Mavis Gallant - From the Fifteenth District

Except for his debt to Marek, which he now had no means of repaying, Piotr had no regrets about leaving. He seemed to have been sleeping in the doctor’s old office forever, hearing her wounded voice in the night, assaulted by the strident news broadcast at six, measuring the size of today’s stone in his chest, opening the shutters to a merciless sky, thinking of the mailbox and the key and the message from Laurie. Piotr suddenly realized that he had gone in and out of the house twice that day without looking for a letter. That was freedom! It was like the return to life after a long illness, like his wife feeding him smuggled soup out of a jar and saying, “You will get better.” When he called Maria to say goodbye, she took the news of his leaving calmly. Piotr was only another novel. She turned the pages slowly. Sometimes in novels there is bound to be a shock. She invited him to tea, as though he had just arrived and their best conversations were yet to come. On his way to this last visit Piotr forced himself to look in the letter box, out of distant sympathy for the victim he had once been. Inside, propped at an angle, was a view of San Pietro in Venice and a message in Laurie’s childish hand, with the inevitable spelling mistake:

It is over.

My friend and I seperating forever.

It is you I love.

Back Monday 8 PM. Please meet chez moi.

“Love” was underlined three times.

Piotr had been condemned to death by hanging but now the blindfold was removed. He descended the gallows steps to perfect safety. The hangman untied his hands, lit his cigarette. He was given a passport good for all countries and for eternity. His first poems had just been published. He had fallen in love and she loved him, she was “really chearfull,” and love, love, love was underlined three times. Today was Monday; there were still four hours to wait. The courtyard and the dull street beyond it became as white as Piotr’s imagined Venice. He stood in the transformed street and said to himself that he was forty-three and that at last, for the first time, a woman had given something up for him. Laurie had turned from the person who provided travel, friendship, warmth, material help (somebody was certainly paying for the seventh-floor studio) for the sake of Piotr. She had done it without asking him to underwrite her risk, without a guarantee. Now he understood the fable about the Matisse, about loving and doing without.

He began to walk slowly toward a bus stop. Now, think about this, he told himself. She is alone except for that one brother who never writes. She has no training, no real education to speak of, and no money, and money is oxygen here in the West. Well, she has me, he thought. She has only me, and she could have anyone. The feeling that her silvery world depended on him now made it all the more mysterious and desirable. Now, be practical, he said. Now, be practical.…But he did not know what to be practical about; it was part of his new, thrilling role as Laurie’s protector. What next? Piotr was separated, not divorced. He would return to Warsaw, divorce his wife, come back to France, and marry Laurie. He wondered how he had been so obtuse until now, why he had not thought of this sooner. Laurie had never mentioned any such arrangement — another proof of her generosity. He would apply for a post in France, perhaps at a provincial university. He would read poetry aloud to the wives of doctors and notaries and they would imagine he had escaped from Siberia and it was Russian they were hearing.

Piotr had forgotten that he was expelled, might never be allowed out of Poland or back into France in his lifetime, that he owed money to Marek, that he was entangled, hobbled, bound. His children became remote and silent, as if they had never existed outside their father’s imagination.

Piotr, who never discussed his private affairs, told Maria about Laurie. His account of the long journey leading up to the arrival of the postcard, and Maria’s reaction to it, created a third person in the room. She was a quiet, noble girl who without a trace of moral blackmail had traded safety for love. “She is the wonderful woman you deserve,” said Maria, listening intently. Before bliss submerged him completely Piotr was able to see Maria and himself as two figures bobbing in the wake of a wreck. Their hopefulness about love had survived prisons. And yet every word he was saying seemed to him like part of a long truth. His new Laurie resembled the imaginary Matisse she had sent to Warsaw, which he had unrolled with wonder and admiration: she was motionless, mute, she was black-on-white, and she never looked at him.

“Promise me one thing,” said Maria. “That you will not ask her any questions. Promise.” He promised. Leaning forward, she took Piotr’s face in her hands and kissed him. “I wish you so much happiness,” she said.

His unpacked suitcase at his feet, Piotr sat on the edge of the bed. Laurie lay on her side, her head on her arm. The ashtray between them did not prevent her from sprinkling the white coverlet with ash. She had been under the shower when he arrived and she still wore a towelling bathrobe. Her hair, damp and darkened, lay flat on her neck and cheek and gave her a tight, sleek, unknown quality.

“Oh, it was all right when we were tramping around looking at those damned churches,” she said. “But right from the beginning I knew it was going wrong. I felt something in him — a sort of disapproval of me. Everything he’d liked until now he started to criticize. Those Catholics — they always go back to what they were. Sex was wrong, living was wrong. Only God was O.K. He said why didn’t I work, why didn’t I start training to be a nurse. He said there was a world shortage of nurses. ‘You could be having a useful life,’ he said. It was horrible, Potter. I just don’t know what went wrong. I thought maybe he’d met a girl he liked better than me. I kept fishing, but he wouldn’t say. He was comparing — I could tell that. He said, ‘All you ever think about is your lunch and your breakfast’ — something like that.”

Piotr said, “What is the business he so enjoys running?”

“Watch straps.”

“Watch straps?”

“That’s what he was doing in Italy. Buying them. We were in Florence, Milan. Venice was the holiday part. You should have seen the currency he smuggled in — Swiss, American. The stuff was falling out of his pockets like oak leaves. His mind was somewhere else the whole time. We weren’t really together. We were just two travellers who happened to be sharing a room.”

“You didn’t happen to find yourself in the same bed?” said Piotr. He moved the ashtray out of the way and edged a box of paper handkerchiefs into its place. Although her face did not crumple or her voice change, tears were forming and spilling along her cheek and nose.

“Oh, sometimes, after a good dinner. He said a horrible thing. He said, ‘Sometimes I can’t bear to touch you.’ No, no, we were just two travellers,” she said, blowing her nose. “We each had our own toothpaste, he had his cake of soap. I didn’t bring any soap and when we were moving around, changing hotels, he’d pack his before I’d even had my bath. I’d be there in the bathtub and he’d already packed his soap. He’d always been nice before. I just don’t know. I’ll never understand it. Potter, I can’t face going out. I haven’t eaten all day, but I still can’t face it. Could you just heat some water and pour it over a soup cube for me?”

“Watch straps,” said Piotr in a language she could not understand. He turned on the little electric plate. “Watch straps.”

“He pretended he was doing it for me,” said Laurie, lying flat on her back now. “Letting me go so I could create my own life. Those Catholics. He just wanted to be free for some other reason. To create his, I suppose.”