A Moveable Feast Read online

  That is the sort of happiness you should not tinker with but nearly everyone you knew tried to adjust it. Once we were back from Canada where I had decided that I would do no more newspaper work even if I starved and we lived as savages and kept our own tribal rules and had our own customs and our own standards, secrets, taboos and delights.*

  We were free people now in Paris and I did not have to go on assignments.

  "And I'm never going to get a haircut," I said while we were talking together at the Closerie des Lilas inside at a table where it was warm.

  "Not if you don't want, Tatie."

  "I started before we left Toronto."

  "That's wonderful. That's a month anyway."

  "Six weeks."

  "Should we have a Chambery Cassis to celebrate."

  I ordered them and said, "Will you like it again?"

  "Yes. It's part of being free from all that awfulness. Tell me how it will be."

  "Do you remember the three Japanese painters at Ezra's?"

  "Oh yes, Tatie, they were beautiful but that would take an awfully long time."

  "That was the way I always wanted it."

  "We can try. It grows awfully fast. "

  "I wish I could start it that way tomorrow."

  "There isn't any way, Tatie, except just for it to grow. You know that. It takes such a long time. I'm sorry it does."*

  "Damn it."

  "Let me feel."

  "Here?"

  "It's growing wonderfully. You'll just have to be patient."

  "All right. I'll forget about it."

  "If you don't think about it maybe it will grow faster. I'm so glad you remembered to start it so early."

  We looked at each other and laughed and then she said one of the secret things.

  "That's correct."

  "Tatie, I thought of something exciting."

  "Tell me."

  "I don't know whether to say it."

  "Say it. Go on. Please say it."

  "I thought maybe it could be the same as mine."

  "But yours keeps on growing too."

  "No. I'll get it just evened tomorrow and then I'll wait for you. Wouldn't that be fine for us?"

  "Yes."

  "I'll wait and then it will be the same for both."

  "How long will it take?"

  "Maybe four months to be just the same."

  "Really?"

  "Really."

  "Four months more?"

  "I think so."

  We sat and she said something secret and I said something secret back.

  "Other people would think we are crazy."

  "Poor unfortunate other people," she said. "We'll have such fun, Tatie."

  "And you'll really like it?"

  "I'll love it," she said. "But we'll have to be very patient. The way people are patient with a garden."

  "I'll be patient, or I'll try anyway."

  "Do you think other people have such fun with such simple things?"

  "Maybe it's not so simple."

  "I don't know. Nothing can be simpler than growing."

  "I don't care whether it's complicated or simple I just like it."

  "So do I. We're awfully lucky aren't we? My I wish I could help but I don't know how we can make it faster."

  "Do you think we could cut it across at the same length as yours? That would be a start."

  "I'll do that if you want. It would be simpler than asking a barber to. But the rest would have to grow down to it, Tatie. It has to grow from the front all the way down to the back. The way we want it. That's what takes so long."

  "Damn it taking so long."

  "I'll think what we can do. But it has grown six weeks and now while we are here in the cafe too. It will certainly grow tonight."

  "It certainly will."

  "I'll think of something."

  The next day she came home from the hairdressers and her hair was cut below her ears so it came below her cheek and swung against her neck and she turned and in the back it was about an inch above her sweater neck. It was new washed and rusty gold.

  "Feel it in back," she said.

  I put my arm around her and felt our hearts beating through our sweaters and I brought my right hand up and felt her neck smooth and the hair thick against it under my fingers that were shaking.

  "Shake it down hard," she said.

  "Wait," I said,

  Then she said, "Now stroke it down hard. Feel."

  I held my hand against the silky weight and bluntness against her neck and said something secret and she said, "Afterwards."

  "You," I said. "You."

  Afterwards we were talking and she said, "I thought something out and did something practical, Tatie. It's cut a whole inch shorter. Didn't you see? Couldn't you feel? Now you've gained a full inch. That's almost a month."

  I could not say anything.

  "Then in another week I'll have them cut it another inch shorter and it will still be the way you like it. You didn't even notice it was shorter did you?"

  "No. It's wonderful."

  "You see how intelligent I was? Then you'll have gained two months. I could go and get it done this afternoon but I might as well wait until I go to have it washed again."

  "It's wonderful the way it is."

  "I'll cut yours across now to make the line."

  "Do you think we should?"

  "Of course, Tatie. Wasn't that what we said?"

  "It will look sort of funny maybe."

  "Not to us. Who are the others anyway?"

  "Nobody."

  After I had sat on one of the dining room chairs with a towel around my neck and she had cut the line across the back the same distance above my sweater collar as the line where hers was cut and brushed back all the hair above the ears tight against my head and cut another line from the corner of the eyes to the upper base of the ear she said, "I was wrong, Tatie, about four months. It will probably be longer."

  "Do you think so? In Toronto I didn't let them cut anything off the sides or the top for over a month before the last time. I just had the back trimmed six weeks ago."

  "How can you remember all that?"

  "It was as soon as I knew we were leaving. You remember those things like getting out of jail."

  "That wasn't too late in the fall then. It's fine, Tatie. I just cut that line because that all has to grow so it will become down like mine does here. See," she pushed her hair up and behind her ear then let it drop forward, "that's where it starts. Yours grows thick there and it is long already. In a month you won't be able to keep it from coming over your ears. Are you getting frightened?"

  "Maybe."

  "I am a little bit too. But we're going to do it aren't we?" she said.

  "Sure."

  "I'm glad if you're glad."

  "We really want to don't we?"

  "Do we?"

  "Yes."

  "Then we'll do it."

  "Are you sure?" I said.

  "Yes."

  "And nothing anybody says will make any difference?"

  "Nothing."

  "Of course we've been doing it since yesterday."

  "And you since Toronto."

  "No. This other."

  "We'll just do it and not worry and have a lovely time. Are you happy now that we've really started and done something practical?"

  "I'm proud of you for thinking it out." I said.

  "Now we have another secret. We won't say anything to anybody."

  "Never. How long will we do it for?"

  "A year?"

  "No for six months."

  "We'll see."

  That was one of the years we went to Austria for the winter. There in Schruns nobody cared how you dressed nor how your hair was cut except that since we came from Paris some people in Schruns thought that it must be the style there. It had been the style once and so it probably was the style again.

  Herr Nels, the hotel keeper who wore an imperial in the style of Napoleon III, and who had live
d in Lorraine, told me he remembered when all men wore their hair long and that it was only the Prussians who had their hair cropped short. He said he was very pleased that Paris was again returning to this fashion. At the barber shop where I went the barber was very particular to try and get the fashion correct and took a great interest. He had seen it in Italian illustrated papers, he said. Not everyone could wear it, he said, but he was glad to see it coming back. He thought it was a revolt against the years of war. A sound and good thing.

  Later he told me several of the other young men of the village were having their hair cut in the same style although it did not show to any great advantage yet. Could he ask how long mine had been growing?

  "About three months."

  "Then they must be patient. They all wish it to grow below the ears over night."

  "It takes patience," I said.

  "And when will yours be the length the mode requires?"

  "In six months, who knows exactly?"

  "I have an herbal preparation that has had a great success. It is a magnificent stimulant. Would you try a friction with it?"

  "How does it smell?"

  "It has only the odor of herbs. It is pleasant."

  So I had the herbal tonic which smelled very herbal and when I stopped at the wine steube I noticed that the others of the younger and wilder wine steube set smelled the same.

  "So he sold it to you too," Hans said.

  "Yes. Does it do any good?"

  "He says so. Did you buy a bottle too?"

  "Yes."

  "We're damned fools," Hans said. "To spend money to make our hair grow so we can have it cut the way it was when we were boys. Tell me. Is it really the style in Paris?"

  "No."

  "I'm glad. Why do you cut yours that way?"

  "For fun."

  "Good. Me too then. But we won't tell the barber."

  "No, nor the others."

  "No. Tell me does your wife like it?"

  "Yes."

  "My girl too."

  "Did she ask you to do it?"

  "No. We both spoke of it."

  "It takes a long time though."

  "We must be patient."

  So we had one more thing that was a pleasure that winter.

  A Strange Fight Club

  Larry Gains was a tall, long muscled Negro heavyweight with a nice un-marked face and good manners who came to Paris from Canada where he had been the amateur champion. In Paris someone steered him into the hands of a manager named Anastasie who had a stable of fighters and this manager billed him at once as the heavyweight champion of Canada. The real heavyweight champion of Canada was a seasoned professional named Jack Renault who knew all the moves and hit hard with both hands and Larry Gains could not have remained upright in the same ring with him for long.

  My wife and I had been away from Paris on a trip and when we came back to the flat over the Bal Musette at the top of the rue Cardinal Lemoine in shucking through the mail looking for checks I found a letter from Lou Marsh who was the sports editor on the Toronto Star asking me to look after Larry and a note from Larry giving me his address. In the morning sporting paper L'Auto there was an article about Larry Gains the Canadian heavyweight champion who was making his first fight in France on the following Saturday at the Stade Anastasie in the rue Pelleport on Menilmontant the next tough hill of Paris to your right past the Buttes Chaumont if you should be standing in the middle of the slaughter house quarter looking towards the Porte de la Villette. An easier way to figure it was that it was the next to the last station on the Metro line that ran to the Porte des Lilas just before the reservoir of Menilmontant. It was a very tough neighborhood, had good communications and would draw from three of the toughest quarters in Paris including Belleville. It was close enough to draw from Pere Lachaise cemetery if any of the dead had been fight fans.

  I sent a pneumatique to Larry and we met at the Cafe Napolitain on the Boulevard des Italiens. Larry was a very nice boy and sitting at the table with him the first thing I noticed beside his un-marked face, his general build and his good manners were his strange long hands. He had the longest hands I had ever seen on a boxer. They would not fit into any ordinary boxing glove and on his way to France he had one fight in England with a middleweight named Frank Moody who came in at catch weights.

  "He beat me Mr. Ernest," Larry said. "Because the gloves were too short for my hands. My hands were cramped up so tight they were useless to me."

  Frank Moody was then quite a good fighter and after I had seen Larry work I could think of several reasons why Frank Moody could have beaten him even if his gloves had fitted. We went up on the metro to the tough hill that the rue Pelleport climbed and I found that the Stade Anastasie was a sort of dance hall restaurant with a few rooms over the restaurant in a wooded vacant lot with a wall around it. A ring had been set up under the trees where the fighters worked out in good weather and there was a heavy bag and a light bag and mats in the dance hall. They could rig a ring there too in bad weather.

  Saturday nights in late spring, summer and early fall there would be fights in the outdoor ring with rows of numbered chairs set up around the ring. The clients dined first at the restaurant and at the tables set up in the dance hall where the fighters, who ate and lived at the place unless they were local boys, served as the waiters. You could buy numbered seats at the entrance or you could buy an entree which entitled you to enter the grounds where you could eat and drink at the restaurant and then stand to watch the fights. The prices were low and the food was excellent.

  The first day at the Stade Anastasie I did not know all this. I had only been told it. What I knew was that it was a healthy part of Paris to live and work out in at this time of year. I could see that Larry stripped light for a heavy weight. He had a big frame and good long muscles but he had not filled out yet and was really an over grown boy but knew nothing. Larry had a long reach, a good left jab and a nice straight right and he was very light on his feet and moved very fast. He had wonderful legs and he moved faster and further and more uselessly than any heavyweight I had ever seen. He was a true amateur. After he had stuck and stabbed and danced after the harmless heavyweight for a while varying this with quick classic flights while the heavyweight stalked him with nothing Anastasie's trainer put a welterweight from Marseilles who was growing into a middleweight in with him. This boy moved in under the jab which did not go down as well as it went straight out and commenced to crack Larry in the body and Larry grabbed him. It was pitiful. Suddenly Larry's arms were too long, there was no place for him to dance to and the boy was inside of him anytime he wanted to be with both hands to the body and Larry knew nothing except to grab.

  "Who is he fighting on Saturday?" I asked the trainer.

  "Don't worry," he said.

  "Any heavyweight will murder him."

  "Not here."

  "You'd better take the corners out of the ring."

  "I give him back his confidence," the trainer said and called time and motioned for a new heavyweight who had just come over from the restaurant side.

  Larry was walking around the ring taking deep breaths. The welterweight had the gloves off and was shadow boxing around the ring snorting through his nose his chin down on his chest. Larry watched him warily as he himself walked still breathing deeply. Look after him, Lou Marsh had written in the letter. This is the damndest place I've ever seen I thought. Look after him.

  "Aren't you going to show him how to protect himself in close?" I asked the trainer. "He's going to fight on Saturday."

  "Too late," the trainer said. "I'm not going to ruin his style."

  "His style?"

  "He has a jeux des jambes fantastiques," the trainer said. "Tu ne sais pas vu?"

  He was telling me that he could not risk spoiling Larry's fantastic footwork.

  The new heavy weight was a local boy who had been employed carrying parts of carcasses in the stockyards until he had an accident which affected his reasoning power.
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br />   "He doesn't know his own strength," the trainer told me. "He has only rudimentary notions of la boxe. But he is very obedient."

  The trainer gave him his orders before he got into the ring, an effort which seemed complicated for him. The orders were simple, "Cover up." The carcass carrier nodded and bit his lower lip in concentration. When he was safely in the ring the trainer repeated, "Cover up." Then the trainer added, "Don't bite your lower lip." The carrier nodded and the trainer called time.

  The carcass man placed his two hands in front of his face with the gloves almost touching. His elbows were tight against his body and his chin was down on his chest tucked behind his left shoulder which was raised painfully. He plodded slowly toward Larry his left foot moving forward and his right dragging up to it.

  Larry stopped him with a jab, jabbed again, and threw a right that went in on the c.m.'s forehead. The carcass man thought heavily and began to move backwards slowly, the left foot retreating carefully and the right being slowly but precisely brought up to it. Larry now turned on all his beautiful footwork at once and stalked the c.m. like a prancing puma, his jab flicking out, his right poised.

  "Your left," the trainer called to the c.m. "Jab your left."

  Slowly the carcass man detached the left glove from the side of his head and rabidly extended it toward Larry who settled in his superb footwork long enough to paste the c.m. with a nice right hand on the mouth.

  "See how he covers his jaw with the shoulder?" The trainer asked me.

  "What about his belly."

  "Larry doesn't hit to the belly," the trainer said.

  I thought I might as well learn the worst.

  "Hook him in the belly, Larry," I said. "And bring his hands down."

  Larry danced on in beautifully, dropped his left hand so he was dead to a right hand puncher, and any heavyweight on earth has a right hand, and swung his left hand into the carcass man's belly. The c.m. sunk in on himself but his hands stayed up.

  "What do you want to do?" the trainer asked me. "Change his style?"

  "Merde," I said.

  "He has a fight on Saturday. Do you want him to break his hands on the boy's elbows? Do you want to ruin him? I'm in charge of him. You're not in charge of him. Shut up."

  I shut up and watched Larry dance and peck a hole open between the two raised gloves, circle and land straight rights to the c.m.'s left ear, to the forehead and another nice one to the mouth when the c.m. jabbed again on demand. At least he punched straight and he did move around but I kept thinking about Jack Renault who was the real heavyweight champion of Canada and of all the things that Larry had to learn.