The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant

by Mavis Gallant

  “Is this all?” Howard said. “Was this what you wanted to see?” He was cold and uncomfortable, but because it was Christmas, he said nothing impatient, and tried to remember, instead, that she was only twenty-two.

  “I suppose so.”

  They found a taxi and went on to finish the evening with some friends from their office. Howard made an amusing story of their adventure in the Place Vendôme. She realized for the first time that something could be perfectly accurate but untruthful—they had not found any part of that evening funny—and that this might cover more areas of experience than the occasional amusing story. She looked at Howard thoughtfully, as if she had learned something of value.

  The day after Christmas, Howard came down with a bad cold, the result of standing in the rain. He did not shake it off for the rest of the winter, and Carol, feeling guiltily that it was her fault, suggested no more excursions. Temporarily, she put the question of falling in love to one side. Paris was not the place, she thought; perhaps it had been, fifty years ago, or whenever it was that people wrote all the songs. It did not occur to her to break her engagement.

  She wore out the winter working, nursing Howard’s cold, toying with office gossip, and, now and again, lunching with Odile, who was just as unsatisfactory as ever. It was nearly spring when Odile, stopping by Carol’s desk, said that Martine was making a concert debut the following Sunday. It was a private gathering, a subscription concert. Odile sounded vague. She dropped two tickets on Carol’s desk and said, walking away, “If you want to come.”

  “If I want to!”

  Carol flew away to tell Howard at once. “It’s a sort of private musical thing,” she said. “There should be important musicians there, since it’s a debut, and all Odile’s family. The old count—everyone.” She half expected Odile’s impoverished uncle to turn up in eighteenth-century costume, his hands clasped on the head of a cane.

  Howard said it was all right with him, provided they needn’t stand out in the rain.

  “Of course not! It’s a concert.” She looked at the tickets; they were handwritten slips bearing mimeographed numbers. “It’s probably in someone’s house,” she said. “In one of those lovely old drawing rooms. Or in a little painted theater. There are supposed to be little theaters all over Paris that belong to families and that foreigners never see.”

  She was beside herself with excitement. What if Paris had taken all winter to come to life? Some foreigners lived there forever and never broke in at all. She spent nearly all of one week’s salary on a white feather hat, and practiced a few graceful phrases in French. “Oui, elle est charmante,” she said to her mirror. “La petite Martine est tout à fiait ravissante. Je connais très bien Odile. Une coupe de champagne? Mais oui, merci bien. Ah, voici mon fiancé! Monsieur Mitchell, le Baron de …” and so forth.

  She felt close to Odile, as if they had been great friends for a long time. When, two days before the concert, Odile remarked, yawning, that Martine was crying night and day because she hadn’t a suitable dress, Carol said, “Would you let me lend her a dress?”

  Odile suddenly stopped yawning and turned back the cuffs of her pullover as if it were a task that required all her attention. “That would be very kind of you,” she said, at last.

  “I mean,” said Carol, feeling gauche, “would it be all right? I have a lovely pale green tulle that I brought from New York. I’ve only worn it twice.”

  “It sounds very nice,” said Odile.

  Carol shook the dress out of its tissue paper and brought it to work the next day. Odile thanked her without fervor, but Carol knew by now that that was simply her manner.

  “We’re going to a private musical debut,” she wrote to her mother and father. “The youngest niece of the Count de Quelquechose … I’ve lent her my green tulle.” She said no more than that, so that it would sound properly casual. So far, her letters had not contained much of interest.

  The address Odile had given Carol turned out to be an ordinary, shabby theater in the Second Arrondissement. It was on an obscure street, and the taxi driver had to stop and consult his street guide so often that they were half an hour late. Music came out to meet them in the empty lobby, where a poster said only J. s. BACH. An usher tiptoed them into place with ill grace and asked Carol please to have some thought for the people behind her and remove her hat. Carol did so while Howard groped for change for the usher’s tip. She peered around: The theater was less than half filled, and the music coming from the small orchestra on the stage had a thin, echoing quality, as if it were traveling around an empty vault. Odile was nowhere in sight. After a moment, Carol saw Felix sitting alone a few rows away. He smiled—much too familiarly, Carol thought. He looked paler than usual, and almost deliberately untidy. He might at least have taken pains for the concert. She felt a spasm of annoyance, and at the same time her heart began to beat so quickly that she felt its movement must surely be visible.

  Whatever is the matter with me, she thought. If one could believe all the arch stories on the subject, this was traditional for brides-to-be. Perhaps, at this unpromising moment, she had begun to fall in love. She turned in her seat and stared at Howard; he looked much as always. She settled back and began furnishing in her mind the apartment they would have in Chicago. Sometimes the theater lights went on, startling her out of some problem involving draperies and Venetian blinds; once Howard went out to smoke. Carol had just finished papering a bedroom green and white when Martine walked onstage, with her violin. At the same moment, a piece of plaster bearing the painted plump foot of a nymph detached itself from the ceiling and crashed into the aisle, just missing Howard’s head. Everyone stood up to look, and Martine and the conductor stared at Howard and Carol furiously, as if it were their fault. The commotion was horrifying. Carol slid down in her seat, her hands over her eyes. She retained, in all her distress, an impression of Martine, who wore an ill-fitting blue dress with a little jacket. She had not worn Carol’s pretty tulle; probably she had never intended to.

  Carol wondered, miserably, why they had come. For the first time, she noticed that all the people around them were odd and shabby. The smell of stale winter coats filled the unaired theater; her head began to ache, and Martine’s violin shrilled on her ear like a pennywhistle. At last the music stopped and the lights went on. The concert was over. There was some applause, but people were busy pulling on coats and screaming at one another from aisle to aisle. Martine shook hands with the conductor and, after looking vaguely around the hall, wandered away.

  “Is this all?” said Howard. He stood up and stretched. Carol did not reply. She had just seen Felix and Odile together. Odile was speaking rapidly and looked unhappy. She wore the same skirt and pullover Carol had seen all winter, and she was carrying her coat.

  “Odile!” Carol called. But Odile waved and threaded her way through the row of seats to the other side of the theater, where she joined some elderly people and a young man. They went off together backstage.

  Her family, Carol thought, sickening under the snub. And she didn’t introduce me, or even come over and speak. She was positive now that Odile had invited her only to help fill the hall, or because she had a pair of tickets she didn’t know what to do with.

  “Let’s go,” Howard said. Their seats were near the front. By the time they reached the lobby, it was nearly empty. Under the indifferent eyes of the usher, Howard guided Carol into her coat. “They sure didn’t put on much of a show for Martine,” he said.

  “No, they didn’t.”

  “No flowers,” he said. “It didn’t even have her name on the program. No one would have known.”

  It had grown dark, and rain poured from the edge of the roof in an unbroken sheet. “You stay here,” said Howard. “I’ll get a taxi.”

  “No,” said Carol. “Stay with me. This won’t last.” She could not bring herself to tell him how hurt and humiliated she was, what a ruin the afternoon had been. Howard led her behind the shelter of a billboard.

/>   “That dress,” he went on. “I thought you’d lent her something.”

  “I had. She didn’t wear it. I don’t know why.”

  “Ask Odile.”

  “I don’t care. I’d rather let it drop.”

  He agreed. He felt that Carol had almost knowingly exposed herself to an indignity over the dress, and pride of that nature he understood. To distract her, he spoke of the job waiting for him in Chicago, of his friends, of his brother’s sailboat.

  Against a background of rain and Carol’s disappointment, he sounded, without meaning to, faintly homesick. Carol picked up his mood. She looked at the white feather hat the usher had made her remove and said suddenly, “I wish I were home. I wish I were in my own country, with my own friends.”

  “You will be,” he said, “in a couple of months.” He hoped she would not begin to cry.

  “I’m tired of the way everything is here—old and rotten and falling down.”

  “You mean that chunk of ceiling?”

  She turned from him, exasperated at his persistently missing the point, and saw Felix not far away. He was leaning against the ticket booth, looking resignedly at the rain. When he noticed Carol looking at him, he said, ignoring Howard, “Odile’s backstage with her family.” He made a face and went on, “No admission for us foreigners.”

  Odile’s family did not accept Felix; Carol had barely absorbed this thought, which gave her an unexpected and indignant shock, when she realized what he had meant by “us foreigners.” It was rude of Odile to let her family hurt her friend; at the same time, it was even less kind of them to include Carol in a single category of foreigners. Surely Odile could see the difference between Carol and this pale young man who “did other things.” She felt that she and Felix had been linked together in a disagreeable way, and that she was floating away from everything familiar and safe. Without replying, she bent her head and turned away, politely but unmistakably.

  “Funny kid,” Howard remarked as Felix walked slowly out into the rain, his hands in his pockets.

  “He’s horrible,” said Carol, so violently that he stared at her. “He’s not funny. He’s a parasite. He lives on Odile. He doesn’t work or anything, he just hangs around and stares at people. Odile says he has no passport. Well, why doesn’t he get one? Any man can work if he wants to. Why are there people like that? All the boys I ever knew at home were well brought up and manly. I never knew anyone like Felix.”

  She stopped, breathless, and Howard said, “Well, let Odile worry.”

  “Odile!” Carol cried. “Odile must be crazy. What is she thinking of? Her family ought to put a stop to it. The whole thing is terrible. It’s bad for the office. It ought to be stopped. Why, he’ll never marry her! Why should he? He’s only a boy, an orphan. He needs friends, and connections, and somebody his own age. Why should he marry Odile? What does he want with an old maid from an old, broken-down family? He needs a good meal, and—and help.” She stopped, bewildered. She had been about to say “and love.”

  Howard, now beyond surprise, felt only a growing wave of annoyance. He did not like hysterical women. His sisters never behaved like that.

  “I want to go home,” said Carol, nearly wailing.

  He ran off to find a taxi, glad to get away. By “home” he thought she meant the apartment she shared with the two American girls in Passy.

  For Carol, the concert was the end, the final clou. She stopped caring about Paris, or Odile, or her feelings for Howard. When Odile returned her green dress, nicely pressed and folded in a cardboard box, she said only, “Just leave it on my desk.” Everyone seemed to think it normal that now her only preoccupation should be the cut of her wedding dress. People began giving parties for her. The wash of attention soothed her fears. She was good-tempered, and did not ask Howard to take her to tiresome places. Once again he felt he had made the right decision, and put her temporary waywardness down to nerves. After a while, Carol began lunching with Odile again, but she did not mention the concert.

  As for Felix, Carol now avoided him entirely. Sometimes she waited until Odile had left the office before leaving herself. Again, she braced herself and walked briskly past him, ignoring his “Good evening.” She no longer stopped on the staircase to watch the twilight; her mood was different. She believed that something fortunate had happened to her spirit, and that she had become invulnerable. Soon she was able to walk by Felix without a tremor, and after a while she stopped noticing him at all.

  “Have you noticed winter is over?” Odile said. She and Carol had left the dressmaker’s street and turned off on a broad, oblique avenue. “It hasn’t rained for hours. This was the longest winter I remember, although I think one says this every year.”

  “It was long for me, too,” Carol said. It was true that it was over. The spindly trees of the avenue were covered with green, like a wrapping of tissue. A few people sat out in front of shops, sunning themselves. It was, suddenly, like coming out of a tunnel.

  Odile turned to Carol and smiled, a rare expression for her. “I’m sorry I was rude at Madame Germaine’s just now,” she said. “I don’t know what the matter is nowadays—I am dreadful to everyone. But I shouldn’t have been to you.”

  “Never mind,” said Carol. She flushed a little, for Howard had taught her to be embarrassed over anything as direct as an apology. “I’d forgotten it. In fact, I didn’t even notice.”

  “Now you are being nice,” said Odile unhappily. “Really, there is something wrong with me. I worry all the time, over money, over Martine, over Felix. I think it isn’t healthy.” Carol murmured something comforting but indistinct. Glancing at her, Odile said, “Where are you off to now?”

  “Nowhere. Home, I suppose. There’s always something to do these days.”

  “Why don’t you come along with me?” Odile stopped on the street and took her arm. “I’m going to see Felix. He lives near here. Oh, he would be so surprised!”

  “Felix?” Automatically Carol glanced at her watch. Surely she had something to do, some appointment? But Odile was hurrying her along. Carol thought, Now, this is all wrong. But they had reached the Boulevard de Grenelle, where the Métro ran overhead, encased in a tube of red brick. Light fell in patterns underneath; the boulevard was lined with ugly shops and dark, buff-painted cafés. It was a far cry from the prim street a block or so away where the dressmaker’s flat was. “Is it far?” said Carol nervously. She did not like the look of the neighborhood. Odile shook her head. They crossed the boulevard and a few crooked, narrow streets filled with curbside barrows and marketing crowds. It was a section of Paris Carol had not seen; although it was on the Left Bank, it was not pretty, not picturesque. There were no little restaurants, no students’ hotels. It was simply down-and-out and dirty, and everyone looked ill-tempered. Arabs lounging in doorways looked at the two girls and called out, laughing.

  “Look straight ahead,” said Odile. “If you look at them, they come up and take your arm. It’s worse when I come alone.”

  How dreadful of Felix to let Odile walk alone through streets like this, Carol thought.

  “Here,” said Odile. She stopped in front of a building on which the painted word “Hôtel” was almost effaced. They climbed a musty-smelling staircase, Carol taking care not to let her skirt brush the walls. She wondered nervously what Howard would say when he heard she had visited Felix in his hotel room. On a stair landing, Odile knocked at one of the doors. Felix let them in. It took a few moments, for he had been asleep. He did not look at all surprised but with a slight bow invited them in, as if he frequently entertained in his room.

  The room was so cluttered, the bed so untidy, that Carol stood bewildered, wondering where one could sit. Odile at once flung herself down on the bed, dropping her handbag on the floor, which was cement and gritty with dirt.

  “I’m tired,” she said. “We’ve been choosing Carol’s wedding dress. White, and very pretty.”

  Felix’s shirt was unbuttoned, his face without any color
. He glanced sidelong at Carol, smiling. On a table stood an alcohol stove, some gaudy plastic bowls, and a paper container of sugar. In the tiny washbasin, over which hung a cold-water faucet, were a plate and a spoon, and, here and there on the perimeter, Felix’s shaving things and a battered toothbrush.

  “Do sit on that chair,” he said to Carol, but he made no move to take away the shirt and sweater and raincoat that were bundled on it. Everything else he owned appeared to be on the floor. The room faced a court and was quite dark. “I’ll heat up this coffee,” Felix said, as if casting about for something to do as a host. “Miss Frazier, sit down.” He put a match to the stove and a blue flame leaped along the wall. He stared into a saucepan of coffee, sniffed it, and added a quantity of cold water. “A new PX has just been opened,” he said to Odile. He put the saucepan over the flame, apparently satisfied. “I went around to see what was up,” he said. “Nothing much. It is really sad. Everything is organized on such a big scale now that there is no room for little people like me. I waited outside and finally picked up some cigarettes—only two cartons—from a soldier.”

  He talked on, and Carol, who was not accustomed to his conversation, could not tell if he was joking or serious. She had finally decided to sit down on top of the raincoat. She frowned at her hands, wondering why Odile didn’t teach him to make coffee properly and why he talked like a criminal. For Carol, the idea that one might not be permitted to work was preposterous. She harbored a rigid belief that anyone could work who sincerely wanted to. Picking apples, she thought vaguely, or down in a mine, where people were always needed.

  Odile looked at Carol, as if she knew what she was thinking. “Poor Felix doesn’t belong in this world,” she said. “He should have been killed at the end of the war. Instead of that, every year he gets older. In a month, he will be twenty-two.”

  But Odile was over thirty. Carol found the gap between their ages distasteful, and thought it indelicate of Odile to stress it. Felix, who had been ineffectively rinsing the plastic bowls in cold water, now poured the coffee out. He pushed one of the bowls toward Odile; then he suddenly took her hand and, turning it over, kissed the palm. “Why should I have been killed?” he said.