Art in Nature

  The restaurant was empty; the season was almost over. They asked each other if they’d been here before, but only May remembered one time with her father, who’d been a member of the yacht club and had had his own boat berthed in the marina. The stairs were broad and the ceiling unbelievably high, almost like a church. Highest up, under the tower, was an intricate network of timbers. It was a warm evening, and the windows stood open along the entire length of the verandah. Fog drifted in across the empty tables.

  “It’s like some film I saw,” Regina said. “A big castle with empty rooms and people who didn’t know what they wanted.”

  “Marienbad,” Ellinor said. “That was an awfully good movie. But why are you whispering?” They took seats at the far end of the verandah. The waiter came, and while they were ordering they found their way back to their initial exhilaration. They were going to eat and drink well, and for this one evening they had left everything behind and were going to enjoy themselves in a new, unusual place, an island from the turn of the century, a building that was almost old when they were children.

  “That’s what’s so exciting,” Regina said. “Having it all ahead of us. I’ll have a White Lady. I’m wearing a white dress, so I want a White Lady.”

  “Is that strong?” May asked. “I’ll have the same.”

  Regina called back the waiter to say she’d changed her mind – she wanted the pepper steak instead. And the wine should be at room temperature.

  “Did you notice?” May said. “Did you notice how young the waiter was? In a place like this, they ought to be old. But he’s young and quick and hears everything you say.”

  “I’m hungry,” Ellinor said. “I’m always hungry. And I never have the nerve to order what I really want. I’m getting fat! And right now, after a real ocean voyage, I’m really especially hungry!” They all laughed, and then she said, suddenly sentimental, “The man driving the boat … Just think! He’d been a captain on the seven seas. And then they let him go. He told me. Isn’t that awful?”

  May said, “You could use that in a book.” She fished out her compact and quickly powdered her troubled little face, puffed up her hair, and put the purse on the floor beside her chair. “You’re not a bit fat. You’re sturdy.”

  “Junoesque,” Regina said. “You know one time in Venice I drank a White Lady, or rather actually it was outside Venice in that casino, whatever it’s called. That was my first White Lady. Cheers, girls! Anyway, there I was and I was so young they wouldn’t let me in without an escort. Well, along came this bank director from Fiume …”

  “What?”

  “Fiume. A bank director from Fiume. And I was young and sweet, so he invited me in and told me to bet as much as I wanted on roulette, because beginners always have such good luck, he said. It was foggy outside, just like this.”

  “Here comes the food!” May cried. “Girls, girls, this is going to be a real feast!”

  The waiter smiled and asked which of them was to taste the wine.

  “I’m the eldest,” Ellinor said. “I’m several weeks older than any of you! I’m the Grand Old Lady.” She sipped the wine and smiled at him and said, “Perfect. The temperature is just right. What shall we drink to?”

  “To you!” Regina cried. “To your young people’s books.”

  “How nice of you,” Ellinor said. “Cheers. Though I don’t know that anyone reads them any more. Have you noticed how the air smells of night?”

  Regina said, “You have such beautiful thoughts. But it smells of the city. The sewers. It did in Venice, too, and it was just beautiful, beautiful …”

  May said they ought to change places. It was Ellinor who should sit opposite the window. The boats and all. “It could give you new ideas,” May said. But Ellinor thought it was unnecessary. After a while they started talking about their friend the Count. It was some time since he’d called. “When was the last time he called you?”

  “I don’t know. Last spring. He’s always so busy.”

  “Time,” said Regina. “Speaking of time, that bank director from Fiume told me that the only thing he no longer had was time. He had everything else, money and everything, but he no longer had time. I didn’t want to bet on roulette. I thought it was awful, so we went into the bar instead. ‘Dear child,’ he said. ‘Pretty little child. Order whatever you’d like. Green, white, red, yellow.’ That’s exactly what he said. ‘I have everything, but I also have a bad stomach.’”

  “I know,” said Ellinor.

  “Do you also have a bad stomach?”

  “No, but you’ve told that story before.”

  “Not to me,” May said. “What did you order?”

  “White. A White Lady. I thought it sounded so pretty. There was a little rim of ice on the glass. Look, there still is.”

  “About the Count,” Ellinor said. “Has he called any of you?”

  “Never,” Regina said. “He’s forgotten us. He’s way too famous. We danced once. No, twice. Why don’t they have any music here?”

  Ellinor said, “They’ve been playing music the whole time – you just haven’t heard it. Slow stuff on tape for the old folks. Ti-di-di-da, ti-di-di-da. Like in Marienbad.”

  “And foghorns,” May said.

  They listened. “Okay,” Regina said, “it’s foghorns. They’re howling. How are they howling, Ellinor?”

  “Like old, tired animals”, Ellinor said, “that no longer have the strength to be afraid. Hey, what’ll you give me for that one?”

  “Ten plus!” May cried. “They’re too tired even to be afraid. They just howl.”

  Regina stood up and said she was going to the ladies’ room. On the way, she walked past the bar and asked if they didn’t have any younger music. “So we won’t feel so old,” she added, and laughed. The waiter said that they had younger music but maybe it would make her feel even older. All the way downstairs, Regina wondered if he’d been cheeky, too familiar, and in that case, what she should have said. In any case it was too late now. The ladies’ room was large and cool, tulle curtains knotted above the windows, each little stall provided with a faded family name, easy chairs covered in shiny chintz. Someone had left a red lifebelt hanging on a peg. Down here she cold hear the ships’ foghorns much better. Regina grew melancholy. She stood and looked at her face in the neon light that made everything hard and hollow and thought it had been somehow less heavy in the old days. Her face had grown too long over the years, and her nose as well. She went back upstairs and said to the others, “I can’t understand why he never calls.”

  “He’s so rarely in town,” Ellinor said. “But maybe we could dance.”

  “Speaking of dancing,” Regina said. “That time. They couldn’t stop playing to dance. There was an atmosphere of tension, a kind of fear, if you know what I mean. The ones playing for high stakes, I mean insane sums of money, were fenced in with a rope. Four people with a fence around them so no one would disturb them. There was dead silence. No one dared say a word.”

  “How strange,” May said. “Have you ever been back?”

  “No. I thought about it once, but it never happened.”

  Some people came in at the other end of the verandah, very young people. “Like a flock of birds,” said Ellinor, “a swarm of birds that settle for a moment, for as long as it suits them.” The music suddenly changed to something entirely different. It had grown dark outside, and the harbour lights were sharp and distant. It was as if the island and the restaurant had slipped further out to sea, as if they were floating away.

  “I’m so happy,” May said. “It’s as if nothing was important any more. Is this our second bottle?”

  “Yes,” Ellinor said.

  The young people were not dancing. Why should they? They could afford not to. Wherever they went, their own music followed them. They talked quietly and were completely involved with one another.

  “What would you say to an Irish coffee?” Regina said. “For the fun of it. You know, something unusual. I mean, now that
the three of us are out together for once. She put her arms on the table and tried to sing along – ba-ding, ba-ding, doo-ah, doo-ah. “It’s got a nice beat, doesn’t it? Why don’t they dance? The Count should be here.”

  “He’s probably just polite,” said Ellinor.

  “Do you think any of them know you’re an author? We could talk to them a little. Garçon! Ciao. Three Irish coffees. You don’t get a lot of customers in the fall.”

  “No, not this late,” the waiter said. “We’ll be closing soon for the winter.”

  “Doesn’t it get lonely here sometimes?” Regina said. “I mean, without customers. And all the rooms so large and nothing but empty chairs.”

  May said she’d imagined whipped cream. Some of the young people began to dance, almost absentmindedly, by themselves. Regina said she was going to the ladies’ room.

  “But you just came back.”

  She said, “I want to look around. It’s not often I get to places like this.” She walked over to the young people at the bar and said, “Hi, are you having a good time? Nice music, isn’t it?”

  “It’s good,” said a boy.

  She took her White Lady with her, and as she passed their table she raised her glass and smiled, a little greeting, a disarming, dismissive gesture. “They’re nice,” she said when she came back. “Friendly and polite. We could treat them to something. I was always getting treated when I was young.”

  May said they hadn’t whipped the cream, just stirred it in. It wasn’t real Irish coffee. Now the music grew heavier, it forced itself upon them, stubbornly repeating the same phrases again and again, over and over. Ellinor said it was like a pulse.

  “Then it’s someone with a bad heart,” May said. “He’s not feeling well.” She said she was going to the ladies’ room to make herself pretty.

  “Drink your Irish coffee while it’s warm,” Regina said. “And you’re not going to get any prettier, neither here nor there.”

  “I don’t want to drink it while it’s warm. You’re like my mother. I want to drink something clear and cold.”

  Regina said, “Green, white, red, yellow! Whatever you’d like.” She laughed and threw herself back in her chair.

  “Regina, you’re drunk,” Ellinor said.

  Regina answered slowly. “I hadn’t expected that. I really hadn’t expected that from you. You’re usually much more subtle.”

  “Girls, girls,” May burst out. “Don’t fight. Is anyone coming to the ladies with me?”

  “Oh the ladies room, the eternal ladies’ room,” said Ellinor. “What do you do there all the time?” The whole scene was like something from an early talkie, with too much gesturing. It wasn’t a very good film; the direction was definitely second-rate. “Just go,” she said. “I want to look at the fog on the ceiling.”

  On their way to the stairs, Regina and May stopped at the bar. “Ciao,” the waiter said, grinning. “What’ll it be? Irish coffee?”

  “Absolutely not,” May said. She spoke with great care. “I would like a Cognac.”

  The tape stopped. Outside it was pitch-dark, a great autumn darkness. They stood with their backs to the bar. Regina raised her glass and cried, “Cheers for the springtime of youth! Cheers, everyone!”

  They raised their glasses to her toast. One of them stood up and came to the bar. He looked at May and asked, “Are you the lady writer?” The waiter put on a new tape, an explosion of sound. Speech was out of the question; they smiled at each other. Ellinor appeared and shouted over the music, “What became of you? What are you doing here?”

  Regina leaned towards the young man and shouted, “Here’s the author! Ellinor! You all use first names these days, right? Another Cognac. One for you, too. Isn’t this wonderful, just completely unreal? And you all dance so beautifully. This new way of dancing is so right. You just move, each person on his own. Like this …”

  The waiter laughed. The young man put down his glass and bowed to Regina.

  “Here we go!” she called out playfully, in English.

  They stood and looked for a while and then May said, “She’s making a scene. Gyrating and carrying on. Ellinor, I don’t feel well.”

  They went down to the ladies’ room.

  “Funny,” Ellinor said. “I write books for young people and they don’t know who I am. And I know nothing about them, either. Funny, isn’t it?”

  May had taken a seat in one of the chintz chairs. “What time is it?” she said. “But you don’t write any more.”

  “I don’t know. It’s stopped.”

  “I admire you, but anyway … Listen, I can’t go in that motorboat. I don’t feel well. It was the cream.” After a while she said, “I detest Irish coffee. Have you got an aspirin?”

  “No. They’re in my other purse.”

  A young girl came in and went to the mirror. Ellinor asked if she had an aspirin.

  “Terribly sorry,” the girl said, “but I’m afraid I don’t.” She looked at May and said, “Is it her heart?”

  May said, “Certainly not. There’s nothing wrong with my heart. Anyway, I’m feeling better now.” She went into one of the stalls and slammed the door behind her.

  On the stairs she said, “Why should I have a problem with my heart? If someone wants an aspirin, it’s because they’ve got a headache.”

  “Don’t be angry,” Ellinor said. “It was just the lighting.”

  Regina was sitting at the young people’s table. She waved them over and called out, “Hi! Come here! Guess what, Peter’s grandmother and my father knew each other! It’s a small world, isn’t it? This is Ellinor, who’s a writer, and this is May.” The young people stood and greeted them. One of them brought two extra chairs. “Now, let’s go all in for gin!” Regina said, being playful in English again. “Ellinor? You’re not in a bad mood, I hope. This is my friend Erik. He’s just started at the university. What was it you were studying again?”

  “Humanities.”

  “Oh yes. Humanities. The study of mankind. God, it’s so lovely seeing nothing but pretty, friendly faces.”

  “You talk too much,” Ellinor said.

  The waiter turned up the music.

  “Just look at these beautiful faces!” Regina cried. “I haven’t seen such beautiful faces since I was in Venice!”

  The young people got up to dance, as if on some common signal. The music was deafening, thudding, without melody. They danced solemnly. Unreachable, they moved with exquisite self-control.

  “Like a ritual,” Ellinor said.

  “What did you say?” Regina yelled. “I can’t hear you in this racket.”

  “A ritual!” Ellinor screamed. “Deadly serious. Priests and priestesses in the temple of Eros! Do you hear what I’m saying? I don’t know a thing about books for young people and I want to pay the bill and go home!”

  “What are you talking about?” May said. “Now I’m feeling ill again.” But no one heard what she said. Regina shouted that she didn’t want to go home. She had made a connection with the young people and wanted to share.

  “Share what, for heaven’s sake?” a weary Ellinor asked in Regina’s ear, and Regina answered, “My experience! They listen to me!”

  “I’m going to kill that waiter and his grin,” said Ellinor. “Give us our bill. We’re not friendly.” He leaned over them, came so close it was hard to see what he looked like. “We can’t stay,” she said. “It’s time for us to go.”

  “I’ll pay for myself!” May shouted. “One for all and all for one …”

  They had turned out the lights in the main dining room and at the other end of the long verandah. Quick hands were stacking chairs, coming closer and closer, and now that it was dark it was even more apparent that the fog had entered the room.

  “Dramatic,” Ellinor said.

  The bill came almost at once. When they stood up, the music abruptly stopped. The young people were standing on the dance floor looking at them. For several moments nothing happened and the silence was a
bsolute.

  “Thank you for a lovely evening,” Regina said. “It’s been wonderful.” Suddenly she was shy. “A terribly important contact.” She spoke slowly, with quiet dignity. “I’m certain that you’ve given my friend Ellinor many new ideas, and your charming thoughtfulness has made a deep impression on me, on us. And now we want to give you our best wishes for long lives and the best of everything.”

  The young man named Peter took several quick steps forward and kissed her hand. All the way down the stairs, the music was silent. Only when they were walking across the lawn did it come back in all its uncontrollable but now distant vitality.

  Regina was crying. “Wasn’t it wonderful?” she said. “Wasn’t that simply wonderful? It was like in Venice. Do you know what he said to me? He’d taken me back to my hotel, a squalid little place, but I thought it was splendid, and his stomach was hurting him the whole time, and then he said, ‘Dear, sweet girl, if I’d been thirty years younger, our evening would have ended in a different way.’ Wasn’t that too bad? You understand, he was really having trouble with his stomach. And the next morning he sent roses, dozens of roses, the first flowers anyone ever sent me.”

  “I understand,” Ellinor said. “But now you need to pull yourself together. The boat’s coming.”

  “Look!” May cried. “There it comes. Isn’t it like Charon’s ferry or something? You like similes.”

  “By all means,” Ellinor said. She was tired and in no mood for anyone’s similes but her own.

  The Doll’s House

  ALEXANDER WAS AN UPHOLSTERER of the old school. He was exceptionally skilled, and he took a craftsman’s natural pride in his work. He discussed commissions only with those customers who had taste and a feel for the beauty of materials and workmanship. Not wishing to show his contempt, he referred all the others to his employees.