So he’s dead, Juliana thought as she folded up the newspaper. And not only that, they don’t have my name right; they don’t know who I am or anything about me.
Much less anxious now, she drove on until she found a suitable motel; there she made arrangements for a room and carried her possessions in from the car. From now on I don’t have to hurry, she said to herself. I can even wait until evening to go to the Abendsens’; that way I’ll be able to wear my new dress. It wouldn’t do to show up during the day with it on—you just don’t wear a formal dress like that before dinner.
And I can finish reading the book.
She made herself comfortable in the motel room, turning on the radio, getting coffee from the motel lunch counter; she propped herself up on the neatly made bed with the new unread clean copy of The Grasshopper which she had bought at the hotel bookshop in Denver.
At six-fifteen in the evening she finished the book. I wonder if Joe got to the end of it? she wondered. There’s so much more in it than he understood. What is it Abendsen wanted to say? Nothing about his make-believe world. Am I the only one who knows? I’ll bet I am; nobody else really understands Grasshopper but me—they just imagine they do.
Still a little shaky, she put it away in her suitcase and then put on her coat and left the motel room to search for a place to eat dinner. The air smelled good and the signs and lights of Cheyenne seemed particularly exciting. In front of a bar two pretty, black-eyed Indian prostitutes quarreling—she slowed to watch. Many cars, shiny ones, coasted up and down the streets; the entire spectacle had an aura of brightness and expectancy, of looking ahead to some happy and important event, rather than back . . . back, she thought, to the stale and the dreary, the used-up and thrown-away.
At an expensive French restaurant—where a man in a white coat parked customers’ cars, and each table had a candle burning in a huge wine goblet, and the butter was served not in squares but whipped into round pale marbles—she ate a dinner which she enjoyed, and then, with plenty of time to spare, strolled back toward her motel. The Reichsbank notes were almost gone, but she did not care; it had no importance. He told us about our own world, she thought as she unlocked the door to her motel room. This, what’s around us now. In the room, she again switched on the radio. He wants us to see it for what it is. And I do, and more so each moment.
Taking the blue Italian dress from its carton, she laid it out scrupulously on the bed. It had undergone no damage; all it needed, at most, was a thorough brushing to remove the lint. But when she opened the other parcels she discovered that she had not brought any of the new half-bras from Danver.
“God damn it,” she said, sinking down in a chair. She lit a cigarette and sat smoking for a time.
Maybe she could wear it with a regular bra. She slipped off her blouse and skirt and tried the dress on. But the straps of the bra showed and so did the upper part of each cup, so that would not do. Or maybe, she thought, I can go with no bra at all . . . it had been years since she had tried that . . . it recalled to her the old days in high school when she had had a very small bust; she had even worried about it, then. But now further maturity and her judo had made her a size thirty-eight. However, she tried it without the bra, standing on a chair in the bathroom to view herself in the medicine cabinet mirror.
The dress displayed itself stunningly, but good lord, it was too risky. All she had to do was bend over to put out a cigarette or pick up a drink—and disaster.
A pin! She could wear the dress with no bra and collect the front. Dumping the contents of her jewelry box onto the bed, she spread out the pins, relics which she had owned for years, given her by Frank or by other men before their marriage, and the new one which Joe had gotten her in Denver. Yes, a small horse-shaped silver pin from Mexico would do; she found the exact spot. So she could wear the dress after all.
I’m glad to get anything now, she thought to herself. So much had gone wrong; so little remained anyhow of the wonderful plans.
She did an extensive brushing job on her hair so that it crackled and shone, and that left only the need of a choice of shoes and earrings. And then she put on her new coat, got her new handmade leather purse, and set out.
Instead of driving the old Studebaker, she had the motel owner phone for a taxi. While she waited in the motel office she suddenly had the notion to call Frank. Why it had come to her she could not fathom, but there the idea was. Why not? she asked herself. She could reverse the charges; he would be overwhelmed to hear from her and glad to pay.
Standing behind the desk in the office, she held the phone receiver to her ear, listening delightedly to the long-distance operators talk back and forth trying to make the connection for her. She could hear the San Francisco operator, far off, getting San Francisco information for the number, then many pops and crackles in her ear, and at last the ringing noise itself. As she waited she watched for the taxi; it should be along any time, she thought. But it won’t mind waiting; they expect it.
“Your party does not answer,” the Cheyenne operator told her at last. “We will put the call through again later and—“
“No,” Juliana said, shaking her head. It had been just a whim anyhow. “I won’t be here. Thank you.” She hung up—the motel owner had been standing nearby to see that nothing would be mistakenly charged to him—and walked quickly out of the office, onto the cool, dark sidewalk, to * stand and wait there.
From the traffic a gleaming new cab coasted up to the curb and halted; the door opened and the driver hopped out to hurry around.
A moment later, Juliana was on her way, riding in luxury in the rear of the cab, across Cheyenne to the Abendsens’.
The Abendsen house was lit up and she could hear music and voices. It was a single-story stucco house with many shrubs and a good deal of garden made up mostly of climbing roses. As she started up the flagstone path she thought, Can I actually be there? Is this the High Castle? What about the rumors and stories? The house was ordinary, well maintained and the grounds tended. There was even a child’s tricycle parked in the long cement driveway.
Could it be the wrong Abendsen? She had gotten the address from the Cheyenne phone book, but it matched the number she had called the night before from Greeley.
She stepped up onto the porch with its wrought-iron railings and pressed the buzzer. Through the half-open door she could make out the living room, a number of persons standing about, Venetian blinds on the windows, a piano, fireplace, bookcases. . . nicely furnished, she thought. A party going on? But they were not formally dressed.
A boy, tousled, about thirteen, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, flung the door wide. “Yes?”
She said, “Is—Mr. Abendsen home? Is he busy?”
Speaking to someone behind him in the house, the boy called, “Mom, she wants to see Dad.”
Beside the boy appeared a woman with reddish-brown hair, possibly thirty-five, with strong, unwinking gray eyes and a smile so thoroughly competent and remorseless that Juliana knew she was facing Caroline Abendsen.
“I called last night,” Juliana said.
“Oh yes of course.” Her smile increased. She had perfect white regular teeth; Irish, Juliana decided. Only Irish blood could give that jawline such femininity. “Let me take your purse and coat. This is a very good time for you; these are a few friends. What a lovely dress . . . it’s House of Cherubini, isn’t it?” She led Juliana across the living room, to a bedroom where she laid Juliana’s things with the others on the bed. “My husband is around somewhere. Look for-a tall man with glasses, drinking an old-fashioned.” The intelligent light in her eyes poured out to Juliana; her lips quivered—there is so much understood between us, Juliana realized. Isn’t that amazing?
“I drove a long way,” Juliana said.
“Yes, you did. Now I see him.” Caroline Abendsen guided her back into the living room, toward a group of men. “Dear,” she called, “come over here. This is one of your readers who is very anxious to say a few words to you.”