Giovanni's Room

by James Baldwin

  I held her very close in that high, dark shed, with a great confusion of people all about us, just beside the breathing train. She smelled of the wind and the sea and of space and I felt in her marvellously living body the possibility of legitimate surrender.

  Then she pulled away. Her eyes were damp. 'Let me look at you,' she said. She held me at arm's length, searching my face. 'Ah. You look wonderful. I'm so happy to see you again.'

  I kissed her lightly on the nose and felt that I had passed the first inspection. I picked up her bags and we started towards the exit. 'Did you have a good trip? And how was Seville? And how do you like bullfights? Did you meet any bullfighters? Tell me everything.'

  She laughed. Tiverything is a very tall order. I had a terrible trip, I hate trains, I wish I'd flown but I've been in one Spanish airplane and I swore never, never again. It rattled, my dear, in the middle of the air just like a model T Ford—it had probably been a model T Ford at one time—and I just sat there, praying and drinking brandy. I was sure I'd never see land again.' We passed through the barrier, into the streets. Hella looked about delightedly at all of it, the cafes, the self-contained people, the violent snarl of the traffic, the blue-caped traffic policeman and his white, gleaming club. 'Coming back to Paris,' she said, after a moment, Is always so lovely, no matter where you've been.' We got into a cab and our driver made a wide, reckless circle into the stream of traffic. 1 should think that even if you returned here in some awful sorrow, you might—well, you might find it possible here to begin to be reconciled.'

  'Let's hope,' I said, 'that we never have to put Paris to that test.'

  Her smile was at once bright and melancholy. 'Let's hope.' Then she suddenly took my face between her hands and kissed me. There was a great question in her eyes and I knew that she burned to have this question answered at once. But I could not do it yet. I held her close and kissed her, closing my eyes. Everything was as it had been between us, and at the same time everything was different.

  I told myself I would not think about Giovanni yet, I would not worry about him yet; for tonight, anyway, Hella and I should be together with nothing to divide us. Still, I knew very well that this was not really possible: he had already divided us. I tried not to think of him sitting alone in that room, wondering why I stayed away so long.

  Then we were sitting together in Hella's room on the rue de Tournon, sampling Fundador. It's much too sweet,' I said. Is this what they drink in Spain?'

  'I never saw any Spaniards drinking it,' she said, and laughed. 'They drink wine. I drank gin-fizz—in Spain I somehow had the feeling that it was healthy,' and she laughed again.

  I kept kissing her and holding her, trying to find my way in her again, as though she were a familiar, darkened room in which I fumbled to find the light. And, with my kisses, I was trying also to delay the moment which would commit me to her, or fail to commit me to her. But I think she felt that the indefinitive constraint between us was of her doing and all on her side. She was remembering that I had written her less and less often while she had been away. In Spain, until near the end, this had probably not worried her; not until she herself had come to a decision did she begin to be afraid that I might also have arrived at a decision, opposite to hers. Perhaps she had kept me dangling too long.

  She was by nature forthright and impatient; she suffered when things were not clear; yet she forced herself to wait for some word or sign from me and held the reins of her strong desire tightly in her hands.

  I wanted to force her to relinquish reins. Somehow, I would be tongue-tied until I took her again. I hoped to burn out, through Hella, my image of Giovanni and the reality of his touch—I hoped to drive out fire with fire. Yet, my sense of what I was doing made me double-minded. And at last she asked me, with a smile, 'Have I been away too long?'

  'I don't know,' I said. It's been a long time.'

  It was a very lonely time,' she said, unexpectedly. She turned slightly away from me, lying on her side, looking toward the window. I felt so aimless—like a tennis ball, bouncing, bouncing—I began to wonder where I'd land. I began to feel that I'd, somewhere, missed the boat.' She looked at me. 'You know the boat I'm talking about. They make movies about it where I come from. It's the boat that, when you miss it, it's a boat, but when it comes in, it's a ship.' I watched her face. It was stiller than I had ever known it to be before.

  'Didn't you like Spain,' I asked, nervously, 'at all?'

  She ran one hand, impatiently, through her hair. 'Oh. Of course, I liked Spain, why not? it's very beautiful. I just didn't know what I was doing there. And I'm beginning to be tired of being in places for no particular reason.'

  I lit a cigarette and smiled. 'But you went to Spain to get away from me—remember?'

  She smiled and stroked my cheek. 'I haven't been very nice to you, have I?'

  'You've been very honest.' I stood up and walked a little away from her. 'Did you get much thinking done, Hella?'

  I told you in my letter—don't you remember?'

  For a moment everything seemed perfectly still. Even the faint street noises died. I had my back to her but I felt her eyes. I felt her waiting—everything seemed to be waiting.

  'I wasn't sure about that letter.' I was thinking. Perhaps I can get out of it without having to tell her anything. 'You were so sort of—offhand—I couldn't be sure whether you were glad or sorry to be throwing in with me.'

  'Oh,' she said, 'but we've always been offhand. If s the only way I could have said it. I was afraid of embarrassing you—don't you understand that?'

  What I wanted to suggest was that she was taking me out of desperation, less because she wanted me than because I was there. But I could not say it. I sensed that, though it might be true, she no longer knew it.

  'But, perhaps,' she said, carefully, 'you feel differently now. Please say so if you do.' She waited for my answer for a moment. Then: 'You know, I'm not really the emancipated girl I try to be at all. I guess I just want a man to come home to me every night. I want to be able to sleep with a man without being afraid he's going to knock me up. Hell, I want to be knocked up. I want to start having babies. In a way, if s really all I'm good for.' There was silence again. Is that what you want?'

  'Yes,' I said, 'I've always wanted that.'

  I turned to face her, very quickly, or as though strong hands on my shoulders had turned me around. The room was darkening. She lay on the bed watching me, her mouth slightly open and her eyes like lights. I was terribly aware of her body, and of mine. I walked over to her and put my head on her breast. I wanted to lie there, hidden and still. But then, deep within, I felt her moving, rushing to open the gates of her strong, walled city and let the king of glory come in.

  Dear Dad, I wrote, I won't keep any secrets from you anymore, I found a girl and I want to marry her and it wasn't that I was keeping secrets from you, I just wasn't sure she wanted to marry me. But she's finally agreed to risk it, poor soft-headed thing that she is, and we're planning to tie the knot while we're still over here and make our way home by easy stages. She's not French, in case you're worried (I know you don't dislike the French, it's just that you don't think they have our virtues—I might add, they don't.) Anyway, Hella—her name is Hella Lincoln, she comes from Minneapolis, her father and mother still live there, he's a corporation lawyer, she's just the little woman—Hella would like us to honeymoon here and it goes without saying that I like anything she likes. So. Now will you send your loving son some of his hard-earned money. Tout de suite. That's French for pronto.

  Hella—the photo doesn't really do her justice—came over here a couple of years ago to study painting. Then she discovered she wasn't a painter and just about the time she was ready to throw herself into the Seine, we met, and the rest, as they say, is history. I know you'll love her, Dad, and she'll love you. She's already made me a very happy man.

  Hella and Giovanni met by accident, after Hella had been in Paris for three days. During those three days I had not seen
him and I had not mentioned his name.

  We had been wandering about the city all day and all day Hella had been full of a subject which I had never heard her discuss at such length before: women. She claimed it was hard to be one.

  'I don't see whafs so hard about being a woman. At least, not as long as she's got a man.'

  'That's just it,' said she. 'Hasn't it ever struck you that thafs a sort of humiliating necessity?'

  'Oh, please,' I said. It never seemed to humiliate any of the women I knew.'

  'Well,' she said, I'm sure you never thought about any of them—in that way.'

  'I certainly didn't. I hope they didn't, either. And why are you? What's your beef?

  'I've got no beef,' she said. She hummed, low in her throat, a kind of playful Mozart tune. 'I've got no beef at all. But it does seem—well, difficult—to be at the mercy of some gross, unshaven stranger before you can begin to be yourself.'

  'I don't know if I like that,' I said. 'Since when have I been gross? or a stranger? It may be true that I need a shave but that's your fault, I haven't been able to tear myself away from you.' And I grinned and kissed her.

  'Well,' she said, 'you may not be a stranger now. But you were once and I'm sure you will be again—many times.'

  'If it comes to that,' I said, 'so will you be, for me.'

  She looked at me with a quick, bright smile. 'Will I?' Then: 'But what I mean about being a woman is, we might get married now and stay married for fifty years and I might be a stranger to you every instant of that time and you might never know it.'

  'But if I were a stranger—you would know it?'

  'For a woman,' she said, I think a man is always a stranger. And there's something awful about being at the mercy of a stranger.'

  'But men are at the mercy of women, too. Have you never thought of that?'

  'Ah!' she said, 'men may be at the mercy of women—I think men like that idea, it strokes the misogynist in them. But if a particular man is ever at the mercy of a particular woman— why, he's somehow stopped being a man. And the lady, then, is more neatly trapped than ever.'

  'You mean, I can't be at your mercy? But you can be at mine?' I laughed. 'I'd like to see you at anybody's mercy, Hella.'

  'You may laugh,' she said, humorously, 'but there is something in what I say. I began to realize it in Spain—that I wasn't free, that I couldn't be free until I was attached—no, committed—to someone.'

  To someone? Not something!'

  She was silent. 'I don't know,' she said at last, 'but I'm beginning to think that women get attached to something really by default. They'd give it up, if they could, anytime, for a man. Of course they can't admit this, and neither can most of them let go of what they have. But I think it kills them—perhaps I only mean,' she added, after a moment, 'that it would have killed me.'

  'What do you want, Hella? What have you got now that makes such a difference?'

  She laughed. It isn't what I've got. It isn't even what I want. It's that you've got me. So now I can be—your obedient and most loving servant.'

  I felt cold. I shook my head in mock confusion. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

  'Why,' she said, Tm talking about my life. I've got you to take care of and feed and torment and trick and love—I've got you to put up with. From now on, I can have a wonderful time complaining about being a woman. But I won't be terrified that I'm not one.' She looked at my face, and laughed. 'Oh, I'll be doing other things,' she cried. I won't stop being intelligent. I'll read and argue and think and all that—and I'll make a great point of not thinking your thoughts—and you'll be pleased because I'm sure the resulting confusion will cause you to see that I've only got a finite woman's mind, after all. And, if God is good, you'll love me more and more and we'll be quite happy.' She laughed again. 'Don't bother your head about it, sweetheart. Leave it to me.'

  Her amusement was contagious and I shook my head again, laughing with her. 'You're adorable,' I said. 'I don't understand you at all.'

  She laughed again. 'There,' she said, 'that's fine. We're both taking to it like ducks to water.'

  We were passing a bookstore and she stopped. 'Can we go in for just a minute?' she asked. There's a book I'd like to get. Quite,' she added, as we entered the shop, 'a trivial book.'

  I watched her with amazement as she went over to speak to the woman who ran the shop. I wandered idly over to the farthest book shelf, where a man stood, his back to me, leafing through a magazine. As I stood beside him, he closed the magazine and put it down, and turned. We recognized each other at once. It was Jacques.

  'Tiens!' he cried. 'Here you are! We were beginning to think that you had gone back to America.'

  'Me?' I laughed. 'No, I'm still in Paris. I've just been busy.' Then, with a terrible suspicion, I asked, 'Who's we?'

  Why,' said Jacques, with a hard, insistent smile, 'your baby. It seems you left him alone in that room without any food, without any money, without, even, any cigarettes. He finally persuaded his concierge to allow him to put a phone call on his bill and called me. The poor boy sounded as though he would have put his head in the gas oven. 'If,' he laughed, 'he had had a gas oven.'

  We stared at each other. He, deliberately, said nothing. I did not know what to say.

  'I threw a few provisions in my car,' said Jacques, 'and hurried out to get him. He thought we should drag the river for you. But I assured him that he did not know Americans as well as I and that you had not drowned yourself. You had only disappeared in order—to think. And I see that I was right. You have thought so much that now you must find what others have thought before you. One book,' he said, finally, 'that you can surely spare yourself the trouble of reading is the Marquis de Sade.'

  'Where is Giovanni now?' I asked.

  'I finally remembered the name of Hella's hotel,' said Jacques. 'Giovanni said that you were more or less expecting her and so I gave him the bright idea of calling you there. He has stepped out for an instant to do just that. Hell be along presently.'

  Hella had returned, with her book.

  'You two have met before,' I said, awkwardly. 'Hella, you remember Jacques.'

  She remembered him and also remembered that she disliked him. She smiled politely and held out her hand. 'How are you?'

  'Je suis ravi, mademoiselle,' said Jacques. He knew that Hella disliked him and this amused him. And, to corroborate her dislike, and also because at that moment he really hated me, he bowed low over her outstretched hand and became, in an instant, outrageously and offensively effeminate. I watched him as though I were watching an imminent disaster from many miles away. He turned playfully to me. 'David has been hiding from us,' he murmured, 'now that you are back.'

  'Oh?' said Hella, and moved closer to me, taking my hand, 'that was very naughty of him. I'd never have allowed it—if I'd known we were hiding.' She grinned. 'But, then, he never tells me anything.'

  Jacques looked at her. 'No doubt,' he said, tie finds more fascinating topics when you are together than why he hides from old friends.'

  I felt a great need to get out of there before Giovanni arrived. We haven't eaten supper yet,' I said, trying to smile, 'perhaps we can meet you later?' I knew that my smile was begging him to be kind to me.

  But at that moment the tiny bell which announced every entry into the shop rang, and Jacques said, 'Ah. Here is Giovanni.' And, indeed, I felt him behind me, standing stock-still, staring, and felt in Hella's clasp, in her entire body, a kind of wild shrinking and not all of her composure kept this from showing in her face. When Giovanni spoke, his voice was thick with fury and relief and unshed tears.

  'Where have you been?' he cried. 'I thought you were dead! I thought you had been knocked down by a car or thrown into the river—what have you been doing all these days?'

  I was able, oddly enough, to smile. And I was astonished at my calm. 'Giovanni,' I said, I want you to meet my fiancée. Mlle Hella. Monsieur Giovanni.'

  He had seen her before his outburst ende
d and now he touched her hand with a still, astounded politeness and stared at her with black, steady eyes as though he had never seen a woman before.

  'Enchanté, mademoiselle,' he said. And his voice was dead and cold. He looked briefly at me, then back at Hella. For a moment we, all four, stood there as though we were posing for a tableau.

  'Really,' said Jacques, 'now that we are all together, I think we should have one drink together. A very short one,' he said to Hella, cutting off her attempt at polite refusal and taking her arm. 'It's not every day,' he said, 'that old friends get together.' He forced us to move, Hella and he together, Giovanni and I ahead. The bell rang viciously as Giovanni opened the door. The evening air hit us like a blaze. We started walking away from the river, toward the boulevard.

  When I decide to leave a place,' said Giovanni, 'I tell the concierge, so that at least she will know where to forward my mail.'

  I flared briefly, unhappily. I had noticed that he was shaven and wore a clean, white shirt and tie—a tie which surely belonged to Jacques. 'I don't see what you've got to complain about,' I said. Tou sure knew where to go.'

  But with the look he gave me then my anger left me and I wanted to cry. 'You are not nice,' he said. 'Tu n'est pas chic du tout.' Then he said no more and we walked to the boulevard in silence. Behind us I could hear the murmur of Jacques' voice. On the corner we stood and waited for them to catch up with us.