won't look down, won't open my eyes

[thetoastofmayfair]

"It's almost time to leave for the station."

Sally looks at Cliff, at his cut cheek and the exhaustion hanging over him, and she thinks he's already gone somewhere quite far from her. Perhaps he's always been somewhere else, and now she's realized it, but he still hasn't. He will soon enough. "Well," she starts, uncertain how to say what she's certain she means, "the thing is, Cliff —"

"Don't say it. Whatever it is. Let's just — let's forget the last 12 hours. Forget what I said at the club. I figure you got even with me, staying out all night." He crosses to her as he speaks, hands settling on her arms. It's not enough. He can't quite break through the ice that seems to her to have covered her skin since she left the doctor's office. She hates that place so terribly. Cliff, poor thing, looks confused as ever. "You're so cold."

He's right, she's freezing. "You know what I'd love?" she says, breaking away. "A spot of gin."

"First thing in the morning? How 'bout a prairie oyster?"

"Oh, no, gin." The idea of a prairie oyster right now is too much to stomach. She pours herself a glass and downs it. His gaze is on her, she can feel it, but it still feels distant, as if he's looking at her from another room or on a movie screen. How is she to tell him? But she must, of course. Whether or not he'll understand it, he must be told.

"That can't be good for expecting mothers. Where's your coat? Your fur coat. Did you... leave it at the club?"

She takes a deep breath. "I left it at the doctor's office."

"Were you sick last night?" Oh, dear Cliff. After all that fuss, he still sounds so worried. He really does care about her, she thinks, in his way, but it's almost laughable. He won't soon enough. "Is that why you didn't come home last night?"

"Oh, darling, you're such an innocent." Even now he looks at her with warm, wide eyes, not comprehending. Not yet. "Really. My one regret is I think that you'd have been a wonderful father." There it is, the understanding in his expression, and she really might be sick. They could have been happy. Maybe she's been all wrong. "And I think someday perhaps you will be." Not with her. She's not meant for that, not really. Not like this, certainly, running off in the early morning because he's decided this isn't for him. "Oh, yes, I've another regret," she adds quickly, because it's true and because he needs to hear it as well. "That greedy doctor. I'm going to miss my fur coat."

She expects it, truthfully, the slap cracking across her cheek. He's not like the others, not really, but she's been waiting for it since yesterday when he shoved her to the bed and slammed the door behind him. All men are like that sooner or later.

"Isn't it funny?" she asks, her voice breaking. She's not sure if he feels bad for hitting her for her sake or for his own. He isn't the kind to do that, though, not except in a situation as awful as this. He's always been so good to her, so dear. They don't always start like that. Some men are beastly from the beginning. "It always ends this way. Even when I do love someone quite terribly... for the first time... it's still not quite enough." In spite of everything, she thought he might understand. Now she looks at him and she's sure he doesn't. "I'd spoil it, Cliff. I'd run away with the first exciting man who came along. Or you would."

"That's not true. I'd never run away from you, not for any reason, not if there was a baby."

"To hold us together, you mean?" Her heart is breaking in her breast. She can feel it now, jagged at the ripping edges. He means it, he truly does, and he's so very wrong. "Oh, Cliff. What a terrible burden for an infant, don't you think?"

She's right. He knows she's right. He may not want to admit it, but she thinks now he knows. There's a resignation to him that she thinks she recognizes, clinging to him like the cold does to her. They would have been miserable, staying together for the sake of a child that may not even have been his. She would be miserable, leaving this life she's carved out for herself, sometimes by luck and sometimes by accident. It may not be the most dependable, but it's hers, and what does Paris hold for her or America? Not Hollywood, but Harrisburg, and always another train to take her somewhere else, always her leaving because she's in the wrong place once again. It has to stop. He must see that. He must understand. They're better off here. If he really wants to be with her, if there's the slightest chance that this time, things might work out, he'll see that they're better off here.

He picks up his coat.

"It's time for the train."

The little glass is surprisingly heavy in her hands, empty though it is. She sits down, sniffling, though she's not entirely sure she's crying or when it started. He hesitates. He sighs. "Sally... I could leave tomorrow. Or the next day."

But one way or another, she thinks, he is leaving. It's only a matter of when. It's only ever a matter of when.

The air is heavy, too. The air and her head and every bit of her aching body, weighed down.

"This is your ticket to Paris," he says, and lays the little scrap of paper on the chair. "If you decide to use it for any reason, you can reach me at the American Express office. I'll be there till Friday."

And that's it. He'll walk out the door and they're done. He's hardly going to try to fight. He isn't going to stay. Truly, she isn't surprised, but it still stings, to be certain he stayed only for the child. She'd thought maybe it was because of her. What a little fool she is.

"Well, the truth is, Cliff," she says, tossing her hair and managing a slight smile, though she can't yet bear to look at him. "I've always rather hated Paris."

"Oh, Sally," he says, but it's not the sort of oh, Sally she'd prefer to hear. Oh, Sally, you're right or Oh, Sally, I love you or Sally, I'm sorry, I'll stay. It's the kind that says she's rather small and sad and he might have liked her very much once, in a pleasant faraway past. Oh, Sally, didn't we have fun?

He picks up his bag. The other sits across the room and she thinks it must be the one with all her things in it. He said she would never find anything, but maybe he knew after all, understood more than he realized. Perhaps he knew, deep down, that she was never going to leave Berlin. Not, at least, today or with him.

"Cliff," she calls, and she can feel him stop behind her at the door. For just a moment, she considers what would happen if she stood up and went with him. He wants her to. In spite of everything, she thinks he really does. But she's never quite going to be what he wants or what he thought she was, is she? She straightens up with a deep breath and puts on a performer's smile. "Dedicate your book to me."

When the door shuts this time, it's quietly. It's final.

—

The room is silent for a very long time. There is nothing left in it but her suitcase and her sobs, and she pours another glass of gin whenever she remembers to move until the bottle is entirely empty.

At some point, she moves to the bed. At some point, she sleeps.

She keeps thinking he might change his mind and come back. For one damn minute, maybe, Cliff could stop thinking about himself and think of her. How can politics be more real to him than her? She's in their bed, miserable, aching. Maybe she'll die. Those terrible operations go wrong all the time. She could die right here and Fraulein Schneider would telegraph him at the American Express office and he'd feel terrible. "I could have saved her," he would say, "if I had only turned back." Maybe she'll die. That would teach him.

When she wakes up again, it's because the phone is ringing. "Cliff?" she asks, and she wants to sound soft and sweetly breathless like a movie star, but her mouth is made of corrugated cardboard. "Oh, it's you. Yes, Bobby, of course." She doesn't feel a damn bit like going back to the club right now, or like leaving the bed, but she's on her own now. Before long, she won't even be able to stay here. Fraulein Schneider will take pity on her, might even let her stay a day or two after the month is out, but she won't be able to pay the rent next month, especially not if she doesn't go and perform tonight.

She's unsteady on her feet, but it's all the more reason to prepare carefully. In a little white dress with a black silk kimono thrown on top, she sits down and applies her makeup carefully. It takes her three tries to get through everything, her hands shaking. The ticket is on the dresser now and she doesn't know when she moved it. She grabs it now. She's had nothing but gin for a day at least. If she doesn't go and eat something, she'll pass out on stage and then they'll sack her. She's not ready to eat Herr Schultz's oranges. They're so nice, a little luxury, fresh from Italy, and she feels like canned shit. Eating them now would be a waste.

But she can get money for the ticket Cliff left her. If they won't give her a refund for it at the station, she'll sell it to someone else. Someone is always going to Paris.

Somehow she gets outside. No one stops her or speaks to her. Probably Fritzi has already left for the club for the night and no one else really cares, she thinks. She gets quite a ways before she realizes she's entirely lost. There are a few people on the streets, but it's quiet out, and she's found herself in a pretty little suburban neighborhood, her silver heels clicking against the pavement. The cars are strange, all odd shapes with funny license plates. She follows the sound of them until there are more cars and more lights and more people, and she still doesn't recognize anything. An awful lot of them are speaking English, though, and suddenly it makes her want to cry.

"Oh, dear," she says, and sits down abruptly on the stoop of a building. Her legs have given up on cooperating just at the moment and she may as well indulge them. She's too lightheaded to fight back, and she'll be late at the club now either way.