Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone (19 page)

“What happened?” I asked.

“Oh,” she said wearily, and looked at Barbara, “what happened? They don't know what they're doing, that's
what happened. That's what's been happening ever since I joined this bullshit outfit.” Giuliano brought her her drink and she smiled at him again. She sipped it. “Let's not talk about it—at least not until I've finished my drink and had something to eat.” She looked at me and smiled her really quite disarming smile. “One of these days, baby,” she said to me, “you'll maybe wish you'd stayed in the post office.”

I smiled. “Or the church. But they both threw me out.”

“And how'd that happen?” Jerry asked, grinning.

“He just couldn't deliver the messages,” Barbara said, and she looked at me and we all laughed.

Giuliano now returned to ask us, most politely, if the lady were going to eat, and, if she were, if we wished to wait for her or begin before her.

“What do you want to eat, Madeleine?” Barbara asked. “
We've
just ordered the biggest pizza in the house.”

“Well, may I share your pizza?” Madeleine asked. “I need company much more than I need food.” She looked quickly from Jerry to Barbara, and then leaned forward to Barbara. “Sugar—I know they pay me more than they pay you—and I've crashed your party—so please let me pick up the tab.” She looked at Jerry and then at me. “If you won't let me do it, then I'll have to go. And I don't want to go.”

Giuliano stood listening to this with a face as closed as a wall. Jerry was aware of Giuliano and Barbara was aware of Jerry. Therefore, she leaned forward and grabbed both of Madeleine's hands, and said, “Actually, we were just waiting for someone like you to come along, Madeleine. We haven't got a dime between us.” After a
second, Madeleine threw back her head and laughed, and Barbara laughed. Giuliano smiled, and Jerry informed him, in Italian, that the pizza was now to be divided among four instead of among three. Giuliano gave Madeleine a look very different from that which his father had given her, and bowed, and walked away. But he had also thrown a look at me, a look of adolescent envy. He was sure that Madeleine was my girl—or, rather, my woman; and he was sure that such a woman, though, of course, one could never marry her, must be wonderful to sleep with. Jerry, following a different route, had arrived at essentially the same point of view.

“Here's hoping your prayers will be answered,” he said, and raised his glass and winked at me.

“Is Leo still saying his prayers?” Madeleine asked. She turned to me. “I thought you were emancipated.”

“I am,” I said, “but Jerry isn't. He's been burning candles for me.”

“Is there something,” asked Madeleine, “that you need that you don't have?” We all laughed. “Until I met Leo,” Madeleine said to Barbara, “I never knew that a colored person could blush. But look at Leo!”

“Oh, Leo can blush,” Barbara said gravely, “but he hates anybody to notice it. He thinks that if you know he can blush—just like white folks—you'll think he's just ordinary.”

I protested, “I never said anything like that, and you know it.”

“Leo also thinks,” said Barbara, still speaking to Madeleine, “that unless he tells you, you can't tell.”

“Poor Leo!” Jerry said. “Barbara's been on his ass all afternoon.”

“She's mad at me,” I said, “about that goddamn
scene. But I swear I don't see any point in working on it tonight. I
meant
what I said. I've got to find out what I'm
doing.
” She said nothing. She watched me. “All right,” I said, “all right: Maybe we'll work on it after supper. Okay, princess?” And she dropped her eyes.

“What scene are you two working on?” Madeleine asked.

I told her. “We've been working on it for a long time. But Saul's supposed to look at it and he hasn't looked at it yet—and—well, you know, I just feel like we're going round and round in a circle. Somebody's
got
to tell me something.”

“Well, Saul can tell you
some
things,” said Madeleine. She paused and sipped her drink. “I don't know. I used to think much more of him than I
think
I think right now.” She looked at Barbara, then at me. “I'm not sure he can tell you the most important things.”

“Well, can
any
director do that?” Barbara asked.

“In the first place,” said Madeleine, “let's face it, Saul is
not
a director. He's a teacher. That's a mighty funny breed of cat, especially in the theater. Some people think he's a great teacher. Some people think he's a lousy teacher.” She paused. “I don't want to say anything to discourage either of you two lambs—let's put it this way: So-and-so may be a great director for
you
and a lousy director for me. If a director can reach you, if you trust him, then he can probably direct you, and maybe get things out of you which nobody knew were there—which
you
didn't know were there.” She looked at me again; I knew she was not saying all she meant; I began to suspect that I knew what she meant. “Look. Let's leave actors out of it for the moment. How many directors can direct Chekhov, for example? For that matter, not many can
direct Ibsen or Shaw or Shakespeare, and of that few”—she laughed, and took another swallow of her drink—“
none
are to be found at The Actors' Means Workshop.”

“But we don't, mainly,” Barbara said, “
play
Ibsen or Shaw or Shakespeare in this country.”

“Well,” said Madeleine, and threw up her hands again, “that's why directors direct what they direct, isn't it? It's not their fault. But I wouldn't expect too much from any of them, if I were you. But I'm talking too much.”

“No,” said Barbara, “I see your point.” She looked astonishingly grave, even weary; then, after a moment, “Can't we change that?” she asked. She looked very hard at Madeleine, as though, with that look, she intended to convey to Madeleine a question beneath her question.

“
Can
we?” asked Madeleine. She leaned forward. “Look. I've got a daughter and she's got to eat. You don't think I think I'm doing a masterpiece, do you? No, sugar. I needed a job. It's the lead, and I think I can make something out of the part. If I can, I'll get better jobs. I might even appear in a couple of really good productions of really good plays. But, mainly, you take what you can get.”

“You take what you can get,” Barbara said, “but, then, when you've taken it, you can make it do what you want.”

“
Can
you?” asked Madeleine.

There was a pause. Barbara finished her drink.

“
I
can,” said Barbara.

Giuliano came, with the pizza.

“Let's celebrate,” said Madeleine, “and have a bottle of Chianti.”

“Baby,” I said, “you had
better
be good in this play. You're going to need another job right quick.”

“I'm going to be splendid,” she said, “in
spite
of Rags Roland.
And
Madame Lola
Sans Gêne.
The hell with it. If I hadn't run into you kids, I'd probably have ended up in that river they've got howling over yonder.”

Giuliano began cutting up the pizza, and, while he was doing this, two young Negro laborers came into the place.

I say they were young—they were both somewhat older than I; than I was then. One was perhaps about thirty, chunky, dark, and cheerful. And I say laborers, but, actually, the younger, not far into his twenties, impressed me as being a soldier, for I remember that he was dressed in khaki. He was lean, light brown, long, and shy, with a narrow face. I had seen the chunky one before, on the Negro side of town, in a bar, but he had not spoken to me and I had not known how to speak to him. But I had not seen the younger one before, and something in his manner—the particular manner of his diffidence—made me decide that he was a stranger here. I suppose I mean that the older one, the chunky, cheerful one, was accustomed to being uneasy, and sailed into it, smiling, as into the wind of his life, whereas the younger, stiff and silent, was only beginning to be aware of the chill. Here they were, here they came, and the elder, with that ready smile, and with all those lighthouse teeth, piloted the young one to a table—a table three tables from us. Jerry and Barbara were facing Madeleine and me; we certainly looked like a unit. Besides, I was already notorious, because, in complete innocence, like a foreigner outrageously overtipping in a desperate nation, I had disrupted the town's emotional economy. I had not known,
after all, and could not have, what it would be like to deal with such a town, and there was absolutely no possibility that I could accept, much less survive, on such terms. But if it was vivid to me that they
had,
it was equally vivid to them that I hadn't—either because I knew more or because I knew less; either because I wouldn't or because I couldn't; either because I despised my color or because I didn't. We desperately wished to get to the root of the matter, but we did not know how to begin. Here I was, sitting with three white people—or, rather, with two white women. I could not leave my table and go to theirs. They could not leave their table and come to ours—or, rather, in this context, mine. We could not do what we wished to do, which was simply to be easy with each other. No: there we sat, under the eyes of the observant and bewildered Sicilians, studiously ignoring each other, the chunky, black, cheerful cat giving the order, the lanky, lean, brown cat looking down, with his hands between his knees. For a moment, I hated all of my companions, for whom, as I supposed, nothing had happened. We were all concentrating on our pizza and our wine.

“Actually,” Madeleine said abruptly, “I'm not sure I really go for all this Actors' Means bullshit, anyway. I mean, I'm not sure an actor
can
be taught, or
should
be taught.”

“Then how do you learn?” I asked. I had one eye on the laborers; I was making a certain resolution.

“Leo,” she said, “I think you'll learn more by going out and falling flat on your ass in front of five hundred people than you'll ever learn from Saul. Believe me.”

“But how,” asked Barbara, “do you get the
chance
to fall flat on your ass before five hundred people?”

“Oh, well, there I agree,” said Madeleine, “the Workshop label helps. That's because everybody else is as full of shit as they are. But, baby, that's just politics—it's a way of getting a job.”

Barbara was silent. I watched the laborers. They were drinking rye and water. The darker one was laughing and talking—easily and slowly, even intimately, but absolutely onstage. The light had hit him early—that unspeakable light; he would be onstage until the day he died. And the proof of his authority was that the young one, uneasily, chuckled, with his head down. “Now,” the black one was saying, “you can't find a better black broad than my old lady—you see what I mean? She is a champ, baby. I mean, she is a
champ.
But even
she
is started to go for the jive. You see what I mean? She want me to keep working my ass off so she can get to look like Rita Hayworth.” And he looked wisely at the young one, who was watching him carefully, his drink held in both hands before his face, and then turned carelessly, laughing, away, showing us all his teeth.

“You make it sound pretty depressing,” Barbara said.

“The truth usually is pretty depressing, Barbara,” Jerry said. “You know that.”

“Yes. I know that.” She smiled. “I know a hell of a lot, really—but I don't seem to understand very much.”

I laughed. “Be careful, Madeleine. She's cracking up.”

“Stop teasing her.” She leaned forward and tapped Barbara lightly on the cheek. “You're very nice.”

“I think you're very nice, too,” Barbara said.

They were finishing their drinks. I gestured to Giuliano.

“Please,” I told him, “buy the two colored cats over there a drink for me? Just take it to them.”

Giuliano smiled, and nodded, and left. Jerry and Barbara and Madeleine looked at me.

“Oh! Here we
go!
” said Madeleine.

“Pretty reckless,” said Barbara, smiling, “pretty reckless.” But she seemed pleased. “Do you know them?”

“No. But I thought we might as well get to know each other. Only”—I said to Madeleine—“I might have to borrow a couple of bucks from you till I get paid.”

Madeleine slapped me on the thigh. “Don't worry about it,” she said. And her hand rested on my thigh for a second.

“What made you do that?” Jerry asked. He looked amused.

“I don't know. I just felt like it.”

Giuliano brought the drinks to their table. I concentrated on my pizza. They looked bewildered for a second. Giuliano pointed to our table, and they turned and looked at us. I raised my glass of wine. Barbara and Jerry and Madeleine raised theirs. We were all smiling. Everything, suddenly, had changed. If we had not broken through to each other, at least we had managed to accept each other's presence. The boy was still very shy, but very pleased, and the older man glowed; partly because we had helped to please his boy.

“Hello,” I said.

They said, “Hello. Thank you.”

“Let's have a drink together,” Madeleine said, “after we finish eating?”

The young one said, shyly, after a glance at the older one, “That's fine with me.”

“Only, it's got to be on us,” said his mentor.

“We'll fight about that later,” Jerry said. We all laughed. We raised our glasses again. “Cheers!”

Perhaps my heart shook in my chest like the wings of a small bird, but I was incredibly happy not to have been rejected. I was happy enough, I realized, to be on the point of tears. Barbara and Madeleine began gossiping about the theater. Three tables away, they resumed their talk about women. Giuliano came up to Jerry and they had a quick conversation in Italian. Giuliano went away. Jerry looked at me.