Dusk and Other Stories Page 5

  The days passed. In Verona the points of the steeples and then its domes rose from the mist. The white-coated waiters appeared from the kitchen. Primi, secondi, dolce. They stopped in Arezzo. Frank came back to the table. He had some postcards. Alan was trying to write to his daughter once a week. He never knew what to say: where they were and what they’d seen. Giotto—what would that mean to her?

  They sat in the car. Frank was wearing a soft tweed jacket. It was like cashmere—he’d been shopping in Missoni and everywhere, windbreakers, shoes. Schoolgirls in dark skirts were coming through an arch across the street. After a while one came through alone. She stood as if waiting for someone. Alan was studying the map. He felt the engine start. Very slowly they moved forward. The window glided down.

  “Scusi, signorina,” he heard Frank say.

  She turned. She had pure features and her face was without expression, as if a bird had turned to look, a bird which might suddenly fly away.

  Which way, Frank asked her, was the centro, the center of town? She looked one way and then the other. “There,” she said.

  “Are you sure?” he said. He turned his head unhurriedly to look more or less in the direction she was pointing.

  “Si,” she said.

  They were going to Siena, Frank said. There was silence. Did she know which road went to Siena?

  She pointed the other way.

  “Alan, you want to give her a ride?” he asked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Two men in white smocks like doctors were working on the wooden doors of the church. They were up on top of some scaffolding. Frank reached back and opened the rear door.

  “Do you want to go for a ride?” he asked. He made a little circular motion with his finger.

  They drove through the streets in silence. The radio was playing. Nothing was said. Frank glanced at her in the rearview mirror once or twice. It was at the time of a famous murder in Poland, the killing of a priest. Dusk was falling. The lights were coming on in shop windows and evening papers were in the kiosks. The body of the murdered man lay in a long coffin in the upper right corner of the Corriere Della Sera. It was in clean clothes like a worker after a terrible accident.

  “Would you like an aperitivo?” Frank asked over his shoulder.

  “No,” she said.

  They drove back to the church. He got out for a few minutes with her. His hair was very thin, Alan noticed. Strangely, it made him look younger. They stood talking, then she turned and walked down the street.

  “What did you say to her?” Alan asked. He was nervous.

  “I asked if she wanted a taxi.”

  “We’re headed for trouble.”

  “There’s not going to be any trouble,” Frank said.

  His room was on the corner. It was large, with a sitting area near the windows. On the wooden floor there were two worn oriental carpets. On a glass cabinet in the bathroom were his hairbrush, lotions, cologne. The towels were a pale green with the name of the hotel in white. She didn’t look at any of that. He had given the portiere forty thousand lire. In Italy the laws were very strict. It was nearly the same hour of the afternoon. He kneeled to take off her shoes.

  He had drawn the curtains but light came in around them. At one point she seemed to tremble, her body shuddered. “Are you all right?” he said.

  She had closed her eyes.

  Later, standing, he saw himself in the mirror. He seemed to have thickened around the waist. He turned so that it was less noticeable. He got into bed again but was too hasty. “Basta,” she finally said.

  They went down later and met Alan in a café. It was hard for him to look at them. He began to talk in a foolish way. What was she studying at school, he asked. For God’s sake, Frank said. Well, what did her father do? She didn’t understand.

  “What work does he do?”

  “Furniture,” she said.

  “He sells it?”

  “Restauro.”

  “In our country, no restauro,” Alan explained. He made a gesture. “Throw it away.”

  “I’ve got to start running again,” Frank decided.

  The next day was Saturday. He had the portiere call her number and hand him the phone.

  “Hello, Eda? It’s Frank.”

  “I know.”

  “What are you doing?”

  He didn’t understand her reply.

  “We’re going to Florence. You want to come to Florence?” he said. There was a silence. “Why don’t you come and spend a few days?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Why not?”

  In a quieter voice she said, “How do I explain?”

  “You can think of something.”

  At a table across the room children were playing cards while three well-dressed women, their mothers, sat and talked. There were cries of excitement as the cards were thrown down.

  “Eda?”

  She was still there. “Si,” she said.

  In the hills they were burning leaves. The smoke was invisible but they could smell it as they passed through, like the smell from a restaurant or paper mill. It made Frank suddenly remember childhood and country houses, raking the lawn with his father long ago. The green signs began to say Firenze. It started to rain. The wipers swept silently across the glass. Everything was beautiful and dim.

  They had dinner in a restaurant of plain rooms, whitewashed, like vaults in a cellar. She looked very young. She looked like a young dog, the white of her eyes was that pure. She said very little and played with a strip of pink paper that had come off the menu.

  In the morning they walked aimlessly. The windows displayed things for women who were older, in their thirties at least, silk dresses, bracelets, scarves. In Fendi’s was a beautiful coat, the price beneath in small metal numbers.

  “Do you like it?” he asked. “Come on, I’ll buy it for you.”

  He wanted to see the coat in the window, he told them inside.

  “For the signorina?”

  “Yes.”

  She seemed uncomprehending. Her face was lost in the fur. He touched her cheek through it.

  “You know how much that is?” Alan said. “Four million five hundred thousand.”

  “Do you like it?” Frank asked her.

  She wore it continually. She watched the football matches on television in it, her legs curled beneath her. The room was in disorder, they hadn’t been out all day.

  “What do you say to leaving here?” Alan asked unexpectedly. The announcers were shouting in Italian. “I thought I’d like to see Spoleto.”

  “Sure. Where is it?” Frank said. He had his hand on her knee and was rubbing it with the barest movement, as one might a dozing cat.

  The countryside was flat and misty. They were leaving the past behind them, unwashed glasses, towels on the bathroom floor. There was a stain on his lapel, Frank noticed in the dining room. He tried to get it off as the headwaiter grated fresh Parmesan over each plate. He dipped the corner of his napkin in water and rubbed the spot. The table was near the doorway, visible from the desk. Eda was fixing an earring.

  “Cover it with your napkin,” Alan told him.

  “Here, get this off, will you?” he asked Eda.

  She scratched at it quickly with her fingernail.

  “What am I going to do without her?” Frank said.

  “What do you mean, without her?”

  “So this is Spoleto,” he said. The spot was gone. “Let’s have some more wine.” He called the waiter. “Senta. Tell him,” he said to Eda.

  They laughed and talked about old times, the days when they were getting eight hundred dollars a week and working ten, twelve hours a day. They remembered Weyland and the veins in his nose. The word he always used was “vivid,” testimony a bit too vivid, far too vivid, a rather vivid decor.

  They left talking loudly. Eda was close between them in her huge coat. “Alla rovina,” the clerk at the front desk muttered as they reached the street, “alle macerie,
” he said, the girl at the switchboard looked over at him, “alla polvere.” It was something about rubbish and dust.

  The mornings grew cold. In the garden there were leaves piled against the table legs. Alan sat alone in the bar. A waitress, the one with the mole on her lip, came in and began to work the coffee machine. Frank came down. He had an overcoat across his shoulders. In his shirt without a tie he looked like a rich patient in some hospital. He looked like a man who owned a produce business and had been playing cards all night.

  “So, what do you think?” Alan said.

  Frank sat down. “Beautiful day,” he commented. “Maybe we ought to go somewhere.”

  In the room, perhaps in the entire hotel, their voices were the only sound, irregular and low, like the soft strokes of someone sweeping. One muted sound, then another.

  “Where’s Eda?”

  “She’s taking a bath.”

  “I thought I’d say good-bye to her.”

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “I think I’m going home.”

  “What happened?” Frank said.

  Alan could see himself in the mirror behind the bar, his sandy hair. He looked pale somehow, nonexistent. “Nothing happened,” he said. She had come into the bar and was sitting at the other end of the room. He felt a tightness in his chest. “Europe depresses me.”

  Frank was looking at him. “Is it Eda?”

  “No. I don’t know.” It seemed terribly quiet. Alan put his hands in his lap. They were trembling.

  “Is that all it is? We can share her,” Frank said.

  “What do you mean?” He was too nervous to say it right. He stole a glance at Eda. She was looking at something outside in the garden.

  “Eda,” Frank called, “do you want something to drink? Cosa vuoi?” He made a motion of glass raised to the mouth. In college he had been a great favorite. Shuford had been shortened to Shuf and then Shoes. He had run in the Penn Relays. His mother could trace her family back for six generations.

  “Orange juice,” she said.

  They sat there talking quietly. That was often the case, Eda had noticed. They talked about business or things in New York.

  When they came back to the hotel that night, Frank explained it. She understood in an instant. No. She shook her head. Alan was sitting alone in the bar. He was drinking some kind of sweet liqueur. It wouldn’t happen, he knew. It didn’t matter anyway. Still, he felt shamed. The hotel above his head, its corridors and quiet rooms, what else were they for?

  Frank and Eda came in. He managed to turn to them. She seemed impassive—he could not tell. What was this he was drinking, he finally asked? She didn’t understand the question. He saw Frank nod once slightly, as if in agreement. They were like thieves.

  In the morning the first light was blue on the window glass. There was the sound of rain. It was leaves blowing in the garden, shifting across the gravel. Alan slipped from the bed to fasten the loose shutter. Below, half hidden in the hedges, a statue gleamed white. The few parked cars shone faintly. She was asleep, the soft, heavy pillow beneath her head. He was afraid to wake her. “Eda,” he whispered, “Eda.”

  Her eyes opened a bit and closed. She was young and could stay asleep. He was afraid to touch her. She was unhappy, he knew, her bare neck, her hair, things he could not see. It would be a while before they were used to it. He didn’t know what to do. Apart from that, it was perfect. It was the most natural thing in the world. He would buy her something himself, something beautiful.

  In the bathroom he lingered at the window. He was thinking of the first day they had come to work at Weyland, Braun—he and Frank. They would become inseparable. Autumn in the gardens of the Veneto. It was barely dawn. He would always remember meeting Frank. He couldn’t have done these things himself. A young man in a cap suddenly came out of a doorway below. He crossed the driveway and jumped onto a motorbike. The engine started, a faint blur. The headlight appeared and off he went, delivery basket in back. He was going to get the rolls for breakfast. His life was simple. The air was pure and cool. He was part of that great, unchanging order of those who live by wages, whose world is unlit and who do not realize what is above.

  FOREIGN SHORES

  Mrs. Pence and her white shoes were gone. She had left two days before, and the room at the top of the stairs was empty, cosmetics no longer littering the dresser, the ironing board finally taken down. Only a few scattered hairpins and a dusting of talcum remained. The next day Truus came with two suitcases and splotched cheeks. It was March and cold. Christopher met her in the kitchen as if by accident. “Do you shoot people?” he asked.

  She was Dutch and had no work permit, it turned out. The house was a mess. “I can pay you $135 a week,” Gloria told her.

  Christopher didn’t like her at first, but soon the dishes piled on the counter were washed and put away, the floor was swept, and things were more or less returned to order—the cleaning girl came only once a week. Truus was slow but diligent. She did the laundry, which Mrs. Pence who was a registered nurse had always refused to do, shopped, cooked meals, and took care of Christopher. She was a hard worker, nineteen, and in sulky bloom. Gloria sent her to Elizabeth Arden’s in Southampton to get her complexion cleared up and gave her Mondays and one night a week off.

  Gradually Truus learned about things. The house, which was a large, converted carriage house, was rented. Gloria, who was twenty-nine, liked to sleep late, and burned spots sometimes appeared in the living room rug. Christopher’s father lived in California, and Gloria had a boyfriend named Ned. “That son of a bitch,” she often said, “might as well forget about seeing Christopher again until he pays me what he owes me.”

  “Absolutely,” Ned said.

  When the weather became warmer Truus could be seen in the village in one shop or another or walking along the street with Christopher in tow. She was somewhat drab. She had met another girl by then, a French girl, also an au pair, with whom she went to the movies. Beneath the trees with their new leaves the expensive cars glided along, more of them every week. Truus began taking Christopher to the beach. Gloria watched them go off. She was often still in her bathrobe. She waved and drank coffee. She was very lucky. All her friends told her and she knew it herself: Truus was a prize. She had made herself part of the family.

  “Truus knows where to get pet mices,” Christopher said.

  “To get what?”

  “Little mices.”

  “Mice,” Gloria said.

  He was watching her apply makeup, which fascinated him. Face nearly touching the mirror, intent, she stroked her long lashes upward. She had a great mass of blonde hair, a mole on her upper lip with a few untouched hairs growing from it, a small blemish on her forehead, but otherwise a beautiful face. Her first entrance was always stunning. Later you might notice the thin legs, aristocratic legs she called them, her mother had them, too. As the evening wore on her perfection diminished. The gloss disappeared from her lips, she misplaced earrings. The highway patrol all knew her. A few weeks before she had driven into a ditch on the way home from a party and walked down Georgica Road at three in the morning, breaking two panes of glass to get in the kitchen door.

  “Her friend knows where to get them,” Christopher said.

  “Which friend?”

  “Oh, just a friend,” Truus said.

  “We met him.”

  Gloria’s eyes shifted from their own reflection to rest for a moment on that of Truus who was watching no less absorbed.

  “Can I have some mices?” Christopher pleaded.

  “Hmm?”

  “Please.”

  “No, darling.”

  “Please!”

  “No, we have enough of our own as it is.”

  “Where?”

  “All over the house.”

  “Please!”

  “No. Now stop it.” To Truus she remarked casually, “Is it a boyfriend?”

  “It’s no one,” Truus said. “Just someone I met.”
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br />   “Well, just remember you have to watch yourself. You never know who you’re meeting, you have to be careful.” She drew back slightly and examined her eyes, large and black-rimmed. “Just thank God you’re not in Italy,” she said.

  “Italy?”

  “You can’t even walk out on the street there. You can’t even buy a pair of shoes, they’re all over you, touching and pawing.”

  It happened outside Dean and DeLuca’s when Christopher insisted on carrying the bag and just past the door had dropped it.

  “Oh, look at that,” Truus said in irritation. “I told you not to drop it.”

  “I didn’t drop it. It slipped.”

  “Don’t touch it,” she warned. “There’s broken glass.”

  Christopher stared at the ground. He had a sturdy body, bobbed hair, and a cleft in his chin like his banished father’s. People were walking past them. Truus was annoyed. It was hot, the store was crowded, she would have to go back inside.

  “Looks like you had a little accident,” a voice said. “Here, what’d you break? That’s all right, they’ll exchange it. I know the cashier.”

  When he came out again a few moments later he said to Christopher, “Think you can hold it this time?”

  Christopher was silent.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Well, tell him,” Truus said. Then after a moment, “His name is Christopher.”

  “Too bad you weren’t with me this morning, Christopher. I went to a place where they had a lot of tame mice. Ever seen any?”

  “Where?” Christopher said.

  “They sit right in your hand.”

  “Where is it?”

  “You can’t have a mouse,” Truus said.

  “Yes, I can.” He continued to repeat it as they walked along. “I can have anything I want,” he said.