Irwin Shaw - Nightwork

Our business done in Lugano, we set out the next morning in the new dark blue Jaguar for Gstaad. I drove this time and enjoyed the sweet performance of the purring machine as we made our way back over the mountains and then sped through winter sunshine through the gentle rolling hills between Zurich and Bern. Fabian sat beside me, contentedly humming a theme that I recognized from the Brahms concerto we had heard a few nights before. From time to time he chuckled. I imagine he was thinking of Herr Steubel in the Lugano jail.

The towns we passed through were clean and orderly, the fields geometrically precise, the buildings, with their great barns and sweeping, slanted eaves, witnesses to a solid, substantial, peaceful life, firmly rooted in a prosperous past. It was a landscape for peace and continuity, and you could not imagine armies charging over it, fugitives fleeing through it, creditors or sheriffs scouring it. I firmly shut out the thought that, if the policemen we occasionally passed and who politely waved us through the immaculate streets knew the truth of the history of the two gentlemen in the gleaming automobile, they would arrest us on sight and escort us immediately to the nearest border.

Since there was no possible way Fabian could risk any more of our money while we were on the road, I was freed, at least for the day, from the erratic nervousness, that fluctuation between trembling hope and taut anxiety that came over me whenever I knew that Fabian was near a telephone or a bank. I hadn’t had to take an Alka-Seltzer that morning and knew that I was going to be pleasantly hungry at lunchtime. As usual, Fabian knew of a beautiful restaurant in Bern and promised me a memorable meal.

The gliding, steady motion of the car, as it so often does, set up agreeable sexual currents in my groin, and as I drove I rehearsed in my mind the gentler moments of my night in Florence with Lily and remembered with pleasure the soft voice of Eunice awaiting me at the end of the day’s journey, the childish freckles across her tilted British nose, her slender throat and nineteenth-century bosom. If she had been at my side at the moment, instead of Fabian, I was sure I would not have hesitated to drive into a courtyard of one of the charming timbered inns that we kept passing, with names like Gasthaus Loewen and Hirschen and Hotel Drei Koenig, and take a room for the afternoon. Well, I comforted myself, pleasure delayed is pleasure increased, and stepped a little harder on the accelerator.

As I glimpsed snow on fields high up from the road, I realized that I was even looking forward to skiing again. The days in the heavy atmosphere of Zurich and the dealings with lawyers and bankers had made me long for clear mountain air and violent exercise.

“Have you ever skied in Gstaad?” Fabian asked me. The sight of the snow must have set his thoughts going along the same track as mine.

“No,” I said. “Only Vermont and St Moritz. But I’ve heard it’s rather easy skiing.”

“You can get killed there,” he said. “Just like anyplace.”

“How do the girls ski?”

“Like English,” he said. “Once more into the breach, dear friends…” He chuckled. “They’ll keep you moving. They’re not like Mrs Sloane.”

“Don’t remind me of her.”

“Didn’t quite work out, did it?”

“That would be one way of putting it”

“I wondered what you bothered with her for. I must say, even before I knew you at all, I didn’t think she was your type.”

“She isn’t. Actually,” I said, “it was your fault”

Fabian looked surprised. “How was that?”

“I thought Sloane was you.” I said.

“What?”

“I thought he’d taken my bag.” I explained about the brown shoes and the red wool tie in the train from Chur.

“Oh, you poor man,” Fabian said. “A week out of your life with Mrs Sloane. I do feel guilty now. Did she stick her tongue in your ear?”

“More or less.”

“I had three nights of that, too. Last year. How did you find out it wasn’t Sloane?”

“I’d rather not say.” As far as I was concerned the story of Sloane’s discovering me, with a cast on my perfectly sound leg, trying to put my foot into his size eight shoe and throwing my shoe and Mrs Sloane’s watch out into the Alpine night was going to die with me.

“You’d rather not say.” Fabian sounded pettish. “We’re partners, remember?”

“I remember. Some other time,” I said. “Perhaps. When we both need a good laugh.”

“I imagine that time will come,” he said softly.

He was silent for a while. We sped along through admirably preserved Swiss pine forests.

“Let me ask you a question, Douglas,” he said finally. “Have you any ties in America?”

I didn’t answer immediately. I thought of Pat Minot, of Evelyn Coates, my brother Hank, of Lake Champlain, the hills of Vermont, room 602. As an afterthought, of Jeremy Hale and Miss Schwarz. “Not really,” I said. “Why do you ask?”

“Frankly,” he said, “because of Eunice.”

“What about her? Has she said anything?”

“No. But you must admit – to say the least – you’ve been most reticent.”

“Has she complained?”

“Not to me anyway,” he said. “But Lily has hinted that she’s puzzled. After all, she flew all the way from England…” He shrugged. “You know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean.” I was beginning to feel uncomfortable.

“You do like girls, Douglas?”

“Oh, come on, now.” I thought of my brother in San Diego and took a turn in the road more sharply than necessary.

“Just asking. These days one never knows. She is an attractive girl, don’t you think?”

“I think. Listen, Miles,” I said, more hotly than I would have wished, “as far as I understand, our partnership doesn’t include my hiring out to stand at stud.”

“That’s a crude way of putting it.” Surprisingly, he chuckled. “Although, I must confess, in my own case, from time to time I haven’t been averse to the practice myself.”

“Christ, Miles,” I said, “I’ve only known the girl a few days.” Even as I said it I mourned for the hypocrisy into which he was forcing me. I had only known Lily four hours before I had gone to her room in Florence. As for Evelyn Coates …

“If you must know,” I said, “I don’t like the role of public fucker.” Finally, I was approaching the truth. “I guess I was brought up differently from you.”

“Come now,” he said. “Lowell, Massachusetts, isn’t all that different from Scranton.”

“Who’re you kidding, Miles?” I snorted. “They wouldn’t find a trace of Lowell in you if they went in with drills.”

“You’d be surprised,” he said softly. “You really would be surprised. Douglas,” he asked, “do you believe me when I tell you that I’ve grown fond of you, that I have your best interests at heart?”

“Partially,” I said.

“To put it more cynically,” he said, “especially when they coincide with my best interests?”

“Ill go along with that,” I said. “Part of the way. What are you driving at now?”

“I think we ought to put you in the marriage market.” His tone was flat, as though it was a decision that he had worked over and had come to after hard thought.

“You’re missing a lot of beautiful scenery,” I said.

“I’m serious. Listen to me carefully. You’re thirty-three, am I right?”

“Right.”

“One way or another in the next year or two you’re bound to get married.”

“Why?”

“Because people do. Because you’re fairly good-looking. Because you’re going to seem like a rich young man. Because some girl will want you as her husband and will pick the right moment to make her move. Because as you’ve told me, you’ve had enough of being lonely. Because you’ll finally want children. Does all that sound reasonable?”