Evan Connell - Mrs. Bridge

“There!” said Mr. Bridge, looking about for something else to eat. “I told you, didn’t I?”

The tornado, whether impressed by his intransigence or touched by her devotion, had drawn itself up into the sky and was never seen or heard of again.

They left for Europe, as he said they would, three weeks later.

In New York they saw Ruth, who had gotten a job as an assistant to one of the editors of a women’s magazine, and who was living alone in a Greenwich Village garret. They went up four flights of steps to have a look at her apartment, though she seemed not overly anxious to show it, and Mrs. Bridge was relieved to find it was not quite so forbidding as it sounded. She was, however, surprised by the pictures on the walls original oil paintings by one of Ruth’s new friends and by the other furnishings. The apartment was so un-like her room in Kansas City. It was neither so tidy nor so comfortable. There was not even a rug; the black wood floor was partly covered by a pattern of Oriental mats. And there were so many phonograph records! Mrs, Bridge had forgotten that she was so fond of music. The apartment, though slightly bizarre, was neatly balanced, she thought, except for one area where something was disturbing. She finally realized that a nail had been driven into the wall above the bed but no picture hung from it. She could not help staring at the nail, knowing Ruth had hidden whatever belonged there. How strange! she thought. What was Ruth concealing? A moment later Mrs. Bridge became conscious that she herself was being studied. Turning, then, to her daughter, she was greeted with a look of implacable defiance.

The Atlantic voyage did not agree very well with Mrs. Bridge, though she tried not to show that the motion of the sea was nauseating. She took some tablets and felt better, but could not truly enjoy the meals, and she looked forward to landing in England.

“I guess I’m just not cut out to be a sailor/’ she remarked more than once, not only to her husband but to some very nice people they had met aboard ship, and those who were feeling a bit queasy themselves were the first to sympathize.

She often noticed an old Italian woman from the tourist deck who, somehow or other, managed to get up to the first-class deck in the afternoons. The old woman would drag a chair into a secluded, sunny corner and would sit motionless for hours. No one ever spoke to her or came to see if she wanted anything. She did not look well. She was raggedly dressed, all in black, with shoes broken open at the seams, and a black scarf bound over her head. Mrs. Bridge, feeling better as the voyage progressed, thought that never in her life had she seen anyone so alone and wretched as this elderly woman, and so, resolving to help her, went one afternoon to the corner and bent over and gently touched her on the shoulder*

“Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Lei parla Italiano?”

“Oh, don’t you speak English?”

“Non capisco/* the old woman replied, gazing up at her in vast despair.

“I’m awfully sorry,” Mrs. Bridge said helplessly. “I wish I knew what to do, but I just don’t understand/*

They landed at Southampton long before dawn and took the train to London. It was a rainy morning and most of the passengers dozed, but Mrs. Bridge stayed awake and stared out the train window, a trifle groggily, at the silent, stately, fogbound farmland. And as this train carried her across the English countryside, past cottages she had never seen and would never see again, where great birds nested in the chimney crook, and from the hedgerows smaller birds came fluttering in shrill desperation to circle twice, and then, finding nothing, to settle as before, and where the cattle in the mist grazed unperturbed by the train which rolled on and on beneath the somnolent English sky, as though there were no destination, past the rain-drenched, redolent fields, and the trees which cast no shadow, she thought to herself how familiar it was and that once this must have been her home. Yes, she said to herself slowly, yes, I was here before.

In London the hotel was just off Piccadilly Circus; they had some difficulty understanding the hall porter and the maid, and, in fact, at the desk or on the telephone they found it necessary to listen closely. Mrs. Bridge, unpinning her hat as she stood before the mirror in their room a black straw hat it was, with a shiny cluster of plastic cherries on the brim replied to her husband’s comment, “I agree with you, but don’t you suppose we sound funny to them, too?”

Next morning they hired a cab to the Tower of London, where Mrs. Bridge enjoyed the ravens and the colorful costumes of the Beef-eaters. Mr. Bridge spent a good deal of time investigating the instruments of torture and the chopping block, after which they got into the cab again and reached Buckingham Palace just in time for the changing of the guard. Mrs. Bridge used three rolls of color film on this but insisted it was worth every bit of it. After a very pleasant lunch they drove to Eton.

They also hired a car to Stratford-on-Avon, and to the Dover cliffs, to many historic spots throughout the city and around it, and yet, as they were leaving for Paris, it seemed to them both, and particularly to Mrs. Bridge, that they had hardly begun to get acquainted with England. While they were settling themselves on the train she told him she thought England was the nicest birthday present she had ever received.

To Mr. and Mrs. Bridge it seemed that no matter where they went in Paris they ran into Americans; consequently it was no surprise when a young man named Morgan Hager, who was from Kansas City and whose father had written that the Bridges would be visiting, told them that in addition to tourists there were several thousand Americans who had taken up permanent residence in the city, mostly on the Left Bank. No, he did not know what all these expatriates did for a living; yes, he thought they were happy in France; he had no idea whether they intended to remain in a foreign country for the rest of their lives. Mrs. Bridge could not imagine anyone wanting to live outside the United States. To visit, yes. To take up residence, no.

“I should think they would get awfully lonely,” she said.

“I guess so,” said Hager. “I know I do/’

“But then why do you stay?”

“Because I’m happier here/’

This was puzzling and she wanted to understand. She observed him frankly and saw that he did not look happy; at least he seldom smiled. She did not think he was truly happy.

“If you have the time, Morgan,” said Mr. Bridge, “I’d like to see some of this Bohemian life we hear so much about.”

Hager looked at him doubtfully, for the request posed a problem. There were many things he could have shown them, but, even as certain murals in Pompeii are not open to casual tourists, so there were various Parisian experiences not listed in the guidebook.

“Well,” said Hager modestly, “I really don’t know of anything very Bohemian, but you might like to have dinner at a place on Montpamasse where a lot of art students eat. It’s sort of dirty,” he added thoughtfully.

Mrs. Bridge thought this sounded exciting. “Perhaps we should go back to the hotel and change/’ she said.

Hager did not know whether she meant to get more dressed up or less dressed up, so finally he said, “I don’t think anybody will notice you.” This had a peculiar ring, so he added, “You look all right.” Somehow this was not what he had In mind either, so he cleared his throat, scratched his nose, and said, “The place is actually a real dump.” He tried again. “I mean, you can get in with no trouble.” Having run himself into a cul-de-sac he stopped to meditate. “Oh, well,” he said at last, “let’s go. I’m hungry as a sonofabitch,”