Oh What a Paradise It Seems Read Free Page A

they finally got inside, the uniformity of the dim lights in the corridors, the sameness of the doors and the great difficulty she had in finding the place seemed to expose him to the loneliness of penance. The apartment that she showed him was a sort of nomadic hideout—it was still furnished with the chairs and tables of a divorcee whose lover or gigolo had abandoned her, although she still had photographs of him—many of them naked—hung on her bedroom wall. There was a narrow terrace from which you could see some blue sky, but the broad light of day could never reach the apartment.
    She knew, of course, that he would not want it and said so. “I don’t,” she said, “know why I ever showed it to you. I detest the place myself.” “It’s given me an opportunity to ask you to dinner,” he said. “I’d love to have dinner with you,” she said, “if you don’t mind having a late dinner. I’m busy early in the evening.” “The time,” he said, “makes no difference.”
    They walked back, now on the other side of the street,looking at the gloves, shoes, antiques, embroideries and paintings that were displayed. “When do we meet?” he asked when they reached the door to her office. “Thursday?” she asked. “Meet me in the parish house of St. Anselm’s at about nine-fifteen on Thursday.” Then she was gone.
    St. Anselm’s was Presbyterian and he wondered what she could be doing there on a weekday night. This was in Lent and the only church observations would be mournful. He didn’t know but he thought the Presbyterians had a less exacting calendar than his own Episcopal Church, and he guessed that Thursday was not a church holiday and that she had not gone to church to pray. None of his wives or lovers had been enthusiastic church members and this might be the first time in his life that he had gone to church to meet a woman. St. Anselm’s was on Park Avenue in a good neighborhood—that is a neighborhood where wealth was of the first importance. The main entrance to the church was dark and locked, but the parish-house door around the corner was lighted and unlocked. He let himself into a large vestibule. There was a second door—royal in its proportions. A sign was thumbtacked to this: MEMBERS ONLY, THIS IS A CLOSED MEETING . The sign was amateurish and he could imagine some woman—neither young nor beautiful but charmingly earnest—working on the sign at a kitchen table. Sears’s imagination was inclined to be optimistic and that the gathering beyond the closed doors involved membership—some vow or commitment or oath—did not seem to him sinister. He thought perhaps that dues were paid. He did not feel that to take a look at the gatheringwould in any way involve an intrusion and he opened the door a crack.
    He saw an ecclesiastical meeting room or auditorium—one of those places where the rummage sale would be held and the nativity play would be performed. He looked into the faces of forty men and women who were listening attentively to a speaker at a podium. He was at once struck by his incompetence at judging the gathering. Not even in times of war, with which he was familiar, not even in the evacuation of burning cities had he seen so mixed a gathering. It was a group, he thought, in which there was nowhere the force of selection. Since the faces—young, old, haggard and serene—conveyed nothing to him, he looked at their clothing and found even fewer bearings. They wore the clothes of the rich, the clothes of the poor and a few cheap imitations of the rich. Who were they: who in the world could they be? Here were the plain, cheerful faces of the mixed nationalities that distinguished his country.
    He looked at the woman on the podium. She was a black-haired woman, perhaps in her forties, wearing one of those long nondescript dresses known as evening dresses although they are worn to weddings, christenings and barbecues. She was reading a list of names. Three men and two women came to