It was an uncomfortable question. I remembered the first few weeks back
with Charlotte when I tried to fit back into the pattern of the life I
had known before. Our friends had seemed vapid, and their conversation
had bored me. Charlotte, with her endless yak about building lots, and
what color draperies, and television epics, and aren't these darling
shoes for only four ninety-five, and what color do you like me best in,
and yellow kitchens always look so cheerful--Charlotte had bored me,
too.
My Charlotte, curled like a kitten against me in the drive-in movie,
wide-eyed and entranced at the monster images on the screen who traded
platitudes, had bored me.
I began to sense where it had started. It had started in the camp.
Boredom was the enemy. And all my traditional defenses against boredom
had withered too rapidly. The improvised game of checkers was but
another form of boredom. I was used to being with a certain type of
man. He had amused and entertained me and I him. But in the camp he
became empty. He with his talk of sexual exploits, boyhood victories,
and Gargantuan drunks, he had made me weary just to listen.
The flight from boredom had stretched my mind. I spent more and
more time in the company of the off-beat characters, the ones who
before capture would have made me feel queer and uncomfortable, the
ones I would have made fun of behind their backs. There was a frail
headquarters type with a mind stuffed full of things I had never
heard of. They seemed like nonsense at first and soon became magical.
There was a corporal, muscled like a Tarzan, who argued with a mighty
ferocity with a young, intense, mustachioed Marine private about the
philosophy and ethics of art, while I sat and listened and felt unknown
doors open in my mind.
Ruth's quiet question gave me the first valid clue to my own
discontent. Could I shrink myself back to my previous dimensions, I
could once again fit into the world of job and Charlotte and blue
draperies and a yellow kitchen and the Saturday night mixed poker game
with our crowd.
If I could not shrink myself, I would never fit there again. And I did
not wish to shrink. I wished to stay what I had become, because many
odd things had become meaningful to me.
"Are you, Tal?" she asked again.
"Maybe not as much as I thought I was."
"You're hunting for something," she said. The strange truth of that
statement jolted me. "You're trying to do a book. That's just an
indication of restlessness. You're hunting for what you should be,
or for what you really are." She grinned suddenly, a wide grin and I
saw that one white tooth was entrancingly crooked. "Dad says I try to
be a world mother. Pay no attention to me. I'm always diagnosing and
prescribing and meddling." She looked at her watch. "Wow! He'll be
stomping and thundering. I've got to go right now."
I paid the check and we went out to the car. On the way back I steered
the conversation to the point where I could say, "And I remember him
talking about a girl named Cindy. Who was she?"
Ruth frowned. "Cindy? I can remember some--No there wasn't any girl
named Cindy in this town, not that Timmy would go out with. I'm sure he
never knew a pretty one. And for Timmy a girl had to be pretty. Are you
certain that's the right name?"
"I'm positive of it."
"But what did he say about her?"
"He just mentioned her casually a few times, but in a way that sounded
as though he knew her pretty well. I can't remember exactly what he
said, but I got the impression he knew her quite well."
"It defeats me," Ruth said. I turned into the driveway and stopped in
front of the animal hospital and got out as she did. We had been at
ease and now we were awkward again. I wanted to find some way of seeing
her again, and I didn't know exactly how to go about it. I hoped her
air of restraint was because she was hoping I would find a way. There
had been too many little signs and hints of a surprising and unexpected
closeness between us. She could not help but be aware of it.
"I want to thank you, Ruth," I said and put my hand out. She put her
hand in mine, warm and firm, and her eyes met mine and slid away and I
thought she flushed a bit. I could not be certain.
"I'm glad to help you, Tal. You could--let me know if you think of more
questions."
The opening was there, but it was too easy. I felt a compulsion to let
her know how I felt. "I'd like to be with you again even if it's not
about the book."
She pulled her hand away gently and faced me squarely, chin up. "I
think I'd like that, too." She grinned again. "See? A complete lack of
traditional female technique."
"I like that. I like it that way."
"We better not start sounding too intense, Tal."
"Intense? I don't know. I carried your picture a long time. It meant
something. Now there's a transition. You mean something."
"Do you say things like that just so you can listen to yourself saying
them?"
"Not this time."
"Call me," she said. She whirled and was gone. Just before she went in
the door I remembered what I meant to ask her. I called to her and she
stopped and I went up to her.
"Who should I talk to next about Timmy?"
She looked slightly disappointed. "Oh, try Mr. Leach. Head of the math
department at the high school. He took quite an interest in Timmy. And
he's a nice guy. Very sweet."
I drove back into town, full of the look of her, full of the impact
of her. It was an impact that made the day, the trees, the city, all
look more vivid. Her face was special and clear in my mind--the wide
mouth, the one crooked tooth, the gray slant of her eyes. Her figure
was good, shoulders just a bit too wide, hips just a shade too narrow
to be classic. Her legs were long, with clean lines. Her flat back and
the inswept lines of her waist were lovely. Her breasts were high and
wide spaced, with a flavor of impertinence, almost arrogance. It was
the coloring of her though that pleased me most. Dark red of the hair,
gray of the eyes, golden skin tones.
It was nearly three when I left her place. I tried to put her out of
my mind and think of the interview with Leach. Leach might be the link
with Cindy.
I must have been a half mile from the Stamm place when I began to
wonder if the Ford coupé behind me was the one I had seen beside Fitz's
shed. I made two turns at random and it stayed behind me. There was
no attempt at the traditional nuances of shadowing someone. He tagged
along, a hundred feet behind me. I pulled over onto the shoulder and
got out. I saw that it was Fitz in the car. He pulled beyond me and got
out, too.
I marched up to him and said, "What the hell was the idea of going
through my room."