Evan Connell - Mrs. Bridge

Later Mrs. Bridge introduced herself to the countess, fox that was what everyone else was doing, and for a minute or so they chatted. Two things Mrs. Bridge remembered about her: the first was a fresh red bruise on the tiny golden throat, a bruise such as a man’s mouth would leave, and the second was that husky voice murmuring, “To be afraid is, I tell you, Madame, the most terrible thing in the world/’

Not long after the countess left for San Francisco and the hospitable munitions maker, Mrs. Bridge was having lunch on the Plaza with Grace Barron. Grace seemed despondent, and Mrs. Bridge, thinking to cheer her up, looked into her tea cup and pretended to be studying the leaves. Laying one finger alongside her nose she said, “My gypsy blood tells me you”

“My fortune?** asked Grace absently. “I know my fortune/* And then, while Mrs. Bridge stared at her in frightened amazement, two large tears came rolling down her cheeks.

Whether it was in the pattern of the leaves, or in Grace herself, Mrs. Bridge could not be sure, but at a cocktail party honoring Mrs. Albert Tate, who was packing for a voyage around the world, Grace became unreasonable. The affair was held in the Arlens’ new yellow brick Colonial on Shoat Drive and there were over one hundred people present. According to the invitations the party was to be from six till nine-thirty, but at ten o’clock the crowd was as thick as ever, and about that time the word began spreading that Grace Barren was in the basement recreation room having an argument with the host,

” ethnocentricism, that’s what!” Grace was saying just as

Mrs. Bridge hurried anxiously down the basement steps.

Russ Arlen scowled and muttered. Grace took a long drink from a martini glass and smacked her lips.

“Furthermore,” she announced to the crowd, “if we go to war again do you know who I accuse? The American press! Scare headlines sell copies. I accuse. Monsieur, j ‘accuse!”

Andrew Koeppel, who had been congratulated throughout the evening for having bought another hotel, suggested, “Let me put in a word. A few minutes ago you mentioned some Semite friend of yours who thought a pogrom was as likely in this country as in Germany. Let me tell you: Nazi Germany is the most fascistic nation on the face of this earth, and if your friend doesn’t like it here, let her go back. I’ve fought the Jews for whatever I own and I intend to keep it. My father, mind you, came to this country without a penny in his pocket and by the time he was thirty-six years old ” Here he began a long and rather uninteresting story having to do with pulling up cornstalks for eleven cents a day.

Attention gradually was reverting to Grace when there came shouts from upstairs of ‘Tire! Fire!” and everyone crowded the stairway, cocktail glasses in hand. There was indeed a fire, but not in the house. Somehow the back seat of the Ralph Porters’ Cadillac had begun to smoulder. An alarm was not turned in for quite a while because everyone assumed someone else had taken care of it, but eventually a fire engine came clanging up Ward Parkway and swerved Into Shoat Drive, one of the ladders scratching the fenders of several automobiles, and the firemen broke the window of the Cadillac and began spraying the rear seat. Smoke billowed out while Mrs. Porter wept and begged them to stop. The firemen believed a cigarette stub had caused it, but the Beckerle sisters, who had been riding in the back seat, denied this. A few minutes later almost everybody had returned to the house, and Grace was at It again, this time in the library under a full-length portrait of Madge, Mrs. Bridge entered the library to hear Grace saying, ** and the Modocs and the Nez Perce! And the Mimbreno Apache, the Teton Sioux, and duster’s deliberate violation of the treaty of eighteen-sixty-eight and “

“Shrimp, anybody?*’ It was Madge hurrying in to save the day, followed by her new maid, who was carrying an immense silver platter heaped with hors d’oeuvres.

“I want another drink,” Grace announced. “And what about the Seminoles? They never harmed us but we invaded their swamps and cut them to ribbons/’

Mrs. Bridge felt the discussion to be beyond her depth, but, in hopes of moderating what could turn into an unfortunate scene, she asked hopefully, “It does sound as though we’ve done some dreadful things, Grace, but Isn’t It possible that when you investigate fully you’ll discover the Seminoles attacked us?”

The conversation continued for some time, Grace Banron being the center of it all, arguing now against censoring books, now against opening the mail of suspected Fascists and Communists. Once or twice Mrs. Bridge attempted to direct the conversation elsewhere, praising the somewhat regal portrait of Madge under which they were standing, and also trying the fire in the Cadillac, but at the very moment she was about to succeed, Grace herself would irritate someone all over again.

There were several echoes of this evening. The very next night someone unbuckled the windshield wipers from the Barrens’ automobile, which had been parked on the street in front of their home. The wipers were found in the gutter a few yards away, twisted out of shape.

The scoutmaster of David Barren’s troop received an anonymous letter telling him to watch young Barron. The scoutmaster, who had never before gotten such a letter, did not know what to do with it, and being very much agitated he gave it to Dr. Foster, who telephoned the police and talked for a long time on various subjects before telling them why he had called, The letter had a postscript demanding to know how many years young Barron had been playing the violin and adding triumphantly that he had not been invited to join a high-school fraternity.

Days passed. It seemed the affair was being forgotten. Then Madge Arlen happened to remark that her husband had switched accounts from Virgil Barren’s bank to the Security First.

“Oh, my word!” Mrs. Bridge breathed. “What did Virgil say?”

“Russ told me he didn’t open his mouth.” Madge paused to light a cigarette and shake out the match. After inhaling deeply she said, “We weren’t the first to change.”

Mrs. Bridge thought for an instant she was going to faint, and even as her head stopped whirling she heard herself remarking in a sympathetic tone, ” suppose it was the best thing.”

Quite possibly the only persons unaware of Grace Barren’s Indiscretion were Wilhelm and Susan Van Metre.

“We chanced to be driving this way/’ Wilhelm Van Metre said, having cleared his throat twice in the midst of the remark, “and I said to Mrs. Van Metre, ‘Susan, as long as we are in this neighborhood it might not be a bad idea to stop for a nice little visit with the Bridges/ ” He cleared his throat again. “I seem to be having some slight difficulty with my vocal apparatus. But at any rate, Susan agreed with me/ 1 He turned to smile at her.

“What a nice surprise!” Mrs. Bridge replied. “Here, let me take your coats/* And going to the bottom of the stairs she called, “Walter! Guess who’s here?” This meant he was to put away his detective magazine or his vacation brochures or whatever he was looking at, and get out of bed and get dressed and come down.

“Now!” she resumed, having gotten them seated and having told Harriet to fix some tea, “Now, tell me what’s new with you all?”

Wilhelm chuckled and slapped his knee. “Susan, did you hear India? Now you tell me/* he continued, addressing his wife, “does anything new or extraordinary ever happen to us? Not much, I’m afraid, not much/’ He leaned back and touched his nostrils one after the other as though to prevent himself from sneezing. “No, not very much, not much/*