The Dud Avocado (19 page)

“How do they keep from screaming?” I asked Larry.

“O.K. Let’s blow.”

But it wasn’t as easy as that. First there was a lively scene between him and the Contessa that I had to try not to overhear (I did catch a lulu though—“I weesh you were a hole in the ground!” she hissed at him as we left), and then we had to recover from the huff that the quarrel with the Contessa had put him into.

We stood there in the middle of the street waiting. “Dammit,” he said, fuming, “there’s a film director she
knows
I want to meet. What got into her anyway? She’s never been so unreasonable before.”

“It’s me,” I said. “It’s because I had an affair with Teddy.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“She’s his mistress.”

“What? Oh no, you’ve got that all wrong. They’ve known each other all their lives; they’re practically brother and sister.”

“Have it your own way. But that was the whole purpose of that charming dinner party he gave for us with Cousin John. It was revenge. He set her on
you
to get even with me, and it’s just dawned on me she set
herself
on you to get even with
me
for Teddy. Don’t you see? Don’t try to figure it out. What’s the difference anyway? They’re just a couple of pimps.”

My summing up must have had a profound effect on him, for he automatically started walking away and then suddenly he let out a shout of laughter. “Gorce,” he said, “you’re dead
right. You’re right on the nose. That
is
just what they are. Now that we’ve got that settled—” I had caught up with him by now “—where shall we go?”

“The Rotonde’s near my hotel.”

“Good. We can walk there.”

He began teasing me about the Lesbian I’d been dancing with. He said he hadn’t put
that
in his course for Tourists, and he wanted to know what she’d written on the slip of paper he’d seen her hand me. I said it really was sad in a way—although it was funny, too, of course—all this fuss, and all she’d really wanted out of me was to find out how to get over to the States. That was why she’d given me her name and address. I’d told her I’d ask the Embassy about it and let her know. I mean I was all for it. Why not everybody change countries with everybody else?

Larry went into one of his funny furies. “Oh sure let her use you. Let
everyone
use you. Listen, Gorce, you’ve got to be tough. Which are you going to be—monster or doormat? It’s one or the other. Make up your mind,” and he strode off.

I called out that it was something I couldn’t decide right off like that, and hurried after him, but all the while I was crumbling inside. This race to keep up with Larry was such an Externalization of the problem, as the Stanislavsky boys would have it. I had no technique for dealing with him: only an overpowering, unnerving, irrational, chemical desire to be with him. Yes, all of that. The fear of losing his physical presence was tying my reflexes into such knots that I was incapable of behavior as such. When we got to the Rotonde, I sat in a miserable stupid downcast silence. The invisible thread that had been pulling us closer together all that past week was stretched to breaking point.

“What is the significance of you and the Contessa?” I asked him finally. I could have kicked myself for trying flippancy, but it was the only language I knew.

“The Contessa and I understand each other.”

“And we don’t?”

“No. We don’t.”

“Why?” asked the timid doormat.

“Well that’s a long story and I’m not going to tell it.” A pause.
“I’ll bet you can’t guess what my father was. He was the golf pro at Farringdale.”

“What’s that?”

“Exactly. Anyone who
knows
knows that. Anyone who matters. Anyone of distinction, I mean. I learned my manners and my morals there and when dear old Daddy died I sort of became their mascot and I learned a few more things besides. Do you know what those fine old club members were white enough to do for this poor little orphan? They were white enough to take up a collection to send him to the very best schools. Yes sir, Larchmont High never saw my dust again. Now don’t you think that was petty damn white of them? Only naturally it was understood they weren’t going to be white enough——” He broke off suddenly with a crafty look. “Oh no you don’t,” he said. “I’m not sorry about anything. You don’t get the story of
my
life, you don’t.” He grinned, making one of his lightning switches back to the old lady-killer, and reached over for my hand.

“Do you think we ought to get ahold of the
Herald Trib
to look at the notice?” I asked, hoping it was the right thing to say.

“It’ll be too early yet,” he replied tenderly; and then, “Hey, I’ll be damned!” He sat up suddenly. “Speak of the devil! Look who’s over there will you?” He indicated the bar, where Crazy Eyes and his sister the mono-dancer stood at the far end over in a corner, and waved at them gaily. Larry’s erratic behavior was beginning to get me down. All this blowing hot and cold was making me dizzy, and apart from everything else the idea that he could
like
those two infuriated me.

“Well for God’s sake don’t ask them over here,” I said.

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t stand them, that’s why. I spent the night at the prefecture on account of him, you remember, and—oh, why go on? She’s nothing but a prostitute and he’s just a common thief.”

“Oh-h-h. Oh,
well
. Thanks for telling me. That makes all the difference of course. I wouldn’t dream of asking them over now that I know
that
. Pimps, prostitutes and thieves. You’ve got a
label for everything, haven’t you, Miss Gorce? Why don’t you try living in this world for a change?” He rose. “Excuse me for a minute, will you? I’ll just go over and say hello.”

I wanted to cry; I couldn’t think why I wasn’t. The unfairness of it all. What had I done, anyway? I sat on, propped up on the table, staring blankly at nothing, like one of those Absinthe Drinkers. I noticed my elbows and arms were caked with dirt from all the dirty tables I’d been sitting at, and my hands black from all the dirty people I’d been meeting. I felt myself kind of slipping away.

Larry, back at my side again, was apologizing for jumping down my throat. He said he didn’t know what had got into him, probably his delayed First Night reaction, and then he fell into one of his corny moods and got all wound up about how if only he had enough money he could tell them all to go —— themselves and start his
own
theater, a Balletic Puppet Theater like the one run by someone called Pertu Dubecq, which was the only True Theater, because it was the Universal Theater; theater everyone could understand. And I said everyone except me, because people were always telling me ballet was universal, but I’d never seen a ballet whose story I was able to follow even when the program notes were in English. And he laughed and said the hell with all that, how about ordering a bottle of champagne to celebrate living in
this
world? And I said I’d had so much to drink I was practically out of it.

It was true: the evening was swimming together into a great big, shiny mother-of-pearl oyster-shell floating off to infinity.… But time was spreading itself out before me now, instead of slipping away.…

It was halfway through the morning, the sun shining into my hotel room between spaces in the drawn curtains, and I was lying naked under the bedclothes feeling that something had gone horribly, horribly wrong. For one thing, there at my feet sat Larry, getting dressed not
quickly
exactly, but, well,
steadily
. For another, although I couldn’t remember any of the details, the whole thought stretched across my mind was: What a
stupid thing to have done. What a stupid thing to have done.… But what?
What?
It was no use. Whatever it was seemed destined to remain buried deep down inside that bed forever.

I made a colossal effort. I raised myself up and said hello.

“Good morning,” said Larry. “How do you feel?”

“Gosh, I——” I stopped. Quite independently of anything I knew about myself, I found I was all hot and faint. My breath was coming in gasps. Larry went right on dressing. The suspense was suffocating.

“What … happened?” I finally asked.

There was a pause during which I had to close my eyes.

“Don’t worry, it’s O.K. Nothing,” he assured me.

Nothing! I was reeling with shame.

“Was I … just … too
awful
… or something?” I whispered faintly.

“Oh
no
. Oh,
come
now. As a matter of fact we were both pretty drunk you know, and tired, and exhausted and overwrought. I—um—I didn’t mean to take advantage of you.…”

“Oh, but you
didn’t
. I mean please don’t——”

“Well, luckily nothing happened, so it’s all turned out for the best.”

I slid down under the bedclothes and over to my other side. Larry’s reluctance—he just didn’t
want
me,
that
was the thing—
that
was the final piece in the emotional jigsaw of last night. That was what my feelings of shame and humiliation were all about—oh, brother.…

“I’ve got the most
awful
hangover, so that I don’t think I shall live unless I have some aspirin,” I groaned. “Could you please go over to the shelf by the basin and pour me out a couple of hundred?”

“Sure, honey.” In a thrice there was such a clatter and clash among the bottles I had to bite back a scream. Eventually he stood over me with a glass of water and two aspirin. I took the pills and fell back, closing my eyes. He finished dressing quickly and I felt him at the bed again, standing over me. I’ll just pretend to be asleep, I thought, then he’ll go away and I can forget about the whole thing.

He stood there for a long moment. I began breathing evenly.
Another age went by: there was an itch on my leg that I simply had to scratch. I tried to combine it with a sort of sleeper’s stretch.

“Gorce,” he said softly.

Much unnecessary business, waking up slowly, stirring sleepily, blinking eyes, etc.

“Gorce?” A little louder.

“Oh. Are you still here?”

“I’m just leaving——”

“Then
get out!
” I exploded.

“Yes. Yes, I know. Well—thanks for—I mean—oh, you know— I’ll see you around, darling—good-by.…”

After he left I started to cry. Then I fell asleep again. At two o’clock I woke up, suddenly remembering I’d made a date with Judy’s Frenchman, the painter Claude Tonnard.

He took me to his studio, poured me out some perfectly ghastly tea and we looked at his paintings a while. Then, as if it was the only thing left to do, he made love to me.

The studio was dark and cold when I left. I felt experienced without feeling that I, personally, had been through anything. I’d really shocked myself, to tell you the truth. I was a long way from St. Louis. My past was receding a little too rapidly.

I got to the theater in time for the half-hour call.

There was a knock on my dressing room door. “Sally Jay?”

“Come in. Oh, it’s you.” It was Blair.

“Sally Jay, I’m sorry. Never again, I promise.”

“I forgive you.” We kissed.

“Still love me?”

“Oh, sure—till the next time.”

“Where’ve you been?” asked Blair. “You look as if you’ve just got out of bed.”

“I have. I just got out of the bed of some Frenchman.”

“Take it easy, Zelda. Scotty’s been dead for years.”

“Zop, zop.”

“Wonderful notice for you in the Trib. Here——” He put the paper on my table.

“Thanks. I’ve seen it.” I picked it up and read it again. I sighed. “So this is fame. I don’t feel it. I don’t feel anything. Where’re the photographers? Where’re the flowers? Oh, here’re some.” I looked at the card. They were from Teddy. Indefatigable. I dropped it back into the flowers. “What boots it in these miffless times——” I said.

Blair was already in the doorway. “What say?” He came back in.

“I said what boots it?”

“Well, whatever
that
is, it isn’t right. You’ve got it all screwed up.”

“You ain’t jest clicking your teeth,” I replied, and started to put my make-up on. But already I was feeling much better.

I
DIDN’T SEE LARRY
for a while. After a show opens it doesn’t belong to the director any more, it’s the stage manager’s baby, and Larry never came around. I wasn’t exactly happy, but—hmm, I don’t know—but, but,
but
I wasn’t absolutely
unhappy
either. I found that I liked acting and that, after those first few terrifying minutes each night before I went on stage, I was really enjoying myself. I even liked always having to be at the same place at the same time. I mean, the question actors most often get asked is how they can bear saying the same things over and over again night after night, but God knows the answer to
that
is, don’t we all
anyway;
might as well get paid for it.

So I jogged along. I took up with the Hard Core again. And I began posing for Jim. Later on somebody told me that there
isn’t a girl in the whole world who won’t take off her clothes if she’s convinced she’s doing it for aesthetic reasons, but at the time it seemed to me I had taken one more giant step.

Otherwise things had changed very little in Montparnasse. Judy was out of the hospital and getting ready to accompany her brother on his tour, Dave Beckenfield had slunk off to Germany, and Crazy Eyes and his mono-dancing sister had apparently changed quartiers, or, at any rate, disappeared from ours. I did a bit of dubbing, a bit of radio, and got two offers from film companies, both of which fell through. From time to time I was fawned upon by the odd Stage-door Johnny, but if this was fame, it was keeping itself very quiet. Very quiet indeed.

Gradually it dawned on me that my passport was gone for good. I went through all my handbags, all my pockets, all my drawers. I went under the bed, on top of the wardrobe and back to the boites of the Opening Night. Then I went to the Etats-Unis. “I have lost my passport,” I told them, “I am a citizen of the world.”