The Puzzleheaded Girl

by Christina Stead

  He moved about restlessly, “You see this is all a waste of time. A publisher in New York will give me this big lump sum for the confession book. I have a good title and I call myself Pavlovich; it has a good simple Slavic sound, humble, not too reliable. It is supposed to be the experiences of a man escaped from the East. It is a work of fiction but they will say it is true. It will be good,” he exclaimed. “Refugees are like pianists and dancers, they must all have Slavic names. It will be good, just the mixture of fiction and non-fiction that sells nowadays. But unfortunately, I must sell it outright and not have my name on it. I sold a story to a newspaper, and got a lump sum for letting the editor put his name on it. I can’t wait for royalties and pyramiding rights. And perhaps it will be a bestseller, serial rights, TV.”

  “Do you really think the Russian horror story still goes?”

  “German,” he said, “German. He went with the Russian army to Berlin, my Pavlovich. I don’t mind anyway what I do to the Germans, even East Germans. Where was Buchenwald? Right next to Weimar, the home of culture. That’s the picture of German life. Don’t try to make me think it over,” he exclaimed, gesturing towards Martin. “I need money for my Mercedes, I will get stories faster if I drive up in a Mercedes. And there are my wive-z, my ex-wive-z. And I suppose I must take back this silly little goose from Morges.”

  “She is sure to get into trouble; why bother?” said Martin.

  “But there are so many terrible tragedies with young girls,” said George. “I am afraid for her. I know too much.”

  “Is that why you marry the young girls?” asked Laura.

  He straightened, looked shocked. “I would not harm a young girl. Besides, they want to marry me,” he said. “They are glad to marry me. They love me—besides—you cannot trust them. You must make up their minds for them. If you don’t marry them they would run off tomorrow or the next day. I must have peace for my work.”

  “But you don’t have it, George; you have nothing but misery, disappointment and anxiety.”

  “Because they are little idiots, little ignorant gold-diggers,” he exclaimed. “When I first went to the USA and saw the glorious free little creatures, I nearly fell for every girl I saw. Then I married an old one, Alice, who was no good for me; and then Sully, she was twenty-two but she was like an old woman waging war against me all the time, always showing me up, misunderstanding everything and then—” He took steps about the room. “And I must get to Sofia to see my mother about the two houses there that are mine. Look at my eyes, Laura! They are red. Every time I lie down for a nap that happens. I get up with a headache. But I can’t lead a quieter life. Anyone in my profession who gets rooted becomes a hack. He rewrites stories others have uncovered, his price goes down, he is nothing and has nothing.”

  “You love the excitement; you’re a knight errant,” said Laura.

  “Don’t analyze me, don’t criticize me—I’m built this way, this is the only way I can live. Any other way would be the way down for me. I’m looking for someone. I got out of it with Barby and I must find someone.”

  “What about Renee?” asked Martin.

  “Renee?” he said, abstractedly, looking at the picture of the Due de Guise.

  “I never asked you, what happened to Renee, the girl in New York? Just before we sailed.”

  “She left me: she said she didn’t want me,” he exclaimed with sulky anger. “The women got her. I don’t know where she is.”

  “You couldn’t have saved her,” said Laura.

  George Paul looked at her seriously, the full cheek and neck, the side of his head, with the mingled bronze and silver hair, all his solidity showing his age in its full splendour, in the light. “I could have saved her; but it is too late—it’s all over now. That’s finished.”

  Presently they all three set out for the station, a long walk across the town.

  They had not gone far when a young couple on a motorbike hailed them and drew up. It was Linda Hill with a young man she called Arthur. “We’ve just come back from Strasburg and I thought I’d come and see you.” She was delighted to see them.

  “In New York in the war I used to slip out to go dancing and skating. I met this pompom from Strasburg and he told me to call him when I came to France. Arthur is studying medicine here, and when I mentioned Strasburg, he said he wanted to see it too; so we went there. But I didn’t know where the pompom lived. I thought Strasburg was just one street with wooden houses along it. It’s a big town, with a lot of streets. We rode up and down for a while but I didn’t see anyone I knew. Arthur was surprised I hadn’t got the address. I thought I’d just have to ride up and down and he’d wave to me. Perhaps I’ve forgotten what he looks like.” She laughed, and Arthur smiled.

  They said they were going to the station. She said she wanted to show Arthur the forest; and then he’d drop her at their place for tea. “Arthur has to go back to Paris.” They rode off.

  “Who is that beautiful girl?” said George.

  “I hope she hasn’t come to settle on us again,” said Martin.

  They commented upon her and her ways. “I’ll come back with you and take her back to Paris,” said George at once.

  Martin was indignant. She had been to Italy, to Strasburg now; she was flying about, a madcap, and knew nothing. “To me ignorance and irresponsibility are not endearing. Her parents are working their heads off to pay for all this.”

  “All the youngsters think they have to spend a year or two in the waste-land,” said Laura.

  George wanted to know all about her and they told him; her childhood, her youth, her family. Said Martin, “She is not going to shack down with us.”

  “I have never seen such a beautiful girl,” said George.

  When they got back, Linda was already there in the garden waiting for them, playing with Fanfan the puppy. She had dismissed Arthur. “I told him I was going to find a room here and stay.”

  They went upstairs. She said another pompom she knew lived in Bordeaux and she had promised to go to see him; but Arthur said it could not be done this time.

  “I had no idea the towns were so far,” she said laughing.

  “Do you expect to go there?” said Martin tartly.

  “Oh I guess I’ll go down there and have a look,” she said gaily. “Arthur can’t, but someone will take me.”

  “I’ll take you,” said George.

  She looked at him for the first time. Her face became grave and elongated; she held her head back and eyed him carefully. A faint smile appeared and she said, “Thank you; all right. Some day we could go.”

  “You can come back to Paris with me this evening, if you like,” said George.

  “Oh, I’m staying here,” she said confidently.

  “No, Lin, you can’t stay here,” said Martin.

  Linda went into the other room, to inspect the sofa there.

  Martin spoke about her father. “Linda worships him,” he said.

  “Why does she worship him?”

  “Alfred Hill is a fine man. He’s good to her. The mother, Daisy, is a flighty screwball.”

  “And Alfred takes Linda out every weekend,” said Laura: “they go dancing; they go to roadhouses and places he knows from prohibition days.”

  “I’ll take her out; she can forget her—father,” said George.

  Laura said, “She adores him. He’s a big fighting man. He hails from IWW days. They were great men.”

  George looked at her. Laura began to laugh. “And he entertains her with stories, the wildest rigmaroles; and it all happened to him. I’m sure it did, too.” Martin began to laugh. “I wish Alfred were here now. He’s the only man I miss from the USA.”

  He became serious, “I wish that girl would go home. She’s a worry to me. She has no more sense of direction than a packet of firecrackers, firing off in all directions. She’s doing no good here.”

  “You needn’t worry about her; I’ll look after her,” said George.

  “She probably hasn’t
even a place to sleep tonight,” said Laura, looking at Linda, who was coming in for an answer.

  “I have a hotel room. They kept it for me,” said Linda; and she gave the address, a number in the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince.

  They had a brief meal. George sat beside the girl, kept looking at her.

  The Deans were very cheerful. They were glad to let George take her in charge. Linda became more languid as train time drew near. Her replies told nothing; or else she let a grave pause answer for her. She hung back, but she got ready to go at last. At the last moment, she said she had nowhere to go in Paris; they had let her room. She could easily sleep here on the sofa. Her luggage was downstairs in the hotel office. The hotel was crowded. George took both her hands, looked down at them, thin, pale muscular hands.

  “I’ll see to all that. You must not worry about anything. I know the damned French—if you don’t pay ahead, if you don’t leave a deposit—no credit; you’re out. Linda! I have a place to take you to. A friend of mine—”

  The two men went downstairs, George explaining about a friend of his, Clare Cane, who ran a hostel for American girls.

  “Clare did not know whether to marry me or set up this hostel. There are so many American girls who come to Paris and get lost. They won’t go home again and they have nothing here. She wanted me to go into it with her. I didn’t. I give her money for it when I can. In the end she decided she didn’t want to get married. She’s quite old, thirty; but she is a splendid woman—I respect her. I would have married her.”

  The two women stood at the stair-head listening. Linda turned quickly to Laura and said, “Don’t let me go with him. Keep me! I don’t want to go with him.”

  “I can’t help it, Linda!”

  Linda turned, her face showed great agitation. “Please keep me!”

  “Martin won’t let me. He’s been ill. He’s been up here a month. There’s no sun in these rooms; and the Colonel never asked us to go into the garden. Martin slipped on the stairs and the Colonel is afraid of a lawsuit. Martin is not himself.”

  Linda stood looking at her. Laura said, “George is a very good man; we know him. He’s honest.”

  But Linda lowered her eyes. “What can I do?” she said in a low voice.

  The men had begun to call. “You’re free, Linda.”

  Linda muttered. “The trouble is I do what people want me to; I can’t say no. I never do what I want to do. I wish I could stay here.”

  Laura started towards the stairs and Linda followed. They said good-bye. The new couple turned the corner of the street. It was evening. The silent house was now alive, lighted up within behind the shutters, like a stage house; as if soon the shutters would burst open on an upper balcony and a girl would come out to sing.

  Martin said, “What a blessing that George Paul was here and took charge of her. I couldn’t have stood another hour of that tramp.”

  “She isn’t a tramp. Don’t they all come to Europe with a guitar?”

  “To me she’s a tramp wasting her father’s money. She’s a thief who stole his money.”

  “We must help her for Alfred. He loves her.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll write to him to get her back. She was afraid to go with George.”

  “Afraid!”

  “Yes. We don’t know everything, do we? We don’t know what she has been through.”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  In the train Linda talked to George about her father. “I told the boy to bring me out to St. Germain-en-Laye to stay with friends of my father, until my father came. Arthur was going to bring my luggage in the morning. I thought they’d keep me.”

  “Is your father coming?”

  “My parents will come for me.”

  “Can they make the trip this year?”

  “I know they will come for me. We could go to Czechoslovakia. I know a boy in an agency.”

  “Is that why you came over?”

  She was thoughtful for a while. She said, “I found two grey hairs this morning. I will have to go home, I suppose. I can’t sing, you know.” She opened her purse and took out a creased letter. “My mother wrote to me. She wants me to be happy.” She began to read, “Don’t worry about anything; leave the worry to us; we’re here for that. We can always send you the rent. Don’t worry about politics. Be a vegetable. Everyone is turning into a vegetable. Leave it alone. Have a girl’s life. Remember everyone’s proud of you. You gave us a big surprise, but we adjusted to that; and we’re on your side. We’re here for that.” She gave him the letter, her eyes shining. “I read it so many times, I know it by heart,” she said with a quiet laugh. He read it and gave it back. She folded it away. “And my father writes to me too. He never writes to anybody.” After a moment she said in a low voice, “He wrote to Laura; and she wrote to him. I didn’t know that. I found the letters. He never said a word.”

  “We’ll work it all out, darling,” said George. “If you want me, I’ll write to your parents. They can write to me if they want to. I’ll find out if they intend to come over.”

  She sat looking downward for a moment; then she put her arms around him and kissed him. “Oh,” said she, “you are so good to me.”

  He took her into a popular café-tabac on her way home and while they were standing at the zinc, having coffee, she pointed to a young man standing with his back to her. “You see that boy? The one standing by the PMU. It’s nobody. But he used to like me, now he detests me. He said he loved me. But not now. I don’t want to be with him or see him. They get tired of me. It’s something I do. If I knew what was wrong I’d change. I even ask them. They say, Tu triches avec la vie; one said, T’es gentille, mais sans âme, tu tuerais sans souffrir. It always means I don’t understand something. There’s an age between seventeen and twenty-one when you feel old: you seem to have lost your way. Philosophy can’t help you: that’s for old people who know their way. I don’t understand philosophy. I don’t know what it’s about. It doesn’t help with the life you lead. And that’s why a lot of girls get married. And that’s why I came over.”

  After a pause, she added, “They say I’m an essential American; I have no plan for living; and they say that’s why we depend on getting more gadgets. But I don’t like gadgets. In New York I was all right. Everyone liked me. Laura and Martin always talked about France; and I thought when I got here—” She sounded resentful, but she said no more.

  “You’re not lost, Linda. I’ll take care of you and you’ll be all right. There’s nothing wrong with you, baby. The French will always prove to you you’re wrong. They talk this claptrap in cafés just to pass the time till it’s time for the apéritif, when they’ll meet a man, another phoney like themselves, for some shoestring business. They have no philosophy! The Germans had philosophy and that is why they were organized and could overrun them. Forget them.” He paused and continued, “Leave it all to me. We’ll go to the hotel and get your luggage and find a hotel near me. Then I can look after you. I’m very busy; I want you near me.”

  She confessed that she had a room in a students’ hotel near the Boulevard St. Germain. “They’re nice to me.”

  “Let me come and see the kind of place they’ve given you. Say I’m your father’s friend.”

  “Are you?” she said eagerly. “I didn’t know that. Oh, I’m glad, I didn’t know. I’m glad. I want to see my parents. I’ve been here over a year, waiting. I wish they would come. Will you really write to them? They love me, you see.”

  “I love you, too,” said George.

  “Do you love me?” she said earnestly. He kissed her. She withdrew and looked around. When he came to the door of the hotel, she said quickly, “Don’t come up. It’s not convenient. They’d think it funny. I have someone there.”

  He stared at her.

  “It’s a boy,” she explained. “An American boy. If I don’t have him, he’ll sleep in a doorway, or walk about sleeping on his feet. Or he’ll go to an all-night café. There’s one down the
street. I’ve often been there. We’re all friends. But it’s bad for him. They have coffee or wine and smoke drugged cigarettes or just plain cigarettes and they sing and talk a bit and they sleep on the tables and seats. The proprietor lets them, if they buy some little thing. There are plenty of boys there I know.” After a moment’s thought she said, “They’re my best friends. They would let me sleep in their rooms if I had nowhere. But they haven’t all got rooms. This boy’s been sleeping with me for nearly two months.” Seeing George’s shock, she explained, “He’s a homosexual. He has a sleeping bag and sleeps on the floor beside my bed. He gets up early in the morning and rolls up his bag and puts it in the closet and we arrange it to look as if he’s slept in my bed. The proprietor thinks he’s my boy friend. Otherwise, he would think something was wrong and might turn the boy out. The reason I went to Strasburg was I thought my parents might be coming and they would find the boy there. I told him to find another place, and I asked the proprietor to let him stay until he found something. And when I got back I found him there still. He hasn’t anything—nothing,” she said, a reflected despair in her face. “He nearly starved while I was away. I don’t know what to do. I wanted to break it up. I can’t let you go up. He would be scared. He’s so—miserable. He’s so thin. I think he’ll die.”

  When he went there in the morning Linda was out for a walk. She returned just then. He was startled. She was in a close-fitting black dress which showed her beautiful figure, broad thin shoulders, a long triangle to a small waist around which she wore two Great Dane dog collars in a belt. “My God!” muttered George to himself. Trembling, almost weeping with joy, he kissed her respectfully and said what he had come to say. He wanted her to give up the room here and move near him. He was getting rid of the two women who camped with him: she was to come there in a few days. He took her out to lunch and went on with his plans. He had written to her father, told him he would marry her as soon as he could.

  “I want you, that is all I want in my future life,” he told her. “I don’t want to settle down and furnish, I don’t want children. We can go around together. You can learn to drive and, if you like, you can type my work; but I’ll get a typist. I don’t care about cooking and housework. That’s not for young girls.”