The Puzzleheaded Girl

by Christina Stead

  After she was up, in her slip, dressing-gown and slippers, she would run in to see one or other of them, gossip with them, read her mother’s letters, bring some woman to her room. She lit one cigarette after another, talked about her affairs with men, drank her coffee; and when one friend left for lunch, she telephoned another. Her friend Tamara, who worked in Paris, was divorced and was awaiting her man’s divorce to remarry. Peggy and Anton were twenty and more years older than Lydia and had known her when she was a little child in Paris with her mother, just after the death of her father and younger sister.

  At lunchtime, Lydia, if not invited to lunch, went to one of the expensive Montparnasse restaurant-cafés to have a sandwich or an omelet and coffee. It cost her as much as a real meal, but she enjoyed picking and choosing; she liked the strangeness of being a pretty girl eating lunch alone; she liked the silence, the elegant unpopularity of the hour or café she chose. There was one frequented by girlish young men: it was always quiet at lunchtime. If she went down to the washroom, she might find a fair-haired young fellow in front of the mirror; he would make room for her gracefully, give her a sweet look. There was another café, with good cooking and wine, decorated with paintings by local artists, in which neat, stylish prostitutes had their frugal lunch, like hers: an omelet, a chop, a salad, tonic water, one glass of wine. And there, well-known people, some of them of world-wide fame, local artists and writers, ate too, at ease as if in their own kitchens, good-humoured and among friends; and when she came in the second time, she was a friend too, though she said nothing but good day, good-bye. There was a little painter, all white and dressed in white, like a baker covered with flour. “I am on a diet,” he explained to two other painters, one resembling a crocodile and the other a sea-elephant, and to her at her table; it was because he had ordered an omelet. “The doctor said, Diet! I am dieting for lunch just to see, but of course, this evening and tomorrow I won’t diet. It’s not healthy.” He knew he was comical to look at; with an angelic childishness he smiled at everyone. She smiled. She, too, was friendly and simple with everyone when she was alone and unhurt in this safe harbour.

  On a Friday, weary, yawning, she got up early, telephoned a few people, saw Tamara and Peggy before they went out, running up and downstairs to their rooms, in her rose slippers, her flowered white dressing-gown, pink ribbons in her long black braids and a confiding happy smile on her face. She looked about eighteen or twenty. Then she went back to her room with Peggy and discontentedly pulled her things about.

  “Last night, Peggy, I asked your advice about whether I should accept this invitation to lunch. I don’t remember what you said.”

  “I didn’t say anything; there was such a noise. Besides, you ought to know, Lydia.”

  Lydia explained. She was to go out to lunch with a middle-aged French baron, to call first at his apartment; and after lunching there, to go to the races at Auteuil. “But he says he’s engaged for the evening; it’s impolite,” said Lydia.

  “Do as you like. But if a man takes you to the races, he’s supposed to bet for you; and beginners often win. It’s fashionable to go and it’s such nice weather.”

  Peggy was sitting on the one disengaged chair, while Lydia filled the room with smoke and ran about in skin-tight black nylon pants and bra, with her horsetail of India-ink hair down her back, and tried on one thing after another. She said, “Oh, why should I go at all? What a bore! How do I look in this? Why don’t I telephone and call it off? No? Should I wear a light flannel suit? Or this white and green thing? The white coat goes over it.”

  She was a vanilla brunette with long oval deep-lashed eyes, ringed with black. There was a nervous rash on her back which limited her choice of clothes. She was often invited out swimming and could not go. She had a close, strong, small figure, rounded and beautiful in detail, with high-arched small feet which slipped in and out of her black slippers. Impatiently, she put some beads around her neck, some white earrings in her ears, took them off, drew out the black chiffon dress. “What about that? No, I suppose.” She laughed; the kind of laugh that comes from a good-natured fat woman, her mother’s laugh. “Do you know what happened to that green and black thing? I went up to Montmartre with an Englishman, Emory, and I went into one of those stand-up toilets. I didn’t think and when I pulled the chain, the water flushed my skirts. I came out dripping. I was embarrassed; I didn’t know what to say. He laughed nicely.”

  “You don’t see anything.”

  “No, it was plain water.” She laughed. “I think it’s all right. Oh, perhaps I’ll wear it tomorrow with the blind date. He’s a UNESCO boy. I told him on the phone I wanted to go to the theatre and I wanted a job in UNESCO. I don’t. It was just something to say. I had another boy to take me tomorrow, but—oh, Peggy, he’s such a dope! Anyway, why should I dress up for a blind date? Should I wear this? Isn’t that stupid? He means nothing to me, this baron. Why should I go? It’s only a light lunch in his apartment and just this afternoon. That means I must get someone for this evening and there’s no time.”

  But she decided to go. She suddenly, expertly, got into her tight black lace slip, put on a black and white dress and in a moment had twisted her horsetail into a loop, so that it shone like satin, and fixed it with heavy gold hairpins. Now she looked Spanish and older; but the sleepless circles round her eyes had faded into the dark make-up and powder. She had a matt skin, with a voluptuously creased neck, her shoulders and legs one bronze. She had a fleet motion, always as if running, with the feet arched, slightly bent forward. Worn out by indecisions, she now dropped on the bed. “Oh, Peg, isn’t it stupid? No, I won’t go.”

  But she continued to dress, sought among her earrings, rings, necklaces, scarves, put them all aside, put on gold, chose a green chiffon scarf, discarded them, went out in the end with only a string of small white shells around her neck. She was late, wanted to take a bus, but didn’t know what route to take, nor where to change.

  “Why should I take a taxi for him? I don’t know him. I mightn’t like it. Oh, should I take a taxi? But what does it matter? I’ll be only half an hour late. Well, his lunch will be cold.”

  “But why keep the man waiting?”

  “Oh, shouldn’t I?”

  “They hate it.”

  “H’mm, that’s funny. Do they? I always do. I thought it was better. I don’t care though.”

  She sped off to the corner, got a taxi.

  She came home laughing. Tamara was home from work. She had a headache and was lying with her shoes off. She had got more bad news; her remarriage would be postponed at least six months. Neither of them had saved a penny; the divorce was taking all they had.

  “Oh, Tamara, I heard someone crying in the night. When I thought it was finished, it started again. Was it you? It was on this side of the hotel. I nearly came up.”

  Tamara was thirty-six, a brunette, with a Javanese face, who wore dark clothes. She was almost an invalid, often ill, but a hard worker, working in three languages in an export office, in manner dry and precise, sweet and self-contained; and troubled, half mad with her worries.

  Lydia sat by her and began bubbling over, falling over herself like water in a jet, leaping and shining.

  “Oh, I went out with the baron. It was interesting at Auteuil. But do you know, the baron himself is a funny man. He was so careful not to touch me. If he touched me, walking about the paddock, he at once drew away. In the car, I sat next to him, but he was nervous if my coat touched him and he arranged it straightly over my knees for me. And he’s as bald as an ostrich egg, just a fringe of hair; and so dull. All he says is, Should you like to do this? If you prefer that, tell me. I felt like a fifteen-year-old convent girl being escorted by a respectable cavalier drafted for the occasion and who’s been told, Don’t touch.”

  “Are you seeing him again?”

  “Oh, he said he’d call, but why should I bother? He doesn’t mean anything to me; and then he’s so dull. I couldn’t marry him. He’s dull, prissy,
peculiar, an old bachelor. He’s at the same time unbending and a mollycoddle. Besides, he can’t teach me anything. Oh, glasses and wines and table-linen—but I know that. And if he knows more than I do, I don’t care. I could never marry a man like that.”

  Tamara sat up and looked at her friend. Lydia was thirty but looked much younger, even now when she was tired and discontented. “You are hard to please, Lydia.”

  “But I want perfection. I want a man to look up to and who will teach me.”

  “Won’t you teach him? Marriage is give and take.”

  “Oh, no, no,” cried Lydia. “It must be all give, he must give. I won’t give. A man must be a light to a woman and guide her whole life and she must lean on him and have nothing more to think of. How could that be with any of the men I’ve met?”

  “Because it isn’t so,” said Tamara sharply. “You must bring something to marriage.”

  “I bring twenty thousand dollars and a grand piano,” said Lydia with a soft breaking laugh. “When I was sixteen I had my first offer of marriage from a preacher’s son who was nineteen. He went to Mother first and then to me. We just sat there looking at each other. He didn’t know what to say and I didn’t either! When he asked me, I said, Do you really want to marry me? It seemed so funny. Then he said, Do the carpet and the grand piano really go with you? You’ve never seen our place in New York. It’s a railroad flat over a stable. In my room, which is the sitting-room, too, there are all sorts of cabinets and a couple of carpets and my bed is behind the grand piano. I burst out laughing. He was embarrassed and said, because, if we couldn’t live with Mother, we could have a couple of rooms in his father’s house, but he would like to show his parents my furniture. Then he moved a bit nearer and said, I’m sitting close to you, aren’t I? And I said, Yes, you are, aren’t you? And he suddenly moved; and frankly, I thought he was going to hit me or push me, I didn’t know which, but he kissed me awkwardly between my nose and my lip and he pushed my upper lip between my teeth. I nearly died laughing. I simply rolled on the couch, giggling. He was offended. Naturally. But he had his story and went on with it. He said we would not have children at first, because he would not be earning and I should have to finish college and get my MA SO that I could get a good job afterwards while he was studying. Oh, it really is funny, Tamara. And he said he wanted a second-hand set of volumes, an encyclopaedia, fifteen volumes, which would cost about fifty dollars. He wanted to read it through and be competent in various subjects. So that was why I was to keep on working. Ha-ha-ha!”

  “Well, he would have been able to teach you in the end.”

  “Oh, Tamara, why are men so funny? The second man who wanted to marry me was a drunk, the third wasn’t divorced yet, and the next one was a poet with doughy hands. Oh, my wonderful ideal, he called me. He kissed my hand when he went. Good-bye, my beautiful ideal. He really smelled. Tamara, can you love a man who is gluey and smells like fresh-dead fish? After all, marriage is physical, isn’t it? Several times I felt I had to let him kiss me and I felt my hands and lips just sinking into him like dough: he felt wet. I expected him to glisten. I used to look at him sideways at night, for he loved the dark streets, to see if he had a blue light like a fungus. And he so-o lo-oved me! And then—oh, I suppose I should go and get dressed? Emory, this Englishman, is calling for me at seven. I don’t want to see him. I don’t know why I got myself into it. I hate to get involved. Should I put him off? Let’s spend the evening together. I’d much rather.”

  But Tamara had letters to write. Her intended husband worked in Rome and could get up only about once a month. She had been to see their lawyer in Paris. The wife had changed her mind and decided to fight the divorce; she wanted eighty per cent of his pay; and still was to fight it. She would ruin them, she said. When they married, they would be paupers. Morrie, the husband, did not like the prospect. Tamara was afraid he would give in; he was very tired, sick at heart. And Tamara’s health was worse. She would always need treatment. He had parents to keep. Perhaps her wages would be all they would have to live on. He would have to give up his car; he would have to pay the train fare now from Rome. It needed thinking over. “Perhaps we are both thinking it over. He is so harassed, so worn down.”

  “Well, I will leave you to think it over,” said Lydia with her clear chiming laugh, and kissed her friend. “And do you know what I must think over? Whether to live with this Englishman for a week! He begged me the night before last. He got to the point of tears in his eyes. He doesn’t love me, but he likes me and it might lead to love. Ha-ha-ha-ha! What gentlemen! I shall say no. I thought it over, too. No, no. But he was so kind, so sweet, so gentle. In a way,” she said suddenly, thoughtfully, “he’s the sweetest of all the men. But—why should I get involved? What for?”

  “Of course, you can’t do it,” said Tamara.

  “Oh, it’s just a silly proposition. Must I give up my comfortable room here and put my bags I don’t know where and move into his hotel room in the Passage for a week, without knowing if I’ll be able to touch him after one night? Ha-ha-ha! Does he wash? He probably has a frying-pan on a gas ring in the corner. Men are so strange, aren’t they? Aren’t they? He begs and pleads with me,” she said, getting up and clasping her hands, her manner serious, urgent. “He will treat me with respect.” Her voice became strident. “But what’s it all for? I go back to New York in a few days and then I’m involved, without any reason.”

  “Not if you just wrote letters.”

  “That would be involvement. Letters about nothing. Sweet nothing. I can’t stand the mere idea,” she said, shrugging. She turned and glanced quickly at her friend. She smiled a sweet smile. “I’m so silly, Tamara, advise me. It’s no, isn’t it? Oh, of course, it’s no.”

  “You are too sweet for that; you’re not the kind.”

  “No. But what am I to do? Tamara? What am I to do? I can’t get on any longer without a man. I must have a man. This is my chance in a way, isn’t it? Just a week and—snip-snip! Just a day!”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, no,” she said decidedly. “Then he would think he owned me. He would expect affection from me. Why? What nonsense. I’ll tell him, Go away, no!”

  She began again mirthfully. “And he’s been waiting—ha-ha—imagine—since three or four days when he first began it—ha-ha-ho—it’s funny though. He’s been waiting for me to say yes. And now he’s downstairs, I suppose, waiting already.”

  Smiling with her little white teeth between her half-closed lips, kissing Tamara, twisting her loose hair, she thrust her feet into the black slippers and ran off. “I’ll call you in the morning, Tamara; I’ll tell you what happened. Oh, but Tamara, I ought to spend the evening with you. You’re lonely. Oh, it reminds me of home. I never know whether to go out or stay with Mommy. Then the telephone rings and she says, Go out with him, my chick, go out, my darling. Then I say, You go out with him. Then we stay at home and laugh and laugh. Oh, Tamara, I do love you; but suppose I must go.”

  When she reached her room, it was seven o’clock. She threw off her clothes, bathed, half-dressed, telephoned an American girl she had been out with two days before and chattered eagerly and with bursts of laughter about their adventure. They had picked up two French interns who had invited them to pass the night in their rooms at the hospital. “We’re not serious, of course, but all for fun and you’ll never regret it.” The girls agreed and at the last minute Lydia had refused. “I’m not plucky.” “You have nothing to be afraid of, we’re doctors.” “No, no, I just don’t dare,” Lydia had said smiling and shaking her head. The other girl said to Lydia, “You’re so pretty, but I don’t see what you get out of it: what do you get out of life? Soon you’ll be on the boat going home to mother. Here are two nice Frenchmen and you turn them down.” The other girl had gone to the hospital and Lydia had gone home. Now Lydia excitedly asked her about her experiences. “Oh, perhaps I should have gone. Oh, what a coward I am,” she cried. The other girl raved about her happiness. “You’ll
never know what love is, if you take no chances,” she repeated. “But what am I to do, I can never make up my mind,” said Lydia. The girls talked for a long time eagerly. “Oh, my goodness,” said Lydia, “a young man has been waiting for me downstairs for at least half an hour.” When she put down the receiver, the phone rang from downstairs. It was the UNESCO boy, Sam, the blind date. “Oh, I thought you were coming tomorrow.”

  “Maybe I got it wrong: tonight, I thought.”

  “Well, I’m not nearly ready. I wasn’t expecting anyone. I just came in. I spent the afternoon with a French baron at Auteuil. Oh, it was a bore.” Her voice broke and she laughed warmly. “Yes? Can you take a walk? What do you look like? Well, never mind, take a walk and I’ll be down in twenty minutes.”

  “Well, I’ve been waiting half an hour, but okay,” he said. He had a dull New York voice with thickened consonants. She looked over the balcony and saw a middle-sized man with thick black hair and an unpressed double-breasted blue suit. He slouched off. He turned and looked up, at the hotel. She bent double over the balustrade, laughing and waving her hand. “Is it you?” “Yes,” she said, bursting with laughter. He smiled. “Hurry up, I can’t wait.” “But I can,” she called out.

  She went inside and sat down in the comfortable warm room, consoling in its feminine untidiness. She put on her frock, examined her complexion, took the frock off and tried on a light dress with a big flowered design, a summer dancing dress, low in front, high in the back. She peeped over the balcony again and now she saw Emory, the Englishman, hanging about near one of the trees. She ducked her head in, hurried to the long mirror and then to the brightly lighted bathroom mirror. Her skin looked sallow against the light dress. She took it off and tried on the black and green stripe. “But I’m so sick of it. It won’t do.” She telephoned her mother’s friend, Peggy, a quiet, patient woman, to come to her. “Oh, Peggy, I can’t make up my mind and he’s there waiting for me, my Englishman, you know.” When Peggy arrived, Lydia nervously showed her three dresses which she had put out. She also held out a flame-coloured dress. “But that’s tartish, isn’t it?” Peggy considered. They chose the white and flowered. Lydia hesitated, as usual, over all the details, but at last she was ready, in her customary elegant simplicity and she ran out of the room leaving it a flowering disorder.