Memory and Desire

by Lisa Appignanesi

  That Friday when Mariette’s fiancé, a sturdy young peasant of thirty, came to collect her from the house, Jacob felt not so much betrayed as confused. He kept his distance and watched. What had this man to do with him? Would Mariette’s hands move over him in the same way as they had fluttered over Jacob? He flushed. Her mystery grew for him. It set the conditions of his relationships with women.

  When he returned to his room, he found a dried cornflower of the purest blue in his volume of poetry. It was folded in the page of the last poem he had spoken to her. He left it there for the rest of his life.

  The summer of 1919 marked the end of an epoch in Jacob’s life in other ways. Shortly after the family’s return to Paris, Madame Jardine’s brother succumbed to the last wave of the great influenza epidemic which spread across Europe, killing more people than the war itself. A week later, her adored father died. Marie moved through the darkened house, like a wraith. Everything was covered in black. There were no more smiles, no trills of laughter. She began to go to mass daily. At home, she sat for hours in a vast corner chair, a prayer book in her hand, her lips moving soundlessly. The children tip-toed through the house, their drawn faces echoing her shock.

  It was around this time that Jacob began to distinguish a new tone in his parent’s communications with one another. One night, he heard them arguing behind the closed door of their bedroom. ‘It’s my fault,’ his mother’s shout was only slightly muffled. ‘It’s because I transgressed, because I married a Jew.’

  ‘Stop it, Marie,’ his father’s voice was angry in response. ‘You’re being infected by priestly nonsense.’

  Jacob, upset, slipped away quietly to his room. The next morning his father was not at the breakfast table. His mother’s face was strained. A few weeks later, she began to try to convince the children to go to mass with her. Jacob went once, was impressed by the cathedral’s rich architecture, the ornate columns, but the priest’s soft, pink cheeks, his fluttering hands and insinuating voice disgusted him. In any event, his loyalty to his father together with the science and philosophy courses he was taking at the Lycée Henri IV, left little room for religion. Only Nicolette, his sister, dutifully continued to accompany his mother. The boys were relieved. It took some of the pressure off them.

  A few months later, Marie determined to sell the house in the Alpes Maritime. It now seemed a brazen location to her, too lavish in its sensuousness, its fertility. Jacob was heart-broken. Throughout these autumn months, he had dreamt of Mariette, had tenderly caressed her memory. He had vowed to himself that he would see her again. What had a husband to do with their secret meetings? He appealed to his mother. When this failed, he tried to enlist his father’s support. But Robert Jardine would not go against his wife’s wishes. He felt that perhaps if she sacrificed the house they had all so loved, it would put her conscience at peace. He was only partly right. After the momentous sale had taken place, Marie did indeed seem to come back to something of her former self. But she never again relinquished her prayer books.

  It was during this period, when life at home was blighted by mourning and contention, that Jacob grew close to one particular schoolmate. A year older than Jacob, Jacques Brenner was a tall, slim youth, with a swathe of golden hair which continually fell over his brow. He had a mimic flair and in the dark cold corridors of the Lycée Henri IV or the grim high-ceilinged classrooms, he would ape the masters with singular panache. One day Jacob could not hide his grin quickly enough, nor offer any explanation for his smirk when their Latin master turned. He was forced to stay in after school and conjugate the verb ‘to laugh’ in all its tenses in the negative twenty-five times. When he emerged from his detention, Jacques was waiting for him.

  The two boys shared an interest in philosophy and they walked through drizzling streets together arguing, debating, laughing. Having learnt the nature of Jacob’s detention, Jacques presented him the next day with a copy of Henri Bergson’s Le Rire. They became firm friends, Jacob, dark, serious, questing; Jacques, blond, quick-witted, a master of the ready rhyme and scurrilous pastiche.

  Jacob began to frequent Jacques’s home, a grand iron-gated hotel particulier, rich in baroque ornamentation on the outside, festooned on the inside with velvet and brocade. Rows of gilt-framed oils lined the walls like ancient presences. When they came in, Jacques’s mother would come tripping down the elegantly curved staircase, a startling contrast in her loose-fitting trousers and casual manners to the formal home she inhabited. In a trice they were sat down to toast, muffins and tea, for Jacques’s mother, Lady Leonore, was English, and had introduced into her French home certain of the habits and tastes of her own childhood. After Jacques had regaled her with a host of anecdotes garnered from the school day, she would leave them to their own devices, only warning them that enough time had to be set aside for work.

  That summer, after the boys had vied for top place in their form, the Brenners invited Jacob to accompany them to their summer home in Brittany. He was only too pleased to go. Life at home had lost its easy merriment. His father was preoccupied and seemed to take little interest in him. His mother’s company led only to arguments. His sister spent all her time in giggling complicity with her friends, while his younger brother was still a child, who no longer shared any of his interests. The thought of a summer with only last year’s pleasures with Mariette to rehearse had depressed him.

  The Brenner’s vast country estate with its turreted facade and Gothic spires bordered the Atlantic. There were stables and sleek horses, which Lady Leonore tended with an expert and loving hand. On misty days, the boys galloped over windy headlands and, exhilarated, dropped onto moist ground to argue over Lenin’s progress in Russia, the cause of internationalism, the pros and cons of pacifism. They talked about their futures: Jacob already more than half-committed to medical studies; Jacques less sure, slightly cynical about the value of anything, humorously imagining himself as a posturing writer, a professor, a financier or wine-grower.

  When the weather was bright, they would ride down to one of the many sandy coves which dotted the shore. Jacques’s mother would often join them on these occasions. They would loll about on the beach and take the occasional dip in the icy waters of the Atlantic, the boys laughing as they raced out into the waves. For lunch a picnic might magically arrive with a servant: cold chicken with creamy mayonnaise, langoustine, crisp cucumbers, ripe tomatoes, and sweet, black cherries. Or sometimes, Jacques’s mother would motor them over to a small hotel near the beach where they lunched on vichyssoise and oysters, while she regaled them with stories of England. With her long mobile hands, short straight cut blond hair and wide grey eyes, Jacob thought she was the loveliest woman he had ever seen.

  Three weeks into their stay, they were joined by Jacques’s father, an elegant grey-haired man far older than his wife. He brought with him Lady Leonore’s sister and her daughter, Celia, a girl of seventeen. Jacob couldn’t take his eyes off the girl: she was a younger replica of her aunt. The slightly crooked generous smile, the slender long legs, the short blond hair - all were the same. Jacob found himself tongue-tied, and not only because the family were all conversing in fluent English, whereas he had still only half-grasped the language. When the girl, Celia, addressed him, he flushed hotly unable to find the simplest response. He sensed Jacques looking at him curiously and all he could find to say to extricate himself in his friends eyes was, ‘I think I need some more English lessons.’

  After Celia’s arrival in the house, the boys began to talk about women. Jacques’s tone was that of a man of the world who had already tasted too much forbidden fruit. They were silly creatures, he was off on one of his comic flights, who had nothing worthwhile to say and, his mother apart, only interested in clothes and chit chat. Jacob said nothing. He was remembering Mariette, her teasing eyes and hands, the sensations she had wrought in him. His image of women had nothing to do with Jacques’s. He demurred.

  One night that week, after a particularly chill day, the two
boys were lying on the floor in Jacques’s deeply carpeted room and watching the flames darting in the hearth. In his nervousness before Celia, Jacob had had an uncustomary glass of wine, and his tongue-loosed, he now began hesitantly to tell Jacques about his experience of the previous summer. His face grew hot as he spoke. It was difficult to communicate the tenderness he had felt, still felt; the excruciating pleasure of the senses. His voice was low. When he had finished, he was afraid that he had betrayed Mariette. Afraid that his friend might laugh.

  There was silence between them. When Jacob finally dared to look at Jacques, he noticed that his friend’s face bore an expression of pain. ‘Jacques, what is it?’ Instantly Jacob was all contrition and worry.

  Jacques shook his head. The blond swathe fell over his brow. ‘Jacob will you touch me, hold me?’ He was staring intently into the flames.

  Jacob crouched by his friend and put his arm round his shoulders. ‘What is it, Jacques?’ he repeated. His friend was trembling.

  Jacques turned to face him. His eyes were burning. ‘I love you,’ he said simply. ‘Here, feel.’

  Before Jacob realised what Jacques was doing, the older boy had taken his hand and drawn it to the bulge in his trousers. He could feel the shafting penis within. His own swelled in response. Noticing, Jacques drew closer. ‘No,’ Jacob leapt up and dashed from the room.

  As he reached the safety of his own quarters, confusion raged in him. He was ashamed, deeply ashamed. He wasn’t like that. He knew some of the boys were, but Jacques…not Jacques. His ears ringing, Jacob threw himself down on his bed and pulled the sheets high over his head. And him, what about him? He had been aroused by Jacques: that much had been clear to them both. His body hot, Jacob writhed in shame. Yet, he had never before been stirred by a man. With his customary zeal for truth, Jacob examined himself. No, in all honesty he couldn’t think of a single incident. It was always the women, the women in their finery on the trolleycars, the girls with their swift, secret glances, Mariette. Jacob exonerated himself. And yet, tonight… Unable to come to terms with what had happened, Jacob was in torment.

  The next morning at breakfast, Jacques was not there. Jacob prowled the grounds in solitary ferment. At lunch, when they met at last, Jacques held his head high and made brittle jokes. Jacob was sullen. For the next days, they avoided each other, never meeting each other’s eyes. As the time of Jacob’s departure drew close, he grew more and more miserable. The days seemed unduly long, barren and a school year devoid of Jacques’s companionship, a desolate prospect.

  The night before he was due to leave, Jacob took his courage in his hands and knocked at Jacques’s door. When he met his friend’s face, it was ashen. Jacob’s throat felt parched. At last he blurted out, ‘I don’t know what I want to say, but I … I want us to be friends.’

  Jacques motioned him to sit down in one of the fine leather armchairs which were paired by the window. He sat in the other and in the dim light they both looked out over the windswept landscape. Two boys, almost men, one dark, the other blond, sat nervously gazing out on the ghostly trees perpetually bowed by Atlantic gusts. After a moment, Jacques said, ‘I want us to be friends, too.’

  ‘But I’m not like that,’ Jacob said. ‘At least I think I’m not. I…’ his face flushed.

  ‘I know you’re not,’ Jacques’s voice was pained, but he intoned the words clearly.

  Jacob turned to look at him. ‘And yet, I responded to you,’ he said quietly.

  Jacques shrugged. He smiled a wide, warm smile. ‘Sometimes it happens.’

  ‘And you?’ Jacob asked. ‘Are you…?’

  ‘Like that?’ Jacques finished it for him flatly. Sorrow flashed across his face only to be quickly effaced. He held his head with dignity. ‘Yes, I probably am.’

  Jacob took it in. ‘I like you Jacques,’ he said simply, after a moment. ‘Very much.’

  Jacques felt it as a benediction.

  ‘And you, Jacob, you have a great capacity for tenderness.’ He uttered it with the tone of a prophecy.

  The next January, when Jacob was nearing his sixteenth year, his father invited him into his study. Robert Jardine looked up at his favourite son with approval and motioned him to a chair in front of his vast desk. The boy, the young man, he corrected his thoughts, was now taller than his father. A broad shouldered youth with a clear gaze and a resonant voice, he played his part in the gatherings of friends which once again took place in the Jardine home, with dignity and a quick intelligence. Robert Jardine had seen the women’s eyes on him.

  It was the custom, amongst a certain class of free-thinking Parisians, for fathers to ascertain that their sons had an appropriate sexual education. There was no puritanism here, no shamefaced mumblings about the birds and the bees. From father to son, the sense that pleasure too had its school was passed down. And if girls were not privy to this form of schooling and were kept pure until marriage, it was somehow accepted that in due course they too would benefit from the male’s prior knowledge.

  Thus, when Robert Jardine called his son into his study, it was to tell him that he had arranged a particularly special birthday celebration for him this year. He didn’t spell anything out. He simply said that he and Jacob were to dine together at the Ritz on the specified day. He didn’t know whether his son understood him. But it was no matter. Surprise was no terrible thing.

  On the evening in question, Jacob donned his black dinner jacket, white bow tie and looked forward with excitement to his outing with his father. Their solitary moments were all too few. His father’s reputation was at its peak and he was often away travelling the country, investigating conditions here, looking into high mortality figures there. So that when father and son met, there was always more than enough to talk about.

  Then, too, Jacob had never been to the Ritz.

  As they approached the Place Vendôme with its implacable obelisk, and gazed upon the rigorous beauty of the square, Jacob thought with glee of how he could on the morrow tell Jacques of the glitterati gathered in its bar and restaurant. For the Ritz was then the meeting place of le tout Paris. Here pearl-decked Duchesses rubbed shoulders with American writers and visiting dignitaries and gossip rushed from mouth to mouth with the speed of an epidemic.

  Robert Jardine told his son to watch the head-waiter with particular care. He was a genius at his profession, a tall distinguished man, who added to his tact as a diplomat the slightly sinister aspect of a chief of secret police. Several times a night he would murmur to his favourite clients, ‘I have given monsieur the best table.’

  Robert and Jacob Jardine sat in the resplendent interior of the Ritz and sipped champagne. They ate in a leisurely fashion, plump white asparagus in a fragrant butter sauce, ris de veau braisé villageoise. All around them faces were animated in conversation. Diamonds sparkled, catching the light and loosely draped furs rivalled for attention with pale, bared shoulders. Waiters hovered like discreet spirits. Two or three people, a politician, a noted surgeon, a famous actress, stopped at their table to greet his father and exchange a few words. Jacob was proud of him, excited by the atmosphere.

  When a striking woman approached them just as the waiter was serving Jacob’s favourite dessert of crêpes suzette flambé, the youth thought nothing of it. But when Robert Jardine asked the woman to sit down with them, Jacob promptly forgot to eat. Germaine Bataille, beneath the thick auburn hair which she wore piled high, had features of an angelic refinement. Her blue-green eyes, shadowed by thick lashes, were as serene as the sea, but like it they also promised turbulence. Her short black silk dress with its full pannier skirt and flounces of white organdy revealed dancer’s legs and smooth, flawless skin. She had just come from a special performance at the Champs-Elysées theatre. With a certain acerbic wit, she recounted the spectacle of Cocteau’s farce le Boeuf sur le Toit, the characters in carnival costume, the grotesque masks, the charming music of Darius Milhaud; and also gave them a running commentary on the audience with its smiles and postures an
d whistles and hoots. Jacob was rapt.

  Robert Jardine watched his son with a secret smile. Yes, he had been right to choose Germaine. She would see to everything now and do it discreetly. On his part, it would mean only a few generous presents, tactfully given. He waited his moment and when he saw that Jacob was well and truly hypnotized, he cleared his throat. ‘I’m afraid, it’s time we were off, now,’ he said.

  Jacob’s face dropped. ‘But it’s not late’, he protested.

  ‘I have some work I must complete by tomorrow, Jacob, but if you wish to stay, I…’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Jacob looked from his father to Germaine.

  ‘Just leave your son in my capable hands, Robert. We’ll have a little more champagne in the bar, gossip a little…’ she smiled a dazzling smile at the youth.

  With a twinkle in his eye, Robert Jardine wished his son happy birthday again and them both a good evening. Jacob was oblivious to his going. Among the people who frequented his family circle, he had never encountered a woman like this before. His skin tingled with excitement as the champagne bubbled down his throat.

  Germaine Bataille sat back in the deep cushions of the Ritz bar, an elegantly ringed hand over her long legs. She had not been looking forward to this evening with any particular relish. She was a woman who had had more than her fill of men and now that she was adequately established with her old count and her financier to look after her in style, she rarely engaged on escapades other than those of her own choosing. And these were usually with an eye to the eventual marriage which would see her into her old age.

  Germaine Bataille had fled to Paris from Orléans at the age of seventeen, a mere question of months after her marriage to an infantry captain had revealed to her the abuses men were capable of. Gifted with exceptional good looks, she had found herself a job at the famous Folies Bergères, where her flaming hair and extraordinary legs had won her a steady stream of courtiers. Their increasingly generous gifts, as her fame grew, allowed her to establish herself. She became that desirable asset of the belle époque, a courtesan of taste and wit, who was prized as much for her company as her beauty. Now at the age of thirty-four, though she only admitted to twenty-nine and could in the glow of evening pass for far less, she was occasionally gnawed by anxieties about the future. So she had taken on the task of this evening only out of special consideration for Robert Jardine. She owed him certain favours.