The Puzzleheaded Girl

by Christina Stead

  But he thought, he went on, that she should return to the cours de perfectionnement and go from there to the Sorbonne and get a degree, so that she could teach. He was older than she, one never knew what would happen; he would probably never have any money; she must be prepared. He would pay for everything; though, if her parents wanted to help, they could.

  “But I can pay, don’t worry them. And now I am worried, darling, because I have to go away and leave you for at least three days, to Rome. Then I have to go to Spain, there’s a story there; and to Gibraltar, which is a free port, and to Algeciras. I have to investigate a story about pirate ships on the Mediterranean smuggling these drugs. Some say Easter Pascuale is in it, some say the Communists. We’ll find you a room this afternoon and you’ll wait for me, like a good girl. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  By the end of lunch he had decided to pack off Mrs. Branch, with Lili to Switzerland in his Renault. Linda could stay in his flat and see that Barby did not move in.

  They went back to her hotel. She went upstairs and came down. “You can come up,” she said, “Mervyn’s gone out.”

  They went up two stairs. Her room opened out of a crooked passage, a blank wall on the other side. It was evident that two buildings had been put together, long ago. Her room looked on the street. Behind it was a small bathroom, with a window on a lightwell. A double bed took up much space; and Linda’s bags and trunks stood about in disorder. One, with the lid up, showed a lot of ski pants and sweaters. “Have you been skiing?”

  “Oh no, but I thought I might and bought those. I’m going to pack my souvenirs in those soft things.”

  They sat down on the bed facing the wall. There hung a large photograph of an art class on folding chairs. One middle-aged man with long face and long hands had turned to face the camera, clay dripping from his hands.

  “That’s my father, that’s the Doc.”

  “You have his eyes and hands, though your eyes are larger, and your hands are smaller. Why do you call him the Doc?”

  “He wanted to be a doctor but he had to quit. He had no money.

  “You say you work all night?” she said.

  “I often do.”

  “That’s good then, because I’m having tryouts in night clubs, and I could not get back early. I’d have to have a key. I’m up all night anyway. I go to that little café I told you about where the boys are.”

  “You say you can’t sing, Lin.”

  She smiled simply. “Oh, you don’t have to have a good voice. If you have good songs. They don’t like good voices here. I sing Union songs and campfire songs to young French people. I call them American folksongs. But there’s no build-up, no explanation, because I don’t know the French words. I give a little talk, but in English. I just have to give it to them cold and it’s hard to put over. They try me once or twice and then they don’t want me because they don’t understand.”

  “Couldn’t you work it out with friends, tell them what it’s about?”

  “Oh, they’d find out they’re radical songs and the proprietor mightn’t like that.”

  “They’re radical here.”

  “Oh, I don’t want to get known as someone singing American radical songs over here. I don’t want to get a record. I might want a clearance some day. I have friends in Heidelberg. They had to get clearances. Even in New York you have to have a clearance. That’s why I started working for Dad.”

  “Couldn’t you get a clearance?”

  “Oh, you know—at the Beach,” she began to laugh affectionately, “there wasn’t anyone who could get a clearance. You would have to give names to get a clearance. And the Deans always said the French thought the same here. I thought it would be like the Beach.” After a pause, she laughed and said, “Well, I’m in trouble with the police anyway. I was going to tell the Deans. That’s why I went out with that boy; partly. I thought I’d stay there. It’s another département. But anyhow everywhere I go people seem to know about me.”

  “What do you mean, they know about you?”

  She did not answer for a while, then she said, “At the Commissariat, the police said, Les américains sont terribles. I couldn’t understand it. I kept thinking about it.”

  “Were you at the Commissariat? For your papers?”

  “I had to show my papers. They’re okay. I really went out to see the Deans to ask their advice because I’m in trouble. At this hotel I’m in now, the proprietor got difficult at one moment and called the police.”

  “Why?”

  “I did tell the Deans, but I didn’t make them understand—well, I left out something and all they said was, Go to the Embassy. But I didn’t feel like it. I was waiting for my parents to come and they could have taken my luggage with them and we could all have gone home. I told the Deans the proprietor was angry because I was drinking milk in my room at midday with two boys; Mervyn was one of them. But he allows visitors in reason. That wasn’t the whole story. I was showing the boys my souvenirs when he came in. And the police came in my absence and found a good many souvenirs.”

  George was puzzled. “What souvenirs, honey?”

  “Oh, creamers [cream-jugs], silver forks and spoons from cafés and hotel towels. If I go into a bathroom in a hotel and they’re not nice to me or the place is dirty or anything like that, I take a towel or a napkin or fork from the table. It’s to make them pay. Because they ought to be nice to us; they owe us everything, don’t they?”

  “My God,” said George.

  “Oh, I’ve been doing it since I got here. I told the Deans the first time I was out there. I just said a teaspoon. They told me not to, but everyone does it. Every American boy I know does it; not only boys, middle-aged people too, those Middle-Westerners too. They think it’s a joke. They say, Oh, it’s all in the bill. They take them home for souvenirs. I’ve collected dozens of them. Of course, they have the names of the hotels on them,” she said, with a reflective laugh. “You couldn’t hide where you got them; but that’s what you show when you get home, the names. Or I just go into a different café or hotel to get a different name. I don’t think about it. It’s just a craze.”

  “And so he called the police and they found them here?”

  After a pause, she continued, “It’s a craze not only with the whacky young Americans but with everybody. I don’t know what they think, but I work it out this way; it’s coming to them for saving Europe. The Germans took more; the Deans said so.”

  “It’s just plain thieving,” said George angrily. “I don’t care who does it.”

  “Is that what you think?” she asked in surprise. “Oh, it isn’t that. I don’t think so. Perhaps it is.” She laughed. “It doesn’t matter what it is, does it? They do it. Well, once the police had been here I stayed here; and besides I couldn’t move very easily. And that was the night I told Mervyn he could stay here.”

  “What night?”

  “The night the police called and found the creamers and had me in the station. They kept me a few hours at the station and they told me I had a file. And they called on me at the hotel here the next day. I would have moved, but I had all this luggage. I suppose they would have caught up with me.”

  “It won’t do, Linda,” said George, running his hands through his hair. “They catch up with you—you talk to everyone, you trust everyone. What do you think they do with all those papers you fill in?” Seeing a certain expression on her face, he said, “I hope you haven’t filled in aliases; that would be much worse.”

  “Oh, they were quite nice to me,” she said, not answering, “at the Commissariat. I pulled it off all right. I think. I told them I had to see a doctor or a psychiatrist, because I was a kleptomaniac.”

  George laughed.

  “But they wouldn’t let me. So I told them I didn’t really steal them, that the boy friends I have and I don’t know all their names, just Bill and Irving and Françoise, they steal them and give them to me to keep or to sell.”

  “What?” shouted George, “Y
ou said that? That makes you a receiver of stolen goods.”

  “I never thought of that,” she said with enjoyment. “They have a lot on me, haven’t they? But I don’t think they believed all I said.”

  George became very serious. “Look, darling, once they put down to joyous youth; twice, you’re in trouble; so no more youthful high spirits of that sort, please. Besides, they hate us; they’re just waiting to hand us carbolic acid.”

  “But why?” she persisted, with droll insolence. “The French have always been our friends; because of Lafayette; we’re sister republics.”

  George did not answer. After a moment Linda said, “This is the skirt I always wear to cafés.” She picked up off the bed a very full skirt which she held up against herself, a dark plaid. “It’s not in style,” he said. Pleased, she pointed to the folds, “I had it made specially. I have a thin waist and it hangs very full. It’s lined. It has long pockets that hang right down all round. It just swings. Oh, the pockets are inside!”

  He got up impatiently. “It’s for the souvenirs,” she said mischievously.

  “Eh?”

  “I can wear this skirt full of souvenirs and no one would guess. I want to take it home to show my parents. They will laugh.”

  He looked at the skirt, looked hard at her, “I don’t think they’ll laugh. Only moral rapscallions would laugh.”

  “Oh, perhaps—they are moral rapscallions. Mother and I always laugh.”

  He was angry and went to close the trunk, tossing the skirt on top. She said, “Oh, don’t. Is the door locked?”

  He looked up. She said in a low tone. “You see, I couldn’t move because of all the other things. Come in here.”

  She took him into the bathroom and pointed to four posters on the wall behind the bath-heater. “Behind those four posters is a big hole where the wall is broken; and the police never thought to look there. They looked everywhere; and even the proprietor doesn’t know. I have all my best souvenirs there. I stole all of them myself in this skirt. The police only found a few, three or four. The rest are here; and we must pack them. We can paste the posters back. It won’t matter after.”

  “Some day, Linda darling, when workmen tear down this rats’ nest, they’ll find them. We are not taking them.”

  “Then I must stay here. I won’t leave them. I want to take them home. What did I do it for? We will have such a laugh when I unpack all that. Otherwise why have I been over here so long? There’s nothing; only the things I brought over. And I lost a lot of those.”

  “You will never get them through the customs! Don’t be such a child,” he stormed. Then he began to pity her. “Come along with me; child, baby. We’re moving now.”

  Sadly, full of reserve, she went down and asked the proprietor to help them with the luggage.

  “Et monsieur?” asked the proprietor, meaning her roommate, Mervyn.

  “Oh, it doesn’t matter about him,” she said to George. “Let’s go if we have to. I don’t want to have to explain to him,” and she said to the proprietor, “Tell monsieur that I’ve gone; he must go somewhere else.”

  “I’ll do that,” said the proprietor.

  Some of the luggage had to be left to be called for. At the last moment, she kissed the proprietor, a middle-aged, sallow man, thanked him for his kindness, “for looking after me like a father,” and she said rather sadly to him, “There’s no need to look in my luggage, there is nothing there; it is all gone.” The proprietor, saying nothing, stood and watched her go, with a strange expression, sour and longing.

  In the taxi she was crying. “I hate to leave them, I wanted to take them home. My mother loves silver things. She never had any. A boy friend gave her a creamer and she is always putting it on the table. The Doc doesn’t like her to do it. If we had a lot he wouldn’t mind. Oh, I’m making this up, I guess.”

  He was touched. He took her hands and kissed them.

  “I’ve nothing to show for all the trouble I had,” she said.

  “You will have something to show, you poor baby, you little child. You’ll marry me and grow up. I’ll look after you. You don’t know where to look. That’s all it is.”

  “I could have done something, I suppose,” she said. “It was all because of a pair of slippers, Laura’s slippers, she brought to Island Beach one time when I was nine.” She laughed and then became silent.

  He felt the darkness in her and leaned towards her. He took off her smoked glasses and watched her pale face in the whirling streetlamps. “What is it, baby?”

  She spoke up sombrely, “I’m a thief. I stole those slippers. And they never said anything; just, They’re gone. And they brought retribution. Those slippers were always bringing retribution. A friend of hers died, I think. I’m not sure. A boy, I think.”

  He found her a room in the little hotel near him where Lili had first stayed, and asked her to come over to his rooms for breakfast, to meet Mrs. Branch and Lili before they left.

  They spent part of the next day making arrangements. George did his mailing, had a nap, then went out again. He came back very much excited.

  Mrs. Branch, a middle-aged woman in black, sitting with her swollen feet on the sofa, had a broad face with dark eyes and a beautiful smile. Against the wall, talking to her, was a fair small girl.

  George said to them, “I wish I had the Mercedes now. You have to take the Renault; so I must fly from Orly in an hour or so. Something has happened. I’ve got to get down to Alpes-Maritimes this evening. It’s a triple murder, an assassination, probably political; and the assassins have murdered a little girl, too. I’ll be away a week. It’s terrific, the biggest thing in years.”

  Packing his bag, changing, he gave them a few details about the Hammond triple murder.

  “Rumours are thick already. I must cable New York, call a taxi.”

  He told them about Linda, and arranged for them to leave for Switzerland the next morning. Mrs. Branch said she could find another bed; she had friends, not too glad to see her, but they wouldn’t let her sleep under the bridges.

  “And you know me, George, I don’t care if I do sleep under bridges.”

  But George said the best thing was for her to take the Renault, after that to Rome, where he had arranged to sell it to two girls he knew, girls who were working there.

  “You can use part of the money to come back to Paris,” he said to Mrs. Branch.

  George left that night and the two women left for Switzerland the next morning. Linda, with her key, came in the same day.

  Linda was left alone in her new home and at first did nothing. She trailed along the near-by boulevards, went into the Luxemburg, came home and cooked something. She was glad that she had lost contact with her Latin Quarter friends. She wrote to her mother in New York giving her new address and saying, “I am working for a journalist, doing his typing. When I have the money, I am going to the Sorbonne.”

  That evening George was back again. He had milk and a sandwich and sat straight down to his article; and when it was finished he went out and posted it. Then he returned and explained it to her. “They’ll pay me for that but they won’t get any more. This case is too hot to handle. They can get the news from AP; I’m not going to end up a headless body in the bushes on a byroad.”

  She listened to his brief remarks without comment, believing him. She had heard cruel stories always. They went out to dinner and when they came back, he began to make love to her. She withdrew. “I’m not a tease,” she explained; “but I can’t yet, George. I do it with a boy if he wants it, if he expects it. I’d rather than make a fuss. But you’re not a boy, you’re different, you’re older; and it makes a difference.”

  “You don’t mind love-making with a youngster who doesn’t give a damn, but not with a man who loves you?”

  “I don’t know why. I don’t want to get involved, I expect.” She laughed a bit. “It’s the slippers, perhaps.” She became very sober and put on her smoked glasses.

  “What slippers?” He
looked down: he was wearing cream sandals with blue socks.

  “Not those. It was the Deans. They stayed with us, one night, out at Island Beach. My parents had put up a folding cot for them; it swayed and creaked. I was next door. In our house all the doors and windows were always open in summer. I was only nine and heard all sorts of things I didn’t understand but I was frightened and I stayed awake. I didn’t sleep all night. Perhaps towards morning. It was hot then. Laura was wearing those slippers in the morning; you could hear the bells ringing in the other rooms. The Doc was crazy about those slippers. They all went to the beach and I stole the slippers and hid them in a drawer under clothes. When the Deans went, I showed the slippers to a man, the father of one of my friends, who was always nice to me. I told him to come and see them. He came into the house, everyone was down at the beach and he raped me!”

  “Linda!”

  “I didn’t know I couldn’t have a baby. I waited for two or three years, expecting to have a baby. I was so frightened I would begin to swell like the women, and my mother would scold me. It wasn’t till three years later that I knew I couldn’t at that age.”

  He was silent.

  “No one knows. I never told anyone but you. The man never spoke to me after that. He used to cross over the street if he saw me. I thought he liked me. He didn’t. They didn’t know what was wrong with me. They thought I was a crazy, nervous kid.”

  “Oh, how terrible,” muttered George.

  “I couldn’t tell anyone. My father would have gone after the man. And I liked the man. I thought he liked me.”

  “What age was he?”

  “About my father’s age.”

  “My God,” said George, getting up and walking about the room. “I’ll look after you, Linda. I’ll do anything you like.”

  “We’re not married and I’m so afraid of affairs,” she said, taking off her glasses and looking straight at him with her clever dark-blue eyes. “There must be something else. I look like a failure, don’t I? But there must be something. If I only knew what to do—I’d like to go in with someone, work along with someone. I don’t like money. It’s just dead. I don’t spend it for weeks and then I spend all I have to get rid of it. Like those ski things. I didn’t want them, it was a joke; I went to the tourist agency to get those ski posters to put over the hole where the creamers are—” She paused and evidently thought about the creamers. “I just bought clothes like the poster-girl. I never thought of a skiing holiday,” she said wearily. “I guess I’m a sort of black sheep. People like me, and then they—” She began to laugh. “I don’t know what it is. It means nothing to me here. It must be me. Everyone likes it here. But if I go home I don’t know what to do. How do you find out what to do? I don’t believe in things, that’s the trouble. They all say there’s something wrong with me. They fixed up a marriage for me. I couldn’t sleep with him. I thought of having my womb taken out, then I’d have no troubles. I wouldn’t have to like men and no one would want to marry me.”