Mavis Gallant - The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant

“We knew there must be a deaf person in that apartment,” said someone at the table.

“There is no Christmas in India,” said Uncle Theo, becoming one of their party. “It has no meaning there.” I was glad to see that my aunt and I looked decent. “My sister-in-law once had a great emotional shock,” said Uncle Theo, accepting a glass. “Christmas is so sad.”

A gust of feeling blew round the table. Yes, Christmas is sad. Everyone has a reason for jumping out the window at Christmas and in the spring. Meanwhile I was calling our number, and I could hear our telephone ringing on the other side of the wall. The neighbors’ wallpaper is covered with finger marks, like my sister-in-law’s. “Why not send for the police?” someone said. My aunt looked as if she wanted to throw an apron over her face and cry, which was all she did when her own brother left. “Well, Uncle?” I said. Everyone looked at the man who had been to India. Before he could decide, the little boy who had opened the door said, “I can get round by the balconies.” Do you see how easy it is for these people to spy on us? They must have done it hundreds of times. All he had to do was straddle the partition between the two balconies, which he did, knocking down the flowerpots covered with squares of plastic for the winter. My aunt frowned at me, as if to say it didn’t matter. He cupped his hands round his eyes, peering through the panes of the double glass doors. Then he pounded with both fists, breathing hard, his cheeks as red as if they had been slapped. “The lady is just sitting on the floor watching television,” he said finally.

“Stone-deaf,” said Uncle Theo, keeping up the story.

“She is dead,” wailed my aunt. “My sister-in-law has had a stroke.”

“Break the panes,” I cried to the child. “Use a flowerpot. Be careful not to cut yourself.” I was thinking of blood on the parquet floor.

She was not dead, of course, but only sulking and waiting for The Nutcracker . She said she had fainted. We helped her to an armchair. It was difficult after that to turn the neighbors out, and even harder to return to our original status; they would stop us on the stairs and ask for news of “the poor sick lady.” A year was needed to retreat to “Good morning,” and back again to nothing but an inclination of the head. For although we put lighted candles in the windows on Christmas Eve as a reminder of German separation, it seems very different when masses of refugees move in next door, six to a room, and entirely without culture. It would be good to have everyone under one flag again, but the Saxons in Saxony, et cetera, please.

With all this behind me, the Christmas memories of my life, what could I say except, “What else is there?”

“Try not to think at all,” said Uncle Theo, grinning with nervousness and his anxious little bandit’s eyes darting everywhere. “Bandit” is perhaps too much; he never had a gram of civic feeling, let us say. “I have tickets to The Gypsy Baron,” he said. So that was what he had come to tell me!

“What do you mean, Uncle Theo?”

“For the four of us, the day after Christmas.”

“Out of the question,” I said.

“Now, why, Hilde? The girls like music.”

“Use your head, Uncle Theo. I can’t talk now.”

What did he mean, why? It was out of the question, that was all. First, the flu epidemic. People were coughing and sneezing without covering their faces.

“I wanted you to have two days to think it over,” said Uncle Theo. He gave me the impression that he was sliding, crawling. I don’t know why he is so afraid of me.

It seemed so evident: It is wrong to take them out to the theater, or anywhere in the cold. It disturbs their habits. They are perfectly happy with their television. They have their own warm little theater in our parlor. My mother is always allowed to choose the program, as you may imagine. She settles in with a bowl of walnuts on her lap. My aunt never sees the beginning of anything, because she walks round examining her plants. She sits down finally, and the others tell her the plot, when there is one. Uncle Theo drinks white wine and laughs at everything. One by one they fall asleep in their chairs. I wake them up and send them off to bed while the late news predicts the next day’s weather. Why drive them out in the cold to see an operetta? And then, how are we supposed to get there? The car has been put away for the winter, with the insurance suspended and the battery disconnected. Say that we get it out and in running order — where does Uncle Theo expect me to park? I suppose I might go earlier in the day, on foot, and pick out the streets near the theater where parking might be allowed. Or we could all go very early and sit in the car until the theater opens. But we would have to keep the engine running and the heater on, and we would be certain to have blinding headaches within the hour. We might walk, but these old persons get terribly warm in their overcoats, and then they perspire and catch chills and fever. I am surprised that the city is letting the play be produced at this time.

All this I explained to Uncle Theo in the calmest voice imaginable.

He said, “I had better turn the tickets in.”

“Why?” I said. “Why do that? As you say, the girls like music. Why deprive them of an outing? I only want you to realize, for once, the possible results of your actions.”

Why is it that everyone is depressed by hearing the truth? I tell the office manager about Hausen reading newspapers in a desk drawer. His face puckers. He wishes I had never brought it up. He looks out the window; he has decided to forget it. He will forget it. I have never said a thing; he is not obliged to speak to Hausen, let alone sack him. When my brother married a girl with a chin like a Turkish slipper, I warned him what his children would be like — that he would be ashamed to have them photographed because of their ugly faces.

I say to my mother, “How can you giggle over nothing? One son was killed, the other one never comes to see you, and your husband left you for another woman at the age of sixty-three.” Half an hour later, unless someone has hurt her feelings, or changed the television program without asking, she has forgotten her own life’s story. The family say Uncle Theo is a political hero, but isn’t he just a man who avoided going to war? He was called up for military service after Stalingrad. At the medical examination he pointed out his age, his varicose veins, his blood pressure, but none of that helped. He was fit for service — for the next wholesale offering, in Uncle Theo’s view. He put on his clothes, still arguing, and was told to take a file with his name on it to a room upstairs. It was on his way up that he had his revelation. Everything concerning his person was in that file. If the file disappeared, then Uncle Theo did, too. He turned and walked straight out the front door. He did not destroy the file, in case they should come round asking; he intended to say he had not understood the instructions. No one came, and soon after this his workroom was bombed and the file became ashes. When Uncle Theo was arrested it was for quite another reason, having to do with black-market connections. He went first to prison, then, when the jail was bombed, to a camp. Here he wore on his striped jacket the black sleeve patch that meant “antisocial.” It is generally thought that he wore the red patch, meaning “political.” As things are now, it gives him status. But it was not so at the time, and he himself has told me that the camp was run by that antisocial element. It was they who had full control of the internal order, the margarine racket, the extra-soup racket, the cigarette traffic. Uncle Theo was there less than a month, all told, but it changed his outlook for life.