The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant (111 page)

“… and so, ipso facto, Polish citizens,” the engraver told M. Wroblewski, over the telephone. “What are they going to do with us? Ship us back to Poland? Are we part of a quota now? At our age, we are better off stateless.” Perhaps it is true. They never travel and do not need passports. Everyone has a place to live, an income of sorts. Two of the three still actually earn money. In a way, they look after one another.

No one has made a move. As the engraver says, when you are dealing with world-level bureaucracy, it is smarter to sit still. By the time you have decided how to react, all the rules may have been changed.

It is true and not true. One can quietly shift a pawn without causing a riot. M. Wroblewski’s attitude runs to lines of defense. Probably, some clerk at the ministry is striking off names in alphabetical order and is nowhere close to the W’s. After several false starts, he has written and mailed a letter to the Quai d’Orsay asking for French citizenship. He might have applied years ago, of course, but in the old days refusal was so consistent that one was discouraged at the outset. By the time he and Magda had their work, their apartment, their precious passports, the last thing they wanted was to fill in another form, stand in another line. He made no mention in the letter of refugees, status, or citizenship—other than French—but drew attention to the number of years he had lived in France, his fluent French, and his admiration for the culture. He spoke of the ancient historical links between Poland and France, touched briefly on the story of Napoleon and Mme. Waleska, and reminded the ministry that he had never been behind with the rent or overdrawn at the bank.

(He sent the letter more than a month ago. So far, there has been no word from the Quai d’Orsay: an excellent sign. One can coast with perfect safety on official silence.)

In the meantime, something new has turned up. About three weeks ago he received a personal letter from the bank, written on a real typewriter, signed with real ink: no booklets, no leaflets, no pictures of a white-haired couple looking the Sphinx in the eye or enjoying Venice. There was just the personal message and one other thing, a certificate. “Certificate” was printed in thick black letters, along with his name, correctly spelled. A Mme. Carole Fournier, of Customers’ Counseling Service, entreated him to sign the certificate, ask for an appointment, and bring it to her desk. (Her own signature seemed to him open and reliable, though still untried by life.) According to Mme. Fournier, and for reasons not made clear, he was among a handful of depositors—aristocrats, in their way—to whom the bank was
proposing a cash credit of fifteen thousand francs. The credit was not a loan, not an overdraft, but a pool into which he could dip, without paying interest, anytime he needed ready money but did not wish to touch his savings. The sums drawn from that fund would be replaced at the rate of two thousand francs a month, transferred from his current account. There was no interest or surcharge: He read that part twice.

For fifteen thousand francs he could fly to Australia, he supposed, or go on a cruise to the Caribbean. He could buy Magda a sumptuous fur coat. He would do none of those things, but the offer was generous and not to be rejected out of hand. He had opened an account with his first salary check in France: Perhaps the bank wanted to show gratitude for years of loyalty. Besides his current account, he possessed two savings accounts. One of these is tax-free, limited by law to a deposit of fifteen thousand francs—by coincidence, the very amount he was being offered. Some people, he supposed, would grab the whole thing and dribble it away on nonsense, then feel downcast and remorseful as they watched their current account dwindle, month after month. The gift was a bright balloon with a long string attached. The string could be passed from hand to hand—to the bank and back. He saw himself holding fast to the string.

Before he had a chance to do anything about it, he had a dizzy spell in the street and had to enter a private art gallery and ask to sit down. (They were not very nice about it. There was only one chair, occupied by a lady addressing envelopes.) His doctor ordered him to take a week’s rest, preferably miles away from home. The preparation that was required—finding someone to sleep at the flat, two other people to come in during the afternoons and on the weekend—was more wearing than just keeping on; but he obeyed, left nothing undone, turned Hector over to the concierge, and caught the train for Saint-Malo. Years before, in an era of slow trains and chilly hotels, he had taken some of his students there. Uncomplaining, they ate dry sandwiches and apples and pitched the apple cores from the ramparts. This time he was alone in a wet season. Under a streaming umbrella he walked the ramparts again and when the sky cleared visited Chateaubriand’s grave; and from the edge of the grave took the measure of the ocean. He had led his students here, too, and told them everything about Chateaubriand (everything they could take in) but did not say that Sartre had urinated on the grave. It might have made them laugh.

He left the grave and the sea and started back to the walled city. He thought of other violations and of the filth that can wash over quiet lives. In
the dark afternoon the lighted windows seemed exclusive, like careless snubs. He would write to his friend, “I wondered what I was doing there, looking at other people’s windows, when I have a home of my own.” The next day he changed his train reservation and returned to Paris before the week was up.

Magda recognized him but did not know he had been away. She asked if he had been disturbed by the neighbor who played Schubert on the piano all night long. (Perhaps the musician existed, he sometimes thought, and only Magda could hear him.) “You must tell him to stop,” she said. He promised he would.

Mme. Carole Fournier, Customers’ Counseling Service, turned out to be an attractive young woman, perhaps a bit thin in the face. Her hollow cheeks gave her a birdlike appearance, but when she turned to the computer screen beside her desk her profile reminded him of an actress, Elzbieta Barszczewska. When Barszczewska died, in her white wedding dress, at the end of a film called
The Leper
, the whole of Warsaw went into mourning. Compared with Barszczewska, Pola Negri was nothing.

The plastic rims of Mme. Fournier’s glasses matched the two red combs in her hair. Her office was a white cubicle with a large window and no door. Her computer, like all those he had noticed in the bank, had a screen of azure. It suggested the infinite. On its cerulean surface he could read, without straining, facts about himself: his date of birth, for one. Between white lateral blinds at the window he observed a bakery and the post office where he bought stamps and sent letters. Hector, tied to a metal bar among chained and padlocked bikes, was just out of sight. Had the window been open, one might have heard his plaintive barking. M. Wroblewski wanted to get up and make sure the dog had not been kidnapped, but it would have meant interrupting the charming Mme. Fournier.

She glanced once more at the blue screen, then came back to a four-page questionnaire on her desk. He had expected a welcome. So far, it had been an interrogation. “I am sorry,” she said. “It’s my job. I have to ask you this. Are you sixty-six or over?”

“I am flattered to think there could be any doubt in your mind,” he began. She seemed so young; his voice held a note of teasing. She could have been a grandchild, if generations ran as statistics want them to. He might have sent her picture to his friend in Warsaw: red combs, small hands, zodiac (Gemini) medallion on a chain. Across the street a boy came out of the
bakery carrying several long loaves, perhaps for a restaurant. She waited. How long had she been waiting? She held a pen poised over the questionnaire.

“I celebrated my sixty-sixth birthday on the day General de Gaulle died,” he said. “I do not mean that I celebrated the death of that amazing man. It made me very sorry. I was at the theater, with my wife. The play was
Ondine
, with Isabelle Adjani. It was her first important part. She must have been seventeen. She was the toast of Paris. Lovely. A nymph. After the curtain
calls
, the director of the theater walked on, turned to the audience, and said the President was dead.” She seemed still to be waiting. He continued, “The audience gasped. We filed out without speaking. My wife finally said, ‘The poor man. And how sad, on your birthday.’ I said, ‘It is history.’ We walked home in the rain. In those days one could walk in the street after midnight. There was no danger.”

Her face had reflected understanding only at the mention of Isabelle Adjani. He felt bound to add, “I think I’ve made a mistake. It was not President de Gaulle after all. It was President Georges Pompidou whose death was announced in all the theaters of Paris. I am not sure about Adjani. My wife always kept theater programs. I could look it up, if it interests you.”

“It’s about your being sixty-six or over,” she said. “You’ll have to take out a special insurance policy. It’s to protect the bank, you see. It doesn’t cost much.”

“I am insured.”

“I know. This is for the bank.” She turned the questionnaire around so that he could read a boxed query: “Do you take medication on a daily basis?”

“Everyone my age takes something.”

“Excuse me. I have to ask. Are you seriously ill?”

“A chronic complaint. Nothing dangerous.” He put his hand over his heart.

She picked up the questionnaire, excused herself once more, and left him. On the screen he read the numbers of his three accounts, and the date when each had been opened. He remembered Hector, stood up, but before he could get to the window Mme. Fournier was back.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I am sorry it is taking so long. Please sit down. I have to ask you another thing.”

“I was trying to see my dog.”

“About your chronic illness. Could you die suddenly?”

“I hope not.”

“I’ve spoken to M. Giroud. You will need to have a medical examination. No, not by your own doctor,” forestalling him. “A doctor from the insurance firm. It isn’t for the bank. It is for them—the insurance.” She was older than he had guessed. Embarrassment and its disguises tightened her face, put her at about thirty-five. The youthful signature was a decoy. “M. Wroblewski,” she said, making a good stab at the consonants, “is it worth all this, for fifteen thousand francs? We would authorize an overdraft, if you needed one. But, of course, there would be interest to pay.”

“I wanted the fund for the very reason you have just mentioned—in case I die suddenly. When I die, my accounts will be frozen, won’t they? I’d like some cash for my wife. I thought I could make my doctor responsible. He could sign—anything. My wife is too ill to handle funeral arrangements, or to pay the people looking after her. It will take time before the will is settled.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m truly sorry. It is not an account. It is a cash reserve. If you die, it ceases to exist.”

“A reserve of cash, in my name, held by a bank, is an account,” he said. “I would never use or touch it in my lifetime.”

“It isn’t your money,” she said. “Not in the way you think. I’m sorry. Excuse me. The letter should never have been sent to you.”

“The bank knows my age. It is there, on the screen.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I don’t send these things out.”

“But you sign them?”

“I don’t send them out.”

They shook hands. He adjusted his hat at a jaunty angle. Everything he had on that day looked new, even the silk ascot, gray with a small pattern of yellow, bought by Magda at Arnys, on the Rue de Sèvres—oh, fifteen years before. Nothing was frayed or faded. He never seemed to wear anything out. His nails were clipped, his hands unstained. He still smoked three Craven A a day, but had refrained in the presence of Mme. Fournier, having seen no ashtray on her desk. There had been nothing on it, actually, except the questionnaire. He ought to have brought her some chocolates; it troubled him to have overlooked a civility. He held nothing against her. She seemed competent, considerate in her conduct.

“Your accounts are in fine shape,” she said. “That must be something off your mind. We could allow … At any rate, come back and see me if you have a problem.”

“My problem is my own death,” he said, smiling.

“You mustn’t think such things.” She touched her talisman, Gemini, as if it really could allow her a double life: one with vexations and one without. “Please excuse us. M. Giroud is sorry. So am I.”

After the business about the letter and the Prussia question this morning, Magda was quiet. He let her finish her tea (she forgets she is holding a cup) and tried to draw her into conversation about the view from the window.

She said, “The neighbor is still playing Schubert all night. It keeps me awake. It is sad when he stops.”

Their neighbors are a couple who go out to work. They turn off the television at ten and there is no further sound until half past six in the morning, when they listen to the news. At a quarter to eight they lock their front door and ring for the elevator, and the apartment is quiet again until suppertime. No one plays Schubert.

He picked up the tray. When he reached the doorway she said in a friendly, even voice, “The piano kept me awake.”

“I know,” he said. “The man playing Schubert.”

“What man? Men can’t play anything.”

“A woman? Someone you know?”

He stood still, waiting. He said to his friend, If I get an answer, it means she is cured. But she will burrow under the blankets and pillows until Marie-Louise arrives. Once Marie-Louise is here, I will go out and meet you, or the thought of you, which never quits me now. I will read the news and you can tell me what it means. We will look at those mirrored walls across the boulevard and judge the day by colors: pale gold, gray, white, and blue. A sheet of black glass means nothing: It is not a cloud or the sky. Let me explain. Give me time. From that distance, the dark has no power. It has no life of its own. It is a reflection.

Today I shall bring a pad of writing paper and a stamped, addressed envelope. You can think of me, at a table behind the window. (It is getting a bit cold for the street.) I have a young dog. As you can see, I am still boringly optimistic. Magda is well. This morning we talked about Schubert. I regret that your health is bad and you are unable to travel. Otherwise you could come here and we would rent a car and drive somewhere—you, Magda, the dog, and I. I am sorry about the radio talk and its effect on some low people. There are distorted minds here, too—you would not believe what goes on. Someone said, “Hitler lives!” at a meeting—so I am told. I
suppose the police can’t be everywhere. Please take good care of yourself. Your letters are precious to me. We have so many memories. Do you remember
The Leper
, and the scene where she dies at her own wedding? She was much more beautiful than Garbo or Dietrich—don’t you think? I wish I had more to tell you, but my life is like the purring of a cat. If I were to describe it, it would put you to sleep. I may have more to tell you tomorrow. In the meantime, I send you God’s favor.