Free The Cry of the Owl by Patricia Highsmith Page A

there.”
    “I think that’s for me to say, isn’t it?”
    “Watching you through your kitchen window isn’t the highest recommendation, is it? You should hear what my wife says about me. She thinks I’m ready for an insane asylum.” He laughed. “Just ask her.”
    “I don’t care what your wife says.” She was leaning sideways on one elbow on the sofa, her body relaxed but her face determined. She looked steadily at him.
    “I don’t care to play games, Jenny.”
    “I don’t think you’re playing games. I think you’re being quite honest.”
    Robert stood up suddenly, carried his glass to the table at the end of the sofa and set it down. “But I wasn’t before, was I? I’ll be honest, Jenny, I’m a fellow who has to make an effort to hang on to—what’ll I call it? Sanity?” He shrugged. “That’s why I came here. There’s less strain here than in New York. I get along all right with the fellows where I work. I spent Christmas with one of them, with his wife and little girl, and that went all right. But they don’t know the effort it takes sometimes, that I have the feeling I have to make an effort every minute.” He stopped and looked at her, hoping his words had had some effect.
    If anything, her face was less anxious. “We’re all trying every minute. What’s news about that?”
    He sighed. “I’m someone to stay away from. That’s what I want you to understand. I’m sick in the head.”
    “Who said you were sick? Doctors?”
    “No, not doctors. My wife. She should know. She lived with me.”
    “But when you had treatment? When you were nineteen?”
    “What did they say then? That I’d reacted in a weak manner to a tough childhood. Like a weak person. I cracked up, yes. That’s weak, all right, isn’t it?”
    “What did you do?”
    “I had to quit college for a while. I went swimming in a lake one night with all my clothes on, just on an impulse. I was half determined to kill myself, and I halfway tried it, but just halfway. A cop interfered. They thought I was drunk. I got off with a fine and a night in jail. They insisted I was drunk, so I agreed with them. Why do you think the cops thought I was drunk? Because of the crazy things I was saying.” It seemed impossible to convince her. He racked his brain for something else. “And I once pointed a gun at my wife. She was sleeping, taking a nap. I sat in a chair across the room with her hunting rifle pointed at her. The gun was loaded.” But the gun had not been loaded. He paused for breath, looking at Jenny. Jenny was frowning slightly, but she did not look frightened, only attentive.
    “And what happened?”
    “Nothing. I only did it so I could see—or know—I never would pull the trigger. She and I had quarreled just before. That day I thought, ‘I hate her enough to kill her, to pay her back for the things she’s said.’ But when I had the gun in my hands, I just sat there with her body in its sights and thinking that nobody and nothing is worth killing somebody for.”
    “Well, there you are. You realized that.”
    “Yes, but can you imagine waking up and seeing someone across the room pointing a rifle at you? What do you think my wife thought? What do you think people thought when she told them about it? And she did tell a lot of people. Yes, there you are. She said I wasdepressed and repressed and one day I’d kill somebody. She said I wanted to kill her. Well, maybe I did. Who knows?”
    She reached for his cigarettes on the coffee table. Robert lit the cigarette for her. “You still haven’t told me anything really shocking.”
    “No?” He laughed. “What else do you want? Vampires?”
    “What happened when you had to quit college?”
    “Well—I only lost a semester, and during that time I had therapy. Therapy and a lot of odd jobs. When I went back to school, I went to live with a friend, a friend from college. Kermit. He lived near the school with his family. He had a little brother and a little