Mrs. Bridge (17 page)

Next morning they hired a cab to the Tower of London, where Mrs. Bridge enjoyed the ravens and the colorful costumes of the Beef-eaters. Mr. Bridge spent a good deal of time investigating the instruments of torture and the chopping block, after which they got into the cab again and reached Buckingham Palace just in time for the changing of the guard. Mrs. Bridge used three rolls of color film on this but insisted it was worth every bit of it. After a very pleasant lunch they drove to Eton.

They also hired a car to Stratford-on-Avon, and to the Dover cliffs, to many historic spots throughout the city and around it, and yet, as they were leaving for Paris, it seemed to them both, and particularly to Mrs. Bridge, that they had hardly begun to get acquainted with England. While they were settling themselves on the train she told him she thought England was the nicest birthday present she had ever received.

To Mr. and Mrs. Bridge it seemed that no matter where they went in Paris they ran into Americans; consequently it was no surprise when a young man named Morgan Hager, who was from Kansas City and whose father had written that the Bridges would be visiting, told them that in addition to tourists there were several thousand Americans who had taken up permanent residence in the city, mostly on the Left Bank. No, he did not know what all these expatriates did for a living; yes, he thought they were happy in France; he had no idea whether they intended to remain in a foreign country for the rest of their lives. Mrs. Bridge could not imagine anyone wanting to live outside the United States. To visit, yes. To take up residence, no.

“I should think they would get awfully lonely,” she said.

“I guess so,” said Hager. “I know I do/’

“But then why do you stay?”

“Because I’m happier here/’

This was puzzling and she wanted to understand. She observed him frankly and saw that he did not look happy; at least he seldom smiled. She did not think he was truly happy.

“If you have the time, Morgan,” said Mr. Bridge, “I’d like to see some of this Bohemian life we hear so much about.”

Hager looked at him doubtfully, for the request posed a problem. There were many things he could have shown them, but, even as certain murals in Pompeii are not open to casual tourists, so there were various Parisian experiences not listed in the guidebook.

“Well,” said Hager modestly, “I really don’t know of anything very Bohemian, but you might like to have dinner at a place on Montpamasse where a lot of art students eat. It’s sort of dirty,” he added thoughtfully.

Mrs. Bridge thought this sounded exciting. “Perhaps we should go back to the hotel and change/’ she said.

Hager did not know whether she meant to get more dressed up or less dressed up, so finally he said, “I don’t think anybody will notice you.” This had a peculiar ring, so he added, “You look all right.” Somehow this was not what he had In mind either, so he cleared his throat, scratched his nose, and said, “The place is actually a real dump.” He tried again. “I mean, you can get in with no trouble.” Having run himself into a cul-de-sac he stopped to meditate. “Oh, well,” he said at last, “let’s go. I’m hungry as a sonofabitch,”

It was the smallest restaurant Mrs. Bridge had ever seen. It was not much larger than her kitchen at home, but somehow or other there were a dozen oilcloth-covered tables jammed into it and every table was crowded. It reeked of cheese and wine and smoke and perspiration. Wedged between the door and a coatrack they stood and waited for three vacancies, and finally the waiter, who was a fat boy with crew-cut hair and a dirty apron, called through the smoke and the gabble, “Alors, vite! J’ai trois! Vite!”

“Okay, step on it,” Hager muttered. “He’s got three but they won’t last,” and he began pushing Mrs. Bridge into the confusion.

Finding no room on the table for her purse, and no other place to put it, she was obliged to hold it in her lap. The menu was scrawled on a blackboard on the wall and Hager translated and made recommendations and both Mr. and Mrs. Bridge accepted his suggestions. Seated next to her was an unusually ragged person wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a filthy blue beret,

“Bonjour, Claude,” said Morgan Hager.

“Ah, mon ami!” said the dirty one. “Comment a va?”

“Oh,

“How do you do?” said Mrs. Bridge.

“Enchant

“I gave him the shirt,” said Hager.

“Oh. How nice.”

“Oui,” said Claude, still chewing and eyeing her. He saw that her wine glass had not been filled, so he reached across the table for the community bottle and filled the glass for her, saying, “C’est bon> alors.”

“Thank you/’ said Mrs. Bridge. The wine was bright red and had a few specks floating on the surface.

“It tastes like vinegar/’ said Hager as he saw her looking at it doubtfully. “We can get some better stuff. Claude’s dead broke, that’s why he drinks it. I mean, it’s only about one cent a glass/’

“Oh, I’m sure it’s quite good/’ she replied, though she was sure it wasn’t. She tasted it and smiled because Claude was watching.

“C’est bon, n’est-ce pas?’
he demanded.

“Oh, yes, it’s really awfully good/’ she replied, and took another sip to prove she meant it. Claude nodded approvingly. He was eating salad now. He paused, leaned forward, and pulled a limp, black, stringy object out of the bowl. Mrs. Bridge saw it was a spider. Evidently it had climbed into the salad, or had fallen in, and drowned. Claude indifferently dropped it into a shell half filled with ashes and cigarette stubs and continued eating. In a little while the spider recovered and crawled unsteadily out of the ash tray, across the table, and disappeared on the other side.

Presently the waiter arrived with the first course and stood around for a few moments to see if they would enjoy it. The spider had taken the edge from Mrs. Bridge’s appetite, and as for salad, though she tried valiantly she could eat nothing more than a bit of tomato.

Back at the hotel that night Mr. Bridge observed that he had always heard so much about Franch cooking but if that was a fair sample he would rather eat in Kansas City.

“I thought it was very good,” she said loyally.

“You didn’t eat much/’ he said.

“Well, good heavens,” she replied, “we didn’t go there for the food/’

To the Louvre they went as soon as they got down from the Eiffel Tower. The Louvre was a symbol to Mrs. Bridge. As Texas meant size, as Timbuktu meant the ends of the earth, so did the Louvre have meaning. To be sure, there were nice galleries in the United States; in Kansas City, for example, there was the William Rockhill Nelson gallery and although she had not been in it more than four or five times in the last twenty years she was very proud that it was in Kansas City. It had a national reputation, she knew, and once in a while she thought of visiting it, for she remembered that on the few occasions she had been there she had enjoyed herself. Once inside it was very nice and of course remarkably interesting; it was just that getting there was so difficult, not that it was out of the way, it was not far from the Plaza, and there was plenty of parking space, but somehow she could not bring herself to go there. Each time the idea came to her she began to feel uncomfortably cool and depressed, and would hear once again her footsteps echoing from the marble. The few visitors she had encountered had ignored her, or at best seemed distantly courteous, It was all so impersonal, a trifle ghostly. Now if there were music and if the windows were open yes, that was the trouble. And if it could be nicely carpeted! instead of spending all that money on marble pillars. And if there were a nice tea shop and a gift shop perhaps Bancroft’s could show the gallery directors how to make things more attractive… .

And so she meditated in the taxicab as they were on their way to the Louvre. It was a lovely afternoon. Men were fishing from the banks of the Seine, couples browsing along the bookstalls what oddly shaped green boxes! she thought, with the lids propped up and so many maps and pictures on display. And in the Tuileries, with the Louvre in the background, ladies were knitting and children were rolling hoops across the grass. Balloons waved at the end of sticks, or clustered together, bumping against one another in the afternoon breeze, and she noticed, as the taxicab stopped in front of the famous French museum, how many people were going in and out; Paris was really altogether different from Kansas City.

In the Louvre she immediately recognized the Venus de Milo, even though they happened to approach from the rear, and of course the Mona Lisa was unmistakable; it looked exactly like the reproductions. The tapestries seemed familiar somehow; perhaps it was just that most tapestries looked alike, and most Greek vases, and all mummies.

At the end of an hour Mr. Bridge said he thought he would go outside and wait, with the result that she continued through the Louvre alone. It was tiring, but it was exciting, and she knew she would never forget this day; it was with a feeling of regret despite the fact that she was so exhausted she could hardly walk that at last she concluded it was time to leave. Her husband was probably bored to death waiting for her; she felt a little guilty about letting him wait, but knew he would understand. He knew how she had looked forward to visiting the Louvre.

She had not managed to see everything but she reflected as she walked toward the exit that she had seen all the most famous paintings and statuary except the Winged Victory of Samothrace, she thought, and promptly stopped. It had been familiar to her as long as she could remember. There must have been a picture of it in one of her earliest school-books. Even now she could imagine it so clearly: that imperial figure advancing and the drapery streaming backward. How impressive it must be!

“Well/ she said, half aloud, “it may be ages before I’m in the Louvre again, so if I’m going to see it I’d better see it now/*

She looked around, intending to inquire where it was, but for the moment there seemed to be no English-speaking people in the corridor, so she decided to continue to the exit where there should be an information desk, or at least a guard who would understand. She turned the corner and there, all of a sudden, was the Winged Victory. Mrs. Bridge gasped and took a step backward, for the great statue seemed to be bearing down on her and it was the very image of Lois Montgomery in a nightgown*

Next day they went window-shopping along the boulevards near the Opera, and in the course of this stroll Mrs. Bridge became slightly separated from her husband. They were walking slowly up the rue Auber, stopping at whatever interested them, and she had drifted ahead, musing on the difference between Paris and Kansas City, observing the French businessmen who seemed content to loiter for hours in sidewalk cafes, and whose attitude, she reflected, was certainly pleasure before business.

Finding herself alone, she looked back and saw him standing with his arms folded, staring into one of the shop windows. She waited a while, thinking he would be coming along, but whatever he saw had hypnotized him. Her curiosity aroused, she retraced her steps. He sensed her approach and looked around with a start. They wandered along as before, but she had seen the object of his attention: a black lace brassiere with the tips cut off.

The more she mulled over this incident the more concerned she became. The French, after all, might do as they pleased; she need have nothing to do with the French, but she must live with her husband. She had lived with him for a long time now, and assumed she knew whatever was worth knowing about him. True, there were occasional surprises once he had told her, and afterward seemed to regret having divulged the secret, that when he was a boy he used to dream of becoming a great composer but the revelations of his nature had seemed meaningless, no matter how fascinating, and she was not apt to dwell on them, but now she did.

Why had he stood there looking? What had he been thinking? His expression had been so serious. Were there things he had never told her about himself? Who was he, really? From all the recesses of her being came the questions, questions which had never before occurred to her, and there on the foreign street she felt lost and forsaken, and with great longing she began to think of Kansas City.

The guidebook spoke of a cafe called Le Dome as having been the haunt of famous intellectuals at the beginning of the century, so there they went to spend an hour or two.

“Picasso used to linger here/’ Mrs. Bridge read from the book, and she went on to read the names of other celebrated individuals who had taken their leisure on this very terrace.

“Here comes Picasso now/’ said Mr. Bridge.

“Oh, I don’t believe it,” she said, looking up nevertheless. In a moment she saw to whom he was referring; it was Morgan Hager, whom they had not seen for several days. Hager was carrying a portfolio under his arm and he was wearing a beret that for some reason made him resemble a fox. He looked startled when he saw them in the cafe, and for an instant seemed ready to flee, but then he smiled and nodded and came over to join them, placing his portfolio in a corner. Mrs. Bridge thought about asking to see his drawings, and after some hesitation she did so. He said the drawings were not much good and she did not press the matter.

“Well/* he said, “I see you’re still here/’ This was not what he meant to say, so he amended, “I figured you’d probably left/’ Since this was not right either he said, “I never did know what you were doing here/’ He saw Mrs. Bridge smiling courteously and steadily, and Mr. Bridge observing him with frank curiosity, so he took off his beret and scratched his head, gazed around Le Dome in search of something whereby he might distract them from his inability to make conversation, and he exclaimed, “Oh! Look at that!”

Mr. and Mrs. Bridge turned and looked and they saw a shaggy girl, rather pretty in a gypsy sort of way so Mrs. Bridge thought who was wearing a silk blouse that was not tucked into her skirt but was simply tied in a loose knot so that a good deal of midriff was showing. She was laughing and shaking her head in response to the comments of two Frenchmen who were sitting at the next table. One of the Frenchmen took out his wallet and slipped a bill under the saucer of her coffee cup, and at this she promptly untied the knot in her blouse and straightened up, revealing her breast to her neighbors as well as to anyone else who cared to look, whereupon there was a burst of clapping and much laughter not only from the two businessmen but from everyone else in the cafe, with the exception of Mr. and Mrs. Bridge.