I'm Dying Laughing

by Christina Stead

  Emily sighed, ‘Heigh-ho. I suppose it is because she is Viennese, Germanic tastes after all. And always boasting they are small-town—well, they are!’

  Stephen said his stomach was bad but serve him right for eating with the poor. The poor didn’t know how to eat and hadn’t the materials and if they did where would be revolution? Why improve them? If every ragged Frenchman knew how to cook like Véfour, why not leave them alone? Why a revolution? The French revolution produced good French cooking because the cooks of the nobility lost their jobs and had to go and cook in cheap wine-cellars. ‘Come the revolution Fernande will have to cook not for us but for Hongree; then you’ll see.’

  Emily was still repelled and fractious. ‘How can a man who has had money, really been in the money, had a decent house and eaten properly, had a servant, how can he serve a dinner like that? Or how can she? After all, she ate darn well in America. After all, we were often at their house. They had servants, she did nothing but hand out the drinks; the drinks were all right, the hors-d’oeuvre were passable. We really enjoyed ourselves talking politics, revolution, Marxism, talking Europe, the Europe we were going to see after the war. And now—Hongree has forgotten all that. He’s gone back to grubbing in a cold-water apartment eating food for the concierge’s dog and letting his wife dress in old curtain lengths. He knows how to make money.’

  Emily fretted. They talked in their immense kitchen downstairs. She was eating, he was drinking coffee and a little cognac which always made him feel easier. Emily ate and heaved sighs of relief.

  ‘It’s bad for their digestion’. And if that’s their company food think what they eat when alone! I don’t wonder she’s sad, looking at him. It’s not only the food but the feeling of oppression, the feeling you get they’ve been up since dawn rubbing cabbage into bits and hunting round for the peas for the soup, running down the street for a bone to improve the stone-broth, tasting and smelling and calculating, will it be enough? And of course the whole musty, dirty old place, though it’s cold as paupers, full of the smell of centuries of such cooking. Oh, my God, I see why you have to go to a decent restaurant to eat. No old boards with mice, lice and leaking toilets in the offing. And then the guests have to worry, but this is a feast for them, otherwise they wouldn’t have invited us; and they’ll probably have to live off the leavings for a week. Well, let me tell you, I didn’t. I ate all I could, even if I didn’t want it. And when I went into her room, I took half her bottle of perfume. I think it’s so paltry, scrappy to make guests feel humble and try to choke them off. And then the wine—ugh!—why have wine? I’d have swopped the party drinks and the wine for a single spot of whisky. God, they could have asked us for it. “We’re too poor to buy drinks, won’t you send us some?” I’d have preferred that. I didn’t feel myself till the thin brandy came and it was mixing brandy. My goodness, why make your guests miserable for the sake of a social ritual? It’s vanity. I must repay. And I repaid with a full course meal and drinks. Good heavens, never again! And you were right about Vittorio. Imagine eating stewed fowl off a one-lung burner. How can they? I don’t get it. I didn’t enjoy it when I was a cub reporter and lived on franks and orangeade.’

  She walked up and down worrying about Vittorio and Hongree. ‘But I don’t get it, Stephen, I don’t get it. And they’re men I like. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t waste my spit on them. But these ought to know better.’

  Then she began to laugh, a full-throated laugh of enjoyment.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ he said suspiciously.

  ‘At the side-shows! It’s like going to the local fair in some one-pig town. You think about it for weeks, you get dressed up, you fight with your parents: “I’ve got to go!” You’re hot, sweaty, everyone runs, shouts himself hoarse, little sister’s lost her ribbon off her pigtail before she’s off the streetcar, the car wouldn’t start that morning; but you’ve got to get to the fair. When you get past the wooden gates, you pay your money, you’re in an enclosure where you’re going to see the side-shows—hot-dogs, dry rolls, dirty lemonade with flies in it, steaming coffee with maybe coffee in it, at the beginning, and such sad eastern harem girls, with steamy bits of veiling on their fat, dirty haunches, looking hungry, as if they don’t believe in it; hideous, revolting monsters which you can see are put together with cardboard and glue; but at the end of the day you’ve had a hell of a good time, you had fun. We ought to take Hongree and Vittorio in that spirit.’

  Stephen growled, ‘I never went to fairs. I hate them. I never ate hot-dogs even in Hollywood parties or Connecticut barbecues. What’s funny? My belly aches.’

  ‘You’ll have to see the doctor.’

  ‘I know. I’m putting off, hoping it will go away, but it won’t. I know.’

  Anna came with the news that Fairfield was very anxious to come and that, if they could make room for her, Fairfield could come over at once and stay with them till Christmas. Anna, it was clear, was anxious for the marriage between Christy and Fairfield to take place when they were both very young to avoid other attachments. They were to receive Fairfield in September. Anna also suggested that if Christy could not make his way at the Sorbonne he might go to his English relatives, the English Tanners, stay with them, or under their tutelage and make his way at Cambridge or Oxford. If he could not make the grade, she hinted, there were ways of getting him in; tutors, friends of the Tanners. Emily was very indignant.

  Emily was sick and worked, and Stephen was sick and worked, but when Anna had gone at the end of July, Emily found she had sold her book for a good price and that they could have a holiday in August before Fairfield’s arrival. The Trefougars had visited them several times during Anna’s stay and neither had given any hint about their sad domestic secrets. In fact, Anna thought them very fine people; and she softened towards Emily and Stephen.

  Before they decided where to go for their holiday, the Trefougars invited them to go along with them to Belgium for a short trip. Later they were going to Switzerland, then Italy. Perhaps they could travel together, expenses shared; Stephen by this had become friendly with Johnny Trefougar and the Trefougars, like all their friends, knew all their troubles, political, domestic, literary and financial. Trefougar had introduced Stephen to an excellent broker and had first-rate financial connections in all the capital cities. He was a great speculator, said Johnny: he had tips and helped his friends too with currency troubles and restrictions. Stephen and Trefougar came from the same setting; Trefougar was a little poorer but with more manner. Trefougar’s sister had gone to school in England, married a viscount before the family lost its money in the ’29 stock-market crash.

  Trefougar said, mincing, ‘Since then I’ve been a worker.’

  Stephen said quaintly, ‘Since then I’ve been a red. Lord, it didn’t look as if the States were coming back ever; it looked as if the reds were the straight ticket. It wasn’t till 1940 that we raised our head again. With Roosevelt began and died the forgotten man.’

  Stephen had not had a crony, even a friend, since college days. He drove out with Trefougar in his magnificent new car, they took tea at the Ritz, at the Scribe, met people. Trefougar found someone who introduced Stephen to a ‘funny little man’ who was something particular at the Louvre, another ‘funny little man’ who was something in economics at the Sorbonne, a ‘funny little man’ who was editor-in-chief of a serious literary paper, another ‘funny little man’, rather a big man physically, who had just been elected to one of the literary academies and was chief literary man in a famous publishing house in Paris. Stephen was joyful. At the same time, daily, hourly, he ran in and out of the house making contacts with people introduced by letter or telephone by Vittorio. He felt his life was full.

  He looked forward to this drive with the Trefougars and to meeting more funny little men who would serve his purpose in one way or another in Belgium, Basle, Florence and Rome. Emily grubbed away at her typewriter until he said, I want a wife, not a typewriter’; she made the money but Stephen was wea
ving a necessary pattern in a new society. Their whole lives would be woven into that pattern. His long, thirsty dignity, his famished ambition, misunderstood by the backwater of New York radicals, was being satisfied in Europe. He liked Europe; and they understood him. Suppose Trefougar were strange, his wife enigmatic, their politics anti-Soviet, suppose it was strange indeed that an attaché should have that expensive car and live so well—his connections explained it. Did he do little commissions for friends? Who would not? Everyone in this world, left or right, made use of diplomatic protection if they could get it. Even the Resistants.

  Emily thought otherwise. She was pleased about the funny little men. Stephen might get a job. Stephen was angered by this.

  ‘Do you expect me to walk in, hat in hand and beg for a job from people in that position? These are contacts. What can they offer me? Clerical jobs? One of Vittorio’s friends,’ he continued, looking at her with spite, ‘offered me a rewrite job in a telegraph agency. Where did I hear that before? Why should I do better than a bright little boy of sixteen? Look at my training, my education, my experience. I must get a job in which I wouldn’t look ridiculous. People won’t employ a man like me in subordinate positions. They feel uncomfortable. I feel uncomfortable. The other employees feel uncomfortable.’

  Emily said, after a moment, ‘Well, who’s going to drive? Maybe they’re both crazy. I’d feel funny getting into a car with those two and leaving the children behind. I’d think, Oh, hell, I’m crazier than they are. Supposing we get smashed up on the way?’

  Stephen thought Emily simply wanted to stay in Paris to see Vittorio. He said, ‘Do you want the children to get smashed up too? Well, we can go by train and meet the Trefougars in Brussels.’

  No, the Trefougars were passionately interested in taking them along. Stephen thought they were afraid to be alone with each other. Emily said, ‘I don’t want to be a buffer state. I don’t want to leave my children here and go motoring with two maniacs.’

  Stephen was angry. If there was a maniac it was that idiot Violet and not his friend Johnny. Stephen said, ‘You only want to stay behind to canoodle with Vittorio; you’ll have him here every night for dinner.’

  Emily brightened. She laughed, ‘I never thought of it. Besides, he’s fey. He’s probably in Rome again. And what about Christy’s Latin?’

  In the end they agreed to go with the Trefougars and take Christy with them.

  ‘Send Christy to Uncle Maurice; he knows Latin. If you don’t want to leave him with Suzanne.’

  Emily frowned. ‘I don’t want Maurice to regard Christy as his own. I’m bringing up Christy to be my boy. Giles and Olivia can stay here with the servants. Suzanne can come every day.’

  ‘No, no, Christy must be along.’

  When the big Alfa Romeo car started from the house, Emily sighed and said, ‘Oh, I feel liberated, though. Leaving all that behind. It isn’t my life really. I know something will happen, too; but I won’t be there to see it.’

  They thought Violet had a hangover. She was at first irritable, then rude; later she screamed. She shouted at her husband, at other drivers at every crossing: she wanted to take all kinds of short cuts. She wanted Johnny to pass every car. She took no notice of speed-limits.

  ‘We’re different. You damn well know it. You’re only going slowly to irritate me. You know I’m not feeling well.’

  The Howards, who often behaved quite like this themselves, sitting in the back seat with Christy between them, were ill at ease, frightened too. They had not been going long before, in trying to double round a big car, they almost ran into oncoming traffic; brakes shrieked, there were recriminations. They were not yet out of the Paris area. ‘Damn French. Don’t know how to drive,’ said Violet.

  Emily leaned across and breathed to Stephen.

  ‘Let’s change our minds. I’d rather lose them for life; and take a taxi back.’

  Trefougar with his eyes on the road, began speaking to Stephen, ‘I’d like to know what you think of Daniel Hoogstraet, you’ll meet him. He’s supposed to be the smartest change man in Brussels. He’ll do anything for you if he likes you. I never heard a complaint. He’s absolutely reliable, no signatures, no witnesses, but absolute reliability and anything goes. If he likes you, he’s your man. He’ll probably start talking books, he collects books, first editions. If you could let him have one of yours, he’d do a lot for you.’

  ‘Oh, I have first editions, nothing but; what I want is a second edition,’ said Stephen.

  Violet complained of a jumpy tooth. Her husband must drive fast but not shake her.

  ‘Can I drive both fast and slow?’ said Trefougar patiently.

  Violet said he was trying to humiliate her and screamed bloodthirstily at a truck which kept hovering in the rear.

  Emily laughed feebly and asked her family if they were hungry. They had breakfasted early. It was now nine-thirty. She hinted, ‘We won’t eat till Brussels perhaps.’

  She reached behind, and undid a packet of beautifully made chicken sandwiches with little pots of salad and a special dressing, mayonnaise with chopped chives and hard-boiled eggs. Stephen did not want to eat. The Trefougars were too nervous to eat. Emily and Christy ate several sandwiches and drank coffee from the thermos; and then all was put away.

  Emily said to Christy, ‘Now darling, tell us what you know about Cicero.’

  ‘Why Cicero?’ said Violet acidly.

  ‘Go on, go on, Christy. Cicero was—Now, who was he?’

  ‘Cicero was, ah, was a Roman orator.’

  She said energetically, ‘And writer; and not a, but the greatest orator and best stylist of all time. What did he write?’

  ‘He, eh, he wrote orations—’

  ‘Delivered orations!’

  ‘Eh, spoke orations and wrote letters; he wrote his orations down afterwards.’

  ‘When did he live?’

  ‘He lived, eh, in the same time as Julius Caesar, Brutus—’

  ‘Ah, Brutus was a traitor against Caesar. But Cicero—?’

  Stephen said, ‘He hedged!’

  ‘Stephen!’

  Stephen laughed.

  They stopped by the roadside, near a cafe, Violet saying now that she was hungry. The Howards got out their little lunch again, and the Trefougars got out the lunch Violet had prepared. It consisted of small square-cut sandwiches with rough edges, made of ham and corned beef, with butter, no pickles, no mayonnaise, no parsley, no red peppers, no silver wrapping and no little silver forks, nothing that Fernande had prepared for the Howards. Emily, with proud, laughing face, surveyed all that they put on the tablecloth brought for the purpose (a plain white-and-red check tablecloth such as you see in Swiss restaurants). Then she put out her own delicate, elegant sandwiches prepared by Fernande and ate them, passed them to her own family, laughing every time the Trefougars took one of their sandwiches, following it with her eyes to their mouths. They ate little, being anxious to get on; and she laughed as they put up their sandwiches again in greaseproof paper, not as her own, in silver foil. Her own small tablecloth was a fine, thin, white damask.

  As soon as they were back in the car, Emily once more interrogated Christy.

  ‘Now, Christy, you know your Grandma is thinking of sending you to Cambridge or Oxford. Now, tell me what you know about the ancient Britons. That’s something you’ll have to know. Come on, the ancient Britons—’

  ‘The ancient Britons, ah, were Celts—’

  ‘And they had no culture.’

  ‘They had no culture, they, ah.’

  ‘Did they have any agriculture?’

  ‘Yes, they dug the soil with antlers and they mined with antlers—’

  ‘And what did they wear?’

  ‘They wore—ah—funny clothes—’

  ‘They painted themselves with woad and danced before Caesar. They ate hips and haws. Christy, now learn something. The ancient Britons were a stupid, dumb, primitive, barbarous people. They didn’t know how to cook or to make clo
thes. They didn’t know anything. They made woad, that’s blue mud and they put blue mud on themselves for clothes and to keep off the lice. They didn’t know how to fight, they folded before everyone, the Romans, the Saxons, the Normans, they ran away to the hills and those who remained became slaves and serfs, they washed the togas and cleaned the sandals of the Romans. They were cowards. Now what was their religion?’

  ‘Their religion? They had the Druids,’ Christy said.

  ‘Yes, the Druids! They were a sort of medicine men. They had human sacrifices. They burned sheep and goats and men for their gods. They crushed men to death between paving stones. You can see those stones on end at Stonehenge. When you go to England, Christy, you’ll see that. And they made cages of willow-twigs and put men in them and burned them to death. They didn’t have any navigation, they learned it from the Romans. They had little baskets they went to sea in. Of course, the Vikings took them over. Now can you remember all that, Christy?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said simply.

  ‘Well, now, start from the beginning and say it all just as I told you.’