The Unfortunates

by Laurie Graham

  ‘Where did rationalism lead?’ he’d asked. ‘I’ll tell you. It led to the trenches. Therefore, I reject it.’

  Of course, Cousin Addie didn’t know Gil. Also, she was from Minnesota. And it didn’t escape my notice, Beluga hadn’t warmed to her either.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  By the fall of 1923 I was flying my own two-seater pumpkin-orange Oriole out to Bois de Vincennes to see the trotting races. I could always depend on the company of Humpy Choate, and people at the racetrack would gather to watch me land my plane, eager to see my latest aviatrix ensemble.

  Humpy was rather elegant, with the droll English way of speaking. He never shouted or got excited, except toward the end of a closely run race, and he always remembered to hold the door. Gil didn’t care for Humpy. He declared him to be both a fairy and a seducer of wives, and I could never make him see the inconsistency of these accusations. He’d just fly into a rage whenever I tried. Rages were something that plagued Gil. Also a tendency to melancholia whenever he drank red wine. It should have been a simple matter of just not drinking the stuff, God knows there was choice enough of liquor, but oftentimes he was so wrapped up in planning a better world, he’d forget and then next day I’d be expected to endure his remaining in bed, silent and unsociable.

  Apart from this, and Stassy’s constant pestering me, life was pretty sweet.

  ‘If you don’t want to work anymore,’ Stassy’d say, ‘let me take it. I’ll pay you. Some now, some later.’

  And she’d start grubbing banknotes out of her pocketbook.

  But I didn’t see why I should. Coquelicot was my name. And I did still like coming up with originations and picking out the fabrics. I just didn’t want to do it every day of my life.

  Then, during October, I became aware of a certain familiar indisposition, feeling too tired and nauseated to go anywhere or do anything. I lay in bed one morning, considering whether to confide in Nancy Lord and ask her for the name of a hygienist, or sail home to New York and take care of things there.

  I turned to look at Gil who was asleep beside me, recovering from the effects of red wine, and I don’t know what happened, maybe he just looked so cute curled up there, dribbling a little from the corner of his mouth, anyhow, I got to thinking it might not be so bad to get a little baby. He’d look just like Gil, and he could go everywhere with me. I’d design him an adorable flying suit and teach him French words and we’d have such fun.

  Ignoring my queasiness, I got up immediately, dressed and took a taxicab to Samaritaine. It was a fresh and wonderful day.

  I asked my driver if he was a grand duke.

  ‘Not very grand,’ he laughed. Those Russians were always so cheerful about being dispossessed, I was inclined to think they couldn’t ever have possessed very much in the first place.

  I said, ‘See the color of the sky? That’s the shade of blue I’m looking for. I’m going to make my baby boy a silk flying suit.’

  ‘Beautiful!’ he said. ‘What is his name?’

  I said, ‘Oh he isn’t born yet. But I’ll probably call him Abraham Gilbert, for his grandpa and his daddy.’

  He turned and looked at me.

  ‘Well, many years,’ he said. ‘God grant him many years.’

  Beluga always found shopping quite prostrating, so I allowed him to ride all the way home in Abraham Gilbert’s new bassinet. He sat there, surrounded by packages, causing passers-by to smile, and I began to appreciate how just the sight of a bassinet improves the mood of people. I was eager to show Gil the layettes and nightdresses and squirrel fur coverlets I had bought, but by the time we got home he had defeated the melancholia enough to go out and face another evening of revolutionizing. I laid out all my purchases on the bed, had the maid bring me my dinner on a tray and waited. I heard midnight. After that I guess I must have fallen asleep, and Beluga didn’t stir himself either, being accustomed to the sound of Gil’s footsteps.

  The first I knew, the lights were blazing and Gil was yelling, ‘What in tarnation is all this stuff? You branching out into the nursery business?’

  I said, ‘Yes, I am, sweetheart, and so are you. We’re going to have a little baby and he’ll be named Abraham Gilbert Catchings.’

  ‘Not me,’ he said. ‘I don’t want any baby, and neither do you if you have a lick of sense. You’ll have to take this nonsense back to the store. Tell them you made a mistake.’

  I loved Gil and I hated to discommode him, but something had taken hold of me that day. The grand duke taxi driver had thought a baby was a good idea and the shop girls at Samaritaine had thought it was the best possible idea.

  Gil said, ‘You been forgetting to douche?’

  Sometimes there were too many things to remember.

  I said, ‘You just need time to get accustomed to the idea. My brother-in-law Harry was the same at the start.’

  This was a lie. Harry had been more than happy for Honey to have a baby. He had picked out names and considerately dined at his club in the evenings instead of going home and making conversational demands of my sister. But I wanted to reassure Gil. I could see the taint of red wine on his teeth again, and I didn’t want to provoke another fit of depression. His hand moved so fast I never saw it. It caught me under my jaw and sent me flying back into the display of matinée coats. Beluga growled a little.

  ‘Get it fixed,’ he said. His face was right up close to mine. ‘It’s the easiest thing in the world.’

  I had already decided I wouldn’t get it fixed and the excitement kept me awake long after I thought Gil had fallen asleep. Suddenly he spoke.

  He said, ‘How can you be sure it’s a boy?’

  I said, ‘I just know.’

  My jaw was still stinging. Sometimes, when a person drinks red wine, they find it hard to stay in command of themselves.

  I wrote to my sister informing her she would presently become an aunt but I asked her not to tell Ma the news until I felt strong enough to face an inquisition. Honey, of course, never could keep a secret. Toward the end of November I received a letter from Ma.

  ‘My dearest Poppy,’ she wrote.

  How odd that I should hear your important news at second hand.

  I suppose Paris has made you forget your New York manners.

  I hope this finds you in good health. How strange it feels to know that my little Poppy is now a ‘complete’ woman. I recommend you to leave off those elastic girdles of which you young people are so fond, and to take extra milk, eggs and butter in your meals, for a strong baby, and a sugar sandwich every afternoon, for energy. The sooner you return and enter the care of a good New York doctor the less racked with worry I shall be. In the meanwhile be most vigilant against hot baths, overflavored foods, and the raising of your arms above your head, which is a well-known cause of infant strangulation.

  Your aunt sends her good wishes.

  Please let us know the name of your boat and the date of its arrival. Judah insists our help must be sent to your apartment to air it and prepare it. I know you will remember to write and thank him for his generosity, though how I am expected to spare both girls for the hours and hours it will surely take I can’t imagine. It would be altogether more satisfactory if the lease was terminated. Harry can see to it. You have a home here with us until you can find a more suitable address for the raising of my grandchild.

  By the way, I have advised Judah against sharing the news with your stepbrother. At seventeen it is better for a boy not to have his attention drawn to such things and Murray is, in any event, quite put out by the duration of your honeymoon.

  Your ever-loving Ma

  PS: Will your husband sail with you? Perhaps you should keep on that place after all. Bachelor quarters are always useful while a woman needs her rest. Please advise.

  It had never crossed my mind that I would return to New York. Babies were born every day in Paris and I saw no reason mine shouldn’t be one of them. I was in the habit of calling him my baby. Gil had gradually acquiesced to the idea o
f having a child and had even kept his promise that in future he would take only white drinks. He had resumed calling me ‘Princess’ and then, as my condition became more visible, ‘Lady-in-waiting’. He worked hard preparing to write his novel and going to happenings and debating with Romanians at the Café Dingo.

  Letters plowed slowly back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean. I declined to return to New York for my confinement. Ma regretted that motherhood had done nothing to improve either my sense of correctness or duty. I announced that I had secured the services of a good French nurse. Ma wondered how early in the long hours of agonizing travail I should regret throwing myself on the mercy of an ignorant foreigner. I offered to visit with Abraham Gilbert as soon I felt strong enough for the voyage. Ma questioned whether she would live long enough to see the day.

  It was Honey who broke the deadlock.

  ‘I am coming to be at your side,’ she wrote. ‘Sherman Ulysses has to go to the Tilton School in Connecticut, to be gotten ready for a good college, which will leave Aunt Fish and me far too much in each other’s company. I believe the time has now come for her to return to her own house, and your greater need of me in Paris will surely make her recognize this.’

  But Honey’s decision only made Aunt Fish recognize that she was, to quote her, a burdensome old widow whom no one should be expected to care for.

  ‘STAND FIRM,’ I wired Honey. ‘COME SOONEST.’

  I should have adored to fly my sister from Cherbourg to Paris, but by the time she arrived, in May, I could no longer fit into the cockpit of the Oriole. I took the train to meet her and was glad I’d done so when I saw how Honey’s own girth had expanded in the three years since I left. And then there was her luggage to consider. As well as ten boxes of gowns and hats she had brought with her a trunk of her favorite violet creams, an oil painting of Sherman Ulysses and a traveling water closet.

  ‘Poppy!’ she cried when she saw me. ‘I have decided to enjoy travel. Sailing the ocean wasn’t half as frightening as I expected, and I met the most fascinating person, a doctor who has the very remedy for my slow digestion. An elixir of cayenne, to burn away unwanted tissues. I purchased a supply for each of us. I remember how sluggish the system can be after a confinement.’

  I had obtained a suite for her at the Lutèce, but she was inclined to go to the Prince de Galles instead because that was where the digestion doctor had said he would be staying.

  ‘In case I mislay the regime he wrote out for me. I think it would be better. Don’t you think it would be better?’

  Everything was unloaded from the taxicab before we ascertained that no Dr Laslo was registered at the Prince de Galles, nor even expected.

  Honey insisted that there must be another hotel of the same name and that I clearly didn’t know Paris as well as I claimed. So we had our first fight and I left her on the sidewalk outside the Lutèce. The time had come for my family to learn I would no longer be derided and discounted and pulled from pillar to post, and my sister was in the advance party.

  She settled into the Lutèce well enough once she had had her picture of Sherman Ulysses hung, but she continued to make inquiries after her doctor, calling the Prince de Galles at least once a day, especially after the cayenne mixture disagreed with her. She never did track him down.

  I said, ‘Well anyhow, you do appear to be reducing.’

  ‘I am,’ she said. ‘I’m reducing away to a shadow, but that’s because I’ve been unable to move away from my … comfort closet … long enough to enjoy the smallest bite of anything.’

  After two weeks she moved into rue Vavin, to be with me in my hour of need. Honey found our house very pretty, with its gray shutters and muslin drapes, but she was shocked by our modern ways. We had no fixed hours, nor any idea who might turn up. Badgirl Duprée looking for a loan. Felix Swain looking for a game of cards. Some hungry intellectual with nowhere to sleep. Then, sometimes Gil would be gone all night.

  ‘Is it showgirls?’ Honey asked.

  I believe she would have been pleased to hear that it was.

  I said, ‘Gil does his best thinking at night. He’s going to write a novel you know?’

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said.

  The evening my pains began, we were At Home to some of the Café Dingo crowd. I had been restless all day, taking Beluga for two long walks in the Luxembourg Gardens, and then sipping nothing but consommé for dinner. Honey watched me like a hawk. I only dared to rub my back a little because she seemed absorbed in the laying out of baby clothes, but she noticed anyway, out of the corner of her eye.

  ‘Aha!’ she said. And she was so delighted at the thought of being able to shoo away all those philosophers and Romanians she almost ran downstairs.

  Our outdoors man was sent to fetch the nurse while Honey tried to bathe my brow and persuade me into bed. I refused both. I was in torment, and the only thing I could think to do was walk up and down rapidly until it was all over. Having evicted the intellectuals, Honey’s next campaign was against Beluga, but no matter how many times she dragged him from under the bed, he found his way back.

  ‘We’ll see what the nurse has to say about this,’ she said.

  I found time between birth pangs to tell her the nurse wasn’t getting paid to express opinions about dogs.

  Hostilities between us didn’t really cease until the nurse arrived and provided us with a new mutual enemy. The nurse demanded coffee and complained about the height of the bed and cleared my hairbrushes and scent bottles off the vanity in a most careless manner. I feared for Beluga if he should be discovered.

  I wanted the outdoors man dispatched to find Gil, who had misunderstood the situation and run away with his friends when Honey ended the party so abruptly, but Honey said it would be better if he just stayed away and did some of his best thinking.

  ‘This isn’t a time for husbands,’ she said. ‘This is a time when a girl wants her mother. And as Ma couldn’t be here …’

  If I could have loved anyone in that hour of grinding, gnawing agony, it would have been my sister, for sparing me the bedside attentions of my mother and probably my aunt, too.

  ‘Will Abraham Gilbert be having a little … procedure?’ she asked.

  It had never occurred to me.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘How Jewish are we being these days?’

  But before I could hear her answer, I was swept away on another searing wave. I believed I was about to die.

  At six o’clock in the morning I was delivered of a baby girl. She was the color of a skinned rabbit and not much bigger. I never did work out how such a small tenant could have made me balloon out so wide.

  At seven o’clock Gil came home. The child was wrapped up and taken out for him to see, and when he put his head around the door to show me he was pleased enough with the outcome, his teeth bore the tell-tale stain of red wine.

  ‘It’s a girl,’ I told him.

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Suits me.’

  ‘Therefore,’ I said, ‘she can’t be named Abraham Gilbert.’

  ‘She can be named any damn name we choose,’ he said. ‘I’ll give it some thought. Have to get some sleep now though, Princess. It’s been a long night.’

  Later that day I received two dozen pink roses from Humpy Choate.

  We did not name her Abraham Gilbert. The nurse informed us she would have to have the name of a good holy saint or burn in hell forever more, Gil wished to choose a name by the revolutionary method of sticking a pin into the page of a book, and I really couldn’t have cared. She was a peevish, florid creature with a tiny tight mouth that alternately mewed for milk and then rejected it.

  At the end of the first week she was still nameless and I was so sick with milk fever that Honey quite took over the whole business of the nursery.

  ‘She is so delicious,’ Honey crooned. I believe she was trying to prompt me into agreeing. ‘So delicious. What a darling baby girl. How blest you are, Poppy.’

  Finally she was named Marie
Nuages Sapphire. Marie after one of the top saints, Nuages after the word Gil hit upon with his pin, and Sapphire after my favorite type of gem.

  Before long she was only ever referred to as Sapphire, and news of her arrival brought about a miraculous recovery in Aunt Fish’s spirits. Dolls were purchased, and embroidered Swiss night gowns. Ma confessed herself moved to tears. Judah Jacoby went to the temple and prayed the mi sheberah for her. And my stepbrother Murray was inspired to write one of his haiku verses.

  Dear Sapphire, they say

  Your little face is awfully

  Red. But don’t be blue.

  Come August, when Honey sailed back to New York, it seemed only right and fitting that Sapphire should go with her. My sister had been with her night and day, enduring her discontented bleating, fathoming her strange ways. And she had always longed for a daughter.

  I said to Gil, ‘It seems cruel to separate her from the child now.’

  ‘Whatever you think, Princess,’ he said.

  TWENTY-NINE

  As soon as I felt refreshed enough to renew my interest in Coquelicot, I designed a set of garments for infants, and I named it my Sapphire collection. Stassy, needless to say, was most put out. She had been ruling the roost during my indisposition, filling the spaces vacated by my designs with her own new line in knitted skirts. She was developing ambitions above her station and beyond her pocket.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she said. ‘You have your baby. Let this be my baby.’

  I said, ‘No, this is my baby, too. It was my idea. And I can afford as many different babies as I like.’

  ‘Then we have to have new rules,’ she said. ‘We have to have a contract.’

  I corrected her. I reminded her how I had found her living in penury and could easily send her back there.

  ‘May God forgive you,’ she said.

  The cheek of it! I’m sure I had no need of forgiveness and even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t go to some Russian unfortunate’s God for it.