‘Is he going away for a long time?’ she asked.
‘Two or three months.’
‘Well, then, he’ll be back, my dear,’ she said, looking fondly at Thérèse’s trembling hands. Thérèse did not cry; her voice was calm but she could not stop her fingers from shaking against her will; she picked up the scissors and cut diagonally across a piece of crepe; she put down the sewing.
‘I’m not doing anything right; I can’t see properly any more.’
She stood up to light the lamp.
‘He won’t come back often,’ she said after a moment of silence. ‘He leads a different life over there. What can you do?’ She made a vague gesture meant to indicate both America and the strange, exciting world where money was so easy to make, where everything was pleasurable, where women gave themselves to men they did not love.
She sat back down in silence and continued working on the little black hat; it was an old one; they had dyed the felt, for they had to be thrifty, had to count their pennies. Her widow’s pension and the Russian stocks were barely enough to keep her going when life was so expensive. Bernard no longer wanted anything to do with this ‘middle-class contentment’. Bernard was going to make his fortune in America. Détang had introduced him to politicians and financiers. ‘If you only knew what kind of crooked deals they make …’ said Bernard. He admitted it; he knew it was wrong; he was taking advantage of it; he was swimming in dangerous waters, just like the others. But he, he had been to war, yet he thought, and said, that he would have done better to speculate on American stocks. He had no respect for anything, not for women, not for love, not for the ideas for which they had fought.
She pushed the needle in, then pushed it in deeper, pulled it out, pushed it in again, concentrated on her sewing without raising her eyes.
5
When Bernard returned from the United States, he received nearly two hundred thousand francs in commission for having negotiated the purchase of heavy oil to be sent to the French protectorates of Cilicia and Syria. It was not only an excellent deal, but, from a patriotic point of view, it was impossible not to congratulate himself at the thought of the French armies in the Lebanon so well supplied.
‘I could have you decorated,’ Raymond Détang had said, ‘but you’re so young … Just be satisfied with having helped your country and having pocketed a nice little sum …’
Raymond Détang had earned five million francs out of the transaction.
It was an impressive feat; Bernard savoured an intoxicating feeling of pleasure. His childhood had been spent as a lower middle-class boy, holding him back in every possible way; his entire family stood between him and the rest of the world, forming insurmountable barriers; four years in hell and, finally, the golden years of 1920–1921, as spicy and full-bodied as ripe grapes. ‘Come and take whatever you want,’ said all the men and women. ‘Don’t even think about whether it’s good or bad. We are living in fortunate times, and there are no scruples. Take advantage of it.’
Two hundred thousand francs … He bought a car; he rented a bachelor flat. He knew very well that at the rate he was spending money, two hundred thousand francs would only last three to six months … But after that, he would surely have earned some more.
‘Actually, life has become much simpler,’ he said to Thérèse, whom he saw from time to time, when he went to visit his mother. He came over on New Year’s Day and, two months later, when he caught a bad cold, he spent a week at home so he could be looked after. It was rather nice to be in his folding bed again with his old, dog-eared copy of The Three Musketeers. Yes, life was much simpler. Before, he used to worry endlessly about everything: duty, honour, scruples, responsibilities, love affairs. Now, there was only one problem: how could he earn as much money as possible, and as quickly as possible? And since everyone else in the world was intent only on that one thing, too, he managed to obtain rather pleasing results. During the war it was the same, except then, people thought only about weapons, not much else entered their minds. Now, it was all about money … People made money out of everything, out of nothing. Recommendations, preferential treatment, favours, lunches with people from the Stock Market, finding an apartment to rent, a request sent out, a chateau, a painting, a car to sell …
‘It’s very strange,’ Madame Jacquelain confided to Thérèse. ‘It’s impossible to tell when he’s being serious.’
‘One day,’ said Bernard, ‘I’ll invite you over to my place … with Mama, of course, who can be your chaperone. You’ll see how nice a beautiful house can be, with good furniture and a servant.’
‘And yet, this is where you come when you’re ill …’
‘Naturally; when I have the flu and a head like this, I’m not myself. I get sentimental. Will you come and see me, Thérèse? I have African masks. I have a bathroom with green floor tiles. I have a Chinese servant and a Siamese cat. Lots of toys, you see?’
She looked at him and thought: ‘I love him. I love him even as he is: happy, unfaithful, offhand, loved by other women, blessed with good luck. I would love him even if he were poor and unhappy. He is a good man, intelligent, but I don’t respect him the way I respected Martial. He has no conscience. He would make me suffer … if he wanted to. But I can’t help it. I love him.’
She didn’t dare believe he was really inviting her to spend an evening at his place, and yet he was offering just that. He wanted to please Madame Jacquelain and Thérèse’s presence would lighten the burden; he was happy to have them admire his beautiful apartment. In truth, Thérèse had a place in his thoughts, a very humble place, but she was dependable. ‘Thérèse is a good looking young woman, but she won’t hear of it … Too bad! Even so, she’s worth more than Renée. Oh, that Renée: to despise a woman, to see her exactly as she is, a heartless slut, and to still be drawn to her to the point of suffering, of feeling desperate, of being jealous … And her husband … All his financial deals … Ugh! Some day I’ll walk away from all that,’ thought Bernard as he went home one day at dawn. ‘It’s filthy, and ugly … Some day, I’ll marry Thérèse. But,’ he continued thinking with a sudden surge of sincerity, ‘once you’ve had a taste of all that: women like Renée, money like the two hundred thousand francs that falls into your hands just for having signed a bit of paper and taken a pleasure trip to New York or Washington – it’s impossible to disentangle yourself from all that afterwards. It’s a poisoned chalice. Bah! Best not to think about it. What difference does that make to how the world works? It will carry on in the same old way whether Bernard Jacquelain is rich or poor, a sucker or a sly devil. What does it matter?’
One evening in June, he invited his mother and Thérèse to his apartment. He felt such joy! It was a ridiculous sort of joy, he told himself, for, in the end, where would it get him? She needed promises, words of love, love itself – why not? She was young. But what she needed most was to own the man she loved, the kind of possession that marriage alone provides. To live with him, sleep beside him, look after his meals, his health, his well-being, to ask every morning: ‘What are you going to do today?’, and question him every evening: ‘Who did you see today? What did you do? Tell me about it.’ Someone to give her children. Oh, yes, especially that; when she thought of the children she might have had, something deeply instinctive and gentle, but as yet untouched began to stir within her body and thrill her.
One day, he would come to understand that she could make him happy. But there was not much hope of that while he was living the life he now led.
‘What he loves,’ she thought, ‘is not Renée, it isn’t even money … It’s the luxury. You can fight a rival. But in this day and age, you can’t tear a man away from the seductive charms of a car, a bathroom with green floor tiles and a Siamese cat.’
She knew absolutely nothing about his business dealings, but she guessed they had to do with procuring what was superfluous rather than what was actually necessary, deals that fed on bluff, publicity and expenditure until they reached the point where
they worked endlessly just to produce enough money to spend, and needed still more to make more. A vicious circle, the illusion of alchemy … Bernard said so himself, but it was this alone, this formula alone, that promised a life of luxury.
‘My God,’ thought Thérèse, ‘do you really need all that to be happy?’ She had entered the house where Bernard lived, arm in arm with Madame Jacquelain. Everything seemed immense to her, overwhelming. It was a large new building, near the Bois de Boulogne, quite close to where the Détangs lived, a fact Thérèse did not know. A Chinese man in a white jacket opened the door for them and said that his master had not yet returned but that he had ordered dinner to be ready at eight o’clock.
‘He’ll be here soon,’ said Madame Jacquelain. ‘Thérèse, my darling, we can take advantage of it by having a look around his bachelor flat. A bachelor flat … what would my poor husband have said if he knew that Bernard had a bachelor flat? Do you remember his little metal folding bed in the dining room, behind the wood-burning stove, before he had his own room? This must be a change for him. Still, it’s admirable that he has come so far in so short a time. There’s the hallway. Here’s his little office. Do you want to see his bedroom?’
There was a large mirror in the bedroom in which Thérèse saw her reflection. She was wearing a black dress with a small collar and lawn cuffs. She thought she looked pretty. She had cut out the fabric and made the dress herself. ‘It’s just as good as the designs from the large fashion houses,’ she thought defiantly. ‘After all, those dresses aren’t made by the gods; they’re made by modest working women, humble little women like me.’ And every stitch contained so much love, so much desire to look attractive …
‘He will look at me,’ she mused, her heart beating with joy. ‘ “That dress looks good on you, Thérèse,” he’ll say. I don’t have any jewellery, but I have nice arms and a pretty neck. It’s true. I have to make sure he notices. The dinner … All three of them, relaxed together … Madame Jacquelain must be encouraged to have just a drop of champagne, I saw some champagne in the refrigerator (Madame Jacquelain had insisted she see the kitchen and pantry). As soon as she has any champagne, the old dear goes straight to sleep. I remember the day of Bernard’s First Communion; his mother fell asleep during the dessert.’
She pictured Madame Jacquelain dozing in her armchair. She and Bernard would hide out in his little office. It was the only room that felt welcoming to her. On the divan, he would offer her a cigarette … If she saw he was affectionate and funny as he sometimes was, she would not be able to stand it any more, she would throw her arms around his neck. She would say: ‘Be mine forever … You need a woman who will pamper you, look after you when you’re ill, keep an eye on the cook, because you will dismiss that Chinese servant who looks like a thief … Be mine.’
She smiled, looked in the mirror and adjusted the brooch that held her collar in place; it was a little heart made of rubies surrounded by lots of tiny diamonds. A gift from her grandmother …‘I was thinking of leaving it to you,’ Madame Pain had said – she enjoyed what she called making ‘her little plans’, her down payments on the future; death seemed to be in her control this way, almost welcomed since it allowed her to offer little pleasures to the living. ‘Yes, I was thinking of holding on to it for a little while longer, but I’m giving it to you today so that it brings you good luck …’ These elderly women – Madame Pain, Madame Jacquelain – they knew everything. Madame Jacquelain would have preferred her son to marry an heiress, ‘but that doesn’t matter, that doesn’t frighten me,’ thought Thérèse.
‘It’s late,’ said Madame Jacquelain, also looking in the mirror, with satisfaction at her new dress; she had had it shortened slightly, meekly if belatedly following the indecent fashion of 1921 by allowing her black cotton stockings to show up to mid-calf. ‘The table is very tastefully set. This servant, the cook, his valet told me that Bernard invites people for dinner almost every night. The rascal … There are flowers strewn on the tablecloth; that’s very “high society”, don’t you think? Now I wonder what we’re going to have for dinner.’
‘I’m sure it will be excellent,’ Thérèse said happily.
‘I could give this Chinese servant some recipes, I’m sure,’ Madame Jacquelain continued. ‘I wonder if he knows how to make a good mutton stew with apples, or waffles. Those were Bernard’s favourite dishes. Let’s go back into the sitting room, if that’s all right with you, my dear. My son will be back any minute now.’
Thérèse agreed; they waited in silence; after a few moments, they heard footsteps on the carpet outside the door.
‘Here he is,’ whispered Madame Jacquelain. ‘We didn’t hear the bell ring, or the key turn in the door, but this apartment is so enormous!’
But it was only the Chinese man who opened the door of a small bar:
‘Cocktails?’
‘My God, Thérèse, look at how funny that bar is!’ cried Madame Jacquelain. She was on the verge of admitting to herself that she and her husband had pointlessly wasted their youth. The world offered more than she had thought, full of mysterious pleasures.
‘But tell me now, aren’t all those drinks very strong?’
‘Some are strong and some are mild,’ the Chinese servant replied.
Madame Jacquelain accepted a glass full of an iced liquid the colour of murky, stagnant water; then she was eager to try a concoction made with cinnamon and an egg yolk. ‘It must be like eggnog.’ It was sweet, with the flavour of fire and ice.
The Chinese man silently left the room. Madame Jacquelain took a few unsteady steps in the middle of the sitting room:
‘My little boy … Can you picture my little boy serving cocktails to his old mother? I should have had another one, don’t you think, Thérèse? We’ll drink some more when he gets here …’
When he gets here … Thérèse looked over at the clock. It was so late … She was unconsciously folding and unfolding her little handkerchief.
‘I wonder,’ said Madame Jacquelain pensively, ‘I wonder where my naughty little boy can be. He must have some meeting in very “high society”. Some aristocratic lady, perhaps, or a wealthy foreign woman …’
‘Don’t fool yourself,’ said Thérèse curtly. ‘He’s Renée Humbert’s lover, the one who used to go for walks with us down the Champs-Élysées on Sundays. The hat maker’s daughter … Only now that she is very rich and very well dressed, he finds her dazzling, that’s all there is to it, he finds her dazzling. Just like all this ostentatious luxury, and that Chinese servant with the long face.’
‘I think he’s very nice,’ said Madame Jacquelain, her face beaming with delight, ‘yes, I do.’ She was seeing everything through the heady mists of the drinks she’d had. ‘And this apartment is very nice too. Isn’t that the telephone ringing?’
It was indeed the telephone. They could hear the Chinese man’s muffled voice from behind the door replying: ‘Yes, Monsieur. Very good, Monsieur. Of course, Monsieur.’ He put down the phone, opened the door and appeared for a moment.
‘Monsieur has just telephoned. Monsieur sends many apologies. He has been detained. He asks for the ladies to begin dinner without him. He will come back a little later.’
‘Well, then,’ cried Madame Jacquelain after a moment’s silence. ‘Let us eat. We mustn’t let the soup get cold.’
They sat down opposite each other at the table, secretly glancing now and again at the empty chair that belonged to the man of the house. Thérèse had lost her appetite. ‘Eat something,’ said Madame Jacquelain, who was gradually falling asleep, ‘you haven’t touched a thing!’
When the fish was served, a Siamese cat with fur the colour of sable and translucent eyes, jumped on to the table; Madame Jacquelain chased it away with her napkin.
‘My dear old Moumoute would never have done such a thing,’ she remarked, shocked.
The cat let out a shrill, unpleasant miaow, scratched Thérèse who tried to stroke it and ran off. Thérèse burst into tears. Madame
Jacquelain, now sober, watched her cry in dismay:
‘Come now, my darling, pull yourself together, think of the servant …’
‘I don’t give a damn about that horrid creature,’ Thérèse insisted through her tears. ‘Please, Madame Jacquelain, please just let me go home.’
‘But Bernard will be home any minute. He’ll apologise. It’s very rude of him but you are such old friends,’ cried Madame Jacquelain.
‘I’m not angry, I won’t hold it against him, but I just want to go.’
‘You’re not going to leave me here alone? Wait another quarter of an hour, just another fifteen minutes. Until ten o’clock, all right? At ten o’clock we’ll leave.’
They waited until ten o’clock, ten thirty, eleven o’clock. They had finished eating. Every now and again, they heard the sound of the great carriage doors below and the long, muffled rumbling of the lift. ‘It’s him. He’s coming,’ the two women thought, their hearts beating faster. But the lift stopped at the floor below or continued rising. The cut flowers sagged on to the tablecloth. Thérèse gathered them up, made them into a bouquet and put them into a glass of water. Poor flowers … Where was Bernard? At eleven o’clock, Madame Jacquelain sighed:
‘Well, I think that, in fact … We’ll do it another time, Thérèse …’
They took the Étoile–Gare de Lyon metro line and went home.
‘I will give him a good telling off,’ said Madame Jacquelain, speaking through the noise of the tunnels and trains. ‘He is too spoiled. He thinks he can do whatever he likes. He will come and apologise to you, Thérèse. That apartment … I’m still under its spell … I had never tasted grapefruit before. Did you notice the hand-embroidered tablecloth, Thérèse? He has crepe de Chine sheets. His wife will look after all those beautiful things. He’ll settle down one day. He could marry a wealthy woman, but … if he found a woman who loved him … What do you think, Thérèse my darling?’
The Fires of Autumn Page 12