Town of Masks by Dorothy Salisbury Davis Page B

it had hung for a generation beside the mantel, and to no use except in Hannah’s fantasy. Maria sat quite still, half-smiling as though she were enchanted, as though the cord were something alive in the big woman’s hand. Nor could she pull away as Hannah came toward her except at the last moment when it was too late. She twisted in the chair like a child hiding its face in the cushion, but the cord was looped there before her and it caught her beneath the chin. Only a gurgle of sound came from her as it sawed her throat.
    Hannah thought the cord was very strong to be so old. Silk. The Adamses always bought the best.
    When there was no movement beneath her, Hannah got up. She could not even remember having flung herself on Maria. It had not been necessary, Maria had so little fight. On the floor at the side of the chair the cigarette was still burning. She ground it out beneath her toe.
    Without looking at the chair again, she got her purse and left the house almost as she had found it.

15
    A NEAR PARALYSIS OVERTOOK Hannah when she was once more behind the wheel of the car. She had thought that could she get that far she would be all right. But sitting there, her hands numb on the wheel, she seemed to have forgotten how to drive, to have lost the reflexes responsive to that old habit. Her chin bumped on the wheel. She stared into the empty street, musing on how dimly lit it was, the glow from the converted gas lamps too weak to raise a shadow. A great truck surged out of the gloom its headlights flashing dim to bright, to dim to bright. She groped over the dashboard and plucked on her own lights as it passed.
    She was able then to start the motor, but she sawed at the gear shift, unable to decide whether to turn around or to drive through the town. In the end she drove forward, the task of reversing the car too difficult. She drove very slowly, her knees beginning to tremble as soon as the numbness left them. Soon she was shaking all over, even her teeth jarring together as she parted them that she might breathe more deeply. Her lungs ached for more air, the car was stifling hot to her; but she dared not take her hand from the wheel to roll the window down. By the time she turned into her own driveway, her clothes were soaked with sweat, and she was aware of a sour, acrid smell about herself.
    She saw no light but the fan of her own headlights, narrowing at last into two moons on the wall of the garage. Darkness then. She sat, the car door open, listening. Nothing but the spasmodic creak of the car settling, its motor cooling. Dennis had not returned. How long ago it was that she had first seen him that night, or last seen him for that matter. What was the use of clocks when time had no dimension beyond experience? What a kindness on the part of time it would be if she could climb the garage stairs now and find no trace of Dennis, if she could discover that he was part of something that happened here long ago, that he was a boy her father had hired, one of the many he always had to discharge because of her mother’s apprehensions. “I don’t trust him around with Hannah—”
    She got out of the car and rolled the garage door closed, and then limped across the lawn to the back door of the house.
    In the kitchen, she remembered the cup in the sink, and carefully gathered the two pieces. I should keep these, she thought, a remembrance. No. No remembrance. No requiem. She flung the pieces in the trash box. I shall go up and down, up and down, forward, but not back.
    She paused at the study door on her way through the house. She went in then and looked about the room. The temple. The pages of her careful plagiarism lay, fan-shaped on the desk. She caught them up and took them to the fireplace where the logs and kindling were laid for a chilly night. And this was a chilly night, she thought, touching a match to them. I shall never know a colder one. When the blaze was high she fired one and then another of Sappho’s