The Dud Avocado (7 page)

There are, I know (it was in our philosophy course in college), at least a hundred different reasons why some particular event takes place. So I thrashed about again trying to find some other truth and in the instant that it flashed through my head, I think I got as close to my raison d’etre as I ever have. At least I’d never put it to myself so clearly.

“I only did it,” I said, “now this
is
going to be the truth, Teddy, I only did it because it seemed to be the glamorous thing to do at the time. It was my
ideal
of glamour.”

Nothing changed in his face, but I could see from the way he kind of switched off and the light went out of his eyes and his eyelids fluttered downwards listlessly, and from the way one hand slid from the table and began aimlessly rubbing his knee,
that for two cents he’d abandon the whole project. But the strength and tenacity that had placed him where he was, high in the Diplomatic Corps, refused to desert him in his hour of need, and after a moment or so of resolute breathing he started lecturing me on the error of my ways.

“That is the answer I would expect of a midinette,” he began “or, as you would say—of a
bobsy-soxer
.…” There are few things as tenuous as a Latin’s grasp of the American Idiom.

I interrupted him. “Yes, sir,” I said. “That’s me, kiddo. Just a bobby-soxer at heart.”

So he gave up. And in a way I kind of gave up myself. I gave up wondering if anyone was ever going to understand me at all. If I was ever going to understand
myself
even. Why was it so difficult anyway? Was I some kind of a nut or something? Don’t answer that.

“Well now,” he said in quite a different tone, getting back to what he supposed to be first principles. “Since you are capable of doing things for such extraordinary reasons, why should we break off now? Why can’t we continue our little intrigue just as we have been doing?”

“Because now I’m in love,” I said. “Now I should hate it.”

“Ah yes,” he said quickly, “that is what you must try to understand about yourself. You are not promiscuous. That is exactly what I want you to see. You waited twenty-one years before you accepted a lover——”

“You make it sound so——”

“
Please
. You waited twenty-one years before you accepted a lover and, whatever you may say now, you chose very carefully.” He shifted in his chair and his hand flew to the immaculate knot on his tie. “My dear, permit me to know a bit more about you than you think. You are emotionally extremely deep and still not wholly awakened. Yes, it is true. One must go slowly. With someone as passionate as you there is always the danger of her going off the deep end, and you must not be allowed to go drifting from one affair to another. It would be disastrous for you.”

It occurred to me that this was the second time that day that
I’d been cautioned against drifting. Three times and I’d get a parking ticket.

I glazed my eyes and thought, I’ll just sit tight until he runs down. There was nothing else to do. I’m not listening, sang my mind—not listening, not listening.

“——like your American friend at the café today,” he was saying. “I studied him very carefully. Yes, I was looking at you both for a long time before you saw me. Believe me, and do not simply put it down to the jealousy of a rival—taking into account his youth and good looks—I admit them, you see, though I find him almost
too
good-looking. I will tell you, and I am sure that this is true, there is something not quite right about him.” He broke off abruptly, and then said, “Tell me, what does he do?”

“Well, he’s a sort of student. Oh I don’t know. He does lots of things. He was an actor when I first met him. Now he’s a director, and writer I think. What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing. What does he do for money? Is he one of your rich Americans? I do not think so.”

“I don’t know.”

“Considering that you are so much in love with him you know remarkably little about him,” he pointed out.

I drew myself up. “We Americans do not think all that sort of thing important,” I retorted huffily. “I don’t know if he has any money or not, and frankly I don’t care.”

“Perhaps he wishes you to supply it?”

I appreciated that Teddy was one of those naturally, almost helplessly charming people who, when prevented from exploiting this charm, flip with chagrin and show you the other side of their coin. Nevertheless, I felt it the moment for my getaway.

“Look, I’ve got to go,” I said and tried to suit action to word.

“Come, come, please. It is only my little joke. You Americans take things so seriously. I was only teasing you. Please tell me more about this Larry. I should very much like to know.”

“Well, he’s going to direct some plays at the new American Theater up around Denfert-Rochereau. And I’m going to be in them, I hope. I think he’s probably a genius. I wouldn’t expect you to understand him even if you did know him, which of course you don’t, do you?”

Teddy was imperturbable. “He strikes me as a person who is not quite talented enough for his ambitions. And he is morally lazy.”

“Oh really? How interesting. Now what makes you think that?”

“He did not rise either when you left the table or when you came back.”

I suddenly felt afraid. There was no doubt that Teddy’s life in the Diplomatic Corps had trained him well for these snap judgments. Looking back, I didn’t know anyone he’d actually been wrong about—except of course me, but then as we know I am totally incomprehensible to everyone including myself.

“In any case,” Teddy was going on, “getting back to you, what I have been meaning to say is that you need a steadying influence. A husband, even, and this boy is certainly not to be that to you. No, I do not think there is any danger of that happening. In fact, I should say that it is highly unlikely that he’ll marry for a long time—if ever.”

I was feeling terribly, terribly tired. Champagne has never done anything but depress me unutterably, and I now saw my hope of studying those plays that night slipping further and further away. It would have to be abandoned. The thing to do was get some sleep and start fresh in the morning.

“O.K., O.K.,” I said. “What has all this got to do with me?”

He raised his eyebrows. “But everything! I have a plan, you see. I will tell you—” Only he didn’t. He sucked in his breath as if holding it in readiness for the next big surprise sentence, and in spite of myself I leaned forward genuinely agog, and then he simply exhaled and smiled instead. It was a very animated smile, teeth flashing all over the place; the old charmer again.

“No,” he said slowly, shaking his head and making his eyes heavy-lidded and mysterious—I even think he might have taken a long drag from his cigarette; anyway, the effect was very corny. “I cannot tell you here. You must come back to my apartment. Please. Only for a little moment. I promise I will not touch you. You have my word.”

He had, at any rate, my curiosity, which is far more fatal. The sleeping beast was finally roused and I knew I would have
to wait, standing by helplessly, while it rampaged around the town. That’s my answer to the question what is your strongest emotion, if you ever want to ask me: Curiosity, old bean. Curiosity every time.

And so, wearing an aggrieved and, I hoped, slightly
blackmailed
expression on my face, and altogether putting up what must have been for him a most distressing display of reluctance, I eventually allowed myself to be persuaded back to his apartment.

We made ready to go, and he signaled the waiter again with the enchanting little series of finger snaps he’d used earlier on, and although he was none of these things I suddenly saw him as fat, aging and silly. The phrase “Old World” flashed through my mind. He was no match for my American callowness.

I caught him watching me as we rose and saw with surprise that there was real pain in his eyes and the tight set of his mouth. The moment was duly noted and marked down as savagely thrilling to my twisted soul. I think that was the first time I really felt like a woman. Hey, hey, I wanted to shout at the mad gay assemblage drinking their heads off around me, I must
have
something after all. What do you know about that?

But don’t think I had it all my own way. Suddenly walking through that gilded cage of a Ritz bar, through all those exotic perfectly mated birds of paradise chirping away so harmoniously, I experienced a terrible pang of conscience. It seemed to me that all the women loved all their escorts, and all the escorts loved all their women, and if they were in groups of more than two they all loved one another or at the very least were extremely
well
pleased with one another. That’s what made me feel sad and guilty all of a sudden. The men were smooth and worldly and successful and happy and they all looked so much like Teddy. These were the people he should be having witty, elliptical, sexy conversations with, instead of wasting his time with a sulking, skulking, bad-tempered and very recent schoolgirl. I mean when
their
love affairs were over they would have the sense and savoir-faire to let each other down so gently they’d never even feel the bump while I—Oh Christ. What an impossible situation.

And then I became impatient. It was all too ludicrous, for God’s sake, I should have been the abandoned one. I mean I was the one seduced, I was the virgin wasn’t I? It shouldn’t have been me trying to wiggle off the hook. Surely it was up to Teddy to do the discarding after he’d taken my “all.” I’d read enough books and listened to enough college girls moaning in the spring to know that. Hourly I should have expected the ax.

There is a terrific movie which gets shown a lot around Art cinemas, even though it’s a very old one, and I always try to see it if I can. It’s called
The Scoundrel
, and it has Noel Coward in it as this great Wolf. At one point when his latest victim comes around and begs him on her knees to take her back, he removes the boutonniere from the lapel of his dinner jacket and murmuring Forgive-me-my-dear-for-stooping-to-symbolism, he tosses the flower into his highball and drowns it with a squirt of the soda syphon. So you know what I mean?
That’s
the sort of thing I brought myself up on. I mean that’s more like it.

I mean how
can
Life be so contrary to—never mind Art—just to general information and what’s called Common Knowledge? And how the devil did our roles get reversed like this, with me playing the Fatale and he the … well, whatever you call it. I don’t know. It was too much for me.

And what was this plan all about? Was I meant to supplant the old mistress in the setup of his hierarchy—or to open another branch of the establishment?

Lost in our separate thoughts, we hardly talked to each other on the way back.

Considering the amount of time I had spent there on and off for about three months, it is amazing that I have practically no recollection at all of Teddy’s apartment. It wasn’t his real home, you see. It was just a very small
pied-à-terre
, and he kept it of course for only one reason. Frightfully suave, and mature, and expensive, and I admit to having been breathlessly impressed by it at first. But after a while I found that if I ever thought about it for long it always made me laugh. I wonder what there is about deception, I suppose I mean discretion (do I?), when it gets organized to the hilt like that, that always makes me laugh?

Anyway this Organization was just off the rue de Rivoli and
do you know I can’t even remember the name of the street? Let’s see, as you turn off the rue de Rivoli first there is the American Embassy (where I was later to spend so many frenzied hours), then—hah—wait a minute, it’s all coming back with a whoosh … the rue Boissy d’Anglas, of course! It was on the second floor and it had a large window that looked out onto the street. Only there wasn’t much to look out at. There wasn’t much to look in at, either, for that matter. It was businesslike as hell. It consisted of two rooms, the main one and a tiny kitchenette leading off it. The main room had a dining-room table, a large red leather sofa, a few shelves for a very few books, a phonograph for a very few records, a radio, a coffee table, a drink cabinet —and a divan. Tout comfort. Stripped for action and strictly anonymous.

We arrived in full sail, Teddy fumbling with every latchkey in sight and me racing from minuterie to minuterie to keep the stairs in a blaze of 40-watt bulbs. Even when we got inside I didn’t stop. I turned on every light I could find (there weren’t very many) and then headed straight for the sofa. I didn’t sit in it, though. I sat primly on one of the arms and refused a drink. Also I began tapping my feet.

“Do you mind if I have a drink myself?” he asked.

I nodded assent.

At long last he stood before me, his drink in hand and a certain look on his face. With his free hand he reached for mine. It was so entirely
expected
(even though he had promised not to touch me), and I just lost my head. I jumped up and with a sudden movement knocked the drink out of his hand. I’d been saying to myself poise, baby, poise, all this while, but I simply couldn’t help it. I really frightened us both.

“Don’t touch me!” I said.

“I am sorry.” This very humbly.

I remember all this part so very clearly. And I remember a little later wondering why things always turn out to be diametrically opposed to what you expect them to be. It’s no good even trying to predict what this opposite will be because it always fools you and turns out to be the opposite of
that
, if you see
what I mean. If you think this is geometrically impossible all I can say is that you don’t know my life.

I mean never in a million years could I have worked out what he was going to say to me next. There was his glass lying on the floor, the drink seeping into the carpet. He bent down to pick it up and he noticed an ice cube on the carpet and he picked that up as well. He looked at it. He started to put it into the empty glass, but some threads from the carpet had stuck to it and I could see him deciding not to. So he just held it in one of his hands. And he sighed.

“It is most difficult,” he began, and then squared his shoulders resolutely. “Very well. This is my plan. It is that I wish to marry you. That is all. Will you marry me, Sally Jay?” He was still holding on to that ice cube. It must have been freezing his hand off. God, I can see that ice cube perfectly, carpet hairs and all.