Mavis Gallant - The Cost of Living - Early and Uncollected Stories

Earlier today, in the tunnel of Saint-Cloud, between the western limit of Paris and the autoroute, stalled in Saturday traffic, Leonard Baum talked about his wife. The NATO removal coincides, for the Baums, with a fresh start. They have come to a “When all’s said and done” stage of marriage. When all’s said and done, it hasn’t worked out too badly. When all’s said and done, we did a good job with the children. We see absolutely eye to eye where the children are concerned. There’s always that.

They are a raggle-taggle international family. They have been in Denmark, and in the Congo. Unless you know many varieties of North American accent (Bea knows none, as Malcolm can easily prove), they could be from anywhere. The girls, with their perpetual sniffles, their droopy skirts, their washed-out slacks, and their wide backsides, seem reasonably Canadian to Malcolm, though Bea says she has never seen anything like them in her life before.

“I feel like hell about Karin,” Leonard said, “but that’s what she wants me to feel. Suicide is always against somebody. She knew I wasn’t responsible for her. I couldn’t be. I am responsible for Martha and Susan and…” He forgot his wife’s name. So did Malcolm. Both men searched for her name. Malcolm tried to pretend he was looking at her, straight across a room. She was tall and fair, her hair was pinned up, she looked like Malcolm’s idea of a transfigured horse and like his idea of a missionary. “ Verna !” said Leonard. “I’m responsible for Verna.” Leonard now spoke so plainly that he must be suffering from shock. “When Verna turned Catholic, she said she didn’t want any more sex. She didn’t want any more children, and she had this new religion. Once there was no more of that to argue about, we got on better than before. I never missed a weekend at home and I never missed a meal. I didn’t want my home to fall apart. I gave Karin as much time as I could. She poured all her life into the time I gave her. My life today makes no more sense than a sweeper’s in India. I’ve been writing my own obituary: ‘He left two young daughters and a hard-up wife.’ ‘His many friends were unanimous — the guy was a bastard.’ ‘All his life he thought he was going to Pichipoi.’ You know what Pichipoi means?”

He’s going to talk like this all the way home, Malcolm thought. He has talked about himself before now, but himself thirty years ago. We know about his mother and his father and his mother’s cherry jam. He never talked about Verna, any more than I would talk about Bea. I know about Pichipoi. It was the name of an unknown place. The Jews in Paris invented it. It was their destination, but it was a place that might not be any worse than the present. Some of them thought it might even be better, because no one had come back yet to say it was worse. They couldn’t imagine it. It was half magic. Sometimes in their transit camps they’d say, “Let’s get to Pichipoi and get it over with.” Leonard wasn’t here. He must have been in Canada, in college. I was what — four, five? Roy’s age? Leonard is still in control of his life. He was in control when he chose Verna over Karin. There is no more terror and mystery in Leonard’s life than in mine. Now he thinks he has no control. His life is running away with him, because the girl tried to kill herself, the French have kicked us out and they hate us, the police have his name, he has to face Verna, and the future can’t be worse than the way he feels now, stalled in the tunnel of Saint-Cloud. He shouldn’t say “Pichipoi.” It was a word that children invented. That makes it entirely magic. It is a sacred word. But it was such a long time ago, as long ago as the Children’s Crusade. Leonard is generous; he knows he is presuming. He is on sacred ground, with his shoes on. They were on their way to dying. If every person thought his life was a deportation, that he had no say in where he was going, or what would happen once he got there, the air would be filled with invisible trains and we would collide in our dreams.

Leonard said, “I feel vindictive, now we’re leaving. This is a private conversation, so I don’t mind telling you. I get pleasure knowing a recession is on the way. When I see the sports cars with ‘ À Vendre ’ in the windshield and I hear that cleaning women are coming round now and asking for work, I think of how we were gouged. Four hundred a month we paid for that dump. The phone never worked. We paid extra for hot water and heating and for using the elevator. Verna keeps asking, ‘What’s going to happen now?’ Verna’s very intelligent, but she asks me these questions, like ‘Why are there wars?’ She said, ‘Leonard, explain to Martha and Susan about the new patterns of history. The girls are very interested in current affairs.’ ‘It’s easy,’ I said. ‘Say Uganda has a project. They want to put a man on the moon. They’ll apply to France.’ ‘Leonard, are you being serious?’ Verna says.”

Leonard knew he didn’t have to say, “Don’t repeat anything I’ve told you.” He simply said, “Thanks a lot, I’ve talked your ear off.” The shopping center of Résidence Diane looked like a giant motel. Where the lawns began, midges danced under the trees. Three American wives, in bare feet, holding mugs of coffee, stood on the holy grass. The gardien was furiously whistling, like a lifeguard who for some reason was unable to launch a boat. He stood at the edge of the grass and the three wives did not look at him; they stood laughing together with their mugs of coffee. Malcolm and Leonard saw something Malcolm, at least, had never seen before: a grown person dancing with rage. The gardien could not stop blowing his whistle; it seemed to be part of his breath. His arms were stiff with temper and he danced, there, on the path. Leonard raised his shoulders. He looked at Malcolm, and all at once seemed slightly foreign and droll.

In the midst of her packing and sorting and of Leonard’s explanation, Verna Baum has remembered Malcolm and Bea. The ring at the door now is Verna, pushing a waterproof shopping cart. In it is an electric iron than cannot be plugged in anywhere except Hamilton, Ontario, two pairs of hand-painted porcelain doorknobs bought in the Paris Flea Market, a souvenir chessboard from Florence and about thirteen chessmen, a shoebox filled with old Christmas cards and Kodachrome holiday memories — these are for Roy. Roy will sit on the floor peering at them and sorting them over and over.

Bea, who has rubbish problems too, looks out of the corner of her eye and says, “Just leave it all in the hall.”

Verna has also come because she wants to tell Bea exactly what her mistakes are as a mother. She may never see Bea and Malcolm again. They will exchange a letter or two, then Christmas greetings, then nothing at all. She sits down in the kitchen. Her long missionary horseface blocks Malcolm’s view of Bea. Verna accepts sherry (half a tumbler), which she thinks has less alcohol in it than beer. Does she know that Leonard’s girl tried to kill herself, that Leonard was too scared afterward to drive his own car? All she chooses to say is that she studied psychology in an American university and is in a position to analyze Roy, pass censure on Bea, and caution Malcolm. He understands her to say “I was a Syke-Major” and for a moment takes it to mean her maiden name. Bea is making the children passive, Verna says. Roy will be a homosexual and Ruth will be sucking her thumb at thirty-five unless Malcolm at once confiscates the stroller and the tricycle. Verna’s words are “I want you to hear this, Mac. It’s time somebody around here spoke up. Those two little kids should be walking on their own four feet. Roy doesn’t trust you. He never asks a question. When Martha was hardly older than Roy I told her about you-know and she said, ‘How long does it take?’ She trusted me then and she trusts me now.”