The Main

by Trevanian

  The weight of her arm through his is pleasant, and whenever they cross a street, he presses it against his side, as though to conduct her safely across. They walk slowly down the Main, window-shopping, and sometimes he exchanges a word or two with people on the street. He notices that she automatically bends her knee to disguise her limp when a youngish man approaches, though she doesn’t bother when they are alone.

  Around noon they take lunch at a small cafe, then they go back to the apartment.

  For the past hour, Marie-Louise has puttered about, taking a bath, washing her hair, rinsing out some underclothes, trying on various combinations of the clothes she bought yesterday. She does not do domestic chores; the coffee cups go unwashed, the bed unmade. She has tuned the radio to a rock station which serves an unending stream of clatter and grunting, each bit introduced by a disc jockey who babbles with obvious delight in his own sound.

  LaPointe finds the music abrasive, but he takes general pleasure in her busy presence. For a time he sits in his chair, reading the Sunday paper, but skipping the do-it-yourself column, which he finds less interesting than it used to be. Later, the paper slides from his lap as he dozes in the afternoon sunlight.

  The burr of the doorbell wakes him with a snap. Who in hell? He looks out the window, but cannot see the caller standing under the entranceway. The only cars parked in the street are recognizable as those of neighbors. The doorbell burrs again.

  “Yes?” he calls loudly into the old speaking tube. He has used it so seldom that he doubts its functioning.

  “Claude?” the tinny membrane asks.

  “Moishe?”

  “Yes, Moishe.”

  LaPointe is confused. Moishe has never visited him before. None of the cardplayers has ever been here. How will he explain Marie-Louise?

  “Claude?”

  “Yes, come in. Come up. I’m on the second floor.”

  LaPointe turns away from the speaking tube to look over the room, then turns back and says, “Moishe? I’ll come down…” But it is too late. Moishe has already started up the stairs.

  Marie-Louise enters from the bedroom, wearing Lucille’s quilted robe. “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” he says grumpily. “Just a friend.”

  “Do you want me to stay in the bedroom?”

  “Ah, no.” He might have suggested it if she hadn’t, but when he hears it on her lips, he realizes how childish the idea is. “Turn the radio off, will you?”

  There is a knock at the door, and at the same time the rock music roars as Marie-Louise turns the knob the wrong way.

  “Sorry!”

  “Forget it.” He opens the door.

  Moishe stands in the doorway, smiling uneasily. “What happened? You dropped something?”

  “No, just the radio. Come in.”

  “Thank you.” He takes off his hat as he enters. “Mademoiselle?”

  Marie-Louise is standing by the radio, a towel turbaned around her newly washed hair.

  LaPointe introduces them, telling Moishe that she is from Trois Rivieres also, as if that explained something.

  Moishe shakes hands with her, smiling and making a slight European bow.

  “Well,” LaPointe says with too much energy. “Ah… come sit down.” He gestures Moishe to the sofa. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “No, no, thank you. I can only stay a moment. I was on my way to the shop, and I thought I would drop by. I telephoned earlier, but you didn’t answer.”

  “We took a walk.”

  “Ah, I don’t blame you. A beautiful day, eh, mademoiselle? Particularly after all this pig weather we appreciate it. The feast and famine principle.”

  She nods without understanding.

  “Why did you phone?” LaPointe realizes this sounds unfriendly. He is off balance because of the girl.

  “Oh, yes! About the game tomorrow night. The good priest called and said he wouldn’t be able to make it. He’s down with a cold, maybe a little flu. And I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to play three-handed cutthroat.”

  On the rare occasions when one of them cannot make the game, the others play cutthroat, but it isn’t nearly so much fun. LaPointe is usually the absent one, working on a case, or dead tired after a series of late nights.

  “What about David?” LaPointe asks. “Does he want to play?”

  “Ah, you know David. He always wants to play. He says that without the burden of Martin he will show us how the game is really played!”

  “All right, then let’s play. Teach him a lesson.”

  “Good.” Moishe smiles at Marie-Louise. “All this talk about pinochle must be dull for you, mademoiselle.”

  She shrugs. She really hasn’t been paying any attention. She has been engrossed in gnawing at a broken bit of thumbnail. For the first time, LaPointe notices that she bites her fingernails. And that her toenails are painted a garish red. He wishes she had gone into the bedroom after all.

  “You realize, Claude, this is the first time I have ever visited you?”

  “Yes, I know,” he answers too quickly.

  There is a short silence.

  “I’m not surprised that Martin is ill,” Moishe says. “He looked a little pallid the other night.”

  “I didn’t notice it.” LaPointe cannot think of anything to say to his friend. There is no reason why he should have to explain Marie-Louise to him. It’s none of his business. Still… “You’re sure you won’t have some coffee?”

  Moishe protects his chest with the backs of his hands. “No, no. Thank you. I must get back to the shop.” He rises. “I’m a little behind in work. David is better at finding work than I am at doing it. See you tomorrow night then, Claude. Delighted to make your acquaintance, mademoiselle.” He shakes hands at the door and starts down the staircase.

  Even before Moishe has reached the front door, Marie-Louise says, “He’s funny.”

  “In what way funny?”

  “I don’t know. He’s polite and nice. That little bow of his. And calling me mademoiselle. And he has a funny accent. Is he a friend of yours?”

  LaPointe is looking out the window at Moishe descending the front stoop. “Yes, he’s a friend.”

  “Too bad he has to work on Sundays.”

  “He’s Jewish. Sunday is not his Sabbath. He never works on Saturdays.”

  Marie-Louise comes to the window and looks down at Moishe, who is walking down the street. “He’s Jewish? Gee, he seemed very nice.”

  LaPointe laughs. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I don’t know. From what the nuns used to say about Jews… You know, I don’t think I ever met a Jew in person before. Unless some of the men…” She shrugs and goes back to the gas fire, where she kneels and scrubs her hair with her fingers to dry it. The side closest to the fire dries quickly and springs back into its frizzy mop. “Let’s go somewhere,” she says, still scrubbing her hair.

  “You bored?”

  “Sure. Aren’t you?”

  “No.”

  “You ought to get a TV.”

  “I don’t need one.”

  “Look, I think I’ll go out, if you don’t want to.” She turns her head to dry the other side. “You want to screw before I go?” She continues scrubbing her hair.

  She doesn’t notice that he is silent for several seconds before he says a definite “No.”

  “Okay. I don’t blame you. You worked hard last night. You know, it was real good for me. I was…” She decides not to finish that.

  “You were surprised?” he pursues.

  “No, not exactly. Older men can be real good. They don’t usually blow off too quickly, you know what I mean?”

  “Jesus Christ!”

  She looks up at him, startled and bewildered. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  “Nothing! Forget it.”

  But her eyes are angry. “You know, I get sick and tired of it, the way you always get mad when I talk about… making love.” Her tone mocks the euphemism.
“You know what’s wrong with you? You’re just pissed because someone else a fait sauter ma cerise before you could get at it! That’s what’s wrong with you!” She rises and limps strongly into the bedroom, where he can hear her getting dressed.

  Twice she speaks to him from the other room. Once repeating what she thought was wrong with him, and once grumbling about anybody who didn’t even have a goddamned TV in his pad…

  He answers neither time. He sits looking out over the park, where the sun is already paling as the skies become milky again with overcast.

  When she comes back into the living room, she is wearing the long patchwork dress she bought yesterday. As she puts on her new coat, she asks coldly, “Well? Coming with me?”

  “Do you have your key?” He is still looking out the window.

  “What?”

  “You’ll need your key to get back in. Do you have it?”

  “Yes! I’ve got it!” She slams the door.

  He watches her from the window, feeling angry with himself. What’s wrong with him? Why is he fooling around with a kid like this anyway, like a silly old fringalet? There’s only one thing to do; he’s got to find her a job and get her the hell out of his apartment.

  Marie-Louise walks huffily down the street, not bothering to flex her knee to conceal the limp, because she knows he’s probably looking down at her and will feel sorry for her. She is angry about not getting her own way, but at the same time she is worried about spoiling a good thing. It’s dull and boring, that frumpy apartment, but it’s shelter. He lets her have money. He doesn’t ask much of her. Shouldn’t ruin a good thing until you’ve got something better. She recalls how the young Greek boy played the tripoteux with her under the table last night. Perhaps the old man noticed. Maybe that’s why he’s so irritable.

  Anyway, she’ll let him stew about it for a while, then she’ll come back to the apartment. He’ll be glad enough to see her. They don’t get all the young stuff they want, these old guys.

  Maybe she’ll walk over to the Greek restaurant. See if anyone’s around.

  Beyond the window, evening has set in, fringing the layers of yeasty cloud. The morning’s sunlight was a trick after all, a joke.

  The gas fire hisses, and he dozes. He remembers the watery sunlight in the park. It reminded him of Sunday mornings in the parlor of his grandparents’ farmhouse. Floating motes of dust trapped in slanting rays of sun. The smell of mustiness… and the heavy, sickening smell of flowers.

  Grandpapa…

  A bright winter day with sun streaming in the parlor window, and Grandpapa, thin and insubstantial in the box. All the children had to walk in a line past the coffin. The smell of flowers was thick, sweet. Claude LaPointe’s shirt was borrowed, and too small; the tight collar gagged him. The children had been told to take turns looking down into dead Grandpapa’s face. The little ones had to stand tiptoe to see over the edge of the coffin, but they did not dare to touch it for balance. You were supposed to kiss Grandpapa goodbye.

  Claude didn’t want to. He couldn’t. He was afraid. But the grownups were in no mood for argument. There were already tensions and angers about who should get what from the farm, and everyone seemed to think that one uncle was grabbing more than his share. And who would take care of Grandmama?

  Grandmama didn’t cry. She sat in the kitchen on a wooden chair and rocked back and forth. She wrapped her long thin arms around herself and rocked and rocked.

  Claude told his mother in confidence that he was afraid he would be sick if he kissed dead Grandpapa.

  “Go on now! What’s wrong with you? Don’t you love your Grandpapa?”

  Love him? More than anybody. Claude used to daydream about Grandpapa taking him away from the streets to the farm. Grandpapa never knew about the daydreams; Claude was only one of the press of cousins who used to line up to mutter “Joyous Christmas, Grandpapa.”

  “Stop it! Stop it right now!” Mother’s whisper was tense and angry. “Go kiss your grandfather.”

  The smooth dusty face was almost white on the side touched by a beam of winter sun. And his cheeks had never been so rosy when he was alive. He smelled like Mother’s make-up. He used to smell like tobacco and leather and sweat. Claude closed his eyes tight and leaned over. He made a peck. He missed, but he pretended he had kissed Grandpapa. To avoid hearing the grownups’ tight, muttered arguments about furniture and photographs and Grandmama, he went into the summer kitchen with the other kids, who by turns were making shuddering faces and scrubbing their lips hard with the backs of their hands. Claude scrubbed his lips too, so everyone would think he had really kissed Grandpapa, but as he did it he knew he was being a traitor to the living Grandpapa, whom he had never kissed because they were both physically reticent types.

  The fat cousin who used to fart under the covers whispered a joke about the make-up, and the girl cousins giggled. His face blank, Claude turned from the window and hit his cousin in the mouth with his fist. Although the cousin was two years older and bigger, he had no chance; Claude was bashing him with all the force of his rage, and fear, and shame, and loss.

  Some grownups pulled Claude off the bleeding and howling cousin, and he was shaken around and sent upstairs to be dealt with later, after the priest left.

  He sat on the edge of the bed in the grandparents’ room. He had never been there before, and it seemed foreign and unfriendly, but he was glad to be alone so he could cry without the others seeing. No tears came. He waited. He opened his mouth and panted out sharp little breaths, hoping to start the crying he needed so badly. No tears would come. A hot ball of something sour in his stomach, but no tears. Others who loved Grandpapa less than Claude could cry. They could afford to let Grandpapa be dead, because they had other people. But Claude…

  When they came up to punish him, Claude was lost in a daydream about Grandpapa coming to Trois Rivieres and taking him away to live on the farm.

  That was how he handled it.

  It is after midnight. LaPointe has been in bed for over an hour, slipping in and out of light sleep, when he hears the lock turn in the front door. It closes softly, and Marie-Louise tries to tiptoe into the bedroom, but she bumps into something. She suppresses a giggle. There is movement and the rustle of clothes being taken off. She slips in beside him, and cold air comes in with her. He does not move, does not open his eyes. Soon her breathing becomes regular and shallow. She sleepily presses against his back for warmth, her knees cold against the backs of his legs.

  He can smell the licorice of ouzo on her breath, and the smell of man’s sweat on her.

  …he can’t breathe…

  …he wakes with a start. His face is wet.

  He can’t understand it. Why are his eyes wet?

  He falls back to sleep, and next morning he does not remember the dream.

  10

  Guttmann has arranged the overdue reports in stacks on the little table serving as a desk, leaving just enough room for his typewriter. He has finally made some order and sense out of the mess LaPointe dumped on him; there is a stack for this week’s reports, one for last week’s, one for the week before, and so on. But largest of all is the pile he mentally calls the Whatever-the-Hell-This —Is bunch.

  The hissing roar of sandblasting across the street vibrates the cheap ripply glass of the window, causing Guttmann to look up. His eyes meet LaPointe’s, which are fixed on him with a frown. Guttmann smiles and nods automatically and returns to his work. But a couple of minutes later he can still feel the Lieutenant’s eyes on him, so he looks up again.

  “Sir?”

  “Is that all you know of that song?”

  “What song, sir?”

  “The song you keep humming over and over! You keep humming the same little bit!”

  “I didn’t realize I was humming.”

  “Well, I realize it. And it’s sending me up the goddamned wall!”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  LaPointe’s grunt suggests that “Sorry” isn’t enough. Ever since
he came in this morning, he has been emitting dark vibrations and making little murmurs and growls of short temper each time he loses his place in the routine work on his desk. He stands up abruptly, pushing back his swivel chair with the backs of his knees. There is an indented line of white in the plaster from years of the chair banging against it. His thumbs hooked in the back of his belt, he looks out over the Hotel de Ville, its facade latticed with scaffolding. This morning the noise of the stone-cleaning grates directly upon his nerve ends, like cold air on a bad tooth. And those monotonous zinc clouds!

  Guttmann’s typewriter clacks on in the rapid, one-word bursts of the experienced bad typist. His memory touches the two nights and a day he has just spent with the girl who lives in his apartment building. He passed Saturday evening in her flat, helping her doctor a head cold. She wore a thick terrycloth robe that did nothing good for her appearance, and she had bouts of sneezing that left her limp and miserable, her face pale and her eyes brimming with tears. But her sense of humor held up, and she found this to be a ridiculous way for them to pass their first date. She got a little high on the hot toddies he made for her, and so did he, because he insisted on keeping her company by drinking one for each of hers. When he looked over her books and records, he discovered that their tastes were absolutely opposite, but their levels of appreciation about the same.

  Around midnight, she kicked him out, telling him that she wanted to get a good night’s sleep to fight off the cold. He suggested some light exercise might do her a world of good. She laughed and told him she didn’t want him to catch her cold. He said he was willing to pay that price, but she said no.

  Next morning, he telephoned her from bed. Her cold had broken and she felt well enough to go out. They passed the day visiting galleries and making jokes about the modern junk-art on display. He spent more than he could afford on dinner, and later, in his apartment, they talked about all sorts of things. They seldom agreed on details, but they found similar things funny and the same things important. After they had made love, they lay on their right sides, she coiled in against him, her bottom in his lap. She slept, breathing softly, while he lay awake for a time, sensing the subtle thrill of waves of gentleness emitting from him and enveloping her. A remarkable girl. Not only fun to talk with and great in bed, but really… remarkable…