A Citizen of the Country Read online

  “But what shall we do?” Necrosar hissed, producing a round object marked BOMB.

  “Who is that new person?” Perdita whispered.

  “I’m afraid it’s me, my dear.” This was worse than the time when André had let loose live bats. This was worse than André’s Hamlet.

  “Why, do what your friends do when they’re troubled,” the actor said, turning to the audience. “Go to Jouvet! We’ll solve your difficulties,” the actor laid a finger to his lips, “and never tell a soul.”

  Reisden buried his head in his hands.

  “Come, friends, let’s sing.” Onstage, all the “corpses” stirred, sat up, rose.

  Whenever your sanity wanders away,

  Instead of to murder, just turn to Jouvet!

  Trust your mind to them,

  They’ll be your kindly friend,

  Jou-Jou-Jou-vet…

  I will kill André, Reisden thought. Kill him, mince him, and serve him at a picnic. He’ll love it. The ghostly Necro spotlight shone into their box.

  “Take a bow, Alexander Reisden of Jouvet Medical Analyses! Three cheers for Jouvet!”

  I will not bow, Reisden thought, I will be d—d if I do; but of course he did, and smiled and waved.

  “And now,” Necrosar said to the audience as the lights dimmed, “we’ll give you something to test your sanity.”

  “Shall we leave?” Reisden whispered to Perdita.

  How not to cure the fear of death

  “DID I READ RIGHT what André was saying?” Reisden asked Philippe Katzmann.

  “I hear you were the star of the evening.”

  “Oh G-d, don’t listen.”

  Reisden had called Katzmann into his office. Katzmann was Jouvet’s consulting Freudian, balding, with a wild fringe of black hair. In imitation of the Master he smoked cigars, and as he spoke he flourished one and scattered burning ashes.

  “André has family issues,” Katzmann said. He pinched a burning fragment of tobacco off the chair-arm. “The two halves of himself are fighting each other.”

  “Jules and Necrosar,” Reisden agreed.

  “The regretful family man and the horror in charge. The issue is sexuality. Potency. The knife.”

  “Isn’t it always with you Freudians.”

  “Isn’t it always with us humans.” Katzmann brushed cigar ashes off his ample vest. “How will André fix his issues? He calls on you to fix it. He trusts his mind to you because you’re his kindly friend. You did catch the ambiguity in that? You’re his Kindly One. His Fury. He’s also afraid you’ll destroy him.”

  “Aren’t you being too clever?”

  “No, no, no,” Katzmann waved his cigar in a shower of sparks. “Necrosar knows about the Furies. They protect him. But he wants to be saved from them.”

  Reisden considered this.

  “What do you know about his background?” Katzmann asked. “The family background?”

  “André says his mother poisoned his father and herself.”

  “True?”

  “You know André. He has the bottle she used in his office. Rat poison. But they died of cholera.”

  “Similar symptoms. Tell me the story he tells.”

  Reisden leaned back and tented his fingers, remembering André’s long-ago stories. “The Montforts were poor after the war, though I suppose that’s changed since André married the heiress. André’s father was in the Army until 1871; then he resigned and came back to Montfort to try to make a living. In the country the local seigneur is supposed to pay for the village doctor, but André’s father had no money so he doubled as the doctor himself. He took André to deathbeds to cure him of the fear of death.”

  “Oh, charming.”

  “Quite. Instead of being merely unafraid, André became fascinated.”

  “What parents do to their children.” Katzmann knocked the ash off his cigar. “And then?”

  “No then. I don’t know the rest of the story.”

  “You could find out?”

  “He’d probably act it out for me.”

  “The patient deals in secrets,” Katzmann said. “This patient is an artist, a dramatist. He’s showing you a play through gauze. On the scrim, the patient paints the picture he wants you to see, big and colorful and dramatic, and shines a light on it so that the picture bounces back into your eyes. Rat poison! Mysteries! You must look hard, move the light, to see through the fabric to the real drama behind.”

  “And the real drama is the one he staged last night?”

  “Where you’re the kindly, ambiguous friend, yes, I think so. He wants you to save him from the murder that destroys the harmony of family life. Get him to come to Jouvet and give him to me. We’ll get him on the talking cure.”

  “He’ll just tell you stories. Because he’s good at that.”

  “He can tell stories, as long as they’re about his parents’ deaths. Freud says the patient can be cured and his sickness can disappear, immediately and forever, ‘when we succeed in bringing clearly to light the memory of the event by which it was first provoked.’ The patient must describe the event, in all its details, just as it happened to him, with the emotions that it provoked then. If the patient was frightened then, he must be frightened again and describe it, he must banish the experience by putting it into words.”

  “In a play?”

  “No, no, have André talk, not Necrosar. Rather than think of their deaths, your friend hides behind Necrosar and murder. Every patient resists going back to the traumatic episode, because it’s so painful for him, and the resistance feeds his sickness.— Do you know the first thing they say after you’ve spent months, years, trying to get them to describe what happened, and they’ve finally done it?” Katzmann chuckled and flourished his cigar. “The very next thing they say, invariable: ‘I could have told you that anytime.’”

  I am Richard Knight, who murdered his grandfather. I could tell you that anytime. No. Imagine describing it. Imagine experiencing it twice.

  “Get him talking,” Katzmann suggested. “André. Not Necrosar. Spend time with him. You’re a newly married man. Talk with him about his marriage. The inevitable adjustments, the thoughts it brings up.” Katzmann pointed a stubby finger. “He’s waiting to have you save him.”

  Reisden shook his head. “I’m just the owner, Katzmann.”

  “Get him talking, then send him to me. You have the most essential thing already. He thinks you can help him.”

  Perdita leaves for America

  “YOU’LL SPEND TIME WITH André while I’m gone?” Perdita said. “Golly.”

  Reisden’s dressing room was the only room in their apartment not chaotic with packing, so that was where they were, he and Perdita and Toby, all sitting on the chaise longue. Through the windows they could smell the June night in Paris and hear a last carriage horse trotting toward the boulevard St.-Germain. In the next room, Aline, their ponderous invaluable maid, was packing, folding concert silks into tissue paper. There were more dresses than were explained by the number of concerts Perdita was supposedly giving. Very few, she had said. But her New York agent liked her enough to give a married woman a second chance.

  She didn’t have a Paris agent. She’d tried.

  Toby pulled himself up by the sofa leg and held on to Reisden’s knee, swaying back and forth and yawning. On ordinary days they would have put him in his crib or let him fall asleep between them.

  “Come, Toby love,” Perdita said, “come to Mama and try to fall asleep.” She unbuttoned her dress and Toby nuzzled against her breast; her hand supported Toby’s head, she rocked him, effortlessly close to her boy. One of Perdita’s fans was lying on the floor. Reisden unfurled it and fanned her.

  The fan was feminine, white, scalloped, decorated with green letters. Je désire voter, he read. I want to vote.

  “Can you help André?” she asked.

  “I hope Jouvet can. Me? He’ll just suck me into a play.”

  “If Monsieur Cyron keeps talking about you the
way he is, will we go bankrupt?”

  “No, darling, we’ll sell.” To whom, he wondered; who could be trusted not to use the archives for blackmail? “We’ll be all right,” he amended.

  “You know,” she said, hesitating again, “Uncle Gilbert would loan you money.”

  “I won’t do that.”

  “I wish you would go with us,” she said. “He would love to see you.”

  “We shouldn’t tease Gilbert with what he can’t have. Don’t see him. At least don’t bring Toby.”

  She sighed, letting her head droop back against his shoulder, as if she hadn’t expected him to be quite so dense, but now that he was, she wasn’t surprised. “I can’t promise not to see Uncle Gilbert. And I can’t see Uncle Gilbert and not bring Toby.”

  No.

  “At least, chère, do not, don’t talk to Gilbert about our finances. We will be all right.”

  If I somehow come up with a solution for André’s marital troubles and impress Cyron. Then we’ll be all right. What a long run of luck that will need.

  She leaned against him, nursing Toby. He felt her almost imperceptible rocking, pressing against him, then moving away. Toby was nursing himself to sleep; his flushed little face nodded away from her breast, but his own falling asleep woke him again and he nuzzled against her. She put him against her shoulder, patting his back, then moved him to the other breast. Looking down at Toby, Reisden felt a tenderness like an ache in his throat.

  “What’s his wife like?” Perdita asked.

  “I don’t know yet. Very young and from the country.”

  “Why does he want to frighten people?”

  “It’s,” he thought of André and his father, going to deathbeds together. “A kind of closeness.”

  “His poor wife.”

  “I think André does theatre to protect himself from the world outside, which he doesn’t find comfortable.”

  She reached out and laced fingers with his for a moment. For years he had done theatre too, for just that reason. Toby was asleep; she lifted him gently to her shoulder and patted his back to burp him. Toby gave a great belch and opened his eyes in astonishment. “Oh, darling lamb, don’t wake up,” Perdita whispered to him. “You’re nearly asleep.”

  “Give him to me. Come here, Toby love.” Reisden put the towel over his own shoulder and took his son. Toby blinked awake, looking around the room, and smiled into Reisden’s face. Oh love, he thought; oh my dear son. Later you’ll be a good reasonable child and sleep; stay awake now and let Papa adore you.

  He put Toby down on the old American wedding-ring quilt by the fireplace, among his toys, and sat on the floor with him. Toby reached for his red ball, found it too far away, leaned forward and began to crawl. “Ba-ba-ba,” he said intently. “Ball?” said Reisden, holding it up, and was rewarded by a wonderful baby smile. You understand me! His son grinned, reaching out his hand and batting the ball away before losing his balance. Reisden retrieved it and rolled it back toward him. When Toby comes back, will he be walking? What first time will I have missed?

  Reisden had gone on business trips since Toby was born; he had paced up and down Genoa or London, waiting to get the train back to his son. At night he would watch by Toby’s crib, listening to his breath.

  Don’t go, Perdita. Don’t go. Don’t take my son with you; don’t let Gilbert so much as see our boy. How can you tease Gilbert with a family he can’t have? He didn’t say any of this, pressed his lips together, angry, full of the wrong emotions.

  She was going to America because she still thought of herself as American, going to Massachusetts where she had grown up, where she spoke the language without thinking, going to the country all Americans called home, when home should be Paris for her.

  Going to visit Gilbert.

  And could he entirely blame her? What did he have for her, what could he offer her, that was better than the Knights? Richard Knight would have had no money troubles at all. Richard Knight’s wife would have the vote when America gave it to women.

  Richard Knight’s wife and son would be safe from politics and Cyron.

  Gilbert could offer that.

  ***

  Reisden went with Perdita to Cherbourg. It was cold that morning; when the luggage was stowed in the cabin, he went up with them on deck. He wrapped Toby inside his coat for warmth; Toby snuggled closer in his sleep, a warm relaxed weight.

  “Take care of our son,” he said, “and I’ll deal with André.”

  “Take care of you,” she said, holding his hand.

  “Everything will be all right; it’ll have blown over by the time you’re back.” He hoped so.

  They talked with each other until the last moment, quietly, so as not to wake Toby. He had told her he was not going to stay on the dock while the boat left; she could not have seen him anyway; but he stayed, and he saw her, wearing her red jacket so that, if he was there, he would see her. Toby was in her arms. She waved uncertainly. He took off his hat and waved it in wide arcs, but he was not the sort of man to wave his hat, and he thought she would not see him and would not know him if she did, and of course Toby wouldn’t see.

  He watched until the boat was a dot on the horizon.

  Perdita between worlds

  IT WAS AN AMERICAN ship. Perdita stood at the rail when Aline took Toby down for his nap: a woman going on a journey. America. All the little familiar bits of America, crowding in like long-lost friends. She could ask about baseball scores. There would be real ice cream. She took deep breaths, then found the salon door with her white cane and ducked inside, smelling America.

  “Excuse me, miss, would you like me to lead you somewhere?”

  Poor blind girl, a pity to all who see her. “Yes. Where is the piano?”

  The salon was deserted, she would disturb nobody. She told the steward in charge that it had been arranged she would have rehearsal time. She took off her jacket and hat, put the piano lid up half-stick, and did her exercises. What would she play? The breeze came through the open door from the deck. That wind came from America.

  The first year she had been in New York, some friends had taken her uptown to hear a musician they’d found, a black man named Blind Willie Williams. Her friends thought he was a curiosity; Perdita had discovered an unofficial teacher and a friend. She let her left hand slide into a walking bass, improvising with the right until one of Blind Willie’s tunes found her:

  The stars are a-shining, hear the turtle dove,

  I say the stars are a-shining, can’t you hear the turtle dove,

  Don’t you want somebody,

  Somebody to love…

  And then she had come to Paris and found somebody to love. But she had lost America.

  Sometimes you know so well what you want, you forget what your limits are. All Alexander’s friends said he should have married a Frenchwoman. A Frenchwoman with the right connections could have given dinner parties for government officials and sailed right round this Maurice Cyron, or charmed him. Alexander’s French wife would have had the perfect cook, would have dressed perfectly, would have been just like his cousin Dotty. Perdita had wanted to do all that too, thought somehow she could, just by wanting to.

  She had brought him worries. He didn’t truly trust her to take care of Toby; a blind woman with a baby. When Toby could walk, would she have to put him on a leash like a dog? Alexander was always having to teach her. In France, she didn’t know anything. She had to ask Aline the words for things. At night sometimes, in bed, he would wake up shuddering from dreams he didn’t remember. She would hold him in her arms and say “It’s all right.” He would get up rather than disturb her. Rather than talk to her. It wasn’t all right and he wouldn’t tell her why.

  She wasn’t rich. She didn’t have important friends. Only one, and that was Uncle Gilbert.

  He didn’t trust her not to leave him. He had said, when they were talking about their marriage and his citizenship, you could be American again if you were not married to me.


  Perdita sat back on the piano bench for a moment, her hands still on the keyboard. Her place was back in Paris with him. But here she was, sailing away from him, leaving him on shore. Going down to Minetta Street, put my mind at ease… American music, American smells, her own language to speak, and new music under her fingers. She had a home in France, a husband she loved, but her fingers struggled happily with the tricky rhythms, and she wondered whether Alexander was right not to trust her.

  Who was she? Toby’s mother. A pianist. Alexander’s wife. An American. Who was she?

  Whom could she ask, who could help her and Alexander?

  Only one person she could ask; and she couldn’t share any of this with Uncle Gilbert.

  Gilbert's ghosts

  NO ONE NEEDED GILBERT Knight anymore. He lived in a tall cavernous house in Boston with his adopted son, Harry, and Harry’s wife, Efnie. Harry and Efnie were seldom at home; Harry worked, Efnie had her charities and her shopping, they both played golf. In the evening they were always at some party or, if they were home, they were giving a dinner to which Gilbert was not quite invited.

  In the house there were also ghosts. One was everywhere, unexpectedly, tall and dark-haired and looking so much like Gilbert’s beloved younger brother Tom; Richard, whom Gilbert must call Alexander now. I am not Richard. You cannot say so. Richard, Alexander, needed Gilbert even less than Harry did.

  The other ghost lived mostly in Father’s old office, which no one used. Father was dead nearly twenty-five years now, he was misty, hardly more than a voice too. You will never amount to anything, Sir. When you are old no one will want you.

  Only one person in his life was alive and wanted him. Dear Uncle Gilbert, she wrote every week from Paris.

  She had sent once a picture of Richard—of Alexander—with Toby. Gilbert loved Toby beyond imagining from the picture alone.

  Gilbert filled his life with charities. He was the financial mainstay of the Boston Children’s Clinic. He sat on boards. He had discovered he had a certain cleverness with money, the restraint of a man who neither needs nor wants too much of it. He was a Harvard overseer and made donations of rare books to the libraries. Often he bound them himself. He liked to work with his hands; he would have been happy building shelves or cabinets.