Sophie's Choice - William Styron [278]
At Mrs. Zimmerman’s I paid that faithful mole Morris Fink fifty cents to help us cope with Sophie’s baggage. She was sobbing and, I could see, rather drunk as she tramped about her room stuffing clothes and cosmetics and jewelry into a large suitcase.
“My beautiful suits from Saks,” she mumbled. “Oh, what should I do with them?”
“Take them with you, for Christ’s sake,” I said impatiently, heaving her many pairs of shoes into another bag. “Forget protocol at a time like this. You’ve got to hurry. Nathan might be coming back.”
“And my lovely wedding dress? What shall I do with it?”
“Take it, too! If you can’t wear it, maybe you can hock it.”
“Hock?” she said.
“Pawn.”
I had not meant to be cruel, but my words caused Sophie to drop a silk slip to the floor and then raise her hands to her face, and bawl loudly, and shed helpless, glistening tears. Morris looked on morosely as I held her for a moment and uttered futile soothing sounds. It was dark outside and the roar of a truck horn along a nearby street made me jump, shredding my nerve endings like some evil hacksaw. To the general hubbub was added now the monstrous jangle of the telephone in the hallway, and I think I must have stifled a groan, or perhaps a scream. I became even further unstrung when Morris, having silenced the Gorgon by answering it, bellowed out the news that the call was for me.
It was Nathan. It was Nathan, all right. Plainly, unmistakably, unequivocally it was Nathan. Then why for an instant did my mind play an odd trick on me, so that I thought it was Jack Brown calling up from Rockland County to check on the situation? It was because of the Southern accent, that perfectly modulated mimicry which made me believe that the possessor of such a voice had to be one teethed on fatback and grits. It was as Southern as verbena or foot-washing Baptists or hound dogs or John C. Calhoun, and I think I even smiled when I heard it say, “What’s cookin’, sugah? How’s your hammer hangin’?”
“Nathan!” I exclaimed with contrived heartiness. “How are you? Where are you? God, it’s good to hear from you!”
“We still gonna take that trip down South? You and me an’ ol’ Sophie? Gonna do the Dixie tour?”
I knew that I had to humor him in some way, make small talk while trying at the same time to discover his whereabouts—a subtle matter—so I replied instantly, “You’re damn right we’re going to make that trip, Nathan. Sophie and I were just talking it over. God, those are sensational clothes you bought her! Where are you now, old pal? I’d love to come and see you. I want to tell you about this little side trip I’ve got planned—”
The voice broke in with its ingratiating molasses pokiness and warmth, still an uncanny replica of the speech of my Carolina forebears, lilting, lulling: “I’m sho’ lookin’ forward to that trip with you an’ Miz Sophie. We gonna have the time of our lives, ain’t we, ol’ buddy?”
“It’s going to be the best trip ever—” I began.
“We’ll have a lot of free time, too, won’t we?” he said.
“Sure, we’ll have a lot of free time,” I replied, not knowing quite what he meant. “All the time in the world, to do anything we want. It’s still warm in October down there. Swim. Fish. Sail a boat on Mobile Bay.”
“That’s what I want,” he drawled, “lots of free time. What I mean is, three people, they travel around a lot together, well, even when they are the best of friends, it might be a little sticky bein’ together every single minute. So I’d have free time to go off by myself every now an’ then, wouldn’t I? Just for an hour or two, maybe, down in Birmingham or Baton Rouge or someplace like that.” He paused and I heard a rich melodious chuckle. “An’ that would give you free time too, wouldn’t it? You might even have enough free time to get you a little nooky. A growin’ Southern boy’s got to have his poontang, don’t he?”
I began to laugh a trifle nervously, struck by the fact that in this weird conversation with its desperate undertone, at least on my part, we should already have foundered on the shoals of sex. But I willingly rose to Nathan