Collected Novels and Plays (15 page)

Red wine flowed. Later, Tommy played gems from his opera.

It made a difference, Tommy’s opera. Knowing it was to be produced kept the group around him from being dismissed, too casually, as trivial or corrupt. Whatever he was, the gangling gauche handsome young musician, he wasn’t an amateur. Neither, as yet, had he been ruined by his charm. Francis took to him at once. He attributed to Tommy a childlike unconcern for whatever other people did or felt. The idea of wearing, to an evening party, corduroys and a
gray unraveling sweater! I could never carry it that far, admitted Francis with a sigh. How long, indeed, could Tommy get away with it? Already in his music Francis thought he detected an ease that hadn’t been earned. “France will appreciate that,” nodded Xenia at the end of a strangely lifeless passage.

“D’ailleurs, c’est tout ce qu’ily a de plus français!”
This gave Francis a clue to Tommy’s difficulty.

“He ought to be left alone and allowed to be American,” he told her, deliberately sententious.

“Chauvinist!”

They were sitting in a window-seat at the far end of the room, overlooking lights in the Park, sparse and romantic, below.

“What do you mean, ‘being American’?” Xenia presently asked.

It had to do, he tried to say, with not taking the easy way out, with not being glib, well mannered, probably depraved—casting about, his eyes met the sinister gaze of a Count. Xenia had begun throatily to laugh.

“I never dreamed you were such a Puritan, Francis—you who have lived there! Oh the neuroses of Americans! Of course there’s depravity in Europe, there’s depravity all over the world. But,” pointedly, “those who are shocked by it are the ones I suspect of being drawn to it.”

“I am not shocked by it,” Francis declared, blushing, in the tone of a prim old man.

“Besides,” resumed Xenia after a pause during which the piano had become very suave indeed, “of what does this ‘depravity’ consist? The student with
his petite amie?
The
femme de trente ans
with her lover? The whore who goes to Mass?
Voyons!
Everywhere there is discretion and nowhere is there guilt. A woman hates her husband?
Bon!
She kills him with a kitchen-knife and the judge sympathizes. No,
it’s
here
that sex is really messy. Just look at your American man—brutal, stupid, completely inexperienced; you get him in bed (God forbid!) and all he thinks is to
sfogarsi
as quickly as possible—
e basta!
Well, that’s thanks to your famous American mothers. In France, now,” she shrugged, “a mother says to one of her intimate friends, ‘Look,
ma chère
, Jean-Pierre has turned fifteen,
he’s getting a bit restless, I was wondering if it interested you to …’ Nine times out of ten the friend is
enchanted
to be of service and there are no more problems! While
here
—I’m sorry to say it, but I’ve reached the conclusion that the single exception among American men is
the homosexual, who at least knows how to
enjoy
himself in bed. But my God! The effort to get him there!” She
gestured widely about the room, her eyelids agleam. “You can see for yourself!”

Although he didn’t dare think what she meant, Francis was determined not to bat an eye. He gave Xenia his blandest smile.

“What have I done,” she went on, inscrutable, “to deserve such a fate?”

His silence had to be broken. “It seems to me,” Francis reminded her, pleased to have thought of something, “that you were complaining of the same thing in Italy.”

“Oh, Italians are the worst lovers in the world!”

“But then who does satisfy you?”

“Nobody!” she cried promptly, incorrigibly, and burst again into laughter. “See how easily you’ve found me out? I have nothing to hide—nobody has ever
been
able to satisfy me!”

These words removed Francis’s last trace of nervousness with Xenia. She was extravagant, grotesque, of a reality far beyond the mere plausible surfaces arrived at by others. He felt he could tell her anything.

A shout of delight announced the arrival of Greta Stempel-Ross, the contralto. “Now
there
is a vampire,” whispered Xenia before rising to greet her. The singer was a big woman, simple and friendly. Bits of Tommy’s opera had been written specially for her.
“Buona sera! Wie gent’s?”
she said, and shook hands all around.

Francis’s major reservation about Xenia and his father had been the sittings themselves, whether they mightn’t exhaust the old man. But she had quickly set his mind at rest: there was no need for a sitter to “sit” in any strict sense; he could walk about, smoke, talk—she needed to see the head in many moods. As for the number of sittings, an hour or so each day for two weeks would bring the head to a point where she could work on it
alone. If necessary, a few finishing touches, that fall in New York—Xenia made it sound very easy, very expert. More and more she struck Francis as the perfect companion for his father. “I feel I know exactly
how to behave with him,” she had said; “I shall be as I am by nature, open and sincere.” “And rather soft and womanly,” suggested Francis. “Oh that, of course!” she chortled. This much had been
agreed on earlier, along with what train to take the next day. Then, from his hotel room late that afternoon, Francis called his father. The old man, his voice mild and dull with distance, said he would be glad to see them. He was glad also that the sittings weren’t to be strenuous, because he had passed a whole night of pain. Mrs. McBride had phoned and phoned to get the oxygen tank refilled; it was plain luck that he hadn’t choked to death. “I don’t
understand that,” Francis had said, unsure, really, of what he meant. “Neither do I,” his father replied. After an intolerable pause, “Well then,” said Francis, “we’ll—” but breaking off politely because Mr. Tanning was trying to say something, “excuse me? I didn’t hear …” “Nothing, Sonny, I’ll see you tomorrow,” and his father hung up, leaving Francis alone in the
senseless colorless room. His clothes were strewn here and there. A new French novel lay facesdown on a stool next to the tepid bath he had drawn.

It was odd. He liked French novels, and said so to Adrienne when she caught him examining her little shelf of books; he liked anything French except—abruptly laughing, he saw no reason to spare
her
feelings—French people. Ah, but did he then like people at all? She countered fairly enough, her face taking on a lively interest to show that bluntness pleased her. “Besides,” Adrienne confessed before long, “I’m not very
fond of them myself. I’m three-quarters Russian, you know.” One finger with a red jewel swept back an orange lock from her brow. “Now talk to me about yourself.”

This made for a most agreeable hour.

Later, trying to rationalize it, he saw to what degree his elation stemmed from the failure that morning, at Larry’s office. Such a failure seemed final. Francis had done all he could; henceforth he would have to face his doom philosophically. Fully aware that he
was
doomed—he’d said so first to Larry—it nevertheless kept coming over him while he
talked, while Adrienne nodded, replied, beckoned within earshot this
one or that, how much he deserved their attention. How natural, suddenly, to talk, since she had asked, about himself—to draw his own conclusions and to take, above all, his own sweet time! He felt he
knew
more than his listeners, more about books and music, more even about Europe. In the heat of a sentence he wondered if he weren’t illustrating his earlier point. “Being American” meant, along with what he had told Xenia, having grown up assuming
Vincent Youmans to be better than Ravel, but so unquestioningly that to assume the opposite never implied any simple evolution of taste; rather, a stand taken against dark forces. It made a real difference. Just as Mr. Tanning’s nearness to death conferred an urgency upon his pettiest anecdotes, so Francis’s exhilaration over the stand
he
had taken, regardless of failure, made everything he said sound right. He caught confirmatory glances. He didn’t
forget that he was doomed; so was his father, so were they all. And he smiled the more broadly for the amusing, the delightful sensation of being doomed and not minding, doomed and, well, truly exuberant, doomed and unable to think why or to what.

After midnight people sat about in a sociable daze while Mme Stempel-Ross sang Serbian folk songs, unaccompanied. Presently Xenia tiptoed to Francis’s side and led him back to their window seat.

“I can’t begin to tell you what a success you’ve made!” she hissed, flushed with some success of her own. “Adrienne has fallen in love with you, literally. I’ve been watching, so has Tommy. He’s madly jealous.”

“You’re exaggerating!” protested Francis. He had never learned how to receive compliments.

“Only the tiniest bit!”

“Then all I can say is that it’s perfect nonsense.” He felt duty-bound to appear safe and dependable, a guest who will not violate the rules of hospitality. It was often as though he disliked being liked—which, however, wasn’t the case.

“Ah, you’re too modest! Adrienne’s a darling.” Xenia let out a conspiratorial chuckle. “Anyhow, I’ve been consoling
him.
There’s something
très fin
in Tommy. He said at once that he would like to have you for a friend. So you see, you have only to choose!”

“Between Tommy and Adrienne?” he laughed.

“Or whoever you like!” It was all part of the joke. “After all, I know nothing about you, Francis. Women, boys? What
do
you like?”

He saw in it, after his initial wave of stupefaction, but one more sign of the grotesque intimacy possible between them. A second later, he could even appreciate how nice she was, not to have conjectured behind his back. Her curiosity was so forthright, so—yes, so
tender
, that almost resignedly he heard himself telling Xenia what had never before crossed his lips. “I don’t like anybody. I mean,” foolishly smiling, “I
don’t go to bed with anybody. I never have.”

“But how extraordinary!” she gasped, biting her lip more, Francis imagined, to flatter him than because she really thought it so. Xenia had already shown that nothing surprised her. A light from below gleamed in her eye. “Not even with little friends in boarding-school?”

“No.” He felt rather apologetic about it.

“And never with a woman?”

“Well, with a—woman I had to pay … once, long ago.”

“I see.”

Francis was touched by something that had come into her face. “Don’t feel sorry for me,” he said. “
I
don’t mind!” “Being American” meant, finally, the ring of truth in your voice at times when the truth could not be spoken.

“Sorry, indeed!” Her lashes fluttered. The moment recovered its exquisite comedy. “I have the pride of my sex to consider. If it’s true, what you tell me, then I’m under an obligation to seduce you, that’s all!”

He fought back a horrid misgiving. “You’re not serious!”

“But I am!” cried Xenia. The lashes kept fluttering, though, and Francis knew better. Besides, his upbringing told him that sex could only be joked about, in conversation. His father’s stories bore out this impression.

European dance music on the phonograph had somewhat brought
the party to life. Adrienne came gaily towards them—“Francis dear!” removing her earrings, “dance with me!” He looked up, helpless, while Xenia, one hand raised, the other resting on his arm, pleaded the earnestness of their talk. As a matter of fact Francis was eager to pursue it. He wanted a chance to tell her that she hadn’t understood, that he
was doomed—but would he be able to say it with a straight face?

“You see, I’m profoundly intuitive by nature,” she went on as soon as Adrienne had left them alone, “but here are
two
things you’ve told me that I’d never have believed about you.”

“Oh? What was the first thing?”

“Why, in Rome—that you had money.”

Quite so, thought Francis, twisting his ring: money, and
that
was why he was doomed.

He did his best to call up the usual easy rhetoric of hurt and indignation. He squared his jaw, he clenched his fist. Foremost in every mind, there at the party, must have been his identification as the son of wealthy Benjamin Tanning—in every mind but his own.
He
had behaved, idiot, as if he hadn’t failed that morning in Larry’s office; as if, all evening, it was at
him
—fatherless, empty-handed, real—instead of at
the golden image towering behind him, that Xenia’s friends had been smiling. He wanted badly to be angry with her for having represented him to them as a patron, for letting Tommy and Adrienne, from that first meeting in the customs shed—but he could carry it no further. He hadn’t managed to feel any of this.

What Francis did feel was relief at having told Xenia his secret, both his secrets. He felt all unburdened. She seemed to understand him completely. Nothing was as difficult as he had fancied. Who could tell? Perhaps positive joys were involved with the having of money! Upon his finger, “Who can tell?” the little gold owl might have echoed, sagely. He thought of sending flowers to Adrienne, or to his mother. He looked forward to showing Xenia the Cottage.
In the dark glass her profile shone. Briefly now, it could be seen as a pity that she didn’t seriously mean to
seduce him; and yet how much wiser and nicer, Francis reflected, to keep such a person forever as a trusted friend, rather than to spoil everything the other way!

Full of trust, he stood up. “Come, let’s dance. Only I warn you, I’m a terrible dancer.”

“You’re absolutely right,” she said after two minutes on the floor. “Terrible.” Leaning on his arm, Xenia hobbled to a chair, made room for him at her feet, and began asking one of the Counts about rejuvenation.

Francis closed his eyes, smiling. Now that he had confessed to Xenia both his wealth and his sexual inexperience, he saw her morally bound never to take advantage of either.

10.
Xenia was installed in the guest house, down the hall from Francis.

“I think you’ll be safe there,” Mr. Tanning told her dryly, at the end of her first evening among them.