The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant

by Mavis Gallant

“She is an extraordinary woman,” Dr. Tuttlingen suddenly remarked. “Heat does not bother her. Nothing does.”

  The others stared, and nodded, agreeing. Mrs. Parsters, a white towel draped on her neck like a boa, was coming toward them. She wore her morning costume—a chaste swimming suit made of cretonne, and flopping carpet slippers. Leaving the slippers above the waterline, Mrs. Parsters had put one bare foot into the surf. The bathing, she said, was impossible. “It’s not that it’s warm, and it’s not that it’s cold. It’s all the damned insects and jellyfish, not to mention the orange peelings from the cruise ship that went by this morning.”

  As far as anyone sitting in the pavilion could tell, Mrs. Parsters was speaking only to Bobby, her dog, part of whose ancestry was revealed in a noble spitz tail he wore furled on his back like a Prince of Wales plume. A few of the languid tourists looked over, but it was clear, even to innocent newcomers, unfamiliar with beach protocol, that Mrs. Parsters had nothing to say to any of them. She stopped at the pavilion steps and surveyed the scattered children, all of them busy, each child singing or muttering softly to himself.

  “You are building neatly,” she said to Mrs. Owens’s little boy. She said it with such positive approval that he stopped and stared at what he was doing, perplexed. “Where is your father?” she asked. She had been wondering this ever since Mrs. Owens’s arrival.

  “Home,” said the child, with unnecessary pathos.

  “And is he coming here?”

  “No.” Dismissing her, he began piling sand. “Not ever.”

  “How easily Americans divorce!” said Mrs. Parsters, walking on.

  Mrs. Owens, who had heard all this, wondered if it was worth the bother of explaining that she was happily married. But she was a little overwhelmed by Mrs. Parsters. “It’s so hot” was all that she finally said as Mrs. Parsters approached.

  Acknowledging this but refusing to be defeated by it, Mrs. Parsters looked up and down the pavilion. None of her own friends were about; she would have to settle for the Tuttlingens and Mrs. Owens. Mrs. Owens was young, anxious, and fluffy-haired. She lacked entirely the air of competence Mrs. Parsters expected—even demanded—of Americans. She looked, Mrs. Parsters thought, as if her husband had been in the habit of leaving her around in strange places. At some point, undoubtedly, he had forgotten to pick her up. Tuttlingen, running to fat at the waist, and with small red veins high on the cheekbones, was a doctor, a profession that had Mrs. Parsters’s complete approval. As for Frau Tuttlingen, the less said the better. A tart, thought Mrs. Parsters, without malice. There was no moral judgment involved; a fact was a fact.

  Mrs. Owens and Frau Tuttlingen looked up as if her appearance were a heaven-sent diversion. Their conversation—what existed of it—had become hopelessly single-tracked. Dr. Tuttlingen was emigrating to the United States in the autumn, and wanted as much information as Mrs. Owens could provide. At the beginning, she had been pleased, racking her memory for production and population figures, eager to describe her country, its civil and social institutions. But that was not the kind of information Dr. Tuttlingen was after.

  “How much do you get for a gram of gold in America?” he said, interrupting her.

  “Goodness, I don’t know,” Mrs. Owens said, flustered.

  “You mean you don’t know what you would get for, say, a plain un-worked link bracelet of twenty-two-karat gold, weighing, in all, fifty grams?” It was incredible that she, a citizen, should not know such things.

  During these interrogations, Frau Tuttlingen, whose first name was Heidemarie, combed her long straw-colored hair and gazed, bored, out to sea. She was much younger than Dr. Tuttlingen. “America,” she sometimes remarked sadly, as if the name held for her a meaning unconnected with plain link bracelets and grams of gold. She would turn and look at Dr. Tuttlingen. It was a long look, full of reproach.

  “As far as I am concerned, the Tuttlingens hold no mystery,” Mrs. Parsters had told Mrs. Owens one morning shortly after Mrs. Owens’s arrival. “Do you know why she gives him those long melting looks? It’s because they aren’t married, that’s why.” Mrs. Parsters, who had never bestowed on anyone, including the late Mr. Parsters, a look that could even remotely be called melting, had sniffed with scorn. “Look at that,” she had said, gesturing toward the sea. “Is that the behavior of a married couple?” It was morning; the water had not yet acquired its midday consistency of soup. Dr. Tuttlingen and Heidemarie stood ankle-deep. He held her by the waist and seemed to be saying, “Come, you see, it’s not dangerous at all!” When Dr. Tuttlingen was not about, Heidemarie managed to swim adequately by herself, even venturing out quite far. On that occasion, however, she squealed and flung her arms around his neck as a warm, salty ripple broke against them on its way to shore. Dr. Tuttlingen led her tenderly back to the beach. “Of course they’re not married,” said Mrs. Parsters. “It fairly shouts! Damned old goat! But age has nothing to do with it.”

  Their suspect condition did not, it appeared, render them socially impossible. Mrs. Parsters had lived in this tiny English pocket of Spain much too long to be taken aback; over the years, any number of people had turned up in all manner of situations. Often she sat with the Tuttlingens, asking clever leading questions, trying to force them into an equivocal statement, while Mrs. Owens, who considered immorality sacred, blushed.

  Mrs. Parsters now drew up a wicker chair and sat down facing Heidemarie. She inspected, as if from a height, the left side of the pavilion, where it was customary for the French tourists to gather. Usually, they chattered like agitated seagulls. They sat close to the railings, the better to harass their young, drank Spanish wine (shuddering and making faces and all but spitting it out), and spent an animated but refreshing holiday reading the Paris papers and comparing their weekly pension bills. But this afternoon the heat had felled them. Mrs. Parsters sniffed and said faintly, “Bus conductors.” She held the belief that everyone in France, male or female, earned a living driving some kind of vehicle. She had lived in Spain for twenty years, and during the Civil War had refused to be interned, evacuated, or deported, but after everything was over, she had made a brief foray over the Pyrenees, in search of tea and other comforts. Traffic in Spain was nearly at a halt, and she had returned with the impression that everything in France was racing about on wheels. Now, dismissing the French, who could only be put down to one of God’s most baffling whims, she turned her gaze to the right, where the English sat, working crossword puzzles. They were a come-lately lot, she thought, a frightening symptom of what her country had become while her back was turned.

  “You might just order me a bottle of mineral water,” she said to Dr. Tuttlingen, and he did so at once.

  It was unusual for Mrs. Parsters to favor them with a visit at this hour. Usually she spent the hour or so before lunch in a special corner of the pavilion, playing fierce bridge with a group of cronies, all of whom looked oddly alike. Their beach hats sat level with their eyebrows, and the smoke of their black-market cigarettes from Gibraltar made them squint as they contemplated their hands. Although they spoke of married sons and of nephews involved in distinguished London careers, their immediate affections were expended on yappy little beasts like Mrs. Parsters’s Bobby who prowled around the bridge table begging for the sugar lodged at the bottom of the gin-and-lime glasses. It was because of the dogs, newcomers were told, that these ladies lived in Spain. They had left England years before because of the climate, had prolonged their absence because of the war, of Labour, of the income tax; now, released from at least two of these excuses, they remembered their dogs and vowed never to return to the British Isles until the brutal six-month quarantine law was altered or removed. The ladies were not about this afternoon; they were organizing a bazaar—a periodic vestigial activity that served no purpose other than the perpetuation of a remembered rite and that bore no relation whatsoever to their life in Spain. Flowers would be donated, knitted mufflers offered and, astoundingly, sold.

  Mrs. Parsters
sipped her mineral water and sighed; this life, with its routine and quiet pleasures, would soon be behind her. She was attached to this English beachhead; here she had survived a husband, two dogs, and a war. But, as she said, she had been away too long. “It’s either go back now or never,” she had told Mrs. Owens. “If I wait until I’m really old, I shall be like those wretched Anglo-Indians who end their days poking miserably about some muddy country garden, complaining and catching bronchitis. Besides, I’ve seen too much here. I’ve seen too many friends come and go.” She did not mention the fact that her decision had been greatly facilitated by the death of a cousin who had left her a house and a small but useful income. Her chief problem in England, she had been told, would be finding a housemaid. Mrs. Parsters, anticipating this, had persuaded Carmen, her adolescent Spanish cook, to undertake the journey with her. Not only had Mrs. Parsters persuaded Carmen’s parents to let her go but she had wangled for her charge a passport and exit visa, had paid the necessary deposit to the Spanish government, and had guaranteed Carmen’s support to the satisfaction of Her Majesty’s immigration officials. That done, prepared to relax, Mrs. Parsters discovered that Carmen was wavering. Sometimes Carmen felt unable to part with her mother; again it was her fiancé. This morning, she had wept in the kitchen and said she could not leave Spain without three large pots of begonias she had raised from cuttings. Mrs. Parsters began to suspect that her spadework had been for nothing.

  “Life is one sacrifice after another,” she said now, imagining that Carmen, and not Heidemarie, sat before her.

  “That is true,” said Heidemarie. She looked sadly at Dr. Tuttlingen and said, as she so often did, “America.”

  He’s not taking you, Mrs. Parsters thought, watching Heidemarie. The words flashed into her head, just like that. Past events had proved her intuitions almost infallible. You’re not married, and he’s not taking you to America. Mrs. Parsters began to drum on the table, thinking.

  Beside her, Dr. Tuttlingen was pursuing his investigation of the American way of life. “What is the cost in America of a pure-white diamond weighing four hundred milligrams?” He looked straight into Mrs. Owens’s eyes and brought out each word with pedantic care.

  “Well, really, that’s something I just don’t know,” Mrs. Owens said, gazing helplessly around.

  “I have a nephew in South Africa,” said Mrs. Parsters. “He would know.”

  Dr. Tuttlingen was not at all interested in South Africa. Annoyed at being interrupted, he said, with heavy, sarcastic interest, “Cigarettes are cheap in South Africa, yes?”—a remark intended to put Mrs. Parsters in her place.

  “Very expensive,” said Mrs. Parsters, drinking mineral water as if the last word on emigration had now been uttered.

  Dr. Tuttlingen turned back to his cicerone, relentless. “What is the cost in America of one hundred pounds of roasted coffee beans?”

  In her distraction, Mrs. Owens forgot how to multiply by one hundred. “Oh dear,” she said. “Just let me think.”

  “I know a place where one can have tea for five pesetas,” said Mrs. Parsters.

  “Goodness! Where?” cried Mrs. Owens, grateful for the change of subject.

  “Unavailable today, I’m afraid. It’s being done up for the bazaar. It is run by a girl from Glasgow, for holders of British passports only.” She added, graciously, “I believe that she will accept Americans.”

  “What do you get with this tea?” said Dr. Tuttlingen, suspicious but not noticeably offended.

  “Tea,” said Mrs. Parsters, “with a choice of toast or biscuits.”

  Dr. Tuttlingen looked as if he would not have taken the tea, or the talisman passport, as a gift. “I am going to swim now,” he announced, rising and patting his stomach. “Hot or cold, rain or shine, exercise before a meal is good for the health.” He trotted down to the sea, elbows tucked in.

  The three women watched him go. Mrs. Owens relaxed. Heidemarie began to comb her hair. She opened a large beach bag of cracked patent leather and drew from it a lipstick and glass. With delicate attention, she gave herself a lilac mouth. She bit the edge of a long red nail and looked at it, mournfully.

  “What a pretty shade,” Mrs. Parsters said.

  “He doesn’t want to take me to America,” said Heidemarie. “He said it on the eleventh of July, on the thirteenth of July, and again this morning.”

  “He doesn’t, eh?” Mrs. Parsters sounded neither triumphant nor surprised. “You haven’t managed it very cleverly, have you?”

  “No,” admitted Heidemarie. She reached down and picked up Bobby and held him on her lap. Her round pink face struggled, as if in the grip of an intolerable emotion. The others waited. At last it came. “I like dogs so much,” she said.

  “Do you?” said Mrs. Parsters. “Bobby, of course, is particularly likable. There are a great many dogs in England.”

  “I like dogs,” said Heidemarie again, hugging Bobby. “And all the animals. I like horses. A horse is intelligent. A horse has some heart. I mean a horse will try to understand.”

  “In terms of character, no man is the slightest match for a horse,” Mrs. Parsters agreed.

  Mrs. Owens, trying hard to follow the strange rabbit paths of this dialogue, turned almost involuntarily at the mention of horses and stared at the bar. Sometimes a half door behind the bar would swing open, revealing an old, whiskery horse belonging to one of the waiters. The horse would gaze at them all, bemused and kindly, greeted from the French side of the pavilion with enthusiastic seagull cries of “Tiens! Tiens! Bonjour, mon coco!”

  Heidemarie released Bobby. She looked as if she might cry.

  “Now, then,” said Mrs. Parsters, drawing toward herself Dr. Tuttlingen’s empty chair. “You won’t help yourself by weeping and mewing. Come and sit here.” Obediently, Heidemarie moved over. “You must not take these things so seriously,” Mrs. Parsters went on. “Time heals everything. Look at Mrs. Owens.”

  Mrs. Owens took a deep breath, deciding the time had come to explain, once and for all, that she was not divorced. But, as so frequently happened, by the time she had formulated the sentence, the conversation had moved along.

  “I wanted to see New York,” said Heidemarie, drooping.

  “Perfectly commendable,” said Mrs. Parsters.

  “He says I’m better off in Stuttgart.”

  “Oh, he does, does he?” Mrs. Parsters turned to look at the sea, where Dr. Tuttlingen, flat on his back, was thrashing briskly away from shore. “The impudence! I’d like to hear him say that to me. You want to give that man a surprise. Make a plan of your own. Show him how independent you are.”

  “Yes,” said Heidemarie, biting the lilac tip of the straw in her glass. After a moment, she added, “But I am not.”

  “Nonsense,” said Mrs. Parsters. “Don’t let me hear such words. Was it for this that foolish women chained themselves to lampposts? Snap your fingers in his face. Tell him you can take care of yourself. Tell him you can work.”

  Heidemarie repeated “work” with such melancholy that Mrs. Owens was touched. She tried to recall what accomplishments one could expect from a young, unmarried person of Heidemarie’s disposition, summoning and dismissing images of her as an airline hostess, a kindergarten teacher, and a smiling receptionist. “Can you type?” she asked, wishing to be helpful.

  “No, Heidemarie doesn’t type,” said Mrs. Parsters, answering for her. “But I’m certain she can do other things. I’m positive that Heidemarie can cook, and keep house, and market far more economically than my ungrateful Carmen!” Heidemarie nodded, gloomy, at this iteming of her gifts. “My ungrateful Carmen,” said Mrs. Parsters, pursuing her own indomitable line of thought. “I said to her this morning, ‘It isn’t so much a cook I require as an intelligent assistant, with just enough maturity to make her reliable.’ A few light duties,” Mrs. Parsters said, looking dreamily out to sea. Suddenly, she seemed to remember they had been discussing Heidemarie. “I have only one piece of advice for you, my dear,
and that is leave him before he leaves you. Show him you have a plan of your own.”

  “I haven’t,” said Heidemarie.

  “I might just think of something,” said Mrs. Parsters, with a smile.

  “We all might,” said Mrs. Owens kindly. “I might think of something, too.” She wondered why this innocent offer should cause Mrs. Parsters to look so exasperated.

  Farther along the beach, Dr. Tuttlingen was pursuing his daily course of exercise, trotting up and down the sands under the blazing sun. He looked determined and inestimably pleased with himself. He trotted over to the pavilion, climbed the steps, and drew up to them, panting. “I forgot to ask you,” he said to Mrs. Owens, who at once looked apprehensive. “What is the average income tax paid by a doctor in a medium-sized city in America?”

  “I don’t know,” said Mrs. Owens. “I mean it’s not the sort of thing you ask—”

  “I expect it’s a great deal,” said Mrs. Parsters.

  Dr. Tuttlingen began to hop, first on one foot, then on the other. “Water in the ears,” he explained. He seemed happy. He sat down and pinched Heidemarie above the elbow. “As long as we don’t have to pay too much, eh?” he said.

  “I don’t understand the ‘we,’ ” said Heidemarie, morose. “On July the eleventh, and again on July the thirteenth, and again this morning—”

  “Ah,” said the Doctor, obviously enjoying this. “That was a joke. Do you think I would leave you all alone in Stuttgart, with all the Americans?”

  From the top of the cliff came the quavering note of the luncheon gong at Villa Margate, followed by the clapper bell of the pension next door. On both sides of the pavilion there was a stir, like the wind.

  “Oh, well,” said Mrs. Parsters, watching the beach colony leave like a file of ants. She looked moody. Mrs. Owens wondered why.

  “Good-bye, everyone,” said Heidemarie. Her whole demeanor had changed; she looked at Mrs. Owens and Mrs. Parsters as if she felt sorry for them.