Then the waiters came. There were two of them. One presented the vermouth with a flourish while the other brought forth a standing silver urn with chipped ice inside surrounding a smaller dish filled with what looked like—honest-to-God—it looked like a crystal dish filled with very small black beads.
I kept my eyes from Roger. I really didn’t know what to do. Why, I hadn’t even got around to knowing what to think. In America, people go to jail for all manner of things. I wondered what the French would have in mind for those who impersonate ambassadors’ daughters.
Roger placed a long-stemmed glass filled with the vermouth in my hand. The next thing I recall was him refilling it. What happened to the first glass? I took another long drink. It did have a familiar fruity taste and, surprisingly, it wasn’t all that bad. No, sir, it wasn’t bad at all.
I closed my eyes while feeling a delightful warmth chase the last of my chill, the last of my transatlantic fear from my body. I took another long, thoughtful drink. I felt as though I had just invented health and well-being. Everything was getting so lovely ... so beautiful.
Suddenly I gave old Roger a rabbit punch to the forearm. “Two things I have to tell you. Number one. I think you’re a very great and amazing fellow and number two: I think you’re wonderful to look at and number three ... what was number three?”
Then pointing out my empty glass to dear Roger David Auberon, I said, “I remember! This vermouth is number three.” I heard myself breaking out into giggles. “Because it really warms up ye little cockles of me heart,” I said before leaning my head back to laugh with unrestrained abandon at my absolutely extraordinary sense of humor.
19
WHEN I OPENED my eyes, I wondered how I got here and where in God’s name was here, anyway? Right off, I was aware of music, “Scheherezade,” getting the full symphonic treatment. Without rising from the narrow bed, I found its source, a battered, brown radio which sat on a do-it-yourself brick and plank bookcase and also served a secondary function as a bookend to a large and carefully arranged collection of books.
This room was special. I liked the way the ceiling conformed to the pitch of the roof. The way the oversized black-and-white mounted photographs gave drama to the white-washed walls. I closed my eyes and I felt that explicit feeling of physical comfort that comes to me only when I have been freshly released from sickness.
This music, this room, this comfort. Everything was going to be okay. I stood up, letting the momentary dizziness pass before tucking in my blouse and digging deep into my purse for comb and lipstick.
Would you believe, Mother, that I’m doing this on my own? Without once having to listen to you say, “Go verputz yourself.” But I don’t want to think about you. To be honest, I had thought that by putting all this geography between us I’d have traveled far enough and fast enough to be free of both you and him. I know there’s been enough distance all right, but maybe not yet enough time. That had to be it! Not yet enough time.
Before going back to my hotel, I’d have to stop at some restaurant for a really decent meal and a couple of cups of that ole sock-it-to-your-senses French coffee. Then I’d be able to figure it all out. How and why I got here.
But even now, I remember Roger and the beautiful reflection that I had made (however fleetingly) in the highly polished brass of a hotel sign. And I remembered too the Ambassador’s daughter ... that drunk-as-a-coot daughter of the American Ambassador!
From outside the room, I heard the staccato sound of footsteps climbing with quick rhythm up uncarpeted wooden steps. Then the footsteps stopped, the knob turned, the door opened, and Monsieur Roger David Auberon, wearing a smile and carrying what seemed to be France’s symbol of the housewife, the heavy-duty oilcloth shopping bag, entered the room.
“You’re feeling better,” he said, making it not so much a question as a pronouncement.
I wondered if there was any way for any answer of mine to be non-superfluous. I couldn’t think of any. “Yes, thanks. I hope I wasn’t any ... much trouble.”
When he didn’t immediately respond, I asked, “Well ... was I?”
“Don’t you remember anything?”
“Well,” I said, actually beginning to wish for sudden and total amnesia, “I do remember getting a little high on sweet vermouth and telling jokes and—oh, God, I can’t tell jokes! I never tell jokes. But I did tell them, didn’t I? At least, I think I remember laughing like crazy at everything I said.”
“That’s true. And you remember nothing else?”
Was there something else to remember? I guess I would know if I splattered his shoes (never mind his lap!) with vomit, wouldn’t I?
“You passed out,” announced Roger. “After only three glasses of Cinzano. Then the hotel manager rushed over to practically insist upon informing Ambassador David Bruce at the American Embassy.”
“Oh, my God, no! You didn’t let him do it. I mean he didn’t actually do it. Did he?”
“Well, no, he lost interest in placing the call after I admitted that you were under age and that the Ambassador abstained from alcohol.”
I snapped my fingers. “How did you think of that?” I asked, snapping my fingers again.
“Mother’s invention.”
“Mother’s invention?”
“You Americans are always saying something like that when it becomes necessary for you to do something that you have never done before.”
I laughed. “Do you mean: Necessity is the mother of invention?”
“Exactly,” said Roger, whose smile outshone my own. “Didn’t you ever drink before?”
Didn’t I ever drink before? What a question! During the eight-day crossing, didn’t I have several chilled mugs of dark Dutch beer? And what about Grandmother’s Passover dinners where long-stemmed wine glasses made purple by the addition of Mogen David’s sweet concord grape waited for me on a hand-embroidered cloth that came all the way from Madeira. “Well, of course, I have,” I told him, but when his look of skepticism didn’t change, I modified, “on lots of very special occasions.”
Roger now seemed more intent upon removing the contents of his shopping bag of assorted bulges than in giving a response. On a round oak table, he placed a newspaper vertically folded like a triptych, a long unwrapped loaf of crusty bread, some kind of shellfish which definitely wasn’t lobster, a single lemon, a bunch of greens, a stick of butter, a conical-shaped bag fashioned from yesterday’s newspaper which contained fat brown mushrooms, a pie-shaped wedge of flabby cheese, two oranges, two pears, and four eggs.
Finally looking up he said, “I think you should eat something light. Do you like omelettes?”
“Oh, yes. Very much.”
Roger lifted the ugly crustacean by the bone of his back to my eye level and for a moment, I thought he was preparing to make an introduction. “With crabmeat?”
“Uh, yes, thanks.”
His pupils constricted. “You’ve never had crab before. Have you?”
What did he think I was, a country bumpkin? “Well, actually no.”
“Never mind, the way I prepare it, you will love it! It’s not for radishes that I’m the son of le premier chef, Edmond Auberon.”
“I know,” I answered, admiring in him what I lacked in myself—confidence unabashed. Then just as I was about to ask where his kitchen was, Roger bent low, pulling a low wood cart from beneath the bed. “My cuisinière,” he said, pointing to the shiny, meticulously arranged items within—a series of graduated pots and pans, utensils, an espresso coffee pot, and something that at first looked like a kerosene lamp without the glass chimney, which Roger identified as his alcohol-burning stove. That’s a stove?
As he began preparing the food, I asked if there wasn’t something I could do to help, but when he said that it’s easier to do than to explain, I felt secretly relieved. He was like a culinary juggler who simultaneously sliced, sniffed, and poured while directing each action for maximum results. And, as any fool could see, this was no place for a ra
nk beginner to join in.
The second time I asked the same question he gave a different response. “Just watch for now. In the future, there will be many opportunities to help.”
That sounded like an important statement. It meant—at the very minimum didn’t it have to mean—that he likes me well enough to want to spend this and future time with me? “Okay, Roger,” I told him, realizing right off that my answer wasn’t good enough. Not by a long shot, for it was far too fearful and too self-protective to match the occasion.
Anyway, I think I’ve always suffered from what I call the “Patty Bergen malady.” What happens is that every time some important thing happens, my brain just ups and jams like an aged typewriter and all I can think to say is something spectacularly dumb. But this time, it didn’t sound spectacularly anything. Maybe I could count that as an improvement.
Somehow I felt a little freer. “Roger, I think that was wonderful what you did. I mean, taking care of me.”
Roger shrugged as with single-minded determination (not to mention patience) he picked the remaining meat from the shellfish. “It wasn’t very difficult. I had the help of the hotel manager and the taxi driver. I, uh, took three hundred francs from your purse to pay the driver. Can you afford it?”
“Oh, sure.”
He wiped his hands on the white dishtowel that he had tucked through his belt. “I should know better than to ask an American what she can afford.” He unfolded his paper, pointed to the headline and read: “LES ÉTATS-UNIS DONNENT À LA FRANCE DE L’ARGENT POUR L’INDOCHINE. The United States gives France money for Indochina.”
I wasn’t sure if I had really heard the fine edge of anger in his voice. “So?”
“So, there’s apparently very little that Americans cannot afford.”
“I don’t understand. I mean, are you saying that you don’t like my country helping yours?”
Roger sighed just as though it was time to take out the garbage. “Don’t you ever read the newspapers?”
“I not only read them, I work for one,” I answered, hearing pride’s voice. “The Commercial Appeal. It’s Memphis’s largest paper, with a paid circulation of one hundred and forty-seven thousand, and that’s only on a weekday. On Sundays, the circulation is much greater.”
“And your journalists, don’t they speak of politics?”
“Oh, sure, they do! The last time I was in the city room, they had this bet going on. By what percentage points would Boss Crump’s candidate for mayor win over his opponent, the reform candidate.” And having said that, I wished that I hadn’t. “Of course, not all of our political talk is only on the local level. Some of our reporters are very interested in national and even international politics.”
“Then you must have heard,” he said, “how France is fighting to control a small Asian country against the express wishes of the vast majority of the population.”
Isn’t he making too much of it? I know for a fact that America could never be a party to the tyrannization of another country. Anyway, if it was so important wouldn’t it have been written up in the Commercial Appeal?
“Well, naturally enough,” I lied, “I’ve certainly heard about it. It’s just that I know that my country would never knowingly meddle in other people’s affairs.”
Without answering, Roger set the table with bamboo mats and sturdy wood-handled utensils, and lit two candles on either side of an earthen pot of mint. As he poured me a half glass of red wine, he gave me the admonition to “stay reasonably sober.”
The candlelight touched only his facial ridges leaving the rest bathed in shadows. “I wasn’t planning to drink at all,” I told him. “For I wouldn’t want anything to blur my memory of this.”
It was then that I caught the very same look of surprised vulnerability on his face that I occasionally only feel on mine. And that bit of vulnerability exposed provoked a feeling in me that was at once as unexpected as the first clap of thunder and as right as the shower that breaks a long hot, dry spell.
What I really wanted was for him to know with certainty unquestioned that there was nothing illusory about my words. The compliment, he had to know, was not only very real; it was his. All his to keep. “What I’m trying to tell you is that I’m happier being here than you know, and so I don’t need or want another thing.”
With studied slowness, Roger rose from his chair to look at me in a way that I couldn’t (or was frightened that I could) decipher. Then for a moment, I thought he was going to move past me to change the radio’s dial, but I couldn’t imagine why. The music—Mendelssohn, I think it was—was really quite lovely.
Almost more with his eyes than with his hand, he reached out for my hand. And as we moved together, I came to believe that I could feel the rhythmic beat of his heart beneath the tissue-paper thinness of his cotton shirt.
“Moving with Mendelssohn,” I said, wondering why I said that. And then I knew. If I could give words to this experience of closeness, then I could endow it with longevity. And one thing more. The sound of my own voice did give me a heightened sense of this is real ... this is wonderful ... and this is happening to me!
With his finger, he leisurely traced the outline of my lips. I don’t remember ever before wanting to be kissed. But I wanted it now. As I opened my eyes to find out why it wasn’t happening, I saw that he was looking at me as though “the beautiful lady” could now be found in places more permanent than the image-reflecting brass of L’Hotel George V.
As his lips moved in maddening slow motion toward mine, my eyes again closed. This time, I thought, I’m going to get something that I want. And when at last his lips reached mine, they moved me so deeply that for this moment, there was nothing else.
Then Roger’s hand circled my breast and I saw in my memory a heavily perspiring revival tent minister crying out in evangelical ecstasy, “The devil saves his hottest fires for them that lusts!”
“Don’t!” I cried, grabbing his wrist to break the connection.
“What’s wrong?” asked Roger, looking as stricken as if he had been reprimanded.
“Nothing ... it’s not your fault.”
“Tell me what happened? Why you changed? Became frightened?”
“Frightened? Yes, but not by you. Honestly, not by you!”
“Then you remembered something,” he said, guiding me over to a bed covered with an Indian print fabric, “something bad from another love?”
I laughed. “Another love?” I hoped he wouldn’t think I was laughing at him. “No ... no, there has never been another love. You see, I’ve never ... done anything before.”
“Then what?” he asked, speaking low into my ear.
“I don’t know—not exactly. Only that I was taught that this ... that we—that what we’re doing is a sin.”
He brought his lips lightly to mine, then moved his head away to look at me with the most intense kind of concentration. “And what do you believe?”
I believe that those little men in their white preacher’s suits spew venom along with scripture. What else have I learned from sneaking into revival tents? I have learned what it is that Protestants preach: Heaven is a very private club with an impressive sign posted across those pearly gates which reads, OFF LIMITS TO JEWS!
“Oh, God, Roger, don’t ask me to think about them when I only want to think about you.”
Our lips rejoined. And I felt the warming effects of a hundred glasses of vin ordinaire that I had never drunk.
Then our bodies began responding to a rhythm that was never scored by Mendelssohn. Something I want. Something I need. Just this once, by God, I deserve to get something I need! And it would be ... and it would happen. And then no more alien and adrift ... but connected and complete.
20
THE SOFT, Paris-blue light of morning woke me, but even before the waking I knew exactly where I was and why. While drawing in the deep breaths of the still-sleeping, Roger nestled up to me as though begging warmth from my body. My arms tightened around him. De
ar Roger. Sweet Roger. With you I can be free to give without having to ask what’s in it for me. Only you can help me become more involved in the giving than in the getting.
I thought about that dank little revival tent evangelist now and how his under-the-arms half moons of perspiration became full moons every time he threw up his arms heavenward to plead for all those gifts that not even the Sears Roebuck catalog could provide. Go on preaching if you must. Preach on and on about the ferocity of all those fires just awaiting those that are tempted by the flesh. Preach on and on and forever and ever, but you’ll never make me feel evil, not anymore. Because for at least once in my life, I am both loved and loving.
And I have just one more thing to say to you, Mister Preacher Man, one more thing: I think I may have learned something during this night that you may never understand.
As I tried with some gentleness to remove my arm from beneath the numbing effects of Roger’s head, he momentarily opened his eyes. “You were happy with me, yes?” He asked before squeezing out every last bit of space between us.
“Yes,” I answered, and when it struck me that I was speaking the purest kind of truth, I repeated, “Yes. Yes. And you?”
Roger grinned in a wicked way calculated to deny what his eyes were already affirming.
“You were!” I told him. “I don’t care what you say, you old phony. You were happy then and you’re happy now. I have ways ... I can tell.”
He blew a lock of hair from my forehead. “I was happy then and I’m happy now.” Roger fixed a quick kiss on the tip of my nose before literally bounding out of bed. “But at this moment, my passion for food exceeds even my passion for you”
“Little wonder. We missed out on our crabmeat omelette.”
Roger groaned. “From this time forward, I promise to contain my passion until after dinner.”
Outside, the air came up with a slight cutting edge that the rising sun was already promising to blunt. If a city can be so beautiful now in September, what must she be like in April?