Short Stories: Five Decades (102 page)

“Was I in Egypt?” Beddoes stared at Christina, enjoying her face.

“That’s what it said in the papers.”

“Oh, yes,” Beddoes said. “A new world struggling to be born,” he said, his voice deep and expert. “Too late for feudalism, too early for democracy …”

Christina made a face. “Lovely phrases for the State Department archives,” she said. “I mean over a drink how is Egypt.”

“Sunny and sad,” Beddoes said. “After two weeks in Cairo you feel sorry for everybody. How is Paris?”

“Too late for democracy,” Christina said, “too early for feudalism.”

Beddoes grinned and leaned across the little table and kissed her gently. “I mean over a kiss,” he said, “how is Paris?”

“The same,” Christina said. She hesitated. “Almost the same.”

“Who’s around?”

“The group,” Christina said carelessly. “The usual happy exiles. Charles, Boris, Anne, Teddy …”

Teddy was the free-lance photographer. “You see much of him?” Beddoes asked, very lightly.

“Uh?” Christina smiled, just a little, at him.

“Merely checking.” Beddoes grinned.

“No, I haven’t,” Christina said. “His Greek’s in town.”

“Still the Greek?”

“Still the Greek,” Christina said.

The waiter came and placed the tea in front of her. She poured it into the cup and squeezed the lemon. She had long, competent fingers, and Beddoes noticed that she no longer used bright nail polish.

“Your hair,” he said. “What happened?”

Christina touched her hair absently. “Oh,” she said. “You noticed?”

“Where’re the blondes of yesteryear?”

“I decided to go natural.” Christina stirred her tea. “See what that was like for a change. Like it?”

“I haven’t decided yet. It’s longer, too.”

“Uh-huh. For the winter. The back of my neck was cold. People say it makes me look younger.”

“They’re absolutely right,” Beddoes said. “You now look exactly eleven.”

Christina smiled and lifted her cup to him. “To those who return,” she said.

“I don’t accept toasts in tea,” Beddoes said.

“You’re a finicky, liquor-loving man,” Christina said, and placidly sipped at her tea.

“Now,” Beddoes said, “the evening. I thought we might skip our dear friends and go to that place in the markets for dinner, because I’m dying for a steak, and after that—” He stopped. “What’s the matter? Can’t we have dinner together?”

“It’s not that, exactly.” Christina kept her head down and stirred her tea slowly. “I have a date—”

“Cancel him,” Beddoes said promptly. “Cancel the swine.”

“I can’t really.” Christina looked soberly up at him. “He’s coming to meet me here any minute now.”

“Oh.” Beddoes nodded. “That makes it different, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Can’t we shake him?”

“No,” Christina said. “We can’t shake him.”

“The man doesn’t live who can’t be shaken,” said Beddoes. “Old friend, you say, who just arrived from the horrors of the desert, just escaped dysentery and religious wars by the skin of his teeth, needs soothing, you say, and tender attention for his shattered nerves, et cetera.”

Christina was smiling, but shaking her head. “Sorry,” she said. “It can’t be done.”

“Want me to do it?” Beddoes said. “Man to man. See here, old fellow, we’re all grown-up, civilized human beings—That sort of thing?”

“No,” Christina said.

“Why not?” Beddoes asked, conscious that he was breaking a long-standing and until now jealously adhered-to rule about not pleading for anything. “Why can’t we?”

“Because I don’t want to,” Christina said.

“Oh,” said Beddoes. “The wind is in that direction.”

“Variably,” Christina said softly, “in that direction. We could all have dinner together. The three of us. He’s a very nice man. You’d like him.”

“I never like any man the first night I’m in Paris,” Beddoes said.

They sat in silence for a moment while Beddoes remembered all the times that Christina had said over the phone, “O.K., it’s sinful, but I’ll brush him. Meet you at eight.” It was hard to believe, sitting across from her, noticing that there was no obvious change in the way she looked at him, in the way she touched his hand, that she wouldn’t say it in the next minute or so.

“Two months is a long time, isn’t it?” Beddoes said. “In Paris?”

“No,” Christina said. “It’s not a long time. In Paris or anywhere else.”

“Hello, Christina.” It was a tall, rather heavy-set young man, smiling and blond, who was standing, holding a hat, next to the table. “I found the place all right.” He leaned over and kissed her forehead.

Beddoes stood up.

“Jack,” Christina said, “this is Walter Beddoes. John Haislip. Dr. Haislip.”

The two men shook hands.

“He’s a surgeon,” Christina said as Haislip gave his hat and coat to the attendant and sat down beside her. “He nearly had his picture in
Life
last year for something he did with kidneys. In thirty years he’s going to be enormously famous.”

Haislip chuckled. He was a big, placid, self-confident-looking man, with the air of an athlete, who was probably older than he looked. And just with one glance Beddoes could tell how the man felt about Christina. Haislip wasn’t hiding anything in that department.

“What’ll you drink, Doctor?” Beddoes asked.

“Lemonade, please.”

“
Un citron pressé,
” Beddoes said to the waiter. He peered curiously at Christina, but she was keeping her face straight.

“Jack doesn’t drink,” Christina said. “He says it isn’t fair for people who make a living out of cutting other people up.”

“When I retire,” Haislip said cheerfully, “I’m going to soak it up and let my hands shake like leaves in the wind.” He turned to Beddoes. You could tell that it took a conscious wrench for him to stop looking at Christina. “Did you have a good time in Egypt?” he asked.

“Oh,” Beddoes said, surprised. “You know about my being in Egypt?”

“Christina’s told me all about you,” Haislip said.

“I swore a solemn oath that I was going to forget Egypt for a month once I got here,” Beddoes said.

Haislip chuckled. He had a low, unforced laugh and his face was friendly and unself-conscious. “I know how you feel,” he said. “The same way I feel about the hospital sometimes.”

“Where is the hospital?” Beddoes asked.

“Seattle,” Christina said quickly.

“How long have you been here?” Beddoes saw Christina glance at him obliquely as he spoke.

“Three weeks,” said Haislip. He turned back toward Christina, as though he could find comfort in no other position. “The changes that can take place in three weeks. My Lord!” He patted Christina’s arm and chuckled again. “One more week and back to the hospital.”

“You here for fun or for business?” Beddoes asked, falling helplessly into the pattern of conversation of all Americans who meet each other abroad for the first time.

“A little of both,” Haislip said. “There was a conference of surgeons I was asked to attend, and I moseyed around a few hospitals on the side.”

“What do you think of French medicine now you’ve had a chance to see some of it?” Beddoes asked, the investigator within operating automatically.

“Well”—Haislip managed to look away from Christina for a moment—“they function differently from us over here. Intuitively. They don’t have the equipment we have, or the money for research, and they have to make up for it with insight and intuition.” He grinned. “If you’re feeling poorly, Mr. Beddoes,” he said, “don’t hesitate to put yourself in their hands. You’ll do just about as well here as anyplace else.”

“I feel all right,” Beddoes said, then felt that it had been an idiotic thing to say. The conversation was beginning to make him uncomfortable, not because of anything that had been said but because of the way the man kept looking, so openly and confessingly and completely, at Christina. There was a little pause and Beddoes had the feeling that unless he jumped in, they would sit in silence forever. “Do any sightseeing?” he asked lamely.

“Not as much as I’d like,” Haislip said. “Just around Paris. I’d’ve loved to go down south this time of the year. That place Christina keeps talking about. St. Paul de Vence. I guess that’s about as different from Seattle as a man could wish for and still get running water and Christian nourishment. You’ve been there, haven’t you, Mr. Beddoes?”

“Yes,” Beddoes said.

“Christina told me,” said Haislip. “Oh, thank you,” he said to the waiter who put the lemonade down in front of him.

Beddoes stared at Christina. They had spent a week together there early in the autumn. He wondered what, exactly, she had told the Doctor.

“We’ll make it the next trip,” Haislip said.

“Oh,” said Beddoes, noting the “we” and wondering whom it included. “You planning to come over again soon?”

“In three years.” Haislip carefully extracted the ice from his lemonade and put it on the saucer. “I figure I can get away for six weeks in the summer every three years. People don’t get so sick in the summertime.” He stood up. “Pardon me,” he said, “but I have to make a couple of telephone calls.”

“Downstairs and to the right,” Christina said. “The woman’ll put the calls through for you. She speaks English.”

Haislip laughed. “Christina doesn’t trust my French,” he said. “She says it’s the only recognizable Puget Sound accent that has ever been imposed upon the language.” He started away from the table, then stopped. “I sincerely hope you’ll be able to join us for dinner, Mr. Beddoes.”

“Well,” Beddoes said, “I made a tentative promise I’d meet some people. But I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good.” Haislip touched Christina’s shoulder lightly, as though for some obscure reassurance, and walked away between the tables.

Beddoes watched him, thinking unpleasantly, Well, one thing, I’m better-looking, anyway. Then he turned to Christina. She was stirring the tea leaves at the bottom of her cup absently with her spoon. “That’s why the hair is long and natural,” Beddoes said. “Isn’t it?”

“That’s why.” Christina kept stirring the tea leaves.

“And the nail polish.”

“And the nail polish.”

“And the tea.”

“And the tea.”

“What did you tell him about St. Paul de Vence?”

“Everything.”

“Look up from that damned cup.”

Slowly Christina put down the spoon and raised her head. Her eyes were glistening, but not enough to make anything of it, and her mouth was set, as with an effort.

“What do you mean by everything?” Beddoes demanded.

“Everything.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t have to hide anything from him.”

“How long have you known him?”

“You heard,” Christina said. “Three weeks. A friend of mine in New York asked him to look me up.”

“What are you going to do with him?”

Christina looked directly into his eyes. “I’m going to marry him next week and I’m going back to Seattle with him.”

“And you’ll come back here three years from now for six weeks in the summer-time, because people don’t get so sick in the summertime,” Beddoes said.

“Exactly.”

“And that’s O.K.?”

“Yes.”

“You said that too defiantly,” Beddoes said.

“Don’t be clever with me,” Christina said harshly. “I’m through with all that.”

“Waiter!” Beddoes called. “Bring me a whiskey, please.” He said it in English, because for the moment he had forgotten where he was. “And you,” he said to Christina. “For the love of God, have a drink.”

“Another tea,” Christina said.

“Yes, Madame,” said the waiter, and went off.

“Will you answer some questions?” Beddoes asked.

“Yes.”

“Do I rate straight answers?”

“Yes.”

Beddoes took a deep breath and looked through the window. A man in a raincoat was walking past, reading a newspaper and shaking his head.

“All right,” Beddoes said. “What’s so great about him?”

“What can I be expected to say to that?” Christina asked. “He’s a gentle, good, useful man. And now what do you know?”

“What else?”

“And he loves me.” She said it in a low voice. In all the time they’d been together, Beddoes hadn’t heard her use the word before. “He loves me,” Christina repeated flatly.

“I saw,” said Beddoes. “Immoderately.”

“Immoderately,” Christina said.

“Now let me ask another question,” Beddoes said. “Would you like to get up from this table and go off with me tonight?”

Christina pushed her cup away, turning it thoughtfully. “Yes,” she said.

“But you won’t,” said Beddoes.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Let’s talk about something else,” said Christina. “Where’re you going on your next trip? Kenya? Bonn? Tokyo?”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m tired of people like you,” Christina said clearly. “I’m tired of correspondents and pilots and promising junior statesmen. I’m tired of all the brilliant young men who are constantly going someplace to report a revolution or negotiate a treaty or die in a war. I’m tired of airports and I’m tired of seeing people off. I’m tired of not being allowed to cry until the plane gets off the ground. I’m tired of being so damned prompt. I’m tired of answering the telephone. I’m tired of all the spoiled, hung-over international darlings. I’m tired of sitting down to dinner with people I used to love and being polite to their Greeks. I’m tired of being handed around the group. I’m tired of being more in love with people than they are with me. That answer your question?”

“More or less,” Beddoes said. He was surprised that no one at any of the other tables seemed to be paying any special attention to them.

“When you left for Egypt,” Christina went on, her voice level, “I decided. I leaned against that wire fence watching them refueling all those monstrous planes, with the lights on, and I dried the tears and I decided. The next time, it was going to be someone who would be shattered when
I
took off.”

“And you found him.”

“I found him,” Christina said flatly. “And I’m not going to shatter him.”

Beddoes put out his hands and took hers. They lay limp in his grasp. “Chris …” he said. She was looking out the window. She sat there, outlined against the shining dusk beyond the plate glass, scrubbed and youthful and implacable, making him remember, confusedly, the first time he had met her, and all the best girls he had ever known, and what she had looked like next to him in the early-morning autumnal sunlight that streamed, only three months before, into the hotel room in the south, which overlooked the brown minor Alps and the distant sea. Holding her hands, with the familiar touch of the girlish fingers against his, he felt that if he could get her to turn her head everything would be different.