by Неизвестный
Madam Bremon poured him a glass of wine and offered him her usual answer regarding Didi:—He ate well, and behaved as he should.
Sitting on his father’s lap, Didi nuzzled into him. Lifting his dumb face, encrusted with sweat and dust, he nagged for a boat ride.
—Wait a while, Didi,—was the reply.
Mr. Larouette’s wife was staying a few weeks in the mountains because of a contaminated lung. But his mother, a fat and bilious matron, could be seen now, as every evening at this time, spread out in an armchair by the door of her house, ten houses down the street. Her wicked face was pointed seaward, casting a pall of dread on Mr. Larouette and Madam Bremon, her son’s mother-in-law. She fabricated all kinds of ailments and considered herself dangerously ill. She had an extreme fear of walking, and was convinced that if she dared cross the street—just twenty steps from her house to the beach—she would surely collapse and die. For this reason she wouldn’t leave her doorstep, and sat overflowing the edges of her chair, absorbing everything within earshot and acknowledging all the passersby with responses based on merit. She knew the gossip and slander of the town in all its detail, though no one knew where from, as she was never seen talking to anyone.
She controlled her house like a tyrant. No one would dare defy her word, nor in any way disrupt the routine, which she dictated. Her son, Mr. Larouette, the sole heir to her worldly possessions, was forced to submit his monthly earnings in full to her. She would issue him, as she would to a schoolboy, a few francs a week for his personal needs.
—Swimming in the sea is tiring, isn’t it, madam! —Mr. Larouette called through the open window to Gina, who was sunk in a hammock on the small veranda. She swatted lazily at the hum of an invisible mosquito.
—The heat is oppressive. One must get used to it,—she replied.
—The heat doesn’t bother me much.
—Probably because you were born here.
—True.—He emptied his glass of wine and stood up.—Excuse me, but we must begin dinner. Come with me, Didi. Then the “godmother” will come for you.—Didi called Madam Bremon the godmother; he only called Madam Larouette grandma. As he was leaving, Mr. Larouette said:—If you’d like, come for a short sail—after dinner.
—Thanks. We’ll see.
—Better yet, on Sunday,—he added,—then I’m free all afternoon.
He left with Didi and Bijou, walking pigeon-toed.
When the day’s heat had begun to diminish, they stepped out of the house and, hesitating for a moment, looked back and forth along the street. Fishing boats were scattered across the sea as evening settled quietly upon them. The aroma of roasted fish arose from somewhere, and something at once strange and familiar saturated the air. Stephano sat outside with his family around the table, surrendering himself to a huge bowl of pasta and tomato sauce. He beckoned to Barth and Gina, but they declined his invitation and retreated to the opposite side of the street, passing the pension where guests were now sitting down in the garden for dinner. Among them were Latzi and Suzi, in high spirits as always, talking and laughing loudly. Slowly, they continued down the empty street, walking on dust that muffled their footsteps. They came to a villa hidden in a garden at the end of the street, from which burst the thick and slightly hoarse barks of an invisible dog. On their right, the sea had mingled with the evening, swallowing the fisherman and their boats. There’s a light and soothing spray underfoot, and all at once you find yourself plucked from a place, not specific, though its shape is permanently imprinted in the soul, and you are reattached to something else limitless that is both within you and without. They stood for a short while in silence, filling their lungs with the freshness of the evening, before returning.
The spacious café near Madam Larouette’s house was empty. A lonely light bulb shared its meager light with a covered veranda.
—Hey, Patron!—Barth shouted into the empty room.
A dark young girl brought them cold lemonade.
Cici appeared immediately after, squat and square in his dark dress shirt, its collar thrown open. His palms were hard and flat as boards, his muscular arms round and thick like iron bars. His broad, protuberant jaw testified to his athletic bearing. He sat opposite Gina.
—Aren’t you working now?—Barth asked.
—My boss is in Normandy for a few weeks, so we have nothing to do until he returns.
Cici had been living here for three years, engaging himself in all sorts of temporary work, as he had no specific skills. During the fishing season, when the schools of sardines are sighted, he took to the sea with the fishermen in the evenings, remaining with them through the night, spreading and hauling their nets. Lately, he worked with the “Arab” as a builder. They were working on a three-story building behind Stephano’s house, which was about to be finished. They had done everything by themselves: framing, flooring, and installing doors and windows. They had fixed a small ground-floor room into a bedroom, with two old metal cots, and lived there as they worked, in the midst of the pungent odors of cement, plaster, paint, and sawdust.
Gina’s blue cotton dress suited her. A red woolen shawl was loosely draped over her shoulders. Her flushed face, on which the sun’s rays had cooled by now, resembled a ripe, velvety fruit, and was wrapped in a relaxed expression. Cici sat across from her, unable to take his eyes off her. A full glass of beer stood on the table before him, its head of foam diminishing and disappearing while he studied her. Cici rose and went to switch on the gramophone. After wiping his hands with a handkerchief, he bowed with exaggerated politeness and asked Gina to dance to the sound of a sweet and rusty waltz. He danced tastefully, pliant and graceful, despite his low stature, leading well. But his heavy hand scorched her back like red-hot iron, and Gina was relieved when the waltz was over. Cici wiped the sweat from his face.
—No,—Gina said,—it’s not easy dancing tonight. The heat gets trapped in your limbs.
Barth sat and smoked, relentlessly battling the mosquitoes, which bit through the cloth sandals on his feet. He stood up and danced a Charleston with Cici, the two of them shaking their bodies toward one another and swaying from side to side like ships tossed on a stormy sea.
—So where is the boat you once mentioned? Gina turned to Cici.
—It’s Stephano’s brother’s boat. It has a leak.
—Pity! On a night like this I would have loved to sail.
—I’ll try and find another. Maybe tomorrow if Marco doesn’t go fishing.
Bored? said Barth.—After the sun sets, the charm of a place like this changes. I can imagine the winter, and the rainy days.—He suggested going to Stephano’s.—It’s not as confining, at least,—he said. At first Cici declined to join them. Several days before, he had had words with Stephano. But he reconsidered and accompanied them nevertheless.
Stephano’s rooftop veranda was reached by a staircase built on to the outer wall of his house. The gramophone was already hoarse from blaring wild jazz. Latzi was dancing with Suzi. The Japanese fellow and his girl were drinking black coffee and cognac. Also, several villagers, young fishermen and their wives, were drinking red wine with Stephano. Jejette was serving the guests and tending to the gramophone, exposing her flushed gums and lips in constant laughter.
No sooner had they sat than the Japanese fellow asked Gina to dance. Cici followed their swirling with darkening eyes. In a single gulp, he emptied the glass of cognac that Jejette had brought. Gina returned, exhausted. She had had enough for one night. She couldn’t dance anymore. Yet when Stephano approached, she gave in so as not to embarrass him, despite the disgust his closeness aroused in her. Cici sat as though on glowing coals. As if to take revenge on somebody, he rose to dance, alternating partners: first Jejette, then the Englishwoman, the Japanese fellow’s friend, then Suzi, who was a full head taller than he, and back again. But his mood remained foul.
Barth, who was smoking endlessly, his long legs crossed, chuckled to himself. The reason for Cici’s sudden change of mood hadn’t escap
ed his notice, and he saw it as slightly ridiculous. How could that Cici ever imagine this? Couldn’t he understand that it could go nowhere? The vast gap between Gina and Cici, these two beings so distant and different from each other, could never be bridged! Barth could rest assured! Cici was not the man to take Gina from him!
Marcelle appeared with a friend, a young Parisienne, unattractive, who was staying awhile with her parents in their private villa. The two girls joined Gina and Barth at their table. Immediately Barth’s bored expression disappeared from his face:—The sea suits you, Mademoiselle Marcelle.
—I love the sea, it’s true.—And she added:—I could bathe night and day.
—Yet you don’t bathe that often,—Gina remarked.
—The doctor forbad it. He even suggested I go to the mountains. But my aunt lives here.
The moon had risen. A shimmering carpet of silver spread across the sea, toward the horizon. The waves glittered like sequins. From nowhere, a rich baritone voice swelled into a touching Italian folk song. Gina half shut her eyes and leaned back against the railing of the veranda. The cigarette in her hand went out. But Stephano’s coarse laugh, which burst from the neighboring roof at that moment, tore something just beginning to form inside her. She threw an angry glance up at him. As though reading her thoughts, Marcelle said:—How crude he is!
A dark tranquility was spilling over the village onto the sea. On this evening, in this place, one feels oneself screened from despair. For no particular reason, Barth thought of the director of the office in which he worked as head engineer. An aging bachelor sporting a pointed beard scattered with gray, he was a man free of all lusts and passions. His weekly day of rest was always one of mortification, since he did not know what to do with it. And if sometimes it chanced that Barth would stop in at the office on a weekend afternoon to finish a sketch, the fellow would consider it a special grace, for it would ease his tedium. Barth felt sorry for the old man, whose pointed beard now seemed quite pathetic to him, as if it itself expressed the banality and cheerlessness of the man’s life. He looked at Marcelle: her narrow face, delicately outlined, her dark gray eyes shaded by long lashes, her full mouth thirsting for life, and he could not understand how any man could feel miserable as long as such beautiful creatures were still to be found. And Gina herself ! Wouldn’t just a single glance from her suffice to dull the bitter stings that pierce you? Indeed, he thought, fate had been good to him. It had afforded him a precious woman with whom to arrange his life as a summer scene in which even the thunderclouds offer a blessing. He picked up her hand to stroke it. Gina sent him a loving smile.
—You are staying here until autumn, I presume?—Barth turned to Marcelle.
—Until the end of August. What do you expect? One has to work.
—To work? Your face belies it.
—Even so, I am in nursing school.
Stephano was dancing with Jejette now. Cici could not resist remarking that such a relationship between father and daughter wasn’t normal, a fact known to all; yet nobody reports him.
—They’re afraid of him. No one wants to put his life on the line.
Afterward, the interpreter arrived, accompanied by the “Arab.” They joined the other group, the Japanese fellow, Latzi, and their women. The interpreter immediately took off his jacket and began to dance with each woman in turn, his false hand resting limply on the shoulder of his partner. His laugh was hollow and hoarse, without feeling. Marcelle said that she could not bear him, this interpreter, for there was something false in his nature. Cici came feebly to his defense, then stopped. After all, he only met him here and had known him just a short time.
Barth looked out along the sleepy road, anointed in moonlight. Along the carpet of pebbles slopping to the sea, several fishing dories were scattered. Opposite some of them, drowsy fishermen gathered with their wives and children. They lived in the houses across the street and slept here in the coolness of the night. Small waves wandered from the horizon to stroke the shore with light, muffled slaps. The scene, rendered in the moon’s gossamer light, seemed unreal.
—If only we could bathe now!
Barth immediately caught on to the Parisienne’s idea:—Why not? It’s not cold at all! And you, Gina?
—Don’t be silly! It’s not worth catching pneumonia.
Marcelle was ready to join in. And Cici, whose good spirits had suddenly returned, felt as if he could stay in the water a half hour or more, if they would.
Barth went with Marcelle first. Behind them were Cici, Gina and the Parisienne. Barth put his arm through Marcelle’s.—Do you realize that you’re beautiful?
—So I’ve been told,—she said, turning with a smile.
Ah, this Marcelle certainly knew how to smile enchantingly. A slight sadness touched Barth’s heart at the sight of her delicate and seductive smile. He was suddenly filled with a torrent of extra strength. Now it would be the right time to run until breathless, to jump, to climb a tree, to be embroiled in combat. The warmth of her bare arm flowed through his shirt sleeve like a current of electricity. Yes, now he must plunge in, it was no longer caprice. The heat was overbearing on this cool and dewy night. As if to himself, he muttered:—It’s true. I haven’t seen many women as beautiful as you, and I’ve had the occasion to see women, after all!
—Your wife.
—I could say this to her face. She is too beautiful to be jealous of a friend of hers.—Unintentionally he squeezed her arm. The pebbles crunched underfoot.—Here we are!—He let go of her arm and turned around:—Well, children!
In vain Gina tried to dissuade them. Hidden behind a nearby boat, Cici and Barth stripped off their clothes, and in one leap threw themselves stark naked into the water. The girls followed. Barth caught a fleeting glimpse of Marcelle’s nude body as she ran the few steps to the water.
—Not cold at all!—He called to Gina, who sat close to the shore. He moved closer to Marcelle, and swam beside her. Unintentionally he touched her while swimming, and he caught his breath.—This swim. I’ll never forget it,—he whispered so Cici wouldn’t hear.
Marcelle burst into laughter for no reason.
—Come out,—Gina urged,—you’ll all catch cold and die!
He could have swum all night, but in spite of that, he hurried out. He wiped the droplets of water from his body, rubbed his skin vigorously, and began some strange calisthenics to increase his circulation, for it turned out that the air was cooler than the water. His movements seemed stranger still in the glow of moonlight.
—What’s this for? Why?—Gina snapped as he, now dressed, approached her.
—We have to run!—Barth said as the others appeared.—Let’s go. To the pension! We’ll see who’s first!
Everyone ran, except Gina. Afterward he stopped to wait for her.
The pension was already dark. Empty tables and chairs could be seen through the fence in a patchwork of moonlight. A dog came running down the street, his paws sinking mutely in little clouds of dust. As he approached, it became clear that the dog was none other than Bijou, spotted black and white. He recognized Barth and lingered, turning his head toward the rest of the group opposite the pension. Then he approached, wagging his tail and affectionately licking Barth’s hand. Hoarse melodies continued to shower down from Stephano’s roof across the street. Couples whirled, and a large pool of electric light washed from his roof almost to the edge of the sea.
—I’ll go with you to Nice.
—No, I’ll go alone.
Cici’s expression was imperious. His jaws tightened.—Could you stop me from coming?
—Of course not. But I do want to go alone.
—If you only knew, madam.—He looked down and continued: -I’m prepared, if you command, to cross the sea, to swim to Algiers, or to starve for two weeks.—He put the palm of his hand to his shirt, over his heart. Gina stifled her laugh. Cici looked up.—I’d rather you wouldn’t laugh.
—Aha! You forbid me?
—I’m from Naples, ma
dam!—Cici tossed a pebble into the air.—In Naples we cut off the head.
—Ah!
—We cut off the head,—repeated Cici.
—Great, so what?
Cici was silent. Gina spread a towel over her thigh, which the sun had begun to redden.—If you are a friend of Barth’s, then why don’t you talk like this when he’s with us? Try and speak like this to his face.
—I could say it to his face, I have nothing to hide.—Pausing, he continued:—You’d better not torture me.
—You’re talking nonsense, Mr. Cici.
—You are the only woman, the first. I haven’t loved a woman like this yet.
—How does this affect me? I can’t imprison myself in a box. I have never encouraged you.
—They say you aren’t married to him at all.
—So what! It’s no one’s concern!
Cici lowered his head and bent down, mechanically sifting gravel through his fingers. Gina’s face was flushed to the roots of her hair. She said:—You’re going too far, sir! If you want me to continue talking to you, you will have to stop speaking such nonsense.
Cici didn’t answer. He had gone too far. But what difference did it make? He was filled with a wretched sadness. Why had she come here, of all places, to spend her vacation? Aren’t there enough beaches in the world?—And so, you don’t want me to join you?
—No,—She turned over to her other side under the umbrella.—When my husband gets well, you can join us sometime.
—Since the day you came, I haven’t been able to sleep. I’ve lost my appetite. When I see you, I feel like I’m going to burst.—And after a moment:—An Italian doesn’t talk like this for nothing. You’d better get out of this place while there is still time.
—If you don’t stop immediately, I’ll ask you to leave.
—Excuse me, madam.