Collected Stories

“Because this is a bad time to remind me of the way it might have gone with us? No. You came down to see how I was and what you could do for me.”

“Next time, Ithiel, if there is a next time, you’ll let me check the woman out. You may be big in political analysis… No need to finish that sentence. Besides, my own judgment hasn’t been one hundred percent.”

“If anybody were to ask me, Clara, I’d say that you were a strange case—a woman who hasn’t been corrupted, who has developed a moral logic of her own, worked it out independently by her own solar power and from her own feminine premises. You hear I’ve had a calamity and you come down on the next shuttle. And how few people take this Washington flight for a human purpose. Most everybody comes on business. Some to see the sights, a few because of the pictures at the National Gallery, a good percentage to get laid. How many come because they’re deep?”

He parked his car so that he could walk with her to the gate.

“You’re a dear man,” she said. “We have to look out for each other.”

On the plane, she pulled her seat belt tight in order to control her feelings, and she opened a copy of Vogue, but only to keep her face in it. No magazine now had anything to tell her.

When she got back to Park Avenue, the superintendent’s wife, a Latino lady, was waiting. Mrs. Peralta was there too. Clara had asked the cleaning lady to help Gina entertain (to keep an eye on) her friends. The elevator operator-doorman was with the ladies, a small group under the marquee. The sidewalks of Park Avenue are twice as broad as any others, and the median strip was nicely planted with flowers of the season. When the doorman helped Clara from the yellow cab, the women immediately began to tell her about the huge bash Gina had given. “A real mix of people,” said Mrs. Peralta.

“And the girls?”

“Oh, we were careful with them, kept them away from those East Harlem types. We’re here because Mr. Regler called to say what flight you’d be on.”

“I asked him to do that,” said Clara.

“I don’t think Gina thought so many were coming. Friends, and friends of friends, of her boyfriend, I guess.”

“Boyfriend? Now, who would he be? This is news to me.”

“I asked Marta Elvia to come and see for herself,” said Antonia Peralta. Marta Elvia, the super’s wife, was related somehow to Antonia.

They were taken up in the elevator. Marta Elvia, eight months pregnant and filling up much of the space, was saying what a grungy mob had turned up. It was an open house.

“But tell me, quickly, who is the boyfriend?” said Clara.

The man was described as coming from the West Indies; he was French-speaking, dark-skinned, very good- looking, “arrogant-like,” said Mrs. Peralta.

“And how long has he been coming to the house?”

“Couple of weeks, just.”

When she entered the living room, Clara’s first impression was: So this is what can be done here. It doesn’t have to be the use I put it to. She had limited the drawing room to polite behavior.

The party was mostly over; there were only four or five couples left. As Clara described it, the young women looked gaudy. “The room was more like a car of the West Side subway. Lots of muscle on the boys, as if they did aerobics. And I used to be able to identify the smell of pot, but I’m in the dark, totally, on the new drugs. Crack is completely beyond me; I can’t even say what it is, much less describe how it works and does it have a smell. The whole scene was like a milage to me, how they were haberdashed. Gina’s special friend, Frederic, was a good- looking boy, black, and he did have an attractive French accent. Gina tried to behave as if nothing at all was wrong, and she couldn’t quite swing that. I wasn’t going to fuss at her, though. At the back of the apartment, I had three children sleeping. At a time like this your history books come back to you—how a pioneer woman dealt with an Indian war party when her husband was away. So I put myself out to make time pass pleasantly, toned down the music, ventilated the smoke, and soon the party petered out.”

While Mrs. Peralta was cleaning up, Clara had a talk with Gina Wegman. She said she had imagined a smaller gathering—a few acquaintances, not a random sample of the street population.

“Frederic asked if he could bring some friends.”

Well, Clara was willing to believe that this was simply a European misconception of partying in New York— carefree musical young people, racially mixed, dancing to reggae music. In Vienna, as elsewhere, such pictures of American life were on TV—America as the place where you let yourself go.

“Anyway, I must tell you, Gina, that I can’t allow this kind of thing—like scenes from some lewd dance movie.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Velde.”

“Where did you meet Frederic?”

“Through friends from Austria. They work at the UN.”

“Is that where he works too?”

“I never asked.”

“And do you see a lot of him? You don’t have to answer—I can tell you’re taken with him. You never asked what he does? He’s not a student?”

“It never came up.”

Clara thought, judging by Gina’s looks, that what came up was Gina’s skirt. Clara herself knew all too well how that was. We’ve been through it. What can be more natural in a foreign place than to accept exotic experiences? Otherwise why leave home at all?

Clifford, a convict in Attica, still sent Clara a Christmas card without fail. She hadn’t seen him in twenty-five years. They had no other connection. Frederic, to go by appearances, wouldn’t even have sent a card. Generational differences. Clifford had been a country boy.

We must see to it that it doesn’t end badly, was what Clara told herself. But then we must learn what sort of person Gina is, really, she thought. What makes her tick, and if this is the whole sum of what she wants. I didn’t take her for a little hot-pants type.

“I suppose things are done differently in Vienna,” Clara said. “As to bringing strangers into the house…”

“No. But then you’re personally friendly with the colored lady who works here.”

“Mrs. Peralta is no stranger.”

“She brings her children here at Thanksgiving, and they eat with the girls at the same table.”

“And why not? But yes,” said Clara, “I can see that this is a mixture that might puzzle somebody just over from Europe for the first time. My husband and I are not rashists….” (This was a pronunciation Clara could not alter.) “However, Mrs. Peralta is a trusted member of this household.”

“But Frederic’s friends might steal…?”

“I haven’t accused anyone. You couldn’t vouch for anybody, though. You’ve just met these guests yourself. And haven’t you noticed the security arrangements—the doors, the buzzer system, everybody inspected?”

Gina said, speaking quietly and low, “I noticed, I didn’t apply it to myself.”

Not herself. Gina hadn’t considered Frederic in this light. And she couldn’t al-low him to be viewed with suspicion. Clara gave her a good mark for loyalty. Ten on a scale of ten, she thought, and warmed toward Gina. “It’s not a color question. The corporation I’m in has even divested itself in South Africa.” This was not a strong statement. To Clara, South Africa was about as close as Xanadu. But she said to herself that they were being diverted into absurdities, and what she and Gina were telling each other was only so much fluff. The girl had come to New York to learn about such guys as Frederic, and there wasn’t all that much to learn. This was simply an incident, and not even a good incident. Just a lot of exciting trouble. Then she made a mental note to take all this up with Ithiel and also get his opinion on divestiture.

“Well,” she said, “I’m afraid I’m going to set a limit on the size of the group you can entertain.”

The girl nodded. That made sense. She couldn’t deny it.

No more scolding. And a blend of firmness and concern for the girl. If she were to send her away, the kids would cry. And I’d miss her myself, Clara admitted. So she stood up (mistress terminating a painful interview was how Clara perceived it; she saw that she really had come to depend on certain lady-of-the-house postures). When Gina had gone to her room, Clara ran a check: the Jensen ashtray, the silver letter opener, mantelpiece