by Ron Hansen
“Madame Christiansen. Très gentille.”
“She is. I love her to pieces, but she thinks things ought to be the way they were when she was a girl. She caught me with a guy in my Omaha apartment and she got so stricken! Like I was defiled.” She paused. “I’m afraid of being a fallen woman. And my heart’s desire is to fall for someone.”
The sand bunkers that fronted the sixteenth green were half a wedge shot away. Pierre sought a sympathetic response. But he sought in vain. “It is never easy, is it,” he said.
Iona noticed his vague detachment and said, “Here I am griping and doing the poor-me bit and tiring you out with the translating.”
He admitted, “English is a difficult language for me. I have not the. . . vocabulaire. I feel stupide?”
“But you’re not! I can tell. Which words were you hunting for?”
Pierre frowned with thoughtfulness and asked, “How does one say in English, ‘You have beautiful breasts’?”
Iona blushed as she looked down at her shirt and said, “Exactly like that.” After a pause, she said, “I’ll bet it’s prettier in French though.”
Pierre haughtily said, “Of course.” His hand went to her blonde hair. “The hairs. . . les cheveux.” He floated both hands onto her face and she turned it against his right palm. “Your eyes so blue . . . les yeux couleur d’azurs.” His right thumb lightly traced her lips as he whispered, “The mouth . . . la bouche.” And his mouth neared hers as he said, “The kiss . . . le baiser.” They kissed and she seemed to swoon a little. Pierre theatrically withdrew from her and settled onto the freshly mown fairway, and she got down on the fairway, too, lying half on top of him, one thigh beside his, her forearms propping her up off his chest, a hand toying with his wild mane of hair. A moon of pearl was shining down on them.
Iona asked, “How do you say you’ve got a crush on somebody?”
“A. . . crush?”
“Say you’re romantic about someone you just met.”
Pierre replied meaningfully, “J’ai le béguin pour toi.”
She said as if just practicing it, “J’ai le béguin pour toi.” She smiled shyly. “Handsome language.”
“Yes,” he said. “Very pretty.”
“This just in: I like you a lot.”
And they were about to kiss again when heavy Owen and skinny Carlo sloshed up from the fairway’s water hazard to the left, wearing miner’s lamped helmets and weedy hip waders, garden rakes and full gunnysacks in their hands.
“Ill met by moonlight,” Carlo muttered.
Owen hefted a gunnysack high and shouted, “You guys want any golf balls?” Pierre and Iona jolted up and straightened themselves. Owen said, “We got plenty.” When he only got hard stares from them, he said, “I guess we’ll be going.”
Sloshing away, Carlo’s jealousy overcame him and he yelled, “Don’t let him speak French to ya!”
Smiling, Iona got up. “Too late!”
16
At eleven P.M. Dick Tupper was standing in his silk pajamas in the night of his fancy new kitchen, the sole dull light that of the interior of the freezer as he leaned against its opened door and ate spoonful after spoonful of chocolate-chip-cookie-dough ice cream straight out of the carton. When he’d disposed of all but an inch of the pint, he finally found the discipline to lid the carton, hide it behind the hamburger patties, and shut the freezer door. Wiping his mustache dry with his hand, he then ambled to his living room in the darkened house, singing aloud in a good voice an old country-western song by Hank Williams Sr.: “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” Wrestling was on the television. He finished the Falstaff that was next to his Eames lounge chair, fumbled through three remotes until he found the one for the television, and switched it off, still singing. Entering his bedroom, he flicked on the Corbu lamp. Arrayed on an Ikea dresser were half a dozen silver-framed pictures of friends, relatives, and holiday good times. In one of them a grinning, fifteen-year-old Iona was squeezed into a photo booth with him, her sunburnt cheek against his, and sticking out her tongue as he made a gruesome face for the camera. Dick got into his wide, hard-mattressed bed and told himself, You’re so lonesome you could cry.”
17
Shambling through the first floor of the rooming house and clapping off lamps, Mrs. Christiansen encountered a pensive Natalie at the kitchen table, one hand supporting her head as the other fetched popcorn from a salad bowl. The girl wore red satin pajamas that did not do enough, Marvyl thought, to defeat her female features, but she could just hear Iona hissing Oh for gosh sakes it’s the fashion these days, so she let it go. She said, “I guess it’s awfully hard to sleep with so much going on.”
Mademoiselle Clairvaux glanced up and forced a smile. “Yes. I have much on my mind.”
“Well, you leave the food preparations to Opal and me.” Mrs. Christiansen pulled out a kitchen chair and heavily sat, with an “Oof.” She chose and rejected popcorn kernels until she found one just right. She munched with delicacy and asked, “Anything else we can do, dear?”
Natalie told her, “I was flirting just to make him jealous. And now Carlo says he’s flirting, too, and I have no idea if he means it or not. And my heart is torn over another and he’s such a wonderful man; he deserves a good wife; and I feel like I’m using him.”
Mrs. Christiansen was having trouble with pronoun antecedents. She got back to basics. “Well, the course of true love never did run smooth. You do love Pierre, don’t you?”
“Yes, I think so. And he loves me. Women will always try to have him for themselves, but in his own way he’s faithful; he’s as loyal as a shadow; and he’d do anything for me: fly here from Paris, sleep in a garage, flirt in order to make me jealous.”
Mrs. Christiansen smiled and said, “We have a great deal in common, Natalie. My Bill was like that.”
“And we’ve had so many good times together,” Natalie said. “Pierre heating caramel for a crème brûlée with a blowtorch and burning off his left eyebrow. Skidding naked down the giant dunes by the sea at Arcachon. Or just quiet evenings in the bathtub together laughing over the English descriptions he read in Wine Spectator.”
Mrs. Christiansen seemed lost in a reverie for a moment, and then said, “I feel the need to retract my last statement.”
Shoeless Iona entered the kitchen in her jean shorts and green mechanic’s workshirt.
“Oh, hello dear,” Marvyl said. “How was your evening?”
She felt uneasy with Natalie there, so she just said, “Pretty good.”
“We were just talking about the fun that Mademoiselle has with blowtorches and spectators when she’s undressed.”
Natalie flushed. “Well, not exactly.”
Iona ironically told her, “Don’t worry. We do that a lot around here. You’re gonna feel right at home.”
Mrs. Christiansen got up. “Well, now that you’re home, I think I’ll go to bed.” She headed for the kitchen staircase. “You two can stay up and chat if you like.”
Iona and Natalie just stared at each other, not saying anything, and then they both frantically hurried upstairs.
A half-hour later Iona was lying upstairs on her girlhood bed, still in her jean shorts and Owen’s green shirt, and listening to Edith Piaf stirringly singing “Non, je ne regrette rien” on her boom box. No, she translated, I regret nothing.
Natalie was lying upstairs in her red satin pajamas, unasleep and wondering if marriage would tame Pierre or just make him that much worse. She heard Edith Piaf singing down the hall. Crickets chirred in the trees. She got up and poignantly went to a screenless opened window, slightly parting the swelling drapes.
She heard a grunting noise and looked down, seeing the trellis shaking and shuddering until Pierre hove into view just below Natalie’s windowsill. Shocked, she leaned out on her hands and whispered, “What are you doing?”
Pierre got a purchase on the window frame with his left forearm and asked, “Tu vas bien?” (Are you all right?)
Natalie
nodded. “Oui.”
And Pierre nodded just like her, “Bien.”
The trellis was giving way with agonizing slowness. There was a cracking noise and Pierre hesitantly looked down.
Natalie asked, “And you? Are you all right?”
Pierre, who was hanging now, said in English, “But of course. Couldn’t be better.”
“Bien.” She considered her wristwatch. “You have now thirty-six hours to decide.” She could hear the trellis tearing away from the house one nail at a time as Pierre blithely said, “I am in no rush . . .” She backed away from the window just as the trellis broke free and Pierre pitched out of sight. There was, after a moment’s delay, a crash. Pierre whimpered.
Iona’s window sash was lifted, Edith Piaf’s singing rose in volume, and Iona leaned out on the windowsill. Natalie was posed in exactly the same way in the window next to her. Pierre put on his nothing-hurts face and weakly waved a hand, but for whom it was impossible to say. When they turned and saw each other, both women withdrew into their rooms.
Upstairs inside the house two hallway doors opened slowly. Iona and Natalie cautiously peeked from behind them, saw each other, and ducked back inside. Silence reigned for half a minute. And then a faint groan could be heard in the yard.
18
Sunrise on Friday morning, the hallway doors again opened upstairs and Natalie and Iona politely considered each other and nodded unspoken hellos. Wearing waitress uniforms, both headed for the front staircase, bumped the other’s hip aside, and then worked through a silent and apologetic “After you” pantomime before rumbling down the stairs.
Walking out of the rooming house on their way to the Main Street Café, each separately saw Mrs. Christiansen behind them in the side yard, in her nightcap and nightgown and flowered robe, a hose watering her pansies as she surveyed the trellis damage, and looked up and down the house, mystified.
Iona and Natalie hurried their steps.
Waiting outside the café were Owen, Carlo, Dick, and a seemingly hungover Pierre, still in his green “Harvey” mechanic’s shirt, his forehead bandaged and his sprained wrists wrapped. Carlo stood taller and smiled as the waitresses neared. His teeth seemed to have been tossed in his mouth like jacks.
“Sorry I’m late,” Iona said.
Carlo got jittery and said, “Oh, that’s all right, Iona. We’re just delighted to see ya. Anyways, morning comes awful early. And you need your beauty sleep. Well, actually you don’t need . . .”
Owen gave him the cutthroat sign and Carlo halted in midsentence.
Iona got out the café’s front door key and flashed a grin at Pierre as she opened up. The four men cattled in after her, and Natalie worried over her fiancé’s limp. Carlo was slouching to the kitchen and socking his head with both fists as Owen slid into his booth and said, “Carlo! You’ll want to hear this one.”
Carlo slouched over, hanging a fresh “Kiss the Cook” apron over his neck and tying it around his nothing of a waist, as Dick and Pierre skidded along the booth seat across from Owen.
Owen tilted forward and said, “A guy in a fancy neighborhood answers a knock on the front door and finds this grinning fella standing there. Says he’s out of work, needs some cash, and is there anything he can do around the house. Says he’s quite the handyman.”
“Why don’t you do him as a hairlip?” Carlo said.
“It don’t call for it, Carl,” Dick said.
Pierre slumped as if he were falling asleep.
Owen continued, “The homeowner takes pity on him. Says here’s a brush and some yellow housepaint. I’ll give you twenty dollars to paint my porch. You got it, the guy says, and the homeowner goes back to his baseball game.”
“Which?” Carlo asked.
Owen was unstymied. “Royals versus Rockies. Three to two in the fifth.”
Iona sashayed over with a saucered cup of coffee and put it in front of Pierre. He tilted forward and went for it thirstily. Carlo jerked and fidgeted and went red-faced as he leered at Iona, and behind her was Natalie, sashaying just as she did, and sliding a saucered cup to Dick. She lightly grazed his shoulder with a finger and he smiled as he watched her gracefully walk away.
“Easy on the eyes, aren’t they?” Carlo said.
Owen viewed them with mystery and went on. “Well, by the seventh-inning stretch, the homeowner hears a knock on the front door again, goes to it, and sees his happy-go-lucky handyman. ‘You done with that porch already?’ he asks, and gets out his wallet, hands over the twenty. And the fella says, ‘Wasn’t that hard with a four-inch brush. And by the way, that isn’t a Porsche. It’s a Mercedes.’”
Howling laughter and har-de-hars, Owen giggling first and longest. But Pierre was holding his face an inch from the coffee. Owen asked, “You okay, linebacker?”
Pierre scowled at him.
“We got a big day today. Eat hearty.”
Carlo headed into the kitchen. “I’ll fix you fellas Eggs Florentine.”
And then Iona and Natalie both sashayed over, carrying juice glasses filled with the extract of fresh squeezed oranges. Iona presented hers to Pierre while Natalie did likewise for Dick. There were a good many jealous glances, each of which collided with Owen. The waitresses departed. Confused by the shifting alliances, Owen spun around in his booth seat and called, “Haven’t you gals got things vice versa?”
Each of them separately smiled.
“Women,” said Pierre.
19
Owen’s gas station. Eleven A.M. A white Camry rental car pulled in and Pierre hustled out. Remarkably, another Frenchman seemed to be touring America with his family. His wife was holding their littlest child with here-there-be-monsters wariness. The dapper father timorously rolled down his window just a few inches and said, “Parlez-vous Français?” (Do you speak French?)
Pierre held his right forefinger and thumb an inch apart.
The Frenchman said, “De l’essence, s’il vous plaît.” (Gas, please.) He shot his thumb upward as he said, “Le plein.” (Fill ’er up.)
Pierre said, “D’accord. Est-ce que je vérifie l’huile?” (Okay. Shall I check the oil?)
“Non, monsieur.” And then the Frenchman was astonished at the gas station attendant’s fluency. “Habitez-vous le coin?” he asked. (Do you live around here?)
In his bored way, Pierre tilted his chin to indicate the house behind Owen’s gas station. Pierre inserted the fueling nozzle in the tank and locked the handle in the on position. Children were gaping at him from the Camry’s back seat.
With his familiar French as his protection, the driver felt safe enough to roll down his window completely and lean his head out. “Tu as presque un bon accent.” (You have a fairly good accent.)
Pierre offered him his Parisian shrug.
The Frenchman held up a map. “Y-a-t’il des choses intéressantes à voir ici?” (Are there interesting sights around here?)
Pierre told him, “Le village pionnier de Harold Warp.” (Harold Warp’s Pioneer Village.) And in a connoisseur’s lascivious aside, he whispered, “Ne manquez pas l’exposition du monkey wrench.” (Don’t miss the monkey wrench exhibit.) And then Pierre noticed Owen’s packet of chewing tobacco atop the gas pump and he stuffed a huge helping inside his cheek before he began washing the Camry’s front windshield.
Suddenly Iona was leaning on the hood next to him. She said, “Listen. We have to talk. We have to see each other. Tonight?”
Embarrassed about the chew, Pierre was unwilling to fully open his mouth. He mumbled, “Ce soir.” (Tonight.)
Tilting his head out the window, the Frenchman inquired, “Il y en a beaucoup qui parlent Français au Nebraska?” (Are there many who speak French in Nebraska?)
Pierre tapped his full left cheek and Iona got the message. The only French she could think of was, “Oui.” The whole family fell into agitated and amazed conversation, and Iona asked, “What do you have, Owen’s chew in your mouth?”
Pierre nodded.
“You l
ike it?”
Machismo compelled his agreement, though he was in fact hunting a place to spit.
“Listen,” Iona said. “We’re having a shower for Natalie tonight.”
Shower? But he couldn’t then ask if she meant what he thought she did. Wild imaginings overcame him and he knew he wanted to see this cleanliness in the worst way.
Iona said, “I’ll leave a note telling you where you can find me. Around six check the bulletin board in the café.”
Pierre held a hand to his mouth while nodding his head. Iona kissed him on his unlumped cheek and left, and Pierre immediately turned from the Camry to gratefully spew half a pint of tobacco juice and wipe his chin.
And now the friendly French were gaping at him with disappointed revulsion. The father’s side window very slowly rolled up.
Owen strolled over to handle the cash transaction, and Pierre went inside to rinse his mouth out. And when he got out to the gas pumps again, he saw he’d accidentally spit on a paper bag of sandwiches that Owen had intended to share with him. Owen got one out and painfully offered the dripping mess to him, saying, “Hungry?”
Pierre shook his head.
“Help me then.”
Owen got on a step stool and half-disappeared inside a truck on a hoist as Pierre sort of watched him, lazily holding various tools. On the garage wall was a sign that read: ANYONE FOUND AROUND HERE AT NIGHT WILL BE FOUND AROUND HERE IN THE MORNING. Owen was, for the instant, wholly absorbed in his work. He said, “Hand me those vice grips there, mon négociant.”
Yawning and guessing, Pierre handed him some gloves. A dribble of oil spattered his face from above.
Owen, seeing the gloves, said, “Yep, that’s close: vice grips/gloves. I can see that.”
Owen bent to get the tool for himself as Pierre sought something to wipe his face with. Hanging on the garage wall was a giant white towel that he used, and then he saw, to his horror, that it had emblazoned on it a bold red “N,” and below that “National Champs, 1994.” With panic, he scrubbed at the towel with his shirttail, but when he found he’d only widened the smudge, he folded and hung the memento in such a way that the oil stain would hardly show.