‘This will keep it safe,’ says Lise, stuffing her passport down the back of the seat, stuffing it down till it is out of sight.
The old lady turns her spry nose towards this operation. She looks puzzled for an instant, but soon complies with the action, moving forward to allow Lise more scope in shoving the little booklet out of sight.
‘That’s that,’ says Lise, leaning back, breathing deeply, and looking out of the window. ‘What a lovely day!’
The old lady leans back too, as if leaning on the trusting confidence that Lise has inspired. She says, ‘I left my passport in the hotel, with the Desk.’
‘It’s according to your taste,’ Lise says opening the window to the slight breeze. Her lips part blissfully as she breathes in the air of the wide street on the city’s outskirts.
Soon they run into traffic. The driver inquires the precise point at which they wish to be dropped.
‘The Post Office,’ Lise says. Her companion nods.
Lise turns to her. ‘I’m going shopping. It’s the first thing I do on my holidays. I go and buy the little presents for the family first, then that’s off my mind.’
‘Oh, but in these days,’ says the old lady. She folds her gloves, pats them on her lap, smiles at them.
‘There’s a big department store near the Post Office,’ Lise says. ‘You can get everything you want there.’
‘My nephew is arriving this evening.’
‘The traffic!’ says Lise.
They pass the Metropole Hotel. Lise says, ‘There’s a man in that hotel I’m trying to avoid.’
‘Everything is different,’ says the old lady.
‘A girl isn’t made of cement,’ Lise says, ‘but everything is different now, it’s all changed, believe me.’
At the Post Office they pay the fare, each meticulously contributing the unfamiliar coins to the impatient, mottled and hillocky palm of the driver’s hand, adding coins little by little, until the total is reached and the amount of the tip equally agreed between them and deposited; then they stand on the pavement in the centre of the foreign city, in need of coffee and a sandwich, accustoming themselves to the lay-out, the traffic crossings, the busy residents, the ambling tourists and the worried tourists, and such of the unencumbered youth who swing and thread through the crowds like antelopes whose heads, invisibly antlered, are airborne high to sniff the prevailing winds, and who so appear to own the terrain beneath their feet that they never look at it. Lise looks down at her clothes as if wondering if she is ostentatious enough.
Then, taking the old lady by the arm, she says, ‘Come and have a coffee. We’ll cross by the lights.’
All perky for the adventure, the old lady lets Lise guide her to the street-crossing where they wait for the lights to change and where, while waiting, the old lady gives a little gasp and a jerk of shock; she says, ‘You left your passport in the taxi!’
‘Well, I left it there for safety. Don’t worry,’ Lise says. ‘It’s taken care of.’
‘Oh, I see.’ The old lady relaxes, and she crosses the road with Lise and the waiting herd. ‘I am Mrs Fiedke,’ she says. ‘Mr Fiedke passed away fourteen years ago.
In the bar they sit at a small round table, place their bags, Lise’s book and their elbows on it and order each a coffee and a ham-and-tomato sandwich. Lise props up her paperback book against her bag, as it were so that its bright cover is addressed to whom it may concern. ‘Our home is in Nova Scotia,’ says Mrs Fiedke, ‘where is yours?’
‘Nowhere special,’ says Lise waving aside the triviality. ‘It’s written on the passport. My name’s Lise.’ She takes her arms out of the sleeves of her striped cotton coat and lets it fall behind her over the back of the chair. ‘Mr Fiedke left everything to me and nothing to his sister,’ says the old lady, ‘but my nephew gets everything when I’m gone. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall when she heard.’
The waiter comes with their coffee and sandwiches, moving the book while he sets them down. Lise props it up again when he has gone. She looks around at the other tables and at the people standing up at the bar, sipping coffee or fruit-juice. She says, ‘I have to meet a friend, but he doesn’t seem to be here.’
‘My dear, I don’t want to detain you or take you out of your way.
‘Not at all. Don’t think of it.’
‘It was very kind of you to come along with me,’ says Mrs Fiedke, ‘as it’s so confusing in a strange place. Very kind indeed.’
‘Why shouldn’t I be kind?’ Lise says, smiling at her with a sudden gentleness.
‘Well, I’ll be all right just here after we’ve finished our snack. I’ll just take a look round and do a bit of shopping. I won’t keep you, my dear.’
‘You can come shopping with me,’ Lise says, very genially. ‘Mrs Fiedke, it’s a pleasure.’
‘How very kind you are!’
‘One should always be kind,’ Lise says, ‘in case it might be the last chance. One might be killed crossing the street, or even on the pavement, any time, you never know. So we should always be kind.’ She cuts her sandwich daintily and puts a piece in her mouth.
Mrs Fiedke says, ‘That’s a very, very beautiful thought. But you mustn’t think of accidents. I can assure you, I’m terrified of traffic.’
‘So am I. Terrified.’
‘Do you drive an automobile?’ says the old lady.
‘I do, but I’m afraid of traffic. You never know what crackpot’s going to be at the wheel of another car.’
‘These days,’ says Mrs Fiedke.
‘There’s a department store not far from here,’ Lise says. ‘Want to come?’
They eat their sandwich and drink their coffee. Lise then orders a rainbow ice while Mrs Fiedke considers one way or another whether she really wants anything more, and eventually declines.
‘Strange voices,’ says the old lady looking round. ‘Look at the noise.’
‘Well, if you know the language.’
‘Can you speak the language?’
‘A bit. I can speak four.’
Mrs Fiedke marvels benevolently while Lise bashfully plays with crumbs on the tablecloth. The waiter brings the rainbow ice and while Lise lifts the spoon to start Mrs Fiedke says, ‘It matches with your outfit.’
Lise laughs at this, longer than Mrs Fiedke had evidently expected. ‘Beautiful colours,’ Mrs Fiedke offers, as one might offer a cough-sweet. Lise sits before the brightly streaked ice-cream with her spoon in her hand and laughs on. Mrs Fiedke looks frightened, and more frightened as the voices of the bar stop to watch the laughing one; Mrs Fiedke shrinks into her old age, her face dry and wrinkled, her eyes gone into a far retreat, not knowing what to do. Lise stops suddenly and says, ‘That was funny.’
The man behind the bar, having started coming over to their table to investigate a potential disorder, stops and turns back, muttering something. A few young men round the bar start up a mimic laugh-laugh-laugh but are stopped by the barman.
‘When I went to buy this dress,’ Lise says to Mrs Fiedke, ‘do you know what they offered me first? A stainless dress. Can you believe it? A dress that won’t hold the stain if you drop coffee or ice-cream on it. Some new synthetic fabric. As if I would want a dress that doesn’t show the stains!’
Mrs Fiedke, whose eager spirit is slowly returning from wherever it had been to take cover from Lise’s laughter, looks at Lise’s dress and says, ‘Doesn’t hold the stains? Very useful for travelling.’
‘Not this dress,’ Lise says, working her way through the rainbow ice; ‘it was another dress. I didn’t buy it, though. Very poor taste, I thought.’ She has finished her ice. Again the two women fumble in their purses and at the same time Lise gives an expert’s glance at the two small tickets, marked with the price, that have been left on the table. Lise edges one of them aside. ‘That one’s for the ice,’ she says, ‘and we share the other.’