by James Jones
Well, I had known that hotel man to say hello to a good ten years. So had Harry Gallagher. I had had friends from America stay in his place. So had Harry. It was cheap, and clean, and quite presentable, if it was a little old-fashioned. But that only gave it charm. In other words, I was certainly not any stranger to the man—who, incidentally, did not own the place. It was owned by his great-aunt, whom I had never seen (she didn’t live on the Island) and who allowed him to live there and run it for her. She gave him his board and keep, and some small salary I guess. The gossip along the street was that if he did not mess up and make her mad he stood a good chance to inherit the whole thing since there was no other living relative—always provided of course that the old lady did not outlive him. She apparently seemed intent upon doing so. And the poor man drank much too much, apparently out of frustration.
Well, when I looked him in the eye and asked for Samantha Everton, he gave me such a peculiar look as I have seldom had since my college prankster days.
“Ah, out! Ah, oui, M’sieu ’Artley,” he said. “Bonjour, M’sieu ’Art-ley! La petite, uh, Américaine! Allez! Montez! Allez monter.”
Go right on up, he was saying.
“She is a friend of all of ours,” I said in French.
“I understand!” he said. “I understand! M’sieu Gallagher was just here, last night. And his son the night before.”
Was there a faint gleam deep in his eye? Or did I only think I saw it, because of some guilt in me? I hasten to add, some guilt in me for Harry.
“C’est la chambre cinquante-trois,” he said. “Au cinquième étage.”
The fifth floor was the top one, and up there under the eaves there were only three doors. Fifty-three was the third one, on the left. When I got to the landing I stopped to get my breath before I knocked. When I did knock, a voice which I recognized as Sam’s said, immediately, “Come on in.”
So I opened the door.
She was lying on the one bed on her back absolutely stark, bare-ass naked with her hands along her flanks palms down and her feet together like a springboard diver. Her head was turned toward me at the door. She grinned with flashing white teeth in her dark face in the half gloom of the little room.
“Why, hello there, Mr. Hartley,” she said. She didn’t move a muscle. She certainly didn’t try to cover herself. I noted that the bed was a three-quarter one, and that it was already made, including the coverlet.
I was so taken aback that whatever I had meant to say to her completely fled my mind, the way an avalanche flees beneath your feet. I remember that I closed the door rather quickly.
I fumbled with my umbrella foolishly, looking for someplace to put it, in order to gain some time.
“I’m sorry I don’t have an umbrella stand,” Sam said, without moving. “Put it anywhere. Then sit down. Sit down, sit down. What brings you here, Mr. Hartley?”
I did not sit down, but seconds later I was sorry I hadn’t. It would have been much more cool. So I tried to brazen it out standing, and gave her a long and detailed cool inspection.
She had medium large nipples, with definitive but not very protruding paps, and even lying down her breasts were so young and firm at 19 that they did not appear to slide down toward her armpits at all. Her navel was a shadowed indentation in the flat concavity of her belly that actually dropped below the level of her hipbones, the way she was lying. She took a couple of deep breaths that raised her chest and dropped it without even moving the concavity of her belly.
Ah, youth! Youth. One never knows how much it’s worth until one’s lost it; not, at least, in my set. But the most extraordinary thing was her crotch, her bush. It had an amazingly thick, lush growth so black it seemed almost blue, as the black night sky is blue. A hairy triangle of such thickness and depth that you felt you might never be able to find your way through that jungle. But the amazing thing was that it wasn’t curly. It was, instead, sort of spiky. You felt it might put out your eyes, if you were not careful. I had never seen a female whose crotch hair, whose bush, was not curly.
“Who was it you were expecting?” I said coolly.
“I wasn’t expecting anybody,” she said, in what I thought a rather languorous way. “Harry’s out working. Or sleeping at home.”
“Hill, then?” I said.
“I haven’t seen Hill since before the trip to Cannes,” she smiled.
“He was here the night before last.”
“Ah, yes. But I did not see him. Harry was here, too. Hill did not get in. He beat on the door a while and then left.”
“Oh, God!” I said. I couldn’t help it. Even though I knew it was losing my cool.
“Would you like to fuck me, Mr. Hartley?” she said. There was a distinct languor in her voice now, and she suddenly turned her hands over, palms up.
“No, thank you,” I said. “I simply came to talk.”
“Maybe you would like to go down on me, then.”
“No.”
“Would you like me to masturbate you?”
“Really, no. But thank you,” I said.
“You’re really pretty much of a bust, Mr. Hartley,” she smiled, even more languorously.
“I don’t think you understand that I have other things on my mind.” I felt I was maintaining my cool, now.
She only stared at me. “Maybe you would like to watch me masturbate?”
“I, uh.” I was confused, and I stumbled. “Really, no.” It would not be honest to say that I was not somewhat excited by her.
“Different people have different bags,” she said, still in that languorous way. Then suddenly her voice changed, and sharpened. It became a command voice. “Sit down! Sit down in that chair there! Right now! Sit down! Mama is going to punish you! Sit down, I said!”
For a moment I was almost carried away. I sat down.
“Mama’s going to punish you,” Samantha Everton said. Then her voice softened. “Mama is going to masturbate herself, and you must sit there and watch, as your punishment. And you’re not allowed to do anything. You cannot touch yourself. You can only watch.”
She had opened her legs, languorously, and was manipulating herself with her first two fingers. Her head was turned to the side, and her eyes were closed. She crooned to herself. I had never been with a Negro lady, a colored lady. Her inside flesh was not bright pink at all, it was dark brown. I was seriously afraid I was going to lose control of myself. Then, suddenly, or it seemed suddenly to me, though it may not have been so quickly as I thought at the time, she screamed.
It was not a loud scream, and it was very low in tone. It was certainly no soprano. It was more like a contralto scream, if one could say that. Then she snapped her legs back together in that pose of a springboard diver and looked over at me. She ran the fingertips of her two hands lightly over her nipples. “Now would you like to fuck me, baby boy?”
“I would love to,” I said, trying to make it cool. But my voice was trembling, and she knew it as well as I. “I really would, and that’s the God’s truth. But I really did come to talk.”
“You really are quite some cat,” she said. “That one always knocks Harry dead. Okay, talk.”
“Would you mind if I took off my trenchcoat?” I asked. “I really do feel quite warm.”
“I wouldn’t wonder,” she said. “No, go ahead. Then talk. I’m perfectly comfortable, myself.”
I have often thought that hypocrisy is really strictly the province of youth. I swear I am convinced it is all a question of sheer physical stamina. We older people simply do not have the energy to lead a life of true duplicity. It requires youth and its marvelous, unbelievable, boundless energy to do that. That is why we older ones get crotchety and go around telling people the truth. We are simply too tired, too worn out not to be honest.
But it is hard for youth, with its energy, to understand that. It takes time and the ageing process itself to get to know what that is like. It takes just plain years passing. And that is exactly what you cannot have when you ar
e young, no matter how hard you holler.
I simply could not get one honest word out of that girl, no matter how hard I tried.
“Do you have any idea at all what you are doing to the Gallagher family?” I said.
“No,” she said. That was already a lie. “And if I did, I wouldn’t give a damn.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “I believe you know, and what’s more, I believe you give a damn. A very large damn. I think you know exactly what you are doing, and that you are doing it deliberately—for some personal reason which I do not fully understand.”
She smiled, flashing white in sweet dark face. “If some guy wants to fuck me, is that my fault? If some guy likes to go to bed with me and my little French girlfriend, is that my fault?”
“It could be,” I said. “And in your case, I think it is. You flirt. Who was it suggested that you go to bed with Harry and Louisa together? It was you. You put the idea in his head, about him and you and another girl.”
“I disagree,” she said simply. “The idea was already there.”
“Perhaps. As a matter of fact, true. It was there. But it was buried. It was controlled. You deliberately stimulated it and brought it to the surface. Deliberately.”
She smiled again. She really did have a lovely, black, spiky crotch. She said, “You can’t make somebody feel something that they don’t already have a hankering to feel.”
“No. Maybe not. But you can help them to control it. That’s what civilization is. Control. Self-control, finally. That’s what the result of any really deep education is, finally. Education is not only getting knowledge, it’s learning control. That is civilization.”
“Fuck civilization,” Sam said. “I don’t give a shit for civilization.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you didn’t have it all around you, protecting you,” I said.
“Maybe I would. Yes, I would. I don’t give a damn how long I live. Or how soon I die.”
“Why?” It snapped, exploded out of me. But before she could even answer, I interrupted myself and went on. “Look. I’ve known this family a long time. I’ve followed their fortunes, as they say, for more than ten years. I’m practically Hill’s Godfather. I am McKenna’s Godfather. I used to take him fishing, for Christ’s sake.”
“Fishing!” Samantha jeered.
“Never mind. What I’m trying to say is that you’ve already, as far as I can see, successfully ruined that boy. And now you’re about to do the same thing to his father. They’re not even speaking to each other, because of you. God only knows where Hill is now.”
“I didn’t ruin him,” Sam said in a clear voice. She had not moved her hands from along her flanks since she had had her little orgasm. “Life did. If he can’t handle life when it comes around the corner and gibbers at him, that aint my responsibility.”
“Where did you learn that word?” I said.
“Gibbers,” she repeated, and smiled. “Oh, I’ve read a little, Mr. Hartley. My mama sent me to some pretty ritzy schools. I even read a couple copies of your Review. They aint much good. You did not answer me.”
“What you say is true,” I said. “In a way. In one way. But the whole process, the whole point of civilization is to help each other make life less cruel. Not more cruel.”
“Horseshit, Mr. Hartley,” Sam said. “You are full of it.”
Actually, I felt I was myself. I felt she was absolutely right. I had somehow gotten way out of my depth with all this do-gooder talk. I hadn’t meant to. But somehow she had led me right that way. “Probably you’re right. In fact, I think you are right. Look, all I’m asking, all I came here to talk to you about, is to ask you to leave, get out of Paris now. You’ve got the money to get to Israel. From Harry. I can get you on a plane, if you can’t do it yourself, which I’m sure you can. Just to leave. That’s all. Before Louisa Gallagher finds out about you and Harry. Okay?”
“The answer is no, Mr. Hartley. N O, no.”
“What if I killed you?” I said. I could hardly believe it was me talking. But I was furious. “I could, you know. Easily. Right now.”
“So go ahead,” she said, and smiled. “It wouldn’t solve anything. And you know it. I told you, I don’t give a shit how long I live, or how soon I die.”
I moved my head. “I’m not the killing type, anyway,” I said. I had to grin.
“I know,” Samantha said. “And you are not the solving type, either. You just float.”
“Well,” I said. “Will you at least think about what I said?”
“I’ll tell you something,” Sam said, and smiled at me again. It is hard to describe the striking quality, the beauty if you will, of the flashing white of her teeth in the dark of her face in that gloom-covered room. “I’ll tell you something, Mr. Hartley. All of you white motherfuckers are out after my little old black ass. Don’t you think I know? You want to fuck it, fondle it, eat it, rub your noses in it. And then you’ll go away, go home, and pretend you didn’t do it, pretend you didn’t even think it.” She stopped, and the time seemed to run on—as if there should have been more for her to say.
“Do I appear like that to you?” I said, finally. “After what’s already happened here?”
“Sure,” she said. “You want it. You’re just a coward, that’s all. I had you misjudged. You’re not a fag. You’re just a coward.”
I got up. My old trenchcoat was across the room. I got it, and my umbrella. “Well,” I said, “I suppose I’ll see you at the Gallaghers tonight.”
“Probably,” Sam said. Once again she turned her hands over, palms up, an offering. “Wouldn’t you like to fuck me, Mr. Hartley? Or suck my cunt? Or let me jerk you off? Or masturbate me?”
I was at a loss. I did want to. Anything. Everything. “Maybe later,” I said, trying to be cool. But she could tell. I was sure she could tell. “See you later,” I said.
As I went out, the hotel man saluted me with a wave of his hand to his forehead. Half a salute. I was sure he thought I had been up there having sex with “la petite, uh, Américaine”.
21
THE HARSH FIERCE SUMMERS and harsh fierce winters of New York and Ohio would make cloud-covered France a melancholy place for any American. They wrote about the rain all through World War I. At least two generations of Americans have used French weather as a large part of their literary capital. Especially Northern France. Every kilometer north and east that you get from Paris you find the French more and more like the Germans: melancholy, alcoholic, therefore intensely military, big eaters of pig sausages against the long, gloomy, dull and chilly winters, big eaters of fats, big eaters period. I remember coming out of a Berlin nightclub half-stoned one night at about one-thirty and finding it was daylight already. That would make a gloomy kook out of anybody. New York City is on just about the same latitude as Madrid, Spain.
As a matter of fact they didn’t have central heating anywhere in Europe until we Americans introduced them to it. That’s why the Scots make such great sweaters. And yet, after you’ve lived there long enough, you find those gray cloud-covered days no longer depress even that eternal and oppressive American optimism we have. The gray drizzly cloud-cover becomes a natural, and pleasurable, part of life.
But even so, anywhere above the Loire Valley a sunny day always comes as a bonus.
On Saturday it tried hard to be a bad day but couldn’t make it. That was the Saturday of June the 1st. It was as if the old sorcerer mon Général had made up some witches’ brew to make it go his way. Cloudy early in the morning, by nine the sun stood forth up there in all his glory, making his own personal contribution to the making of le Général’s Pentecostal weekend. It did not rain.
On Saturday Harry took me with him out to the Boulogne studios to get the student film developed, as well as his own. He wanted to see some rushes of his stuff, and at the same time get some idea of what the student stuff was like.
He had told me it would be early. Well, it was. Friday night he told me to meet him outsid
e his place at seven-thirty. When I got there at seven-thirty-one-and-a-half, he was pacing up and down the quai in front of his car, a cigarette dangling from his mouth. In that early morning light, which comes from the east and therefore makes shadows slanting to the west, a thing my eye is not at all used to (being used to afternoon shadows that slant the other way: to the east), I noticed Harry had a very cruel mouth. It was sort of like the mouth of an Arab pasha as the Victorians used to draw them: thick, sensual, curving with a sense of power not to be stopped. That might have pleased Harry, if I had told him (which I didn’t). But it didn’t please me. Maybe the son of a bitch ought to go to Israel or someplace.
We did not talk much on the way out. It was a long drive, through the Bois and further. Harry smoked, squinting as he drove. There was a big student march set up for Saturday, but we would not be able to get to it. But Harry had his two student crews shooting it just the same. He was worried about their work, he said.
“I’m really concerned about the way they shoot,” he said. “They’re terribly sloppy. They seem to feel that if they just get a picture of it, any old damn kind, it will be enough. That’s why I want to get a look at rushes of the stuff they’ve done up to now.”
At the studios in Boulogne it was weird. I had been out there before with Harry when he was working on some production or other. It had always been teeming with people and excitement and hollering. Now it was nearly empty. Only a skeleton force occupied the place. We were met at the gate and required to identify ourselves beyond doubt. Then we wandered through empty halls and corridors and sound stages where high ceilings flung back to us our own footsteps with a frightening hollowness. In the labs three guys from Harry’s union who were going to do the work met us; and Harry gave them the cans of film.
“Now there’s nothing to do but wait it out,” he said to me. “It will take them till two to get it developed and ready to look at. There’s a student meeting at four where I’m supposed to show the stuff. They’ll work right on, all through lunch. But you and I might as well go for a long walk and have a couple of drinks and then have a bite of lunch.” That was what we did. We were back by two-fifteen. When we got through all those empty corridors and sound stages to where Harry’s guy was working, the technician gave Harry a look and shook his head.