and she’s the pitcher of health!” He put on the earphones and turned back to the little table. “Thanks for Jeff,” he said.
Carter went away.
It was two or three months after that, around Thanksgiving, that Carter met Max Sampson. Max was in B-block, where Carter was delivering some cough medicine. The delivery was not to Max’s cell. Carter noticed him because he was reading a French book—paperbound with the title Le Promis in red—sitting at the little table in his cell. He was alone. Carter paused by the half-open cell door.
“Pardon me,” Carter said.
The man looked up.
“You’re French?”
The man smiled. His face was friendly, calm, and very pale. His large, strong forehead looked almost white below his black and slightly wavy hair. “Naw. I just read it sometimes.”
“Can you speak it?”
“I used to. Yeah, I can speak it. Why?” Again he smiled.
The smile by itself was a pleasure for Carter, a smile being such a rare thing in the prison. Sneers, yes, and guffaws, but not simply a natural, happy-looking smile. “I only asked because I’m studying it—on my own. Vouz pouvez parler—vraiment?”
“Oui.” Now the wider smile showed strong white teeth, whiter than his face.
Carter talked with him for ten minutes, until the bell rang for lunch and Max had to leave. They talked both in French and in English, and Carter became strangely excited and happy. When Carter hesitated for a word, Max supplied it, if he could guess it. Max had about twenty books lined up in a row at the back of his cell, and half of them were French books. Very generously he pressed two of them on Carter, one a book of eighteenth-century French poetry, the other selections from Pascal’s Pensées . They were a loan, of course, but Max said he did not care when he got them back. Carter returned to the ward feeling completely changed. Max was the first person he had met in the prison whom he felt glad to know, with whom he felt a friendship could grow. It was a wonderful thing. In that ten minutes, he had learned that Max was from Wisconsin; his father had been an American but his mother was French; and from the age of five to eleven he had lived in France with his mother and gone to school there. He had been in prison five years, he had said airily in answer to Carter’s question. He had not said why he was in prison, and Carter was really not interested in knowing.
Max had said that he was competing with another inmate in B-block to achieve the whitest prison pallor by Christmas Eve. The bet was six cans of instant coffee, and Max thought he was going to win, even though his competitor was a blond. Because of the bet, Max shielded his face carefully in the twice-a-week airings in the recreation yard. A panel of six inmate judges had already been chosen to pick the winner. “I’ve always been pale,” Max had said in his slow, distinct French, with a smile. “Very early it was plain I was marked for a life in prison.”
They had an appointment to meet again at 3:35 in Max’s cell the following day.
In the golden light of his new acquaintance, Hazel’s last letter sounded melancholic, even lugubrious. She had written:
Darling, do you think that fate (or God) put this awful trial in our path to test us? Please forgive me if I sound mystical. That’s the way I feel tonight—and many nights. One way of looking at this—our awful lives now, each awful in its own way—is that it is a test given to very few people. We have come through it so well up to now, I mean as far as fortitude goes. So let us continue and see it through. My thoughts are no doubt influenced by the talk I had (over the phone) with Mr. Magran this afternoon . . .
Magran had told her that they couldn’t appeal again until mid-January to the State Supreme Court, owing to the holidays. That seemed now no blow at all to Carter. He wrote:
You are always asking me why I haven’t met anybody decent in this place, and I’m always saying
Carter went away.
It was two or three months after that, around Thanksgiving, that Carter met Max Sampson. Max was in B-block, where Carter was delivering some cough medicine. The delivery was not to Max’s cell. Carter noticed him because he was reading a French book—paperbound with the title Le Promis in red—sitting at the little table in his cell. He was alone. Carter paused by the half-open cell door.
“Pardon me,” Carter said.
The man looked up.
“You’re French?”
The man smiled. His face was friendly, calm, and very pale. His large, strong forehead looked almost white below his black and slightly wavy hair. “Naw. I just read it sometimes.”
“Can you speak it?”
“I used to. Yeah, I can speak it. Why?” Again he smiled.
The smile by itself was a pleasure for Carter, a smile being such a rare thing in the prison. Sneers, yes, and guffaws, but not simply a natural, happy-looking smile. “I only asked because I’m studying it—on my own. Vouz pouvez parler—vraiment?”
“Oui.” Now the wider smile showed strong white teeth, whiter than his face.
Carter talked with him for ten minutes, until the bell rang for lunch and Max had to leave. They talked both in French and in English, and Carter became strangely excited and happy. When Carter hesitated for a word, Max supplied it, if he could guess it. Max had about twenty books lined up in a row at the back of his cell, and half of them were French books. Very generously he pressed two of them on Carter, one a book of eighteenth-century French poetry, the other selections from Pascal’s Pensées . They were a loan, of course, but Max said he did not care when he got them back. Carter returned to the ward feeling completely changed. Max was the first person he had met in the prison whom he felt glad to know, with whom he felt a friendship could grow. It was a wonderful thing. In that ten minutes, he had learned that Max was from Wisconsin; his father had been an American but his mother was French; and from the age of five to eleven he had lived in France with his mother and gone to school there. He had been in prison five years, he had said airily in answer to Carter’s question. He had not said why he was in prison, and Carter was really not interested in knowing.
Max had said that he was competing with another inmate in B-block to achieve the whitest prison pallor by Christmas Eve. The bet was six cans of instant coffee, and Max thought he was going to win, even though his competitor was a blond. Because of the bet, Max shielded his face carefully in the twice-a-week airings in the recreation yard. A panel of six inmate judges had already been chosen to pick the winner. “I’ve always been pale,” Max had said in his slow, distinct French, with a smile. “Very early it was plain I was marked for a life in prison.”
They had an appointment to meet again at 3:35 in Max’s cell the following day.
In the golden light of his new acquaintance, Hazel’s last letter sounded melancholic, even lugubrious. She had written:
Darling, do you think that fate (or God) put this awful trial in our path to test us? Please forgive me if I sound mystical. That’s the way I feel tonight—and many nights. One way of looking at this—our awful lives now, each awful in its own way—is that it is a test given to very few people. We have come through it so well up to now, I mean as far as fortitude goes. So let us continue and see it through. My thoughts are no doubt influenced by the talk I had (over the phone) with Mr. Magran this afternoon . . .
Magran had told her that they couldn’t appeal again until mid-January to the State Supreme Court, owing to the holidays. That seemed now no blow at all to Carter. He wrote:
You are always asking me why I haven’t met anybody decent in this place, and I’m always saying
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