GOOD AMERICANS GO TO PARIS WHEN THEY DIE (29 page)

But before he can so much as open his
mouth, Advocate informs him, to his astonishment, that his behavior
in Paris was irreproachable and his past elsewhere heroic but that
the … er … how shall we put it? … the alleged irregular activities
engaged in publicly with (he pokes about in the cards) ah, yes,
allegedly, with
Mademoiselle
Williams, Margaret, constitutes, if the accusation is
founded, a grave moral breach, in the eyes of the
Administration.

In the eyes of the Administration, he
repeats, winking at Louis with a tolerant rheumy wink of
I-was-young-once-too-in-a-better-place-than-this complicity. And
unfortunately there were at least a dozen witnesses. Could Mr … um
… Mr Forster perhaps, in the interest of his defense, describe in
detail the alleged action involving himself and
Mademoiselle
Williams?

Unthinkable. Louis can’t possibly do that. He
doesn’t remember anything, he says, although he does, he does, all
the time. Again he takes the blame on himself. He must have forced
her to do what she did although he can’t remember what it was she
did and he did. He didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t
remember anything.

Advocate purses his lips.

“Yes, of course. We shall plead temporary
mental aberration due to the stress of transfer and of course
emphasize your heroic past in Cuba and the Philippines as well as
your irreproachable behavior in Paris. Thank you.”

Seymour Stein is next. As soon as he sits
down opposite Advocate he stammers out a long-rehearsed
justification of his wrongdoing. He explains why he’d left France
and Marie-Claude, with every intention of returning but his fiancée
– practically his fiancée – had never answered his letters, no
fewer than six of them. In a sense he was the one who had been
abandoned. It was true that perhaps it had been a mistake, in his
very first letter, to have told her the way to postpone the baby
and the address where it could be done.

Advocate peers down at the sheet of paper.
He opens his rubbered hands in a gesture of regretful helplessness
in the matter. No charges concerning this obscure personal matter
had been brought against
Monsieur
Stein. The matter, then, is irrelevant to their present
concern. What has to be disproved or relativized is the five-week
middleman job waiting for distressed female clients in the rear of
a café. (His tax evasion is a venial offense.)

Seymour tells the Advocate that an Irish
teaching colleague had thrown the job his way at a time he was dead
broke. The operator preferred foreigners for the middleman
function. Foreigners could be expelled if they were caught so they
were less likely to blab. Seymour tries to justify his role by
hunger and, on an impersonal historical scale, the later legality
of the intervention (even reimbursed by the
Sécurité
Sociale
) and by the
cruelty of forcing use of clothes hangers and forks upon the
distressed women, amateur jobs often resulting in fatal
infection.

But all the while that he tries to justify
his involvement with the angel-maker he thinks of how they’re
accusing him of the wrong thing, like a man who cuts his parents’
throats and is brought to trial for having stolen the fatal
knife.

Advocate seems unimpressed by Seymour’s
arguments. He screws his eyes up to the ceiling, ponders and then
outlines a possible defense.

“You knew a woman back in America (or
perhaps here in France) who exited in atrocious agony, victim of an
amateurish surgical intervention. It left a permanent psychological
scar on you. You accepted the job largely out of altruism, to spare
other women that same horrible fate.”

“No,” says Seymour, “I never knew any such
woman.”

“Allow me to suggest that, in the interest
of your defense, it would be strongly advisable for you to have
known this unfortunate woman, Madeleine, shall we call her?”

When Seymour leaves the Common Room Sadie
jerks open the women’s door and commands: “Number Two!”

Margaret, pale and trembling, steps out into
the corridor. Sadie scowls at her.

“Are you deaf? I said Number Two. You are
Number One.”

She strides to the bed where Helen is seated
and commands: “Number Two!”

No reaction.

“Number two!” Sadie repeats in an even
sterner voice.

“Are you talking to me? My name isn’t Number
Two. My name is Mrs Ricchi.”

She goes on reading.

“Your advocate is waiting for you. I presume
that you desire transfer.”

“I desire nothing.”

She turns a page and bends her head over
it.

Seymour, who overhears the exchange, wonders
if by “I desire nothing” Helen means to express superior detachment
or her desire for the nothing of exit.

“This is pure obstruction,” says Sadie. “I
will summon you again shortly, for the very last time.” She turns
her back on Number Two and calls out: “Number One!”

Like Louis and Seymour, Margaret thinks
she’s being accused of the wrong things when Advocate asks her to
justify minor acts like borrowing things in shops and posing for
“naughty postcards” (he even wonders if she could describe them in
order for him to determine the exact degree of naughtiness). He
doesn’t say a word about her leaving Jean, not a word about his
threat of suicide, perhaps carried out, and if so, indirect murder
on her part.

What Advocate is interested in, very
interested in, is the alleged irregular activities engaged in
publicly with
Monsieur
Forster, Louis. They constitute, if the accusation is
founded, a grave moral breach in the eyes of the
administration.

In the eyes of the administration, he
repeats, tolerantly. Unfortunately there were at least a dozen
alleged witnesses. Could
Mademoiselle
Williams, in the interest of her defense, describe in
detail the alleged action involving herself with
Monsieur
Forster, Louis?

Margaret plunges her face into her palms. Barely
audible, she mumbles that if there were all those witnesses then it
must have happened, whatever it was she did and he did, she can’t
remember what it was, but it was her fault, not his, she was sure
of that. She starts weeping.

Advocate stretches out a consoling hand. At
the last moment he pulls it back and contents himself with safer
verbal consolation.

“
We shall plead temporary mental aberration
due to the stress of scandalously incompetent transfer. One last
thing now, my dear. Could you possibly try to justify your alleged
nudity in broad daylight in the
Boulevard Saint Michel
fountain in the early afternoon of July
23, 1937?”

“I just remember I’d had a lot of wine and
it was a hot day so I took off my shoes and stockings and waded in
the fountain.”

“As who would not have done in such
circumstances. The accusation, though, is of total nudity. Could
you describe in detail, my child, the stages of disrobing and the
justification for each of these stages?”

“Well, like I said, it was a hot day and
they were all applauding.”

“‘They’?”

“The people in front of the fountain.”

“How many people?”

“A few dozen at the beginning. Maybe a
hundred or so at the end.”

“
I can well imagine the scene. The police
report speaks of a quasi-riot. And the unruly mob doubtlessly
incited you to continue disrobing, perhaps threatening you if you
refused, we shall say.
Yes, excellent, excellent.
An act committed under duress
and constraint. What garment followed the stockings, my
child?”

“My skirt, I think. It was wet anyhow.”

“And then?”

“My blouse.”

“Which you slowly unbuttoned?”

“It was an off-the-shoulder blouse, I
think.”

“Which you slowly pulled over your head,
then. Next, I imagine, you slowly divested yourself of your … ah …
bra?”

“
No,
Maître
,
I never wore a bra in those days.”

“Understandably. And then, finally, finally, you
slowly, very slowly, reluctantly but under constraint, slowly
divested yourself of your … ah … panties.”

“
No,
Maître
,
I didn’t.”

“But this changes everything! Everything! It was not
total nudity then. Even though, to be sure, the flimsy material of
the undergarment in question, wet and so translucent, must have
clung revealingly and … But technically not total nudity. So, then,
you modestly retained your … ah … panties.”

“No, Maître, I never wore panties in those
days either.”

She stammers that in a tiny voice and
blushes deep gray.

“
But I do now,
Maître
, I swear I do. I’ve completely changed, oh please
please tell the Administrative Review Board that,
Maître
. Whenever
I talked to Louis Forster it was about religion. He taught me
prayers. I made a solemn vow to God to be pure and I
h
a
ve been pure
for twenty-five years, saving myself for Jean Hussier after we
marry. Why I’ve even refused to dance for the Prefect, maybe a
hundred times I’ve refused, even though he says that if I dance
I’ll be transferred.”

Advocate stares down at the card, stares and stares.
He doesn’t even blink. Finally he says: “My dear child, would you
kindly repeat what you have just said?”

“Louis and I talked about religion and
that’s all.”

“More power to both of you for such
commendable restraint. I was referring, however, to the invitation
to dance, on the part of the Prefect if I understood correctly,
which is not certain.”

“He keeps on asking me. He used to, that is.
I used to meet him in the corridors. Unless it’s a dream. I have
these awfully funny dreams.”

“Surely a dream, my dear. Not even the
Prefect would dare … A minor question: did the Prefect (in the
dream, of course) say ‘for’ or ‘with’? ‘Dance for me’ or ‘Dance
with me’?

“He said all the time, ‘Dance for me.’”

“A foolish question on my part. ‘Dance for
me’ would in any case quickly become ‘Dance with me.’ The climactic
dance. Unthinkable. A dream beyond doubt.”

Advocate takes a blank sheet and starts
writing intensely. He breaks off and looks up.

“Still another idle question, my dear. Were
you never – in your dreams, of course – tempted, in exchange for
transfer, to … ah … accede to the Prefect’s invitation? To dance
for him? Perhaps even with him? A short dance here for youth and a
new lifetime out there?”

“
Oh yes,
Maître
, tempted every time. But not just for me. Tempted for the
others too. I’d do so many good things for suffering people out
there. And for the suffering people here. I’d ask for Louis to be
transferred and Seymour and Helen and Max too. But it might be a
trap, I thought. I thought: maybe I’m being tested. I prayed to God
all the time to give me a sign. I still do.”

“And what, if I may ask, do your fellow
Administratively Suspended advise you to do?”

“Oh they don’t know about it. I never told any of
the others about it. I don’t know why not but I didn’t.”

Advocate nods and returns to his sheet for a
minute. He lays his pen down and smiles at Margaret intensely.

“You may go now, my dear child. And thank
you for everything.”

It’s Helen’s turn, for the second time.
Sadie barks out her number. There’s no response. The women’s room
is empty.

Number Two is jeopardizing the operation of
Administrative Review for all concerned, says Sadie.

At that, the others scatter in the corridors
and call “Helen! Helen!” despite the terrible echo. Several times
Seymour shouts at the top of his lungs: “Goddam it, Helen, you’re
jeopardizing the operation of Administrative Review for all
concerned!” He gets no answer. None of them do. They return.

Number Two has seriously jeopardized the
operation of Administrative Review for all concerned, Sadie tells
them, with apparent satisfaction.

A few minutes later Hedgehog and Philippe
come back with the wheelchair. Advocate is wheeled away, scribbling
intensely. Just before the wheelchair turns the corner, the wind
rises and a few papers fly away. Hedgehog doesn’t notice them.

Seymour trots down the corridor and picks
them up. He wants to cry: “
Maître, Maître,
your papers
!
”
Maybe he would be rewarded by special eloquence before the
Administrative Review Board for the gesture. But by the time
Seymour gets to the corner, the wheelchair has disappeared. He
folds the papers and puts them in his pocket.

Hours later Helen returns to the Common Room where
the others are staring in deep depression at their particular
version of Paris, so close and so distant.

They’re furious at her. She’s jeopardized
the operation of Administrative Review for the rest of them, they
say.

There’s nothing to jeopardize, she says and
goes into her room.

Lying on his bed, Seymour remembers the two
papers Advocate had lost. He pulls them out of his pocket and
stares at them. One is covered with doodles of naked faceless women
with prominent nipples and muffs, probably done while pretending to
listen to his clients’ stories.

The second sheet is covered by an urgent
scrawl.

Attention of Sub-Prefect Marchini

Suspicions verified. Number Four object of
dance-ploy on the part of H. as with Number Three of April 1922
batch. This time we must maneuver correctly. An opportunity that
may never again present itself. Suggest following strategy: contact
the other…