if.thespywholovedme-第3部分
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and looked about me; expecting I don't know what scene of chaos and destruction。 But there it all was; just as I had 〃left〃 it…the important…looking reception desk; the wire rack of paperbacks and magazines; the long counter of the cafeteria; the dozen neat tables with rainbow…hued plastic tops and unfortable little metal chairs; the big ice…water container and the gleaming coffee percolator…everything in its place; just as ordinary as could be。 There was only the hole in the window and a spreading pool of water on the floor as evidence of the holocaust through which this room and I had just passed。 Holocaust? What was I talking about? The only holocaust had been in my head! There was a storm。 There had been thunder and lightning。 I had been terrified; like a child; by the big bangs。 Like an idiot I had taken hold of the electric switch…not even waiting for the pause between lightning flashes; but choosing just the moment when another flash was due。 It had knocked me out。 I had been punished with a bump on the head。 Served me right; stupid; ignorant scaredy cat! But wait a minute! Perhaps my hair had turned white! I walked; rather fast; across the room; picked up my bag from the desk; and went behind the bar of the cafeteria and bent down and looked into the long piece of mirror below the shelves。 I looked first inquiringly into my eyes。 They gazed back at me; blue; clear; but wide with surmise。 The lashes were there and the eyebrows; brown; an expanse of inquiring forehead and then; yes; the sharp; brown peak and the tumble of perfectly ordinary very dark brown hair curving away to right and left in two big waves。 So! I took out my b and ran it brusquely; angrily through my hair; put the b back in my bag; and snapped the clasp。
My watch said it was nearly seven o'clock。 I switched on the radio; and while I listened to WOKO frightening its audience about the storm…power lines down; the Hudson River rising dangerously at Glens Falls; a fallen elm blocking Route 9 at Saratoga Springs; flood warning at Mechanicville…I strapped a bit of cardboard over the broken windowpane with Scotch tape and got a cloth and bucket and mopped up the pool of water on the floor。 Then I ran across the short covered way to the cabins out back and went into mine; Number 9 on the right…hand side toward the lake; and took off my clothes and had a cold shower。 My white Terylene shirt was smudged from the fall; and I washed it and hung it up to dry。
I had already forgotten my chastisement by the storm and the fact that I had behaved like a silly goose; and my heart was singing again with the prospect of my solitary evening and of being on my way the next day。 On an impulse; I put on the best I had in my tiny wardrobe…my black velvet toreador pants with the rather indecent gold zip down the seat; itself most unchastely tight; and; not bothering with a bra; my golden thread Camelot sweater with the wide floppy turtleneck。 I admired myself in the mirror; decided to pull my sleeves up above the elbows; slipped my feet into my gold Ferragamo sandals; and did the quick dash back to the lobby。 There was just one good drink left in the quart of Virginia Gentleman bourbon that had already lasted me two weeks; and I filled one of the best cut…glass tumblers with ice cubes and poured the bourbon over them; shaking the bottle to get out the last drop。 Then I pulled the most fortable armchair over from the reception side of the room to stand beside the radio; turned the radio up; lit a Parliament from the last five in my box; took a stiff pull at my drink; and curled myself into the armchair。
The mercial; all about cats and how they loved Pussyfoot Prime Liver Meal; lilted on against the steady roar of the rain; whose tone only altered when a particularly heavy gust of wind hurled the water like grapeshot at the windows and softly shook the building。 Inside; it was just as I had visualized…weatherproof; cozy; and gay and glittering with lights and chromium。 WOKO announced forty minutes of 〃Music to Kiss By〃 and suddenly there were the Ink Spots singing 〃Someone's Rockin' My Dream Boat;〃 and I was back on the River Thames and it was five summers ago and we were drifting down past Kings Eyot in a punt and there was Windsor Castle in the distance and Derek was paddling while I worked the portable。 We only had ten records; but whenever it came to be the turn of the Ink Spots' L。P。 and the record got to 〃Dream Boat;〃 Derek would always plead; 〃Play it again; Viv;〃 and I would have to go down on my knees and find the place with the needle。
So now my eyes filled with tears…not because of Derek; but because of the sweet pain of boy and girl and sunshine and first love with its tunes and snapshots and letters 〃Sealed With A Loving Kiss。〃 They were tears of sentiment for lost childhood; and of self…pity for the pain that had been its winding sheet; and I let two tears roll down my cheeks before I brushed them away and decided to have a short orgy of remembering。
My name is Vivienne Michel and; at the time I was sitting in the Dreamy Pines motel and remembering; I was twenty…three。 I am five feet six; and I always thought I had a good figure until the English girls at Astor House told me my behind stuck out too much and that I must wear a tighter bra。 My eyes; as I have said; are blue and my hair a dark brown with a natural wave; and my ambition is one day to give it a lion's streak to make me look older and more dashing。 I like my rather high cheekbones; although these same girls said they made me look 〃foreign;〃 but my nose is too small; and my mouth too big so that it often looks sexy when I don't want it to。 I have a sanguine temperament which I like to think is romantically tinged with melancholy; but I am wayward and independent to an extent that worried the sisters at the convent and exasperated Miss Threadgold at Astor House。 (〃Women should be willows; Vivienne。 It is for men to be oak and ash。〃)
I am French…Canadian。 I was born just outside Quebec at a little place called Sainte Famille on the north coast of the Ile d'Orleans; a long island that lies like a huge sunken ship in the middle of the Saint Lawrence River where it approaches the Quebec Straits。 I grew up in and beside this great river; with the result that my main hobbies are swimming and fishing and camping and other outdoor things。 I can't remember much about my parents…except that I loved my father and got on badly with my mother…because when I was eight they were both killed in a wartime air crash ing in to land at Montreal on their way to a wedding。 The courts made me a ward of my widowed aunt; Florence Toussaint; and she moved into our little house and brought me up。 We got on all right; and today I almost love her; but she was a Protestant; while I had been brought up as a Catholic; and I became the victim of the religious tug of war that has always been the bane of priest…ridden Quebec; so nearly exactly divided between the faiths。 The Catholics won the battle over my spiritual well…being; and I was educated in the Ursuline Convent until I was fifteen。 The sisters were strict and the accent was very much on piety; with the result that I learned a great deal of religious history and rather obscure dogma which I would gladly have exchanged for subjects that would have fitted me to be something other than a nurse or a nun; and; when in the end the atmosphere became so stifling to my spirit that I begged to be taken away; my aunt gladly rescued me from 〃the Papists〃 and it was decided that; at the age of sixteen; I should go to England and be 〃finished。〃 This caused something of a local hullabaloo。 Not only are the Ursulines the center of Catholic tradition in Quebec…the Convent proudly owns the skull of Mont…calm; for two centuries there have never been less than nine sisters kneeling at prayer; night and day; before the chapel altar…but my family had belonged to the very innermost citadel of French…Canadianism; and that their daughter should flout both treasured folkways at one blow was a nine days' wonder…and scandal。
The true sons and daughters of Quebec form a society; almost a secret society; that must be as powerful as the Calvinist clique of Geneva; and the initiates refer to themselv