He looked at her face and it was not sad like Stan in the films, but just sad like herself.
“I feel like the ending of that Hemingway novel where two people ride along in the late day and say how it would be if they could go on forever but they know now they won’t,” she said.
“Stan,” he said, “this is no Hemingway novel and this can’t be the end of the world. You’ll never leave me.”
But it was a question, not a declaration and suddenly she moved and he blinked at her and said,
“What are you doing down there?”
“Nut,” she said, “I’m kneeling on the floor and I’m asking for your hand. Marry me, Ollie. Come away with me to France. I’ve got a new job in Paris. No, don’t say anything. Shut up. No one has to know I’ve got the money this year and will support you while you write the great American novel—”
“But—” he said.
“You’ve got your portable typewriter, a ream of paper, and me. Say it, Stan, will you come? Hell, don’t marry me, well live in sin, but fly with me, yes?”
“And watch us go to hell in a year and bury us forever?”
“Are you that afraid, Ollie? Don’t you believe in me or you or anything? God, why are men such cowards, and why the hell do you have such thin skins and are afraid of a woman like a ladder to lean on. Listen, I’ve got things to do and you’re coming with me. I can’t leave you here, you’ll fell down those damn stairs. But if I have to, I will. I want everything now, not tomorrow. That means you, Paris, and my job. Your novel will take time, but you’ll do it. Now, do you do it here and feel sorry for yourself, or do we live in a coldwater walk-up flat in the Latin Quarter a long way off from here. This is my one and only offer, Stan. I’ve never proposed before, I won’t ever propose again, it’s hard on my knees. Well?”
“Have we had this conversation before?” he said.
“A dozen times in the last year, but you never listened, you were hopeless.”
“No, in love and helpless.”
“You’ve got one minute to make up your mind. Sixty seconds.” She was staring at her wristwatch.
“Get up off the floor,” he said, embarrassed.
“If I do, it’s out the door and gone,” she said. “Forty-nine seconds to go, Ollie.”
“Stan,” he groaned.
“Thirty,” she read her watch. “Twenty. I’ve got one knee off the floor. Ten. I’m beginning to get the other knee up. Five. One.”
And she was standing on her feet.
“What brought this on?” he asked.
“Now,” she said, “I am heading for the door. I don’t know. Maybe I’ve thought about it more than I dared even notice. We are very special wondrous people, Ollie, and I don’t think our like will ever come again in the world, at least not to us, or I’m lying to myself and I probably am.
But I must go and you are free to come along, but can’t face it or don’t know it. And now—” she reached out. “My hand is on the door and—”
“And?” he said, quietly.
“I’m crying,” she said.
He started to get up but she shook her head.
“No, don’t. If you touch me I’ll cave in, and to hell with that. I’m going. But once a year will be forbearance day, or forgiveness day or whatever in hell you want to call it. Once a year 111 show up at our flight of steps, no piano, same hour, same time as that night when we first went there and if you’re there to meet me I’ll kidnap you or you me, but don’t bring along and show me your damn bank balance or give me any of your lip.”
“Stan,” he said.
“My God,” she mourned.
“What?”
“This door is heavy. I can’t move it” She wept “There. It’s moving. There.” She wept more. “I’m gone.” The door shut.
“Stan!” He ran to the door and grabbed the knob. It was wet He raised his fingers to his mouth and tasted the salt, then opened the door.
The hall was already empty. The air where she had passed was just coming back together. Thunder threatened when the two halves met. There was a promise of rain.
He went back to the steps on October 4 every year for three years, but she wasn’t there. And then he forgot for two years but in the autumn of the sixth year, he remembered and went back in the late sunlight and walked up the stairs because he saw something halfway up and it was a bottle of good champagne with a ribbon and a note on it, delivered by someone, and the note read:
“Ollie, dear Ollie. Date remembered. But in Paris. Mouth’s not the same, but happily married. Love. Stan.”
And after that, every October he simply did not go to visit the stairs, the sound of that piano rushing down that hillside, he knew, would catch him and take him along to where he did not know.
And that was the end, or almost the end, of the Laurel and Hardy love affair.
There was, by amiable accident, a final meeting.
Traveling through France fifteen years later, he was walking on the Champs-Elysées at twilight one afternoon with his wife and two daughters, when he saw this handsome woman coming the other way, escorted by a very sober-looking older man and a very handsome dark-haired boy of twelve, obviously her son.
As they passed, the same smile lit both their faces in the same instant.
He twiddled his necktie at her.
She tousled her hair at him.
They did not stop. They kept going. But he heard her call back along the Champs-Elysées, the last words he would ever hear her say:
“Another fine mess you’ve got us in!” And then she added the old, the familiar name by which he had gone in the years of their love.
And she was gone and his daughters and wife looked at him and one daughter said, “Did that lady call you Ollie?”
“What lady?” he said.
“Dad,” said the other daughter, leaning in to peer at his face. ‘You’re crying.”
“No.”
“Yes, you are. Isn’t he, Mom?”
“You papa,” said his wife, “as you well know, cries at telephone books.”
“No,” he said, “just one hundred fifty steps and a piano. Remind me to show you girls, someday.”
They walked on and he turned and looked back a final time. The woman with her husband and son turned at that very moment. Maybe he saw her mouth pantomime the words, So long, Ollie. Maybe he didn’t. He felt his own mouth move, in silence: So long, Stan.
And they walked in opposite directions along the Champs-Elysées in the late light of an October sun.
I Suppose You Are Wondering Why We Are Here?
The restaurant was empty when he arrived. It was six o’clock, early, the big crowds if they came would come later, which was perfect, for he had a dozen busy things to do. He watched his hands lay out the napkins in front of three places, then arrange and rearrange-the wineglasses, then place and replace the knives, forks, and spoons as if he himself were the maître d’ or some sort of latter-day sorcerer. He heard himself muttering under his breath, and part of the time it was a sort of mindless chant and the rest an incantation, for he really didn’t know how to do all this, but it had to be done.
He himself opened the wine, while the owners of the restaurant stood in the back, whispering with the chef and nodding at him as if he were the maniac-in-charge.
In charge of what, he was not quite sure. His own life? Not quite. Not by half. Sometimes not at all. But tonight, one way or another, it would have to change. Tonight might at least give him a few answers or a little peace.
He poured some wine in a glass, sniffed it, sipped it, eyes shut, waiting for the taste. All right. Not great, but all right.
He rearranged the cutlery for the third time, think ing, I have two problems. My daughters who might as well be Martians living on Mars’, and my mother and father, the greatest problem of all.
Because they had been dead for twenty years.
No matter. If he prayed, if he silently begged, if he summoned them with immense will, contr
olling his heart beat and restless mind, focusing his thoughts on the near grass meadow, it would happen. His mother and father would somehow recycle their dusts, arise, walk, stroll along the night avenues for three blocks, and step into this restaurant as matter-of-factly, just as if—
God, I haven’t even had a full glass of wine yet, he thought, and turned abruptly to step outside.
Out in the summer night, with the restaurant screen door half-open, he stared down the dusking street toward the graveyard gates. Yes. Almost ready. He was, that is. But... were they? Was the time right? For him, of course, but... Would the napkins placed, the cutlery arranged in symbols of need, the good wine waiting, would all of it truly do tile job?
Cut it out, he thought, and turned his gaze from the far graveyard entrance to the nearby phone booth. He let the screen door shut, walked to the booth, dropped in his dime, and dialed a number.
His daughter’s voice, on the answering machine, sounded. He shut his eyes and hung up, shaking his head, not saying anything. He tried a second number. The second daughter simply didn’t answer. He hung up, took a final look at that graveyard off away there in the growing dark, and hurried back inside the restaurant.
There he did the whole tiling over again, the glasses, the napkins, the cutlery, touching, retouching, placing and replacing, to energize it all, to make all the objects, as well as himself, believe. Then he nodded and sat down, stared hard at the cutlery, the plates, the wineglasses, took three deep breaths, shut his eyes, concentrated, and prayed very hard, waiting.
He knew that if he sat here long enough and wished Hard enough—
They would arrive, sit down, greet him as always; his mother would kiss him on the cheek, his father would grab his hand and tighten on it, hard, the loud greetings would at last quiet down and the last supper at this small-town restaurant would finally begin. Two minutes passed. He heard his watch ticking on his wrist Nothing. Another minute passed. He concentrated. He prayed. His heart sounded quietly. Nothing. Another minute. He listened to his own breathing. Now, he thought Now, dammit. Come on!
His heart jumped.
The front door to the restaurant had opened.
He did not look up, he trapped his breath, and kept his eyes shut. Someone was walking toward his table. Someone arrived. Someone was looking down at him. “I thought you’d never invite us to dinner again,” said his mother. He opened his eyes just as she leaned down to kiss him on the brow. “Long time no see!” His father reached out, seized his hand, and gripped it tight “How goes it, son?”
The son leaped up, almost spilling the wine.
“Fine, Dad. Hi, Mom! Sit down, my God, oh my God, sit down!” But they did not sit down. They stood looking at each other in a kind of stunned bewilderment until: “Don’t make such a fuss, it’s only us,” said his moth er. “It’s been so long since you called. We—”
“It has been a long time, son.” His father was still holding his hand in an iron grip. Now, he winked to show it was okay. “But, we understand. You’re busy. You okay, boy?”
“Okay,” said the son. “I mean—I’ve missed you!” And here he grabbed both of them, impulsively, and hugged them, his eyes watering. “How have you been—” He stopped and blushed. “I mean—”
“Don’t be embarrassed, son,” said his father. “We’re great. For a while there it was tough. I mean, it was all so new. How in hell do you describe it. You can’t, so I won’t—”
“George, for goodness sake, cut the cackle and get us a table,” said his mother.
“This is our table,” said the son, pointing at the empty places. He suddenly realized he had forgotten to light the candle, and did so, with trembling hands. “Sit down. Have some wine!”
“Your father shouldn’t drink wine,” his mother started to say. “For God’s sake,” his father said, “it doesn’t make any difference now.”
“I forgot.” His mother felt herself in a strange, tentative way, as if she had just tried on a new dress and the seams were awry. “I keep forgetting.”
“It’s the same as forgetting you’re alive.” His father barked a laugh. “People live seventy years and after a while don’t notice. Forget to say, hell, I’m alive! When that happens, you might as well be—”
“George,” said his mother.
“Look at it this way,” said his father, sitting down and leaving his wife and son standing. “Before you’re born’s one condition, living’s a second condition, and after you’re through is a third. In each state you forget to notice, say: Hey, I’m on first base, I’m on second! Well, hell, here we are on third, and like your mom says, she sometimes forgets. I can have as much damned wine as I want!”
He poured wine all around, and drank his, much too quickly. “Not bad!”
“How can you tell?” said the son, then bit his tongue.
But his father had not heard, and patted the seat beside him. “Come on, Ma!”
“Don’t call me Ma. I’m Alice!”
“Ma-Alice, come on” His mother slid in on one side, and the son slid in on
the other side of his father. For the first time, as they got settled, the son had a chance to really look at what his parents were wearing.
His father wore a tweed jacket and knickers for golfing and high, brightly patterned, Argyle socks. His shoes were a light sunburnt orange, highly polished, his tie was black with tangerine stripes, and on his head he wore a cap with a broad brim, made of some brown tweed stuff, very fresh looking and new.
“You look great, Dad. Mom—”
She was wearing her good Lodge go-to-meeting coat, a gray woolen affair, under which she wore a blue and white silk dress with a light blue scarf at her neck. On her head was a kind of mushroom cloche, the sort of cap aging flappers wore, with ruby stickpins thrust through to hold it tight to their marcelled curls.
“Where have I seen your outfits before?” asked the son.
But before they could answer, he remembered: a snapshot of himself and his brother on the front lawn some Memorial Day or July 4 long years ago. There they were, secretly pinching one another, dressed in their knickers and coats and caps, their folks behind them, squinting out at a noon that would last forever.
His father read his thoughts and said, “Right after Baptist service, Easter noon, nineteen twenty-seven. Wore my golf clothes. Ma had a fit.”
“What are you both yammering about?” His mother fussed in her purse, drew forth a mirror, and checked her Tangee mouth, etching it with her little finger.
“Nothing, Alice-Ma.” His father refilled his glass but this time, seeing his son watching, drank the wine slower. “Not bad, once you get used to it It’s not the hard stuff, though. Whiskey is more like it Where’s the menu? Hell, here it is. Let’s have a look.”
His father took a long time angling the menu and peering at the print “What’s this French stuff on the list?” he cried. “Why can’t they use English? Who do they think they are?”
“It is in English, dad See. There.” The son underlined several items on the menu with his fingernail. “Hell,” snorted his father, staring at the lines, “why didn’t they say so?”
“Pa,” said his mother, “just read the English and choose.”
“Always had trouble choosing. What’s everyone else eating? What’s that man over there eating?” His father leaned and craned his neck, staring at the able across the way. “Looks good. Think I’ll have that!”
“Your father,” said his mother, “has always ordered this way. If that man was having carpet tacks and pork bellies, he’d order that.”
“I remember,” said the son, quietly, and drank his wine. He held his breath and at last let it out “What’ll you have, Mom?”
“What are you having, son?”
“Hamburger steak—”
“That’s what I’ll have,” said his mother, “to save trouble.”
“Mom,” said the son. “It’s no trouble. There are three dozen items on the menu.”
“No,” she said, and put the menu down and covered it with her napkin as if it were a small cold body. “That’s it My son’s taste is my taste.”
He reached for the wine bottle and suddenly realized it was empty. “Good grief,” he said, “did we drink it all?”
“Someone did. Get some more, son. Here, while you’re waiting, take some of mine.” The father poured half of his wine into his son’s glass. “I could drink a soup bowl of that stuff.”
More wine was brought, opened, poured.
“Watch your liver!” said his mother.
“Is that a threat, or a toast?” said his father.
As they drank, the son realized that somehow the evening had got out of hand; diey were not talking about the dungs he most dearly wanted to talk about
“Here’s to your health, son!”
“And yours, Dad. Mom!”
Again he had to stop, flushing, for he suddenly re membered that meadow down the street from which they had come, that quiet place of marble huts with great names cut on the Grecian roofs, and too many crosses and not half enough angels.
“Your health,” said the son, quietly.
His mother at last raised her glass and nibbled at the wine like a field mouse. “Oh.” She wrinkled her nose. “Sour.”
“No, it’s not, ma,” said the son, “that’s just the cellar
taste. It’s not a bad wine, really—”
“If it’s so good,” said his mother, “why are you gulping it so fast?”
“Mother,” said his father. “Well!” And here his father exploded a laugh, brisked his palms together, and leaned on the table with false earnestness. “I suppose you are wondering,” he said, “why we are here?’
“You didn’t call, father. He did. Your son.”
“Just a joke, Ma. Well, son, why did you?”
They were both staring at him, waiting.
“Why did I what?’
“Call us here!”
“Oh, that—”