finished his. “Well?”
“OH, HE KEPT coming closer and then one day he spoke to me. ‘Would you mind if I walked with you for a while?’ he asked. I gulped and managed to say, ‘No.’ That’s all. He just walked beside me. It was days before he even touched my arm. But that didn’t matter. It was what he said that was important. He talked hesitatingly, but he knew the thoughts inside me I’d never told anyone—how puzzling life was, how alone you felt, how other people sometimes seemed just like animals, how they could hurt you with their eyes. And he knew the little pictures in my mind too—how the piano keys looked like champing teeth, how written words were just meaningless twists of ribbon, how snores sounded like faraway railway trains and railway trains like snores.
“After we’d walked for a while that first day, I saw two of my girl-friends ahead. He said, “I’ll leave you now,’ and went off. I was glad, for I wouldn’t have known how to introduce him.
“That first walk set a pattern, almost as if we’d learned a list of magic rules. We must always meet as if by accident and part without warning. We must never go any special place. We must never tell our names. We must never talk of tomorrow or plan anything, just yield to a fatalistic enchantment. Of course I never mentioned my friend to a soul. Away from the park I’d say, ‘You dreamed him, Jane,’ almost believing it. But the next afternoon I’d go back and he’d appear and I’d walk with him and have the feeling of a friend seeing into my mind. It went on that way for quite a while.” She emptied her cup.
“And then things changed?” Carr asked as he poured her more.
“In a way.”
“Did he start to make love to you?”
“No. Perhaps that was what was wrong. Perhaps if he’d made love to me, everything would have been all right. But he never did any more than take my arm. He was like a man who walks with a gun at his back. I sensed a terrible, mute tension inside him, born of timidity or twisted pride, a seething flood of frustrated energy. Eventually it began to seep over into me. For no good reason my heart would start to pound, I could hardly breathe, and little spasms would race up and down me. And all the while he’d be talking calmly. It was awful. I think I would have done something to break that tension between us, except for the magic rules and the feeling that everything would be spoiled if we once disobeyed them. So I did nothing. And then things began to get much worse.”
“How do you mean?” Carr asked.
Jane looked up at him. Now that she was lost in her story, she looked younger than ever.
“We were stuck, that’s what it amounted to, and we began to rot. All that knowledge he had of my queer thoughts began to terrify me. Because, you see, I’d always believed that they were just quirks of my mind, and that by sharing them I’d get rid of them. I kept waiting for him to tell me how silly they were. But he never did. Instead, I began to see from the way he talked that my queer thoughts weren’t illusions at all, but the truth. Nothing did mean anything. Snores actually were a kind of engine-puffing, and printed words had no more real meaning than wind-tracings in sand. Other people weren’t alive, really alive, like you were. You were all alone.”
A bell clanged. They both started.
Jane relaxed. “Closing time,” she explained.
Carr shrugged. That they were in the stacks of the library had become inconsequential to him. “Go on,” he said.
“Now the walks did begin to effect the rest of my life. All day long I’d be plunged in gloom. My father and mother seemed a million miles away, my classes at the music academy the stupidest things in the world. And yet I didn’t show anything outwardly. No one noticed any change, except Gigolo my cat, who sometime acted afraid and spat at me, yet sometimes came purring to me in a most affectionate way—and sometimes watched at the windows and
“OH, HE KEPT coming closer and then one day he spoke to me. ‘Would you mind if I walked with you for a while?’ he asked. I gulped and managed to say, ‘No.’ That’s all. He just walked beside me. It was days before he even touched my arm. But that didn’t matter. It was what he said that was important. He talked hesitatingly, but he knew the thoughts inside me I’d never told anyone—how puzzling life was, how alone you felt, how other people sometimes seemed just like animals, how they could hurt you with their eyes. And he knew the little pictures in my mind too—how the piano keys looked like champing teeth, how written words were just meaningless twists of ribbon, how snores sounded like faraway railway trains and railway trains like snores.
“After we’d walked for a while that first day, I saw two of my girl-friends ahead. He said, “I’ll leave you now,’ and went off. I was glad, for I wouldn’t have known how to introduce him.
“That first walk set a pattern, almost as if we’d learned a list of magic rules. We must always meet as if by accident and part without warning. We must never go any special place. We must never tell our names. We must never talk of tomorrow or plan anything, just yield to a fatalistic enchantment. Of course I never mentioned my friend to a soul. Away from the park I’d say, ‘You dreamed him, Jane,’ almost believing it. But the next afternoon I’d go back and he’d appear and I’d walk with him and have the feeling of a friend seeing into my mind. It went on that way for quite a while.” She emptied her cup.
“And then things changed?” Carr asked as he poured her more.
“In a way.”
“Did he start to make love to you?”
“No. Perhaps that was what was wrong. Perhaps if he’d made love to me, everything would have been all right. But he never did any more than take my arm. He was like a man who walks with a gun at his back. I sensed a terrible, mute tension inside him, born of timidity or twisted pride, a seething flood of frustrated energy. Eventually it began to seep over into me. For no good reason my heart would start to pound, I could hardly breathe, and little spasms would race up and down me. And all the while he’d be talking calmly. It was awful. I think I would have done something to break that tension between us, except for the magic rules and the feeling that everything would be spoiled if we once disobeyed them. So I did nothing. And then things began to get much worse.”
“How do you mean?” Carr asked.
Jane looked up at him. Now that she was lost in her story, she looked younger than ever.
“We were stuck, that’s what it amounted to, and we began to rot. All that knowledge he had of my queer thoughts began to terrify me. Because, you see, I’d always believed that they were just quirks of my mind, and that by sharing them I’d get rid of them. I kept waiting for him to tell me how silly they were. But he never did. Instead, I began to see from the way he talked that my queer thoughts weren’t illusions at all, but the truth. Nothing did mean anything. Snores actually were a kind of engine-puffing, and printed words had no more real meaning than wind-tracings in sand. Other people weren’t alive, really alive, like you were. You were all alone.”
A bell clanged. They both started.
Jane relaxed. “Closing time,” she explained.
Carr shrugged. That they were in the stacks of the library had become inconsequential to him. “Go on,” he said.
“Now the walks did begin to effect the rest of my life. All day long I’d be plunged in gloom. My father and mother seemed a million miles away, my classes at the music academy the stupidest things in the world. And yet I didn’t show anything outwardly. No one noticed any change, except Gigolo my cat, who sometime acted afraid and spat at me, yet sometimes came purring to me in a most affectionate way—and sometimes watched at the windows and
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