We'll Always Have Paris (9 page)

A man with greased, curled hair, his shirtsleeves gartered with red elastic
above his hairy elbows, leaned against a post there. He vanished behind swinging doors. When
they hit the swinging doors, he was polishing the bar and tipping rye into thirty glasses all
lined up glittering on the beautiful long bar. A crystal chandelier blazed warmly overhead.
There was a stairway leading up and a number of doors above, on a balcony, and the faintest
smell of perfume.

They all went to the bar. They were quiet. They took up the rye and drank it
straight down, not wiping their mouths. Their eyes stung.

The captain said, in a whisper, to the psychiatrist, standing by the door,
‘Good God! The expense!’

‘Film sets, knockdowns, collapsibles. A
real minister next door in the church of course. Three real barbers. A piano player.’

The man at the yellow-toothed piano began to play ‘St. Louis Woman with Your
Diamond Rings.’

‘A druggist, two fountain girls, a pool-hall proprietor, shoeshine boy, rack
boy, two librarians, odds and ends, workmen, electricians, et cetera. Totals up another two
million dollars. The hotel is
all
real. Every room with bath.
Comfort. Good beds. Other buildings are three-quarters false front. All of it so beautifully
constructed, with slots and tabs, a child could put up the whole toy-works in an hour.’

‘But will it work?’

‘Look at their faces, beginning to relax already.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me?!’

‘Because, if it’d got out, spending money this silly, ridiculous way, the
papers would’ve jumped me–senators, Congress, God would have gotten in the act. It’s silly,
damn silly, but it
works
. It’s
Earth
.
That’s all I care about. It’s
Earth
. It’s a piece of Earth the men
can hold in their hand and say, “This is Illinois, this is a town I
knew.
These are
buildings
I knew. This is a little
piece of Earth that’s here for me to hold on to until we bring
more
of it up and make the loneliness run away forever.”’

‘Ingenious, devilish, clever.’

The men ordered a second rye all around, smiling.

‘The men on our ship, Captain, are from fourteen
small towns. Picked them that way. One of each of these buildings in this little
street here is from one of those towns. The bartender, ministers, grocery-store owner, all
thirty of the people on the Second Rocket, are from those towns.’

‘Thirty?
Besides
the relief crew?’

The psychiatrist glanced happily at the steps leading up to the balcony and
the series of shut doors. One of the doors opened a trifle and a beautiful blue eye gazed out
for a moment.

‘We’ll rush in more lights and more towns every month, more people, more
Earth. Priority on familiarity. Familiarity breeds sanity. We’ve won the first round. We’ll
keep winning if we keep moving.’

Now the men were beginning to laugh and talk and slap one another on the
shoulders. Some of them walked out and across the street for a haircut, some went to play pool,
some to buy groceries, some into the quiet church, you could hear organ music for a moment just
before the piano player here in the crystal-chandeliered saloon began ‘Frankie and Johnny.’ Two
men walked laughingly up the stairs to the doors along the balcony.

‘I’m no drinking man, Captain. How about a pineapple malt at the drugstore
over the way?’

‘What? Oh. I was thinking…Smith.’ The captain turned. ‘Back in the ship. Do
you think–I mean–could we get Smith, bring him here, with us, would it do any good, would he
like
it, mightn’t it make him
happy
?’

‘We could certainly try,’ said the
doctor.

The pianist was playing, very loud, ‘That Old Gang of Mine.’ Everybody
singing, some of them starting to dance, and the city like a jewel blazing in the wilderness,
darkness all around. Mars lonely, the sky black and full of stars, the wind rushing, the moons
rising, the seas and old cities dead. But the barber pole whirled brightly, and the church
windows were the color of Coca-Cola and lemonade and boysenberry phosphate.

The piano was tinkling ‘Skip to My Lou’ half an hour later when the captain,
the psychiatrist, and a third man walked into the drugstore and sat.

‘Three pineapple malts,’ said the captain.

And they sat, reading magazines, turning slowly on the stools, until the girl
behind the fountain set three beautiful pineapple malts at their elbows.

They all reached for the straws.

‘Good Lord.’

‘Good Lord, indeed!’

They fell back and stared at the ceiling. There was a long pause in which
they regained their breath.

‘That was wonderful,’ she said.

‘Wonderful,’ he said.

There was another pause while they examined the ceiling.

Finally she said, ‘Wonderful, but—’

‘What do you mean “but”?’ he said.

‘It was wonderful,’ she said. ‘But now we’ve ruined everything.’

‘Ruined?’

‘Our friendship,’ she said. ‘It was such a great thing and now we’ve lost
it.’

‘I don’t believe that,’ he said.

She examined the ceiling in even more detail.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it was so marvelous. It went on for a long time. What was
it, a year? And now, like damn fools, we’ve killed it.’

‘We weren’t damn fools,’ he said.

‘That’s how I see it. In a moment of weakness.’

‘No, passion,’ he said.

‘No matter how you put it,’ she said, ‘we’ve spoiled everything. How long ago
was it? A year? We were great pals, fine buddies, went to the library together, played tennis,
drank beer instead of champagne, and now we let one little hour throw it all overboard.’

‘I don’t buy that,’ he said.

‘Think about it,’ she said. ‘Stop and examine the last hour and the last
year. You’ve gotta come around to my way of thinking.’

He watched the ceiling to see if he could see there any of the things she had
just said.

At last he sighed.

She heard the sigh and said, ‘Does that mean yes, you agree?’

He nodded and she felt the nod.

They both lay on their separate pillows, staring at the ceiling for a long
while.

‘How do we get it back?’ she said. ‘It’s so stupid. We’ve known better than
this with other people. We’ve seen how things can be killed and yet we went right ahead
and killed it. Do you have any ideas? What do we do now?’

‘Get out of bed,’ he said, ‘and have an early breakfast.’

‘That won’t do it,’ she said. ‘Hold still for a while, maybe something will
come to us.’

‘But I’m hungry,’ he said.

‘I’m more than hungry, I’m ravenous. For answers, that is.’

‘What are you doing? What’s that sound?’

‘I think I’m crying. What a terrible loss. Yes, I think I’m crying.’

They lay for another long moment and then he stirred.

‘I’ve got a crazy idea,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘If we lie here with our heads on our pillows and look at the ceiling and
talk about the last hour and then the last week to see how we led up to this, and then the last
month and the whole last year, mightn’t that help?’

‘In what way?’ she said.

‘We’ll
un
-pillow talk,’ he said.

‘Un what?’

‘Un-pillow talk. We’ve heard of pillow talk all our lives, the talk that goes
on late at night or early morning. Pillow talk between husbands and wives and lovers. But in
this case maybe we can put everything in reverse. If we can talk our way back to where we were
last night at ten o’clock, and then at six, and then at noon, maybe somehow we can talk the
whole thing away. Un-pillow talk.’

She made the smallest sound of
laughter.

‘I guess we could try,’ she said. ‘What do we do?’

‘Well, we’ll just lie very straight and relax and look at the ceiling with
our heads on our pillows and we’ll start to talk.’

‘What’s the first thing we talk about?’

‘Shut your eyes and just say anything you want to say.’

‘But
not
about tonight,’ she said. ‘If we talk
about the last hour, we might get into even worse trouble.’

‘Forget the last hour,’ he said, ‘or remember it quickly, and then let’s get
back to
early
in the evening.’

She lay very straight and shut her eyes and held her fists at her sides.

‘I think it was the candles,’ she said.

‘The candles?’

‘I shouldn’t have bought them. I shouldn’t have lit them. It was our first
candlelit dinner. Not only that, but champagne instead of beer; that was a big mistake.’

‘Candles,’ he said. ‘Champagne. Yeah.’

‘It was late. Usually you go home early. We break it up and get together
early mornings to play tennis or to head to the library. But you stayed awfully late and we
opened that second bottle of champagne.’

‘No more second bottles,’ he said.

‘I’ll throw out the candles,’ she said. ‘But before that, what kind of year
has it been?’

‘Really great,’ he said. ‘I’ve never known
a greater pal, a greater buddy, a greater companion.’

‘Same goes here,’ she said. ‘Where did we meet?’

‘You know. It was the library. I saw you prowling the stacks almost every day
I was there, for about a week. You seemed to be looking for something. Maybe it wasn’t a
book.’

‘Well then,’ she said. ‘Maybe it was
you
after all.
I saw you wandering the stacks, saw you studying the books. The first thing you said to me was,
“How about Jane Austen?” What a peculiar thing for a man to say. Most men don’t read Jane
Austen, or if they did they wouldn’t admit it or open a conversation with a line like
that.’

‘That wasn’t a line,’ he said. ‘I thought you looked like a reader of Jane
Austen, or maybe even Edith Wharton. It was quite natural.’

‘From there,’ she said, ‘it really opened out. I remember we began to walk
through the stacks together and you pulled out a special edition of Edgar Allan Poe to show me,
and though I never was a Poe fan, the way you talked about him, the way you inspired me, I
began to read the awful man the next day.’

‘So,’ he said, ‘it was Austen and Wharton and Poe. Those are great names for
a literary company.’

‘And then you asked me if I played tennis and I said yes. You said you were
better at badminton but you’d try tennis with me. So we played against each other and that was
great…I think one of the mistakes we made
was that this
week, for the first time ever, we played doubles and we played together against the other
two.’

‘Yes, that was a great mistake. As long as I opposed you, there was no chance
for any candles or any champagne. Maybe that’s not strictly true, but you beating me all the
time, I must admit, made it difficult.’

She laughed quietly. ‘Well then, I have to admit that when we became a team
on the court and won the game yesterday, not long after that, without thinking, I went out and
bought the candles.’

‘Good God,’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Isn’t life strange?’ She paused and looked at the ceiling
again. ‘Are we almost there?’

‘Where?’

‘Back where we should be. Back a year ago, a month ago, hell, even a week
ago. I’d settle even for that.’

‘Keep talking,’ he said.

‘No, you,’ she said. ‘You’ve got to help.’

‘Well then, it was those days driving up the coast and back. We never stayed
overnight. We just loved the drive in the open car with the wind and the sea and there was one
hell of a lot of laughter.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? When you think back about all your
friends and all the most important times in your life, laughter is the greatest gift. We did
much of that.’

‘You actually went to some of my lectures and didn’t fall asleep.’

‘How could I? You’ve always been
brilliant.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘A genius, yes, but not brilliant.’

She laughed again, quietly.

‘You’ve been reading too much Bernard Shaw lately.’

‘Does it show?’

‘Yes, but I don’t mind. Genius or brilliant, the talk has been fine.’

‘How are we doing?’ he said.

‘I think we’re getting close,’ she said. ‘I’m almost back to six months ago.
If we keep going, it will be a year. And tonight will be just some sort of bright, wonderful,
dumb memory.’

‘Well put,’ he said. ‘Keep talking.’

‘Another thing,’ she said. ‘In all our travels, from breakfast at the seaside
to lunch in the mountains to dinner in Palm Springs, we were always home before midnight–me
dropped off at the door and you driving off.’

‘That’s right. What wonderful trips. Well now,’ he said, ‘how do you
feel?’

‘I think I’m there,’ she said. ‘This un-pillow talk was a great idea.’

‘Are you back in the library and walking, all by yourself?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll follow after a while,’ he said. ‘Just one more thing.’

‘Yes?’

‘At noon tomorrow, tennis, but this time you’re across the net again and we
play against each other, like in the old days, and I’ll win and you’ll lose.’

‘Don’t be so sure. Noon. Tennis. Just like
the old times. Anything else?’

‘Don’t forget to buy the beer.’

‘Beer,’ she said. ‘Yes. Now what? Friends?’

‘What?’

‘Friends?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good. Now, I’m very tired; I need sleep, but I’m feeling better.’

‘Me, too,’ he said.

‘So, my head’s on the pillow, your head’s on yours, but before we go to sleep
there’s one more thing.’

‘What?’

‘Can I hold your hand? Just that.’

‘Of course.’

‘Because I have a terrible feeling,’ she said, ‘that the bed might spin and
you’ll be thrown off and I’ll wake up to find you’re not holding my hand.’

‘Hold on,’ he said.

His hand touched hers. They lay very straight, very still.

‘Good night,’ he said.

‘Oh, yes, good, good night,’ she said.