Marjorie Morningstar (92 page)

“Just a minute, what’s the exact situation here?” Marjorie said. “Is it to be just
the two of us having dinner in the apartment? What about your—your landlady? Is this
whole apartment yours, or what?”

“My landlady?
Damn
my landlady,” Noel said, viciously whacking an onion in two with a long knife. “Just
don’t worry about my landlady. I can always kick her down the stairs if she makes
any trouble. I’ve been yearning to do it for some time anyhow.”

Marjorie came to him and took from his hands the knife and the piece of onion he was
peeling. “Look, if there’s going to be any unpleasantness, it’s absolutely ridiculous
for us to stay here. It’s the simplest thing in the world for us to go out.”

“Darling, don’t worry, I’m not exposing a frail flower like you to a Parisian squabble.
It’s perfectly all right, she’s going out for dinner. That was her on the phone.”
He gulped the rest of his drink, and took back the knife and the onion. “Don’t get
those pale hands I love all onion-smelling. What made me mad was that she was supposed
to come home and bring a guest for dinner, a novelist, a little creep from Marseille
who just won some prize or other. I spent two hours shopping, and then she calmly
tells me she’s eating out with him. Not that I give a damn, you understand. I just
get a little bored with this last-minute stuff. Especially from her. She’s so bloody
unfeminine she can’t butter a piece of toast for herself. For all she knows, I could
have an elaborate dinner for three on the stove right now. If you hadn’t turned up
that’s exactly what would have happened. It’s just too boring.”

He was deftly dismembering the chicken, using his crooked arm to hold it while he
plied the knife with the other. Marjorie said after a silence, “She’s not just your
landlady, I gather.”

He glanced at her and laughed, one corner of his mouth pulled down. “I’ve never kidded
you, have I? That’s why I wish to God you’d come a week later. I’m fed up to the teeth
with Gerda Oberman, and if it’s any comfort to you I haven’t laid a hand on her in
six or seven weeks. That’s at the bottom of all this feeble baiting, of course, but
a fat lot of good it will do her. I couldn’t care less what Gertie says, thinks, or
does. She could have an affair with a leprous Chinaman at high noon in the middle
of the Place de la Concorde. I’d just stand by and cheer. This time next week I’ll
be out of here, bag and baggage. The fact is, I’ve been thinking of going to the Mozart
myself. Wouldn’t that be cosy, dear?—Christ, get that disapproving look off your face,
Gerda has simply been a convenience. The fact is she actually started out as my landlady.
It couldn’t have been more platonic. I was to have the living room to myself and one
bedroom. I was paying her, and paying a damn good rent, too. But of course all she
ever had in mind when she offered the place to me was my fair white body, that soon
became obvious. What do you do when you’re behind on your rent and broke, and your
landlady comes creeping into your room making fond little noises? Believe me, I’ve
kept it as antiseptic as possible, Margie, I’ve been dry, distant, cold, you can’t
imagine how cold I’ve been. That’s actually why I’ve been doing the cooking. From
my viewpoint I’m more than contributing my share to the ménage and I can be as distant
with her as I damn please. What’s the difference whether the man owns the apartment
and the woman cooks or the other way around? It’s all convention. I happen to be a
mighty good cook and I enjoy doing it, and from my viewpoint I’m completely independent
here. Gertie’s put on twenty pounds from my cooking. Not that that’s been so good
for her, she’s a Big Bertha to start with, but it does show that she’s been getting
value for her two ratty rooms. I don’t think she’s eaten so well since she was born.
Do have another drink.”

“I don’t want another drink, thank you,” Marjorie said. “Is she a German?”

“Gertie? Can’t you tell that from the picture?”

“Doesn’t that make you feel queer, Noel?”

“What?”

“Being with a German woman.”

He was dropping the legs and bony fragments of the chicken into a pan. He paused,
a blood-streaked leg in his hand, looking at her. “Why should it?”

“Well, I mean, nowadays—with the Nazis and all—”

“Why, Gerda’s no Nazi. She’s just a smart businesswoman, as a matter of fact I think
she’s got French citizenship or is going to get it. She knows I’m Jewish. She doesn’t
object to me at all, that’s very plain.”

“I just thought you might object to her.”

He looked at her quizzically. “That sounds a bit like Mike Eden.”

“Does it?”

“Yes, indeed. Since when are you so internationally minded, baby? I’m not solving
the problems of civilization in my private life, thank you. Gerda’s just an individual,
and I’m just an individual, so… Gad, look at that stony face. Mike’s been at you all
right. Bless you, darling, don’t you know that Mike Eden’s completely rabid on that
subject? He’s Dr. Goebbels turned inside out, nothing more or less. I can’t understand
him, he’s not even a Jew. I told him he ought to see a psychiatrist. I’ve never encountered
such pathological hatred. He’s a three-dollar bill, that man. Well-read and sharp
and all that, but there’s something dead, something icy about him, isn’t there? How
well did you get to know him?”

“Well, a shipboard acquaintance, that’s all.”

“Where is he now? Where was he going?”

“I don’t know. Germany, I think.”

“Well, I can tell you a hell of a lot about Mike Eden. I drove all over Europe with
that guy. That’s when you really get to know a person, not when you’re lapped in luxury
on the
Queen Mary
. However—” He paused in sprinkling a splintery dry herb on the yellow poultry pieces.
“See? Rosemary. Madness to put it on a chicken, some say, but not the way I surround
and neutralize it. It’s an Airman secret. Rosemary, you know, is an emblem of constancy.
I think it very much belongs in this little reunion dinner, don’t you? Not for me,
but for you. I’m more moved than I can say, Margie, at your turning up. Somehow I
always thought you would, too. I only wish—Well, hell.” He jerkily shook other spices
on the dismembered fowl, black, red, brown. “I seem to be running on like a phonograph,
when what I really want is to hear all about you. Covering my embarrassment, no doubt.
Do I really look too horrible, Margie? Bald dried-out leathery bag of bones?”

“Nonsense. You look quite all right, Noel, it’s just—well, it’s obvious that you’ve
been sick. What on earth were you doing in Casablanca?”

“Oh, that’s another story, and a real tedious one. Hell with it. I need only tell
you I was abandoned like a dying dog by some gay companions as soon as I took sick,
or the illness would never have gotten so out of hand—I’ve about had my fill of the
carefree charming romantic people that float around Europe, Marjorie, these Noel Coward
and Hemingway characters. They’re all selfish boors at bottom. Perpetual children,
life’s got to go on being all champagne and sunshine and oh so jolly madness, and
as soon as any cloud comes up, any faint suggestion of responsibility or disagreeableness,
they’re off in a cloud of dust, and you can rot for all they care—Where the devil
is that copper pan?” He crouched at a low cupboard, banging pots and pans around.
“I suppose I’ve been one of them myself in my time but believe me that phase is over,
and thank God for that. I’ve changed, Margie, you’ll soon realize how much I’ve changed.
I’ve been thinking an awful lot about you lately. That bastardly letter I wrote—the
way I decamped—pretty awful—but it had to be, sweetheart. I’d have been false to myself
if I’d acted any other way. I had to have my last rebellion, I had to run off to Paris
and get my bellyful. Now I’ve had it, all right. I really have.”

“That’s good.”

“I couldn’t be more serious, Marge. This whole year has been therapeutic for me, decisively
so. I’m not even sorry, really, about my illness in Casablanca, though when I took
my first look in a mirror after I got up out of bed I wanted to cut my throat. But
it did me good to have such a scare. Believe me, I did plenty of thinking in those
starch baths between delirious spells—mainly about you, Marjorie—and that thinking
has stayed with me. It’s not a case of the devil was sick, the devil a monk would
be.” He was browning the chicken pieces in a saucepan. He stirred them here and there,
crackling and sizzling. “Smells good, eh?”

“Marvelous.”

“This is nothing. Wait—the fact is, I moved into this apartment with the best of intentions.
I’ve been doing masses of work, I really have. I bitterly resented Gerda Oberman’s
crawling into my life at this particular point. If I’d had a little more character
I’d have left instantly, I guess, but building up moral purpose is a slow process,
Marjorie. Anyway, Gerda is and has always been so meaningless to me as a woman that
it hardly seemed to count. And, unfortunately, moral purpose doesn’t go too well with
being stone broke, so—”

“What kind of work have you been doing, Noel?”

“No, ma’am, I’m not going to say another word about myself until I hear some more
about you. Christ, you must think I’ve become a total egomaniac, whereas the very
reverse is the case—There.” He took the sizzling saucepan off the burner, and carefully
poured red wine over the chicken. “Everything’s set, for the time being. Let’s let
it simmer and go inside for a while, shall we? This is a goddamn telephone booth—
Please
take another drink.”

“All right, just don’t make it half scotch and half water. You don’t have to get me
drunk, you know.”

He threw back his head and laughed. “Alcohol’s a great softener of ugly lines and
sharp edges, that’s all—”

“Noel, if you think I’m terribly shocked or put out you’re really mistaken. I know
you so well. And I’m getting to be rather an old lady—”

“Don’t fish, sweetheart. You know you still look seventeen.”

“Yes? Well, I’ve been plucking gray hairs lately, all the same.”

“Shut up! What does that make me? I’ll throw myself out of the window in a minute.
Come on, here’s your drink. What’s been happening to you for a year besides sprouting
premature gray hairs? What happened to Guy Flamm’s play?” He took off the apron and
his tie. “Whew. Hot. I’ll get formal again for dinner, okay? Come in the living room.”

She told him the story of the past year, describing her sufferings frankly, without
dwelling on them. He was amused by the Flamm fiasco, gloomy and troubled by her account
of her illnesses and long despair. He slouched lower and lower in the green armchair.
He said at one point, “You’re making me feel like an absolute hound. If it’ll cheer
you up any let me assure you I’ve been punished. More than punished. I’ve never passed
a filthier year myself, it’s been my Gethsemane—”

“Darling, I’m not trying to make you feel bad. You asked me to tell you all this.”

“That’s right. Go on. I want to know everything, it’s important that I know.”

When she stopped talking he sat slouched for several minutes, silent, his face drawn
under the rosy tan. In his shirtsleeves he looked thinner and frailer than before.
He sighed, got up and walked to the piano, and sat rippling chords. “We’ve really
given each other hell, haven’t we, Marjorie?”

“Yes, we have, Noel.”

“However, there have been wonderful times, too.”

“Yes, that’s so.”

He played a tune she hadn’t heard before, a wistful tinkling ballad. “Like it?”

“Something new? I do like it.”

“Ferdie Platt is nuts about it. I wrote it one night thinking about you, to tell you
the truth. He thinks it can be another
Stormy Weather
. He doesn’t like my lyric. He’s writing a new one.”

“Is he here?”

“No, he’s in Hollywood. I mailed the lead sheet to him with a batch of other stuff
a month or so ago, just for the hell of it—”

“Is that the work you’ve been doing? Songwriting?”

He caught the note of disappointment. “Not at all. I’ve just filled idle moments that
way.” He came and sat beside her on the sofa, taking her hand. “You worked for a year,
saving, scrimping, just to track me down, and make me make an honest woman of you.”

“Something like that, yes.”

He was silent for a moment. He shook his head. “You’re wonderful, really you are.
You’re a sweet breath of fresh air from the United States. You make me feel homesick
as hell.” They looked straight into each other’s eyes. “However, let’s not kick around
such heavy issues before dinner, eh? What are your plans? How long are you going to
be over here?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Have you been to Venice?”

“No.”

“Don’t miss Venice. Maybe we’ll go down together.”

“Haven’t you just come back from there?”

“What’s the difference? I love it, I never tire of it. Would you like that?”

“How is it you went to Venice if you’re so broke, Noel?”

“Oh, that.” He walked to a cigarette box, lit one, and slumped in the green chair
again, almost directly under the hideous blue and orange chandelier. “You may as well
know all. Ferdie got so steamed up over that song, and a couple of others, that he
sent me some money to come home with. We were supposed to meet in New York and work
for a solid six weeks, and then I’d come back to Paris. That was the idea, and I fully
intended to do it. I still do, for that matter. But—well, it’s all hopelessly involved,
but the gist of it is that two weeks ago I had a terrific row with Gertie, a real
total blowup, over the same damn thing, money, she’s a revolting miser, fights over
butcher bills, et cetera—and just at that point Ferdie’s money arrived, and simultaneously
Bob and Elaine blew into town from Florence, the same pair that abandoned me in Casablanca,
with Mildred Wills. I wrote you about Mildred. She’s the divorcee from Cleveland with
all the money—Well, the long and short of it is, if I have one weakness it’s that
I’m a forgiving fool. They were all clamoring for a reconciliation, a lovely holiday
in Venice, the four musketeers together again, and strictly because I’d had this brawl
with Gerda and my nerves were so jangled I fell for it, as though I didn’t know those
three hysterical nitwits through and through by now. It was a lapse, but my last one,
I swear. There had to be a last one. They really nailed the lid down on the coffin
of my gilded youth, those three. We went to a garden party, and Bob came on Elaine
out in the bushes with some slimy Argentinian, her dress half off, and he broke a
plaster statue over the man’s head and beat Elaine to a bloody pulp, and she did a
pretty good job of marking him up in the meantime, smashing him in the face with her
shoe—”