Free Live Free

Serving The Country

The waistband of her nurse’s skirt had parted an hour before. One of the lower buttons of her blouse had broken its thread and slipped unnoticed to the carpet; three more had been pulled through their holes. Her belly, drum taut and flushed with wine, protruded through the triangular space, pressing firmly against the table and spilling (as it were) three inches over the snowy tablecloth.

The table held a large platter of French pastries and bonbons, and a very large glass of champagne. Slowly, she reached for one of the bonbons and held it up as though to examine it in the candlelight. It was raspberry. “This … last one,” she said.

“Certainly.”

She put it slowly into her mouth as though performing an onerous duty, and although she was already leaning nearly as far back as the tall chair permitted, contrived to lean back farther still until her head rested against its red leather cushion. Delicately and unsteadily she raised her glass to her lips and washed down the raspberry bonbon with champagne. When she set the empty glass on the table again, a solicitous waiter refilled it.

Another, taller, waiter arrived bearing a white telephone, which he plugged into a connection in the floor. Sweet identified himself and listened for half a minute or so. “Of course I need help,” he said. “I need all the help I can get.”

She said nothing. Her eyes were half closed. Her cherrycolored face, propped and cradled by three chins, wore the expression of sleep, though her left hand wandered with hesitant slowness over the surface of the tray.

Sweet beckoned the tall waiter, and when the waiter stooped to disconnect the telephone, tapped him on the shoulder and extended the handset. “It’s for you.”

“Yes, sir,” the waiter said. He gave his name; there was a long pause. “I’ll have to speak with the manager, sir.” He returned the handset to Sweet. “Don’t hang up, sir. I’ll bring the manager. Just a moment.”

Sweet nodded a little grimly, and the waiter hurried away.

She fingered a pastry, a tiny mountain of colored cream and meringue. For a moment, it almost seemed she was going to put it down, then she nibbled at the edge and licked her lips.

The white handset lay on the table in front of Sweet. He picked it up and put the palm of one hand over the mouthpiece. “I really am a vice president of Mickey’s Jawbreakers,” he said.

If she heard him, she gave no indication of it.

“I wanted you to know. They made me do this. I was contacted at the airport; they bounced me off my plane.”

The pastry was nearly eaten. She opened her mouth a trifle wider, pushed the last of it in, and took a swallow of champagne, leaving the glass lightly rimmed with pink cream filling. Dazedly, she looked around for her napkin. It had dropped to the floor beside her chair; she used the edge of the tablecloth instead.

“I’m sorry,” Sweet said.

A lean, foreign-looking man in a business suit hurried over to their table two steps ahead of the taller waiter and picked up the handset.

“I am Paul de Vaux, the manager here,” he said breathlessly. “Yes, yes, we have been informed … . I will give the instructions.” He listened for a moment more, said, “Yes, yes,” again and hung up, then turned to Sweet. “You will be in need of assistance, Monsieur. Walter,” he indicated the taller waiter with a minute movement of his head, “will supply it. There will be no charge for these dinners.”

“You had been contacted before,” Sweet said. It was not a question.

“Yes, yes. Concerning the dinners. Not concerning the assistance. Now we have been told of the assistance, and we are most happy to cooperate. Walter, this gentleman has been given your destination. Is that not so, Monsieur?”

Sweet nodded.

“You must do as he directs. It is already late; there is no need for you to return here tonight. I myself will punch out for you, and I shall expect you tomorrow at the usual time.”

The manager turned on his heel and strode away. The shorter waiter was already gone. For a moment the taller waiter stood looking from her to Sweet. “Would you like me to dispose of the telephone, sir?”

“You might as well. Get your coat too, it’s colder than a welldigger’s ass out there. Then come back.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Walter, there’ll be a good tip in this when we’re through. Not from them,” Sweet nodded toward the telephone. “From me.”

“That isn’t necessary, sir,” the waiter said. “I’m happy to serve my country.”

When he returned, he was wearing a lumberjack’s red plaid jacket over his waiter’s uniform. He and Sweet shifted the table to one side and managed to get her to her feet. She had kicked off one of her high-heeled shoes. They seated her again, and the waiter found it. He slipped the other from her foot as well and thrust them both into the side pockets of his jacket. “This way will be better, sir, believe me. She’ll balance better and be able to give us more help.”

The restaurant was nearly empty, but it seemed to Sweet that a hundred eyes watched them. He mumbled, “You’ve done this before, have you, Walter?”

“Every so often, sir.” He glanced speculatively at their charge. “Usually the ladies just drink—you know. Two or three more than a lady should. I don’t know if this is going to be easier or harder. Harder, I expect.”

“I think you’re right,” Sweet told him.

“Then there isn’t any use waiting, is there, sir? Let’s get her up again.”

She said, “I can …” Her hips slipped forward; she began to slide from her chair.

“Get her, sir!”

Both men grabbed her arms.

“Up, sir! Get her up!”

“Lay down,” she said loudly. “And a mint. Want a after-dinner mint.”

“You’re going to be fine,” Sweet told her desperately. “You’re not going to be sick. Just stand up and come with us. You can lie down in my car.”

She tried to embrace and comfort her straining belly, but the men’s grip prevented her. They urged her forward as they might have rolled a tun of wine, a vast cask difficult to bring into motion, teetering, difficult to turn or halt. As she moved, the split skirt slid down, slowly escaping her monstrous waistline, hanging precariously for a step or two on the protuberance of her hips. Sweet tried to catch it, but when both his hands no longer supported her, she began to lose the vertical orientation they had achieved by so much labor, and he was compelled to prop her up again. The skirt escaped, sliding to her knees, then to the floor. Inevitably she tripped over it, but her own contribution to her support was so slight it scarcely mattered.

“Her coat’s in the check room,” he told the waiter.

“To hell with her coat,” the waiter said succinctly.

“Mine too. We’ll take her out to the car. Then I’ll come back for our coats.”

“Cold out there.”

“I can take it.”

“Hot,” she said. “Me. Warm. Really.”

“You won’t be for long,” the waiter told her.

Sweet asked, “It hasn’t started snowing again, has it?”

The waiter shook his head, but Sweet, on the opposite side of her, could not see him.

A big man and a slender woman in a sable wrap were coming through the door as they reached the vestibule. For a moment, the newcomers stared in amazement, then the woman collapsed into helpless laughter.

“Shut up,” Sweet told her. “You don’t know what’s happening.”

“Me neither,” Candy said. She belched, breathed the cool air of the vestibule, and immediately felt better. “Why are you so nice to me?”

“I like you,” Sweet said.

“You too.”

The waiter pushed open the door with his foot. A little new snow had fallen; the most recent automobiles had left twining, opalescent tracks in it like the trails of arctic pythons. The cold air felt wonderful. Her face was hot, her belly overwarm as well as overfull. (At last! At last! Full to bursting, dead, solid full, with every scrap of hunger crowded out.) When she stepped out into the snow, her feet felt cool rather than cold.

“You don’t have to hold me,” she said. “I’m okay now.”

Sweet told her, “I’d rather hold you.”

“You’re sweet.” Taking her arm from the waiter, she turned, enfolded Sweet, and kissed him.

“Thank you,” he said when he could speak again. “But we have to go to the car now.”

“All right.” Candy slipped and nearly fell. The waiter caught her. “I’m all right,” she insisted.

“Sure,” the waiter said.

“Hey, you remind me of somebody. My boyfriend.”

“I thought he was your boyfriend.”

“No, he’s my …” She could not think of a polite word and was not certain there was one. “My boyfriend, you know, he didn’t have—” She belched again. “Any more money. That champagne. How much did I drink?”

“Couple bottles,” the waiter told her. “Where’s your car, sir?”

“Black Caddy,” Sweet grunted. “Other side of the van.” Candy was leaning most of her weight on him.

“Nice car.”

“Rented.”

“We’ll have to put her in back.”

Sweet nodded. “It’s not locked.”

“Okay, sir. Just hold her for a moment while I get the door open.”

For a moment Sweet did so, as Candy took two tottering steps toward the black car. One bare foot slipped in the snow, and she fell.

She fell slowly and yet inevitably, as a ruinous warehouse collapses under a surfeit of rich goods, or a tall, broad maple (and indeed, her red-gold hair and round, flushed face suggested one) under the intoxicating weight of a thousand fruiting vines.

Sweet tried to support her and nearly fell with her. She sought to hold herself up, or at least to break her fall, with the arm the waiter had released. That, too, failed her, her hand skidding from under her in the snow, which had not yet been much packed. Her belly and her face buried themselves in the loose snow.

“Oh, God!” Sweet said. He jerked a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his sweating face.

“Wait a minute, I’ll help you with her, sir.”

“If you hadn’t let go it wouldn’t have happened.”

“All right,” the waiter said. “All right.”

A jet with blazing lights roared past, a thousand feet overhead. Futilely, Candy struggled to stand.