Mavis Gallant - The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant

“My cousin’s husband’s granddaughter,” said Dieter. He read Helga’s letter: “ ‘She can play anything — fast, fast. Her fingers simply fly over the keyboard.’ ”

Gabriel examined every detail of the picture. The child was dazzled and alarmed, and the accordion was far too heavy. “What is her name?” he said.

Dieter read more of the letter and said, “Erna.”

“Erna,” Colonel Baum repeated. He looked again at the button of a face, the flower bracelets, the feet with the heels together — they must have told her to stand that way. He gave the snapshot back without saying anything.

A crowd had collected in the meantime, drawn by the lights and the equipment and the sight of the soldiers in German uniform. Some asked if they might be photographed with them; this often happened when a film of that kind was made in the streets.

An elderly couple edged up to the two officers. The woman said, in German, in a low voice, “What are you doing here?”

“Waiting to surrender,” said Dieter.

“I can see that, but what are you doing?”

“I don’t know,” said Dieter. “I’ve been sitting on the edge of this monument for thirty-five years. I’m still waiting for orders.”

The man tried to give them cigarettes, but neither colonel smoked. The couple took pictures of each other standing between Dieter and Gabriel, and went away.

Why is it, said Gabriel to himself, that when I was playing a wretched, desperate victim no one ever asked to have his picture taken with me? The question troubled him, seeming to proceed from the younger Gabriel, who had been absent for some time now. He hoped his unruly tenant was not on his way back, screaming for a child’s version of justice, for an impossible world.

Some of the men put their helmets upside down on the ground and tried to make the visitors pay for taking their pictures. Dieter was disturbed by this. “Of course, you were a real soldier,” he said to Gabriel unhappily. “All this must seem inferior.” They sat without saying anything for a time and then Dieter began to talk about ecology. Because of ecology, there was a demand in Bavaria for fresh bread made of authentic flour, salt, water, and yeast. Because of unemployment, there were people willing to return to the old, forgotten trades, at which one earned practically nothing and had to work all night. The fact was that he had finally saved up enough money and had bought a bakery in his native town. He was through with the war, the Occupation, the Liberation, and captivity. He was going home.

This caused the most extraordinary change in Gabriel’s view of the park. All the greens in it became one dull color, as if thunderous clouds had gathered low in the sky.

“You will always be welcome,” said Dieter. “Your room will be ready, a bed made up, flowers in a vase. I intend to marry someone in the village — someone young.”

Gabriel said, “If you have four or five children, how can you keep a spare room?”

Still, it was an attractive thought. The greens emerged again, fresh and bright. He saw the room that could be his. Imagine being wakened in a clean room by birds singing and the smell of freshly baked bread. Flowers in a vase — Gabriel hardly knew one from the other, only the caged flowers of parks. He saw, in a linen press, sheets strewn with lavender. His clothes hung up or folded. His breakfast on a white tablecloth, under a lime tree. A basket of warm bread, another of boiled eggs. Dieter’s wife putting her hand on the white coffeepot to see if it was still hot enough for Gabriel. A jug of milk, another of cream. Dieter’s obedient children drinking from mugs, their chins on the rim of the table. Yes, and the younger Gabriel, revived and outraged and jealous, thrashing around in his heart, saying, Think about empty rooms, letters left behind, cold railway stations washed down with disinfectant, dark glaciers of time. And, then, Gabriel knew nothing about the country. He could not see himself actually in it. He had never been to the country except to jump out of trains. It was only in films that he had seen mist lifting or paths lost in ferns.

They surrendered all the rest of the afternoon. The aristo wrote “MY FRIENDS REMEMBERED” on the wall while Dieter and Gabriel led some Turks and Yugoslavs and some unemployed Frenchmen into captivity. The aristo did not even bother to turn around and look. Gabriel was breathing at a good rhythm — not too shallow, not too fast. An infinity of surrenders had preceded this one, in color and in black-and-white, with music and without. A long trail of application forms and employment questionnaires had led Gabriel here: “Baum, Gabriel, b. 1935, Germany, nat. French, mil. serv. obl. fulf.” (Actually, for some years now his date of birth had rendered the assurance about military service unnecessary.) Country words ran meanwhile in Gabriel’s head. He thought, Dense thickets, lizards and snakes, a thrush’s egg, a bee, lichen, wild berries, dark thorny leaves, pale mushrooms. Each word carried its own fragrance.

At the end of the day Dieter’s face was white and tired and perfectly blank. He might have been listening to Helga. The aristo came over, smoking a cigarette. About twenty-three years before this, he and Gabriel had performed before a jury in a one-act play of Jules Renard’s. The aristo had received an honorable mention, Gabriel a first. The aristo hadn’t recognized Gabriel until now because of the uniform. He said, “What’s the matter with him?”

Dieter sat slumped in an iron chair belonging to the park administration, staring at his boots. He jerked his head up and looked around, crying, “Why? Where?” and something else Gabriel didn’t catch.

Gabriel hoped Dieter was not going to snap now, with the bakery and the flowers and the children in sight. “Well, well, old friend!” said Dieter, clutching Gabriel and trying to get to his feet. “Save your strength! Don’t take things to heart! You’ll dance at my wedding!”

“Exhaustion,” said the aristo.

Gabriel and Dieter slowly made their way to the street, where Volkswagen buses full of actors were waiting. The actors made signs meaning to tell them to hurry up; they were all tired and impatient and anxious to change into their own clothes and get home. Dieter leaned on his old friend. Every few steps he stopped to talk excitedly, as people put to a great strain will do, all in a rush, like the long babbling of dreams.

“You’ll have to walk faster,” said Gabriel, beginning to feel irritated. “The buses won’t wait forever, and we can be arrested for wearing these uniforms without a reason.”

“There’s a very good reason,” said Dieter, but he seemed all at once to recover.

That night at La Méduse Dieter drew the plan of the bakery and the large apartment above it, with an X marking Gabriel’s room. He said that Gabriel would spend his summers and holidays there, and would teach Dieter’s children to pronounce French correctly. The light shining out of the orange glass lampshade made the drawing seem attractive and warm. It turned out that Dieter hadn’t actually bought the bakery but had made a down payment and was negotiating for a bank loan.

The proprietor of La Méduse now came over to their table, accompanied by a young couple — younger than Dieter and Gabriel, that is — to whom he had just sold the place. He introduced them, saying, “My oldest customers. You know their faces, of course. Television.”

The new owners shook hands with Gabriel and Dieter, assuring them that they did not intend to tamper with the atmosphere of the old place; not for anything in the world would they touch the recruiting posters or the automobile seats.

After they had gone Dieter seemed to lose interest in his drawing; he folded it in half, then in half again, and finally put his glass down on it. “They are a pair of crooks, you know,” he said. “They had to get out of Bastia because they had swindled so many people they were afraid of being murdered. Apparently they’re going to turn La Méduse into a front for the Corsican Mafia.” Having said this, Dieter gave a great sigh and fell silent. Seeing that he had given up talking about the bakery and Gabriel’s room, Gabriel drew a magazine out from behind the radiator and began to read. Dieter let him go on reading for quite a while before he sighed again. Gabriel did not look up. Dieter unfolded the drawing and smoothed it flat. He examined it, made a change or two with a pencil, and said something indistinct.