Three Soldiers Part 61

"The Sorbonne can go to Ballyhack."

"But, Henny, I'm going to croak on your hands if you don't take me somewhere to get some food."

"Do you want a solemn place with red plush or with salmon pink brocade?"

"Why have a solemn place at all?"

"Because solemnity and good food go together. It's only a religious restaurant that has a proper devotion to the belly. O, I know, we'll go over to Brooklyn."

"Where?"

"To the Rive Gauche. I know a man who insists on calling it Brooklyn.

Awfully funny man... never been sober in his life. You must meet him."

"Oh, I want to.... It's a dog's age since I met anyone new, except you.

I can't live without having a variegated crowd about, can you?"

"You've got that right on this boulevard. Serbs, French, English, Americans, Australians, Rumanians, Tcheco-Slovaks; G.o.d, is there any uniform that isn't here?... I tell you, Andy, the war's been a great thing for the people who knew how to take advantage of it. Just look at their puttees."

"I guess they'll know how to make a good thing of the Peace too."

"Oh, that's going to be the best yet.... Come along. Let's be little devils and take a taxi."

"This certainly is the main street of Cosmopolis."

They threaded their way through the crowd, full of uniforms and glitter and bright colors, that moved in two streams up and down the wide sidewalk between the cafes and the boles of the bare trees. They climbed into a taxi, and lurched fast through streets where, in the misty sunlight, grey-green and grey-violet mingled with blues and pale lights as the colors mingle in a pigeon's breast feathers. They pa.s.sed the leafless gardens of the Tuileries on one side, and the great inner Courts of the Louvre, with their purple mansard roofs and their high chimneys on the other, and saw for a second the river, dull jade green, and the plane trees splotched with brown and cream color along the quais, before they were lost in the narrow brownish-grey streets of the old quarters.

"This is Paris; that was Cosmopolis," said Henslowe.

"I'm not particular, just at present," cried Andrews gaily.

The square in front of the Odeon was a splash of white and the collonade a blur of darkness as the cab swerved round the corner and along the edge of the Luxembourg, where, through the black iron fence, many brown and reddish colors in the intricate patterns of leafless twigs opened here and there on statues and bal.u.s.trades and vistas of misty distances.

The cab stopped with a jerk.

"This is the Place des Medicis," said Henslowe.

At the end of a slanting street looking very flat, through the haze, was the dome of the Pantheon. In the middle of the square between the yellow trams and the green low busses, was a quiet pool, where the shadow of horizontals of the house fronts was reflected.

They sat beside the window looking out at the square.

Henslowe ordered.

"Remember how sentimental history books used to talk about prisoners who were let out after years in dungeons, not being able to stand it, and going back to their cells?"

"D'you like sole meuniere?"

"Anything, or rather everything! But take it from me, that's all rubbish. Honestly I don't think I've ever been happier in my life....

D'you know, Henslowe, there's something in you that is afraid to be happy."

"Don't be morbid.... There's only one real evil in the world: being somewhere without being able to get away;... I ordered beer. This is the only place in Paris where it's fit to drink."

"And I'm going to every blooming concert...Colonne-Lamoureux on Sunday, I know that.... The only evil in the world is not to be able to hear music or to make it.... These oysters are fit for Lucullus."

"Why not say fit for John Andrews and Bob Henslowe, d.a.m.n it?... Why the ghosts of poor old dead Romans should be dragged in every time a man eats an oyster, I don't see. We're as fine specimens as they were. I swear I shan't let any old turned-toclay Lucullus outlive me, even if I've never eaten a lamprey."

"And why should you eat a lamp--chimney, Bob?" came a hoa.r.s.e voice beside them.

Andrews looked up into a round, white face with large grey eyes hidden behind thick steel-rimmed spectacles. Except for the eyes, the face had a vaguely Chinese air.

"h.e.l.lo, Heinz! Mr. Andrews, Mr. Heineman," said Henslowe.

"Glad to meet you," said Heineman in a jovially hoa.r.s.e voice. "You guys seem to be overeating, to reckon by the way things are piled up on the table." Through the hoa.r.s.eness Andrews could detect a faint Yankee tang in Heineman's voice.

"You'd better sit down and help us," said Henslowe.

"Sure....D'you know my name for this guy?" He turned to Andrews....

"Sinbad!"

"Sinbad was in bad in Tokio and Rome, In bad in Trinidad And twice as bad at home."

He sang the words loudly, waving a bread stick to keep time.

"Shut up, Heinz, or you'll get us run out of here the way you got us run out of the Olympia that night."

They both laughed.

"An' d'you remember Monsieur Le Guy with his coat?

"Do I? G.o.d!" They laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks. Heineman took off his gla.s.ses and wiped them. He turned to Andrews.

"Oh, Paris is the best yet. First absurdity: the Peace Conference and its nine hundred and ninety-nine branches. Second absurdity: spies.

Third: American officers A.W.O.L. Fourth: The seven sisters sworn to slay." He broke out laughing again, his chunky body rolling about on the chair.

"What are they?"

"Three of them have sworn to slay Sinbad, and four of them have sworn to slay me.... But that's too complicated to tell at lunch time....

Eighth: there are the lady relievers, Sinbad's specialty. Ninth: there's Sinbad...."

"Shut up, Heinz, you're getting me maudlin," spluttered Henslowe.

"O Sinbad was in bad all around," chanted Heineman. "But no one's given me anything to drink," he said suddenly in a petulant voice. "Garcon, une bouteille de Macon, pour un Cadet de Gascogne.... What's the next?

It ends with vergogne. You've seen the play, haven't you? Greatest play going.... Seen it twice sober and seven other times."

"Cyrano de Bergerac?"

"That's it. Nous sommes les Cadets de Gasgogne, rhymes with ivrogne and sans vergogne.... You see I work in the Red Cross.... You know Sinbad, old Peterson's a brick.... I'm supposed to be taking photographs of tubercular children at this minute.... The n.o.blest of my professions is that of artistic photographer.... Borrowed the photographs from the rickets man. So I have nothing to do for three months and five hundred francs travelling expenses. Oh, children, my only prayer is 'give us this day our red worker's permit' and the Red Cross does the rest."

Heineman laughed till the gla.s.ses rang on the table. He took off his gla.s.ses and wiped them with a rueful air.

"So now I call the Red Cross the Cadets!" cried Heineman, his voice a thin shriek from laughter.