Small G: A Summer Idyll

by Patricia Highsmith

  “What a big car!”

  “You think so? No-o. Well, I’m used to it, I suppose. What kind has your—well—your friend got?”

  “Renate?” Luisa didn’t like saying her name. A VW Golf. With special brake and patrol pedals. She has a handicap—a Klumpfuss.” Luisa used the common term for it instead of talipes, which Renate preferred. Were people supposed to puzzle over what talipes meant, Luisa wondered, since Renate’s foot was hidden beneath a long skirt? “Maybe you noticed that she limps,” Luisa added, hoping that finished the subject.

  “If I did, I forgot,” Teddie said, as if he couldn’t care less. “Do you like shish kebab?”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Because I know a good place. That’s where we’re going. Ten—no, eight kilometers away. You don’t mind?”

  The summer air blew against her face, her arms, and the car rolled as smoothly as if they were flying. “No. I don’t mind. An Arab place?”

  “I think it’s French but they do a good shish kebab. Chez Henri, it’s called. Has a terrace, so it’s cool. Also a little orchestra.” Teddie laughed. “You like to dance, I know.”

  The breeze was louder in her ears than Teddie’s voice. He wore a red vest under his white jacket, which he had now unbuttoned, and Luisa thought of the girl named Dorrie with her red vest last Saturday night. This coming Saturday was the first of August, Switzerland’s National Holiday, which meant a big event at Jakob’s. Would Renate invite all her girls for an evening at Jakob’s? Bratwurst, cervelat, and bread, wine and beer. Luisa rather hoped not, but Vera had said Renate had made a party of it last year.

  “You’re very quiet. What did you do today?”

  “You want the truth?” Luisa asked.

  “Of course I do!”

  “I phoned Rickie—while I was out buying something for la fabrique. Renate calls it la fabrique, the workplace. I wanted to tell him I was seeing you tonight.”

  “Good. I’m glad.” Teddie flicked his lights and overtook a car on an upward stretch. “And the rest of the time?”

  “I worked. But I spent some time wondering how to make it this evening, what to say. To escape.”

  “To escape! Can’t you see someone for dinner? Why do you take it?”

  Luisa foresaw two awkward statements, like confessions, ahead—if she made them. She began, “Maybe I didn’t tell you. It’s not all that important, but—Renate thinks you’re schwul because she’s seen you with Rickie—or Willi has. He reports to her.”

  “Ha! Ho-ho. You can tell her I find her stuffy. Add creepy. I like Rickie, queer or not. Or don’t tell her anything!”

  Luisa was silent. She also liked Rickie. He would be a friend in case she needed one—she sensed that. Now she tensed herself for the next confession. “The other reason”—Luisa closed the window to make herself more audible—“I’m not so independent is that Renate gave me a job and a place to live last year when I ran away from Brig. I wasn’t twenty but I had to say I was—to some people, so I wouldn’t be sent back home. And Renate had to speak for me to the Schneiderin I’d been apprenticed to in Brig. My parents—mother and stepfather—well, they don’t know my address and I’m glad. I wrote to them that I’m in Zurich and OK, and I don’t think they want to ask questions. Anyway they’ve got my younger half-brother to bring up. So that’s the end of it, Teddie. Or are you Georg tonight?”

  “I’m Teddie tonight. Did you sign a contract with Renate?”

  “Not yet. She assumed I’ll sign. We have to get a legal release from the woman I was apprenticed to in Brig, you see. Renate wrote to her. Renate’s not satisfied. It’s not straightened out yet.”

  “Don’t sign it, don’t sign anything with her. She’s an oddball, you know? Liar too. Rickie told me a few things, and I believe Rickie.”

  So did Luisa believe Rickie. “Do you mean about Rickie’s friend Petey?”

  “I do. Well—I went to the newspaper archives in town yesterday. Looked it up. Peter Ritter—stabbed in a Zurich street in January, dead on arrival in hospital. The idea of a presumably sane person like Renate telling a lie about a death! Now I have to be careful so I don’t overshoot. This place is on the other side of the road.” Teddie concentrated.

  Teddie was right, Rickie was right, Luisa knew.

  He swung across the road to a small white sign that there was no time to read, and they climbed a narrow road with a couple of bends in it, and came on to a level. The lights of a long, one-story restaurant showed a terrace with tables and a parking area. Teddie parked in a row of fifteen cars or so.

  Luisa wished she was in her new pink dress, but how would she have escaped for the evening in it?

  A headwaiter came onto the terrace to greet them.

  Teddie had made a reservation for two under Stevenson, and the maître d’ seemed to know Teddie. “Is the terrace all right?”

  Teddie asked Luisa.

  Of course.

  “To drink?” Teddie asked when they were seated. “Please have something—to celebrate!” He said it as if one or the other of them had a birthday. “I had such a good day today. And now you’re—I’m with you!”

  “What I would like is a gin and tonic,” Luisa said, feeling daring.

  “Good. And I’ll join you in the tonic.” Teddie gave the order.

  “No drinking when you drive, I suppose.” Luisa meant it as a compliment.

  “Sure, I could, you know. One, anyway. But I promised my mother.” Teddie set his jaw and scowled at the menu. “Well, I know the kebab’s good, but we’ll wait. Maybe you’ll have two gin and tonics. I wrote another column,” Teddie said. “My third or fourth. ‘Georg’s Adventures,’ I call my efforts—for now. I admit the Tages-Anzeiger turned the first two down. Well, three.”

  “What kind of column?”

  “About—someone like me. Just an incident. What happens—what we’re thinking about. Even just a date like tonight. Who knows?”

  Just a date. Luisa was thinking that Teddie Stevenson looked elegant, like a young millionaire, in his fine off-white jacket and black bow tie. And she was dressed as if she had stepped out to buy a liter of milk! Her nails clean now, but devoid of polish. Yet Teddie was looking at her as if he liked her, and liked being with her.

  “As I said to Rickie Monday, I’ll give it a good try for a couple of months, this journalism. My mother thinks what I wrote—might have a chance somewhere, anyway. Or so she said. Here we go.”

  The drinks had come.

  “To you. To us,” Teddie said, lifting his glass of tonic with lemon slice.

  “To us,” Luisa said, and drank some. She imagined that she felt the gin at once. “Have you—”

  “You make—” Teddie interrupted, and smiled. “You make me think of a chestnut,” he said with determination. “All shining—somehow.”

  “A chestnut?” Luisa ducked her head, embarrassed, not knowing why. “Have you been to America? I suppose so.”

  “Tw—no, three times. New York. And once to California. I said chestnut, because your hair shines like a—”

  The waiter was back, politely inquiring about their order. Teddie thought it a good idea to order, as the shish kebab took a time. With rice. No garlic? All right, a little. A green salad. A half-bottle of good red wine for Mademoiselle. Teddie looked at the list.

  “A glass,” Luisa said.

  “No-no! A half-bottle.” Teddie was firm. “And caviar maybe?”

  Caviar. Yes. Renate—Luisa could not stop herself now from thinking of Renate indulging Luisa and herself in caviar at near Christmas time last year, and making it clear that caviar was a rare luxury.

  “Now we could dance,” Teddie said, “if you’d like.”

  Luisa wore pumps: she had had to tell Renate she meant to walk. Again, she felt the embarrassing contrast betwee
n Teddie’s garb and her own, but once he touched her waist, held her right hand, her confidence returned.

  “With a waltz,” Teddie began, “what can you do but waltz?”

  It was old-fashioned, elegant, beautiful. Teddie danced very straight, his head high. Luisa was aware that some of the people at the tables watched them. It was a dream, she felt, and just as in a dream, she had worn the wrong clothes and was ugly in contrast to Teddie. Yet people smiled at both of them.

  Then they were back at their table, Teddie holding her chair until she was seated.

  The waiter arrived with the caviar.

  “One more gin and tonic, please,” Teddie said, “and one plain tonic. Thank you.”

  “No, Teddie, I can’t! This one is enough.” She was not even finished with the first.

  Teddie yielded, and dropped the order.

  Caviar. Symbol of luxury.

  Teddie was now talking of scuba diving when he’d been fifteen. Luisa suddenly saw herself at fifteen and sixteen, as clearly as if she gazed at a film in black and white, wearing an ugly gray coverall suit like a mechanic’s, hair short and jagged, yanking her motorbike into upright position, throwing her head back as she guffawed with the local boys. They were assembling in the square, waiting for a last pal—maybe Franz, always late—before they tore off, making as much noise as possible in the small streets, rushing past private houses, scaring cats, causing drivers to blink their lights in silent fury. Luisa recalled her sense of “success” when strangers looked at her twice, as if asking themselves, “Is that a boy or a girl?” She had affected a tough gait, a rough toss of her head, an aggressive way of mounting her motorbike. Her nails—uneven and dirty! Of course! But she’d got free of her stepfather by these maneuvers—or at least they had helped. He had tried to laugh at her toughness at first, but he hadn’t been able to shake her from her intent. Freedom! Out of the house!

  Now she was dancing with Teddie to a really good song, Teddie with jacket unbuttoned and its whiteness flying, like his patent leather slippers.

  A raspberry ice each for dessert, Teddie insisted.

  Then Luisa was saying, “I must be going soon. I must.”

  Ten to eleven. The tension had returned. Not another dance tonight, she knew. She didn’t dare. The last dance had been a dare.

  “I know, I know.” Teddie said it with patience, but with annoyance too.

  There’s just so much I can get away with, Luisa thought of saying, but checked herself.

  In no time, it seemed, because the atmosphere had hardened into reality, they were back in the car, racing toward town and Aussersihl. Luisa tried to rehearse her answers, in case Renate quizzed her. She’d grown tired and had to wait an extra long time for a tram? No. Renate knew when she was trying to lie.

  “I’ll walk you to the house,” said Teddy boldly, turning off his engine, his lights. He had parked near where Luisa had met him tonight.

  “But—no, Teddie. What if she looks out the window and sees you?” Luisa’s gaze took in the length of the dark pavement under the trees—no one, and she was ready to open the car door.

  “Kiss me good night?”

  He kissed her first quickly, then gave her a longer kiss, still gentle, with a lick of his tongue between her lips. He pressed her hand against the car cushion between them. Luisa opened the door. Then Teddie was beside her, holding the door open for her.

  “Go back!” She was thinking of his very visible white jacket. “I’ll say good-bye here. Thank you, Teddie.”

  “I thank you. Go—if you must!” he whispered, clowning with arm upraised.

  Luisa walked. For a few seconds, she expected Teddie’s long brown car to glide by—he had to drive in this direction, unless he attempted a U-turn. She turned right at the next corner, not having seen him, braced in fact for the sight of Renate who just might be taking a late walk, returning from an espresso at Jakob’s, hoping to spy on her, on anyone with her. Luisa stole a glance at her wristwatch under a streetlight. Twenty-two past eleven. Not horrible, but bad enough. A mere walk along the Sihl? Yes, that was possible, if she’d stopped somewhere like a buffet-restaurant for a Coke and a frankfurter. Caviar and shish kebab! Luisa imagined that she still felt the effects of the gin and tonic and the wine.

  Luisa was suddenly at her house steps. She looked nervously at a dark figure coming from the Jakob direction, male, but it was no one she knew. Looking up, Luisa saw a light in the TV room. And she had her keys, good. She opened the front door.

  “Hello. Luisa!” This from Francesca, a plump, fiftyish woman with whom Renate sometimes chatted in Jakob’s. Francesca was walking her Pomeranian.

  “’Evening, Francesca,” Luisa replied with a smile.

  Luisa climbed the stairs. The old paneled white door opened easily. The TV was audible, a male voice.

  And Renate appeared in the TV room doorway, wearing her pink-and-white floor-length negligee and an anxious expression, hair tied back and hanging down her nape now. “Well—so—a long walk. And how was the Sihl?” The tone was not particularly hostile.

  Luisa had heard that middling tone before. It was unpredictable. She threw her shoulders back, feeling strong. “Very pleasant. A little breeze. I had a wiener and a Coke.”

  “Did you? Where?”

  “Oh—somewhere. You know. A kiosk with a couple of tables and chairs.” She could see the place. Luisa felt ever more certain as she spoke.

  “Where were you really?” Renate’s tense, slender figure, not so tall as Luisa’s, had come between Luisa and the back part of the hall, where Luisa wanted to go.

  Luisa did not hesitate. She laughed and said, “Really—taking a walk! And I enjoyed it! Excuse me, Renate.”

  Luisa moved past her, down the hall to the bathroom. She realized that she had seen something new in Renate’s face just now, heard it in her voice. It was different from uncertainty, or simple questioning, it was something like fear. Bizarre thought! Renate was fearless. She’d said so many times, not boasting but as if she stated the truth.

  Yes, she’d had a date with Teddie Stevenson, and so what? And she would see him Saturday evening too at Jakob’s! They hadn’t made a date, but he’d be there. Jakob’s was a public place, after all, and Renate couldn’t dictate who’d be admitted and who wouldn’t. She might dance with Teddie, and he might dance with another girl. And why not?

  Luisa took a delicious lukewarm shower. Renate had returned to her TV.

  She fell into bed, washed and combed, with her head full of Teddie—taking her hand gently before they stepped onto the dance floor, saying that she would have to meet his mother (why?), saying so many things that had made her smile and made her smile now. What was Teddie doing now? Would she always remind him of a chestnut? What was always? Two months?

  13

  Saturday night. Rickie had worked alone in his studio most of the day, worked well in the silence. A gentle rain around 4 P.M. had cooled the air wonderfully. Rickie worked on until after eight on the Star-Brite jobs. Finally he collapsed for several minutes on the single bed in the back room, hands behind his head.

  Would Teddie be at the Small g tonight? Should he wait and eat a bit there, instead of making something at home? If Teddie came, he’d be looking for Luisa, of course, maybe already had a date with her. Perfectly normal, Rickie told himself. He’d watch them dancing together. He couldn’t dance with Teddie, oh no. Teddie wouldn’t like that, and of course Rickie wouldn’t propose it. In a mixture of reality and fantasy about Teddie Stevenson, Teddie dancing naked and by himself, and inaudibly singing—Rickie fell asleep.

  When he lifted his head and peered at his wristwatch, it was only five past nine. He closed up shop, summoned Lulu to her lead, and walked to his apartment house. Here he gave Lulu her supper, put on a cassette of Dietrich—he loved “Johnny, wenn du Geburtstag hast”—sho
wered and got dressed. A yellow linen jacket for tonight, a nice white shirt, no tie but a good foulard at his neck, blue stay-pressed cotton trousers. Not elegant, Rickie thought, just maybe neat. He thought of the English word, which to him had many facets: adroit, clean, chic, and a bit dismissive—somehow. He felt his garb meant he was not going to try to make a conquest tonight, yet if something came along—

  The telephone rang when Rickie had his hand almost on his own doorknob. He turned back.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, Rickie! Tried to reach you twice before. This is Freddie—Freddie Schimmelmann. Remember?” A hearty laugh. “The cop!”

  Rickie’s brain spun a couple of times. Of course, Freddie the cop who’d let him off. My God, he’d been to bed with this man! “Freddie, sure—how are you?” Rickie saw again the smallish figure, the affably pleasant face curiously wrinkled at the corners of the eyes.

  “I’m fine. I’m free tonight—wondered what you’re doing. What are you doing?” Freddie’s smiling voice was suggestive of wild fun.

  Rickie thought fast, tried to. “Well, I’m—” Rickie thought of Teddie, of seeing him very likely tonight, even of possibly seeing him. He didn’t want to be tied up with Freddie, didn’t want to suggest Freddie come to the Small g tonight, because it would look as if—“I’ve got a date, to tell you the truth.”

  “Oh—not the kind I could join maybe? Are you tied up later too?”

  Rickie had to answer no to the first question, yes to the second. At the same time, he wanted to be nice to Freddie, because Freddie had been nice to him, and because Freddie might well be of help in some predicament in the future. “Another time—I’m sure. But just now I’m pretty busy, Freddie. I was working all day, that’s why I wasn’t at home.”

  Rickie had got out of that fairly easily. Freddie made sure that Rickie had his card, still, with work and home numbers. Rickie had.