“Mom,” said Raymond, switching to English, and perhaps forgetting she hated to be called this. “She’s twenty-nine. I’m thirty-three.”
“What’s her maiden name?” said Marie.
“Ask her,” he said. “I didn’t marry her family.”
Marie eased the seat belt and turned around, smiling. The woman had her eyes shut. She seemed to be praying. Her skin was freckled, pale for the climate; perhaps she had come to one of the oases of the heart where there are no extremes of weather. As for Raymond, he was sharp and dry, with a high, feverish forehead. His past had evaporated. It annoyed him to have to speak French. On one of his mother’s other visits he had criticized her Montreal accent, said he had heard better French in the streets of Saigon. He lit a cigarette, but before she could say, “Your father died of emphysema,” threw it out.
Mimi, perhaps made patient by prayer, spoke up: “I am happy to welcome any mother of Raymond’s. May we spend a peaceful and mutually enriching Christmas.” Her voice moved on a strained, single note, like a soprano recitative. Shyness, Marie thought. She stole a second look. Her eyes, now open, were pale blue, with stubby black lashes. She seemed all at once beguiling and anxious, hoping to be forgiven before having mentioned the sin. A good point, but not good enough to make her a Catholic.
Raymond carried Marie’s luggage to a decent room with cream walls and tangerine curtains and spread. The motel looked clean and prosperous, but so had the others. Mimi had gone off on business of her own. (“I’m feeling sick,” she had said, getting out of the car, with one freckled hand on her stomach and the other against her throat.)
“She’ll be all right,” he told Marie.
Alone with Marie, he called her Maman, drew her to the window, showed her a Canadian flag flying next to the Stars and Stripes. The place was full of Canadians, he said. They stole like raccoons. One couple had even made off with the bathroom faucets. “Nice-looking people, too.”
“Your father never ran down his own kind,” said Marie. She did not mean to start an argument but to point out certain limits. He checked the towels, counted the hangers, raised (or lowered; she could not tell) the air-conditioning. He turned his back while she changed into her hibiscus-patterned chiffon, in case they were going out. In a mirror he watched her buckling her red sandals. Berthe’s Christmas present.
“Mimi is the first woman I ever met who reminded me of you,” he said. Marie let that pass. They walked arm in arm across the parking lot, and he pointed out different things that might interest her—Quebec license plates, a couple of dying palms. On the floor of the lobby lay a furled spruce tree, with its branches still tied. Raymond prodded the tree with his running shoe. It had been here for a week, he said, and it was already shedding. Perhaps Marie and Mimi would like to trim it.
“Trim it with what?” said Marie. Every year, for seven years, she had bought decorations, which Raymond had always thrown out with the tree.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Mimi wants me to set it up on a mirror.”
Marie wondered what Raymond’s title in this place might be. “Manager,” he’d said, but he and Mimi lived like caretakers in an inconvenient arrangement of rooms off the lobby. To get to their kitchen, which was also a storage place for beer and soft drinks, Marie had to squeeze behind the front desk. Every door had a peephole and chain lock. Whenever a bell rang in the lobby Raymond looked carefully before undoing the lock. Another couple worked here, too, he explained, but they were off for Christmas.
The three ate dinner in the kitchen, hemmed in by boxes and crates. Marie asked for an apron, to protect her chiffon. Mimi did not own one, and seemed astonished at the request. She had prepared plain shrimp and boiled rice and plain fruit salad. No wonder Raymond was drying up. Marie showed them pictures of Berthe’s Christmas tree, this year red and gold.
Mimi looked for a long time at a snapshot of Berthe, holding a glass, sitting with her legs crossed and her skirt perhaps a bit high. “What’s in the glass?” she said.
“Gin does my sister a lot of good,” said Marie. She had not enjoyed her shrimp, washed down with some diet drink.
“I’m surprised she never got married,” said Mimi. “How old is she? Fifty-something? She still looks good, physically and mentally.”
“I am surprised,” said Marie, in French. “I am surprised at the turn of this conversation.”
“Mimi isn’t criticizing Aunt Berthe,” said Raymond. “It’s a compliment.”
Marie turned to Mimi. “My sister never had to get married. She’s always made good money. She buys her own fur coats.”
Mimi did not know about Berthe, assistant office manager at Prestige Central Burners—a multinational with tentacles in two cities, one of them Cleveland. Last year Mr. Linden from the Cleveland office had invited Berthe out to dinner. His wife had left him; he was getting over the loss. Berthe intended to tell him she had made a lifetime commitment to the firm, with no leftover devotion. She suggested the Ritz-Carlton—she had been there once before, and had a favorite table. During dinner they talked about the different ways of cooking trout, and the bewildering architectural changes taking place in Cleveland and Montreal. Berthe mentioned that whenever a landmark was torn down people said, “It’s as bad as Cleveland.” It was hard to reconcile the need for progress with the claims of tradition. Mr. Linden said that tradition was flexible.
“I like the way you think,” he said. “If only you had been a man, Miss Carette, with your intellect, and your powers of synthesis, you might have gone …,” and he pointed to the glass bowl of blueberry trifle on the dessert trolley, as if to say, “even farther.”
The next day Berthe drew on her retirement savings account and made a down payment on a mink coat (pastel, fully let out) and wore the coat to work. That was her answer. Marie admired this counterstroke more than any feat of history. She wanted Mimi to admire it, too, but she was tired after the flight, and the shock of Raymond’s marriage, and the parched, disappointing meal. Halfway through the story her English thinned out.
“What’s she saying?” said Mimi. “This man gave her a coat?”
“It’s too bad it couldn’t have worked out better for Aunt Berthe,” said Raymond. “A widower on the executive level. Well, not exactly a widower, but objectively the same thing. Aunt Berthe still looks great. You heard what Mimi said.”
“Berthe doesn’t need a widower,” said Marie. “She can sit on her front balcony and watch widowers running in Parc Lafontaine any Sunday. There’s no room in the flat for a widower. All the closets are full. In the spare-room closet there are things belonging to you, Raymond. That beautiful white rodeo belt with the silver buckle Aunt Berthe gave you for your fourteenth birthday. It cost Berthe thirty dollars, in dollars of that time, when the Canadian was worth more than the American.”
“Ten cents more,” said Raymond.
“Ten cents of another era,” said Marie. “Like eighty cents today.”
“Aunt Berthe can move if she feels crowded,” he said. “Or she can just send me the belt.” He spoke to Mimi. “People in Montreal move more often than in any other city in the world. I can show you figures. My father wasn’t a Montrealer, so we always lived in just the one house. Maman sold it when he died.”
“I wouldn’t mind seeing that house,” said Mimi, as though challenging Marie to produce it.
“Why should Berthe move?” said Marie. “First you want to tie her up with a stranger, then you want to throw her out of her home. She’s got a three-bedroom place for a rent you wouldn’t believe. She’d be crazy to let it go. It’s easier to find a millionaire with clean habits than my sister’s kind of flat.”
“People don’t get married to have three bedrooms,” said Mimi, still holding Berthe’s picture. “They get married for love and company.”
“I am company,” said Marie. “I love my sister, and my sister loves me.”
“Do you think I married Raymond for space?” said Mimi.
Raymond sai
d something in English. Marie did not know what it meant, but it sounded disgusting. “Raymond,” she said. “Apologize to your wife.”
“Don’t talk to him,” said Mimi. “You’re only working him up.”
“Don’t you dare knock your chair over,” said his mother. “Raymond! If you go out that door, I won’t be here when you get back.”
The two women sat quietly after the door slammed. Then Mimi picked up the fallen chair. “That’s the real Raymond,” she said. “That’s Raymond, in public and private. I don’t blame any man’s mother for the way the man turns out,”
“He had hair like wheat,” said Marie. “It turned that rusty color when he was three. He had the face of an angel. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him like this. Of course, he has never been married before.”
“He’ll be lying on the bed now, sulking,” said Mimi. “I’m not used to that. I hadn’t been married before, either.” She began rinsing plates at the sink. The slit of a window overlooked cars and the stricken palms. Tears ran down her cheeks. She tried to blot them on her arm. “I think he wants to leave me.”
“So what if he does leave,” said Marie, looking in vain for a clean dish towel. “A bad, disobedient boy. He ran away to Vietnam. The last man in our family. He should have been thinking about having sons instead of traveling around. Raymond’s father was called Louis. My father’s name was Odilon. Odilon-Louis—that’s a nice name for a boy. It goes in any language.”
“In my family we just have girls,” said Mimi.
“Another thing Raymond did,” said Marie. “He stole his father’s gold watch. Then he lost it. Just took it and lost it.”
“Raymond never lost that watch,” said Mimi. “He probably sold it to two or three different people. Raymond will always be Raymond. I’m having a baby. Did he tell you that?”
“He didn’t have to,” said Marie. “I guessed it when we were in the car. Don’t cry anymore. They can hear. The baby can hear you.”
“He’s already heard plenty from Raymond.”
Marie’s English died. “Look,” she said, struggling. “This baby has a grandmother. He’s got Berthe. You’ve got Berthe. Never mind Raymond.”
“He’ll need a father image,” said Mimi. “Not just a lot of women.”
“Raymond had one,” said Marie. “He still joined the Marines.”
“He or she,” said Mimi. “I don’t want to know. I want the surprise. I hope he likes me. She. It feels like a girl.”
“It would be good to know in advance,” said Marie. “Just for the shopping—to know what to buy. Do you want to save the rest of the shrimp or throw it out?”
“Save it,” said Mimi. “Raymond hardly ate anything. He’ll be hungry later on.”
“That bad boy,” said Marie. “I don’t care if he never eats again. He’ll find out what it’s like, alone in the world. Without his mother. Without his aunt. Without his wife. Without his baby.”
“I don’t want him to be alone,” said Mimi, showing Marie her streaked face, the sad little curls stuck to her wet cheeks. “He hasn’t actually gone anywhere. I just said I thought he was thinking about it.”
Marie tried to remember some of the English Berthe used. When she was talking to people from her office, Berthe would say, “All in good time,” and “No way he can do that,” and “Count on me,” and “Not to worry.”
“He won’t leave you,” said Marie. “No way I’ll let him do that. Count on me.” Her elbow brushed against the handle of the refrigerator door; she felt a silvery spark through the chiffon sleeve. This was the first time such a thing had happened in Florida; it was like an approving message from Berthe. Mimi wiped her hands on a paper towel and turned to Marie.
“Be careful,” said Marie, enfolding Raymond’s wife and Raymond’s baby. “Be careful the baby doesn’t get a shock. Everything around here is electric. I’m electric. We’ll have to be careful from now on. We’ve got to make sure we’re grounded.” She had gone into French, but it didn’t matter. The baby could hear, and knew what she meant.
LET IT PASS
WELL INTO HER nineties, my aunt continues to send me news of people in Montreal I’ve had no trouble forgetting. When I open a letter of hers, a shower of clippings falls out, along with her reminders: “Steve! Mrs. Christopher Shrew was Nancy Pervious. Was dying to marry you. Good thing you got away.” Or “Peter Delorme. Nice boy until he got into politics. Leaves three fine sons.”
At some point she must have mentioned Carlotta Peel, the daughter of my former wife, but I’d no idea what the girl looked like or even what age she might be until she turned up on my doorstep, uninvited, in the South of France. It was an August day, in a season of drought. A layer of dust like fine salt covered the fading gardens. Brittle plane leaves blew into the corners of the terrace. The hotter the day, the grayer the sea. The sun beat through a thin grayish layer of haze that resembled the tail of a dust storm. I was reading a new book, which I had taken to be the secret diaries of General Georges Boulanger. He was the French Minister of War who might have thrown over the Third Republic, if he’d put his mind to it, and finally dismayed his admirers by committing suicide on his mistress’s grave. I had read steadily from the downfall of Louis Napoleon until about 1890, almost the end, surprised that someone I’d classed as a featherhead had shown so much wit and grace, when I looked again at the author’s notes and realized I was reading a work of fiction. I dropped the book face down and began composing letters to the author and his publisher asking for the return of my hundred and sixty-nine francs. Someone called my name. By then I was asleep and dreaming. I was at a christening, and a stranger suddenly handed me about a dozen prayer books. The infant at the font began to wail, a sort of mewing. The clergyman rang a bell for silence. The child’s mother said, “Steve! Steve Burnet!” I said, “For Christ’s sake, I’m holding all these bloody books!”
I woke up and went round to the front of the house, and found a tall child (child to me; Carlotta considered herself a young woman) with sleepy dark eyes. She wore a kind of uniform of white cotton, with a long buttoned tunic, and with her narrow shoulders and cinnamon summer skin she could have been Indian. I remember that the first things she said were on a rising note: “Steve Burnet? You knew my mother?”—which meant nothing until she added, “My mother, Lily?” At that I saw a resemblance, though not to recollections of Lily; rather, to Carlotta’s maternal grandmother, my late, crazy mother-in-law, anchored in memory as Old Lady Quale. Between Carlotta and me arose Mrs. Quale’s owlish staring and head of sleek black hair. Lily’s girl was a fragment of that ancient lump of righteousness—saner, probably; certainly prettier; perhaps more commonplace. As for Lily, I had not set eyes on her since she was twenty-three.
My life since that early capsizal had been sparsely and prudently occupied by married women in no hurry to leave their husbands. Indeed, the introduction of divorce into Italy had caused me to close down a six-year-old story. (It was managed without racking debate. A Canadian diplomat, evenhanded by nature, one of the rare foreigners to whom the French have not taken immediate and weighty dislike, I was invited to observe voting practices in the Society Islands. I obtained a long leave of absence, rented my summer house in France to a Belgian opposite number, loitered in the South Pacific as long as my means allowed, and spent an undue amount of time drawing up my conclusions. When eventually one summer I returned to Europe, it was to find Sandra dismissing men as a form of agitazione and studying to become a breeder of white Pekinese.)
My aunt believed that a distaste for restless and unclaimed women had me moored in a careful system of ways and means, keeping a blameless married woman friend around to act as hostess and accompany me to concerts and funerals, and pursuing invisible affairs with other men’s wives. In other words (this is still my aunt speaking), I was no different from any trifling, piffling male with a wife and girlfriends and a deck of ready stories. No woman was supposed to bring me more than she could pack and remove on short n
otice. It was my aunt’s opinion that I had too much regard for what was likely to happen. I thought she was wrong, and that I expected nearly nothing.
No matter where I was posted, whether abroad or back in Ottawa, I usually managed to spend a brief summer vacation in France. There I dispensed with women altogether, caught up on my reading, and tried to write a book. I meant it to be a summary of recent times, with my experiences and judgment used tactfully, never intrusively, as a binding thread. I would have called it “My Century,” but the title had already been employed by a celebrated Polish poet. Every year at high summer, I was driven to unpack my Hermes, set it on the marble table in the shadiest part of the terrace, roll in a sheet of Extra Strong, and type “Chapter 1.” I could see a tamed and orderly design of streams and rivulets (early youth, intellectual awakening) feeding a tranquil river that debouched into a limpid sea. Unfortunately, it wanted only a few minutes for the sea to churn up and disgorge a ton of dead fish. Most people considered great were in reality only average; middling masters I held in contempt; as for amateurs in any field, I saw no reason why they should not be airlifted to Mongolia and left to forage. Obviously, this was of no interest to anyone except cranks; yet I felt no spite, no disappointment, no envy of younger men. I had done nearly everything I wanted, and had been as successful as my aunt had hoped.
After half an hour I would push the typewriter aside, open a thick notebook, uncap the gold Parker I was given years ago for having passed, unexpectedly well, an examination in political science, and write, “Chapter 1.” Then I would cap the pen and stare at the Mediterranean, wondering if the wisp of darkness on the horizon could be a mirage projection of Corsica.
Apart from this activity I ate breakfast and lunch at home, went down for a swim early, when no one was around, played some tennis at a court up near the railway station, and dined with elderly neighbors. At the end of a few weeks I bolted the window shutters, disconnected and locked up the telephone (so that burglars would not be tempted to make long-distance calls), and returned to the wrack and low tide of my profession.
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