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It wasn't real laughter: it was nerves. I took a swallow of water and choked; he pounded me on the back.
"This here's no humorous matter, son. I'm a tired man. I've been five years lookin' for my woman.
Soon as I got that letter from Fred, saying where she was, I bought myself a ticket on the Greyhound.
Lulamae belongs home with her husband and her churren."
"Children?"
"Them's her churren," lie said, almost shouted. He meant the four other young faces in the picture, two
barefooted girls and a pair of overalled boys. Well, of course: the man was deranged. "But Holly can't
be the mother of those children. They're older than she is. Bigger."
"Now, son," he said in a reasoning voice, "I didn't claim they was her natural-born churren. Their own
precious mother, precious woman, Jesus rest her soul, she passed away July 4th, Independence Day,
1936. The year of the drought. When I married Lulamae, that was in December, 1938, she was going
on fourteen. Maybe an ordinary person, being only fourteen, wouldn't know their right mind. But you
take Lulamae, she was an exceptional woman. She knew good-and-well what she was doing when she
promised to be my wife and the mother of my churren. She plain broke our hearts when she ran off
like she done." He sipped his cold coffee, and glanced at me with a searching earnestness. "Now, son,
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BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY S
do you doubt me? Do you believe what I'm saying is so?"
I did. It was too implausible not to be fact; moreover, it dovetailed with O. J. Berman's description of
the Holly he'd 'first encountered in California: "You don't know whether she's a hillbilly or an Okie or
what." Berman couldn't be blamed for not guessing that she was a child-wife from Tulip, Texas.
"Plain broke our hearts when she ran off like she done," the horse doctor repeated. "She had no cause.
All the housework was done by her daughters. Lulamae could just take it easy: fuss in front of mirrors
and wash her hair. Our own cows, our own garden, chickens, pigs: son, that woman got positively fat.
While her brother growed into a giant. Which is a sight different from how they come to us. 'Twas
Nellie, my oldest girl, 'twas Nellie brought 'em into the house. She come to me one morning, and said:
'Papa, I got two wild yunguns locked in the kitchen. I caught 'em outside stealing milk and turkey eggs.'
That was Lulamae and Fred. Well, you never saw a more pitiful something. Ribs sticking out,
everywhere, legs so puny they can't hardly stand, teeth wobbling so bad they can't chew mush. Story
was: their mother died of the TB, and their papa done the same and all the churren, a whole raft of
'em, they been sent off to live with different mean people. Now Lulamae and her brother, them two
been living with some mean, no-count people a hundred miles east of Tulip. She had good cause to run
off from that house. She didn't have none to leave mine. 'Twas her home." Ho leaned his elbows on
the counter and, pressing his closed eyes with his fingertips, sighed. "She plumped out to be a real
pretty woman. Lively, too. Talky as a jaybird. With something smart to say on every subject: better than
the radio. First thing you know, I'm out picking flowers. I tamed her a crow and taught it to say her
20 name. I showed her how to play the guitar. Just to look at her made the tears spring to my eyes. The
night I proposed, I cried like a baby. She said: 'What you want to cry for, Doc? 'Course we'll be married.
I've never been married before.' Well, I had to laugh, hug and squeeze her: never been married before!" He
chuckled, chewed on his toothpick a moment. "Don't tell me that woman wasn't happy!" he said,
challengingly. "We all doted on her. She didn't have to lift a finger, 'cept to eat a piece of pie. 'Cept to
comb her hair and send away for all the magazines. We must've had a hunnerd dollars' worth of
magazines come into that house. Ask me, that's what done it. Looking at show-off pictures. Reading
dreams. That's what started her walking down the road. Every day she'd walk a little further: a mile, and
come home. Two miles, anc1 come home. One day she just kept on." He put his hands over his eyes
again; his breathing made a ragged noise. "The crow I give her went wild and flew away. All summer
you could hear him. In the yard. In the garden. In the woods. All summer that damned bird was calling:
Lulamae, Lulamae."
He stayed hunched over and silent, as though listening to the long-ago summer sound. I carried our
checks to the cashier. While I was paying, he joined me. We left together and walked over to Park
Avenue. It was a cool, blowy evening; swanky awnings flapped in the breeze. The quietness between us
continued until I said: "But what about her brother? He didn't leave?"
"No, sir," he said, clearing his throat. "Fred was with us right till they took him in the Army. A fine boy.
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T R U M A N C A P O T E
Fine with horses. He didn't know what got into Lulamae, how come she left her brother and husband
and churren. After he was in the Army, though, Fred started hearing from her. The other day he wrote
me her address. So I come to get her. I know she's sorry for what she done. I know she wants to go
home." He seemed to be asking me to agree with him. I told him that I thought he'd find Holly, or
Lulamae, somewhat changed. "Listen, son," he said, as we reached the steps of the brownstone, "I
advised you I need a friend. Because I don't want to surprise her. Scare her none. That's why I've held
off. Be my friend: let her know I'm here."
The notion of introducing Mrs. Golightly to her husband had its satisfying aspects; and, glancing up at
her lighted windows, I hoped her friends were there, for the prospect of watching the Texan shake
hands with Mag and Rusty and José was more satisfying still. But Doc Golightly's proud earnest eyes
and sweat-stained hat made me ashamed of such anticipations. He followed me into the house arid
prepared to wait at the bottom of the stairs. "Do I look nice?" he whispered, brushing his sleeves,
tightening the knot of his tie.
Holly was alone. She answered the door at once; in fact, she was on her way out  white satin (lancing
pumps and quantities of perfume announced gala intentions. "Well, idiot," she said, and playfully
slapped me with her purse. "I'm in too much of a hurry to make up now. We'll smoke the pipe
tomorrow, okay?"
"Sure, Lulamae. If you're still around tomorrow."
She took off her dark glasses and squinted at me. It was as though her eyes were shattered prisms, the
20 dots of blue and gray and green like broken bits of sparkle. "He told you that," she said in a small,
shivering voice. "Oh, please. Where is he?" She ran past me into the hall. "Fred!" she called down the
stairs. "Fred! Where are you, darling?"
I could hear Doc Golightly's footsteps climbing the stairs. His head appeared above the banisters, and
Holly backed away from him, not as though she were frightened, but as though she were retreating
into a shell of disappointment. Then he was standing in front of her, hangdog and shy. "Gosh,
Lulamae," he began, and hesitated, for Holly was gazing at him vacantly, as though she couldn't place [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]