The Theoretical Foot (3 page)

Sue sat watching Sara talk with him. They leaned back in their chairs, their voices murmurred. Sara had a light, soft way of saying words, her tone faintly pedantic, perhaps because of her crisp enunciation. Sara sounded all her
r
s. She didn't have a typical Western accent.

Sara was thirty but her face looked very young to Sue, perhaps because it was round in shape, the skin very smooth beneath the
severely drawn-back hair. Sara wore a rather crumpled green linen dress and white cotton gloves obviously darned. How in hell was it that Sara—with her rumpled dress and her holey white cotton gloves—always succeeded in making other women feel dowdy?

Sue started, surprised to realize that Sara was now speaking to her. She flushed painfully when she understood that she had no idea of what had gone before. She gulped her beer, wiped one splashed drop off her cheek with unhurried dignity.

“Sorry! I'm really terribly sorry, Mrs. Porter, but I was looking at the lake through the trees and wasn't paying close attention.”

“Poor Sue,” she said. “I don't blame you. You must be absolutely worn out. Joe told me you've walked here from Munich.”

“Oh no, I'm not a bit tired from that,” Sue hurried to defend her beloved from what might be criticism. “It's the sun, I think. But what were you saying, please?”

She looked calmly from Sara to Joe, then was horrified to hear herself erupt in a loud sneeze that pounced on her with snarling suddenness. She sneezed so violently it rocked the little table upon which a beer glass spilled. She reached wildly for the handkerchief Joe was now offering her. Through her stinging eyes she saw Sara move away from the flooding path of beer before looking at Sue compassionately.

“God bless you,” she said. “
Gesundheit
! Poor child, I think you're catching cold. Here, Jean, mop up a bit, will you? And tell me what I owe you. We'll have more beer at La Prairie—it's time I get there and start lunch.”

By the time the bill was paid and Sue had given her nose a thorough—and delightful—blow, she felt almost human again. She stood watching Sara pull on her disreputable gloves.

“I'm sorry, Sue, I've forgotten to finish what I was saying. I've told Joe that I couldn't put you up, much as I might wish to, and then you came along and I forgot to explain.”

Sara stopped and then looked abstractedly off toward an old man outside the terrace who stood in the garden of the casino delicately pricking his fingers on the sharp needles of a giant cactus.

“The house is full,” she then went on, “but even if I had a room for you, I'd ask you to go up to the village inn this time.”

For a moment there was silence, then Joe spoke. “Because Sue and I aren't married?” he asked, incredulously.

Sue felt her throat close. This was the woman she'd thought might help her! It had never occurred to her that perhaps Sara might disapprove of her. She looked miserably at Joe, who reached over and touched her hand.

“Oh dear,” Sara said. “Now don't you two make me feel embarrassed. It's not me, nor is it Tim. You ought to know that, Joe.”

“Of course,” he said.

“It's because we have a rather queer household just now. There's Tim's sister Nan and my young brother and sister—they're all right—but there's also a friend of Nan's, Lucy Pendleton.
She's
the trouble, through no fault of her own, really. It's bad enough to have one illicit affair, as I am afraid Lucy does describe it, without flaunting another.”

“What illicit affair?” Joe asked, before exclaiming, “My God! Do you mean you
and Tim
?”

“What?” Sue asked in a small husky voice. She looked blankly from the flush of Joe's face back to the smooth oval of Sara Porter's. She felt completely bewildered.

“Haven't you ever told her?” Sara asked.

“I forgot!” Joe said. “It's always seemed so natural to me and it's been going on so long—I've
forgotten
all about it, I swear!”

“That's an awfully nice thing to tell me, Joe,” Sara said as she lightly touched his arm, then turned. “The thing is, Susan, Tim Garton and I have never married,” she said. “It's one reason we live here, though it is one of the less important ones. And so poor Lucy Pendleton is over here this summer to guard Nan from our evil influence and she's rather a nervous type and not well, and I knew you'd understand if I decided not to add fuel to her fire by bringing two more
sinners
in under our roof. So, I've arranged a room for you up in the village.”

Sara then began to laugh with relief at having finished what was a difficult speech. Now Sue felt herself to be smiling, too, for
the first time since she'd seen Sara sitting so easily beside Joe in the dappled morning sunshine.

“All right?” she asked Sue.

“Of course!” Sue said, feeling happy suddenly. “But we'll be at your house a lot, won't we? Joe says it's not just heavenly, but
heavenly
!”

“It is. And you'll be there as much as we can keep you,” she said, adding, “except for sleeping.” And now Sara listened expertly to the sound of a half-dozen bells striking twelve thirty all over the little town. “We'll all be there if we can just manage to
get there.
Come on! We'll come down after lunch and get your bags.”

Sue laughed and ran after Sara Porter with one hand clutching at the corner of Joe's coat.

“I do think she's swell!” Sue whispered as they hurried toward the little black Fiat parked at the curb.

“Sure,” he said. “She's fine. But what about all those other people?” Joe hated to think of anyone in the world enjoying La Prairie with the familiarity that he had more than once enjoyed it. It had honestly never occurred to him that Sara ever had other guests. A whole summer's dreams of showing the place to his sweet Sue, of being there with her and with Sara and Tim tumbled into the hard sunlight before his squinting eyes, and he sighed.

“Sue,” Sara directed, “you'll sit on Joe's lap in front, as the whole backseat is full of food, as you see?” An unnecessary observation, Sue thought as the three eased themselves into the tiny car.

iii

The streets of Veytaux were almost empty. An occasional worker on a bicycle pedalled home to his late lunch, not even the close heat of lake level slowing his hungry speed.

The little car went fast. Susan, sitting high on Joe's knees, felt the moving air curve around her head, behind her brown and naked ears, even under her beribboned bun of hair.

They were out of town suddenly. To their left the glitter of Lac Léman lay smooth and uninterrupted. Along the shore lay some ugly villas with windows that looked as if their shutters had been closed since the last visit of Edward VII, these unsuccessfully veiled by trees. The road ran on beside the water in a gentle curve.

Joe smiled at Sue's cry of delight.

“Yes, but look up,” he said. “The lake's nothing.”

She turned her head obediently to the right and tipped it back, trying to see to the top of the steep hill that rose almost straight out of the water. For a moment she said nothing. It was all too strange.

The whole great slope that seemed to stretch on ahead as far as the lake itself was wrinkled and ridged by ten thousand crooked walls of stone, gray-brown and as beautiful as the skin of an ancient elephant. And in each uneven wrinkle—brimming and looping over every wall and filling, like caught emerald water, the little terraces—were grapevines. Their leaves gleamed mysteriously, like verdigris on a copper roof.

Not so fast! Sue almost cried out. She had never seen a countryside like this, rising so strangely from the road walls to the right
and sinking on the left straight downward toward the flat blue lake. She asked, stupidly, “Where are all the trees?”

“Trees make shade and take food from the soil,” Sara said as she shifted, sending the little car speeding along even faster. “Trees aren't good for the vines.”

“It's as bare as the moon,” Sue said with sudden seriousness, feeling Joe moving under her and knowing he was laughing. “Well, no trees and all these queer walls and funny color on the leaves . . .”

Sara laughed too. “But you're right! It is very queer, all of it. It's almost frightening to look at these million walls and know that every stone in them was carried on some man's back. They've never stopped working, ever since . . .? Well, for hundreds and hundreds of years.”

“The color's copper sulfate spray,” Joe added. He felt as full of knowledge as a vineyeard keeper.

They passed a yellow building, tall and gaily shuttered, with painted red roofs. Sara tooted the horn and waved to some men who sat eating on a wall. Their bare necks, as brown and polished as wood, their faces looking strangely pale as they lifted their chins to gesture in a jovial way toward the car.

“They look nice,” Sue murmurred. The men's paleness, she thought, probably came from how they were bent over working all the time. She timidly waved at a solitary
vigneron
who wore a foolish-looking woman's floppy hat of faded cretonne. When he waved back at her she was suddenly filled with a creamy contentment, like a kitten's.

“Now, Sue, now!” Joe pressed his arms tightly around her tiny waist and she could feel his proud excitement. “Now! Around this curve . . . and
there
! You see those big old trees? And the roofs? That's . . .”

“La Prairie?”

“No, that's an old monastery, a farm now, that's just across the road. And now, to the left, Sue! That's it!”

Sue felt a shyness flood into her body again as she looked where Joe pointed clumsily with his one unhindered arm. She was almost
overcome with dread at the thought of meeting more people. Sara Porter's little speech about “sin,” which surprised Sue more than she realized, sounded again in memory. She felt a wave of shock to have learned that Sara and Tim Garton were not married—she'd always assumed his name was Porter. That she herself was not married to Joe Kelly seemed natural to her and didn't trouble her except when she remembered that she was deceiving her father. It was a shock to remember this was not acceptable for certain people. But to find that the people at La Prairie, that almost mythical couple, Tim-and-Sara, were like Joe and herself! This was such startling news as to seem improbable. Older people
should
be married, shouldn't they? Wasn't it unfair for them to be acting with the unconventionality of college lovers?

And all those strangers! Even Sara Porter had looked uncomfortable, in her remote way, as she had swiftly mentioned them. Sue wondered desperately if there would be
anybody
at La Prairie who was more or less her own age.

She drew in her stomach and tilted her head proudly. They'll all probably be horribly smart and clever—Joe was always quoting what had been said or done or eaten at La Prairie. The only thing she could think of was to try not to sniff and to pretend that her green tweed skirt had just been whisked out of an enormous wardrobe trunk, after much pondering by her of what to wear. If she held herself well she'd look taller and more unwrinkled and it was—as she remembered—always wiser not to talk.

“Look, Sue!” Joe tried to jiggle her on his cramped knees. “Do you see? There! You can see the roof now.”

Sue nodded silently.

To their left, a little past the tree and hidden by the bulk of the old monestery, a driveway forked from the road and sank rapidly out of sight between two plain and heavy gateposts. Sara flicked the car expertly through them, cut off the engine, then coasted slowly down a short steep incline to the open garage.

On the right and above their heads was the road wall. The ground sloped downward so abruptly that on their left they looked
into the tops of aged apple trees heavy with green fruit and the feathery empurpled bows of prune and plum. Under them wound a steep path past an old square basin-like watering trough. Sue could hear the steady trickle of its spout.

Susan sighed. Joe was right. It was lovely,
lovely.
She felt that this might really be the place where all her turmoil would be calmed, where she could find help for her every present need and trouble and worry.

“Hey! Where is everyone? Isn't anybody hungry?” Sue listened to Sara's calling out to the others, then lay back in Joe's strong arms looking at the house as avidly as if she might never see it again.

The garage was attached to the house, then it dropped with the slope of the land so that the front was almost two stories below, facing a terrace where there was a steadily flowing fountain. There were only two windows, one on either level, each filled with a luxuriant splash of tumbling, flickering petunias, white and deep purple. The walls were almost dust-colored, the shutters a muted green, above was the soft clay-red of the tiles of the roof. Sue felt a fastidious pleasure that the tones were right, as right as her own intuitive selections of greens and whites to blend with her gray eyes and her brown skin and her wild and sun-bleached hair.

Which room would I have, she wondered, if I were a good woman and could stay here? Joe says the house is long, stretched out facing the lake. Where is the lake? It must be very far below. What about this horrid woman who was making life difficult, making Sara Porter and me into whores? That's too funny. I wonder if she really means it?

Sara banged on the auto's horn, almost crossly, then sat back. Nothing happened. The fountain sounded clearly in the silent air and a little puffing breeze filled their nostrils with the scent of bees and rotting fruit.

“I don't know where everybody is. I thought they'd be out in the road looking starved . . .”

“How about my carrying all this in anyway, Sara?” Joe asked and flicked open the door with his elbow, shoving Sue off his lap
and out gently, then unfolding himself rather stiffly from the small, low car. He looked with exaggerated amazement at the piles of paper bags and the heaped bundles in the back.

“My God! Well, at least we'll eat!”

“Don't rub it in,” Sara told him mildly. “I can't help it if the house is full. Or if you and Sue are shameless. Or if one of my guests . . .?”

“Hell, I'm sorry, Sara. I'm the rat.”

“Yes, you are,” she said.

Sue listened with astonishement as the two talked quietly, all the while Sara piling packages on Joe's enormous outstretched arms. He was blinking beatifically about him like a happy dog. She followed to look over the tiles of the sloping roof again and into the dark exciting squares of the flowered windows, on into the fruit-filled treetops.

She had never before heard him talk in such a relaxed way. With her he was almost always making love, fervent, demanding, and, with the people they had met this summer in the south of France and in the little taverns of Bavaria, he had always been passionately angry or excited or upset. His low voice—although it had never grown either loud or shrill—had always rushed and pressed upon her, whether with its own desires or with its angers against the extreme injustices others were witnessing on a daily basis. But now it was somnolent and amused.

She knew that if she were not so filled with shyness and the certainty of having to sniff or blow her nose within the next few minutes she might be jealous of Joe's happiness being found in something besides Sue herself, jealous too of Sara Porter and all these surroundings that made Joe so beamish.

She wondered why Sara called him Giuliano, as she did occasionally. Did it mean something secret between them? Sara
seemed
simple but was she, beneath her quiet manners, actually a grasping woman, a bitch?

Oh, please don't let Sara be a bitch, Sue prayed frantically. She's
got
to be nice! She's got to help me. The boat sails in seven days and I know Joe wants me to be on it, so why does he keep begging me
not to go? And why do I
want
him to beg me not to leave him? It's too cruel, cruel. She's got to help me and soon.

“Here, Susan, give a hand,” Sara was telling her.

Sue flushed. How could she have stood there so stupidly while they worked? What would they think of her? She sniffed and picked up a bag of tomatoes with awkward haste. As the bag split open, she stood staring in horror at a dozen round red devils rolling merrily down in to the dim garage.

But Sara laughed and said, “Don't you mind, Sue! They're that much nearer the kitchen. Here, take these instead.” She piled three packages expertly in Sue's arms and said, “Come on, we'll let Daniel get the rest.”

Instead of taking the steep path past the watering basin, Sara now led them into the cool garage and through a door in the far wall.

Sue and Joe followed her gingerly down some twisting steps, peering as best they could over their bundles into the cool darkness of the unfamiliar stairway. The house smelled fresh and airy and was quite without signs of life.

Sara stopped at the bottom of the stairs and they stood for a minute, listening. Susan stirred, hoping that they would not notice how her heart was thumping. Who would appear in this strange place? What would happen next? She felt like a lost child waiting for goblins from the depths.

Suddenly a door crashed open in the little hall in which they stood. Susan looked at the tiled floor, soft green and light gray, and then at the green wooden door and then let her eyes ride up the interminable length of legs of the one who stood there, legs hung with mussed thin cotton pajamas. They did not move. The hips were small and properly tied about with crumpled cloth and the thin lank torso was brown and wide-shouldered and as naked as it was born, and now Susan felt herself to be staring into blinking and bloodshot green eyes.