Главные герои рассказа и их описание She was like a windmill, six feet, and six arms, too, all of them moving clockwise and counter-clockwise at the same time, while a hard, broken voice clattered steadily in French, on the platform at Gare Saint-Lazare.
"Wow." Joe said. "Marry her, Pop. Why not be a dare-devil?" "Let's just find
Car A, Seats 1 and 2, and shut up, shall we?"
"You're going soft from not being married, Pop, that's all."
We took our seats by window, lifted the wall table, so I could put a book there, and we were as good as on our way back to San Francisco, after two months in Europe. The book was a gift from Joe - Origins of the Second World War by A. J.
P. Taylor. He'd paid the French equivalent of six dollars for it at Brentano's on Avenue de l'Opèra.
There was nobody else in the compartment, and then a porter with a suitcase, a satchel, and a briefcase arrived, followed by the owner of the luggage - a Heidelberg man, most likely, because there was a great scar on the left side of his face, from the end of his mouth to his ear. He tipped the porter, smiled, nodded to Joe and me, and took his place.
For a minute there was no talk and then the Heidelberg man said, "I make it one minute after five. Is that correct?"
"Two," Joe said.
"Thank vou."
He put his watch ahead a minute, and then Joe said, "You going to the boat?"
"Oh, yes. Everybody on this train is."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. This is the train to the Hanseatic."
There was no more talk for about a minute, and then for some reason Joe jumped up and brought down the window. Through the open window came the voice of the woman. Joe sat down, folded his hands, and shut his eyes.
"What's that for?"
"Just a poor boy's prayer at train-time."
"What kind of a prayer?"
"For his daddy over there."
Joe opened his eyes, unfolded his hands, and listened, as if for the rare song of a rare bird. And then wham! - the slide door of the compartment came open, almost apart, and there in the doorway stood the woman, blood in her eye, and the French language in her mouth. Joe looked up and nodded thanks.
The old porter put her stuff up on the rack, but she didn't like the way he had done it, so he moved them in accordance with her instructions. She fished around in her snap purse, found two small coins and handed them to the old man. He glanced at them quickly, was about to point out that the rate was one new franc per bag and she had three bags, so where was the full amount? But he decided against it. He decided he would just rather go away.
Joe, watching out of the corner of his eye, smiled and looked at me, but I was reading the book. Joe's hand fell on the page, so I had to see what he wanted.
Soundlessly he shaped the words, Marry her.
Soundlessly I shaped my reply: Shut up.
Sow, the woman stepped out into the corridor to be with the young man and the voung mans wife or girl, who wore seeing her off. There was a fuy of laughied the youn swif chatter, but only from the woman. The man and his girt, both frened, muded in easy English. They looked art it walshes and moved to get of the train.
Tee went with them, -and the man from Heidelberg, courteous and reserved loon, around, a little anxiously it seemed, and then faraway.
"op," Joe whispered, "if you don't marry her, this man will "
The German shut his eyes and murmured something that sounded like "Ahkh"
He listened to the woman's voice coming from the end of the car and got ready for her return, drawing himself in as deeply as possible.
She reached for the handle of the slide door, to bring it open, but it was already open, so the handle was on the other side. She found the handle and shut the door, shouting all the while to her friends who were standing on the platform. After shutting the door, shutting herself out of the compartment, she knew there was only one thing to do, open it, so she opened it, and came in.
She asked a question in French of the man from Heidelberg, who replied in courteous English,
"The seat in the corner is place six, I believe."
She thanked him roundly, and then shouted something at Joe about the window, and Joc said, "Yes, ma'am, you can stand at the window, but we speak English, too." She came bearing down on the window, reached up, seized the blind, brought it down, shutting out the light from the station, rushed the blind back up, looked for the window handle, and nearly fell out of the open window.
"I thought you could see the window was already open," Joe said.
In French the woman shouted to her friends, and then almost as if she were still speaking to them she asked if she might lower the table, so that she could stand nearer to the window, and be nearer to her friends for the adieu. But without waiting for a reply she seized the edge of the folding table, lifted it, and then began to lower it.
"My leg," Joe said. "Let me get my leg out of here first, please."
She waited for Joe to get his leg free, and then she slammed the table against the wall and stood between Joe and me, right up against the lower frame of the window.
Looking down, I saw two enormous feet in very pointed shoes with very high heels.
There were three pink (but dirty) plasters on each of her heels.
The locomotive shrieked and the train began to move. The woman waved and Shouted, and leaned out of the window, and began to throw kisses. At last the train was out of the station, but still she stood there, apparently in some kind of revere.
Joe brought a red apple out of his coat pocket and I was sure he was going to bite into it, because I had got him around to the idea that an apple was a lot more sensible to eat between meals than candy. He rubbed the apple on his sleeve until it was all sparkling bright and then he said to the woman, "Would you like an apple?"
Without looking at Joe she replied in French. Joe put the apple back in his pocket, and after about two full minutes the woman turned away from the window, found place six, and then deliberately sat down in place four, directly in front of the man from Heidelberg, who instantly shut his eyes.
She was in her late thirties, and he was in his early fifties, but he preferred to have his eyes shut. She half-shut her own, perhaps in order to dream back to some of the precious staff she was taking home with her from Europe.
Joe handed me the apple and moved his head slightly in her direction, by which he meant that I was to offer it to her. Instead, I took a big bite out of it, and Joe shook his head, terribly disappointed.
Suddenly she blew her nose, and the startling noise of it brought open the eyes of the man from Heidelberg. Where was she? Ah, there she was, directly across from him. He got up and went out into corridor, and then down to the end of the car. He was gone five minutes. When he came back, Joe almost knocked the book out of my hands, because he wanted me to notice how this man was meeting the challenge of the woman. How he had got himself comfortable and neat, his hair moistened and carefully combed. All the same, the German did not take his proper place in the compartment, he took a place that kept him from being directly across from the woman whose face was now quite red and better than half wet, from sweat.
Now, one by one, the train and passport people began to come to the compartment, all of them speaking English, but the woman still spoke only French.
The difficulty was that she wasn't easy to understand. Somebody wanted to know if she had any French money. She brought out a secret wallet and in French counted the paper in it. There appeared to be the equivalent of almost eight dollars. The man thanked her and said that was quite all right.
"I have more." she said "in coins.
"It does not matter."
"And several lire."
"Yes," the man said and went off.
The woman's reverie continued for almost an hour, whereupon she removed her shoes.
Joe got up and went out into the corridor.
Before he took off he said without making a sound, Sexy, too.
She was soon fast asleep, her long legs across the space between the seats, the toes wiggling inside the stockings in some kind of punctuation to the events of her sleep. The man from Heidelberg stepped over her and went out into the corridor, and for a moment I was afraid she would wake up and speak to me in French. And then, without waking up, she spoke in English: "Aren't the fumes from the locomotive just a little too much for an open window?"
"I hadn't noticed, but if you mean you'd like the window shut, okay." I shut the window, stepped over her, and went out into the corridor. The slide door had been left open from the beginning. The minute I was out of the compartment, she slammed the slide door shut. I went down to where Joe was standing at an open window.
"Did you make a pass at her or anything?" he said.
"She bawled me out for having the window open. Where'd the German go?"
"Back to the lay, I guess. Pop, he's putting hair oil on right now, and he's out to get her before you do. Are you going to let the Germans beat us again?"
"How come you bought me that particular book? How the Second World War Started."
"ORIGINS of the Second World War, Pop. By A J.P. Taylor."
"Yes. Well, how come you picked that book?"
"Don't you like it?"
"So far it makes me feel kind of silly."
"Why?"
"Well, according to the book, the whole thing was unnecessary."
"So what? What's that got to do with you?"
"Well. I was in it - for three years."
"Who wasn't?"
"Precisely."
"Now, look, Pop. The war's over. Go on back in there and see if she bawls you out some more. If she does, marry her."
"You go on back in there."
"Me? Hell, Pop, it's against the law for an American boy of eleven to marry a woman of sixty-six?"
"She's in her middle thirties, I believe."
"Pop, I'm proud of you. You're sticking up for her. Anybody can see you like her. Well, don't let her get away. Don't let somebody else beat you to her. Here's this German putting oil on his hair right now. Are you going to let him steal your girl?"
"I'll go back in if you'll go with me."
"Oh, no, Pop, you've got to go back alone."
"I'm afraid to go back alone."
"Not you, Pop. Go on back in there and be charming."
The German came up the corridor and Joe said, "Beat him to her, Pop. Don't let him back in there first. Smell the hair oil?"
But the German didn't go back in there. He went up to the other end of the car where there was a window at which nobody was standing. He lowered the window and stood there. He stood there three hours, all the way to Le Havre, as Joe and I stood at our window.
When we got to our cabin on the Hanseatic, it was almost half-past eight and our steward said we could go straight to the dining room for supper because it wouldn't be necessary to be assigned to a table until tomorrow. We went to the dining room, and there she was, ordering supper in French. She was at a round table that was set for six, and Joe said, "Pop, this is Fate, if I ever saw it. I'lI take this little table in the corner, but you go sit across from her and for heaven's sake be charming, will you?" The woman was bawling out the fat maitre d'hôtel, two waiters were picking up dishes and going away with them, and two other waiters were coming back with other dishes; and the woman was telling them all precisely what she wanted and how she wanted it, in French. They were whispering replies in English.
Joe and I sat down at the table for two in the corner and somebody pushed over a cart loaded with little things to eat, so we chose six each, and then the woman screamed and leapt to her feet.
"Soup," Joe said. "Somebody spilled soup all over her. Go on over and comfort het, Pop. That German's around somewhere, and the first thing you know hell be over there with a great big napkin mopping up the minestrone."
The German was around, as a matter of fact - hidden behind a copy of the London Times. I saw him lower the paper when she screamed.
The maitre d'hôtel hurried to the lady, apologised, and worked quickly with four napkins. After a few minutes she sat down again, and dinner proceeded.
And then suddenly the maitre d'hôtel was up in the air.
"But madam," he said, "this is the dining room for first-class passengers only."
This hurt Joe. He couldn't swallow.
"Pop, they're really trying to give her the brush-off. Be gallant, will you? Go on over there and tell that maitre d'hôtel not to be such a snob. Let her know that vou love her."
The maitre d'hôtel escorted her, to the door, and out.
"You're not a gentleman, Pop."
The next afternoon we stood on the boat deck in a cool drizzle, looking down where the pool was. Well, it was empty, and there was a rope netting over it, so of course none of the usual shipboard swimmers were around.
And then suddenly, from somewhere down below, a bright parasol came into view, and holding the parasol was the woman.
In a bikini.
"Wow," Joe said.
It was surely only a coincidence that the German took sick at that moment, hanging over the rail, because he hadn't even been looking in that direction.
"There he is again, acting irresistible," Joe said. "Pop, you've got to do something about that guy from Heidelberg. Before this voyage is over he's going to win her. Look at him trying to attract her attention."
The woman called out to the deck steward who quickly set up a folding chair beside the dry pool. She sat down just as the drizzle began to fall, but then of course she had her parasol and so it didn't make any real difference.
Joe and I got out of the rain and went to the bar and began to play casino.
"How's the book, Pop?"
"I don't think I understand it."
"Marry her. You don't have to understand everything."
"Deal, will you? We've got six more days."
Joe shuffled and dealt, and the waiter brought over a lemonade for Joe and a whisky for me.
The ship moved on, the world moved on, the people in the world moved on, but none moved on with the awesome majesty and electrical violence of the crazy lady in red bikini who always spoke French.