“Are you a sentimentalist?”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “Yes, I think you are. I think—I decided this all by myself—that sentiment is often a substitute for love.”
“How so?”
“It feels more like a hanging-on, and involves a dwelling on the past. Love, I think, is a letting go. Never destructive, never possessive or clinging.”
“Is it?” he asked. “You see I don’t know.”
“I don’t know either,” she said slowly.
It was nearly midnight when they emerged from the restaurant. “Could you be persuaded to walk?” he asked.
“No persuasion needed, I’d prefer it.”
They turned to the left, crossing the Raadhuspladsen to enter the now-quiet Frederiksbergg. “Funny,” said Adam, “there’s that chap again—I swear it’s the same one. We just passed him. The Pale One.”
The Pale One. It was strange that she knew at once who Adam meant, and turning quickly she was just in time to catch the gleam of rimless spectacles before the man halted to peer into a shop window. A little breath of fear touched Melissa, light as the stroke of a feather, and then she turned to Adam and said with a laugh, “A tourist with the same list that we have.”
“Obviously,” he said with amusement. “Small city, Copenhagen.”
* * *
—
At the hotel he did not pause in the lobby. When she glanced inquiringly at his face, he said, “I’ll come and tuck you into bed.” She nodded. This, too, seemed right and natural.
5
It was nearly ten o’clock when Melissa left the dining room the next morning and crossed the lobby to the lounge where Adam would meet her following his own morning ablutions. Sunlight streamed through the long windows of the nearly empty room, and her passage to the couch sent dust motes swirling. Melissa sat down, remembering Adam with a joy only slightly haunted by the knowledge that this was their last full day together. She sat and quietly tested her joy against loss. On the couch facing her a portly gentleman read his newspaper, cigar smoke rising in clouds from behind the headlines. As she glanced at him, he neatly folded up his paper, nodded to her and said in accented English, “You’ll want to see this, of course.”
She frowned, not understanding, until she saw that he held out to her the Paris edition of the Herald Tribune. She laughed. “That’s very kind of you. How on earth did you guess I’m American?”
His brows lifted in surprise. “But you are, aren’t you?” he announced simply, and as he left the lounge, Melissa wondered in amusement what aura or climate Americans carried about with them to betray them. Was it the cut of her clothes, she mused, or their newness? Was it the way she walked, a certain style of manner or perhaps only the sheerness of her stockings? She turned to the newspaper, noting idly that it was two days old. Then she realized that two days ago at this hour she had not met Adam yet, it occurred to her that two days really could be a long time, and she opened the paper to see what other world-shaking events might have occurred on Tuesday, June 30th. Leafing through its pages she suddenly halted in astonishment as she found herself staring at a very clear picture of the man Stearns.
She had not seen him since that night on A deck. The eyes in the photograph stared straight into hers and she had the strange sensation that she had stopped breathing. How peculiar to meet him in a French newspaper and what was he doing here? The picture had the bright, painfully stiff look of a passport photograph. Above it a small headline said AMERICAN DIES AT SEA. Below it was the name J. J. Stearns.
“Dead?” she thought blankly. He couldn’t be dead. She smoothed out the paper and forced her attention to the words under the caption. She read:
CHERBOURG: July 1. The body of J. J. Stearns, an American, is being held in Cherbourg pending further identification and notification of kin. Mr. Stearns, 41, died suddenly aboard the Bremen a few hours before it docked. His destination was listed as Cherbourg and his home address as New York, N.Y. An autopsy is being performed.
She whispered, “It can’t be true.” She remembered that Stearns had said, he had said—she had an awful feeling that she was going to burst into tears. “But he has no right to be dead,” she thought stupidly, and felt suddenly lost, as if his death cut her adrift from something secure. He had said that he might not reach Majorca and now he was dead. What did that mean? He had said…but now when she groped for the words Stearns had used she felt vaguely threatened by something formless and oppressive. She thought instead, angrily, “But he had no right to just—just die.” He had left his package with her, the book about which she knew nothing, and now she was forced to recall that it was in her possession and that she had promised to deliver it for him.
What really had she intended to do with it? She didn’t know. She had not been thinking clearly at all when she accepted the package from him. She’d certainly not taken the man seriously; she had been carried away by the moment, by his sense of urgency, but above all by her dislike of disappointing people. So long as the man existed somewhere in this world his errand had remained of little consequence, it had seemed even superfluous, but now he was dead. Had she really cherished the thought that so long as he was alive she might return it to him? What was she to do with his book?
But most staggering of all was the realization that he had said he might not reach Majorca—and then he had died. What did it mean?
She again picked up the paper to stare incredulously at the small photograph. “I am terribly sorry for him,” she thought mechanically. “He really was young to die. Of course I’m sorry for him, that’s why I’m so upset.”
This was better: she began to think of how young he was to die, and how unfortunate it was that he was dead. As she sat there, a conversation overheard days ago slipped suddenly into her mind as if it had been waiting for this moment:
They hushed it up, of course, shipping companies just don’t approve of passengers dying aboard ship.
Old man, I suppose…
No, quite young, the steward said. No more than forty. Suddenly fell to the floor in the corridor—made a terrible sound—and died at once….
“But that’s a heart attack,” Melissa thought, and she felt an enormous, overwhelming sense of relief—except why did she feel such relief when she was so sincerely sorry about his death? She thought quickly, “He had a heart condition, that’s it, of course. Angina pectoris, perhaps, and the attacks were growing more frequent and he had a sense of foreboding…Perhaps he was psychic about his death; some people are….”
She saw a man crossing the lobby and she thought, “I know that man.” It was Adam, and she realized with a sense of shock how far away she had been to forget that she was waiting for him, and that this was their last day together.
* * *
—
As they walked up the avenue arm in arm she said, “Adam, tell me something.”
He smiled. “Tell me what it is that I am to tell you.”
“No, be serious,” she told him with a smile. “I want you to pretend something. You’re traveling—as you are at this moment—but perhaps aboard a ship, let’s say, and on your last day out—”
“On my last day out—”
“Yes, a gentleman with whom you’ve exchanged a few remarks asks to speak to you alone. Now you are going, say, to Hong Kong,” she said firmly. “Not right away to Hong Kong, but in a few days. And this gentleman says that his destination is also Hong Kong but he feels that he may not get there, he implies that he’s a secret agent and asks you to deliver a small package for him.”
Adam smiled and shook his head. “When on earth do you find the time to read such novels! But go on…”
“That’s about it for part one,” she said, her heart hammering. “He gives you the address and he gives you a small package, which is a book, and he asks you to deliver this at a Hong Kong address—
”
“Which of course I would not do,” said Adam firmly, and when she stopped and looked at him he added lightly, “You did say this was happening to me. I would agree to no such thing!”
“Oh,” she said, flushing. “But why do you say that?” She had been about to leap ahead to the man’s death and his interruption took her aback.
He said patiently, “You are an absolute innocent, my dear. You’ve just told me that I don’t know the man well.”
“Yes, but if he implied he was a secret agent and that it was terribly important—”
Adam laughed. “Why should I believe him? He is still almost a total stranger, is he not? It would be different if I knew his character and background, but if such a stranger had the affrontery to approach me I would compliment him upon concocting a very romantic story, tell him in no uncertain terms that he underestimated my intelligence, and suggest that the man find someone more trusting and more gullible than I.”
Melissa’s flush deepened. “But—why gullible, Adam?”
“I see that I am rapidly disillusioning you. I don’t mean to sound callous but it’s only common sense not to trust without verification. We Europeans have learned in a hard school, from wars down to simple smuggling. It is you Americans who remain determinedly naïve and impressionable—after all, you have had only Indians to cope with!
“But this whole supposition is unrealistic,” he continued. “This chap of yours would never dare to seek me out, he’d look for an American.” He smiled at her. “And if he could find one like you, my dear—inexperienced, unworldly, as well as traveling alone—”
His words stung her and Melissa’s heart sank: the implication was obvious. Had it really been like that, she wondered? For just a moment she wanted to protest, feeling that somehow it was not as Adam pictured it, but now she found herself trapped. To argue the point, to promote a long discussion, would be tiresome to the extreme if it was to remain a hypothetical situation. But if she removed the hypothesis then she would have to admit to Adam that she had indeed been shockingly trusting and gullible. He might be appalled, he might say with a shudder, “But you are an absolute child,” and this was true but he had found her a delight. On this last day with him she could not show herself to him as a fool. It was painful enough to see the situation through Adam’s eyes—and Adam was experienced, while she remained the perfect accomplice that he had described: unworldly, inexperienced, and traveling alone. Her cheeks were still flaming with embarrassment.
She said lightly, to end it, “Thank you, I was interested in your reaction.”
“But why?” he asked, genuinely puzzled now.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said quickly, and then, “Oh, look at that terribly dignified man with cane and attaché case riding his bicycle! Did you see him, Adam?”
She could not bore him, nor could she impose upon him as Stearns had already imposed upon her. It was the whole point of her trip to learn how to manage life alone. Away, Stearns, she thought, and turned her thoughts resolutely toward Adam, knowing that nothing—nothing—must corrupt the beauty of their last day together.
6
Again they came to Tivoli, to the outdoor café, and Adam ordered beer and they feasted on long open sandwiches, feeding the crumbs to the swans. “Our swans,” Adam said, smiling at her.
She laughed. “Do you think they’d agree with you? But if you insist on being sentimental—!”
“I warned you that I’m a sentimental man.” He hesitated and then he said suddenly, “What do you think will happen to you, what kind of life will you have? Will you, for instance, have to live frugally?” His voice sharpened with exasperation. “Damn it, what will it be like for you?”
She was touched and made shy by his concern. “I honestly don’t know,” she said.
“I want you to do something for me. I want to hear from you, say, at Christmastime. I want to know how things go with you, and if you’re all right.”
His words startled her. She had not expected this from him, in fact she had rigidly schooled herself against expectations of any kind, and now she looked at him with skepticism. “Do you think that’s best?”
“I shall want to hear,” he said, and reaching across the table he grasped her hand. Shutting out the swans, the people around them, and the gardens, he said harshly, “Don’t you realize that you can never be just someone I met in Copenhagen? Do you think I will ever forget you, Melissa?”
She turned deeply scarlet, suddenly lost, for realness so evaded her that she had no means of judging such words and she was both appalled by them—did he really want her to take them seriously?—and frightened by the effect they had upon her. She had flatly made up her mind to expect nothing from him, and now he was offering her something, which bewildered her; for if he genuinely cared, why did he not offer her more, and if he did not care, why did he offer her anything? She stared at him with absolute helplessness, conflict rendering her mute while wave after wave of scarlet flooded her cheeks.
He said softly, smiling at her, “I have just touched one of those barbed wire fences, I think.”
She smiled faintly, and the tension passed. Flippantly, driving him away from her, she said, “I’d not planned on immortality, you see.”
He ruefully shook his head. “I should have chosen that other girl on the tour bus.” He released her hand and leaned back, his eyes tender. “I should have. She would have proven supremely forgettable, while in you there is an honesty—” He smiled, and picking up the salt shaker he leaned over and sprinkled it on her head. “There,” he said. “Now you are not so sweet.”
It broke the spell. “Idiot,” she laughed, and they stabbed out their cigarettes, gathered up packages and left the café hand in hand.
* * *
—
Later, wandering, she thought dreamily, “This is the day when we shape what is ours.” It was as if they both knew how little time remained and must telescope into hours what other lovers browsed through timelessly. To speak of marriages or disillusionments was oddly distasteful today; that belonged to yesterday when they had laid the solidity on which today’s lightheartedness was built. Hand in hand they wandered through the Tivoli arcades, making faces into bulging mirrors that showed them elongated, truncated, headless, or torsoless. They bought Tivoli coins and inserted them into gambling machines and watched peaches, pears, apples, bananas spin past. They left Tivoli and walked through the Saxograde, peering into old clothes shops, copper shops, butcher shops. They laughed and were young, and when they touched upon serious things it was books they had read, or plays seen. Nothing existed for them now but today.
* * *
—
“How did you happen to be born in Greece?” she asked. They were dining at a penthouse restaurant overlooking the canals and they sat side by side so that they might watch the boats. In the dusk the lights of the boats were like underwater jewels moving sluggishly, laboriously past them.
Adam shrugged. “My father was also an archaeologist, and very rarely in England. Turkey, Mesopotamia, Greece, Egypt—”
Burrill…her mind seized, lost and then grasped the name. “Not—Sir John Burrill?”
“You’ve read of him then. Yes, that was my father.”
“But what a fantastic childhood you must have had!”
He said dryly, “I never knew him. He was sixty when I was born—my mother was a very young third wife—and he died when I was two years old. Perhaps you recall the story about his death?”
“Something—a curse, wasn’t it—because he opened a tomb?”
His lips curved ironically. “It makes a pretty story, although I imagine it was a heart attack, curses or not.”
“Are you a sir, too?” she asked.
“No.” He said it flatly, almost viciously and she did not—dared not—intrude. Then he smiled. “I’m sorry, I feel extremely ambivalent t
oward my father. I’ve never forgiven him for dying.”
“So I see! Yet even as you reject him you follow in his footsteps…”
“Of course.”
She said mischievously, “Dr. Szym would have a very good time with you, I think. But it must also have been difficult for your mother,” she added soberly.
“She survived. After a number of lovers she took a second husband, a racing car enthusiast much younger than herself.”
“Then perhaps she didn’t survive,” Melissa pointed out tartly.
He shrugged. “Perhaps. I don’t know. I only know that it was a rather untidy mess to grow up with. Unfortunately her second husband drove very fast even when he was not racing and they were both killed in a car crash when I was seventeen.”
“Now that’s a rotten beginning for you,” she admitted and looked at him, measuring him in the light of this new knowledge.
It was so difficult to imagine his past; nationality and differences of definition intruded, for they each met out of context and in groping toward an understanding of the other’s history were reduced to labeling and classifying. Adam, for instance, had never visited America. He could say of her, “She is an artist but before that she was the daughter of a small-town New England dentist, and then she married another small-town New England dentist” and with what could he equate this culturally in his own country? He knew that she could afford a psychiatrist and a trip to Europe but he must realize that her clothes were not expensive. When he asked if she would have to live frugally did he think she would have to give up ski trips to Sun Valley every winter, or give up one of her three meals a day? If he knew that she had sold thirty shares of American Telephone and Telegraph stock to bring her here, would he suppose that she cut coupons in a bank vault every week, or would he understand that in America professional men often bequeathed thirty shares of A.T. & T. to their daughters and that actually this meant very little at all. She, in turn, knowing of his prized collection of antiquities, his knighted father, his Mercedes-Benz and his affairs with women, immediately, by American standards, labeled him as rich—even playboy rich—when in the Mediterranean countries this might not be so at all. How was one to know? She realized for the first time how people depended upon symbols and groups for identification; she and Adam had each left their groups and symbols behind them, and perhaps this too contributed to the intensity of their meeting because symbols were depersonalizing and groups confining.
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