Complete Short Stories Of Ernest Hemingway, The

“I wouldn’t want to be.”

“You’re not. Someone tried to tell me you were at college. They meant it as a compliment I think but I was terribly angry and made an awful row with the English professor. They made us read you you know. I mean they made the others read it. I’d read it all. There isn’t very much, Roger. Don’t you think you ought to work more?”

“I’m going to work now as soon as we get out west.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t stay tomorrow then. I’ll be so happy when you work.”

“Happier than now?”

“Yes,” she said. “Happier than now.”

“I’ll work hard. You’ll see.”

“Roger, do you think I’m bad for you? Do I make you drink or make love more than you should?”

“No, daughter.”

“I’m awfully glad if it’s true because I want to be good for you. I know it’s a weakness and silliness but I make up stories to myself in the daytime and in one of them I save your life. Sometimes it’s from drowning and sometimes from in from of a train and sometimes in a plane and sometimes in the mountains. You can laugh if you want. And then there is one where I come into your life when you are disgusted and disappointed with all women and you love me so much and I take such good care of you that you get an epoch of writing wonderfully. That’s a wonderful one. I was making it up again today in the car.”

“That’s one I’m pretty sure I’ve seen in the movies or read somewhere.”

“Oh I know. I’ve seen it there too. And I’m sure I’ve read it too. But don’t you think it happens? Don’t you think I could be good for you? Not in a wishy-washy way or by giving you a little baby but really good for you so you’d write better than you ever wrote and be happy at the same time?”

“They do it in pictures. Why shouldn’t we do it?”

The absinthe had come and from the saucers of cracked ice placed over the top of the glasses water, that Roger added from a small pitcher, was dripping down into the clear yellowish liquor turning it to an opalescent milkiness.

“Try that,” Roger said when it was the right cloudy color.

“It’s very strange,” the girl said. “And warming in the stomach. It tastes like medicine.”

“It is medicine. Pretty strong medicine.”

“I don’t really need medicine yet,” the girl said. “But this is awfully good. When will we be tight?”

“Almost any time. I’m going to have three. You take what you want. But take them slow.”

“I’ll see how I do. I don’t know anything about it yet except that it’s like medicine. Roger?”

“Yes, daughter.”

He was feeling the warmth of the alchemist’s furnace starting at the pit of his stomach.

“Roger, don’t you think I really could be good for you the way I was in the story I made up?”

“I think we could be good to each other and for each other. But I don’t like it to be on a basis of stories. I think the story business is bad.”

“But you see that’s the way I am. I’m a story-maker-upper and I’m romantic I know. But that’s how I am. If I was practical I’d never have come to Bimini.”

I don’t know, Roger thought to himself. If that was what you wanted to do that was quite practical. You didn’t just make up a story about it. And the other part of him thought: You must be slipping you bastard if the absinthe can bring the heel in you out that quickly. But what he said was, “I don’t know, daughter. I think the story business is dangerous. First you could make up stories about something innocuous, like me, and then there could be all sorts of other stories. There might be bad ones.”

“You’re not so innocuous.”

“Oh yes I am. Or the stories are anyway. Saving me is fairly innocuous. But first you might be saving me and then next you might be saving the world. Then you might start saving yourself.”

“I’d like to save the world. I always wished I could. That’s awfully big to make a story about. But I want to save you first.”

“I’m getting scared,” Roger said.

He drank some more of the absinthe and he felt better but he was worried.

“Have you always made up the stories?”

“Since I can remember. I’ve made them up about you for twelve years. I didn’t tell you all the ones. There are hundreds of them.”

“Why don’t you write instead of making up the stories?”

“I do write. But it’s not as much fun as making up the stories and it’s much harder. Then they’re not nearly as good. The ones I make up are wonderful.”

“But you’re always the heroine in the stories you write?”

“No. It’s not that simple.”

“Well let’s not worry about it now.” He took another sip of the absinthe and rolled it under his tongue.

“I never worried about it at all,” the girl said. “What I wanted, always, was you and now I’m with you. Now I want you to be a great writer.”