86
PARTISAN REVIEW
Peace for three days, perhaps four, till Mrs. Fisher, almost
against her will, began a nagging battle of attrition with Henrietta,
who threatened to disappear with Mordecai into some unknown and
heatless flat, where egg crates served as furniture and drunks made
water in the hall. As for Mordecai, he stayed less frequently in his
room, and clutching a lunch bag and a leather case which they had
never noticed, would depart after dusk for the city. Sometimes he
would return early, with small jars of hard candy, but more often
he would let himself in at what hour they could not tell.
On such a night, Mr. and Mrs. Fisher entered his room, she to
discard the sardine tins hoarded outside the window, he to leave a
magazine offering marvelous rewards for unknown writers. When
they had done, a strange exhilaration charged their nerves, and smiling
serenely, Mrs. Fisher reached toward a wad of papers which lay in
a half-open drawer upon some comic books. Her
lips
began to move
with the words, and soon her flesh seemed to turn to ice, where it
was pinched out over the corset.
"Read, go ahead," she cried. "Smut, dirt, filth, go ahead! Enjoy
it, he uses your daughter's name, he writes down her words, the way
her body moves, even ideas for pictures."
Mr. Fisher took the papers from her, gripped and flayed by the
sections to which she pointed. "Even here, you can see," he spoke
softly, "he writes well, there is strong feeling in him." But it was too
late now. She began with the Rouault, and when the playing cards
were outraged upon the floor addressed herself to the gutting of the
typewriter, so that as they left the room, its keys stood up like broken
fingers.
