The Puzzleheaded Girl

by Christina Stead

  Mancando was surprised. Barby answered from the priest’s lap, “Yes, we do. We go around town insulting everybody who listens to Pie-otter’s lies. And I know he has been telling you a big sob story about some girl, some girl in trouble my age he’s fallen for. Big Brother Pie-otter has to make the world right for her by falling in love with her and marrying her.”

  The party had broken up a little. The men were insulting Martin who, talking fast, did not hear their gibes, and yet had a strange expression, like a dawn muddled by clouds. He could not believe it, but he heard it. They were telling him to get his teeth straightened, to have them cut down, not to sharpen them on his tonsils, that he must strain his soup through them. He had big creamy teeth and a wide mouth. Mancando, a liberal-minded polished literary man who thought literary people had the right to do anything, led the insults; the others, without his talent, tried and failed.

  The one they called the Reverend, a Rumanian priest, gay, tall and elegant, in a long robe, rose from his seat as the baiting became ragged, picked up Barby, put her on her feet. He said to Laura, “Have you some ikra? What a pity. I should have brought some for your company. Let us cook something.” Laura and the priest went to the kitchenette, where they looked through the cupboards. “Come out to Chicago and stay in our convent,” said the priest, politely, “and we will cook for you both. We will drink Rumanian wine and every thing will amuse you. We have gardens, a swimming pool. The convent is a very gay place. We are gayer than those here.” And very slightly his dark face smiled and with his eyes he indicated the ill-tempered group.

  In the sitting room behind them shouting had begun. Elgar was shouting insults at a strange man, a dark hairy small man bending forward and looking keenly at his insulter; and another man, a tall strong out-of-town dandy, was taking the last of the wine and returning to the first insults. “You open your mouth so wide I can see the back of your tonsils, you got a tooth as long as your tongue,” he shouted merrily. Barby was mauling George, calling him Pie-otter, while Martin, who had at last admitted the insults, had turned away to George, and, while laughing at Barby, was talking in his clear baritone. He was talking, laughing, turning up his big eyes, opening his wide white-toothed jaws, lifting his tongue and open throat to meet the light, to meet the audience as he thought of them, tossing words, ideas, jokes sideways towards the people, waiting for them to join in in a good-natured way. His face blazed with excitement. He was continuing with George Paul a conversation they had begun a while before; and in his excitement and with George’s purposeful attention, he became noisier.

  He was saying, “Wall Street has no wall, Broad Street no broads, there are no Germans in Nassau Street, Broadway itself at the point of Manhattan is narrow, there are no pines on Pine Street, no Cedars on Cedar, no liberty except the right to take out insurance on Liberty, few maidens on Maiden Lane and Hanover Square no memories of the house that once empested America. India House is a place for guzzling brokers, but no cinnamon from the orient, no sweet williams in William Street, Coentjes Slip has no more conies and only the well-groomed broker’s typist who never slips. Whitman chanted spires but these are buried in walls of cash and even the substitute for cash, the heavenly spirit of cash and the immense cash-register bastion once the breath of hatred to every balladist of the prairies is today…”

  A silence had fallen. Some were baffled, some bored, all felt flat, as Martin, apparently without taking breath, yielded to his genius.

  The Rumanian priest reappeared, darkly smiling. “Barby, come over to our place and I’ll make you ikra.”

  “That’s good, that’s better than etchings,” said one of the men.

  “Where’s the Scotch?” said another in a brutal tone. He had been drinking out of his own bottle, now empty. He got up and lumbered over to Martin. “Where’s the Scotch, mister? Where have you hidden it?”

  “I haven’t any Scotch, my friend,” said Martin genially.

  “Everyone has Scotch,” insisted the man; “where the hell is it?”

  “None here; we don’t drink it,” cried Martin cheerfully.

  “What the hell kind of a dump, let’s get out of here,” said the man, and he led the others towards the door.

  “Martin, let me talk to you about the seven year’s crisis in Switzerland, 1929 to 1936,” said George Paul seriously. “And what about the deposits there now? I should like to write an article too about the deposits in the USA, enemy alien deposits in other names, which will never be returned. I am told there were fortunes in Germany and other refugee money put in Switzerland and a lot of them are sitting tight. I’m not sure I’m not in that boat myself. I shall have to go there. And I’ve heard something. There’s something blowing up—a big scandal about the Paderewski estate. I must go.”

  Instantly Martin said, “That crisis shook Switzerland. She had considerable investments in America. Her banks were involved in German industries—”

  “For crying out loud, let’s get out of here,” said the rough visitor pushing the others.

  “Come over to my place,” the priest was saying; “I share with three other fathers—”

  “Come on,” said Barby, catching Elgar’s coat-sleeve and pulling him along the corridor. The men milled around her. Urging and arguing she plunged down the steep stone stairs, running ahead of them, out first, impatient.

  Back in the room the two friends were still discussing Switzerland. They did not appear to notice that all was now still. Laura began packing again.

  Presently the two men went out to get coffee up the street. Not long after, someone knocked and Laura opened the door to admit a dark, tall man made taller by a dark, tall hat. It was their old friend, Alfred Hill.

  “Do you know,” she said to him, “it came to me who you look like, Alf; you look like Abe Lincoln.”

  “Before or after the shot?” he said, standing and looking at her. Under his arm he had a steel-strapping machine. “Is the trunk ready?”

  “Yes.” She helped him to move it while he put the steel strapping around it. She had rye whisky, which he liked. They had some. He drank standing up, and moved uneasily about. He stood in one of the other doors, looking at her, then said, “I’m in love with a married woman who has two children. She’d go off with me. But where should I go? I’d take the children. But do you think I could make a start in South America?”

  Laura knew who the woman was. She said, “How do I know, Alf?”

  “You’re going; I feel I ought to go. How am I going to see you again?”

  “Come to see me.”

  “To Europe? To see you?”

  “Yes.” She laughed a little. “Why not?”

  He stood over her, looking down with an alert but confused expression.

  “I’ll be over to take you down to the boat,” he said.

  “All right.”

  She sat down. That day, people had been to see the furniture, strangers had spent hours talking about their affairs, Martin’s cousin had come to say her husband was going to kill her. Laura had telephoned the hospitals, the police. An old friend, a studio executive, a pretty little woman whom Alfred Hill had once admired, a woman who had “given names,” had come in, on her way to Los Angeles, to find out how she was now thought of in New York. Laura told Alf all this. He laughed in his humane way and gave a big sigh. They kissed and he went, shouldering the machine.

  PARIS: EARLY FIFTIES

  One afternoon in March, Linda Hill returned to the hotel in the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, about half past two. She had been out to lunch with an American couple who knew her father, Alfred Hill, had met him in New York at the Deans’ parties. She was disappointed. They had not seen her parents before sailing; they had brought her no message.

  She said good-bye to them joylessly. They knew nothing about her; she had explained nothing to them. What was there to explain? Her parents would have understood her without many words. But she felt miserable; in a moment of raw ugly light, she saw that she was isolated. She had be
en up all night and was tired. Things they had said floated in her mind. What did they mean? And there had been laughter from them at her.

  We thought you’d show us the Louvre.

  Oh, I’ve never been there.

  You’ve been in Paris a year and never been to the Louvre?

  What will you eat?

  I don’t know. Rognons, what is that?

  Kidneys. But you don’t know French?

  Oh, I always eat hamburgers if I can. There are places you can get them.

  They kept laughing. She was near-sighted, but rarely wore glasses. She could not see the menu, for one thing. It was early, but Americans had started coming to Paris; some came to see her. But she lived only for her letters at the American Express, for the money they sent her; hoping that her parents would come.

  Crossing the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince she was almost run over. She continued through the traffic without glancing to left or right. “Who would care? No one cares.” The hotel-keeper’s wife had seen her through the window. She scolded her, “Décidément, made-moiselle—” She gave her a letter and watched her as she opened it. Linda gave a cry of joy. “Good news?”

  “It’s from friends of my parents. The Deans. They’ve come to Paris from Switzerland and they’re living quite close. At St. Germain-en-Laye. It must be near here.”

  “It’s in the suburbs, half an hour by train from St. Lazare.”

  “Where is St. Lazare?”

  The woman paused, then said, “I’ll direct you, when you go.”

  “Oh, I am happy,” said Linda. “I’ll go there right away. No, the letter says Sunday. Oh, but I could go now. They live there. I could wait if they’re out.” She resumed her grave poise. “Well, I will go there for lunch on Sunday and I may stay a few days.”

  “Oh, have they invited you?”

  “No, but they want me. They’re my father’s real friends. I know they like me.” She smiled an open childish smile. “They have known me since I was eight years old. They always liked me.”

  She went out on Sunday. She missed a train or two but wasn’t very late. She knew they would be waiting at the station and that they might not know her. In the train she had been thinking about the times they had met; her parents’ homes at Island Beach, at Fort Tryon Park, the simple friendly life. She stopped at the top of the platform stairs to cough and looking back saw the Sunday excursionists pouring over the top of the stairs. She was close to them and looked into each face, protected by her dark sun-glasses. How many of the French had blue and blue-grey eyes: there was a man like her father—tall, dark with small blue eyes. “I never knew before that the French had blue eyes.” She turned, put on her best air, tall, slender, dark crop, black glasses, taking graceful large steps, an air of long-suffering celebrity. She knew she looked much older this way. They did not recognize her. She took off her glasses. “Hello, Laura, Martin; I knew you at once.”

  “You look like your father!” She was impassive. She had put on too much eye-shadow in which her long dark blue eyes wandered. She wore a voluminous black skirt, a red cummerbund, a white blouse, short sleeved, with falls of lace over the elbows, and peculiar Italian shoes, high-heeled with pointed toes which curled up slightly.

  They stood outside the station, with a tremendous building on the left hand.

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s the chateâu.”

  “I didn’t know it was so close to the station.”

  “Yes, it’s like a fortress in a backyard from this angle,” said Laura.

  “The trees are coming out in the park, but Paris is visible,” said Martin enthusiastically. A thin smile appeared on Linda’s dark lips. Martin and Paris! A well-known love affair. They walked around, Martin exclaiming over everything, pointing to things and relating the history of the place. “Yes.” But she did not care at all, didn’t look at the people, the park, the cliff, the Seine or the castle. “The cradle of Louis Quatorze.” Because of her supposed studies at the Sorbonne they threw in a lot of French, French history too. “Are you interested, Linda?”

  “Yes.”

  “But you’ve been here before, know it all.”

  “No.”

  “You’re tired.”

  Over the stone-paved streets, they took her to an old-fashioned café across the square, a very good one, Martin said; and while waiting they laughed, characterized one of the waiters, built up a story about him. She did not listen, just glanced about her, glad to be neutral.

  She drank one vermouth then asked for water and drank a lot of it. On the roof of the great Jacobite church, roof-menders were walking about tranquilly on the slopes, without ropes or ladders. “Perhaps they teach skiing in winter,” said Laura: “that’s what roof-menders do in Switzerland.” Linda liked them to talk as if they knew everything, but she paid no attention; impassive and neutral, she rested from herself. Above, the clouds were bowling fast; blue and white, a sky in full motion, with heavy rain in the distance, and thick high rafters of raincloud, also moving fast. Laura said, “It was blue early, then a white vapour, then blue and then these rafts of rain-cloud: trying weather. How was Paris?” Their married song, the way they always thought and talked, floated past her; she was dreaming. Laura repeated, “How was Paris?”

  “I don’t know. Cool, I think. Are these cobbles everywhere in France?”

  This started the song, their train of thought off again. Then: “Have you letters from home?”

  “Yes, whenever I go to the American Express.”

  “What do they say politically?” inquired Martin. “What is the meaning of this silence? From the time of the Rosenbergs onward, letters to me from the USA say nothing political. Aren’t they interested? Are they afraid? Have they no idea how to describe it? Has it knocked them cold? In spite of all the years of McCarthyism I know they were never prepared for anything. They were babies compared with Europeans. They never believed it could happen there. What do your parents say?”

  She walked alongside them for a while, musing, then, “They don’t mention it.”

  “And the thousands who lost their jobs, or never got any and those who were denounced and driven out—what do they do? How do they live? Do their friends stand by them, or are they afraid?”

  “I never heard of them,” she said thoughtfully. “I don’t know what they do. I suppose it’s hard for them.”

  “We were anxious for you with the demonstrations here, knowing how you think, how you feel.”

  “I was away then.”

  They went on walking towards the forest, over the cobbled streets, past the market-place, past long walls surrounding extensive gardens. Martin said, “They have a market here twice a week, the best food in France.”

  “Is there good food in France?” She looked about the square.

  “There is a store down there where you can get one hundred and four different cheeses,” said Martin.

  “It was because of your talking about French food when I was a little girl, and all they had there, that I came,” she said, looking at them intently. “Then they told me not to eat the food, and not to drink the milk.”

  “Do you eat in the students’ canteen?”

  She let the question drop, looking downward. Then she said, “I’m not at the Sorbonne. My parents think I am. I was at the cours de perfectionnement. I had to be there at eight and sometimes I stayed up all night working and then doing the work for the course. I couldn’t keep it up. I missed too much.”

  “I thought your French was perfect. Your accent is so good.”

  For the first time she smiled slightly. “Yes, my accent is very good. No one knows I’m not French till I really start talking. Then, I don’t know the names of anything. It’s my ear. I have a very good ear, but no vocabulary.”

  “What do you do at night, then?” asked Laura.

  “I’m auditioning for the Vieux-Colombier night club. I’m going to. I have a job, but I’ve only had two tries so far. It’s the La Pergola night club in the
Boulevard St. Germain. I was living in a hotel near there. I was paying nine thousand francs a month. They said they could get more. Now I have a sort of large divan room. I can make tea on an alcohol stove, but no cooking they say. I do some, but I’m afraid to take bread up because they’ll see I’m eating there. And I don’t trust French milk or water. Some of the boys steal seltzer siphons from the cafés when they can. I can’t do that. My parents told me the milk was dangerous. But,” she said, looking in at a large creamery, “it looks very good. I wonder if I could have some? I’m so thirsty. And I’ve been having the canned milk my parents send me from New York. I live on it. They send me boxes of things, they sent me a dozen cans of hamburgers, because they think—” she paused, then continued, “they think I’m broke.”

  “Then you want to stay on,” said Martin eagerly, while they were getting the milk.

  “If I go back I suppose I’ll have to get married. They want me to. But I don’t want to marry just because there’s nothing else to do. When there’s nothing else to do I’ll marry, I suppose. But I don’t want to, for that reason.”

  As they walked, Martin was commenting on the things they passed. She broke in with, “They say here I’m an essential American, no philosophy. Then they think I’m strange here. In New York I was just a normal girl, my parents’ girl. They say over here that in America we have got our values confused. I thought when I came to France—” A pause. She said, “Everyone always talked about France, a place to go and where everyone understood about life. I never thought there would be any problems living here.”

  She looked intently at them again. “You talked so much about France. I was ten then. That time you were at our place at Island Beach.” A pause.

  Martin said eagerly, “Oh, you were a little girl in a thousand. We always talked about Linda. I remember you rescuing all the alley cats, thin little clawing things that didn’t claw you. You held them against your thin little chest and you were like one of them yourself.”