The vender deciphered it and looked at a concealed watch. “One ten.”
“Thanks, brother,” lies groaned. The sodden pulp of his face managed to smile.
“Sriberdegibit!” he said when he was back in the car.
“I’m still here,” said the voice bounced through invisible caves. “You didn’t dismiss me.”
“Sorry. Can’t see so good. My eyes . . . they swell— But it’s after even your midnight, and I didn’t manage to—”
The demon repeated the vender’s own argument. “After all,” he said consolingly, “you meant ill.”
“And what,” Linda demanded, “were you celebrating last night?”
Gilbert Iles rolled over in bed, sat up, and opened his eyes. Or rather he tried to open them. Through puffy slits he could barely see his wife and beside her the clock which said 1:30.
He gave a groan and started to jump out of bed. When he moved his muscles, the groan redoubled and he sank back on his pillow.
“You are in a state,” said Linda. There was sympathy under the tartness of her voice.
“The time,” lies muttered. “The office—Tom—”
“Tom phoned about eleven. I told him you were laid up with a bad cold.”
“But I ought to—”
“I thought you’d better sleep it off. And you’re not going to any office today looking the way you do. I’d bring you a mirror to prove it, only it’s no sight to greet a man before breakfast. But what was all the celebrating for? And I didn’t have a headache last night.”
“You see, dear—” lies tried to articulate between swollen lips.
Linda smiled. “Don’t try, darling. Sorry I asked. Tell me after breakfast—or never, if you don’t want to. Everything’ll be ready as soon as you are.”
Every perfect wife is a perfect diagnostician. For this breakfast Linda had prescribed soft-boiled eggs, tomato juice, a very full pot of black coffee, the morning paper—in its virginal and unrumpled state—and solitude. She served his food but did not speak to him or come near him again.
After the fifth cup of coffee and the third cigarette, Gilbert Iles went in search of his wife. He found her on the sun porch watering the ferns. She wore a bright printed jumper and the sun was alive in her hair.
“Linda—” he said.
“Yes, darling?” She scooped a magazine off the most comfortable chair and helped him as his creaking legs eased into it.
“I’ve got something to tell you, Linda.”
She went on watering the ferns, but her hand trembled enough to scatter a few drops wide of their mark. “What is it? A new case?”
“No, it’s—There’s something about me you’ll have to know, dear.”
“How long is it? Three and a half years? And there’s something I still don’t know?”
“I’m afraid there is.”
“Bad?”
“Bad.”
“Worse than smoking in the bathroom?”
He laughed, but it hurt his mouth. “A little. You see, Linda, I . . . I’m living under a curse.”
Water splashed on the floor. Then Linda forced herself to set the can down very steadily, take a cloth, and mop up the mess. Not till she had finished did she say, very lightly, “That’s a fine thing to say. Here I wear my fingers to the bone slaving to make a nice home for you—”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
“I know. It’s just that— Well, it’s a funny way of putting it. Tell me what’s the matter.”
“It isn’t anything to do with you—”
Linda went over to the chair and put her arm around his shoulder. “Isn’t it just?” she demanded fiercely. “Whenever there’s something the matter with you, Gilbert Iles, it is something to do with me. You’re me; don’t you understand that?”
“My curse isn’t your curse. You see, Linda, it’s . . . I know it’s hard to believe, but . . . well, I have to commit a sin every day.”
Linda stared at him. Her face expressed a sort of grave average between laughter and tears. “You mean— Oh, darling, do you mean I’m not enough for you?”
He took her hand. “Nonsense. You’re all I ever want.”
“Then is it . . . I know you’ve been drinking a lot lately, but I thought . . . you don’t mean it’s . . . got hold of you, do you?”
“It isn’t that. It isn’t any particular kind of sin. It’s just a sin. You see, I told you. It’s a curse.”
Linda regarded him seriously. “You did drink all that tomato juice and coffee, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Then I think you’d better tell me all about this from the beginning.” She slid comfortably onto his lap and kept her ear close to his aching lips.
“It started,” he began, “that night I was celebrating the Shalgreen case. It happened I met a—”
“But that’s awful,” she said when he had finished. “That’s terrible. To think that all sorts of silly wishes might be granted, do get granted— Oh my! The things I wished when I was in high school— I’ll have to be careful.”
“Then you do believe me?”
“Of course.”
“I hardly dared expect— That’s why I didn’t tell you before. It’s so fantastic.”
“But you told me,” she said simply, and leaned over to kiss him. “No, I’d hurt your poor lips.”
“But what am I going to do? I can’t go on like this. For one thing I never know what’s going to count as a sin or not. But what’s worse, I . . . I’m afraid I don’t like to sin. Not when I know it, not when I think: This is sinning. You have to be a special kind of person for that; and I’m not. What are we going to do?”
“Mm-m-m,” said Linda thoughtfully. “I know one thing. I’m going to keep wishing your curse’ll be lifted and maybe sometime there’ll be one of my wimps around.”
“One chance in a thousand, the little man said.”
“And then . . .” Linda hesitated. “There is another way.”
“That my brilliant legal mind has been overlooking?”
“I don’t think you’ve exactly been overlooking it; but maybe on my account . . . I don’t know quite how to say this, Gil;
