“That's fine,” Kurt said. “I'm all for forgetting it. So come along and let's go on down to Irving's. Come on. To show me you aren't angry.”
“All right,” Elizabeth said, and felt deep chagrin because she wasn't as happy and excited at the prospect as she ought to be. “I'll have to change.”
“Hurry, then, because I'll be right over for you,” Kurt said.
She dressed carefully in a red cotton skirt and white blouse, brushed her hair, and put on fresh lipstick. Then she changed out of her sneakers and put on a pair of thonged sandals that Jane had bought and couldn't wear.
“You look lovely, Liebchen,” Kurt told her when he arrived.
As they started down the steps of the Cottage they met Marian Hatfield. “Hi, Liz,” she said. “I'm glad I bumped into you. I've got a couple of hours before Miss Andersen needs me again and I came over to get a book. Haven't you got Bradley's
Shakespearean Tragedy
?”
“Yes. It's upstairs.”
“May I borrow it? I thought I'd like to look up
Macbeth
.”
“Sure. It's in the bottom drawer of my bureau at the tidy end of the room.”
“Thanks.” Marian started in, then turned back with a grin. “I bet you wish I'd fall down the stairs and break a leg.”
Elizabeth laughed. “No. I wish no pox upon you, as Ben would say. I wouldn't want to get the Gentlewoman that way. But I don't think I'd feel much pain if Dottie came down with acute laryngitis.”
Marian laughed and went on into the Cottage.
Walking down the boardwalk with Kurt was very different from walking with Ben. With Ben she felt completely relaxed, and as carefree as a child. With Kurt she walked much more
carefully, trying not to stride, and feeling very much a woman.
“God, it's hot,” Kurt said.
“Ben says it's going to storm tonight.”
“Just for fun,” Kurt suggested, “let's not talk about Ben tonight. He's caused enough trouble between us already.”
Elizabeth looked at him in surprise. “Okay.”
“Let's have this evening be just you and me. I'm going to miss you after next week.”
“I'm going to miss you, too, Kurt.”
Kurt put his hand up to his sleek dark head and smoothed his hair down in a characteristic gesture. “I've never met anybody like you before in my life, Elizabeth.”
“Neither have I. Met anybody like you, I mean.”
Kurt took her hand and tucked it under his arm. “You'd never met anybody like most of the people around here, had you, dearheart? It must seem rather strange after nothing but college and that townâwhat is it?âJordan, Virginia. But I've rubbed shoulders with people all over Europe and America and you're still an enigma to me.”
“An enigma? Why, Kurt?”
“I can't figure you out.”
“I don't think there's much to figure out,” Elizabeth said. “I'm pretty simple, really.”
“That's what you think,” Kurt said with an odd inflection from his lips.
“But I am. I never keep anything hidden inside me. Sometimes I wish I could, but I never can. I can't ever hide my feelings. People always know whether I'm angry or upset. It's awful!”
“That's not all of you by any manner of means.” Kurt reached up and gave her fingers a little squeeze. “You know, Liebchen, sometimes you're just like a pussycat, all cuddly and affectionate, and other times you're like a clam, all shut up in a hard little impenetrable shell. Which is you? Which is the real Elizabeth?”
“Both, I expect,” Elizabeth said, rather shortly because she remembered Ben saying that her mother had been like a kitten.
Kurt raised his eyebrows mock-tragically. “Now what have I said?”
Elizabeth laughed in apology. “Nothing. I don't mean to be snappy.”
“A kitten and a clam and a snapping turtle. Quite a small zoo, aren't you, my little one? What animal do I remind you of?”
Elizabeth pondered for a while as they walked. The air was heavy and lifeless. “I don't think you really remind me of any animal particularly, Kurt. Perhaps a black panther more than anything else.”
He gave a small pleased laugh. “As long as you don't say a snake in the grass or a wolf.” He laughed again, and they turned off the boardwalk to go into Irving's. Irving's was the first nightclub to which Elizabeth had ever been; it was a low white building with a striped awning, a uniformed doorman, and potted trees on either side of the door. The neon sign flashed on and off, blinding the night, and a gush of stale cold air blew out at them.
“One reason I wanted to come to Irving's tonight is that it's air-conditioned,” Kurt said, holding Elizabeth firmly by one elbow and guiding her in.
The ceiling of Irving's was covered with blue mirrors, and the people moving on the crowded dance floor were reflected in a strange, inverted pattern. The dim blue light turned their tans to an unhealthy pallor; most of the faces, relaxed in the abandonment of dancing, looked cadaverous, or bloated, like drowned creatures floating through blue water. The headwaiter led Kurt and Elizabeth to a small table against the wall. He pulled it out and Elizabeth slipped in, sitting on the blue leather couch. Kurt sat beside her.
“What'll it be?” he asked her.
“Coke, I guess.”
“Oh, come now. Why not a drink?”
She shook her head, smiling, but firm. “Nope. Thanks. I had a drink at the Tavern once to celebrate a play at college and it gave me a horrible headache and made me act silly. Anyhow I'm under twenty-one.”
“Oh,” Kurt said, disappointed. “And I was counting on your getting just a tiny bit tight tonight.”
“I can get drunk without drinking,” Elizabeth said. “Ben says I'm a dipsomaniac about excitement.”
“I thought we weren't going to talk about Ben. Just Elizabeth and Kurt. Yes?”
“Yes, Kurt.” She was pleased and touched, and she felt that Kurt was making an effort to be sweet and gentle to make up for what he had said that afternoon. She thought of explaining to him that Ben was the one person to whom she could talk about her mother, but decided against it.
“Want anything to eat?” Kurt asked her. “Salad? Club sandwich?”
“Not yet, thanks. Supper isn't halfway down me yet.”
“Later, maybe?”
“Maybe.”
Kurt gave the order. “One Coca-Cola and one scotch and soda.”
Elizabeth looked around at the people, thinking that perhaps she might see Bibi or one of the other apprentices, but there were no familiar faces. The small orchestra, composed of excruciatingly suntanned men with white teeth that flashed like neon lights, blared out a samba. It was so loud that it almost completely washed out all conversation, though occasionally a voice could be heard bellowing above it.
“Want to dance?” Kurt asked her.
Elizabeth hesitated. “Oh, KurtâI'm not a very good dancer. I've never had much practice.”
“Well, let us practice a bit now, then.”
“The floor's terribly crowdedâand I'll step all over your feet and dirty your beautiful clean white shoes.”
“I'll risk it. And you should not act unsure of yourself, Elizabeth.” Kurt stood up, and she had to rise, too. He guided her out onto the dance floor. “Now just relax, Liebchen, and you'll be all right.”
In Jane's sandals she was just about the same height as Kurt. He held her tightly, and she could feel his body very close to hers. His legs pressed against her legs and guided her; it was impossible not to follow him.
“You're the most beautiful dancer, Kurtâ” she told him breathlessly.
“I like to dance,” he said, leading her skillfully through the intricate steps. “It's an art most American men sadly neglect. This bobbing around you see all about you certainly cannot be called dancing. You're doing very well, dearheart. Just try not to be so stiff. I feel as though I were holding a ramrod. Relax!”
“I'm trying to relax,” Elizabeth gasped.
“Don't try so hard, then; that's part of your trouble. Just try to forget that you're dancing.”
“Then I'll step on your feet.”
“No you won't. I'll see to that. Try closing your eyes.”
She closed her eyes and immediately became doubly conscious of Kurt's supple body pressed against hers and guiding it. She opened her eyes quickly and looked at the blue faces swirling about her. “Do I look as blue as everybody else?”
“I expect so. Do I?”
“On you it looks good, as Ben would say. Oops, sorry.”
In spite of the air-conditioning the dancing made Elizabeth warm. She still did not feel comfortable dancing with Kurt, and she was glad when the music stopped and they went back to the table where their drinks were waiting. If she had been dancing with Ben, she wouldn't have been embarrassed, she thought. She would have apologized if she'd stepped on his feet but it wouldn't have been a matter of grave importance; whereas she writhed at the thought of Kurt having found her clumsy.
“I was terrible. I'm sorry,” she said.
“You weren't terrible at all. And one very good thing was something you
didn't
do.”
“What was that?”
“You didn't try to lead me. You let me lead you.” He raised his glass. “Here's to you, my dear.”
She lifted her Coca-Cola and touched her glass to his. “And to you.”
“It's nice here, just the two of us, isn't it?”
“Yes, Kurt.”
“Nobody from the company, none of the apprentices, no theatre, just Kurt and Elizabeth ⦔
The orchestra was leaving, and in a moment the dim lights were lowered even further and a pair of duo pianists was announced. Two white pianos on a platform were rolled out onto the dance floor and lighted with a green spot which contrasted strangely with the blue mirrors. The pianists, two young men, came out, bowed quietly, and started to play. They plunged into a malaguena and their fingers flew over the keyboards in perfect coordination; it seemed incredible that the music coming in such complete harmony of purpose from the pianos was being made by two separate entities.
“Those boys can play,” Kurt said. He beckoned to the waiter and ordered another drink for himself and another Coca-Cola for Elizabeth.
“That's what real ensemble playing on the stage should be,” Elizabeth said. “That's the way you have to do Chekhov.”
“Elizabeth and Chekhov.” Kurt smiled affectionately. “No. Too many implications for me. Your
Seagull
. What does it mean? Symbols within symbolsâ”
Elizabeth shook her head. “You're trying to make it too complicated, Kurt.”
“Am I?”
“Sure. I don't think he's trying to be highly symbolical and I don't think the play's any more symbolical than â¦
Hamlet
, or ⦠or
Winnie-the-Pooh
.”
Kurt laughed.
“But I mean it,” Elizabeth protested. “Chekhov's people are complete four-dimensional people and should be taken as such. They aren't Maeterlinck symbols. As for the seagull itself, it seems to me it stands only for beauty carelessly destroyed. It means more to Nina
personally
, in her grief, than it did to Chekhov or needs to mean to the audience.”
Kurt shook his head. “Elizabeth, are you sure you know what you are talking about?”
The pianists were replaced by a young woman in a scanty tangerine gown who swooned over the microphone and sang in a nasal, whining voice. Elizabeth listened to her for a moment with distaste, then turned back to Kurt and said, “It seems to me that one of the reasons that Chekhov's plays confuse the audience is that theyâthe people in the audience, I meanâare used either to the typical comedy or problem play where they find nothing but types, or the Shavian sort of play where each character stands for one aspect of the author's argument. Chekhov simply wrote about people, and his characters are consistent with the terrible inconsistency of people. Sometimes the ones who go around saying how clear everything is are the most confused. Or they laugh when they're sad or cry when they're happy. If you live with a Chekhov play, if you really work with it, if you look at it simply, like a child, you'll find that there is nothing confusing in the playâit's as simple
as lifeâbut, on the other hand, that's the most confusing thing in the world ⦠If Chekhov's plays must be cataloged, âprophetic' is certainly a better word than symbolic.”
Kurt laughed again. “Oh, Elizabeth, Elizabeth, anybody would know your father was an English teacher.”