The collected stories (17 page)

On Friday, Undershaw rang him at ten-thirty, moments before Harper, who had started sleeping late - it was boredom - was preparing to leave his hotel room. Undershaw said he had been out of town, but this was not an apology.

Tve come for the merchandise,' said Harper. He wanted to say, Yve wasted a week hanging around for you to appear. He said, 'I'd like to pick up the bundle today.'

'Out of the question.'

Harper tried to press him, but gently: the matter was illegal.

Undershaw said, 'These things take time. I won't be able to do much before next week.'

'Monday?'

'I can't be that definite,' said Undershaw. 'I'll leave a message at your hotel.'

No, thought Harper. But he could not protest. He was a courier, no more than that. Undershaw did not owe him any explanation.

Harper had come to the city with one task to perform, and as he had yet to perform it his imagination wouldn't work. He had concentrated his mind on this one thing; thwarted, he could think of nothing else. He was on the hook. His boss had sent him here to hang. Paris seemed very small.

Waiting in Paris reminded Harper of his childhood, which was a jumpy feeling of interminable helplessness. And childhood was another country, too, one governed like this by secretive people who would not explain their schemes to him. He had suspected as a child that there were rules he did not know. In adulthood he learned that there were no particular rules, only arbitrary courtesies. Children were not important, because they had no power and no menace: it took a man twenty-eight years to realize that. You wait; but perhaps it is better, less humiliating, if people don't know you're waiting. Children were ignorant. The strength of adulthood lay in being dignified enough not to expose this

WORLD S END

impatience. It was worse for women. Now Harper could say to his wife: / know how you feel.

The weekend was dreary. Sunday in a Catholic country punished atheists by pushing them into the empty streets. Harper felt unwelcome. He did not know a soul except Bumgarner, who was smug and lucky and probably in bed with his 'mistress' - the poet from Colorado would have used that silly word. Harper lay on his bed alone, studying the repetitions in the patterned wallpaper, and it struck him that it is the loneliest traveler who remembers his hotel wallpaper. He was exhausted by inaction; he wanted to go home.

He had been willing to offer the city everything. There were no takers. He thought: All travelers are like aging women, now homely beauties; the strange land flirts, then jilts and makes a fool of the stranger. There is less risk, at home, in making a jackass of yourself: you know the rules there. The answer is to be ladylike about it and maintain your dignity. But he knew as he thought this that he was denying himself the calculated risks that might bring him romance and a memory to carry away. There was no hell like a stranger's Sunday.

I'll leave a message at your hotel, Undershaw had said. That was a command. So Harper loitered in the hotel on Monday, and when he was assailed by the sense that he was lurking he went out and bought a Herald-Tribune; then he felt truant. At five there was no message. He decided to go for a walk, and soon he discovered himself to be walking fast toward Undershaw's office.

'He is not here,' the secretary said. She knew before he opened his mouth what Harper wanted.

To cover his embarrassment, Harper said, 'I knew he wasn't here. I just came to say hello.'

The girl smiled. She began to cram papers and envelopes and keys into her handbag.

'I thought you might want a drink,' said Harper, surprising himself at his invention.

The girl tilted her head and shrugged: it was neither yes nor no. She picked up her coat and switched off the lights as she walked to the door. Still, Harper was not sure what all this meant, until with resignation she said, 'We go. 1

At the bar - she chose it; he would never have found it in that alley - she told him her name was Claire.

"4

PORTRAIT OF A LADY

Harper began describing the emptiness he had felt on Sunday, how the only thing it was possible to do was go to church.

Claire said, 'I do not go to church.'

'At least we've got that in common.'

A man in the bar was reading a newspaper; the headline spoke of an election. Harper mentioned this.

Claire thrust forward her lower lip and said, 'I am an anarchist.' She pronounced the word anarsheest.

'Does that mean you don't take sugar?' Harper playfully moved the sugar bowl to one side as she stirred her coffee.

She said, 'You have a ring.' She tapped it with a pretty finger. 'Are you married?'

Harper nodded and made a private vow that he would not deceive his wife.

She said, 'How is it possible to be married?'

'I know,' Harper said. 'You don't know anyone who's happily married. Right? But how many single people are happy?'

'Americans think happiness is so important.'

'What do the French think is important?'

'Money. Clothes. Sex. That is why we are always so sad.'

'Always?'

'We have no humor,' she said, proving it in her solemn tone of voice. 'We are - how do you say - melancholiqueV

And Harper, who knew almost no French, translated the word. Then he complimented her on her English. Claire said that she had lived for two years in London, with an English family.

He wanted her to drink. She said she only drank wine, and that with meals. He took her to a restaurant - again she chose: a narrow noisy room. Why did they all look like ticket offices? Harper stared at the young men and women in the restaurant. The men had close-cropped hair and earrings, the women were white-faced and smoked cigarettes over their food. Harper said, 'There's something about this place.'

Claire smiled briefly.

'That guy in the corner,' Harper said. 'He's gay.' Claire squinted at Harper. 'A pederast.'

Claire glanced at the man and made a noise of agreement.

Harper smiled. 'A sodomite.'

'No,' she said. 'I am a sodomite. But he is a pederast. Un pede:

"5

world's end

'I knew there was something about this place.' Harper's scalp prickled.

'You seem a bit shocked.'

'Me?' Harper tried to laugh.

'Didn't you do it at school? Playing with the other boys?'

'They would have killed me. I mean, the teachers. Anyway, I didn't want to. What about you?'

She thrust out her lower lip and said, 'Of course.'

'And now?'

'Of course.'

The food came. They ate in silence. Harper could think of nothing to say. She was an anarchist who had just disclosed that she was also a lesbian. And he? A courier with an empty briefcase, killing time. He thought of the poet Bumgarner: Paris belonged to him. Harper could not imagine the feeling, but Bumgarner would know what to say now.

'It is easier for a woman,' said Claire. He guessed that she had perceived his confusion. 'I don't care whether I make love to a man or a woman. Though I have a fiance - he is a nice boy. It is the personality that matters. I like clever men and stupid women.'

'That guy who was in the office the other day,' Harper said. 'He's a poet. He writes poems.'

Claire said, 'I hate poems.'

It was the most passionate thing she had said so far, but it killed his ardor.

In the twilight, under a pale watery-blue sky, they walked past biscuity buildings to the river. Although this was his eighth day in Paris, Harper's yearning for home had deserted him, and he could ignore his errand, which seemed trivial to him now. He no longer felt humiliated by suspense; and another thing released him: the girl Claire, who was neither pretty nor ugly, seemed indifferent to him. It did not matter whether he slept with her or not - he felt no desire, $o there could be no such thing as failure. He enjoyed this perverse freedom, walking along the left bank of the Seine, on a mild spring evening, feeling no thrill, only a complacent lack of urgency. But that was how it was, in spite of Pans; and urgency had been no help the previous week. He did not speak French. The churches and stonecrusts were familiar; he recognized them from tree calendars and jigsaw puzzles and the lids of fancy cookie tins.

PORTRAIT OF A LADY

He had never been overseas before. It was the stage set he had imagined, but he felt unrehearsed.

'I'm tired,' he said, to give Claire an excuse to go home.

She shrugged as she had before, but now the gesture irritated him because she did it so well, using her shoulders and hands and sticking out her lower lip.

'I'm staying at a hotel near Les Invalides,' he said. 'Would you like a drink there?'

She shrugged again. This one meant yes - it was pliable and positive.

By the time they found a taxi rank it was ten-thirty. There was traffic - worse than Boston - and they did not arrive at the hotel until after eleven. The concierge stepped from behind a palm to tell Claire the bar was closed.

Harper said, 'We can drink in my room,' although he had nothing there to drink.

In the room, Harper filled a tumbler with water from the sink. This he brought to Claire and presented it with a waiter's flourish. She drank it without a word.

He said, 'Do you like it?'

'Yes. Very much. It is a pleasant drink.'

'Would you like some more?'

'Not now,' she said.

He sat beside her on the bed, and kissed her with a clownish sweetness, holding her elbows, and she responded innocently, putting her cool nose against his neck. Then she said, 'Wait.'

She untied the drawstring at her waist and shook herself out of her dress. She did this quickly, like someone impatient to swim. When she was naked they kissed again, and he was almost alarmed by the way her tongue insisted in his mouth and her foraging hands pulled clumsily at his clothes. Soon after, they made love, and in the darkness, when it had ended, Harper thought he heard her whimper with dissatisfaction.

He woke. She was across the room, speaking French.

'What is it?'

'I am calling a taxi, to go home.'

'Don't go,' he said. 'Besides, I don't think the phone works.'

'I have to take my pill.'

The phone worked. J am in Paris: he said it in a groggy foolish voice.

world's end

Claire, who was dressing, said, 'Pardon?'

The next day was a repetition of the previous day. He waited at the hotel for Undershaw to ring. At four, he went to the office. This time there were no preliminaries; only romance required them, and this was no romance. Harper was glad of that, and glad too that he was not particularly attracted to Claire. Since his marriage - and he was happy with his wife - he had not been attracted to any other woman. It did not make him calm; indeed, it worried him, because he knew that if he did fall for another woman it would matter and he would have to leave home. They skipped the bar, ate quickly, then hurried to the hotel and went to bed, hardly speaking.

In the pitch dark of early morning, he waited for her to make her telephone call. But she was asleep. He woke her. She was startled, then seemed to remember where she was. He said, 'Don't you have to go?'

She muttered rapidly in French, then came fully awake and said, 'I brought my pill.'

Harper slept badly; Claire emitted gentle satisfied snores. In the morning she opened her eyes wide and said, 'I had a cauckemar?

'Really?' The word, which he knew, bewitched him.

She said, 'You have a beautiful word in English for cauchemar.'

'Cauchemar is a beautiful word,' he said, and quoted,

How much it means that I say this to you -Without these friendships - life, what caucbemarl

'I don't understand,' she said.

'A poem,' said Harper.

She pretended to shudder. She said, 'What is cauchemar in English?'

'Nightmare.'

'So beautiful,' she said.

'What was your cauchemat about?'

'My - nightmare' - she smiled, savoring the word - 4 it was about us. You and me. We were in a house together, with a cat. It was quite an ordinary eat, but it was very hungry. I wanted to make love with you. That is my trouble, you see. I am too direct. The cat was in our bedroom.'

'Where was this bedroom - Europe? 1

'Paris, 1 she s.ud. 'The cat was so hungry it was sitting on the

PORTRAIT OF A LADY

floor and crying. We couldn't make love until we had fed it. We gave it some food. But when the cat ate the food it caught fire and burned - oh, it was horrible! Each time it swallowed it burned some more. It did not burn like a cat, but like a human, like Jan Palach. You know Jan Palach?'

Harper did not know the name. He said, 'A saint?' - because her tone seemed to describe a martyr.

'No, no, no,' said Claire. She was troubled.

Harper said, 'It's about being a lesbian - your dream. Killing the cat, us making love.'

'Of course,' she said. 'I have thought of that.'

Her troubled look had left her; now she was abstracted, her features stilled by thought.

A fear rose in Harper that he was not in Europe at all, but trapped in a strange place with a sad crazy woman. He had made a great mistake in becoming involved with her. It was worse when they were dressing, for the telephone rang and Harper panicked and screamed, 'Don't touch it!' He imagined that it was his wife, and he felt guilty and ashamed to be in this room with this incomprehensible woman. He had never loved his wife more. He seized the phone: Undershaw.

'It's ready. You can come over.'

'Thank you,' said Harper, tongue-tied with gratitude. He turned to Claire. 'I've got to go to the office.'

But she was buckling her small watch to her wrist. 'Look at the time,' she cried. 'I'm late!'

They arrived separately - it was his idea - so that no one would suspect what they had done. Harper, who had spent days wishing to punch Undershaw in the face, introduced himself to the gray, rather tall Englishman feeling no malice at all. He took the parcel of money and locked himself in a small room to count it. He repeated the procedure, and when he was satisfied the amount was correct he packed the money in neat bundles in the briefcase. And, as if he knew how long it took to count eighty-five thousand dollars, Undershaw knocked at the door just as Harper finished.