“It was tremendously entertaining. It’s a shame you weren’t there …”
“But do you see anything hopeful?”
“It seemed that the family had been the ones comforting all of us, saying you have to go on, and so on.”
“Sometimes I do worry about Georgine.” Docteur Molineu was at Midhat’s side. His eyes were red. “I wonder if we ought to hire a second girl, to be her friend, you know.” He finished his drink and breathed.
“Laurent,” said Midhat, reaching for his friend’s shoulder. “I didn’t see you enter.”
“Cher Midhat,” said Laurent, turning around. “It’s good to see you. Goodness you look well. What a lovely suit. Do you know Carl Page?”
“Yes, I think we met.”
“I know you of course,” said Carl Page. “You are the famous Oriental guest. Well then what’s your take on this, as an Oriental? We’re talking about Flanders.”
“Oh,” said Midhat. He cleared his throat. “If you’re asking about the Turks, then … I think there are still losses from the Russian war that are … hanging over everything. But in terms of Europe—I mean, I think we’ll see some strategic manoeuvres from the French generals in the near future.” His voice deepened. “The balance of power, and so forth. And the Eastern Front, of course, with Russia. There might be a strike sooner rather than later, keeping eyes on all corners. And so forth.”
“I see.”
“Carl did you hear,” said Madame Crotteau, leaning across the back of the sofa, “about Mistinguett’s lover?”
Laurent grasped Midhat’s neck and laughed. “You very nearly sounded as if you knew what you were talking about. Oh I haven’t eaten a thing, those look quite edible.” He reached for Georgine’s tray offish rolls. “I have the most hilarious story to tell you. About your professor, what’s his name, Brogante.”
“Oh yes,” said Midhat.
“So he was cycling to the Faculty in the rain, I heard this from a surgeon, and by the time he arrived, this Brogante, he had a rash on his legs. The trousers were woollen, I suppose. And he’s apparently quite a large fellow, is that right? He borrowed a spare pair from someone else, but they were too small for him and he couldn’t do them up. But now the funny part is that he had to teach a class, so he wore them anyway and taught the entire lesson while standing behind a chair with his buttons undone. Isn’t that just the funniest thing.”
“Very funny,” said Midhat.
“Have you heard about Sylvain?” came a woman’s voice. A thin blonde, addressing a group of people Midhat didn’t recognise. “He was hit by a car and is very badly injured.”
“Isn’t true,” said Docteur Molineu, behind them. “Jeannette went to see him.”
The group made sounds and inclined their heads, as if to say: ah, indeed?
“He’s coming tonight, I think.”
A low chord sounded from the piano.
“Saint-Saëns!”
“They caught him within a week … poor fellow wasn’t built to fight.”
Carole Nolin was conferring with a silver-haired man in tails who had one knee on the piano stool. The man played the chord a second time, and Carole sang a probing note. Then they began in earnest, nodding together, and her voice swooped upward, and the room fell quiet.
“Prin-temps—qui—commen-ce! Portant l’espéran-ce, aux coeurs amoureux …”
“I saw it in Hamburg thirty years ago. With Talazac, before the French revival.”
Midhat’s glass was empty. His head thrilled with Carole’s singing. At the next crescendo the room seemed to lose interest, and the murmur surged again into a loose babble. One final clanging note, applause, and it changed to a spirited tune about Paris. A dozen guests joined in, tilting their glasses with gestures that resembled dancing. Someone opened a casement at the far end and blew a cool shot of air over their faces.
Midhat looked around for Jeannette, with a pleasant nervousness in his stomach. His glass was full again, and the room listed as he turned his head. Sylvain Leclair was in the corner by a tapestry, hair parted to the side, curled and oiled, catching the light from a side lamp.
Paris c’est une blonde
Qui plaît à tout le monde
Le nez retroussé l’air moqueur
Les yeux toujours rieurs!
“Shut the window!”
It had jammed in the frame and a gentleman in a wine-stained waistcoat was attempting to wrest the handle from a Russian doctor named Andryashev whom Midhat recognised from the Faculty. He looked very drunk. Wine-stripes triumphed over Andryashev, and the Russian smiled and threw up his hands as though letting an opponent win at cards, before falling on the lady behind and dissolving in a wind of apologies.
Laurent was eating another fish roll. “Everything is old gossip. People are still talking about Henriette Caillaux, you hear her name all over the place. Half their sons—oh, this song’s by the woman who insured her legs for a million francs. What’s her name, she wears those funny hats.”
The tune had accelerated into an aggressive chromatic counterpoint, and two girls hopped near the piano, grabbing each other’s elbows. Midhat turned—where was Jeannette? There was Sylvain Leclair again, his silver hairline a crescent moon. And there she was, beside him, Jeannette, listening to Sylvain.
“I think I still love her,” said Laurent.
Midhat started. Laurent was looking in the same direction.
“They don’t go away easily, those things.”
“You love Jeannette?”
“You didn’t know.”
“No.” A cold liquid poured down Midhat’s spine. “I did not know that.”r
To his right, a woman with pink cheeks spun round and smiled at him.
“Nothing comes of nothing,” said Laurent.
Midhat peered at him. “What do you mean?”
“Hm?” Laurent ran a hand through his hair. “Only that it’s meaningless in the scheme of things.” In a sober tone, he added: “One can still love from afar, of course.”
Midhat tried to dwell on this remark. It kept escaping him.
“Sylvain does rather seem to be annoying her, doesn’t he? She looks angry.”
“Does she?” said Midhat. He studied Jeannette’s lamplit face. To him, her features appeared limp and without expression.
“Yes. That is what Jeannette looks like when she is angry. You’d do well to learn it fast, if you want to get along with her.”
Midhat directed his eyes down at his glass, seized by an undertow of resentment. He had thought Laurent was his friend. But then, how many months had they known each other? Three, three and a half. He made a prompt resolution to turn cold towards him.
“Everyone asks me that,” he said. “How am I getting along. As though it were the most difficult thing. You know, the hills here are the same as our hills. They seem to think I live in a desert.”
He swung his head back and slipped the remainder of his drink down his gullet.
“That’s not really what I meant,” said Laurent. “But, yes, that is silly. Try not to take it to heart. Unless a man has travelled, how is he to know?” He cleared his throat. “Actually Midhat, I have some news. I need to tell you.”
Midhat stared again at Jeannette. Her face cracked into a clear scowl. Her lips moved, she was saying something to Sylvain. Then she turned, and forced her way out of the room.
He must follow her. Bodies gave way under his hands like palm fronds. He reached the hall, and the doorway grazed his shoulder. Checked the exit points: front door, no; back door, no. Dining room, no. Stairs, no. He moved over to the coat stand by the front door and looked down at the handle of his new umbrella. An elegant pleat was carved into the bend.
“Do you know,” came Laurent’s voice behind him. “You look like you’ve drunk rather a lot.”
“So have you.”
“No, I haven’t. I just feel quite relaxed.”
“I didn’t know you loved Jeannette.”
“Yes. We were close at one poin
t. You know how these things are. But I was being serious, I have something to tell you.”
“You love Jeannette.”
“No, not that. It’s that I’m going to war. In three weeks, after Christmas.”
The umbrella fell from Midhat’s hand and sighed as it lay upon the others. Laurent faced the open salon door, hands in pockets, arms very straight, as if he were cold. Midhat reached for his elbow.
“Of course it’s wretched,” said Laurent. “But we knew it was going to happen. I’ll be working as a doctor, actually, or something medical, which is … I mean, it means I won’t be on the front line. I worry about Xavier. You know”—he turned—“I feel guilty. They need doctors, but I can’t help feeling … but nothing is perfect, is it? It will be sad to say goodbye to you, dear Midhat.” He gripped Midhat’s shoulder, and shook it a little. “It has been wonderful. Oh, please don’t be like that. I’m supposed to be pleased.”
“My friend,” said Midhat, stricken.
“Yes.”
“Wait. Wait. I have a gift. Please wait, just here.”
Laurent closed his eyes on a half smile and nodded. Midhat climbed the stairs, keeping his eyes on Laurent’s blond head, watching as he shifted the pile of coats on the chaise longue and made a space to sit down. Around Laurent’s head Midhat drew a careful, stumbling circle, holding the banister. He grabbed the gold watch from his bedside and cradled it back down in two hands.
“Laurent. Please.”
“Oh no, Midhat. That’s too much.”
“You must. Please take it. I am ashamed of myself.” He sat on the coats. “Open it. It’s Turkish, but it does tell the time. Laurent. Oh, Laurent.”
Laurent ran a finger around the clock face. “It’s very beautiful.”
Midhat leaned back and looked at the ceiling, streaked yellow by the lamps. He closed his eyes, but the spinning dark was intolerable, and he opened them again.
“You know, there was a drunk in Nablus. They called him al-Musamam, the poisoned one. He lived on the outskirts. He was always wandering around in the daytime, begging, and collecting vegetable crates. And he stacked these crates where he lived on the outskirts. And one day I was with my friend, and we walked past al-Musamam. And my friend was bold, he was my cousin actually, and he asked al-Musamam why he collected the crates and stacked them. And the poisoned one replied: I am building a tower to reach the moon. But, said my cousin, if you reach the moon, you will go blind. It is better up there, where it is, and we can all see the town by its light.”
He heard the sounds of the party again, as though they had been switched back on.
“I am so grateful for your friendship,” said Laurent. “God willing I will return before long. I thank you, many times over. I am very moved.” He held his hair back as he looked down at the watch. “I think I should leave now. I don’t think I can bear the party anymore.”
Nor could Midhat bear it. He kissed Laurent on both cheeks. Laurent smiled and put on his coat, saluting as he stepped into the sharp night.
Midhat shut the front door and returned upstairs. He was drunk, he needed to go to bed. He hauled himself up by the balustrade. At the gallery, a noise caused him to halt, and he held on, straining through his murky ears to discover the direction it came from. He had no idea what he was going to say to Jeannette, but he knew that they must speak. A scraping sound, and the high murmur of a woman’s voice came from further down the hall. He passed the doors of the Molineu bedrooms, and saw, beyond the bathroom in the corner, two bodies standing against the wall: a man and a woman. His heart jumped into his mouth. The corridor did not admit much light from the window but the pair were clearly embracing—the man’s head moved and Midhat caught his oiled hair. Sylvain Leclair. He stepped left to see the woman, and the floorboard cracked. Both faces turned. It was the maid, Georgine. Her red mouth fell open.
“Oh. Pardon me,” he said.
He hurried back. The door of his bedroom slammed much harder than he meant it to, and the bed rose to meet him. He pulled at his tie, closing his eyes, and saw Sylvain talking to Jeannette, accompanied by a violent surge of feeling, as he had felt in the salon against Laurent but directed now, in a drunken, zigzagging fashion, at Sylvain; he listened, dazed, to the laughter and chatter dampened by the floorboards. He thought of Jeannette smiling at him, and his body softened. He undressed chaotically, lay on top of the covers, and was quickly asleep.
When with a powerful thirst he awoke, the room was silent. The sky between the open curtains was completely black. He reached for his watch. The table smacked his hand three times before he remembered what he had done.
6
When Ariane Passant was a child, she complained to her mother that she felt nauseated when she looked at certain men.
“Maman,” she said, “why does Uncle Charles make me feel sick?”
“That’s not a nice thing to say, Ariane.”
“I feel sick in my nose.”
“Do you mean you don’t like Uncle Charles?”
“No.” She considered. “I like Uncle Charles.”
Ariane first met Frédéric Molineu at a ball in the Seventh Arrondissement, and they danced a polka. Frédéric’s cravat was patterned with small black plumes like the clubs on playing cards, and as Ariane concentrated on her steps she watched that the size of the plumes did not change, to regulate the distance between their bodies.
Frédéric Molineu called on the Passant family soon afterwards. Monsieur and Madame greeted him with surprise and offered him a seat beside the fire. The cook had just sent up a fresh plate of salmon sandwiches. Ariane locked her fingers and stared at the flame. She was very pale and beautiful, and her eyes were a transparent blue. Monsieur Passant asked Frédéric about his profession, and Frédéric explained that he was a doctoral student at the École Normale. He made sure to allude to his father’s landholdings near Normandy, which he was due to inherit. He could feel the silence coming on and tried to forestall it: he complimented the furnishings of the room, this lovely mantelpiece, was it original to the house? He remarked that salmon was probably his favourite type of sandwich. Monsieur and Madame Passant’s responses were economical: polite, not encouraging, relapsing each time into silence. Frédéric could not understand their reservation. It was obvious that he was an excellent match for Ariane, who was already nearly twenty. Unless, of course, he was misreading something. He stole glances at their daughter, which she never returned. A large freckle underscored Ariane’s left eyebrow, and she had a delicate, tapering chin.
Frédéric persisted. Once a week, sometimes twice, he knocked on the door and was invited in for coffee or a glass of wine. Monsieur Passant began to imply, with meticulous indirection, that Ariane had other suitors; but over the months that followed Frédéric never met a single one or heard any of their names. The conversation did not flow with time, and each visit was as stilted as the first, so that Frédéric found he must restrain himself from commenting on the appearance of the room to avoid sounding mechanical. He watched Ariane for short bursts, resigned to the fact that she would never look back at him. She spoke only if asked a direct question, and then in a quiet, soapy voice would answer as briefly as grammatically possible.
Sometime in the third month Frédéric became aware that the Passants were serving him a salmon sandwich every time he visited. A sign, at last, which he might interpret. He waited a few more weeks to make absolutely certain; and yes, each week a salmon sandwich, flavoured with dill and salted butter. He summoned the courage, and one evening asked for a conversation alone with Monsieur Passant.
Passant led him into the dining room. A brass coat of arms hung on the far wall and the table was dressed for dinner. Frédéric barely needed to introduce his proposal with the various flourishes he had practised before Passant was giving his consent with his hands clasped. He led Frédéric back to join mother and daughter by the old fireplace, and Ariane fixed him with her transparent eyes. There was no need to tell her. She bowed her head.
The engagement lasted for two months, until the end of the semester. Ariane and Frédéric were married in the spring of 1891.
After the age of thirteen, Ariane would tell him later, her nasal nausea had almost disappeared. But on occasion she would still catch sight of certain men and feel the same revulsion. It was usually a man’s face, turned sideways, that set it off, becoming more vivid than other faces in the room. She would look again hungrily at the face, but the sensation always drained quickly, the imbalance neutralised. During her engagement to Frédéric, however, Ariane found herself once more as she had been as a girl. At night she thought of the muscles in Frédéric’s hands, his quick manner, his eyes, his full, masculine eyebrows. It was as though the change from courtship to engagement had utterly changed his face. Soon he was invading her dreams. She recalled them in the mornings and felt the old flutter in the chest, and the strange sickness in the nose, like being in a tanner’s shop and inhaling leather fumes.
This proved a problem only on their wedding night. Dusk was falling when they arrived at their new apartment; they climbed the stairs, hung their coats behind the door, and Frédéric led the way down the corridor to the bedroom. Before he had even turned on the lamp, Ariane moved past the bed and stood in the far corner. One section of her face was blue with moonlight, the rest in darkness. Neither of them spoke. Then, Frédéric took a step forward.
“Don’t be scared, Ariane.”
Ariane said nothing.
“I will sleep out there, if you prefer.”
Her blue lips made the shape of “no,” but no sound came out.
Minutes passed. Frédéric took the plunge, looked at the ground and began to undress. To make it less of a performance he tried to stand side-on, but when on a reflex he reached for the wardrobe to hang up his suit he accidentally exposed himself, and hesitated midgesture, extending his arm and retracting it again. A laugh caught in his chest. By the time he was under the covers he felt he had run a long distance. Ariane remained in the corner. He turned over and she began to weep. Gently, slowly, he heard the flicking sound of buttons, followed by the soft rasp of cotton, and then he saw the white cloud of her petticoat as she slipped into the bed. He felt her wet face on his shoulder. The weight of her head, her warm small body curled up like a creature’s. He caressed her hair until the jagged breath became calm, and then deep, and then fitful and heavy with sleep.
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