Morning Is a Long Time Coming (16 page)

Every so often, I would glance at him with his thin animated face and his lips slightly fuller and more intimate than
lips have any right to be. His white dress shirt was extraordinarily soft and it looked as though it had remained frayless through countless washings only because of the skill and dedication of his washing lady. His tie was a plaid of woven wool and I just knew that it had been selected as much for its durability as for its no-nonsense good looks.

Overhead thousands of birds as undisciplined as fleeing civilians winged their way south across the dismal Paris sky. I asked Roger if they knew what they were doing since there was obviously no place better to be than this place.

He answered something which made me laugh. I would have remembered what it was except that at the moment of laughter, I caught a reflection in the polished brass of a hotel sign and I thought—thought that couldn’t possibly be me strolling with the handsome photographer because the lady whose reflection I had caught was really quite beautiful.

“This is the Hotel George Cinq,” he said proprietorially, as he led me inside into a world of dazzling icelike chandeliers and rugs so vibrant that they just might stand for the next one hundred years as a tribute to the weaver’s art. “It’s known the world over as one of the world’s greatest hotels and a favorite habitat of the rich, the royal, and the military.”

We found an unoccupied damask-covered sofa that Roger claimed would offer one of the finest views in Paris of “the pampered life. The columnist, Paul Robec, writing in
Le Monde,
stated that our average general spends more time in the public rooms of this hotel than they do on the battle sites of
Indochine.”

“What are they fighting about there in ...” I hesitated only long enough to silently run through that unfamiliar word,
“Indochine?”

Roger looked at me as though he couldn’t believe that anybody full grown wouldn’t know. “Oh, about the same thing that little boys and generals generally fight about: power, glory, and who gets control of the toys.”

His comments scared me. They sounded so communistic ... really unrealistic. I mean, you’d never hear my father or anybody else in Arkansas ridicule our generals. We’re more patriotic than that! Of course, our farmers think there’s nothing wrong with poking a little fun at Secretary of Agriculture Brannan and almost everybody, truth-to-tell, has something to say about President Truman and his daughter who thinks she’s an opera singer. But then again, nobody that I know from back home would any more say a word against General MacArthur than they would against the Virgin Birth.

“Roger,” I asked, already skeptical that a Jenkinsville defense is ever equal to a Parisian offense, “do you honest-to-goodness really believe that grown men—soldiers who know what bleeding and dying is all about—would go to war for so trivial a reason?”

“Absolutely!” answered a cheerful Roger just as though I had asked him the one thing in this world of which he was certain.

Then almost from out-of-nowhere appeared a man wearing the electric blue uniform of L’ Hotel George V. He bent formally from the waist. “Puis-je vous aider, monsieur?”

Roger turned toward him and, with a benevolence that I wasn’t sure I trusted, began speaking with a torrential river of words. I wondered if even the hotel man understood French well enough to make the word separations necessary for comprehension, but apparently he did, for he nodded
his head and then with great and knowing dignity backed away.

I asked, “Well, what was all that about?”

“A hotel porter undoubtedly sent over to discreetly learn if we belong here. The management has always believed that people, like the unwashed masses that they are, would descend upon these plush premises like starving swine, unless they keep a very wary eye.”

“And you don’t believe that we hungry hogs would?”

Roger smiled. He was almost rakishly handsome when he smiled. “On the contrary, I’m certain that we would.”

“Well, what did you tell him? Did he ask us to leave?”

“Certainly not! Ask the daughter of the American Ambassador to the republic of France and her gallant and faithful tutor, Monsieur Roger David Auberon, to leave the George Cinq? Unthinkable!”

“The WHO? The what? Now, Roger.” I tried laughing. “I know that you didn’t tell him that I was ...”

“The daughter of the American Ambassador,” filled in Roger while touching my knee and indicating by an elaborate roll of his eyes that somebody was approaching from the left and that now was no time, absolutely no time to talk.

From the formality of his clothes, I thought he must surely be a world-renowned concert pianist just returning from a triumphant standing-room-only performance at the Paris Opera House, but his manner spoke more of the servant
extraordinaire
than it did of the artist
extraordinaire.
He bowed low and ceremoniously to me and then spoke to Roger as an important equal.

Roger again appeared benevolent toward this new, and obviously more highly ranked representative of the hotel,
while they spoke with still another swift current of seemingly non-understandable and apparently non-exhaustible words.

On taking his leave, the elegant one bowed toward me, nodded briefly at Roger, and moved toward a destination that appeared at the same time precise and unalterable.

I was afraid even to look in “my tutor’s” direction for fear of showing my anger or ... or, God help me, my amusement. A word that my parents sometimes use came to mind.
Chutzpa.
That word, I remember, was used constantly over a recent incident involving Edna Louise Jackson’s mother and her long overdue bill.

Mrs. Jackson told my mother in no uncertain terms that she was “right upset” that it should even be mentioned. “After all,” she concluded with an inflamed sense of self-righteousness, “my husband is the biggest landowner in Rice County and you know that sooner or later you’ll be getting your money.”

But the more I thought about it, the less the situation seemed similar. Mrs. J. G. Jackson is no Monsieur R. D. Auberon. He leaned toward me. “You would like a little sweet vermouth with a peel of lemon, yes?”

“Would I like a little sweet vermouth? I don’t know. I guess so, but I’ve never drunk it. Why?”

“Oh, I thought it would be more to your taste. Personally, I prefer something a little drier, however ...”

“However what? That’s not what all that conversation was about. Ordering sweet vermouth?”

He nodded. “It was very important to the hotel management that the right drink be chosen, for they wish to offer, with their compliments, something especially pleasing to the
daughter of the new American Ambassador. They referred to it as a small expression of their boundless esteem.”

“But, Roger, you told them no. No thank you.”

He shook his head in the negative. “No, I don’t remember telling them that.”

“Now this isn’t one bit funny! We could get into trouble.”

“With whom?”

“The police! The government! Who knows?”

“Yes? And for what violation? Drinking vermouth under false pretenses?”

“Yes, that and being an impostor!”

He laughed a deep full-voiced laugh just as though I was speaking the most incredible kind of nonsense. I wished he’d stop that laughing or that I could come inside the laughter too, but I was too nervous about the possible implications of our deception for that. What I should do is to get up and run like hell out of there! But I didn’t want to ... not without him.

Then the waiters came. There were two of them. One presented the vermouth with a flourish while the other brought forth a standing silver urn with chipped ice inside surrounding a smaller dish filled with what looked like—honest-to-God—it looked like a crystal dish filled with very small black beads.

I kept my eyes from Roger. I really didn’t know what to do. Why, I hadn’t even got around to knowing what to think. In America, people go to jail for all manner of things. I wondered what the French would have in mind for those who impersonate ambassadors’ daughters.

Roger placed a long-stemmed glass filled with the vermouth in my hand. The next thing I recall was him refilling
it. What happened to the first glass? I took another long drink. It did have a familiar fruity taste and, surprisingly, it wasn’t all that bad. No, sir, it wasn’t bad at all.

I closed my eyes while feeling a delightful warmth chase the last of my chill, the last of my transatlantic fear from my body. I took another long, thoughtful drink. I felt as though I had just invented health and well-being. Everything was getting so lovely ... so beautiful.

Suddenly I gave old Roger a rabbit punch to the forearm. “Two things I have to tell you. Number one. I think you’re a very great and amazing fellow and number two: I think you’re wonderful to look at and number three ... what was number three?”

Then pointing out my empty glass to dear Roger David Auberon, I said, “I remember! This vermouth is number three.” I heard myself breaking out into giggles. “Because it really warms up ye little cockles of me heart,” I said before leaning my head back to laugh with unrestrained abandon at my absolutely extraordinary sense of humor.

19

W
HEN
I
OPENED
my eyes, I wondered how I got here and where in God’s name was here, anyway? Right off, I was aware of music, “Scheherezade,” getting the full symphonic treatment. Without rising from the narrow bed, I found its source, a battered, brown radio which sat on a do-it-yourself brick and plank bookcase and also served a secondary function as a bookend to a large and carefully arranged collection of books.

This room was special. I liked the way the ceiling conformed to the pitch of the roof. The way the oversized black-and-white mounted photographs gave drama to the white-washed walls. I closed my eyes and I felt that explicit feeling of physical comfort that comes to me only when I have been freshly released from sickness.

This music, this room, this comfort. Everything was going to be okay. I stood up, letting the momentary dizziness pass before tucking in my blouse and digging deep into my purse for comb and lipstick.

Would you believe, Mother, that I’m doing this on my own? Without once having to listen to you say, “Go
verputz
yourself.” But I don’t want to think about you. To be honest, I had thought that by putting all this geography between us I’d have traveled far enough and fast enough to be free of both you and him. I know there’s been enough distance all right, but maybe not yet enough time. That had to be it! Not yet enough time.

Before going back to my hotel, I’d have to stop at some restaurant for a really decent meal and a couple of cups of that ole sock-it-to-your-senses French coffee. Then I’d be able to figure it all out. How and why I got here.

But even now, I remember Roger and the beautiful reflection that I had made (however fleetingly) in the highly polished brass of a hotel sign. And I remembered too the Ambassador’s daughter ... that drunk-as-a-coot daughter of the American Ambassador!

From outside the room, I heard the staccato sound of footsteps climbing with quick rhythm up uncarpeted wooden steps. Then the footsteps stopped, the knob turned, the door opened, and Monsieur Roger David Auberon, wearing a
smile and carrying what seemed to be France’s symbol of the housewife, the heavy-duty oilcloth shopping bag, entered the room.

“You’re feeling better,” he said, making it not so much a question as a pronouncement.

I wondered if there was any way for any answer of mine to be non-superfluous. I couldn’t think of any. “Yes, thanks. I hope I wasn’t any ... much trouble.”

When he didn’t immediately respond, I asked, “Well ... was I?”

“Don’t you remember anything?”

“Well,” I said, actually beginning to wish for sudden and total amnesia, “I do remember getting a little high on sweet vermouth and telling jokes and—oh, God, I can’t tell jokes! I never tell jokes. But I did tell them, didn’t I? At least, I think I remember laughing like crazy at everything I said.”

“That’s true. And you remember nothing else?”

Was there something else to remember? I guess I would know if I splattered his shoes (never mind his lap!) with vomit, wouldn’t I?

“You passed out,” announced Roger. “After only three glasses of Cinzano. Then the hotel manager rushed over to practically insist upon informing Ambassador David Bruce at the American Embassy.”

“Oh, my God, no! You didn’t let him do it. I mean he didn’t actually do it. Did he?”

“Well, no, he lost interest in placing the call after I admitted that you were under age and that the Ambassador abstained from alcohol.”

I snapped my fingers. “How did you think of that?” I asked, snapping my fingers again.

“Mother’s invention.”

“Mother’s invention?”

“You Americans are always saying something like that when it becomes necessary for you to do something that you have never done before.”

I laughed. “Do you mean: Necessity is the mother of invention?”

“Exactly,” said Roger, whose smile outshone my own. “Didn’t you ever drink before?”

Didn’t I ever drink before? What a question! During the eight-day crossing, didn’t I have several chilled mugs of dark Dutch beer? And what about Grandmother’s Passover dinners where long-stemmed wine glasses made purple by the addition of Mogen David’s sweet concord grape waited for me on a hand-embroidered cloth that came all the way from Madeira. “Well, of course, I have,” I told him, but when his look of skepticism didn’t change, I modified, “on lots of very special occasions.”

Roger now seemed more intent upon removing the contents of his shopping bag of assorted bulges than in giving a response. On a round oak table, he placed a newspaper vertically folded like a triptych, a long unwrapped loaf of crusty bread, some kind of shellfish which definitely wasn’t lobster, a single lemon, a bunch of greens, a stick of butter, a conical-shaped bag fashioned from yesterday’s newspaper which contained fat brown mushrooms, a pie-shaped wedge of flabby cheese, two oranges, two pears, and four eggs.