The grandfather thanked him, repressing the urge to insult him. Just as he was about to open the door, he saw him perform a silly little hop, belying his condition. He then put his hands on his back, grimaced and smiled sheepishly.
“Take care of that sciatica,” the grandfather advised, scowling at him, “and thanks for the invitation.”
Their cowardice is sickening, and their friendship is pathetic. God be praised for letting him probe their souls and see into their true feelings. For he had believed in them. Not without pain did he recall the long walks he had taken with Jacob, their babble after the invalid would fall asleep, the meals shared casually. When his only daughter died, Jacob grew so desperate that the grandfather didn’t dare leave him alone. They had followed the hearse arm in arm, and when the grave had been closed, Jacob sobbed on his shoulder. Of course, sometimes two men go around together without any real feelings for each other. But he, Claude Normil, had never been able to treat someone he despised as a friend. He was disappointed, for there is nothing worse than misplacing one’s trust in another at an age when experience should have armed you against misapprehensions and illusions. How naïve he had been to believe for a single minute that a Syrian could feel sincere and disinterested friendship for a black man! He knew now that as long as a human being could still open his eyes, even at the bottom of a ditch, he would still have a lot to learn from life. “Pusillanimous and pathetic!” he added, and made for the bedroom where the child was waiting for him.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Rose went with her father to the lawyer’s on the appointed day.
There were a dozen people in a room that was furnished with only a few dusty chairs. Standing with her arms crossed, an outrageously made-up woman in a black tight-fitting dress gazed in agony at the young man in livery who stood watch over the door. A toothless, trembling old man approached and beseeched him in a respectful whisper. The guard froze the old man in place with his look. He trembled even more and emitted a sort of submissive falsetto chuckle as if he agreed with the guard. The other clients were farther off, likewise standing and casting furtive glances at the empty chairs. When they saw Rose and her father sit down, they exchanged winks of admiration that turned to mockery when the guard opened the door and had the woman in black go before them. There was a grumble of protest. So the woman turned around and said: “I’ve been here for two days and haven’t even sat down, isn’t that right, sir?” The guard looked at Rose and for a brief moment an elusive smile loosened the fixed expression on his face.
The woman in black remained inside over an hour. The trembling old man had looked at his watch with a desperate grimace and left the room. Sitting beside his daughter, Louis Normil was getting impatient and anxious. What new lie was he going to have to come up with to explain his absence at the office? On account of the harsh reprimands he received, he was losing the prestige he enjoyed among the other employees. They probably knew all about his predicament and went out of their way to let him know they knew.
“Well then, my little sheep, getting sheared are you?” one of his colleagues had recently asked.
Overexcited from all these thoughts, he stood up and went toward the guard.
“I would like to remind you, sir,” he said, “that this is my third appointment. I’ve been waiting for two hours. Can I expect to be admitted?”
The guard leaned toward him without looking at him, his eyes on Rose, who was yawning and wriggling in her chair. At about eleven, a peephole high up on the wall opened up and eyes appeared behind it, noticed by no one save Louis Normil. The guard tilted his head to listen to someone talking to him from the other side of the door and immediately said:
“Monsieur Louis Normil.”
Rose got up, gestured at her father, and, shrugging her shoulders, went through the door that the guard held wide open. For a brief instant she waited for her father, who hesitated as if he had suddenly thought to run away. He was awkwardly trying to free himself from the other clients standing close enough to smother him. A myopic woman came so close to him to see who he was that her glasses touched his chin.
“Let the gentleman pass,” the guard said.
Rose held out her hand to her father and the door immediately closed behind them.
A stocky man, his eyes hidden by enormous black glasses, poked up his head over a pile of papers. Next door, one could hear voices whispering and the clicking of typewriters. A screen behind the lawyer’s table imperfectly concealed a leather couch and a coffee table with cold leftovers on top of it.
“Come in,” the lawyer said.
And he pointed to two armchairs a good distance from him, in which Rose and her father sat down. Louis Normil held out his hand to the lawyer, who did not seem to have noticed. He had the unpleasant and aggressive look of a starving bulldog. He tilted back in his chair, lifting a leg and resting it over one of the supports.
“How may I help you, sir?” he said in a slow, slightly nasal voice.
Ill at ease, Louis Normil decided on an almost familiar, friendly tone, and reminded the lawyer they had been schoolmates.
“I guess one could say we’ve been childhood friends,” he concluded.
The lawyer seemed to search his memory in vain for a convincing truce of this, and his large flabby lips became creased in distaste.
“Right… right… school, you say. Well, maybe. But I can’t seem to recall, though really I wish I could, ever being invited to your house. Childhood friends, that’s saying quite a lot. Our lives have been so different.”
“Different!” Louis Normil exclaimed, flabbergasted by the turn the conversation was taking.
“You were raised in the well-to-do neighborhood of Turgeau, and I behind the cemetery, right? Is there no difference?” he suddenly yelled.
Then, softening his tone:
“For a time, rich blacks played the same role in this country as rich mulattoes did,” he continued. “Your father was as contemptuous and full of social prejudice as your Turgeau neighbors. I only have to look at you to know that what I am saying is true. And now, actually, I think I do remember: I was a good student and you failed pathetically at your baccalaureate exams: yet you ate to your heart’s content while I did not. I envied you and you knew nothing about it, but, well, maybe that’s the secret of my success. You too would have worked really hard if you were envious of someone.”
“I don’t see…” Louis Normil mumbled, disconcerted.
“But that’s not the point of your visit,” the lawyer cut in. “How can I help you?”
Until then he had paid no attention to Rose. She looked at her father who, having lost face, mumbled as he outlined his situation. The lawyer listened without batting an eye, and when he finished speaking, became quiet and said:
“Do you know what you are asking me to do?” he replied in a low voice so altered that Rose shivered. “This affair demands time and considerable expense and the least stumble could cost me my head. First, I’ll have to resort to approaching… certain highly placed”-he hesitated to say the word-“figures who will judge whether you do or do not deserve to have your property restored to you. Next, I’ll have to act with extreme caution so as not to upset those who have decided to seize your land.”
“But the land belongs to us!” Rose cried out. “My father was hoping to sell it so that my brother and I could go abroad.”
He slowly turned his head toward her, and she had the unpleasant impression that he was undressing her behind his glasses.
“You wanted to leave, you say? Aren’t you happy here, Mademoiselle?”
“Yes… of course… but we would have preferred to finish our studies elsewhere.”
“What do you have against our universities?”
“Well… nothing.”
Suddenly he turned away from her and began impatiently riffling through the pile of papers in front of him, then grabbed an ashtray and rapped twice on his desk.
A third invisible door to the right opened and
a typist walked in carrying a notepad on which she had already started scribbling a few lines.
“Mademoiselle, please type this up,” the lawyer said to her. “On this day, February eighth, 19-, according to the petition of Monsieur Louis Normil, residing in this town, it has transpired that he has been unjustly dispossessed of his land…”
“Forgive me, but I don’t believe I used the word unjust,” Louis Normil added with a distressingly flattering smile.
“Strike that word, Mademoiselle,” the lawyer ordered, imperturbably calm, “it has transpired that Monsieur Louis Normil has been dispossessed of his land… and an investigation is under way to determine whether these invaders…”
“I never uttered that word either, counselor…”
“Strike that, Mademoiselle… whether parties established on said land hold legal documents in accordance with statute.”
The secretary flashed a crooked smile, then suppressed a chuckle.
At that moment there was a loud knock on the door and before the lawyer was able to answer it, a small skinny man wearing a black uniform came in, his bony and disproportionately long hands dangling at the end of his arms like the paws of a gorilla. The lawyer leaped out of his armchair and rushed toward the little man, bowing very low.
“How are you?” he asked, his fat lips open in an affable and welcoming smile.
With his two hands the little man lifted the weapons hanging on his belt and sat one buttock on the edge of the desk.
“Sit in the armchair,” the lawyer gushed, “you’ll be more comfortable there.”
“That’s all right, that’s all right,” the little man answered, then crossed his booted legs and turned his head toward Rose, staring at her quietly.
“It just so happens, my dear friend,” the lawyer continued in his slow nasal voice, but this time in a congenial tone. “It so happens I was just thinking about you…”
Putting a light hand on his shoulder, the lawyer discreetly motioned to follow him behind the screen. They whispered for a moment, and when they reappeared Rose found the short man shamelessly ogling her again.
“Yes,” he said in response to a question the lawyer had probably asked him during their tête-à-tête. “Yes, that might work. Tell him so and present the conditions quite plainly. She’s not bad. As you know, I’m hard to please and I’ve been disappointed before. I don’t want to come out on the short end of this.”
At that, he burst into loud hysterical laughter that shook his whole body. He left the room still laughing and as he passed by Rose he brazenly brushed her knee with his hairy hand.
“Let’s go, Papa,” she said, feeling as though there were suddenly less air in the room.
“Now, now,” the lawyer intoned with his nose, “I see the little miss is in a hurry to leave us.”
“So then, counselor,” Louis Normil added in an attempt to break the grotesque and sensual atmosphere.
“Five hundred dollars up front,” the lawyer cut in. “And I am so sure that we’ll get our due process that I won’t ask you for more until the end of the trial. Send the money with this nice young woman by next week.”
“It will be my pleasure to bring it myself.”
“My dear, I have a soft spot for pretty people, and I really don’t like to be contradicted. I will only take the money from your daughter.”
“Fine, sir, goodbye, counselor. Come, Rose, let’s go.”
She wobbled on her legs and clutched her father’s arm.
“Must be the heat,” the lawyer said idly.
And he purred for a little while as if inwardly savoring a voluptuous idea.
This time, he said goodbye first and opened the door for them himself. He rubbed his hands as he watched them leave, though his lips were twisted in a hateful rictus.
In the hallway Rose breathed easier, even though it wasn’t ventilated any better. Her father grabbed her arm and whispered:
“Don’t you say a word, wait until we’re outside.”
They both staggered as they reached the street under the mocking eyes of the guard.
“My God!” Rose groaned. “My God!”
“Yes,” was all her father said in response.
They went home together because it was about one and time for lunch. They found the family sitting at the table, eating in silence. As soon as they came in, they were greeted by anxious eyes. They sat down and Rose casually heaped her plate with food.
“I’m starving,” she said, looking her brother straight in the eye.
Before putting any food in her mouth she suddenly burst into tears. Getting up from the table, she covered her face with her napkin and ran upstairs.
“What’s the matter with her?” the invalid asked.
“Nothing,” the father answered, “a little tired. We had to wait a long time at the lawyer’s.”
“And so what happened?” the grandfather asked.
“It worked out. The lawyer thinks there’s a good chance we’ll recover our property.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The father knew how to find the five hundred dollars. He hadn’t given his word lightly. For the last six years, he had been seeing a very rich young woman who had often proven her devotion to him. He would go and tell her everything. She lived just outside of town. Maybe she didn’t know about any of this. He would pay her back as soon as he had taken care of things. So firm was his intention that he decided he would refuse to accept the sum without an IOU. He would drop by that very afternoon, after the office closed, and then return late at night in the car she drove like a madwoman on the deserted roads that led to her house. Was it because he had seen his wife day in and day out for the last twenty years that he was unable to desire her? He knew very well he had little cause to be unhappy with her save for that lack of spontaneity that made her ever the same, always a bit taciturn and plump, idle and wistful. Her nonchalance surfaced even in their physical relations, and he sometimes had the awkward feeling she submitted to them only out of duty. Was he sure of this? Had he tried to understand her? Did the coldness she affected conceal a mute reproach, some deep-seated and unexpressed grievance? Sometimes he wondered, was he blameless? He had been too flattered by the interest he aroused in this thirty-year-old heiress to linger on such questions. And to absolve himself he came to believe that all she wanted was to live in peace and that he spared her as much as possible. Levelheaded, modest, he had never boasted of this affair. Did his mistress love him? On that subject, too, he avoided self-examination. It was enough for him to hold her in his arms and hear her ramble on about love for him to feel fully a man, fully happy. He had once condemned adultery and was now astonished to find himself basking in it without remorse. The rare moments of happiness can be found only in love, he noted, and discovered that in the arms of his mistress his passion was still intact, that in the warmth of a new sensation he could forget the small humiliations he bore at the customs office where he worked as a simple inspector. In life, mediocrity usually destroys a man’s ideals and ambitions; you cease to believe in yourself, he had said to himself one day, so you might as well forget yourself in a woman’s arms. For her, I am a kind of god able to please her sexually, and that makes me feel alive…
The mother had gotten up. He calmly looked at this body of hers, still desirable, reassuring himself that she thought herself old. She stood by the window watching the stakes, nervously smoking a cigarette. Though she had her back to him, he had the impression that she was following each of his movements with sustained attention. Her thoughts were palpable to him and he thought, She’s angry at me, no doubt about it. And he understood that should she break this silence with a single word, he would no longer be able to lie to himself. At that precise moment, she turned around:
“Never again,” she said. “Never again will Rose go with you to that lawyer, you hear me, never again.”
There was such force in the measured tone of these words that he looked at her stunned.
He saw a grimace of di
sgust on her lips and he felt ashamed. The other woman is the one lying to me, he told himself, disconcerted. I may be a good lover, but I am not a man.
“That’s what I was telling myself,” he answered. “These lawyers’ offices have become veritable brothels.”
“You didn’t know that?” Paul shouted at him.
“No,” he replied, “I didn’t know that.”
The invalid began to fidget in his chair and would have fallen out if his mother hadn’t rushed to him in time.
“Calm down, come, come,” she urged. “Come, I’ll put you to bed.”
“I don’t want to go upstairs,” he protested. “Rose is crying and I don’t like to hear people crying.”
“Let him be,” the grandfather then said.
“He really hears too much for his age,” the father murmured.
“Grandfather says that heroes are predestined and that those who are predestined are beings set apart,” he pronounced in a superior little tone.
“Give us a fucking break with your heroes,” Paul retorted, looking him up and down.
“Oh, if you only knew, if you only knew… But I won’t tell you.”
“Come with me,” the grandfather said.
And getting up, he took him in his arms and carried him to the porch, from which one could hear them whispering.
The mother went to Rose’s room. She was lying on her bed and calmly reading a book, which she closed.
“I don’t know what came over me,” she said. “I have no idea”-she laughed in mild amusement-“probably just nerves…”
“You don’t need anything?”
“No, thank you.”
“And there’s nothing you want to tell me?”
“No, why?”
“I thought maybe you’d had a shock at the lawyer’s office, that you’d seen or heard things you might have found unpleasant.”
“No. He just insisted that I bring him the five hundred dollars he wanted from Papa.”
Love, Anger, Madness Page 22