Free The Pegnitz Junction by Mavis Gallant Page B

reproduced every inch of a model he said was his wife; in fact,the exhibition was entitled “Marriage.” These pictures had been blown up and cropped so peculiarly that only an abstract, grainy surface remained. As the newspaper had to admit, most adults honestly did not know what the pictures were about. However, most children, with their instinctive innocence, never failed to recognize that this or that form was really part of something else, which they named quite eagerly. And the local paper did not tiptoe round the matter, but asked, in a four-column double head on page two:
    ARE GERMAN WOMEN BABOONS
AND MUST THEY ALWAYS EXHIBIT THEIR BACKSIDES?
    This was followed up by a cartoon drawing of a creature, a gorilla probably, with his head under the dark hood of an old-fashioned camera on a tripod, about to take the picture of three Graces, or three Rhine maidens, or three stout local matrons who had somehow lost their clothes.
    Now all this was libel – every word, and the drawing too. The curator folded his copy of the paper and began to walk up and down the platform, composing an answer.
    Christine knew that Herbert could have helped him, because he was good at that kind of letter, taking a droll, dry tone, ending with, “Of course I am prepared to withdraw my allegations at any time,” mockingly humble. His letters always drew a deluge of new correspondence, praising and honouring Doctor Engineer Herbert B. But the curator did not know that Doctor Engineer Herbert B. was just behind him; in any case he was not doing badly with his own reply:“A ray of light has just as much chance of penetrating into the thick swamp of the German middle-class mind as …” He clasped and unclasped his hands, the newspaper tucked high under one arm. “The myth of German womanhood, a myth belied every day …” Walking up and down the platform near the sandy road, seen by the man in uniform looking through field glasses. “As for the photographer in question, his international status places him above …” “Only the small-minded could possibly …” “People who never set foot in museums until drawn by the promise of pornography can hardly judge …” “Only children should be allowed into art galleries …” Excellent. That had never been said.
    Meanwhile the photographer had descended from a local train and started to tell a story about grass fires. He was wearing his tartan waistcoat with George-the-Fourth buttons, his cream corduroy jacket from Rome, his cream silk turtleneck sweater, an American peace emblem on a chain, dark-green shorts, Japanese sandals, and, because the sandals pinched, a pair of brown socks. His legs were tanned and covered with blond fur. Although slim and fit, he seemed older than usual. This was on account of his teeth. He had recently acquired two new bridges, upper and lower, which took years off his face but were a torture, so today he had changed back to the earlier set. The dentist had told the photographer’s wife, “His jaw is underdeveloped, like a child’s, difficult to fit.”
    And she answered, “Yes, I see. Classic, aesthetic – no?”
    “Well, jaws are always classical,” said the dentist.
    The photographer wanted to look a bit younger for the sake of his wife. Every season the difference in time betweenthem seemed to increase. Most young wives of middle-aged men bridged the gap by looking older, but his wife grew more and more childlike. On their honeymoon in Florence he had shown her the marble likeness of a total stranger, saying, “There, the ideal – classic, aesthetic,” and so forth; and she told her mother later and they had a good laugh. When the dentist made the remark about his jaws she saved it up for her mother too. Now the dentist had said he could make a third lot of teeth that would make the photographer appear to be twenty-eight and would not hurt as much as the last set, but the work would cost six hundred marks more.
    As soon as he saw the