Two Weeks in Another Town

by Irwin Shaw

  “You don’t sound overjoyed to hear my voice,” she said.

  “Carlotta,” he said, “I’ve had a hard day and I’m tired and there are several calls I have to make…”

  “I’m down on the third floor,” she said, “with Stiles and a bottle of champagne. Why don’t you join us?”

  “Tell Stiles he’d better go home and go to sleep,” Jack said. “He’s called for nine o’clock in the morning. And, while you’re at it, you can tell him to lay off the champagne.”

  “I’ll tell him all those things,” Carlotta said. “I’ll tell him we want to be alone. I’m sure he’ll understand.”

  “I’m not coming down,” Jack said.

  “That’s not very friendly, Jack,” she said.

  “I don’t feel very friendly.”

  “After all these years.” Now she was playing, mockingly, at being hurt. “I’ve forgotten any grudges I might have held against you…”

  “Grudges…” Jack began to cut in. Then he stopped. He wasn’t going to argue with Carlotta. Not tonight. “What the hell are you doing in Rome, anyway?”

  “I was in London, having lunch,” Carlotta said, “and I heard the news over the radio.”

  “What news?” Jack asked confusedly.

  “About Maurice. I got the first plane I could. After all, he’s one of the oldest friends I have in the world. And the radio sounded so ominous…as though he…” She interrupted herself. “They wouldn’t let me in to see him at the hospital and all they told me was that he was doing as well as could be expected…Jack…” Her voice sank. “Is he dying?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “Yes. For a minute.”

  “What was he like?”

  Jack hesitated. What was he like? He was like Maurice Delaney, that was what he was like. Once more he was worrying about a silly movie and a silly woman, more or less as usual, except that this time he was doing it flat on his back in a hospital bed, taking oxygen. “His spirit was high,” Jack said. That much was approximately the truth. “He said he wasn’t afraid of dying.”

  “Oh, poor Maurice. Do you think they’ll let you see him tomorrow?”

  “I imagine so.”

  “Will you tell him I’m here, Jack?”

  “Yes.”

  “And will you tell him I’ll stay here until he’s better and that I want to see him?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sound terribly impatient with me, Jack,” Carlotta said reproachfully.

  “I’m trying to reach Paris.”

  “After that, don’t you want to come down here? Just for a minute…I’m so…so…curious about you.” She laughed.

  “I’m sorry, Carlotta. Not tonight.”

  “Jack, will you answer one question for me?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Do you hate me?”

  Jack sighed. After Clara and Barzelli, it was easy to hate the entire female sex. “No,” he said flatly, “I don’t hate you, Carlotta. Good night.”

  “Good night,” she said.

  He hung up the phone, and sat hunched over it on the desk, with his overcoat on, staring at it. Carlotta. Along with everything else, Carlotta.

  Then the phone rang again. He let it ring three times, sitting with his hand on it, then picked it up. It was Paris, asking if this was Mr. John Andrus, and then he heard his wife’s voice, against a background of music and other voices.

  “Jack, Jack, can you hear me?” Hélène was saying, her voice faraway and indistinct, muffled by distance and the pulsating sound of something that sounded like a guitar. “Are you all right, Jack? I read it, in the papers this morning—isn’t it awful—and I’ve been trying to call you all day. Can you hear me, Jack?”

  “Barely,” Jack said. He had the feeling that there was something puzzling in what she had said, but he was too tired to figure it out. “What’s that noise behind you?”

  “I’m at Bert and Vivian’s,” Hélène said. “It’s a party. They have a Russian gypsy here. She’s playing a balalaika and singing. Can you hear me?”

  “Well enough,” Jack said. Unreasonably, he was annoyed with her for talking to him from a place where her voice was nearly drowned out by a balalaika and a gypsy.

  “I’ve been worrying about you all day, chéri,” Hélène was saying. “I’m sure it must be horrible for you.”

  You couldn’t have been worrying too much, Jack was tempted to say, if you’re still out at one thirty in the morning, with all those drunks around you. Then he was ashamed of himself for thinking it, and didn’t say it. After all, what was Hélène supposed to do? She had never met Delaney, and she hardly could be expected to sit mournfully by the telephone because, a thousand miles away, he had been brought down by illness. Now the noise of the party swelled and Jack couldn’t make out what his wife was saying. There was just the timbre of her voice, hurried, affectionate, and a little heightened by drink. He listened, dazed with fatigue, vaguely comforted by the tone of love and the feeling that finally, in this long day, there was someone who was interested in helping him, rather than demanding something from him. There was a knock on his door and he shouted “Come in,” and the waiter entered with his beer and cheese.

  “What’s that?” Hélène said. For the moment the line was absolutely clear and the singing behind her and the other voices had hushed and he could hear her as though she were talking in the next room.

  “It’s the waiter with some bread and cheese,” Jack said. “I haven’t eaten all day.” He motioned to the waiter to put the tray down on the desk next to the telephone.

  “Oh, Jack, that’s just what I was afraid of,” Hélène said. “You’re not taking care of yourself. Don’t you want me to get on the plane tomorrow and come down there?”

  Jack hesitated, watching the waiter open the bottle of beer. He fumbled in his pocket and tossed two hundred lire on the tray for the waiter who bowed ceremoniously to him in thanks.

  “Jack,” Hélène said, “did you hear me?”

  “Yes, I heard you,” Jack said.

  “Wouldn’t it be nice if I came down?”

  The idea of having Hélène by his side for the next few days, staving off Carlotta, acting as a buffer against Bresach and Clara, being there to talk over the problems presented by Holt’s offer, was suddenly marvelously attractive.

  “Well,” he started to say, “I think…”

  There was a burst of laughter over the phone, from the guests at Bert and Vivian’s, and the balalaika and the gypsy voice came loudly over the wire. Now that’s too much, Jack thought, giving in irritably to his nerves. If she wanted so damned much to talk to me, she could have at least found a quiet room to call from. Perversely, he remembered her complaining at the airport that he hadn’t made love to her for two weeks and accusing him of being eager to leave. The claims, ambushes, demands, entrapments, of women. The music on the wire was infuriating him. He felt himself trembling. He knew he didn’t want his wife in this room. He felt cold, unconnected, grateful for the distance between them. Whatever love he was capable of in his exhaustion and worry, he was saving for Delaney. At that moment, he felt, if Hélène pressed him, he might say that he never wanted to see her again.

  “What were you saying, chéri?” Hélène said. “This damned noise.”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “When do you think you’ll be coming home?”

  Now, he thought. The explosion. “Things are all balled up here,” he said. “I may not get out for another six weeks.”

  “Six weeks?” She sounded incredulous.

  “I’ll write it all in a letter,” he said.

  “But what about Joe Morrison? What about your job?”

  “I’ll write him a letter, too.”

  “He won’t let you do anything like this…”

  “He’ll just have to,” Jack said. “Listen, this call is costing a fortune…”

  “I don’t understand. What’s happened
to you? Don’t hang up,” she said hurriedly. Then away from the receiver, “Please, boys, less noise, I’m talking to Rome.” Then again to him, “Jack, are you all right? You’re not making any sense. Are you drunk? You can’t stay away six weeks…”

  Then he realized what had puzzled him in the beginning of her conversation. “Hélène,” he broke in, “what do you mean you read it in the paper this morning? Delaney had his attack at eleven o’clock…”

  “Delaney?” Hélène said. “Who said anything about Delaney? This damned connection…”

  “Hélène,” Jack said, “speak slowly and clearly. What did you read in the paper this morning?”

  “Jean-Baptiste,” she said. “He was killed yesterday. In Algeria. In an ambush. Didn’t you know? Didn’t you read the newspapers this morning…?”

  “No,” Jack said. “Now, listen. I’m going to hang up now. I’ll call you tomorrow…”

  “Jack,” Hélène said desperately, “wait a minute. I have to talk to you. I can’t…”

  He hung up. He couldn’t get a sound out of his constricted and aching throat. He sat looking at the telephone for a long time. He wanted to weep. If he could weep, the intolerable pain in his throat and behind his eyes would be eased. But no tears came. All he could do was sit hunched over on the desk and stare at the telephone. The telephone went slowly and rhythmically in and out of focus.

  Then he remembered the envelope that Jean-Baptiste had given him the night of the Holts’ cocktail party, when he had gone off to his little war. The envelope was in a bureau drawer in the bedroom, under a pile of shirts. For a moment, Jack debated with himself whether or not to let it go till morning. His eyes were heavy, his bones ached, he wanted to drop, fully clothed, onto his bed and sleep. Sitting there, he wasn’t sure that he could find the energy even to move into the bedroom. But he made himself stand up and go get the envelope. When he came back into the living room, he held the envelope in his hands for a long time before he tore it open.

  “Dear Dottore,” the letter began, in spiky French script. “You must not be surprised. In a murderous world it is normal to be murdered. If you are reading this, it is because I am dead. I expect it, this time. I do not know why. A feeling of bad luck, maybe. I have had the feeling of bad luck several times before, and nothing has happened to me, and perhaps this time it will be the same and I will reappear in Rome and ask you for the envelope and you will never know about my feeling of bad luck, and we will celebrate my return together, as usual. Only this time, the feeling is stronger—

  “Eh, bien, the worst is over. Now to business. You will see, included in the envelope, aside from this letter to you, quite a few manuscript pages. The manuscript is the article on your friend Delaney. It is unfinished. If you glance through it, you will see that I have said some harsh things about him. Living, I would not mind having it published. But dead, I would prefer to have it destroyed. I would not like my last words to be harmful and critical. I have already been given a big advance on this piece from the magazine and if they found what I have written they would undoubtedly have it finished in the office and publish it. The money is spent, but a dead man has the right to be slightly dishonorable. So read it or do not read it, as you like, and then destroy it. You can even go so far as to tell your friend Delaney that I admired him. This is even partly the truth.

  “Finally, if I am killed in this little miserable war in Algeria, I will be very sorry. It is all shit on both sides, and one should not be asked to die in it.

  “I am sorry to burden you with this, my dear Jack, but in running down my list of friends, before writing this letter, I have come to the conclusion that everybody else whom I could trust is already dead.

  “Be assured (as we polite French put it at the end of our letters), my dear Dottore, of my sentiments devoted and distinguished.

  Jean-Baptiste”

  The last two lines were written in English, as though Despière had been loath to end a letter like this on a serious note. Self-mocking and ironic, skeptical of pompousness and lofty notions, Despière had signed off his life in his accustomed style.

  Delaney, Jack thought, Despière. In the same day. I was warned, and now it is happening. Jamais deux sans trois. French proverb. Never two without a third. The night is not over. It has been prolonged by one death.

  Jack made a neat pile of the manuscript pages and put them on the desk. He couldn’t bring himself to read it. Not now.

  He went into the bedroom. The bed had been turned down for the night by the maid many hours before, the reversed sheet making a crisp triangle of white in the light of the bed-table lamp, reminding him of hospitals. He was too tired to undress. He took off his shoes with an effort, feeling stiff and sore, and turned off the lamp. But sleep would not come. Memories of Despière crowded in on him.

  “…and we will celebrate my return together, as usual.

  There had been the return from Indochina, where Despière had nearly been killed, ingloriously, in a jeep accident. Despière had telephoned as soon as he reached his hotel and he and Jack and Hélène and the American mannequin Despière had been more or less living with at the time had gone out to dinner and to several bars and night clubs, drinking champagne all the time, toasting the driver of the jeep and the driver of the truck that had hit it, and various other people, as their names came up, so that they had all been quite drunk by two o’clock in the morning. Despière, who still was suffering from the aftereffects of concussion and whose head was bound up in a huge bandage that looked like a crooked turban had insisted upon doing a wild triumphant dance in the middle of the floor, with Hélène, even though, from time to time, Hélène had to hold onto him to keep him from slipping to the floor.

  “You ought to stop him,” Jack had said to Despière’s girl. “He’s going to feel like hell in the morning.”

  The girl shook her head. “Nothing’ll stop him tonight,” she said. “I tried to stop him from drinking this evening, before we met you, and I told him he’d suffer tomorrow. All he did was laugh and say, ‘Of course I will. But I must celebrate that I am alive. I am ready to pay for the joy in the morning.’”

  The mannequin was married to someone else now, and living in New York, and Jack was sure that when she read about Despière in the papers at breakfast, she would remember the night club and Despière in his turban of bandage dancing crookedly and triumphantly to celebrate the fact that he was alive and saying, “I am ready to pay for the joy in the morning.”

  I was warned that one would die, Jack thought, lying in the dark room, perhaps I should have warned him as he left the cocktail party. But I thought that it was I who was being warned—about myself.

  He lay still, trying, with his eyes shut, to make himself realize that there would never be again the ring on the telephone, the amused voice, saying, “Dottore,” or “Monsieur le Ministre, I am once more in town. I am afraid it will be necessary to have a drink immediately.”

  And then, later, I thought it was Delaney. But we are both alive. Only Jean-Baptiste…

  Only Jean-Baptiste…Naturally, Jack thought, it had to be him. How could I have ever missed it? The most integral of Europeans, with his gift of languages, his drifting across borders, his history of having fought in so many different lands, in France, in Russia, in Germany, Africa…With his intelligent, pessimistic appraisal of what Europe had come to, mixed with his hard French gaiety and mocking clarity of vision. The professional spectator of the age’s violence. Finally, the spectator must be sucked in, must become an actor. Despière had long ago used up his spectator’s allowance of time and luck. The age could not continue to permit him to go on indefinitely…The atrocity editor, he had called himself. There was no final way of remaining on the edge of atrocities, removed from them…In the long run, the editor looks down at his desk and sees that the story that has been placed there that day is his own.

  Now he was afraid to sleep. His blood drummed in his ears and the muscles of his neck felt rigid, as thoug
h they were straining, independently of him, to pull his head from the pillows. He sat up and turned on the light, then got off the bed and went back into the living room.

  A window had swung open and the wind had blown the pages of Despière’s manuscript off the desk. There were sheets of paper scattered all over the floor, giving an impression of lunatic disorder to the room. Wearily, he shambled over the flowered rug, bumping into the furniture, bending over and retrieving each sheet. They were not numbered, and now they were in a jumble, a maze of loose paragraphs typed on an old machine with a bad ribbon that made for wavy lines and sudden dark blotches on some letters. It was written in French and Despière had crossed out some things and added a great many others in ink, to complete the confusion. Jack read at random.

  “Americans,” he read, “artists included, differ from Europeans in that they believe in the continuing upward curve, rather than in a rhythmic beat of accomplishment…”

  God, Jack thought, dead or alive that sentence would have to be rewritten to get past an editor.

  “That is,” Jack read, “an American, starting at any given point, believes that his career must go from success to success. In the American artist, of any kind, it is the equivalent of the optimistic businessman’s creed of the continually expanding economy. The intermittent failure, the cadenced rise and fall of the level of a man’s work, which is accepted and understood by the European artist, is fiercely rejected as a normal picture of the process of creation. A dip is not a dip to an American artist, it is a descent into an abyss, an offense against his native moeurs and his compatriots’ most dearly held beliefs. In America, the normal incidence of failure, either real or imagined, private or public, which must be expected in such a chancy and elusive endeavor as writing novels or putting on plays or directing motion pictures is regarded, even by the artist himself, as evidence of guilt, as self-betrayal. The look of disaster which we see in the eyes of American artists, their sense of being outside the approval of the American culture, is not there by accident. They cannot keep on their countrymen’s continually mounting curve, and they take to spectacular and desperate innovations, or to drink or to commerce because of it. In quite a few cases, they have taken to suicide. Some artists, being of stronger stuff, merely keep up a violent pretense that they have never failed. These artists will contend that their public has failed and their critics—never themselves. Maurice Delaney, who twenty years ago, made two or three of the best pictures of that time, is one of these…”