The Merry Month of May (45 page)

When I got back home and called back, he was in. Apparently he had waited for me.

“Did you try to call me?” I said.

“Yes. But there wasn’t any answer.” There was a pause. “What’s up? Why are you calling me?”

I considered. “Louisa’s in the hospital,” I said.

“Oh? She is? What for?” Harry said.

I was beginning to feel irritated. “A suicide attempt,” I said. “She apparently took enough stuff to knock off a whole damned army of guys.”

Again there was a pause. “Well, how’s she doing?” he said finally.

“Not so very good,” I said. “She’s in a coma. Her heart had stopped. I found her. I took her there in a police van, with oxygen. They’re trying to save her. But they say she may die.”

“Christ,” he said. “Oh, shit.” Again there was a pause. “Well, look. Keep me informed on what happens. You can always get me here at this time of the afternoon. I won’t leave today.”

“Leave for where?”

“Tel Aviv,” he said.

“Samantha has gone?” I said.

“I missed her by about three hours.”

I was really angry now. “Well, look, Harry,” I said coldly. “I’m not going to arrange the God damned funeral for you. There is a limit to what a friendship can ask.”

There was a pause on the line. “I suppose if she dies, I’ll have to come back, won’t I?”

“If you want to get her buried, you will,” I said furiously. “I know I sure as hell aint going to do it.”

“Oh, somebody would,” he said. “Edith de Chambrolet. Have you called Edith?”

“No, not yet,” I said. “I was trying to keep it quiet.”

“Well, call her. Call Edith. She’s a do-gooder. She loves to do good works.”

I thought I had never heard anything so absolutely calloused in my life. Then he said, suddenly, “Look, you know, she’s done this a couple of times before. And I’ve bailed her out of it. At great financial and spiritual cost to myself. I’m getting tired of it.”

“Oh? I didn’t know that,” I said.

“Well, it’s true. We’ve tried to keep it quiet. Once out on the Coast, at a lake. And once here in Europe ten years ago, when she was visiting in England. She almost didn’t come back from a country weekend. I flew over. But I’m getting God damned tired of it.”

“Well, I’m getting damned tired of it, too,” I said. “Hell, Harry, I never even fucked the woman, you know.” I was furious. “You did,” I said.

“Maybe you should,” he said.

“Thanks a lot,” I said, and stopped talking. I was boiling.

“Look,” he said finally after a short silence. “Call me back tomorrow and tell me how it goes. Will you? I’ll cancel my reservation for Tel Aviv. So I’ll be here at the hotel at this same time tomorrow. Okay?”

“Yes,” I said caustically. “I’ll call you back at the same time tomorrow, Harry. With whatever news.” And I hung up.

I was so angry I went to my bar and had three Scotches in a row, staring out the window at the river.

He had told me to call Edith de Chambrolet. I did. I had met Edith at their place for the first time, and afterwards had had dinners with her frequently at her place. Large dinners, always very formal, eight to 12 people. Edith was a remarkable person. She was one of the richest women in America, and had married some impoverished French Count and had four sons by him, all of whom were now grown up and gone from the nest. To occupy herself she had taken up the study of Anthropology and was taking courses in it at the Sorbonne. She also believed in Oceanography, thought it was the only way to save the Earth from the population explosion, and had taken skindiving lessons as well as taking current courses in Marine Geology and Marine Biology. She had become an expert on shark identifications, for example. She spoke with just about the broadest, drawling A I have ever heard, and had stary eyes. There was something enormously sexually attractive about her, but she had never given me any signal, and I had never tried. But I liked her a lot.

“But dahhhling,” she said, when I told her the whole story. “Of course I’ll come.” I can’t begin to spell the way she talked.

“Can you be at my place tomorrow at ten, then?” I said.

“Of course I’ll be there. We must straighten this thing out. You know, this isn’t the first time. I know the whole story.”

Apparently, in spite of Harry’s attempt to keep it quiet, Edith knew all, though I had never heard of it anywhere before.

She arrived promptly at ten. I had had my Portuguese wake me early, and was up and dressed. Together we walked over across the bridge and down past Notre-Dame to the Hôtel-Dieu.

“You mustn’t worry,” Edith said as we went in through the court of slender columns. “This is a marvelous place. If anybody can save her, they can do it here. I’ve checked the place out.”

She rapped on the uniformed guard’s door brusquely.

“She’s such a real idiot and moron, Louisa,” she said as we climbed the old stone stairs. “She should get herself a young man. One of those faggot types that are always in attendance. An Italian hairdresser. They all look like fags, but we girls all know amongst ourselves that they’re not really fags at all, darling.”

As we walked in through the bed rows of beat-up, near-dead people, she said, “Isn’t it marvelous, now? Extraordinarily efficient.”

I was tongue-tied, and felt totally incapable, with her there.

“Now, Louisa,” she said at the bed, lifting up one side of the plastic oxygen tent. “We must stop all this nonsense. We must pull ourselves together and I know that you will.” She let the tent flap drop. “We’ll talk to her again a little later. Let it sink in, first. I’m sure she heard us. In her unconscious.”

We stayed about an hour, and Edith talked to Louisa once more, after checking the lapsed time on her watch. “Marvelous place,” she said as we walked out. “Just look at the technology. It’s a great innovation for France. I only wish they could do the same in business.”

“What are we going to do about McKenna?” I said, as we came out of the great oaken doors under the two rows of trees. Up ahead, toward the Notre-Dame side, I saw my handsome old pissoir. “Well, she can always stay with me, darling,” Edith said.

“Maybe that’s what we ought to do,” I said.

“But of course. But I think we should wait a day or two, get a real prognosis on Louisa, before we decide that. What have you told her?”

“I haven’t told her anything so far,” I said. “I just told the Portuguese to keep her damned mouth shut. At least in front of McKenna. I tried to scare her badly. I think I did.”

“Good,” Edith said. “Fine. They will talk, domestics. It’s what they have in life instead of drink.”

We had come abreast of the old circular pissoir. “Do you mind?” I murmured.

“But, darling! Of course I don’t mind!”

So while I went into the pissoir and had my leak, relieved myself, Edith stood outside and talked to me through the open top in the light summer breeze.

“Men always have to pee when they’re nervous,” she said in that drawly voice. “Women, on the other hand, find trouble holding their water when they’re terrified, deeply in love, or about to drop a child.”

“Yes,” I said, coming back out. “I’ve noticed that.”

“
Have
you?” Edith smiled, as we went on. “Now, about McKenna. I think the very best thing is just to tell her that mother was taken sick, and is in the hospital, and that she should come stay with me until momma is better.”

“I would take her myself,” I said. “But being a bachelor—”

“And sot in his ways,” Edith said.

“Yes. Somewhat. Also, I only have this one rather neurotic Portuguese lady servant.”

“Don’t say servant,” Edith said crisply. “They don’t like to be called servants any more. They like to be called domestics.”

“I don’t really see how I can take her,” I said. “But after all, I am her Godfather.”

“Absolutely not,” Edith said. “You couldn’t possibly. Anyway, McKenna and I are great friends. We’ll get along fine in my house out there.”

“Could you possibly come to my place and wait out the afternoon?” I said. “Until McKenna gets back from school? It’ll only be until four-thirty.” Suddenly I wondered if I had designs on Edith without knowing it.

“Darling, I couldn’t possibly!” Edith said. “I have a class. The Sorbonne is closed, but we meet privately, with the professor. At three-forty-five. In Marine Biology. But I’ll tell you what. I’ll meet you at the Gallaghers’ at around seven, when all the Americans are congregating. I understand you’ve kept that up. After the news, we’ll talk to McKenna alone, you and I, and explain our lie about what’s happened, and then I’ll take her home with me. It’s much better than leaving her with their hysterical Portuguese, I think. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” I said. “I do.”

“Could you possibly call me a cab from your place, darling?”

“Of course,” I said.

We were just crossing the old Bailey bridge of Pont St. Louis. There was a fine breeze.

I called Harry back that night in Rome, a second time.

“How is she?” he said immediately.

“No change,” I said. “No visible change.”

“Well, all right,” he said. “I’ll stay here another night, and another, and another. And
another.
Until we find out the ultimate prognosis. But, well, if she doesn’t die, I’m not coming back.”

“Do you expect me to take care of her, Harry?”

“Well, no. Of course not. But there’s Edith. We have lots of friends there, lady friends, in Paris. Edith can organize them. She’ll love it.”

“McKenna is going to stay with her,” I said. “I saw Edith today.”

“Good,” Harry said.

“What if Louisa has brain damage?” I said.

“What brain damage?” Harry said.

“Well, the doctor who gave her the shot to start her heart going again, after a stoppage of we don’t know how many minutes exactly, said if it was over four or five minutes, she might have permanent brain damage. That apparently means she’ll be a vegetable, or half vegetable.”

“That means we’ll have to put her permanently in some kind of a sanatorium, won’t it?” he said.

“Yes,” I said. “Am I supposed to take care of that?”

“Of course not,” he said. “I’ll get somebody to take care of it. If it becomes a necessity.”

“Okay, Harry,” I said. “I think that’s very kind of you.”

“Fuck you!” he cried suddenly. “You don’t know what I’ve been through.”

“You don’t know what I’ve been through, either,” I said. “I’ve been through a lot of things. In my time.”

“Well, I’ve been through a bunch myself,” he said.

“Yes, but it’s not my wife,” I said.

“I know it’s not your wife,” he said. “I never claimed it was.”

“Well, just lay off of me!” I said. “I’ll go and visit your God damned wife! In that damned intensive care unit! But don’t ask me to do any more than that!”

“I’m not asking you to do anything,” he said.

“Go and fuck yourself!” I cried. “Of course you are! You’re asking me to save your damned wife’s life! And I’m not at all sure I want the God damned job! Listen, I guess you know I think you’re a cheap fucker, and a totally irresponsible man, totally irresponsible husband and father! Don’t you?” And I hung up, slammed down the phone.

Then I realized I had forgotten to tell him I would call him back tomorrow. I worried about that a little, but I didn’t feel up to putting through another call to him. And I guessed he knew me well enough to know I would call.

The next day Louisa did not appear to be any better. Her condition had not deteriorated, the doctors at the Hôtel-Dieu told me. She had not sunk. But they had been hoping for a massive move back toward normalcy, after treatment. And this had not occurred. I sat by her bed for an hour or more in the late morning, trying to talk fight into her. Edith had said she would do the same thing later in the afternoon. Louisa’s stentorious breathing was a very enervating thing to be around. I left and went down past Notre-Dame, feeling exhausted, and crossed the bridge to the Brasserie for some lunch. There was no point in my even thinking about working.

Apparently everybody on the damned Island knew the whole story. Madame Dupont left her cash box and came over to my table to ask about her.

“Et comment va la pauvre Madame Gallagher?”

I said not bad, and that I thought she’d be all right. Later, when she came in, the little daughter came and asked me the same thing. I gave her the same answer. After saucisses and choucroute I went home and lay down on my bed. My Portuguese came and stood by the door and asked me the same question.

I called Harry again that evening in Rome, and gave him my latest report. He had apparently been in touch with the hospital authorities in the Hôtel-Dieu, who had told him the same as what I told him.

“I was afraid you might not call back,” he said over the phone. “But I should have known.”

“Oh. You know me,” I said feebly. “But I want you to know that I still think you’re a prick. A prime prick.”

“I suppose I am,” he said slowly. “It’s just that— It’s just that, I thought of all people you might understand me when I told you I couldn’t help it.”

“Well, you ought to be able to help it,” I said with some heat.

“I suppose I should,” Harry said, “I suppose I should.” This time it was he who hung up in my ear.

The day before a series of street battles had spread all through Paris. Students and workers were out all over the place, battling thousands of helmeted police and CRS. Another death had been reported in the morning, this time a worker in a town called Sochaux near the Swiss border, where a strikebound factory full of sit-ins was being cleared out by police. Union leaders claimed the bullet which killed the worker, a young man of 24 named Jean Beylot, was a 9 mm bullet. Many of the police were armed with 9 mm handguns. The police, of course, claimed—and proved—that workers and rioters had robbed police vans of guns and ammunition, and said that none of their men had fired any shots.

In any case, it set off in Paris another frantic day of rioting. In Toulouse, in southern France, a demonstration by 2,500 students turned into a melée with the police in which the students set up a large number of barricades and burned out the Gaullist election headquarters.