The Ripper's Wife(60)
To his mind, that was clearly the wrong answer. He tried to pull her through the gate. She kicked and fought him. He shoved her down. She screamed. He grabbed her head with one hand while the other fumbled past his heavy overcoat to unbutton his trousers. She screamed again.
“Lipski! Lipski!” some fool, paused to light his pipe upon the opposite pavement, shouted, pointing at the man, who did have a distinctly Jewish appearance. It’s an insult they use in these parts; it was the name of a Jew who killed a girl a few years back. That stopped the man cold with his cock wilting and his trousers sagging.
The man with the pipe trembled and took off with the whore’s assailant in hot pursuit, running toward the railway station. I wonder what he did to him when he caught him? That would teach the fool to go around shouting, “Lipski!”
Like the Good Samaritan, I helped the fallen woman up. I straightened her bonnet, tweaking the limp black crepe ruffles as though I were the finest milliner in Paris proud of my latest creation, and retrieved the brass thimble and wad of black thread that had fallen from her pocket. She stroked the diamond horseshoe on my black tie with a covetous gleam in her gray eyes—the bitch would nip it if I did not watch her!—and told me I had brought her luck. I was her hero, her savior; she could not thank me enough!
I gave her one of Edwin’s gay silk handkerchiefs—a green-and-yellow-checkered one. I knotted it playfully about her neck, wanting to twist it tight, but not yet, not yet.... With my own handkerchief I wiped the grime from her cheek where she had grazed it against the wet pavement. I gave her a pack of pretty pink cachous from my pocket; her breath stank of gin and rot and I hoped she would take the hint and make immediate use of them, but she merely held them in her hand, awkwardly, admiring them—“such a pretty pink!”—as though she didn’t know what to do with them and was afraid to ask. I bought her a red rose, backed with maidenhair fern, and pinned it on her shabby black jacket.
I lulled her with kind words; I soothed her with sweet deeds. I wanted her to trust me; I needed it. It would make the horror when it came so much the sweeter! I wanted to see the hurt and betrayal in her eyes as she died! I wanted this to be sublime, an experience I would never forget! I wanted this whore to close her eyes in rapture, to submit to me like the most willing lover, the one she had dreamed of all her life but never found. I wanted her to expect delights, to dream of them, only to awaken to a nightmare in my arms that was all too real as I plunged my knife in and twisted it around.
I strolled her down the street; I told her even though it was raining—a light and inconstant drizzle—the sun shone for me every time I looked at her. A fruiterer’s shop was still open though it was nearing midnight, with a tempting array of white and black grapes arranged in his window. He was yawning and about to close his shutters. I bought half a pound of black grapes and shared them with her, but the ungrateful bitch merely chewed them, then spit them out into the street. She said she didn’t like how they felt going down her throat. At least she had the decency to use her own handkerchief to wipe the juice from her chin and not the fine silk one I had just given her. The cheap and vulgar tart, she had no refinement at all!
The International Working Men’s Educational Club was having a meeting, a bunch of socialist Jews and armchair anarchists who used politics as an excuse to get a night away from their wives once a week, and music was coming from the open windows of their clubhouse, so we strolled up and down Berner Street listening to it, Long Liz sometimes singing along when she knew the words. Then I drew her close and whispered, “Will you?”
Coyly twirling a grape stem, she said, “Yes.”
They always say yes to a toff like me!
Stupid bitches, they think clothes make the man, that coarse clothes and manners means a brute and that they can trust a suit and spats, a fine black overcoat trimmed with astrakhan, a mammoth gold watch chain gleaming on a man’s vest, a diamond horseshoe twinkling in his tie, and a tall silk topper or deerstalker hat. Because a man is dressed as a gentleman they think he is a gentle man. They don’t realize it, but I’m dressed to kill! I don a deerstalker only when I go hunting.
I followed her through the gate, the same one that surly chap had tried to drag her through. This time she went willingly, leading me by the hand, looking back at me with bold eyes. Oh yes, she must have been beautiful when she was young! Eyes like a gray dove’s plumage; what a pity she was so soiled.
The night was cold; so were my hands, and even colder my heart. I am a man of ice, angry ice, through and through! My hands were numb, but they would soon be warm. She turned away, fussing with the fastenings on her jacket. I drew my knife out. Just then she happened to glance back. She opened her mouth to scream. I grabbed the knot of the checkered silk handkerchief and twisted it viciously tight. I silenced the bitch with scarcely a whimper. A little worn-down stub of a knife, the blade barely a nub, fell from her lifeless fingers. How dare the bitch even think of trying to fight for her life; didn’t she know it wasn’t worth it? I stuffed the knife in my pocket—another souvenir. I took her prayer book too. She had shown it to me earlier, to prove that she knew what the Devil looked like.
I lowered her to the ground. I drew my knife across her throat. I felt my fingers tingle as I bathed them in her hot blood. A horse neighed nearby—too nearby! I started and glanced back over my shoulder. Hooves flailed the air. A man shouted; a whip cracked; the pony kicked the air and shied, refusing to pass through the gate. They call horses “dumb animals,” but they are so much more sensitive than we humans are. The horse knew what his driver didn’t. I scrambled back into the shadows, tensely awaiting my moment as he leaned forward and poked at her hip with his whip. I could not be trapped here in this courtyard. I groped for my silver box. I licked my medicine from my bloody palm, I tasted her blood along with its power. I felt strength surge through me. I knew everything would be all right!