I'm Dying Laughing

by Christina Stead

  ‘Leave my mother out of this: what next?’

  ‘Stephen, do we understand Europeans at all? Aren’t we like invertebrates crawling out on the primeval mudbank and looking up at primitive man and not knowing what he’s all about?’

  ‘Go and work.’

  ‘I had an idea in the night, Stephen. Why shouldn’t I write The Personal History of Bill Blank, one of the most original, fascinating, startling, gifted and delightful communists in America, so that people over here will know everyone over there hasn’t their finger in their eye and in the pie.’

  ‘It will find hundreds of publishers to turn it down. Go ahead! Christy can always go back to Grandma and Giles can sell newspapers!’

  She said, beginning to cry, ‘Oh, all right. I’m tired of being the workhorse, always patiently jogging along in the shafts. One day I’ll break the traces and the cart can jolt downhill by itself into the ditch.’

  He got up smiling and put his arms around her, ‘There, there, silly girl. Who loves you? But you aren’t practical. You’re lovely. I adore you. You’re a funnyface, and you’re a genius; but not practical. Now we have to eat first. I mean unless you want us to find some sort of a two-room hovel with wooden floor with a hole in it and chicken-shit on the boards, and newspapers on the walls down in the sunny south, a nice old crumbling stone hovel … you can wash the dishes, the floor, the clothes, the children’s behinds in the running brook, or tug water from the village pump, which is sure to be at the other end of the next hamlet; and we can grow our own food, with the aid of one pear tree gone wild, one crab apple tree, some turnips and three rows of straggling grapevines. Giles’s hair will stick up in dusty sticks, Christy will have to go out and steal hens at night. Olivia will get freckled and stupid, flies will blow in her nose, Giles will get sandy blight and when Christy goes down with his next attack of pneumonia or snakebite or appendicitis, there won’t be any penicillin for a hundred miles and we’ll bury them all by the henhouse.’

  Emily laughed. ‘Oh, stop, stop! From drawing chalkmarks on the sidewalks, comes marijuana and then the electric chair, I know. I know, OK you’re worth it, darling: you’re all worth it.’

  ‘Oh, don’t pull that. I’m willing to sleep on sacks if you are.’

  ‘Oh, you brute. You know damn well I’m not.’

  They went to their workrooms. Emily spent the whole day describing her adventures in her journal and fixing up her card file on her friends. In her journal she mentioned today as every day recently, her feelings for Vittorio. She thought about herself. She’d worked for her mother, then for a sick sweetheart, then for Stephen and the children. The life she was leading was not the life she wanted to lead. This journal and the letters she wrote to her friends were her real companions, she thought. She was glad she did not dream; she was afraid of dreams. One of the men she had known and been fond of, had said to her surprisingly enough, ‘Why don’t you break off from your job, go out and do something?’ She was very surprised; and mentioned it to a woman friend. ‘Oh, when a man says that—’ said the woman and stopped. What did she mean? It had taken her breath away. She’d been a firehorse all her life; but to him, this man, she’d done nothing; she was in leading-strings, like a toddler. ‘I guess I develop slowly; and here I am downhill to the forties, something missing I guess.’ She thought of her long years of ‘fire-eating, snorting, sweating, slogging.’ Now she was a lady, Madame. Still the same though. A great triumph, of course, considering her mother had been nothing but a floor-washer with pretensions and she’d worked her own way up with a pickaxe, no tears for bloodied heads. And Stephen—she smiled sweetly—a love, a darling, a great catch—her relatives were still thunder-struck in Arkansas, at Plain Jane, the Worry of the Wilkeses marrying into the 85% bracket. What a girl! When she did a job, she did it. She’d never fallen down on an assignment, failed to meet a deadline, turned in a bad job. Only—she died laughing thinking of her ways and means. What the hell! Die and let die is the good old American motto—what the hell, we’re banditti—people admire Corsicans for it.

  She laughed to herself thinking over her exploits. ‘Yeah, very fine. But now I’m grown up. I’m supposed to be a writer. I’ve got somehow to get out of this fur-lined foxhole I’m in, playing hanky-panky with dear Anna and letting Stephen have an aim in life. Oh, golly. Supposing I’d met Vittorio in time and he’d fallen for me, then. He has a purpose. And he’s not worried about what Anna thinks or anyone else. I’d never have left the left with him. Oh, dear; heigh-ho. A woman’s life.’

  She got up and stretched, looked out the window. A narrow asphalted Paris street with high walls each side. ‘In socialism they’d throw the damn things down: or, I don’t know, maybe if those walls herded social-minded characters and the town was ours, they could stay up, have some peace and quiet.’

  She pondered. She didn’t mind now, whether gates opened before her—and a good many opened. They were doing the European Phase in the grand way. It had not been difficult for them to move from New York society to Paris cosmopolitan society—if Anna would stay out of it. After all—Vittorio—‘Vittorio! That’s the word,’ she said to herself, sitting down in front of her typewriter; after thinking for a few minutes, with her hands poised, she wrote:

  ‘Dear Vittorio: we hung out the flags (pavilloné, eh? How’s my French?) the other day when your card arrived from Florence and your card from Bologna. How nice of Vittorio, so busy and so famous! One of the superb events of my life, Vittorio. I’ll treasure both, I’ll frame them. And after the revolution, I’ll show them round, the Commissar for Literature and Fine arts was my friend in the bad old days. Ah, Vittorio, Italy sounds splendid, even the cooking! And we’re going there. We’d gallop there now but for Mamma who has left for Egypt but will soon be back. And then—long sigh of relief—ah, then the Howards are going on a short consolation trip and when your letter came, we said, It must be Italy! But Italy in June-July? And then you won’t be there, but back here. So we’ll wait for you. Only, alas—a book in being and a serial to finish—the working life. Stephen is doing some articles for you, I think, and very important indeed for him and, I hope, even good for the paper they’re destined for. And so we must snatch a brief repose, while we can, though so deeply longing to see you again. You don’t know how we miss you. We’ve been partying with people Mamma would like, but who baffle us. We do live in the twilight of the gods, don’t we? I wish we didn’t. I wish the agony was over and dawn was breaking. But there’s the long long night. Ah me. Woe, woe! Vittorio, I wish you were here. You give me courage. I’m not built to be a cynic or satirist. I despise them, heart and soul. But having to keep a family going and with expenses the devil’s long pocket could not meet, I’m doomed, I fear, to assassinating myself, to never doing what I want to do or to putting it off till doomsday. And sometimes I’m very much afraid I’ll become despairing and then get cynical and wiseguy and empty. Well, Vittorio, come soon; I want to talk to you. You know everything these well-nourished types don’t know and more. You survived the sea of blood and the shores of bestiality and cannibalism and here you are as lively as a cricket. You give me courage even when I think about Europe. It was worth coming to Europe for. Trouble is, in the USA we have no ideals worth a cent. Yes, see how it all comes out in money. “Worth a million, looks a million, feels like a million, not worth a cent.” That expresses it. Well, I think of my youth. Was it I, that girl with flaring hair and freckles battling in the streets for Sacco and Vanzetti, addressing meetings and roaming the country, shouting, “Up the Revolution!” Was it I? Golly, the years get us. Here I am, a bourgeoise. Is it old age, the fat forties? Do I love money? Well, I guess I don’t despise it. But I don’t live for it and I could live without it. When I was a girl I was just bursting to say something, my heart was simply bursting with joy—no, with love. I was always in love, but I had no one. When I got moody I used to try girdles and ropes, nails and hooks, Will I use this one, Will that hold me? A man has just been here telling me the
whole human race (except perhaps you) ought to die. He wouldn’t care. A war-ruin, not a fascist. He nearly convinced me. It’s only instinct, because I want my children to grow up and be sane, that makes me revolt. But such a thought has never entered your head, Vittorio. That’s noble of you. Poetic, lovely thought—’

  She stopped and thought, What am I writing? My diary? It’s a love letter. Stephen would hit the ceiling if he saw this. I must be crazy. She suddenly became angry; the worst thing about a husband and even kids is they cut you off from humanity. You’re a nun, you’re gagged, your mouth’s full of soap. I don’t want that. She felt shame; she squirmed and thought, Oh well, what the heck, I’ve got to learn, you learn so slowly when you’re married.

  The letter wouldn’t do. She put it in her journal. She had only just put a paper in her machine to begin the day’s work when the clock struck six. Time to go down and see the children and Stephen.

  She had a drink with Stephen, explained all she had been doing including the letter to Vittorio she was not sending. ‘I want to see him all right but clean hands, clean heart—I don’t see why we can’t ask him again to meet dear Anna when next she comes. He was in Roman society. He’s very polished and refined, a lot more than her New York friends and her Chicago family—’

  Stephen said, ‘Don’t talk about my mother’s polish. You know Vittorio would come out with anything he pleased. He relies on that diabolic charm of his, split eyeball, scars, bald head, bad skin and all, he’s a deuce of a charmer. Mother would fall and you can’t stop Vittorio talking about the great adventure of his life, how he gave up all for the communists. By dinner-time Anna would know it all. I don’t know what she’d think. She’d love him and afterwards make me guilty. On the other hand, she’d hope he was after you—perhaps he is—then she’d hope I’d lose you and she’d have me back in the old walled orchard. Do you realize I gave up millions for you, Emily?’ he said comically.

  She said, ‘Listen, I could have been the leading socialist writer of the USA—I gave up millions for you. Fifty-fifty. I’m not sure about it, though; maybe one rabbit, one horse.’

  They burst out laughing. At this moment the maid brought them the evening mail, which changed everything.

  There was a short, stiff note from Anna Howard saying she was going to England to see her cousins there and coming straightaway after that to Paris. She enclosed a note from Christy saying that she felt Stephen and Emily did not understand the boy and did not care about his feelings. Christy’s note explained to his grandmother that his studies were so far behind the French boys of his age that he would either have to spend several years slaving day and night at them to catch up and then enter the Sorbonne behind the others, or else give up all hope of the Sorbonne. He reported simply, ‘My tutor says that he has never met a boy so far behind. I’m afraid to tell Father and Mother’ (he meant Stephen and Emily) ‘and so I’m writing to you to ask what I should do, do you think?’

  Anna said she thought the shift to Europe and without adequate interest and affection from people engrossed in their own affairs, had been too much for the boy. He was too old to start acquiring a foreign tongue and they had better send him right back to his native country. She didn’t want the boy to feel inferior.

  Stephen’s face darkened as he read the boy’s note and handed it to Emily.

  ‘The damn little hound, sneaking behind our backs. Don’t tell me he’s naive. I know what tricks I was up to at that age; I knew the use of naivety too. I was no record-breaker in class, but I knew my ways and means. I’ll thrash the boy. Christ, listening at doors and trying to sink us; selfish little brute. We’re killing ourselves for him. What a thief! I understand this gentleness. I’ll break the guy’s neck. Christy! Of course he hears me, Emily. He’s listening on the stairs for repercussions. Little savage! He’s like a half-trained dog. Isn’t he too sweet! And then he bites the hand that honeys him. Christy!’

  Emily anxiously ran after him to the door. ‘Shh! Don’t say anything. Supposing it is a little plot of the boy’s? Let him be. So it won’t work. Too bad. Look, he’s only a child. Like a young dog, he enjoys blow-ups. You know what he said to me when he came back from the walk in the Louvre the other day. I saw all the Rubens, oh, boy (he said) and a fat priest examining the worst and an old American lady copying one of them. Oh, boy! Shall I tell Daddy or will he kill me? It’s days since I saw a real show at home. You’re losing your grip.’

  ‘Impudent young bastard,’ said Stephen.

  ‘Oh, gee, I thought it was a hell of a laugh. He’s on to us. It’s killing! I told him, “Your father loves fat ladies, look at me. That wouldn’t bother Stephen. He’d think you were just following the family line.” That finished that, you see. Don’t let the kids see they’ve got you. They’re all great kidders.’

  She laughed. ‘Let’s just watch the boy simmer waiting for us to break out. But frankly it is bad that he’s so far behind. I know it. I’ve sweated over his algebra and his Latin and I know I could have covered twice the ground myself starting from nothing. He just doesn’t get it. Maybe disturbed by spring, sex, you know.’ She laughed.

  Meanwhile Stephen was opening other letters and was in a worse temper.

  ‘They didn’t take the serial! They want revisions, it’s got to be cut and they don’t like the character called Handout Mike, because he talks like an agitator, so they say. I told you, Emily, it wouldn’t go. You can’t run with the hares and hunt with the hounds. I told you that damn Vittorio stuff would get into it!’

  Emily snatched the letter and read it, muttering, ‘What bastards! But they ordered the serial!’

  Stephen muttered, ‘Go fight City Hall. That’s the straight tip. Obey or you don’t eat. A message from Legree to Uncle Tom.’

  A letter from The Gothamite said that in the two sketches submitted, which satirized Greenwich Village intellectuals who called themselves leftists, the author had not made her own political position clear and that her attitude towards her characters was merely unfriendly or slightly critical. Her criticism of them must be sharpened, she must make clear her dislike and contempt or derision for such people and such a movement. This was the implication, almost the terms of the letter.

  Stephen said haughtily, throwing the letter to her, ‘They’re putting on the screws.’

  ‘What do you want me to do? You yourself want me to sit on the fence. If we go too far right, you know Florence will cut you out of her will. Besides, darn it, I don’t want to let the Oateses and a few others think I’m a louse. I ought to can it and write innocuous stuff … I’ve done all right so far. Oh, this problem of selling out. A lot of those who talk about it can’t sell out. They’re too far in. There’s nothing more I despise than the writer or artist who tells you what he could have made if he had not been a communist. Either he couldn’t have, or he’s just about to turn the corner and sell out and work his way into a million. But think of them sitting there, the spiders, in a closet, in a broom closet and adding on their fingers with greed on their faces, “I could have bought me a house in Larchwood, I could have had three cars, I could have sent my kids to Harvard, I could have had fur coats in the family, and sent them and the blankets to storage in summer, I could have had two servants each costing me $220 monthly, plus two dailies costing me $90 monthly, plus washing $120 monthly, plus two iceboxes, plus caviar and champagne, I could have made $120,000 yearly, with my talent,” and the saliva dribbling down his chest—faugh! and I did all that, Stephen, I did that without selling out. And you yourself appearing at press conferences as representative of the Party press, you met the President of the United States, you were in all the sancta sanctorum and you weren’t a wolf in sheep’s clothing—’

  ‘I was a sheep in sheep’s clothing, the way I’m acting now.’

  ‘Well anyhow it can be done; I’ve done it so far. Their story is a lie. I wrote my way into Hollywood. I can beat all those best-sellers, Edna Ferber and Upton Sinclair. Did they make a pact with the devil? T
hat’s a proof. If you hear a writer say he’s a failure because he’s despised because he’s on the left, you can take it it’s proof that he’s a failure anyhow; or right next week or the week after, he knows they’re going to make him an offer; or he’s crying his eyes out they haven’t made him an offer yet and they have made Joe Blobb, his neighbour and competitor, an offer.’

  Stephen said irritably, ‘All right. But we’ve got to make a decision today. There’s Mamma. And there’s the publisher and there’s The Gothamite. Don’t make noble speeches. Act. Start from now. The past is dead. Our Ten Years in A Vacuum. So snap into it, Howards! The whistle blows! Forward to the literary assembly-line. Subsection, Gothamite.’

  Emily said, ‘Well, I suppose they’re scared shitless. They at one time or another published all the one-time and the still-unregenerate leftists in the literary life of New York. Because who but the leftists had the bright ideas and were so up and coming?’

  ‘Yes, no wonder, they’re after us to get into line. They published an article about my second cousin, Dr Marie Tanner, leading red medico, who likes social medicine and says they have life-giving drugs in the Soviet Union and can put a dog together after they’ve taken him apart and can make a chicken liver live and live and live by itself—think of the destruction of the chicken-liver trade in New York alone! And my sister, Florence Howard! And they wrote an article mentioning my humble name, Stephen Howard, who lost red thousands in the subway and plenty by you Miss Emily Wilkes author of The Wilkes-Barre Chronicle. Goddamn, Emily, why did you have to offer up your two cents? Why couldn’t you have stayed an honest-to-goodness lowdown, night-court, Hearst reporter? You’ve ruined my life. Here, I gave up millions for you.’