The Pegnitz Junction by Mavis Gallant Read Free Book Online Page A

ruffled lace running across her fat bottom.
    They brought up the heiress Carol Ann American style – the parents were chauffeur and maid. The mother couldn’t be chauffeur because she never learned to drive. My husband was crazy about Carol Ann. He called her Shirley Temple. I called her Shirley Bimbo, but not to her face
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    At some distance from the smirking Julchen, agape with admiration but not daring to speak, stood four future conscripts of the new anti-authoritarian army: they were Dietchen Klingebiel, who later became a failed priest; Ferdinandchen Mickefett, who was to open the first chic drugstore at Wuppertal; Peter Sutitt, arrested for doping racehorses in Ireland; and Fritz Förster, who was sent to Africa to count giraffes for the United Nations and became a mercenary.
    What she had just seen now was the decline of the next generation. What could prevent it? A new broom? A strong hand? The example of China? There was no limit to mediocrity, even today: the conductor had lied too easily; this was nothing like a flag stop. They had been standing still for at least seven minutes. Punctilious Herbert was far too besotted with Julchen Knopp to notice or protest. She felt an urgent need to make him pay for this, and tried to recall what it was he had said he hated most, along with the smell of food inrailway compartments. As soon as they were moving again and the conductor had left off staring and gone away, she turned to the Norwegian and said, “Do please show us your yoga breathing method, and do let us hear you sing.”
    “Some people imagine that yoga is a joke,” said the Norwegian. “Some others don’t care about singing.” Nevertheless he seemed willing to perform for Herbert and little Bert and the insatiable passenger in the corner. He shut the door, which instantly made the compartment a furnace, sat down where little Bert should have been, pinched his nostrils between thumb and forefinger and produced the puffing bullfrog sounds Christine had already heard. He let his nose go and said in a normal voice, “I sing in five languages. First, a Finnish folk song, the title of which means ‘Do Not Leave,’ or ‘Stay,’ or ‘Do Not Depart.’ “ He looked at Herbert. Perhaps he knew that Herbert had been teasing Christine, calling the Norwegian “your bearded cavalier.”
    The Norwegian pulled out the drop leaf at his end of the window and beat a rhythm upon it. His eyes all but vanished as he sang. His mouth was like a fish. As for Herbert, he suddenly resembled little Bert – eyes circled and tired, skin over the temples like tissue paper. She thought that he must be exhausted by the heat and by his worry over the child, and she remembered that although he hated the smell of food he had not said a word about it. The singing was tiring, finally; it filled the compartment and seemed to leave everyone short of breath. She got up and crossed to Herbert’s side, and he, with the Norwegian’s eyes fixed upon him, began stroking her arm with his fingertips, kissing her ear – things he never did inpublic and certainly not in front of little Bert. She sat quite still until the voice fell silent.
    The woman in the corner and little Bert applauded for a long time. Herbert said, “Well. Thank you very much. That was generous of you. Yes, I think that was generous …”
    Having said what he thought, Herbert got up and left abruptly, but nobody minded. All of them, except for the woman, departed regularly in search of a drink, a conductor, or an unlocked washroom. Little Bert curled up with his face to the wall and began to breathe slowly and deeply. The Norwegian, still in little Bert’s seat, tucked his head in the corner. His hands relaxed; his mouth came open. His breathing was louder and slower than the child’s. From the corner facing his came
First the block around us got Catholic then it got black. That’s the way it usually goes. I can tell you when it got Catholic – around the time of