The Devil's Reward

by Emmanuelle De Villepin

  Coming back to my daughter, she breaks my heart. It’s like watching a kitten parachuted into a war zone. She lacks the necessary sense of humor and solid regard for herself, and for facing up to life that’s like going to war with no ammunition and no bulletproof vest.

  She threw me a quick glance and rested her head on my shoulder sobbing. Luna was chewing slowly, watching her and feeling uncomfortable about how much pleasure she was having while her mother was suffering.

  “Does it really hurt that much, my dear?”

  “Oh Mother, you can’t imagine how it burns into me. You have no idea. Papa always adored you.”

  “But Lorenzo too would never want to lose you.”

  “Well, then why have we had all these conflicts?”

  “Don’t you think you’re exaggerating a bit? Your ‘conflicts’ never really threatened you.”

  “Oh really? How do you know?”

  “You always ended up making peace.”

  “Not this time.”

  “Why? What’s so different this time?”

  “I hate myself.”

  “But you’ve done nothing wrong, my darling.”

  “If only she’d done something wrong!” interjected Luna. I love that child!

  “Your daughter is right. Your problem is that you overvalue the marriage pact. You give it supreme authority. You don’t take nature into account. Desire has a way of not always harmonizing with constancy and good habits. Desire is the son of the goddess Penia, who wanders about famished. Do you remember your Plato? Desire needs a lack, love is something else again. Love is just the opposite.”

  “But Mother, what are you talking about? Love and desire are inseparable!”

  “Desire can very well run on its own steam, I guarantee you. Have you never desired another man?”

  “No.”

  “Mom, be honest,” said Luna, wide-eyed.

  “Well, not too much.”

  “Tell us if you ever wanted to be with another man. Just like that, out of pure curiosity.”

  “Wanted, wanted…no. At any rate, not enough to cheat.”

  “So you’ve never cheated on Lorenzo? Not even in your thoughts?”

  “No.”

  “Well, my dear, this is terrible news you’re sharing with me.”

  “But Mom!”

  “But Grandma!”

  “Discovering at my age that my only daughter is a victim — I assure you this is a terrible shock!” I always have to lay it on thick to get others to look beyond the ugliness of old age. I choose to be resolutely nonconformist and scandalous. I hate those qualities in young people, but I find them charming among us oldsters, and I would sell my soul to be viewed sympathetically by these two women.

  “But Mom, sex is not the only thing in life! You really amaze me. I lived for my family, my home, our trips, our relations — for all the things that make decent people tranquil and happy, is that so awful?”

  “Okay, but amid all that order and perfection, you were missing something fundamental.”

  “Oh really, what?”

  “The devil’s reward. All this goodness and wellness and appropriateness is as dangerous as their opposites. Believe me, my girl, I’ve had plenty of time to measure what one owes to the sacred and what must not under any circumstances be denied to the profane.”

  Chapter Three

  We were coming back from a long outing at the Jardin des Plantes. Luna had developed a singular affection for a pair of red pandas. We walked slowly as I like to do, observing everything with our full attention. What I like about my granddaughter is that she’s always looking for a new angle. She likes looking at things from on high, from below, and from all sides, front and back. She also stopped several times to look up at the sky. It’s very pretty to observe her long neck tilt back and see her cascade of blond curly hair fall lower down her back. Poor Catherine would not stop sighing. I’ve always had the habit of simplifying and seeking out the humorous side of things, but it does not protect me much from all that’s sad.

  During the walk Luna spoke more about her thesis on Steiner and said again how astonished she was to learn that my father had known him.

  “Hmm, you mean I’ve never spoken to you about my father?”

  “No. Is he the man on the horse next to your bed?”

  “Yes, he was an excellent rider. He attended Saint-Cyr.”

  “What was his name again?”

  “Louis, but my brother and I called him Papyrus.”

  “You loved him, didn’t you?”

  “I adored him, but it was a real disaster.”

  “Really? Why?”

  “Oh, it’s a long story.”

  “And your mother?”

  “A perfect woman.”

  “Terrible you mean?”

  “Inoffensive but unbearable all the same.”

  “You didn’t love her?”

  “Of course I did! We didn’t get along, but that’s another matter.”

  “And what did you know about Papyrus and Steiner? And no making stuff up, I need solid material!”

  “But I don’t need to invent anything! It bothers me when you and your mother accuse me of that. A story, even about historical events, remains a story, you know. Would you ask a master chef to cook without salt?”

  “Oh là là, you certainly have a high opinion of your storytelling skills.”

  “True, but also for what I lived through. So I’m going to tell you things as I lived them and not as though it were the evening news, got it?”

  She laughed and I did too.

  We had hardly stepped in the door when Madame Joseph rushed up, her cheeks on fire, visibly thrilled at being dragged into the family drama. She told us that Lorenzo had called several times and insisted each time on how important it was for Catherine to contact him. My daughter made no reply and went to her room. I contemplated consoling her, but she said she preferred to be alone. I had to pass by my husband’s office to get to the kitchen to prepare tea. Luna was reading. It was so sweet to have the two women in my life all to myself, a pot of Lapsang souchong steeping, and to recollect our magnificent walk in the Jardin des Plantes, but Catherine’s suffering prevented the light from shining forth completely. That was life — constantly moving among obstacles to reach its fruits.

  In a closet there was a large military trunk in which I saved everything to do with my father. I was the only survivor of my family.

  I had not opened that big green metal trunk in ages, and now suddenly I was experiencing weird feelings about this ancient storage box of mine. I was accustomed to its presence but I remembered nothing about what was inside it. It had two rusty latches and an open padlock hung from the left one. I removed it, and with the uneasy feeling that I was opening a casket, I grabbed the two upper pieces of each latch and tried to lift the lid. It didn’t budge. I tried several times with all of my senior citizen strength, but it was no use, the trunk refused to open.

  Catherine appeared in the doorway.

  “Mother, what are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to open Papyrus’s trunk.”

  She had a go at it, first alone and then with my help. Finally the lid came up and a cloud of dust made us cough. Peering into my father’s trunk hardly revealed a pot of gold. With my thumb and index finger I picked up the gray rag that I supposed was what remained of his hussar’s military coat. I avoided shaking it and placed it delicately on some boxes stacked nearby. The things it had been covering were in better condition: books, notepads, various objects, pipes, a small silver ball for storing opium, and a framed saint’s medal pierced by a bullet mounted on a plum-colored piece of velvet.

  “What’s that?” asked Catherine.

  “A miracle. My mother ceremoniously gave him a necklace with this medallion of the Virgin to wear as he set o
ff to war, and can you believe it, that atheist had his life saved by that present. See for yourself.”

  Catherine dusted off the frame and stared at it.

  “Wow, incredible,” she said without lifting her eyes.

  Her hands were covered with freckles and her nails, curved and healthy, struck me tenderly all of a sudden. As a young girl, Catherine already had the hands of an adult. I remember her clutching her baby bottle with the fingers of a miniature woman. In fact she always gave me the impression of having a spirit that was older than her years. At a time when the world ought to have hit her with its banal materiality, when all children have their eyes lit up by every little conquest, Catherine behaved like a grand bourgeoise who was above such things.

  “You said it! To think that my mother’s faith ended up saving his life.”

  Chapter Four

  It was a very long time ago, so far back that my memory and my imagination have gotten mixed up in the story I’m about to tell. This story has a historic basis for me alone, and the only thing that matters to me is to relate what I experienced — there’s nothing objective about it. In fact, even in History with a capital H there’s nothing impartial. All that counts really are the traces that events have imprinted on our lives and those can only be communicated in one’s own particular way. I’m the only one who can tell you what happened to me, and I will tell it to you without hypocrisy or trickery. I’m not a liar, I’m a storyteller, and since I’m talking about my life, I would like to be trusted.

  I must have been five or six, maybe seven or even eight, it doesn’t matter. I was a child, of that I’m certain because I still had intact the capacity to fully give myself up body and soul to the joys of life with the illusion that everything life offered needed to be seized gluttonously. It was Easter Sunday. On the order of my father, my brother, my mother, and I were looking out the tall windows of the living room to see signs of winter retreating slowly like a wolf. Between patches of old snow that still covered the lawn a few crocuses were beginning to come up. At the far end of the yard one could clearly see the orderly row of plane trees that bordered the allée leading to the main gate. The leafless rosebushes still looked like naked porcupines and the large potted hydrangea plants on either side of the entryway also looked rather sad. The stone bust of the pretty woman was covered with leaves, as though to protect her from hoarfrost. She looked rather fragile and miserably immobile in this setting of interminable waiting and expectations. Buds on the willow branches, a hint of new green in the brownish snow-damaged lawn, and a female blackbird frantically building her nest were lighter promises of better days to come. I always felt inside the cheerfulness of spring resonating like a harbinger telling of future surprises.

  The car of Uncle Geoffroy and Aunt Bette glided between the plane trees, followed next by the car of Cousin Vincent and his wife Elodie. Aunt Bette was the widow of my mother’s brother, Uncle Enguerrand, who had died in the First World War. She later married the brother of Papyrus. Our mother didn’t care much for this double sister-in-law, whom she considered aloof, but Bette paid no mind and got along fine with the men in the family.

  The joyful party entered the living room chatting gaily and I detected a whiff of excitement around my mother, even though she greeted each one in the group with the doleful reserve that was her way.

  My brother Gabriel, two years older than me, had climbed atop a Louis XV trumeau, and though our mother insisted he get down immediately, he wiggled up there and made faces that caused me to burst out laughing.

  “You little imp, come down from there this instant! You’re going to break your neck!” insisted our mother at the very moment Papyrus, looking disheveled, entered the room.

  He gave an amused glance in the direction of my brother, which singularly annoyed my mother.

  “Oh, Louis, say something! He’s going to fall and hurt himself!”

  “Fly into my arms, my angel Gabriel, I will catch you in flight.”

  My fearless brother did not need to be asked twice before launching himself toward my father, who broke his fall as they both fell to the floor with laughter that spread to everyone in the group except to my aggrieved mother. Our hilarity isolated her and further confirmed her role as the killjoy of the family. Papyrus and Gabriel rolled on the floor indifferent to her pinched stares. She then started for the door.

  “Marguerite, where are you going?” asked my father out of breath.

  “I’m leaving you to your fun.”

  “Oh come on, don’t take it like that! Go to the window, all of you, and wait for me. The Easter bells seem to be on their way.”

  “On their way where? Where, Papyrus?” yammered my brother.

  “On their way here. Go to the window. I’m going to get something and I’ll be back. Wait for me and don’t budge.”

  Aunt Bette and Uncle Geoffroy exchanged looks that I didn’t know how to interpret but that I remember to this day. We did exactly what Papyrus told us to do. I was standing between Aunt Bette and my brother when the bells started ringing — at first far off and gradually closer until they became deafening. Magnificent bells of every color rose and fell before our wondering eyes. We’d paid no attention to Papyrus’s absence as he now returned on tiptoe and witnessed our continued amazement at this whole production without either my brother or me realizing that he had engineered the whole thing. We were all worked up and continued to gaze at the horizon in the hope that some slowpoke bells were yet to arrive.

  The family then filed off to the castle chapel, where the parish priest officiated at a mass for the whole village. On the way, my mother held a handkerchief over her face to prevent any grains of dust from fouling her mouth, which was about to receive the body of Christ. Since we were still laughing, she complained and ordered us to close our mouths with the aim of a similar Christian hygiene. But her scolding orders which sought to gag us only redoubled our laughter. Poor Mother — if only all her obsessions had helped her to be less unhappy. Aunt Bette held us by the hand smiling. The three men followed a few steps behind, speaking of things that did not interest me.

  Gabriel and I were only invited to the grown-ups’ dinner table at major holidays. We were always happy on those occasions but would end up being horribly bored. We came to the table in our squeaky-clean Sunday clothes and were invariably welcomed by the angry stares of our mother, who could not bear a badly tied ribbon or an errant lock of hair. Once seated, we were forbidden to speak unless spoken to. The worst was that these meals went on forever. In fact they constituted my first experience of desire and the concomitant disappointment at its not being fulfilled. Gabriel would later call this form of emptiness after exaltation the post coitum sadness — but at the time we were too young to use such language.

  If I’m talking about this memorable Easter Sunday meal, it’s because it was then that I first heard the name Rudolf Steiner and because it would seem that some family secret was inseparably linked to it.

  “So Bette, how did you find the new Goetheanum?”

  “Much less handsome than the former. The first was nicely round and welcoming, whereas the second appears to be on the defensive. It’s as though after the fire Rudolf wanted to ensure the safety of anthroposophy. It looks like an enormous concrete beetle, and yet there’s a spiritual atmosphere that’s reassuring if one’s mind doesn’t wander too much.”

  “Did you see any interesting dance or theater?”

  “Of course, I saw the entire four-play cycle, and Marie Steiner von Sivers informed me that she was working on staging a complete Faust.”

  “And are they still performing demonstrations of eurythmy?”

  “Nothing’s changed. Well, I suppose things have evolved a little bit, but always in the spirit of Steiner.”

  This exchange took place between Aunt Bette and my father. My mother looked exasperated but Cousin Vincent and Uncle Geoffroy were listening attent
ively. Aunt Elodie was eating with gusto and paying no mind to the conversation around her. She raised her chin now and then and smiled nicely in a way that made adorable dimples appear on her pink cheeks.

  What distinguished Bette from other women of her day was not simply her modern and sensual beauty. She was intelligent and knew all sorts of things that country squires in our neighborhood knew nothing about. She had grown up in a rich family in Basel and had met my mother’s brother at a ball in Paris. It was love at first sight. My mother’s family was not enthused, however, because Bette had absolutely no social rank. She was Swiss and her international manners probably frightened the local hicks in our area. She became a widow at a young age and then remarried Uncle Geoffroy, but she maintained total independence, traipsing wherever she liked. My mother, who loved but never understood her brother, also never accepted his widow’s unbridled ways. So much freedom unnerved and upset her. It should be added that Aunt Bette knew how to pour it on, and all the men in the family were spellbound. My mother had no notions about anything that had been said. She remarked only one thing: Bette traveled alone and that ought to have been considered scandalous instead of admired.

  The discussion of the Goetheanum continued. This was the center for anthroposophy built by Steiner and ostentatiously named to honor Goethe, whose writings Steiner took as the main inspiration for his own thinking. Aunt Bette often spoke of Rudolf Steiner, Marie von Sivers, and eurythmy — and these new words had a sort of comic ring to our ears. Gabriel made a face every time one of our table guests uttered the words Steiner, Goetheanum, or eurythmy, and the grown-ups’ obliviousness of us made him bolder each time. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing. My mother noticed our antics and shot us a quick admonishing stare. She detested this topic of conversation and felt excluded, so she played her parental role but without conviction. After swallowing the last morsel of dessert, we were allowed to leave the table and did so quickly and noisily.