“What in hell—pardon—whats the matter, Paul?”
“I forgot my cigarettes—”
“Youre smoking one.”
“So I am. Pardon me.”
The waiter straightens them out. Takes their order.
Art: What in hell’s eating Paul? Moony aint the word for it. From bad to worse. And those godam people staring so. Paul’s a queer fish. Doesnt seem to mind … He’s my pal, let me tell you, you horn-rimmed owl-eyed hyena at that table, and a lot better than you whoever you are … Queer about him. I could stick up for him if he’d only come out, one way or the other, and tell a feller. Besides, a roommate has a right to know. Thinks I wont understand. Said so. He’s got a swell head when it comes to brains, all right. God, he’s a good straight feller, though. Only, moony. Nut. Nuttish. Nuttery. Nutmeg … “What’d you say, Helen?”
“I was talking to Bona, thank you.”
“Well, its nothing to get spiffy about.”
“What? Oh, of course not. Please lets dont start some silly argument all over again.”
“Well.”
“Well.”
“Now thats enough. Say, waiter, whats the matter with our order? Make it snappy, will you?”
Crimson Gardens. Hurrah! So one feels. The drinks come. Four highballs. Art passes cigarettes. A girl dressed like a bareback rider in flaming pink, makes her way through tables to the dance floor. All lights are dimmed till they seem a lush afterglow of crimson. Spotlights the girl. She sings. “Liza, Little Liza Jane.”
Paul is rosy before his window.
He moves, slightly, towards Bona.
With his own glow, he seeks to penetrate a dark pane.
Paul: From the South. What does that mean, precisely, except that you’ll love or hate a nigger? Thats a lot. What does it mean except that in Chicago you’ll have the courage to neither love or hate. A priori. But it would seem that you have. Queer words, arent these, for a man who wears blue pants on a gym floor in the daytime. Well, never matter. You matter. I’d like to know you whom I look at. Know, not love. Not that knowing is a greater pleasure; but that I have just found the joy of it. You came just a month too late. Even this afternoon I dreamed. Tonight, along the Boulevard, you found me cold. Paul Johnson, cold! Thats a good one, eh, Art, you fine old stupid fellow, you! But I feel good! The color and the music and the song … A Negress chants a lullaby beneath the mate-eyes of a southern planter. O song! … And those flushed faces. Eager brilliant eyes. Hard to imagine them as unawakened. Your own. Oh, they’re awake all right. “And you know it too, dont you Bona?”
“What, Paul?”
“The truth of what I was thinking.”
“I’d like to know I know—something of you.”
“You will—before the evening’s over. I promise it.”
Crimson Gardens. Hurrah! So one feels. The bareback rider balances agilely on the applause which is the tail of her song. Orchestral instruments warm up for jazz. The flute is a cat that ripples its fur against the deep-purring saxophone. The drum throws sticks. The cat jumps on the piano keyboard. Hi diddle, hi diddle, the cat and the fiddle. Crimson Gardens … hurrah! … jumps over the moon. Crimson Gardens! Helen … O Eliza … rabbit-eyes sparkling, plays up to, and tries to placate what she considers to be Paul’s contempt. She always does that … Little Liza Jane … Once home, she burns with the thought of what she’s done. She says all manner of snidy things about him, and swears that she’ll never go out again when he is along. She tries to get Art to break with him, saying, that if Paul, whom the whole dormitory calls a nigger, is more to him than she is, well, she’s through. She does not break with Art. She goes out as often as she can with Art and Paul. She explains this to herself by a piece of information which a friend of hers had given her: men like him (Paul) can fascinate. One is not responsible for fascination. Not one girl had really loved Paul; he fascinated them. Bona didnt; only thought she did. Time would tell. And of course, she didnt. Liza … She plays up to, and tries to placate, Paul.
“Paul is so deep these days, and I’m so glad he’s found someone to interest him.”
“I dont believe I do.”
The thought escapes from Bona just a moment before her anger at having said it.
Bona: You little puffy cat, I do. I do!
Dont I, Paul? her eyes ask.
Her answer is a crash of jazz from the palm-hidden orchestra. Crimson Gardens is a body whose blood flows to a clot upon the dance floor. Art and Helen clot. Soon, Bona and Paul. Paul finds her a little stiff, and his mind, wandering to Helen (silly little kid who wants every highball spoon her hands touch, for a souvenir), supple, perfect little dancer, wishes for the next dance when he and Art will exchange.
Bona knows that she must win him to herself.
“Since when have men like you grown cold?”
“The first philosopher.”
“I thought you were a poet—or a gym director.”
“Hence, your failure to make love.”
Bona’s eyes flare. Water. Grow red about the rims. She would like to tear away from him and dash across the clotted floor.
“What do you mean?”
“Mental concepts rule you. If they were flush with mine—good. I dont believe they are.”
“How do you know, Mr. Philosopher?”
“Mostly a priori.”
“You talk well for a gym director.”
“And you—”
“I hate you. Ou!”
She presses away. Paul, conscious of the convention in it, pulls her to him. Her body close. Her head still strains away. He nearly
