Into The Night Read Free Page B

that make? She died for me, and I have to live for her.
    But of course she couldn't say that to the woman.
    "Understanding," she said thoughtfully. "I owe her understanding."
    "I don't know what you mean."
    "Maybe I don't know what I mean either. But I feel as though our lives touched one another, and I want to get to know that woman whose life touched mine."
    The woman said nothing for a long moment. Madeline moved through the room, went to the window, looked out. She turned, put a hand on the bed as if to test the springs.
    The woman said, "There was no one in her life."
    "You mean she lived alone?"
    "I mean more than that. I mean she was alone with herself, completely alone. She wouldn't let other people get near her. I liked her, I felt good seeing her in the hallway or on the stairs, I'd always pass the time of day with her, but I never got anywhere near her. I don't think anybody did. I don't suppose anybody could."
    "I see."
    "I think she was sorrowful," the woman said. "She didn't broadcast her sorrow but I think it was there all the same. I think something or somebody caused her deep pain, and I don't think she ever got over that pain."
    "Maybe she would have," Madeline said. "If she'd had a longer life."
    "Maybe," the woman said. And then, after a moment, "But, you know, there are some kinds of pain you never get over."
    "Yes," Madeline said. "I know."
    "Well," the woman said. "If there's nothing else, I have things I ought to be doing. A house like this, there's always something that needs doing."
    "Could I--"
    "What?"
    "I'd like to stay here."
    The woman stared at her. "You want to rent her room? You want to live where she lived?"
    It hadn't occurred to her, but now she allowed herself to entertain the thought. Could she move right into Starr's life that way?
    The thought was not without a certain appeal, but it didn't really make sense. She didn't want to become Starr Bartlett, which was anyway impossible on the face of it. No, she wanted not to live -as- Starr but to live -for- her. To perform some service for Starr that the dead woman could not perform for herself.
    But what service? What could that be, and how could she ever discover it?
    "No," she said. "No, I don't want to rent the room. I think you should rent it to somebody, though. Clear it out and rent it. The way it is now, it's a tomb for an absent corpse."
    "Yes," the woman said. "Yes, you're right."
    "But in the meantime, I'd like to spend a little time here," she went on. "I'd just like to be alone here."
    "Alone?"
    "Well, virtually alone. Alone with Starr."
    "You've had your sorrows too," the woman said pointedly. "Same as she did."
    "Maybe."
    "I guess it'd be all right for you to spend a little time here," the woman said. "I guess it wouldn't hurt anything. Except--"
    "Except what?"
    "I don't like to say it."
    Madeline waited.
    "Sometimes a person'll decide to... do away with theirselves. And rather than do it where they live, they'll take a room just for that purpose. That happened here once. A man came, no luggage, said it was being shipped, said he'd pay a week's rent in advance, and that very first night he took pills and died in his sleep." The woman avoided Madeline's eyes. "And you," she said, "wanting to see a dead woman's room, and wanting to be alone in it. I don't think you'd be wanting to do that, and I didn't want to say anything, but I was the one walked in on that man and discovered his body there. One look and I knew he wasn't sleeping. He didn't look anything like somebody who was sleeping. His face was so blue it was near to purple."
    "How awful for you."
    "They said he was sick with something that would have killed him before long. He wanted an easy death, and he came here to spare his loved ones the horror of finding him. But he evidently thought it was all right for a total stranger to have that same horror."
    "I'm not going to kill myself," Madeline said gently.
    "I know you're not. I shouldn't have said anything, but I... had