David Golder, the Ball, Snow in Autumn, the Courilof Affair

by Irene Nemirovsky

  In the enormous kitchen, spacious enough for five servants in the past, there was now just one elderly maid, hunched over the stove, who prepared his meals. She watched with weary resignation as he paced back and forth, his hands clasped behind his back, in a dressing-gown he’d bought years before in London whose purple silk was so faded and torn that tufts of the white wool lining were sticking through the fabric.

  Breakfast over, he would have an armchair and footstool placed by the sitting-room window, and he would sit there all day long, playing solitaire on a tray on his lap. If it was sunny, he would visit the chemist’s in the next street, weigh himself, and walk slowly back home, leaning heavily on his walking stick and stopping every fifty paces to catch his breath, his left hand carefully holding closed the ends of his woollen scarf, which was wrapped twice around his neck and fastened with a pin.

  Then, when night began to fall, Soifer would come round to play cards. He was an old German Jew Golder had known in Silesia; they’d lost touch but then run into each other a few months earlier. Bankrupted by inflation, Soifer had played the money markets and won everything back again. In spite ofthat, he had retained a mistrust of money, and the way revolutions and wars could transform it overnight into nothing but worthless bits of paper. It was a mistrust that seemed to grow as the years passed, and little by little, Soifer had invested his fortune in jewellery. He kept everything in a safe in London: diamonds, pearls, emeralds—all so beautiful that even Gloria had never owned any that could compare. Despite all this, his meanness bordered on madness. He lived in a sordid little furnished room, in a dingy street near Passy, and would never take taxis, even when a friend offered to pay. “I do not wish,” he would say, “to indulge in luxuries that I can’t afford myself.” Instead, he would wait for the bus in the rain, in winter, for hours at a time, letting them go by one after the other if there was no room left in second class. All his life, he had walked on tiptoe so his shoes would last longer. For several years now, since he had lost all his teeth, he ate only cereal and pureed vegetables to avoid having to buy dentures.

  His yellow skin, as dry and transparent as an autumn leaf, gave him a look of pathetic nobility, the same kind of look that old criminals sometimes have. His head was crowned with beautiful tufts of silvery white hair. It was only his gaping, spluttering mouth, buried in the deep ridges of his face, that inspired a feeling of revulsion and fear.

  Every day, Golder would let him win twenty francs or so, and listen to him talk about other people’s business deals. Soifer possessed a kind of dark sense of humour that was very similar to Golder’s and meant that they got along together well.

  Much later, Soifer would die all alone, like a dog, without a friend, without a single wreath on his grave, buried in the cheapest cemetery in Paris by his family who hated him, and whom he had hated, but to whom he nevertheless left a fortune of some thirty million francs, thus fulfilling till the end the incomprehensible destiny of every good Jew on this earth.

  And so, at five o’clock every day, sitting at a pine table in front of the sitting-room window, Golderwearing his purple dressing-gown, Soifer with a woman’s black wool shawl draped over his shoulders, the two men played cards. In the silent apartment, Golder’s coughing fits echoed with a strange, hollow sound. Old Soifer moaned about his life in an annoyed, plaintive tone of voice.

  Beside them, hot tea sat in two large, silver-bottomed glasses, part of a set that Golder, long ago, had ordered from Russia. Soifer would put his cards down on the table, automatically shielding them with his hand, take a sip of tea and say, “You know that sugar is going to go up again?” Then: “You know that the Banque Lalleman is going to finance the Franco-Algerian Mining Company?” And Golder would look up abruptly with an eager, lively expression, like a flame that flickers up from the ashes and then dies down again.

  “That should be a pretty good deal,” he replied wearily.

  “The only good deal is to invest your money in something safe—if there is such a thing—then sit on it and protect it like an old hen. Your turn, Golder…”

  They went back to playing cards.

  “HAVE YOU HEARD?” said Soifer as he came in. “Have you heard what they’ve cooked up now?”

  “Who?”

  Soifer shook his fist at the window, indicating all of Paris.

  “First it was income tax,” he continued in a shrill, quivering voice, “soon there will be a tax on rent. Last week I spent forty-three francs on heating. Then my wife went and bought a new hat. Seventy-two francs! And it looks like a pot that’s been turned upside down! I don’t mind paying for something of quality, something that lasts, but that hat… It won’t even last her two seasons. And at her age! What she could do with is a shroud! I would have paid for that with pleasure … Seventy-two francs! In my day, where we lived, we could buy a bearskin coat for that price. My God, if my son ever says he wants to get married, I’ll strangle him with my bare hands. He’d be better off dead, the poor boy, than to have to keep paying for things his whole life, like you and me. And I heard just today that if I don’t renew my identity card right away, I’ll be deported. A miserable, sickly old man! I ask you, where would I go?”

  “To Germany?”

  “Oh, sure, to Germany,” Soifer grumbled. “Germany can go to hell! You know what happened to me before in Germany, when I had that trouble over providing them with war supplies. No? You didn’t know? Look, I’ve got to get going now, their office closes at four o’clock… And do you know how much it will cost me, for the pleasure? Three hundred francs, my dear Golder, three hundred francs plus their administrative costs, not to mention the time wasted and the twenty francs you always let me win, since we won’t have time to play cards today. Oh, dear Lord! Why don’t you come along with me? It will take your mind off things, it’s nice out.”

  “Do you want me to come so I can pay for the taxi?” asked Golder with a smile that twisted his face like a sudden fit of coughing.

  “Good heavens,” said Soifer, “I was expecting to take the tram … And you know I never take taxis in order to avoid getting into bad habits… But today, my old legs feel as heavy as lead… And as long as you don’t mind throwing your money out of the window?”

  They went out together, each of them leaning on a walking stick. Golder listened quietly as his friend explained how a recent sugar deal had just ended in bankruptcy because of some sort of fraud. Soifer rubbed his trembling hands together in an expression of sheer delight as he reeled off figures and the names of the ruined shareholders.

  When they left the police station, Golder felt like walking. It was still light; the final rays of the red winter sun lit up the Seine. They crossed the bridge, strolled up a street they chanced upon behind the Hotel de Ville, then along another street that turned out to be the Rue Vieille-du-Temple.

  Suddenly, Soifer stopped.

  “Do you know where we are?”

  “No,” replied Golder, indifferent.

  “Right over there, my friend, on the Rue des Rosiers, there’s a little Jewish restaurant, the only one in Paris where they know how to make a good stuffed pike. Come and have dinner with me.”

  “You don’t think I’m going to eat stuffed pike,” Golder grumbled, “when I haven’t touched fish or meat in six months?”

  “No one’s asking you to eat anything. Just come and pay. All right?”

  “Go to hell.”

  Nevertheless, he followed Soifer who was limping painfully down the street, breathing in the smell offish, dust, and rotting straw. Soifer turned round and put his arm through Golder’s.

  “A dirty Jewish neighbourhood, isn’t it?” he said affectionately. “Does it remind you of anything?”

  “Nothing good,” Golder replied darkly.

  He stopped and, for a moment, looked up at the houses, laundry hanging from their windows, without speaking. Some children rushed past his legs. He gently pushed them away with his cane and sighed. In the shops, there was hardly anything t
o buy except second-hand clothes or herring in tubs of brine. Soifer pointed to a small restaurant with a sign written in Hebrew.

  “Here it is. Are you coming, Golder? You’re happy to buy me dinner, aren’t you? To make a poor old man happy?”

  “Oh, go to hell!” repeated Golder. But he continued to follow Soifer. What difference did it make where he went? He felt more tired than usual.

  The little restaurant seemed quite clean. It had brightly coloured paper table-cloths and a shiny brass kettle in one corner of the room. Not a soul in sight.

  Soifer ordered a portion of stuffed pike and some horse-radish. With great reverence, he picked up the hot plate and lifted it to his nose. “It smells so good!”

  “Oh, for goodness sake, just eat and leave me in peace,” murmured Golder.

  He turned round and lifted a corner of the heavy red and white checked curtain. Outside, two men had stopped and were leaning against the window, talking. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Golder could understand by the way they gestured with their hands. One of them was Polish and wore an extraordinary, dilapidated fur hat with earflaps; he had an enormous curly, grey beard that he impatiently stroked, plaited, twirled, and untwisted endlessly, at great speed. The other one was a young boy with red hair that burst out in all directions, like flames.

  “I wonder what they sell,” thought Golder. “Hay and scrap iron, like in my day?”

  He half closed his eyes. Now, as night began to fall and the tops of the houses were cloaked in shadow and the clatter and creak of a handcart drowned out the sound of the cars on the Rue Vieille-du-Temple, he felt as if he had been transported back in time to the old country, was seeing once again those familiar faces, but distorted, deformed, as in a dream …

  “There are dreams like this,” he thought vaguely, “where you see people who have died years before …”

  “What are you looking at?” asked Soifer. He pushed away his plate, which still contained the remains of some fish and bits of mashed potato. “Ah, so this is what it’s like to grow old… In the past, I would have happily eaten three portions like this! But now, my poor teeth … I have to swallow without chewing. It gives me heartburn here …” He pointed to his chest. “What are you thinking about?”

  He stopped, watched Golder, and shook his head.

  “Oy,” he said suddenly, in his inimitable tone ofvoice that was plaintive and ironic at the same time, “Oy, Lord God! They’re happier than we are, don’t you think? Dirty and poor, all right, but does a Jew need much? Poverty preserves the Jews like brine preserves the herrings. I’d like to come here more often. If it weren’t so far, and especially, so expensive—it’s expensive everywhere nowadays—I’d come here every night to have a peaceful meal, without my family, who can all go to hell…”

  “We should come here now and again,” murmured Golder.

  He stretched out his hands towards the glowing stove that had just been lit; it radiated a heavy smell of heat from its corner.

  “At home,” he thought, “a smell like that would make me choke…”

  But he didn’t feel sick. A kind of sensual warmth, something he’d never felt before, seeped deep into his old bones.

  Outside, a man walked by carrying a long pole; he touched the street-lamp opposite the restaurant and a flame shot out, lighting up a narrow, dark window where washing was hanging above some empty old flower-pots. Golder suddenly remembered a little crooked window just like it, opposite the shop where he’d been born… remembered his street, in the wind and snow, as it sometimes appeared in his dreams.

  “It’s a long road,” he said out loud.

  “Yes,” said Soifer, “long, hard, and pointless.”

  Both of them looked up and for a long while gazed, sighing, at the miserable window, the worn-out clothes beating against the panes of glass. A woman opened the window and leaned out to pull in the washing. She shook it out, then bent forward, took a little mirror out of her pocket, and used the light from the street-lamp to put on some lipstick.

  Golder suddenly stood up.

  “Let’s go home … the smell from that oil stove is making me feel sick…”

  THAT NIGHT HE dreamed of Joyce, her features mingling with those of the little Jewish woman he’d seen on the Rue des Rosiers. It was the first time in a long while. The memory of Joy lay dormant within him, like his pain …

  He woke up, his legs shaking and as tired as if he had walked for miles. All day long he sat wrapped in blankets and shawls looking out of the window; his cards lay untouched. He was shivering; an insidious, icy chill seemed to pierce him, right down to his bones.

  Soifer arrived later that evening, but he too felt unwell and melancholy and hardly spoke. He left earlier than usual, hurrying down the dark street, his umbrella clutched to his chest.

  Golder ate dinner. Then, when the maid had gone up to bed, he walked around the apartment, locking all the doors. Gloria had had all the chandeliers taken away. In every room, an electric bulb hung from a long wire; they swayed in the draught and lit up Golder’s reflection in the mirrors above the fireplaces. There he was, barefoot, holding his keys, with his wild, thick white hair and strikingly pale face, each day showing more and more of that bluish tint common amongst people with a heart condition.

  The doorbell rang. Before answering it, Golder looked in surprise at the time. The evening papers had arrived long ago. Perhaps Soifer had had an accident…

  “Is that you, Soifer?” he asked through the door. “Who is it?”

  “Tubingen,” a voice replied.

  Golder, his face suddenly overwhelmed with emotion, unfastened the security chain. His hands were unsteady and he grew impatient with himself as he fumbled about, but Tubingen waited without saying a word. Golder knew that he could remain like that, motionless, for hours on end. “He hasn’t changed a bit,” he thought.

  Finally, he managed to unlock the door. Tubingen came in.

  “Hello,” he said.

  He took off his hat and coat, hanging them up himself, then opened his wet umbrella, set it in the corner, and shook Golder’s hand.

  His long head was oddly shaped, in such a way that his forehead looked too big and luminous. He had a puritanical, pale face, with thin lips.

  “May I come in?” he asked, pointing to the sitting room.

  “Yes, please do … “

  Golder saw him glance around the bare rooms and lower his eyes, like someone who has intruded on a secret.

  “My wife has left,” he said.

  “Biarritz?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Ah,” murmured Tubingen.

  He sat down; Golder sat opposite him, breathing with difficulty.

  “How’s business?” he asked finally.

  “The same as ever. Some good, some bad. You know that Amrum signed with the Russians?”

  “What? For the Teisk shares?” Golder quickly asked, leaning forward suddenly as if he wanted to grasp a fleeting shadow. Then he let his hands drop back down and shrugged. “I didn’t know,” he said, sighing.

  “Not for the Teisk shares. The contract stipulates the sale of a hundred thousand tons of Russian oil per year for five years, in Constantinople, Port Said, and Colombo.”

  “But… what about Teisk?” Golder muttered.

  “Not mentioned.”

  “Ah.”

  “I knew that Amrum had sent agents to Moscow twice, but nothing came of it.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Perhaps because the Soviets wanted to get a loan of twenty-three million gold roubles from the United States and Amrum had to pay off three members of the government, including a senator. It was all too much. And they also made the mistake of letting the evidence get stolen, which blew up in the press.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. “Amrum has paid dearly for our Persian oilfields, Golder.”

  “You’ve started up negotiations again?”

  �
��Of course. Straight away. I wanted to own the whole of the Caucasus region. I wanted a monopoly on oil refinery and to become the sole distributor of Russian petroleum products in the world.”

  Golder smirked.

  “You wanted too much, as you yourself just pointed out. They don’t like giving foreigners such economic influence and consequently too much political power.”

  “The fools. I’m not interested in their politics. People can do what they want in their own country. Once I was there, they wouldn’t have had their noses stuck into my business affairs, I can promise you that.”

  “If it had been me…” Golder began musing out loud, “I would have started with Teisk and the Aroundgis. Then gradually, after a while,” he opened his hand and quickly closed it, “I would have snapped it all up. All of it. All of the Caucasus, all the oil…”

  “That’s why I’ve come to see you; I want you to handle the deal.”

  Golder shrugged his shoulders.

  “No. I’m out of it now. I’m ill… half dead.”

  “Did you keep your Teisk shares?”

  “Yes,” said Golder, hesitating, “I don’t know why…They were hardly worth anything. I could sell them as scrap paper…”

  “That’s true enough, but only if Amrum wins the concession. Then I’ll be damned if they’re worth even that. But if/win…”

  He fell silent. Golder shook his head.

  “No,” he said, clenching his teeth, a look of suffering on his face. “No.”

  “Why not? I need you. And you need me.”

  “I know. But I don’t want to work any more. I can’t. I’m not well. My heart… I know that if I don’t give up work entirely, and right away, I’m a dead man. I’m not interested. What for? I don’t need much now, at my age. I just need to stay alive.”