Chapter 31
Systems Of Defense
Hours later, Sadie yanks open the men’s door and barks: “Number Three!”
Nobody budges. After all this time they still don’t remember their single-digit administrative identity. It must have been easier in Nazi concentration camps, Seymour reflects, the number tattooed on your forearm for convenient reference.
“You!” she commands, pointing at Louis Forster.
Louis sits down opposite Advocate, rehearsing in his mind his defense for his unforgivable behavior in Paris back then. He’d been working on it for decades. Once he’s transferred, he means to say, he’ll make up for everything, delete all those wrong things done back then, by proposing to Louise over the bouquet which will be for her and no one else and there won’t be a hotel room till after the marriage.
But before he can so much as open his mouth, Advocate informs him, to his astonishment, that his behavior in Paris was irreproachable and his past elsewhere heroic but that the … er … how shall we put it? … the alleged irregular activities engaged in publicly with (he pokes about in the cards) ah, yes, allegedly, with Mademoiselle Williams, Margaret, constitutes, if the accusation is founded, a grave moral breach, in the eyes of the Administration.
In the eyes of the Administration, he repeats, winking at Louis with a tolerant rheumy wink of I-was-young-once-too-in-a-better-place-than-this complicity. And unfortunately there were at least a dozen witnesses. Could Mr … um … Mr Forster perhaps, in the interest of his defense, describe in detail the alleged action involving himself and Mademoiselle Williams?
Unthinkable. Louis can’t possibly do that. He doesn’t remember anything, he says, although he does, he does, all the time. Again he takes the blame on himself. He must have forced her to do what she did although he can’t remember what it was she did and he did. He didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t remember anything.
Advocate purses his lips.
“Yes, of course. We shall plead temporary mental aberration due to the stress of transfer and of course emphasize your heroic past in Cuba and the Philippines as well as your irreproachable behavior in Paris. Thank you.”
Seymour Stein is next. As soon as he sits down opposite Advocate he stammers out a long-rehearsed justification of his wrongdoing. He explains why he’d left France and Marie-Claude, with every intention of returning but his fiancée – practically his fiancée – had never answered his letters, no fewer than six of them. In a sense he was the one who had been abandoned. It was true that perhaps it had been a mistake, in his very first letter, to have told her the way to postpone the baby and the address where it could be done.
Advocate peers down at the sheet of paper. He opens his rubbered hands in a gesture of regretful helplessness in the matter. No charges concerning this obscure personal matter had been brought against Monsieur Stein. The matter, then, is irrelevant to their present concern. What has to be disproved or relativized is the five-week middleman job waiting for distressed female clients in the rear of a café. (His tax evasion is a venial offense.)
Seymour tells the Advocate that an Irish teaching colleague had thrown the job his way at a time he was dead broke. The operator preferred foreigners for the middleman function. Foreigners could be expelled if they were caught so they were less likely to blab. Seymour tries to justify his role by hunger and, on an impersonal historical scale, the later legality of the intervention (even reimbursed by the Sécurité Sociale) and by the cruelty of forcing use of clothes hangers and forks upon the distressed women, amateur jobs often resulting in fatal infection.
But all the while that he tries to justify his involvement with the angel-maker he thinks of how they’re accusing him of the wrong thing, like a man who cuts his parents’ throats and is brought to trial for having stolen the fatal knife.
Advocate seems unimpressed by Seymour’s arguments. He screws his eyes up to the ceiling, ponders and then outlines a possible defense.
“You knew a woman back in America (or perhaps here in France) who exited in atrocious agony, victim of an amateurish surgical intervention. It left a permanent psychological scar on you. You accepted the job largely out of altruism, to spare other women that same horrible fate.”
“No,” says Seymour, “I never knew any such woman.”
“Allow me to suggest that, in the interest of your defense, it would be strongly advisable for you to have known this unfortunate woman, Madeleine, shall we call her?”
When Seymour leaves the Common Room Sadie jerks open the women’s door and commands: “Number Two!”
Margaret, pale and trembling, steps out into the corridor. Sadie scowls at her.
“Are you deaf? I said Number Two. You are Number One.”
She strides to the bed where Helen is seated and commands: “Number Two!”
No reaction.
“Number two!” Sadie repeats in an even sterner voice.
“Are you talking to me? My name isn’t Number Two. My name is Mrs Ricchi.”
She goes on reading.
“Your advocate is waiting for you. I presume that you desire transfer.”
“I desire nothing.”
She turns a page and bends her head over it.
Seymour, who overhears the exchange, wonders if by “I desire nothing” Helen means to express superior detachment or her desire for the nothing of exit.
“This is pure obstruction,” says Sadie. “I will summon you again shortly, for the very last time.” She turns her back on Number Two and calls out: “Number One!”
Like Louis and Seymour, Margaret thinks she’s being accused of the wrong things when Advocate asks her to justify minor acts like borrowing things in shops and posing for “naughty postcards” (he even wonders if she could describe them in order for him to determine the exact degree of naughtiness). He doesn’t say a word about her leaving Jean, not a word about his threat of suicide, perhaps carried out, and if so, indirect murder on her part.
What Advocate is interested in, very interested in, is the alleged irregular activities engaged in publicly with Monsieur Forster, Louis. They constitute, if the accusation is founded, a grave moral breach in the eyes of the administration.
In the eyes of the administration, he repeats, tolerantly. Unfortunately there were at least a dozen alleged witnesses. Could Mademoiselle Williams, in the interest of her defense, describe in detail the alleged action involving herself with Monsieur Forster, Louis?
Margaret plunges her face into her palms. Barely audible, she mumbles that if there were all those witnesses then it must have happened, whatever it was she did and he did, she can’t remember what it was, but it was her fault, not his, she was sure of that. She starts weeping.
Advocate stretches out a consoling hand. At the last moment he pulls it back and contents himself with safer verbal consolation.
“We shall plead temporary mental aberration due to the stress of scandalously incompetent transfer. One last thing now, my dear. Could you possibly try to justify your alleged nudity in broad daylight in the Boulevard Saint Michel fountain in the early afternoon of July 23, 1937?”
“I just remember I’d had a lot of wine and it was a hot day so I took off my shoes and stockings and waded in the fountain.”
“As who would not have done in such circumstances. The accusation, though, is of total nudity. Could you describe in detail, my child, the stages of disrobing and the justification for each of these stages?”
“Well, like I said, it was a hot day and they were all applauding.”
“‘They’?”
“The people in front of the fountain.”
“How many people?”
“A few dozen at the beginning. Maybe a hundred or so at the end.”
“I can well imagine the scene. The police report speaks of a quasi-riot. And the unruly mob doubtlessly incited you to continue disrobing, perhaps threatening you if you refused, we shall say. Yes, excellent, excellent. An act committe
d under duress and constraint. What garment followed the stockings, my child?”
“My skirt, I think. It was wet anyhow.”
“And then?”
“My blouse.”
“Which you slowly unbuttoned?”
“It was an off-the-shoulder blouse, I think.”
“Which you slowly pulled over your head, then. Next, I imagine, you slowly divested yourself of your … ah … bra?”
“No, Maître, I never wore a bra in those days.”
“Understandably. And then, finally, finally, you slowly, very slowly, reluctantly but under constraint, slowly divested yourself of your … ah … panties.”
“No, Maître, I didn’t.”
“But this changes everything! Everything! It was not total nudity then. Even though, to be sure, the flimsy material of the undergarment in question, wet and so translucent, must have clung revealingly and … But technically not total nudity. So, then, you modestly retained your … ah … panties.”
“No, Maître, I never wore panties in those days either.”
She stammers that in a tiny voice and blushes deep gray.
“But I do now, Maître, I swear I do. I’ve completely changed, oh please please tell the Administrative Review Board that, Maître. Whenever I talked to Louis Forster it was about religion. He taught me prayers. I made a solemn vow to God to be pure and I have been pure for twenty-five years, saving myself for Jean Hussier after we marry. Why I’ve even refused to dance for the Prefect, maybe a hundred times I’ve refused, even though he says that if I dance I’ll be transferred.”
Advocate stares down at the card, stares and stares. He doesn’t even blink. Finally he says: “My dear child, would you kindly repeat what you have just said?”
“Louis and I talked about religion and that’s all.”
“More power to both of you for such commendable restraint. I was referring, however, to the invitation to dance, on the part of the Prefect if I understood correctly, which is not certain.”
“He keeps on asking me. He used to, that is. I used to meet him in the corridors. Unless it’s a dream. I have these awfully funny dreams.”
“Surely a dream, my dear. Not even the Prefect would dare … A minor question: did the Prefect (in the dream, of course) say ‘for’ or ‘with’? ‘Dance for me’ or ‘Dance with me’?
“He said all the time, ‘Dance for me.’”
“A foolish question on my part. ‘Dance for me’ would in any case quickly become ‘Dance with me.’ The climactic dance. Unthinkable. A dream beyond doubt.”
Advocate takes a blank sheet and starts writing intensely. He breaks off and looks up.
“Still another idle question, my dear. Were you never – in your dreams, of course – tempted, in exchange for transfer, to … ah … accede to the Prefect’s invitation? To dance for him? Perhaps even with him? A short dance here for youth and a new lifetime out there?”
“Oh yes, Maître, tempted every time. But not just for me. Tempted for the others too. I’d do so many good things for suffering people out there. And for the suffering people here. I’d ask for Louis to be transferred and Seymour and Helen and Max too. But it might be a trap, I thought. I thought: maybe I’m being tested. I prayed to God all the time to give me a sign. I still do.”
“And what, if I may ask, do your fellow Administratively Suspended advise you to do?”
“Oh they don’t know about it. I never told any of the others about it. I don’t know why not but I didn’t.”
Advocate nods and returns to his sheet for a minute. He lays his pen down and smiles at Margaret intensely.
“You may go now, my dear child. And thank you for everything.”
It’s Helen’s turn, for the second time. Sadie barks out her number. There’s no response. The women’s room is empty.
Number Two is jeopardizing the operation of Administrative Review for all concerned, says Sadie.
At that, the others scatter in the corridors and call “Helen! Helen!” despite the terrible echo. Several times Seymour shouts at the top of his lungs: “Goddam it, Helen, you’re jeopardizing the operation of Administrative Review for all concerned!” He gets no answer. None of them do. They return.
Number Two has seriously jeopardized the operation of Administrative Review for all concerned, Sadie tells them, with apparent satisfaction.
A few minutes later Hedgehog and Philippe come back with the wheelchair. Advocate is wheeled away, scribbling intensely. Just before the wheelchair turns the corner, the wind rises and a few papers fly away. Hedgehog doesn’t notice them.
Seymour trots down the corridor and picks them up. He wants to cry: “Maître, Maître, your papers!” Maybe he would be rewarded by special eloquence before the Administrative Review Board for the gesture. But by the time Seymour gets to the corner, the wheelchair has disappeared. He folds the papers and puts them in his pocket.
Hours later Helen returns to the Common Room where the others are staring in deep depression at their particular version of Paris, so close and so distant.
They’re furious at her. She’s jeopardized the operation of Administrative Review for the rest of them, they say.
There’s nothing to jeopardize, she says and goes into her room.
Lying on his bed, Seymour remembers the two papers Advocate had lost. He pulls them out of his pocket and stares at them. One is covered with doodles of naked faceless women with prominent nipples and muffs, probably done while pretending to listen to his clients’ stories.
The second sheet is covered by an urgent scrawl.
Attention of Sub-Prefect Marchini
Suspicions verified. Number Four object of dance-ploy on the part of H. as with Number Three of April 1922 batch. This time we must maneuver correctly. An opportunity that may never again present itself. Suggest following strategy: contact the other…
The sentence breaks off in suspenseful suspension at the bottom of the sheet. It probably continues on another sheet, maybe the one Advocate was furiously scribbling on when the wheelchair disappeared around the corner.
So what Advocate advocates remains (for the time being) a mystery.
Clearly it’s some sort of a plot.
At long last, some may think.
Good Americans Go to Paris when they Die Page 32