13 French Street (2 page)

I went over and leaned out one of the side windows. Fields, trees, hills—and ‘way over there was town. Allayne. I could see the road winding through the hills, dipping into the town. The hills were savage with color in the failing twilight. Almost as I watched, night began to creep along the sky, tugging a black blanket in its teeth. The wind began to die. It was very still out there, almost as if the evening were holding its breath.

It had been all Verne could do to carry the lighter of the two suitcases up the stairs. It embarrassed me. I would have carried them both, but that would have done more than embarrass Verne.

I walked around the room and rubbed my knuckles into my scalp. This was great, all right.

Some wife. Petra. Maybe …

But I didn’t want to think of her. It hadn’t begun to occur to me why I didn’t want to think of her—yet.

I opened the two suitcases on the bed. Somebody whistled softly and said, “I’m Jenny.”

I faced the door. It was partly open. She had genuine apples in her cheeks, a wealth of carrot-colored hair, the hint of a turned-up nose, bright, honest blue eyes, and one of those mouths that like to smile but are a bit hesitant about it. She was dressed in white: white apron, tiny starched white cap. She leaned against the door jamb with her hands in the pockets of her apron, and I liked her right away.

“Mrs. Lawrence says to tell you dinner is served at six-thirty.”

“Thanks, Jenny.”

“That’s all right. My job. You’re Mr. Bland, from Chicago, right?”

I sat down on the bed. “That’s right.”

“Heard your name mentioned.” She smiled and her face lit up and laughed all over. Still there was that shy hesitancy about the smile. It was the kind of smile model agencies would break budgets for.

“You’ve been here a long while?” I asked.

“Six months, Mr. Bland.”

“Oh.”

“That’s all right. You can ask anything you want.”

“I see. Thanks.”

She cleared her throat. “You have plenty of towels ‘n’ stuff?”

“Guess so.”

“That’s good.”

We watched each other. She had something to say, but she’d decided not to say it. I wondered what it was. It was in her eyes. Somebody was coming up the stairs. Petra said, “Jenny!” from down the hall.

Jenny winked and closed the door. She opened it quickly, stuck her head in, and whispered, “You’d better keep it locked, Mr. Bland.” Then the door was closed and the house was silent.

I wondered if Jenny had finally said what she’d come to say. If she had, it didn’t make sense to me.

Without a doubt there was something wrong between Verne and his wife. What it was, I didn’t know. Petra was a very beautiful woman. Seated on the bed, I thought it over, and only came to realize more and more how truly beautiful she was.

And Jenny. A housemaid. Not a cook. So there must be a cook, too. And Verne’s mother. I’d clean forgot to ask him about that.

The vacation I was supposed to be on was slowly becoming something else. I’m a guy who likes things orderly. If I lay my razor down on a certain part of a shelf, I want it to be there when I reach for it next time. Comes from living so long alone, I suppose.

So I got to thinking about Madge. I went over to the desk and found paper. Using my own pen, I wrote Madge, and lied about how swell everything was. That wasn’t good either, because some kinds of lying are all right, but others nag at me. This would nag. Then I told Madge I wished we were together, and that was no lie, so I felt better.

But after the letter was sealed I remembered Petra again. I tucked the letter under the blotter of the desk. Then I got out my shaving kit and shaved in the bathroom. I kept thinking about Petra, wondering what her last name had been before it was Lawrence. So I had to whistle in order to quit thinking about my friend’s wife’s black hair and the way her eyes got soft when she looked at me. I was finished shaving before I realized I’d been whistling
“Danse Macabre.”

Somebody rapped on the door.

“Yeah, O.K.,” I said. The door opened.

“It’s me, Jenny, again,” she said. “Mrs. Lawrence says not to go an’ dress for dinner.”

“Thanks, Jenny.”

She closed the door. I took a shower and went downstairs in gray flannels and a white shirt. I felt good and not at all tired. When I reached the foot of the stairs I happened to glance up. An old woman in a white shawl was leaning over the railing, staring at me.

I went on down the hall and opened the front door, stepped through the vestibule, opened the door onto the porch. Leaves skittered around the threshold and over my feet. Lights from house windows winked between the flashing branches of trees. Verne’s place wasn’t so far from town. There were street lights out here. And there were some stretches of sidewalk. I stood there in the doorway. Behind me, the house was very still. As if nobody lived there at all.

A car went by out on the road with the radio playing. Music trailed off into the evening. Then it was quiet again. A cow lowed. It wasn’t cold at all. The air was warm and still.

I turned to go inside and I smelled the perfume. She was standing in the vestibule. She didn’t move, so I had to stop and stand there. It was dark, but her face was pale and I could see her lips and her eyes shone in the darkness.

“You like it here, Alex?”

“Very much. It’s very nice.”

“Alex, if—if Verne seems peculiar, please excuse him. He’s had rotten luck. Business, business, you know? He’s a little worried, because he doesn’t know how to tell you he won’t be able to spend much time with you. He can’t possibly take a week off.”

“I see. Well, that’s all right.”

Her hand touched my arm, went away. Her voice was as soft as the breeze outside. “That’s what I told Verne. Don’t you worry. I’ll see that you have a fine time. We should have lots of things to talk about. And I know plenty of things to do.”

I tried to make my voice encouraging, but the panic had mounted another notch. “Great. That’s fine. I’m sure we’ll—”

“So am I, Alex. Come, dinner’s ready. And don’t you dare let on I mentioned that about Verne.”

Already we were conspirators. Inadvertently I touched her shoulder. It was bare and warm. She was wearing a strapless dress. I jerked my hand away. I said, “Don’t you worry. Maybe I can talk him into feeling better.”

She whispered, “I won’t worry, Alex.”

For me there has always been something about the darkness of a house, a large house, of a hallway, just before dinnertime in the autumn. Something about the darkness, with the lights in another part of the house—something that excites me. Perhaps everyone has felt it. I felt it now. And she felt it. We stood there and the faint panic increased a bit.

Her voice remained a whisper, conspiratorial. “And Verne’s mother. Don’t pay any attention to her, either. She’s quite deaf, by the way.”

“Yes.” I cursed myself because I had whispered.

She took me lightly by the arm. “Come on, Alex. I’m famished. I’ll bet you are, too. Nobody eats in this house but me. They’re all—” She ceased. We went on down the hallway. I was very conscious of her movements, her lithe grace.

They’re all what? I asked myself. There was something so damned secretive about her. In spite of anything I could do, it was getting to me. Right then was when I began to fight.

Dinner was a wake. We sat for three quarters of an hour over a rare roast of beef. And I met Verne’s mother. Yes. Really there were three corpses at that table. The old woman, Verne, and the roast of beef. Petra and I faced each other across the table. She still was the only one with an appetite. I’d felt hungry, but a few moments at the table took care of that.

Verne’s mother. Verne had doubtless been born into her old age. She was very old now. Like those dried, withered vines clinging grimly to the side of a stone building. At first glance, you think they’re dead, but then, ‘way up there, you notice a tiny green leaf. You wonder how in hell it ever got there. You know the sap still flows, however frugally.

There wasn’t much sap left in this old woman. She wore a gray dress, buttoned around her throat, like those World War I Army tunics, with a round diamond brooch in the middle. And above the collar, a small choker of pearls circled her thin neck. Her face was small, shrunken, and sly. Her eyes glinted and gleamed like the slowly burning tips of two Fourth of July punk sticks. The kind you light firecrackers with, or used to, anyway. One of these days those eyes would turn to ash. I wondered if she would find a fuse; she seemed to be looking for one. Her dress was long, tight-sleeved, and a flower of white lace handkerchief bloomed at her wrist. Her hands and fingers trembled like dried willow wands in a breeze. A white shawl, looking somehow too heavy for her to carry, sagged about her shoulders. She was quite deaf, and beyond a nod to me when we were loudly introduced, she didn’t speak.

Petra hated her. I saw that from the first. Petra would glance at the old woman and Verne would glance at Petra.

“She’s afraid of the old folks’ home,” Verne said. “She believes they would kill her if she ever went. Don’t know where she picked up the notion. I suppose it’s just as well she stays here. She can’t last too much longer.”

“She’ll outlive us all,” Petra said. She cut a piece of meat, dipped it in gravy, and chewed with unconcern. “She’s in the way here. She’s unhappy. She has nothing.”

“You take her out for rides,” Verne said.

“Yes, it’s lovely.”

Petra ate for a while. The old woman fussed at her plate, believing that she ate, but actually all she did was play. It wasn’t nice to watch. Verne drank water. I creased my napkin, and remembered how the red taillight of the taxi had winked around the corner, leaving me here—with this.

“You’ve noticed I look like hell, I suppose?” Verne said. His gaze touched mine, drifted away. Petra was watching me. The skin of her shoulders and throat looked soft, unblemished, warm.

I shrugged. “A little tired, maybe.”

“No. I look like hell, Alex. Everything’s going to hell. My business is shot, what with the government stepping in, taking over supplies. Can’t get the things I need, have to be there every minute or I’ll lose what I have.”

“What is it?”

“Building project on Long Island. Have to leave tomorrow, Alex. Don’t know when I’ll get home. I’m sorry. That’s the way it is. Biggest deal I’ve ever had, and it’s tumbling around my shoulders. I’ll stand to lose what I’ve got. It would have set me—us on Easy Street. Really.”

Petra stared at me. Her lips were touched with disdain, her eyes hot and black. “He worries too much,” she said to me.

“I never worried before in my life!” Verne’s voice was harsh. “Excuse me,” he said. “Let’s go in the other room and have a drink.”

“Haven’t you been drinking too much, dear?” Petra said.

He ignored her.

The old lady was trying to carry a forkful of cole slaw to her mouth when she erupted into laughter. It sounded like dry leaves rustling against the basement windows of a house.

Verne stared at her. Petra glanced at Verne, then at me, and she smiled.

“Come on,” Verne said. He rose and started around the table. “We’ll have coffee in there.”

“Sure, fine.”

Petra watched me. We rose together and I couldn’t tear my eyes away. Then I did and it was all right again. But the sense of panic, of the unknown, kept rising inside me.

Verne walked through an alcove into a small room, and on into the living room. I followed. Petra touched my arm. The lights went on in the living room, gleaming soft and slow and saffron, like a stage set. Verne called, “You coming, Alex?”

“Yes.”

Petra leaned close and her breath was warm against my cheek. The faint odor of her perfume—was it jasmine? —mingled with her breath. “Try to cheer him up, Alex,” she whispered. Only she didn’t mean that.

It seemed as though she had spoken merely as an excuse to be near me, to touch me. My throat thickened and I couldn’t speak. I nodded. For a brief moment, perhaps, we understood something between us. Then she sighed.

I went on into the living room.

Behind me the old lady commenced laughing again.

I knew I was going to have to cut the vacation short. It had to be. Maybe it was all right for some people, but not for me. I was born with a deadly conscience; something I detested, but something I couldn’t override. If I made a mistake, it lived with me for a long while, and it was too much of a price to pay. Even a little mistake. I had long since avoided mental discomfort.

She was beautiful. Petra. My friend’s wife. It was all I could think. My best friend’s wife.

And there was Verne, leaning against the fireplace mantel, with his head in his hands.

“He’s shot his bolt,” Petra said softly behind me. “He’s simply shot his bolt, the poor dear.”

I heard her quite plainly, but Verne didn’t.

A
FTER
two brandies I told myself I was a fool.

One thing I did know—it was true that Verne was deeply troubled about his business, but business hadn’t marked him. It was something else. Petra? How?

“You’ll have a good time, you two,” Verne said. He still stood by the fireplace. Petra sat directly across from me with her feet resting on an ottoman, ankles crossed. She watched me across the brim of her brandy glass. The old woman was perched like a stuffed bird on a chair in the corner.

“Sure we will,” I said.

Verne drained his glass, picked up the bottle, poured himself another, drained that, and set bottle and glass on the mantel. Petra’s eyes followed his movements, then she began watching me again.

“Hell of a thing,” Verne said. “Been asking you to come for years, and now you’re here, I have to leave. Don’t know how long I’ll have to stay in town. I’ve only been coming home week ends.” He turned to the mantel and poured himself another drink.

I glanced toward Petra. She raised her glass, watching me, and emptied it.

“Wonder if I could have a little soda,” I said. “Maybe brandy should be drunk straight, but I think perhaps I’d better have some soda.”

“I’ll get it.” Petra left her chair and crossed the room. She had to pass my chair. My hand was on the arm of the chair, and as she swung by, her thigh brushed my knuckles. It could have been accidental. It was the merest contact. Yet I knew she’d meant to touch me. We were talking together by touch, by looking at each other. I was saying things to her against my will. I told myself again that I was a fool to think that way. Yet there it was.