NOTE: "Georgia On My Mind" copyright 1930, Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorel.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Perhaps divorce was not necessary after all, Elsa reflected as she poured a glass of water and removed Al's first dose from the pharmacy vial. If he would only come clean about his vile liaisons, ask forgiveness, vow never to stray again, then she could pardon his folly and his ill-judgment, and they could settle down into some kind of a life together. After all, though constantly at odds their minds worked the same way. She had read somewhere, though she could not remember where, that that was a cornerstone to a successful marriage.
She went to the den, expecting to find him much as she had left him. The light was on, however, and the sofa empty. Spread over the floor before it was the summons to the divorce arraignment. And on the far side of the room, standing unsteadily before the sideboard and knocking back a tumblerful of whiskey with a trembling hand as he coughed profusely, was Al.
"What are you doing?" Elsa exclaimed, setting down the water and the medicine and hastening forward with the intention of taking him by the arms and leading him back to the sofa. "You should be in bed."
He laughed bitterly, the drama of the moment broken by yet another cough. "Oh, should I?" he wheezed. "Haven't slept in my own damned bed since September!"
"I mean that you should be lying down," Elsa amended. "You are not well."
"I'm not stupid, either," Al said, taking another slug of liquor. He threw off her hands and brushed past her, stumbling and catching himself against the back of the sofa. She couldn't tell whether he was already drunk, or if it was just the fever that was throwing off his balance and slurring his voice. He gestured broadly at the papers. "Divorcing me, are you? Leaving me?"
"It's an initial arraignment. Nothing is finalized, but I think it's quite obvious we've had some problems—"
"Problems? Only problem I have is you, you grasping, possessive, suspicious—" A cough cut him off and some of the whiskey spilled from the glass, running down his arm. "Supsicious—" The coughing worsened. Al clutched his stomach with his free hand, trying to brace his overworked abdominal muscles against the torment. "Supishu—sus—"
He drew in a thin, whistling breath that caught in the back of his throat. Elsa bristled with indignation. He was going to land himself in hospital if he didn't settle down. She gripped his shoulders and forced him to sit down. "That's enough," she said. "I've brought you your medicine."
She caught up the orange tablets and pressed them into his hand. Al stared at them as if he was not quite certain what he was seeing. Elsa held out the glass of water. "Take them," she commanded.
He glared at her blackly from beneath his eyebrows and swallowed the pills, scorning the water and washing them down with the last of the liquor instead. "You want to leave, just go," he said. "I don't want you. Breathing down my neck, believing those lies…"
"Lies? Who has lied?" she countered. "Who has told me stories about old friends when he is out sleeping with another woman on the night of our wedding anniversary?"
Al slammed his foot against the floor and got to his feet. "Damn you, I told you I didn't sleep with her!" he roared.
"Oh, yes? But you spent the night in a hotel with her!" Elsa retorted. The pent-up frustrations of five long months were finally reaching a breaking point. She didn't care that the man in front of her was delirious and quite likely drunk. He was still the same… the same nozzle who had played the adulterer and betrayed his marriage vows. If he wanted a fight, she would give him one.
"With her and her three little—aw, what's the point, you lousy hag?" Al shouted, swaying precariously. "I—I—I—"
The pain of the coughs drove him to his knees, and the tumbler slipped from his fingers, rolling away across the floor. Struck by sudden concern for his wellbeing, Elsa bent to help him. He swatted her arm away.
"Don't touch me!" Al snarled. "Who is he?"
"Who? Who is who?" Elsa asked, bewildered.
"The guy you're leaving me for," Al said. "Is it a lawyer? I'll bet it's your goddamned lawyer. How long've you two been shacking up? Since September, maybe? Before that? You thought I was pretty disgusting last Christmas… was that when you started sleeping around?"
The flame of rage rekindled. Elsa backed away. The very nerve of the wretch, to insinuate that she was the betrayer, when he—when he—
"A fine one to talk of such things!" she shrieked. "How many whores have you had, sleeping down here the better to sneak in and out of the house as you wish! Talking to them from space, posing with them on the covers of the supermarket tabloids! Indeed you disgust me! Filthy házasságtörõ férfi! Elfajzott!"
Al struggled to his feet, his dark eyes flashing. The marks of the fever stood out on his waxen cheeks, and his cyanotic lips worked horribly. He looked like a demon, undead and ablaze with fury. "I never cheated on you, you Hungarian Harpy! You're not worth the effort of cheating on! If I wanted to sleep with another woman I wouldn't bother sneaking around: the day I cheat on you, Orsós, you'll know it!"
"Hah! I do know it!" she exclaimed, tossing her head scornfully. "You did not hide it well, did you? Photographs, calla lilies from space!"
Al froze as if he had been struck. "Ca—calla…" He coughed. "What about calla lilies?" he demanded, wheezing in an attempt to breathe.
"In space! Angel, you call her; I wish to send calla lilies to you! The whole world heard it! They say to me, he wants to send you flowers: how sweet! But he has never in my life given me flowers! I hate calla lilies! He is talking to one of his whores!" Elsa knew that her diction was deteriorating, but she didn't care. Who was he to criticize the way she spoke, anyhow? No one. He was no one and he mattered not at all. She hated him! How she hated him!
There was hatred in his eyes too, as he lunged towards her, loosing his balance and staggering against a chair for support.
"Don't you call her that!" he growled, a feral madness in his eyes. "Don't you ever call her that. She's not a whore! She loved the guy, I guess she must've loved him. She deserved a better life than I could give her: she's not a whore!"
"Sure, not a whore!" Elsa taunted. It was amusing, to hear him defending his hookers like that. Perhaps she was his proper mistress! "Does this mean she hasn't asked for money, but that you offered? Or that she prostitutes herself for no one but you?"
He roared in animalistic wrath and tried again to dive at her. Elsa danced out of his way and he stumbled against the stereo. The needle fell upon the record and it began to play. The weeping notes of a piano began to backlight their quarrel.
"Damn you, damn everybody!" Al shouted. "She deserved a better life! She's not a whore! Damn it, it wasn't her fault! It was those nozzles at the base! It was that stinking lawyer! It was that goddamned Marine—your goddamned Marine!"
She knew it! She knew he resented her love of Andrew. The hypocrite. Just like all men with their double standards. Let him have his childhood fancies! Let him have his first wife! His prostitutes, his harlots, as many as he pleased! But the boy she had loved, from whom she had been parted for nine years, who had given his life for his country, he was forbidden! He was a crime! It was disgusting. Despicable. Above all, it was infuriating.
"Hah! You talk of Andrew! You, not even worthy to speak his name! You miserable, stinking, deceiving –elfajzott! Monster! Devil! Adulterer!" Elsa bellowed. "How dare you speak of him? He should never have died! You should have died, not him. Died horribly in terrible pain, you hated, worthless filth! You sniveling coward, self-important beast! I wish you had died in Vietnam, not him!"
A horrible, keening sound of rage or grief or sheer strangulation or some hideous blend of the three welled up in Al's throat. He caught up one of the glasses on the sideboard and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the door. "So do I!" he screamed. "God damn you, so do I!"
"So why didn't you?" she demanded. "Died in that jungle like the scum that you are, saved everyone trouble and pain! Spared us all the misfortune of knowing you! All the things they have done for you at NASA, and still you shame them—soiling your helmet, falling into the sea, looking miserable at their parades. You cannot do anything right! You are a failure! You are a waste! Why didn't you die? Why didn't you stay in Vietnam? You stinking, hateful, wicked man! Badz meg, elfajzott! Menj a pokolba! Menj a francha! On the day you die not even the worms will mourn your passing!"
She fell silent. Through the abysmal quiet that surged between them a strong, evocative voice floated.
"…comes as sweet and clear as moonlight through the pines…"
Al started to shake, violently and uncontrollably. He clutched at the sideboard for support before he could fall. Elsa felt her chest heaving with the momentum of her wrath. His expression mirrored the fury in her soul. Still, the voice was singing.
"…other arms reach out to me…"
She hated him. God, how she hated him! It was never meant to be. The happy times had been nothing more than a deception.
"…other eyes smile tenderly…"
Al's throat was spasming. No doubt he was thinking the selfsame thing with regard to her. Oh, Andrew, Andrew. She thought to herself, had she married Andrew nothing like this would ever have happened.
"…Still in peaceful dreams I see: the road leads back to you..."
Better if they had never married. Better still had they never met.
"My Georgia, my Georgia, no peace I find. Just a little song keeps Georgia on my mi—"
There was a rapid motion from Al and the stereo squealed in an explosion of cut glass and alcohol. The music vanished with a sparking death-throe.
Now the silence was complete.
Elsa stared at Al, then turned to regard the ruined stereo, and the remains of the decanter of whiskey that he had thrown at it. The shaking in his limbs worsened, and he sank to the ground, his knees tucked under his body and his hands splayed out on the ground before him like a Muslim at prayer. His shoulders quivered with fever or exhaustion.
Perhaps his fit of temper had broken his rage, but it had not done the same for her. She was only glad that she was not the one who had to pick up the shards of her dignity after a childish fit of destruction—this time. She drew herself up to her full height and tossed her head so that her earrings swung.
"As you say in American," she told him boldly; "I will see you in court."
Then she turned on her heels and left him.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMAl didn't know how long he lay there, shaking with silent sobs, but at last the hysteria passed, leaving in its place only anguish and emptiness. He rolled onto his side, drawing his knees up to his chest and subsisting into faint coughing.
He was delirious and he was sloshed, and he was in so much pain. There was the physical stuff: the agony in his chest, the aching in his limbs, his throbbing head. There was also the sting of Elsa's words ringing in his ears. Why hadn't he died in Vietnam, damn it? Why? It was too painful… too hard to live when no one wanted you. It would have been so easy, so very easy to die… hard to live, easy to die. If only Beth had waited. If only that Marine of Elsa's hadn't croaked. If only… if only… oh, Beth, Beth, Beth…
No, he reminded himself firmly. No, Elsa. Elsa was the present problem. She was divorcing him—well, to hell with Elsa! To hell with her!
He got unsteadily to his feet and stumbled over to the makeshift clothes-rail, fingering through his shirts. He didn't care what the doctor said. He didn't care about anything anymore. Especially, he didn't care about Elsa. She was divorcing him anyway, leaving him. He didn't really think that there was another man, but on the other hand, why wouldn't there be? Women were just as capable of looking elsewhere as men were. As she obviously thought he was.
She thought he'd cheated on her. He hadn't. Even when they'd been at each other's throats, even when he'd needed to get laid in the worst way, he had resisted the temptation in the name of the sacred bond of matrimony.
Well, fuck that.
She thought he was a—how did she say it?—a házasságtörõ férfi, an adulterer. He'd show her adultery. She was divorcing him for sleeping around: why should he let her divorce an innocent man?
He found the brightest, flashiest polyester shirt in his collection and reached for one of his new three-piece suits, a pearl grey concoction that was guaranteed to attract the right kind of girl. To hell with Doc Wagner's ultimatum. To hell with his fever and his goddamned pneumonia. To hell with NASA. To hell with Elsa. He wanted to get laid tonight, he wanted to forget, and if it killed him he was going to find a way to do it.