The Dud Avocado (4 page)

“Well, but
living
you know …” I said warily, at the same time trying to project that off-beat thing, whatever it was.

“Oh no. Not that please,” he cut me off briskly. “Look, I tell you what. I’m going to direct a program of one-act plays at the American Theater. You know, that little one around Denfert-Rochereau they keep trying to get started. It’s just possible that you might be right for something. You might fit into the Saroyan
play. We’re playing safe and starting off with the usual stuff: Saroyan, Shaw, Tennessee Williams——”

“Which ones?” I asked breathlessly.

“Haven’t decided yet. Anyway, come over there sometime. We’ll be casting soon.”

Then, having made this decision and having wasted enough of his precious time that should no doubt have been spent geniusing, he shot to his feet and faced the cluster of waiters with such imminent departure in his manner that two of them came running.

But I didn’t care any more. The whole flock of them could have come. The Pernods melted in my stomach in one glorious swooshing splash and all was gaiety and song and dance.

Larry paid the bill and stood up, looking down at me and grinning.

“Gosh, I’d love to act again,” I said. “I really would. I’m dying to—but when?”

“As soon as you get your laundry back,” he said, and left.

Larry had gone. I drifted into the street lit with love and began turning imaginary handsprings. I hadn’t the faintest idea where I was going. I found myself in front of the Métro Odéon and began playing with the metro map, pushing the buttons en toutes directions. Porte des Lilas-Châtelet, Mairie d’Issy-Porte de la Chapelle, Vincennes-Neuilly … how beautiful they sounded. “To the end of the line,” I murmured. A virtuous thought crossed my mind that in this new life dedicated to Art I should take the metro, not taxis. But I found I couldn’t bear to go underground into the dark. Not on a day like that.

A taxi came by and I hailed it, suddenly knowing where I had to go. I told him to go directly to the American Library in Saint-Germain. There I would get out the Collected Works of Tennessee Williams and William Saroyan. Then I would go and see about my laundry. As if to emphasize the miracle of the day the taxi driver actually conceded the quartier to be in his route.

With many a “bon, bon, ça va” to commemorate our fellow-feelings we drove off. Upon arrival I glanced at my watch and saw that it was one o’clock. Everything would be closed until
three. The little hotel to which I had recently moved was on the rue Jules Chaplain in Montparnasse, and so was the tein-turerie where my laundry was marking time. It was a matter of three minutes away. Three minutes
au maximum, 2
. mere flicker in the eternity of a taxi driver’s life, you would think, but the doughty old Parisian at the wheel refused to budge another inch with me in the cab.

One o’clock. Two hours to go.

I found a table at the Royal Saint-Germain, ordered an omelette au jambon and a café noir, and stared across at the church with its towers encased in scaffolding. I wondered why I’d never seen any workmen on it. Maybe I
was
up and about for only a few hours every day, after all. Boy, I’d better pull myself together.

I made a mark with my knife on the paper tablecloth to underline my decision:
Teddy would have to go
. I probably really didn’t have the true courtesan spirit anyway. How in hell had I got into all this in the first place? I tried to figure out how the whole thing started. Well, first of all, of course, I came to Paris. And the reason I had a chance to come to Paris was because of dear old Uncle Roger.…

The week before I became thirteen—two days after I’d run away for the fourth time—my uncle Roger had sent for me. He was then living in lofty majesty, in a big, white clapboard house overlooking the Hudson Valley, and spending most of his time in the enormous living room he’d had converted into an observatory. A giant telescope was rigged up right smack in the middle of the room, the original idea being that it would give him something to do when he got bored at one of his parties, but gradually it had come to obsess him and he was never far away from it. He even began using it to punctuate his conversations, to gesture with, the way other people use their spectacles and pipes. Uncle Roger had invented a special kind of screw which made
him very, very rich, and a special kind of oracular noblesse oblige in distributing his largess, which made him very, very godlike. The telescope helped too. He was hard at it when I was announced.

“They tell me you were heading down Mexico way this time. What for?” he asked me over his shoulder, apparently unable even for a minute to tear himself away from the stars, or whatever you see through a telescope in broad daylight.

“I wanted to be a bullfighter,” I mumbled.

“What were you going to be last time?”

“You mean last year when I ran away?”

“Yes.”

“A singer in a jazz band. Why?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just curious.” He twiddled a few knobs and had another look at—the sun—I suppose, and finally turned round and looked at me. I was staring down at my saddle shoes. One shoelace had been badly tied and I was trying to retie it in my mind.

“My dear child, what a face! What a face to put on. Why so broody?”

“I am in mourning for my life,” I said, still staring at my shoes, wishing they were black, at least, and wondering if he’d ever read the play. He hadn’t.

“Good heavens, is that what they teach you at that school?”

“No.”

“Well, never mind. Let’s see what we can do to cheer you up, shall we? The reason I’ve asked you to come—now don’t be afraid, I won’t scold you. I’m sure you’ve been scolded quite enough—sit down, child, sit down anywhere, just throw all that camera stuff on the floor, we’re shooting Venus tonight, getting her quarter phase—the reason I asked you to come is to find out what you’d like for your birthday this year.”

“I want my freedom!” I said, tears stinging my eyes at the word.

“Your freedom? Ah yes, of course. What are you planning to do with it?”

I hesitated. I had to think for a moment. I hadn’t really put it into words before.

“I want to stay out as late as I like and eat whatever I like any time I want to,” I said finally.

“Is that all?”

“No. I think if I had my freedom I wouldn’t allow myself to get introduced to all the mothers and fathers and brothers of the girls at school. And all that junk. I wouldn’t get introduced to anyone. I’ve never wanted to meet anyone I’ve been introduced to. I want to meet all the other people … I can’t explain.…”

“Try. There must be some reason for your ambulatory urges.”

“It’s just that I
know
the world is so wide and full of people and exciting things that I just go crazy every day stuck in these institutions. I mean if I don’t get started soon, how will I get the chance to sharpen my wits? It takes lots of training. You have to start very young. I want them to be so sharp that I’m always able to guess right. Not
be
right—that’s much different—that means you’re going to do something about it. No. Just guessing. You know, more on the wing.”

Uncle Roger went back to the telescope and swung it around a bit, back and forth. Finally he came over and sat down beside me. For the first time he spoke to me man to man. “I think I understand your predilection for being continually on the wing, or rather, to put it more precisely, on the lam,” he said seriously. “It’s difficult to know nowadays where adventure lies. There are no more real frontiers. Funny how these things work out. I came roaring out of the Middle West, you know, and my greatest ambition was to conquer—that’s how I saw it—to conquer New York; New York and the mysterious, civilized East. Now my father before me had set his sights on conquering the Middle West. That was his adventure. I wonder what you will try to conquer? Europe, I suppose, since our family seems to be going backwards.”

I don’t know why but at this moment I had one of those aberrations where people say one thing to you and you take it to mean something quite different. I fully expected Uncle Roger to put a steamship ticket in one of my hands, a bouquet of flowers in the other, and wish me Bon Voyage.

I drew myself to attention, trying to look alert, composed, above all trustworthy, and I said, “I should like to go to Europe
very much, Uncle Roger. Could you write to my school and explain that you’ve decided to send me away?”

“Good God, this is impossible!” exclaimed my uncle, horrified. “See here, young lady, the world may be very wide, but you also are very young and don’t you forget it. Now then,” he said, and he took me by the elbows and looked earnestly into my eyes, “I have a proposition to make to you. The more I see of the world the more I realize how much we are haunted by our childhood dreams. We have been having a serious conversation just now, whether you know it or not. I want you to remember every word. And when you’ve graduated from college——”

“Oh no!”

“——graduated from college, and if you haven’t run away in the meantime, I’ll give you your freedom. Two years of it. Upon graduation you’ll receive in monthly sums enough money for you to go anywhere you like and do anything you like during that period. No strings. I don’t even want to hear of you in those two years. Afterwards come back and tell me what it was like.…”

When I first arrived in Paris I got sick. Then I got well and began walking everywhere round and round and round, crossing and recrossing the river, hardly knowing where I was going or where I’d been. Hardly caring, it all seemed so fine.

And then one day, one memorable day in the early evening, I stumbled across the Champs Élysées. I know it seems crazy to say, but before I actually stepped onto it (at what turned out to be the Étoile) I had not even been aware of its existence. No, I swear it. I’d heard the words “Champs Élysées,” of course, but I thought it was a park or something. I mean that’s what it sounds like, doesn’t it? All at once I found myself standing there gazing down that enchanted boulevard in the blue, blue evening. Everything seemed to fall into place. Here was all the gaiety and glory and sparkle I knew was going to be life if I could just grasp it.

I began floating down those Elysian Fields three inches off the ground, as easily as a Cocteau character floats through Hell.
Luxury and order seemed to be shining from every street lamp along the Avenue; shining from every window of its toyshops and dress-shops and carshops; shining from its cafés and cinemas and theaters; from its bonbonneries and parfumeries and nighteries.… Talk about seeing Eternity in a Grain of Sand and Heaven in a Wild Flower; I really think I was having some sort of mystic revelation then. The whole thing seemed like a memory from the womb. It seemed to have been waiting there for me.

For some people history is a Beach or a Tower or a Graveyard. For me it was this giant primordial Toyshop with all its windows gloriously ablaze. It contained everything I’ve ever wanted that money can buy. It was an enormous Christmas present wrapped in silver and blue tissue paper tied with satin ribbons and bells. Inside would be something to adorn, to amuse, and to dazzle me forever. It was my present for being alive.

As I say, I’d started at the Étoile and was working my way down to the Place de la Concorde. Somewhere around the Rond-Point I floated off the curb and into an oncoming car. The scream of brakes that had at first seemed so dim and irrelevant was now screeching into my ears. All in all it was a very near miss. The driver leaped out of the car and rushed over to the lamppost against which I was limply draped. “Are you all right?” he asked anxiously. I could have kissed him for not yelling why the hell hadn’t I looked where I was going. I nodded and started to leave but found that it was quite impossible to put one foot in front of the other. The upshot of the matter was that this extremely charming man, his arm firmly under my elbow, suggested we both take a spin in his car for a little while to unwind.

The next thing I knew I was ankle deep in martinis at the Ritz Bar, and he was calling me Sally Jay and I was calling him Teddy.

I sighed nostalgically, drained my coffee to the grounds, and unrolled l’addition from the tight little scroll in my hand. If I was going to break off with Teddy it wouldn’t do at all to remember those early days and what fun they’d been. After all, he was madly attractive dans sa façon. No question. Was I
being wise or merely rash? Oh dear. By now I was completely uncertain. Two of les boys flitted past. They certainly wore their jeans with a difference. One of the differences between Saint-Germain and Montparnasse, I decided, was that Saint-Germain was queerer. And that was the only decision I seemed likely to make for the time being.

S
IX O’CLOCK THAT
evening found me back at my hotel, exhausted from an enervating battle fought and lost over my laundry. I had the books of plays, though. That much had been accomplished. Three were on the table beside me and one, appropriately enough, was open in my hand.

There was a knock on my door. I called out for whoever it was to come in and Judy’s head, wiggling on its long stem of a neck, poked itself into the doorway. “Oh, I hope I’m not interrupting you,” she said, backing out as soon as she noticed the book in my hand. Judy lived in my hotel. She was just seventeen, and what she was doing in Paris was supposedly chaperoning her younger brother, a fully fledged concert pianist of fifteen, who was studying there with one of the leading teachers. In view of their combined and startling innocence, however, this was a rather useless arrangement. Their last name was Galache, and they were the issue with which the highly unlikely union of a Quaker woman from Philadelphia and a dreadfully dashing Spaniard (now, alas, dead) had been blessed. Naturally their upbringing, up to this point, had been strict and very sheltered.

“No, of course you’re not interrupting me,” I said. “Come in. Sit down, my child. There is almost no time in the world when I wouldn’t want to see you.”

Judy was so different from me that it was really ludicrous. Whereas I was hell-bent for living, she was content, at least for the time being, to leave all that to others. Just as long as she could
hear
all about it. She really was funny about this. Folded every which way on the floor, looking like Bambi—all eyes and legs and no chin—she would listen for ages and ages with rapt attention to absolutely any drivel that you happened to be talking. It was unbelievable.