The Merry Month of May (47 page)

“Oh, that was not anything,” he said, and turned to walk back to whatever it was he had been doing.

“I think I’d better go,” I said to the nurse.

“Yes, I think you should,” she said. Her face was still full of consternation. “I don’t mean as any punishment to you. But she’s going to be upset now, and I’m afraid she’s going to go into a catatonic state. I think I had better give her a shot. She’ll sleep it off.”

I nodded, and shook hands with her. Then, impulsively, I leaned down over her diminutive form and kissed her on the cheek. “I am sorry,” I said.

“She’s not herself yet, you see,” the girl said.

I nodded again, shook hands again, then walked out of there down between the two long rows of beds filled with badly damaged people. Outside, in the sunny air and under the leafy trees, I stood a minute breathing the air in front of the hospital, still shaken up. What was the point in saving her, really? If she was going to be like that? Better to let her die. But, of course, they didn’t know she was going to be like that, when they were working on her. They could only work and hope.

Settling my jacket and tie and breathing the air, I thought of Edith and walked off toward my favorite pissoir.

I had told them at the Hôtel-Dieu about moving her to the American Hospital, and they had assured me that they would have her ready. After I got home, I called the American Hospital doctor, and then Edith. After I talked to Edith, I put in a call to Harry in Rome. I did not catch him the first time. It was a lot later in the evening this time and he was not in. But when I called back an hour later I got him. He had just come in.

“Well, what’s the story?” he said. “Is she going to be all right?”

“Well, she’s out of the coma.”

“I know. I talked to the hospital.”

“We’re moving her to the American Hospital tomorrow.”

“Good.” There was again that curious pause he had developed since we began these telephone conversations. “So she’s out of the woods.”

“Well, physically, yes, I think. But she’s got some throat damage from those tubes they had to shove down her throat. And there’s this question of brain damage. They seem to think she has some. But just how much, they’re not sure.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“I tried to. But she didn’t respond much. She didn’t seem to know much of what she was saying. And she didn’t recognize me, Harry.”

“She didn’t recognize you?”

“No.”

“Well, they’ve probably got her all doped up on something right now, anyway,” he said, after another pause.

I was suddenly enormously fatigued. “I suppose that’s possible,” I said.

There was another pause. “Well, I’m going on to Tel Aviv, then,” Harry said crisply.

“There’s absolutely nothing I can do for her when she’s in that state. So there’s no point in me coming back there. I’ll keep in touch from down there. You can let me know what happens.”

“What if we have to put her in a sanatorium, Harry?” I said.

“If you do, let me know and I’ll send the necessary authorization. If you need that. And then call Edith. She’ll handle it all.”

“But where will I find you?”

“The Hilton. Naturally. I always stay there.”

“It certainly seems pretty damned calloused to me, Harry,” I protested.

“I suppose it is,” he said. “You said that before. But that’s the way I’m going to play it. Anyway, I’ll keep in touch. So long, Jack. And thanks.”

He waited; there was a pause, as though he were expecting me to say something, maybe offer him good luck or congratulations or some damned thing. When I did not answer, he hung up the phone. I took mine away from my ear and stared at it.

Late Saturday I talked to the American Hospital doctor. But there was nothing much he could tell me. She had only just come in today. They had begun a series of tests on her, and would continue them on through Sunday, but it would take a while to complete the tests, let alone evaluate them. But at least her physical condition was continuing to improve.

“She was just about as dead as you can get,” he said equably, “without actually dying.”

“God,” I said, “it would be awful if she came out of it a vegetable.”

“Yes, it certainly would,” he said. He did not say more. That left me with the burden of conversation.

“Well, thanks a lot,” I said lamely, “anyway.”

“What about her husband?” he said. “What about Harry?”

“He’s in Tel Aviv.”

“Chasing some girl,” the doctor said.

“Well, I think he’s working on some screenplay.”

“Well, that’s where all the girls are,” he said, “isn’t it?”

“I guess so,” I said. “I guess there’re always some around every film.”

“Jesus!” he said. “Is he coming back?”

“Well, I think that depends a lot on what happens.”

“Well! Well, fine! Just fine! Good! Okay, Jack. I’ll keep you informed as to whatever comes up. Goodby, Jack.”

“Goodby.” I was just about to drop the phone into its cradle when I heard his voice say, “Jack?” from the instrument.

“Yes?” I said.

“I can’t run peoples’ lives for them. All I can do is try to patch them up after they’ve done whatever it is they’ve done. I’m just a glorified super-mechanic, that’s all.” He hung up.

“I understand,” I started to say, but it was too late. I hung up myself. Then I got my worn, old man’s body together and all girded up and ready to go down and, though I did not know it then, hold what would be the last of the American meetings at the Gallaghers’. I felt like an old man.

Well, they were all there. Just about everybody who had been there during those weeks of the “Revolution”. Only, there were no Gallaghers. Not even McKenna was there, to add her small child’s ambiance. I circulated, being a host. But I was already, even then, beginning to feel I would not be up to it another time.

It was somewhat later, as the first ones were beginning to leave, that Weintraub came in. He had just left the Sorbonne, where he had gone to watch the last of the students’ “clean-in”. With big buckets of sudsy water and brooms they had just finished cleaning out the garbage and mess that had accumulated during the occupation. There had been cheers when the students they had evacuated for the clean-up began to move back in.

But there seemed to be another problem, he said. Apparently late that evening the student patrols had picked up in the street a man who had been knifed in some altercation. They had taken him inside to their own infirmary for emergency treatment. Now rumors were floating around that the police intended to come inside the Sorbonne tomorrow, Sunday, to look for the man and make sure he got proper treatment. But the students claimed that, after giving him emergency treatment only, they had sent him to the Hôtel-Dieu. However, the police were claiming that the Hôtel-Dieu had no record of ever having received any such man. There was a big mystery about it all. And the students were afraid, were sure, that this was only a pretext of the Government to come in and throw them out, in spite of their massive clean-up.

My mind being full of the Hôtel-Dieu so much lately, I could see in my mind the intensive care unit as clearly as if it were a projected movie. Would those people, whom I had gotten to know so well in the last five days, actually deny they had received such a patient, when in fact they had? They might, I thought, if the Government and police put enough pressure on them. After all, Hôtel-Dieu was a Government hospital.

“Can I walk along home with you?” Weintraub said. “And come up for one drink?” He seemed pensive.

Most of the Americans at the Gallaghers’ had left, and those who hadn’t were in process of leaving.

“Why, sure, Dave,” I said. “Why not? Come along.”

I was pensive myself.

As we walked up the darkening quai, he told me it was not the same any more, with the Odéon cleaned out. He felt a little lost,

“It’s just not the same. Oh, sure, I can go to the Sorbonne and hang around. But I don’t really know anybody. And the Cinema Committee is moving way out there to Censier. That’s out in left field. I must say, I miss them, the kids. I was quite a help to them, you know. I brought them you, and I brought them Harry.”

“And a fine lot of good that did,” I said. “Tell me how they are getting along out there.”

“Well,” he said. “Well, they’re floundering. That’s the truth. They don’t know what to do with themselves, now that Harry’s gone. He’s in Rome, you say?”

“The last I heard,” I said. “On a screenplay.”

“They got used to depending on him,” Dave said.

“Do you think they’ve got any chance of making it now?” I said. “The film, I mean? On their own?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe.” Then he paused. “No. No, that’s not the truth. The truth is, I don’t think they’ve got a chance in God’s world. Harry left them all the stuff he shot with his two principals. But they haven’t got any good cutters. Harry was supposed to bring them in all that. Gee, I sure do miss them at the Odéon.”

“Well, that’s a shame,” I said. “I don’t suppose there’s anything we can do about it?”

“I don’t see what,” Weintraub said gloomily.

We had reached my place. When we went inside I rummaged in the mailbox and came up with a telegram that had been delivered. It was hard to read in the light of the
minuterie.
I took it up the stairs and inside with me.

When I had the lights on, I saw that it was from Harry in Tel Aviv. Harry must have taken the very first plane out after my phone call, for it to get back to me so quick. I read, SAM NOT AT ADDRESS WHERE SHE TOLD ME I COULD FIND HER. AM CONTINUING TO LOOK. WILL KEEP INFORMED. HARRY. I did not see any reason why I should not show it to Weintraub.

He looked at it a long time. Then he handed it back slowly. “So he went,” he said. “It could have been me down there, if I’d had the money to go.
And
the money for us to live on. She didn’t give a damn who it was who came along.”

“I suppose,” I said.

He was looking out the window across the river at the lights on the Left Bank. “Well, it was an experience. A once in a lifetime. A great experience.”

“I’m not so sure I can agree with that,” I said. I had made us drinks.

“What do you say we go over to Boulevard St.-Germain and have a couple of Wimpy hamburgers at the Wimpy’s and walk around the Quartier?” Weintraub said in a muffled voice. “It’s quiet over there tonight.”

“Fine,” I said. “Okay. Why not?”

28

O
N
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UNDAY THE 16TH
, as already explained, the Sorbonne fell. And that was the day Weintraub got himself knocked about by the police. Everything Weintraub had predicted to me Saturday night, about the man with the knife wound, and the Hôtel-Dieu, and the student infirmary, came absolutely true. It was the exact same story in the papers.

And on Sunday I began this—what shall I call it? This exploration? This research? This piece of crud.

As I have said, there were demonstrations and a lot of streetfighting on the Sunday. And all through Sunday night there were short, sharp fights between students and police, but not much tear gas, or the cracking percussion grenades. The police were using a new tactic of charging and disrupting the students before they had time to build new barricades; and anyway, most of the Latin Quarter was asphalted over now, so that paving stones were hard to come by. I liked to think of it as the “modernization” of Paris. All of this aided the police, and it was clear the students were holding the losing end of it.

On Monday there was more streetfighting in the Quartier, but by then it had taken on the appearance of the annual, traditional fights between students and police on Sorbonne graduation day. The “Revolution”, the real “Revolution”, the “almost” Revolution was clearly over.

But the most important piece of news on the Monday of June 17th was that the Renault auto-workers had voted to return to work. Over 70 per cent of them had voted for “Back-to-Work”. That would just about end it. Now the students were alone again. In return for their vote the Renault workers would get pay increases of up to 14 per cent; payment of 50 per cent wages for the strike period; and, important new union rights and concessions inside the Renault plants.

The other important point was that the Paris taxi drivers suddenly appeared on the street again, startling their eager clients with the fact that their basic meter rates were up 66 per cent. Until the meters could be changed they were posting notices on their rear-door windows explaining in four languages the addition of 2 francs 25 centimes (45 cents) to each fare. Rates would also go up for the pieces of baggage carried and for trips from train stations and airports.

It was really all over, and Weintraub came by to see me that night, the Monday. He was not nearly so sanguine as he had been the night before. The students were quitting and going home in large bunches. They still held the Censier, but even there large numbers were cutting out, and leaving it to a few diehards. He had been out there during the day.

“What about the Cinema Committee?” I asked.

“Hardly any of the kids are showing up,” he said. “They’ve quit all shooting. Daniel the Chairman has disappeared.”

“Probably gone back to Russia,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Maybe. You really think so?”

“Those steel-rimmed spectacles,” I murmured.

“Yeah,” Weintraub said. “Still. — I always thought he was too young to be an agent,” he added.

“They train them young,” I said.

“Maybe so,” Weintraub said without conviction. He was visibly depressed.

“What about little Anne-Marie?” I asked. “The baby Commissar?”

“Gone,” he said. “She’s probably out organizing streetfights somewhere.”

“And Terri?”

“Hasn’t shown up.”

“And Bernard?”

“Non plus.”

“Looks like it’s about the end,” I said, sympathetically.

“Looks like it.” He was standing at my open window leaning on his elbows on the little balcony rail and looking at the river. He turned back to me and grinned ruefully. He drained off what was left in his glass. “Well, it looks like it’s back to the God damn fucking harp for me. God, how I hate that instrument.”