by Howard Fast
“What about you?” she asked forlornly.
“I’ll rent a tux. I got no choice. This is a crazy man. If I don’t show up there, he’ll go out of his mind.”
Many years before, when Dan Lavette was still married to Jean, he had made a trip to Hawaii to open negotiations for building a hotel on Waikiki Beach. He had taken May Ling with him, and at a party given by their hosts, she had worn a dress of thick black silk decorated with dragons in gold thread. The dress had been a gift from her father, and she had worn it only once, on that single occasion. Now she took it out of the chest where it had been all these years, carefully wrapped in layers of tissue, and tried it on. It still fit perfectly, a very simple dress, ankle length, split on the sides to above the knee. Anyway, her figure had not changed.
The night of the Hargasey party, she remained in the bathroom, making up her face, until after Dan had dressed and gone downstairs. She felt like a silly young girl and giggled at her reflection in the mirror—it was so long since she had used make-up. Her skin was still smooth and unflawed. She sighed when powder failed to conceal the tiny wrinkles about her eyes. How awful it was to feel that the perfectly natural process of aging was your enemy! She had never cut her hair, but since she was a Chinese lady they would make allowances for that, just as they would for her curious dress. But what if Dan were to be disappointed? After all, he had urged her to buy a new dress; but a new dress for one single occasion made no sense whatsoever, and anyway, it was too late. She drew her hair into a heavy bun at the back of her neck, pinning it in place with two gold combs that Dan had given her. When? She tried to remember. It was the first anniversary of the night he had taken her to bed with him. And the evening slippers had come with the dress, of the same black silk and the same gold thread. Dressed, her hair finally set, she stood there lost in thought, remembering how Feng Wo, after five years of working for Lavette, had finally gathered up the courage to ask Dan whether he and his wife would come to partake of a Chinese dinner at their home. Jean, as Dan told her afterward, had reacted in horror. Dan came alone, and that was the beginning, the first time he had seen her. But she was already in love with him before he ever set foot in her father’s house, in love with the image of this strange, huge, unruly man who had defied all mores of San Francisco prejudice to hire a Chinese to run his business. And then, the second time, he had turned up at the library where she worked, the temporary library that had been put together after the earthquake, fumbling, uneasy, like a small boy avowedly doing wrong, asking her whether he, a married man, could take her to dinner.
His booming voice broke in on her reverie. “May Ling, we’re going to be the last ones there!”
She came downstairs slowly, very tentatively. They were all waiting there to review her—Dan in his rented tuxedo, Joe, Feng Wo, and So-toy. No one said anything as she appeared. They just stared at her speechlessly, and Dan’s thoughts, like hers, leaped back to that evening in Hawaii, when, with her hand on his arm, they had come out onto the lawn, under the light of the Japanese lanterns, and every face in the great crowd of people at the luau had turned toward her. It seemed to him that nothing had changed, and now he said, almost reverently, “My word, you are one hell of a woman!”
***
Marcel’s English left more to be desired than Barbara’s French; but then, she had been living in France for almost three years, while his English was simply the product of school and two weeks in London. The letter she proposed to read to him would, she insisted, help him practice.
“But I don’t need practice,” he said. “I live in France.”
“Now. Conceivably, someday, you might desire to live somewhere else.”
“Why? You know what the Frenchman said when asked why his was a nation of nontravelers?”
“I don’t. Tell me.”
“He said, ‘Monsieur, why should I travel? I am already in Paris.’”
“That’s not arrogant, it’s only modest and reassuring. This letter is from Dan’s wife. She’s Chinese.”
“The letter is in Chinese?”
“You know it isn’t. She’s a lovely, cultured woman, a librarian, and her name is May Ling. It’s a very romantic thing, although when I was a kid I thought it quite horrible. He met her a few years after he married my mother, and then for years she was his mistress and lived in a little house on Willow Street in San Francisco, which he bought for her—”
“It sounds very French.”
“I suppose so. She had a child, who is my half brother, Joe, but that was before they were married, and it wasn’t very romantic, I guess, but pretty terrible, and then she couldn’t stand it anymore, and she and Joe and her mother and father left San Francisco and went to Los Angeles, and then finally my father divorced my mother and followed her there.”
“If you hadn’t told me this before, there’s no way in the world I could follow what you’re saying. Must you read me the letter in English?”
“Yes. You’ll meet her someday. She’s dear and sweet and very clever, and she looks like one of those porcelain ladies out of an old Chinese print.”
“Porcelain ladies out of a print?” Marcel asked dubiously.
“You know what I mean.”
“Then read slowly, please.” He kicked off his shoes, sat crosslegged on her couch, lit a cigarette, and prepared himself to listen. Barbara stared at him thoughtfully until finally he said, “Well, go on. Begin.”
“I was just thinking—I love you. You’re very kind and very gentle and very patient, nothing like my notion of a Frenchman. No, that’s not exactly what I mean.”
“Of course it is. Don’t go on with this. Just read your Chinese letter, very slowly.”
“‘Dear Barbara,’” she read, “‘I have allowed too much to accumulate, which is the punishment of a very bad letter writer, so this will have to go on and on. I have the whole evening, because Dan drank too much last night, and he’s not a good drinker, so here it is nine o’clock, and he’s sound asleep. And the reason he drank so much is that we went to one of those Hollywood glamour parties that you read about in the newspapers, except that it was in Beverly Hills and not in Hollywood—’”
“I don’t understand that,” Marcel interrupted.
“They live in Los Angeles, and it’s very confusing. If you are in the movie business, they call it Hollywood, but there are lots of small towns in Los Angeles, and Beverly Hills is in Los Angeles. It’s kind of a city inside of a city, and very posh—”
“That’s enough,” Marcel protested. “Just read the letter, but slowly.”
“‘—not in Hollywood,’” she read, “‘but in one of those fantastic pink stucco palaces that these people live in, and it all happened because Dan is building a yacht for a Hungarian film director by the name of Alex Hargasey. You know about the old boatyard that Dan and Sam Goldberg took over on Terminal Island. The whole venture wasn’t going well at all until Hargasey hired Pete Lomas’s mackerel boat for a film he was making, and then Pete brought Hargasey to Dan, and now Dan is building him this huge, expensive yacht that will cost enough money to keep the boatyard going another year.
“‘Well, Hargasey is absolutely intrigued by your father, and he insisted that we come to this party, which was held to celebrate the completion of the film, which will be called The Angry Sea. Can you imagine, a middle-aged Chinese lady among all those movie stars and glamorous people! At first I absolutely refused to go, but then Dan and Joe insisted that I must, and I put together a sort of Chinese costume, and Dan rented a tuxedo, and there we were. Barbara, your father was wonderful. Not only was he the most impressive and handsome man there, but all these beautiful, celluloid women were practically climbing all over him. But Hargasey, who is about fifty and paunchy and has the most incredible accent, attached himself to me and presently informed me that he had conceived a great passion for me and that we must have what he called a ‘liaison.’ I
sn’t that a wonderful word? They are absolutely the strangest people I have ever known. When I told Dan about it, I expected him to be furious and prepared myself to calm him down, but he laughed himself silly. I think he’s becoming much too sure of himself. We were introduced to Greta Garbo and Bette Davis and Spencer Tracy, only I think it was not Spencer Tracy but his twin brother, who goes places instead, and it was all absolutely unbelievable. And the strangest part of it is that my father, who is such a serious old Chinese gentleman, insisted that I go into every detail of who I saw and met—such is the power of the movie industry.’”
“Your grandfather is Chinese?” Marcel said in awe.
“No, no, no. How many times must I explain to you? Feng Wo is Joe’s grandfather, a very scholarly and dignified gentleman who translates Chinese philosophy and who has had a book published by the University of California Press. He also managed my father’s business for years and years.”
“No, please, don’t explain anymore. Is the letter over?”
“Not quite. I’ll read slowly. ‘Joe—’ I’m reading now—”
“I can see that. Your brother, Joe.”
“‘Joe is starting his second year at college. He spent the summer in the Napa Valley, at Higate, working for Jake and Clair Levy. You never met the Levys, but you will soon. They’re taking a trip to Europe, and they’ll be in Paris, and I took the liberty of giving them your address and telephone number. They’ll arrive, I think, about three weeks after you get this letter. I know that it was a liberty, but they’re dear, good people. Jake’s father, Mark, was Dan’s partner for twenty years, from nineteen ten to nineteen thirty. Clair’s father was Dan’s first captain. He died when the Oceanic was torpedoed in nineteen seventeen, and after that Clair lived with the Levys until she and Jake were married. Jake had some bad experience overseas during the war, and he wanted no part of his father’s money. Very idealistic. He felt the money was tainted, since Dan and Mark built their empire out of war shipping, and he and Clair took whatever savings they had and bought an old winery for a song during Prohibition. It’s quite a place now, and part of the reason for their trip to Europe is Jake’s plan to put their wine on the French market. Can you imagine Frenchmen buying California wine?
“‘And if it were not sufficiently complicated with Joe being half Chinese and one quarter French and one quarter Italian, Sally, Jake Levy’s youngest child, has fallen madly in love with him. Since she’s not yet thirteen, no one is taking it very seriously, but the combination, at some future date, would be absolutely fascinating, since Jake is Jewish and Clair is a mixture of Irish, English, and German. Sally is a strange and lovely child, wild as a hare and smart as a whip and as unlike Joe as anything you could imagine, skinny, long legs, and the same pale blue eyes and straw-colored hair that her grandmother, Sarah, once had. She is convinced that she is ugly and undesirable, and she confessed to me in utter misery that her breasts were too small, her legs too long and skinny, her skin too freckled, and her hair no better than straw. Can you imagine? From a thirteen-year-old. She is much too liberated for her age, and she told Joe that if he ever looked at another girl, she would kill him. I think he is flattered.
“‘Anyway, there is a little of our life back here. Please, do be kind to the Levys. But I know you will. I don’t think you could be unkind to anyone. Dan sends all his love, and I do keep after him to write, but to him a letter is a monumental task. Joe misses you, as we all do. When will you come home?’”
“Zat, dear one, is zi question,” Marcel said in English.
“Very good.”
“The question or my English?”
“Your English.”
“Thank you. But if we were married, it would make for problems.”
“Are you asking me? It’s an odd way to propose.”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
Barbara, staring at him thoughtfully, said nothing.
***
Joe Lavette could not get her out of his mind. The University of California campus did not lack beautiful girls. There was a long-limbed, tawny-skinned breed that California seemed to produce, robust, good-looking women whose eyes followed and admired the young student. With good reason. Twenty-one years old, Joe Lavette stood six-foot-two, slightly taller than his father; he had Dan’s broad shoulders without the thickness, without the heavy overlay of muscle; his features were more delicate, the nose smaller, the dark eyes with a slight Oriental cast, the black hair straight and cropped short. He was not simply a handsome young man, but different, unusual, race and breed titillating the curiosity of everyone who noticed him. Warm, emotional, perhaps overly sentimental, he found that he fell in and out of love all too easily. His problem, which he recognized, was to remain unattached until he finished medical school and his subsequent internship. It had been a miracle to him that he had been accepted at all, and to resist making a permanent alliance with one of the number of blond, blue-eyed women who welcomed his affection required all his will power.
Sally Levy helped. At least to the extent that once the summer at Higate was over, he found himself thinking about her constantly. “I am not in love with her,” he assured himself. “I am not stupid or romantic enough to be in love with a demented thirteen-year-old kid.” He had had affairs with four girls, successively, and had convinced himself that he was sincerely in love with all four of them, also successively. But when he fixed any one of them in his mind as candidates for marriage, the image was always blocked by the memory of Sally Levy, her oversized hands scratched from the grape picking, her fingers stained with grape juice, her face covered with freckles, her straw-colored hair an unwashed tangle, and her eyes filled with a foolish, cowlike worship. She followed him everywhere, made an ultimate nuisance of herself, and then finally said to him, one evening, “You might as well know about it. I love you.”
“You’re crazy,” he told her.
“Sure, that’s a fine thing to say.”
“Jesus, you’re thirteen years old.”
“I didn’t have anything to do with that. Anyway, it’s no reason why you can’t be nice to me.”
“I am nice to you.”
“You are like hell. You don’t even know that I exist. You pay more attention to the damn dogs.”
“Why don’t you stop trying to talk tough?” he asked her gently.
“Maybe it’s just the way I am.”
“Maybe.”
“How do you feel about me?” she demanded.
“What do you mean, how do I feel about you. I like you all right. We’re sort of related, aren’t we?”
“No. How could we be related? You’re Chinese. But that doesn’t bother me.”
“Thank you.”
“Because I’m in love with you.”
“Yes, you said that before.”
“In a few weeks you’ll be going back to Los Angeles. You’ll forget all about me.”
“Not very likely.”
“You don’t even say that nice. You think I’m just a crazy kid, don’t you?”
Joe shook his head hopelessly.
“Well, I’m not. I started to menstruate.”
He stared at her, unable to think of an appropriate comment.
“Well, if you’re going to medical school, that shouldn’t shock you.”
“It doesn’t shock me. It’s just a funny thing for a kid to say.”
“Why don’t you stop calling me a kid? Why can’t you take me seriously? If you did, you’d at least come up here sometime to see me. I can’t go down to Los Angeles. What do you think my mother would say if I told her that I was in love with you and I have all kinds of crazy dreams about you making love to me?”
“I can imagine what she’d say.”
“So you won’t come to see me, not even once?”
“How can I, Sally? I’ll be in medical school. Do you know what medical scho
ol is like? They work you twenty-four hours a day.”
“And in between, you sleep with the nurses.”
“God Almighty, where do you get your ideas?”
“I read a lot.”
“I bet you do.”
“Anyway, you can be sure of one thing. If you marry anyone else, I’ll just kill you.”
“Just like that?”
“You bet.”
“Well,” he said, “you don’t have to kill me, because I don’t intend to marry anyone.”
Thinking about it now, months later, her image remained with him, vivid, alive. Whoever he was with paled into dullness against that memory.
***
It was a year since Barbara had met Marcel Duboise, and to celebrate the occasion, she prepared dinner for the two of them in her apartment on the Quai de Passy. She had been reading French cookbooks, practicing assiduously, and for the occasion she decided on a boeuf en croûte. She had to finish her piece for the magazine, and that took the morning. Then she skipped lunch, contenting herself with a cup of coffee and a cigarette, and went to work on the boeuf, wondering meanwhile, as she had so often before, how it was that a nation of superb cooks built apartments with such wretched kitchens. Hers was no better than a large closet. The dish was a challenge; for herself, she considered haute cuisine to be an utter waste of time and rather silly in the bargain, but since she happened to be in love with a Frenchman, she was determined to conquer it. She had done her shopping in the early morning, in the best local tradition. Beef fillet. She trimmed it carefully, tied it up, giggling at her careful effort, rubbed it with pepper, and then browned it in fresh sweet butter, all the while feeling that she was working out a puzzle rather than preparing food. Ten minutes in a hot oven. While it was cooling, she read over her piece for the magazine: the new spring fashions, a scattering of politics that she had picked up from Le Monde—she was still on uneasy ground with politics—the three new best-selling novels, particularly Aragon’s new book, and the opening of a new loan exhibit of the Impressionists. She was on firm ground there; at least that much her mother had given her, and after reading it, she decided that Jean would like it. Jean read every piece she wrote, and discussed her pieces in the letters they exchanged. It was in her last letter that Jean had observed that her daughter was becoming a “damned competent and professional writer.” It was high praise.