AT THE AIRPORT THEY waited in the glass-walled vestibule near the gateway that led onto the field. It was nine o’clock at night, and the snow was still falling. Searchlights swept the field and the sky over it. Clouds were lit, then obscured. The shiny nose of a plane was led down by a beam to a steady landing and a smooth stop not far from where Jud and Marianne stood.
He lit a cigarette for her and then for himself. “We could have had another cup of coffee, or a drink,” he said.
“I don’t like to be late.”
“I still think it’s crazy for you to go tonight.”
“You heard the man. They fly above the weather.”
“I suppose they know.”
“Stop it, Jud, please. You make me feel as if I should say some last words.”
“Do you have any?”
“I guess I said them all last night.” She was watching him, closely.
He said, “It’s the wrong time to talk,” and scrambling in the pockets of his coat he pulled out an envelope. He handed it to her.
“A note,” he said, half smiling, “from your loving husband.” He kissed her lightly on the lips. She stood so stiffly against his kiss that he knew he could not quite leave it at that, even for the time being.
“When I was alone in the hotel last night,” he said, “before I fell asleep, I remembered some lines from Blake that I haven’t thought of in I don’t know how long.” He gestured with a nervous hand. “You know the first day I met Walkowitz I asked what he did. He said if it didn’t sound so foolish he would say he was a poet?”
“I remember he made a poem for Sarah, on the spot. What were the lines from Blake?”
He recited:
“Throughout all eternity,
I forgive you,
You forgive me.
“I don’t know much about Blake or his life. I don’t know who he meant it for—God, his wife, himself …”
He kissed her again, self-conscious, awkward, as if it were their first date. Then he said, “Make a good picture.”
She said, “Make a good play.”
He was gone, and she turned toward the gate and beyond it to the waiting plane, a silver blur seen through the confusion of snow, in the mixed glow of floodlights and moonlight.
There was no longer any excuse for busying herself with the trivial details of travel. The seat belt was unfastened—the enormous leather purse which served her as hand luggage was placed in easy accessibility on the empty seat next to her; hair and make-up had been checked and redone and the stewardess had paid the magazine and chewing gum visit.
Marianne looked out of the window. For the first time in weeks she could see a sky untouched by snow. They were flying above the clouds. Occasionally one of the clouds below them was touched by the lights of the plane. Otherwise all she could see was the wing directly in front of her and the little red light that flashed on and off in the usual alarmingly irregular pattern.
It was the kind of trip that held few surprises. She had made the New York to Los Angeles run often since starting in films. She settled back in the seat, glad that the weather or the lateness of the hour had left the seat next to her unoccupied. She was in no mood for airplane chitchat. Only one stewardess had recognized her, so there was a good chance of her being left to herself for the entire five and a half hours. She lit a cigarette and adjusted the light above the window. Then she opened the envelope Jud had given her and began to read.
MY DEAR MARIANNE,
This note will seem foolish if I should suddenly find an articulate tongue and complete lack of nerves at the airport tonight. I doubt it.
Larry and I just came back from Carl’s hotel room. We had to see to his belongings, etc. In that bare hotel room I found a kind of journal to which he had obviously been saying all the things he couldn’t say to anybody else, for years. (I am writing this in the study and I can hear you getting Sarah ready for bed. You just assured your mother that you were quite capable of doing something or other for your own daughter. I’m glad that, like me, you’re both a parent and a child, still. Authority and rebellion under one roof of skin.)
I only had a few minutes to glance through the journal. But some of the entries are amazingly different from most of the others. The later ones have the Walkowitz quality that we knew—questioning, ironic … many are about me, the case against me, and his “plan.” I think killing himself was something that had to happen at the finish of that plan. He considered that he had been destroyed in the camps—with a postponement, for the sake of justice. Well, I have paid a little, in advance. And, if there are later payments, I will pay, as I must.
About you and me. I can’t hide it—I am sick when I think about you and Carl. It’s almost too painful to bear thinking about—so, naturally, my mind worries the sore spot, continually. But that’s a job for time. In some strange way I feel that nothing that was mine has been taken away from me. I hope I can hold on to that feeling.
I have to win this play because I think I understand more, now, about all of it. I think we need the “Walkowitz part,” to fully understand. The naked nerve, complaining under the ache of suffering, ready to have the universe destroyed rather than give an official approval to pain, injustice, and death. It is, of course, death to live that way. He proved that for us. But it is slow, freezing ruin to live without it completely. He proved that for us, too.
I love you,
JUD
Marianne shut her eyes. A simple movement like reaching into her purse for a tissue was beyond her for the moment. Oh, the hell with it, she thought, opening her eyes onto a wet blur. A tear burned its path from an eyelid to a corner of her mouth. She tasted the saltiness with a kind of relief, and groped in her purse till she found a tissue.
The stewardess was bending over her.
“Pardon me, Miss Broderick,” she said, “the people across the aisle saw your last picture. They’re great fans, and they wonder if you would autograph their ticket folder?”
Marianne frowned at the girl. She had betrayed her. Abandoning her attempts at repairing the damage, she took the folder and signed her name.
Then, with a sense of pleasure that surprised her, she turned her tear-blotched face to the elderly couple who were watching and waiting, and she smiled.