Peter Carey - Parrot and Olivier in America

"No, really. Tell me. It was the nose."

"I don't suppose it helped your case, poor nose."

Here, just at the river's bend, there was an oak log which Godefroy had ordered adzed to make a self-improving bench. We sat.

"In Catholic countries," I said, "we are far more proper than Mrs. Godefroy knows. My own mother would look at the habits of American women and find them scandalous. This walking out, for instance."

"Oh"-she sighed-"we are so provincial. I wish it were not so."

"I wish it only as it is."

There followed a long and private moment, very lovely, only interrupted by the antic stuff of nature, a leaping fish or diving bird, either one would sound the same to me.

"In truth, I would prefer to be Catholic," she said.

She said this so lightly, I could not help but snort, an ugly noise I now suppose.

"Why do you laugh?" Her generous smile did not disguise the hurt and I rushed like a fireman to undo the damage, explaining that it was always shocking for a Frenchman to see Americans treat the questions of doctrine, which we in Europe had disputed so bloodily, as so light a matter. I proclaimed myself no longer a Catholic, although I carried with me, like old moss, Catholic tastes, sensibilities, and certain of our ancient prejudices.

"But it will be essential, will it not?" she asked. "If we are to marry I must become a Catholic."

This was a matter I would rather not discuss on the banks of the Connecticut River, and instead I persuaded my beloved onto the fresh-scythed grass where I spread out her hair and kissed her clear blue Viking eyes.

Said she, "I cannot wait to see your home."

I covered her eyes and felt the lashes tremble like moths' wings in my mouth.

"We could not stroll like this in French society," I said.

"But we will be a married pair. You forget the difference."

"Yes," I said, and laid my hand against that place. She brought her own warm hand to rest upon mine awhile until, languidly, she lifted it to meet her lips.

"In that little chapel," she said, nuzzling what Blacqueville always called la snuff box, that small well between the thumb and forefinger. Naturally I was slow to understand she meant we would be married at the Chateau de Barfleur.

"Which chapel?"

"Where your poor Bebe prayed," she said, and ran her lips along my thumb.

I did not answer. There was nothing I could say.

"You are thinking about Bebe?"

I was thinking like a lawyer with an argument to win. "But should an American marry in France?"

She looked at me sharply, drawing her hands to hold her arms. "Why should I not? I will be a Catholic."

"No darling, I mean myself. I will be American. I pledge myself to you entire."

She laughed. "Dear Olivier, what did my daddy do to you? Did he bathe you in the waters of Natchez?"

"He compelled me to drink the awful wine of Thomas Jefferson."

"No my sweet dear beautiful man. Look at your lovely nose and those perfect lips. Look at your eyes. I can see the moon in them."

"I am not a woman. You must not admire me like one."

"No, you are a de Garmont."

I did not correct her or admit, even to myself, the jarring note. She should not, of course, have used the de.

"You are a noble count, my darling, and you are a huge curiosity to all the onion maidens, who are astonished you do not have two heads and beat your servants."

"There are no nobles in America." I said this meaning: I shall be one no longer; it is impossible.

Clearly she was not attending to the argument. "Yes," she said, "I cannot wait to see my mother's face when she thinks it through."

"What through my pet?"

"That I will be a Frenchwoman. What will she do when this dawns upon her?"

"You will be a Frenchwoman because you are my wife, as I will be an American because I am your husband. When your mother sees me by your side in Wethersfield she will not think you French."

"But we will not be married in Wethersfield."

"Why on earth not?"

"Because we are to be married in France."

"No."

"You said so."

"I swear not."

"My darling, do you not think I love you with all my soul? How could I demand you marry in Wethersfield? I would not cut you off from all you are. You are a de Garmont. Would I be the knife that severed the cord to the mother of your life?"

"You do not say the de."

"Dear, do I embarrass you?"

"Don't be silly."

"Yes, I embarrass you."

"No."

"That is why you will not take me home to France."

Of course the first part was not true, but alas the second was. I could die of love inside her sweet white arms, but I could not present her at the rue Saint-Dominique. We would be made more miserable than poor Heudreville who drowned himself like a peasant in his well.

"We will be Americans together."

"Please do not say that, Olivier. You are not American. As for me, I am a creature just being formed. I am not anything except provincial."

"Why does anyone think this a bad thing?"

"So you agree! I am provincial."

"Better a life among provincials than to be victims to the centralists. My darling, do not pout. This will be the great civilization of the world. France will never do what America has already done."

"You do not believe that."

"Believe? I insist."

"You insist I am a provincial and you will not take me to France."

"Yes," I said, exasperated.

"Then good night sir," she cried, and ran off into the dark.

WHY IS IT that a strong and happy man can be so easily laid so low that he cannot find escape even in the pages of a beloved book, where instead of the expected comfort he feels only the cruelty of the guillotine, the demonic pounding of the printing press?

I loved her so.

I did not love her country. It excited and repulsed me, but I would live there. I would die there. I would see only what was good. I would do good. I would make my name in America. I would make myself into America. I would write the first great book describing the great experiment.

Except I could not. Because she would not have me.

Downstairs I came upon her father wandering about the house with his lighted candle and his great hairy thighs showing beneath his foolish shirt.

"Do you have a brandy?" I asked him.

"For God's sake, man. You must stop this. Please go to bed."

Had we been companions traveling, I should have insisted on the drink. Instead I obeyed like a child and thrashed like a beached shark on the littoral of sleep, and when at last the moon lifted the tides, I drifted out and then was washed back to discover a human body lying all along mine own. My head was lifted as an invalid is given soup. And then what strength boiled in my blood. For I was fed, not by the huge cold silver of an heirloom spoon but by my fiancee's living lips, which now sought to suck, bite, rip, devour me like a pain saucisson and just as I rose to embrace my wild good fortune, she slipped away. The door closed shut.

You might think me happy.

SOMETIME LATER I heard footsteps downstairs. I thought, Amelia. Without aid of a candle, with no guide other than a banister, I made my way. Doubtless my legs were as ridiculous as Godefroy's. I did not care. I discovered the light of a candle visible beneath the library door.

Here I found, not Amelia, but her father, seated at the chess table with a whiskey bottle and a single glass.

"You look absurd," he said. "Sit down immediately."

I understood my tent peg was showing and I obeyed without protest. He fetched a second glass and filled it.

"I will not make her miserable." He stared balefully, his eyes wet and swollen, his gray hair standing at peculiar angles. "I am her father," he said. "I will not."