Free Barbary Shore by Norman Mailer Page B

the doctor too. I forgot to say he made out the death certificate cause she brought him in on it at the end, and then in prison, which’ll be the last chapter, they’re brought together for a final hour by the warden who’s a pretty good guy,and there in the cell behind the bars they have a last one that really makes it worth while being killed.”
    And Monina, resolving the chord, ran toward me on tiptoe, nude nymph, halted within the reach of my arm, and in a child’s counterfeit of a leer raised the fig leaf above her head, exposed and triumphant.
    For the first time she stared at me as though I were real.
    In the next instant a look of confusion mounted upon her face, deepened into terror. Abruptly, her mouth crumpled, her eyebrows knotted, and she began to wail in panic. Within a minute she was hysterical.

EIGHT
    W E made hot milk for Monina, we put her to bed. Guinevere sat beside the child and stroked her hair, crooning fragments of love ballads in an absorption so great that I am certain she was unaware of me. And the language, conventional enough—“Oh, go to sleep, baby, cause Mommie loves you, go to sleep”—was startling from Guinevere. A tear which might have been genuine coursed down her cheek. “You’re all I got,” she murmured once, and that compassion which is just one degree from self-pity shone upon her face.
    Monina quieted at last and fell asleep. Fingers held to our lips, we tiptoed from the room, closed the door, and went into the kitchen.
    I was shaken. Like the spectator at an accident I wanted to talk, but Guinevere gave me small opportunity. “Whew,” she said, “I never saw her that way before.” She leaned an elbow on the table, and munched a crust of bread. And whatever she might have revealed with Monina was not to be revealed again. “Lordy, that was something. I don’t understand the kid,” she said in an offhand tone.
    She had acted somewhat differently the moment Monina had begun to cry. Then she had started from the chair, picked the child up, and spanked her once with fury across the bottom.“How long was she doing that?” Guinevere had shrieked at me. When I stammered that Monina had been in the room for several minutes, Guinevere scorched me with fury. “Why you lousy no-good son of a bitch,” she screamed in her harsh voice, “why didn’t you do something?” She had clapped her forehead. “Oh, my God, I’ll go crazy.”
    It was not an appetizing scene. While Monina sobbed and wailed, her body trembling, Guinevere abused me for over a minute in a more formidable rage than I had believed she could muster. And conscious that I had allowed Monina to continue, I stomached her outburst, humiliated, yet too shamed to make any response.
    Guinevere collected herself finally, and carried the child into the bedroom. Now, half an hour later, she revealed no dregs of her tantrum. “Honest, Lovett,” she said, “it’s hell bringing up a kid,” speaking in a conventional voice which might have belonged to any housewife on the street. She seemed almost in a good humor.
    “Here, I’ll make some more coffee for us,” she offered.
    “I’ve had enough, thank you.”
    “Oh, I haven’t. I could drink it all day long.”
    We chatted at random for several minutes, or more exactly Guinevere talked. I listened indifferently, my attention wandering. As I nodded my head, she told story after story about this man and that lover, about presents she had accepted and presents spurned, of drinking bouts and happy license, and then occasionally if she sensed my belief flagging or my detachment growing, she would parade a special attraction and describe with relish the baubles of a particular lover. “I been every kind of woman you’d want, Lovett. There isn’t anything I haven’t done. But times change. I can tell you it’s a damn shame you didn’t know me a couple of years ago. Why we’d a been together after two hours or two minutes, but now you know I’m different.