We'll Always Have Paris

by Ray Bradbury

  ‘One has raised a daughter and a son, both married young and gone already,’ said Nora. ‘And proud children they are!’

  ‘True,’ said George. ‘And yet on a day like this, in the middle of May, it feels sad, like autumn. You know me, I’m a moody old dog. I’m the son of Thomas Wolfe, O Time, O River, oh, the grieving of the winds, lost, lost, forever lost.’

  ‘You need Miss Appletree,’ said Nora.

  He blinked. ‘I need what?’

  ‘Miss Appletree,’ said Nora. ‘The lady we made up such a long time ago. Tall, willowy, madly in love with you. Miss Appletree, the magnificent. Aphrodite’s daughter. Every man turned fifty, every man who’s feeling sorry for himself and feeling sad needs Miss Appletree. Romance.’

  ‘Oh, but I have you, Nora,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, but I’m neither as young nor as pretty as I once was,’ Nora said, taking his arm. ‘Once in his lifetime, every man should have his fling.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ he said.

  ‘I know it!’

  ‘But that causes divorce. Foolish old men rushing about after their youth.’

  ‘Not if the wife has a head on her shoulders. Not if she understands he’s not being mean, he’s just very sad and lost and tired and mixed up.’

  ‘I know so many men who’ve run off with Miss Appletrees, alienated their wives and children, and made a mess of their lives.’

  He brooded for a moment and then said, ‘Well, I’ve been thinking a lot of hard thoughts every minute of every hour of every day. One shouldn’t think of young women that much. That’s not good and it might have some sort of force of nature and I don’t think I should be thinking that way, so hard and so intense.’

  He was finishing his breakfast when the front doorbell rang. He and Nora looked at each other and then there was a soft tapping at the door.

  He looked as if he wanted to get up but couldn’t force himself, so Nora rose and walked to the front door. She turned the knob slowly and looked out. A conversation followed.

  He closed his eyes and listened and thought he heard two women talking out on the front stoop. One of the voices was soft and the other voice seemed to be gaining strength.

  A few minutes later, Nora returned to the table.

  ‘Who was that?’ he said.

  ‘A saleslady,’ Nora said.

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A saleslady.’

  ‘What was she selling?’

  ‘She told me but she talked so quietly that I could hardly hear.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘I couldn’t quite catch it,’ said Nora.

  ‘What did she look like?’

  ‘She was tall.’

  ‘How tall?’

  ‘Very tall.’

  ‘And nice to look at?’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘What color hair?’

  ‘It was like sunlight.’

  ‘So.’

  ‘So,’ Nora said. ‘Now, I tell you what. Drink that coffee, stand up, go back upstairs, and get back into bed.’

  ‘Say that again,’ he said.

  ‘Drink that coffee, stand up…’ she said.

  He stared at her, slowly picked up his coffee cup, drained it, and began to rise.

  ‘But,’ he said, ‘I’m not sick. I don’t need to go back to bed this early in the morning.’

  ‘You look a little poorly,’ said Nora. ‘I’m giving you an order. Go upstairs, take off your clothes, and go to bed.’

  He turned slowly and walked up the stairs and felt himself taking off his clothes and lying down in the bed. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he had to fight not to fall asleep.

  A few moments later he heard a stirring in the somewhat dim early-morning room.

  He felt someone lie down in the bed and turn toward him. Eyes shut, he heard his voice groggily ask, ‘What? Who’s there?’

  A voice murmured to him from the next pillow. ‘Miss Appletree.’

  ‘How’s that again?’ he said.

  ‘Miss Appletree’ was the whisper.

  A Literary Encounter

  It had been going on for a long time, but perhaps she first gave it notice this autumn evening when Charlie was walking the dog and met her on the way back from the grocer’s. They had been married a year, but it wasn’t often they happened on each other this way, like two strangers.

  ‘God, it’s good to see you, Marie!’ he cried, taking her arm fiercely. His dark eyes were shining and he was sniffing great lungfuls of the sharp air. ‘God, isn’t it a lost evening, though!’

  ‘It’s nice.’ She looked quietly at him as they walked toward their house.

  ‘October,’ he gasped. ‘Lord, I love to be out in it, eating it, breathing it, smelling its smell. Oh, it’s a wild, sad month, all right. Look at the way the trees are burning with it. The world’s on fire in October; and you think of all the dead you’ll never see again.’ He gripped her hand tightly.

  ‘Just a minute. The dog wants to stop.’

  They waited in the cold darkness while the dog tapped a tree with his nose.

  ‘God, smell that incense!’ The husband stretched. ‘I feel tall tonight, like I could stride the earth, yank down stars, start volcanoes roaring!’

  ‘Is your headache gone from this morning?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Gone, Christ, it’ll never come back! Who thinks of headaches on such a night! Listen to the leaves rustle! Listen to that wind in the high and empty trees! God, isn’t it a lonely, lost time, though, and where are we going, we lost and wandering souls on the brick pavements of the surging cities and little lonely towns where the trains pound through the night? I’d love to be traveling tonight, oh, traveling anywhere, to be out in it, drinking its wildness, its sad sweetness!’

  ‘Why don’t we ride the trolley out to Chessman Park tonight, it’s a nice ride,’ she said, nodding.

  He flung up a hand, urging on the slow dog. ‘No, I mean really traveling! Over bridges and hills and by cold cemeteries and past hidden villages where lights are all out and nobody knows you’re passing in the night on ringing steel!’

  ‘Well, then, we might take the North Shore up to Chicago for the weekend,’ she suggested.

  He looked at her pitiably in the dark and crushed her small cool hand in his mighty one. ‘No,’ he said with grand simplicity. ‘No.’ He turned. ‘Come on. Home to a huge dinner. Three steaks, I want, a glutton’s repast! Rare red wines, rich sauces, and a steaming tureen of creamed soup, with an after-dinner liqueur, and—’

  ‘We’ve pork chops and peas.’ She unlocked the front door.

  On the way to the kitchen, she tossed her hat. It landed on an opened copy of Thomas Wolfe’s Of Time and the River, which lay under the hurricane lamp. Giving her husband a look, she ran to investigate the potatoes.

  Three nights passed in which he stirred violently in bed when the wind blew. He stared with intent brightness at the window rattling in the autumn storm. Then, he relaxed.

  The following evening, when she entered from snatching a few sheets off the line, she found him seated deep in his library chair, a cigarette hanging from his lower lip.

  ‘Drink?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What do you mean, “what?”’ she asked.

  A faint tinge of irritation moved in his impassive cold face.

  ‘What kind?’ he said.

  ‘Scotch,’ she said.

  ‘Soda?’ he said.

  ‘Right.’ She felt her face take on the same expressionless aspect as his.

  He lunged over to the cabinet, took out a couple glasses big as vases, and perfunctorily filled them.

  ‘Okay?’ He gave her hers.

  She looked at it. ‘Fine.’

  ‘Dinner?’ He eyed her coldly, over his drink.

  ‘Steak.’

  ‘Hash browns?’ His lips were a thin line.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Good girl.’ He laugh
ed a little, bleakly, tossing the drink into his hard mouth, eyes closed.

  She lifted her drink. ‘Luck.’

  ‘You said it.’ He thought it over slyly, eyes moving about the room. ‘Another?’

  ‘Don’t mind,’ she said.

  ‘Atta girl,’ he said. ‘Atta baby.’

  He shot soda into her glass. It sounded like a fire hose let loose in the silence. He walked back to lose himself like a little boy in the immense library chair. Just before sinking behind a copy of Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon, he drawled, ‘Call me.’

  She turned her glass slowly in her hand that was like a white tarantula.

  ‘Check,’ she said.

  * * *

  She watched him for another week. She found herself frowning most of the time. Several times she felt like screaming.

  As she watched, one evening, he seated himself at dinner and said:

  ‘Madame, you look absolutely exquisite tonight.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She passed the corn.

  ‘A most extraordinary circumstance occurred at the office today,’ he said. ‘A gentleman called to ascertain my health. “Sir,” I said politely. “I am in excellent equilibrium, and am in no need of your services.” “Oh, but, sir,” he said, “I am representative of such-and-so’s insurance company, and I wish only to give into your hands this splendid and absolutely irreproachable policy.” Well, we conversed pleasantly enough, and, resultantly, this evening, I am the proud possessor of a new life insurance, double indemnity and all, which protects you under all circumstances, dear kind lady love of my life.’

  ‘How nice,’ she said.

  ‘Perhaps you will also be pleased to learn,’ he said, ‘that for the last few days, beginning on the night of Thursday last, I became acquainted and charmed with the intelligent and certain prose of one Samuel Johnson. I am now amidst his Life of Alexander Pope.’

  ‘So much I assumed,’ she said, ‘from your demeanor.’

  ‘Eh?’ He held his knife and fork politely before him.

  ‘Charlie,’ she said wistfully. ‘Could you do me a big favor?’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Charlie, do you remember when we married a year ago?’

  ‘But yes; every sweet, singular instant of our courtship!’

  ‘Well, Charlie, do you remember what books you were reading during our courtship?’

  ‘Is it of importance, my darling?’

  ‘Very.’

  He put himself to it with a scowl. ‘I cannot remember,’ he admitted finally. ‘But I shall attempt to recall during the evening.’

  ‘I wish you would,’ she urged. ‘Because, well, because I’d like you to start reading those books again, those books, whatever they were, which you read when first we met. You swept me from my feet with your demeanor then. But since, you’ve–changed.’

  ‘Changed? I?’ He drew back as from a cold draft.

  ‘I wish you’d start reading those same books again,’ she repeated.

  ‘But why do you desire this?’

  ‘Oh, because.’

  ‘Truly a woman’s reason.’ He slapped his knees. ‘But I shall try to please. As soon as I recall, I shall read those books once more.’

  ‘And, Charlie, one more thing, promise to read them every day for the rest of your life?’

  ‘Your wish, dear lady, my command. Please pass the salt.’

  But he did not remember the names of the books. The long evening passed and she looked at her hands, biting her lips.

  Promptly at eight o’clock, she jumped up, crying out, ‘I remember!’

  In a matter of instants she was in their car, driving down the dark streets to town, into a bookstore where, laughing, she bought ten books.

  ‘Thank you!’ said the book dealer. ‘Good night!’

  The door slammed with a tinkle of bells.

  Charlie read late at night, sometimes fumbling to bed, blind with literature, at three in the morning.

  Now, at ten o’clock, before retiring, Marie slipped into the library, laid the ten books quietly next to Charlie, and tiptoed out.

  She watched through the library keyhole, her heart beating loudly in her. She was in a perfect fever.

  After a time, Charlie glanced up at the desk. He blinked at the new books. Hesitantly, he closed his copy of Samuel Johnson, and sat there.

  ‘Go on,’ whispered Marie through the keyhole. ‘Go on!’ Her breath came and went in her mouth.

  Charlie licked his lips thoughtfully and then, slowly, he put out his hand. Taking one of the new books, he opened it, settled down, and began reading.

  Singing softly, Marie walked off to bed.

  He bounded into the kitchen the next morning with a glad cry. ‘Hello, beautiful woman! Hello, lovely, wonderful, kind, understanding creature, living in this great wide sweet world!’

  She looked at him happily. ‘Saroyan?’ she said.

  ‘Saroyan!’ he cried, and they had breakfast.

  America

  We are the dream that other people dream.

  The land where other people land.

  When late at night

  They think on flight

  And, flying, here arrive

  Where we fools dumbly thrive ourselves.

  Refuse to see

  We be what all the world would like to be.

  Because we hive within this scheme

  The obvious dream is blind to us.

  We do not mind the miracle we are,

  So stop our mouths with curses.

  While all the world rehearses

  Coming here to stay.

  We busily make plans to go away.

  How dumb! newcomers cry, arrived from Chad.

  You’re mad! Iraqis shout.

  We’d sell our souls if we could be you.

  How come you cannot see the way we see you?

  You tread a freedom forest as you please.

  But, damn! You miss the forest for the trees.

  Ten thousand wanderers a week

  Engulf your shore,

  You wonder what their shouting’s for,

  And why so glad?

  Run warm those souls: America is bad?

  Sit down, stare in their faces, see!

  You be the hoped-for thing a hopeless world would be.

  In tides of immigrants that this year flow

  You still remain the beckoning hearth they’d know.

  In midnight beds with blueprint, plan and scheme

  You are the dream that other people dream.

  About the Author

  One of the greatest writers of science fiction and fantasy in the world today, Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1920. He moved with his family to Los Angeles in 1934. He has published some 500 short stories, novels, plays, scripts and poems since his first story appeared in Weird Tales when he was twenty years old. Ray Bradbury lives in Los Angeles.

  Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

  By Ray Bradbury

  Ahmed and the Oblivion Machines

  The Anthem Sprinters

  Bradbury Speaks

  The Cat’s Pajamas

  Dandelion Wine

  Dark Carnival

  The Day it Rained Forever

  Death is a Lonely Business

  Driving Blind

  Fahrenheit 451

  Farewell Summer

  From the Dust Returned

  The Golden Apples of the Sun

  A Graveyard for Lunatics

  Green Shadows, White Whale

  The Halloween Tree

  I Sing the Body Electric!

  The Illustrated Man

  Let’s All Kill Constance

  Long After Midnight

  The Machineries of Joy

  The Martian Chronicles

  A Medicine for Melancholy

  Moby Dick (screenplay)

  Now and Forever