Giovanni's Room (17 page)

Her amusement was contagious and I shook my head again, laughing with her. “You're adorable,” I said. “I don't understand you at all.”

She laughed again. “There,” she said, “that's fine. We're both taking to it like ducks to water.”

We were passing a bookstore and she stopped. “Can we go in for just a minute?” she asked. “There's a book I'd like to get. Quite,” she added, as we entered the shop, “a trivial book.”

I watched her with amusement as she went over to speak to the woman who ran the shop. I wandered idly over to the farthest book shelf, where a man stood, his back to me, leafing through a magazine. As I stood beside him, he closed the magazine and put it down, and turned. We recognized each other at once. It was Jacques.

“
Tiens!
” he cried. “Here you are! We were beginning to think that you had gone back to America.”

“Me?” I laughed. “No, I'm still in Paris. I've just been busy.” Then, with a terrible suspicion, I asked, “Who's
we
?”

“Why,” said Jacques, with a hard, insistent smile, “your baby. It seems you left him alone in that room without any food, without any money, without, even, any cigarettes. He finally persuaded his concierge to allow him to put a phone call on his bill and called me. The poor boy sounded as though he would have put his head in the gas oven. If,” he laughed, “he had
had
a gas oven.”

We stared at each other. He, deliberately, said nothing. I did not know what to say.

“I threw a few provisions in my car,” said Jacques, “and hurried out to get him. He thought we should drag the river for you. But I assured him that he did not know Americans as well as I and that you had not drowned yourself. You had only disappeared in order—to think. And I see that I was right. You have thought so much that now you must find what others have thought before you. One book,” he said, finally, “that you can surely spare yourself the trouble of reading is the Marquis de Sade.”

“Where is Giovanni now?” I asked.

“I finally remembered the name of Hella's hotel,” said Jacques. “Giovanni said that you were more or less expecting her and so I gave him the bright idea of calling you there. He has stepped out for an instant to do just that. He'll be along presently.”

Hella had returned, with her book.

“You two have met before,” I said, awkwardly. “Hella, you remember Jacques.”

She remembered him and also remembered that she disliked him. She smiled politely and held out her hand. “How are you?”

“
Je suis ravi
,
mademoiselle
,” said Jacques. He knew that Hella disliked him and this amused him. And, to corroborate her dislike, and also because at that moment he really hated me, he bowed low over her outstretched hand and became, in an instant, outrageously and offensively effeminate. I watched him as though I were watching an imminent disaster from many miles away. He turned playfully to me. “David has been hiding from us,” he murmured, “now that you are back.”

“Oh?” said Hella, and moved closer to me, taking my hand, “that was very naughty of him. I'd never have allowed it—if I'd known we were hiding.” She grinned. “But, then, he never tells me anything.”

Jacques looked at her. “No doubt,” he said, “he finds more fascinating topics when you are together than why he hides from old friends.”

I felt a great need to get out of there before Giovanni arrived. “We haven't eaten supper yet,” I said, trying to smile. “Perhaps we can meet you later?” I knew that my smile was begging him to be kind to me.

But at that moment the tiny bell which announced every entry into the shop rang, and Jacques said, “Ah. Here is Giovanni.” And, indeed, I felt him behind me, standing stock-still, staring, and felt in Hella's clasp, in her entire body, a kind of wild shrinking and not
all of her composure kept this from showing in her face. When Giovanni spoke, his voice was thick with fury and relief and unshed tears.

“Where have you been?” he cried. “I thought you were dead! I thought you had been knocked down by a car or thrown into the river—what have you been doing all these days?”

I was able, oddly enough, to smile. And I was astonished at my calm. “Giovanni,” I said, “I want you to meet my fiancée. Mlle Hella. Monsieur Giovanni.”

He had seen her before his outburst ended and now he touched her hand with a still, astounded politeness and stared at her with black, steady eyes as though he had never seen a woman before.

“
Enchanté
,
mademoiselle
,” he said. And his voice was dead and cold. He looked briefly at me, then back at Hella. For a moment we, all four, stood there as though we were posing for a tableau.

“Really,” said Jacques, “now that we are all together, I think we should have one drink together. A very short one,” he said to Hella, cutting off her attempt at polite refusal and taking her arm. “It's not every day,” he said, “that old friends get together.” He forced us to move, Hella and he together, Giovanni and I ahead. The bell rang viciously as Giovanni opened the door. The evening air hit us like a blaze. We started walking away from the river, toward the boulevard.

“When I decide to leave a place,” said Giovanni, “I tell the concierge, so that at least she will know where to forward my mail.”

I flared briefly, unhappily. I had noticed that he was shaven and wore a clean, white shirt and tie—a tie which surely belonged to Jacques. “I don't see what you've got to complain about,” I said. “You sure knew where to go.”

But with the look he gave me then my anger left me and I wanted to cry. “You are not nice,” he said. “
Tu n'est pas chic du
tout
.” Then he said no more and we walked to the boulevard in silence. Behind us I could hear the murmur of Jacques' voice. On the corner we stood and waited for them to catch up with us.

“Darling,” said Hella, as she reached me, “you stay and have a drink if you want to, I can't, I really can't, I don't feel well at all.” She turned to Giovanni. “Please forgive me,” she said, “but I've just come back from Spain and I've hardly sat down a moment since I got off the train. Another time, truly—but I
must
get some sleep tonight.” She smiled and held out her hand but he did not seem to see it.

“I'll walk Hella home,” I said, “and then I'll come back. If you'll tell me where you're going to be.”

Giovanni laughed, abruptly. “Why, we will be in the quarter,” he said. “We will not be difficult to find.”

“I am sorry,” said Jacques, to Hella, “that you do not feel well. Perhaps another time.” And Hella's hand, which was still uncertainly outstretched, he bowed over and kissed a second time. He straightened and looked at me. “You must bring Hella to dinner at my house one night.” He made a face. “There is no need to hide your fiancée from us.”

“No need whatever,” said Giovanni. “She is very charming. And we”—with a grin, to Hella —“will try to be charming, too.”

“Well,” I said, and took Hella by the arm, “I'll see you later.”

“If I am not here” said Giovanni, both vindictive and near tears, “by the time you come back again, I will be at home. You remember where that is—? It is near a zoo.”

“I remember,” I said. I started backing away, as though I were backing out of a cage. “I'll see you later.
A tout à l'heure
.”

“
À la prochaine
,” said Giovanni.

I felt their eyes on our backs as we walked away from them. For a long while Hella was silent—possibly because, like me, she was afraid to say anything. Then: “I really can't stand that man. He
gives me the creeps.” After a moment: “I didn't know you'd seen so much of him while I was away.”

“I didn't,” I said. To do something with my hands, to give myself a moment of privacy, I stopped and lit a cigarette. I felt her eyes. But she was not suspicious; she was only troubled.

“And who is Giovanni?” she asked, when we started walking again. She gave a little laugh. “I just realized that I haven't even asked you where you were living. Are you living with him?”

“We've been sharing a maid's room out at the end of Paris,” I said.

“Then it wasn't very nice of you,” said Hella, “to go off for so long without any warning.”

“Well, my God,” I said, “he's only my roommate. How was I to know he'd start dragging the river just because I stayed out a couple of nights?”

“Jacques said you left him there without any money, without any cigarettes, or anything, and you didn't even tell him you were going to be with me.”

“There are lots of things I didn't tell Giovanni. But he's never made any kind of scene before—I guess he must be drunk. I'll talk to him later.”

“Are you going to go back there later?”

“Well,” I said, “if I don't go back there later, I'll go on over to the room. I've been meaning to do that anyway.” I grinned. “I have to get shaved.”

Hella sighed. “I didn't mean to get your friends mad at you,” she said. “You ought to go back and have a drink with them. You said you were going to.”

“Well, I may, I may not. I'm not married to them, you know.”

“Well, the fact that you're going to be married to
me
doesn't mean you have to break your word to your friends. It doesn't even mean,” she added, shortly, “that I have to
like
your friends.”

“Hella,” I said, “I am perfectly aware of that.”

We turned off the boulevard, toward her hotel.

“He's very intense, isn't he?” she said. I was staring at the dark mound of the Senate, which ended our dark, slightly uphill street.

“Who is?”

“Giovanni. He's certainly very fond of you.”

“He's Italian,” I said. “Italians are theatrical.”

“Well, this one,” she laughed, “must be special, even in Italy! How long have you been living with him?”

“A couple of months.” I threw away my cigarette. “I ran out of money while you were away—you know, I'm still waiting for money—and I moved in with him because it was cheaper. At that time he had a job and was living with his mistress most of the time.”

“Oh?” she said. “He has a mistress?”

“He had a mistress,” I said. “He also had a job. He's lost both.”

“Poor boy,” she said. “No wonder he looks so lost.”

“He'll be alright,” I said, briefly. We were before her door. She pressed the night bell.

“Is he a very good friend of Jacques?” she asked.

“Perhaps,” I said, “not quite good enough to please Jacques.”

She laughed. “I always feel a cold wind go over me,” she said, “when I find myself in the presence of a man who dislikes women as much as Jacques does.”

“Well, then,” I said, “we'll just keep him away from you. We don't want no cold winds blowing over this girl.” I kissed her on the tip of her nose. At the same moment there was a rumble from deep within the hotel and the door unlocked itself with a small, violent shudder. Hella looked humorously into the blackness. “I always wonder,” she said, “if I
dare
go in.” Then she looked up at me. “Well? Do you want to have a drink upstairs before you go back to join your friends?”

“Sure,” I said. We tiptoed into the hotel, closing the door gently
behind us. My fingers finally found the
minuterie
, and the weak, yellow light spilled over us. A voice, completely unintelligible, shouted out at us and Hella shouted back her name, which she tried to pronounce with a French accent. As we started up the stairs, the light went out and Hella and I began to giggle like two children. We were unable to find the minute-switch on any of the landings—I don't know why we both found this so hilarious, but we did, and we held on to each other, giggling, all the way to Hella's top-floor room.

“Tell me about Giovanni,” she asked, much later, while we lay in bed and watched the black night tease her stiff, white curtains. “He interests me.”

“That's a pretty tactless thing to say at this moment,” I told her. “What the hell do you mean, he interests you?”

“I mean who he is, what he thinks about. How he got that face.”

“What's the matter with his face?”

“Nothing. He's very beautiful, as a matter of fact. But there's something in that face—so old-fashioned.”

“Go to sleep,” I said. “You're babbling.”

“How did you meet him?”

“Oh. In a bar one drunken night, with lots of other people.”

“Was Jacques there?”

“I don't remember. Yes, I guess so. I guess he met Giovanni at the same time I did.”

“What made you go to live with him?”

“I told you. I was broke and he had this room—”

“But that can't have been the
only
reason.”

“Oh, well,” I said, “I liked him.”

“And don't you like him any more?”

“I'm very fond of Giovanni. You didn't see him at his best tonight, but he's a very nice man.” I laughed; covered by the night, emboldened by Hella's body and my own, and protected by the
tone of my voice, I found great relief in adding: “I love him, in a way. I really do.”

“He seems to feel that you have a funny way of showing it.”

“Oh, well,” I said, “these people have another style from us. They're much more demonstrative. I can't help it. I just can't—do all that.”

“Yes,” she said, thoughtfully, “I've noticed that.”

“You've noticed what?”

“Kids here—they think nothing of showing a lot of affection for each other. It's sort of a shock at first. Then you begin to think it's sort of nice.”