Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion

“We can go now.”

She hadn’t told me yet where I was to stay, nor did I know where her place was either. So when we were in the car again I snapped on the dash light so she could see the tablet and wrote Where. “That way,” she said. It was back toward the center of town and I drove on until she said, “Turn here,” and I did; presently she said, “There it is,” so that I had to pull in to the curb to use the tablet

Which is

“The hotel,” she said. “Right yonder.” I wrote

We want to talk Havent you got a Sitting room your place Quiet & private

“We’re going to both stay there tonight. It’s all arranged. Our rooms are next door with just the wall between and I had both beds moved against it so after we talk and are in bed any time during the night I can knock on the wall and you can hear it and if I hold my hand against the wall I can feel you answer.—I know, I wont knock loud enough to disturb anybody, for anybody to hear it except you.”

The hotel had its own parking lot. I took my bag and we went in. The proprietor knew her, perhaps by this time everybody in the town knew or knew of the young deaf woman working in the shipyard. Anyway, nobody stopped us, he called her by name and she introduced me and he gave me the two keys and still nobody stopped us, on to her door and unlocked it, her overnight bag was already in the room and there were flowers in a vase too and she said, “Now I can have a bath. Then I will knock on the wall,” and I said,

“Yes,” since she could read that and went to my room; yes, why should there have to be fidelity and enduring too just because you imagined them? If mankind matched his dreams too, where would his dreams be? Until presently she knocked on the wall and I went out one door, five steps, into the other one and closed it behind me. She was in bed, propped on both pillows, in a loose jacket or robe, her hair (evidently she had cut it short while she was driving the ambulance but now it was long enough again to bind in a ribbon dark blue like her eyes) brushed or dressed for the night, the tablet and stylus in one hand on her lap, the other hand patting the bed beside her for me to sit down.

“You wont really need this,” she said, raising the tablet slightly then lowering it again, “since all you’ll need is just to say Yes and I can hear that. Besides, since you already know what it is, it will be easy to talk about. And maybe if I tell you I want you to do it for me, it will be even easier for you to do. So I do say that. I want you to do it for me.” I took the tablet

Of course I will Do what

“Do you remember back there at the beach when the sun finally went down and there was nothing except the sunset and the pines and the sand and the ocean and you and me and I said how that shouldn’t be wasted after all that waiting and distance, there should be two people out of all the world desperate and anguished for one another to deserve not to waste it any longer and suddenly they were hurrying, running toward the place at last not far now, almost here now and no more the desperation and the anguish no more, no more—” when suddenly, as I watched, right under the weight of my eyes you might say, her face sprang and ran with tears, though I had never seen her cry before and apparently she herself didn’t even know it was happening. I wrote

Stop it

“Stop what?” And I

youre crying

“No I’m not.” And I

look at your Face

There was the customary, the standard, hand-glass and box of tissue on the table but instead I took my handkerchief and held it out. But instead she simply set the heels of her palms to her face, smearing the moisture downward and outward like you do sweat, even snapping, flicking the moisture away at the end of the movement as you do sweat.

“Dont be afraid,” she said. “I’m not going to say that word. Because I dont even mean that. That’s not important, like breathing’s not important as long as you dont even have to think about it but just do it when it’s necessary. It’s important only when it becomes a question or a problem or an issue, like breathing’s important only when it becomes a question or a problem of whether or not you can draw another one. It’s the rest of it, the little things: it’s this pillow still holding the shape of the head, this necktie still holding the shape of the throat that took it off last night even just hanging empty on a bedpost, even the empty shoes on the floor still sit with the right one turned out a little like his feet were still in them and even still walking the way he walked, stepping a little higher with one foot than the other like the old-time Negroes say a proud man walks—” And I

stop it stop It youre crying Again

“I cant feel it. I cant feel anything on my face since that day, not heat nor cold nor rain nor water nor wind nor anything.” This time she took the handkerchief and used it but when I handed her the mirror and even started to write wheres your compact she didn’t even take the mirror. “I’ll be careful now.—So that’s what I want you to have too. I love you. If it hadn’t been for you, probably I wouldn’t have got this far. But I’m all right now. So I want you to have that too. I want you to do it for me.” And I

But what for you You never have Told me yet

“Marry,” she said. “I thought you knew. Didn’t you tell me you knew what it was?” And I

Me marry You mean me

“Who did you think I meant? Did you think I was—Gavin.”

“No,” I said.

“I read that. You said No. You’re lying. You thought I meant me.”

“No,” I said. height='0em' width='1em' align='justify'>“Do you remember that time when I told you that any time you believed you had to lie for my sake, I could always count on you sticking to it, no matter how bad you were disproved?”

“Yes,” I said.

“So that’s settled, then,” she said. “No, I mean you. That’s what I want you to do for me. I want you to marry.