Killer, Come Back to Me

“The letter said, ‘Riabouchinska, born 1914, died 1934. Born again in 1935.’ Mr. Ockham was a juggler. He’d been on the same bill with John and Sweet William years before. He remembered that once there had been a woman, before there was a puppet.”

“No, that’s not true!”

“Yes,” said the voice.

Snow was falling in silences and even deeper silences through the dressing room. Fabian’s mouth trembled. He stared at the blank walls as if seeking some new door by which to escape. He half rose from his chair. “Please…”

“Ockham threatened to tell about us to everyone in the world.”

Krovitch saw the doll quiver, saw the fluttering of the lips, saw Fabian’s eyes widen and fix and his throat convulse and tighten as if to stop the whispering.

“I—I was in the room when Mr. Ockham came. I lay in my box and I listened and heard, and I know.” The voice blurred, then recovered and went on. “Mr. Ockham threatened to tear me up, burn me into ashes if John didn’t pay him a thousand dollars.

“Then suddenly there was a falling sound. A cry. Mr. Ockham’s head must have struck

the floor. I heard John cry out and I heard him swearing, I heard him sobbing. I heard a gasping and a choking sound.”

“You heard nothing! You’re deaf, you’re blind! You’re wood!” cried Fabian.

“But I hear!” she said, and stopped as if someone had put a hand to her mouth.

Fabian had leaped to his feet now and stood with the doll in his hand. The mouth clapped twice, three times, then finally made words. “The choking sound stopped. I heard John drag Mr. Ockham down the stairs under the theater to the old dressing rooms that haven’t been used in years. Down, down, down, I heard them going away and away—down…”

Krovitch stepped back as if he were watching a motion picture that had suddenly grown monstrously tall. The figures terrified and frightened him, they were immense, they towered! They threatened to inundate him with size. Someone had turned up the sound so that it screamed.

He saw Fabian’s teeth, a grimace, a whisper, a clenching. He saw the man’s eyes squeeze shut.

Now the soft voice was so high and faint it trembled toward nothingness.

“I’m not made to live this way. This way. There’s nothing for us now. Everyone will know, everyone will. Even when you killed him and I lay asleep last night, I dreamed. I knew, I realized. We both knew, we both realized that these would be our last days, our last hours. Because while I’ve lived with your weakness and I’ve lived with your lies, I can’t live with something that kills and hurts in killing. There’s no way to go on from here. How can I live alongside such knowledge?…”

Fabian held her into the sunlight which shone dimly through the small dressing-room window. She looked at him and there was nothing in her eyes. His hand shook and in shaking made the marionette tremble, too. Her mouth closed and opened, closed and opened, closed and opened, again and again and again. Silence.

Fabian moved his fingers unbelievingly to his own mouth.

A film slid across his eyes. He looked like a man lost in the street, trying to remember the number of a certain house, trying to find a certain window with a certain light. He swayed about, staring at the walls, at Krovitch, at the doll, at his free hand, turning the fingers over, touching his throat, opening his mouth. He listened.

Miles away in a cave, a single wave came in from the sea and whispered down in foam. A gull moved soundlessly, not beating its wings—a shadow.

“She’s gone. She’s gone. I can’t find her. She’s run off. I can’t find her. I can’t find her. I try, I try, but she’s run away off far. Will you help me? Will you help me find her? Will you help me find her? Will you please help me find her?”

Riabouchinska slipped bonelessly from his limp hand, folded over and glided noiselessly down to lie upon the cold floor, her eyes closed, her mouth shut.

Fabian did not look at her as Krovitch led him out the door.

Yesterday I Lived!

Years went by and after all the years of raining and cold and fog going and coming through Hollywood Cemetery over a stone with the name Diana Coyle on it, Cleve Morris walked into the studio projection room out of the storm and looked up at the screen.

She was there. The long, lazy body of hers, the shining red hair and bright complementary green eyes.

And Cleve thought, Is it cold out there, Diana? Is it cold out there tonight? Is the rain to you yet? Have the years pierced the bronze walls of your resting place and are you still—beautiful?

He watched her glide across the screen, heard her laughter, and his wet eyes shimmered her into bright quivering color streaks.

It’s so warm in here tonight, Diana. You’re here, all the warmth of you, and yet it’s only so much illusion. They buried you three years ago, and now the autograph hunters are crazy over some new actress here at the studio.

He choked on that. No reason for this feeling, but everyone felt that way about her. Everyone loved her, hated her for being so lovely. But maybe you loved her more than the others.