While she was rummaging through the trunk—she had brought back all manner of gifts, including paintings, carvings, art albums—I couldn’t resist making love to her. We went at it on the floor amidst the papers, books, paintings, clothing, shoes and what not. But even this interruption couldn’t check the flow of talk. There was so much to tell, so many names to reel off. It sounded to my ears like a mad jumble.
Tell me one thing, said I, stopping her abruptly. Are you sure 7 would like it over there?
Her face took on an absolutely ecstatic expression. Like it? Val, it’s what you’ve dreamed of all your life. You belong there. Even more than I. It has everything you are searching for and never will find here. Everything.
She launched into it again—the streets, how they looked, the crooked winding ones, the alleys, the impasses, the charming little places, the great wide avenues, such as those radiating from the Etoile; then the markets, the butcher shops, the book stalls, the bridges, the bicycle cops, the cafes, the cabarets, the public gardens, the fountains, even the urinals. On and on, like a Cook’s tour. All I could do was roll my eyes, shake my head, clap my hands. If it’s only half as good, thought I to myself, it will be marvelous.
There was one sour note: the French women. They were decidedly not beautiful, she wanted me to know. Attractive, yes. But not beauties, like our American women. The men, on the other hand, were interesting and alive, though hard to get rid of. She thought I would like the men, though she hoped I wouldn’t acquire their habits, where women were concerned. They had a medieval conception of woman, she thought. A man had the right to beat a woman up in public. It’s horrible to see, she exclaimed. No one dares to interfere. Even the cops look the other way.
I took this with a grain of salt, the customary one. A woman’s view. As for the American beauty business, America could keep her beauties. They had never had any attraction for me.
We’ve got to go back, she said, forgetting that we had not gone there together. It’s the only life for you, Val. You’ll write there, I promise you. Even if we starve. No one seems to have money there. Yet they get by—how, I can’t say. Anyway, being broke there is not the same as being broke here. Here it’s ugly. There it’s … well, romantic, I guess you’d say. But we’re not going to be broke when we go back. We’ve got to work hard now, save our money, so that we can have at least two or three years of it when we do go.
It was good to hear her talk so earnestly about work. The next day, Sunday, we spent walking, talking. Nothing but plans for the future. To economize, she decided to look for a place where we could cook. Something more homelike than the hall bedroom I had rented. A place where you can work, was how she put it.
The pattern was all too familiar. Let her do as she likes, I thought. She will anyway.
It must be terribly boring, that job, she remarked.
It’s not too bad. I knew what the next line would be.
You’re not going to keep it forever, I hope?
No, dear. Soon I’ll get down to writing again.
Over there, she said, people seem to manage better than here. And on much less. If a man is a painter he paints; if he’s a writer he writes. No putting things off until all’s rosy. She paused, thinking no doubt that I would show skepticism. I know, Val, she continued, with a change of voice, I know that you hate to see me do the things I do in order to make ends meet. I don’t like it myself. But you can’t work and write, that’s clear. If some one has to make a sacrifice, let it be me. Frankly, it’s no sacrifice, what I do. All I live for is to see you do what you want to do. You should trust me, trust me to do what’s best for you. Once we get to Europe things will work out differently. You’ll blossom there, I know it. This is such a meagre, paltry life we lead here. Do you realize, Val, that you’ve hardly got a friend any more whom you care to see? Doesn’t that tell you something? There you have only to take a seat in a cafe and you make friends instantly. Besides, they talk the things you like to talk. Ulric’s the only friend you ever talk to that way. With the rest you’re just a buffoon. Now that’s true, isn’t it?
I had to admit it was only too true. Talking this way, heart to heart, made me feel that perhaps she did know better than I what was good for me and what wasn’t. Never was I more eager to find a happy solution to our problems. Especially the problem of working in harness. The problem of seeing eye to eye.
She had returned with just a few cents in her purse. It was the lack of money which had to do with the last minute change of boats, so she said. There was more to it than this, of course, and she did make further explanations, elaborate ones, but it was all so hurried and jumbled that I couldn’t keep up with it. What did surprise me was that in no time at all she had found new quarters for us to move to—on one of the most beautiful streets in all Brooklyn. She had found exactly the right place, had paid a month’s rent in advance, rented me a typewriter, filled the larder, and God knows what all. I was curious to know how she came by the dough.
Don’t ask me, she said. There’ll be more when we need it.
I thought of my lame efforts to scrounge a few measly dollars. And of the debt I still owed Tony.
You know, she said, every one’s so happy to see me back they can’t refuse me anything.
Every one. I translated that to mean some one.
I knew the next thing would be—Do quit that horrid job!
Tony knew it too. I know you won’t be staying with us much longer, he said one day. In a way I envy you. When you do leave see that we don’t lose track of one another. I’ll miss you, you bastard.
I tried to tell him how much I had appreciated all he had done for me, but he brushed it off. You’d do the same, he said, if you were in my place. Seriously, though, are you going to settle down and write now? I hope so. We can get grave-diggers any day, but not a writer. Eh what?
Hardly a week elapsed before I said good-bye to Tony. It was the last I ever saw of him. I did pay him off, eventually, but in driblets. Others to whom I was indebted only got theirs fifteen or twenty years later. A few had died before I got round to them. Such is life—the university of life, as Gorky called it.
The new quarters were divine. Rear half of a second floor in an old brown-stone house. Every convenience, including soft rugs, thick woolen blankets, refrigerator, bath and shower, huge pantry, electric stove, and so on. As for the landlady, she was absolutely taken with us. A Jewess with liberal ideas and passionately fond of art. To have a writer and an actress—Mona had given that as her profession—was a double triumph for her. Up until her husband’s sudden death she had been a school teacher—with leanings toward authorship. The insurance she had collected on her husband’s death had enabled her to give up teaching. She hoped that soon she would get started with her writing. Maybe I could give her some valuable hints—when I had time, that is.
From every angle the situation was ducky. How long would it last? That was ever the question in my mind. More than anything it did me good to see Mona arrive each afternoon with her shopping bag full. So good to see her change, don an apron, cook the dinner. The picture of a happily wedded wife. And while the meal was cooking a new phonograph record to listen to—always something exotic, something I could never afford to buy myself. After dinner an excellent liqueur, with coffee. Now and then a movie to round it off. If not, a walk through the aristocratic neighborhood surrounding us. Indian Summer, in every sense of the word.
And so, when in a burst of confidence one day she informed me that there was a rich old geezer who had taken a fancy to her, who believed in her—as a writer!—I listened patiently and without the least show of disturbance or irritation.
The reason for this burst of confidence was soon revealed. If she could prove to this admirer—wonderful how she could vary the substantive!—that she could write a book, a novel, for example, he would see to it that it got published. What’s more, he offered to pay a rather handsome weekly stipend while the writing of it was in process. He expected, of course, to be shown a few pages a week. Only fair, what?
And that’s not all, Val. But the rest I’ll tell you later, when you’ve gotten on with the book. It’s hard not to tell you, believe rue,
