by Michel D
‘Where would sir like to go?’ he asked with exaggerated deference.
‘Wherever you like, Salah.’
The Egyptian looked at his watch.
‘I have a suggestion: we shall keep Westminster Abbey for tomorrow, and if it doesn’t bore you too much, we’ll go to the British Museum instead, where I’ll leave you for a moment to go and have a French lesson with my teacher who lives very close by, in Soho.’
‘But you don’t need any lessons, you speak very good French.’
‘Yes, I speak, but unfortunately I write very badly. Mostly phonetically. If the dear Brothers read my writing, they would blush to their roots. I’ve found an excellent teacher, a grammarian. Her lessons don’t last longer than half an hour, and in the evening I do the homework she gives me.’
‘The British Museum it is, then.’
At Piccadilly Jean asked who the statue was, balanced on its pedestal.
‘Eros!’ Salah said, grinning. ‘This is his spiritual home, everywhere around here.’
The god of love! Jean’s thoughts went straight back to Chantal. Their first journey would be to London and their first visit to this statue. The Hispano-Suiza turned into Shaftesbury Avenue, which bore no resemblance at all to the clean and fashionable London of Chelsea or Kensington. All along the grimy pavements were cinemas with garish posters, theatres with jangling bells, Italian cafés whose proprietors took your money as you went in, cigars clamped between their teeth. A pervasive smell of vanilla, dust, chip fat and petrol hung in the air, as if everything had been gathered up together, stirred and cooked in desperation, and finally exhausted.
The British Museum belonged to another, more reassuring district. Jean had never seen anything quite so impressive when Salah set him down at the main entrance.
‘I’ll pick you up in an hour,’ he said. ‘In any case, I’m not going far. Odeon Street is just around the corner.’
Jean was not passionate about museums. Painting quickly bored him, especially the official kind of painting that glorified British victories in Portugal, in Spain, at Trafalgar and Waterloo. These British devils had always won everything. William the Conqueror was the only one who had taught them a lesson, and as a Norman himself Jean was proud about that. He turned his back on these disagreeable reminders and headed for the sculpture rooms. Greek history and Roman history were still fresh in his mind. There, at least, in those vast halls you could still dream, even if it was permissible to doubt Lord Elgin’s right to take down half the surviving friezes of the Parthenon and enrich his country with their incomparable sculptures.
As he was contemplating one of the friezes, a bald man in his fifties, with red lips and dressed in the black suit and white collar of a clergyman, approached him.
‘Are you French?’
‘Yes,’ Jean said, surprised to be so easily identified.
‘I thought as much from the way you look.’
‘The way I look?’
‘Something which is unmistakable and common to every French person. I’ve lived in your country. Are you interested in Greek sculpture?’
‘Er … yes, sir.
‘Do you like Greek history?’
‘It’s very interesting.’
‘It’s much better than that!’ the minister said, raising his finger. ‘It’s the only history that matters.’
He spoke so close to Jean’s face that Jean felt gusts of cold tobacco buffet him. The minister looked into his eyes with chilling insistence.
‘Greek beauty!’ he said again. ‘Impossible to imitate. It has disappeared for ever, corrupted by foreigners. Look at that young athlete, his slender neck and his torso, in which you can follow the play of muscles beneath the skin and even the ripple of the veins in their exertion …’
The man’s hand grasped Jean’s arm and squeezed it with unexpected force, as if to prevent him from running away.
‘And yet … and yet!’ he went on. ‘Yet one does find sometimes, like a gift from heaven, yes, I really mean a gift from heaven, without blaspheming, the trace of Greek beauty in isolated individuals. Its seed has mysteriously come down the centuries, and beauty is reborn, unaccountably, in almost all its purity … You don’t have any Greek ancestors, do you?’
‘No,’ Jean said, trying to disengage himself and distance his face from the other’s with its blue, staring gaze that was making him nervous.
‘I thought so. Well now, come and have a look at this extraordinary coincidence: a young athlete who is twenty-five centuries old and looks like your brother.’
The minister dragged him to the end of the room. A twisting staircase led to a dark room where spotlights illuminated a series of metopes in a line, the metopes of the temple of Bassae.
‘Look! Look!’
Jean saw nothing but some high reliefs of definite grace, but whose faces all looked the same and who, he felt, bore no resemblance to him whatsoever. On the other hand, he definitely felt the minister’s arm slip around his waist and pull him close; and when the tobacco-breath mouth tried to press itself against his own he gagged, wrenched himself away and stood ready to defend himself.
‘You horrible pig! Dirty old man!’
‘Be quiet! Be quiet!’ the minister hissed, his cheeks puce.
A couple appeared in the doorway, and Jean dashed away, hurtled down the stairs and ran as far as the museum’s exit, his cheeks burning. He must be as red in the face as the minister. Nothing like that had ever happened to him before. He did not actually know what it meant, only having heard about such things in crude conversations between those of his classmates who were always thirsty for smut, but just from the gagging sensation he had had, he was certain he had escaped from something horrible. He should have … oh yes, what shouldn’t he have done! Smashed his fist into the nose of the dirty old swine, called an attendant, got the old lecher arrested. He became ashamed that he had run away. Wasn’t it the churchman who should have run away? If only Salah had been there! But Salah was having his French lesson and would not be back for half an hour. Visitors were coming and going, staring at the tall boy with red cheeks and dishevelled hair. Jean thought that people must be able to read on his face, as clear as day, what had just happened. He had seen the direction the Hispano-Suiza had taken after it left him, and he started walking that way. Odeon Street was difficult to find in the labyrinth of narrow streets lined with pubs, nightclubs and restaurants. By a stroke of luck, and what he considered to be an unheard-of thing, a youngish woman, albeit rather heavily made up, smiled at him. He stopped and asked, ‘Odeon Street, please.’
Expecting not to understand a word of her reply, he was startled to hear her say, with a pretty Toulouse accent, ‘Young man, are you sure you’re old enough to be hanging around here?’
‘You’re French! Oh what luck. I’m thirteen.’
‘Well, at the age of thirteen you don’t hang around in Odeon Street. Do me a favour and go home to maman.’
‘I’m looking for the chauffeur.’
‘What chauffeur?’
‘You haven’t seen a big yellow Hispano-Suiza, have you?’
‘Salah’s Hispano?’
‘Do you know it?’
‘Do I know it … a bit.’
‘It’s time for his French lesson.’
The painted lady raised her black-pencilled eyebrows.
‘Oh … ah, I see, Monsieur. Well, take the second street on the left and you’ll see his Hispano. Good luck, young man …’
‘Thank you, Madame!’
He quickened his step and almost immediately he came upon the car parked outside a fairly run-down house. On the half-open door he saw three printed cards:
Miss Selma Undset
Swedish massages
Massages suédois
Massagii suedese
1st floor, 1er étage, 10 piano.
Beneath in gothic letters:
Fräulein Loretta Heindrich
Elocution lessons. Oral only.
2nd floor.<
br />
The third card must be the one:
Madame Germaine
French teacher
very strict
3rd floor, 3e étage.
The building was wretched. A spiral staircase climbed upwards between walls corroded by saltpetre, but instead of the habitual smell of sprouts that oozes from this sort of building there was a stomach-turning mixture of face powder and disinfectant. On the third floor he stopped outside Madame Germaine’s door. A cord of multicoloured hemp cloth hung above the notice that announced the same words as on the ground floor, this time underlined: ‘very strict’. Poor Salah! Who was this person he trusted to teach him perfect French? Jean listened for the sound of raised voices. All he could hear was murmurs of encouragement, and he pulled on the cord. There were whispers, the sound of steps, then a small panel he had not noticed slid open beneath the printed card and a woman’s voice with a southern accent said, ‘It’s not time yet, love.’
‘Yes I know, but I need to speak to Salah.’
‘Who are you?’
‘Jean. Jean Arnaud.’
From the other side of the door he heard Salah’s voice.
‘Open it, let him in, it’s a friend.’
A chain rattled and the key turned twice. Why did they need to lock themselves in for a French lesson? It was true that the district seemed pretty shady, and there were all sorts and races in the streets and a lot of over-made-up ladies. Eventually the door inched ajar and a woman appeared in the half-open doorway, her black hair loose, her face coated in cream, her lips mauve. She seemed to be wearing a dressing gown or long dress of gold polka dots. Jean couldn’t see all of her, and Salah had already moved her aside to step onto the landing.
‘What’s going on? It was agreed that I would come and pick you up at the British Museum.’
Jean recounted his ordeal at the metopes of Bassae. Salah looked dismayed.
‘I shouldn’t have left you on your own, even for such a short time. It’s my fault.’
‘No it isn’t, it really isn’t. How could you have known?’
‘I should know everything. Would you like me to find him and smash his face in?’
‘Oh no, not a scene, that’s the last thing I want! I want to go back. I’ll ride my bike and you can go in front to show me the way. Have you finished your French lesson?’
‘That’s not at all important. Let’s go.’
The door was still half open. Jean glanced behind Salah. Madame Germaine was brushing her hair in front of a mirror, and all around the mirror hung whips and chains. Their eyes met, the woman’s reflected in the mirror, sultry and velvety and at the same time loaded with menace, to such an extent that Jean felt a shiver in his spine, for no more than a second, because Salah immediately shut the door behind him after calling ‘till the next time’ to Madame Germaine. As they went past the second floor, they passed a man who pulled his hat over his eyes and covered his mouth with a handkerchief. He was on his way to an elocution lesson with Fräulein Loretta. Despite its mysterious ways, its grimy appearance and its smell, the house was a serious place of work. The masseuse on the first floor was the only element that was out of place in this artistic and intellectual atmosphere. On the way down they heard a guttural voice, chanting in time with the sound of slapping: one, two, three … one, two, three … without pity for the raucous, panting breath of its patient. Salah led Jean quickly outside.
‘It’s the rush hour,’ he said, ‘we shall get stuck in the traffic. I think we had better postpone your ride until tomorrow, particularly as I should be at home soon in case the prince calls me to go and fetch him.’
Jean was disappointed, even though it was only a postponement. He would have liked to ride in London, where he had so far seen no other bicycles, squeezing between the hearse-like taxis and the red buses boasting the virtues of chicken stock and toothpaste. Salah appeared preoccupied.
‘I’m sorry I interrupted your lesson with Madame Germaine,’ Jean said. ‘But she doesn’t really look like a teacher. Is it true that she’s very strict?’
‘Oh … yes, in a way, but not with me. She knows how to be very tolerant too. With her English customers she uses the strong method. She has a lot of customers … I mean students.’
Jean remembered the whip and chains. How did she deal with the bad students exactly? What a strange country. He remembered having read in a book somewhere that there was still corporal punishment in English schools. Madame Germaine must have adapted her teaching methods to the English style … Salah was driving his Hispano-Suiza with an absolute dignity and certainty that he would dominate the evening crowds. He cut off a black Rolls-Royce as if it were a donkey-cart. They crossed Hyde Park as the shadows were lengthening and drove down Sloane Street to the Kings Road. It was pleasant to come back to a district lightened by the colours of spring, to women who did not make themselves up outrageously, to a complete absence of clergymen with red lips and staring eyes.
Baptiste opened the door, and Salah took the bicycle out of the boot and replaced it in the hall.
‘Did Monsieur have a good ride?’ the butler asked.
‘Unfortunately not. There were too many cars. I think I’ll go tomorrow, early in the morning, and do a circuit of Hyde Park, otherwise I’ll start losing my fitness.’
‘Madame telephoned. She deeply regrets that she is unable to come this evening, but she will do her best to be here to meet Monsieur before he leaves.’
It might have struck the reader that Baptiste was exaggerating in his unctuous use of the third person. Jean himself wondered whether the florid-cheeked, grey-whiskered butler, who seemed to be chewing his tongue all the time, was not having a joke at his expense, as the son of a gardener and housekeeper. The feeling that this sententious dogsbody was almost certainly looking down his nose at him made Jean uncomfortable. He would have liked to make Baptiste understand that he was not quite as pitiful as he looked, despite his haversack and short-sleeved shirts with their threadbare collars, and a sweater with its elbows darned by Jeanne. Had he not been to tea at châteaux where this snobbish flunkey would only have been invited to pass the petits fours? But it would be humiliating to tell him so. Jean learnt that day to hide his ill humour by going along with other people’s view of him as something he was not. Or perhaps was, for after all a son of Jeanne and Albert was no better than a Baptiste. He was not yet aware of the infallible intuition among servants that makes them able to detect instantly a person displaced into a milieu which is not their own. Let us remember that Jean was not so well-read at thirteen, and that the revelation would dawn on him later, when he came to read Swift’s Directions to Servants and learn by heart his advice to those employees: ‘Be not proud in prosperity. You have heard that fortune turns on a wheel; if you have a good place, you are at the top of the wheel. Remember how often you have been stripped and kicked out of doors; your wages are taken up beforehand and spent in translated red-heeled shoes, second-hand toupées, and repaired lace ruffles, besides a swingeing debt to the alewife and the brandy-shop.’
So Jean had dinner alone, as he had the previous evening, served by Baptiste, whose affected respect came to feel increasingly insulting. Geneviève did not telephone, and he said to himself that she must be an odd person, too indulged by life or, more specifically, by the prince. He promised himself that he would question Salah about the latter. Behind a mask of kindness and generosity, the prince concealed his true self with all the majesty of his person. You could only guess at what he was really like through the devotion he inspired in Salah and the luxury he provided for Geneviève. Jean would have liked to thank him in person for the postal orders that had helped him to buy his red bicycle, but would the prince even remember sending them?
The next morning a new maid pushed the trolley containing his breakfast into his bedroom,
‘You’re not Mary!’ he said, disappointed.
‘No. I am María.’
She spoke French with what Jean supposed to be a str
ong Spanish accent. Where Mary was blonde and fresh as a strawberry, María was black-haired with a dark complexion and sultry expression. In an entirely different way she was also very nice to look at. Knowing that she would have to draw the curtain, as Mary had, he eyed her legs, which were a bit too wiry and muscled although certainly pretty, even though on that point he might not yet have very well-formed ideas or a reliable definition of female beauty. María was more familiar than Mary, and sat down on the end of his bed.
‘So, are you enjoyin’ yourself in London?’ she asked, revealing a set of fine teeth.
‘Very much, Mademoiselle.’
She burst out laughing.
‘You mus’ no’ say Mademoiselle, you mus’ say: María. I am the maid.’
It should perhaps be pointed out that the low-paid slovens lately taken on at La Sauveté by Marie-Thérèse du Courseau had none of the tantalising quality possessed by Mary and María, with their lipstick and varnished nails. (Marie-Thérèse had put a stop to the Caribbean girls of the past; Jean barely remembered the last pair, who had been nowhere near as pretty as Joséphine Roudou and Victoire Sanpeur.)
‘What are you thinkin’ about?’
‘That you’re very pretty for a maid.’
‘Well, bless me!’
She stood up, did a complete turn on tiptoes and looked at Jean with knitted eyebrows.
‘You are startin’ pretty young!’
As soon as he had finished breakfast, Jean went down to the hall. His cherished bicycle had not moved, but Salah appeared, his cap in his hand.