Tropic of Cancer (35 page)

The doctors interpreted all this as a good sign. They said he was coming round. Ginette, of course, thought he was crazier than ever, but she was praying for him to be released so that she could take him to the country where it would be quiet and peaceful and where he would come to his right senses. Meanwhile her parents had come to Paris on a visit and had even gone so far as to visit the future son-in-law at the château. In their canny way they had probably figured it out that it would be better for their daughter to have a crazy husband than no husband at all. The father thought he could find something for Fillmore to do on the farm. He said that Fillmore wasn’t such a bad chap at all. When he learned from Ginette that Fillmore’s parents had money he became even more indulgent, more understanding.

The thing was working itself out nicely all around. Ginette returned to the provinces for a while with her parents. Yvette was coming regularly to the hotel to see Carl. She thought he was the editor of the paper. And little by little she became more confidential. When she got good and tight one day, she informed us that Ginette had never been anything but a whore, that Ginette was a bloodsucker, that Ginette never had been pregnant and was not pregnant now. About the other accusations we hadn’t much doubt, Carl and I, but about not being pregnant, that we weren’t so sure of.

“How did she get such a big stomach, then?” asked Carl.

Yvette laughed. “Maybe she uses a bicycle pump,” she said. “No, seriously,” she added, “the stomach comes from drink. She drinks like a fish, Ginette. When she comes back from the country, you will see, she will be blown up still more. Her father is a drunkard. Ginette is a drunkard. Maybe she had the clap, yes—but she is not pregnant.”

“But why does she want to marry him? Is she really in love with him?”

“
Love?
Pfooh! She has no heart, Ginette. She wants someone to look after her. No Frenchman would ever marry her—she has a police record. No, she wants him because he’s too stupid to find out about her. Her parents don’t want her any more—she’s a disgrace to them. But if she can get married to a rich American, then everything will be all right… You think maybe she loves him a little, eh? You don’t know her. When they were living together at the hotel, she had men coming to her room while he was at work. She said he didn’t give her enough spending money. He was stingy. That fur she wore—she told him her parents had given it to her, didn’t she? Innocent fool! Why, I’ve seen her bring a man back to the hotel right while he was there. She brought the man to the floor below. I saw it with my own eyes. And what a man! An old derelict. He couldn’t get an erection!”

If Fillmore, when he was released from the château, had returned to Paris, perhaps I might have tipped him off about his Ginette. While he was still under observation I didn’t think it well to upset him by poisoning his mind with Yvette’s slanders. As things turned out, he went directly from the château to the home of Ginette’s parents. There, despite himself, he was inveigled into making public his engagement. The banns were published in the local papers and a reception was given to the friends of the family. Fillmore took advantage of the situation to indulge in all sorts of escapades. Though he knew quite well what he was doing he pretended to be still a little daffy. He would borrow his father-in-law’s car, for example, and tear about the countryside all by himself; if he saw a town that he liked he would plank himself down and have a good time until Ginette came searching for him. Sometimes the father-in-law and he would go off together—on a fishing trip, presumably—and nothing would be heard of them for days. He became exasperatingly capricious and exacting. I suppose he figured he might as well get what he could out of it.

When he returned to Paris with Ginette he had a complete new wardrobe and a pocketful of dough. He looked cheerful and healthy, and had a fine coat of tan. He looked sound as a berry to me. But as soon as we had gotten away from Ginette he opened up. His job was gone and his money had all run out. In a month or so they were to be married. Meanwhile the parents were supplying the dough. “Once they’ve got me properly in their clutches,” he said, “I’ll be nothing but a slave to them. The father thinks he’s going to open up a stationery store for me. Ginette will handle the customers, take in the money, etc., while I sit in the back of the store and write—or something. Can you picture me sitting in the back of a stationery store for the rest of my life? Ginette thinks it’s an excellent idea. She likes to handle money. I’d rather go back to the château than submit to such a scheme.”

For the time being, of course, he was pretending that everything was hunky-dory. I tried to persuade him to go back to America but he wouldn’t hear of that. He said he wasn’t going to be driven out of France by a lot of ignorant peasants. He had an idea that he would slip out of sight for a while and then take up quarters in some outlying section of the city where he’d not be likely to stumble upon her. But we soon decided that that was impossible: you can’t hide away in France as you can in America.

“You could go to Belgium for a while,” I suggested.

“But what’ll I do for money?” he said promptly. “You can’t get a job in these goddamned countries.”

“Why don’t you marry her and get a divorce, then?” I asked.

“And meanwhile she’ll be dropping a kid. Who’s going to take care of the kid, eh?”

“How do you know she’s going to have a kid?” I said, determined now that the moment had come to spill the beans.

“How do I know?” he said. He didn’t quite seem to know what I was insinuating.

I gave him an inkling of what Yvette had said. He listened to me in complete bewilderment. Finally he interrupted me. “It’s no use going on with that,” he said. “I know she’s going to have a kid, all right. I’ve felt it kicking around inside. Yvette’s a dirty little slut. You see, I didn’t want to tell you, but up until the time I went to the hospital I was shelling out for Yvette too. Then when the crash came I couldn’t do any more for her. I figured out that I had done enough for the both of them… I made up my mind to look after myself first. That made Yvette sore. She told Ginette that she was going to get even with me… No, I wish it were true, what she said. Then I could get out of this thing more easily. Now I’m in a trap. I’ve promised to marry her and I’ll have to go through with it. After that I don’t know what’ll happen to me. They’ve got me by the balls now.”

Since he had taken a room in the same hotel with me I was obliged to see them frequently, whether I wanted to or not. Almost every evening I had dinner with them, preceded, of course, by a few Pernods. All through the meal they quarreled noisily. It was embarrassing because I had sometimes to take one side and sometimes the other. One Sunday afternoon, for example, after we had had lunch together, we repaired to a café on the corner of the Boulevard Edgar-Quinet. Things had gone unusually well this time. We were sitting inside at a little table, one alongside the other, our backs to a mirror. Ginette must have been passionate or something for she had suddenly gotten into a sentimental mood and was fondling him and kissing him in front of everybody, as the French do so naturally. They had just come out of a long embrace when Fillmore said something about her parents which she interpreted as an insult. Immediately her cheeks flushed with anger. We tried to mollify her by telling her that she had misunderstood the remark and then, under his breath, Fillmore said something to me in English—something about giving her a little soft soap. That was enough to set her completely off the handle. She said we were making fun of her. I said something sharp to her which angered her still more and then Fillmore tried to put in a word. “You’re too quick-tempered,” he said, and he tried to pat her on the cheek. But she, thinking that he had raised his hand to slap her face, she gave him a sound crack in the jaw with that big peasant hand of hers. For a moment he was stunned. He hadn’t expected a wallop like that, and it stung. I saw his face go white and the next moment he raised himself from the bench and with the palm of his hand he gave her such a crack that she almost fell off her seat. “There! that’ll teach you how to behave!” he said—in his broken French. For a moment there was a dead silence. Then, like a storm breaking, she picked up the cognac glass in front of her and hurled it at him with all her might. It smashed against the mirror behind us. Fillmore had already grabbed her by the arm, but with her free hand she grabbed the coffee glass and smashed it on the floor. She was squirming around like a maniac. It was all we could do to hold her. Meanwhile, of course, the
patron
had come running in and ordered us to beat it. “Loafers!” he called us. “Yes, loafers; that’s it!” screamed Ginette. “Dirty foreigners! Thugs! Gangsters! Striking a pregnant woman!” We were getting black looks all around. A poor Frenchwoman with two American toughs. Gangsters. I was wondering how the hell we’d ever get out of the place without a fight. Fillmore, by this time, was as silent as a clam. Ginette was bolting it through the door, leaving us to face the music. As she sailed out she turned back with fist upraised and shouted; “I’ll pay you back for this, you brute! You’ll see! No foreigner can treat a decent Frenchwoman like that! Ah, no! Not like that!”

Hearing this the
patron,
who had now been paid for his drinks and his broken glasses, felt it incumbent to show his gallantry toward a splendid representative of French motherhood such as Ginette, and so, without more ado, he spat at our feet and shoved us out of the door. “Shit on you, you dirty loafers!” he said, or some such pleasantry.

Once in the street and nobody throwing things after us, I began to see the funny side of it. It would be an excellent idea, I thought to myself, if the whole thing were properly sired in court.
The whole thing!
With Yvette’s little stories as a side dish. After all, the French have a sense of humor. Perhaps the judge, when he heard Fillmore’s side of the story, would absolve him from marriage.

Meanwhile Ginette was standing across the street brandishing her fist and yelling at the top of her lungs. People were stopping to listen in, to take sides, as they do in street brawls. Fillmore didn’t know what to do—whether to walk away from her, or to go over to her and try to pacify her. He was standing in the middle of the street with his arms outstretched, trying to get a word in edgewise. And Ginette still yelling:
“Gangster! Brute! Tu verras, salaud!”
and other complimentary things. Finally Fillmore made a move toward her and she, probably thinking that he was going to give her another good cuff, took it on a trot down the street. Fillmore came back to where I was standing and said: “Come on, let’s follow her quietly.” We started off with a thin crowd of stragglers behind us. Every once in a while she turned back toward us and brandished her fist. We made no attempt to catch up with her, just followed her leisurely down the street to see what she would do. Finally she slowed up her pace and we crossed over to the other side of the street. She was quiet now. We kept walking behind her, getting closer and closer. There were only about a dozen people behind us now—the others had lost interest. When we got near the corner she suddenly stopped and waited for us to approach. “Let me do the talking,” said Fillmore, “I know how to handle her.”

The tears were streaming down her face as we came up to her. Myself, I didn’t know what to expect of her. I was somewhat surprised therefore when Fillmore walked up to her and said in an aggrieved voice: “Was that a nice thing to do? Why did you act that way?” Whereupon she threw her arms around his neck and began to weep like a child, calling him her little this and her little that. Then she turned to me imploringly. “You saw how he struck me,” she said. “Is that the way to behave toward a woman?” I was on the point of saying yes when Fillmore took her by the arm and started leading her off.. “No more of that,” he said. “If you start again I’ll crack you right here in the street.”

I thought it was going to start up all over again. She had fire in her eyes. But evidently she was a bit cowed, too, for it subsided quickly. However, as she sat down at the café she said quietly and grimly that he needn’t think it was going to be forgotten so quickly; he’d hear more about it later on… perhaps tonight.

And sure enough she kept her word. When I met him the next day his face and hands were all scratched up. Seems she had waited until he got to bed and then, without a word, she had gone to the wardrobe and, dumping all his things out on the floor, she took them one by one and tore them to ribbons. As this had happened a number of times before, and as she had always sewn them up afterward, he hadn’t protested very much. And that made her angrier than ever. What she wanted was to get her nails into him, and she did, to the best of her ability. Being pregnant she had a certain advantage over him.

Poor Fillmore! It was no laughing matter. She had him terrorized. If he threatened to run away she retorted by a threat to kill him. And she said it as if she meant it. “If you go to America,” she said, “I’ll follow you! You won’t get away from me. A French girl always knows how to get vengeance.” And the next moment she would be coaxing him to be “reasonable,” to be “
sage
“,
etc.
Life would be so nice once they had the stationery store. He wouldn’t have to do a stroke of work. She would do everything. He could stay in back of the store and write—or whatever he wanted to do.

It went on like this, back and forth, a seesaw, for a few weeks or so. I was avoiding them as much as possible, sick of the affair and disgusted with the both of them. Then one fine summer’s day, just as I was passing the Credit Lyonnais, who comes marching down the steps but Fillmore. I greeted him warmly, feeling rather guilty because I had dodged him for so long. I asked him, with more than ordinary curiosity, how things were going. He answered me rather vaguely and with a note of despair in his voice.

“I’ve just gotten permission to go to the bank,” he said, in a peculiar, broken, abject sort of way. “I’ve got about half an hour, no more. She keeps tabs on me.” And he grasped my arm as if to hurry me away from the spot.