The Merry Month of May (34 page)

“I refuse the assignment,” Hill said, moving forward to the desk.

Daniel tapped his gavel. “You can’t refuse,” he said.

“But I do,” Hill said.

Daniel tapped again. “All right,” he said from behind the steel-rimmed spectacles, “but I must then provisionally suspend you from this Committee. This is too serious a matter to vote on now, and we must wait until we have everybody here. But as Chairman I provisionally suspend you from the Committee until such time as a vote of approval or disapproval can be taken by all the members.”

“Now, wait a minute,” Harry said. “I didn’t mean—”

“M. Gallagher,” Daniel said crisply. “I do not know what kind of family matter is involved here between you and your son. But that is a personal matter, and has nothing at all to do with this Committee. We are concerned only about making the Revolution and we all took an oath of discipline when we became members of the Committee. Therefore, I have to rule that Hill is suspended, provisionally, until we can take a full vote on the matter.” He banged his gavel.

“You won’t have to take a vote!” Hill said. “I tender my resignation from this Committee as of right now!” And he was out the door, slamming it behind him. Harry, after fumbling with the door, was right after him.

I was groggy, and exhausted, and very nearly asleep. So I was slower. They were standing arguing about ten yards down the dingy, ill-lit corridor as I came through the door.

“You’re an ass, Hill,” Hairy was saying as I came up.

“I may be an ass, but I am an idealistic ass,” Hill said. “And these ideals are no longer quite up to my standards.”

“When I selected you,” Harry said patiently, “I only wanted to—”

“You’ve taken Samantha,” Hill said. He glared at his father, his fists clenched against his thighs. “And now you’ve taken the film. And the Cinema Committee. And in the end, you’ll take the Revolution itself, all of you. And turn it back into the same shit that we’ve always had.”

“Look, Hill,” Harry said. “Samantha would never have stayed with you. She’ll never stay with me, either. Samantha’s got no more morals than a snake, Hill. That’s just the way she is. The way the world is. She’ll never love anybody.”

“She could have had,” Hill said. “Don’t touch me!” he said. “If you lay one finger on me I swear I’ll swing on you.”

“Come on, fellows,” I said. I did not know what else to say.

“I won’t touch you, boy,” Harry said.

“Then go and fuck yourself,” Hill said. “And the film. And the Committee. And the God damned Revolution. I’m through. And you better not try to stop me.” He turned and stalked off down the dim, interminable corridor.

Harry stood looking after him a moment. Then slowly and elaborately he got out a cigarette and clamped it in the corner of his mouth. Then he put his hands in the flaring pockets of his starched trenchcoat with its collar up around his ears.

“Okay,” he said to me. “Shall we go back in?”

At the door he stopped and said, “I think I can shoot this thing for them in three days, four at the most.”

18

P
ARIS WAS SULLEN NOW.
In the intermittent drizzle and frequent flurries of real rain that swept across the town all the flags on the ministry buildings hung wet and limp against their poles. The black flags and red flags of the student Revolutionaries over the Sorbonne and Odéon hung the same way.

The feeling in the air now was one of sullen patience, instead of enthusiasm. When is it going to stop? the faces seemed to say. You had the feeling that anything now, any act, might happen that would set off the final explosion of civil war.

Probably the increasing garbage in the streets, the crates, the cartons, the rotting food, contributed a lot to the feeling. The Army had sent out troops in trucks to try and do something about the garbage. At first the striking garbage workers had tried to fight with them and stop them. Now the soldiers went under armed guard. But they could only make a dent in the accumulating trash, the daily residue of the living of millions of lives.

There was no gasoline to be had anywhere now, and you realized how much the city truly depended upon a living flow of a continual supply of gas. The city really lived by its automobiles.

Only at the Sorbonne and the Odéon was there any enthusiasm. But both these places were becoming increasingly unkempt and grubby under the pressures and dirt of just simple daily living. This helped muffle the enthusiasm for us outsiders and even, I think, for the students.

The odd fight between Harry and Hill was on the night of Tuesday the 28th.

The next day, Wednesday May the 29th, was the day General de Gaulle disappeared from the Élysée Palace for seven hours. News of this was all over by the time our group of Americans met at the Gallaghers’ that evening.

The word was le Général had abruptly canceled a Cabinet meeting called for ten
A.M.
that morning. Ministers arriving for the meeting were told there would not be any. Ninety minutes later le Général and his wife left by car for his retreat at Colombey-les-Deux-Églises. Normally that would be a three-hour drive. But le Général did not arrive at Colombey until six-fifteen
P.M.,
and he arrived by helicopter.

Nobody knew where he had been in the intervening lost time, and he and the Government were not telling anybody anything. It was announced he would return the next day to preside over a Cabinet meeting at three
P.M.
to reveal his plans.

It was a very peculiar and erratic way for the old general, usually so precise and punctilious, to react. A great many people felt it was one of those secret signals of his that he was so fond of using, a signal that meant he was preparing to step down and quit without even waiting for his precious Referendum, to allow a new Government to be formed without him. And if that happened nobody knew what would come next.

The other development Wednesday was that during the day the Communist CGT unions, backed by the student unions, had for the first time publicly called for le Général to quit and lay on elections for a new Government. That seemed a pretty powerful thrust at the moment.

We discussed all of this excitedly at the Gallaghers’ and watched the limp tepid Government-TV newscast. But nobody really knew anything at all. Everything seemed up in the air and I was beginning to think it was about time to get Louisa and McKenna, at least, out of the country to Brussels. I had the gasoline for it, all hidden away. I wouldn’t stay out myself, of course. I would come back.

Besides, what with all this Samantha Everton business, it might be better to have Louisa away until it finished. I was positive one of her Portuguese maids or some
commerçant
on the street would make a remark to her about the Negro girl staying in the little hotel which was also now frequented by her husband.

About the only good thing I had to say for anything was that on the Wednesday the drizzle tapered off and stopped for a while and there was some sun.

I wanted to talk to Harry about my idea of driving Louisa and McKenna out to Brussels. It was getting that bad. But Harry was not at his place that evening. He was out filming the CGT march with his student actors. But Samantha was there. So was Weintraub. So was Ferenc Hofmann-Beck.

Feeling I had to trust somebody, I got Ferenc off alone and asked him if he knew anything about what was going on. I indicated with my head the supine Samantha stretched out on the carpeted floor reading one of McKenna’s comic books.

Ferenc screwed his monocle in his eye and lighted one of his long black Russian cigarettes whose long cardboard tip he pinched carefully two different ways before lighting it, and grinned at me.

He put on his Hungarian accent. “I haf alvys said that one must expect some henky-penky everywhere.” He dropped back into American. “Especially with that”—he sniffed—”that little girl there.” Then his eyebrows went up, though he did not lose the monocle. “Not Harry?”

I nodded. “Yes. Harry is having an apparently serious affair with that little girl there.”

“Is he now? Well, one must usually expect some sexual peccadilloes in any group relationship.” He grinned. But he looked deeply hurt by what I had told him just the same. “Poor Louisa,” he said after a moment. “But I don’t really know them all that well, you know,” he added. “I don’t think I can offer any advice.”

“But did you suspect?”

“Well, ah,” he began. “To tell you the truth, I did have some small suspicion. But I am cynical. I have a dirty mind. I was hoping I was wrong. But I still can’t offer you any advice, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

“Well, keep shut about it anyway, will you?” I said.

“But of course,” Ferenc said suavely.

“I mean seriously,” I said.

He merely nodded. “I do feel sorry about it, though. Especially Louisa. It’s always been she I liked the most.

“Poor, dear, darling Louisa.”

I guess that was the first time the phrase ever stuck in my head. But it burned itself in. Poor, dear, darling Louisa.

“She is such a fine lady really,” Ferenc said sadly.

“Yes, she is.”

For a moment I debated with myself whether I could tell him the reason, or what I had decided was the real reason, for it and decided that I could. I was sure his discretion was impeccable.

“Harry apparently has this thing,” I said. “He apparently likes to make it with two girls at the same time. And your young friend apparently digs the same action. I don’t believe there’s any love involved.”

“Ah, my little colored friend,” Ferenc said faintly in a thoughtful tone. He had not ever really forgiven her for their first meeting, I think. “Ah, well. I have a bit of a penchant for the same sort of thing, you know,” he added. “And especially if one of them is a lady of color.”

“You mean you too?” I said. “Tell me, what is it?”

“It’s hard to explain,” Ferenc said in a lofty way. “I don’t know. I’ve never tried to analyze it. I don’t like analyzing things. I’m not a writer. I’m a publisher. But I can sympathize.”

“What are we going to do?” I said.

“I think the best thing is not to do anything at all. Let things take their natural course,” he said. “And keep the fingers of the right hand perpetually crossed,” he added.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have brought the thing up at all.”

“No. It’s all right. Like I said, I suspected. You can trust my discretion.” He took out his monocle and wiped it vigorously with his pocket handkerchief, an obviously emotional gesture. “It’s just that I’m sad over it.”

“You can say that again,” I said.

Ferenc didn’t answer. Then he said, “I simply love your American phraseology.”

“Balls,” I said. “Listen, I’ve been thinking that I might suggest to Harry that I drive Louisa and McKenna out to Brussels. I’ve got the gas. I don’t like at all the way things are developing here in Paris. I have the feeling it might turn into a real blood bath any minute. Did you ever read
The Fall of Paris
by Alistair Horne? Unfortunately, I’ve been reading it lately. The bloody Parisians killed 25,000 of their own citizens in one week in Paris that time.”

“I’ve read the book,” Ferenc said.

“They could fly over to London from Brussels. They’ve got lots of friends there. Could stay a few weeks until we see what’s finally going to happen.”

“When do we leave?” Ferenc had broken into a big grin and was rubbing his hands together.

“What?”

“Marvelous. Marvelous. Great. I said, when do we leave?”

“You want to go too?”

“But of course!”

“To stay.”

“No, no. No, not to stay. I will ride shotgun for you, as they say in the Westerns. And return. I wouldn’t miss the dénouement for the world.”

“Well, I’ll have to talk to Harry about it first, you know,” I said. “It’s only an idea. But there’s no school now.”

“You just let me know,” Ferenc said. “You just let me know.”

“And with this Samantha business. I think it might be the best thing,”

Ferenc made a pained face. “I think I’ll take my drink, and wander down the room,” he said gently. He put a large hamlike hand on my shoulder. “But you just let me know.” He turned away.

“Hanky-panky, hanky-panky,” I heard him mutter under his breath as he moved away. “Always the hanky-panky.”

I was left alone at the bar with no more help than I had started out with. But I felt somehow relieved. And I trusted Ferenc completely. Suddenly, for no apparent reason, I liked him very much.

I took my own drink and went down the room from the bar. I noted that Ferenc had again avoided Samantha, after a polite hello, as he always did. No, I could trust the guy, all right. He would do what he could. Though, as he said, the only thing was to let things take their natural course. Actually, Sam had left Louisa and gone over and was talking to Weintraub. After the lousy Government-TV coverage of the situation we were all, or almost all, talking excitedly about the meaning of what de Gaulle had done.

I sat down beside Louisa on the big couch. She immediately turned to me with that curiously fierce and at the same time oddly vague-eyed smile of hers.

“I would like to do something for that little girl, Jack,” she said, incredibly. “She needs some help.”

Yes, she needed help like a rattlesnake needed help, I thought.

“Yes, I guess she does,” I said. “I guess she’s a nice girl. But I must confess I’ve never understood her.”

“There’s nothing to understand,” Louisa said. “She’s never had a mother, that’s all. And she needs one.”

“And you think you could fill the bill?” I said. Dear God, I thought.

“Not permanently. But for the time she is here, the little time she is here, maybe I might,” Louisa said.

I had absolutely no answer to that at all. I simply could not think of anything to say to her. “So Harry is out shooting tonight, is he?” I asked.

“Yes. He was out absolutely all night last night. And he said he’s likely to be out all night again tonight,” she said.

I happened to know he had left the Odéon at two o’clock the night before, because I was with him. It was not hard to guess where he might have spent the rest of the night.