The collected stories (66 page)

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (il): THE LONDON EMBASSY

It was facetious. I could not blame her for missing the feeble joke. But, unexpectedly, it made her defensive. She took it as an accusation, and explained carefully that she had very much wanted to see me but that she was busy with - what? - a 'shooting 5 or a 'viewing.' Then I was sorry for what I'd said.

The arrival of my sea freight a day later gave me an excuse to call her. She was excited. She said, 'You've got the key!'

'Not yet.'

She made a sympathetic noise. She sounded genuinely sorry I hadn't moved in. And then, 'What if something goes wrong with the deal?'

'I'll find something else.'

'No, no,' she said. 'Nothing will go wrong. Actually, I can quite see you there in Overstrand Mansions-'

She didn't say us, she excluded herself; but this talk of me and my flat bored me. And I was a little disappointed. I listened dimly, then hung up, having forgotten to tell her my real reason for calling - that my sea freight had passed through customs and was at the warehouse.

It was my furniture, my Malaysian treasures, my nat from Burma, a temple painting from Vietnam, Balinese masks, wayang puppets, and my Buddha and the assortment of cutthroat swords and knives (a kris from the sultan, a kukri from the DC) I had been given as going-away presents. I had bought the furniture in Malacca. It was Chinese - an opium-smoker's couch, and a carved settee with lion's head legs. The bed had carved and gilded panels and four uprights for a mosquito-net canopy. And I had teak chests with carved drawers, and polished rosewood chairs, and brassware and pewter. These and my books. I had nothing else - no plates or dinnerware, no glasses, no cooking pots, nothing practical.

I wanted Sophie to see my collection of Asian things. I knew she would be impressed. She would marvel at them; she would want me more. I longed to leave my small hotel room on Chelsea Embankment and spread out in Overstrand Mansions. I yearned to be with her.

She had picked out the flat, and in buying it I had never acted so quickly, so decisively. I was glad. She had made me bold. But I tried not to think that I had bought it for us, because it was too early - she was not mine yet. I hoped she knew how badly I wanted her. I could not imagine that a desire as strong as mine could be

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AN ENGLISH UNOFFICIAL ROSE

thwarted. At times it seemed simple: I would have her because I wanted her.

I thought: If only she could see these treasures from Asia! And I tried to imagine our life together. It was a wonderful combination of bliss and purpose, and it made my bachelor solitude seem selfish. What was the point in living alone? Secretly, I believed we were the perfect couple.

All this happened in the space of three weeks - the exchanged contracts, the arrival of my furniture, the numerous phone calls. I did not see Sophie in the third week, and it was frustrating because now it was Sunday. The German had given me the key yesterday; I was moving in tomorrow.

I moved in. She had led me here. I was grateful to her that morning as the men carried my tea chests of Asian treasures upstairs (and they called their moving van a 'pantechnicon' - I had never heard the word before and it pleased me). There was space for everything. This was the apartment I needed. She had known that, somehow, or guessed - another indication that she understood me. I was delighted because Sophie had made this her concern. But where was she?

I called her but got no answer. I tried again and managed, by speaking slowly, to leave a message with her charlady, who was exasperated at having to write it down. She read the message back to me with uncertainty and resentment.

That night I woke up and was so excited to be in a place of my own that I got out of bed and walked up and down, and through all the rooms, and finally onto the balcony. I was so pleased at this outcome, I vowed that I would send Sophie a case of champagne. I lingered on the balcony - I liked everyone out there in the dark.

My roaming in the night made me oversleep. I did not get to the Embassy until after eleven, and my desk was stacked with pink While You Were Out message slips. Scaduto had called and so had Horton's secretary, and there was still some paperwork to do on my apartment - insurance and some estimates for painting it. But most of the messages were from Sophie. Five slips of paper - she had been ringing at twenty-minute intervals.

My happiness was complete. It was what I wanted most, and it seemed to me as if I had everything I wanted and was in danger of being overwhelmed by it. The phone calls were the proof that she wanted me. I would send her the case of champagne, of course;

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (il): THE LONDON EMBASSY

but that was a detail. She could move in with me anytime. We would do what people did these days - live together, see how we got along. It was a wonderfully tolerant world that made such arrangements possible. I would have a routine security check done on Sophie, but if Horton questioned the wisdom of our living together I could always reply that I had met her at his house and that he had had a share in creating this romance.

The phone rang. Sophie's voice was eager. 'You've moved in -that's super.'

'You've been a great help,' I said. 'When can you come over to look around?'

'My life's a bit fraught at the moment,' she said. Her voice became cautious and a bit detached. But she had rung me five times this morning! Then all the eagerness was out of her voice and with composure she said, 'I expect I'll be able to manage it one of these days. I'm not far away.'

'We could have a drink on the balcony. The way you like it. Right up.'

'Yes,' she said, with uncertainty. She had forgotten.

Then I felt awkward and overintimate. Had I said too much?

'It's a very nice flat,' I said.

'I'm so glad for you. I knew you'd like it.'

I wanted to say Come and live with met There's enough room for both of us! I wont crowd you - I'll make you happy in my Chinese bed!

We worked at the London Embassy with the doors open. I could see Vic Scaduto just outside my office, talking to my secretary. He was impatient and held a file in his hand that he clearly wanted to show me. He made all the motions of wanting to interrupt me; he made his impatience look like patience. At times like this, Scaduto tap-danced.

I said, 'Sophie, I have to go.'

'There was something else,' she said.

Til call you back.'

'I've rung you half a dozen times this morning. Please. I've got so much else to do.'

She sounded irritated, and I could see Scaduto's feet - shuffle-tap, shuffle-tap - and the flap of the file as he juggled it.

I said to Sophie, 'What is it?'

'You've moved in - you've got the flat. So it's all settled.'

AN ENGLISH UNOFFICIAL ROSE

Tm going to buy you a case of champagne,' I said. 'I'll help you drink it. I know a place-'

'That's very sweet of you,' she said. 'But two percent is the usual commission.'

I waited for her to say more. There was no more.

I said, 'Are you joking?'

'No.' She sounded more than irritated now. She was angry: I was being willfully stupid.

'Is that why you've been ringing me this morning - for your commission?'

'I found you a flat. You had an exclusive viewing. You bought it for a reasonable price-'

I said, 'Did you fix the price?'

But she was still talking.

'-and now you seem to be jibbing at paying me my commission.'

Scaduto put his head into my office and said, 'Have you got a minute?'

'Write me a letter,' I said, and still heard her voice protesting in the little arc the receiver made, the distance between my ear and the desk.

Scaduto smiled. He said, 'For a minute there you looked married.'

Because Sophie's letter was delivered by hand and arrived at the front door of the Embassy, it was treated as if it contained a bomb or a threat or an explosive device. It was X-rayed; it was passed through a metal detector; it was sniffed by a trained dog. I complained to the security guard about the delay, but in the event I wished that the letter had never come.

It could not have been more businesslike or broken my spirit more. It was one chilly paragraph telling me that I had moved in, that she had been instrumental in finding me the flat - 'following your instructions' - and that in such a situation two percent was the usual commission.

It was not a great deal of money, the equivalent of a few thousand dollars — not enough to be really useful, only enough to ruin a friendship. I could have paid her immediately, but I didn't want her to be my agent - I wanted her love.

Instead of writing what I felt, I wrote logically: I had not given her an order to find me a flat; she had not negotiated the price; she had not been present when I reached agreement with the owner;

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (il): THE LONDON EMBASSY

she had played no part in the contract or any subsequent negotiations. Hers had been an informal, friendly function. If I had known that the fee was going to be two percent I would have taken it into account and adjusted my offer. She was, I said, presuming.

Then I contemplated tearing up the letter. I had either to destroy it or send it - I didn't want it around.

Sophie rang me two days later. She said, 'How dare you! Don't write me letters like that. What do you take me for?'

I said, 'I thought you were an actress.'

She turned abusive. She swore at me. Until that moment I had marveled at how different her English was from mine. And then, with a few blunt swears, she lost her nationality and became any loud, crude, bad-tempered bitch spitting thorns at me.

I sent her the champagne. She did not acknowledge it. And she dropped out of my life.

I learned one thing more. One day I found an earring in the kitchen. I called the German, who now lived in a smaller place in Pimlico. He came over and had a drink. He was grateful - it had belonged not to his wife but to his mother. He showed no signs of wanting to leave. My whiskey made him sentimental. He said that we were both foreigners here in London. We had a lot in common. We ought to be friends.

To get him off the subject, I asked him about Sophie.

'She brought us together, you and me,' the German said. 'She charged me two percent. But it was worth it. Here we are, drinking together as friends.' He glanced around the flat. He said, 'These English girls - especially the ones with money - can be very businesslike. And did you notice? She is very pretty. She lives with an Iranian chap. They all want Iranians these days.' The German laughed out loud. 'Even if you call them Persians they still seem boring!'

And then, to my relief, he began telling me about his ex-wife.

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (il): THE LONDON EMBASSY

most of all. But who would have thought that man sat around theorizing?

Vic Scaduto - 'Skiddoo' to the office - all gestures, all heel clicks on the corridor tiles, shooting his pink cuffs, tugging at his earlobe, pinching his face at his reflection in the elevator mirror, tap-dancing as he talked and as his bubblegum snapped, saying, 'The royal facility in Kensington has a really spacious function room,' then interrupting himself with Tve got a stack of cables waiting' and 'I'm one of those rare people who has a nose for detail,' neighing his hideous laugh - 'It's my Italian blood,' he explained - and he was never breathless. He had teeth like piano keys, and spit flew out of his mouth when he talked.

More than anything he wanted a good post in Italy - running a binational center in Florence or Palermo, or being public affairs officer in Rome. Some of his relatives still lived in Sicily, farming an acre of thorns and procrastinating about selling the pig, so he said.

'It's not that I'm bucking for a promotion; it's just that with my cultural background I think I deserve Italy.' It was a sure sign of his Italian-ness that he mispronounced it, giving it two syllables and making it sound even more like an adverb: 'It-lee.'

He had been interviewed for the transfer, he had taken the language proficiency exam, he was waiting for his report.

'I think they were impressed.' He meant the pair of assessment officers from Washington. Scaduto had invited them to his house. 'I didn't just invite them - I threw the place open to them.'

He had arranged it so that the assessment officers could spend a whole day with his family - Marietta and the three boys.

'I wanted to show them what cultural enrichment really means.'

I said, 'Is that Italian job so important?'

'Not to me, but to my parents. If you've got immigrant parents you'll understand. They left Italy' - It-lee - 'with nothing and came to America. They spent Christmas on Ellis Island in nineteen twenty-two.'

'They must be proud of your success,' I said.

'That's just it - my success is the only thing that matters to them. They left home, left their house, gave up their country, and abandoned their own parents for their children, my sister and me. They ran off and got married. My parents were bad children! They put me through college, they lived poor, they're still poor. No one

S02

CHILDREN

thinks about that, but it's funny - some people who used to be poor are still poor, living where they always lived and dying in the same place. My folks live in an old row house in Queens, with planes going overhead all day - some people in the neighborhood are on disability, the noise is so bad. My father is over seventy. He hasn't retired! He cuts fish. You should see his hands. His father probably had hands like that, in Caccamo. Then I get this London job. It's a terrific job. I offer to pay his fare over here so he can have a vacation, and what happens? Does he come to visit? No. "Why don't they give you Italy? Ain't you good enough?" He gives me bracioV until my head hurts. My mother's worse. She drives me nuts with her phone calls. I mean, both of them sit on Long Island waiting for me to take them back to Italy. Proud of me? Not on your life! I'm disloyal - this isn't the way children are supposed to treat their parents. Hey, children have obligations, don't you know that? But I'll get Italy.'