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

Lend-Lease. We remained in the neighbourhood because there was a Lutheran school for the child. Good school. Some Germans, some Swiss, Swedes, Norwegians, Alsatians, the odd Protestant Pole from Silesia – Rose of Sharon was one. Seven other girls were called Carol Ann – most popular name. Later Carol Ann threw the school up to us, said it was ghetto, said she had to go to speech classes at the age of twenty to learn to pronounce “th.” Much good did “th” do our little society queen – first husband a bigamist, second a rent collector. Th. Th. Th
.
    This was followed by a dead silence. Herbert beckoned Christine from the corridor. She thought he wanted to stand at the window and talk and smoke, but he smiled and edged her along to one of the empty compartments at the end of their carriage. They sat down close together out of the sun andin a pleasant draught, for there was no one here who could ask them to shut the window. But then Herbert slid the door to, and undid the plushy useless curtains held back by broad ties. The curtains were too narrow to meet and would serve only to attract attention to the compartment.
    “Someone might look in,” Christine said.
    “Who might?”
    “Anybody going by.”
    “The whole train is asleep.”
    “Or if we stop at a station …”
    “No scheduled stops. You know we’ve been rerouted.”
    It reminded her of the joke about Lenin saying, “Stop worrying, the train’s sealed!” She wondered if this was a good time to tell it.
    Herbert said, “Now that we’re alone, tell me something.”
    “What?”
    “Isn’t it a bit of a pose, your reading? Why did you say you were reading for an exam?”
    “I didn’t say it was my exam,” she said.
    “You said that it was in two days’ time.”
    “Yes. Well, I imagine that will be for students of theology who have failed their year.”
    “Of course,” said Herbert. “That accounts for the Bonhoeffer. Well. Our Little Christian. What good does it do him if
you
read?”
    “It may do me good, and what is good for me is good for both of you. Isn’t that so?” For the second time that day her vision was shaken by tears.
    “Chris.”
    “I do love you,” she said. “But there has been too much interference.”
    “What, poor little Bert?” No, she had not meant interference of that kind. “You mean from
him
, then?” Sometimes Herbert tried to find out how much she lied to her official fiancé and whether she felt the least guilt. “What did you tell him about Paris?” he said.
    “Nothing. It’s got nothing to do with him.”
    “Does he think you love him?” said Herbert, blotting up her tears as though she were little Bert.
    “I think that I could live with him,” said Christine. “Perhaps there is more to living than what I have with you.” She was annoyed because he was doing exactly what her fiancé always did – veering off into talk and analysis.
    “It is easy to love two people at once,” said Herbert, more sure of her than ever now. “But it can be a habit, a pattern of living; before it becomes too much a habit you ought to choose.” He had seen the theology student and did not take him seriously as a rival. She glanced out to the empty corridor. “Don’t look there,” said Herbert.
    “What if we are arrested?”
    Perhaps he would not mind. Perhaps he saw himself the subject of a sensational case, baying out in a police court the social criticism he saved up to send to newspapers. She remembered the elaborate lies and stories she had needed for the week in Paris and wondered if they were part of the pattern he had mentioned. Suddenly Herbert begged her to marry him – tomorrow, today. He would put little Bert in boarding school; he could not live without her; there would never againbe interference. Herbert did not hear what he was saying and his words did not come back to him, not even as an echo. He did not forget the promise; he had not heard it. Seconds later it was as if nothing had been