They walked around the buffet. Harry wasn’t there. She dragged her guest towards the balcony. (‘It’s stifling hot inside, don’t you agree?’) And there, in the fading light, she saw Harry and Laurence Delarcher, all alone. Everything was silent for a moment.
In an attempt to appear pleasant, she contorted her face into a fixed, sickly smile that made her look like an old street hawker approaching a potential client. Her lined, shrivelled mouth tried in vain to form a Cupid’s bow, and her expressive, dark eyes scanned the face and body of the young woman with prodigious speed, ‘as though she were trying to judge what I was worth,’ thought Laurence.
She wasn’t wrong. But his mother wasn’t trying to estimate the pennies or francs, just the possibility of happiness, and her heart was breaking with jealousy, concern, aversion and tenderness.
A few moments later, someone came to collect Laurence. Almost everyone had gone by now. You could see the succession of great, airy reception rooms and a fading greenish light that seeped through their open windows; the very last guests wandered past the furniture covered in pale, silver-white satin, looking for their hostess, to say goodbye.
Harry smiled and took his mother’s arm: ‘Go on, Mama.’
‘Harry,’ she resisted. ‘Harry,’ she repeated very quietly, looking at him with the same hopeless, passionate expression she always had when he was ill and she was nursing him, and which was the same whether he had a migraine or pneumonia. ‘Harry, my dear, a quick word!’
‘Later, Mama, in a minute; we’re not alone.’
‘Did you ask?’ she said, in French, forgetting, as always when she was upset, that in Paris everyone understood the language and that it would have been better to speak a different one if she didn’t want people to know what she was saying.
‘Yes,’ he said.
She crumpled her fine pink handkerchief and pressed it nervously to her lips and nose. She had been extremely well brought up and knew that one mustn’t express sadness and disappointment by shouting or swearing, but she was, in spite of everything, from a lower social class than her sisters-in-law, wealthy for only two generations while the Sinners had been wealthy for three. She still had not learned how to display her pain as they could, with trembling lips and a disdainful toss of the head. Her eldest sister-in-law had earned great respect in the family by taking the shock of hearing that her beloved brother had died with a single gesture: she had bowed her head as if in prayer, then raised her eyes to heaven, thus expressing, without uttering a single word, her acceptance of the will of Divine Providence, her sincere distress and her perfect upbringing. Madame Sinner had not attained such heights of refinement: she still found it necessary to wring her bejewelled hands, blink her eyes, groan, sigh, in a word, display in the most spectacular manner the feelings that were oppressing her, feelings that were deep and uncomplicated. She cherished her son. She was afraid for her son.
Harry, meanwhile, looked at her with pity and tender impatience.
‘I knew that something bad would happen . . .’ she murmured. ‘I dreamed of turbid rivers all night long.’
‘So you think that my marrying Laurence Delarcher will be a bad thing, Mama?’
Harry knew how to remain impassive, his mouth tightly closed and eyes lowered, but she could see, she could sense, how his sensitive, nervous, delicate body was trembling. Whenever he was scolded as a child (and with such kindness!), she had never heard him complain, but he would tremble afterwards for a long while.
‘You’re so young, my darling,’ she said.
‘Well, then, Mama, you’ll undoubtedly be pleased to learn that Laurence has turned me down.’
‘She turned you down – you? But why?’
He didn’t reply. He started to walk away, but she stood in front of him, blocked his path.
‘Why did she say no?’
‘Her parents would not approve of the marriage,’ he explained curtly.
She raised her arms to heaven. Yes, she saw in horror how she must have looked, wringing her hands and raising her arms to heaven. She was beside herself. Her son, her Harry, humiliated, rejected! Her son, unhappy! Each of the sorrows that she felt on his behalf, the pain of seeing him suffer, the fear of losing him – none of these struck a healthy body for the first time; each was a blow to an old wound that had been opened a thousand times, one that endlessly wept and bled.
‘We’re richer than they are!’ she cried with pride.
‘Mama,’ begged Harry.
‘Do you love her, my darling?’ she asked, composing herself. ‘Do you love her?’
At that moment, she would have gone to the ends of the earth, beseeched the most powerful people in the world (but whom could she implore? And wasn’t she, she herself, amongst the most powerful? That idea caused her to feel strangely anxious); she would have allowed herself to be dragged on her knees over sharp stones to secure the very thing she had so dreaded just a few moments before: that young woman marrying her son.
‘She’ll say yes,’ said Harry softly, more to himself than to his worried, trembling mother. ‘I’ll ask her over and over again,’ he thought, ‘and I’ll wear her down. I’ll make myself humble, insistent, imploring.’
Invincible hope had risen from within him, hope born of defeat, aroused and nourished by that very defeat.
His mother was still talking; he didn’t reply, but gently left her side and went to join one of the guests who was saying goodbye to his aunts. A little while later, the last car left. Harry went up to his room. The first drops of rain from the storm suddenly began falling over Paris.
16
The established Delarcher French Bank was on good terms with the international bank owned by the Sinners, but to go from there to thinking that a marriage between Laurence and the young Sinner might be desirable, even possible – no! These foreigners who came from goodness knows where were so arrogant: you offered them hospitality and they marched into your house like conquerors, thought Laurence’s father. He pretended not to notice his daughter’s red eyes. He was outraged and annoyed. In love? Nonsense! At eighteen! He could still picture her in a little dress and short socks running into the dining room, in the countryside, on summer mornings (she wore a little pinafore with flowers on it) . . . And now, love, marriage. Of course he would see her married. But later on . . . He glanced at her furtively with anger and dismay. He loved her the way a busy father does: he was brusque, masculine, undemonstrative, unemotional, and expressed any affection in an impatient voice and hurried gestures. Whenever one of his four children came to ask him for something, Delarcher would snap at them in sullen, preoccupied tones: ‘Fine! So? What of it?’ And with a quick wave of the hand, he seemed immediately to sweep away, brush aside, all their arguments and logic. Then he would continue, more loudly: ‘Well, I’m telling you . . .’ or ‘This is what you’re going to do.’ The three eldest children were of an age when you start to become worn down by life: the two girls were married; the boy was twenty-five; they had become more docile, more malleable than when they were very young, but what could be done with an eighteen-year-old? The age when you attack obstacles with the foolish stubbornness of a buzzing bee banging against a closed window? Was it possible that Laurence might really be in love? The very thought of her and that little Sinner loving each other made the blood rush to his enormous head and right through his grey hair. He waved his knife and fork about in rage. Laurence would tell him nothing . . . She was shy with him, secretive, and he preferred it that way. For a young girl to talk of love was . . . dangerous, pointless, in any case. He was a French father, with a great sense of propriety. A marriage arranged by him, with all the details of the contract and the dowry discussed by the family, made marriage itself less offensive. It embellished or even hid anything that had to do with the physical side of a union. But love! A young girl in love, well, really!
And yet, he was moved. He had often felt this complicated mixture of irritation and uneasiness where his children were concerned. When
they were ill, or when he had to punish them, he felt a mixture of pity, anger and almost a vague disgust. He had a sharp, quick mind and he greatly valued that quality in himself, but it was to all intents and purposes worthless when it came to his relationships with women and children: those irrational creatures he couldn’t prevent himself from thinking of as inferior. They lived in a shadowy world that he approached with the greatest mistrust, the greatest fear. Approached? No! He preferred to avoid it, to look away, to remain silent, as he did now. No one knew how to hide his most secret thoughts better than this passionate, eloquent man if he believed it the wisest thing to do . . . And besides, life ends up teaching us that it is impossible to help other people, in spite of good will, in spite of love . . . No, we can do nothing for others, not when they suffer, not when they are ill, not when they are dying. He had felt this most powerfully for the first time when his wife had suffered for forty-eight hours when bringing Laurence into the world. From that day onwards, he had worked out a specific philosophy that applied to anything that affected his family, a way of thinking comprised of authority and flexibility in equal parts. It was necessary to shape children’s lives, lead them by force, if necessary, on to the path you believed was best for them, but you could not suffer for them; you had to allow them to solve their problems by themselves. Firmly hold the hand of the child at the edge of the river when he wants to jump in to pick some beautiful flower. Respect the child’s sadness at not being able to have what he wants. Be authoritarian and even tyrannical where actions are concerned, but avoid the desire to look deep into the souls of those in your care.
No, such a marriage was not desirable. Not that Laurence’s father was a believer . . . Besides, it was not simply a question of his being Jewish; he was a foreigner. One does not marry, one does not allow a foreigner into the family. No, that was surely too quick and haughty a judgment. The truth was that, in his mind, there was a distinction between various categories of foreigners. An Anglo-Saxon or someone from the Mediterranean was still acceptable . . . One of his sisters had married a Spaniard. It was impossible to comment on the union for the poor woman had died in childbirth. Yet he couldn’t help but think that a Frenchman would have known how to give his wife children without exposing her to death. But he had remained on good terms with his brother-in-law. He wasn’t actually xenophobic, no . . . yet everything that came from the East aroused insurmountable mistrust within him. Slavonic, Levantine, Jewish – he didn’t know which of these terms disgusted him the most. There was nothing you could count on, nothing solid . . . Take the Sinners’ fortune, for example. It was a great fortune, certainly. Too great, no doubt, precarious, unstable . . . There were those sugar refineries in the Ukraine and Poland: the original ones had been sold before the Russian Revolution, or so people said; the new ones were working at full capacity . . . Really? It was all so vague, changeable, incomprehensible . . . A fortune abroad, foreign dealings . . . Oh, it was bad, all that, bad . . . The bank itself belonged to Harry’s uncles; Harry was completing an apprenticeship until the day he would join as a partner. The bank was famous throughout the world. It irritated him because of its international connections, its reputation, its legendary secret power. A solid family business, as sound as his, linked by marriage to a bank owned by foreigners? No. His own company had grown from an established bank in the provinces, run by his family from generation to generation. As for the Sinners’ . . . establishment, that surely had its roots in some money-lender’s shop, some second-hand stall, some small-time usurer. Ah, how distasteful he would find such a marriage!
His hostility was perhaps based on physical impressions. Harry’s uncles were short men, with greasy skin, sharp features, anxious eyes. Delarcher was a giant with a very ruddy face, thick eyebrows and a booming voice. He had often dined at the Sinners’ house and he felt deeply condescending towards those miserable people who complained about their upset stomachs, kept to a diet and would only allow themselves ‘the tiniest bit of Rhine wine’ at the end of a meal. German wine? In France? The land of Burgundies and champagne! It was an insult. And the way they moved, as silently and stealthily as a cat. And they looked so alike! They were twins. You never knew if you were talking to Salomon or Isaac. They would suddenly appear at your side, with that little ironic, anguished smile so unique to their race. He disliked everything about the Sinners’ house. Luxurious, but in bad taste. Unbelievable waste! And those women . . . Oh my God, the mother, that fat Jewess covered in jewellery! And the aunts, coy, affected, reading Nietzsche . . . What a family! Slavs, Germans, Jews, they were as bad as each other. The same guardedness, the same sense of mistrust. Ambiguous, incomprehensible . . . And he disliked the boy. That was the most serious thing. First of all, he didn’t like his looks: he was delicate, nervous, short. And his hair . . . You could tell, thought Delarcher with his thick grey hair, you could tell that the boy had to do everything in his power to straighten his hair every morning just to hide his natural curls. His eyes shone with a bright, passionate expression, as if they were burning in hot oil. And his pale, yellowish complexion . . . He was young, but his skin showed no signs of youth or freshness.
‘He looks old,’ thought Delarcher, scornfully. ‘Was it possible that Laurence really cared for him? Women are a mystery.’
Meanwhile, the Delarchers’ excellent dinner, comprised of numerous courses, was coming to an end. Laurence’s brother and her older sisters were chatting loudly, trying to cheer up their father, who was clearly in a bad mood. Only Laurence said nothing. While they were having dessert, her father suddenly turned to her and said sharply, ‘If you’re tired, go upstairs and go to bed. There’s nothing more foolish than coming down to dinner with a cold like you have. And your eyes are all swollen,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders and turning to look at the rest of the family. ‘Go on, off you go!’
It was all he could do for her: allow her to be alone, to shed some tears into her pillow. She got up and went over to him to give him a kiss.
‘You’ll feel better tomorrow, right?’ he asked quietly, with the impatient, mocking tone of voice she knew so well, and that she liked because, to her, it was the personification of masculine strength.
She leaned down so he could kiss her cheek, then looked at him and said, ‘I don’t know.’
It was only then that Delarcher began to feel afraid.
17
Two years later, Harry was waiting for Laurence at the corner of the street where she lived. Laurence would come out alone; no one suspected their meetings, which, although innocent, filled her with remorse. Each guilty step she took was hampered by an innate hesitation which meant she was unable to enjoy anything that was not strictly permissible. As a child, she had never taken delight in being disobedient. She could only live and breathe in a world where everything was precise, clear and well defined, with no grey areas and no guilty pleasures. In spite of that, she agreed to keep seeing Harry. She loved him.
For a long time, she had feared this love. It was not in her nature to allow her heart to be filled by an emotion that was so overwhelming and so passionate without mistrusting it. The excessive, romantic, dramatic side of such passion, which she would smile and call ‘like the Capulets and Montagues’, seemed to her, if not actually ridiculous, at least strange. And, like her father, she disliked anything that seemed, at first glance, strange, foreign. No, she didn’t welcome this love, the way Ada would have done, as the dried-up land soaks in the rain, but rather with insight, discernment and reserve: just as certain beautiful roses in the gardens of France can be drenched by a storm and still not lose a single leaf or petal. The driving rain covers them in huge drops that only penetrate them gradually, gently, until they reach the rose’s heart. In his mind, Harry had often compared Laurence to those fresh, hardy roses, their petals tightly furled. It had not been easy working his way into her secretly rebellious heart, but he had accomplished it now, and he reigned there. It was his reward for his long fidelity, his passionate love. He loved
her so much. He walked beside her down the empty street (it was barely nine o’clock in the morning, there was no danger of being seen; she was going to classes), and the expression on his face was so tortured, so strange that Laurence murmured:
The Dogs and the Wolves Page 10