Irwin Shaw - The Young Lions

"You're not doing it right," Laura said; "the tree'll interfere."

"Please," said Michael, "I'm doing this."

"All wrong," said Laura stubbornly.

Michael ignored her and continued working on the pole.

Suddenly the two Misses Boullard stood up, pulling at their gloves, with crisp, identical movements.

"We have had a lovely time," the younger one said. "Thank you very much. We regret, but we have to leave now."

Michael stopped work in surprise. "But you just came," he said.

"It is unfortunate," the younger Miss Boullard said crisply, "but my sister is suffering from a disastrous headache."

The two sisters went from person to person, shaking hands. They didn't shake hands with Tony. They didn't even look at him, but passed him as though he were not there. Tony looked at them with a strange, quivering expression, incongruous and somehow naked.

"Never mind," he said, picking up the old-fashioned straw hat he had carried into the garden with him. "Never mind. You don't have to go. I'll leave."

There was a moment of nervous silence and nobody looked at Tony or the two sisters.

"We have enjoyed meeting you so much," the younger Miss Boullard said coolly to Moran. "We have admired your pictures again and again."

"Thank you," Moran said, boyish and charming. "It's kind of you…"

Actors, Michael thought.

"Stop it!" Tony shouted. His face was white. "For the love of God, Helene, don't behave this way!"

"There is no need," the younger Miss Boullard said, "to see us to the gate. We know the way."

"An explanation is necessary," Tony said, his voice trembling.

"We can't treat our friends this way." He turned to Michael, standing embarrassedly next to the flimsy pole for the badminton net. "It's inconceivable," Tony said. "Two women I've known for ten years. Two supposedly sensible, intelligent women…" The two sisters finally turned and faced Tony, their eyes and mouths frozen in contempt and hatred. "It's the war, this damned war," Tony said. "Helene. Rochelle. Please. Be reasonable. Don't do this to me. I am not entering Paris. I am not killing Frenchmen. I am an American and I love France and I hate Mussolini and I'm your friend…"

"We do not wish to talk to you," the younger Miss Boullard said, "or to any Italians." She took her sister's hand. The two of them bowed slightly to the rest of them, and walked, rustling and elegant in their gloves and garden hats and stiff black dresses, towards the gate at the end of the garden.

The crows were making a lot of noise in the big tree fifty yards away and their cawing struck the ear, harsh and clamorous.

"Come on, Tony," Michael said, "I'm going to give you a drink."

Without a word, with his mouth set in a sunken line, Tony followed Michael into the house. He was still clutching the straw hat with the gaily striped band.

Michael got out two glasses and poured two big shots of whisky. Silently he gave Tony one of the glasses. Outside, the conversation was starting again, and, over the noise of the crows, Michael heard Moran saying, earnestly, "Aren't they wonderful types? Right out of a 1925 French movie." Tony sipped slowly at his drink, holding on to his stiff, oldfashioned straw hat, his eyes far away and sorrowful. Michael wanted to go over to him and embrace him, the way he had seen Tony's brothers embrace each other in times of trouble, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He turned the radio on and took a long sip of his whisky as the machine warmed up, with a high, irritating crackle.

"You, too, can have lovely white hands," a soft, persuasive voice was saying. Then there was a click on the radio and a sudden dead silence and a new voice spoke, slightly hoarse, trembling a little. "We have just received a special bulletin," the voice said. "It has been announced that the Germans have entered Paris. There has been no resistance and the city has not been harmed. Keep tuned to this station for further news."

An organ, swelling and almost tuneless, took over, playing the sort of music that is described as "light-classical".

Tony sat down and placed his glass on a table. Michael stared at the radio. He had never been to Paris. He had never seemed to find the time or the money to go abroad, but as he squinted at the little veneered box shaking now with the music of the organ and the echo of the hoarse troubled voice, he pictured what it must be like in the French city this afternoon. The broad sunny streets, so familiar to the whole world, the cafes, empty now, he supposed, the flashy, rhetorical monuments of old victories shining in the summer light, the Germans marching rigidly in formation, with the noise of their boots clanging against the closed shutters. The picture was probably wrong, he thought. It was silly, but you never thought of German soldiers in twos or threes, or in anything but stiff, marching phalanxes, like rectangular animals. Maybe they were stealing along the streets timidly, their guns ready, peering at the shut windows, dropping to the sidewalks at every noise.

He looked at Tony. Tony was sitting with his head up, crying. Tony had lived in Paris for two years and again and again he had outlined to Michael what they would do together on vacations there, the little restaurants, the beach on the Marne, the place where they had a superior light wine in carafes on scrubbed wooden tables…

Michael felt the wetness in his own eyes and fought it savagely. Sentimental, he thought, cheap, easy and sentimental. I was never there. It's just another city.

"Michael…" It was Laura's voice. "Michael!" Her voice was insistent and irritating. "Michael!"

Michael finished his drink. He looked at Tony, nearly said something to him, then thought better of it, and left him sitting there. Michael walked slowly out into the garden. Johnson and Moran and Moran's girl and Miss Freemantle were sitting around stiffly, and you could tell the conversation was all uphill. Michael wished they would go home.

"Michael, darling," Laura came over to him and held his arms lightly, "are we going to play badminton this summer or wait till 1950?" Then, under her breath, privately and harshly for him, "Come on. Act civilized. You have guests. Don't leave the whole thing up to me."

Before Michael could say anything she had turned and was smiling at Johnson.

Michael walked slowly over to the second pole that was lying on the ground. "I don't know if any of you are interested," he said, "but Paris has fallen."

"No!" Moran said. "Incredible!"

Miss Freemantle didn't say anything. Michael saw her clasp her hands and look down on them.

"Inevitable," Johnson said gravely. "Anybody could see it coming."

Michael picked up the second pole and started pushing the sharp end into the ground.

"You're putting it in the wrong place!" Laura's voice was high and irritated. "How many times must I tell you it won't do any good there?" She rushed over to where Michael was standing with the pole and grabbed it from his hands. She had a racket in her hand and it slapped sharply against his arm. He looked at her stupidly, his hands still out, curved as they were when he was holding the pole. She's crying, he thought, surprised; what the hell is she crying about?

"Here! It belongs here!" She was shouting now, and banging the sharp end of the pole hysterically into the ground.

Michael strode over to where she was standing and grabbed the pole. He didn't know why he was doing it. He just knew he couldn't bear the sight of his wife crazily yelling and slamming the pole into the grass.

"I'm doing this," he said idiotically. "You keep quiet!"

Laura looked at him, her pretty, soft face churned with hatred. She drew back her arm and threw the badminton racket at Michael's head. Michael stared heavily at it as it sailed through the air at him. It seemed to take a long time, arching and flashing against the background of trees and hedge at the end of the garden. He heard a dull, whipping crack, and he saw it drop to his feet before he realized it had hit him over his right eye. The eye began to ache and he could feel blood coming out on his forehead, sticking in his eyebrows. After a moment, some of it dripped down over the eye, warm and opaque. Laura was still standing in the same place, weeping, staring at him, her face still violent and full of hate.