Heart Troubles (14 page)

He felt suddenly triumphant, as though through some ingenious devising of his own he was steering his family narrowly from the very brink of tragedy. He was so jubilant, in fact, that when the young manager rushed up to him at the door of the phone booth to whisper the dreadful news to him he had to ask him to repeat it, and then repeat it again.

The Partly Parted

DOROTHY, DOROTHY!

Surprisingly, the movie had not been about Africa. Robert, who had gone expecting to see women unclothed from the waist upward, was disappointed. Miss Ungewitter, who had suggested that they go in the first place, felt she ought to apologize as she led the children out into the bright glare of the street. But in the transition from the cinema land of enchantment to the business day of Monaco she lost the urge to do this and suggested the ice-cream shop not so much as a compensation for the movie's obscurity but simply because the day was very hot and she herself was fond of French ices.

Not that they do me a bit of good, she thought, as she herded the children along in front of her down the crowded street. Miss Ungewitter was a large woman and was conscious of her amplitude, but rather than risk ruining her health with a diet at her age, which was past forty, she chose instead to play down her size by wearing simple loose-bosomed dresses of inconspicuous shades of gray and brown with long rather boxy skirts. She braided her fine brown hair into a neat bun at the back of her neck, never wore rouge, and always bought sensible Oxfords with leather-fringed flaps and low heels.

Robert was rubbing his eyes and blinking back tears. Harriet, who was twelve, noticed this and pointed triumphantly. “Look, he's crying!” she said. “He's crying because the movie was so sad and the lady died.”

Robert began to explain that it wasn't grief but the sun, the suddenness of it, coming out into the street like that, that always made his eyes water. But Harriet, skipping along the street beside Miss Ungewitter, would have none of his excuses, and she taunted him, singsonging “Cry baby, cry baby,” until Miss Ungewitter smacked her behind and told her to act her age and behave like a twelve-year-old young lady, not like a baby, in a public street of Europe.

As they entered the shop Robert was silent. Secretly he knew that Harriet was right. As the unfortunate heroine had tossed and turned in that huge bed at the end, Robert had felt her fever on his own brow and his lungs had ached with her suffering. The tears came still, whether he wanted them to or not.

When they were seated on three stools in a row—first Miss Ungewitter, mopping her steaming brow with the back of her pink hand, then Harriet, stiff and erect and formal, and then Robert on the last stool—Miss Ungewitter took her handkerchief out of her raffia purse and handed it to Robert.

“There was certainly enough dying,” Miss Ungewitter said. “For a picture about doctors, there was certainly enough dying to it. I'm sorry it wasn't about Africa,” she added, and then, when the young counterboy approached them, she said, “Three ice creams,” articulating each word clearly and carefully, and pointing at the same time to the round paper containers under the counter. She was still timid when it came to using French.

Harriet was wearing the large dangling earrings of silver metal, fashioned to resemble grape leaves, that her mother had sent her from California. Her hair was long and dark and it hung damply about the collar of her cotton ready-to-wear, and when she tossed her head as she was doing now the earrings batted to and fro against her cheekbones. Miss Ungewitter, watching her, said she looked as though she were swatting flies, her hair like a horse's tail. Harriet ignored her and began talking in a loud throaty voice that was intended to be similar to Barbara Stanwyck's.

“I think it's really nauseating,” she said, “the way the French people have no regard for proper illumination. What I mean is it's so de
press
ing. Though I thought that Paris was very well lighted, didn't you?”

“Well, I think that neon is worse,” Miss Ungewitter said. “It sharpens one's features so, that kind of light.”

“I mean it's so depressing,” said Harriet.

“Look at that man!” Miss Ungewitter exclaimed. “He's painting our—no, he's not. For a minute I thought he was painting our picture.”

“Isn't he quaint!” Harriet said. Then, talking about the movie, she said, “The people had such a problem in those days getting enough to eat and clothe themselves with. Even little children used to go without milk in those days, and mother's milk was put right out on counters and sold the way cow's milk is today.”

“Harriet!” said Miss Ungewitter. “Such talk! Where did you hear that?”

“My mother
happens
to have told me that,” Harriet said witheringly.

“Well, I don't think it's proper for a young lady to discuss things like that,” said Miss Ungewitter. Save us, she thought. What kind of ideas had that mother of theirs filled these children's heads with? It was easy to see why Mr. Bartholomew wanted them with him as much as possible. She'd give anything to be able to confront that woman—just once, that would be enough. Just face her. She'd tell her a thing or two about bringing up children. Though Miss Ungewitter had never seen their mother, she already had a very good mental picture of Mrs. Bartholomew. Oh, beautiful probably, probably blonde, flashy blonde, wearing slacks all the time and big perching hats. Systematically she erased the image of Mrs. Bartholomew from her mind. “Does yours taste like apple?” she asked, sampling her ice cream.

“It's so nauseating, I really can't taste it,” Harriet said.

“Well, mine has a cidery taste to it,” Miss Ungewitter said. “It has a spicy, cidery taste. Try yours,” she said to Robert, who was looking steadily at the plate in front of him with his elbows on the counter.

“No.”

“There, go on. It's good. It tastes like raspberry. Eat those little chocolate pieces.”

“It's nauseating,” said Robert.

“Give it to your sister then,” she said crisply. “And stop using that word.”

“No, I want it.”

“Well, eat it before it melts.” Oh, good lord in Kansas, she thought, ye gods and little fishes, what next? Perhaps ignore him. She directed her attention to her own plate; eating steadily. She had been Head Children's Book Buyer for one of the largest department stores in Chicago and had thought she understood Child Psychology, but sometimes these two had her beat.

“Have you ever had a meeting like that?” Harriet asked her suddenly. “A man, coming to you after years and years, after you've grown old, wanting you back? Oh, I thought that was beautiful, the way she opened that door and there he was a thousand years old …”

“Not yet,” Miss Ungewitter said. “When I send them packing, they don't come back sniffing around my door.”

“That's because you are a cruel person,” Harriet said.

“I suppose I've been cruel to you!” Miss Ungewitter said indignantly. “I suppose I'm cruel when I take you to the movies and pay your way in with my own hard-earned cash, just for a treat.”

“If you treated your lover like that, you were very cruel,” Harriet said.

“Who said I had any lover?”

“What about that man you told me about? That man with the birthmark on his cheek?”

“Never mind about him,” Miss Ungewitter said. “He's long gone and was no lover of mine to begin with. He was a beau, that's all.”

There was not a particle of truth in it, she thought, not one iota. It was nothing but make-believe. In real life no romance was that secure. The fences a person broke were never that easily mended. And him reappearing the way he did, just like that, at her door, making everything oh so all right again by simply reappearing, coming back. Tap, tap. Who is it? It's me, me come back. And then into the house, into her arms, then picking her up, carrying her up the stairs to die—oh no, not like that where she came from, or any other place for that matter. Once you said good-by, there it was, they didn't come back. With your beauty mark on your cheek and your curly hair, she thought. She wished Harriet had not mentioned him. Now she would be dreaming about him again tonight. “It's good, isn't it?” she said to Robert.

“It's all right.”

Suddenly Robert saw a Catherine wheel and wanted one. He wanted to light it from the terrace at night and signal to the ships from Alexandria. They would see it and think it was the light from Saint-Tropez and missteer their ships into the treacherous water beyond the beach. It was only four francs. Could he have it? Miss Ungewitter thought, Oh, lord, yes, all right, get it then, and she handed him a ten-franc note to pay for it. Robert hopped off the stool and ran across the shop to the opposite counter to buy it.

“He's spoiled,” Harriet said. “Don't you think?” She leaned toward Miss Ungewitter and whispered conspiratorially; “Do you think he's maturing properly? In California, Mother told me that Father was spoiling him, and I know that Father thinks he isn't maturing properly, the way he
asks
for things. I don't think you should always let him get his own way like that.”

“I don't
always
let him get his own way,” Miss Ungewitter began, trying to remember what it was that she herself had been told about gratitude long ago. “Gratitude is a funny thing,” she said, not remembering now just what the exact thing was.

“When that little boy of theirs died in the movie,” Harriet said, “I couldn't help thinking what if it had been Robert. Dying before he reaches his maturity.” And she added in a husky whisper, “I don't think he has very long to live anyway, you know.”

Miss Ungewitter nearly jumped off her stool. “What?” she said. “What do you mean? He's the picture of health, growing out of his clothes!”

“I know,” Harriet said mysteriously, “but I have a funny knowledge.”

Miss Ungewitter snorted. “What knowledge?”

“I just know.”

Miss Ungewitter picked up her purse nervously. “Are you through with your nonsense and ready to leave?” she asked. It was uncanny the way that child had of throwing you off balance. Funny knowledge indeed! And yet the way she said it, saying a thing like that in a voice that sounded straight from the tomb. “I suppose you're a fortuneteller,” she said tartly. “You ought to go into business.”

Robert was back, pressing the coins and the wad of fragile paper money into her hand. “Six francs,” he said. “Ten take away four is six francs.”

“Thank you, Robert,” said Miss Ungewitter.

“You see?” said Harriet. “You thank him. He doesn't thank you. That's why he's such a brat.”

Robert paid no attention to her. “Wait till the ships see this,” he said.

“I don't think you should set it off from the terrace,” Miss Ungewitter said.

“Why not?”

“Because some ship might see it.”

“That's what I want, some ship to see it and get wrecked on the rocks.”

“Well, I don't think that's very nice,” Miss Ungewitter said. “All those men killed. You can set it off in the garden after supper.”

“On Fourth of July we set one off on the boat and no ships came,” Robert said.

“Yes, but that was different,” Miss Ungewitter said. “And besides, on the boat didn't the chief steward come and tell you to stop when you were doing that?”

“Daddy was doing it too. He told us we could.”

“Well, that was one time when your daddy was wrong in that particular case,” Miss Ungewitter said.

Harriet said, “If the mariners did wreck on our beach, we could take them in, couldn't we?”

“Yes,” Robert said. “We could take them in and give them dinner and tell them stories and hear all about the Sahara Desert.”

“Feed forty or fifty people? Don't be silly,” Miss Ungewitter said. “Now that's the end of it. You'll set it off in the garden or not at all, and that's final.”

“Never mind, Robert, we'll see what Daddy says,” Harriet said.

“And never
you
mind about what Daddy says,” said Miss Ungewitter sharply. “It's what I say, and I say no. That's that.”

“It's your Catherine wheel, Robert,” Harriet said. “You can do whatever you want with it.”

“Oh, so it's his Catherine wheel, is it? Well, you seem to forget that it was my hard-earned cash that bought it for him,” said Miss Ungewitter. “And it's me who'll take it away from him if he doesn't do as I say.”

“Indian giver,” said Harriet.

Miss Ungewitter signaled the counterboy impatiently. “Check!” she called.
“Billet! L'addition!”

“I could feed them,” Robert said, “and take them into my cave, and …”

“And we could help them fix their boat,” Harriet said.

“When I say final I mean final,” Miss Ungewitter said. “Harriet, who told you you could wear those earrings? Give them to me before we go out into the street.”

“No!” Harriet shouted. “They're mine! Mummy bought them for me in California and I'm going to keep them. They're the latest creation from Hollywood.”

“Hollywood! You'll go to Hollywood all right,” said Miss Ungewitter, not knowing exactly what she meant. “Check!
L'addition!
”

“They look stupid,” Robert said.

“Just because you're
ignorant!
” Harriet said. “You and her are both ignorant, Daddy said so.”

“He did not!”

“Yes, he did. He said she was ignorant.”

Miss Ungewitter was paying for the ice cream. “Come along,” she said, after she counted her change. “You're both going to bed without your supper.”

“I won't be bossed by a common servant!” said Harriet.

“Stay here then. Stay here. Come along, Robert.”

Harriet seemed close to tears. “I will stay here and
rot!
”