The Merry Month of May (17 page)

Hill did not call Saturday night, either. Saturday seemed to be a sort of night off for everybody, while police and students both patched up their ranks and their wounds.

8

S
UNDAY WAS ALWAYS
a day off for everybody, student Revolutionaries and police alike. I suppose a lot of them went to church, and then had a big Sunday dinner.

Actually, student groups were meeting with workers’ committees and union committees all that day.

I had news that afternoon late, when I walked down the quiet treelined quai to the Gallaghers for what had now become a recognized daily ritual. Hill had telephoned me just before I left to go to his parents.

“Where in the hell have you been!” I cried.

There was a kind of strange, frustrated pause at the other end. Then he said, “I’ve been busy. Haven’t you heard about the great battle?”

I was outraged. “Do you have any idea at all how worried we have been about you! Never mind me, but your mother and dad! Why in the name of God didn’t you telephone?”

“I don’t think you understand, Uncle Jack,” Hill said tersely. “We’ve got a lot of sick people on our hands here, and we’ve got to take care of them. Somebody’s got to.”

This slowed me down a little. I could imagine him in some loft, like the one he had roughly described to me, surrounded by wounded and moaning students covered with blood. “Well, is everything all right?”

“I’m okay,” Hill said, “if that’s what you mean. That’s why I telephoned.”

“I gathered that. And I will tell your folks. But what I meant was, well, all the rest of it.”

“We’re making out. We’re making out. As well as can be expected.”

“Can I help? Do you want me to come over there?”

There was a pause. “What could
you
do?”

“Well, I’m still pretty expert at first aid.”

“We’re past the first aid stage, we’re into the medical. Now, we need oxygen, and anesthetics, and bandages, and medications. Do you know any doctors?”

“I know so-and-so and so-and-so,” I mentioned two doctors that I went to, and who were friends of mine.

“They’ve both been here, volunteering their help already. There’s really nothing you can do, Uncle Jack, really.”

“Well, don’t hang up for a minute. Tell me, were you out in the middle of all that?”

“Sure. And I think I got some pretty good shots. Tell Dad that. I won’t know till we get them developed, and there’s no place in Paris we can trust to send them to. The Government apparently has put a tag on all the photo-developing places with the idea of confiscating student film, if it is brought in. So we’ll have to wait. The light was very bad, and we did not have any artificial lighting. And you know how it is with a hand-held camera, especially when you’re breathing hard and standing unbalanced.”

“Well,” I said, “at least you have won, anyway, all of you. Pompidou has given in on all three of the student demands. The Sorbonne will be open on Monday.”

His voice was almost a snarl. “Are you kidding? Pompidou’s offer is only a token acceptance, to slow us down and cool us off a little. They will ‘discuss reforms’ with us, they say. Well, we’re not quitting now. If the Sorbonne opens on Monday, we will occupy it.” His voice suddenly got cautious. “And we may occupy something else, as well!”

What on earth could they occupy besides the Sorbonne? I wondered. The Assemblée Nationale? that would be real war. The huge Government TV and radio building; on the Avenue du Président Kennedy: the O.R.T.F.?

“Then you’re not satisfied?” I said.

“Satisfied? You should be where I’ve been for the past thirty-six hours, and then talk about satisfied. No, we’re not satisfied.”

“Where are you now, Hill?”

“I’m calling from a pay phone in a café in the Place Contrescarpe.”

I knew that area. There were ancient old lofts all over, all around that area, and on the rue Mouffetard. That was “Hemingway country”, as George Plimpton might say.

“Well, where is it that you are staying?”

“I don’t think I better tell you, Uncle Jack. The police are still out after us, you know. They’d love to find a loft full of us, wounded, and take us in to some hospital to show their humanitarian intentions. And then arrest us.”

“I wish you’d call your folks yourself,” I said.

“I can’t. You tell them for me. That’s why I called you. You’re going down there now, aren’t you? Jesus!” he said. “Can’t you imagine it? Mother would be insisting to know whether I had my raincoat and my rubbers. Dad would be giving me revolutionary advice: ‘Now, son, this is the way we did it in 1936.’ No, thanks. They’ve never let me do anything on my own in my life. They’ve protected me.”

“I don’t think you’re being fair to them, Hill,” I said.

“Listen, Uncle Jack, I’ve got to hang up.”

Some gleeful devil rose up in me. “And how is Anne-Marie taking all this?”

“Anne-Marie? Oh, she’s having the time of her life. You never saw such energy, and bravery. People like her are in their glory in something like this.”

“?” I could imagine.

“You’ve got a thing against her, haven’t you?” Hill said. “You just don’t understand. You don’t understand that we don’t believe in one-woman, one-man monogamy. We believe in love for all, love given to all, and accepted by all.”

“I know, I know,” I said.

“Listen, Uncle Jack, I’ve got to hang up.”

“Well, I’ll tell your folks,” I said.

“I’m still your old buddy,” he said.

That really made me feel bad. “I know.”

“So long. I’ll keep in touch.”

He hung up, and the phone went dead.

I called Harry and Louisa immediately after, so they would not be kept in suspense about Hill longer than necessary.

“I’ll fill you in on all the details when I get down there,” I said. Harry met me at the door. The apartment was already half full of people, the regular gang that was coming regularly every day now. “Come into the bedroom,” Harry said. “Louisa’s waiting. We can talk in there.” I followed him, down the long hallway, away from the living room and the entrée.

“I guess it’s my ego,” Harry said. “But I just don’t want those people to know Hill called you, instead of me.”

Louisa was up on the bed, a mass of the satin throw-pillows against her back. She did not look depressed, or moody. She had on one of her at-home robes, and her hair was tied back. She had been cooking her curry in the kitchen apparently. The smell of it was delicious in the hall and in the entrée, when I came in. Instead of the normal daily gathering, this was to be one of her old-fashioned, pre-Revolutionary Sunday evenings. And she seemed in fine form, which sort of surprised me.

I told them everything Hill and I had said. They were interested, were not upset, and did not even ask any questions, except when I told them Hill had called from a café. “Where?” they said together. I told them Place Contrescarpe. They knew that area of old buildings and lofts as well as I did. It was actually only a very short walk from where we were sitting. We had all walked there many times.

“He just does not want any help from any of us,” I kept saying over and over. “He insists this is something he has to do, and wants to do, on his own.”

They seemed to take this easily enough.

“I think Hill doesn’t understand that we are on his side,” Harry said.

“I think he does,” I disagreed. “And I think that that is exactly what he does not want. I think he would much rather have you be against the students, like the other parents.”

“I don’t think the parents are against the students,” Harry said. “Not the French.”

“Well, some of them must be,” I said. “From what I’ve heard.”

“Maybe not,” Harry said, “maybe not.”

Louisa suddenly got up off the bed in a bustling way. “Well, I’m going back to the kitchen. I have got to look after my curry. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

She gave a distinct impression she did not want to be followed, and neither Harry or I followed her.

“I hope you won’t say anything about Hill to the gathered assembly,” Harry said, with a strange sort of gallant laugh, as we walked back down the hall.

“Sure,” I said. “Of course, not. Of course, I won’t.”

But somehow it irritated me that he should ask it a second time.

The long salon was filling up with people when we came out into it. All of the old bunch who had been coming by every day were there, plus a number of others. There must have been 12 or 14 people, already in the room.

Louisa Gallagher’s Sunday evenings had become quite a famous thing in Paris over the past six years. They were more known, though, in the Artist’s Quarter than in the American business community. They had begun more by accident than by deliberate intent. Because all three of her Portuguese domestics had the full day off on Sunday, Louisa had started making curry on Sunday evenings, since they had to stay home to look after McKenna. Louisa could make a delicious, real Indian curry. A few people started dropping by, by accident, and then came back. The word got around, and more people tried to get invited. Louisa did not try to make a thing out of it, it was very informal. But she and Harry refused to let it become an open house where the people could come without being asked. Mainly we were artists, painters, writers, a few gallery owners; almost all from the Quarter; and of all nationalities. Hill sometimes brought groups of his French and American student friends. There was a smattering of movie people Harry knew. There was a smattering of people from the American business community, the established bankers, lawyers, engineers, and corporation people. The business community people came once, or twice, and then somehow did not come again.

I do not think it was because of any especial temperamental difference. I think we just made them uneasy. We were a pretty fiery bunch. We discussed everything. Nothing was sacred. There was a lot of drinking. There were a lot of four-letter words spoken, though Louisa never used them and neither did I. It was bound to make them uneasy. And I think the business community wives took a quiet but determined dislike to Louisa. It was as if, even though Louisa never spoke them herself, they felt she should not have tolerated the bad language or allowed it in her house—especially in front of her child daughter.

I gradually came to suspect that some of the men of the American business community, though not all, would have liked to come again, and again. But their wives were not about to let them. Louisa, of course, could not have cared less.

That Sunday there did not appear to be any of the American business community present.

Harry and I walked up toward the pulpit bar.

McKenna was at one of the refectory tables, absorbed in some tiny homework she had to do for her school, and she came running over to me with her arms out, to be picked up, tossed and kissed by her Godfather. She was getting harder to toss. She was
growing,
a lot.

At the bar a group was talking over the events of the weekend: the surprising return of Pompidou, his even more surprising speech and acceptance of the students’ demands.

The latest news was that a nationwide one-day general strike was being called for Tuesday the 14th, to protest “Police Repression”. Electricity, gas, water, transportation, telephone, telegraph, mail and taxi service would all be affected. Everybody was coming out on the side of the students. There would be no Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning newspapers. Banks, schools and many businesses would close. Students, teachers and workers would be on the march all across France to protest “repression”.

The feeling at the bar was that it was all over but the shouting. Someone said the phrase “The Students’ One-Week War”, and others picked it up. There was elation at the bar over the students’ win, but there was a nostalgia for the now-finished Revolution. They were all so certain that it was finished. But I could not forget my picture of Hill, and the things he had said on the phone.

Down at the end of the room Weintraub came in with Samantha-Marie. Louisa apparently had invited them. They made their way toward us slowly, shaking hands and saying hello.

Several others more had come in before them and there were now 18 or 20 people in the room and two of them were black people. One was a slender, beautifully muscled dancer from the Folies Bergère, a friend of Louisa’s, and of Harry’s too, but more of Louisa’s. The other was an old, aged painter, poor but famous in New York and Paris for ten or 15 years, who had the courtly manners of an old-time Virginia gentleman. He was a good painter. Weintraub introduced her to them. If Samantha felt any surprise or chagrin or anything else at seeing two other American blacks here, she gave no indication. And yet somehow I had a suspicion that she did.

From her table McKenna ran out to meet her and clasp her around the knees. Samantha patted her head and kissed her. McKenna rarely ran to kiss anybody, and I found myself feeling jealous.

Our discussion at the bar had centered itself on the question of whether the students would try to take over and occupy the Sorbonne tomorrow as they had threatened. Someone had asked if they would. Now that Pompidou had declared it would open.

“They’d be crazy to,” Harry said. I stared at him. He went right on blandly. “Pompidou’s given in to them on their demands. What’s the point? Now’s the time for them to sit down with the Government and negotiate. Get the reforms they want for the University. Not keep the Sorbonne closed down.”

“Don’t you believe it! They aint about to do it!” Weintraub boomed, coming up. He had his arm around Samantha.

At the bar Ferenc Hofmann-Beck, who up to now had been one of the most talkative, slipped off his stool and moved away. He gave Samantha a low bow as he passed her, and a sweet smile, his monocle in his fingers. He did not come back.

“But why?” Fred Singer the TV commentator said. “I have to agree with Harry. What’s the point? After Pompidou’s agreed to all their demands.”

“Because they don’t trust the Government,” Weintraub bellowed in his deepest basso. “That’s why. Every time the Government has given its word on something, and things have started to calm down, the Government reneges on its word again and forces the students a step further. And then they turn loose their jackals, the police, and claim it was all the students’ fault.” I thought it sounded almost like Hill.