I'm Dying Laughing

by Christina Stead

  Madame Suzanne answered at once in her rather harsh voice.

  ‘Yes, Mernie and I have been talking about it.’

  ‘You’ve been talking about it?’ Emily exclaimed.

  ‘Yes. We thought you might begin by writing an account of how intellectuals resisted and suffered and died and survived during the occupation; and it might lead up to a study of the concentration camps going on now—’

  ‘Now!’

  ‘Yes, and perhaps Stephen—I heard him explaining American affairs to your boy Giles the other night—might give a course for us, as we said before, on the American viewpoint and a general description of what is behind this, to us, very strange viewpoint. Lecture, questions, discussion.’

  ‘Oh, Stephen will be delighted! As soon as dear Anna has gone we’ll start in; but now she is here we owe some of our time to the family. After all, Suzanne, they do tolerate us!’

  ‘Yes, of course; you must.’

  The party went on a long time and right at the end Vittorio came in. Emily beamed. She ran across the room and kissed him and then led him with great pride to Anna. It seemed that Anna liked him. The afternoon was a great success.

  The next morning at ten Stephen called at the Ritz to see his mother. He telephoned home that he was lunching with his mother; and he returned about three, his long legs measuring the courtyard, his eyes on the ground, his hat slightly to one side, his satchel swinging. In the satchel were his accounts to date, and all he had done in trusteeship for Christy and Olivia. Emily saw him from her window and came running down. He threw his things on the table,

  ‘Oh, we had the usual row. Anna always hated her only son; and I—I don’t hate her; but what have I to say to her? Of course, she brought it all up again—I hate the family, want to ruin them, throw mud at them. Florence is mistaken, but she’s a rich woman, can do what she likes; though she was always obstinate and lacked culture. That means you and I lack culture but we’re not rich enough to excuse it. Oh, skip that. That’s the overture. Well, two things. First, that little chit Fairfield, Christy’s second cousin, Fairfield Tanner. She’s Mamma’s ideal. I told Ma she was a beastly ignorant smug little chit who isn’t worth a damn to man or beast. She wants us to put Fairfield up so that she and Christy can get acquainted, with honourable intentions. She’s glad we’re going to park Christy with Suzanne. She approves of Suzanne, the perfect governess; she can honourably shadow Fairfield and Christy while they’re courting.’

  ‘Courting! Christy’s only a child.’

  ‘Fairfield’s even more of a child. But those are the grandmotherly plans.’

  Emily declared violently, ‘She just wants money to marry money and keep it in the family. How revolting! How medieval! I’ll never permit it, after all our trouble, all our agony with this stupid lad, to make him into a gentleman and a scholar, to make him into a painter, to teach him languages and give him a bit of culture. Never, never will I allow it, for him to be married to that simpering AAA rich little bitch.’

  Stephen said, ‘Still, it’s the usual thing for money to marry money. Christy will never marry a poor girl, though he walks in May Day processions now. And maybe it’s better for Anna to get her way and marry them and let them divorce in their springtimes and then get a regular mate. If Christy gets in the State Department—who knows? There are worse dubs than him in it—well, Fairfield would be a great help. And frankly, why trouble? Who is Christy? A nitwit we happen to know and whose millions we are cudgelling our brains to nick a bit off? Just as everyone else always will. Look at Suzanne edging in on them now! Why be fooled by our own schemes? I see no shame at all in trying to chisel and bamboozle my own son, or nephew, whatever he is now, when he’s so rich and we’re so poor. The more he thinks about the poor and needy, the softer his heart will be and the more likely to help his poor old parents one day.’

  Emily said, ‘I brood about it. I don’t know. The rich don’t seem to hand out. After all, for a kid of seventeen to walk in May Day processions is a cheap entertainment—it’s just the shoe-leather. But to keep Mummy and Daddy who have such expensive tastes is another kettle of fish.’

  Stephen said, ‘Let’s have a drink. Worse is to follow. We have to sign an agreement.’

  ‘What agreement?’

  ‘About the company we keep. We can shed them politely, the reds I mean, but immediately. When Anna comes back here on her return from Egypt, no reds of any kind. Only your sweet little friends the Trefougars, and for the enchanting Wauters and Vittorio, a laissez-passer, as far as Mamma is concerned. She says Mernie isn’t a red at all, that we’re so blinded we fancy everyone’s a red. We’ll have to lead a double life, as far as Anna is concerned. She was told we were coming to Europe to cover our past; and that was why she was agreeable to it and helped us out. That was why she let us bring Christy; to get his dossier disentangled from his mother’s madcap dossier. Well, she threatens that if we go on being reds and seeing all kinds of riff-raff like Jacques Duclos—she thinks we’re bosom friends, that’s your goddamn gabbling—’ he said genially, ‘all those indiscreet letters you pour out—she wouldn’t believe we don’t know the guys, that they’re not touching us—well, if we don’t sign the agreement, she’ll take Christy under her own wing and throw him straight, of course, at Fairfield.’

  Emily thought it over, sighing, ‘Yes, of course, it’s dreadful. We’ll have to sign. We must keep Christy for his own good and because we love him too.’

  ‘Anna is getting us invitations for the American Embassy’s next big do and we have to go, she says.’

  Emily tossed her head, ‘Oh, well, what the heck, why not? We’re Americans and they give a good show. We can’t live cooped up with French servants and ad hoc cronies we don’t understand. I’d be glad to speak even to a bunch of bad Americans, like even the bank-clerk, than never be able to crack a joke that’s understood, never get my sentiments off my chest. We don’t have to toady to them.’

  ‘Well, if I can tell Anna that, it’ll cool her down a lot; and if when she comes back, I can tell her we’ve been to the Embassy and are accepted, she’ll be placated. I’m glad you agree. It’s only until Anna sails. She might even remember the expense we’ve been to for her. She’s agreed to pay Fairfield’s expenses. She’s making us a loan and, in general, she’s being pretty open-handed, for her. I do think we owe her something.’

  Anna had prepared, from Emily’s letters, a list of their friends, which she had given to Stephen. He had it with him; and they now pored over it. Anna had scratched out the names of all their radical friends but two—Axel and Ruth Oates, because Axel at one time, when in Wall Street, had done business with grandfather Tanner; and Desmond Canby, the English journalist, because he was related to Lord Cockaigne. She left in the names of Fleur and Mernie Wauters and of Vittorio—‘not radical’, she had written: and next to the names of Suzanne Gagneux, and Jean-Claude, she had written ‘governess’, ‘tutor.’

  Anna was with them on May the first, and there was no question of their watching the Paris procession; though Christy, saying he was going to the American Library, slipped off to see it and cheer some of his new friends, marching in the ranks. It turned out later, Emily and Stephen were chilled to hear, that he had joined and marched a long way with them. Emily and Stephen talked it over that night.

  Stephen said sorrowfully, ‘As for me, Emily, I’m really glad. We are dead politically. It’s awful to feel yourself dead. I blush privately and I’m sick at heart to think what I have become, not a renegade of course—but no one. I feel like cutting my throat. I’ve often asked myself how I would commit suicide. I don’t think I’d cut my throat. Think of the mess. Now I ask myself what good I am, every time we get those left publications from the USA. What’s more, we have to stop those; Anna insists. We can get the Left Press here, but it doesn’t seem the same here. After all, we’re just onlookers. We can’t ride to victory on the backs of the long-suffering ranks of the French working class.’

  ‘To vi
ctory? If only I believed that,’ said Emily.

  ‘We can only congratulate ourselves that the world seems gradually to be learning what US imperialism means. When I think about it too long, I am terrified of the future—of the inevitable and unimaginable human suffering that is planned, so detailed, and yet so lavish, wild, hasty, and that is sure to be so effective, that must come. In our country, all has failed. Who will resist? And who am I to say this? What am I? Hiding my head in a foreign country where I have just agreed to mix with villains only. And I know I’m going to keep doing it. She says so. What is the use of a man like me? But perhaps you can escape. No matter what you do, people will say, she has genius, she’s mad or bad or dangerous or wrong, she’s—’ he hesitated.

  Emily, with eyes sparkling, face intense, grinned, ‘Well, go on, she’s—’

  ‘No,’ said Stephen; for he had been going to say, she’s a renegade, she’s deserted all she truly believed in; but he could not say it. He felt his gorge rise. He foresaw their slow separation from the Party, the beliefs of the Roosevelt era. He had a suspicion that Emily, who had jibbed at all marking time or trimming, would throw herself bodily over the Rubicon, would jump, laughing and hurrahing, the narrow deep river while he might forever hesitate on the banks. He thought to himself, Emily’s bad, she doesn’t hesitate; and I would be a villain to say the words, to encourage her to make that jump.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ enquired Emily sharply.

  ‘I didn’t know I was looking at you,’ he said, realizing that he had been finding in her features the face of her powerful, practical, small-profiting business father.

  He got up and walked to the window, thinking, where will we be in ten years? I wish it were all over and done with, the decisions taken, the steps made and the howling over. For there will be dreadful, painful howling. And I will betray myself. And we may all end up in jail or the madhouse or the hospital or the poorhouse.

  Emily filled up her drink again and said ferociously, ‘We’re confronted with a simple decision—Christy or a bunch that has rejected us and keeps sending around emissaries, political teasers, leaning on us but not taking us in, letting their henchmen eat and drink with us but not asking us even to a single vin d’honneur such as they have in any mean arrondissement for any bunch of ragged workers. Who are we to Hecuba, what’s Hecuba to us? Whereas Anna and Christy and Maurice and even Fairfield and all the Tanners want us; they’re saying, “Join us.” They’ve forgiven us. They want us. I hate being mealy-mouthed. It gets us nowhere. When Anna comes back, we must make the decision, Christy or outer darkness. For no one wants us but the rich and the conformists. If I don’t state my change of heart in so many words, The Gothamite won’t take me. If we don’t give up a bunch of noli me tangere foreign reds poisoned by Florence, we’ll lose our own dear Christy. Christy isn’t only the money, he’s our life, he’s what we’ve poured into him with such belief, such love, such enthusiasm, such hope, all that you give to a child. He’s one of our young things, the only contact with the future we now have. I don’t believe Marxism is our contact with the future. We have only Christy. The decision is plain. And what’s more, I believe if I said, “Don’t take Christy, let him go”—then I think you’d go with Christy.’

  Stephen was bewildered, ‘I? And all the time—’ He collapsed, ‘God knows you’re right. Christy’s my son. If I hadn’t been around, Christy wouldn’t have had a cent. I saw to that. I looked after him. I petitioned the courts. I actually saved Christy’s life one night, when my sisters were out on one of their lousy escapades. The nurse had gone out. It would have been five million dollars in someone’s pockets if I hadn’t been there that night. I wasn’t married then and I was sorry for the kid. That’s true, I never told you that. Never mind the sob-sister story; though I can see you’re all agog. To hell with that. It’s because of me though that Christy’s alive to be a millionaire kid. I’m not ashamed to be Christy’s gigolo. Surely he can help his poor old dad, now incapable and mindless.’

  They both laughed. Stephen continued, ‘I’m really not ashamed. I’ll petition the courts. They’ll be getting used to me anyway. The legal lot like recidivists. They understand them. Here I am, I’ll say, my wife used to keep me and now she can’t, and there’s my son rolling in gold and saving money hand over fist. I’ll incorporate myself for instance; Christy’s Dad Inc. and show Christy how not to pay income taxes by keeping me.’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ said Emily.

  ‘Sure it is a good idea. But Christy’s slow to catch on. He’s not even as bright as I am, because I’m poorer.’

  Emily laughed; then said seriously, ‘Well, we’re cutting close to the bone, Stephen. They ought to pay us something for these signatures. Anna’s visit has nearly ruined us in cash—in credit! I’m not sentimental. Don’t the Howards ever pay a profit?’

  ‘That’s a goddamn sneaky remark.’

  ‘It’s an outright remark. We’re selling our souls; let’s make a profit in cash.’

  Stephen said, ‘Kings never contribute, their subjects contribute; capitalists, too. Or are you a Marxist for nothing?’

  ‘Oh, well, I’m damned if I’m going to see Christy slip through our fingers after giving him the best years of our lives,’ said Emily.

  ‘Me, too.’

  Emily sighed, ‘Gee, you wouldn’t believe it. Such a lovely, quiet boy, almost too quiet, such a sweet lad. If they’d only leave him alone, he’d be ours for life. He wants to be a communist and help people. Gee, I wish God would throw a thunderbolt on all the goddamn rich. It’s too much. What does your mother want money for?’

  Stephen said mechanically looking out the window, ‘Money is a sacred trust. If it isn’t, we give the envious ragged a reason for pinching it. You’ll hear Christy use that bright phrase one day. Watch and pray. Here I am, here we are, a couple of big-con men, trying to rob a rich boy by blood-ties and by the whore method or any method; we love you and we are your best friends. Don’t trust people who only want your money. Ha-ha. I call myself an economist. I can only bloodsuck. I can’t sell a pair of socks.’

  ‘You could sell socks or diamonds at Tiffany’s if you wanted to,’ said Emily.

  ‘I’m sick of being told I’m worthless and a parasite,’ shouted Stephen.

  ‘I’m sick of handing out a thousand dollars to entertain your family, just to be told how vulgar and coarse I am because I work for a living,’ shouted Emily.

  ‘A thousand? It’ll be two thousand by the time she goes back. She told us to cut down expenses, too.’

  Stephen, going out, paused at the door, ‘But then—she does go to Egypt and boasts to Aunt Phillida about the receptions she’s had. For it always irked Ma that Phillida married ten times the money Mother had. I don’t know. Perhaps you’re right and it pays. Be—well, what’s the use. Go to hell. Go to work, goddamn you! Who makes the money round here? You or me? Go to work!’

  ‘Well, I’ll be floated on a sea of mud,’ said Emily, looking after him with her mouth open. Neither saw Christy, who had heard all of this on an upper stair. Stephen banged the door. She sat down and began to pencil their next guest-list. And the next thing she did was to write to her mother-in-law, Dear Anna, a tongue-in-cheek letter of grovelling flattery, which could hardly please Anna. Yet she did not mean it that way. Her outrageous humour, bad or good, knew no limits. She had little understanding of others, unless the electric discharges, negative and positive, were of a kind. Where her general and unspecific sympathy and affection did not guide her, she had no guide.

  She wrote to the woman who regretted her being, ‘Ah, darling Anna, our little resources can’t nearly make up to you for the company you’re used to, but (woe’s me!) you enchanted us, you were so magnificently, superbly good to us, not showing your ennui, that I sigh with joy, with success. Woe’s me, so superficial the success; for you could not have been really thrilled, happy with our trivia of entertainment. But you said so! And we were touched. I almost wep
t with joy. Ah, Anna, veritably and really, I wish we were closer together; but when this necessary time of separation is over, we and our dear ones and your dear ones will no longer have to endure this bleeding agony of separation, this waste of time and space. Me, ah me! So many good days—lost, all lost! And I’m so backward, dear Anna, that though you are so dear to me and I feel all the agonies and miseries of my beloveds I can’t put a finger on it like you can. What do I need more than your advice and your caution and your experience? I sigh, I long. If only I were brighter! Still, dear Anna, when the long, weary, woeful time of our quarantine is over, we will move, we will be near you or you us, and we and our beloveds, and I mean you, too, our angels so bitterly separated will celebrate in a glorious, gorgeous, creamy, dreamy way the beginning of a new, totally, absolutely united life and we’ll be no more the disinherited Howards. Divine prospect! Endless, enchanting, blessed prospect! And to think I dream of it every time we have the happiness to have you with us, dear Anna! And it must take some time to come. With this awful, yet necessary, quarantine. When we are out of that and no longer lepers to our friends and foes, we’ll become private people and live the ordinary good life of the ordinary good American family. Oh, let it come soon. Oh, exquisite, magnificent hope of endless, daily, loving and tender relations between us all. I’m profoundly moved by your visit and your words to us, so wise, so impressive, to which dear Anna, we give fullest value. I’m depressed, passionately sorry that we can’t follow them now. But you can be sure that as soon as it’s possible we’ll be at your side and leave our shivering shocks and forget this grim reality which is no reality and live like ordinary, sober, sophisticated and loving people. Oh, dear Anna (long long sigh!) what pleasure you gave us—and what pain! My simple, sincere wish is to be at your knee like a child forever and to give you pleasure in everything. No matter what other success I have, what other successes I may have, that will be my superlative success. Alas! To have been born in a small town in a low rice-swamp in Arkansas and to be so low. But you, dear Anna, never sneered at me and my squalid origin; you were always so good, so loving. And it’s only through my own stupidity that I haven’t so far, with all my trying, been entirely successful in pleasing you. But I will. The thought torments me day and night. Your traditions, your intelligent, sensitive decisions, are what guide me. Believe me, Anna, the few weeks you spent near us in our new home were the most touching, the finest, the very ultimate pleasure in my life. Whoops! Joy! Ah, wonderful, you’re coming back to us. I have as a friend, an elegant, fine, tasteful and tender-hearted woman.