Irwin Shaw - Short Stories - Five Decades

Deprived of further targets for his wisdom, M. Banary-Cointal sighed, then walked slowly toward the corner around which his daughter had vanished in pursuit of Raoul. Tibbell could see him standing there, caught in the dark stone geometry of the city crossroads, a solitary and baffled figure, peering off in the distance, searching the lonely street for survivors.

Now there was the click of shutters again below Tibbell and old women’s voices, seeming to rise from some underground of the night, made themselves heard, from window to window.

“Ah,” one voice said, “this city is becoming unbearable. People will do anything on the street at any hour. Did you hear what I heard, Madame Harrahs?”

“Every word,” a second old voice spoke in a loud, hoarse, accusing, concierge’s whisper. “He was a thief. He tried to snatch her purse. Since de Gaulle a woman isn’t safe after dark any more in Paris. And the police have the nerve to demand a rise in pay.”

“Not at all, Madame,” the first voice said irritably. “I saw with my own eyes. She hit him. With her bag. Thirty or forty of the best. He was bleeding like a pig. He’s lucky to be alive. Though he only got what’s coming to him. She’s pregnant.”

“Ah,” said Madame Harrahs, “the salaud. ”

“Though to tell the truth,” said the first voice, “she didn’t seem any better than she should be. Never at home, flitting around, only thinking about marriage when it was too late, after the rabbit test.”

“Young girls these days,” said Madame Harrahs. “They deserve what they get.”

“You can say that again,” said the first concierge. “If I told you some of the things that go on in this very house.”

“You don’t have to tell me,” said Madame Harrahs. “It’s the same on both sides of the street. When I think of some of the people I have to open the door to and say Monsieur Blanchard lives on the third, to the right, it’s a wonder I still have the courage to go to Mass at Easter.”

“The one I feel sorry for is the old man,” said the first concierge. “The father.”

“Don’t waste your pity,” said Madame Harrahs. “It’s probably all his fault. He is obviously lacking in authority. And if a man hasn’t authority, he has to expect the worst from his children. Besides, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if he didn’t have a little thing on the side himself, a little poupette in the Sixteenth, like that disgusting lawyer in Geneva. I got a good look at him. I know the type.”

“Ah, the dirty old man,” the first voice said.

Now Tibbell heard footsteps approaching from the corner and he turned to see the dirty old man approaching. The shutters clicked tight again and the old ladies subsided after their choric irruption, leaving the street to the weary sound of the old man’s shoes on the uneven concrete and the asthmatic sighs he emitted with every other step. He stopped below Tibbell’s window, looking sorrowfully at the Vespa, shaking his head, then sat down uncomfortably on the curb, his feet in the gutter, his hands dangling loose and helpless between his knees. Tibbell would have liked to go down and comfort him, but was uncertain whether M. Banary-Cointal was in any condition that night to be consoled by foreigners.

Tibbell was on the verge of closing his own shutters, like the two concierges, and leaving the old man to his problems on the street below, when he saw Moumou appear at the corner, sobbing exhaustedly, walking unsteadily on her high heels, the bag with which she had so vigorously attacked Raoul now hanging like a dead weight from her hand. The father saw her too and stood up, with a rheumatic effort, to greet her. When she saw the old man, Moumou sobbed more loudly. The old man opened his arms and she plunged onto his shoulder, weeping and clutching him, while he patted her back clumsily.

“He got away,” Moumou wept. “I’ll never see him again.”

“Perhaps it is for the best,” the old man said. “He is far from dependable, that fellow.”

“I love him, I love him,” the girl said wetly. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Now, now, Moumou …” The father looked around him uneasily, conscious of witnesses behind the shuttered windows.

“I’ll show him,” the girl said wildly. She broke away from her father and stood accusingly in front of the parked Vespa, glaring at it. “He took me out to the Marne on this the first time we went out together,” she said in a throbbing voice, meant to carry the memory of ancient tenderness, betrayed promises, to unseen and guilty ears. “I’ll show him.” With a swift movement, before her father could do anything to stop her, she took off her right shoe. Violently, holding the shoe by the pointed toe, she smashed the sharp heel into the headlight of the scooter. There was the crash of breaking glass and a tinkling on the pavement, closely followed by a shriek of pain from Moumou.

“What is it? What is it?” The old man asked anxiously.

“I cut myself. I opened a vein.” Moumou held out her hands, like Lady Macbeth. Tibbell could see blood spurting from several cuts on her hand and wrist.

“Oh, my poor child,” the old man said distractedly. “Hold your hand still. Let me see.…”

But Moumou pulled her hand away and danced unevenly on her one shoe around the Vespa, waving her arm over the machine, spattering the wheels, the handle bars, the saddle, the black pillion, with the blood that sprayed from her wounds. “There!” she shouted. “You wanted my blood, take it! I hope it brings you good luck!”

“Moumou, don’t be so impetuous,” the old man implored her. “You will do yourself a permanent harm.” Finally he managed to grab his daughter’s arm and inspect the cuts. “Oh, oh,” he said. “This is dolorous. Stand still.” He took out a handkerchief and bound her wrist tight. “Now,” he said, “I will take you home and you will get a good night’s sleep and you will forget about that serpent.”

“No,” Moumou said. She backed against the wall of the building on the opposite side of the street and stood there stubbornly. “He will come back for his Vespa. Then I will kill him. And after that I will kill myself.”

“Moumou …” the old man wailed.

“Go home, Papa.”

“How can I go home and leave you like this?”

“I will wait for him if I have to stand here in this place all night.” Moumou said her words awash with tears. She gripped the wall behind her with her hands, as if to keep her father from taking her away by force. “He has to come here sometime before the church. He won’t get married without his scooter. You go home. I will handle him myself.”

“I can’t leave you here alone in this condition,” the old man said, sighing. Beaten, he sat down again on the curb to rest.

“I want to die,” Moumou said.

The street was quiet again, but not for long. The door behind which the two lovers had taken refuge opened and the man in the sports jacket came out, his arm around his girl. They passed slowly beneath Tibbell’s window, ostentatiously ignoring Moumou and her father. The old man looked balefully up at the linked couple. “Young lady,” he said, “remember my warning. Profit by the events you have witnessed tonight. If it is not too late already. Reenter into your home, I speak as a friend.”

“See here, old man,” the man in the sports jacket pulled away from his companion and stood threateningly in front of Moumou’s father, “that’s enough out of you. I do not permit anybody to speak like that in front of …”

“Come on, Edouard,” the girl said, pulling the man in the sports jacket away. “It is too late at night to become enraged.”

“I ignore you, Monsieur,” Edouard said, then let the girl lead him away.