by Jean Rhys
Jean Rhys - Good Morning, Midnight
PART ONE
Quite like old times,' the room says.
'Yes? No?'
There are two beds, a big one for madame and a smaller one on the opposite side for monsieur. The wash-basin is shut off by a curtain. It is a large room, the smell of cheap hotels faint, almost imperceptible. The street outside is narrow, cobble-stoned, going sharply uphill and ending in a flight of steps. What they call an impasse.
I have been here five days. I have decided on a place to eat in at midday, a place to eat in at night, a place to have my drink in after dinner. I have arranged my little life.
The place to have my drink in after dinner....Wait, I must be careful about that. These things are very important.
Last night, for instance. Last night was a catastrophe....The woman at the next table started talking to me - a dark, thin woman of about forty, very well made up. She had the score of a song with her and she had been humming it under her breath, tapping the accompaniment with her fingers.
'I like that song.'
'Ah, yes, but it's a sad song. Gloomy Sunday.' She giggled. 'A little sad.'
She was waiting for her friend, she told me.
The friend arrived - an American. He stood me another brandy and soda and while I was drinking it I started to cry.
I said: 'It was something I remembered.'
The dark woman sat up very straight and threw her chest out.
'I understand,' she said, 'I understand. All the same.... Sometimes I'm just as unhappy as you are. But that's not to say that I let everybody see it.'
Unable to stop crying, I went down into the lavabo. A familiar lavabo, and luckily empty. The old dame was out ide near the telephone, talking to a girl.
I stayed there, staring at myself in the glass. What do I want to cry about?.... On the contrary, it's when l am quite sane like this, when I have had a couple of extra drinks and am quite sane, that I realize how lucky I am.
Saved, rescued, fished-up, half drowned, out of the deep, dark river, dry clothes, hair shampooed and set. Nobody would know I had ever been in it. Except, of course, that there always remains something. Yes, there always remains something....Never mind, here I am, sane and dry, with my place to hide in. What more do I want?....I'm a bit of an automaton, but sane, surely - dry, cold and sane. Now I have forgotten about dark streets, dark rivers, the pain, the struggle and the drowning....Mind you, I'm not talking about the struggle when you are strong and a good swimmer and there are willing and eager friends on the bank waiting to pull you out at the first sign of distress. I mean the real thing. You jump in with no willing and eager friends around, and when you sink you sink to the accompaniment of loud laughter.
Lavabos....What about that monograph on lavabos - toilets - ladies?....A London lavabo in black and white marble, fifteen women in a queue, each clutching her penny, not one bold spirit daring to dash out of her turn past the stern faced attendant. That's what I call discipline....The lavabo in Florence and the very pretty, fantastically dressed girl who rushed in, hugged and kissed the old dame tenderly and fed her with cakes out of a paper bag. The dancer-daughter?....That cosy little Paris lavabo, where the attendant peddled drugs - something to heal a wounded heart.
When I got upstairs the American and his friend had gone. 'It was something I remembered,' I told the waiter, and he looked at me blankly, not even bothering to laugh at me. His face was unsurprised, blank.
That was last night.
I lie awake, thinking about it, and about the money Sidonie lent me and the way she said: 'I can't bear to see you like this.' Half shutting her eyes and smiling the smile which means: 'She's getting to look old. She drinks.'
'We've known each other too long, Sasha,' she said, 'to stand on ceremony with each other.'
I had just come in from my little health stroll round Mecklenburgh Square and along the Gray's Inn Road. I had looked at this, I had looked at that, I had looked at the people passing in the street and at a shop window full of artificial limbs. I came in to somebody who said: 'I can't bear to see you looking like this.'
'Like what?' I said.
'I think you need a change. Why don't you go back to Paris for a bit?....You could get yourself some new clothes - you certainly need them....I'll lend you the money,' she said. 'I'll be over there next week and I could find a room for you if you like. 'Etcetera, etcetera.
I had not seen this woman for months and then she swooped down on me.... Well, here I am. When you've been made very cold and very sane you've also been made very passive. (Why worry, why worry?) I can't sleep. Rolling from side to side.... Was it in 1923 or 1924 that we lived round the corner, in the Rue Victor-Cousin, and Enno bought me that Cossack cap and the imitation astrakhan coat? It was then that I started calling myself Sasha. I thought it might change my luck if I changed my name. Did it bring me any luck, I wonder, calling myself Sasha?
Was it in 1926 or 1927?
I put the light on. The bottle of Evian on the bedtable, the tube of luminal, the two books, the clock ticking on the ledge, the red curtains....
I can see Sidonie carefully looking round for an hotel just like this one. She imagines that it's my atmosphere. God, it's an insult when you come to think about it! More dark rooms, more red curtains....
But one mustn't put everything on the same plane. That's her great phrase. And one mustn't put everybody on the same plane, either. Of course not. And this is my plane....Quatrieme a gauche, and mind you don't trip over the hole in the carpet. That's me.
There are some black specks on the wall. I stare at them, certain they are moving. Well, I ought to be able to ignore a few bugs by this time. 'II ne faut pas mettre tout sur le meme plan....'
I get up and look closely. Only splashes of dirt. It's not the time of year for bugs, anyway.
I take some more luminal, put the light out and sleep at once.
I am in the passage of a tube station in London. Many people are in front of me; many people are behind me. Everywhere there are placards printed in red letters: This Way to the Exhibition, This Way to the Exhibition. But I don't want the way to the exhibition -I want the way out. There are passages to the right and passages to the left, but no exit sign. Everywhere the fingers point and the placards read: This Way to the Exhibition.....I touch the shoulder of the man walking in front of me. I say: 'I want the way out.' But he points to the placards and his hand is made of steel. I walk along with my head bent, very ashamed, thinking: 'Just like me - always wanting to be different from other people.' The steel finger points along a long stone passage. This Way - This Way - This Way to the Exhibition....
Now a little man, bearded, with a snub nose, dressed in a long white nightshirt, is talking earnestly to me. 'I am your father,' he says. 'Remember that I am your father.' But blood is streaming from a wound in his forehead. 'Murder,' he shouts, 'murder, murder.' Helplessly I watch the blood streaming. At last my voice tears itself loose from my chest. I too shout: 'Murder, murder, help, help,' and the sound fills the room. I wake up and a man in the street outside is singing the waltz from Les Salim-banques. 'C'est I'amour qui flotte dans l'air a la ronde,' he sings.
I believe it's a fine day, but the light in this room is so bad that you can't be sure. Outside on the landing you can't see at all unless the electric light is on. It's a large landing, cluttered up from morning to night with brooms, pails, piles of dirty sheets and so forth - the wreckage of the spectacular floors below.
The man who has the room next to mine is parading about as usual in his white dressing gown. Hanging around. He is like the ghost of the landing. I am always running into him.
He is as thin as a skeleton. He has a bird-like face and sunken, dark eyes with a pecu
liar expression, cringing, ingratiating, knowing. What's he want to look at me like that for?....He is always wearing a dressing gown - a blue one with black spots or the famous white one. I can't imagine him in street clothes.
'Bonjour.'
'Bonjour,' I mutter. I don't like this damned man....When I get downstairs the patron tells me that he wants to see my passport. I haven't put the number of the passport on the fiche, he says.
This patron is exactly like one of the assistants who used to be in the pawnshop in the Rue de Rennes - the one who scowled at you and took your stuff away to be valued. A fish, lording it in his own particular tank, staring at the world outside with a glassy and unbelieving eye.
What's wrong with the fiche? I've filled it up all right, haven't I? Name So-and-so, nationality So-and-so.... Nationality - that's what has puzzled him. I ought to have put nationality by marriage. I tell him I will let him have the passport in the after noon and he gives my hat a gloomy, disapproving look. I don't blame him. It shouts 'Anglaise', my hat. And my dress extinguishes me. And then this damned old fur coat slung on top of everything else - the last idiocy, the last incongruity.
Never mind, I have some money now. I may be able to do something about it. Twelve o'clock on a fine autumn day, and nothing to worry about. Some money to spend and nothing to worry about.
But careful, careful! Don't get excited. You know what happens when you get excited and exalted, don't you?....Yes....And then, you know how you collapse like a pricked balloon, don't you ? Having no staying power....Yes, exactly....So, no excitement. This is going to be a quiet, sane fortnight. Not too much drinking, avoidance of certain cafes, of certain streets, of certain spots, and everything will go off beautifully. The thing is to have a programme, not to leave any thing to chance - no gaps. No trailing around aimlessly with cheap gramophone records starting up in your head, no 'Here this happened, here that happened'. Above all, no crying in public, no crying at all if I can help it.
Thinking all this, I pass the exact place for my after dinner drink. It's a cafe on the Avenue de l'Observatoire, which always seems to be empty. I remember it like this before.
I'll go in and have a Pernod. Just one, just once, for luck....Here's to the Miracle, I'll say, to the Miracle....
A man who looks like an Arab comes in, accompanied by a melancholy girl wearing spectacles.
'Life is difficult,' the Arab says.
'Yes, life isn't easy,' the girl says.
Long pause.
'One needs a lot of courage, to live,' the Arab says.
'Ah, I believe you,' the girl says, shaking her head and clicking her tongue.
They finish their vermouth and go out and I sit alone in a large, clean, empty room and watch myself in the long glass opposite, turning over the pages of an old number of I'llustration, thinking that I haven't got a care in the world, except that tomorrow's Sunday - a difficult day anywhere. Sombre Dimanche....
Planning it all out. Eating. A movie. Eating again. One drink. A long walk back to the hotel. Bed. Luminal. Sleep. Just sleep - no dreams.
At four o'clock next afternoon I am in a cinema on the Champs Elysees, according to programme. Laughing heartily in the right places.
It's a very good show and I see it through twice. When I come out of the cinema it's night and the street lamps are lit. I'm glad of that. If you've got to walk around by yourself, it's easier when the lamps are lit.
Paris is looking very nice tonight....You are looking very nice tonight, my beautiful, my darling, and oh what a bitch you can be! But you didn't kill me after all, did you? And they couldn't kill me either....
Just about here we waited for a couple of hours to see Anatole France's funeral pass, because, Enno said, we mustn't let such a great literary figure disappear without paying him the tribute of a last salute....
There we were, chatting away affably, paying Anatole France the tribute of a last salute, and most of the people who passed in the procession were chatting away affably too, looking as if they were making dates for lunches and dinners, and we were all paying Anatole France the tribute of a last salute.
I walk along, remembering this, remembering that, trying to find a cheap place to eat - not so easy round here. The gramophone record is going strong in my head: 'Here this happened, here that happened....'
I used to work in a shop just off this street.
I can see myself coming out of the Metro station at the Rond-Point every morning at half past eight, walking along the Avenue Marigny, turning to the left and then to the right, putting my coat and hat into the cloak-room, going along a passage and starting in with: 'Good morning, madame. Has madame a vendeuse?'
....It was a large white and gold room with a dark polished floor. Imitation Louis Quinze chairs, painted screens, three or four elongated dolls, beautifully dressed, with charming and malicious oval faces.
Every time a customer arrived, the commissionaire touched a bell which rang just over my head. I would advance towards the three steps leading down to the street door and stand there, smiling a small, discreet smile. I would say 'Good afternoon, madame - Certainly, madame,' or 'Good afternoon, madame. Mademoiselle Mercedes has had your telephone message and everything is ready,' or 'Certainly, madame....Has madame a vendeuse?
Then I would conduct the customer to the floor above, where the real activities of the shop were carried on, and call for Mademoiselle Mercedes or Mademoiselle Henriette or Madame Perron, as the case might be. If I forgot a face or allotted a new customer to a saleswoman out of her turn, there was a row.
There was no lift in this shop. That's why I was there. It was one of those dress houses still with a certain prestige - anyhow among the French - but its customers were getting fewer and fewer.
I had had the job for three weeks. It was dreary. You couldn't read; they didn't like it. I would feel as if I were drugged, sitting there, watching those damned dolls, thinking what a success they would have made of their lives if they had been women. Satin skin, silk hair, velvet eyes, sawdust heart - all complete. I used to envy the commissionaire, because at least he could watch the people passing in the street. On the other hand, he had to stand up all the time. Yes, perhaps I had rather be myself than the commissionaire.
There was always a very strong smell of scent. I would pretend that I could recognize the various scents. Today it's L'Heure Bleue; yesterday it was Nuits de Chine....The place also smelt of the polish on the floor, the old furniture, the dolls' clothes.
The shop had a branch in London, and the boss of the London branch had bought up the whole show. Every three months or so he came over to the French place and it was rumoured that he was due to arrive on a certain day.
What's he like? Oh, he's the real English type. Very nice, very, very chic, the real English type, le business man....I thought: 'Oh, my God, I know now what these people mean when they say the real English type.'
He arrives. Bowler hat, majestic trousers, oh-my-God expression, ha-ha eyes - I know him at once. He comes up the steps with Salvatini behind him, looking very worried. (Salvatini is the boss of our shop.) Don't let him notice me, don't let him look at me. Isn't there something you can do so that nobody looks at you or sees you ? Of course, you must make your mind vacant, neutral, then your face also becomes vacant, neutral - you are invisible.
No use. He comes up to my table.
'Good morning, good morning, Miss-'
'Mrs Jansen,' Salvatini says.
Shall I stand up or not stand up? Stand up, of course. I stand up.
'Good morning.' I smile at him.
'And how many languages do you speak?'
He seems quite pleased. He smiles back at me. Affable, that's the word. I suppose that's why I think it's a joke.
'One,' I say, and go on smiling.
Now, what's happened?....Oh, of course....
'I understand French quite well.'
He fidgets with the buttons on his coat.
'I was told that the receptionist
spoke French and German fluently,' he says to Salvatini.
'She speaks French,' Salvatini says. 'Assez bien, assez bien.'
Mr Blank looks at me with lifted eyebrows.
'Sometimes,' I say idiotically. Of course, sometimes, when I am a bit drunk and am talking to somebody I like and know, I speak French very fluently indeed. At other times I just speak it. And as to that, my dear sir, you've got everything all wrong. I'm here because I have a friend who knows Mr Salvatini's mistress, and Mr Salvatini's mistress spoke to Mr Salvatini about me, and the day that he saw me I wasn't looking too bad and he was in a good mood. Nothing at all to do with fluent French and German, dear sir, nothing at all. I'm here because I'm here because I'm here. And just to prove to you that I speak French, I'll sing you a little song about it: 'Si vous saviez, si vous saviez, si vous saviez comment ca se fait.'
For God's sake, I think, pull yourself together.
I say: 'I speak French fairly well. I've been living in Paris for eight years.'
No, he's suspicious now. Questions short and sharp.
'How long have you been working here?'
'About three weeks.'
'What was your last job ?'
'I worked at the Maison Chose in the Place Vendeme.'
'Oh, really, you worked for Chose, did you? You worked for Chose.' His voice is more respectful. 'Were you receptionist there?'
'No,' I say. 'I worked as a mannequin.'
'You worked as a mannequin?'
Down and up his eyes go, up and down. 'How long ago was this?' he says.
How long ago was it? Now, everything is a blank in my head - years, days, hours, everything is a blank in my head. How long ago was it ? I don't know.
'Four, nearly five, years ago.'
'How long did you stay there ?'
'About three months,' I say.
He seems to be waiting for further information.
'And then I left,' I say in a high voice. (Decidedly this is one of my good days. This is one of the days when I say everything right.)
'Oh, you left?'
'Yes, Left.'
Yes, my dear sir, I left. I got bored and I walked out on them. But that was four, nearly five, years ago and a lot can happen in five years. I haven't the slightest intention of walking out on you, I can assure you of that. And I hope you haven't the slightest intention of - And just the thought that you may have the slightest intention of - makes my hands go cold and my heart beat.