Then he got over it, recovered.
He did not forget what the boy had told him.
He just accepted it.
He found that he could live with it, side by side with it.
It was as if he said, illogical and desperately calm, All right.
It is so, then.
But not to me.
Not in my life and my love. Then it was three or four years ago and he had forgotten it, in the sense that a fact is forgotten when it once succumbs to the mind’s insistence that it be neither true nor false.
He met the waitress on the Monday night following the Saturday on which he had tried to pay for the cup of coffee.
He did not have the rope then.
He climbed from his window and dropped the ten feet to the earth and walked the five miles into town.
He did not think at all about how he would get back into his room.
He reached town and went to the corner where she had told him to wait.
It was a quiet corner and he was quite early, thinking I will have to remember.
To let her show me what to do and how to do it and when.
To not let her find out that I don’t know, that I will have to find out from her.
He had been waiting for over an hour when she appeared.
He had been that early.
She came up on foot.
She came and stood before him, small, with that air steadfast, waiting, downlooking, coming up out of the darkness.
“Here you are,” she said.
“I got here soon as I could.
I had to wait for them to go to sleep.
I was afraid I would be late.”
“Have you been here long?
How long?”
“I don’t know.
I ran, most of the way.
I was afraid I would be late.”
“You ran?
All them three miles?”
“It’s five miles.
It’s not three.”
“Well, say.” Then they did not talk.
They stood there, two shadows facing one another.
More than a year later, remembering that night, he said, suddenly knowing, It was like she was waiting for me to hit her.“Well,” she said.
He had begun now to tremble a little.
He could smelt her, smell the waiting: still, wise, a little weary; thinking She’s waiting for me to start and I don’t know how Even to himself his voice sounded idiotic.
“I reckon it’s late.”
“Late?”
“I thought maybe they would be waiting for you.
Waiting up until you …”
“Waiting for ...
Waiting for ...” Her voice died, ceased.
She said, not moving; they stood like two shadows: “I live with Mame and Max.
You know.
The restaurant.
You ought to remember them, trying to pay that nickel ...” She began to laugh.
There was no mirth in it, nothing in it. “When I think of that.
When I think of you coming in there, with that nickel.” Then she stopped laughing.