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"I thought that was what you'd be working on. Isn't it horrible?"
He did not ask her why she was home today. She was the secretaryof an advertising agency executive. Neither she nor her boss would have adrivingpriority.
"I'll be right over," he said. He paused and then said, "Will Ibe able to stay a while or will I have to get out after a while? Don't get mad! I just wantto know; I'd like to be able to relax."
"You can stay for a couple of hours or more, if you like. I'm notgoinganyplace, and nobody is coming--that I know of."
He took the phone from his ear but her voice was laud enough forhim to hear, and he returned it to his ear. "Herald? I really do want you tocome!"
He said, "Good!" and then, "Hell! I've just been thinking ofmyself! Isthere anything I can get you from the store?"
"No, you know there's a supermarket only three blocks from here. I walked."
"OK. I just thought you might not have gone out yet or you forgotsomethingyou might want me to pick up for you."
They were both silent for a few seconds. He was thinking abouthis irritations when they had been married, about how many times he hadhad to run out to get things that she had forgotten during her shopping. Shemust be thinking about his recriminations, too; she was always thinking about them when
they got together. "I'll be right over," he said hurriedly. "So long." He hung up and left the apartment. The man was still coughing
behind the door. A stereo suddenly blared Strauss Thus Spake Zarathustradownstairs. Somebody protested feebly; the music continued to play loudly. Theprotestsbecame louder, and there was a pounding on a wall. The music did notsoften.
Herald considered walking the four blocks to Sybil's and thendecided against it. He might need to take off suddenly, although there didnot seem much chance of it. His answering service was not operating; it had nopriority. Hedid not intend to leave Sybil's number with the police operator orSergeantBruin while he was with her. She would get unreasonably angry aboutthis. She did not like to be interrupted by calls while she was with him, atleast, not bybusiness calls. That had been one of the things bugging her when theywere man and wife. Theoretically, she should not be bothered by such mattersnow. In practice, which operates more on emotion than logic, she was asenraged as ever. He well knew how enraged. The last time he had been at her apartment, the exchange had interrupted them at a crucial moment, and she had runhim out. Since then, he had called several times but had been cooled off. Thelast time he'd phoned had been two weeks ago.
She was right in one guess. He was hard up. But he did not expectto be anyless so after seeing her. He intended to talk, to talk only, tosoothe some troublings and to scare away the loneliness that had come morestrongly afterseeing the film of Colbert.
It was strange, or, if not so strange, indicative. He had livedtwenty ofhis thirty-five years in Los Angeles County. Yet he knew only onewoman to whom he could really unburden himself and feel relaxed and certain ofcompleteunderstanding. No. He was wrong. There was not even one woman, because Sybil didnot completely understand him, that is, sympathize with him. If shedid, shewould not now be his ex-wife.
But Sybil had said the same thing about men in general and abouthim in particular. It was the human situation--whatever that phrase meant.
He parked the car in front of her apartment--no trouble findingparkingspace now--and went into the little lobby. He rang her bell; shebuzzed; he wentup the steps through the i
Sybil was thirty-four and five feet five inches tall. She hadlong blackhair, sharp black eyebrows, large greenish eyes, a slender straightnose perhapsa little bit too long, a full mouth, a pale skin. She was pretty, andthe bodyunder the kimono was well built, although she may have been just alittle too hippy for some tastes.
Her apartment was light, like his, with much white on the wallsand ceilings, and creamy woodwork and light and airy furniture. But atall gloomy ElGreco reproduction hung incongruously on the wall; it hovered overeverythingsaid and done in the one room. Childe always felt as if the elongatedman on the cross was delivering judgment upon him as well as upon the city onthe plain.
The painting was not as visible as usual. There was almost alwaysa blue haze of tobacco--which accounted for the walls and ceiling not beingas white as those of his apartment--and today the blue had become gray-green. Sybil coughedas she lit another cigarette, and then she went into a spasm ofcoughing and herface became blue. He was not upset by this, no more than usual, anyway. She hadincipient emphysema and had been advised by her doctor to chop offthe smokingtwo years ago. Certainly, the smog was accelerating her disease, buthe could do nothing about it. Still, it was one more cause for quarreling.
She finally went in to the kitchen for water and came out severalminutes later. Her expression was challenging, but he kept his face smooth. He waited until she sat down on the sofa across the room from his easy chair. She groundthe freshly lit cigarette out on an ash tray and said, "Oh God! Ican't breathe!"
By which she meant that she could not smoke. "Tell me about Colben," she said, and then, "first, could I getyou...?"
Her voice decayed. She was always forgetting that he had quitdrinking fouryears ago.
"I need to relax," he said. "I'm all out of pot and no chance toget any. You...?"
"I'll get some," she said eagerly. She rose and went into thekitchen. A panel creaked as it slid back; a minute passed; she came back withtwo cigarettes of white paper twisted at both ends. She handed him one. He said, "Thanks," and sniffed it. The odor always brought visions of flat
toppedpyramids, of Aztec priests with sharp obsidian knives, naked brownmen and women working in red clay fields under a sun fiercer than an eagle's glare, of Arab feluccas scudding along in the Indian ocean. Why, he did not know.
He lit up and sucked in the heavy smoke and held it in his lungsas long ashe could. He tried at the same time to empty his mind and body of thehorror of this morning and the irritations he had felt since calling Sybil. There was no use smoking if he retained the bad feelings. He had to pour them out, and he could do it--sometimes. The discipline of meditation that a friendhad taughthim--or tried to teach him--had sometimes been effective. But he was a detective, and the prosecution of human beings, the tracking down, the immersion in hate and misery, negated the ability to meditate. Nevertheless, stubborn, hehad persisted in trying, and he could sometimes empty himself. Orseem to. His friend said that he was not truly meditating; he was using a trick, atechniquewithout essence.
Sybil, knowing what he was doing, said nothing. A clock ticked. Ahorn sounded faintly; a siren wailed. Sirens were always wailing nowadays. Then he breathed out and sucked in again and held his breath, and presentlythe crystallization came. There was a definite shifting of invisiblelines, as ifthe currents of force that thread every centimeter of the universehad rearranged themselves into another, straighter configuration.
He looked at Sybil and now he loved her very much, as he hadloved her when they were first married. The snarls and knots were yanked loose; theywere in a beautiful web which vibrated love and harmony through them with everymovement they made. Never mind the inevitable spider.