I'm Dying Laughing (76 page)

‘He must always be American. I don’t want to see him one of these unfortunate children who no longer feel at home in America and think of French sauces and embarrass people by speaking with a correct French accent. They are very poor company and have become exiles. They’re not happy in their own country. Now Christy is not like that. He is a healthy, nice boy.’

Emily agreed enthusiastically with all of this and told Anna she could depend upon it, their views coincided.

‘And dear Anna, how happy you have made us all, with your perfect sense of fitness, guiding us, your organization and genius for making a real family feeling! If you knew my feelings: the delicious guilt and terrific pleasure.’

‘Why guilt?’ said Anna inimically.

‘I should be working.’

Anna was silent and Emily regretted her remarks. She laughed, ‘Perhaps I meant g-i-l-t. I love it. Oh, if only we didn’t have to worry about the future of the world and of my dear husband and babies. If only it were the nineteenth or the eighteenth century. All the time passed and the world didn’t come to an end. We sit on the Champs-Elysées and lift our glasses with lovely wine and toast and love each other, dear Anna, and talk about painters and writers we all like—’

Stephen had approached, inquisitively.

‘—because we came of aesthetic age with them, like Cézanne and James Joyce and Eliot and Hemingway and we love them because we’re of their age. Yet perhaps they’re already hurtling, rushing towards the Dark Ages which haven’t been had yet. They’ll be unknown along with us—’

Stephen said, ‘Why that? I won’t have that for you, Emily. Is Michelangelo hurtling towards the Dark Ages in any way?’

‘Oh—no—I mean, now the party is over, we are separating, I want to boohoo and cry, Up the Family and Here’s to Absent Friends who aren’t even yet absent and it’s even more painful to look at them now. My goodness, I think the moment of parting is much lonelier than afterwards.’

She hugged the flaccid, satin arm of Anna, who walked along without response.

Dale had come up. He said cheerfully, ‘Perhaps in their day, every one was bored with and tired of Michelangelo and talked small talk about him. People like us never knew Cézanne and we wouldn’t have: he was considered mad. And you can bet your boots the Cézanne of today is off starving to death somewhere at this minute. Well, everyone knows it. If you’re so mad as to be an artist—you know beforehand your fate.’

It was beginning to rain. Emily held out her hand and said, ‘The holiday is ended! How perfect! The sky has tears!’

Stephen laughed, ‘For the Howard-Tanner clan? That would surprise me.’

‘Ah, it’s been noble, dreamy, poetic, all our dear ones and when will it happen again? Such a sense of warmth, love, security, of belonging together and of confidence in the future. And tomorrow—we’re on our own again. Ah, me. Life! Such as we live it.’

Anna questioned her about her writing and Emily replied enthusiastically that she felt she and Stephen were working much better in Paris, because writers were more respected and appreciated there.

‘Do you want to be respected and appreciated? I thought you wanted to make money,’ said Anna, with some contempt.

‘Oh, I like both. But you’ve inspired me, Anna. I’ve actually worked since you’ve been here. I can often work when I get home after a fine dinner, noble wines, pumping the joy of living into me. Well—it doesn’t come out quite that way. But I’ve nearly finished a foul serial that I am sure will sell and that will keep us going. And as for this book I’m on, I’m sure I can sell it for $10,000 advance. We had a note about that today. It’s not sure—but you may have noticed our radiant expressions.’

But Anna said their expenses were much more than that.

When they parted, she warned them again and asked them to meet some friends of the family who were coming to Paris next week. Stephen bit his lips, but said they would give them a party and a dinner or two.

‘But we must work, Mother!’

‘Your cousin Cherry has the very best Washington connections. I don’t want you to get out of touch. You met a lot of good people while you were over this time. I know your illness prevented you from meeting all you might have met. You may need Cherry’s help, with this political fever over there. I want you to get back lost ground. I’ll do my best to help you, if you do your part. Cherry has always liked you, Stephen; and she’ll pull strings for you, when you need them. I know you did the right thing when you went to Washington. I have been told.’

When they went to the plane, Emily wept and clung to her mother-in-law and Olivia, kissed Fairfield, weeping, blessed and embraced and flattered them all and, as they began to leave for the plane, she kept crying out, ‘Love, my darlings.
A bientôt!
Oh, dear, it’s so long till next time. Goodby-ye.’

She turned to Stephen, dried her eyes and said, ‘Well, now—thank God that’s over. To market, to market to feed a fat pig. No more chasing, nor more dreary philistine tourist fun! Oy-oy! As the Greeks used to say. Oh, fooey on all families! Let’s have a celebration on our very own, Stephen, with Dale perhaps before he leaves, to take the taste out of my mouth and then I really must work. Like a dog. Our lives depend on it.’

They were very happy this evening. They left the servants and the children to take care of themselves. They were going to walk where they pleased, see what they liked. Stephen had a surprise in store for Emily; it would soon be her birthday. They were going to wash the family out of their system and not talk about anything of that sort—not about whether Christy was going to England next autumn, nor whether they themselves should take the family counsel and go to England too; and otherwise move to a small apartment; not worry about the Gaudeamus Press, not think about Emily’s commitments. They walked, they felt they could not get enough, the city was once more becoming their own, getting into their legs and eyes. They walked with arms embraced, they kissed just like other French couples.

‘How happy we are when t’other dear charmers are loin,’ said Emily.

Said Stephen, ‘It is for us and all; yes, my favourite city, except Vienna, Florence, New York, Rome and London, God help me. I wish I could live in Florence. It’s shabby and Paris is shabby. The women aren’t well dressed and the whole city spiritually is in the dumps. I know it’s just the neighbourhood of May Day, the Mur des Fédérés and the approach of July 14 and the strike spirit and the realization that they are not so crazy about American bathroom culture as we dreamed. Oh, well—let’s go to the Ritz or the Tour d’Argent. I am not going to cry for bedraggled Paris today. It would just stick in my throat.’

‘I feel free too, liberated. It’s awful the way for a family you must put on an act; and you can’t get out of it. I feel like a liar, a goddamn lickspittle and a spy, for I don’t agree with a word they say—except Dale of course. He’s the typical, educated, crafty Englishman. You pin him down and he’s over the hills and far away. And when it comes to that Fairfield, by golly, she sticks in my throat, a sharp-tongued, vain little enamelled puppet. I’m obliged to be nice to her, she doesn’t know any better, she’s your kin, she’s slated to marry Christy—oh, horrors,
horreur!
He’s none too bright, he’s backward, in fact, though who can say why? But to be tied for life to that bunch of paper frills—these picayune, dry, knowall babies we turn out—why, she won’t even let him touch her, I guess, and you can see cheap, prim flirtations in the turn of her nose; prim and dirty.’

‘Forget Christy and Fairfield and everyone. We said we would.’

They had a drink in a fashionable hotel. The cafes, now that they looked at them, were worn, dirty, spiritless, there was hardly any electricity, no cleaning, few customers, and those customers shabby. Some cafes were already shut up at the dinner hour. This Paris was not for them.

‘And yet all this is irrelevant, isn’t it?’ said Emily.

‘How?’

‘There’s Paris behind the scenes, marching embattled, tired, hungry, resentful and with a long, long memory. They’ve eaten crow and they won’t forgive it. The proud French! I love them. They don’t squeal, but they remember. I wouldn’t like to be on the dark tablets of their memory. Paris the wonderful, the Venus, the Astarte.’

But neither of them could walk as they had used to. Stephen still had a cane and had little strength. Emily, still roly-poly, was not strong either. Perhaps she had not eaten enough, or she had worked too hard.

‘I’m getting hungry, and we’re near Les Halles. Dale told us about a splendid little restaurant.’ They walked by the law courts, the
gendarmerie,
the flower markets, the Chatelet and the Hotel de Ville.

‘Here Blanqui stood that day, here people’s heads rolled in the gutter, people smothered in their own blood. You can’t live in Paris and be like we are and not be a red, can you?’

Stephen said, ‘No, lots of people have tried to go back on their life history, their perceptions and their dedication; and you can’t do it, tragedy or annihilation follows. They were scarred for life, there was a burning mark on their foreheads. You can’t go back. You passed the signpost and there’s no turning back.’

‘You frighten me. What do you mean? How cool it’s getting.’

‘We were dedicated,’ he said. He showed her a little plaque surrounded by humble bouquets, and some field flowers in a homemade bouquet on which was a handwritten card which said:
Iciest tombé pour la Patrie et pour le Liberation de Paris—

Stephen said, ‘Come on!’ But Emily was crying openly, suffocated with tears. She gasped, ‘I can’t speak, it’s so touching. It’s real. Oh, Stephen, I wish we could have done that and be no more; no more harassments.’

People were passing them, going home from work, poor Frenchmen in cloth sandals, toil-stained trousers, with sunk faces, tired eyes, a desperate expression. They walked on and Emily said, ‘You see, Paris stands no nonsense. It says, Here it is, the truth is evident. And passer-by, the truth of your life is evident.’

‘Let’s be gay, not miserable.’

He hailed a taxi and said ‘La Tour d’Argent.’

‘But you must have a table!’

‘Oh, I think they’ll take us in.’

It was all arranged. ‘You like it so much and I thought we would come here together when the others had gone; to celebrate and because you’re smart and we’ll sell your foul serial.’

‘Oh, my darling! Yes, it is my favourite, my dear beloved Tour d’Argent. We really have lots of things to celebrate and how I adore splendour. Ah, me, a weakness.’

‘A weakness that I adore. I have it too.’

The headwaiter came up, kissed Emily’s hands, saluted Stephen. The women, unlike those in the streets, were fashionably dressed. They had a table from which they could see Notre-Dame, and all the lights of Paris just coming on, and though dimmed, rich enough in the beautiful May evening. There were old furniture, a big fireplace, well-spaced tables, beautiful women, rich and canny men, ease, glitter, luxury; and the miseries of Paris, six storeys down, all forgotten.

They ate some shrimp, pressed duck, a special duck, their duck with their number on it. They rolled up the duck on a little cart (and Emily called it the ‘duck tumbril’) took it to the duck-press, and the duck-waiter carved it, pressed the bones, cooked the sauce, grilled parts of the duck—and with this they had
pommes soufflés,
a salad, two or three wines, and pancakes in caramel with hot cream and kirsch inside.

Said Emily, ‘I am floating! After Duclos takes power, crepes
flamandes
for the masses! Our battle-cry! Pressed ducks for the people. And this gent here with the lean, tense, haunted face, inspired and revolted at the same time by the near perfection of his sauce or the utter perfection of his duck, the triumph, the despair, he shall be head Duck Commissar; oh, certainly that is a thing that will happen in Red France.’

They looked at each other and laughed. Emily said, ‘If the people here knew what we thought! Supposing we told this respectable little man with his white collar and muttonchop whiskers that we are looking at him as a handpicked candidate for the guillotine!—and we look just like swinish, American Middle-West, luxury-bound two-cent rakehells. Oh, poor man!’

They looked with sympathy at the poor man who was with his well-dressed, plump wife, strangely cobwebbed with wrinkles, and two long-legged, long-haired modern daughters, all bent over their duck.

The waiter came and took away some crumbs, a cigarette butt.

‘What service!’ sighed Emily.

Stephen said, ‘The cigarette smell upsets the other diners. We ought to have some courtesy.’

‘Oh, I can’t when we’re so happy. The tumbrils will be here soon enough.’

They started to laugh, a little, much, wildly. Emily cried, choking, ‘Oh, if they only—in this setting, in this restaurant, knew what we thought!’

After a while, with the coffee and brandy, they began to talk about moving. They had better look around for a smaller, better place, with a garden or near to a park for Giles. Stephen said, ‘There is the parc Monceau, which I hate; there is the avenue Foch, too dear. I’ll go to an agency tomorrow. And no cellars in this one; no cellar workrooms for you.’

But Emily began to talk morbidly of their futures, if they had any; and whether they could keep on living in Paris, and what they would do, poor hunted creatures that no one wanted; and she began to complain of the cold. She was afraid to be out, like this, in a pressed, too-suffering city. Why were they here with these dreadful, heartless people? Let them go home!

‘I must go home, Stephen, I’m afraid: something will happen. I must get home and look at my work and sleep and sleep. I sleep so little. Let us go home.’

They went home. Emily went at once to her basement and after a while he heard her typing. He went down, told her to stop; but she said, Oh, no, now she was here she felt happy, she had a function, here she was herself, here she had freedom from all the fears.

T
IME PASSED. BUT THERE
came the old round of arguments, fierce disputes, savage accusations, regrets for folly which had seemed happiness once, casting up of accounts for things which had been only innocent joy at the time. She asked wildly, ‘I make $8,000 a year even in my worst years, Christy provided for—you have $12,000 a year—why are we broke? Why am I driven like this to slave so that I can’t sleep and need stimulants and doctors? Does Vittorio need a wife earning $8,000 a year? And yet Vittorio is not a hero: there are hundreds, thousands of men like him in Europe. He gave up all this to do what he’s doing.’