by Liza Wieland
Hallie takes up her knife, points it at the roast. Was ist das? she asks.
The man stares openmouthed as if she has said something obscene. The little girls look at each other and giggle, and the woman slaps the arm of the girl closest to her, the sound of the hand on soft flesh echoing through the dining room like a high-pitched gunshot. The child puts down her fork and weeps quietly for the rest of the meal. Hallie asks again if the couple speak English, and the man says no in a way that suggests he might but would prefer not to.
Elizabeth eats quickly, cleaning her plate in order not to be hungry later. Dessert arrives: a small dish of ochre-colored pudding, which Elizabeth tastes cautiously and discovers is butterscotch. She sees that these little orange pots dotting the tables are the brightest things in the dining room, like votives. The man and the woman take the girls’ portions away and hand them back to the waiter as he passes. Elizabeth wishes she might somehow meet these girls later, in secret, slip them pieces of chocolate. The man rises and, without a word, leaves the table, and his family follows.
I don’t think I can face another meal with them, Elizabeth says.
It wasn’t so bad. Maybe they’ll get used to us.
I doubt it.
Those poor little girls. Next time, I’m going to give them my pudding. Or at least try to. The parents can’t like us any less.
* * *
I think I’m homesick, Elizabeth whispers, later, after they have turned out the light and climbed into their berths, after Hallie has begun to snore. I remember feeling like this when I was nine and missed one of my aunts.
She’s not sure why she wants to say the words out loud or who she thinks might be listening. Not Hallie. Not Louise or even Margaret.
Where do the dead go? she asks the air, the ship’s iron hull, the ocean below.
The fishnets are closely woven and dyed blue, the same shade as the North Atlantic beyond Douarnenez. Sardines can’t see them in the blue sea—that must be the idea. The catch is tremendous, at least twenty boats at the dock below the fish houses, so loaded with sardines and oysters that their hulls ride just at the waterline. A medium-sized wave could swamp them, but no such wave arrives. That’s what waves do. They arrive, same as dreams do, same as travelers do, their bags full of flotsam and jetsam, the orderly folding inside always undone by the rough treatment of porters and dockhands.
Elizabeth predicts Hallie will last only a few days in this little town before she escapes to Paris. A few turns out to be too hopeful. In forty-eight hours, Hallie has helped set her up in the Hôtel de l’Europe, a block from the port, and then she’s packing her bags again.
It’s all right, Elizabeth says. I like it here. It feels familiar.
And think of it this way, Hallie says. I can start making introductions for us. Invitations, escorts, that kind of thing.
Not too many invitations. Please.
It’s Paris, Elizabeth. The point is to go out.
I’ll rest up for it then.
Promise me you’ll make a friend here. The cook seems nice.
I’m sure the cook doesn’t have time for me.
It turns out, though, the cook has quite a bit of time. Every morning, after Elizabeth has unpacked her books and writing paper at the little table on the hotel terrace, the cook brings strong coffee and warm rolls, and then four hours later, a massive lunch of oyster pie and courgettes, a plate of cheeses and slices of butter cake, explaining that this is the custom, to eat well at midday. She is unfailingly cheerful and quick with a conspiratorial wink. The hotel staff call her Madame. She says approvingly that Elizabeth must have many, many friends at home because she is certainly writing quite a lot of letters.
Madame is, it appears, also the laundress. The fourth morning of her stay, when Elizabeth walks out of the hotel lobby and onto the terrace, Madame is pegging sheets on a wash line. She has hung the line on three sides around the table Elizabeth has chosen the three previous mornings, and then, after she serves the coffee and rolls, she quickly pegs the final sheet, forming a sort of tent, open to the sky and to the view of the sea.
Privée, she whispers, and gestures toward the table piled with books and writing paper. Then she lifts a corner of the tent and disappears.
The bedsheets have been bleached to a brilliant sheen, and they sparkle in the sunshine like light on water. Elizabeth’s view is endless water and fishing boats and docks and men. The sky is the color of cornflowers or forget-me-nots. The sheets around her twitch like sails, and then, as they dry and grow less heavy, they ripple in the steady breeze. Elizabeth has a sense of the sea running beneath her, under the terrace, that she is sailing downward toward the port and the bay but never arriving. Muffled voices from behind the wash lines could be human or animal or the wind or something else entirely.
* * *
Two hours later, when some invisible presence unpegs the sheets, Elizabeth discovers there is a woman seated at the next table. This woman opens her eyes wide in theatrical surprise and smiles warmly.
I thought someone was over there, she says, but you were so quiet.
Elizabeth guesses the woman is German, and maybe about forty. She wears riding clothes: red silk shirt open at the neck and jodhpurs. Her hair is coal black and close-cropped, styled like a man’s with a side part and a slick of pomade.
Madame appears, as if out of the air.
Voilà! she says to Elizabeth, gesturing toward the woman. Mademoiselle Bishop. Le cirque d’Autriche arrive!
Well, the woman says, her accent clearly German, I am hardly the entire Austrian circus by myself!
Elizabeth cannot take her eyes off the woman’s blouse. The color glistens like rubies or wet nail polish. She imagines when the woman rises from her chair, the seat back will be streaked red.
How rude of me, the woman says. I’m Greta Angel.
She extends her hand across the space between their tables, and Elizabeth does the same. The ends of their fingers just touch. Greta Angel tips her chair sideways to grasp Elizabeth’s hand in hers, and both her feet come completely off the ground. The maneuver is amazing—Elizabeth can’t really believe what she’s seeing—the magical balance of it.
I love the circus, Elizabeth says. I saw the P. T. Barnum last year in New York.
You’ll like ours then, Greta Angel says, though it’s smaller, of course. I’ll get you a ticket. Or two?
Thank you, Elizabeth says. But just one. My friend isn’t arriving for another ten days.
Ah, Greta Angel says. She turns her chair so that she is facing Elizabeth. Her gaze is open and unguarded. Patient.
I understand from Madame that you are a prodigious writer of letters. Madame said perhaps you are a diplomat.
Hardly, Elizabeth says. I like to receive letters. And I‘ve found this is the only way.
There is something fine about a foreign letter posted to a foreign address, Greta Angel says. Poste Restante, Paris. That’s all. And these letters hardly ever go astray. It’s a miracle.
The sorting is the magic, I think, Elizabeth says. Behind the scenes.
Yes, I agree. It’s the same in the circus. We keep the illusion going.
I understand.
Greta Angel stares intently, as if she is calculating exactly how much Elizabeth understands.
Well, I’m off to work, she says. See you again tomorrow. I’ll leave the ticket with Madame if you’re not here.
Thank you, Elizabeth says. I’m here every day.
* * *
The next morning, Greta Angel does not appear, but her blouse does, pegged into a corner of the wash line enclosing Elizabeth’s table. Madame obviously has decided Elizabeth enjoys this sort of Bedouin breakfast. The sky is a bit overcast, and so in this light the sheets have a soft, pearly glow. Amidst them, the ruby blouse is like a slap, a quick bit of violence. Elizabeth stares at the blouse for a long time, then sits down at the table, facing away toward the sea. She stirs her coffee, picks at the breakfast roll, reducing it slowly to
a plate full of crumbs. She takes a pen and stationery from her bag, begins a letter to Louise: Who are you seeing in New York these days? I look forward to your arrival. You’ll love it here. I’ve met a woman who’s with the circus. I’m told she trains the ponies.
The wind rises, and from behind her comes a low tapping. She turns to see the ruby blouse has blown open and up into the air, so that the buttons strike against one of the wooden pegs. Almost before she knows what she’s doing, Elizabeth stands and moves into the corner of the washing. She reaches up to untangle the blouse, close the buttons. It’s hung at the level of the sheets, so she has to lift her arms high, as a small child would toward a grown-up, toward her mother wearing this blouse, the child asking to be held. She knows how this gesture must look on the other side of the sheet: a shadow play. From the kitchen, from the dining room windows, everyone can see what is happening. She catches the hem of the blouse, smooths the fabric, which has the scratch of raw silk, but softened, buffed away by the body inside. She begins to fasten the buttons, but a gust of wind lifts the blouse away, off the wash line, and into Elizabeth’s arms. It would be difficult to say exactly how this happened.
Elizabeth turns quickly and drops the blouse into her bag. She sits down and fixes her gaze on the port of Douarnenez. There is some tumult on the dock below. A boat captain shouts to a group of men standing nearby, Non, non, non, and then he begins to pitch sardines at their heads. They duck but do not leave, and then suddenly they storm his boat. He disappears below, and the others scoop up his catch and throw it all overboard. Elizabeth tries to resume her letter to Louise, but the ruby blouse, just visible under books and maps, is a distraction. Why do you think, she finally writes, Rimbaud said about Brittany that the sea air would burn his lungs and the bad atmosphere would hurt him?
* * *
Upstairs in her room, Elizabeth lifts Greta Angel’s blouse from her bag and hangs it in the tiny wardrobe. She has already invented a tale that she tells herself is very much the truth: the blouse blew down from the line, and rather than leave it or bother Madame, Elizabeth took it inside and will return it as quickly as she can.
Her intention now is to walk down to the docks to see what happened to the besieged boat. There is probably a very good story, and everyone in the shops will be talking about it. She wants to pick out gifts for Frani and Miss Moore, one of the beautiful baskets or a small blue net for catching crabs. A bottle of cider for later, no, two bottles. She combs her hair, applies a little lipstick. Too much, she thinks, for what I have on. Reflected in the mirror, the half-opened wardrobe, the blouse is a slash of red as if someone has started to paint the wall inside.
With her back to the mirror, Elizabeth unbuttons her shirt, slips it off, and drops it on the bed. She opens the wardrobe and slides the ruby blouse closer. She wonders again at the feel of it, rough and soft at the same time—wouldn’t you feel alive and witty and ennobled wearing such a thing right up against your plain old human skin? Wouldn’t you? She reaches back to unhook her brassiere, drops it to the floor, reaches for Greta Angel’s blouse.
The blouse is miles too big, like the men’s pajama tops some girls at Vassar used to wear. She always wished she had that sort of bravery, that nerve. And now it’s as if the fabric sends a drug through her skin to her bloodstream. She turns to look in the mirror and sees the effect: the red lipstick is a shade lighter than the blouse, but that seems artistic rather than wrong, a subtlety Margaret would approve of. Last year, Robert Seaver took her Christmas shopping and said to pick out anything, and Elizabeth chose a scarf that was a sort of Tiffany window design, with small rectangles of blue and green and yellow, but mostly this same shade of ruby red. He said he was glad she’d chosen something red, and she was both touched and puzzled by his modest happiness.
She unbuttons the blouse, takes it off, returns it to the hanger. She dashes off a few lines of explanation to Greta Angel, seals the page in an envelope, and leaves it at the hotel’s front desk on her way out, hoping she has avoided writing something that sounds like a ransom note.
The sailboats for hire are named for nearby towns and local legends: Quimper, Tristan, Isolde, Carnac. They ride gently in their berths, the bright hulls—pink, blue, green, orange—and dazzling white sails inviting, eager. Maybe after Louise arrives . . . ? Elizabeth thinks, but then she recalls Louise flying overboard in Wellfleet, all whirling, splashing arms and legs. A charter, perhaps, then maybe a bit of fishing. The vista from the terrace of the Hôtel de l’Europe reminds her almost painfully of Cape Breton, the sea lying steely blue as mackerel. These French are different from the Canadian Bretons, well-off by comparison, a bit obsequious in the shops, rather than moody and silent, catering to the tourist trade instead of desperate to get away to today’s dinner. Elizabeth ducks into a little shack full of baskets and espadrilles. She admires the shoes, same colors as the boats’ hulls, with their soft, woven soles. So comfortable for walking. She wonders if they will be fashionable enough for Paris and begins in her head to form the question in French.
Bien sûr, the shopkeeper says. She is a small, compact woman, about sixty, dressed in the native costume: starched black dress with a broad lace collar and the traditional lace coiffe that looks like a cross between a maid’s cap and a nun’s winged cornette. She asks the usual questions: where Elizabeth is from, how long she will be staying, what she plans to do. When Elizabeth mentions renting a boat, perhaps fishing, the shopkeeper scowls. They are not to be used as fishing boats, the shopkeeper tells her, but sometimes that rule is broken, and so there is trouble, the sort that Elizabeth observed this morning. Vol! Stealing! The shopkeeper, whose husband is a sardine fisherman, is so incensed that she translates, as if the English could serve as an expletive. Les étrangers, she says, and then apologizes.
She doesn’t mean us, a familiar voice says.
Elizabeth turns to see Greta Angel.
She means gypsies and that sort, Greta says. I got your note just after you left. Thank you for saving my blouse.
Not at all. I didn’t know quite what to do.
What you did was perfectly appropriate, I think.
Greta Angel takes a step closer. Her eyes are large lidded, giving her a sleepy, languorous look, but still full of the candor Elizabeth noticed before, a habit of interested appraisal. She gives off the scents of hay and peppermint.
I should have left the blouse with Madame, I now realize. Do you need it for today?
I would like to have it for this afternoon, yes. Perhaps when you finish your shopping. I can wait a minute or two.
She looks down at the pairs of espadrilles in Elizabeth’s hands. Such lovely colors, she says. Very nice for country walking. I could show you a few paths along the coast if you have time.
Elizabeth feels a gathering vertigo, as if she had already been led to the sea’s edge on one of the coastal footpaths. But instead of seascape or horizon, she sees only blackness, the emptiness of cold, blue-black space, suffocation. Suddenly, a bell chimes. She turns her head toward a rush of fresh air: a breeze has blown the shop door open, a fine rain has begun to fall, tourists enter the shop to escape, the women’s hair is shot with raindrops like gossamer, like silk.
Look at that, Elizabeth says. I think I’ll have to stay here for a bit. But I’m sure Madame would be willing to let you into my room, or go in herself to get your blouse. You can tell her I said it was all right.
Are you sure? Greta Angel says. I don’t think this rain will last for very long. It never does.
I want to look at the baskets, Elizabeth says. For a friend who is a poet. She’s very particular.
I understand perfectly. You’re right. Madame will see to it. I think she rather likes poking into the bedrooms.
I suspect she does, Elizabeth says.
I’ll leave the ticket for you. I hope you’ll come to the circus tonight.
Thank you, Elizabeth says. I had planned to.
I’ll be looking for you then.
Greta
Angel reaches to shake Elizabeth’s hand, then turns away, disappearing into the misty rain.
That night, at the Cirque Royal, Elizabeth is astonished to crowd into the small tent with what seems to be the entire population of Douarnenez, dressed up in Breton costume. The thirty or so tourists look like bright blooms against a sea of black taffeta and white lace. It will be easy for Greta Angel to see if Elizabeth has come as promised, even if she sits very high up and behind the aerialists’ perch. Already, Madame has found her in the crowd and is making her way slowly up the wooden benches, stopping to greet a few of the women and kiss the cheeks of fat babies. Each time she stops, she points to Elizabeth and explains something, smiling broadly. Elizabeth wonders what fame she’s acquired: Voilà, the American! The marvelous letter writer! Tiens! The queen of privacy! Alors! The thief of chemisiers ! But she doesn’t mind. To be able to come to the circus alone, she first fortified herself with three tall glasses of cider, one after the other, standing beside the open door of her wardrobe and gazing at the gap occupied this morning by the ruby blouse.
Mon dieu! Madame wheezes when she reaches Elizabeth, pressing her right hand to her bosom. Bonsoir, mademoiselle!