The Comfort of Strangers Read Online Free PDF Page A

the theatre in the afternoon unless Mama went also. They could not have their friend to stay because she was a bad influence and never went to church. Then suddenly my father was standing behind my chair where I sat next to my mother, and laughing very loud. He took my napkin from my lap and tucked it into the front of my shirt. “Look!” he said. “Here is the next head of the family. You must remember to keep on the good side of Robert!” Then he made me settle the arguments, and all the time his hand was resting on me here, squeezing my neck between his fingers. My father would say, “Robert, may thegirls wear silk stockings like their Mama?” And I, ten years old, would say very loudly, “No Papa”. “May they go to the theatre without their Mama?” “Absolutely not, Papa.” “Robert, may they have their friend to stay?” “Never, Papa!”
    ‘I answered proudly, without knowing I was being used. Perhaps this was only once. To me it could have been every evening of my childhood. Then my father would walk back to his chair at the head of the table and pretend to be very sad. “I am sorry Eva, Maria, I was just beginning to change my mind, but now Robert says these things may not happen.” And he laughed, and I would laugh too, I believed everything, every word. I would laugh until my mother put her hand on my shoulder and said, “Shush now, Robert”.
    ‘So! Did my sisters hate me? This time I know happened only once. It was the weekend and the house was empty for the whole afternoon. I went into our parents’ bedroom with the same two sisters, Eva and Maria. I sat on the bed, and they went to my mother’s dressing-table and took out all her things. First they painted their fingernails and waved them in the air to dry. They put creams and powders on their faces, they used lipstick, they pulled hairs from their eyebrows and brushed mascara on their lashes. They told me to shut my eyes while they took off their white socks and put on stockings from my mother’s drawer. Then they stood, two very beautiful women, and looked at each other. And for an hour they walked about the house, looking over their shoulders into mirrors or window-panes, turning round and round in the centre of the drawing-room, or sitting very carefully on the edge of the armchair arranging their hair. Everywhere they went I followed, looking at them all the time, just looking. “Are we not beautiful, Robert?” they would say. They knew I was shocked because these were not my sisters, these were American film stars. They were delighted with themselves. They laughed and kissed each other for now they were real women.
    ‘Later in the afternoon they went to the bathroom and washed everything off. In the bedroom they put away all the pots and jars and opened the windows so Mama would not smell her own perfumes. They folded the silk stockings andsuspender belts away, exactly the way they had seen her do it. They closed the windows and we went downstairs to wait for our mother to come home, and all the time I was very excited. Suddenly the beautiful women had become my sisters again, tall schoolgirls.
    ‘Then came dinner, and I was still excited. My sisters behaved as if nothing had happened. I was aware that my father was staring at me. I glanced up and he looked straight through my eyes, deep into my mind. Very slowly he put down his knife and fork, chewed and swallowed everything in his mouth and said, “Tell me, Robert, what have you been doing this afternoon?” I believed he knew everything, like God. He was testing me to find out if I was worthy enough to tell the truth. So, there was no point in lying. I told him everything, the lipstick, the powders, the creams and the perfumes, the stockings from my mother’s drawer, and I told him, as if this would excuse everything, how carefully these things had been put away. I even mentioned the window. At first my sisters laughed and denied what I was saying. But as I went on and on,