The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant (97 page)

“The girl is German,” said Herbert, smiling.

“Oh, Herbert, no,” said Christine. “Everything about her … the hat … the shell necklace … everything … the hair. She could not be anything but what she is.”

“I agree,” said Herbert. “German. Now, little Bert,” he went on, “do you see the train which is just arriving? It will take us to Pegnitz. Once there we are almost home. Pegnitz is a junction. Trains go through every few minutes, in all directions. In
most
directions,” he corrected.

Now that their transport was here a number of those who had been grumbling at the delay suddenly decided that they did not want this train after all; they would wait for the regular service, or hire taxis, or send telegrams asking their relatives to come and pick them up in cars. Finally, after a certain amount of elbowing and jostling, only the hungry woman, the cultural group going to the opera, the Norwegian, some German soldiers with hair like pirate wigs, the pregnant American girl, and little Bert’s party climbed aboard. This train was neat, swept, cool; the first-class carriage was not crowded and had plastic-leather seats. The opera party immediately spread out and filled three compartments. The hungry woman, caught up in the platoon of soldiers, disappeared, swept on to second class. But she could not have been far away:
The arrangement was we each got 50 percent of the estate under a separate property agreement. He never thought I would survive him. All his plans were for
how he would dispose of my 50 percent once I had passed on. His 50 percent was to be for himself, and half of mine for him, and half for the little movie star Shirley Bimbo. He never never thought I’d be there after him. I had this diabetes, pneumonia three times, around the change of life I got nervous and lost all my hair, had to do the cooking wearing a turban. Later I got a women’s complaint, had the works out, better to get it over with. No wonder he never thought I could survive him. He left his 50 percent to the little lamb of God, Carol Ann. What the dumb bastard didn’t know was that I would get my half plus 6
7
percent of his half because we were married in Muggendorf under a completely different set of laws and we never took the citizenship. So think that over in your grave, Josef Schneider! He turned out to have more than anyone knew. There were the savings, the property, some home appliances, the TV and that—but what he had salted away besides was nobody’s business. It’s invested over here now. Safer
.

This time they shared their compartment with the American girl, who buried her pretty nose in her magazines. There was nothing else for her to do; she could not understand what they were saying. The missing traveler drew nearer.
He asked to be cremated and the ashes brought to Muggendorf and buried. He left eight hundred dollars just for somebody to tend the plot. I signed a promise to look after the grave; the money’s being held. If I keep the grave looking good for five years running I get the eight hundred dollars. Only one year to go. Always had said he wanted his ashes scattered on the trout stream at Muggendorf. Must have changed his mind. Just as well. Might be a fine for doing it. Pollution
. She saw them, perhaps had been looking for them, and came in and sat down. As Herbert had said, it was as good as being home.

A woman we knew had this happen—her husband said he wanted his ashes flung to the winds from a dune by the North Sea. No planes in those days, had to take the ashes over by boat. Went up to Holstein, would climb on a dune, change her mind. Hated to part with poor Jobst. Noticed more and more barbed wire along the dunes, didn’t know why. Never read the papers, had got out of the habit in the USA. Dreamed that Jobst appeared and said the world would experience a terrible catastrophe if she didn’t scatter his ashes. Went back to the beach as near as she could to the sea, flung one handful east, one south, one west, was about to turn north when somebody grabbed her arm, two men with revolvers, the conflict had begun, they thought she was making signs to submarines
.

They arrived at Pegnitz at dusk. Everyone began to shuffle along the corridor, peering out at the station they had been told was a junction. The train seemed becalmed in an infinity of tracks meeting, merging, and sliding away. Little Bert said to his sponge, “There are cows, one black, one brown, one dappled.” But of course no cows were to be seen in the yard, only lights flashing and signal stations like sentry boxes. The woman sorted out the food she had left—biscuits, chocolates, grapes, oranges, macaroons, portions
of cheese in thin silver paper—and placed everything in one clean plastic bag which she unfolded out of her purse, and on which was printed

Above these words was the drawing of a canary tucked up in sheets and blankets for the night.
Shirley Bimbo, Shirley Bimbo
, she was telling herself.

All of them got to their feet too soon, as people do when they are tired of traveling. The train seemed to coast slowly and endlessly along a long platform. Christine stood between the Norwegian and little Bert, who put his nose on the window, making it white and button-shaped. When he glanced up at her he had two round patches of dirt, one on his forehead.

“Again,” exclaimed the Norwegian.

“What?”

He did not mean little Bert. He was glaring at a detachment of conscripts lounging and sitting slumped on their luggage, yelling at one another and laughing foolishly. Christine said, “They are only farmers’ sons who have been drafted, you know. Poor lads who have never studied anything. Boys like that must exist everywhere, even where you come from.” But then she remembered how kind he had been to little Bert, and how generous about singing. She tried to agree with him: “I must say, they aren’t
attractive
. They do seem to be little and ugly.” She paused. “It’s not their fault.”

“They always looked that way,” said the Norwegian. “They were always very little and very ugly, but they frightened us.”

Christine had none of Herbert’s amiable ambiguities. She said sadly, “We don’t even know each other’s names.”

He pinched his nostrils and did a few seconds’ puffing without making a reply. The important part of the journey had ended, as far as he was concerned, because he had finally said what he thought.

Yet it isn’t over, she said to herself. She saw threads, crystals, flying horizontally like driven snow, and she caught as clear as the summer night a new tone on a different channel:
Dear Ken sorry I haven’t written sooner but you know how it is Dear Ken sorry I haven’t written sooner but you know how it is

“Now, be ready,” called Herbert over his shoulder. He had seen their new train standing empty on the far side of the tracks. “Christine? Little Bert?” Little Bert clasped his sponge and was ready. Herbert opened a door on which was written
DO NOT OPEN
and helped the other two down. But
after making a run for it they found the carriages were dark and the doors locked, and that a sign hanging upside down said
COBURG-PEGNITZ
, which was more or less where they had come from. “You must never do this, little Bert,” said Herbert.

“Never do what?”

“Open the wrong door and cross the tracks. You could be killed or arrested.”

They made their way to the platform by lawful means, through an underpass. The station was crammed with passengers who had been turned out of a number of rerouted trains, shouting, arguing, complaining, and asking questions. The American girl stood gazing up at
PEGNITZ
as if she could not believe what she saw. She seemed fragile and lonely.

“Help her,” said Christine. “She doesn’t understand. Herbert, you can speak English.”

“En quel honneur?”
said Herbert. “Her German is probably better than little Bert’s.”

Perhaps it was true, or else when she was among Germans she did not want to hear what they said. She had just returned from the square behind the station where the bus to Pottenstein was usually parked. But everything had been changed around; there wasn’t even a schedule in sight, and everyone on the platform was trying to find out when some train would come by to take them away from Pegnitz. She was seven and a half months pregnant, she had been traveling for hours now, and her back ached. All at once she turned and looked at Herbert. He looked back—respectfully, she believed. She pushed her way over to him through the crowd on the platform and said in her haughtiest English, “Sir! Vare iss ze boss to Buttonshtah?” which was enough to tell any careful census taker (Herbert, for one) her nationality, schooling, region, village—what part of village, even, if one was particular over details.

The fact of the matter was that she was on her way home to Pottenstein and that her shape was bound to be something of a shock to her parents. However, once they had recovered consciousness they would certainly try to help. For instance, they had a friend, a garage mechanic who had worked for two years in America and knew the customs. He had returned to Pottenstein for two reasons: One, when Americans invited him to their houses they would offer him something to drink and never a bite to eat, which showed that they were not refined; and two, he had been offended by the
anti-German tone of the television commercials for a certain brand of coffee. This man would be called in to look at the letter she had intercepted, stolen, read in secret, and reread until she could see every word with her eyes tight shut. He would tell her how to use the letter in order to further her case—providing she had a case at all.

Just as Christine understood all this from the beginning, just as information arrived in the form of an unwieldy package the color of bricks, Herbert, with sober face, began to speak with the accent of their train conductor. He said she was not far from Buttonshtah, only a few miles. He believed there existed a bus service.

“I know, but vare iss ze boss?” she complained, before she remembered that she was not supposed to know any German, let alone German spoken with that accent. She had been deceived by the look of Herbert; he was nothing more than a local product like herself. “Country pipples,” she said, and showed them what it was to walk off with your nose in the air. Christine caught again, faintly,
Dear Ken sorry I haven’t written sooner hut you know how it is

Herbert did not want to rub it in but he did say, “You know, an American could live fifty years in Pottenstein without knowing it was Buttonshtah.”

The Norwegian still thought the girl might be an American. He said that perhaps she had mistaken the P of “Pegnitz” for the first letter of “Pottenstein,” and been too disturbed to read the rest. But Herbert laughed and said no American would do that either.

By now Christine knew all this. Herbert, who knew nothing, had fixed upon the essence of it: The girl was ashamed of being thought German by other Germans.

Little Bert tugged at Christine, trying to tell her something. “Is there time?” she asked Herbert.

She saw him nod before a new wave of soldiers pushed him back. He’ll write a letter about
that
, she thought. Little Bert was very good about standing in the queue outside the door marked
LADIES
and neither giggled nor stared once inside. She found it curious that he had asked her and not his father; it was certainly the first time. When they came out Herbert was nowhere in sight; there were twice as many people as before milling about and protesting, and they saw the cultural group, quite red in the face now, the women clutching their furs as if the inhabitants of Pegnitz were bandits.
Their leader had lost his spectacles and was barely recognizable without them. His eyes were small and blue, and he looked insane.

“A short wait. In there,” said the stationmaster, running past Christine with a long list of passengers’ names in his hand.

“We can sit down for a few minutes,” said Christine. “In any case, we could never find your father in this confusion.” She saw a place on a bench and squeezed little Bert in beside her. Nearly every inch of bench was occupied by women carrying luggage tied with string. A window on the side opposite the platform gave onto the freight yards.

“Read to me,” said little Bert.

She noticed that some of the women glanced at them with consternation, even disapproval. It was true that little Bert seemed spoiled and that his voice was often annoying to adults.

“I suppose we seem like a funny-looking pair,” she said to him. “Both of us filthy, and you with your bath sponge.”

“The ladies are funny too,” he said.

The women sat grouped by nationality—Polish, French, Greek, Russian, Dutch. Her eyes caught on the Frenchwomen, who were thin and restless, with cheeks flushed either by rouge or tuberculosis, and hair swept up and forward and frizzed with tongs. They were almost uniformly dressed in navy-blue suits and white blouses, and their shoes had thick wooden soles. Their glance was hostile, bright, and missed nothing.

But they are not dirty, she said to herself. No more than we are at this moment. I shall tell the truth about it, if I’m asked. Herbert hasn’t washed or shaved since yesterday. He brushed his teeth at Stuttgart, nothing more. As for little Bert …

“Whatever happens,” she said to little Bert swiftly, “we must not become separated. We must never leave each other. You must stop calling me ‘the lady’ when you speak to your father. Try to learn to say ‘Christine.’ ”

The child sighed, as he did sometimes when Herbert took too long to explain. “Read,” he said sleepily.

“I can’t remember a thing about Bruno.”

“Look in your book.”

“My mind is a blank.” Nevertheless she opened it near the beginning and read the first thing she came to: “ ‘Shame and remorse are generally mistaken for one another.’ It’s no good reading that.” She leaned against the child and felt his comforting breath on her arm.

“What happens then?” said little Bert after a pause. “That’s not what you were reading before.”

Their familiar bun-faced conductor now made an appearance. “Oh, thank God,” said Christine. “He’ll know about the train.” He had stopped just inside the door. He scowled at the waiting women and, being something of a comedian, did an excellent impersonation of someone throwing a silent tantrum. First he turned red and his eyes started, then all the color left his face and he could not part his lips, could only gesticulate. It was extremely clever and funny. Little Bert applauded and laughed, which drew the conductor’s attention. He walked over to them slowly with his thumbs in his belt and stopped a few inches away, rocking on his heels. Suddenly he prodded the bath sponge.