The Scarred Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

craft.
        But of course I was not alone.
        "Stacey," I whispered.
        No answer.
        Yet I knew she was not asleep.
        
***
        
        Sometime during the night she came into my bed. Timorously, like some small soft creature looking for shelter. The first time since the rape. She slid in beside me and lay there an inch or two away not quite touching me. She was making what I know now must have been a supreme effort. She was waiting for me to take her in my arms. Then might have come the flood of tears we had been waiting for. Perhaps my own tears as well. And finally we would have been able to make love.
        But I was too locked into myself. I could still hear the screaming. My brain still ached beneath the scar. I lay there, eyes open, breathing deeply to let her think I was asleep. After a while she slipped away and crept back to her own bed.
        
***
        
        She must have taken another pill at some point during the night because she was still asleep when I went down to breakfast. I felt better, more optimistic. Last night I had undergone some sort of crisis, slipped the shackles of the horror that had enveloped me. Now, breakfasting on the terrace in the cool breeze from the sea, it all seemed far behind me. We would swim and play in the sun. Tonight would be better.
        I ordered coffee and a Danish for Stacey and carried it up with me. When I opened the door, her bed was empty. The bathroom door was closed and I waited for her to come out. When I heard no sound I knocked on the door. There was no answer. I opened the door. She was not there. The door to the balcony was open but the balcony too was empty. An icy hand squeezed my heart. I ran out onto the balcony and looked over. For a moment the glare dazzled me. Then I saw the striped awning, torn and dangling.
        

SIX
        
        What kept me from jumping too? Perhaps the knowledge even then of why I still had to live and what I had to do.
        Everyone was very kind. Bannister, our senior partner, called from New York. (How did he know about it? How do people always know about such things?)
        His voice was strained, "William?"
        "Yes," I said.
        "Are you all right?"
        "Yes."
        In a funny sort of way I was. It was almost as though I had been prepared for her death, as though she had begun to die that night in the swamp two months before. She had been murdered then. The broken form on the hotel terrace was dead long before it hit the ground. They had done that to her, the three of them. And I had added the finishing touch last night. Each man kills the thing he loves.
        "William, I don't know what to say."
        "There is nothing to say."
        "Look here. I can be down there tonight. I'll catch the six-thirty flight."
        "It's not necessary."
        "Then you come up here. You can't stay there alone on that boat."
        "Yes, I can."
        "But why subject yourself to such an ordeal? The details…"
        "Everything has been taken care of. The body was cremated this afternoon."
        "William…"
        "Yes?"
        "You sound so… icy."
        I didn't say anything.
        "Are you certain you don't want me with you?"
        "Yes."
        "And you won't reconsider about coming here?"
        "No."
        "William, did she give any indication, a reason?…"
        "No."
        "I see. Well, then I'll call you again tomorrow."
        "That won't be necessary. And Sy…"
        "What?"
        "You had better start looking around for someone to replace me. I'm resigning from the firm."
        "But, William…"
        I hung up.
        The rest of the calls were handled the same way. The worst of it was when Stacey's parents flew down from Ohio. Her father-fragile, white-haired, face grooved with suffering-sat with me on a bench in Coconut Grove. It was a beautiful day-Biscayne Bay shimmering in