Birds of America

by Mary McCarthy

  It had not been a lively crossing. Of his cabin-mates, one was a native-born federal employee from Washington who gave him a play-by-play preview of his hoteling, one was a Persian who spoke no English, and the third was an elderly Polish racist from Chicago who was booked from Paris on LOT to visit his daughter near Poznan. Over his nightly beer in the bar, Peter listened to stenographers and receptionists talk to each other and to the barman; he learned where they had bought what they were wearing and how much they had paid for it, what movies had been shown on their previous crossings and who had played in them, their European programs with arrival and departure times and identification of carriers. The girl from Wellesley had invited him up to first class, which he had expected to be more glamorous. But the only difference he could see was that the people there wore more jewelry and had different hours in the swimming pool. The conversations were just the same: exercises in total recall of the travel graph. When Peter was unable to pinpoint his movements on his earlier trips to Europe, he felt apologetic, just as he did when he admitted that he did not know where he would be staying in Paris. It sounded like a ploy.

  The train was now in open country. He saw cows and big barns and apple orchards and, for the first time in his life, mistletoe actually growing, great springy balls of it, which he first took for giant birds’ nests perched on the apple branches. His spirits brightened. He was in druid territory, and he looked around hopefully for oak groves. His favorite Norse god, Balder the Beautiful, an Apollonian figure, had been slain by an arrow made of mistletoe wood from the sacred oak. He jumped up and got down his book bag and took out the French tree book, a present from his stepfather—Arbres et arbustes de nos forêts et de nos jardins. He found le gui, but only its picture and its Latin name. Then he remembered. There was a Latin proverb about it. Mistletoe was a pest carried by the missel-thrush in its turds. The orchards that flashed by, hung with these strange, shiny, pagan ornaments, might be dying. He could not see any apples on a lot of the trees—a troubling allegory, he decided. Nevertheless, he was so excited by the marvel that he opened the door of his compartment and signaled to two girls who were standing in the corridor. “Mistletoe!” he said. “Look!” The girls looked. “Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, whaddya know! Thanks for telling us. Say, have you heard when this train gets to Paris?”

  They had not really seen it, Peter thought. They had just said Yes to be polite. Like the Rocky Porters, they were not curious. If they had been interested, he would have showed it to them in the tree book and explained about the turds. But it was not worth the effort. He hoisted the book bag back onto the rack. “These are my people,” he said to himself with a sort of pang. In a few days, probably, he would be homesick for these flat or furry voices.

  Being an American, he was coming to think, was like being Jewish, only worse: you recognized “your people” everywhere in their Great Diaspora and you were mortified by them and mortified by being mortified; you were drawn to them, sorry for them, amused by them, nauseated by them. Not only that. They spotted you as one of them, infallibly, just as Jews could always spot other Jews, even when they had had their noses fixed and changed their names. On the boat, for the sake of privacy, he had been playing Peter the Hermit, his nose in a French book, his feet in espadrilles, and his upper half in a striped Italian jersey his stepfather had brought back from a market stall in Siena; in the swimming pool, when raked by somebody’s toenails, he said “Oh, pardon!” or “Scusi!” according to his mood. The Americans were not fooled. “You’re an American, aren’t you? That’s what I told my girl friend. This English fellow thought you were French.” In the lounge before dinner he played chess in French with the Persian, who knew the French names of the moves and pieces, and the little kids who drifted up to watch the game were soon calling out to each other, “Say, this guy’s an American! Let’s be on his side!” It was no good trying to speed them on their way with “Via, bambini,” or “Foutez le camp.” For them, he was as American as Mom’s macaroni or a Swedish meatball.

  It was worse than being Jewish, Peter felt, in the sense that nobody was excluding you and you made your own ghettoes around Army bases and in “exclusive” hotels abroad, eating your own version of kosher like his table-mates on the boat, who were always clamoring for ketchup and suspecting their steak of being underdone, or like the dinner-jacketed clowns in first class who had to have sour cream and chives on their Great Big Baked Potato and acted martyred if the meat they were getting was only U.S. Choice instead of U.S. Prime. Being a Jew gave you a history of martyrdom that at least was old and dignified. If you were a Jew, you were “one of the chosen,” while an American was just a Philistine. Jews were told by non-Jews that they should be proud of their heritage, steeped in tradition, et cetera; that was one of the mixed blessings of being Jewish. But nobody told an American how great it was to be him. You could not be proud of being an American, not any more. Peter took his mother’s word for it that you could when she was young. Now, even the insensitive type, like the pharmaceuticals salesman, was bluffing when he put out the Stars and Stripes. On the boat, every American Peter met asked the same question—in lowered tones—when they heard he was going to Paris as a student: “Aren’t you afraid of anti-Americanism?” Peter could not figure out why they treated this query as a top secret, looking around to make sure nobody heard them ask it.

  He had resolved not to think about anti-Americanism while in Paris. The fear that people might be prejudiced against him was not one of his weaknesses. Some of the students in his group had been asked by a sociologist to collect instances of discrimination against them as Americans, but nobody had asked him to do that, fortunately. If they had, he would have given them a blast. As though anti-Americanism were a disease, like anti-Semitism, that could be studied scientifically by some government agency. These kids were actually going to be paid for finking on waiters and landladies—like getting a bounty from the state if you sent in muskrat skins.

  Peter did not blame the French or anyone else for not liking America after what had been happening last summer while he sat getting a tan in Rocky Port. Just being white, he thought, did not make him guilty, but it was one strike against him, like original sin, which was not your fault and yet had to be paid for—he had been sending contributions from his allowance to CORE and SNCC and he would have mowed lawns in Rocky Port and donated the proceeds if anybody had had a lawn left to mow instead of a flagged terrace or what they called “ground cover.” He was not a civil-rights hero; on the other hand, to be fair to himself, he was not a racist murderer, and he felt a sympathy for his country, which had to look at itself in this ugly mirror every night on television.

  The babbo had given him a good briefing on this, in his study on the Cape, the day before the boat sailed. Peter trusted his father when he said that America was not going fascist; his father did not even think Goldwater was a fascist—the historical conditions for fascism were not present. This meant that it was all right still to register with your draft board and have a passport and defend your country in argument when some French egghead tried to tell you that all Americans were conformists or that university education was restricted to “the Pullman class.” His father was worried about America this summer but he felt there was hope. He said Peter should not be too much influenced by his mother’s pessimism. It was a mistake to think that Communism was better because it did not have a television culture; that only meant that Communism was backward, and a television culture, when it came, would be much worse in a totalitarian state, where dissent was not possible. Peter was relieved to hear this view put forward; his own faith in America had been shaken by Rocky Port, which the babbo dismissed—too easily, perhaps, not having spent the summer there. “Your mother always liked those old resorts. Snug harbors. It is no good crawling back into the American womb. It has had a hysterectomy.” He laughed. Peter looked at him. “Be serious, babbo,” he said plaintively.

  Maybe it was childish, but Peter wanted to give his country a h
and abroad. Of course, there was nothing he could do that would wipe out the civil-rights murders in Mississippi and the bombings and church-burnings and assorted atrocities. In fact, if he realized his plan of being a model student, kind and courteous to all, far from straightening the French out about the U.S., he would really be deceiving them as to what a lot of Americans, maybe the majority, were like. The thought of serving as a sort of whitewash had been preying on his mind; he could never have confided it to anyone but his father, because it sounded conceited.

  The babbo nodded. He said the scruple was typical of the Anglo-Saxon mercantile conscience, always fearful of giving a false impression to the foreign buyer. “You are like my students at Holyoke when I first came there—all those pretty girls wearing big glasses. ‘You mustn’t get the idea the average American thinks the way I do, Professor Levi.’ ” It was not up to Peter to worry about whether he was truly representative. At best, as a quality export, he might create a little good will for his country, which was badly in need of it. Peter was right to take his mission seriously; he and his young friends had an important role to play abroad. He must not be ashamed, for America, because he was a minority: five just men would have saved Sodom, if Lot had been able to find them. The main thing was to be himself; if Peter was true to himself, nobody could be misled, for nobody could suppose that such an unusual boy was a standard American product. “ ‘To thine own self be true … thou canst not then be false to any man,’ ” Peter had muttered, pleased and confused by the compliment. Every father, he guessed, was a Polonius when he sent a son abroad. He wondered whether he himself was a prig, like Laertes, who had probably been anxious to counter the rotten reputation of Denmark with the Parisians of his day.

  In hard fact, Peter was less apprehensive about anti-Americanism among the French than about anti-Americanism in himself. Ever since he had left the native shores, he had been having violent bouts of it, followed by bouts of remorse. It was a thing, like malaria in the tropics, that you caught abroad, evidently; at home, he was drawn to the man on the street or behind the gasoline pump. He would have thought that by this time—it was his third trip to Europe—he would have built up immunities to the bug. But it was not so. Halfway to Paris, in an already weakened condition, he had a bad attack. The other occupants of his compartment returned—three stout old ladies in crêpe blouses and woolen skirts who were part of a tour of retired grade-school teachers from the Middle West. Peter had seen them on the boat tied up in those orange life-jackets during lifeboat drill. The rest of the tour, he now gleaned, was in the adjoining compartment with their tour director, who had met them at Le Havre. They had never been in Europe before and already they were beefing.

  Peter tried not to listen; he unpacked the Plan de Paris and started to chart his course from the station to the Left Bank. But he could not help hearing what they were discussing. One of them had broken her bridge that morning on a toasted English muffin. She was the stocky, white-haired one, resembling a bulldog, in a blue blouse, with a silver-and-turquoise brooch, looking like a Navajo trophy brought back from the Southwest. She had saved the remains of the English muffin—a hardened leathery criminal—as evidence against the steamship company.

  Peter felt thankful that no Asian or African student was sitting in his place. He believed in the American public-school system and he had a good memory of the older women who had taught him fractions and long division and Ivanhoe; he had liked them nearly as well as old female librarians and much better than most professors and masters in private schools. But now his point of view seemed to have suffered a sea-change. The voices of the trio were loud and argumentative. Of course Miss Lewis was entitled to compensation, it was her duty to teach the steamship line a lesson, the whole tour was behind her, et cetera. As for their tour director, they could not understand that man’s attitude. He might have taken a little interest, out of common courtesy; he might have looked at the bridge, to see if it could be soldered together, instead of acting as if it would bite him. That was what he was paid for. That was what they paid him for, wasn’t it? They could visit museums and churches without his help. Their travel agent ought not to have given them one of those Hungarian refugees, not even French, more of a glorified guide than a real tour director; a real tour director was supposed to be handy.

  The old woman fished in her purse and pulled out something wrapped in Kleenex. Peter had a horrid view of the bridge—some yellowish teeth and very pink gums, backed with metal and with little metal hooks at either end. One of the hooks was broken, and three of the teeth had come out; they were wrapped in a separate piece of Kleenex. The exhibit passed from hand to hand. On request, the old woman opened her mouth wide, divulging some grisly stumps, and fitted the appliance into place, while her companions, in turn, peered at the result. All three acted as if Peter were not there. One of them, who had bifocals, gray hair, big pearl earrings, and a gray blouse, suddenly clicked her tongue. “I wonder now … I’ve got some Fasteeth in my beauty case.” While Peter watched, she reassembled the denture, sprinkling it with some white powder—a fixative, he supposed—which she shook from a little blue can onto the artificial gums. “Try that, Miss Lewis. Put your denture back in, dear, and grit your teeth. Let it set for a couple of minutes.”

  Resuming her seat, she “included” Peter with a tap on the knee. “You’re an American boy, aren’t you? That’s what we thought. ‘An American boy is sitting in our compartment,’ I told Miss Lewis. ‘We won’t have to stand on ceremony with him.’ ” Peter groaned to himself; between Americans abroad, there could be no secrets, apparently. “It isn’t the first time he’s seen a lady’s denture, I bet.” This was the third teacher, a red-faced jolly one, with popping eyes, like big Bing cherries; she wore a pink blouse and a lot of pink glass jewelry—probably she had taught the first grade. She gave Peter a wink, as though false teeth were part of a woman’s mystery, like knickers or bloomers or whatever they wore where she came from. “As a matter of fact, it is,” Peter said hoarsely. Then he feared he had given offense. “There was a poet who came to college to give a reading,” he volunteered. “His false teeth kept whistling, and he yanked them out and dropped them in the glass of water on the lectern. The audience gave him a great hand. But I wasn’t there. I was in the infirmary.” “My! Isn’t that interesting? Was he one of those modern poets?” “Yes,” said Peter.

  “You can open now, Miss Lewis.” The old woman unclenched her jaws. “There!” said the gray-haired teacher. “She won’t be able to eat, of course. But cosmetically it’s more attractive, isn’t it?” She took out a pocket-mirror. “Smile, dear!” There was a clink of china and metal as the denture fell, rattling, against the patient’s lower teeth. Peter gagged sympathetically; he was afraid she was going to swallow it. He heard a choking noise. But she reached in and grabbed it in time. “Drat!” she said, as the loose teeth scattered on the floor. Peter got up and chased them for her on his hands and knees. “Your pearls, madam,” he said with an awkward bow, trying to lighten what he felt must be a dark moment for a woman, even an old woman. Down on the dirty floor, he had put himself in her place. It was no joke to break your teeth on your first day in Europe. It was no joke to be old and crumbling like masonry.

  “I’ve got the name of a French dentist,” he offered “Maybe he could help you out. I’m going to him eventually to get my teeth cleaned. Our family dentist in New York recommended him.” “I want an American dentist, young man. Isn’t it aggravating that our tour director doesn’t know one? You’d think he’d know a thing like that. He’s paid to know a thing like that.” She salivated angrily as she spoke; her toothless upper gums spat.

  “You see”—the gray-haired teacher in bifocals smiled—“Miss Lewis doesn’t want some mercenary French dentist to go and make her a whole new bridge. That’s a long job, and we only have the week in Paris. She wants this bridge soldered together temporarily, to get her through the trip. But if she goes to one of these French dentists, chances are, as s
oon as he sees she’s an American, he’ll try to take advantage of her.”

  “Do you have any evidence for that statement?” Peter was tempted to ask, but he let the missionary opportunity pass, not, he hoped, from cowardice, but because he had made a rule recently not to bait people who were too old to change. Instead, he remained stiffly silent. “Well!” said the jolly one. “I’m the lucky girl! I brought along a spare plate. My daughter warned me. The bread in Europe is so chewy, she said. My son-in-law lost a gold inlay on their last trip, and the food kept packing in. ‘Mamma,’ my daughter told me, ‘you go and get Dr. Edwards to copy your old plate in plastic.’ It’s wonderful what they can do with plastic. Just feel how light that is.” Another toothsome exhibit, wrapped in gauze, made the rounds.

  Peter averted his eyes. He sat hunched in his corner—Peter Levi, noted misanthrope. He did not even have the recourse of looking out the window; he had given up his usurped seat when the teachers came in. If he went out to stretch his legs in the corridor, it might be taken as a snub—despite appearances, Americans were sensitive. He listened while the retired educators kicked around the proposition that people over here took such poor care of their teeth: the school children did not get milk; they were not taught dental hygiene; there was no fluoridation program; and the wine they drank gave you tartar. No wonder dentists here were still in the dark ages. To Peter, this did not follow. He would expect countries with bad teeth to have good dentists. Like America.

  He decided to give them a shock. “My father used to think all Americans had false teeth,” he blurted out. “You know, like movie stars. My father’s Italian,” he added lamely. The teachers laughed. “Isn’t that typical? The ideas these folks get about us!” Peter did not join in the merriment, though he had to admit that at home when the babbo told the story it was as a joke on himself. “I hope,” said the gray-haired one severely, “you’re going to try to give your relatives over here a better picture of the U.S. You talk like you were American-born. Is this your first trip to Europe?” “No,” said Peter curtly, feeling that he had dealt out enough information. Then he repented. “It’s my first trip to France. I mean, except for a couple of days at St.-Tropez when I was younger. I drove up from Italy with my family, and we took the boat at Cannes. The Cristoforo Colombo. But I’ve never been in Paris before.”