The Moviegoer

am free.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œYou’re not surprised?”
    â€œWhen did you find out?”
    â€œAt four thirty this afternoon, yesterday afternoon.”
    â€œAt Merle’s?”
    â€œYes. I was looking up at his bookshelf and I hadn’t said anything for a long time. I saw his book, a book with a sort of burlap cover that always struck me unpleasantly. Yet how hard I had tried to live up to him and his book, live joyfully and as oneself etcetera. There were days when I would come in as nervous as an actress and there were moments When I succeeded—in being myself and brilliantly (look at me, Merle, I’m doing it!), so brilliantly that I think he loved me. Poor Merle. You see, there is nothing he can say. He can’t tell me the secret even if he knew it. Do you know what I did? After a minute or so he asked me: what comes to mind? I sat up and rubbed my eyes and then it dawned on me. But I couldn’t believe it. It was too simple. My God, can a person live twenty-five years, a life of crucifixion, through a misunderstanding? Yes! I stood up. I had discovered that a person does not have to be this or be that or be anything, not even oneself. One is free. But even if Merle knew this and told me, there is no way in the world I could have taken his advice. How strange to think that you cannot pass along the discovery. So again Merle said: what comes to mind? I got up and told him good-by. He said, it’s only four thirty; the hour is not yet over. Then he understood I was leaving. He got interested and suggested we look into the reasons. I said, Merle, how I wish you were right. How good to think that there are reasons and that if I am silent, it means I am hiding something. How happy I would be to be hiding something. And how proud I am when I do find secret reasons for you, your own favorite reasons. But what if there is nothing? That is what I’ve been afraid of until now—being found out to be concealing nothing at all. But now I know why I was afraid and why I needn’t be. I was afraid because I felt that I must be such and such a person, even as good a person as your joyous and creative person (I read your articles, Merle). What a discovery! One minute I am straining every nerve to be the sort of person I was expected to be and shaking in my boots for fear I would fail—and the next minute to know with the calmest certitude that even if I could succeed and become your joyous and creative person, that it was not good enough for me and that I had something better. I was free. Now I am saying good-by, Merle. And I walked out, as free as a bird for the first time in my life, twenty-five years old, healthy as a horse, rich as cream, and with the world before me. Ah, don’t disapprove, Binx. Binx, Binx. You think I should go back! Oh I will, no doubt. But I know I am right or I would not feel so wonderful.”
    She will not feel wonderful long. Already the sky over the Chef is fading and soon the dawn will glimmer about us like the bottom of the sea. I know very well that when the night falls away into gray distances, she will sink into herself. Even now she is overtaking herself: already she is laboring ever so slightly at her exaltation.
    I take her cold hands. “What do you think of this for an idea?” I tell her about the service station and Mr Sartalamaccia. “We could stay on here at Mrs Schexnaydre’s. It is very comfortable. I may even run the station myself. You could come sit with me at night, if you liked. Did you know you can net over fifteen thousand a year on a good station?”
    â€œYou sweet old Binx! Are you asking me to marry you?”
    â€œSure.” I watch her uneasily.
    â€œNot a bad life, you say. It would be the best of all possible lives.” She speaks in a rapture—something like my aunt. My heart sinks. It is too late. She has already overtaken herself.
    â€œDon’t—worry about it.”
    â€œI won’t! I won’t!”—as enraptured and extinguished in her soul, gone, as a character played by Eva Marie Saint. Leaning over, she hugs herself.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?”
    â€œOoooh,” Kate groans, Kate herself now. “I’m so afraid.”
    â€œI know.”
    â€œWhat am I going to do?”
    â€œYou mean right now?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWe’ll go to my car. Then well drive down to the French Market and get some coffee.