Birds of America

by Mary McCarthy

  Silvanus, who had his coat on, was proposing they go eat some oysters. “OK, but wait a minute.” Peter turned to the hostess. “Thank you for a nice time,” he lied. Then he took the icy plunge. “I wanted to ask you something. About that tour Roberta and this girl are doing … I might be in Autun myself next week some time. … On my motorbike. It would be fun if we could make connections. I thought maybe you’d know what her plans were, more or less. I mean, is she going to Dijon first or …?”

  Something was wrong. The woman was looking at her husband and lifting a penciled eyebrow. “I haven’t made up my mind yet,” Peter continued, hedging. “There’s this Pole who thinks he might come with me. But I might go to Rome instead. Though they say the trains are pretty full.” The woman eyed her husband again. She made that purring noise. “Go to Rome, darling.” Other guests were waiting to say good-bye. “Have a scrumptious Christmas.” “See you at Klosters.” Peter tried again. “About Autun—” The host put his oar in. “My wife says go to Rome. And my wife is a wise woman.” He held out Peter’s coat. Peter took umbrage. “I don’t get it. What’s the mystery? Why shouldn’t I see Autun if I want to?” The woman gave her husband one of those shall-we-tell-him glances. “Of course you can see Autun. But you might be de trop right now. Don’t look at me that way, Harry! After all, it’s not a secret.” She spoke loudly and defiantly, thrusting her pale head forward almost into Peter’s face. “Bobbie isn’t with a girl. She’s with her petit ami.”

  “Cynthia,” her husband sighed. She whirled. “I have a perfect right to tell him. Bobbie’s my goddaughter. I’m her mother’s oldest friend.” “That’s a funny reason, darling.” “It’s not!” “Well, thanks,” put in Peter hastily. “Thanks a lot really. I wouldn’t want to butt in. It was just an idea anyway. I can go to Autun some other time.” “Of course,” soothed the woman, resuming her social mask and turning to look at herself in a long mirror as though to make sure she had it on straight. “Probably I’m over-protective about Bobbie. But her friend is French and a little bit stuffy. He might not be pleased to have an American boy on his trail. Like one of her younger brothers.” “ ‘Sister, sister,’ ” said Silly Boy, “ ‘what’s that naughty man doing in your bed?’ ”

  “Come on,” urged Peter. “Let’s go.” He had no desire, not even a morbid one, to hear any more. But Silly was curious, so they had to stand there, with their coats on, listening to the gory details. The petit ami was a research doctor, separated from his wife. And Roberta’s parents knew. “I imagine they expected something of the sort when they sent her over here. At home, she’d had an unhappy love affair with some man who lived on peanut butter and stood on his head.” “Apple butter, darling.” “Are you sure?” “Oh, absolutely.” “Well, anyway, this young doctor couldn’t be more normal and comme il faut. Does the chasse à courre on weekends. Bobbie’s always been a passionate athlete. His not being divorced is a convenience, really. If she wants to go ahead with her career, she’ll have another two years of medical school and then internship. And then the residency. It’s a terribly sensible arrangement. If it lasts, she can do her internship at the American Hospital. None of the complications of marriage and the inevitable children.”

  “Yeah, it makes sense,” said Peter. Actually, to his stupefied brain, it made no sense at all. In his private order of credibility, a Roberta dépucelée ranked far below the Virgin Birth and the Immaculate Conception. If she had not been a virgin unspotted when he had met her at the general’s on Thanksgiving, then he would swear no more oaths. But maybe even then she had been bedding down with this doctor. Maybe it had already happened with the headstander. His imagination balked at the thought, just as it had declined when he was little to picture his parents doing it; he preferred to think that he had originated in a cabbage leaf.

  Yet had he not hoped to deflower Roberta himself? He was no longer sure. If he had, the hope had been founded on the sheer unlikelihood of the proposition. Hoping against hope seemed to be the only course open to him where sex was concerned. Imagining his own initiation by some practiced hand was repugnant. He did not want to be a hapless Adonis pursued by a hot-breathing Venus; rather, a pure mortal youth loved, while he slept, by a chaste Immortal, like the moon stealing down on Endymion. While feverishly dreaming of trapping the maiden in his snare, he had not once thought ahead to the act that presumably—what else?—would reward his devotion. His mind had drawn a veil. It was true that he had had a mild curiosity about her breasts, but really he had been enamored of her as a radiant totality that included her Waring Blendor and her nutty food ideas; if he had had to pick some part of Roberta that summed up the whole, it might have been those flags of color in her cheeks.

  He did not know whether this was natural or whether it was not just another illustration of his being a grotesque anachronism. In movie houses he was always embarrassed to see couples pawing and nuzzling each other, on or off the screen. All he knew of love’s raptures came from reading poetry, and the poets, like him, usually did not let their imagination stray much below the waist unless they were rejected and angry. Yet it looked as if the world had changed. To listen to most guys talk today, all they were interested in was some girl being “stacked” and whether or not they could “get laid” by her.

  Peter had only fitfully had such coarse thoughts himself and then about streetwalkers or unattractive girls reputed to be pushovers. And when he had them, he was ashamed, since they violated the great commandment he still carried in his wallet: “The Other is always an End: thy Maxim.” If a woman was a tool for obtaining gratification for your tool, she could not be an end. Of course that was the whole logic of prostitution: you used them as a means of getting laid, and they used you as a means of getting dough. So that you could say that it all squared off there, in a sordid realistic way. And if a girl wanted sex and you wanted it too, that could be a deal, he supposed. But in those arrangements, he suspected, one party was usually cheating.

  If memory was not lying to him, the most he had imagined with Roberta was taking her to Amiens on the train, taking her out to Trappes and showing her the moor hens and the field-fare in the winter ponds and hedges, maybe taking her skating on one of the big rinks, feeding her jasmin tea in his apartment and toast with rose-hip jam—little extensions of his confidence that implied no fell design. Yet as he walked with Silvanus toward St.-Germain-des-Prés, he discovered a strange thing. His love had died on the spot. One swift blow had done it. And he did not feel as much anguish as when his plant had bit the dust. Only anger with himself and a sense of wasted time. Now he would have to begin all over, trying to find an interest in life beyond the daily grind. It was depressing not to have anything to look forward to any more. True, that had been his state when he had met her, so that he was only back where he had started. Yet there was a limit to a person’s resilience. To be repeatedly sent back “home,” like a man in parcheesi, by a single throw of the dice, could finally make you resign. Let the others play. Instead of going through the weary ordeal of trying to get to Rome, which would probably disappoint him, he could cable his family to send him an airplane ticket to New York. One-way.

  In the café, over their second dozen oysters, annoyance with the virtuous Roberta began to surface. “Frankly, can you swallow that story? Do you see her checking into a hotel room with a man? After all, they ask you for your passport. Don’t forget that.” Silvanus nodded. “I would have bet anything she was a virgin,” continued Peter. “Me too.” “The fact that they travel together doesn’t necessarily prove anything. Maybe they sleep with a sword between them.” “The guy is French, remember?” “But I saw her about ten days ago. We went to a concert. She seemed just the same. You know, sort of fresh and wholesome, like an American apple.” “The one the doctor ordered, ha ha. But she really was a nice dish.” Silvanus fetched a sigh. “I took her out once myself. Skating.” “Oh?” “That’s all. We had fun. And she paid her own admission. There aren’t too many attractions in Paris-after-dark f
or a vegetarian health fiend.” “But that was what was so misleading,” said Peter. “You assume that if somebody’s a puritan, they’re a puritan all the way down the line. You’d think you had the right to assume that.” “Girls are funny.” “Maybe being a vegetarian is the explanation. A person’s physical nature has to find some outlet. A girl that doesn’t drink or eat meat and butter and stuff is available for sex, no?” Silvanus shook his head. “In my experience, you have to get them a little high the first time. Not loaded, because they might be sick, but high.”

  Peter remained silent. He was thinking that if he went on a strict vegetarian diet, he might be able to lose his own virginity. “You can usually tell,” Silvanus went on, “when a girl will. I mean, when a nice girl will. I can’t stand tramps.” “How do you tell?” “Oh, there are lots of little ways. Sometimes I study them when they come out of the Alliance Française. … Some of those Swedish chicks are virgins. Contrary to what you hear.”

  They ordered a third dozen oysters. Silvanus was having Belons, and Peter was sticking with Claires. “Silvanus—” “Call me Silly, if you want. I don’t mind. In fact I’m learning to love it. It disarms the opposition. If you can get a woman to call you Silly, you’re in. Especially an older woman. ‘Oh, Silly, don’t do that!’ ” He mimicked a female voice. Peter sought another topic. There was a question he had been wanting to ask. “What kind of a name is Silvanus?” “It comes out of the Bible—the Epistles. He was one of Saint Paul’s disciples. It’s another name, most likely, for Silas, in Acts. There were a lot of Congregational ministers in my father’s family, way back, and in each generation we have a Silvanus. People think a name like that is a handicap. They’re so wrong. In the first place, it helps you develop an armor early. Second, it makes the general public remember you: girls, headmasters, professors, party-throwers. Third, it makes the whole world feel sorry for you. ‘How could your parents have been so cruel as to give a tiny child a burden like that to carry through life?’ ” Peter gave a weak assenting grin. “Fourth, it’s a conversation-starter. If somebody you meet asks you your first name and you say ‘Peter,’ that’s the end of it. No mileage. But if they ask me my name, it’s an opening for me. Right away, like you, they want to know what kind of a name is that, and we’re off.”

  “Don’t you ever get fed up with explaining it?” “No. Why should I? It’s less of a drag to repeat something you already know than to try to think up some boring fresh gambit. Anyway, I vary it a little. I haven’t given you the bit about Silvanus, Roman god of woodlands, hence ‘sylvan.’ My uncle Sylvy goes to town on that, reciting Vergil and Horace. ‘Horridi dumeta Silvani …’ It’s a ball. Then there’s the bit about Silas being maybe one of the authors of the Gospels.” “I never heard of that.” “Neither have most people. But you’re interested, aren’t you?” “Well, mildly. Go on.” “No, I just wanted to show you the possibilities. At some point, the other person, if it’s a girl, chimes in with ‘Don’t you think children should be allowed to choose their own names?’ Or ‘I love the name “Ermentrude,” but I wonder if I’d have the courage …’ Did you notice the time when we ordered these last oysters? ‘Silvanus,’ if you include ‘Silly,’ is usually good for a fifteen-minute chat.”

  Peter burst out laughing. He was warming to this boy, who reminded him of someone, though not physically. He searched his memory. Someone he knew quite well, he thought … Then he got it. It was himself. As he might be in the fourth dimension, turned inside out. Or reincarnated. “I think a lot,” explained Silvanus. “Though I’m not meant to be very brainy. My brother Barnabas got all the gray matter in the family. But I analyze situations and work out strategies. And I study people. While I’m talking to them, I’m watching their reactions to me. I couldn’t do that if I was self-conscious, like you. You have to practice to develop your armor.”

  “You’re a funny guy,” said Peter. “Let’s see each other when I get back.” “Where are you going?” “To Rome, I guess. Would you like to come along?” “I’ve got to go to Klosters. With Cynthia.” He raised his eyebrows suggestively. “You mean that woman tonight? But she’s old enough to be your mother!” “Hardly. She may be old enough to be somebody’s mother, but my mother is old.” “Doesn’t her husband suspect?” “So what? He’s probably used to it. She says he’s impotent. They’re ‘like brother and sister.’ Though they all say that.” “But weren’t you talking to her about girls tonight?” “I make a point of that. It lets her know I’m a free agent. You know, just a butterfly flitting from flower to flower. And it makes her feel brave and generous. Actually, she’s rather a tightwad. Or maybe it’s him. She comes from one of those breakfast-food families—Grape-Nuts or Ralston’s, I forget. But they play poor little church mice, squeak, squeak. In Klosters they have a rather grand chalet. Bobbie stayed there. But I don’t expect Santa Claus will put much in poor Silly Boy’s stocking. No Cartier watches or diamond cuff links. Something thoughtful, for his soul. Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes, as my uncle Sylvy says when he goes to stay with our rich cousin. They’re paying my air fare and sending a car to meet me, which is a help, but then there are the tips to the servants and my own wee thoughtful presents. …”

  “You shouldn’t go,” said Peter, “if you dislike that Cynthia as much as you give the impression.” “Do I sound as if I disliked her?” “Yes.” “It’s so hard to know what one feels, really. But in cold, cruel fact, I confess I’m going for the skiing. It’s my first crack at the Swiss Alps. I couldn’t pass that up, don’t you see? Then I have this dream. …” “What’s your dream?” prompted Peter, looking at him with curiosity. Silly crossed his fingers; he knocked on wood. “To get taken on as a ski instructor,” he confided. “You’re kidding.” But Silly was serious. “A guy I know put me on to it. The thing is, you have to connect with some English-speaking group that wants lessons. The instructors up there only know how to talk German, so it’s an opportunity for an American to cash in. Unbelievable!” He sighed. “With my room and meals free, I could clear maybe a hundred and fifty dollars. This guy knew another kid who did it last year.” And unlike this other kid, Silly had experience. He had been a ski instructor before once in Vermont; a family had hired him to teach their children. But it was easy; anybody could do it that understood the fundamentals. The problem was really contacts. Harry and Cynthia would have to fix it so that he could meet the English and American crowd. “I haven’t told her yet. She says she wants to be ‘quiet.’ I’ve got to make her give a party for me, right away, when I get there. She has to see how important that is for me.” He wiped some little beads of sweat from his forehead. “But don’t the people who go to a fancy place like that already know how to ski?” “Yes, but there always have to be first-timers, who want to make it socially. They feel out of it, not knowing how to ski and not knowing the language. That’s where my English comes in. I can organize them in a class. It’s a question of finding them before they sign up with another group. You can give private lessons too, if you get known. Rich guys and women who need some special attention.”

  Peter listened dubiously. It seemed clear that this farfetched project was close to Silly’s heart. Maybe kids on their own over here got that way when they overspent their allowance. To deter him was probably impossible, yet Peter felt he should try. Perhaps it was his own pessimistic nature, but he was convinced that nothing would materialize for poor Silly up in those Alps but sorrow and disappointment. Even if he could connect with a job, the woman would find means of keeping him away from it. She had looked tough and selfish, Peter thought, and she was not paying Silly’s expenses to have him gamboling on the slopes with other women and girls. In Paris, he might be a free agent, but in a chalet he would be her plaything, like a talking doll.

  He pointed that out. “Yes, I know. It could turn out like that. I told you it was my dream. The old fairy gold. And if the weather should suddenly get bad, it could be a grim little house party. They play cribbage, and Harry does petit point. And they
believe in keeping the heat way down and wrapping themselves in shawls. If they turned up the thermostat, somebody might think they were Americans.” He became extremely dejected. In Peter’s private book of Leviticus, there was a special law for parents and other moral teachers which he was forgetting: never throw cold water on an enterprise unless you can offer an alternative. “Listen, Silly,” he suggested, “why don’t you go to Switzerland on your own? You could get taken on as a ski instructor just as well in some other center. Then you’d be independent, don’t you see? The fact that you haven’t told her shows you’re worried yourself about how she’ll react. You could go to Saint-Moritz or … What are those other ones?” “Gstaad, Davos, Zermatt.” “Yes, why not one of those? You could post notices in the hotels. ‘Experienced American gives skiing lessons.’ ” He hoped he was sounding persuasive. It was not easy. His ignorance of winter sports, except skating, was deep and principled. Personally, he would much rather be drafted into the Army than arrive seeking employment in a mountain village packed with sunburned skiers who knew not Peter Levi. But Silly was manifestly different. He knew his way around.

  “It’s too late. I promised. Besides, I’m stony. Really stony.” Peter reflected. A man of words and not of deeds was like a garden full of weeds. “I can lend you some dough, if you like. I have plenty. You can pay me back out of your profits. And, listen, you don’t need to take a plane. There are trains. And if you don’t land a ski-instructor job right away, you might be able to wait on table. Or baby-sit. A lot of families take their kids with them to the sports d’hiver.” “Thanks. I can baby-sit in Paris if I want to.” His voice was dry, and he was regarding Peter with something like pity—or was it simple amusement?—from behind that fringe of eyelashes. Peter saw that he had made an error in strategy: the battle for Silly Boy’s soul was over. He did not know why he had wanted to reclaim the foolish youth, unless he felt he had “good stuff” in him, as the headmaster used to say about some hopeless delinquent. Without further discussion, they rose. Silly covered a yawn and wound a long white cashmere scarf around his neck. They had paid the bill. “Thanks, honestly, for the offer of the loan. It was a nice thought. My ransom.” “Well, have a good vacation anyway.” “You too. I can’t wait to get on those slopes and pick up a tan. Fresh air and exercise!”