Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

Suddenly the vision of Guy, standing, faithful and frozen, outside her window in the winter night, swam before her. Tears welled in her eyes at the thought of how heartless she’d been to him and how much better he was than all these chattering gluttons at the table. She remembered how much he loved her and how he respected her and how pure he was and how happy she could make him just by lifting her little finger, so to speak. Sitting there with her plate heaped with breast of pheasant and purée of marrons, and her glass filled once more with a 1928 Bordeaux, she felt that it was intolerable that she wasn’t with Guy at that moment and she could feel her immortal soul being corrupted second by second within her.

Abruptly, she stood up. Her chair would have fallen if one of the men in white gloves hadn’t leaped and caught it. She stood very straight, wondering if she was as pale as she felt. All conversation ceased and every eye was turned upon her.

“I’m terribly sorry,” she said, addressing the Baron. “I have a very important telephone call to make.”

“Of course, my dear,” the Baron said. He stood, but with a sharp little gesture kept the other men seated. “Henri will show you where the telephone is.”

A waiter stepped forward, wooden-faced, from his station against the wall. Walking erectly, keeping her head high, her after-ski boots making a curious but not unmusical noise on the polished floor, she followed the waiter out of the silent room. The door closed behind her. I will never enter that room again, she thought. I will never see any of those people again. I have made my choice. My eternal choice.

Her knees felt cloudy and she was not conscious of the effort of walking as she followed Henri across the hall and into the pink salon.

“ Vàilà, Mademoiselle ,” Henri said, pointing to a phone on an inlaid table. “ Désirez-vous que je compose le numéro pour vous? ” “Non,” she said coldly. “ Je le composerai moi-même, merci. ” She waited until he had left the room, then sat down on the couch next to the phone. She dialed the number of Guy’s home. While she listened to the buzzing in her ear, she stared at her paintings on the opposite wall. They looked pallid and ordinary and influenced by everybody. She remembered how exalted she had been when the Baron had led her into the room to show her the pictures so short a time ago. I am a pendulum, she thought, I am a classic manic-depressive. If I came from a rich family they would send me to a psychiatrist. I am not a painter. I must give up wearing blue jeans. I must devote myself to being a good woman and making a man happy. I must never drink again.

“ Allô Allô! ” a woman’s irritated voice said over the phone. It was Guy’s mother.

Speaking as clearly as possible, Roberta asked if Guy was home. Guy’s mother pretended not to understand Roberta at first and made her repeat the question twice. Then, sounding enraged, Guy’s mother said yes, her son was home, but was sick in bed with a fever, and could talk to no one. Guy’s mother seemed dangerously ready to hang up at any moment, and Roberta spoke urgently, in an attempt to get a message through before the phone went dead.

Guy’s mother kept saying, “ Comment? Comment? Qu’est-ce que vous avez dit? ” in a shrill crescendo of annoyance.

Roberta was trying to say that she would be home in an hour, and that, if Guy felt well enough to get out of bed, she would like him to call her, when there was the sound of male shouts over the phone, and then thumping noises, as though there was a struggle going on for the instrument. Then she heard Guy’s voice, panting. “Roberta? Where are you? Are you all right? What happened?”

“I’m a bitch,” Roberta whispered. “Forgive me.”

“Never mind that,” Guy said. “Where are you?”

“I’m surrounded by the most terrible people,” Roberta said. “It serves me right. I behaved like an idiot.…”

“Where are you?” Guy shouted. “What’s the address?”

“Nineteen bis Square du Bois de Boulogne,” Roberta said. “I’m awfully sorry you’re sick. I wanted to see you and tell you—”

“Don’t move,” Guy said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

There was an off-instrument cascade of French from Guy’s mother, and then the click as Guy hung up. Roberta sat there a moment, the pain of her wounds beginning to vanish, soothed by the swift, dependable voice of love on the telephone. I must deserve him, she thought religiously. I must deserve him.

She stood up and went over and stared at her paintings. She would have liked to be able to scratch out her signature, but the paintings were covered with glass, and it wasn’t possible.

She went out into the hall and put on her coat and tied her scarf around her head. The house seemed silent and empty. None of the men in white gloves were to be seen and whatever the guests were saying about her in the dining room was mercifully muffled by distance and a series of closed doors. She took a last look around, at the mirrors, the marble, the mink. This is not for me, she thought without regret. Tomorrow she would find out the Baron’s name from Patrini and send him a dozen roses with a note of apology for her bad manners. Otherwise, she would never be able to face her mother again. She wondered if her mother had ever gone through a night like this when she was nineteen.

She opened the door softly and slipped out. The Bentley and the other cars were still there, and the chauffeurs standing in the cold, sad attendants of the rich, were grouped in the mist under a lamppost. Roberta leaned against the iron fence of the Baron’s house, feeling her head clearing in the cold night air. Soon she was chilled to the bone, but doing penance for the hours Guy had spent outside her window, she didn’t move or try to keep warm.

Sooner than she had dared to hope she heard the roar of the Vespa and saw the familiar figure of Guy, dangerously angled, as he sped through the narrow passage into the square. She went out under the lamppost so he could see her and when he skidded to a halt in front of her, she threw her arms around him, not caring that the chauffeurs were all watching. “Thank you, thank you,” she whispered. “Now take me away from here. Quick!”

Guy kissed her cheek briefly, and squeezed her. She got on the pillion behind him and held him tight as he started the Vespa. They surged out between the dark buildings and into the Avenue Foch. For a moment, that was enough—the speed, the fresh cold wind, the crisp feel of his coat between her arms, the sense of escape, as they crossed the Avenue Foch and headed down the empty boulevard toward the Arc, shimmering insubstantially under its floodlights in the thin mist.

She held Guy closely, whispering into the fleece collar of his coat, too low for him to hear, “I love you, I love you.” She felt holy and clean, as though she had been delivered from the danger of mortal sin.

As they approached the Etoile, Guy slowed down and turned his head. His face looked drawn and tense. “Where to?” he said.

She hesitated. Then she said, “Do you still have the key to your friend’s apartment? The one who went to Tours?”

Guy started violently and the Vespa skidded and they only recovered their balance at the very last moment.

He pulled the Vespa over to the curb and stopped. He twisted around to face her. For a fleeting instant she had the feeling that he looked frightened. “Are you drunk?” he asked.

“Not any more. Do you have the key?”

“No,” Guy said. He shook his head in despair. “He came back from Tours two days ago. What are we going to do?”

“We can go to a hotel,” Roberta said. She was surprised to hear the words come out of her mouth. “Can’t we?”