Flickering and Imprecise: the first words I jotted down, while reading this Mavis Gallant story. It struck me that perhaps one of the reasons that her stories have endured is that her style is uncluttered and direct: there aren’t a lot of adjectives or adverbs, so when something – or, in this case, someone – is described, it stands out.
So, here we have Madame Gisèle observing Amalia Moraru, over the course of two years, determining that Amalia’s curiosity is flickering and imprecise. So flickering and imprecise, in fact, that Madame Gisèle charges her for the time she spends with her, bills her “like a garage” would bill.
Despite my intention to pay attention to the use of descriptors in this story, however, I only had time to register that they are uncommonly displayed, before I became absorbed by the very matter which is preoccupying Gisèle, the language fading in importance and the story taking hold.
And the nature of this matter? Gisèle is preoccupied by what is preoccupying Amalia, and what’s preoccupying Amalia is whatever is preoccupying Marie. Amalia seeks Gisèle’s expertise with reading cards, as a way of unearthing Marie’s private thoughts and motivations, but Amalia never receives an answer or accepts a suggestion in any way which puts her at ease.
Gisèle is a talented reader and she announces when Amalia has taken as talent something which Gisèle has simply observed and deduced rather than seen in the layout. But she doesn’t know what to make of Amalia and her obsession with Marie, which stands out when most women want to ask questions about their husbands or about another man in their lives. Gisèle is frustrated, which is understandable, but it’s hard to tell how much of her frustration is rooted in Amalia’s manner and how much is rooted in Gisèle’s prejudice against Rumanians.
Although Amalia’s concerns seem a little off too. During the war, to avoid persecution, Amalia and her husband were able to leave Hungary for Paris, with the assistance of Marie, who stayed behind. How much this assistance actually mattered, readers are unsure. What we do know for certain is that Amalia doesn’t want to dwell on the exact nature of that assistance.
Instead, Amalia is relieved (and simultaneously suspicious) that Marie doesn’t outwardly refer to the jewellery and valuable items which Marie gave to the couple so that they could sell and trade them, as needed, on their journey. On one hand Amalia describes particular items to Gisèle and what they exchanged them for (downplaying the usefulness of these transactions) and on the other hand she insists that diamonds were the only truly valuable commodity.
The jewellery is a distraction, however, because the point is that Amalia could leave that place and Marie remained. And Amalia promised Marie that she would send for her, and surely that was in Marie’s mind when she handed over her valuables. But Amalia never did send for Marie.
Amalia even seems a little put out that Marie has made it to Paris on her own steam after all. That there is no question that they will offer her a place to sleep in their cramped quarters, but that there are a hundred other questions besides that.
In a dozen pages, readers have a glimpse of Amalia and Marie’s young lives, of the courtship between Amalia and her husband, of their married life before-Paris and after-Paris, and of the strain that Marie’s arrival in Paris has caused (and what parts of that strain are long-standing and what parts are fresh).
Most of the questions remain unanswered, but enough of the background trickles through that readers can assemble a narrative of sorts. We can understand that whatever else stands between Amalia and Marie, Marie’s world is open in a way that Amalia finds unsettling, threatening even. And one of the biggest clues we have for Marie’s character is this pair of descriptors: flickering and imprecise. Presented by a steady and precise story-teller, who knows the power of a forecast but prefers to leave readers to interpret the layout for themselves.
The remaining stories in this collection are even shorter than this one. But even a short Mavis Gallant story offers a lot to consider.
In Transit‘s stories: By the Sea / In Italy / An Emergency Case / Jeux d’Ete / When We Were Nearly Young / Better Times / A Question of Disposal / The Hunter’s Waking Thoughts / Careless Talk / The Circus / In Transit / The Statues Taken Down / Questions and Answers / Vacances Pax / A Report / The Sunday After Christmas / April Fish / The Captive Niece / Good Deed
Note: This is part of a series of posts on Mavis Gallant’s stories, as I read through her short fiction. This is the thirteenth story in In Transit. Please feel free to check the schedule and join in, for the series, or for a single story; I would love the company. Next story: “Vacances Pax”.
I loved this story, and I felt like Amalia was jealous of Marie somehow, like her insistence on small delights and openness with strangers was an affront to what they’d been through or something. She certainly was obsessed. Of the few I’ve read this was my favorite so far.
That was my sense too. I think one could probably build a case that there is a more specific grievance, but I felt like it was one of those situations in which it was more about Marie’s way of moving through the world. Maybe she felt like it diminished her own survival story, in that Marie’s situation was much more risky in some senses, and, yet, she’s there to tell the tale. It’s among my favourites too: these are the kinds of human mysteries – ordinary but unique – that I enjoy unravelling.
As “Questions and Answers” opens the narrator offers an opinion:
“ROMANIANS NOTORIOUSLY ARE marked by delusions of eminence and persecution, and Madame Gisèle does not encourage them among her clientele. She never can tell when they are trying to acquire information, or present some grievance that were better taken to a doctor or the police. Like all expatriates in Paris, they are concerned with the reactions of total strangers. She is expected to find in the cards the functionary who sneered, the flunky who behaved like a jailer, the man who, for no reason, stared too long at the plates of the car. Madame Gisèle prefers her settled clients – the married women who sit down to say, “When is my husband going to die?” and “What about the man who smiles at me every morning on the bus?” She can find him easily: There he is – the jack of hearts. One of the queens is not far away, along with the seven of diamonds turned upside down. Forget about him. He is supporting his mother and has already deserted a wife.”
From this I garner an impression of a group I never thought about before, Romanian expates in Paris. Gallant has marvelously shaped our views, maybe we think yes course all Romanians are part Gypsy/Roma so of course they believe in cards and are completely clannish.
Amelia is there asking questions about her long time friend Marie, both came from Bucharest:
“Madame Gisèle, who is also Romanian but from one of the peripheral provinces, replies, “Who cares?” She and Amalia both speak their language badly. Amalia was educated in French, which was the fashion for Bucharest girls of her background thirty years ago, while the fortune-teller is at home in a Slavic-sounding dialect.”
Marie is trying to get a visa to move to America, Amalia says Marie came to Paris when there were plenty of jobs, probably 1936 or so. Where Marie and her husband arrived much latter and have never even gotten a French passport. Of course this may well just be an excuse or jealousy. Like any skilled reader of cards, Madame Giséle tells her clients things that will keep them coming back.
In a way Gallant has turned us into readers of cards, seeing into the past and futures of the characters in the story based on bits of information.
We learn about the lives of the women while in Bucharest. Now in Paris it is almost as if they never left Romania. For a reason left unexplained many of Madame Giséle’s clients ask whether or not other Romanians are insane. They speak terribly about each other but cling.
“Amalia, remembering that she is paying for time, now takes the tack that Madame Gisèle is concealing what she knows. “It is up to you to convince me,” she says. “Will Marie go to America?” “Everyone travels,” says Madame Gisèle. Well, that is true. The American consulate is full of ordinary tourists who can pay their passage and will see, they hope, Indian ceremonial dances.”
In just ten minutes Gallant has taken us into life in two great European cities, if you ponder the immigration paths you can reconstruct European history in the middle 20th century.
I know I’ve already said this elsewhere, Mel, but I just love your statement: “In a way Gallant has turned us into readers of cards, seeing into the past and futures of the characters in the story based on bits of information.”
It suits this story perfectly, but it’s also something I feel is true about her storytelling in general. She gives us a layout but we also have room to read into the past and future ourselves too, of these characters here, but in her work in general too.
Something else I really enjoyed about this story was the sense of home that we got from the vivid apartment scenes, both as remembered before Marie arrives and needs a place to stay and after she has arrived (before she announces that she’ll be moving out), how lived-in was that small space, even if it wasn’t HOMEhome.
It’s true that the fortune-teller must always keep a eye on her clientele’s need for future services, too. I wonder if any other characters in Gallnt’s stories will need her services!
Also, you have brought to my attention that I had read Budapest where the story said Bucharest — now I need to reread and see how my impressions might change!