Seven Lies South

4

The Espada was built on the beach a mile from Mirimar, a glittering complex of glass and steel, which, in Beecher’s view, was about as appropriate to the area as a row of igloos. He had a drink in the bar while Laura changed. The place was catching on; the lobby was clamorous with expensively turned-out tourists, and the bartenders and desk clerks all spoke English. It was typical of what was happening in southern Spain. Everything was becoming chic and haute. Beecher’s glass of brandy and soda cost thirty pesetas, or sixty cents, as contrasted with five pesetas in the Bar Central, and two pesetas in the fishermen’s cafés along the beach. The change grieved Beecher for other than economic reasons. While Spain was cheap tourists seemed tolerant of the fact that they weren’t in France, say, or America. They accepted the bad roads and meager electricity and whimsical train schedules with some grace, because their books of travelers checks stayed pleasantly plump in this bargain-basement of Europe. But as prices went up they became cranky and querulous, and their chorus of complaint irritated Beecher. He loved Spain, and he knew some of its faults and shortcomings. But he didn’t make a point of trying to understand it. The thing was too big, too complex, too full of contradictory currents of racial and religious and political feelings. Every thesis had its antithesis, but the middle areas of synthesis were found only by the stubbornly innocent or the stubbornly ignorant.

There was a group sitting alongside, and he decided they fell into both categories.

A woman was saying, “But it’s the Spanish mind, isn’t it, dear? I mean, they don’t have our ideas of property, for instance.” She spoke with piercing clarity, happily and arrogantly unaware of Spaniards within range of her mid-Western twang. “They steal things, of course, but like children do, isn’t that true?”

The man with her smiled affectionately and patted her plump hand. “Old soft-hearted Nellie. You’re letting them off easy. Actually, you know, Spain was run for a long time by the Moors. Yes, that’s a fact. And Moors are Africans. Now you consider the African mind, and you can understand what is behind a lot of the church superstition and immorality here.”

The bartender spoke to them in English. “Would you care for something else?”

“Yes. Another pair of brandies. French, remember, not Spanish.”

Beecher left a tip and walked from the bar. In the lobby he overheard a woman say, “I saved three weeks by skipping Greece,” and this presented him with such a funny and mysterious picture that it almost overcame his irritation.

Laura stepped from the elevator. She was dressed simply in a pale yellow dress, with a skirt that swung like a bell about her slim brown legs. Her blonde hair was brushed into a shining pageboy, and the brilliant lights in the lobby gleamed on her bare shoulders and arms.

She looked casual and happy, and somehow more expensive than the clotheshorses cantering about the lobby in racing colors of silver fox and blue mink. It was the vitamins and orange juice that cost the real money, he thought. And the swimming and golf and tennis lessons. She had the luxurious look of someone who had been lovingly and thoughtfully cultivated; and the time and money spent on her was evident in the lines of her body, and the bloom of her skin and eyes and hair. It was more conspicuous than an acre of mink.

He felt happy and excited as he took her arm.

They drove up the coastal road to Don Willie’s villa, with the sea as bright and smooth as a silver platter on their right, and the whitewashed homes and shops of the village lovely and peaceful against the moonlit bulk of the Sierra Nevadas.

“No wonder you’re happy here,” Laura said.

That was the pitch, he thought. He wanted her to think he was happy, and be happy herself these few days. He told her about the woman who had saved three weeks by skipping Greece, and was rewarded by her spontaneous howl of laughter.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” she said. “It opens up a whole new idea of travel. You could skip the Louvre and save a day or so. And maybe not go to the Vatican and get a whole week end to the good.”

“We ought to write a book,” Beecher said. “Just on what not to see. And we could work out schedules so people wouldn’t have to leave home at all.”

“Travel agents would sulk,” she said, smiling out at the sea.

Don Willie’s villa, The Black Dove, was built high on a rocky bluff above a shining crescent of beach. There were cars lined up on both sides of the arched entrance. Beecher parked fifty yards away, and helped Laura pick her way up the rocky road. They could hear music and laughter beyond the high white wall which surrounded the gardens.

“It sounds exciting, doesn’t it?” she said. “I hope our host doesn’t mind my coming without an invitation.”

“Don’t worry about that.”

The party had overflowed the main terrace, and streamed into the long gardens that sloped to the swimming pool and bath house. Guests stood in clusters on the graveled walks which cut precise patterns through the flower beds, and maids in black uniforms flitted among them with trays of drinks and hors d’oeuvres. Candles with plastic shields lighted the walks, and Japanese lanterns glowed brilliantly in the bordering rows of neatly trimmed fruit trees. Music poured from a band beside the pool.

There were at least a hundred guests present, and after a glance Beecher was able to place them in three main categories: the Spaniards first, correct and smiling, but banded together for linguistic comfort. He saw the mayor of Málaga, and Don Julio, the constable of Mirimar, talking with a group of businessmen and army officers, while their wives chattered among themselves and watched the activities of the foreign crowd with excited but disapproving eyes. These foreigners made up the second group, French, British and Americans for the most part, permanent residents, and permanent sources of gossip for the Spaniards. The last group had no obvious markings. They were tourists, strays, out-groupers, most of whom had met Don Willie in the village, and had become the beneficiaries of his frequently whimsical generosity.

Beecher saw Lynch, the tall Englishman, standing head and shoulders above the crowd, with his fair hair and happy smile shining in the candlelight. He wore a blazer, and a red choker knotted loosely under the collar of a white shirt. Beecher felt a twist of irritation at the sight of him. He wondered at it. The match was over, safely moth-balled with other unimportant defeats. What did he care now? He wondered if it were because of Laura. She stood smiling expectantly but uncertainly, a hand resting on his arm for assurance, and he would have liked to feel secure and confident about something, if only from winning the match this afternoon.

Don Willie came striding toward them with both arms stretched wide in a gesture of paternal welcome. He reminded Beecher of a beardless Santa Claus, with his stout body swelling against a white silk suit, and his pink cheeks glowing with an air of breathless jolliness and excitement.

Beecher introduced him to Laura. Don Willie’s eyes glinted with appreciation; he bowed over her hand with a massive formality, but, as Beecher knew, the main object of this lingering courtesy was to allow himself an unhurried view of her slim bare legs and ankles.

“You must come inside and put away your wrap,” he said, beaming with pleasure. He wasn’t like Santa Claus, Beecher decided; he was more like a Halloween pumpkin, with a Peeping Tom looking out through the candlelit eyes.

Don Willie was comically famed for his feverish gallantry to pretty young women but, even so, Beecher disliked the look of his big meaty hand on Laura’s bare arm.

The three of them went into the villa. Don Willie’s German shepherd dogs lay on a fiber rug in front of a huge stone fireplace. They were formidable animals, a hundred pounds or more each, with heavy, supple muscles coiled beneath smooth black hides. “These are my babies,” Don Willie said to Laura, as the dogs came slowly but alertly to his side. “They are lovely, no? And so clever. They are learning English with me. Watch.” He pointed to the fireplace. “Go lie down like good doggies,” he said, and the shepherds cocked their heads attentively, and then returned to the rug and settled down with their muzzles resting between their paws.

“Now I will show you my home, no?” Don Willie said. He was obviously pleased by Laura, and flattered by her smiling interest in him. They visited the kitchens and woodhouse, the den and bedrooms, with Don Willie parading before them like a dancing bear, literally hopping with pride and enthusiasm.

The villa was large and the furnishings excellent. There were rooms full of Spanish chests, austerely carved and dark with time, immense leather chairs and sofas, and brass trays and candelabra shining like old gold in the soft light. But in spite of high-ceilinged rooms, the effect of spaciousness had been obliterated by the clutter of curios, souvenirs, mementos and relics which Don Willie had collected in his travels.

The walls were stuffy with tapestries, the lines obscured by maps and calendars and pictures; there were enlarged snapshots of Don Willie everywhere, poised like a clumsy bird on the top of a ski run; preparing to enter the sea in a skindiver’s suit; at fiesta time with a bota of wine to his lips and his free arm about the waist of a pretty but unenthusiastic muchacha. The tabletops were a battlefield on which cigarette boxes, ashtrays, magnifying glasses, and souvenir knives jousted for space. A cuckoo clock stood on the mantelpiece, flanked on one side by a Swiss yodeler in a cage and on the other by a rack of meerschaum pipes ranged according to size, the largest suggesting an edelweiss horn, and the smallest, the crooked finger of an elf.

In the bedroom Don Willie threw open closet doors to show them suits and lounging robes. “You think I am a sissy, no?” he said, wagging a finger roguishly under Laura’s chin. “But I like these nice things. It is funny, no? A big strong man liking pretty things like a girl, hah!”

They returned to the terrace at last, and Don Willie snapped his fingers at a passing maid. She turned quickly, a hand fluttering at her throat. She was about fourteen.

Don Willie spoke to her in Spanish. “Hands at the side, back and shoulders straight, it is better, no?” He patted her smooth dark head, as he had patted the heads of his dogs. “Now you are much nicer, my dear. Respectful and nice.” Laura was staring with bright eyes at the crowds, the glowing gardens, and the sea beyond as flat and bright as a mirror in the moonlight.

“It’s enchanting,” she said. “Too lovely to be true.”

Don Willie seemed genuinely touched by her compliment. His chest filled deeply, and his eyes were proud. “I made all this from nothing,” he said, with a sweeping gesture which, Beecher noticed, embraced most of the Mediterranean and all of the northern shores of Africa. “I came here a poor man. One little man, alone and poor, and I made all this. My name means something. The best people in Spain come here as my friends. That is good, no?” He blinked his eyes. “Now we must drink. What will you have? Demand anything you like.”

Laura wanted a Daiquiri; Beecher a brandy and soda. When the drinks came, Don Willie asked Beecher if he could take Laura with him and introduce her to his friends. He laughed and pounded him on the shoulder. “I do not steal your girl. But I have knowed, I mean, I have teached...” He shook his head in frustration. “I have learned — ha, ha — that is it! I have learned the best thing is to cut all the couples up. It makes things go better, no?”

“You go ahead,” Beecher said to Laura, who was watching him with a smile. “I’ll catch up with you in a few minutes.”

When they had gone into the garden, Beecher chatted with his Spanish friends, drifting from group to group toward the sound of music. He collected another drink from a passing maid. The Englishman, Lynch, waved to him. There was a crush of people between them and Lynch cried; “Glad you changed your mind about coming. A little dissipation will take the edge off your golf.”

Beecher held up his glass. “I’m working at it,” he said, and edged around the knot of people and walked on to the foot of the garden.

A girl in a white blouse and a full red skirt was standing alone at the swimming pool smoking a cigarette. It was Ilse, the young Austrian girl who lived with Don Willie. She turned at the sound of his footsteps and smiled at him. “Hello, Mike.”

“Hello yourself. Brooding?”

“No, nothing like that. I was listening to the music, watching the sea. It’s strange to see you here.”

“I know.” He felt uncomfortable. “There’s a first time for everything, I guess.”

“Why don’t you like Don Willie? He wants to be friendly with everyone.”

“Well, maybe it’s something glandular.”

“Seriously, Mike.”

“It’s nothing important,” he said. “We just have a slight disagreement about the best uses for ovens and barbed wire. That’s all.”

“It’s the war, then,” she said slowly.

“Come on now. It’s too nice a night for this sort of talk.”

“All right. I saw the girl you brought here. She is lovely. Is she an American?”

“Yes.”

“Most American women look like window dummies,” Ilse said. “But she is different. She’s got some sense, I think. And personality.”

Beecher smiled at her. Ilse was about twenty-two, he guessed, with a spare, childish body, and a delicate, impassive face. He was amused by her air of cynical wisdom.

“Where did you run into all these stupid American women?” he asked.

“Coming out of the big, shining PXs in Germany,” she said. “Have you seen them too? With their hair in curlers and scarves around their heads? They wear slacks on the street and have their arms full of store bread and canned goods.” She twisted her lips. “The wives of conquering Americans! They look more like kitchen maids.”

Beecher said gravely, “Those are the only ones we let out of America. We keep the good-looking ones at home.”

“Where they are cozy and safe? It would be nice to live that way.”

“Why are you here then?”

She looked up sharply, and a curl of her long black hair fell across her forehead. “You know why,” she said, and pushed it away with a swift, angry gesture. Her eyes were like diamonds in her small pale face. “I live with Don Willie.”

“Yes, I know that, Ilse,” he said quietly.

“And you think it is disgraceful, don’t you? Everyone here thinks so. You wonder why I am alone. The Spanish women pretend I don’t exist. The foreign women are worse. They pity me. They are successful whores. They married rich men and worked them to death. Now they have their villas and servants and slim young Italians and Spaniards to kiss their hands and feet. They think I could do better than Don Willie. If I painted my face and bought the right clothes I could go to the Riviera and find someone much better. Someone much older and nearer death. Then I could live as they do, with villas and young French lovers. Isn’t that what they think? But do you imagine I care?”

Beecher was distressed by her outburst, because it was so obvious she did care; her lips were trembling and her slight breasts rose and fell rapidly under the white blouse. She seemed childish, and very vulnerable, with her thin wrists and unpainted fingernails, and hurt flaming in her dark eyes.

“I don’t know what they think about you,” he said. “I see very little of the people you’re talking about.”

“You’re very wise or very lucky, then, I don’t know which. They are evil people, and foolish. The men smile so knowingly at me. If Don Willie can succeed, then how much better their chances? That is what is on their minds.”

“People don’t think about us as much as we imagine they do,” Beecher said. “They’ve got problems of their own to worry about. Let’s sit down and listen to the music. Or would you like to dance?”

“I would prefer to sit down,” she said. “I have a headache.”

They sat on a low stone bench and Beecher put his drink on the ground and lit a cigarette. They were in the shadows of a bougainvillaea vine, but the lanterns filtered through the leaves and purple streaks of light filtered into the darkness at their feet.

She wore rope-soled slippers with strings crisscrossed and tied about her slender ankles. Her legs seemed slim and pale and insubstantial in the flickering lantern light.

“You know, Ilse, if people thought about me they’d probably decide I was a bum,” Beecher said. “Lazy, worthless, scared. But they don’t waste their time that way. We’re not as interesting as we like to think. Remember the female impersonator who was here last year? And the Canadian missionary who took Spanish youngsters up to the big springs behind Loma de los Riscos for communion with the Almighty in the nude? We can’t compete with characters like that. Nobody’s worrying about us, believe me.”

She looked at him gravely. “Why did you say you were scared?”

“Did I?” He shrugged. “Well, it follows, doesn’t it? People who withdraw from the big scramble must be afraid of getting hurt. It’s safe and comfortable on the sidelines.”

“Stay safe and comfortable,” she said. “You won’t prove anything by getting hurt.” She was quite serious, he realized, and her intensity embarrassed him. Who was comforting whom? he wondered.

“All right, I’ll keep my head in the sand.”

“Please, Mike. It isn’t funny.”

Don Willie came down the steps then with Laura and the Englishman, Lynch, and his harsh gutturals fell across Ilse’s soft voice with metallic finality.

“I must make my speech now,” he was saying. “I welcome everyone, tell them to be happy, to eat and drink, there is plenty of everything.”

Ilse rose to her feet. Don Willie stopped and patted her arm. “You are hiding here with Mike, eh? You must meet my friends. This is my English friend, Mr. Lynch, and my American friend, Miss Meadows. They are so glad to be here. They love my party.”

Ilse and Laura nodded to one another, and Lynch grinned amiably at Beecher. “I’ve just been telling them about the narrow squeak I had with you this afternoon.”

“But golf is no game for me,” Don Willie said, pounding his chest. “I like a game where there is a fight, a struggle. Even tennis, you can drive a man here, drive him there, make him weak, knock him to pieces.” He smiled, and his eyes sparkled beneath white bushy brows. “Spearing the big fishes, hunting them in their caves deep under the water, that is something I understand. Or training horses and dogs, breaking them to make them do what you want, and fast cars, pushing the other fellows on the curves.” He spread his arms. “I understand these things. But this golf! A silly little stick in your fingers, a silly little ball to strike. Can you win over a little ball? Can it feel it when you strike it?”

“I guess not,” Beecher said. “Maybe we should play with live mice, or something like that.”

“Oh, Mike!” Laura said.

Don Willie roared with laughter, triumphant at understanding Beecher’s sarcasm. “You are teasing me, I know. Because I am bloodthirsty. But no arguments tonight. All are friends here. Now I must excuse myself to make my speech.”

Beecher discovered then that Ilse had gone; he glanced up the garden and saw that she was walking rapidly toward the villa, threading her way gracefully through the clusters of guests.

Lynch said, “I’m going for a refill. Can I bring anyone a drop?” Neither Laura nor Beecher needed a drink, and Lynch gave them a smiling wave and started back toward the bar on the terrace.

“I don’t think I like him,” Laura said.

“Who? Lynch?”

“Yes, I believe that’s his name.”

“What don’t you like about him?”

“I don’t know. He seems so foolish and cheerful, like a big happy puppy. But then he doesn’t miss much, I notice.” She laughed suddenly. “I’m being foolish. I met him ten minutes ago, and I’m already ripping him up like some tea-party gossip.”

They sat down on the stone bench under the bougainvillaea vines, with the moonlight shifting in the leaves above their heads. Don Willie had come to the edge of the raised bandstand, and was holding his arms wide for silence. He spoke first in Spanish, and the substance of his remarks was that he had gone to great trouble and expense to provide this entertainment, and that all guests were under an obligation to have a good time. This was meant to be a joke, Beecher decided charitably.

He translated a phrase or two for Laura’s benefit. This gave him a respite from Don Willie’s heavy-handed banalities, and it also give him a chance to look at Laura, and admire the play of humor and intelligence in her face and eyes.

She squeezed his arm impulsively. “It’s all so different from the travel book and guided tours. I’m grateful to you, Mike.”

Don Willie had begun to speak in English. This was a rich jest, his manner indicated; flushed and smiling, with beaded forehead and gleaming eye, he handled the language in a way that reminded Beecher of a baboon playing with a violin. “I must not go into the world in this English,” he was saying. “I am a little boy in English. I say but stupid things. But the music, the paintings, the books, they are locked in my head, and my key...” He paused, blowing hard, apparently beyond his depth. “The key to my treasures is German, not English. It is the only language to speak of such things. English is for business. For making contracts and selling things. Our German is too big and strong for such trifles. They slips through its fingers like little coins. I say bad things about English, because it is natural to love best the language of the fatherland, no? Now we are all friends in my home. I welcome you to my Black Dove.”

To a spattering of applause, Don Willie stepped from the bandstand and hurried off to see about the fireworks.

“That was nice and diplomatic, didn’t you think?” Beecher said. “Can’t talk about music and art in English. Save all the big deep stuff for German.”

She laughed. “He’s so cheerful and happy it doesn’t make any difference.”

“He scolds his Spanish friends for going to bullfights,” Beecher said. “Cruel and barbarous. Nothing like that in the cozy old fatherland.”

“Well, I think I agree with him. About bullfights, anyway. Do you like them?”

“Yes,” Beecher said, and realized with some surprise that he was irritated by her oblique defense of Don Willie.

“I must sound very typical to you,” she said with a little sigh. “Mind all made up, SPCA gleam in my eye. You old Spanish hands must be weary of us.”

“I’m sorry for snapping at you. But it puzzles me why so many tourists come to Spain in a critical mood. They get off the boat or train spoiling for trouble. And they pick on the bullfight as final evidence that Spaniards are childish and savage and sadistic. This, of course, from enthusiastic fans of fox-hunting, cock-fighting, boxing, spear-fishing and any other bloody sport you’d care to name.”

“I’m sorry. You’re angry, aren’t you?”

Beecher smiled at her. “I will be if you won’t come to the bullfight with me Sunday. Okay?”

She smiled back at him. “But you’ve got to explain things to me, and let me leave if I want to. Okay?”

The fireworks started with a roar; an explosion sounded, and a whistling, jet-stream of sound streaked toward the sky. For an instant an expectant silence held the crowd; then a brilliant red and yellow pinwheel flew apart high against the darkness, and there were screams and cries of excitement and approval as the embers flared brilliantly, and died in the night. The fireworks were being set off in a cleared area beyond the swimming pool, and Don Willie was in charge of the preparations, shouting orders to his servants, and clapping his hands like an excited child when the vivid burst of colorful lights exploded against the moonlit sky.

He was assisted by his pilot, Bruno Hoffman. Bruno was an irritable, taciturn man in his middle forties, whose customary expression was that of someone who had just encountered a disagreeable odor. Not much was known of his background, except that he had been a pilot in the Luftwaffe and had joined Don Willie in Spain at the end of the war. He spent little time in Mirimar; most of his flying was done between Spain and various countries in Europe. Beecher had chatted with him several times in the village. Don Willie’s personal plane was a modified B-26, which was still hotter than most of the military aircraft in Europe. Beecher had flown them in Korea, and Bruno enjoyed talking to him about their various modifications and conformations. Bruno was pleasant enough, he had decided, if you discounted his suspicious, sniffing manners, and generally liverish disposition.

Beecher felt contented and happy with Laura beside him. She looked happy too, and he was grateful to Don Willie for that. Maybe the man had his points. Beecher knew he had never given him much of a chance. Lynch’s appraisal was more tolerant, and it just might be closer to the truth. There were two sides to every question. You never knew all the molding forces that shaped a man’s reaction to a moral challenge. And what the hell was moral anyway, he wondered. Dropping A-bombs on the Japanese was moral enough to invoke praise from the pulpits of America, but it probably didn’t look very moral to the thousands who had gone up in smoke at Hiroshima.

He found it easy to be tolerant and philosophical under the circumstances. With a lovely girl beside him, and Don Willie’s drink in his hands, it was simple to conclude that good and evil were relative matters. This made everything so much more pleasant.

After the fireworks a flamenco troupe appeared on the terrace of the villa, and the crowds moved up the garden to watch them dance. This was human fireworks, an explosion of sound and color and motion. There was the hoarse croak of hondo, and fat gypsies in polka dot dresses pounding out rhythms with calloused hands and run-over heels. And the snap of fingers and machine-gunning of castanets, and bare legs flashing, and the slender young men in skintight trousers, waistbands almost up to their armpits, and the guitars sounding like drums and then like the tears of women, and finally the Spaniards in the audience shouting ole! to punctuate the stories being told in music and song and motion.

Laura was smiling with excitement, the soft light gleaming like silver in her hair and eyes.

A slender Frenchman ran from the crowd to join the dancers. With his back arched and fingers snapping, he capered about clumsily but happily. He was very drunk.

“What’s this?” Laura asked Beecher. “Is he part of the act?”

“No, just the inevitable amateur.”

“Do the gypsies mind?”

“They’re used to it. But Don Willie won’t like it.”

The Frenchman’s name was Maurice. He had been around the village for a week or so. Beecher had seen him in the bars and cafés, usually alone, and usually drunk, or getting drunk, gulping down brandies with dedicated haste, and wrangling in a belligerent but mocking manner with anyone who happened to be sitting near him. The waiters had told Beecher he was a bad man, a man in trouble with no money and no friends but the brandy bottle. Maurice had a cold narrow face, and theatrically long black hair, which flowed back from his forehead in carefully sculptured waves. The wings of gray at his temples looked silvery against his dark, flushed cheekbones. He was thirty-eight or forty, Beecher guessed, but it appeared that he had ridden through those years at a full, frantic gallop; his eyes were staring and strange, with a milky shine like that of a trachoma victim, and despite his careful grooming, and slender controlled body, he seemed to be boiling inwardly with hostility and frustration.

He was dressed in a blue blazer with a gold crest stitched on the handkerchief pocket. His slacks were of tight black silk, and there was a paisley foulard knotted under the rolling collar of a white shirt. It was a Riviera costume, a beach boy’s evening suit, Beecher knew, with the blazer to suggest respectability, and the tight black trousers and pointed suede shoes something else altogether; it was a something-for-everyone outfit, and it hinted broadly that sex could veer off in any or all directions, and conceivably at one and the same time. In the daytime, Beecher thought, Maurice would wear skintight briefs on the beach, with tricky sandals, and the tails of a bell-sleeved shirt knotted about his flat waist. There would be a medal hanging on a slim gold chain about his neck. He was as identifiable as a soldier in uniform and ribbons to anyone who knew Europe. The heavy platinum bracelet could be a reward for service in Nice, the gold wrist watch a tribute to sexual gallantry above and beyond the call of duty, while the cheap-looking belt buckle might stand for failure, a calculated risk perhaps, or a campaign lost through ignorance or carelessness.

These resort and beach troopers were marked by their background in the same way that Lynch, the tall Englishman, was; and in both cases the conformations inevitably became refined to the point of caricature. It happened to the beach boys when age started catching up with them; young, they were insolent and vicious; old, they were foolish and resigned to it, but at the equipoise of these states they became shrill and unpredictable, compulsively driven to demonstrate their charm and vigor, and their willingness to experiment on any and all levels. It was then they became like Maurice, messy and irresponsible and troublesome.

As Beecher had guessed, Don Willie wasn’t amused by the Frenchman. He strode onto the terrace, took Maurice by the arm, and led him firmly and forcefully away from the gypsy dancers. Don Willie was controlling his anger with an effort, Beecher saw; he was smiling apologetically at his guests, but his big beefy face was hot and flushed with irritation. He finally deposited Maurice at the edge of the terrace near Laura and Beecher. The Frenchman was very drunk, his milky white eyes rolling strangely in his narrow face, but when Don Willie left he managed a slow graceful bow to Laura.

“I am sorry, I have had much to drink,” he said, in a voice which was probably high and precise in sober moments, but now was so thickened with alcohol as to be practically unintelligible. “I regret to spoil your pleasure,” he said, recovering precariously from his bow.

“That’s all right,” Laura said smiling. “I enjoyed it. I thought you were pretty good.”

“You are Americans?” Maurice seemed to have got control of himself; there was a suggestion of mockery in the twist of his lips. “I can always tell Americans,” he said, and put a hand lightly on Beecher’s shoulder. “You are always spectators. So well-groomed and happy as you watch others make fools of themselves. Isn’t it true?”

Beecher sensed the hostility in his tone and manner. He smiled and said, “Well, that’s nice to hear. We usually get blamed for just the opposite. Being too loud and vulgar and so forth.”

“Yes, yes, you fool people. You are clever. The loudness, the vulgarity, that is there, plain to hear and see. But you are cautious really. Always letting others do the things that are dangerous.”

“You make us sound pretty scheming,” Laura said. Beecher saw that she didn’t sense the Frenchman’s hostility.

“Will you excuse us, please?” he said. “We’re going in for a drink.” He took Laura’s arm and started to turn, but the Frenchman’s fingers tightened suddenly on his shoulder.

“So, you dismiss me like a drunken boor! The show is over, so the careful Americans move on.” He stared from Beecher to Laura, his breathing harsh and rapid with excitement, his strange milky eyes alive with anger. “You watch wars from your own country. I know. You see pictures of refugees under bombs, tortured and dying. You hear the buildings crash on them, hear the children scream, but like people in a cinema, safe and comfortable in your own homes.”

Laura said, “People in Alaska didn’t get bombed, either. Do you hold that against them?”

The Frenchman sighed heavily; he seemed to have been deflected from his emotional course by Laura’s comment. “She is right, yes she is right,” he said nodding slowly. “We in France have known much suffering. In the war, after the war. I joined the Free French. I fought in Algeria, in Casablanca. I was captured by my own countrymen, the scum who supported Vichy. Do you know what the piquet is?” He had moved to another emotional level now, bland and serene, and the milky opaqueness clouding his eyes gave a dreamlike quality to his gentle smile. “The piquet, my little one, is what the Vichy pigs used on their own countrymen so that they could continue to sleep with their wives, and save their gold, and drink in the cafés with the Germans. I will tell you of the piquet and of the basement in Casablanca where they hung us up to lose our minds in the darkness.”

“No, please,” Laura said.

“It cannot hurt you, my little one,” the Frenchman said, smiling brilliantly. “The pain and screaming is all over. It is an amusing story now, safe for your little American ears.” His next words came in a furious burst. “They strung us up by one wrist, our bare feet clear of the ground. Under each foot was a wooden stake sharpened to a point. When you hang long enough that way the arm comes from the socket. With some it happened quickly; for the very strong it took all night. But no matter how strong you are, the muscle tears, the bones pull from the socket. Then you must stand on the pointed stakes with your bare feet, or the arm will be torn from the body.” Beecher started to speak, but the Frenchman raised his voice to a shout. “You must try, my pretty one, to stand on the pointed stakes in your bare feet, while your shoulder is broken, and no one can hear your screams but a God whose laughter drowns out all other sounds, or your brother Frenchmen who are too busy drinking wine with the Germans to come down and cut you loose from your agony. But this is no game for Americans. They are always fat and safe in their own country when the war strikes. Selling the things that will kill other people. Eating like pigs, laughing...”

“Take your goddamn hand off my shoulder,” Beecher said coldly.

The Frenchman was boiling with emotion. “Do not threaten me, my American friend. I am very quick and strong. At boxing, at judo, at catch. I am stronger than when I was twenty. You will not remove me. You cannot do the things I can do.”

“I don’t think I’d want to,” Beecher said. “Now take your hand off me, or I’ll dump you right on your cute fairy ass.”

The Frenchman whinnied in anger, his chest rising and falling like that of an exhausted swimmer, but he did not seem able to commit himself to action. “You must not talk to me this way,” he said. “I am not to be spoken to in this way.”

Beecher slapped his hand down. “Save your cute stories for some sentimental old man with a nice collection of whips.”

The Frenchman swung at him then, impotently and wildly. Beecher caught his wrist, twisted it sharply, and then trapped the Frenchman’s free arm with his other hand.

Their scuffle lasted only a few seconds; there was no fight in the man, no strength in his body. He sagged against Beecher, gasping for breath.

Don Willie hurried across the terrace, and helped Beecher carry him down the steps into the garden. It was all over so fast that the guests standing nearby had no notion of what happened.

The Frenchman smiled drunkenly at Don Willie. “It was a joke.” He hung his head like a child expecting punishment. “We play at judo. I have drunk too much. I am sorry.”

Beecher let him go, and Maurice straightened his coat and bowed carefully to Laura. “I must apologize,” he said. “I am not...” He frowned, searching for words. Then he sighed as if the effort were too much for him. “You will excuse me, please.” He walked slowly up the terrace steps and disappeared into the crowd.

“It is me who must apologize,” Don Willie said anxiously to Laura and Beecher. “He is crazy, no?”

“He didn’t like me, but I don’t know if that means he’s crazy,” Beecher said.

“What did he say to you?”

“Hell, let’s skip it,” Beecher said.

“But I must know. I must know how he insulted you. What did he say? Tell me, please.”

Beecher shrugged. “Just that Americans are all fat, lazy warmongers. That was the general idea.”

Don Willie took out a large handkerchief and wiped his damp forehead. “I am relieved it was nothing personal. People who say such things are fools. A country is many different ideas, many different persons. I met Maurice in the village and asked him to my party because I do not like to make him feel left out. He was nice then, very quiet and sober. Now he makes this fight, insults my friends. It is my fault. You must be careful with the French. They are very nervous, very difficult, like women. Ach! What am I saying?” He patted Laura’s hand contritely. “Now I must apologize again. But for a woman to be nervous and difficult that is all right. It is spicy, no? You treat them nice and they are no longer nervous and difficult. But you cannot make a Frenchman happy the way you make a woman happy. They are very strange. With their talk of food and wines and how they love their country. On mange bien in France they say, kissing their fingers as if no one else knew about putting fire under meat. It is my fault. I should not have asked him.”

“Well, maybe I wasn’t very tactful with him,” Beecher said.

Don Willie put his hands on Beecher’s shoulders and looked at him with smiling approval. “Why should you be tactful? You are a man! Someone insults your pretty lady, where is the need for tact?” Don Willie patted Beecher’s arms. “Yes, you are a man,” he said, but he was no longer smiling, and there was an expression of thoughtful appraisal on his round, flushed face. “I too am a man, I think,” he said. “I make up my mind quick. There is a lucky thing about this party tonight. Lucky for me and — who knows? Lucky, too, for you, Mike Beecher.” He dropped his hands to his sides and turned to Laura. “Would you excuse us a little minute, my dear? There is something I wish to talk to Mike about.”

“Why, yes, of course,” Laura said. “I’ll amuse myself. Run along.”