Jack (Gilead #4)(62)

She said, “What are you thinking about?”

“Perdition.”

She laughed. “Of course. What else?”

“Our future.”

“Really. You should tell me what you think about that. It’s hard to imagine.”

He said, “It will be made up entirely of stolen minutes and hours every now and then, for years and years and years, and we will pity all the people whose lives are diluted with time and habit and complacency and respectability until they can hardly savor the best pleasures—we will live for a month on just once passing in the street.”

She said, softly, “You are the only man in the whole world who could promise me that!”

“Yes. And consider all the other advantages. You can meet your obligations, and I will remember to shave.”

She put her head on his shoulder, toyed with his hand. “Now you’re making me sad.”

He said, “I can make you sad. That’s wonderful, in a way.” He noticed that the thought didn’t really scare him.

“Before we begin on this future of ours, you should come to my house for dinner Friday. Lorraine is in Charleston. She has family there. School’s out, so she’ll be gone for a while.”

“What about the neighbors?”

“They’re sort of used to you. The thought of you. There’s a rumor that you’re worshipping at Mount Zion. That makes you a little interesting.”

“‘Worshipping.’ You know that’s an overstatement. They’re kind to me. I like the preacher. I like the choir.” He didn’t say, They give me lunch. That would not be interesting. A white stranger with a clerical manner is experiencing a religious stirring, the Spirit acting on his frozen soul here, now, among us. He could see the poetry in their misconception, could see why he might seem interesting to them. To Della. Despite certain attempts at reform, as far as he was concerned, truth versus poetry was really no contest. Yet here he was, being honest with himself, carrying on that endless, secret conversation that was himself, now making him wretchedly aware that, at best, he was allowing Della to be misled. Then he thought about the embarrassing business with the hat, and how that lady had hurried to feed him, as if she saw an extreme of neediness in him that alarmed her. Della might have heard about it all, though here she was, actually nestled against him, speaking so softly, toying with his hand. If she had not heard that story, she might hear it at any time. She would distance herself abruptly, and he would become as withdrawn and indifferent as he could manage without ending things irrevocably, until it was clear to him that that decision had been made. “Then.” “Afterward.” Two terrible words.

She said, “You’re very quiet. You don’t want to come to my house.”

“You can’t imagine how much I want to.”

“Then will you?”

“I have one question. How can we do this without, possibly, ruining your life?”

“You’ll arrive at six, sober, bringing flowers, and you will leave at eight, sober. And there won’t be flowers or cats in the shrubbery to embarrass me once you’re gone.”

“You think it will be that simple.”

“Not really. Who knows? At least Lorraine won’t be there to glower at us. In a week she’ll be back. Sooner, if her cousins upset her somehow. That happens.”

He said, “I should tell you that there is more, or less, to my visits to Mount Zion than you might realize. A long story; one that doesn’t reflect well on me. If you don’t know about that, maybe your neighbors do. Or they will. Their interest in me may not be entirely benign. I might not reflect well on you. To say the least.”

“And my life will be ruined.”

He nodded. “That’s my point.”

“I just can’t quite seem to care. Things might go well enough, and after that I promise I’ll be thinking about my life day and night. Lorraine will help me with that.”

He said, “There’s one more thing I want to make very clear. You might think I’m shiftless, in need of the love of a good woman, as my father used to say. But what you see here, this minimal existence, is actually the fruit of what can fairly be called earnest striving. I do not need to be converted to an ethic of work and frugality. I admire them heartily—I’ve aspired to them off and on for some time. And I’ve learned that I’m just not good at that sort of thing. I’m still more or less dependent on my brother. It’s disgraceful. So you’re involving yourself with a ne’er-do-well. You should think about that.”

She said, “I have thought about it. I can’t seem to care about that, either.” She laughed. “I couldn’t wait to see you. I was supposed to stay in Memphis the whole week, and I just couldn’t do it. When my mother was putting all these things in my bag, she was too mad to talk to me. And my father! He wouldn’t even come downstairs to tell me goodbye. They knew why I was coming back.”

He nodded. “I’m ruining things. I do that. I try to keep to myself, and it happens, anyway. The preacher at Zion said that if I were an honorable man I would leave you alone.”

“Well, I guess I’ve made that difficult. You talked to him about me?”

“I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have done that. He reminds me a little of my father. I guess I feel at home in a church. Not at ease, but at home.” He said, “I thought we had ended it that night, and I suppose I was looking for comfort or something. Advice. A way to get by.”