dorm.'
Dorothy grinned. 'Will they be surprised, the girls in the dorm.' They strolled around the parapet of the airshaft. 'Do you think your landlady'll be able to give us some more closet space?'
'I think so.'
'I can leave some of my stuff, the winter things, in the attic at the dorm. There won't be too much.'
They reached the south side of the airshaft. He stood with his back against the parapet, braced his hands on the top of it, and hitched himself up. He sat with his heels kicking against the side of the wall. 'Don't sit there,' Dorothy said apprehensively. 'Why not?' he asked, glancing at the white stone coping. 'It's a foot wide. You sit on a bench a foot wide and you don't fall off.' He patted the stone on his left 'Come on.'
'No,' she said. 'Chicken.'
She touched her rear. 'My suit...' He took out his handkerchief, whipped it open and spread it on the stone beside him. 'Sir Walter Raleigh,' he said.
She hesitated a moment, then gave him her purse. Turning her back to the parapet, she gripped the top on either side of the handkerchief and lifted herself up. He helped her. 'There,' he said, putting his arm around her waist. She turned her head slowly, peeking over her shoulder. 'Don't look down,' he warned. 'You'll get dizzy.'
He put the purse on the stone to his right and they sat in silence for a moment, her hands still fastened upon the front of the coping. Two pigeons came out from behind the staircase shed and walked around, watching them cautiously, their claws ticking against the tar.
'Are you going to call or write when you tell your mother?' Dorothy asked.
'I don't know.'
'I think I'll write Ellen and Father. If s an awfully hard thing to just say over the phone.'
A ventilator cap creaked. After a minute, he took his arm from her waist and put his hand over hers, which gripped the stone between them. He braced his other hand on the coping and eased himself down from the parapet. Before she could do likewise he swung around and was facing her, his waist against her knees, his hands covering both of hers. He smiled at her and she smiled back. His gaze dropped to her stomach. 'Little mother,' he said. She chuckled.
His hands moved to her knees, cupped them, his fingertips caressing under the hem of her skirt.
'We'd better be going, hadn't we, darling?'
'In a minute, baby. We still have time.'
His eyes caught hers, held them, as his hands descended and moved behind to rest curving on the slope of her calves. At the periphery of his field of vision he could make out her white-gloved hands; they still clasped the front of the coping firmly.
'That's a beautiful blouse,' he said, looking at the fluffy silk bow at her throat 'Is it new?'
'New? It's as old as the hills.'
His gaze became critical. 'The bow is a little off center.'
One hand left the stone and rose to finger the bow. 'No,' he said, 'now you've got it worse.' Her other hand detached itself from the top of the parapet.
His hands moved down over the silken swell of her calves, as low as he could reach without bending. His right foot dropped back, poised on the toe in readiness. He held his breath.
She adjusted the bow with both hands. 'Is that any bett-'
With cobra speed he ducked-hands streaking down to catch her heels-stepped back and straightened up, lifting her legs high. For one frozen instant, as his hands shifted from cupping her heels to a flat grip against the soles of her shoes, their eyes met, stupefied terror bursting in hers, a cry rising in her throat. Then, with all his strength, he pushed against her fear-rigid legs.
Her shriek of petrified anguish trailed down into the shaft like a burning wire. He closed his eyes. The scream died. Silence, then a godawful deafening crash. Wincing, he remembered the cans and crates piled far below.
He opened his eyes to see his handkerchief billowing as the breeze pulled it free of the stone's rough surface. He snatched it up. Wheeling, he raced to the stairway door, grabbed hat and valise with one hand and pulled the door open, wiping the knob with the handkerchief as he did so. He stepped quickly over the threshold ledge, pulled the door closed and wiped its inner knob. He turned and ran.
He clattered down flight after flight of black metal steps, the valise banging against his legs, his right hand burning over the banisters. His heart galloped and the image of whirling walls dizzied him. When he finally stopped he was on the seventh floor landing.
He clung to the newel post, gasping. The phrase 'physical release of tension' danced in his mind.
That was why he had run that way-physical release of tension-not panic, not panic. He caught his breath.
Putting down the valise, he reshaped his hat, which had been crushed in his grasp. He put it on, his hands trembling slightly. He looked at them. The palms were dirty gray from the soles of. . . he wiped them clean and jammed the handkerchief into his pocket After a few straightening tugs at his jacket, he picked up the valise, opened the door, and stepped out into the corridor.
Every door was open. People rushed across the corridor from offices on the outer circumference to those on the inner, where windows faced the airshaft. Men in business suits, stenographers with paper cuffs clipped to their blouses, shirt-sleeved men with green eyeshades; all with jaws clenched, eyes wide, faces bloodless. He walked towards the elevators at a moderate pace, pausing when someone darted before him, then continuing on his way. Passing the doorway of each inner office, he glanced in and saw the backs of people crammed around the open windows, their voices a murmur of excitement and tense speculation. Shortly after he reached the bank of elevators, a down car came. He squeezed in and faced the front of the car. Behind him the other passengers avidly exchanged fragments of information, the customary elevator coldness shattered by the violence at their backs.
The easy bustle of normality filled the lobby. Most of the people there, having just entered from outside, were unaware of any disturbance. Swinging the valise lightly, he made his way across the marbled expanse and out into the bright noisy afternoon. As he jogged down the steps that fronted the building, two policemen passed him, going up. He turned and watched the blue uniforms vanish into a revolving door. At the foot of the steps he paused and examined his hands once again. They were steady as rocks. Not a tremor. He smiled. Turning, he looked at the revolving doors, wondering how dangerous it would be for him to go back, mingle with the crowd, see her... He decided against it A University streetcar rumbled past. He walked doubletime to the corner, where the car was detained by a red light. Swinging himself on. He put the dime in the box and walked to the rear of the car. He stood looking out the window. When the car had gone about four blocks, a white ambulance clanged by, the pitch of its bell dropping as it passed. He watched it grow smaller and smaller and finally cut through traffic to pull up in front of the Municipal Building. Then the streetcar turned onto University Avenue, and he could see no more.
The baseball pep rally began at nine that night, taking place on an empty lot next to the stadium, but the news of a student's suicide (for how could she have fallen when the Clarion clearly stated there was a three and a half foot wall?) put a damper on the entire affair. In the orange glow of the bonfire, the students, the girls especially, spread their blankets and sat huddled in conversation. The business manager of the baseball team and the members of the cheerleading squad tried vainly to make the rally what it should be. They spurred the boys to the gathering of more and more fuel, throwing on crates and cartons until the flaming pillar was so high it threatened to topple, but it was to no avail. Cheers wavered and died before half the school's name was spelled out.
He had not attended many of the pep rallies before, but he attended this one. He walked the dark streets from his rooming house at a slow liturgic pace, bearing a carton in his arms.
In the afternoon he had emptied Dorothy's valise, hiding her clothes under the mattress of his bed. Then, although it was a warm day, he had donned his trenchcoat, and after filling its pockets with the bottles and small containers of cosmetics that had been lodged among the clothes, he left the house with the valise, from which he had stripped the tags bearing Dorothy's New York and Blue River addresses. He had gone downtown and checked the valise in a locker at the bus terminal. From there he had walked to the Morton Street Bridge, where he dropped the locker key and then the bottles, one by one, into the umber water, opening them first so that trapped air would not keep them afloat Ghosts of pink lotion rode the water and thinned and faded. On his way home from the bridge he stopped at a grocery store, where he secured a tan corrugated carton that had once contained cans of pineapple juice.
He carried the carton to the rally and picked his way through the mass of squatting and reclining figures
