Can't and Won't: Stories (19 page)

The Washerwomen

story from Flaubert

Yesterday I went back to a village two hours from here that I had visited eleven years ago with good old Orlowski.

Nothing had changed about the houses, or the cliff, or the boats. The women at the washing trough were kneeling in the same position, in the same numbers, and beating their dirty linen in the same blue water.

It was raining a little, like the last time.

It seems, at certain moments, as though the universe has stopped moving, as though everything has turned to stone, and only we are still alive.

How insolent nature is!

Letter to a Hotel Manager

Dear Hotel Manager,

I am writing to point out to you that the word “scrod” has been misspelled on your restaurant menu, so that it appears as “schrod,” with an “sch.” This word was very puzzling to me when I first read it, dining alone on the first night of my two-night stay at your hotel, in your restaurant on the ground floor off your very beautiful lobby with its carved wood panels, lofty ceiling, and rank of gold elevators. I thought this spelling must be right and I must be wrong, since here I was in New England, in Boston in fact, home of the cod and the scrod. But when I came down from my room to the lobby the following night, about to dine in your restaurant for the second time, this time with my older brother, and as I waited there in the lobby for him, which is something I generally like to do if the setting is a pleasant one and I am looking forward to a good dinner, though in fact on this occasion I was quite early and my brother was quite late, so that the wait became rather long and I began to wonder if something had happened to my brother, I was reading some literature provided to me by the friendly clerk behind the reception desk, whose manner, like that of the other staff, with the exception, perhaps, of the restaurant manager, was so natural and unaffected that my stay in your hotel was greatly enhanced by it, after I asked if he had any account of the history of your hotel, since so many interesting and famous people have stayed here or worked here or eaten or drunk here, including my own great-great-grandmother, though she was not famous, and in this literature presumably written by the hotel I read that your restaurant claimed, in fact, to have invented the word “scrod” to describe the catch of the day, in contrast to “cod,” I suppose, for which this city is also famous. I also remembered, perhaps wrongly, seeing this word elsewhere spelled “shrod,” unless that is a different word with a different meaning. I had thought, I suppose mistakenly, that “scrod” meant “young cod,” or perhaps it was “shrod” that meant “young cod” and “scrod” that meant “catch of the day,” if the word “shrod” existed at all. I don’t know much about scrod, only the old joke about the two genteel ladies returning home on the train from Boston and in the course of their conversation one of them mistaking the word “scrod” for a past tense. For a moment the previous evening, as I say, I thought this spelling might even be correct, and then I was fairly certain it was not correct, but I was unsure whether it should be shrod or scrod, if the word “shrod” existed. But nowhere else have I seen it spelled “schrod,” with an “sch.” I did eventually, on the second evening, make a connection, perhaps a false one, between this misspelling and the accent with which your restaurant manager addressed my brother and me. This manager was present in the dining room both nights I ate there and, although courteous, seemed a bit cool in his manner, not to me in particular but to everyone, and on the second evening did not seem to want to prolong the conversation I started with him in which I suggested that the restaurant might add baked beans to the menu, since baked beans are also native to Boston and the restaurant boasts of being the inventor of Boston cream pie, the official Massachusetts state dessert, as I learned from the hotel literature, as well as the Parker House roll. He seemed almost transparently impatient to end the conversation and move on, though move on to what I did not know, since he did not appear to have more of a function than to walk rather self-importantly—by which I mean with an excessively erect posture—from one end of the long, rather dim, splendid room to the other, that is, from the wide doorway through which a handful of people now and then came in from the lobby to have dinner, to what must have been the kitchen, well hidden behind some sort of bar and two large potted palms. In any case, I noticed, as he stood conversing with us, inclined slightly towards us but at each pause turning to move away, that his accent might be identified as German, and this caused me later, when I was thinking about the misspelling of “scrod,” to speculate that the very Germanic “sch” spelling was his doing. This may be quite unfair, and perhaps it was someone else, someone younger, who misspelled “scrod,” and the mistake was not caught by your manager because of his Germanic predisposition towards beginning a word with “sch.” Here I should add in his defense, parenthetically, that despite his cool manner he seemed quite open to my idea that baked beans might be included on the menu. He explained that at one time the restaurant had brought out little pots of baked beans with the rolls and butter at the start of the meal and that they had stopped doing this because so many other restaurants in Boston featured baked beans. I did not want him to think I liked the idea of the little pots at the start of the meal—far from it. I thought it was a terrible idea. Baked beans at the start of the meal would not be a good appetizer, being so heavy and sweet. No, no, I said, they should simply be listed somewhere on the menu. I happen to love baked beans, and I had been disappointed not to find them here in this Boston restaurant, along with the scrod, the Parker House rolls, and the Boston cream pie, all of which I ordered on the second night. My dinner companion, that is, my brother, was tolerant of this protracted and perhaps pointless conversation, either because he was happy enough to be sitting over a nice dinner and a glass of red wine after the difficult day he had had, going here and there in the city, which is not his native city, as he attempted to complete several pieces of business in connection with our mother’s estate, not all of which were successful, or else because my behavior reminded him, in fact, of our mother, who was so very likely to start a conversation with a stranger, or rather, it would be more truthful to say, could hardly let a stranger come anywhere near her without striking up a conversation with him, learning something about his life and letting him know about some firmly held conviction of hers, and who passed away last fall, much to our regret. Although, naturally enough, certain of her habits bothered us while she was alive, we like to be reminded of her now, because we miss her, and we are probably both adopting some of those very habits, if we had not already adopted them long ago. I think my brother even added a suggestion of his own to the manager, after sitting listening quietly to mine, though I can’t remember what he said. This was actually the second time, now at the urging of our waiter, who thought my idea was a good one, that I had called the manager over to our table. The first time I waved to him it was not to speak to him about the baked beans or the spelling of scrod but about another guest in the nearly empty dining room, a very poised little old woman, her hair in a pearl-gray bun at the nape of her neck, who sat surprisingly low down on the banquette, by the side of her much younger hired companion, so that she had to reach quite far up and out to find her food. I had noticed her during my dinner the night before, since we were near each other and there were even fewer guests, and the companion and I had at last struck up a conversation, during which I learned that the old woman lived a short walk away and had been having her dinner at the hotel every night for many years, and that in fact I was inadvertently occupying her usual spot in the dining room, under the brightest light. The companion, after consulting the old woman, had specified that she had been coming here for thirty years, which astounded me, but now, on the second night, the restaurant manager corrected this to a mere five or six years. I wanted to suggest, perhaps because I had drunk my glass of Côtes du Rhône by then and was feeling inspired, that the hotel should make a photographic portrait of her and hang it on the wall in one of the rooms, since she was now part of the history of the hotel. I still think that would be a good idea, and that you might consider it. In fact, later I got up from my chair, perhaps indiscreetly, and went over to the old woman and her companion as they were leaving and suggested the same thing, to their obvious pleasure. I did not think it would be tactful, however, to bring up the spelling of “scrod” so directly with the manager, and that is why I am instead now mentioning it in a letter to you. My stay in your grand hotel was delightful, and apart from, perhaps, the coolness of the restaurant manager, every aspect of the service and presentation was flawless except for this one spelling mistake. I do believe the purported home of the scrod should be a place where it is spelled correctly. Thank you for your attention.

Yours sincerely.

Her Birthday

105 years old:

she wouldn’t be alive today

even if she hadn’t died.

My Childhood Friend

Who is this old man walking along looking a little grim with a wool cap on his head?

But when I call out to him and he turns around, he doesn’t know me at first, either—this old woman smiling foolishly at him in her winter coat.

Their Poor Dog

That irritating dog:

They didn’t want it and gave it to us.

We pushed it away and smacked it on the head and tied it up.

It barked, it panted, it lunged.

We gave it back to them. They kept it for a while.

Then they sent it to an animal shelter. It was put in a concrete pen.

Visitors came and looked at it. It stood on the concrete on its four black-and-white paws.

No one wanted it.

It had no good qualities. It did not know that.

New dogs kept coming in to the shelter. After a while, they had no more space for it.

They took it into the euthanizing room to be euthanized.

It had to walk around the other dogs that were on the floor.

It leaped and pulled. It was frightened by the other dogs, and the smell.

They gave it a shot. They let it stay where it fell, and went off to get another dog.

They always took all the dead dogs out at once, at the end, to save time.

Hello Dear

Hello dear,

do you remember

how we communicated with you?

Long ago you could not see,

but I am Marina—with Russia.

Do you remember me?

I am writing this mail to you

with heavy tears in my eyes

and great sorrow in my heart.

Come to my page.

I want you please to consider me

with so much full heartily.

Please—let us talk.

I’m waiting!

Not Interested

I’m simply not interested in reading this book. I was not interested in reading the last one I tried, either. I’m less and less interested in reading any of the books I have, though they are reasonably good, I suppose.

Just as, the other day, when I went out to the backyard, planning to gather up some sticks and branches and carry them to the pile in the far corner of the meadow, I suddenly became so deeply bored by the thought of picking up those sticks and carrying them, yet again, to that pile, and then coming back through the high meadow grass for more, that I did not even begin, and simply went inside.

Now I can do it again. It was only on that one day that I was bored. Then the feeling went away, and now I can go out again, pick up the sticks and branches, and take them to the pile. Actually, I pick up the sticks and carry them in my arms, and I drag the larger branches. I don’t do both at once. I can make about three trips back and forth before I get tired and quit.

The books I’m talking about are supposed to be reasonably good, but they simply don’t interest me. In fact, they may be a lot better than certain other books I have, but sometimes the books that aren’t so good interest me more.

The day before that one particular day, and the day after it, I was willing to pick up sticks and take them back to the pile. Actually, for many days before, and many days after. Could I even say: all the days before that day, and all the days after? Don’t ask me why I wasn’t bored on other days. I’ve often wondered why, myself.

If I think about it, it may be that there is some satisfaction in seeing the haphazard pile of sticks and branches near the house get smaller each day, as I carry or drag them back. There is some interest, though not much, so little, in fact, that it is right on the edge of boredom, in looking at the meadow passing under my feet: the grasses, the wildflowers, and the occasional wild animal scat. Then, when I reach the brush pile in the back, there is the best moment: I weigh the bundle of sticks in my arms, or balance the branch in my two hands, and then heave them, or it, as far up to the top of the brush pile as I can. The walk back through the meadow is easy, with my arms and hands free and loose, compared to the walk out to the pile; I look around at the treetops and the sky, as well as at the house, though it never changes and is not interesting.

But on that particular day I did not even begin to feel interested in this chore, and was suddenly more deeply bored than I ever have been before, and just turned around and went back inside. Which made me wonder why I wanted to do this chore at all, on other days, and also which was real: my slight interest on other days or my profound boredom now. And it made me wonder if I really should be profoundly bored by this chore all the time and never do it again, and if there was something wrong with my mind that I was not bored by it all the time.