A PARTY IN PIGEON STREET

By JOLAN FOELDES

THE old lady is expecting a visitor this afternoon. Her stick tap; on the floor as she trips once more to the carefully-laid table and takes a last look at it. A .raisin cake, cheese cakes, biscuits ; vanilla liqueur with a couple of small glasses on a tray. Everything in its place ; the maid will bring coffee and the cream after admitting the visitor.

The old lady sits down and folds her hands, brown with age, on her lap. She need not wait long : there is a ring at the door. The old gentleman is correct and punctual. Always coming late is one of those modern, new-fangled notions.

" How do you do, neighbour ? " _ The old lady rises to welcome him.

They have been neighbours, living in the same house, these thirty-eight, years. During the thirty-eight years they haven't met more than ten times, but that is how she always addresses him.

The old man is slightly out of breath. It is only one flight of stairs, and low, broad stairs at that, the kind you find in old houses, but the old man suffers from asthma.

" How do you do, neighbour ? " he replies in the same tone. He feels a trifle embarrassed, just like yesterday, when he received the old lady's invitation, written in a slightly tremulous hand, but at the age of seventy-eight one does not take such things seriously.

They sit down, Julius brings the coffee and whipped cream. The old gentleman partakes of the good things with caution, his stomach is no more what it used to be, but the old lady's appetite is unimpaired by age. However, she hurries over her meal today and does not make the best of her coffee and cakes with the same minute enjoyment as usual.

She replaces the empty cup upon the saucer with a little dater.

" So she's dead," she says, and her small eyes arc riveted with glowing curiosity upon the old man's face.

" Yes," he nods slowly. His face clouds over. After all, the dead woman had been his wife, even though they were divorced thirty-eight years ago, even though the old grief has crumbled since, like soft sand-stone.

" Did she suffer much ? " The old woman's voice is undisguisedly eager. This, this is the question for the sake of which she had invited the old man ; this is why she has prepared the delicious meal—to hear the answer : she suffered much, terribly, atrociously. . . .

" Well, yes, . . . she did suffer, poor thing," the old man says. " Is it trite that she had cancer ? " Colour rises to the old woman's cheeks, her eyes sparkle.

The old gentleman is taken aback.

" Cancer ? No. Who told you that ? "

No one has told the old woman. She thought of it all by herself; because she wished it was true. Ever since she is alone most of the day, she meditates, she talks to herself; argues with herself That is how she came to think of it. I forget who told me." She avoids a direct answer. " What did she die of ? "

" She had an operation," the old gentleman says, gloomily. " It did not seem to be very serious, something wrong with the gall bladder. But she couldn't pick up, . . . then, pneumonia. . . . You know, at this age. . . ."

" She was older than I," the old woman puts in, hotly. " Two years older ! "

The old man nods. He knows: Thirty-eight years ago when his wife left him and went off with the old woman's husband, they had often spoken of this. " She isn't better looking than I am," the old woman used to repeat stubbornly —she was a young woman then, only thirty-two—" not better looking and certainly no better housewife than I am.. And she is two years older."

All this was true. It sounds incredible today. Anyone who saw the old woman's faded, thin hair, her long nose, her protruding, wrinkled chin, would find it difficult to believe that she had once been beautiful. The old man—he had been a young man then, scarcely over forty—had thought that the other woman, his own wife, was better looking, but he never had had the courage to say so. He hasn't it now.

" Another piece of cheese cake ? " the old woman offers, and goes on, inconsequentially : " I never divorced him ! "

" I know." The old man puts a piece of cake on his plate absent-mindedly. She would not consent to a divorce, no entreaties, no persuasion could make her agree to it, nothing would induce her to allow those two to get married. Her own son tried to persuade her ; she quarrelled with him and sent him away.

" What had she been doing during these last ten years ? " she asks, and pours out some liqueur for her guest, since she has stopped eating.

The old man knows perfectly well what she means. Her husband died ten years ago. She wants to know how the other woman spent her life since that time.

" Oh, well, . . . she got on somehow, . . ." he mutters. " She, too, was left alone," the old woman states with satisfaction.

" She lived with our daughter," the old man says quickly, almost apologetically.

" Yes, . . ." the old woman murmurs. " I'm living with my grandchildren," she adds, motioning towards the door; through which snatches of talk are sometimes heard. She doesn't want the old man to think that she is alone in the world. " They are good children " she concludes, against her conviction.

They are silent for a little while, the old gentleman sips his liqueur. The old woman grows impatient: This isn't what she invited him for.

" How long was she ill ? " she demands in an almost peremptory tone, leaning back in her chair so as to be able to enjoy the reply in greater comfort.

" Several years."

" How long exactly ? " The old woman wants to know everything, she is interested in the slightest detail. " She had been operated on once before, years ago, hadn't she ? "

The old man replies unwillingly but obediently. Some- times he omits a petty detail ; at such times the old woman pins him down at once.

" How many stones did she have ? " The old woman insists on the greatest precision.

The old gentleman shrugs his shoulders helplessly.

" Don't you even know that ? " The hostess eyes him with disapproval. " Go on ! "

The old man tells her as much as his weary memory records, then he grows tired ; he can think of nothing more.

The old woman is not displeased. She has found out quite a number of things—after all, two operations, the first of them while her husband was still alive . . . Men support these things rather badly.

" I must go now," the old man says with a start, for the room has grown quite dark, and the early summer sky outside has taken on a grim shade of purple. The old woman does not detain him, she merely says perfunctorily : " Come again, neighbour."

She turns.on the light, sees the old gentleman to the door, her stick taps on the floor. She broke a leg some years ago ; she hopes that the other woman never heard of it. They shake hands at the hall door, the old man slowly descends the stairs, holding fast to the banisters.

The old woman looks after him, then goes back to her room. She .trips straight to the bed, to the old-fashioned broad walnut four-poster.

In the narrow space between the bed and the wall, a photograph is hidden. The old woman pulls it out with a gesture that betokens long habitude. It is a picture of her husband. The old woman looks at it and speaks to it : " You blackguard ! " she says in a tone of ardent hatred. " You scoundrel ! You rascal ! "

She kisses the photograph and slips it back into its accus- tomed place. Then she trips back again to the middle of the room, her stick taps on the floor, she throws back her head.

" The worms are feeding on you now," she hisses triumphantly, her eyes sparkling. " There's no more flesh on your bones . . . You're both in the ground under the earth . . . But I'm still here ! I'm still alive ! "

Her stick taps on the floor once more, in ecstatic exultation.