Sue
A young American woman from a wealthy Philadelphia family, whom David sleeps with while waiting for Hella. She understands immediately that he will give her nothing.
To be come back for. She will not ask directly. What she manages, at the door afterwards, is "Maybe you'll be lonely again. I guess I won't mind if you come looking for me."
The book
At a glance
- An American acquaintance David seeks out while waiting for Hella to return
- Philadelphia. Her family is very rich, and she is not consistent about them
- In a small, dark, over-furnished flat on the rue de Sèvres, rented furnished
- Tight blue jeans almost always, and real shoes only when seeing someone out
- Immediately, and correctly, that she is being used
Who they are in the book
Spoiler-freeSue is a young American woman living in Paris, from a wealthy Philadelphia family. David knows her slightly, from the cafés of Montparnasse. She appears in one chapter.
He goes looking for her deliberately, though not for her specifically. Hella is about to come back from Spain, and David walks across the river wanting to find "a girl, any girl at all" and prove something to himself. Sue is the person who turns up.
The scene is one of the least flattering in the novel, and the discomfort is aimed squarely at David. Sue is not fooled at any point. She understands what is being offered, says so, and takes it anyway.
How the book draws them
- How she is describedBlonde and rather puffy, with curly hair cut very short, small breasts and a big behind, almost always in tight blue jeans — worn, David guesses, to show the world how little she cares about appearance. He notes that she is not pretty and reaches for a beauty-contest comparison anyway. The description tells a reader as much about the man making it as about her.
- "I'm built like a brick stonewall"It is her own joke about herself, delivered with the corners of her mouth turned down to show she is both joking and not joking. David turns it into a proposition, asking whether that does not depend on the weapon, and she plays along while making it clear she would rather not. Her answer when he pushes is flat: "I've made all the discoveries that I can stand."
- What she says when she agreesShe does not pretend it is romantic. She tells him she is sure she should not, that she does not know what he wants, and finally snaps her fingers and says "Come along. I'm certain to regret it." Then she insists he buy the drink on the way, adding, after a moment, "And that way I'll be sure to get something out of the deal."
- The smile at the endDressed again, hair fluffed up, she asks about supper and is refused, asks about tomorrow and is refused, and stops asking. David records the expression she leaves him with in detail: pained, vindictive and humiliated, with a bright girlish gaiety smeared inexpertly across it. His own verdict is that if she ever got the chance, "she would kill me with just that smile."
She does not appear again, and nothing in the plot turns on her.