With Shuddering Fall by Joyce Carol Oates

Author:Joyce Carol Oates
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-02-03T05:00:00+00:00

13

Max had been sitting in the sunny corner of the hotel lobby for about half an hour, awaiting Karen. He had arranged himself in the creaking chair with much effort and tenderness, hesitating many seconds before he let his legs slide out from under him. He wore a suit of light, faint blue, buttoned across his chest and stomach. His face was newly shaven and looked a little raw, as if he were being seen in too exposing a light. He crossed his short, thick legs with an effort, sighed unhappily, and opened a book. In a minute his reading so engrossed him that he chuckled out loud and took a pencil out of his pocket to mark something in the text.

A few people walked past but he did not look up. Jerry came downstairs and sat heavily in a cracked leather chair not far from Max, but said nothing. Max did not look up. The sunlight brightened, pouring warmly on his head. His fair, thinning hair had been dampened, and now the sunlight played minutely about it. Jerry, gazing blankly at his employer’s head, put his arms behind his own head and yawned. Outside, automobile horns blared angrily.

As soon as the sound of sharp clicking heels came to Max’s ears, he looked up. Karen passed by, heading for the street. He called to her; she turned quickly, showing her desperation. But in the next instant Max felt he had misunderstood her—she stood staring coldly at him, her lips firm, her neck very tense. She wore white: a hard, dazzling white. As if to mock him, the silver necklace he had given her gleamed proudly back at him!

“You must understand that he is gone—he is gone,” Max said. She stood before him now, looking past his head. He was tempted to turn around and see what she was looking at. Jerry, slouched in his chair, watched her with the sort of helpless look Max had noticed in him when Karen was in their company. “You must learn to forgive him,” Max went on, inspired by the pathos of the scene. He had felt it a delicious, dramatic moment—yet Karen, after the first instant of her surprise, showed no emotion, as if she had thrust upon Max the burden of making this difficult. “It has been difficult for him—I saw this coming in him, before he realized it himself. That was one of the reasons I talked to you yesterday—”

Karen’s young, clever face showed nothing. Max was amazed as always by the clarity of her eyes—faint blue, modest blue, refusing to shift away under the impact of fear or shame. Perhaps he had always misjudged her, and what he thought to be shrewdness in her was simply ignorance—profound ignorance? She did not even relish what suffering came to her; she did not seem to always know it was supposed to be suffering. Max was not sure if this was admirable in her or if it was an indication of her vulgarity.

“You will allow me to help you,” Max said, getting to his feet.

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