“After we bathe we can go out.”
“I’ll go now.”
“You know maybe we ought to stay tomorrow. I ought to have my nails done and my hair washed. I can do it all myself but you might like it better done properly. That way we could sleep late and then have part of one day in town and then leave the next morning.”
“That would be good.”
“I like New Orleans now. Don’t you?”
“New Orleans is wonderful. It’s changed a lot since we came here.”
“I’ll go in. I’ll only be a minute. Then you can bathe.”
“I only want a shower.”
Afterwards they went down in the elevator. There were Negro girls who ran the elevators and they were pretty. The elevator was full with a party from the floor above so they went down fast. Going down in the elevator made him feel hollower than ever inside. He felt Helena against him where they were crowded.
“If you ever get so that you don’t feel anything when you see flying fish go out of water or when an elevator drops you better turn in your suit,” he said to her.
“I feel it still,” she said. “Are those the only things you have to turn in your suit for?”
The door had opened and they were crossing the old-fashioned marble lobby crowded at this hour with people waiting for other people, people waiting to go to dinner, people just waiting, and Roger said, “Walk ahead and let me see you.”
“Where do I walk to?”
“Straight toward the door of the air-conditioned bar.”
He caught her at the door.
“You’re beautiful. You walk wonderfully and if I were here and saw you now for the first time I’d be in love with you.”
“If I saw you across the room I’d be in love with you.”
“If I saw you for the first time everything would turn over inside of me and I’d ache right through my chest.”
“That’s the way I feel all of the time.”
“You can’t feel that way all of the time.”
“Maybe not. But I can feel that way an awfully big part of the time.”
“Daughter, isn’t New Orleans a fine place?”
“Weren’t we lucky to come here?”
It felt very cold in the big high-ceilinged, pleasant, dark-wood panelled bar room and Helena, sitting beside Roger at a table, said, “Look,” and showed him the tiny prickles of gooseflesh on her brown arm. “You can do that to me too,” she said. “But this time it’s air conditioning.”
“It’s really cold. It feels wonderful.”
“What should we drink?”
“Should we get tight?”
“Let’s gel a little tight.”
“I’ll drink absinthe then.”
“Do you think I should?”
“Why don’t you try it. Didn’t you ever?”
“No. I was saving it to drink with you.”
“Don’t make up things.”
“It’s not made up. I truly did.”
“Daughter, don’t make up a lot of things.”
“It’s not made up. I didn’t save my maidenly state because I thought it would bore you and besides I gave you up for a while. But I did save absinthe. Truly.”
“Do you have any real absinthe?” Roger asked the bar waiter.
“It’s not supposed to be,” the waiter said. “But I have some.”
“The real Couvet Pontarlier sixty-eighth-degree? Not the Tarragova?”
“Yes, sir,” the waiter said. “I can’t bring you the bottle. It will be in an ordinary Pernod bottle.”
“I can tell it,” Roger said.
“I believe you, sir,” the waiter said. “Do you want a frappe or drip?”
“Straight drip. You have the dripping saucers?”
“Naturally, sir.”
“Without sugar.”
“Won’t the lady want sugar, sir?”
“No. We’ll let her try it without.”
“Very good, sir.”
er the waiter was gone Roger took Helena’s hand under the table. “Hello my beauty.”
“This is wonderful. Us here and this good old poison coming and we’ll eat in some fine place.”
“And then go to bed”
“Do you like bed as much as all that?”
“I never did. But I do now.’
“Why did you never?”
“Let’s not talk about it.”
“We won’t.”
“I don’t ask you about everyone you’ve been in love with. We don’t have to talk about London do we?”
“No. We can talk about you and how beautiful you are. You know you still move like a colt?”
“Roger, tell me, did I really walk so it pleased you?”
“You walk so that it breaks my heart.”
“All I do is keep my shoulders back and my head straight up and walk. I know there are tricks I ought to know.”
“When you look the way you do, daughter, there aren’t any tricks. You’re so beautiful that I’d be happy just to look at you.”
“Not permanently I hope.”
“Daytimes,” he said. “Look, daughter. The one thing about absinthe is that you have to drink it awfully slowly. It won’t taste strong mixed with the water but you have to believe it is.”
“I believe. Credo Roger.”
“I hope you’ll never change it the way Lady Caroline did.”
“I’ll never change it except for cause. But you’re not like him at all.”
“I wouldn’t want to be.”
“You’re not. Someone tried to tell me you were at college. They meant it as a compliment I think but I was terribly angry and made an awful row with the English professor. They made us read you you know. I mean they made the others read it. I’d read it all. There isn’t very much, Roger. Don’t you think you ought to work more?”
“I’m going to work now as soon as we get out west.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t stay tomorrow then. I’ll be so happy when you work.”
“Happier than now?”
“Yes,” she said. “Happier than now.”
“I’ll work hard. You’ll see.”
“Roger, do you think I’m bad for you? Do I make you drink or make love more than you should?”
“No, daughter.”
“I’m awfully glad if it’s true because I want to be good for you. I know it’s a weakness and silliness but I make up stories to myself in the daytime and in one of them I save your life. Sometimes it’s from drowning and sometimes from in from of a train and sometimes in a plane and sometimes in the mountains. You can laugh if you want. And then there is one where I come into your life when you are disgusted and disappointed with all women and you love me so much and I take such good care of you that you get an epoch of writing wonderfully. That’s a wonderful one. I was making it up again today in the car.”
