The Madness Of Love | The Secret History

XIII

I walked home from class alone, in a state of bewilderment and turmoil. I had no classes for the rest of the day and the thought of going back to my room was intolerable. Should I go to the library? Or go to the movies? Should I go ask Judy Poovey for a valium?

I decided, finally, that the last of these would be a prerequisite for any other plan. I walked to Judy's room but she wasn't there so I went to mine.

I lay on my bed and looked at the ceiling, trying to guess when Judy would return and what to do in the meantime, when there was a knock at the door.

It was Henry and Lilith. I opened the door a little wider and stared at them and said nothing. Henry gazed back at me with a fixed and patient unconcern. He was level-eyed and calm, had a book tucked under one of his arms and the other arm was loosely wrapped around Lilith's waist.

Lilith stared at me calmly, it almost looked like she was looking through me. She seemed oblivious to Henry's arm around her.

"Hello" Henry said. There was another pause, longer than the first. "Hi" I said, after a while. I looked at Lilith. "Hi" I told her. She finally acknowledged me and nodded with a soft smile.

"How are you?" Henry asked politely. "Fine." "That's good. Are you doing anything this afternoon?" "No" I said, taken aback. "Would you like to go on a drive with us?"
I got my coat.

Once well out of Hampden, we turned off the main highway and onto a stretch of gravel road that I had never seen. "Where are we going?" I said, rather uneasy. "I thought we might go out and take a look at an estate sale on the Old Quarry Road." said Henry, unperturbed.

I was as surprised as I've ever been at anything in my life when the road finally did bring us out to a large house with a sign in front that said Estate Sale.

Though the house itself was magnificent, the sale turned out not to be much: a grand piano covered with a display of silver and cracked glassware; a grandfather clock; several boxes full of records, kitchen implements, and toys; and some upholstered furniture badly scratched by cats, all out in the garage.

I leafed through a stack of old sheet music, keeping Henry and Lilith in the corner of my eye. Henry poked around unconcernedly in the silver; played a disinterested bar of 'Träumerei' on the piano with one hand and had a long chat with the owner's niece about when was the best time to put out tulip bulbs.

Lilith walked around a few steps behind him; lazily looked through the records and opened the door of the grandfather clock.

After I had gone through the sheet music twice, I moved to the glassware. Henry bought a garden hoe for twenty-five cents. Lilith got an old The Beatles record.

-----------------

"I'm sorry we dragged you all the way out here." Henry said on the way home. "That's all right" I said, slouched down in my seat. Lilith was still quiet.
"I'm a bit hungry. Are you hungry at all? Would you like to have something to eat?" Henry asked. Neither me nor Lilith replied.

We stopped at a diner on the outskirts of Hampden. It was virtually deserted this early in the evening. Henry ordered an enormous dinner - pea soup, roast beef, a salad, mashed potatoes with gravy, coffee, pie - and ate it silently and with a great deal of methodical relish. Lilith was only drinking coffee. She always drank extraordinary amounts of coffee, I remember.

I picked erratically at my omelet and had a hard time keeping my eyes off them as we ate.

When Henry had finished he took his cigarettes out of his shirt pocket (he smoked Lucky Strikes; whenever I think of him I think of that little red bull's-eye right over his heart) gave one to Lilith and also offered me one. I shook my head.

He smoked one and then another (Lilith, who wasn't very fond of Lucky Strikes, had passed on to Marlboro Red's), and over our second cup of coffee he looked up.
"Why have you been so quiet this afternoon?"
I shrugged.
"Don't you want to know about our trip to Argentina?"

I set my cup in its saucer and stared at him. Then I began to laugh. "Yes" I said. "Yes, I do. Tell me."
"Don't you wonder how I know? That you know, I mean?"

That hadn't occurred to me, and I guess he saw it in my face because now he laughed. "It's no mystery" he said. "When I called to cancel the reservations - they didn't want to do it, of course, nonrefundable tickets and all that, but I think we've got it worked out now - anyway, when I called the airline they were rather surprised, as they said I'd called to confirm only the day before."

"How did you know it was me?"
"Who else could it have been? You had the key. But I had only left the apartment for a few hours and I never dreamed that you'd happen in between midnight and seven a.m. I must have missed you by only a few minutes."

He took a sip of his coffee. Lilith looked through the window, smoking her probably fifth cigarette and stubbornly refusing to look at us and participate in the conversation.

I had so many questions it was useless to try to sort them into any coherent order. "Why did you leave me the key?" I said at last.

Henry shrugged. "Because I was pretty sure you wouldn't use it unless you had to" he said. "If we'd actually gone, someone would eventually have had to open the apartment for the landlady, and I'd have sent you instructions on who to contact and how to dispose of the things I'd left."

"Let me get this straight" I asked. "You didn't go to Argentina at all?"
Lilith scoffed. Henry snorted, and motioned for the check. "Of course not. Would I be here if we had?"

I gazed at Lilith. She had finally stopped staring at the window and was looking at me now.
"Were you supposed to go with them?" I asked her carefully.
"God no." she replied and put out her cigarette. "Why would I?"

That statement shocked me and I looked at Henry. He didn't seem surprised.
"I think it was a stupid idea." said Lilith after a pause. "That Argentina thing. What would you do after landing there? Live in trees? Grow a garden?" she stopped. "Though, I suppose, that would be perfect for you."

Her last statement was meant for Henry, even though she was looking at me. He didn't say anything.

Once he'd paid the check he asked me if I wanted to go to Francis's and Lilith's. "I don't think he's there" Henry said.
"So why go there?"
"Because my apartment is a mess and I'm staying with them until I can get someone in to clean it up."
"Lucky us" said Lilith sarcastically.

------------------

If you have any feedback, I'd love to hear it x
P. S. I'm already writing the fourteenth part, it should be out today