“Has something happened to you now?”
“No.”
“But you’re not a child any longer.”
“Well?”
“You’re grown up now. Something must have happened.”
“I don’t see why. People have to grow up sometime, even if nothing ever happens to them.”
“No. That’s not so. Some people stay children all their lives. Some people stay children even if things happen to them. Like Aunt Manya. She hasn’t had an empty life. As lives go, I’d say she’s had a pretty full one, and she’s been able to absorb enough of it to be a good actress. And I think she’ll go on being a popular and successful actress even when that animal magnetism, or whatever it is she’s got, goes. Because her acting has more to it than that. But, anyhow, she’s never really grown up. She’s still a child and she always will be one. Look at that villa. My God! Your father’s a child, too, but in a different way. He’s more like a baby who hasn’t learned to focus yet. No, that’s not right, either. Well, you probably know what I mean. Your mother was an adult. And I think you’ll be one. Maybe. You’ll either be an adult or you’ll go to hell. You’ll go to hell anyhow, but you may come out of it instead of staying there. I’m talking incomprehensible rubbish, aren’t I?”
“No. I don’t think so.” She reached up and took hold of his hand on her shoulder and held onto it tightly.
He took her to a small café that was already crowded, although it was still early. “Mind if I order for you?”
“No. Go ahead.”
“Want some wine?”
“Please.”
The music from the merry-go-round was very loud and gay. “Have we got much money to spend, Charlot?”
“Enough to do everything your little heart desires this evening, darling. Shall we ride on the carrousel?”
“Yes, let’s!”
Charlot took her hand, and they ran over to the merry-go-round, and she climbed onto a milk-white horse, and Charlot onto an ebony-black one, and they rode around, laughing and shouting at each other, and she got the gold ring twice. They were panting and laughing when they got off, and they walked away, arms entwined, swaying a little.
“What now?” Charlot asked.
“More wine please, Jus—Charlot.”
“More wine?”
“Yes, please.”
“You are a little dipsomaniac, aren’t you? All right, come along.”
They went into a little bistro. As Charlot opened the door, the hot air, filled with the heavy odor of wine and beer and smoke, rushed out at them. Katherine felt a little dizzy and clutched Charlot’s arm. He led her to a small unoccupied table in the corner at the back and ordered wine.
“Like to drink?” he asked.
“Sometimes.”
“Know how much you can take?”
“Yes.”
“Won’t make yourself sick?”
“No.”
“Don’t have to worry about you?”
“No.”
“You got that one down quickly enough, didn’t you?”
“I was thirsty.”
“What now? Ferris wheel?”
“All right.”
They waited at the foot of the ferris wheel while it wheezed to a stop. The man who ran it was swarthy, and he looked unclean. Katherine pressed close to Charlot and away from the man. He had on a pair of brown trousers covered with grease stains from the machinery of the ferris wheel, and his toes showed through the holes in his canvas shoes. He wore a green silk shirt open very low at the neck, so that the hair curling on his chest showed. On the back of his head he had a green cloth cap and behind his ear stuck a half-smoked stub of a cigarette with lipstick stains on it. With both hands he reached out to pull the lever that stopped the wheel and leered up at Katherine and winked. She felt Charlot’s fingers tighten on her arm. The man’s hands were gray with dirt, his fingernails too long, and very black. The middle finger of his right hand was gone at the first joint, and the stump was dirty, too.
Katherine and Charlot climbed up onto the chair that was still swinging a little as the ferris wheel stopped. As he strapped them into the chair, the man leaned very close to Katherine, and it seemed to her as his face neared hers that it was going to come closer and closer, getting bigger and bigger until it exploded. But it stopped a few inches away from hers.
“The wine is good here,” he said, and laughed. Katherine drew back in her seat.
“Leave the young lady alone,” Charlot said sharply.
The man laughed again. “No harm, no harm intended,” he said. “Wine is a wonderful thing on a late June evening. A late June evening is a wonderful thing, too, when one is young. I will give you an extra-long ride, because the young lady has a pretty little face, and she still gets frightened easily, and her eyes are the color of the night.” He slapped the footboard of their chair sharply, so that it lurched, and then pulled the lever that started the wheel moving. They swung back and up, at first slowly, then gaining speed, until they reached the top of the wheel. At the top they seemed to hang suspended for a moment, then they were out and over and plunging downward. Around again and up to the top, up and just over the edge, and the ferris wheel stopped. Katherine gasped and clutched Charlot.
“He did that on purpose,” Charlot said. “Son of a—sorry, dear. I don’t like him. I don’t like the way he looked at you. Afraid?”
“No.”
They looked out over the lake from the top of the ferris wheel. If they jumped they would land in the lake. A small steamer was going by, as gay with lights as the fair. Blown and distorted by the wind they could hear the strains of a Strauss waltz almost drowned out by the blaring of the merry-go-round music.
“Do you still believe in God?” Charlot asked.
“I don’t know. Why?”
“I just wondered.”
“Oh.”
“God didn’t make man in his image,” Charlot said. “Man made God in his image. And not a very good image, either.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Katherine looked at Charlot, at his thin tired face, so strained about the mouth, at the deep circles under his eyes. “I don’t know,” she said again. “Human beings can be pretty wonderful sometimes. And I guess if we didn’t think we had the possibility of being pretty wonderful ourselves, in spite of its being a hell of a world, or maybe it’s because of it, there wouldn’t be much point in living, would there?”
“Your mother’s the only wonderful person I’ve ever known.”
“Well, there you are. That’s one at any rate, isn’t it? And you think you can be something yourself someday, don’t you?”
“No. I think I’m rotten. Rotten as hell.”
She reached up and pulled his nose and the gesture felt familiar, and she realized it was Julie’s, and suddenly she felt very happy and her eyes began to shine. “Don’t talk like that,” she said. “You’re not rotten. You’re one of the few people.”
He touched her earrings again with one finger, then felt through her dress the hard comfort of the locket where it lay between her small round breasts, and his arm tightened about her, as the ferris wheel went into motion again. As they reached the bottom, the man pulled the lever so that the wheel moved very slowly.
He leered at Katherine again, and then turned to Charlot. “I hope you appreciate her eyes. She has very beautiful eyes, dark like the night. The most beautiful eyeballs I’ve ever seen. I’d like to hold them in my hand.” He laughed loudly, slapping his thigh, and started the wheel going quickly again, and again as they got just over the top, the wheel lurched to a stop.
Katherine peered down through the iron skeleton of the wheel, and the man was laughing at two girls who were over-dressed and over-made-up. One of them had very light blonde hair that curled over her head, and long dangly jet earrings, and she held the stubs of the tickets between her teeth. The other had straight, dark hair, shiny with brilliantine. It was pulled into a tight knot at the nape of her neck, with a soiled a
rtificial rose behind one ear, and tight against her cheeks were two spit curls. She had a cigarette in a long black holder. The man stood with his arm around them both, and they were laughing up at him as though they found him attractive. He strapped them into their chair, slapped their footboard, and started the wheel again. As they reached the bottom, the man pushed the footboard and set their chair swinging violently. “You watch out,” he shouted to Charlot. “That’s a girl who needs a man who knows women. I know women. It was a woman bit my finger off.”
“You watch out, yourself,” Charlot shouted back angrily. “You can’t insult her. She’s not French, she’s American. You watch out!”
“Charlot!” Katherine said. “Don’t! He doesn’t matter.”
“I won’t have you insulted,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter. Really it doesn’t.” She pulled the shawl, which had slipped down on her shoulders, up over her head again. He reached into his pocket and drew out a package of cigarettes, and lit one.
“Could I have it?” she asked.
He put it into her mouth and lit himself another. “You’re such a funny little thing,” he said.
“I’m not funny.”
“Well, you’re little, anyway.”
“Mother was little, but you never thought of her as being little. You thought of her as being tall. Could we ride on one of the lake steamers sometime? I’ve always wanted to.”
“We’ll go tomorrow,” he promised.
“Oh, lovely!” She leaned close against Charlot, with his arm tight around her, and put her head down on his shoulder. Everything seemed to be going around, not only the ferris wheel, but the lake, and the mountains, and the lake steamer, and all the people, and all the thoughts in her head. Everything went around and around, until the ferris wheel stopped and the man unstrapped them from their chair.
“Lovely eyeballs,” he said. “Love to hold them in my hand. Pretty little teeth, too. Just like little tombstones.” And he roared with laughter as Katherine and Charlot left.
“What now?” Charlot asked.
“More wine, please.”
“Again?”
“Yes, please.”
“Are you sure you should?”
“Of course I’m sure. Unless you think you’ve had enough.”
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “Come along.”
In the café they went to this time there was dancing on an improvised dance floor. Charlot ordered the wine and then stood up. “Come along. Let’s dance.”
“I don’t think I know how.” She had not danced since the nights on shipboard with Dr. Barna when she was fourteen, when she was a child.
“It’s all right,” he said. “You’ve got enough wine in you to be relaxed, and that’s all you need.”
She stood up, keeping the shawl about her head.
“Leave the shawl,” Charlot said. “It’ll get in your way.”
She stood up in front of him, in the black velveteen dress with the lace collar and cuffs, looking suddenly like a child again, nervous and forlorn.
Charlot put his arm around her. “Come along, baby. Don’t be afraid. It’ll be all right. Just look at my nose and don’t think of anything else. That’s a good girl.”
He held her very close to him, as Dr. Barna had, so that his legs pressed against hers; but as the music began, she looked desperately into his face and said, “Oh, Charlot, this is awful.”
“Don’t be a little idiot,” he said, and kissed her neck softly, several times. And suddenly her head seemed to be on fire, and she heard the pounding of the train the day before, saying over and over again, Justin please Justin please Justin please, and she heard Aunt Manya’s voice reading the melancholy verses, and the sound of the sobs she had never actually heard.
“You’re doing wonderfully,” Charlot’s voice came in her ear. “You’re a beautiful dancer.”
And suddenly the spell was broken, and her feet refused to move. “You shouldn’t have said that, you shouldn’t have said I was good. Now I can’t do it any more. Let’s sit down, please.”
He led her back to the table, and she sat down and began to draw Manya’s shawl over her head again.
“No, don’t,” he said, and leaned forward and pulled at her braids, so that the hairpins scattered about on the table and her braids came down, and she was a schoolgirl again. “Maybe you’d better be a child,” he said.
Under the table she stamped in fury. “Charlot! How dare you! How dare you!”
He laughed and filled her glass with wine. “Here, adult.”
She took the wine and drank it down angrily. “Now you’ve spoiled everything,” she said.
“How have I spoiled it?”
“I didn’t want anything to remind me of school. Not anything at all.”
“And your braids remind you of school?”
“Yes.”
“That’s easily fixed.” He slipped the rubber bands off the ends of her braids and loosened her hair so that it fell about her face and over her shoulders in a heavy dark cloud. “There,” he said. “Now put your Russian shawl on, and you’ll look as glamorous as Aunt Manya.” She pulled the shawl over her head, glowering at him, as he filled her glass again, and his own.
“I’ve been reading Shakespeare,” he said at last.
“Oh. Have you?”
“Yes. I’ve quite a lot of theories.”
“Have you?”
“I think Lear is a bad play, but a magnificent poem.”
“Oh.”
“I’d like to see you play Juliet.”
Her eyes softened. “Would you?”
“Have you read all of Shakespeare?”
“Everything except Timon of Athens.”
“Shall we talk about it sometime?”
“All right.”
“Had enough wine for the moment?”
“Um-hum.”
“Come along, then.”
They went out and walked under the chestnut trees, whose leaves were shaking the soft early summer night, walked until the waltz music faded and only the blaring of the merry-go-round could be heard. Suddenly a loud voice rang out:
“Come and see the animals, the wonderful exhibit of animals, come and bring the children, an education for fifty centimes, fifty centimes only, to pay for the upkeep of the animals, fifty centimes only, come and see the smallest horse in the world, the most poisonous snakes, Medusa the vulture, come and see the great panther and the spotted leopard.”
“Shall we?” Charlot asked.
“All right,” Katherine answered. Tonight she would say all right to everything.
They went in. The smallest horse in the world was a mangy little pony that stretched his legs out in his tiny cage and looked defiantly at the crowds pushing to see him. “Oh, no!” Katherine cried. She looked at Charlot, and the lines on either side of his mouth stood out like cords, and his nostrils were pinched in with fury.
“Let’s go,” she said. “I don’t want to see any more, Charlot.”
“No. Come along.” He grabbed her arm and dragged her away. A group of rabbits was huddled up in a corner of a cage, and snakes lay coiled menacingly in insecure-looking glass boxes. In a small wire cage a great panther paced back and forth, his head bowed. Somehow, he reminded her of Charlot.
Suddenly Katherine found the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Take me out, please take me out,” she begged. “I can’t bear it. All of them shut up in cages, pacing back and forth, shut up in cages, and we can’t get out. Let’s go, please let’s go.”
They pushed toward the exit. When they got out, he took her down to a chestnut tree that grew almost in the water of the lake and pulled out his handkerchief and held it out to her. It was a white silk one with a blue border. She flung herself into his arms and clung to him, sobbing, “I can’t bear it. Oh, God, I can’t bear it!” over and over.
“What can’t you bear, darling?” he asked, when she had quieted down.
“Nothing. I’m all righ
t. I’m sorry.”
He pushed her hair, which had become shaggy like the pony’s mane, back from her face and wiped her eyes tenderly. “We’ll get some roasted chestnuts,” he said. They walked away from the tree and down the path crowded with merrymakers, many of them drunk by now, or amorous, or both, toward the warmth and color of a brazier. Charlot bought a bag of hot chestnuts. “Open your mouth,” he said, and she opened obediently. He laughed, “Not as though I were a dentist about to pull a tooth. As though you were going to get something enjoyable. There. Taste good?”
“Um-hum.”
“What would you like to do now?”
“More wine, please.”
“All right, little toper,” he said. “You seem to be able to take it.”
They went back to the little bistro, back to the same small table in the corner. Charlot held her hand across the table. “You have very strong hands for so small a creature,” he said.
“I want to be strong. That’s what I want more than anything.”
When they had finished their wine, she said, “Let’s go home now, please, Charlot,” and they went to the car. He tucked the robe around her, and she leaned against him wearily. “It was a lovely evening,” she said. “Is it very late?”
“Two o’clock in the morning. Did you really have a good time?”
“Yes. I had a lovely time.” She leaned forward, so that her hair fell about her face from under Manya’s Russian shawl, and rubbed her eyes.
“Tired?” he asked.
“A little. It’s all that train business yesterday. Traveling can be lovely and it can be awful, too. I rather like the way you drive a car. It was very good wine and it made me feel lovely. The chestnuts were lovely, too. And the white horse I rode on and the black horse you rode on. You do like me, don’t you, Charlot?”
“Of course, baby.”
“I wish you’d stop calling me baby.”
“All right, Katherine.”
“Are you tight, Charlot?”
“A little.”
“You drank more than I did.”
“I know.”
“Don’t you think I hold it well? I mean, for me?”
“Very well.”
“I mean, under the circumstances I ought to have been under the table long ago, oughtn’t I?”
The Small Rain Page 17
