The Evening Star (65 page)

He was in a bad mood the day after the dinner; that evening he started drinking cognac and kept drinking it until he fell out of his chair while reaching for the little instrument that flicked the TV channels. Somehow he had dropped it and had kicked it just out of reach. He leaned over to reach for it, fell out of his chair, went to sleep, and woke up with a splitting headache just in time to shave and go to work. He cursed his secretary because of a typo, and almost spat at
Solange, who was unable to get the fax machine to work immediately.

“It must work now!” Pascal demanded, his head still splitting.

Solange stared back at him icily—she was, on the whole, an extremely composed young woman—too composed, in his view.

“As you can see, it doesn’t work
now
,” she said. “I guess it has not heard this news.”

“What news?” Pascal asked. He wondered apprehensively if some dreadful thing had happened somewhere in the world of which he had not informed himself. Perhaps it was even something that bore on the destiny of France.

“The news that Monsieur Pascal wants it to work
now!
” Solange said, looking him over with evident distaste.

At the moment the man looked grotesquely ugly to her: red-eyed, red-faced, jowly. She found it a little hard to believe that she had once found the same ugliness attractive; but—no getting around it—she had. Of course, having an affair with a man with a crooked penis made a good story to tell to her girlfriends; even some of her boyfriends laughed at her descriptions of the crooked penis, though normally the last thing she would have mentioned to a lover was another lover’s penis.

“Oh,” Pascal said, relieved that France had not been disgraced without his knowing about it immediately.

“I drank cognac,” he added, by way of apology for his surly behavior.

Solange continued to stare at him icily. She popped open the fax machine, discovered there was no paper in it, tapped off down the hall, came back with a roll, stuck it in the machine, and snapped it shut with a loud pop.

“Now it will respond to monsieur’s every command,” she said.

“Why can’t you be kind?” Pascal asked. “I ache all over this morning. I had a bad night. I am old and lonely. Once you were kind to me but now you aren’t.”

“Because you behaved like a pig,” Solange informed him. “Go get a lady pig to be nice to you.”

She started his fax and left. While the fax was running, the machine began to make a little
grrr
sound, like the growl of a small animal. Pascal began to feel desperate. He was afraid to summon Solange again, and yet the fax was not moving smoothly through the machine as it ought. It was merely sitting in its slot while the machine growled.

Finally, feeling that the growling sound, Solange, his job, Houston, and in fact his whole life were collectively intolerable, Pascal simply walked away. The fax was too stupid to send, anyway. The mayor of Houston wanted President Mitterrand to attend the Fat Stock Show next year. There would be a special barbecue in his honor, if only he would agree to come. Better yet, the Concorde would be allowed to bring him, though normally the Concorde was not permitted to land in Houston because of its noise. None of this would ever happen—what did it matter if the fax reached the Quay? Let the next person who wanted to send a fax fix the growling machine. Solange’s icy looks were like stabs to the heart. He felt he might sob—if he sobbed, perhaps his head would feel better. He shut himself in his tiny office and remembered that Aurora had insulted him with her indifference, and suddenly his anger rose so fast he couldn’t control it. He grabbed the phone and called her, meaning to bury her in curses.

“Hello,” Aurora said. She was in her bed, attempting to make her way through a few sentences of Proust, something she rarely attempted unless she happened to be so low in spirit that she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

“You were like a slug!” Pascal burst out. “A big white slug. I’m calling to say I am never coming again—I will not be insulted in this way.”

“Wait a minute now, start over,” Aurora said. “Did I go to the trouble of picking up my phone just to hear you call me a slug? Of course I’m slightly large, and I’m certainly white, but in just what manner do you think I resemble a slug? Isn’t a slug some form of worm? Am I really such a fool as to have fixed sweetbreads for a man who equates me with a worm?”

“You didn’t think about me,” Pascal said. “Is it because of the Greeks?”

“No, it’s because you’re a dull old fart,” Aurora said. “I tried to think about you several times during what I admit was an indifferent dinner, but the truth is it was like turning to an empty channel. There’s not much there to see, and even less to think about.”

“My head aches, I’m old and lonely,” Pascal said, his anger draining out of him. He was horrified that he had lost control of himself so completely; he had even called Aurora a slug. A slug? Why had those words come from his mouth? She would never forgive him, probably. He felt that his only hope was to appear as pitiful as possible, which was not hard, because he felt pitiful.

“You deserve to be lonely, if the best you can do is call me a slug,” Aurora said. “I’m going to tell Rosie you said that, and we’re going to fix you.”

“Don’t fix me, I’m a broken person,” Pascal said. His life was a wreck, he had nothing, he began to weep.

“Oh, shit, now you’re crying, just because I was mean,” Aurora said. Rosie came into the room, her arms filled with crisp clean sheets, a sure sign that Aurora would soon be asked to move so the bed could be changed.

“Pascal called me a slug but now he’s sobbing,” Aurora said, holding the receiver in Rosie’s direction in case she wanted to hear the sobs.

“I don’t want to hear it, who wants to listen to a Frenchman cry?” Rosie said. “You have to move so I can change this bed.”

“Now, when I’m only on my second sentence of Proust?” Aurora asked, grinning. “Usually I read at least five or six sentences before I give up.”

“I don’t care, move it, I’m already half a lap behind where I like to be this time of day,” Rosie said.

“It would be better to be dead than to live like this,” Pascal said, his sobs subsiding.

“Well, that’s pure speculation, Pascal,” Aurora said. Somehow his sobs were having a tonic effect on her spirits.

“It might be a good deal worse to be dead,” she continued. “Do you think the French government could spare you for a few hours?”

“Why?” Pascal asked. Her threat to “fix” him was not one that he felt he should take lightly.

“Pascal, if you’re going to question me, let’s forget it,” Aurora said. “Just answer my question: Are you free for lunch, or aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am free for lunch,” Pascal said. “I am free for all lunches. Solange was cruel to me because of the fax.”

“Well, that’s between you and your young mistress,” Aurora said. “Pull yourself together and get yourself over here about twelve.”

“Okay, but I don’t want you to fix me,” Pascal said. “I’m already fixed enough.”

“If you behave correctly I might not fix you, but I’ll certainly fix you if you’re not here on time,” Aurora said, before hanging up.

“I knew he was back in the picture,” Rosie said.

Aurora reluctantly yielded the bed and deposited herself in her window nook, sticking Proust back on her bookshelf first. It was not to be a six-sentence day, it didn’t appear.

“He’s rather crushed today—I suppose I was moved to pity,” Aurora said. “I thought we might take him over to meet our Greeks.”

“We? Why do I have to go?” Rosie asked.

“Well, they’re brothers, and we’re almost sisters,” Aurora said. “I thought we might continue our tradition of double-dating where our Greeks are concerned.”

“I don’t know, I’m scared it will get messy,” Rosie said. “Suppose I fall in love with the same one you fall in love with? Then if I win you’ll fire me. But if I think I’m going to be fired I won’t be able to let go and enjoy nothing anyway.”

“Whoa! That’s racing ahead if I ever saw racing ahead,” Aurora said. “Nobody’s in love yet—I doubt we’ll be so lucky.”

“I still think it’ll get messy,” Rosie said. “Everything you start gets messy in five minutes and everything I start is messy before I even start it. It just seems like we’re asking for trouble.”

“Even so, I prefer trouble to endless nothingness,” Aurora said.

“What’s so bad about nothingness?” Rosie asked.

“Do you really want to live out your life just changing my sheets?” Aurora asked. “Wouldn’t a little mess be preferable to day after day of the void?”

“If Willie would just work himself up to one phone call, then I’d feel better,” Rosie said. “I know he ain’t calling, because he feels guilty about running out on me. It ain’t that I want him back, either. I’d just like one phone call so I’d know the poor sucker’s still alive.”

“I agree that Willie has not been thoughtful,” Aurora said. “On the other hand he hasn’t phoned out of a clear blue sky and called you a slug, either, as Pascal just did to me.”

“So what are we supposed to do when we get over there where the Greeks live?” Rosie asked. The idea of going to see them had startled her at first, but now that the prospect had been rattling around in her mind for a few minutes she had ceased to find it frightening. After all, it was broad daylight, and she did like feta cheese. Maybe a little visit could be managed without too much mess.

Aurora had kept the Greeks’ phone number taped to her telephone for the last few days in case of emergencies; she dialed it and got Vassily.

“Boys, it’s us,” Aurora said. “We’re coming over to visit.”

“Bring some more of that lamb à la grecque, if you got any,” Vassily said. “That was first-rate lamb à la grecque.”

“That’s what I like about Greeks, they’re men of appetite,” Aurora said. “Also, they snap right into a conversation, which is more than I can say for the males of most nationalities. What’s become of my friend Theo?”

“We got new glasses for the bar,” Vassily said. “Theo’s polishing one.”

“Well, tell him hello,” Aurora said. “Rosie and I will be along about noon, and we may bring an old Frenchman I want you to meet.”

“I hope he ain’t from Paris, I hate people from Paris,” Vassily said.

“No, he’s from Brittany,” Aurora said. “If he says anything rude to me I hope one of you will beat him up.”

“Theo can, I don’t fight no more,” Vassily said.

“Why not?”

“Because I lose,” Vassily said. “Theo loses, too, but he’s a scrapper. He might be able to whip this old guy from Brittany.”

When Pascal stumbled up to Aurora’s door precisely at noon, trying to look as pitiful as possible, she opened it and immediately slammed him on the chin with her fist. Though she didn’t really hit him very hard, it gave him a shock—also, her ring cut his chin slightly.

“There!” Aurora said. “I’ve spent my morning remembering all the bad things you’ve called me over the years. You deserve to be socked, and now you have been.”

Pascal was so shocked to have been hit that he didn’t say a word in his own defense. He couldn’t think of one.

“May I borrow a Kleenex?” he asked finally.

On the drive over to McCarty Street he had to borrow two more. The cut was tiny but deep. Aurora and Rosie seemed to be in fine moods, but Pascal wasn’t in a fine mood. He had been relegated to the backseat—Aurora claimed she needed Rosie in the front to help her with directions. Pascal thought there was more to it than that; first he had been hit, now he was being exiled. In his depression he could hardly follow a word the two women were saying. Also, the neighborhoods they were driving through looked alarmingly violent. They were the types of neighborhoods he never went into no matter where he was in the world. Aurora stopped at a great many stoplights, which seemed to him a risky policy. Murderous-looking men, young and old, black and brown and white, stared at them from the sidewalks. The two women paid no attention—they had dressed up, and were chattering as happily as girls.

Finally, still unmurdered, they arrived at a little green shed sitting just off a dusty street, from which he could see the tops of ships at dock in the Ship Channel. Two men in undershirts sat under the shed, staring at them.

“They’re in their undershirts,” Rosie said, considerably shocked. She had once lived not very far from where they
were—indeed, had spent her whole twenty-two-year marriage not very far from where they were—and she knew that dress standards in the McCarty Street area were apt to vary; still, seeing the Greeks in their undershirts gave her a start. To her it seemed provocative, and she remembered her own prediction, which was that things might get messy. Men who showed up for dates in their undershirts were looking for something, in her view, and there was little mystery as to what it was.

“Nonsense, it’s just their national dress,” Aurora said, when Rosie revealed why she was taken aback.

“Pascal, are you bleeding to death? If not, why are you so quiet?” Aurora asked, whipping around to give him a good looking over.

“I will live for a while,” Pascal said.

“Well, we’re going to have a nice time with these Greeks, don’t you be gloomy,” she said, opening her door.

Pascal had every intention of remaining completely gloomy, but within ten minutes, to his great surprise, he had stopped being gloomy and was having a good time—even a wonderful time. Business was slow at the Acropolis Bar that day. The Petrakis brothers had taken advantage of the long morning lull to procure a few refreshments. Theo and Vassily proved, to Pascal’s surprise, to be charming men. Retsina was provided, Theo had polished the bar’s new glasses to perfection, there was excellent feta, olives, some tasty little sardines. The two men treated Pascal like a friend; they refused to let him pay for the retsina, or for anything. Theo thumped a dusty jukebox a few times and it began to emit tinkly Greek music. Soon everyone was dancing, Aurora with Vassily, Rosie with Theo; then Aurora made Pascal dance—the Greeks even gave him a Band-Aid for his chin, which still dribbled blood occasionally. Pascal decided that the Greeks were fine men: Europeans, after all, like himself. Though previously he had not particularly cared to regard Greeks as Europeans, Theo and Vassily treated him with such consideration that he changed his mind and accorded them European citizenship. They were civilized men—they might even have been French.