The Post Office Girl (16 page)

Claire feels faint and steadies herself on her armrest for a moment before hurling herself from her seat with the
energy
of despair. She makes an effort to nod pleasantly to the Kinsleys as she passes their table. They’re perfectly friendly, smiling back with that stereotypical American smile of
greeting
which she herself has long since unconsciously learned. But Claire is so irrationally frightened that she imagines it’s a different kind of smile—ironic, malicious, knowing,
treacherous
. There even seems to be something wrong with the way the
elevator boy looks at her, the way the chambermaid passes by without a word. She enters her room exhausted, as though she’s been trudging through deep snow.

Anthony has just risen from his siesta. He’s combing his sparse hair before the mirror, his suspenders flopping and his collar open, his cheeks still creased from sleep.

“Anthony, we have to talk,” she says, breathing heavily.

“What’s the problem?” He puts some pomade on his comb and parts his hair precisely.

“Please stop that.” She can bear it no longer. “We have to think everything over calmly. It’s something very unpleasant.”

The phlegmatic Anthony has long since become accustomed to his wife’s excitability and is rarely inclined to believe that such announcements require urgent attention. He doesn’t turn from the mirror. “I hope it’s not as bad as all that. Not a wire from Dickie or Alvin?”

“No, but stop that! You can get dressed later.”

“Well?” Anthony puts down his comb at last and sits
resignedly
in the armchair. “So what’s the matter?”

“Something terrible has happened. Christine must have been careless or done something stupid. It’s all come out, the entire hotel is talking about it.”

“Oh? What’s come out?”

“Well, the business with the clothes … The fact that she’s wearing my clothes, that she came here looking like a shopgirl and we dressed her from head to toe and presented her as a
stylish
lady—people are saying all sorts of things … And now you know why the Trenkwitzes cut us dead … Of course they’re furious because they had something in mind with their son and think we were conning them. We’ve been compromised now in front of the whole hotel. That little blunderer must have done something stupid! My God, what a disgrace!”

“Why is it a disgrace? All Americans have poor relatives. I wouldn’t want to look too closely at the nephews of the
Guggenheims
,
or the Roskys for that matter, or those Rosenstocks from Kovno. I’ll bet you’d see quite a contrast there too. I don’t see why it’s a disgrace that we dressed her up respectably.”

“Because … because …” (Claire is raising her voice
nervously
) “because they’re right—that kind of person doesn’t belong here, not in this world … I mean, somebody who … who just doesn’t know how to behave so you can’t tell where she came from … It’s her fault … If she hadn’t made such a spectacle of herself, no one would have noticed, if she’d just kept a low profile, the way she did at the beginning … But always running about, always bright and cheery and so forward with everyone, she’s got to talk to everyone and mingle with everyone, be in on everything, always at the head of the parade. Everyone’s friend … So it’s no wonder people started to ask who she is and where she came from, and now … now it’s a total scandal. Everybody’s talking about it and making fun of us … They’re saying terrible things.”

Anthony gives an easy guffaw. “Let them talk … I don’t care. She’s a nice girl, I like her no matter what they say. And whether she’s poor or not is nobody’s goddamn business. I didn’t
borrow
a penny from anybody here and I couldn’t care less if they think we’re classy or not. If anybody thinks there’s something wrong with us, they’ll just have to live with it.”

“But I care. I care.”

Claire’s voice is becoming shriller. “I won’t listen to talk that I bamboozled people and put forward some poor girl as a duchess. I can’t stand it if we invite someone like Trenkwitz and that boor sends the desk clerk to make his excuses for him. No, I’m not going to let people turn their backs on us, I don’t need that. God knows I came here to enjoy myself, not to feel angry and upset. I won’t have it.”

“So” (he covers a small yawn with his hand) “what do you want to do?”

“Leave!”

“What?” Anthony, usually so indolent, pulls himself up as though someone stepped on his toes.

“Yes, leave, tomorrow morning. These people are mistaken if they think they can put me on trial, make me testify to the hows and whys and say I’m sorry too. Not for the likes of those Trenkwitzes and the rest of them. I don’t like this crowd here anyway. Except for Lord Elkins they’re a boring, noisy bunch of mediocrities. They won’t get a word out of me. Besides, it’s not good for me here, the altitude is bad for my nerves, I can’t sleep at night—you don’t notice, of course, you just lie down and you’re asleep. For the last week I’ve been wishing I had your temperament. We’ve been here three weeks now—that’s more than enough! And as far as the girl is concerned, we’ve done our duty toward Mary and then some. We invited her, she amused herself and had a rest, even went a little too far, but now that’s it. My conscience is clear.”

“Yes, but where … where is it you want to go so suddenly?”

“To Interlaken! It’s at a lower altitude, and we can meet up with the Linseys who were so pleasant to talk to on the boat. They really are nice, not like this motley crew here, and just the day before yesterday they wrote to say we ought to come. If we leave tomorrow morning, we can be there for dinner.”

Anthony is still a little reluctant. “It’s all so sudden! Do we have to leave tomorrow? There’s plenty of time left!”

But he soon gives in. He always gives in, knowing from long experience that if Claire wants something intensely she’ll get it in the end and it’s a waste of energy to protest. And it’s all the same to him anyway. People who are comfortable with themselves don’t react strongly to what goes on around them, and Anthony is too confirmed in his apathy to care whether it’s Linseys or Guggenheims he has for gambling partners, whether the mountain outside the window is the Schwarzhorn or the Wetterhorn, or whether the hotel is the Palace or the Astoria. He just wants to avoid conflict. So he doesn’t put up much
resistance, listens patiently as Claire calls down to the desk clerk and gives him instructions, looks on with amusement as she hurriedly pulls out the suitcases and madly piles the clothes in, lights his pipe, strolls over to his card game, and, as he shuffles and cuts, gives no further thought to his departure or his wife or least of all Christine.

While everyone, friends and strangers alike, is gossiping
excitedly
about how Christine arrived and how she’ll be leaving, Lord Elkins’s gleaming gray car is cutting a smooth, bold swath through the windy blue of the high valley, following the white road twisting down to the Lower Engadine. Already they’re near Schuls-Tarasp. Lord Elkins’s intention in asking Christine along had been more or less to bring her under his protection in a way that would be clear to everyone and then return her to the hotel after a short drive. But, as he climbed in next to her and saw her leaning back, talking cheerfully, with the sky reflected in her untroubled eyes, he felt it was senseless to cut short such a sweet moment for her and for him too, and he told the chauffeur to drive on. No need to hurry back, she’ll hear the news soon enough, the old man thinks (he can’t help stroking her hand). Actually she ought to be given some warning, be gently prepared in some unobtrusive way for what to expect from that bunch—that way the sudden chill won’t be so
painful
. So he drops occasional hints about the privy councillor’s malice and discreetly warns about Christine’s little friend. But Christine, full of the ardor and optimism of youth, innocently defends her worst enemies: the old privy councillor is so sweet, she cares so much about everyone, and Lord Elkins has no idea how clever and amusing and fun the little Mannheim girl can be—probably she’s just shy when he’s around. Anyhow, all the people here are so wonderful, so cheerful, so kind to her, really, sometimes she feels ashamed, she doesn’t deserve all this.

The old man stares at the tip of his cane. Ever since the war he’s had a low opinion of people and of nations, they’re selfish,
all of them, without the imagination to see the injustices they’re perpetrating. The idealism of his youth, a belief in the moral mission of mankind and the enlightened spirit of the white race that he took from the lectures of John Stuart Mill and his
followers
, was buried once and for all in the bloody mire of Ypres and the chalk quarry at Soissons where his son met his death. Politics disgusts him, the cool conviviality of the club and the showy self-congratulation of the public banquet repel him; since the death of his son he’s avoided making new
acquaintances
. His own generation’s sour unwillingness to recognize the truth and its inability to adapt to the postwar era anger him, as does the younger generation’s smart-alecky thoughtlessness. But with this girl he’s regained belief, a vague devout gratitude for the mere existence of youth; in her presence he sees that one generation’s painfully acquired mistrust of life is fortunately neither understood nor credited by the next, and that each new wave of youth is a new beginning. How wonderfully grateful she is for the tiniest thing—it delights him, while at the same time he feels a passionate desire, stronger than ever, almost painful, to bring something of this marvelous warmth into his own life, perhaps even bind it to him. I could protect her for a couple of years, he thinks. Perhaps she’d never find out, or not for a while, about the vileness of a world that prostrates itself before God but tramples on the poor. Ah—he looks at her from the side: her eyes are closed, her mouth open like a child’s as she drinks in the onrushing air—just a few years of youth would be enough for me. She cheerfully chatters away, turned toward him gratefully, but the old man is only half listening. A sudden boldness has come over him. He’s considering how he might subtly court her in what might be the last hour.

They have tea at Schuls-Tarasp. Then, on a bench on the promenade, he begins, carefully and indirectly. He has two nieces, he says—about Christine’s age—in Oxford. If she wanted to come to England, she could stay there; he’d be
delighted to have her, and if his set, an old man’s society of course, didn’t seem too tiresome, he’d be happy to show her around London. Of course he doesn’t know if it’s even possible for her to leave Austria and go to England, if there might not be something to keep her at home, emotional ties, he means. What he’s asking is clear, but Christine, bubbling with
enthusiasm
, fails to understand. Oh, no, how she’d love to see the world, it’s supposed to be fantastic in England, she’s heard so much about Oxford and the regattas, there can’t be another country where it’s so much fun to be outside doing things, where it’s so great to be young.

The old man’s face darkens. About him she has said
nothing
. She’s only thinking of herself, about her own youthful life. Again he loses his nerve. No, he thinks, it would be criminal to take a young person, so happy and so full of energy, and shut her up with an old man in an old castle. No, don’t let yourself be rejected, don’t make a fool of yourself. Take your leave, old man! On your way! Too late!

“Hadn’t we better be getting back,” he asks in a suddenly changed voice. “I don’t want your aunt to start worrying.”

“Of course,” she replies, adding enthusiastically, “Oh, it’s been so nice, it’s all so fantastically beautiful here.”

The old man is sad for her and for himself and says little in the car next to her. She has no suspicion of what is happening in him and will happen to her. She looks brightly out onto the landscape, her cheeks flushed in the wind.

The gong is sounding as they pull up in front of the hotel. She presses the old man’s hand in thanks and dashes upstairs to change. For the first few days, getting dressed was a worry, an effort, a trial, yet also an exciting game. She’d wonder at herself in the mirror, at the spangled creature she’d unexpectedly
become
. Now she knows she’s beautiful, elegant, and smart every
evening, it’s something she takes for granted. The sheer, bright dress slips on with a few quick movements. She gives her lips a confident touch-up, tosses her hair into place, throws on a scarf, and she’s ready, as comfortable in her borrowed finery as in her own skin. A last glance over her shoulder at the mirror, and, satisfied, she goes to get her aunt for dinner.

But at the door she stops short in surprise. The room has been taken apart, it’s been totally ransacked, with half-filled suitcases, and hats, shoes, and articles of clothing spread on chairs and strewn over the bed and the table. The room that was once so orderly is now a hopeless mess. Her aunt, in her dressing gown, is just now kneeling on top of a recalcitrant suitcase. “What … what’s happening?” says Christine in amazement. Her aunt deliberately doesn’t look up. She pushes angrily at the suitcase, her face red, groaning, “We’re going … Oh, damn thing! Will you close … We’re going away.”

“Really, when? … Why?” Christine’s mouth falls open. She’s paralyzed.

Her aunt hammers again at the catch, which finally snaps shut. She straightens, panting.

“Yes, it’s really a shame, I’m sorry too, Christl! But I said from the start that the thin air up here wouldn’t agree with Anthony. It’s not the right thing for old people. This afternoon he had another asthma attack.”

“Oh!” The old man emerges unsuspectingly from the next room. Christine approaches and puts her arm around him gently, quivering with alarm. “How are you, Uncle? Feeling better, I hope! My God, I had no idea, or I wouldn’t have gone out! But really, I mean it, you look fine. You’re feeling better?”

She gazes at him in bewilderment, genuinely alarmed. She has no thought of herself. She hasn’t yet understood that she’ll be leaving, has grasped only that her good-natured old uncle is ill; she’s frightened for him, not for herself.