the twilight border between sleep and waking was a roman one this morning; splashing fountains and arched, narrow streets, the golden lavish city of blossoms and age-soft stone. sometimes in this semi-consciousness he sojourned again in paris, or war german rubble, or swiss skiing and a snow hotel. sometimes, also, in a fallow georgia field at hunting dawn. rome it was this morning in the yearless region of dreams.
john ferris awoke in a room in a new york hotel. he had the feeling that something unpleasant was awaiting him -- what it was, he did not know. the feeling, submerged by matinal necessities, lingered even after he had dressed and gone downstairs. it was a cloudless autumn day and the pale sunlight sliced between the pastel skyscrapers. ferris went into the next-door drugstore and sat at the end booth next to the window glass that overlooked the sidewalk. he ordered an american breakfast with scrambled eggs and sausage.
ferris had come from paris to his father's funeral which had taken place the week before in his home town in georgia. the shock of death had made him aware of youth already passed. his hair was receding and the veins in his now naked temples were pulsing and prominent and his body was spare except for an incipient belly bulge. ferris had loved his father and the bond between them had once been extraordinarily close -- but the years had somehow unraveled this filial devotion; the death, expected for a long time, had left him with an unforeseen dismay. he had stayed as long as possible to be near his mother and brothers at home. his plane for paris was to leave the next morning.
ferris pulled out his address book to verify a number. he turned the pages with growing attentiveness. names and addresses from new york, the capitals of europe, a few faint ones from his home state in the south. faded, printed names, sprawled drunken ones. betty wills: a random love, married now. charlie williams: wounded in the hurtgen forest, unheard of since. grand old williams -- did he live or die? don walker: a b.t.o. in television, getting rich. henry green: hit the skids after the war, in a sanitarium now, they say. cozie hall: he had heard that she was dead. heedless, laughing cozie -- it was strange to think that she too, silly girl, could die. as ferris closed the address book, he suffered a sense of hazard, transience, almost of fear.
it was then that his body jerked suddenly. he was staring out of the window when there, on the sidewalk, passing by, was his ex-wife. elizabeth passed quite close to him, walking slowly. he could not understand the wild quiver of his heart, nor the following sense of recklessness and grace that lingered after she was gone.
quickly ferris paid his check and rushed out to the sidewalk. elizabeth stood on the corner waiting to cross fifth avenue. he hurried toward her meaning to speak, but the lights changed and she crossed the street before he reached her. ferris followed. on the other side he could easily have overtaken her, but he found himself lagging unaccountably. her fair brown hair was plainly rolled, and as he watched her ferris recalled that once his father had remarked that elizabeth had a "beautiful carriage." she turned at the next corner and ferris followed, although by now his intention to overtake her had disappeared. ferris questioned the bodily disturbance that the sight of elizabeth aroused in him, the dampness of his hands, the hard heart-strokes.
it was eight years since ferris had last seen his ex-wife. he knew that long ago she had married again. and there were children. during recent years he had seldom thought of her. but at first, after the divorce, the loss had almost destroyed him. then after the anodyne of time, he had loved again, and then again. jeannine, she was now. certainly his love for his ex-wife was long since past. so why the unhinged body, the shaken mind? he knew only that his clouded heart was oddly dissonant with the sunny, candid autumn day. ferris wheeled suddenly and, walking with long strides, almost running, hurried back to the hotel.
ferris poured himself a drink, although it was not yet eleven o'clock. he sprawled out in an armchair like a man exhausted, nursing his glass of bourbon and water. he had a full day ahead of him as he was leaving by plane the next morning for paris. he checked over his obligations: take luggage to air france, lunch with his boss, buy shoes and an overcoat. and something -- wasn't there something else? ferris finished his drink and opened the telephone directory.
his decision to call his ex-wife was impulsive. the number was under bailey, the husband's name, and he called before he had much time for self-debate. he and elizabeth had exchanged cards at christmastime, and ferris had sent a carving set when he received the announcement of her wedding. there was no reason not to call. but as he waited, listening to the ring at the other end, misgiving fretted him.
elizabeth answered; her familiar voice was a fresh shock to him. twice he had to repeat his name, but when he was identified, she sounded glad. he explained he was only in town for that day. they had a theater engagement, she said -- but she wondered if he would come by for an early dinner. ferris said he would be delighted.
as he went from one engagement to another, he was still bothered at odd moments by the feeling that something necessary was forgotten. ferris bathed and changed in the late afternoon, often thinking about jeannine: he would be with her the following night "jeannine," he would say, "i happened to run into my ex-wife when i was in new york. had dinner with her. and her husband, of course. it was strange seeing her after all these years."
elizabeth lived in the east fifties, and as ferris taxied uptown he glimpsed at intersections the lingering sunset, but by the time he reached his destination it was already autumn dark. the place was a building with a marquee and a doorman, and the apartment was on the seventh floor.
"come in, mr. ferris."
braced for elizabeth or even the unimagined husband, ferris was astonished by the freckled red-haired child; he had known of the children, but his mind had failed somehow to acknowledge them. surprise made him step back awkwardly.
"this is our apartment," the child said politely. "aren't you mr. ferris? i'm billy. come in."
in the living room beyond the hall, the husband provided another surprise; he too had not been acknowledged emotionally. bailey was a lumbering red-haired man with a deliberate manner. he rose and extended a welcoming hand.
"i'm bill bailey. glad to see you. elizabeth will be in, in a minute. she's finishing dressing."
the last words struck a gliding series of vibrations, memories of the other years. fair elizabeth, rosy and naked before her bath. half-dressed before the mirror of her dressing table, brushing her fine, chestnut hair. sweet, casual intimacy, the soft-fleshed loveliness indisputably possessed. ferris shrank from the unbidden memories and compelled himself to meet bill bailey's gaze.
"billy, will you please bring that tray of drinks from the kitchen table?
the child obeyed promptly, and when he was gone ferris remarked conversationally, "fine boy you have there."
"we think so."
flat silence until the child returned with a tray of glasses and a cocktail shaker of martinis. with the priming drinks they pumped up conversation: russia, they spoke of, and the new york rain-making, and the apartment situation in manhattan and paris.
"mr. ferris is flying all the way across the ocean tomorrow," bailey said to the little boy who was perched on the arm of his chair, quiet and well behaved. "i bet you would like to be a stowaway in his suitcase."
billy pushed back his limp bangs. "i want to fly in an airplane and be a newspaperman like mr. ferris." he added with sudden assurance, "that's what i would like to do when i am big."
bailey said, "i thought you wanted to be a doctor."
"i do!" said billy. "i would like to be both. i want to be a atom-bomb scientist too."
elizabeth came in carrying in her arms a baby girl.
"oh, john!" she said. she settled the baby in the father's lap. "it's grand to see you. i'm awfully glad you could come."
the little girl sat demurely on bailey's knees. she wore a pale pink crêpe de chine frock, smocked around the yoke with rose, and a matching silk hair ribbon tying back her pale soft curls. her skin was summer tanned and her brown eyes flecked with gold and laughing. when she reached up and fingered her father's horn-rimmed glasses, he took them off and let her look through them a moment. "how's my old candy?"
elizabeth was very beautiful, more beautiful perhaps than he had ever realized. her straight clean hair was shining. her face was softer, glowing and serene. it was a madonna loveliness, dependent on the family ambiance.
"you've hardly changed at all," elizabeth said, "but it has been a long time."
"eight years." his hand touched his thinning hair self-consciously while further amenities were exchanged.
ferris felt himself suddenly a spectator -- an interloper among these baileys. why had he come? he suffered. his own life seemed so solitary, a fragile column supporting nothing amidst the wreckage of the years. he felt he could not bear much longer to stay in the family room.
he glanced at his watch. "you're going to the theater?"
"it's a shame," elizabeth said, "but we've had this engagement for more than a month. but surely, john, you'll be staying home one of these days before long. you're not going to be an expatriate, are you?"
"expatriate," ferris repeated. "i don't much like the word."
"what's a better word?" she asked.
he thought for a moment. "sojourner might do."
ferris glanced again at his watch, and again elizabeth apologized. "if only we had known ahead of time --"
"i just had this day in town. i came home unexpectedly. you see, papa died last week."
"papa ferris is dead?"
"yes, at johns-hopkins. he had been sick there nearly a year. the funeral was down home in georgia."
"oh, i'm so sorry, john. papa ferris was always one of my favorite people."
the little boy moved from behind the chair so that he could look into his mother's face. he asked, "who is dead?"
ferris was oblivious to apprehension; he was thinking of his father's death. he saw again the outstretched body on the quilted silk within the coffin. the corpse flesh was bizarrely rouged and the familiar hands lay massive and joined above a spread of funeral roses. the memory closed and ferris awakened to elizabeth's calm voice.
"mr. ferris' father, billy. a really grand person. somebody you didn't know."
"but why did you call him papa ferris?"
bailey and elizabeth exchanged a trapped look. it was bailey who answered the questioning child. "a long time ago," he said, "your mother and mr. ferris were once married. before you were born -- a long time ago."
"mr. ferris?"
the little boy stared at ferris, amazed and unbelieving. and ferris' eyes, as he returned the gaze, were somehow unbelieving too. was it indeed true that at one time he had called this stranger, elizabeth, little butterduck during nights of love, that they had lived together, shared perhaps a thousand days and nights and -- finally -- endured in the misery of sudden solitude the fiber by fiber (jealousy, alcohol and money quarrels) destruction of the fabric of married love.
bailey said to the children, "it's somebody's supper-time. come on now."
"but daddy! mama and mr. ferris -- i --"
billy's everlasting eyes -- perplexed and with a glimmer of hostility -- reminded ferris of the gaze of another child. it was the young son of jeannine -- a boy of seven with a shadowed little face and knobby knees whom ferris avoided and usually forgot.
"quick march!" bailey gently turned billy toward the door. "say good night now, son."
"good night, mr. ferris." he added resentfully, "i thought i was staying up for the cake."
"you can come in afterward for the cake," elizabeth said. "run along now with daddy for your supper."
ferris and elizabeth were alone. the weight of the situation descended on those first moments of silence. ferris asked permission to pour himself another drink and elizabeth set the cocktail shaker on the table at his side. he looked at the grand piano and noticed the music on the rack.
"do you still play as beautifully as you used to?"
"i still enjoy it."
"please play, elizabeth."
elizabeth arose immediately. her readiness to perform when asked had always been one of her amiabilities; she never hung back, apologized. now as she approached the piano there was the added readiness of relief.
she began with a bach prelude and fugue. the prelude was as gaily iridescent as a prism in a morning room. the first voice of the fugue, an announcement pure and solitary, was repeated intermingling with a second voice, and again repeated within an elaborated frame, the multiple music, horizontal and serene, flowed with unhurried majesty. the principal melody was woven with two other voices, embellished with countless ingenuities -- now dominant, again submerged, it had the sublimity of a single thing that does not fear surrender to the whole. toward the end, the density of the material gathered for the last enriched insistence on the dominant first motif and with a chorded final statement the fugue ended. ferris rested his head on the chair back and closed his eyes. in the following silence a clear, high voice came from the room down the hall.
"daddy, how could mama and mr. ferris --" a door was closed.
the piano began again -- what was this music? unplaced, familiar, the limpid melody had lain a long while dormant in his heart. now it spoke to him of another time, another place -- it was the music elizabeth used to play. the delicate air summoned a wilderness of memory. ferris was lost in the riot of past longings, conflicts, ambivalent desires. strange that the music, catalyst for this tumultuous anarchy, was so serene and dear. the singing melody was broken off by the appearance of the maid.
"miz bailey, dinner is out on the table now."
even after ferris was seated at the table between his host and hostess, the unfinished music still overcast his mood. he was a little drunk.
"l'improvisation de la vie humaine," he said. "there's nothing that makes you so aware of the improvisation of human existence as a song unfinished. or an old address book."
"address book?" repeated bailey. then he stopped, noncommittal and polite.
"you're still the same old boy, johnny," elizabeth said with a trace of the old tenderness.
it was a southern dinner that evening, and the dishes were his old favorites. they had fried chicken and corn pudding and rich, glazed candied sweet potatoes. during the meal elizabeth kept alive a conversation when the silences were overlong. and it came about that ferris was led to speak of jeannine.
"i first knew jeannine last autumn -- about this time of the year -- in italy. she's a singer and she had an engagement in rome. i expect we will be married soon."
the words seemed so true, inevitable, that ferris did not at first acknowledge to himself the lie. he and jeannine had never in that year spoken of marriage. and indeed, she was still married -- to a white russian moneychanger in paris from whom she had been separated for five years. but it was too late to correct the lie. already elizabeth was saying: "this really makes me glad to know. congratulations, johnny."
he tried to make amends with truth. "the roman autumn is so beautiful. balmy and blossoming." he added, "jeannine has a little boy of six. a curious trilingual little fellow. we go to the tuileries sometimes."
a lie again. he had taken the boy once to the gardens. the sallow foreign child in shorts that bared his spindly legs had sailed his boat in the concrete pond and ridden the pony. the child had wanted to go in to the puppet show. but there was not time, for ferris had an engagement at the scribe hotel. he had promised they would go to the guignol another afternoon. only once had he taken valentin to the tuileries.
there was a stir. the maid brought in a white-frosted cake with pink candles. the children entered in their night clothes. ferris still did not understand.
"happy birthday, john," elizabeth said. "blow out the candles."
ferris recognized his birthday date. the candles blew out lingeringly and there was the smell of burning wax. ferris was thirty-eight years old. the veins in his temples darkened and pulsed visibly.
"it's time you started for the theater."
ferris thanked elizabeth for the birthday dinner and said the appropriate good-byes. the whole family saw him to the door.
a high, thin moon shone above the jagged, dark skyscrapers. the streets were windy, cold. ferris hurried to third avenue and hailed a cab. he gazed at the nocturnal city with the deliberate attentiveness of departure and perhaps farewell. he was alone. he longed for flighttime and the coming journey.
the next day he looked down on the city from the air, burnished in sunlight, toylike, precise. then america was left behind and there was only the atlantic and the distant european shore. the ocean was milky pale and placid beneath the clouds. ferris dozed most of the day. toward dark he was thinking of elizabeth and the visit of the previous evening. he thought of elizabeth among her family with longing, gentle envy and inexplicable regret. he sought the melody, the unfinished air, that had so moved him. the cadence, some unrelated tones, were all that remained; the melody itself evaded him. he had found instead the first voice of the fugue that elizabeth had played -- it came to him, inverted mockingly and in a minor key. suspended above the ocean the anxieties of transience and solitude no longer troubled him and he thought of his father's death with equanimity. during the dinner hour the plane reached the shore of france.
at midnight ferris was in a taxi crossing paris. it was a clouded night and mist wreathed the lights of the place de la concorde. the midnight bistros gleamed on the wet pavements. as always after a transocean flight the change of continents was too sudden. new york at morning, this midnight paris. ferris glimpsed the disorder of his life: the succession of cities, of transitory loves; and time, the sinister glissando of the years, time always.
"vite! vite!" he called in terror. "dépêchez-vous."
valentin opened the door to him. the little boy wore pajamas and an outgrown red robe. his grey eyes were shadowed and, as ferris passed into the flat, they flickered momentarily.
"j'attends maman."
jeannine was singing in a night dub. she would not be home before another hour. valentin returned to a drawing, squatting with his crayons over the paper on the floor. ferris looked down at the drawing -- it was a banjo player with notes and wavy lines inside a comic-strip balloon.
"we will go again to the tuileries."
the child looked up and ferris drew him closer to his knees. the melody, the unfinished music that elizabeth had played, came to him suddenly. unsought, the load of memory jettisoned -- this time bringing only recognition and sudden joy.
"monsieur jean," the child said, "did you see him?"
confused, ferris thought only of another child -- the freckled, family-loved boy. "see who, valentin?"
"your dead papa in georgia." the child added, "was he okay?"
ferris spoke with rapid urgency: "we will go often to the tuileries. ride the pony and we will go into the guignol. we will see the puppet show and never be in a hurry any more."
"monsieur jean," valentin said. "the guignol is now closed."
again, the terror the acknowledgment of wasted years and death. valentin, responsive and confident, still nestled in his arms. his cheek touched the soft cheek and felt the brush of the delicate eyelashes. with inner desperation he pressed the child close -- as though an emotion as protean as his love could dominate the pulse of time.
