‘Don’t look at me like that.’
‘Why not? There’s not a soul in sight.’
‘You sometimes look at me in a way that makes me feel ashamed.’
He knew that her modesty was not feigned. He also knew that it was not coldness, but rather the sign of a passion so burning and alive that she feared its force. He took her hand and squeezed it, sliding his fingers between her glove and bare skin.
‘Harry,’ she said, pulling away, ‘I’ve spoken to my father again.’
He stopped, turning pale. Never had she seen a human face express so many nuances of sadness, from fear to wounded pride, yet he possessed neither words nor gestures when it came to joy. She felt sorry for him; she wanted to see him radiant, childlike, if possible, but his serious, tortured face always made him look older than he was. He stood anxious and incredulous as she spoke:
‘He’s given his consent, Harry.’
A second later, flames suddenly rose to his pale cheeks, as if he finally understood, as if the words had seeped right down to his heart, extinguishing within him an unquenchable anguish.
‘This is a great victory,’ he said very quietly.
If he suffered more than others, he also knew how to enjoy his triumphs better. Only the strange joy of a conscious, fierce exhilaration was able to wipe away all those years of unhappiness. For he had been very unhappy because of her, because of his secret, scorned love . . . Now, at last, she was accepting him, she loved him. He would have happily died for her.
‘Is it true? How did it happen? What did he say?’
She didn’t reply. She couldn’t repeat what he’d said. She and her parents had fought continuously for two years. Her father had been the first to be worn down. She had wished for that moment for so long, and now, she almost regretted it because it was poisoned by pity and remorse. She had never noticed how her father had aged in those two years, but, last night, when he had said, still shaking with anger, ‘Very well! On your head be it, but don’t come looking to me, don’t come complaining to me later on’, it was only then that she had seen his deep wrinkles, his sagging jaw, the thinness of his neck where his Adam’s apple jutted out, as if up until that moment her love had blinded her in the most literal sense of the word. And Harry, how triumphant he looked now! A victory, he’d called it. She could feel her father’s defeat right down to her very core.
But could she tell Harry what he had said? All the pointless, unfair, harsh words . . . Harry seemed to guess. The joyful expression on his face disappeared.
‘I can imagine what he must have said,’ he replied bitterly.
He fell silent, while there, in the darkness of the car they had got into, with tenderness, pity and a strange feeling of resentment, she kissed him for the very first time.
18
One day, a stranger was introduced to Lilla. ‘He’s a Kurd or a Hindu,’ said her colleague, one of the other women who, like her, performed naked in the Music Hall, ‘but he looks rather shabby.’
He fell in love with Lilla and began sending her chocolates and flowers. He looked poor, with threadbare clothes, which made Lilla feel sorry for him, and since she did not attach an exaggerated sense of importance to the gift of her body, one day she chided him affectionately, ‘You’re mad to make such a drama out of something so simple. Do you want to sleep with me? Just say it: “I want to sleep with you.” What’s the point of sending chocolates and flowers? Life is hard for everyone. You’ll end up with no money at all.’
The man reacted in an extraordinary way to her frank words.
‘Are you saying you don’t know who I am?’ he asked, his voice choking.
She had no idea. He told her his family name. He was part of a minor eastern monarchy who ruled a land that provided oil to England; for this reason, the civil list of the royal family was paid in pounds sterling. Never, he told her, had he met such an unselfish woman. It was her Slavic character, he said, kissing her hands, her goodness that had charmed him, and since she was, on the other hand, very pretty . . . would she? Lilla felt dizzy, already picturing herself the wife of a king and the mother of princes. Unfortunately, he was married. He did, however, offer her an enviable future: a palace where central heating had just been installed in the capital city of his country, an apartment in Paris and a new wardrobe. He was leaving the next day; she must come too.
Lilla tried to think of someone other than Aunt Raissa to whom she could tell her good luck; she remembered her young sister-in-law Ada and rushed over to her house. They saw each other occasionally. Once faced with the fait accompli, Aunt Raissa had given in: she couldn’t help but feel secret admiration for anyone who stood up to her. It was a strange fact to Ada that their poor lodgings in the Ternes district now seemed rather welcoming and pleasant. After all, she had no other home. She had worked very hard at the beginning of her marriage: she had been a dressmaker, a salesgirl, a secretary. For a few months now, Ben had been earning some money, so she could paint again. She was twenty years old, with brusque gestures and a pale, expressive face. When she was interested in something, fire rushed to her thin cheeks, turning them a deep red, but normally her paleness made her skin look yellowish and sickly, especially since she hated make-up and never knew how to put it on properly. She was petite, with a good figure, though she was still too thin. Marriage had barely filled her out: she had remained lanky, like a young girl, and her gestures were rapid and passionate, as in the past. She now wore her hair pulled back, but when she was working, it fell forward over her eyebrows in a thick, dark fringe, just as it had when she was a child. Her young forehead bore the mark of a painter: the deep vertical wrinkle between the eyebrows that comes from the effort of concentrating, focusing, passionately staring at whatever is being studied and recreated. The room in which Ada lived with Ben was humble, but clean and very light. When Lilla came in, Ada was drawing the portrait of a young Jewish woman from the Rue des Rosiers, a female face with skin like wax, dark eyes that were warm, sly, brilliant; she already had a double chin and a fake pearl necklace and her glossy hair fell on to her cheek in a kiss-curl. She was a Lithuanian immigrant, one of Ada’s neighbours who sometimes posed for her.
Lilla didn’t even wait for her to leave before beginning to tell what had happened in a breathless voice.
‘Silly little goose,’ thought Ada. Her cousin seemed destined for such love affairs; she passively accepted whatever life offered her – caresses or slaps on the face. Because of her foolishness, she avoided the curse of a race that was unable to find peace, but which endlessly, vainly, sought to be stronger than God Himself. Ada found Lilla refreshing.
‘I won’t forget about you, Ada. I’ll help you. I’ll send you money.’
Ada smiled and thanked her. She knew very well that as soon as Lilla left the country, she’d forget everything. It wasn’t a flaw in her character, rather her good fortune . . . the little birdbrain . . . How little the brother and sister resembled each other, she thought.
‘How are you getting by?’
‘Not badly,’ Ada replied. ‘Of course, we’re not happy in a way the French would understand.’
The people in their building were deeply wary of Ben and Ada: they were young, and didn’t seem to know what a hot meal was, or a stew, or a slow-cooked soup; they spoke a foreign language and walked quickly past you, eyes lowered, as if they were afraid of you . . . Ah, they were foreigners . . . That was it; that summed it up. Wanderers with no roots, immigrants, suspicious. On the whole, people instinctively hated Ben and felt sorry for Ada. But even then, there was a depth of incomprehension that couldn’t be overcome by any amount of good will on the part of compassionate neighbours who thought, ‘Poor little thing, alone all day long,’ and Ada, who secretly led her life in a virtual dream-world, beyond the bounds of reality. And as far as comforts were concerned – little meals affectionately prepared, hats decorated with a metre of ribbon bought in a sale, pleasant evenings spent in the soft light of a lamp beside a husband who r
ead the papers in his slippers while a child slept on his lap – as far as the French way of life was concerned, so beautiful, so harmonious, so enviable . . . it was . . . it should have been attractive, but it was as challenging and foreign to Ben and Ada as a sedentary lifestyle on fertile plains would have seemed to nomads.
‘Oh Ada, you’ve always lived life as if you were sleepwalking,’ Lilla said mockingly.
She suddenly went over to her cousin and gave her a kiss.
‘Ada, Adotchka, forgive me, I’m an idiot, I’m completely mad. I swear that I will never forget you, but you never know, you never know . . . So, while I’m here, I want to give you a present. Listen, I have ten thousand francs in my handbag. Yes, he just gave me the money to buy some clothes and a suitcase for the trip. Let’s share it. But you have to promise that it’s just for you, so you can get something you really want, and not for Ben.’
‘Why not for Ben?’
‘He’ll manage without either of us. I’ve never met anyone like Ben. I’m positive that even water couldn’t drown him or fire burn him.’
‘But he’ll find the money you give me, really!’
‘So hide it, you little fool!’
Ada took the five thousand francs Lilla gave her. When her cousin left, the first thing she did was go and look over the work she had done that day. With her perceptive eye, she studied the voluptuous, fleshy face, the hooked nose, the fake pearls and the satin dress, threadbare at the elbows, which she had painted on the canvas. Some of it was good: there, and there . . . the yellowish glint, like the colour of some ancient candle, contrasted with her mouth, covered in geranium red lipstick, and the misty expression that seeped out from beneath her heavy eyelids. But the satin wasn’t the dazzling bright blue it should have been. She hesitated for a long time, palette in hand, then threw it down. She found the portrait simultaneously attractive and unpleasant. Why didn’t she paint elegant young women, in beautiful gardens, delicate hats, fountains, June flowers? She couldn’t. It wasn’t her fault. She was driven to seek out, cruelly, tirelessly, the secrets concealed in sad faces, beneath dark skies. She pressed her forehead against the window, then took the money Lilla had given her and went out.
She started walking towards Harry’s house. Since she had got married and was free to go where she pleased, she had often gone back to stand beneath those windows, mocking herself, but finding humble, passionate, exquisite pleasure in such a pointless act. It was not only the darkness, the presence of Harry that she now sought. It was the brief flashes of a more beautiful life, one that was sweeter and, most especially, less brutal than her own, for she sensed there was something abnormal about her existence. More than once, she had run into Harry with Laurence. She had followed them, listening to them, watching them, imagining what being in love might mean to them. She had guessed they were engaged. She thought that a young Frenchwoman wouldn’t go out that way, alone with a man, unless she was promised to him. Sometimes she only caught a glimpse of them for a moment before they hurried into Harry’s car. But at other times, they would walk the few steps to the corner of the street where there was a shop that sold antiquarian books. They would go into the shop. Ada could see them, through the window: Harry would pick up the beautiful books and run his hands over them; she felt genuine fascination as she watched his dark, agile hands softly stroking their tawny or red covers. One day, a few weeks earlier, Ada had seen them bargaining over a rare book that they didn’t buy, and when they’d come out of the shop, she’d heard Laurence say, ‘I’m telling you, it’s madness . . .’
How sensible she was, Ada thought. How wonderful to be like this foreign young woman, to be able to choose dresses, furniture for the drawing room, a governess for the children, beautiful linen for the dining table with such ease. Ada imagined her buying her wedding trousseau, feeling the sheets to judge the quality of the fabric. Yet today, she, Ada, had the power to fulfil one of Harry’s desires. More than once, she had stared at that book, so coveted by him. It occupied the place of honour in the shop; it cost . . . almost all the money that Lilla had given her. Ada went into the bookshop; she asked to see the book. She looked at it curiously. So this is what he had wanted; he might even have forgotten about it by now . . . But she would give it to him. She had never given a present to anyone, except Lilla and Madame Mimi when she could – trinkets that cost a few pennies or a little bouquet of flowers. It had given her so much pleasure . . . As for buying a present for Ben, he liked neither beautiful clothes, nor fine food, nor rare books. There was something spartan about Ben. The idea of offering him a gift seemed as strange as tying a ribbon around the neck of a wolf. But Harry . . . She smiled, her eyes sparkled. She knew what she was doing only too well: she felt a strange mixture of madness and cunning rise within her. Harry was courting, in love with this foreign young woman. He doubtlessly thought only of her, he was obsessed by her, and now she, Ada, was going to insinuate herself between them. He would be intrigued by this gift (naturally, she would leave the book for him at his house with no note). He would go and question the bookseller. He would never guess the truth. But he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from thinking about Ada, without knowing who she was, just as she had dreamt of him, in vain, for such a very long time. She would steal a dream, a sigh, a wish from him. She could ask for nothing more.
She walked to Harry’s house. She handed the book to the servant who answered the door. She was so violently overcome with emotion that she couldn’t say a single word: she knew her voice would shake. She simply pointed to the address she had written on the back of the package in pencil.
‘Do you want a receipt?’ the servant asked.
She forced herself to speak:
‘No, no receipt,’ she said in a steady voice.
All she could do was whisper the words, lowering her eyes, quivering.
The servant looked at her in surprise and closed the door. Ada thrust her bare hands deep into the pockets of her jacket and, suddenly overcome with panic, ran down the steps. She only stopped running when she got to the next street, far from Harry’s house, where she felt safe.
Now she mocked and berated herself fiercely. She was mad. She, a woman of twenty, had behaved like a little twelve-year-old child. ‘But I’m not a woman,’ she thought. ‘There are people who are ageless, and I’m one of them. I was an old woman at twelve, and even when I have white hair I’ll be exactly the same in my heart as I am today. Why be ashamed of it?’
That young girl, that French woman whom he loved, how she would have laughed if she’d known! Suddenly, a desperate prayer rose from the depths of Ada’s soul:
‘Why, my God, why didn’t you make him mine? He was made for me, meant for me, and I for him . . . Make him mine! I’ll put up with anything: being abandoned when he grows tired of me, the pain, the shame, anything in the world, but just make him mine! It isn’t possible that I could have loved him for so long, in vain, if it were not Your will to bring us together one day. Make him mine, Lord . . .’
The street was dark, deserted. No one could see that she was crying.
19
Harry and Laurence had been married for more than three years when, one day, on his way to visit his mother, Harry stopped in front of the bookshop at the corner of the street. He noticed two small paintings on display amongst the rare books. They were both landscapes. In one, a sloping street lined with a few low houses was covered in melting snow, while a reddish light the colour of rubies (a smoking lamp lit behind a window) illuminated the strange, desolate dusk that looked as if it were made of ashes, ochre and iron. The second painting was a garden, partly wild, on a spring day; the fresh, young grass, the flowers and the blue sky all had an extraordinary luxuriance, warmth and richness that did not exist in this country, but which seemed familiar to Harry, something he recognised from deep within his memory. Surely, thought Harry, struck by a strong, confusing impression, surely he had seen this somewhere before, in a dream or during his childhood: those dark March skies wher
e gusts of snow fell, and those wild gardens, teeming with the flowers of a short, stiflingly hot summer.
He shaded his eyes with his hand, as if to shelter them from the too brilliant light, for the memory (if it really was a memory and not a dream), the memory aroused both joy and sadness, he didn’t know why . . . It was like the way certain faces, certain unfamiliar houses awaken a trace of something in the mind that is at once melancholy yet sweet, as if witness to some past life. No, it wasn’t a dream, but a distant reality, one destroyed very long ago . . . He could picture them again now, those March days, in the country where he’d been born, when snowstorms raged in the town. In spite of the storms, the first hyacinths began to bloom, protected behind thick windows, announcing the arrival of spring. He felt as if he could once again smell their perfume, a scent linked in his mind to the smell of birthday cake. His birthday was in March. On that day, almost every year throughout his childhood, he had been ill, or at least the people around him thought he was ill. He would cough, and that certainly meant he might be getting whooping cough; or he had slept badly and might have a fever. It was safer for him to stay in his bedroom; and so, locked in a hot room, with toys he didn’t touch, he sadly contemplated the diagonal pattern of the snowflakes as they fell. How strange it was . . . He recalled the rich and somewhat sickly smell of the enormous chocolate cakes on which his name, Harry, was written in pink icing. The light of that soft, grey sky summoned up a whole string of people, hardly recognisable, forgotten: servants, pets, teachers, his grandfather with his hawk-like nose and piercing eyes, his petite, shy grandmother who had never got used to the luxury of the house. He could picture her now, sitting at the very edge of the gilded chairs, holding Harry close and stroking her grandson’s hair while tenderly murmuring words in a foreign language. She alone still spoke Yiddish, which the others found scandalous.
The Dogs and the Wolves Page 11