by Jean Rhys
I heave myself out of the darkness slowly, painfully. And there I am, and there he is, the poor gigolo.
He looks sad. He says, speaking in a low voice and for the first time with a very strong accent: 'I have wounds,' pronouncing 'wounds' so oddly that I don't understand what he means.
'You have what?'
I look round. Have I screamed, shouted, cursed, cried, made a scene? Is anyone looking at us, is anyone noticing us? No, nobody....The woman at the desk is sitting with her eyes cast down. I notice the exact shade of the blue eye-shadow on her lids. They must see the start of some funny things, these women perched up in cafes, perched up like idols. Especially the ones at the Dome.
'You have what?'
'Look,' he says, still speaking in a whisper. He throws his head up. There is a long scar, going across his throat. Now I understand what it means - from ear to ear. A long, thick, white scar. It's strange that I haven't noticed it before.
He says: 'That is one. There are other ones. I have been wounded.'
It isn't boastful, the way he says this, nor complaining. It's puzzled, puzzled in an impersonal way, as if he is asking me - me, of all people - why, why, why?
Pity you? Why should I pity you? Nobody has ever pitied me. They are without mercy.
'I have too,' I say in a surly voice. 'Moi aussi.'
'I know. I can see that. I believe you.'
'Well,' I say, 'if we're going to start believing each other, it's getting serious, isn't it?'
I want to get out of this dream.
'But why shouldn't we believe each other? Why shouldn't we believe each other just for tonight? Will you believe something I'm going to say to you now? I want absolutely to make love to you.'
'I told you from the start you were wasting your time.'
'What happened to you, what happened?' he says. 'Something bad must have happened to make you like this.'
'One thing? It wasn't one thing. It took years. It was a slow process.'
He says: 'It doesn't matter. What I know is that I could do this with you' - he makes a movement with his hands like a baker kneading a loaf of bread - 'and afterwards you'd be different. I know. Believe me.'
I watch the little grimacing devil in my head. He wears a top hat and a cache-sexe and he sings a sentimental song - 'The roses all are faded and the lilies in the dust.'
I say: 'Now who's trying to make an unimportant thing sound important?'
'Oh, important, unimportant - that's just words. If we can be happy for a little, forget everything for a little, isn't that important enough?....Now we'll go. We'll go back to your hotel.'
'No.'
Leave me alone. I'm tired....
'Still rien a faire?' He starts to laugh.
'Still rien a faire. Absolutely rien a faire.'
But everything is so changed, I can't look at him. 'I must go. Please. I'm so tired.'
In the taxi I say: 'Whistle that tune, will you? The one you said is the march of the Legion.'
He whistles it very softly. And I watch the streets through the window. A l'Hotel de l'Esperance....
I am in a little whitewashed room. The sun is hot outside. A man is standing with his back to me, whistling that tune and cleaning his shoes. I am wearing a black dress, very short, and heel-less slippers. My legs are bare. I am watching for the expression on the man's face when he turns round. Now he ill-treats me, now he betrays me. He often brings home other women and I have to wait on them, and I don't like that. But as long as he is alive and near me I am not unhappy. If he were to die I should kill myself. My film-mind....('For God's sake watch out for your film-mind....')
'What are you laughing at now?' he says.
'Nothing, nothing....I do like that tune. Do you think I could get a gramophone record of it?
'I don't know.'
We are at the door of the hotel.
'Good night,' he says. 'Sleep well. Take a big dose of luminal.'
'I will. And the same to you.'
I am not sad as I go upstairs, not sad, not happy, not regretful, not thinking of anything much. Except that I see very clearly in my head the tube of luminal and the bottle of whisky. In case....
Just as I have got to my door there is a click and everything is in darkness. Impossible to get the key in. I must cross the pitch-black landing to the head of the stairs and put the time-switch on again.
I am feeling for the knob when I see the light of a cigarette a yard or two from my face. I stand for what seems a long while watching it. Then I call out: 'Who is it ? Who's there ? Qui est la?'
But before he answers I know. I take a step forward and put my arms round him.
I have my arms round him and I begin to laugh, because I am so happy. I stand there hugging him, so terribly happy. Now everything is in my arms on this dark landing - love, youth, spring, happiness, everything I thought I had lost. I was a fool, wasn't I? to think all that was finished for me. How could it be finished?
I put up my hand and touch his hair. I've wanted to do that ever since I first saw him.
'Did I frighten you at first?'
He has put the light on. He looks pleased, but surprised.
'No, no,' I say. 'Yes, a bit....No.'
But I whisper and look round fearfully. What do I expect to see ? There is nobody on the landing - nothing. Nothing but the commis' shoes by his door, the toes carefully pointed outwards as usual.
He takes the key from my hand, opens the door and shuts it after us. We kiss each other fervently, but already something has gone wrong. I am uneasy, half of myself somewhere else. Did anybody hear me, was anybody listening just now?
'It's dark in here....Just a minute, I'll fix it.'
The switch in my room works either the light near the bed or the one over the curtained wash-basin - it depends on how far the knob is pushed. But it is always going wrong and doing one thing when you expect it to do another. I fumble with it for some time before I can get the lamp near the bed going.
Now the room springs out at me, laughing, triumphant. The big bed, the little bed, the table with the tube of luminal, the glass and the bottle of Evian, the two books, the clock ticking on the ledge, the menu - 'T'as compis? Si, j'ai compris....'Four walls, a roof and a bed. Les Hommes en Cage....Exactly.
Here we are. Nothing to stop us. Four walls, a roof, a bed, a bidet, a spotlight that goes on first over the bidet and then over the bed - nothing to stop us. Anything you like; anything I like....No past to make us sentimental, no future to embarrass us....A difficult moment when you are out of practice - a moment that makes you go cold, cold and wary.
'Would you like some whisky?' I say. 'I've got some.'
(That's original. I bet nobody's ever thought of that way of bridging the gap before.)
I take my coat and hat off, get the bottle of whisky. I rinse the tooth-glass out, mix myself a drink and mix one for him in the Evian glass, which is clean. I do all this as slowly as possible. Time, time, give me time - wait a minute, wait a minute, not yet....
We sit on the small bed. He takes one sip of whisky and puts the glass away.
'Isn't it right? Don't you like it?'
'Yes, it's all right. I don't want to drink.'
'Mine tastes awful. It tastes of mouthwash.'
"Then why do you drink it? Don't drink it.'
All the same, I go on sipping away. Small sips. Not yet, not yet....Wait a minute....You won't be unkind) will you? For God's sake, say something kind to me....
But his eyes are ironical as he watches me. I don't think he is going to say anything kind. On the contrary. But that's natural. I've got to expect that. Technique.
I say: 'It's funny how some men try to get you to swill as much as you can hold, and others try to stop you. Automatically. Some profound instinct seems to get going. Something racial - yes, I'm sure it's racial.'
He says: 'Just now on the landing - you knew it was me?'
'Yes, of course.'
'But how could you have known bef
ore I said anything?'
'I did know,' I say obstinately.
'Then you knew that I was coming up after you. You expected me to?'
'Oh no, I didn't. I didn't a bit.'
He laughs and puts his hand on my knee under my dress. I hate that. It reminds me of - Never mind....
'You love playing a comedy, don't you?'
'How do you mean - a comedy?' I shouldn't have taken whisky on top of brandy. It's making me feel quarrelsome. Sparks of anger, of resentment, shooting all over me....A comedy, what comedy?
A comedy, my God! The damned room grinning at me. The clock ticking.
Qu'est-ce qu'elle fout ici, la vieille?
'I'm going to have another whisky.' 'No, don't drink any more.'
Oh, go to hell....I push his hand away and get up.
'Tell me something. You think that I meant you all the time to come up here, and that everything else I said this evening was what you call a comedy?'
'I knew you really wanted me to come up - yes. That was easy to see,' he says.
I could kill him for the way he said that, and for the way he is looking at me....Easy, easy, free and easy. Easy to fool, easy to torture, easy to laugh at. But not again. Oh no, not again....You've been unkind too soon. Bad technique.
'Hooray,' I say, 'here's to you. It was sweet of you to come up and I was very pleased to see you. Now you've got to go.'
'Of course I'm not going. Why are you like this? Don't be like this.'
'No, it's no use. I'd rather you went.'
'Well, I'm not going,' he says. 'I want to see this comedy. You'll have to call for someone to put me out.
Au secours, au secours,' he shouts in a high falsetto voice. 'Like that....If you want to make yourself ridiculous.'
'I've been so ridiculous all my life that a little bit more or a little bit less hardly matters now.'
'Call out, then. Go on. Or why don't you rap on the wall and ask your friend next door to help you '
As soon as he says this I am very quiet. If there is one thing on earth I want to avoid, it is a scene in this hotel.
'I don't want to have a row here,' I say. 'Only you've got to go.'
'Why?'
'Well, because I tell you to go. And you'll go.'
'Just like that?'
'Yes, just like that.'
'But what do you think I am - a little dog? You think you can first kiss me and then say to me "Get out"?
You haven't looked well at me....I don't like it,' he says, 'that voice that gives orders.'
Well, I haven't always liked it, either - the voice that gives orders.
'Very well, I ask you to go.'
'Oh, you annoy me,' he says. 'You annoy me, you annoy me.' And there we are - struggling on the small bed. My idea is not so much to struggle as to make it a silent struggle. Nobody must hear us. At the end, he is lying on me, holding down my two spread arms. I can't move. My dress is torn open at the neck. But I have my knees firmly clamped together. This is a game - a game played in the snow for a worthless prize....
He is breathing quickly and I can feel his heart beating. I am quite calm. 'This is really a bit comic,' I keep thinking. Also I think: 'He looks mechant, he could be mechant, this man.'
I shut my eyes because I want to stay calm, I want to be able to keep thinking: 'This is really damned comic'
'We're on the wrong bed,' I say. 'And with all our clothes on, too. Just like English people.'
'Oh, we have a lot of time. We have all night. We have till tomorrow.'
A long time till tomorrow. A hundred years, perhaps, till tomorrow....
He comes in. He shuts the door after him.
I lie very still, with my arm over my eyes. As still as if I were dead....
I don't need to look. I know.
I think: 'Is it the blue dressing gown, or the white one? That's very important. I must find that out - it's very important.'
I take my arm away from my eyes. It is the white dressing gown.
He stands there, looking down at me. Not sure of himself, his mean eyes flickering. He doesn't say anything. Thank God, he doesn't say anything. I look straight into his eyes and despise another poor devil of a human being for the last time. For the last time....
Then I put my arms round him and pull him down on to the bed, saying: 'Yes - yes - yes....'