Boys and Girls Come Out to Play (40 page)

He sensed something familiar in these words and was at last jolted back into the problems that his terror had driven away. They now seemed rather childish and unimportant compared with the marvellous possibility of having found a shoulder for his head. “I’ve been nervous and worried, to tell you the truth,” he said. “But I’m not any more.”

“I think Max—of whom you once spoke so loyally—has been nervous and worried too. But it has not prevented him from considering others as well as himself.”

“Oh, I suppose he’s talked to you about my not wanting to go back. Is that why you came?”

She replied, with the primness of surface loyalty: “Max did, in fact, say that. But he said it only because it is weighing on his mind.”

“Oh, yes, I know what you mean. He always has to confess when he gets to that stage.”

“What a callous thing to say!”

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it—just said what I thought.”

“Apparently your mother, who sounds just like you, sent him a very rude telegram yesterday. And I see no reason why Max should have
your
burden too. In spite of
all
his troubles, he has been a wonderful person for Larry to have around; and when Larry is contented—as contented as anyone
can
be at such a terrible time—then
my
life becomes bearable too. So I think that
you
…”

She stopped, and burst into tears. “Max didn’t
tell
me to come and ask you to go home. He doesn’t know I know you well enough. So don’t tell him I came.”

He took her hand and squeezed it. “I made up my mind to go before you ever spoke,” he said. “I don’t care
what
he told you. I don’t care about anything.”

“He would have come to see you himself this evening. I thought I might come first.”

“How kind and thoughtful, Harriet!”

She started to dry her tears, and at once ejected a fresh flood. “Its been terrible, really terrible!” she cried. “As you know, better than anyone, I love Larry truly. But what am
I
to do if
he
is desperate? They are treating him disgustingly—and think of how frightened I get when I feel I cannot
depend
on him.” She stopped crying, and continued: “My father—you didn’t know I had a father, did you?—wrote to me only yesterday.
So
worried,
so
unable to understand, asking
what
were we both going to do? Larry was furious, of course; and whenever he suspects that I have lost faith in him, he looks as though he could kill me—as though he were
jealous
of something. But who could be jealous of my father—a man so kind and strong that he has always been worried about me living in Europe…? I don’t think Larry feels that Max is very bright about things that really matter, but, oh! it does help him to have some other man around who looks up to him, someone who wants to be taught—in a friendly way, don’t misunderstand me—and Max really needs a helping hand, and his appreciation and respect do wonders for Larry. So you see … if you would help Max by going, Max would be free to help Larry, and I …”

“Oh yes, I do see,” he said, wondering with astonishment what surprising things had been hardening into shape during his absence, and hardly able to credit that three such experienced adults could feel as hopeless as he had himself. “I’m going,” he told her, with a gladness that arose out of a delightful
conviction that he was doing so chiefly for her sake, “in two weeks. I’ll send a cable this very day.”

She kissed him. “I thought you’d changed, Jimmy; but under your bad manners you’re just the same.”

She hurried to the toilet, and, returning with her face restored, said to him: “You’ll come and see us, won’t you?”

“You bet I will. But just one thing … Max and I are not on speaking terms: will he mind?”

She smiled as though she had never cried, and waved her hand kittenishly. “I’ll
tell
Mr. Max he’d better be
very
nice
to my friend Jimmy…. Oh, Jimmy, I am so glad I came. Larry and I both love Max; but he is Larry’s friend really, and
you
are mine. And now I’m going to let you in on a little secret. The day after tomorrow Larry has to be in Tutin all day, to see the people at the Ministry. He is very depressed and has quite forgotten that it will be his birthday. So, I am planning a little surprise party to cheer him up when he gets back. Will you come and help the surprise?”

“Indeed I will.”

“About four-thirty…. Do I look terribly woebegone?”

“Not one bit.”

“Then I’ll leave you in peace with your books and your ivory tower…. No, don’t come with me.”

She opened the door and looked out into the passage, just as she had done when he had lain waiting for her in the enormous bed…. When she was out of sight he threw the door wide open and drew in great gulps of breath, as though the freshest breeze was driving down the passage. I have to go, he thought dreamily: whatever stopped me from going there before?

He fell on to his bed and went sound asleep.

*

It was nearly midnight when Divver knocked on the door. They smiled with the nervous embarrassment of reunion.

“I was a bit hasty,” said Divver, “I must apologize….”

“Nothing of the sort. I behaved like a damned little idiot.”

“No; it was me….”

“I assure you it was not.”

“Yes, yes….”

“Anyway, it’s good to see you again, Max.”

“So do I, I assure you.”

He was greatly surprised to see that Divver looked haggard and old. “Harriet ran into me earlier,” Morgan said, looking away, “and she said …”

“Yes, I hope you’ll excuse that,” said Divver. “I was at my wit’s end; I talked freely. I had no idea she would repeat anything: I was astonished when she said she had run into you and that everything was straightened out: she’s not usually an active type.”

“I’m going to cable mother first thing tomorrow.”

“Yes, do that,” said Divver eagerly; “don’t postpone it longer.” He looked here and there, as though his words were being listened to by conspirators.

“I gathered from Harriet that things weren’t going too well.”

Divver at once looked rather vague. “The old man’s having a rough time,” he said, “but at his age, in his position, in these times …” His eyes hardened, he looked straight at Morgan and said: “I am going to be divorced.”

“Oh no! By your wife, Max?”

“Who else would be likely to divorce me?”

“But why?”

“Believe me,” said Divver, narrowing one eye, “she’s being pretty smart. It’s not for desertion—that is to say for following my career—it’s for mental cruelty. Ah, well, what the hell: what do the grounds matter? And why should
you
be interested…? Well, if I’m going to be up at cockcrow I had better get to bed.”

Morgan followed him to his door, saying: “I’m really truly sorry; I really am, Max….”

“That’s very kind of you and I appreciate it…. Well, I’ll be seeing you.”

“Harriet asked me to drop by for Larry’s birthday, so I’ll certainly see you then.”

“Oh,” said Divver, stopping, and showing with a frown that he was displeased. “You don’t
have
to come, you know. She wasn’t just being friendly, was she?”

“I’m sure she wasn’t: it was a definite invitation.”

“Sure, sure; I don’t know why I questioned it. I suppose I just thought that what with packing and saying good-bye to all the people you’ve come to know, you’d be in too much of a rush for parties…. Sure, you come, and let me know if you need a hand packing, making arrangements, you know.”

“My God; two weeks is time enough for that.”

“Two
weeks
!
You don’t plan to go for two
weeks
?”

“What’s wrong?”

Divver struggled so hard to hide his anger and disappointment that he began to pant. At last, he said in a suppressed voice: “Come with me,” and taking Morgan by the arm he led him to the passage door and opened it. “Look…. do you see anybody? Not a soul. Why? Only two or three of the rooms are still occupied, that’s why. Now come here,” and he led Morgan to Morgan’s own window and said: “You remember what it was like in the square at midnight, the day we arrived? Look now”—and looking, Morgan saw that though the lights of the cafés were shining, each group of tables had only a handful of occupants, and barely a dozen people were in the square itself. “What the hell have you been doing with yourself—” asked Divver. “Where have you kept your eyes the past weeks? Haven’t you read a newspaper? Haven’t you listened to the B.B.C.?”

His agitation was so great that Morgan, though ashamed of
his own egotism, found himself suspecting that Divver was
disguising
some fear that lay far deeper than that of war.

“Two
weeks
,” Divver said again. “Are you out of your mind?”

“Well, let’s say ten days.”

“Ten days nothing. A week is the absolute deadline; and if you take my advice you’ll cut it to just a few days; the first damn boat you can get, Goddam it!”

*

When he ordered breakfast next morning he was uneasy at the prospect of having to explain to the waiter why he had shut him out for so long. But his breakfast was brought by a waiter whom he had never seen before; a clumsy boy of his own age, who spoke no English and kept his eyes on the floor.

At the lobby desk, the clerk told him: “There are no more tourist-class places for that date, sir. You must wait longer, or else pay an addition of one hundred and fifty dollars to obtain cabin-class.” He looked rather pleased.

“Certainly,” said Morgan.

“Cabin?” said the clerk. “Hm, hm.” His pleasure changed to surprise, but he only shrugged and went to the telephone, hugging the receiver between ear and shoulder while he talked and spread out a chart. “You are very fortunate,” he said coldly when he returned: “here is your place”; and he spread out the chart of the ship’s interior, marking a large rectangle that stood far from the point where twin propellors lay motionless in a wavy line of water, high above hundreds of tight little squares subdivided into the oblongs of beds and the circles of washbasins and ports. “I hope it will content you,” said the clerk.

He sent the cable to his mother and walked out of the hotel. His days of terror and his sudden amputation from them had left him in a state of shock; he looked vaguely at the
square as though he were already thousands of miles away. He walked on into the fringe of the countryside, and was quickly stopped by a sensation that he attributed at first to the emptiness of his surroundings. Then, because he was a country boy, he realized that this odd sensation was due to his having re-entered the world on that dateless but unmistakable day in late summer when the impulse of plants to grow flamboyantly has ceased. The sun was as warm and strong as ever, but in the imperturbable weight of the trees’ leaves, the lack of springiness underfoot in the weeds and soil, the drooping fall of the grass and the hot thickness of the air, were information that nature had subsided into the dozing monotony of being made ripe. On this day, each year, thousands of touring Americans stop short and realize with a start that their last moment of gambolling is approaching, that hundreds of inexorable boat-trains are summoning them out of bars and ruins, to siphon them punctually out of the interior into businesslike harbours from Stockholm to Genoa, where the big liners lie ready to rush them home in the nick of time—time to greet Labour Day, the day of all serious men, with composed faces, playfulness fading like tan before the earnest desire to justify such fun with months of solemn industry. Behind them, having bent their worn spines in a final bow and tortured their tired mouths into a last grin, the keepers of
pensions
ascend to the empty, littered rooms, to assess the wear and tear and balance the damage against an income that never seems to have been quite adequate. Down from under the eaves and up from the cellars appear the tourist-town’s domestic population, sighing simultaneously with relief and sadness, monotonously pocketing the cracked Leicas and sunglasses, trying on the frayed, abandoned corsets, drearily swabbing away the vomit of the farewell-parties, sweeping out from under the beds the season’s last hairpins and butts of lipstick. In the very square of Mell, old women with string bags walked in the place of prostitutes
with little dogs, and crossed between home and market by this short cut instead of circling the town as they had done last week; and in Bread Street, where the big shops remained open to catch the last eccentrics, the splendid clerks loosened their ties, sat on empty boxes in the sunshine, and even responded to the passing hails of their dowdy mothers. In the Hotel Poland, the Baron’s Hall and the ballroom were closed, and there was a stool at the bar for every refugee. Morgan walked to the station and looked up and down the shining rails: on his way back he passed a man in business suit and derby hat, walking briskly to the train with an enormous suitcase. This stiff traveller gave Morgan a curt nod; but it was not until he had disappeared into the station that Morgan identified him as the querulous old waiter whose father had gone so long without coffee.

*

“So you didn’t let me down, Jimmy,” said Harriet. “Come and see the cake. I think it’s the loveliest one I ever did see; but I do think, Max, that it deserves more candles.”

“Let’s see,” said Divver, bending over: “two, three, four … ten candles: how many do you want? Not one for each year, I presume?” He gave Morgan a cold and awkward smile.

“Of
course
not. That would be like suggesting Larry’s
technical
age, when really he’s younger and more chipper than any of us. Simon,” she said, turning with a smile of baby-love, “could you get us just a few more, a tiny more, and perhaps also one very big one to stand erect in the very middle?”

She was dressed in her cutest dirndl and most expensive peasant-shoes. On the exposed part of her bosom, which was suntanned to a warm cafe-au-lait, lay a necklace of bright green wooden beads. Clasping her hands, she stood back and gazed at the great birthday cake, which stood framed in one of the
tall windows, the last of the one-hundred-and-forty that the confectioner had baked before scouring his pans for the last time and returning to Warsaw. Little dwarfs, representing workmen, rimmed its frosted edge; and within a pink loop of roses was the chocolate inscription: TO OUR DEAR LARRY WITH LOVE AND CONGRATULATIONS FROM RIOT AND MAX. “Larry calls me Riot when he’s being cute, Jimmy; and I don’t have to tell you that
your
name would be here too if I had known in time. But you’ll
sing,
won’t you, when Larry comes in?”