by Edna O'Brien
A new wall had arisen, stronger and sturdier than before. Their life together and all those exchanges were like so many spilt feelings, and she looked to see some sign or hear some murmur. Instead, a silence filled the room, and there was a vaster silence beyond, as if the house itself had died or had been carefully put down to sleep.
Mrs. Reinhardt
Mrs. Reinhardt had her routes worked out. Blue ink for the main roads, red when she would want to turn off. A system, and a vow. She must enjoy herself, she must rest, she must recuperate, she must put on weight, and perhaps blossom the merest bit. She must get over it. After all, the world was a green, a sunny, an enchanting place. The hay was being gathered, the spotted cows so sleek they looked like Dalmatians and their movements so lazy in the meadows that they could be somnambulists. The men and women working the fields seemed to be devoid of fret or haste. It was June in Brittany, just before the throngs of visitors arrived, and the roads were relatively clear. The weather was blustery, but as she drove along, the occasional patches of sunlight illumined the trees, the lush grass, and the marshes. Seeds and pollen on the surface of the marshes were a bright mustard yellow. Bits of flowering broom divided the roadside, and at intervals an emergency telephone kiosk in bright orange caught her attention. She did not like that. She did not like emergency and she did not like the telephone. To be avoided.
While driving, Mrs. Reinhardt was occupied and her heart was relatively serene One would not know that recently she had been through so much and that presently much more was to follow. A lull. Observe the roadside, the daisies in the fields, the red and the pink poppies, and the lupins so dozy like the cows; observe the road signs and think in sympathy of the English dead in the last war whose specters floated somewhere in these environments, the English dead of whom some photograph, some relic, or some crushed thought was felt at that moment in some English semidetached home. Think of food, think of shellfish, think of the French or blueberries, think of anything, so long as the mind keeps itself occupied.
It promised to be a beautiful hotel. She had seen photos of it, a dovecote on the edge of a lake, the very essence of stillness, beauty, sequesteredness. A place to remeet the god of peace. On either side of the road the pines were young and spindly, but the cows were pendulous, their udders shockingly large and full. It occurred to her that it was still morning and that they had been only recently milked, so what would they feel like at sundown! What a nuisance that it was those cows’ udders that brought the forbidden thought to her mind. Once, in their country cottage, a cow had got caught in the barbed-wire fence and both she and Mr. Reinhardt had a time of it trying to get help, and then trying to release the creature, causing a commotion among the cow community. Afterward they had drunk champagne, intending to celebrate something. Or was it to hide something? Mr. Reinhardt had said that they must not grow apart and yet had quarreled with her about the Common Market and removed her glasses while she was reading a story by Flaubert sitting up in bed. The beginning of the end, as she now knew, as she then knew, or did she, or do we, or is there such a thing, or is it another beginning to another ending, and on and on.
“Damnation,” Mrs. Reinhardt said, and speeded just as she came to where there were a variety of signs with thick arrows and names in navy blue. She had lost her bearings. She took a right and realized at once that she had gone to the east town rather than the main town. So much for distraction. Let him go. The worst was already over. She could see the town cathedral as she glanced behind, and already was looking for a way in which to turn right.
The worst was over, the worst being when the other woman, the girl really, was allowed to wear Mrs. Reinhardt’s nightdress and necklace. For fun. “She is young,” he had said. It seemed she was, this rival, or rather, this replacement. So young that she shouted out of car windows at other motorists, that she carried a big bright umbrella, that she ate chips or cough lozenges on the way to one of these expensive restaurants where Mr. Reinhardt took her. All in all, she was a gamine.
Mrs. Reinhardt drove around a walled city and swore at a system of signs that did not carry the name of the mill town she was looking for. There were other things, like a clock and a bakery and a few strollers, and when she pulled into the tree-lined square, there was a young man naked to the waist in front of an easel, obviously sketching the cathedral. She spread the map over her knees and opened the door to get a puff of air. He looked at her. She smiled at him. She had to smile at someone. All of a sudden she had an irrational wish to have a son, a son who was with her now, to comfort her, to give her confidence, to take her part. Of course, she had a son, but he was grown up and had gone to America and knew none of this and must not know any of this.
The man told her that she need never have gone into the cathedral town, but as she said herself, she had seen it, she had seen the young man painting, she had given a little smile and he had smiled back and that was something. For the rest of the journey she remained alert, she saw trees, gabled houses, a few windmills, she saw dandelions, she passed little towns, she saw washing on the line, and she knew that she was going in the right direction.
Her arrival was tended with magic. Trees, the sound of running water, flowers, wildflowers, and a sense of being in a place that it would take time to know, take time to discover. To make it even more mysterious, the apartments were stone chalets scattered at a distance throughout the grounds. It was a complex, really, but one in which nature dominated. She went down some steps to where it said RECEPTION and, having introduced herself, was asked at once to hurry so as to be served lunch. Finding the dining room was an expedition in itself—up steps, down more steps, and then into a little outer salon where there were round tables covered with lace cloths and on each table a vase of wildflowers. She bent down and smelled some pansies. A pure sweet silken smell, with the texture of childhood. She felt grateful. Her husband was paying for all this, and what a pity that like her he was not now going down more steps, past a satin screen, to a table laid for two by an open window, to the accompaniment of running water. She had a half bottle of champagne, duck pâté, and a flat white grilled fish on a bed of thin strips of boiled leek. The hollandaise sauce was perfect and yellower than usual because they had added mustard. She was alone except for the serving girl and an older couple at a table a few yards away. She could not hear what they said. The man was drinking Calvados. The serving girl had a pretty face and brown curly hair tied back with a ribbon. One curl had been brought onto her forehead for effect. She radiated innocence and a dream. Mrs. Reinhardt could not avoid looking at her for long and thought, She has probably never been to Paris, never even been to Nantes, but she hopes to go and will go one day. That story was in her eyes, in the curls of her hair, in everything she did. That thirst.
After lunch Mrs. Reinhardt was escorted to her room. It was down a dusty road with ferns and dock on either side. Wild roses of the palest pink tumbled over the arch of the door, and when she stood in her bedroom and looked through one of the narrow turret windows, it was these roses and grassland that she saw, while from the other side she could hear the rush of the water; the two images reminded her of herself and of everybody else that she had known. One was green and hushed and quiet and the other was torrential. Did they have to conflict with each other? She undressed, she unpacked, she opened the little refrigerator to see what delights were there. There was beer and champagne and miniatures of whiskey and Vichy water and red cordial. It was like being a child again and looking into one’s little toy house. She had a little weep. For what did Mrs. Reinhardt weep—for beauty, for ugliness, for herself, for her son in America, for Mr. Reinhardt, who had lost his reason. So badly did Mr. Reinhardt love this new girl, Rita, that he had made her take him to meet all her friends so that he could ask them how Rita looked at sixteen, and seventeen, what Rita wore, what Rita was like as a debutante, and why Rita stopped going to art school, and had made notes of these things. Had made an utter fool of himself. Yes, she cried for that, an
d as she cried, it seemed to her the tears were like the strata of this earth, had many levels and many layers, and that those layers differed, and that now she was crying for more than one thing at the same time, that her tears were all mixed up. She was also crying about age, about two gray ribs in her pubic hair, crying for not having tried harder on certain occasions, as when Mr. Reinhardt came home expecting excitement or repose and getting instead a typical story about the nonarrival of the gas man. She had let herself be drawn into the weary and hypnotizing whirl of domesticity. With her the magazines had to be neat, the dust had to be dusted, all her perfectionism had got thrown into that instead of something larger, or instead of Mr. Reinhardt Where do we go wrong? Is that not what guardian angels are meant to do, to lead us back by the hand?
She cried, too, because of the night she had thrown a platter at him, and he sat there mortified, and said that he knew he was wrecking her life and his, but that he could not stop it, said maybe it was madness or the male menopause or anything she wanted to call it, but that it was what it was, what it was. He had even appealed to her. He told her a story, he told her that very day when he had gone to an auction to buy some pictures for the gallery, he had brought Rita with him, and as they drove along the motorway, he had hoped that they would crash, so terrible for him was his predicament and so impossible for him was it to be parted from this girl, who he admitted had made him delirious, but Happy, but Happy, as he kept insisting.
It was this helplessness of human beings that made her cry most of all, and when long after, which is to say at sunset, Mrs. Reinhardt had dried her eyes and had put on her oyster dress and her Chinese necklace, she was still repeating to herself this matter of helplessness. At the same time she was reminding herself that there lay ahead a life, adventure, that she had not finished; she had merely changed direction and the new road was unknown to her.
She sat down to dinner. She was at a different table. This time she looked out on a lake that was a tableau of prettiness—trees on either side, overhanging branches, green leaves with silver undersides, and a fallen bough where ducks perched. The residents were mostly elderly, except for one woman with orange hair and studded sunglasses. This woman scanned a magazine throughout the dinner and did not address a word to her escort.
Mrs. Reinhardt would look at the view, have a sip of wine, chew a crust of the bread that was so aerated it was like a communion wafer. Suddenly she looked to one side and there in a tank with bubbles of water within were several lobsters. They were so beautiful that at first she thought they were mannequin lobsters, ornaments. Their shells had beautiful blue tints, the blue of lapis lazuli, and though their movements had at first unnerved her, she began to engross herself in their motion and to forget what was going on around her. They moved beautifully and to such purpose. They moved to touch each other, at least some did, and others waited, were the recipients, so to speak, of this reach, this touch. Their movements had all the grandeur of speech without the folly. But there was no mistaking their intention. So caught up was she in this that she did not hear the pretty girl call her out to the phone, and in fact she had to be touched on the bare arm, which of course made her jump. Naturally she went out somewhat flustered, missed her step, and turned but did not wrench her ankle. It was her weak ankle, the one she always fell on. Going into the little booth, she mettled herself. Perhaps he was contrite or drunk, or else there had been an accident, or else their son was getting married. At any rate, it was crucial. She said her hello calmly but pertly. She repeated it. It was a strange voice altogether, a man asking for Rachel. She said who is Rachel. There were a few moments of heated irritation and then complete disappointment as Mrs. Reinhardt made her way back to her table trembling. Stupid girl to have called her! Only the lobsters saved the occasion.
Now she gave them her full attention. Now she forgot the mistake of the phone and observed the drama that was going on. A great long lobster seemed to be lord of the tank. His claws were covered with black elastic bands, but that did not prevent him from proudly stalking through the water, having frontal battles with some, but chiefly trying to arouse another: a sleeping lobster who was obviously his heart’s desire. His appeals to her were mesmerizing. He would tickle her with his antennae, he would put claws over her, then edge a claw under her so that he levered her up a fraction, and then he would leave her be for an instant, only to return with a stronger, with a more telling, assault. Of course there were moments when he had to desist, to ward off others who were coming in her region, and this he did with the same determination, facing them with eyes that were vicious yet immobile as beads. He would lunge through the water and drive them back or drive them elsewhere, and then he would return as if to his love and to his oracle. There were secondary movements in the tank, of course, but it was at the main drama Mrs. Reinhardt looked. She presumed it was a him and gave him the name of Napoleon. At times so great was his sexual plight that he would lower a long antenna under his rear and touch the little dun bibs of membrane and obviously excite himself so that he could start afresh on his sleeping lady. Because he was in no doubt but that she would succumb. Mrs. Reinhardt christened her the Japanese Lady, because of her languor, her refusal to be roused, by him, or by any of them, and Mrs. Reinhardt thought, Oh, what a sight it will be when she does rise up and give herself to his embraces; oh, what a wedding that will be! Mrs. Reinhardt also thought that it was very likely that they would only be in this tank for a short number of hours and that in those hours they must act the play of their lives. Looking at them, with her hands pressed together, she hoped, the way children hope, for a happy ending to this courtship.
She had to leave the dining room while it was still going on, but in some way, she felt, with the lights out and visitors gone, the protagonists, safe in their tank, secured by air bubbles, secretly would find each other. She had drunk a little too much, and she swayed slightly as she went down the dusty road to her chalet. She felt elated. She had seen something that moved her. She had seen instinct, she had seen the grope, and she had seen the will that refuses to be refused. She had seen tenderness.
In her bedroom she put the necklace into the heart-shaped wicker box and hid it under the bolster of the second bed. She had robbed her husband of it—this beautiful choker of jade. It had been his mother’s. It was worth ten thousand pounds. It was her going-away present. She had extracted it from him. Before closing it in the box she bit on the beads as if they were fruit.
“If you give me the necklace I will go away.” That was what she had said, and she knew that in some corner she was thereby murdering his heart. It was his family necklace and it was the one thing in which he believed his luck was invested. Also, he was born under the sign of Cancer and if he clung, he clung. It was the thing they shared, and by taking it she was telling him that she was going away forever, and that she was taking some of him, his most important talisman, relic of his mother, relic of their life together. She had now become so involved with this piece of jewelry that when she wore it she touched her throat constantly to make sure that it was there, and when she took it off, she kissed it, and at night she dreamed of it, and one night she dreamed that she had tucked it into her vagina for safety and hidden it there. At other times she thought how she would go to the casino and gamble it away, his luck and hers. There was a casino nearby and on Saturday there was to be a cycling tournament, and she thought that one night, maybe on Saturday, she would go out, and maybe she would gamble and maybe she would win. Soon she fell asleep.
On the third day Mrs. Reinhardt went driving. She needed a change of scene. She needed sea air and crag. She needed invigoration. The little nest was cloying. The quack-quack of the ducks, the running water were all very well, but they were beginning to echo her own cravings and she did not like that. So after breakfast she read the seventeenth-century Nun’s Prayer, the one which asked the Lord to release one from excessive speech, to make one thoughtful but not moody, to give one a few friends and to keep one reasonab
ly sweet. She thought of Rita. Rita’s bright-blue eyes, sapphire eyes, and the little studs in her ears that matched. Rita was ungainly, like a colt. Rita would be the kind of girl who could stay up all night, swim at dawn, and then sleep like a baby all through the day, even in an unshaded room. Youth. Yet it so happened that Mrs. Reinhardt had found an admirer. The Monsieur who owned the hotel had paid her more than passing attention. In fact, she hardly had to turn a corner but he was there, and he could find some distraction to delay her for a moment, so as he could gaze upon her. First it was a hare running through the undergrowth, then it was his dog following some ducks, then it was the electricity van coming to mend the telephone cable. The dreaded telephone. She was pleased that it was out of order. She was also pleased that she was still striking, and there was no denying but that Mrs. Reinhardt could bewitch people.
It was when judging a young persons’ art exhibition that he met Rita. Rita’s work was the worst, and realizing this, she had tom it up in a tantrum. He came home and told Mrs. Reinhardt and said how sorry he had felt for her but how plucky she had been. It was February the twenty-second. The following day two things happened—he bought several silk shirts and he proposed they go to Paris for a weekend.
“If only I could turn the key on it and close the door and come back when I am an old woman, if only I could do that.” So Mrs. Reinhardt said to herself as she drove away from the green nest, from the singing birds and the hovering midges, from the rich hollandaise sauces and the quilted bed, from the overwhelming comfort of it all. Indeed, she thought she might have suffocated her husband in the very same way. For though Mrs. Reinhardt was cold to others, distant in her relationships with men and women, this was not her true nature; this was something she had built up, a screen of reserve to shelter her fear. She was sentimental at home and used to do a million things for Mr. Reinhardt to please him, and to pander to him. She used to warm his side of the bed while he was still undressing, or looking at a drawing he had just bought, or even pacing the room. The pacing had grown more acute. When she knit his socks in cable stitch she always knit a third sock in case one got tom or mined. While he was fishing or when he hunted in Scotland in August, she went just to be near him, though she dreaded these forays. They were too public. House parties of people thrown in upon each other for a hectic and sociable week. There was no privacy. Some of the women would go as beaters, while some would sit in one of the drawing rooms swapping recipes or discussing face lifts, good clothes, or domestic service bureaus. The landscape and the grouse were the same wonderful color—that of rusted metal. The shot birds often seemed as if they had just lain down in jest, so undead did they seem. Even the few drops of blood seemed unreal, theatrical. She loved the moors, the rusted color of farm and brushwood. She loved the dogs and the excitement, but she balked at the sound of the shots. A sudden violence in those untouched moors and then the glee as the hunters went in search of their kill. He might wink at her once or pass her a cup of bouillon when they sat down, but he didn’t include her in conversation. He didn’t have to. She often thought that the real secret of their love was that she kept the inside of herself permanently warm for him, like someone keeping an egg under a nest of straw. When she loved, she loved completely, rather like a spaniel. Her eyes were the same yellow-brown. As a young girl she was using a sewing machine one day and by accident put the needle through her index finger, but she did not call out to her parents, who were in the other room, she waited until her mother came through. Upon seeing this casualty her mother let out a scream. Within an instant her father was by her side, and with a jerk of the lever he lifted the thing out and gave her such a look, such a loving look. Mrs. Reinhardt was merely Tilly then, an only daughter, and full of trust. She believed that you loved your mother and father, that you loved your brother, that eventually you loved your husband, and then, most of all, that you loved your children. Her parents had spoiled her, had brought her to the Ritz for birthdays, had left gold trinkets on her pillow on Christmas Eve, had comforted her when she wept. When she was twenty-one, they had an expensive portrait done of her and hung it on the wall in a prominent position so that as guests entered they would say “Who is that! Who is that!” and a rash of compliments would follow.