Breakfast at Tiffany's（上）

出身贫寒的乡下姑娘郝莉，凭着勇气和美貌，只身来到纽约。蒂凡尼，一个珠光宝气的地方，只有上流社会的人才能常去。梦想和追寻，有如一缕缥缈云烟，一片香槟酒的思绪，如梦如幻，带出淡淡的忧伤和绵绵哀愁……Holly Golightly, glittering socialite traveller, generally upwards, sometimes sideways and once in a while down. She's up all night drinking cocktails and breaking hearts. She's a shoplifter, a delight, a drifter, and a tease. She hasn't got a past. She doesn't want to belong to anything or anyone. Not to 'Rusty' Trawler, the blue-chinned, cuff-shooting millionaire man about women about town. Not to Salvatore 'Sally' Tomato, the Mafia sugar-daddy doing life in Sing Sing. Not to a starving writer. Not even to her one-eyed rag-bag pirate of a cat. One day Holly might find somewhere she belongs. Until then she's travelling.
作者简介   · · · · · ·
杜鲁门·卡波特 美国著名作家，两次获得欧·亨利短篇小说奖。
1924年生于新奥尔良，17岁受雇于《纽约客》开始写作生涯。
1948年处女作《别的声音，别的房间》获得世界性的成功。
1958年，奠定其大师地位的杰作《蒂凡尼的早餐》出版。
1966年，完成了巅峰之作《冷血》。
1984年8月25日晚，敏感、复杂和饱受争议的卡波特，因用药过度，猝死于友人家中，终年59岁。
Breakfast at Tiffany's(v1.1)
Breakfast at Tiffany's(v1.1)
I am always drawn back to places where I have lived, the houses and their neighborhoods. For instance,
there is a brownstone in the East Seventies where, during the early years of the war, I had my first New
York apartment. It was one room crowded with attic furniture, a sofa and fat chairs upholstered in that
itchy, particular red velvet that one associates with hot days on a tram. The walls were stucco, and a
color rather like tobacco-spit. Everywhere, in the bathroom too, there were prints of Roman ruins
freckled brown with age. The single window looked out on a fire escape. Even so, my spirits heightened
whenever I felt in my pocket the key to this apartment; with all its gloom, it still was a place of my own,
the first, and my books were there, and jars of pencils to sharpen, everything I needed, so I felt, to
become the writer I wanted to be.
It never occurred to me in those days to write about Holly Golightly, and probably it would not now
except for a conversation I had with Joe Bell that set the whole memory of her in motion again.
Holly Golightly had been a tenant in the old brownstone; she'd occupied the apartment below mine. As
for Joe Bell, he ran a bar around the corner on Lexington Avenue; he still does. Both Holly and I used to
go there six, seven times a day, not for a drink, not always, but to make telephone calls: during the war a
private telephone was hard to come by. Moreover, Joe Bell was good about taking messages, which in
Holly's case was no small favor, for she had a tremendous many.
Of course this was a long time ago, and until last week I hadn't seen Joe Bell in several years. Off and on
we'd kept in touch, and occasionally I'd stopped by his bar when passing through the neighborhood; but
actually we'd never been strong friends except in as much as we were both friends of Holly Golightly. Joe
Bell hasn't an easy nature, he admits it himself, he says it's because he's a bachelor and has a sour
stomach. Anyone who knows him will tell you he's a hard man to talk to. Impossible if you don't share his
fixations, of which Holly is one. Some others are: ice hockey, Weimaraner dogs,Our Gal Sunday (a
soap serial he has listened to for fifteen years), and Gilbert and Sullivan -- he claims to be related to one
or the other, I can't remember which.
And so when, late last Tuesday afternoon, the telephone rang and I heard "Joe Bell here," I knew it must
be about Holly. He didn't say so, just: "Can you rattle right over here? It's important," and there was a
croak of excitement in his froggy voice.
I took a taxi in a downpour of October rain, and on my way I even thought she might be there, that I
would see Holly again.
But there was no one on the premises except the proprietor. Joe Bell's is a quiet place compared to
most Lexington Avenue bars. It boasts neither neon nor television. Two old mirrors reflect the weather
from the streets; and behind the bar, in a niche surrounded by photographs of ice-hockey stars, there is
always a large bowl of fresh flowers that Joe Bell himself arranges with matronly care. That is what he
was doing when I came in.
"Naturally," he said, rooting a gladiola deep into the bowl, "naturally I wouldn't have got you over here if
it wasn't I wanted your opinion. It's peculiar. A very peculiar thing has happened."
"Naturally," he said, rooting a gladiola deep into the bowl, "naturally I wouldn't have got you over here if
it wasn't I wanted your opinion. It's peculiar. A very peculiar thing has happened."
He fingered a leaf, as though uncertain of how to answer. A small man with a fine head of coarse white
hair, he has a bony, sloping face better suited to someone far taller; his complexion seems permanently
sunburned: now it grew even redder. "I can't say exactly heard from her. I mean, I don't know. That's
why I want your opinion. Let me build you a drink. Something new. They call it a White Angel," he said,
mixing one-half vodka, one-half gin, no vermouth. While I drank the result, Joe Bell stood sucking on a
Tums and turning over in his mind what he had to tell me. Then: "You recall a certain Mr. I.Y. Yunioshi?
A gentleman from Japan."
"From California," I said, recalling Mr. Yunioshi perfectly. He's a photographer on one of the picture
magazines, and when I knew him he lived in the studio apartment on the top floor of the brownstone.
"Don't go mixing me up. All I'm asking, you know who I mean? Okay. So last night who comes waltzing
in here but this selfsame Mr. I. Y. Yunioshi. I haven't seen him, I guess it's over two years. And where do
you think he's been those two years?"
"Africa."
Joe Bell stopped crunching on his Tums, his eyes narrowed. "So how did you know?"
"Read it in Winchell." Which I had, as a matter of fact.
He rang open his cash register, and produced a manila envelope. "Well, see did you read this in
Winchell."
In the envelope were three photographs, more or less the same, though taken from different angles: a tall
delicate Negro man wearing a calico skirt and with a shy, yet vain smile, displaying in his hands an odd
wood sculpture, an elongated carving of a head, a girl's, her hair sleek and short as a young man's, her
smooth wood eyes too large and tilted in the tapering face, her mouth wide, overdrawn, not unlike
clown-lips. On a glance it resembled most primitive carving; and then it didn't, for here was the
spit-image of Holly Golightly, at least as much of a likeness as a dark still thing could be.
"Now what do you make of that?" said Joe Bell, satisfied with my puzzlement.
"It looks like her."
"Listen, boy," and he slapped his hand on the bar, "it is her. Sure as I'm a man fit to wear britches. The
little Jap knew it was her the minute he saw her."
"He saw her? In Africa?"
"Well. Just the statue there. But it comes to the same thing. Read the facts for yourself," he said, turning
over one of the photographs. On the reverse was written: Wood Carving, S Tribe, Tococul, East Anglia,
Christmas Day, 1956.
He said, "Here's what the Jap says," and the story was this: On Christmas day Mr. Yunioshi had passed
with his camera through Tococul, a village in the tangles of nowhere and of no interest, merely a
congregation of mud huts with monkeys in the yards and buzzards on the roofs. He'd decided to move on
when he saw suddenly a Negro squatting in a doorway carving monkeys on a walking stick. Mr.
Yunioshi was impressed and asked to see more of his work. Whereupon he was shown the carving of
the girl's head: and felt, so he told Joe Bell, as if he were falling in a dream. But when he offered to buy it
the Negro cupped his private parts in his hand (apparently a tender gesture, comparable to tapping one's
heart) and said no. A pound of salt and ten dollars, a wristwatch and two pounds of salt and twenty
dollars, nothing swayed him. Mr. Yunioshi was in all events determined to learn how the carving came to
be made. It cost him his salt and his watch, and the incident was conveyed in African and pig-English and
finger-talk. But it would seem that in the spring of that year a party of three white persons had appeared
out of the brush riding horseback. A young woman and two men. The men, both red-eyed with fever,
were forced for several weeks to stay shut and shivering in an isolated hut, while the young woman,
having presently taken a fancy to the wood-carver, shared the woodcarver's mat.
with his camera through Tococul, a village in the tangles of nowhere and of no interest, merely a
congregation of mud huts with monkeys in the yards and buzzards on the roofs. He'd decided to move on
when he saw suddenly a Negro squatting in a doorway carving monkeys on a walking stick. Mr.
Yunioshi was impressed and asked to see more of his work. Whereupon he was shown the carving of
the girl's head: and felt, so he told Joe Bell, as if he were falling in a dream. But when he offered to buy it
the Negro cupped his private parts in his hand (apparently a tender gesture, comparable to tapping one's
heart) and said no. A pound of salt and ten dollars, a wristwatch and two pounds of salt and twenty
dollars, nothing swayed him. Mr. Yunioshi was in all events determined to learn how the carving came to
be made. It cost him his salt and his watch, and the incident was conveyed in African and pig-English and
finger-talk. But it would seem that in the spring of that year a party of three white persons had appeared
out of the brush riding horseback. A young woman and two men. The men, both red-eyed with fever,
were forced for several weeks to stay shut and shivering in an isolated hut, while the young woman,
having presently taken a fancy to the wood-carver, shared the woodcarver's mat.
"And then?"
"Then nothing," he shrugged. "By and by she went like she come, rode away on a horse."
"Alone, or with the two men?"
Joe Bell blinked. "With the two men, I guess. Now the Jap, he asked about her up and down the
country. But nobody else had ever seen her." Then it was as if he could feel my own sense of letdown
transmitting itself to him, and he wanted no part of it. "One thing you got to admit, it's the onlydefinite
news in I don't know how many" -- he counted on his fingers: there weren't enough -- "years. All I hope,
I hope she's rich. She must be rich. You got to be rich to go mucking around in Africa."
"She's probably never set foot in Africa," I said, believing it; yet I could see her there, it was somewhere
she would have gone. And the carved head: I looked at the photographs again.
"You know so much, where is she?"
"Dead. Or in a crazy house. Or married. I think she's married and quieted down and maybe right in this
very city."
He considered a moment. "No," he said, and shook his head. "I'll tell you why. If she was in this city I'd
have seen her. You take a man that likes to walk, a man like me, a man's been walking in the streets
going on ten or twelve years, and all those years he's got his eye out for one person, and nobody's ever
her, don't it stand to reason she's not there? I see pieces of her all the time, a flat little bottom, any skinny
girl that walks fast and straight -- " He paused, as though too aware of how intently I was looking at him.
"You think I'm round the bend?"
"It's just that I didn't know you'd been in love with her. Not like that."
I was sorry I'd said it; it disconcerted him. He scooped up the photographs and put them back in their
envelope. I looked at my watch. I hadn't any place to go, but I thought it was better to leave.
"Hold on," he said, gripping my wrist. "Sure I loved her. But it wasn't that I wanted to touch her." And
he added, without smiling: "Not that I don't think about that side of things. Even at my age, and I'll be
sixty-seven January ten. It's a peculiar fact -- but, the older I grow, that side of things seems to be on my
mind more and more. I don't remember thinking about it so much even when I was a youngster and it's
every other minute. Maybe the older you grow and the less easy it is to put thought into action, maybe
that's why it gets all locked up in your head and becomes a burden. Whenever I read in the paper about
an old man disgracing himself, I know it's because of this burden. But" -- he poured himself a jigger of
whiskey and swallowed it neat -- "I'll never disgrace myself. And I swear, it never crossed my mind
about Holly. You can love somebody without it being like that. You keep them a stranger, a stranger
who's a friend."
sixty-seven January ten. It's a peculiar fact -- but, the older I grow, that side of things seems to be on my
mind more and more. I don't remember thinking about it so much even when I was a youngster and it's
every other minute. Maybe the older you grow and the less easy it is to put thought into action, maybe
that's why it gets all locked up in your head and becomes a burden. Whenever I read in the paper about
an old man disgracing himself, I know it's because of this burden. But" -- he poured himself a jigger of
whiskey and swallowed it neat -- "I'll never disgrace myself. And I swear, it never crossed my mind
about Holly. You can love somebody without it being like that. You keep them a stranger, a stranger
who's a friend."
"That you didn't want to touch her?"
"I mean about Africa."
At that moment I couldn't seem to remember the story, only the image of her riding away on a horse.
"Anyway, she's gone."
"Yeah," he said, opening the door. "Just gone."
Outside, the rain had stopped, there was only a mist of it in the air, so I turned the corner and walked
along the street where the brownstone stands. It is a street with trees that in the summer make cool
patterns on the pavement; but now the leaves were yellowed and mostly down, and the rain had made
them slippery, they skidded underfoot. The brownstone is midway in the block, next to a church where a
blue tower-clock tolls the hours. It has been sleeked up since my day; a smart black door has replaced
the old frosted glass, and gray elegant shutters frame the windows. No one I remember still lives there
except Madame Sapphia Spanella, a husky coloratura who every afternoon went roller-skating in Central
Park. I know she's still there because I went up the steps and looked at the mailboxes. It was one of
these mailboxes that had first made me aware of Holly Golightly.
I'd been living in the house about a week when I noticed that the mailbox belonging to Apt. 2 had a
name-slot fitted with a curious card. Printed, rather Cartier-formal, it read:Miss Holiday Golightly ; and,
underneath, in the corner,Traveling . It nagged me like a tune:Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling .
One night, it was long past twelve, I woke up at the sound of Mr. Yunioshi calling down the stairs. Since
he lived on the top floor, his voice fell through the whole house, exasperated and stern. "Miss Golightly! I
must protest!"
The voice that came back, welling up from the bottom of the stairs, was silly-young and self-amused.
"Oh, darling, Iam sorry. I lost the goddamn key."
"You cannot go on ringing my bell. You must please, please have yourself a key made."
"But I lose them all."
"I work, I have to sleep," Mr. Yunioshi shouted. "But always you are ringing my bell…"
"Oh,don't be angry, youdear little man: Iwon't do it again. And if you promise not to be angry" -- her
voice was coming nearer, she was climbing the stairs -- "I might let you take those pictures we
mentioned."
voice was coming nearer, she was climbing the stairs -- "I might let you take those pictures we
mentioned."
"When?" he said.
The girl laughed. "Sometime," she answered, slurring the word.
"Any time," he said, and closed his door.
I went out into the hall and leaned over the banister, just enough to see without being seen. She was still
on the stairs, now she reached the landing, and the ragbag colors of her boy's hair, tawny streaks, strands
of albino-blond and yellow, caught the hall light. It was a warm evening, nearly summer, and she wore a
slim cool black dress, black sandals, a pearl choker. For all her chic thinness, she had an almost
breakfast-cereal air of health, a soap and lemon cleanness, a rough pink darkening in the cheeks. Her
mouth was large, her nose upturned. A pair of dark glasses blotted out her eyes. It was a face beyond
childhood, yet this side of belonging to a woman. I thought her anywhere between sixteen and thirty; as it
turned out, she was shy two months of her nineteenth birthday.
She was not alone. There was a man following behind her. The way his plump hand clutched at her hip
seemed somehow improper; not morally, aesthetically. He was short and vast, sun-lamped and
pomaded, a man in a buttressed pin-stripe suit with a red carnation withering in the lapel. When they
reached her door she rummaged her purse in search of a key, and took no notice of the fact that his thick
lips were nuzzling the nape of her neck. At last, though, finding the key and opening her door, she turned
to him cordially: "Bless you, darling -- you were sweet to see me home."
"Hey, baby!" he said, for the door was closing in his face.
"Yes, Harry?"
"Harry was the other guy. I'm Sid. Sid Arbuck. You like me."
"I worship you, Mr. Arbuck. But good night, Mr. Arbuck."
Mr. Arbuck stared with disbelief as the door shut firmly. "Hey, baby, let me in baby. You like me baby.
"I'm a liked guy. Didn't I pick up the check, five people,your friends, I never seen them before? Don't
that give me the right you should like me? You like me, baby."
He tapped on the door gently, then louder; finally he took several steps back, his body hunched and
lowering, as though he meant to charge it, crash it down. Instead, he plunged down the stairs, slamming a
fist against the wall. Just as he reached the bottom, the door of the girl's apartment opened and she
poked out her head.
"Oh, Mr.Arbuck ... "
He turned back, a smile of relief oiling his face: she'd only been teasing.
"The next time a girl wants a little powder-room change," she called, not teasing at all, "take my advice,
darling:don't give her twenty-cents!"
darling:don't give her twenty-cents!"
Of course we'd never met. Though actually, on the stairs, in the street, we often came face-to-face; but
she seemed not quite to see me. She was never without dark glasses, she was always well groomed,
there was a consequential good taste in the plainness of her clothes, the blues and grays and lack of luster
that made her, herself, shine so. One might have thought her a photographer's model, perhaps a young
actress, except that it was obvious, judging from her hours, she hadn't time to be either.
Now and then I ran across her outside our neighborhood. Once a visiting relative took me to "21," and
there, at a superior table, surrounded by four men, none of them Mr. Arbuck, yet all of them
interchangeable with him, was Miss Golightly, idly, publicly combing her hair; and her expression, an
unrealized yawn, put, by example, a dampener, on the excitement I felt over dining at so swanky a place.
Another night, deep in the summer, the heat of my room sent me out into the streets. I walked down
Third Avenue to Fifty-first Street, where there was an antique store with an object in its window I
admired: a palace of a bird cage, a mosque of minarets and bamboo rooms yearning to be filled with
talkative parrots. But the price was three hundred and fifty dollars. On the way home I noticed a
cab-driver crowd gathered in front of P. J. Clark's saloon, apparently attracted there by a happy group
of whiskey-eyed Australian army officers baritoning, "Waltzing Matilda." As they sang they took turns
spin-dancing a girl over the cobbles under the El; and the girl, Miss Golightly, to be sure, floated round in
their, arms light as a scarf.
But if Miss Golightly remained unconscious of my existence, except as a doorbell convenience, I
became, through the summer, rather an authority on hers. I discovered, from observing the trash-basket
outside her door, that her regular reading consisted of tabloids and travel folders and astrological charts;
that she smoked an esoteric cigarette called Picayunes; survived on cottage cheese and melba toast; that
her vari-colored hair was somewhat self-induced. The same source made it evident that she received
V-letters by the bale. They were always torn into strips like bookmarks. I used occasionally to pluck
myself a bookmark in passing.Remember andmiss you andrain andplease write anddamn and
goddamn were the words that recurred most often on these slips; those, andlonesome andlove .
Also, she had a cat and she played the guitar. On days when the sun was strong, she would wash her
hair, and together with the cat, a red tiger-striped tom, sit out on the fire escape thumbing a guitar while
her hair dried. Whenever I heard the music, I would go stand quietly by my window. She played very
well, and sometimes sang too. Sang in the hoarse, breaking tones of a boy's adolescent voice. She knew
all the show hits, Cole Porter and Kurt Weill; especially she liked the songs fromOklahoma! , which
were new that summer and everywhere. But there were moments when she played songs that made you
wonder where she learned them, where indeed she came from. Harsh-tender wandering tunes with
words that smacked of pineywoods or prairie. One went:Don't wanna sleep, Don't wanna die, Just
wanna go a-travelin' through the pastures of the sky; and this one seemed to gratify her the most, for
often she continued it long after her hair had dried, after the sun had gone and there were lighted
windows in the dusk.
But our acquaintance did not make headway until September, an evening with the first ripple-chills of
autumn running through it. I'd been to a movie, come home and gone to bed with a bourbon nightcap and
the newest Simenon: so much my idea of comfort that I couldn't understand a sense of unease that
multiplied until I could hear my heart beating. It was a feeling I'd read about, written about, but never
before experienced. The feeling of being watched. Of someone in the room. Then: an abrupt rapping at
the window, a glimpse of ghostly gray: I spilled the bourbon. It was some little while before I could bring
myself to open the window, and ask Miss Golightly what she wanted.
But our acquaintance did not make headway until September, an evening with the first ripple-chills of
autumn running through it. I'd been to a movie, come home and gone to bed with a bourbon nightcap and
the newest Simenon: so much my idea of comfort that I couldn't understand a sense of unease that
multiplied until I could hear my heart beating. It was a feeling I'd read about, written about, but never
before experienced. The feeling of being watched. Of someone in the room. Then: an abrupt rapping at
the window, a glimpse of ghostly gray: I spilled the bourbon. It was some little while before I could bring
myself to open the window, and ask Miss Golightly what she wanted.
"Not at all."
She seemed disappointed. "Yes, you do. Everybody does. I don't mind. It's useful."
She sat down on one of the rickety red-velvet chairs, curved her legs underneath her, and glanced round
the room, her eyes puckering more pronouncedly. "How can you bear it? It's a chamber of horrors."
"Oh, you get used to anything," I said, annoyed with myself, for actually I was proud of the place.
"I don't. I'll never get used to anything. Anybody that does, they might as well be dead." Her dispraising
eyes surveyed the room again. "What do youdo here all day?"
I motioned toward a table tall with books and paper. "Write things."
"I thought writers were quite old. Of course Saroyan isn't old. I met him at a party, and really he isn't old
at all. In fact," she mused, "if he'd give himself a closer shave ... by the way, is Hemingway old?"
"In his forties, I should think."
"That's not bad. I can't get excited by a man until he's forty-two. I know this idiot girl who keeps telling
me I ought to go to a head-shrinker; she says I have a father complex. Which is so muchmerde . I simply
trained myself to like older men, and it was the smartest thing I ever did. How old is W. Somerset
Maugham?"
"I'm not sure. Sixty-something."
"That's not bad. I've never been to bed with a writer. No, wait: do you know Benny Shacklett?" She
frowned when I shook my head. "That's funny. He's written an awful lot of radio stuff. But quel rat. Tell
me, are you a real writer?"
frowned when I shook my head. "That's funny. He's written an awful lot of radio stuff. But quel rat. Tell
me, are you a real writer?"
"Well, darling, does anyonebuy what you write?"
"Not yet."
"I'm going to help you," she said. "I can, too. Think of all the people I know who know people. I'm
going to help you because you look like my brother Fred. Only smaller. I haven't seen him since I was
fourteen, that's when I left home, and he was already six-feet-two. My other brothers were more your
size, runts. It was the peanut butter that made Fred so tall. Everybody thought it was dotty, the way he
gorged himself on peanut butter; he didn't care about anything in this world except horses and peanut
butter. But he wasn't dotty, just sweet and vague and terribly slow; he'd been in the eighth grade three
years when I ran away. Poor Fred. I wonder if the Army's generous with their peanut butter. Which
reminds me, I'm starving."
I pointed to a bowl of apples, at the same time asked her how and why she'd left home so young. She
looked at me blankly, and rubbed her nose, as though it tickled: a gesture, seeing often repeated, I came
to recognize as a signal that one was trespassing. Like many people with a bold fondness for volunteering
intimate information, anything that suggested a direct question, a pinning-down, put her on guard. She
took a bite of apple, and said: "Tell me something you've written. The story part."
"That's one of the troubles. They're not the kind of stories youcan tell."
"Too dirty?"
"Maybe I'll let you read one sometime."
"Whiskey and apples go together. Fix me a drink, darling. Then you can read me a story yourself."
Very few authors, especially the unpublished, can resist an invitation to read aloud. I made us both a
drink and, settling in a chair opposite, began to read to her, my voice a little shaky with a combination of
stage fright and enthusiasm: it was a new story, I'd finished it the day before, and that inevitable sense of
shortcoming had not had time to develop. It was about two women who share a house, schoolteachers,
one of whom, when the other becomes engaged, spreads with anonymous notes a scandal that prevents
the marriage. As I read, each glimpse I stole of Holly made my heart contract. She fidgeted. She picked
apart the butts in an ashtray, she mooned over her fingernails, as though longing for a file; worse, when I
did seem to have her interest, there was actually a telltale frost over her eyes, as if she were wondering
whether to buy a pair of shoes she'd seen in some window.
"Is that theend? " she asked, waking up. She floundered for something more to say. "Of course I like
dykes themselves. They don't scare me a bit. But stories about dykes bore the bejesus out of me. I just
can't put myself in their shoes. Well really, darling," she said, because I was clearly puzzled, "if it's not
about a couple of old bull-dykes, what the hellis it about?"
But I was in no mood to compound the mistake of having read the story with the further embarrassment
of explaining it. The same vanity that had led to such exposure, now forced me to mark her down as an
insensitive, mindless show-off.
"Incidentally," she said, "do you happen to know any nice lesbians? I'm looking for a roommate. Well,
don't laugh. I'm so disorganized, I simply can't afford a maid; and really, dykes are wonderful
home-makers, they love to do all the work, you never have to bother about brooms and defrosting and
sending out the laundry. I had a roommate in Hollywood, she played in Westerns, they called her the
Lone Ranger; but I'll say this for her, she was better than a man around the house. Of course people
couldn't help but think I must be a bit of a dyke myself. And of course I am. Everyone is: a bit. So what?
That never discouraged a man yet, in fact it seems to goad them on. Look at the Lone Ranger, married
twice. Usually dykes only get married once, just for the name. It seems to carry such cachet later on to
be called Mrs. Something Another. That's not true!" She was staring at an alarm clock on the table. "It
can't be four-thirty!"
"Incidentally," she said, "do you happen to know any nice lesbians? I'm looking for a roommate. Well,
don't laugh. I'm so disorganized, I simply can't afford a maid; and really, dykes are wonderful
home-makers, they love to do all the work, you never have to bother about brooms and defrosting and
sending out the laundry. I had a roommate in Hollywood, she played in Westerns, they called her the
Lone Ranger; but I'll say this for her, she was better than a man around the house. Of course people
couldn't help but think I must be a bit of a dyke myself. And of course I am. Everyone is: a bit. So what?
That never discouraged a man yet, in fact it seems to goad them on. Look at the Lone Ranger, married
twice. Usually dykes only get married once, just for the name. It seems to carry such cachet later on to
be called Mrs. Something Another. That's not true!" She was staring at an alarm clock on the table. "It
can't be four-thirty!"
"What is today?"
"Thursday."
"Thursday." She stood up. "My God," she said, and sat down again with a moan. "It's too gruesome."
I was tired enough not to be curious. I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes. Still it was irresistible:
"What's gruesome about Thursday?"
"Nothing. Except that I can never remember when it's coming. You see, on Thursdays I have to catch
the eight forty-five. They're so particular about visiting hours, so if you're there by ten that gives you an
hour before the poor men eat lunch. Think of it, lunch at eleven. You can go at two, and I'd so much
rather, but he likes me to come in the morning, he says it sets him up for the rest of the day. I'vegot to
stay awake," she said, pinching her cheeks until the roses came, "there isn't time to sleep, I'd look
consumptive, I'd sag like a tenement, and that wouldn't be fair: a girl can't go to Sing Sing with a green
face."
"I suppose not." The anger I felt at her over my story was ebbing; she absorbed me again.
"All the visitorsdo make an effort to look their best, and it's very tender, it's sweet as hell, the way the
women wear their prettiest everything, I mean the old ones and the really poor ones too, they make the
dearest effort to look nice and smell nice too, and I love them for it. I love the kids too, especially the
colored ones. I mean the kids the wives bring. It should be sad, seeing the kids there, but it isn't, they
have ribbons in their hair and lots of shine on their shoes, you'd think there was going to be ice cream;
and sometimes that's what it's like in the visitors' room, a party. Anyway it's not like the movies: you
know, grim whisperings through a grille. There isn't any grille, just a counter between you and them, and
the kids can stand on it to be hugged; all you have to do to kiss somebody is lean across. What I like
most, they're so happy to see each other, they've saved up so much to talk about, it isn't possible to be
dull, they keep laughing and holding hands. It's different afterwards," she said. "I see them on the train.
They sit so quiet watching the river go by." She stretched a strand of hair to the corner of her mouth and
nibbled it thoughtfully. "I'm keeping you awake. Go to sleep."
"Please. I'm interested."
"I know you are. That's why I want you to go to sleep. Because if I keep on, I'll tell you about Sally. I'm
not sure that would be quite cricket." She chewed her hair silently. "They nevertold me not to tell anyone.
In so many words. And itis funny. Maybe you could put it in a story with different names and whatnot.
Listen, Fred," she said, reaching for another apple, "you've got to cross your heart and kiss your elbow
-- "
-- "
"Well," she said, with a mouthful of apple, "you may have read about him in the papers. His name is Sally
Tomato, and I speak Yiddish better than he speaks English; but he's a darling old man, terribly pious.
He'd look like a monk if it weren't for the gold teeth; he says he prays for me every night. Of course he
was never my lover; as far as that goes, I never knew him until he was already in jail. But I adore him
now, after all I've been going to see him every Thursday for seven months, and I think I'd go even if he
didn't pay me. This one's mushy," she said, and aimed the rest of the apple out the window. "By the way,
Idid know Sally by sight. He used to come to Joe Bell's bar, the one around the corner: never talked to
anybody, just stand there, like the kind of man who lives in hotel rooms. But it's funny to remember back
and realize how closely he must have been watching me, because right after they sent him up (Joe Bell
showed me his picture in the paper. Blackhand. Mafia. All that mumbo jumbo: but they gave him five
years) along came this telegram from a lawyer. It said to contact him immediately for information to my
advantage."
"You thought somebody had left you a million?"
"Not at all. I figured Bergdorf was trying to collect. But I took the gamble and went to see this lawyer (if
he is a lawyer, which I doubt, since he doesn't seem to have an office, just an answering service, and he
always wants to meet you in Hamburg Heaven: that's because he's fat, he can eat ten hamburgers and
two bowls of relish and a whole lemon meringue pie). He asked me how I'd like to cheer up a lonely old
man, at the same time pick up a hundred a week. I told him look, darling, you've got the wrong Miss
Golightly, I'm not a nurse that does tricks on the side. I wasn't impressed by the honorarium either; you
can do as well as that on trips to the powder room: any gent with the slightest chic will give you fifty for
the girl's john, and I always ask for cab fare too, that's another fifty. But then he told me his client was
Sally Tomato. He said dear old Sally had long admired meà la distance , so wouldn't it be a good deed
if I went to visit him once a week. Well, I couldn't: it was too romantic."
"I don't know. It doesn't sound right."
She smiled. "You think I'm lying?"
"For one thing, they can't simply letanyone visit a prisoner."
"Oh, they don't. In fact they make quite a boring fuss. I'm supposed to be his niece."
"And it's as simple as that? For an hour's conversation he gives you a hundred dollars?"
"He doesn't, the lawyer does. Mr. O'Shaughnessy mails it to me in cash as soon as I leave the weather
report."
"I think you could get into a lot of trouble," I said, and switched off a lamp; there was no need of it now,
morning was in the room and pigeons were gargling on the fire escape.
"How?" she said seriously.
"There must be something in the law books about false identity. After all, you'renot his niece. And what
about this weather report?"
She patted a yawn. "But it's nothing. Just messages I leave with the answering service so Mr.
O'Shaughnessy will know for sure that I've been up there. Sally tells me what to say, things like, oh,
'there's a hurricane in Cuba' and 'it's snowing in Palermo.' Don't worry, darling," she said, moving to the
bed, "I've taken care of myself a long time." The morning light seemed refracted through her: as she
pulled the bed covers up to my chin she gleamed like a transparent child; then she lay down beside me.
"Do you mind? I only want to rest a moment. So let's don't say another word. Go to sleep."
She patted a yawn. "But it's nothing. Just messages I leave with the answering service so Mr.
O'Shaughnessy will know for sure that I've been up there. Sally tells me what to say, things like, oh,
'there's a hurricane in Cuba' and 'it's snowing in Palermo.' Don't worry, darling," she said, moving to the
bed, "I've taken care of myself a long time." The morning light seemed refracted through her: as she
pulled the bed covers up to my chin she gleamed like a transparent child; then she lay down beside me.
"Do you mind? I only want to rest a moment. So let's don't say another word. Go to sleep."
"Why are you crying?"
She sprang back, sat up. "Oh, for God's sake," she said, starting for the window and the fire escape, "I
hate snoops."
The next day, Friday, I came home to find outside my door a grand-luxe Charles & Co. basket with her
card:Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling : and scribbled on the back in a freakishly awkward,
kindergarten hand:Bless you darling Fred. Please forgive the other night. You were an angel about
the whole thing. Mille tendresse -- Holly. P.S. I won't bother you again . I replied,Please do , and
left this note at her door with what I could afford, a bunch of street-vendor violets. But apparently she'd
meant what she said; I neither saw nor heard from her, and I gathered she'd gone so far as to obtain a
downstairs key. At any rate she no longer rang my bell. I missed that; and as the days merged I began to
feel toward her certain far-fetched resentments, as if I were being neglected by my closest friend. A
disquieting loneliness came into my life, but it induced no hunger for friends of longer acquaintance: they
seemed now like a salt-free, sugarless diet. By Wednesday thoughts of Holly, of Sing Sing and Sally
Tomato, of worlds where men forked over fifty dollars for the powder room, were so constant that I
couldn't work. That night I left a message in her mailbox:Tomorrow is Thursday . The next morning
rewarded me with a second note in the play-pen script:Bless you for reminding me. Can you stop for
a drink tonight 6-ish?
I waited until ten past six, then made myself delay five minutes more.
A creature answered the door. He smelled of cigars and Knize cologne. His shoes sported elevated
heels; without these added inches, one might have taken him for a Little Person. His bald freckled head
was dwarf-big: attached to it were a pair of pointed, truly elfin ears. He had Pekingese eyes, unpitying
and slightly bulged. Tufts of hair sprouted from his ears, from his nose; his jowls were gray with afternoon
beard, and his handshake almost furry.
"Kid's in the shower," he said, motioning a cigar toward a sound of water hissing in another room. The
room in which we stood (we were standing because there was nothing to sit on) seemed as though it
were being just moved into; you expected to smell wet paint. Suitcases and unpacked crates were the
only furniture. The crates served as tables. One supported the mixings of a martini; another a lamp, a
Libertyphone, Holly's red cat and a bowl of yellow roses. Bookcases, covering one wall, boasted a
half-shelf of literature. I warmed to the room at once, I liked its fly-by-night look.
The man cleared his throat. "You expected?"
He found my nod uncertain. His cold eyes operated on me, made neat, exploratory incisions. "A lot of
characters come here, they're not expected. You know the kid long?"
He found my nod uncertain. His cold eyes operated on me, made neat, exploratory incisions. "A lot of
characters come here, they're not expected. You know the kid long?"
"So you don't know the kid long?"
"I live upstairs."
The answer seemed to explain enough to relax him. "You got the same layout?"
"Much smaller."
He tapped ash on the floor. "This is a dump. This is unbelievable. But the kid don't know how to live
even when she's got the dough." His speech had a jerky metallic rhythm, like a teletype. "So," he said,
"what do you think: is she or ain't she?"
"Ain't she what?"
"A phony."
"I wouldn't have thought so."
"You're wrong. She is a phony. But on the other hand you're right. She isn't a phony because she's a real
phony. She believes all this crap she believes. You can't talk her out of it. I've tried with tears running
down my cheeks. Benny Polan, respected everywhere, Benny Polan tried. Benny had it on his mind to
marry her, she don't go for it, Benny spent maybe thousands sending her to head-shrinkers. Even the
famous one, the one can only speak German, boy, did he throw in the towel. You can't talk her out of
these" -- he made a fist, as though to crush an intangible -- "ideas. Try it sometime. Get her to tell you
some of the stuff she believes. Mind you," he said, "I like the kid. Everybody does, but there's lots that
don't. I do. I sincerely like the kid. I'm sensitive, that's why. You've got to be sensitive to appreciate her:
a streak of the poet. But I'll tell you the truth. You can beat your brains out for her, and she'll hand you
horseshit on a platter. To give an example -- who is she like you see her today? She's strictly a girl you'll
read where she ends up at the bottom of a bottle of Seconals. I've seen it happen more times than you've
got toes: and those kids, they weren't even nuts. She's nuts."
"But young. And with a great deal of youth ahead of her."
"If you mean future, you're wrong again. Now a couple of years back, out on the Coast, there was a
time it could've been different. She had something working for her, she had them interested, she could've
really rolled. But when you walk out on a thing like that, you don't walk back. Ask Luise Rainer. And
Rainer was a star. Sure, Holly was no star; she never got out of the still department. But that was before
The Story of Dr. Wassell . Then she could've really rolled. I know, see, cause I'm the guy was giving her
the push." He pointed his cigar at himself. "O.J. Berman."
He expected recognition, and I didn't mind obliging him, it was all right by me, except I'd never heard of
O.J. Berman. It developed that he was a Hollywood actor's agent.
"I'm the first one saw her. Out at Santa Anita. She's hanging around the track every day. I'm interested:
professionally. I find out she's some jock's regular, she's living with the shrimp. I get the jock told Drop It
if he don't want conversation with the vice boys: see, the kid's fifteen. But stylish: she's okay, she comes
across. Even when she's wearing glassesthis thick; even when she opens her mouth and you don't know
if she's a hillbilly or an Okie or what. I still don't. My guess, nobody'll ever know where she came from.
She's such a goddamn liar, maybe she don't know herself any more. But it took us a year to smooth out
that accent. How we did it finally, we gave her French lessons: after she could imitate French, it wasn't so
long she could imitate English. We modeled her along the Margaret Sullavan type, but she could pitch
some curves of her own, people were interested, big ones, and to top it all, Benny Polan, a respected
guy, Benny wants to marry her. An agent could ask for more? Then wham!The Story of Dr. Wassell .
You see that picture? Cecil B. DeMille. Gary Cooper. Jesus. I kill myself, it's all set: they're going to test
her for the part of Dr. Wassell's nurse. One of his nurses, anyway. Then wham! The phone rings." He
picked a telephone out of the air and held it to his ear. "She says, this is Holly, I say honey, you sound far
away, she says I'm in New York, I say what the hell are you doing in New York when it's Sunday and
you got the test tomorrow? She says I'm in New York cause I've never been to New York. I say get
your ass on a plane and get back here, she says I don't want it. I say what's your angle, doll? She says
you got to want it to be good and I don't want it, I say well, what the hell do you want, and she says
when I find out you'll be the first to know. See what I mean: horseshit on a platter."
if he don't want conversation with the vice boys: see, the kid's fifteen. But stylish: she's okay, she comes
across. Even when she's wearing glassesthis thick; even when she opens her mouth and you don't know
if she's a hillbilly or an Okie or what. I still don't. My guess, nobody'll ever know where she came from.
She's such a goddamn liar, maybe she don't know herself any more. But it took us a year to smooth out
that accent. How we did it finally, we gave her French lessons: after she could imitate French, it wasn't so
long she could imitate English. We modeled her along the Margaret Sullavan type, but she could pitch
some curves of her own, people were interested, big ones, and to top it all, Benny Polan, a respected
guy, Benny wants to marry her. An agent could ask for more? Then wham!The Story of Dr. Wassell .
You see that picture? Cecil B. DeMille. Gary Cooper. Jesus. I kill myself, it's all set: they're going to test
her for the part of Dr. Wassell's nurse. One of his nurses, anyway. Then wham! The phone rings." He
picked a telephone out of the air and held it to his ear. "She says, this is Holly, I say honey, you sound far
away, she says I'm in New York, I say what the hell are you doing in New York when it's Sunday and
you got the test tomorrow? She says I'm in New York cause I've never been to New York. I say get
your ass on a plane and get back here, she says I don't want it. I say what's your angle, doll? She says
you got to want it to be good and I don't want it, I say well, what the hell do you want, and she says
when I find out you'll be the first to know. See what I mean: horseshit on a platter."
"Thisis what she wants?" he said, flinging out his arms. "A lot of characters they aren't expected? Living
off tips. Running around with bums. So maybe she could marry Rusty Trawler? You should pin a medal
on her for that?"
He waited, glaring.
"Sorry, I don't know him."
"You don't know Rusty Trawler, you can't know much about the kid. Bad deal," he said, his tongue
clucking in his huge head. "I was hoping you maybe had influence. Could level with the kid before it's too
late."
"But according to you, it already is."
He blew a smoke ring, let it fade before he smiled; the smile altered his face, made something gentle
happen. "I could get it rolling again. Like I told you," he said, and now it sounded true, "I sincerely like
the kid."
"What scandals are you spreading, O.J.?" Holly splashed into the room, a towel more or less wrapped
round her and her wet feet dripping footmarks on the floor.
"Just the usual. That you're nuts.
"Fred knows that already."
"But you don't."
"Light me a cigarette, darling," she said, snatching off a bathing cap and shaking her hair. "I don't mean
you, O.J. You're such a slob. You always nigger-lip."
She scooped up the cat and swung him onto her shoulder. He perched there with the balance of a bird,
his paws tangled in her hair as if it were knitting yarn; and yet, despite these amiable antics, it was a grim
cat with a pirate's cutthroat face; one eye was gluey-blind, the other sparkled with dark deeds.
She scooped up the cat and swung him onto her shoulder. He perched there with the balance of a bird,
his paws tangled in her hair as if it were knitting yarn; and yet, despite these amiable antics, it was a grim
cat with a pirate's cutthroat face; one eye was gluey-blind, the other sparkled with dark deeds.
"Lay off."
"It's not a joke, darling. I want you to call him up and tell him what a genius Fred is. He's written barrels
of the most marvelous stories. Well, don't blush, Fred: you didn't say you were a genius, I did. Come on,
O.J. What are you going to do to make Fred rich?"
"Suppose you let me settle that with Fred."
"Remember," she said, leaving us, "I'm his agent. Another thing: if I holler, come zipper me up. And if
anybody knocks, let them in."
A multitude did. Within the next quarter-hour a stag party had taken over the apartment, several of them
in uniform. I counted two Naval officers and an Air Force colonel; but they were outnumbered by
graying arrivals beyond draft status. Except for a lack of youth, the guests had no common theme, they
seemed strangers among strangers; indeed, each face, on entering, had struggled to conceal dismay at
seeing others there. It was as if the hostess had distributed her invitations while zigzagging through various
bars; which was probably the case. After the initial frowns, however, they mixed without grumbling,
especially O.J. Berman, who avidly exploited the new company to avoid discussing my Hollywood
future. I was left abandoned by the bookshelves; of the books there, more than half were about horses,
the rest baseball. Pretending an interest inHorseflesh and How to Tell It gave me sufficiently private
opportunity for sizing Holly's friends.
Presently one of these became prominent. He was a middle-aged child that had never shed its baby fat,
though some gifted tailor had almost succeeded in camouflaging his plump and spankable bottom. There
wasn't a suspicion of bone in his body; his face, a zero filled in with pretty miniature features, had an
unused, a virginal quality: it was as if he'd been born, then expanded, his skin remaining unlined as a
blown-up balloon, and his mouth, though ready for squalls and tantrums, a spoiled sweet puckering. But
it was not appearance that singled him out; preserved infants aren't all that rare. It was, rather, his
conduct; for he was behaving as though the party were his: like an energetic octopus, he was shaking
martinis, making introductions, manipulating the phonograph. In fairness, most of his activities were
dictated by the hostess herself:Rusty, would you mind; Rusty, would you please . If he was in love with
her, then clearly he had his jealousy in check. A jealous man might have lost control, watching her as she
skimmed around the room, carrying her cat in one hand but leaving the other free to straighten a tie or
remove lapel lint; the Air Force colonel wore a medal that came in for quite a polish.
The man's name was Rutherfurd ("Rusty") Trawler. In 1908 he'd lost both his parents, his father the
victim of an anarchist and his mother of shock, which double misfortune had made Rusty an orphan, a
millionaire, and a celebrity, all at the age of five. He'd been a stand-by of the Sunday supplements ever
since, a consequence that had gathered hurricane momentum when, still a schoolboy, he had caused his
godfather-custodian to be arrested on charges of sodomy. After that, marriage and divorce sustained his
place in the tabloid-sun. His first wife had taken herself, and her alimony, to a rival of Father Divine's.
The second wife seems unaccounted for, but the third had sued him in New York State with a full satchel
of the kind of testimony that entails. He himself divorced the last Mrs. Trawler, his principal complaint
stating that she'd started a mutiny aboard his yacht, said mutiny resulting in his being deposited on the Dry
Tortugas. Though he'd been a bachelor since, apparently before the war he'd proposed to Unity Mitford,
at least he was supposed to have sent her a cable offering to marry her if Hitler didn't. This was said to
be the reason Winchell always referred to him as a Nazi; that, and the fact that he attended rallies in
Yorkville.
Tortugas. Though he'd been a bachelor since, apparently before the war he'd proposed to Unity Mitford,
at least he was supposed to have sent her a cable offering to marry her if Hitler didn't. This was said to
be the reason Winchell always referred to him as a Nazi; that, and the fact that he attended rallies in
Yorkville.
"Admiring my publicity, or are you just a baseball fan?" she said, adjusting her dark glasses as she
glanced over my shoulder.
I said, "What was this week's weather report?"
She winked at me, but it was humorless: a wink of warning, "I'm all for horses, but I loathe baseball," she
said, and the sub-message in her, voice was saying she wished me to forget she'd ever mentioned Sally
Tomato. "I hate the sound of it on a radio, but I have to listen, it's part of my research. There're so few
things men can talk about. If a man doesn't like baseball, then he must like horses, and if he doesn't like
either of them, well, I'm in trouble anyway: he don't like girls. And how are you making out with O.J.?"
"We've separated by mutual agreement"
"He's an opportunity, believe me."
"I do believe you. But what have I to offer that would strike him as an opportunity?"
She persisted. "Go over there and make him think he isn't funny-looking. He really can help you, Fred."
"I understand you weren't too appreciative." She seemed puzzled until I said:"The Story of Doctor
Wassell"
"He's still harping?" she said, and cast across the room an affectionate look at Berman. "But he's got a
point, Ishould feel guilty. Not because they would have given me the part or because I would have been
good: they wouldn't and I wouldn't. If I do feel guilty, I guess it's because I let him go on dreaming when I
wasn't dreaming a bit. I was just vamping for time to make a few self-improvements: I knew damn well
I'd never be a movie star. It's too hard; and if you're intelligent, it's too embarrassing. My complexes
aren't inferior enough: being a movie star and having a big fat ego are supposed to go hand-in-hand;
actually, it's essential not to have any ego at all. I don't mean I'd mind being rich and famous.
That's very much on my schedule, and someday I'll try to get around to it; but if it happens, I'd like to
have my ego tagging along. I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at
Tiffany's. You need a glass," she said, noticing my empty hands. "Rusty! Will you bring my friend a
drink?"
She was still hugging the cat. "Poor slob," she said, tickling his head, "poor slob without a name. It's a
little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't any right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he
belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's
an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know I've found the place where me
and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like." She
smiled, and let the cat drop to the floor. "It's like Tiffany's," she said. "Not that I give a hoot about
jewelry. Diamonds, yes. But it's tacky to wear diamonds before you're forty; and even that's risky. They
only look right on the really old girls. Maria Ouspenskaya. Wrinkles and bones, white hair and diamonds:
I can't wait. But that's not why I'm mad about Tiffany's. Listen. You know those days when you've got
the mean reds?"
smiled, and let the cat drop to the floor. "It's like Tiffany's," she said. "Not that I give a hoot about
jewelry. Diamonds, yes. But it's tacky to wear diamonds before you're forty; and even that's risky. They
only look right on the really old girls. Maria Ouspenskaya. Wrinkles and bones, white hair and diamonds:
I can't wait. But that's not why I'm mad about Tiffany's. Listen. You know those days when you've got
the mean reds?"
"No," she said slowly. "No, the blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining too long.
You're sad, that's all. But the mean reds are horrible. You're afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don't
know what you're afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen, only you don't know what it is.
You've had that feeling?"
"Quite often. Some people call itangst ."
"All right.Angst . But what do you do about it?"
"Well, a drink helps."
"I've tried that. I've tried aspirin, too. Rusty thinks I should smoke marijuana, and I did for a while, but it
only makes me giggle. What I've found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany's. It
calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you
there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I
could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany's, then I'd buy some furniture and give the cat a
name. I've thought maybe after the war, Fred and I -- " She pushed up her dark glasses, and her eyes,
the differing colors of them, the grays and wisps of blue and green, had taken on a far-seeing sharpness.
"I went to Mexico once. It's wonderful country for raising horses. I saw one place near the sea. Fred's
good with horses."
Rusty Trawler came carrying a martini; he handed it over without looking at me. "I'm hungry," he
announced, and his voice, retarded as the rest of him, produced an unnerving brat-whine that seemed to
blame Holly. "It's seven-thirty, and I'm hungry. You know what the doctor said."
"Yes, Rusty. I know what the doctor said."
"Well, then break it up. Let's go."
"I want you to behave, Rusty." She spoke softly, but there was a governess threat of punishment in her
tone that caused an odd flush of pleasure, of gratitude, to pink his face.
"You don't love me," he complained, as though they were alone.'
"Nobody loves naughtiness."
Obviously she'd said what he wanted to hear; it appeared to both excite and relax him. Still he
continued, as though it were a ritual: "Do you love me?"
She patted him. "Tend to your chores, Rusty. And when I'm ready, we'll go eat wherever you want."
"Chinatown?"
"But that doesn't mean sweet and sour spareribs. You know what the doctor said."
As he returned to his duties with a satisfied waddle, I couldn't resist reminding her that she hadn't
answered his question. "Doyou love him?"
"I told you: you can make yourself love anybody. Besides, he had a stinking childhood."
"If it was so stinking, why does he cling to it?"
"Use your head. Can't you see it's just that Rusty feels safer in diapers than he would in a skirt? Which is
really the choice, only he's awfully touchy about it. He tried to stab me with a butter knife because I told
him to grow up and face the issue, settle down and play house with a nice fatherly truck driver.
Meantime, I've got him on my hands; which is okay, he's harmless, he thinks girls are dolls, literally."
"Thank God."
"Well, if it were true of most men, I'd hardly be thanking God."
"I meant thank God you're not going to marry Mr. Trawler."
She lifted an eyebrow. "By the way, I'm not pretending I don't know he's rich. Even land in Mexico
costs something. Now," she said, motioning me forward, "let's get hold of O.J."
I held back while my mind worked to win a postponement. Then I remembered: "WhyTraveling ?"
"On my card?" she said, disconcerted. "You think it's funny?"
"Not funny. Just provocative."
She shrugged. "After all, how do I know where I'll be living tomorrow? So I told them to putTraveling .
Anyway, it was a waste of money, ordering those cards. Except I felt I owed it to them to buy some little
some thing. They're from Tiffany's." She reached for my martini, I hadn't touched it; she drained it in two
swallows, and took my hand. "Quit stalling. You're going to make friends with O.J."
An occurrence at the door intervened. It was a young woman, and she entered like a wind-rush, a squall
of scarves and jangling gold. "H-H-Holly," she said, wagging a finger as she advanced, "you miserable
h-h-hoarder. Hogging all these simply r-r-riveting m-m-men!"
She was well over six feet, taller than most men there. They straightened their spines, sucked in their
stomachs; there was a general contest to match her swaying height.
Holly said, "What are you doing here?" and her lips were taut as drawn string.
"Why, n-n-nothing, sugar. I've been upstairs working with Yunioshi. Christmas stuff for theBa-ba-zaar .
But you sound vexed, sugar?" She scattered a roundabout smile. "You b-b-boys not vexed at me for
butting in on your p-p-party?"
Rusty Trawler tittered. He squeezed her arm, as though to admire her muscle, and asked her if she could
use a drink.
"I surely could," she said. "Make mine bourbon."
Holly told her, "Thereisn't any." Whereupon the Air Force colonel suggested he run out for a bottle.
Holly told her, "Thereisn't any." Whereupon the Air Force colonel suggested he run out for a bottle.
It seemed a dance, Berman performing some fancy footwork to prevent his rivals cutting in. He lost her
to a quadrille of partners who gobbled up her stammered jokes like popcorn tossed to pigeons. It was a
comprehensible success. She was a triumph over ugliness, so often more beguiling than real beauty, if
only because it contains paradox. In this case, as opposed to the scrupulous method of plain good taste
and scientific grooming, the trick had been worked by exaggerating defects; she'd made them ornamental
by admitting them boldly. Heels that emphasized her height, so steep her ankles trembled; a flat tight
bodice that indicated she could go to a beach in bathing trunks; hair that was pulled straight back,
accentuating the spareness, the starvation of her fashion-model face. Even the stutter, certainly genuine
but still a bit laid on, had been turned to advantage. It was the master stroke, that stutter; for it contrived
to make her banalities sound somehow original, and secondly, despite her tallness, her assurance, it
served to inspire in male listeners a protective feeling. To illustrate: Berman had to be pounded on the
back because she said, "Who can tell me w-w-where is the j-j-john?"; then, completing the cycle, he
offered an arm to guide her himself.
"That," said Holly, "won't be necessary. She's been here before. She knows where it is." She was
emptying ashtrays, and after Mag Wildwood had left the room, she emptied another, then said, sighed
rather: "It's really very sad." She paused long enough to calculate the number of inquiring expressions; it
was sufficient. "And so mysterious. You'd think it would show more. But heaven knows, shelooks
healthy. So, well,clean . That's the extraordinary part. Wouldn't you," she asked with concern, but of no
one in particular, "wouldn't you say shelooked clean?"
Someone coughed, several swallowed. A Naval officer, who had been holding Mag Wildwood's drink,
put it down.
"But then," said Holly, "I hear so many of these Southern girls have the same trouble." She shuddered
delicately, and went to the kitchen for more ice.
Mag Wildwood couldn't understand it, the abrupt absence of warmth on her return; the conversations
she began behaved like green logs, they fumed but would not fire. More unforgivably, people were
leaving without taking her telephone number. The Air Force colonel decamped while her back was
turned, and this was the straw too much: he'd asked her to dinner. Suddenly she was blind. And since gin
to artifice bears the same relation as tears to mascara, her attractions at once dissembled. She took it out
on everyone. She called her hostess a Hollywood degenerate. She invited a man in his fifties to fight. She
told Berman, Hitler was right. She exhilarated Rusty Trawler by stiff-arming him into a corner. "You
know what's going to happen to you?" she said, with no hint of a stutter. "I'm going to march you over to
the zoo and feed you to the yak." He looked altogether willing, but she disappointed him by sliding to the
floor, where she sat humming.
"You're a bore. Get up from there," Holly said, stretching on a pair of gloves. The remnants of the party
were waiting at the door, and when the bore didn't budge Holly cast me an apologetic glance. "Be an
angel, would you, Fred? Put her in a taxi. She lives at the Winslow."
"Don't. Live Barbizon. Regent 4-5700. Ask for Mag Wildwood."
"Youare an angel, Fred."
"Youare an angel, Fred."
The following afternoon I collided with Holly on the stairs. "You" she said, hurrying past with a package
from the druggist. "There she is, on the verge of pneumonia. A hang-over out to here. And the mean reds
on top of it." I gathered from this that Mag Wildwood was still in the apartment, but she gave me no
chance to explore her surprising sympathy. Over the weekend, mystery deepened. First, there was the
Latin who came to my door: mistakenly, for he was inquiring after Miss Wildwood. It took a while to
correct his error, our accents seemed mutually incoherent, but by the time we had I was charmed. He'd
been put together with care, his brown head and bullfighter's figure had an exactness, a perfection, like an
apple, an orange, something nature has made just right. Added to this, as decoration, were an English suit
and a brisk cologne and, what is still more unlatin, a bashful manner. The second event of the day
involved him again. It was toward evening, and I saw him on my way out to dinner. He was arriving in a
taxi; the driver helped him totter into the house with a load of suitcases. That gave me something to chew
on: by Sunday my jaws were quite tired.
Then the picture became both darker and clearer.
Sunday was an Indian summer day, the sun was strong, my window was open, and I heard voices on
the fire escape. Holly and Mag were sprawled there on a blanket, the cat between them. Their hair,
newly washed, hung lankly. They were busy, Holly varnishing her toenails, Mag knitting on a sweater.
Mag was speaking.
"If you ask me, I think you're l-l-lucky. At least there's one thing you can say for Rusty. He's an
American."
"Bully for him."
"Sugar. There's a war on."
"And when it's over, you've seen the last of me, boy."
"I don't feel that way. I'm p-p-proud of my country. The men in my family were great soldiers. There's a
statue of Papadaddy Wildwood smack in the center of Wildwood."
"Fred's a soldier," said Holly. "But I doubt if he'll ever be a statue. Could be. They say the more stupid
you are the braver. He's pretty stupid."
"Fred's that boy upstairs? I didn't realize he was a soldier. But hedoes look stupid."
"Yearning. Not stupid. He wants awfully to be on the inside staring out: anybody with their nose pressed
against a glass is liable to look stupid. Anyhow, he's a different Fred. Fred's my brother."
"You call your own f-f-flesh and b-b-blood stupid?"
"You call your own f-f-flesh and b-b-blood stupid?"
"Well, it's poor taste to say so. A boy that's fighting for you and me and all of us."
"What is this: a bond rally?"
"I just want you to know where I stand. I appreciate a joke, but underneath I'm a s-s-serious person.
Proud to be an American. That's why I'm sorry about José." She put down her knitting needles. "Youdo
think he's terribly good-looking, don't you?" Holly said Hmn, and swiped the cat's whiskers with her
lacquer brush. "If only I could get used to the idea of m-m-marrying a Brazilian. Andbeing a
B-b-brazilian myself. It's such a canyon to cross. Six thousand miles, and not knowing the language -- "
"Go to Berlitz."
"Why on earth would they be teaching P-p-portu-guese? It isn't as though anyone spoke it. No, my only
chance is to try and make José forget politics and become an American. It's such a useless thing for a
man to want to be: the p-p-president ofBrazil ." She sighed and picked up her knitting. "I must be madly
in love. You saw us together. Do you think I'm madly in love?"
"Well. Does he bite?"
Mag dropped a stitch. "Bite?"
"You. In bed."
"Why, no.Should he?" Then she added, censoriously: "But he does laugh."
"Good. That's the right spirit. I like a man who sees the humor; most of them, they're all pant and puff."
Mag withdrew her complaint; she accepted the comment as flattery reflecting on herself. "Yes. I
suppose."
"Okay. He doesn't bite. He laughs. What else?"
Mag counted up her dropped stitch and began again, knit, purl, purl.
"I said -- "
"I heard you. And it isn't that I don't want to tell you. But it's so difficult to remember. I don't d-d-dwell
on these things. The way you seem to. They go out of my head like a dream. I'm sure that's the
n-n-normal attitude."
"It may be normal, darling; but I'd rather be natural." Holly paused in the process of reddening the rest of
the cat's whiskers. "Listen. If you can't remember, try leaving the lights on."
"Please understand me, Holly. I'm a very-very-veryconventional person."
"Oh, balls. What's wrong with a decent look at a guy you like? Men are beautiful, a lot of them are, José
is, and if you don't even want tolook at him, well, I'd say he's getting a pretty cold plate of macaroni."