Read Online The Moslem Wife and Other Stories by Mavis Gallant, Mordecai Richler - Free Book Online

from the tight laughing ring, he saw Agnes again, and he thought, I’d be like Agnes if I didn’t have Sheilah. Agnes put her glass down on a table and lurched toward the doorway, head forward. Madge Burleigh, who never stoppedmoving around the room and smiling, was still smiling when she paused and said in Peter’s ear, “Go with Agnes, Pete. See that she gets home. People will notice if Mike leaves.”
    “She probably just wants to walk around the block,” said Peter. “She’ll be back.”
    “Oh, stop thinking about yourself, for once, and see that that poor girl gets home,” said Madge. “You’ve still got your Fiat, haven’t you?”
    He turned away as if he had been pushed. Any command is a release, in a way. He may not want to go in that particular direction, but at least he is going somewhere. And now Sheilah, who had moved inches nearer to hear what Madge and Peter were murmuring, said, “Yes, go, darling,” as if he were leaving the gates of Troy.
    Peter was to find Agnes and see that she reached home: this he repeated to himself as he stood on the landing, outside the Burleighs’ flat, ringing for the elevator. Bored with waiting for it, he ran down the stairs, four flights, and saw that Agnes had stalled the lift by leaving the door open. She was crouched on the floor, propped on her fingertips. Her eyes were closed.
    “Agnes,” said Peter.
“Miss
Brusen, I mean. That’s no way to leave a party. Don’t you know you’re supposed to curtsey and say thanks? My God, Agnes, anybody going by here just now might have seen you! Come on, be a good girl. Time to go home.”
    She got up without his help and, moving between invisible crevasses, shut the elevator door. Then she left the building and Peter followed, remembering he was to see that she got home. They walked along the snowy pavement, Peter a few steps behind her. When she turned right for no reason, he turned, too. He had no clear idea where they were going. Perhaps she lived close by. He had forgotten where the hired car was parked, or what it looked like; he could not remember its make or its color. In any case, Sheilah had the key. Agnes walked on steadily, as if she knew their destination, and hethought, Agnes Brusen is drunk in the street in Geneva and dressed like a tramp. He wanted to say, “This is the best thing that ever happened to you, Agnes; it will help you understand how things are for some of the rest of us.” But she stopped and turned and, leaning over a low hedge, retched on a frozen lawn. He held her clammy forehead and rested his hand on her arched back, on muscles as tight as a fist. She straightened up and drew a breath but the cold air made her cough. “Don’t breathe too deeply,” he said. “It’s the worst thing you can do. Have you got a handkerchief?” He passed his own handkerchief over her wet weeping face, upturned like the face of one of his little girls. “I’m out without a coat,” he said, noticing it. “We’re a pair.”
    “I never drink,” said Agnes. “I’m just not used to it.” Her voice was sweet and quiet. He had never seen her so peaceful, so composed. He thought she must surely be all right, now, and perhaps he might leave her here. The trust in her tilted face had perplexed him. He wanted to get back to Sheilah and have her explain something. He had forgotten what it was, but Sheilah would know. “Do you live around here?” he said. As he spoke, she let herself fall. He had wiped her face and now she trusted him to pick her up, set her on her feet, take her wherever she ought to be. He pulled her up and she stood, wordless, humble, as he brushed the snow from her tramp’s clothes. Snow horizontally crossed the lamplight. The street was silent. Agnes had lost her hat. Snow, which he tasted, melted on her hands. His gesture of licking snow from her hands was formal as a handshake. He tasted snow on her hands and then they walked on.
    “I never drink,” she said. They stood on the