Корнелл Вулрич - A Treasury of Stories (Collection of novelettes and short stories)

(Opens the other woman’s shabby handbag, takes out a lipstick, passes it across her mouth just once, puts it back again.)

Countess: Just one more touch. Just one more try. Just one more, before I quit. And then I’m going home. Home to him.

Night. The promenade des Tamaris, overlooking the shore. A paved walk, and a stone balustrade or parapet, no more than waist-high. A pool of light from a street lamp falls on the center of the walk and of the balustrade. On the ballustrate, picked out by the light, the remains of a tattered movie-poster. Only the title still visible on it the rest a blur. “Jeux Interdits.” The black silhouettes of tamarick leaves, dangling from the branches lost in the dark above.

(She enters, perches slantwise atop balustrade, one leg touching ground, one dangling clear. The position of her body effectively covers up the movie-poster, or at least the title on it... “Forbidden Games.” She takes a cigarette from her bag, lights it, takes a single puff, then frugally stamps it out against the stone surface she is sitting on, and carefully retains it for further use.

(She glances down the walk, sees a man approaching, and immediately relights the cigarette, her manner expectant. The man comes nearer, his head slightly lowered, hands in his pockets, not too well-dressed. He walks tiredly. He doesn’t raise his head to look at her from first to last, as he passes her.)

Girl (in a peculiar, almost infantile sing-song, more like the squeak of a mechanical doll than the voice of a living person, as though she has made this salutation countless numbers of times, and it has long ago lost all meaning to her): Evening, dear.

Man (surlily, and without breaking pace): Get out of here. Don’t bother me.

(He goes on. She puts out the cigarette again, carefully retains it for further use. A moment later she sees someone else coming, from the same direction as the last time. She relights the cigarette, again staring expectantly while doing so. Another man enters, this time better dressed, almost dapper, more alert to his surroundings.)

Girl (in same sing-song): Evening, dear.

Man (pauses, turns his head, and looks at her): Oh, it’s you again. We’ve met before, haven’t we?

Girl (noncommitally): I know.

Man (patronizingly): Well, I can spend a moments time — if you can.

(She slips down from the parapet with alacrity, and links her arm in his. With the arm away from her, he surreptitiously removes a billfold from his rear pocket and transfers it to the inside pocket of his coat, where it will be more inaccessible. They walk off together. The poster, restored to view now that she has stood up, remains conspicuously visible for a moment in the center of the low stone wall. “Jeux Interditcs.”)

(A strip of sidewalk along one of the main shopping-streets of the town. At this hour however it is deserted. Standing before a corrugated iron shutter drawn down over some anonymous shop-window, is a solitary gendarme. The girl approaches him, passes by quickly, her head held down as though he inspires her with a guilty, or at least timorous feeling. As she goes by, he turns his head slowly, following her with his eyes. He stands there like that for several moments, as if watching to see what she will do or where she will go.)

Gendarme (finally, raising his voice with curt authority): Hey, you! Come back here a minute. (Pause) Come back here, I said! I want to talk to you.

(She reenters scene at right, goes up close to him, stands there obviously frightened, her head still hanging.)

Girl (meekly): Yes, Captain?

Gendarme (rocking back and forth on his heels, for emphasis): I thought I told you girls to stay off the main streets, like this one, here in this town.

Girl: Yes, Captain.

Gendarme: Then what are you doing on it?

Girl (submissively): I’m sorry, Captain.

Gendarme: I have my orders from the higher-ups, just like I give mine to you. And don’t try to win me over by calling me Captain every other moment, it won’t get you anywhere. Now, I don’t care if you want to hang around down by the seafront-walks, where you aren’t likely to attract attention, but don’t let me catch you again on one of these brightly-lighted streets in this part of town.

It gives the town a very bad name. Respectable people don’t like it, they complain. This is the last time I’m going to warn you. If I come across you again, I’m going to run you in.

Gnu-: I was just on my way home, that was all. I live just down there, lower end of the Rue Mazagran. The only way I can get to it is by crossing through here.

Gendarme (gruffly): That’s what you told me last night too. What’s your name? (As she takes a moment to answer) What’s the matter, don’t you know your own name?

Girl (vaguely): I do, but just for a moment I couldn’t think. I’m tired. Paule’s my name. Paule.

Gendarme: Paule what?

Girl (backs her hand across her eyes for a moment, dazedly): Paule Moret.

Gendarme (nodding approval): All right. That’s what you told me last night too. All right, Paule, now you listen to me if you want to stay out of trouble — (Stares at her more closely) What did you do to your face? You don’t look quite the same to me, somehow.

Girl (meekly): Nothing, patron.

Gendarme: Something different about you, I could swear. I don’t know exactly what

Girl (placatingly): I’m just like always.

Gendarme (shrugging): Well, that’s your own affair, I suppose. (More severely) Anyway, don’t make me talk to you again, understand?

Girl (docilely): I won’t. I promise.

Gendarme: All right, go ahead.

Girl (obsequiously): Thank you, patron .

(She hurries off, the sound of her hasty footsteps dying away down the street. He stands looking after her, fingering his mustache in perplexity.)

Gendarme: I suppose that’s all they have, those poor devils, their faces. That’s why they’re always fiddling around with them, trying to change them and improve them. I can’t tell what it was, but there was something different about her.

(Turns, finally, and strolls off, left.)

(The scene is dark, as an unlighted room would be. Footsteps climbing stairs are heard under. One flight, then a pause at the landing. Then the next flight. Growing louder as they come higher and nearer. Then a pause as if before a door and the sound of a key being put into it. Then the door opens. A sweep of light from the stairs outside passes swiftly across a wall as it does so. The door closes again and the sweep of light goes out.)

Man (in a sigh of inexpressible content, as when one has waited for hours): At last.

Girl (sighing too.): Back again.

Man: You stood there outside it a minute or two, before you came in. I could tell. What was it?

Girl: Nothing. The stairs. My breath.

Man: The beat of my heart told me it was you.

Girl: Shall I put up the light?

Man: You’d better have it, for yourself. You’ll need it.

(Sound of a switch clicking. The scene becomes a room. A man is sitting there on a straight-backed chair placed flat against the wall. He is crouched over his own lap, as if he had been sitting there like that for a long time. His hands dangle limply down, inside his thighs. His head is raised, though, and he is staring straight before him. Eyes that are open, but do not move. The kind of eyes that do not see.

(At his elbow, also flat against the wall, is a small, narrow wooden table with a cheap clock on it. A diagonal crack runs down the plaster of the wall, from upper-right to lower-left.

(She does not enter the scene at once, but her shadow passes back and forth a number of times across the wall before which he sits.)