Cornell Woolrich - The Bride Wore Black

Julie, my Julie. It followed the woman down the four flights of the stairwell. It was the softest whisper, the strongest claim, that human lips can utter. It did not make her falter, lose a step. Her face was white when she came out into the daylight, that was all.

The girl waiting by the valise at the street entrance turned and looked at her almost incredulously as she joined her, as though wondering where she had found the fortitude to go through with it. The woman seemed to read her thoughts; she answered the unspoken question, it was just as hard for me to say goodbye as for them, only I was used to it, they werent. I had so many long nights in which to steel myself. They only went through it once; Ive had to go through it a thousand times. And without any change of tone, she went on, Id better take a taxi. Theres one down there.

The girl looked at her questioningly as it drew up.

Yes, you can see me off if you want. To the Grand Central Station, driver.

She didnt look back at the house, at the street they were leaving. She didnt look out at the many other well-remembered streets that followed, that in their aggregate stood for her city, the place where she had always lived.

They had to wait a moment at the ticket window; there was somebody else before them. The girl stood helplessly by at her elbow. Where are you going?

I dont know, even at this very moment. I havent thought about it until now. She opened her handbag, separated the small roll of currency it contained into two unequal parts; retained the smaller in her hand. She moved up before the window, thrust it in.

How far will this take me, at day-coach rates?

Chicago with ninety cents change.

Then give me a one-way ticket. She turned to the girl beside her. Now you can go back and tell them that much, at least.

I wont if you dont want me to, Julie.

It doesnt matter. What difference does the name of a place make when youre gone beyond recall?

They sat for a while in the waiting room. Then presently they went below to the lower track level, stood for a moment by the coach doorway.

Well kiss, as former childhood friends should. Their lips met briefly. There.

Julie, what can I say to you?

Just good-by. What else is there to say to anyone ever in this life?

Julie, I only hope I see you someday soon.

You never will again.

The station platform fell behind. The train swept through the long tunnel. Then it emerged into daylight again, to ride an elevated trestle flush with the upper stories of tenements, while the crosswise streets ticked by like picket openings in a fence.

It started to slow again, almost before it had got fully under way. Twanny-fifth Street, droned a conductor into the car. The woman who had gone away forever seized her valise, stood up and walked down the aisle as though this were the end of the trip instead of the beginning.

She was standing in the vestibule, in readiness, when it drew up. She got off, walked along the platform to the exit, down the stairs to street level. She bought a paper at the waiting-room newsstand, sat down on one of the benches, opened the paper toward the back, to the classified ads. She furled it to a convenient width, traced a finger down the column under the heading: FURNISHED ROOMS.

The finger stopped almost at random, without much regard for the details offered by what it rested on. She dug her nail into the spongy paper, marking it. She tucked the newspaper under one arm, picked up her valise once more, walked outside to a taxi. Take me to this address, here, she said, and showed him the paper.

The landlady at the furnished rooming house stood back, waiting for her verdict, by the open room door.

The woman turned around. Yes, this will do very nicely. Ill give you the amount for the first two weeks now.

The landlady counted it, began to scribble a receipt. What name, please? she asked, looking up.

The womans eyes flicked past her own valise with the J.B. once initialed in gilt still dimly visible midway between the two latches. Josephine Bailey.

Heres your receipt. Miss Bailey. Now I hope youre comfortable. The bathrooms just two doors down the hall on your

Thank you, thank you, Ill find out. She closed the door, locked it on the inside. She took off her hat and coat, opened her valise, so recently packed for a trip of fifty blocks or a lifetime.

There was a small rust-flaked tin medicine cabinet tacked up above the washbowl. She went over to it and opened it, rising on her toes as though in search of something. On the topmost shelf, as she had half hoped, there was a rusted razor blade, left behind by some long-forgotten masculine roomer.

She went back to the valise with it, cut a little oblong around the initials on the lid, peeled off the top layer of the papier-mch, thus removing them bodily. Then she prodded through the contents of the receptacle, gashing at the stitching of an undergarment, a night robe, a blouse; removing those same two letters that had once stood for her wherever they were to be found.

Her predecessor obliterated, she threw the razor blade into the wastebasket, fastidiously wiped the tips of her fingers.

She found the picture of a man in the flap under the lid of the valise. She took it out and held it before her eyes, gazing at it for a long time. Just a young man, nothing wonderful about him: Not so strikingly handsome; just eyes and mouth and nose as anyone has. She looked at it a long time.

Then she found a folder of matches in her handbag and took the picture over to the washbasin. She touched a lighted match to one comer of it and held it until there was nothing to hold any more.

Good-by, she breathed low.

She ran a spurt of water down through the basin and went back to the valise. All that was left now, in the flap under the lid, was a scrap of paper with a penciled name on it. It had taken a long time to get it. The woman looked further, took out four similar scraps.

She brought them all out. She didnt burn them right away. She played around with them first, as if in idle disinterest. She put them all down on the dresser top, blank sides up. Then she milled them around under her rotating fingertips. Then she picked one up, glanced briefly at the underside of it. Then she gathered them all together once more, burned all five of them alike over the washbowl.

Then she moved over toward the window, stood there looking out, a hand poised at each extremity of the slablike sill, gripping it. She seemed to lean toward the city visible outside, like something imminent, about to happen to it.

The cab drew up short at the entrance of Bliss apartment house and threw him forward a little on the seat. The liquor in his stomach sloshed around with the jolt. Not because there was so much in him but because it was so recently absorbed.

He got out, and the top of the door frame knocked his hat askew. He straightened it, fumbled for change, dropped a dime to the sidewalk. He wasnt helplessly drunk; he never got that way. He knew everything that was said to him and everything he was saying, and he felt just right. Not too little, not too much. And then there was always the thought of Marge it looked like he was getting someplace there. You didnt want to drown out a thought like that in liquor.