I'm Dying Laughing

by Christina Stead

  The keen, dark, jaded face of Des Canby smiled. He chattered in his most Oxford manner; but he promised, ‘I agree, I agree. I see your point. I’ll talk to them.’

  The Howards listened to them all; were tempted and then enthralled. It was what they had had in mind and it was such an easy way out.

  ‘People in Europe have seen so much history, no nation has ever been always in the saddle, they understand failure and terror, they aren’t like the Americans, who can only win and, if they don’t, wring their hands in bleak despair. You’ll be all right there. No one will question you or your motives. You can live out your lives happily and return home when the trouble is past.’

  This was the theme of their conversations for the next week and when Des left for England, they went to the boat to see him off. They gave him a bottle of brandy, some other presents, were giddy and gay and called out, ‘See you soon.’

  They meant it.

  They discussed Emily’s pregnancy too. Stephen said, ‘If we are going to Europe soon we simply can’t have the baby.’

  There were long discussions. Emily cried. But after Des Danby left for England, she had an abortion and she convinced herself that it was right, for she had read a book or spoken to someone who said, ‘All foetuses that come to nothing, the abortions, are defectives. They would not abort otherwise. It proves that there is a defect.’

  And when this operation was over, she and Stephen had a discussion about the inconveniences and embarrassment of her being a woman. She refused to have a hysterectomy, quite a fashionable operation then. She said, ‘Without my sex and womb, I’m not a woman, my character would change, I’d be nothing and I wouldn’t want to live. I’m a woman all ways. I like it; and I won’t have that.’

  Stephen found her a surgeon who ridiculed her ideas, ‘That’s superstition, that’s an old wives’ tale, that your character changes.’

  She felt she knew better. ‘I know where my feelings spring from, not only the brain, but from everywhere, I am myself everywhere.’

  But they found another way, another operation in which the fallopian tubes were twisted so that no more ova would pass into the womb and she would no more become a mother. This she endured. Because of this perhaps, after this, she suffered many pains; another operation. She said, ‘The doctors have got their hands on me: I’ll never be free of them. Doctors have never been a good thing for me.’

  She was still in bed from an operation, this time an appendectomy, when the Oateses sailed for Europe, travelling on a cargo boat, a rocking toy of shallow draught, built hastily for war purposes only and soon to be laid up forever in some weedy harbour. The tall bare masts rocked against the dim stars over a stormy Atlantic and the master was without storm warnings, weather services having ceased during the war and not yet been restored. But the Oateses, Axel a reporter, for his own business, Ruth for him, and a few Europeans, long stranded in the USA, were pleased to return to the bleak, hungry countries, where coal was scarce, milk blue, baths rusty and houses cold; and where some of the quays, docks, streets, city squares, looked still as they had the day the Nazis left them. The Oateses took with them a few valises and a trunk; and in Ruth’s purse was a memorandum from the Howards.

  ‘Darling Ruth and Axel: these questions will probably seem silly, but they are the sort of little things that bother Stephen and me and we would appreciate a hint on them; as we are now, thanks to you dear ones, going to move to Europe with our family. I shall keep a carbon copy, dear ones, and if you answer just by number, indicating only yes or no, plus or minus, that would be of inestimable help to me in packing. The difficult ones first.

  1. Stephen had pneumonia several times, last year twice, and we thought it very serious, because you know the illness he had when a student. He was helped by penicillin and this seems essential. Is it possible to get penicillin in France or anywhere in Europe? Should we have it sent regularly?

  2. I have had throat, head and ear infections, helped by sulphur. I need it. Should I bring a supply with me or have it sent regularly?

  3. Our children are and we all are, except for the above, big husky people; but we are used to American food and we are afraid that too abrupt a change to European standards may harm us, the children particularly, who are not yet formed. We have heard that Europeans are living on soya bean extracts cooked with vegetables and such things, that potatoes are scarce, while bread is black and indigestible and causes bowel upsets; and milk is lacking. Do such real shortages exist? Is there any way of getting round them, such as black market ways? We’re ashamed to put this down, but our children are not used to hardships. Should we bring, or have sent regularly, such items as the following: canned milk; canned orange juice; canned fats; sugar; chocolate; powdered eggs; cocoa; jam; canned meats, as ham, hamburgers; ice-cream; frankfurters? Any suggestions? Are all necessary? Is it true that Americans have special privileges and can import freely without duty, either through their consulates, embassies, or the American army canteens, or otherwise?

  4. Should we bring in quantity or have shipped regularly: toothpaste; toothbrushes; aspirin; toilet-paper; simple household drugs, such as bicarbonate, boracic, adhesive tape, vitamin pills for the children, usual household medical supplies? The adults in our household take several drugs regularly by prescription. Should we bring or have these sent—benzedrine, thyroid extract, belladonna. Are such things obtainable in Europe?

  5. Household furnishings. We would bring a few books and personal things. But will you please say whether any of the following, or all, are obtainable or at such expense that we would do better to ship them from here: electric refrigerator and deep freeze; electric stove (we don’t like ours but still); mattresses, bed springs; chairs, dining-room table; small rugs; simple glass curtains and drapes; lamps, standing and table; vacuum cleaner (Hoover or not); electric bulbs for lamps; electric transformers; sheets; blankets; pillows for beds; sofa pillows; big furniture; chests of drawers; hand- and bath-towels; general household linen; kitchen linen.

  6. Kitchen equipment: pots and pans; kitchen knives; services; knives, forks and spoons; plates; cups and saucers; platters; general kitchen equipment, such as mashers, graters, slicers, mixmasters, can opener, mops, brushes, pails etc.

  7. Clothes. We would stock the kids and ourselves up with necessary underwear, sweaters and complete outfits and would expect to get changes from the USA as they outgrow; but we are not sure of the timing and want to know if we could buy washing materials and other materials such as cotton, rayon, silks, wools, stuff for play-clothes and dresses, aprons and so on. Should we bring a reasonable supply of such materials to last for a year or two?’

  With this was a letter from Stephen, saying, ‘The Pilgrim Fathers once again! Here is a letter from the Reverend John Jones to Chief Squahunk: “Greetings! Before we decide to come over on the Mayflower, please let us know whether we should bring with us, the following: buskins; camlets, hollands, cambrics; spinning wheels; looms; ewers and brocs; black physic—whether you have or can have obtained by runners or otherwise, the following: mulled wine; mead; cyders—we understand you live on roots and leaves and fire made by rubbing damp sticks together; need we bring flint; tinder; also sheep; fowl?”

  ‘Or my great-grandfather coming from Central Europe to the goldrush: “Dear Smith, Engineer of Mines, I intend coming to your goldrush and at present I have only a small tin box; kindly tell me if I should pack in it, the following comforts to which, although by no means green and tender, I am accustomed, for I am afraid my health may suffer in California: videlicet, one large German central stove, tiled and decorated, one suite each Biedermeyer, dining-room and bedroom furniture; warming pans; slippers, one grand piano; sets of meerschaum pipes and so forth?”’

  12 LANDING PARTY

  THE HOWARDS, NATURALLY, TRAVELLED first class. They gave a big landing party the evening before the ship docked at Le Havre. When this was over, they received several invitations to dinner in Paris, Brussels and elsewhere in Europe; J
ohnny Ledane, a banking friend, wanted to see them the next day to help them to get settled; British Mr Scope conferred a favour upon them by asking them to meet him for drinks at the Scribe next week; the Valais family asked them to dinner in Passy, the following week; and Mr Mernie Wauters, a Brussels businessman, said they must really see each other, they must really be friends. Brussels and Paris were as close as suburbs.

  After the party Emily went down to finish their packing.

  Instead, she sat down to her portable typewriter, wrote some reflections on their last day at sea, a comic description of the party, some political views, with unflattering sketches of the guests. ‘Cake-Eaters Worrying,’ she wrote. ‘They feared they were going down and down, but they were going up and up. Faugh is the word and phew! (Or Scope! and Blough!) Caviar contributed by the management, while in the cabin, Madame is typing away on a commissioned article. What to do when your young man leaves you. (‘Shoot him,’ said Stephen. ‘Then you get in the newspapers, the vaudeville stage, the movies, and marry a regular guy.’)

  She wrote to Ruth Oates, now in London, ‘Stephen was not very Homeric at the landing party. I would scorn to proselytize such canaille, the mean of passé European culture. (Also he could not. He had to be le sophistiqué.) Johnny Ledane, the banking character, thinks of me as a writer, extremely famous and rich, cela va sans dire. I too am getting European culture, you see. He pictured me as a redheaded glamour girl, he said, fresh from the carboniferous jungle (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.) But now he’s seen my clownish features (he didn’t say that), he thinks, he says, I look more like Simone Simon. I do not. Ah, l’infatuation, l’amour! He’s in love with the daughter of the Prefect of the Seine, if I got it right, maybe not. Perhaps it’s the daughter of General Pétain—too old, probably. Anyhow, she’s wowed him. It’s forever. He wants me to meet her. I said, “They’ll be astonished by the American way of making love, no dowry! I think they’re dancing hornpipes every night as the boatloads of green American greenhorns draw nearer. What did she do in the Great Muffle?” I asked nervously. I am afraid she must have been a collabo. Maybe she sang in a night club for German officers. There’s something he won’t mention: so beautiful, but fishy! Well, I have an idea for a new book on Myself, good, fat, funny, sincere, dramatic, tragic, also a picture of the USA as seen transparently through me—how is that possible? I’m fatter than Hamlet. I never believed he was fat. Emily Wilkes, in Double or Nothing; by Emily Wilkes. Well, this is the result of fame, however decayed, shot through and mistaken. I started to tell a certain passenger, Warner Warner, about myself and he’s wild about it and me. He’s going to comb Paris for suitable appartements (as they call them), or peats hotels, that’s just a sort of brownstone affair, I gather, and he’s going to put us on to the right agents. Seems Passy is a good place. The catch is the reprise, means hold-up sum for handing over. Oh, well, we’ll have to break into our nest egg with a sledge-hammer and buy a reprise. (A reprise is also a mend in your stocking.) I am not going to start on Europe from an attic in Bohemia. Of course, Stephen did his part, the easy manner, the Princeton silkiness, the general manner of le bourgeois gentilhomme, which quite carried the yapping stiffs and M. Ulysse Savary away. We invited Savary to dinner too. Crazy, I think it, as we are going to throw him our exchange business; but we must take off with some friends and then weed out. Alas—there is no doubt that Savary was a collabo and he seems proud of it. Mr Warner knows a wonderful house with four bathrooms, if it isn’t taken, eleven rooms, sixty thousand francs monthly, cheap, prewar, but of course, a million francs in reprise. We’ll see.’

  She finished this letter and got up to comb her hair just as Stephen came in.

  ‘Did I interrupt your work?’

  ‘No, some junk.’

  ‘You’ve made an impression on this bank guy. He’s being staggeringly helpful. He believes in us. I felt my eyes getting rounder and rounder. But doesn’t he see, I thought, that I’m in opposition?’

  ‘Ha-ha. Effect total of the grande dame, only show given by me this afternoon, my best birthday necklace, my fifty-dollar hat, oy-oy, bought with Anna and I had to pay for it myself; a case of mistaken identity, who pays the bills? Skip that. My one and only Hattie Carnegie suit, a few jingle-jangles of the better kind on the freckled and muscular wrist. Well, I guess I put it over. I could feel it. I ain’t handsome but I charm—sometimes.’

  Stephen said, ‘You’re original, you have style and stop insulting the woman I love. Ledane’s fascinated. Thank God he’s engaged to the daughter of the Prefect of somewhere.’

  Emily sighed, ‘Another American sucker conquering Europe, while he is conquered. Oh, well, I heard you doing pretty well, sneering gently, an easy man-to-man chuckle over the vulgar tourists, in town to see the French starve, and then go to nibble a snack at the Tourte d’Argent.’

  Stephen said irritably, ‘Tour. It’s Tour. We went there on our honeymoon.’

  ‘Well, tourte is something—it’s a tart, at any rate.’

  They wrangled over this for a few minutes.

  ‘Let’s call it Touriste d’Argent,’ said Stephen in the end.

  Disappointed about some rooms they had engaged, they put up at the Hotel Continentale at first. Emily had to go to work at once on her writing. Stephen went out home-hunting. Most of the hotels had been used during the occupation and few had been cleaned up or renovated: the plumbing had gone wrong, the baths were old and dirty. Stephen saw a few with the requisite number of rooms for his family; but in one, the flush toilets worked slowly, or had to be filled with pails of water; in another the bathroom and toilet were across the hall, accessible to any guest; in another the separate bath with excellent arrangements had not been cleaned since its occupation by the Germans and later by the American troops. Then the curtains, carpets, bed-furniture, dusty and spotted, were unsuitable.

  ‘The children will go mad if I give them their first view of their new life this way,’ said Stephen desperately over the phone to Emily.

  ‘Oh, what shall we do? I’ve spent the whole day on the phone with agents, who not only don’t understand my French but speak the strangest dialect, which they insist is English.’

  After this, came for them a procession of despair and uproars they had never seen before. Hitherto, though they had often searched for houses, they had done so in their own language, in a country they knew, where they had respect and a bank account that could be checked. Agents who understood that they wished to view and not to rent or buy at once, would drive them for miles in any direction; but here the agent tried to sell them the first house they saw. They kept getting houses that never became theirs. Not only the half-cynical agents but the Howards’ friends from the boat kept bringing them to houses. Sometimes they did not find the house. At other times it was so unlike any they had lived in or even seen, that, stupefied, they would agree to take it only to get away from the agent; and then they would run to the hotel and groan themselves into a frenzy. Stephen already regretted their moving. His mother had been for it. Indeed, without her help they would never have got away, with their two hostages, Christy and Olivia. She said that in Europe, away from dangerous associates, they would settle down, forget their bohemianism.

  Stephen groaned; ‘My God, you’re not Marie-Antoinette and I’m not the Comte d’Orsay and our kids are not even too bright. They’ve had, what’s worse, the supreme disadvantage of an American education. It’s enough to be an American, the future belongs to us; so what the hell does it matter what those frogs over in European swamps know? It’s all long hair, anyway. But the fact remains that here our kids are terribly handicapped, they’ve got to start life over again as ignoramuses from the frontier and I can’t ask them to face up to bad food, stomach-aches, bad plumbing, typhoid, too.’

  Emily groaned, ‘And Anna would simply take Olivia and Christy right back to America. She’d be right. Those two aren’t like Giles and me. I guess we can’t get stomach-ache. Once he ate two marbles and a shoe-button and absolutely not
hing happened. He looked even better the next day. I could ask Giles to live on black bread and he’d probably arise and shine; but the other two are too old. They’re used to two quarts of milk a day and meat twice a day. Maybe we made a mistake. Maybe that’s why Yanks crack up. Woe is me. But I’m an American and so are they. You have to have generations of dirt and hunger, to survive here: they’re like the roaches and the rats. And we’re nature’s newcomers, for better or for worse. We’ve got to live near supplies and the American canteens and good restaurants and no matter what, even if the sound of the tumbrils rings through the cobbled streets, oftener than the garbage collectors.’

  ‘What tumbrils?’

  ‘The tumbrils. Sure, oh boy, I guess we’re doing our best to qualify for them. Jehesus-Jehosaphat! I’m always doing the opposite of what I want. It’s dialectical, I guess. The latest word for selling-out. Ha-ha-ha. Do you know what struck me as so awful, on the boat, Stephen? Those guys didn’t even know we were any different from them. Don’t you think if we were different, it would show?’

  ‘Oh, bunk. Stop worrying. They go by the clothes and the caviar. They forget when the Soviets win we’ll all have caviar. Except for the general.’

  Emily said mournfully, ‘Ha-ha! I don’t know. Don’t you think we too have a lot of that Übermensch psychology, we’re just Nazis with Roosevelt music? All those guys on the boat loved us because they thought we were coming over as natural spies and snoops and overlords and American agents, practically. Those Valais people boasting they were no longer French but Americans and flattering us about the superiority of our culture and our cooking (think!) and our movies, our heritage, our everything—supposing they knew what we think? But Stephen, if we were straight, they ought to have been able to see what we think.’

  Stephen said crossly, ‘How? That mob never sees the revolution till it’s walking up the front stairs. Why blame us?’