Still smiling, Kaminsky packed his suitcase with linens, clothes, and books. He ripped the newspapers, glanced at the magazines before tossing them in the bin, and looked around him, making sure he hadn’t forgotten anything. And still the same song. Forever and always that Paname tune of a party he was undoubtedly headed to, maybe even that day. Where did he get the nerve? How was he, a simple soldier, going to escape the laws that held every man to his post? There must be exceptions for traitors then, but was every liar going to be allowed to carry out his evil scheme, despite the war? What friends in high places did he have to escape the usual laws? Surely he wasn’t going just for a short leave. She’d seen him go off duty before without that aura around him. And he hadn’t hidden the other trips from her. His silence, yesterday’s smile, his secretiveness, other bits of evidence—what additional proof did she need to know he wasn’t coming back? She’d been betrayed, fleeced, thrust back into her prison—she who had been hoping for so long, who had put her trust in him! And he was singing! So he had forgotten her? At least—this supplicating thought arrived—he was perhaps only singing so that she would hear. He was certainly capable of it!
His suitcase buckled, he left it on the table and went out. Quickly, Madame de Villaplane got up and ran down the stairs, and as he reached the vestibule, she called out, “Monsieur Kaminsky!”
He turned and smiled, calm, innocent, friendly, a hand resting on the banister. His long olive-skinned face, his big nose, his fat lips, his full cheeks gave off a happiness he made no effort to conceal. He waited. “Madame?”
She had her game face on this morning. Literally overcome. He made a movement to look at his watch, ostensibly checking the time.
“Oh, really?” said Madame de Villaplane, paling. She came down a few more steps. He still didn’t move. She said again, “Really?”
He stopped smiling. “What do you mean?” he said.
“Are you in such a rush?”
He thought about it, then shook his head, “No, after all, no.”
“Let’s go into the dining room.”
He diagnosed her: maximum level of agitation. Big scene ahead. “But of course,” he replied, at the bottom of the stairs. She followed.
They entered the dining room like two accomplices, and he thought, with a little pleasure, of the loony scene that was brewing. Madame de Villaplane carefully closed the door.
As soon as she did, her manner changed. She looked Kaminsky up and down with disgust, moving away as if she feared his touch. “I must tell you,” she said in a shrill little voice, “I must tell you, Monsieur, that you would do well to find another place to stay!”
Damn it, did she really have to go to all this trouble just to tell him that? She was a cunning one, wasn’t she! “Come, come,” said Kaminsky, almost inaudibly.
But already Madame de Villaplane continued, “What! This disrespect on your part—what time did you come home last night?”
Kaminsky’s smile returned. “You want me to tell you, dear Madame?”
“I demand that you reply.”
She was trembling, poor little old lady, she was alive with anger.
“But,” Kaminsky continued, in a voice of true gentleness, “you astonish me. What time did I get home? Come now, it’s you who are about to tell me, Madame. Why don’t you try to remember, attempt to put a finger on the exact moment you woke up? I am in fact in a bit of a hurry, but if this must continue—I can spare five minutes—will you permit me to take a seat? And would you perhaps take one too? It seems to me that you’re a little tired this morning. May I inquire—how is your heart?”
While he spoke, he pushed a chair towards her. With two glaring eyes, she watched him do it, the whole bottom half of her face frozen into a grimace that must have been quite painful. Her two hands were clasping, refusing. “Leave my heart alone!”
“But allow me,” he said again, “I must insist.”
“Otto!”
He let himself relax. “Ah! That’s better . . .yes, I like that much better. Finally you’re looking more like yourself. Yes, much nicer now. What has upset you so, my dear . . . Blanche?”
“My God!” she murmured.
He pretended not to hear. “Once more, are you sure you won’t sit down? No? You refuse? In that case, I must ask your permission to seat myself. I’m a bit tired . . . after a night like that!” he finished in a tone that made Madame de Villaplane tremble from head to toe.
“Are you truly the devil incarnate?” she cried.
He widened his eyes, apparently shocked. “That’s quite strong!”
“But don’t you understand—”
Her sentence went unfinished. Madame de Villaplane leaned on the mantel, as if to put herself under the protection of the two portraits of father and grandfather. She was shockingly fragile this morning,
so vulnerable, as Kaminsky of course realized. Usually, she reserved a different violence for these scenes—and often, she was the one who controlled them. But this morning Kaminsky was in charge.
“May I smoke?” he said, taking a packet of cigarettes from his pocket.
A moment. Then she replied, “May I kill you?”
He burst out laughing.
Madame de Villaplane’s arms fell limply on her black dress.
When he had finished laughing: “Let’s be serious. I mean,” he said, crossing his legs (he had put a cigarette in his mouth but hadn’t lit it), “I mean to invite some friends over for tea this evening. Would that be an imposition do you think?”
She didn’t answer.
He continued calmly, “There will be five or six of us, no more. Would that be possible? Do you have everything ready? I would like . . . Oh! Don’t make that face. When you want to, you still know how to be pretty!”
She didn’t flinch.
“Say something. Answer me!”
“Who was in your bed last night?”
He looked at her with great astonishment, as though she’d asked him if his name really was Otto Kaminsky, if it was true that he was a man, and not a bird.
“Why, Simone.”
“And Léo drove you back here?”
“Who else besides Léo would it have been? Yes Léo. In the prefect’s car. As usual. Why do you ask?” No answer. He shrugged. “You’re acting funny this morning.”
“Do you think?”
“Yes. Standing there, leaning on the fireplace, not moving. You—excuse the comparison, but it’s because of the fireplace—and you’re so little! You look like a log, like a little stick of kindling.”
“Mostly charred?”
He considered this.
“Yes. Because of the black dress, no doubt. Why do you make me say such things? I don’t want to. It’s funny—there’s something about you that makes me cruel.”
She closed her eyes.
“And what’s more, I have, towards you, Blanche—must I tell you? Do you want me to tell you—”
“Be quiet.”
Her eyes still closed, her little mouth in a tight line, her fingers clasped together over the black dress so tightly they could crack. “You’re worse than I am, Otto.”
He gave a strange answer: “I’m doing my best.”
Silence.
Kaminsky balanced delicately on the chair, which creaked. He decided to light his cigarette. “Let’s get back to business,” he said, tossing his match into the fireplace. “I told you I mean to have a few friends over for tea this evening. Basically, I’d like to give this little gathering a—celebratory air. For example, I would like this dining room—which between us, no offense, is rather depressing—to be decorated. Couldn’t there be some flowers? And candles, that’s what I would like. It is, I admit, a little bit romantic on my part, but in the end—how much would that be?”
She seemed not to have heard.
“How much? Don’t forget that I’m a miser!”
For the first time since this fight began, something resembling a smile flitted over Madame de Villaplane’s
face.
“—all the money in the world,” he heard her say. But it was barely audible.
“What was that?”
“Not for all the money in the world!”
“What! Really? How could you refuse?” he said, tipping back against his chair, his cigarette left to burn between his fingers. “Is that so? And I thought it would cheer you up, I thought you’d like to be among us!”
“Me!” This time, Madame de Villaplane had shouted. Not only that, but she’d torn herself away from the mantelpiece and stepped toward Kaminsky, who stood up. She yelled into his face, “Bastard!”
He gently took the old lady’s frail wrist between his fingers. “You’re getting yourself all worked up. Why so angry? Whatever I say, you always hear God knows what subtext. Don’t you know that—that you’re my best friend?” he finished in a tender tone, leaning in towards Madame de Villaplane’s face.
She pulled away. “Let go of me.”
“Why?”
“Let me go or I’ll scream!”
“Don’t sound so childish, my dear Blanche. Scream? Why would you? After all, if you feel like screaming, you can go ahead. They say it’s calming. You’ll scream, someone will come, and I’ll tell them—”
“Is there anyone on this earth more disgusting than this man!”
He pushed her away. “I am what I am.”
The silence returned, heavier, thicker. It was dark inside the room. Outside it rained.
“So it’s settled then?” he finally said. “The answer is no?”
She didn’t understand right away. “No what?”
“About the tea?”
She shrugged clumsily, with a childish, sulky little frown lurking on her lips. “What more could that do to me?”
“So it’s all right?”
“Why not? What do I care?”
“With flowers?”
“All the flowers you want. Tell the maid so she’ll take care of it—”
“And a big wood fire in the fireplace, of course?”
“Naturally.”
“Then we’re agreed. And you’ll be there, won’t you?”
“Otto!”
“If you start screaming again, I’m leaving. I—I’ve had enough. I can’t stand to hear you scream like that. You have to be there. It’s a little—goodbye party.”
She looked for something to lean on. Her hand found the back of a chair.
“Since you’re kicking me out,” finished Kaminsky, looking her straight in the eye. “Since—”
But this time he didn’t have the chance to say more. Madame de Villaplane left the dining room like an arrow that’s been released.
•
In the vestibule, the maid was talking to Lucien Bourcier.
“A room, sir?”
“Yes please.”
“For one month?”
“For one day.”
“But we don’t rent rooms by the day, sir.” And seeing Madame de Villaplane come into the vestibule looking like death, the maid cried out, “Madame! Madame!”
Madame de Villaplane paused.
Kaminsky appeared and said, “Madame de Villaplane isn’t feeling well this morning, Ernestine. Would you—”
“Mind your own business!” Madame de Villaplane interrupted in a bitter voice.
He smiled. “You’ve surpassed yourself.”
“Enough!”
“Fine. As you please.”
“Be satisfied with giving orders for your . . . tea,” she said. “And by the way, yes, you’re right, I’m not well, it’s true. Ernestine, see what this Monsieur wants, if this little scene hasn’t given him reason enough to flee. What, sir, would you like a room here?”
“For a day,” said Lucien.
She gave a burst of nervous laughter and staggered toward the stairs. “For a day! For a day!” she cried, “Oh why not for a day! Ernestine, give this man a room. For a day! Nothing but a day!”
They listened. She didn’t stop laughing and crying “for a day!” as she climbed up to her room. A door slammed. Then nothing.
CRIPURE was dictating to his class.
Sitting under the window, he looked enormous in his goatskin, like a bear. His tapered hands rested on his thighs.
“Morality, you see, is a science, you see, or an art. Write that down!”
“A what?”
“An art,” came the whispers from various sides of the room, “an art!”
“Silence!” he snapped, in a sharp voice, exasperated. They laughed; he threatened, “Enough! The first boy who acts out will be kicked out of class immediately. For good, with the additional bonus of a four-hour detention.” He hurried on with the dictation, “Morality is a science or an art which teaches men how to conduct their lives. Write that down!”
The pens scratched. But even the scratching wasn’t a simple sound, but instead something like the scrabbling of an army of ants or spiders on sand—
He took his watch out of his pocket—another fifteen minutes. How his classes dragged on, how everything dragged on! They could hear, from the neighboring classroom, Babinot’s nasal voice, “Is Le Bars a bad student, mes-si-eurs?”
The class answered together: “Yes!”
But Babinot said, “Nah, nah! I’m telling you nah. And why mes-si-eurs do I say nah? Because if Le Bars were a bad student then he would also be—go on, mes-si-eurs, go on! What would he be?”
“A bad Frenchman,” the students chorused.
“That’s what I wanted you to say! He’d be a bad Frenchman. And is Le Bars a bad Frenchman?”
“No!”
“A fortiori then, mes-si-eurs, our friend Le Bars is a good student, and he’s going to recite the lesson for us. We were saying, mes-si-eur Le Bars, we were saying that Verdun—”
A sound of footsteps, then silence.
“I congratulate you, mes-si-eurs! Have a seat!”
Footsteps again. And Babinot continued: “Verdun underwent eleven sieges. They were?”
A childish voice began: “In 451, Attila—”
With a sigh, Cripure lifted his head. His own students, pens at the ready, had only been waiting for that signal to burst into laughter. He realized he had completely forgotten them.
“Silence!” he shouted in a shrill, cringing voice. But they only laughed harder and he rose from his seat, fleeing his suffering, recognizing his helplessness once again. On his feet, he was grotesque—no longer a bear but an ape, a paralyzed orangutan, sagging on too-long thighs. The impression hovered over the reality like a more menacing real. He gave his students a terrified look, and their joy grew.
From year to year, it got worse. Would he end his “career” senile, being the lookout for these dunces as they played cards? Or as a louse?
“Silence, you dunces!” He banged his fist on the lectern, and it echoed like a barrel. They were quiet. Perhaps it was a false alarm, he thought.
At his desk, a student was noisily cracking his knuckles.
“M’sieu!”
Cripure took his chances, casting a fierce look at the little scoundrel’s face, which was puffed with laughter. “What do you have to say to us, Monsieur Gentric?”
Gentric got up, and said in a rush, “Is it true m’sieu, that Immanouel Kant, the immortal author of the Cripure of Tique Reason—”
A pure delight seized the class. They didn’t content themselves with just laughing, but clapped their hands, banged their feet under the desks, cried out “Creep, creep, Cripure!”
Cripure closed his eyes.
“—Is it true he was a virgin?” Gentric finished. The more cowardly—a large number—sank into their seats. Gentric looked back and forth like an overgrown bird. To their surprise, Cripure also smiled, then laughed outright, his watch chain bouncing up and down on his vest. Oh! It’s all to the good, understandably, this irreverence for idols! All the same—
“A little too spirited, don’t you think Monsieur Gentric, and a little too Rabelaisian at that. Let’s drop it.” He
laughed even harder.
Gentric exploded. The others, seeing that he’d get away with it, picked themselves back up and joined the chorus. So much cowardice disgusted Cripure. Truly the worst human quality, at all stages of life, was the hypocrisy that came from this unwillingness to take a risk.
“Fools!” he cried, “Shut up, you fools, you herd of bootlickers, daddy’s boys! Filthy little bourgeois! Why do you even come here? For culture? Let’s talk about that, then, you band of—scoundrels! You’re nothing but—” He bit his tongue on this risky insult: killers.
They must be hiding somewhere in the crowd, the two or three little bastards who had loosened the bolts on his bikes. They must be shaking with fear, just then, with the idea that they’d be in detention for a whole Thursday. What disgust! And disgust with himself too, since after all—
Since after all, he’d done himself in. And the proof was that he’d barely thought of the affair, that he still didn’t know if he’d complain to the principal—
There was a knock. At the same time the door opened and Monsieur Bourcier entered brusquely. Cripure, crimson and sweating with anger, held his breath. He lowered his raised arm, and even attempted a smile (which went undetected) in response to the dean’s greeting. But it was the guilty smile of someone who’s caught in the act and begs for mercy, and the joy—yes the joy—of the threatened passerby who sees the police rushing in.
The students were fixed in an attitude of false respect, but they were laughing under their breath. They knew well that, in the eyes of the dean, Cripure was the guilty one, not the other way around.
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