13 French Street

by Gil Brewer

  “I see. Well, that’s all right.”

  Her hand touched my arm, went away. Her voice was as soft as the breeze outside. “That’s what I told Verne. Don’t you worry. I’ll see that you have a fine time. We should have lots of things to talk about. And I know plenty of things to do.”

  I tried to make my voice encouraging, but the panic had mounted another notch. “Great. That’s fine. I’m sure we’ll—”

  “So am I, Alex. Come, dinner’s ready. And don’t you dare let on I mentioned that about Verne.”

  Already we were conspirators. Inadvertently I touched her shoulder. It was bare and warm. She was wearing a strapless dress. I jerked my hand away. I said, “Don’t you worry. Maybe I can talk him into feeling better.”

  She whispered, “I won’t worry, Alex.”

  For me there has always been something about the darkness of a house, a large house, of a hallway, just before dinnertime in the autumn. Something about the darkness, with the lights in another part of the house—something that excites me. Perhaps everyone has felt it. I felt it now. And she felt it. We stood there and the faint panic increased a bit.

  Her voice remained a whisper, conspiratorial. “And Verne’s mother. Don’t pay any attention to her, either. She’s quite deaf, by the way.”

  “Yes.” I cursed myself because I had whispered.

  She took me lightly by the arm. “Come on, Alex. I’m famished. I’ll bet you are, too. Nobody eats in this house but me. They’re all—” She ceased. We went on down the hallway. I was very conscious of her movements, her lithe grace.

  They’re all what? I asked myself. There was something so damned secretive about her. In spite of anything I could do, it was getting to me. Right then was when I began to fight.

  Dinner was a wake. We sat for three quarters of an hour over a rare roast of beef. And I met Verne’s mother. Yes. Really there were three corpses at that table. The old woman, Verne, and the roast of beef. Petra and I faced each other across the table. She still was the only one with an appetite. I’d felt hungry, but a few moments at the table took care of that.

  Verne’s mother. Verne had doubtless been born into her old age. She was very old now. Like those dried, withered vines clinging grimly to the side of a stone building. At first glance, you think they’re dead, but then, ‘way up there, you notice a tiny green leaf. You wonder how in hell it ever got there. You know the sap still flows, however frugally.

  There wasn’t much sap left in this old woman. She wore a gray dress, buttoned around her throat, like those World War I Army tunics, with a round diamond brooch in the middle. And above the collar, a small choker of pearls circled her thin neck. Her face was small, shrunken, and sly. Her eyes glinted and gleamed like the slowly burning tips of two Fourth of July punk sticks. The kind you light firecrackers with, or used to, anyway. One of these days those eyes would turn to ash. I wondered if she would find a fuse; she seemed to be looking for one. Her dress was long, tight-sleeved, and a flower of white lace handkerchief bloomed at her wrist. Her hands and fingers trembled like dried willow wands in a breeze. A white shawl, looking somehow too heavy for her to carry, sagged about her shoulders. She was quite deaf, and beyond a nod to me when we were loudly introduced, she didn’t speak.

  Petra hated her. I saw that from the first. Petra would glance at the old woman and Verne would glance at Petra.

  “She’s afraid of the old folks’ home,” Verne said. “She believes they would kill her if she ever went. Don’t know where she picked up the notion. I suppose it’s just as well she stays here. She can’t last too much longer.”

  “She’ll outlive us all,” Petra said. She cut a piece of meat, dipped it in gravy, and chewed with unconcern. “She’s in the way here. She’s unhappy. She has nothing.”

  “You take her out for rides,” Verne said.

  “Yes, it’s lovely.”

  Petra ate for a while. The old woman fussed at her plate, believing that she ate, but actually all she did was play. It wasn’t nice to watch. Verne drank water. I creased my napkin, and remembered how the red taillight of the taxi had winked around the corner, leaving me here—with this.

  “You’ve noticed I look like hell, I suppose?” Verne said. His gaze touched mine, drifted away. Petra was watching me. The skin of her shoulders and throat looked soft, unblemished, warm.

  I shrugged. “A little tired, maybe.”

  “No. I look like hell, Alex. Everything’s going to hell. My business is shot, what with the government stepping in, taking over supplies. Can’t get the things I need, have to be there every minute or I’ll lose what I have.”

  “What is it?”

  “Building project on Long Island. Have to leave tomorrow, Alex. Don’t know when I’ll get home. I’m sorry. That’s the way it is. Biggest deal I’ve ever had, and it’s tumbling around my shoulders. I’ll stand to lose what I’ve got. It would have set me—us on Easy Street. Really.”

  Petra stared at me. Her lips were touched with disdain, her eyes hot and black. “He worries too much,” she said to me.

  “I never worried before in my life!” Verne’s voice was harsh. “Excuse me,” he said. “Let’s go in the other room and have a drink.”

  “Haven’t you been drinking too much, dear?” Petra said.

  He ignored her.

  The old lady was trying to carry a forkful of cole slaw to her mouth when she erupted into laughter. It sounded like dry leaves rustling against the basement windows of a house.

  Verne stared at her. Petra glanced at Verne, then at me, and she smiled.

  “Come on,” Verne said. He rose and started around the table. “We’ll have coffee in there.”

  “Sure, fine.”

  Petra watched me. We rose together and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Then I did and it was all right again. But the sense of panic, of the unknown, kept rising inside me.

  Verne walked through an alcove into a small room, and on into the living room. I followed. Petra touched my arm. The lights went on in the living room, gleaming soft and slow and saffron, like a stage set. Verne called, “You coming, Alex?”

  “Yes.”

  Petra leaned close and her breath was warm against my cheek. The faint odor of her perfume—was it jasmine? —mingled with her breath. “Try to cheer him up, Alex,” she whispered. Only she didn’t mean that.

  It seemed as though she had spoken merely as an excuse to be near me, to touch me. My throat thickened and I couldn’t speak. I nodded. For a brief moment, perhaps, we understood something between us. Then she sighed.

  I went on into the living room.

  Behind me the old lady commenced laughing again.

  I knew I was going to have to cut the vacation short. It had to be. Maybe it was all right for some people, but not for me. I was born with a deadly conscience; something I detested, but something I couldn’t override. If I made a mistake, it lived with me for a long while, and it was too much of a price to pay. Even a little mistake. I had long since avoided mental discomfort.

  She was beautiful. Petra. My friend’s wife. It was all I could think. My best friend’s wife.

  And there was Verne, leaning against the fireplace mantel, with his head in his hands.

  “He’s shot his bolt,” Petra said softly behind me. “He’s simply shot his bolt, the poor dear.”

  I heard her quite plainly, but Verne didn’t.

  Chapter Three

  AFTER two brandies I told myself I was a fool.

  One thing I did know—it was true that Verne was deeply troubled about his business, but business hadn’t marked him. It was something else. Petra? How?

  “You’ll have a good time, you two,” Verne said. He still stood by the fireplace. Petra sat directly across from me with her feet resting on an ottoman, ankles crossed. She watched me across the brim of her brandy glass. The old woman was perched like a stuffed bird on a chair in the corner.

  “Sure we will,” I said.

  Verne drained his glass,
picked up the bottle, poured himself another, drained that, and set bottle and glass on the mantel. Petra’s eyes followed his movements, then she began watching me again.

  “Hell of a thing,” Verne said. “Been asking you to come for years, and now you’re here, I have to leave. Don’t know how long I’ll have to stay in town. I’ve only been coming home week ends.” He turned to the mantel and poured himself another drink.

  I glanced toward Petra. She raised her glass, watching me, and emptied it.

  “Wonder if I could have a little soda,” I said. “Maybe brandy should be drunk straight, but I think perhaps I’d better have some soda.”

  “I’ll get it.” Petra left her chair and crossed the room. She had to pass my chair. My hand was on the arm of the chair, and as she swung by, her thigh brushed my knuckles. It could have been accidental. It was the merest contact. Yet I knew she’d meant to touch me. We were talking together by touch, by looking at each other. I was saying things to her against my will. I told myself again that I was a fool to think that way. Yet there it was.

  All right, you say. Laugh. But I didn’t want it that way. Because something was wrong, dead wrong. It was in the house. In the way they spoke. In their actions. And already I was a part of it, without knowing anything about it.

  There was a long silence. Then Petra returned. She had mixed me a drink, and as she handed it to me our fingers touched. She crossed the room, placed ice and a syphon on the coffee table. I glanced at the old woman in the corner. She was watching me.

  Verne brooded at his empty glass, one arm sprawled across the fireplace mantel.

  “Is it good?” Petra asked me with her back turned.

  “Fine.” Her hips swelled beneath her dress, black again, but not the same one she’d met me at the door in. This one clung. Her back was bare to the waist. Her waist was slim, supple. She poured a drink of brandy into another glass she’d brought with her, went swiftly to the old woman, handed it to her.

  “Thank you, darling,” the old woman said. It was the first time she’d said anything. Her voice was flat, dusty.

  Verne’s voice was low-pitched, but harsh. “Damn it, you shouldn’t have done that! I’ve told you.”

  Petra faced him, brushed a heavy wave of black hair away from her cheek with her wrist. “Don’t be tiresome,” she said. “The old girl doesn’t have any fun these days. Let her have her little kick.”

  Verne’s face was red. The red deepened. He looked at me, tried to smile. I drank from my glass.

  Petra settled in her chair again, flipped her feet onto the ottoman, and, glass in hand, watched me. It was nothing, perhaps. She didn’t alter her expression; she didn’t try to show her legs; she made no movement that wasn’t entirely accepted and proper. But she said what she said, all the same. And I got it and I answered right back, because I couldn’t help myself. I answered without speaking, just by looking at her. I answered, Yes, you’re beautiful. But stop it, cut it out!

  She smiled and sipped.

  Verne said, “I don’t like to have Mother drink anything. It goes to her head. But if I reach for that glass now, she’ll knock it down like a scared drunk.”

  There wasn’t anything to say.

  “Wish you could see the job I’m working on,” he resumed. “It sure is something—would have been. No, damn it! Will be!”

  I grabbed at the straw. “Maybe I could go in with you. Maybe we could—”

  “No. Wouldn’t hear of it. You’re on vacation. Petra will take you around, show you the country. I’ve got a million things to do, Alex. Hell, it’s a mess. I wanted to sit and talk. But either I go tomorrow morning, and try straightening things up, or I’m flattened.” He paused, gestured with his glass as I didn’t look at Petra. He said, “How’s the new museum coming along?”

  “It’s all right. Coming along.”

  “That’s the trouble with you, Alex. You’ll never get ahead. You’ll go on from year to year, wasting your time. You won’t get ahead because you’re too damned honest.” He drank. “Enough to make a man sick. Don’t get me wrong, now. Just that in business today, you got to grab, you got to lie, you got to be there one jump ahead of the next guy. If you aren’t—” He snapped his fingers. “Like that. You want to get ahead, don’t you?”

  “Well—”

  “Yeah, ‘well.’ What good is well? What good is a museum? What good is digging up bones all over the damned world? And now you’ve quit that to build a fool museum, and the man putting up the money must be a fool, too. Ye gods, Alex! Get into something hot!”

  “Like you? You’re into something hot, from what you say.”

  “You’re right. But listen, it is hot. No, damn it—it isn’t. Not now. Damn it!” He drank.

  Something bumped on the floor. We all looked. The old woman had dropped her glass. It rolled across the rug and onto the hardwood floor, clink, clink, clink, clink….

  “You’re a sweet boy,” the old woman said. She was leaning awry in her chair and as drunk as a lord.

  “I told you!” Verne snapped.

  Petra didn’t look at him. She smiled at me.

  “Is she all right?” I asked.

  “You’re a sweet boy.”

  I’d thought she was speaking to her son, Verne. But she was looking at me. There was a silly grin on her lips, and she nodded toward the right side of her chair, catching herself each time at the very instant of collapse.

  “It hits her more quickly than it used to,” Petra said.

  “He’s a good man,” the old woman said. She pointed a quivering finger at me. “Yes, you, sonny. Take care of yourself.” She went off into laughter. The dry leaves again, rustling against the side of a basement window, maybe with mice playing in the leaves.

  “It’s a vile thing!” Verne said. He faced Petra. His voice turned from ruggedness to pleading. “Good Lord, don’t you know she’s an old woman? Don’t you know the very smell of alcohol sends her balmy? You do know. You do it deliberately.”

  “Oh, snap out of it,” Petra said. “Stop and think. What’s she got? Nothing. It won’t hurt her. So she’s drunk. So are you drunk.”

  “Yes, but I—”

  “It’s no different.”

  “You know damned well it’s different.”

  The old woman said, “They’re talking about me.” Only she didn’t say it that clearly. It was thick, sickly, bad. “But don’t you worry,” she went on. “I know what I know.”

  Petra looked at her.

  Verne said, “Take her upstairs, will you?”

  Petra rose, placed her glass on the coffee table. “Will you excuse me?” she said, looking at me. She went over to the old lady. “C’mon, Maw,” she said, “let’s go.”

  The old woman couldn’t stand. Her eyes were mere glinting slits, her mouth a tight clamp of chin to nose, and she kept saying over and over, “I know what I know.”

  As Petra half carried, half walked the old woman past me, she halted. “Tell Mr. Bland good night.”

  “Oh, God!” Verne said. Petra was shouting as loud as she could; shouting into the old woman’s ear.

  “Tell Mr. Bland good night.”

  “Good night, Mr. Man,” Verne’s mother said. “I know what I know, but you’re a good boy.” They reeled off into the hallway. I listened to them going up the stairs. The old woman was muttering.

  “I’m sorry about this,” Verne said. “Damn it. Seems like everything’s going wrong. Naturally Petra doesn’t like Mother. She says Mother’s malicious, evil.” He ran his fingers through his hair and paced the room. “I don’t know, Alex. Sometimes I think I’d be better off dead.”

  “Everything’ll be all right.”

  “Easy to say.”

  “Don’t let things get you down.”

  He paused before me. I was trying to relax. My muscles ached from being held rigid. It was like waiting patiently for some terrific explosion—waiting until the second of the explosion you know for certain will occur; then, no explosion. But
it would come—it had to come.

  Verne’s mouth sagged at the corners. “A bad evening. But you’ll feel better tomorrow. Get Petra to take you for a drive around the lake. It’ll do her good, too. Hell’s fire, have some fun—somehow!” He strode to the mantel, poured himself a drink, drank it. His eyes were glassy, beneath heavy lids. I wanted to ask him what was wrong. Once I would have asked. Now there was something about Verne Lawrence that hadn’t been there when I’d known him five years before. Some added something that prevented you from asking anything personal.

  “Well, you have a beautiful wife,” I said. “And a fine home. You have money socked away, I’ll bet.”

  “Yes.” Nothing more. Just “Yes.”

  “Look, Verne,” I said. “I know something’s bothering you. Everything’s in an uproar. Why don’t I go back to Chicago and you let me know when you get things ironed out?”

  “No. Wouldn’t hear of it. Never see you again. An evening like this is enough to scare anybody away.”

  “I know you don’t feel much like talking about the old days now.”

  He looked straight at me, let his shoulders sag. “Alex, I’m tired. I’m dead rotten dog-head tired. In the morning I’ve got to go into New York and start fires under a bunch of fat behinds. I stand to clear over two hundred thousand dollars if this thing goes through on time.”

  “Why don’t you get some sleep?” I hesitated, and the brandy talked. “Maybe I could manage to stay over a couple of extra days. We could get together, drink some beer, go fishing. Might even get in some hunting. O.K.?”

  “Alex, there’s nothing in the world I’d rather do. Maybe we can—maybe we can work out something. If I can just build hot enough fires.”

  “This damn business—it’s really got you down.”

  “It’s got me nuts.”

  I looked at him and I knew it wasn’t business at all. No. Verne was lying. He was afraid of something.

  I heard movements in the doorway and turned. Petra stood there. Her left hand fussed with the waist of her dress. “Well,” she said. “The old girl’s snoring fit to kill.” She looked sharply at her husband. “Why, Verne! Do you know you’re plastered?”