Clarise sat in her hotel room, watching the street below for sight of the wagon that would take her to the train depot. She kept looking at the clock on the mahogany bureau. It was nearly five-thirty. The train left at six-thirty. She wanted to be certain not to miss it.
The heat, waning now, had left her feeling unclean. She hated that feeling. She rose and went over to the porcelain pitcher and basin on the bureau. Even warm, the water felt good on her face and hands. She opened her lacy blouse and massaged clean water onto the tops of her breasts. She thought of last night with Leo Guild. She had not liked a man, least of all a white man, in some time. But there was a humility about Guild she liked. That was the only word for it. Humility.
Going to the bed, she sat on the edge of the mattress, the box springs squeaking slightly beneath her weight. She looked at the yellow bowl of red apples against the light blue wall. In the sunlight the bowl and the apples and the wall looked like a painting. She stared at it until the tears came.
There should not be tears now, of course. She had waited so long for this day that she should feel nothing but joy.
The poison she had put in Victor Sovich’s water bottle would be taking effect by now. His punches would be ineffectual. He would die in the ring, just as her brother had died in the ring.
At first Rooney would see this as a day for celebration. A mediocre boxing career would have been turned around. Rooney would have big plans.
The light in the room was the purple of dusk. In the street below was the clatter of buggies and wagons and the faint sound of laughter from the porch where oldsters passed the time by whittling on white wood and lying to each other about the past.
She wished her brother were here with her now. He would be pleased with what she had done.
A knock. “Taxi’s here, miss.”
“Thank you.”
“He says shake a leg.”
“I’ll be right down.”
“They like to have you there early for the train.”
“Right down,” she said again.
The room had enveloped her in melancholy, and she found herself reluctant to leave. The soft song of birds, the gray light in the window, the scent of perfume spilled in her carpetbag. She did not want to leave. If she closed her eyes she could be a little girl again. Her brother would not be dead and Guild—
She knew what Guild would think of what she had done. The words he would use.
She stood up, sighing.
She gathered her two carpetbags quickly and left the room, turning back only once to look for the last time on the peculiar half-light trapped in the comers of the place.
She wondered if death would be this soft and eerily beautiful. She hoped so, she hoped so.
“Hurry now, miss. Hurry now,” the desk clerk said, looking her over again, still undecided if she was black or white.