful things about your husband, Mrs. Silenski. I’ve read his book, and I must say”— he smiled his cordial smile, everything about him was held within decent bounds— “it’s a very remarkable achievement.”

  For an instant, Cass said nothing. She sipped her drink and watched his face, which was as smooth as a black jellybean. At first, she was tempted to dismiss the face as empty. But it was not empty; it was only that it was desperately trying to empty itself, decently, inward; an impossibility leading to God alone could guess what backing up of bile. Deep, deep behind the carefully hooded and noncommittal eyes, the jungle howled and lunged and bright dead birds lay scattered. He was like his wife, only he would never be able to step out of his iron corsets.

  She felt very sorry for him, then she trembled; he hated her; and somehow his hatred was connected with her barely conscious wish to have the ginger-colored boy on the floor make love to her. He hated her— therefore?— far more than Ida could, and was far more at the mercy of his hatred; which, from ceaseless trampling down, yearned to go upward, blowing up the world.

  But he could not afford to know this.

  She said, smiling, with stiff lips, “Thank you very much.”

  Mrs. Barry said, “You must be very proud of your husband.”

  Cass and Ida glanced briefly at each other, and Cass smiled and said, “Well, I’ve always been proud of him, really; none of this comes as any surprise to me.”

  Ida laughed. “That’s the truth. Cass thinks Richard can do no wrong.”

  “Not even when she catches him at it,” Ellis grinned. Then, “We’ve been together quite a lot lately, and he often speaks of what a happy man he is.”

  For some reason, this frightened her. She wondered when, and how often, Richard and Ellis met and what Richard really had to say. She swallowed her fear. “Blind faith,” she said, inanely, “I’ve
got it,” and thought, God. She looked toward the dance floor. But that particular couple had vanished.

  “Your husband’s a lucky man,” said Mr. Barry. He looked at his wife, and reached for her hand. “So am I.”

  “Mr. Barry’s just become a part of our publicity department,” Ellis said. “We’re awfully proud to have him on board. And I’m sorry if I sound like I’m bragging— hell, I’m not sorry, I am bragging— but I think it represents a tremendous breakthrough in our pussyfooting, hidebound industry.” He grinned, and Mr. Barry smiled. “And hidebound so soon!”

  “It was hidebound the instant it was born,” said Mr. Nash, “just as your cinema industry was hidebound, and for the same reason. It immediately became the property of the banks— part of what you people quaintly call free enterprise, though God knows there’s nothing free about it, and nothing even remotely enterprising about the lot of you.”

  Cass and Ida stared at him. “Where are you from?” Cass demanded.

  He smiled at her from a great, tolerant distance. “Belfast,” he said.

  “Oh,” cried Ida, “I have a friend whose father was born in Dublin! Do you know Dublin? Is it very far from Belfast?”

  “Geographically? Yes, some distance. Otherwise, the distance is negligible— though the population of either city would hang me if they heard me say so.” And he laughed his cheerful, lubricated laugh.

  “What have you got against us?” Cass asked.

  “I? Why, nothing,” said Mr. Nash, laughing, “I make a great deal of money out of you.”

  “Mr. Nash,” said Ellis, “is an impresario who no longer lives in Belfast.”

  “Free enterprise, you see,” said Mr. Nash, and winked at Mr. Barry.

  Mr. Barry laughed. He leaned toward Mr. Nash. “Well, I’m on the side of Mrs. Silenski. What have you got against our system? I think we’ve all made great strides under it.” He raised one bony hand, one manicured finger. “What would you replace it with?”

  “What,” asked Cass, unexpectedly, “does one replace a dream with? I wish I knew.”

  Mr. Nash laughed, then stopped, as if embarrassed. Ida was watching her— watching her without seeming to watch. Then Cass sensed, for the first time in her life, the knowledge that black people had of white people— though what, really, did Ida know about her, except that she was lying, was unfaithful, and was acting? and was in trouble— and, for a second, she hated Ida with all her heart. Then she felt very cold again, the second passed.

  “I suppose,” said Ida, in an extraordinary voice, “that one replaces a dream with reality.”

  Everybody laughed, nervously. The music began again. She looked again toward the dance floor, but those dancers were gone. She grabbed her drink as though it were a spar, and held it in her mouth as though it were ice.

  “Only,” said Ida, “that’s not so easy to do.” She held her drink between her two thin hands and looked across at Cass. Cass swallowed the warm fluid she had been holding in her mouth, and it hurt her throat. Ida put down her drink and grabbed Ellis by the hand. “Come on, honey,” she said, “let’s dance.”

  Ellis rose. “You will excuse us,” he said, “but I am summoned.”

  “Indeed you are,” said Ida, and smiled at them all, and swept onto the dance floor. Ellis followed, rather like something entangled in her train.

  “She reminds me of the young Billie Holiday,” said Mr. Barry, wistfully.

  “Yes, I’d love to hear her sing,” said Mrs. Nash— rather venomously, and most unexpectedly. They all turned expectantly toward her, as though this were a seance and she were the medium. But she sipped her drink and said nothing more.

  Cass turned again toward the dance floor, watching Ida and Ellis. The light was still as bright, the floor somewhat more crowded; the juke box blared. There was a vast amount of cunning, conscious or not, in Ida’s choice of a costume for the place. She wore a very simple pale orange dress, and flat shoes, and very little make-up; and her hair, which was usually piled high, was pulled back tonight and held tightly in a severe, old-maidish bun. Therefore, she looked even younger than she was, almost like a very young girl; and the effect of this was to make Ellis, who was so much shorter than she, look older than he was, and more corrupt. They became an odd and unprecedented beauty and the beast up there; and, for the first time consciously, Cass wondered about their real relationship to one another. Ida had said that she did not want Vivaldo “bugged” by any of the musicians; but she had not come to meet any musicians. She had come to meet Ellis. And she had brought Cass along as a kind of smoke screen— and she and Ellis could not have met often in public before. In private then? And she wondered about this as she watched them. Their dance, which was slow and should have been fluid, was awkward and dry and full of hesitations. She was holding him at bay, he could not lead her; yet, she was holding him fast.

  “I wonder if his wife knows where he is.” Mrs. Nash again, sotto voce, to her husband, with a small, smug smile.

  Cass thought of Vivaldo, then thought of Richard, and immediately hated Mrs. Nash. You evil-minded whore, she thought, and broke the table’s uneasy silence by saying,

  “Mrs. Ellis and Miss Scott have known each other for quite a long time, long before Mrs. Ellis’s marriage.”

  Why did I say that? she wondered. She can easily find out if I’m lying. She looked steadily at Mrs. Nash, making no attempt to hide her dislike. She won’t, though. She hasn’t got the wit or the guts.

  Mrs. Nash looked at Cass with that absolutely infuriating superciliousness achieved only by chambermaids who have lately become great ladies. “How strange that is,” she murmured.

  “Not at all,” Cass said, recklessly, “they both worked in the same factory.”

  Mrs. Nash watched her, the faintest tremor occurring somewhere around her upper lip. Cass smiled and looked briefly at Mr. Nash. “Did you and your wife meet in Belfast?”

  “No,” said Mr. Nash, smiling— and Cass felt, with a surge of amusement and horror, how much his wife despised him at that moment— “we met in Dublin, while I was there on a business trip.” He took his wife’s limp hand. Her pale eyes did not move, her pale face did not change. “The most important trip I ever made.”

  Ah, yes, thought Cass, I don’t doubt it, for both of you. But suddenly she felt weary and inexplicably sad. What in the world was she doing here, and why was she needling this absurd little woman? The music changed, becoming louder and swifter and more raucous; and all their attention returned, with relief, to the dance floor. Ida and Ellis had begun a new dance; or, rather, Ida had begun a new cruelty. Ida was suddenly dancing as she had probably not danced since her adolescence, and Ellis was attempting to match her— he could certainly not be said to be leading her now, either. He tried, of course, his square figure swooping and breaking, and his little boy’s face trying hard to seem abandoned. And the harder he tried— the fool! Cass thought— the more she eluded him, the more savagely she shamed him. He was not on those terms with his body, or with hers, or anyone’s body. He moved his buttocks by will, with no faintest memory of love, no hint of grace; his thighs were merely those of a climber, his feet might have been treading grapes. He did not know what to do with his arms, which stuck out at angles to his body as though they were sectioned and controlled by strings, and also as though they had no communion with his hands— hands which had grasped and taken but never caressed. Was Ida being revenged? or was she giving him warning? Ellis’ forehead turned slick with sweat, his short, curly hair seemed to darken, Cass almost heard his breathing. Ida circled around him, in her orange dress, her legs flashing like knives, and her hips cruelly grinding. From time to time she extended to him, his fingers touched, her lean, brown, fiery hand. Others on the floor made way for them— for her: it must have seemed to Ellis that the music would never end.

  But the juke box fell silent, at last, and the colored lights stopped whirling, for the band was coming on again. Ida and Ellis returned to the table.

 
The lights began to dim. Cass stood up.

  “Ida,” she said, “I promised to have one drink, and I have, and now I must go. I really must. Richard will kill me if I stay out any longer.”

  Her voice unaccountably shook, and she felt herself blushing as she said this. At the same time, she realized that Ida was in an even more dangerous mood now than she had been before her dance.

  “Oh, call him up,” Ida said. “Even the most faithful of wives deserves a night out.”

  Cass, very nearly, in her fear and despair, sank slowly into her seat again; but Ellis, mopping his brow, and gleaming, was more cheerful than ever. “I don’t think that’s necessarily so,” he said— and wrung from the table the obligatory laugh— “and, anyway, Mrs. Silenski is responsible for a very heavy investment. Her husband is very valuable, we must take good care of his morale.” Ida and Cass watched each other. Ida smiled.

  “Will Richard’s morale suffer if you do not get home?”

  “Unquestionably,” said Cass. “I must go.”

  Ida’s face changed, and she looked down. She seemed, abruptly, weary and sad. “I guess you’re right,” she said, “and there’s no point in putting it off.” She looked at Ellis. “Walk her to a cab, sweetie.”

  “My pleasure,” said Ellis.

  “Good night, all,” said Cass. “I’m sorry I have to run, but I must.” She said, to Ida, “I’ll see you soon—?”

  “Shall I expect to see you at the usual place?”

  “If it’s still standing,” Cass said, after a moment, “yes.” She turned and made her way through the darkening room, with Ellis padding behind her. They gained the street, she feeling limp and frightened. Ellis put her into a cab. The cab was driven by a young Puerto Rican.

  “Good night, Mrs. Silenski,” Ellis said, and gave her his wet, hard hand. “Please give Richard my best, and tell him I’ll be calling him in a couple of days.”

  “Yes, I’ll tell him. Thank you. Good night.”

  He was gone, and she was alone in the cab, behind the unspeaking shoulders of the Puerto Rican. Idly, she sought out his face in the glass, then looked down, lighting a cigarette. The cab began to move. She did not look out. She sat huddled in the darkness, burning with a curious kind of shame. She was not ashamed— was she?— of anything she had done; but she was ashamed, as it were in anticipation, of what she might, now, helplessly, find herself doing. She had been using Ida and Vivaldo as smoke screens to cover her affair with Eric: why should not Ida use her, then, to cover from Vivaldo her assignation with Ellis? She had silenced them, in relation to Richard— now she was silenced, in relation to Vivaldo. She smiled, but the smoke she inhaled was bitter. When she had been safe and respectable, so had the world been safe and respectable; now the entire world was bitter with deceit and danger and loss; and which was the greater illusion? She was uncomfortably aware of the driver, his shoulders, his untried face, his color, and his soft, dark eyes. He glanced at her from time to time in the mirror— after all, she had glanced at him first; and her mood, perhaps, had set up a tension between them, a sexual tension. She thought, again, unwillingly, of the ginger-colored boy on the dance floor. And she knew (as though her mind, for a moment, were a clear pool, and she saw straight down into its depths) that, yes, yes, had he touched her, had he insisted, he could have had his way, she would have been glad. She would have been glad to know his body, even though the body might be all that she could know. Eric’s entrance into her, her fall from— grace?— had left her prey to ambiguities whose power she had never glimpsed before. Richard had been her protection, not only against the evil in the world, but also against the wilderness of herself. And now she would never be protected again. She tried to feel jubilant about this. But she did not feel jubilant. She felt frightened and bewildered.