Fling and Other Stories

by John Hersey

  “Philip, why did we swim on Third Beach?”

  Philip is silent for a long time; he looks as if he had taken a sip of coffee that was too hot. Finally: “You and I have always run away from the crowd, Venus.”

  Oh, no! I feel honesty sticking in my throat. I don’t want to be like Syllie, inflicting “truth” on the beloved—or even on myself. For the truth must be that Philip wasn’t the only fool. Another one loved him with a trusting child’s open heart.

  I feel a stab of “it.” I hear barking. “Let’s get out of this damnable North Pole of a bar. I need a hot bath.”

  “Then we’ll have a nice nap, won’t we, Venus pie?”

  “Don’t you use that nurse’s ‘we’ on me, you idiot.”

  “Venus!”

  “I’m sorry, dear Philip. I’m sorry. You’ve taken me too far from home. I’m so used up. I yearn for a long long nap in my own bed at 514.”

  “Never mind, darling. We’re going to have dinner abroad. Come along. I’ll wake you at eight o’clock.”

  * * *

  —

  It is nine-twenty on a rather chilly March evening. Three persons in assorted costumes—two men and a woman—having cleared papers at the Immigration Service shack, start across the bridge. It is an old steel-truss affair with a springtime profusion of blossoms of rust along its beams; it has room for a single file of autos each way; there is very little traffic; an occasional car makes the whole bridge tremble. The three are on a pedestrians’ walkway on the right hand as they face Mexico. On the outer side there is a rusty railing, a bit more than waist high, with wire mesh fencing down to the planks of the pathway. The lights of Ciudad Juárez seem to slide sidewise on the sluggish current of the river, the surface of which is perhaps fifteen feet below the feet of the three.

  The taller man, on the outside as they walk, is in a white linen suit, and he is wearing immaculate white buckskin shoes. He has on a white shirt and a tie with a subdued Paisley design in which the predominant colors are pale blue and yellow. He has broad shoulders and a rugged build, though he walks with a slight limp. His fluffy brindled brown hair, nowhere thinned, swoops low on his forehead, which therefore seems crowded down through a series of scored crosslines to two prominent bumps looming over full brown eyebrows; his cheeks recede beneath their high bones into hollows and deep lip lines; the chin is firm. This face would be fierce, were it not for the fact that the lights of the Mexican city glisten in decidedly soft brown eyes, which turn frequently toward the face of the woman on his arm.

  The other man walks on the traffic side. Short and slight, he is in a shiny black silk suit, doubtless of Italian manufacture, with padded shoulders which make sharp angles over the sleeves; his necktie screams in a wildly incongruous splash of Marimekko colors. On his tiny feet he has sharply pointed black shoes, so highly polished as to seem to be made of patent leather. He is three-quarters bald, and his pointed face and eggish pate gleam with a tan so deep that it must go right through to the skull. The look of polished mahogany brings the word “magnate” to mind: a powerful creature with a marked talent for vacation. This gent has the ferret eyes of a mind reader. He turns his head nervously this way and that, as if afraid he may miss a trick.

  The woman, between the two men, leans on the arm of the one in white. She looks like the ghost of a pirate. She is dressed all in black: black shoes, black slacks, a black sweater, and a wide-brimmed black felt hat, with the left side of the brim turned up to the crown, Aussie or buccaneer style, pinned there with a huge Tiffany gold scarab. A Liberty scarf is loosely tied at her throat, looking as though it might be pulled up over her chin and nose as a piratical disguise, if need should come. Heavy gold bracelets, like a disorderly heap of barrel hoops, pull her thin left arm down straight as a plumb line. The procession of the three has a funerary gravity, because the woman takes very small steps and seems to wait quite a while to gather her resources after each step. To the dim light from the far bank her face offers a memory of great beauty. She carries her chin high; she seems to be sniffing.

  “You didn’t tell me how big the bridge would be,” she says to the tall man. The bigness is in the eye of the beholder. It is a small bridge.

  The man in white says, “We’ll be there before you know it, Venus.”

  The short man, looking ahead, says, “Jeez, what a mingy town.”

  “You didn’t have to come,” the woman sharply says. “Why don’t you go back?”

  “Now, honey,” the tall man says, “be sweet.”

  “I don’t need his complaints tonight. Nothing is ever good enough for him.”

  “I din’t mean anything,” the short man says.

  “I think all that neon looks sort of cheerful,” the tall man says.

  “Honky-tonk,” the short man says.

  The woman takes a labored step. “Pretzel,” she says, “would you try to make the supreme sacrifice, and be still? Please don’t speak. I want to be with Philip.”

  “My lips are sealed, dolling.”

  Two steps require concentration. “Philip, why didn’t you think to bring my lifesaver? You know they’ll have hard wooden seats in this country we’re going to.”

  “Would you like me to go back and get it?”

  “I would not like you to go back and get it. I would like the Pretz to go back and get it.”

  The short man says, “How can I say I’ll be glad to get it without speaking?”

  The man in white gives the short man a set of car keys.

  “Excuse all the talk,” the short man says, “but where will I meet you?”

  The woman says, “Don’t worry, we’ll still be on this endless bridge.”

  “We’ll wait for you,” the tall man says. “Thanks, old boy.”

  The short man walks back to North America.

  The tall man and the woman stand still for a long time. The woman is looking up at the man’s face, with the look of a votary unsure of her faith. “My good friend,” she says, her head canted by her obvious emotion toward the man’s shoulder. Then, after a pause, “Where did we go wrong?”

  “Wrong?”

  But she doesn’t explain what she has meant. She throws all of herself into taking a step. “I’m so cold,” she says.

  “Was this a mistake, Venus? Should we go back?”

  “There is no way of going back.”

  “When Pretz comes—”

  But she doesn’t answer. She takes two steps. Then, halted, she says, “There was one spring when I couldn’t bear to be indoors—remember, darling? The shadblow was out. A bluebird nested on the power-line pole at the west stone wall. The woodchuck was always after the clover at the end of the field. Buckie—the best Lab we ever had—ran away every day to see his friends. Meredith picked me some violets. The terrace of the lawn was finally almost clear of dandelions, I hated dandelions. The forsythia held on for the longest time. I remember waiting for the glossy leaves of the franklinia to come out—it was always last. The lettuce was up in the garden, the peas of course were up, but no sign yet of asparagus. Remember that owl that hooted in the pines? That spring?”

  “I’m not sure which spring you mean, Venus.”

  “There. You see. Which spring. Ah, Philip, where did we go wrong?”

  “Now, honey, cheer up. We’ll have some nice hot Mexican food.”

  One step. Another step. “Meredith owes me something more than violets,” the woman says.

  “Did you lend him money, Venus? That was imprudent.”

  “I don’t mean money. You have a mind like a safe.”

  “Oh,” the man says, “I see what you mean. You mean—that business of tennis points? But honey, I’m afraid we never can collect debts of that kind.”

  “Not till too late. He’ll want to pay. Merri keeps a very tidy checkbook, he’ll want to remit. It’ll be too late. He’ll be s
orry. It’ll ruin his life.”

  The woman’s sniffing is more definite now. She is shivering.

  She says: “You pick this time to tell me that Syllie had a sn-sn-sneaker for me.”

  “It was more than that.”

  “Philip, I adjure you to tell me the truth. Did you have one for her? She’d scream if you touched her. Was that the allure?”

  “Venus, you’re behaving in a very peculiar way.”

  “I know I am. Are we halfway across the bridge? Have we crossed the border?”

  “Almost. Not quite.”

  She takes three steps, rather quicker than any of her previous steps. She seems to be having some difficulty breathing; it is as if she were climbing a steep hill.

  “I want a little rest,” she says. “Let’s stand here a minute.” She moves toward the railing and leans on it. She gazes down at the dark river. “I adored looking down from the upper decks, watching the spume go by.”

  “Venus, there was never anyone important but you.”

  “I know, Philip. Thank you, Philip. Let’s go on now to the border.”

  “I don’t know whether it’s marked.”

  “You’ll want to pay, too, Philip, but it will be too late for you, too.” The woman’s breath catches, and the man looks sharply at her.

  “Venus, are you all right?”

  “The unimportances add up to importance, don’t they? I was bad to you, too, you know.”

  “You’re trembling, dear heart. Let’s go back.”

  “I wish we could, Philip.”

  She takes a false step. It is as if one knee were rubbery. She lifts her head, and she takes several firm steps. Considering her previous pace, it is as if she were running.

  “Whoa, Venus,” the man says, “this is the middle of the bridge.”

  The woman takes three more steps, evidently to place herself for a certainty in alien territory. In the half-light one can see a change in her face. Is she smiling? “It always takes so long,” she says in a weak voice.

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, ‘How divine.’ ”

  Suddenly her legs give out, and before the man in white can react, she is sitting on the planks of the walkway. At this very moment, the short man comes along at a quick pace, with the circular rubber tube under his arm. “Jeez,” he says, “is she crocked?”

  “Venus,” the tall man says, leaning down over her, “I don’t think we can sit here.”

  She is panting, but he can make out her slowly spoken words: “I’m going to wait here in the salon, until the lighter comes alongside.”

  The man in white makes a signal to the short man, who hands over the rubber ring. The tall man puts it on the planks behind the woman. Each man reaches under an armpit, and they lift the woman a few inches, the tall man pushes the ring under her with his foot, and they gently let her down.

  “Go back to the customs shed and ask for an American doctor. The last thing she needs is a Mex at this point.”

  The short man runs. The man in white leans down, and he hears the woman groan.

  “Oh, God,” she distinctly says, “I knew it would be a dog.”

  “We’ll have you in bed in a jiffy, Venus,” the man says.

  Her lips are moving, she is mumbling.

  The man spreads a handkerchief and kneels on it on one white knee and puts his ear near her mouth. “Say it again, Venus.”

  He hears her. “Darling…tell Drua…”

  The Blouse

  After Myra had her baby, she used to take the infant to the post office to get the clerk, Mr. Fleming, to weigh it for her because she had no scales. One day she was in a bad mood. She asked Mr. Fleming, “How much would it cost to mail her to California, parcel post?”

  Mr. Fleming put the baby on the scales. “Wouldn’t you want to send her special handling?” he asked.

  “Not today I wouldn’t.”

  The baby was blithely kicking its legs and waving its arms, so the needle on the scales must have wobbled. Mr. Fleming, leaning forward to concentrate on it, tightened his lips and pushed his glasses up the ridge of his nose with his little finger. “Nine dollars and seventy-eight cents,” he finally said.

  “Imagine it,” she said. “If I just had a friend out there on the West Coast, I’d be tempted. Today I would.”

  Mr. Fleming handed the baby back across the counter. “Have a good day, Mistress Myra,” he said, and nodded to the next in line.

  Myra tucked the baby into the canvas sling on her chest and stepped out into the bright noon. The air was still. This was one of those August days on the Vineyard when the sky is like a huge flat hunk of beach glass, milky and baked hot by the sun. The flowers in the beds in front of the post office drooped from a long drought. The loudspeaker at the ferry parking lot suddenly crackled and a voice with an impatient edge shouted, “Standby drivers report to your cars! All standby drivers report to your cars immediately.” Myra thought, If only I were a traveler, I’d drive like the wind. Somewhere, somewhere. The baby squirmed and kicked in the snug sling as if it were still in Myra’s belly. Myra walked across Five Corners through disorderly traffic, certain that no driver would run down a mother carrying an infant. And what if one did? Safely across, she realized that she had forgotten to ask Mr. Fleming how much the baby weighed, and she said, “Damn.” But she didn’t feel like going back.

  At the A & P she laid the baby down on the bottom of a shopping cart, with the sling for a pillow, and she pushed slowly up and down the aisles. The air-conditioning felt good. She took her time. She put a box of Pampers down in the cart beside the baby. It was gurgling with joy, seeming to see divinity in the fitful flickering of the neon lights up above. “My God,” Myra said, appalled at its senseless happiness. She tucked around the baby a jar of peanut butter, a loaf of Wonder bread, a bag of Doritos, a packet of hot dogs, some dill pickles, a box of spinach spaghetti, a container of whole milk, and a frozen pizza. Waiting her turn at a checkout slot, she picked two Milky Ways off a rack and read the headlines on the Enquirer.

  Her turn came. As she lifted her purchases up onto the movable platform, she wondered what stupid thing this checkout girl—a new one to her—would say about the baby. They always said, “ ’ook at the ’ittle w’inkles on its w’ist,” or, when the baby had nothing on but diapers, they would lean over and poke a finger in its belly button and sing, “Ding-a-ling!” But this one was having a hard time finding the right numbers to push on the cash register. She was a fat girl with short hair, which was bleached white on the tips and stood up in little spikes. Her lower lip hung loose, weighed down by the density of her confusion. After a while she shouted, “Mrs. Watson!”

  The supervisor came over. She was a friend of Myra’s mother, a goodhearted woman but a terrible gossip. She was thin and walked with both shoulders pushed forward. She said, “Good morning, Myra dear.”

  Myra said, “I wish it was good.”

  The checkout girl said, “I never can remember…the subtotal gizmo…which one.”

  Mrs. Watson gave Myra a look, as if to confide, These checkout morons I have to put up with. Myra didn’t specially want to be on her side. “ST for subtotal, dear. Right in front of your nose.”

  “Jeez,” the girl said, and punched the button.

  Myra wondered why this kind of thing always happened to her. No one else seemed to get stuck in the checkout slots. The baby was impatient, too. It had stopped gurgling; in a minute it would be howling.

  “I can’t get over that cat of your mother’s,” Mrs. Watson said to Myra. “The way it sits up there on the TV, won’t look at you, faces away from you, you know. And then it lashes its tail back and forth across the screen. I said to your mother the other day—well, first of all I have to tell you, when I drop in on her, she’ll flick her little remote gadget, put the sound on mute, you know, but she
keeps the picture going, and she keeps looking at it while you’re talking with her, as if she’s fitting your words onto the pictures—so as I was leaving the other day I said to her, ‘Ethel, dear,’ I said, ‘do you want me to take the cat down?’ You know what she says? She barks at me, real mad. ‘Not yet,’ she says. So I just left. Sometimes I wonder.”

  This was one morning when Myra didn’t want to have a conversation about her mother. She just grunted and bagged the things.

  “Twenty-six dollars thirty-one cents,” the girl said.

  “It couldn’t be,” Myra said.

  Mrs. Watson poked a hand around in Myra’s two bags and said, “She’s right. You’ll have to ring up again.”

  “This is not my day,” the dumb girl said.

  “Look who’s talking,” Myra said. She tucked the baby back in the sling.

  The total turned out to be sixteen dollars and thirty-one cents.

  Myra said to the girl, “Do they train you to slip in an extra ten now and then, so they’ll make more money? Do you get a commission for extra tens?”

  “Why, Myra,” Mrs. Watson said, “I’m surprised at you.”

  “Sometimes I’m surprised at myself,” Myra said. “You can tell Mom that, next time you see her.”

  As she left the store, she felt rotten about the way she’d spoken to the girl and to Mrs. Watson. The girl must be what? A junior in high school? I’m only a couple of years older than her, Myra thought, and I’m no better. I have to be stupider. Look where I’ve got myself. She walked up toward Main Street. Her legs hurt, going uphill, what with the weight of the baby and the two grocery bags, one under each arm. The baby fell asleep, and its head began bouncing against her chest with each step she took. Myra thought that if only she could cry, she’d be better off, but somewhere along the way she’d lost the use of tears.

  She crossed Main Street and stopped to look in the window of the Thrift Shop. A big Japanese kimono was hanging there, and Myra remembered a photograph she had seen once, of a Japanese woman deferentially walking along three paces behind her husband. She felt a stab of anger. Then she thought, God, I’ve got to put these packages down. I’ll buy myself something to wear—that always makes me feel better.