I'm Dying Laughing: The Humourist

by Christina Stead

  Suzanne was astonished. ‘But then you really think him stupid?’

  ‘Yes, I do, Suzanne. I made my own way, wrote my own books, earned my own living, made $80,000 a year in Hollywood and never a tutor, not even a shoe-wiper or a floor-cleaner, but me serving sizzling fries and mile-long hot-dogs in the canteen when required. I despise the rich, make no mistake, all the cripples with gold crutches. The rich are only rich because they stole the feathers to feather their nest. Christy is a nitwit, a jerk, a drip, oh, what good does it do me to say so? What I really think of the farcical youngster, a runt of pedigree stock—well, it won’t make me a cent to say it. If he were turned out of your apartment this evening, Suzanne, he wouldn’t know how to make his breakfast, with all his knowing talk, oh, I laugh up my sleeve at him—but God, we need him. Maybe he’d become a fairy like Uncle Maurice, he’s pretty enough—’

  Stephen shouted, ‘Emily, shut up! You’re drunk; Uncle Maurice is not a fairy. He’s a gentle bachelor. You’re drunk.’

  ‘I am not drunk, I hate our clan and their simmering and boiling about the offscourings of someone’s left-sided—’

  ‘Shut up!’

  ‘But you don’t want to help the student,’ said Suzanne wondering and laughing somewhat.

  Emily said coldly, ‘That’s something else. I’d rather poison him than help him. I’ll do it, if he comes here with his thin cheeks and bony hands turning over Christy’s textbooks. He’s bothering my game. What will dear Anna think of woebegone apprentices with black nails and gutter-water running from their shoes, sitting with her Christy? My game is to hold Christy up as a paragon, the best thing in boyhood.’

  ‘Oh, you Americans are so surprising, so hard to understand,’ said Suzanne, rather affectionately.

  Stephen said, ‘Oh, we’re savages and we’re a new sort of hypocrite, the sort they had in England in the seventeenth century, and in Italy, in the Renaissance. This is my game and to hell with you! I suppose we’re a sort of savage Renaissance. I’d hate to think as Emily thinks, we’re Rome to produce nothing new, no philosopher, no poet but an enamelled one, no economist—though plenty of economy; and to have to wait eleven hundred years for a Renaissance. It’s depressing.’

  Suzanne looked at them. ‘It is funny the way you behave. I suppose your country is so rich it doesn’t matter what you do?’

  Emily said forcibly, ‘That’s it. And we’ve been struck by the god-damnedest thing in history. Just when we’re getting our pinfeathers and beginning to fly around and dominate the world and becoming a democratic monopolistic empire with every death-dealing weapon in the world, the world is sick of empires and monopolies and says, Down with empires and all that crap. And there we are, the young giant whose lightnings are burning a hole in his hand. Oh, I’m dying laughing at us; but it makes me sick, too. I feel so faint-hearted, when I think of it, all that power and gone wrong. It can’t be? Rome didn’t have a hundredth part of what we have. Surely not? Why don’t we win? Why don’t we burn up everyone else with the atom bomb? No one is able to understand. But something stands in our way! What is it? Destiny? A thousand years to the Mayas is an instant in our sight; the decline of the Roman Empire took so long, four or five hundred years and so many people were happy about it and money and reputations were made and no one knew anything about the decline—we can only see it now. I suppose some saw it and some of us see it. I can’t bear it, to tell the truth. Why is it we have the historical eye on our own country? It’s wrong. I want to love my country and believe in it and sleep happy and never think of ruin. We’re the destroying force. Oh, why am I an intellectual where I must see what is wrong and be on the wrong side, for to see your country is wrong is to be on the wrong side. In other days in America there was only one side. But now there are two. In history where there are two sides and you see it, you are obliged to be on the wrong side, unless you’re a cur. History is so long. Oh, God.’

  She stuck her head in her hands.

  Suzanne came over to her and took her hands from her face. ‘What is it? I don’t understand.’

  Emily said, ‘It’s the struggle for Christy, I suppose. It’s ignoble but it must be done. Why is my life tied up with these strange rich people? And they’re mine. I’d be a booby to let them go. I won’t. They don’t feel what I feel. Stephen doesn’t feel what I feel—the struggle. They’re really his. If he’s for the poor student, he’s doing him a favour. But I belong to them and I’m famous, I’m a success, but whatever I do is wrong. I bear it all. Oh, I am lost, lost. I am fighting for the wrong things. Everyone will spit on my name, in the hereafter, if they remember it, if there is a hereafter.’

  ‘What misery! Poor girl,’ said Suzanne, looking at Stephen.

  Said Stephen, ‘I know. Goddamn it Emily, my darling heart, what can we do? Must we cut our throats? I’ll do it. I’ll give up Christy if it makes too much trouble for you. We can live simply, buy a cottage on the Cote d’Azure. I can work as a messenger boy. We’ll give this up.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be annoying. You know we won’t give up Christy. Would I give up Giles?’

  ‘Well, then, you must not cry.’

  After Suzanne had gone, they walked over the river to the Tuileries and walked up and down thinking about their future. If Grandmother was not convinced and Christy went to England, they would go to England, if to Switzerland, then they too, to Switzerland. They would not relinquish the boy.

  The next morning, the tutors, as they had requested, sent them fair copies of the reports they intended to send to the grandmother in America. The reports were short.

  Jean-Claude said that Christy was satisfactory, behind boys of his age in France but he was catching up. He had a good character, sound mind, excellent prospects, he worked hard, was not frivolous. He was impressed with his duties as a man of estate, kept proper accounts, was just, fair, courageous and warm-hearted. He seemed to be attached to all members of his family—an excellent boy preparing to be an excellent man. One drawback—he still could not compete with boys of his age abroad; but the tutor felt certain he would more than hold his own with boys of his age at home in America.

  ‘A pity he said that,’ said Emily.

  Monsieur Laroche said that Christy was a very special student, a particular kind of student and he was willing to take great pains with him. With a satisfactory report from Suzanne, they sent off these two ‘lightning conductors’ to Anna; who, however, replied at once that these were evidently the real opinions of the tutors, and they were not like what Stephen and Emily had written in their letters. ‘You are obviously unfair to Christy, you nag him, you don’t try to understand the kind of child he is, not hard-boiled, coarse, outspoken, not the typical American child. You say you have struggled with him for years, but what such a sensitive, affectionate child wants is not struggle and family storms and scoldings but peace and love. You say in your letters that you made sacrifices for him; but I don’t know which ones. His peace of mind has been ruined by your whims, travelling everywhere abroad, he has been left for weeks to himself and to strangers while you go sight-seeing, allowed to travel with foreign children he scarcely knows and even with communist youth groups. It shows what he’s made of that he has stood up to it and is the fine boy his tutors say he is.’

  Evidently Grandma had written to Christy too. When he came on his weekly visit to the rue de Varenne he was accompanied by a soft-haired, soft-formed, casual and derisive American girl of about seventeen; her name, Paula. Christy strolled in conceitedly, scarcely said good-day to Emily or Stephen, showed Paula his room and the rest of the house, evidently to impress her (his own quarters with Madame Suzanne were small) and proceeded to stroll out again.

  ‘What are we, foreigners?’ enquired Emily.

  ‘I have a life of my own now,’ said Christy.

  ‘What are these solemn sulks?’ cried Stephen.

  ‘Christy’s right. You give him no freedom. I want Christy to take me all round Paris. We have things to talk about. I found
out Christy has no American friends. He has no fun at all.’ So said Paula; and the two young ones left.

  ‘That girl’s an agitator; now we’ll have riots and demands for weeks,’ said Stephen, laughing.

  ‘I think we should write to dear Anna, that it is time for Fairfield to come over. I’ll tromp on her cucaracha,’ said Emily.

  Stephen said, ‘Good idea. Christy can squire her round; but Christy won’t go for any Fairfield. I know from my own youth.’

  Emily then wrote to Grandma, ‘We are longing to see Fairfield. Christy needs a companion of his own age, an American girl of the right background. Fairfield is a lovely child, she is so sweet and remote, far better than the usual twit of our present age and its disorders, I fear. At least she has this to say for her, she isn’t a leader in campus riots, with long, dirty hair and wrinkled slacks. She’s a clean, lovely, fine American girl with real values.’ She read this far to Stephen and Suzanne and added, ‘And more. Stephen, I’m going to write to Anna, for the struggle is too much for me, that we are not and cannot be communists or friends of such people. It’s all over. If this be treason make the most of it.’

  Stephen said, ‘Ah, not communists—how can you say that?’

  ‘Stephen, we are not and cannot be. Hasn’t Anna shown that several times and isn’t she right? Hasn’t our trouble with Christy shown us that? And isn’t it so? Didn’t every howling parasite among our friends show us that? And it is so. Who cares for our purity? Ha!’

  She laughed strongly, ‘Stephen, I am going to write to Anna and when the letter is posted, I will feel spiritually free. They have not got a chain on me any more. I don’t give a damn what they say. They lost me. I am free. I suffered too much. Even Vittorio, such a good man they say, made me suffer. He didn’t even answer my last invitation! Who is he to crush me like that with contempt? It’s the power of the Party. He is mightier than he is, because he represents the gods. Who can deal with such people? You can never be good enough for those who are messengers of the gods: who consider their presence, their words, an undeserved benediction. They lost me. I am free. I can think and write without being compelled by narrow petty mumbo-jumbo orthodox views and strait-jacket childish loyalties. Like the child who has to hit every railing with a stick, I had to hit every tenet of my faith with my pen when I wrote. Heigh-ho. Yes, Anna dear, I will say, you are as ever completely right. We cannot be communists any more and we must shun their dreary heartbreaking company. Fairfield is safe with us.’

  She rang the bell. ‘Will you have tea or a cocktail, Suzanne? I need something. I’ll run upstairs and brush my hair. It’s plastered to my forehead.’

  When she was upstairs, Suzanne said, ‘Do you feel the same, Stephen?’

  ‘I realize some modification has taken place without my help in our position. We were thrown out. We can’t either walk back or crawl back. We have been persecuted and neglected here in Europe and I’ve only been offered contemptible jobs, translator, night-clerk in a news agency. It was done no doubt after an initial bout of hesitation and after consultation with our enemies at home. We have been booted out. We have got over rubbing our bruises. We are out. It must be so. I don’t put it like Emily. I don’t feel free. I feel sore. But I must live somehow. I don’t know why exactly.’

  Emily returned looking gayer and, indeed, bumptious. She said to them, ‘In any case, we are, Suzanne, forever and forever outside this particular pale.’

  She took a few steps about the table, in her excitement. ‘I wrote that to Anna. Here is the letter. I said to Anna, “We have, Anna dearest, at last faced these facts for ourselves; we have gone through too much agony; Stephen has been too often and too bitterly humiliated and we have faced the fact that in spite of our past and our friends, for better or for worse, we aren’t communists any more.” Oh, thank God! Is our martyrdom over? I didn’t write that.’

  She threw this in their faces with almost an air of triumph, she smiled ecstatically, beat her breast, taking a deep breath and grew rosy. it took as much courage to do and say this, Suzanne, as anything yet done and said. But I did it. I suppose a chained prisoner has to be brave to throw off his chains. Didn’t some of the Bastille prisoners want to rush back to their dungeon? All don’t feel safe in the light of day. But I do. Oh, blessed day! There,’ she said, handing the letter to Stephen, ‘post it. Our letter of reprieve.’

  Suzanne surveyed them, astonished. She said after a moment, ‘Well, I suppose you have come down to earth. Your mother will be glad. When you came here she thought it was over, she told me so. But she said, she was really quite reasonable, “I suppose these things take some time to get rid of.” Do you feel all this, Stephen?’

  Stephen pushed back his chair and hugged his ankle gracefully. ‘Well, Suzanne, I feel it as—many things, many things you can’t understand. Sad, tragic, pitiful and silly. I feel I’m less the man. But I can’t stand up to the avalanche of contempt and neglect. I forced myself on them; they didn’t want me. Just the same, our grasp on history, on the facts of life, is better, I am sure, because we were in the movement. And as for me, though I’m not in, I can never be out. I don’t feel free at all. I don’t want to feel free.’ I can’t agree with that. It’s just as if we’d been sick for years,’ Emily said. ‘We’ll only slowly get back to some normal way of life. This is final! It must be.’

  Suzanne said, ‘I’m very interested. I have never before been present at a change of heart. I think we ought to talk about it tomorrow. In French.’

  Emily cried enthusiastically, ‘Yes, the facts of our life have changed. We are different, infinitely happier, free, ah, you don’t know what it is like. You never had the temptation, Suzanne. You are so steady. We were like birds fluttering, fascinated before a great python. We didn’t dare disagree with the Party and we trembled when a switchboard-girl gave us a nasty look—Perhaps she had heard something on the phone, that we were slipping, not in favour.’

  Suzanne asked them what they intended to do. Emily, for the moment, had to write another potboiler, for their money had been spent fast and loose. Stephen said he would be willing to go back to the States at once and work for the family in one of their offices, but for the danger from the Investigation Committee. Then they did not think it right for the children, just after they had acquired some notions of French, Latin, history and other subjects in the European manner, to go back home to programmes that now seemed backward to them. Stephen considered that with his small quarterly income, and with Emily working regularly at her potboilers, and without this atrocious dilemma tearing her apart, and with Christy now self-supporting, they could make out, if the family, that is to say, Anna, would make him a loan.

  ‘They must buy me in. I’ve knuckled down,’ said he, with a pallid smile. It was the usual thing in rich families to make advances, gifts, or settlements for various reasons. With such an advance Stephen could set up a literary or news agency in Paris, say for about five years, till it was safe to move back to the States. All trouble connected with them would gradually die out. They would mix only with neutral, bohemian or journalist types, the literary and movie world; they would not touch politics. Stephen had charm, personality.

  ‘Ah, yes, he is to the manner born,’ said Emily.

  ‘That means I’m used to firing cannon when they empty bumpers,’ said Stephen crossly.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Stephen did not answer but continued, ‘And then I’m cynical, corrupt and rotten and sentimental enough to be able to pick out successes, I really believe. After all, in all these years, I was Emily’s censor; streamliner, corrupter. I knew what would go down. She never wrote a word she wanted to. She wrote what I said was good. I eliminated all that was tragic, heavy, thoughtful, true, even the ghost of an idea from her books; at least, I tried to, not always succeeding. But I was always right. Every time an idea has sneaked in under the canvas, that book has been a failure. Only Emily had a codlin-moth in her apple; and it’s bad, for it started at the core and
ate its way out. She wants also to be a great writer.’

  Stephen sent off” Emily’s letter and one of his own, proposing to set up a literary agency in Paris. They continued meanwhile to discuss with Suzanne the project of Stephen’s going into business in Paris, London and later New York; and perhaps getting a job even with Tauchnitz or another house in Leipzig.

  ‘If they would have me, I could go to the east, and start a firm publishing paperback leftist best sellers there.’

  ‘But I thought you had left the left?’ said Suzanne gaily.

  ‘The twig was bent early. I can never desert Mr Micawber; or I hope not to,’ said Stephen, with more hope in him than had been for a long time.

  ‘You are very amusing, you really are. It is extraordinary how you both always have to succeed. You are real Americans,’ said Suzanne laughing.

  ‘Is that so unusual?’

  ‘Yes, it is rather unusual.’

  20 RESCUE AND RECANTATION

  ANNA SOON REPLIED. HER sister in Alexandria was ill and she had decided to come to Paris, take Stephen along with her to Egypt to see their relatives there. On the way they would discuss Stephen’s future. She would not bring Fairfield till the spring. During the next three days, with intervals of storm and anxiety, they discussed this new turn. Stephen said that Anna hesitated to give them money, when she saw that they were still the rakes they had become fully in their Hollywood and Connecticut days; but she still wanted to help him. In Alexandria she had a sister, Palmira, a widow and Palmira’s son, Hector. Hector was very rich from his father’s estate, he was a keen businessman, supported art and the theatre. There was an uncle too, a very good businessman, and a brilliant girl, Hector’s sister, Jean, beautiful, about thirty-three, divorced, and another interesting fortune in the family to marry. ‘Anna’s getting ready to drop the Arkansas has-been,’ said Emily.