In Search of Love and Beauty

by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

  “Come on,” he said. “Don’t disappoint me.” He meant don’t disappoint me in the estimate of your character, but she thought he meant about the hundred dollars.

  “It’s a lot,” she said cautiously.

  That made him laugh: after all he had been saying—after all these plans he had unfolded before her that were going to shake humanity to its foundations, she balked at a paltry sum like that! He took his hat and perched it on his blond curls and then lifted it again in farewell as he turned to leave.

  Of course she called him back, but grudgingly; and grudgingly she got her handbag and opened it only enough to draw out her wallet. “I can let you have twenty-five,” she said.

  “Fifty?” he said, watching her with amusement as she drew out the notes with cautious, counting fingers. (She was a big generous woman, physically and in every other way, except with hard cash.) She drew out two tens and a five, and when he waited—amused, tender, watching her—she added another ten and then she quickly shut her wallet and slipped it back into her bag and snapped the clasp shut, looking at him defiantly. He pocketed the money cheerfully and patted her hip with a gesture that was already proprietary. Her caution with money appealed to him; it was the same as his own and showed a good housewifely quality to be esteemed in the woman he already instinctively knew would be as much a wife to him as he would ever need.

  In the ensuing years, other women opened their purses much wider to him; he took their money and despised them for their carelessness. That didn’t mean he let Louise off. He was always making her give more than she wanted to—that ten dollars extra was played over and over again between them. He liked sometimes to tease, sometimes to bully it out of her. What made her madder than anything was when he got it out of Bruno. Bruno was as impressionable as she was; and having been born to money, he was much more generous with it. All Leo had to do was closet himself with him in the study and, making a very serious face, explain the details of some scheme for which he needed a sizable check. And Bruno, also very serious, would write out that check in his slow, clear hand while Louise listened outside the door. When Leo came out, she would attack him: “What did he give you? Why do you ask him?” Leo showed her the check from just far enough away for her not to be able to read it. When she came closer, he moved off farther, walking backward, and they continued that way through the apartment and out of it to the elevator. With his luck of the devil, the elevator always happened to be just there, waiting for him, and he got into it and the elevator man shut the grille while Leo kissed his fingers at Louise and sank out of sight.

  Very much a city person, Bruno had learned late in life to love trees. This may have been because he had so much time and opportunity to be among them. It became his habit to go for long walks, and always in Central Park, crossing the intervening West Side streets as quickly as possible, as though they were hostile territory. But once in the park he seemed happy: he strolled, he sauntered, he sat on benches, he looked at the water. In the winter he wore spats and an overcoat with a fur collar; in the summer lightweight suits of dove-gray and a dove-gray Homburg. When Marietta was small, she sometimes accompanied him; she walked sedately, her white-gloved hand in his. When they met acquaintances—which was rarely—he raised his hat and inclined in a small bow; he encouraged her to curtsy but she felt a fool doing it, so he didn’t insist. He pointed out the beauty of the trees to her, and other fine sights; they looked at the animals in the zoo but did not participate in any of the amusements such as pony rides and carousels. When she was with him, Marietta felt such things to be beneath her dignity; she didn’t even want any ice cream or popcorn or anything and looked scornfully at other children eating them and spoiling their clothes.

  She and Bruno had grown-up conversations. He told her about planets and stars and geological formations and other facts he had learned from books. He went often to the library and read up these facts of nature and the universe. He also read the newspapers very carefully every day and shared with her the information he had gathered there. He encouraged her to ask questions and never pretended to know the answers when he didn’t; instead he said he would look it up or think about it, and he kept his promise, so that often she received an answer to her question a week or two after she had asked it.

  Once she asked, “Why does he have to be there?” She was referring to Leo whom they had left at home with Louise. In fact, Marietta had a distinct impression that that was why she and her father had gone out on this walk. She had wanted to stay home and play with her new wooden menagerie, but Bruno had gently helped her into her little fur coat and buttoned up her gaiters and fastened her hat under her chin. It was snowing outside.

  In the park, Bruno didn’t want her to speak so that no cold snow should enter her mouth and throat. He made her hold up her muff against her face. But they enjoyed it—the cold flakes falling so evenly, and the pure glittery foamy snow that was beginning to be powdered along the paths and on their shoes and on the stark branches of the trees stretched out against the sky which shone like a dull sheet of metal. When they left the park, they got a cab on Fifth Avenue, but instead of taking her home, Bruno took her to the Old Vienna where she drank hot chocolate with whipped cream and had the cake trolley come around several times.

  However, a week or two later, on another walk, Bruno talked about Leo. The snow had melted by this time, leaving the earth brown and fresh with here and there little white pools ingrained in it. The lake was frozen and people on skates were skimming over it, their cheeks pink, and colored scarves flying. Bruno said that it was a privilege to have Leo staying in the apartment; that Leo was founding an important movement to make people better; and for this he needed and deserved all the help that anyone could give him. In his own case, Bruno said, the help given was small, nothing more than making calls for him, taking messages, giving some monetary contribution and keeping a room in the apartment always prepared. Bruno was very glad to do that; and Marietta should also be glad to do any little service asked of her—as, for instance, this morning, why had she been so cross when Leo had asked her to get the apricot jam for him from the sideboard? These were all little services they should be proud to render.

  “And mother?” Marietta asked.

  Bruno smiled. There was always something sad about him, even—no, especially—in his smile. But what he said was upbeat, joyful: “Oh, we must be so proud of her. She is a very extraordinary person. I, unfortunately, am not an extraordinary person—no, darling, you’re very kind, but I’m not. You see, if I had been an ambassador—or general—or a senator—then she could have had her rightful place. But as you know I’m just an ordinary man—husband and father.” Marietta made him stand still so she could kiss his wet cheek. He continued, still smiling: “For me, of course, it’s enough. I’m happy and grateful. But for her—for her sake, darling—she needs more. She is big, and so is Leo,” he concluded with a sweep of his small hand in its fine leather glove.

  Marietta did not mention a scene she had witnessed that very morning while he was out for his walk. She had made a play corner for herself between the Japanese screen and the wall in the salon and, engrossed in her game, gave no thought to anyone else in the apartment. She presumed her mother was at home, and since it was so quiet, she presumed that Leo had gone out. When Louise opened her bedroom door and called for her, she didn’t answer, unwilling to have her game disturbed; but when she heard Leo say—also from the bedroom—“She’s gone out with Bruno,” it became a matter of principle with her not to answer. If Leo was around, she didn’t want to be there; she hadn’t actually formulated it like that, but that was how she felt.

  Louise, satisfied that no one was home, didn’t bother to close her bedroom door, and now Marietta heard sounds in there as though they were having a game of their own. She tried not to listen, she didn’t want to, but they were so noisy they distracted her from her game. At first she heard her mother laugh out loud—and next it sounded as if she were shrieking, like someone had
pinched her or something? Surely they wouldn’t be playing a game like that—the way she herself sometimes played with other children, to see who would shriek first; although, of course, Marietta thought to herself, grim beyond her years, with those two who could tell? And the next moment there was a loud thump as of someone heavy falling on the floor and then another shriek from her mother—definitely of laughter, triumphant laughter—followed by a roar from Leo, vowing vengeance. Next came a thud of feet as her mother bounded along the corridor giving out cries of mock fear while Leo roared more as he pursued her. They arrived thus, hunted and hunter, in the salon. Marietta kept her eyes glued to the space left between the panels of the screen. She couldn’t believe it—but Louise as she came running into the room was stark naked, and so was Leo who followed behind her. Later in the day, when Bruno said that Louise was big and so was Leo, Marietta couldn’t help seeing them as she saw them at that moment, pounding and capering through the salon. They dodged in and out among the furniture—and this was no spare modern room but crammed with urns, and a marble bust of Beethoven and another of the boy taking a thorn out of his foot, and cabinets full of glass and china and Bruno’s grandmother’s Biedermeier doll’s house: but Louise and Leo romped around there as if they were out in the open, impeded only by trees. But suddenly Louise pretended exhaustion—she held her hand between her breasts and stood by the sofa, stag at bav; and Leo, catching up with her, stood over her in menace while she murmured submission. He gave her a push that bounced her down among the needlepoint cushions on the velvet sofa. And amazing, amazing to Marietta, peeping through the hinges, what had so repelled her as he romped through the room, that large male member bouncing from thigh to thigh, changed its character completely. Swelling with a monstrous being of its own, it stood up at a right angle; and next thing he fell on top of Louise on the family sofa and these two large people coiled and looped themselves together into one person, or rather, one unknown primeval animal. Now Marietta had to keep absolutely quiet and not move till they were through —which took a long time, or so it seemed to this small girl. At last, when they got up and went back to the bedroom—like loving friends now, their arms around each other—she continued to stand behind the screen in silence, knowing she would have to be silent about this forever, for the rest of all their lives; and she was.

  Every few years Louise made a resolution to break with Leo. Not only when Bruno was alive but afterward too; regularly every few years she decided on it. Regi wasn’t often around in these later years—she had become more and more restless and was always planning some new trip for herself; but when she was there, Louise would confide her resolution to her and Regi always said the same thing: “And about time too.”

  There was the year when, having nowhere else to go, Regi joined Louise and Natasha on their annual vacation in the Hamptons. They stayed in a beach hotel that Louise and Natasha had liked in previous years; it was impeccably run by a family in family style with every kind of home comfort. But Regi didn’t like it, she grumbled all the time, right from breakfast on when she sent back the coffee for not being strong enough, or found what she suspected was a spot of jam on the tablecloth. When Louise protested at the fuss she made, Regi said, “They’re charging enough, aren’t they, my goodness.” Natasha sat there with her eyes lowered in shame. Louise whispered to her, “Don’t mind Regi, she’s always like that”: and it was true. Wherever Regi went, she was indignant at the service given on the one hand and at the prices charged on the other.

  The hotel, standing on an elevation above the beach, had a porch facing the ocean, and here Louise and Regi sat all morning on white basket chairs with their legs stretched out on matching white footstools. Louise, who loved the sun and turned a healthy ruddy brown color immediately, would have liked to go out on the beach, but Regi would only consent to walk there late in the afternoon; and even then she had a parasol and big dark glasses and covered her neck and arms with gauze scarves against the sun, which was absolute anathema to her. Natasha was left to walk by herself and gaze out over the ocean. She gazed so much that it seemed her eyes must have absorbed the color of sea and sky; but not at all—they remained dark and strange. So did she herself. Louise was worried by the way Natasha was always alone. There were so many nice young people of the same age—Natasha was fourteen at the time—all having a good time together, swimming and throwing colored balls and burying each other in sand; but Natasha, who was very shy, spoke to no one and no one spoke to her. Sometimes, watching her walk there all alone, Louise stood up on the porch and put her hands to her mouth and shouted to her to come up and join them. “Don’t make an exhibition of yourself,” Regi rebuked her. Natasha never joined them. Actually, Louise was relieved because she wouldn’t have liked Natasha to overhear Regi’s conversation. Regi talked about everything, every kind of unsuitable subject, she had absolutely no reticence at all.

  One morning, while they were sitting this way on the porch, Louise was called to the telephone. It was Leo. He was calling from somewhere across the country—she wasn’t sure where: the last she had heard he was in Colorado, getting a group together there; but now he said he was coming to New York and was going to live in Louise’s apartment. He was running a summer school in the city and there would, of course, be a number of people with him; but she wouldn’t mind that, would she, especially since she wasn’t there anyway but was enjoying herself by the seaside. He asked her about sheets and towels for everyone, “That sort of thing,” he said, speaking in a testy, hurried manner—his usual manner when he had to discuss practical matters which he felt someone else (for instance, Louise) ought to be dealing with. She felt the same—in fact, offered: “Do you want me to come?” To which he answered at once, “Good God, no,” and hung up.

  She returned to Regi in a pensive mood. “Who was it?” Regi asked eagerly, hoping it was an invitation to something nice like an evening party with music. There were always so many things going on in people’s houses during this season; and Regi was getting bored just sitting here looking at waves going backward and forward.

  “Leo’s coming to New York.”

  “Oh, well, Leo. I suppose you’re going to pack your bags and run there. Leaving me sitting here. Naturally—Leo. He comes first.”

  “No,” Louise said. She didn’t mention that she had offered to come and he had refused her. Instead she heard herself say, unexpectedly, “I’m not going to see him anymore.”

  “Ha-ha-ha,” Regi said—which made Louise continue more heatedly: “Ringing me from God knows where: ‘I’m going to stay in your apartment with fifty people.’ I should have told him there and then definitely not. Find somewhere else. Find yourself another big fool like me.”

  “There is no other big fool like you.” Regi squinted ill-humoredly toward the seashore where Natasha could be seen wandering up and down like a lost soul. “What’s that child doing? . . . If she’s not doing anything—and obviously she’s not, she never does—at least you could send her down to get my juice. It’s no use ringing the bell or anything like that here, of course, they’re all much too busy padding our bills.”

  “Leave her alone,” Louise said. “She’s thinking.” She felt it necessary to add: “Young people think all the time.” Regi didn’t have to point out that there were plenty of other young people on the beach who were not doing it. But Natasha seemed to have less in common with these healthy youngsters than she did with the seagulls swooping between sea and sky as if trying to decide to which element they belonged.

  “And those clothes she wears,” Regi deplored.

  Natasha bought her clothes herself from men selling them out of cardboard boxes on the street. They consisted of long dragging cotton skirts and cheesecloth blouses made in underdeveloped countries. Natasha favored these clothes because they hung on her loosely and did not constrict her in any way; because they were very cheap; and because by buying them she might be helping to feed a starving family in some terrible famine-stricken part of the worl
d.

  “You don’t understand her, Regi,” Louise said. “The child is an idealist. She has very high principles. You just can’t understand, so please don’t talk about her anymore.”

  “All I’m asking is can’t she get my juice? You know I have to have it with my pill. You know very well what the doctor said.”

  “You’re just a selfish woman, Regi. You always have been, you always will be. The only person you can ever think of is yourself. Not that I’m any better,” Louise went on. “Sitting here like this, a grandmother, with my hands idle, not even knitting—”

  “As if you can knit,” Regi said.

  “I’m ashamed that I can’t! I’m ashamed that I’m sitting here this way! A useless old woman with useless thoughts about an old man who doesn’t even want me. Well, from now on it’s I who don’t want him. I’m not going to think about him anymore but about myself the way you do, Regi, and about my child and my grandchildren and what I can do for them. From now on. Natasha!” she called. She stood up and put her hands around her mouth and called again.