The Puzzleheaded Girl

by Christina Stead

  “Is the woman perverse?”

  “Yes, but Renee doesn’t know it. She doesn’t know. She has a pure good heart. I wouldn’t mention it to her. There’s enough wrong in the world. I won’t corrupt her.”

  “There’s a danger.”

  “That’s why I can’t leave,” he said walking up and down. “I have to go to Paris, Vienna, other places. I meant to take her with me. She gave me a date; and now see what she writes!”

  He talked about her. Her father was in business in the Middle West. He married a rich woman, himself made money. He was injured in his sex in the war and could procreate but not satisfy a woman. He had a son before the war and a daughter afterwards; this was Renee. The mother, named Lilian, soon told the father she needed men and she meant to leave him. The father agreed to a separation; and Lilian travelled all over Europe, and put the girl in good European schools, where she learned languages, music, drawing and architecture.

  Lilian, the mother, went to all the fashionable places, spending money and doing as she liked, living with different men. The son stayed at home near his father, lived near his father, married.

  “Renee is pretty, she has appeal, too; and she is like her mother, so that the mother never looked at her without saying, You’re exactly like me, you’ll go like me. But Renee is honest and she is chic, sensitive. She walks in a fetching way and she has sweet manners. But she became morbidly fanciful and made up her mind, when she was fourteen, never to marry. The sexual relation shocked her. It seemed to her that legal marriage gave men and women a terrible indecent power over each other; they were like master and slave, brute and trainer; it brutalized them towards each other and towards other people. The mother would show Renee a picture of her father that she had cut out of the home-town newspaper; she would point to his almost hairless head, scream with laughter, make offensive jokes.

  “Renee lived with her mother most of the time and men were about. Her mother told her all her experiences: You’re like me, you’ll be like me, you may as well know. And her mother, at this time, was getting letters from the father’s woman friend. This woman, Gail, often wrote to Renee’s mother. She said, Sex is not everything; I had a man before and I know what physical love is, but I love your husband for what he is, his character, his courage, his wonderful mind. The wife wrote back terrible letters, coarse, dirty letters, the letters of a spiteful old harlot. Renee read all the letters.

  “At last Lilian went home, went down south and found a place that suited her; and then the quarrel between mother and daughter became too bitter and Renee left to earn her living in New York. She met a man, became pregnant, would not marry him, and would not let him pay for the abortion. It took all she had, five hundred dollars. Abortionists were on the run then. There was a police crusade against them. They had gone mostly to New Jersey. But she found one up-town. She was well again, working, when one evening there was a knock at the door and there were two huskies, plain-clothes men, who told her to come along as a material witness, an abortionist was being charged. She went, but she would not speak. They tried every form of verbal coercion, everything that would frighten and shock a girl; and at last they told her they would make her speak. They put on a master record of her own voice on the telephone making an appointment with the go-between; and they showed her a photograph of herself coming out of the office, being helped by a woman. It was hopeless. They told her, if she would give the details, they would destroy the records, and give the abortionist a break; they only wanted to frighten him. She gave the evidence; the man was charged and died by suicide. One of her friends telephoned her and said to her, You spoke and you are the cause of his death.

  “Her experiences made her lose faith in people. If she saw a policeman at a distance, she’d go round by another street. Her heart thumped when the doorbell rang. It began in Europe, when she and her mother were living in cheap hotels, when her mother was running through her money. There was a police raid once in a hotel in the Rue Delambre. The mother knew, though Renee did not, that it was a maison de passe, a hotel under suspicion. The first floor was let out to streetwalkers; the rest of the hotel was rented to students and tourists. The police came in about five in the morning and at first doubted that they were mother and daughter. Renee could not understand it; she never understood it. It was then that she told her mother they must return home.

  “After the suicide Renee moved to another address; and not to be alone, she looked for a companion, a woman. The friend I mentioned, who telephoned her and told her she was guilty of the doctor’s death, brought her a woman who was an invalid, a middle-aged woman who wanted to get away from her parents, with whom she was living. This was Ray. She was pathetic, limping, thin and worn, with a childish smile and a low voice, almost deaf.

  “I met Renee through the police. They are co-operative with me. I was doing some research on a case, when I saw Renee’s records. They had not been destroyed. I went to her, explained everything to her frankly, told her I was a free-lance journalist, working on stories of missing girls. She will listen to anyone; she’s intelligent and charming. But she found it hard to understand that I was not connected with the police. I said, I’m a crime-writer. They help me and I help them. If I find any of these lost girls, I’ll tell them, for example. I sometimes happen on things. I once saved a girl’s life by telling the police about an advertisement that kept appearing every few months: an old man advertising for a young housekeeper. He had buried young women in a corner of his field.

  “Renee was very lonely. Her housemate was deaf and odd and tiresome, though pleasant enough. Renee’s mother died and no one condoled with her, because they thought, Good riddance. But Ray said, I’m so sorry dear; it’s a bad thing to lose a mother. You’re very lonely now. This commonplace remark touched Renee. She said, Ray is the only person who understands that I do not hate my mother.

  “I fell in love when I first saw Renee. I was soon in love, madly in love, with all the obsession of real love. I asked her to marry me as soon as I was divorced from Barby. She said she would. The lame woman made trouble; but at last, two weeks ago, when the final decree came through, Renee promised me that she would get out of it. Ray made scenes and went home to her parents. She stayed away three or four days, then sent a message that she was very ill with stomach upset, that she was vomiting hour after hour some greenish stuff and had no strength to move. Probably Ray had taken something. Renee did not see what she could do. She stayed in her room, going to work and seeing me in the evenings. We fixed everything up. Then the lame woman came back to prevent her leaving, for she had guessed. Of course, she looked ill, tragic; and then, every day, there were scenes. Renee was afraid of her. Renee wrote to her brother to come and help her; and now the sister-in-law is there, and this letter she wrote must be the advice Ray has given.”

  He sat down, tired and serious. “What am I to do? I have to go away; and now there are two of them in this mythical wood, holding her back.”

  Martin said, “I don’t want to use the voice of common-sense, George, but that girl is trouble. I knew a girl like that. She couldn’t help it, and your girl can’t help it.”

  George said, “I know, but I love her. I really love her. There are times when I just want to stand by, to save her any more torture; but that’s impossible. She must be got away, and I can’t stay here as long as another month.”

  He pondered, looking down. “I loved a few girls and I married them. I would never spoil a girl. In the work I do, you see too much trouble, too much horror. I see girls’ bodies in terrible conditions. I hear stories that it would be hard for people to believe. It’s impossible to write the whole truth. The stories I write for the magazines, the very worst—they’re not the worst. The police have the worst on file; and I have seen them.”

  Martin said, “But you loved other girls, George, didn’t you? The others.”

  George walked about the room. “You love each girl differently, to suit her nature. That is how you can love many w
omen; each is different and the love is different. You see her reality, her difference—her charm. I loved those girls. I still do, in a way, even those—those little harpies,” he said, his face changing. “And this started in the same way. I thought, There is a girl I like. And it was all unexpected. I was looking for a girl. And Renee seemed sweet; and she had been ill-treated and deceived. But this is stronger than any of the others. It is so strong! And this is why I have loved so many women; so that I can know now that this is real love.

  “What will I do if it breaks up?” he asked, in a despairing voice. “I could go on; but what is the use? I couldn’t take it. I’ve never despaired. I’m not the type. So I’d rather die. I don’t want to go out of my mind. I’d rather die. And there she is! She could get me out of this with just one act—stepping out of that house. And I can’t hang around waiting. I ought to take a plane next week.”

  “What will you do, do you think, George?”

  “What am I to do, Laura? I’m worn out. Waiting and arguing and suppressing my feelings, waiting out of consideration and pride; and working through the terrible tension; and telling no one. And my work to do and the wives, all the wives, waiting their alimony.”

  “How many wives is it, George?”

  “Three,” he sang out; “three in this country. When I was a boy they introduced me to a rich girl. She was pretty and the daughter of a gold-and-silversmith. Everyone wanted her, but she liked me. I married her and they wanted me to give up teaching at the university and be a country gentleman. I had a horse. I went riding every day. I galloped, I was so angry, furious. I had gloves on and they had a river. I caught crabs in my gloves and roasted them, not to go home to lunch. My father-in-law wore white trousers and a straw hat and jingled the money in his pockets. I wanted to travel; I got my passport. With this passport you travel far and wide, my boy, he said, jingling the money in his pocket.” George noisily jingled the money in his pocket, fiercely, with a Philistine laugh. “This is your passport. Make this and you need no more. My father-in-law went to business late; and as soon as he got there he telephoned home, What is there for lunch? If they changed the menu, they telephoned him back. My wife was charming. She played the piano well, she painted portraits. I couldn’t stand it. I explained to her: You are charming, but I don’t want to be married. I left. I have a son twenty-four years old,” he said with some pride. “And I have one somewhere in France, fifteen years old—if he is alive. I have two sons. I don’t know where they are. My wife divorced me. The second time I was not married.” This embarrassed him. “I came here before the war and I was fascinated by the American girl, so free, so frank, like a boy, delicious and earning her own living, saying what she liked: her independence was charming. The old ones are conventional, stupid. I married an old one first, that was Alice, she was twenty-five. She behaved best. She got married again and never bothered me. Then that little angel-face, that campus-queen, that little brat who knew nothing, Sully: her name was Sullivan. Sully knew nothing! Whenever I said the most ordinary thing, remarks you can find in Ricardo or Adam Smith, she thought it was Communist. She denounced me as a Red, when it became the fashion, because of her stupid ignorance and because she fell for my agent,” he said, suddenly rolling his r’s. “And then Barby. I am only just divorced from Barby. You see, I can marry Renee. She can have me when she wants me.”

  “I wish I could help,” said Martin, somewhat drily, “but I can’t.”

  “Women think I can take anything,” complained George; “I look so healthy, no one believes I’m in trouble. I keep wondering if I’m very ill but the doctor says I’m well. The women pile up their troubles and unload them on to me. And Barby! Barby thinks I’m just there to be robbed, a big golden plough-ox to be kept at work. The sort of ox that soon earns a farm for the farmer and his wife; but he must be kept at work. There are two wives living off me now and I’m so strong it doesn’t matter. Serve me right, the women think. He wanted all those wives, the men think. But that isn’t it. I didn’t. I wanted to get married. I fell in love with each; and each one,” he said, getting red and shouting, “did not love me; or only as children love. Marriage was an outing. Papa would buy the candy and the ride on the loop-the-loops. I can pay. Don’t worry about my health. And look too,” he said bending his large bronze-red head, “I have open scratches on my scalp, behind my ear and another somewhere and they won’t heal. They came in Lausanne. I thought it was the lack of iodine in the lake water. I wrote to my friend Bercovici who sent me an infallible ointment which worked for everyone else, not for me. I tried sulpha drugs and penicillin; everything is bad for me. I’m a drug-rejector. At first they work; then they don’t. I don’t do all the work I should. I’m exhausted. And I look like a prize-fighter. What do you think, Laura?” he said on a gentle, touching note.

  “You don’t eat enough.”

  Presently he sat down and ate something, though he worried about his diet through the meal. After eating he became calmer and began to discuss some economic questions in which he and Martin were interested. He paused and said to Laura, “You don’t use that other room, do you? I see there’s a bed in it.”

  “No. You mean, get Renee here?”

  Martin said, looking unwilling, “How do you know the lame friend won’t come after her?”

  “Yes,” said George, “it is too much to ask. I must solve it myself. She would come at once if I would have children. Children are for older women to nurse and wash. She has lovely hands. She doesn’t know life. I told her she’s ignorant. She’s just a wax doll made by a hundred hands. Do you want to start out and make another wax doll? I said. Young women, girls want children because they haven’t forgotten their dolls. The old women talk it into them: they’re cunning and spiteful. Wait till you have the troubles I had. Barby was the same. I wouldn’t let her. It would have turned her into a drudge, a char, a babysitter. I will not live in the house with a char. I can’t have that; I must work. I can’t even stop for regular meals or regular sleep.”

  He thrust his hands through his hair and began pulling his curls. “They immediately subordinate your life to the needs of a feeble little idiot, who can’t walk or talk or think or listen or love, and can scarcely eat.” He shrugged. “That is the worst of these young girls: they do such crazy things, they’re ignorant of life; and I have no time to argue with them. I get married; and then I must work.”

  The telephone rang. It was Barbara, George’s third American wife. “Is George there?” she demanded.

  “Yes.”

  “What’s he doing there?”

  “Talking to Martin.”

  “Who else is there?”

  “No one.”

  “I know what he’s doing, he’s telling you about me, inventing lies, hundreds of crazy lies, he’s complaining about me.”

  “No, he isn’t, Barby.”

  “Tell him to come to the phone.”

  George had an angry conversation with Barby, then turned: “Barby says she’s coming over with a crowd.”

  “You’d better go, George. I’ve had such a day—I don’t know what there is about the Ides of March. People came all day and I had to go out. Let me talk to her.”

  Laura, who feared scenes, asked Barby not to come. “George is going out for a coffee with Martin.”

  Barby became very suspicious. She heckled Laura for a moment, and then said, “I’m here with a gang and I’m bringing them over with me. I’m not letting George stay there and tell lies about me. We’ll make him come out of there. He’s not going to sit with his head on your shoulder making up lies about me. We’re all coming over.”

  “I can’t have you, Barby; I’m tired and George is going now. I’ve got no room for a gang.”

  Barby insisted. “They’re all my friends and they’ll see what he’s doing.” She turned and spoke to the friends; and the noise of tipsy hilarious men was heard. “He won’t get away with it; neither will you.”

  “I don’t want you, Barby; now, don’t co
me.”

  “I’m coming and we’ll rough up the place if you don’t let George go.”

  Laura telephoned the hall porter saying that a crowd was coming, intending to make trouble. “Don’t open the doors for them.”

  “No,” said John the porter. Before a visitor could reach their corridor, the hall porter had to operate two switches, opening two sets of doors.

  “You’re going abroad,” said George, looking at the large trunk, half-full, which Laura had been packing. “I’ve got to go abroad, not only for my work but to get away from Barby. She’s the worst of all. I’ll do better over there; I’ll get in first with the big crime stories that break over there. I must get a fast car like the one Barby and I had in Washington. We scooped everybody. I know four or five languages, I can take good photographs, and I know some of the police. I don’t depend on sleepy ten-dollar hacks like other journalists; I do it myself. I’ve posted my story by ten in the morning.”

  He paused, pulled anxiously at his hair. “That crooked little tramp Barby is after me to divide up everything: that means give her everything because she needs it. My second wife Sully is going round telling all the agents and editors that I’m a Red. I said to her, Don’t you want me to make money? She’s dedicated! What a beautiful girl she was! One long fair curl hanging over her shoulder, braided trousers and a little white mess jacket and a soft peach face. Barby is collaborating with her in secret; though Barby is not such a fool. It’s to annoy me,” he shouted. He sprang up. “My God, in this country some schoolgirl only has to say so, some peach-faced all-American child. I worked for the government in the war, I did real service. That makes me for her an undercover agent. Why am I a Red? I speak Russian for one thing. It’s easy for a Bulgarian to speak Russian. I did translations of documents for the information service; some of them were secret. I went with the US army to the concentration camps and spoke to the Russian prisoners. And now she says I’m a Red. That makes it very difficult for me. I must go abroad anyway. You never saw such a girl,” he said with regret; “a lovely soda-shop date-queen, cute and earnest and womanly, who knows nothing, no-thing! If you say the welfare state is a good thing, it keeps the people quiet, she doesn’t hear the second part; and you are a Red. My God! She has it in for me. Alice was good to me. But these others, these little tramps, they divorce me and they are out to get me. Why? Why is that? They owe it to themselves. If I get away too easily, they’re not standing up for the rights of American women; I must be punished. And I am good to them. I give them all my money. I have to work day and night—my mother has money in Switzerland; it’s there but I can’t get it. I have got to go there and see a man. And I must go to Sofia. I’ve been there, I had no trouble. That makes me a Red, too.”