Anne Desbaresdes raised her hands to her bare neck in the opening of her summer dress.
“Except to . . . this. Am I right?”
“Yes. That.”
Her hands let go and slipped from her neck.
“I’d like you to leave,” Chauvin murmured.
Anne Desbaresdes got up from her chair and stood motionless in the middle of the room. Chauvin remained seated, overwhelmed, no longer aware of her. Unable to resist, the patronne put her knitting aside, and openly watched them both, but they were oblivious of her stare. It was the child who came to the door and took his mother’s hand.
“Come on, let’s go.”
The lights were already on along the Boulevard de la Mer. It was much later than usual, an hour later at least. The child sang the sonatina one last time, then grew tired of it. The streets were almost deserted. People were already eating supper. After they had passed the first breakwater, the Boulevard de la Mer stretched endlessly before them. Anne Desbaresdes stopped.
“I’m too tired,” she said.
“But I’m hungry,” the child whined.
He saw that his mother’s eyes were filled with tears. His whimpering ceased.
“Why are you crying?”
“For no reason. Sometimes people just cry.”
“Please don’t.”
“It’s all over, darling. I think it’s all over.”
He forgot and ran on ahead, then retraced his steps, revelling in this unaccustomed freedom after dark.
“At night,” he said, “the houses are far away.”
Seven
THE SALMON, CHILLED IN its original form, is served on a silver platter that the wealth of three generations has helped to buy. Dressed in black, and with white gloves, a man carries it like a royal child, and offers it to each guest in the silence of the nascent dinner. It is proper not to talk about it.
At the northern end of the garden the scent of magnolias arises, drifting from dune to dune till it disappears. Tonight the wind is from the south. A man prowls along the Boulevard de la Mer. A woman knows he is there.
The salmon passes from guest to guest, following a ritual that nothing can disturb, except everyone’s hidden fear that such perfection may suddenly be marred or sullied by some excessively obvious absurdity. Outside, in the garden, the magnolias’ funereal flowering continues in the dark night of early spring.
The wind ebbs and flows like the surf, striking the urban obstacles, then moving on, wafting the scent to the man, then whisking it away again.
In the kitchen the women, their honor at stake, sweat to put the finishing touches to the next course, smothering a duck in its orange-shrouded coffin. Meanwhile the pink, succulent, deep-sea salmon, already disfigured by the brief moments just past, continues its ineluctable advance towards total annihilation, slowly dispelling the fear of an unsuccessful evening.
A man, facing a woman, looks at her as though he does not recognize her. Her breasts are again half exposed. She hastily adjusts her dress. A drooping flower lies between them. There are still flashes of lucidity in her wildly protruding eyes, enough for her to succeed in helping herself to some of their salmon when it comes her turn.
In the kitchen, now that the duck is ready and put into the oven to keep warm, they finally find a moment of peace to put their thoughts to words, saying that she is really going a bit too far. Tonight she arrived later than the night before, well after her guests had arrived.
Fifteen people had waited for her in the main living room on the ground floor. She had entered that glittering assembly without so much as the slightest apology. Someone apologized for her.
“Anne is late. Please forgive Anne.”
For ten years she has never been the subject of any gossip. If she is bothered by her incongruity, she is unaware of it. A fixed smile makes her face acceptable.
“Anne didn’t hear what you said.”
She puts her fork down, looks around, tries to grasp the thread of conversation, fails.
“That’s true,” she says.
They ask again. Her blond hair is mussed, and she runs her fingers listlessly through it, as she had done a little while before in a different setting. Her lips are pale. Tonight she forgot to make herself up.
“I’m sorry,” she says, “right now a sonatina by Diabelli.”
“A sonatina? Already?”
“That’s right.”
Silence moves in again around the question, and the fixed smile returns to her face. She is a wild animal.
“He didn’t know what moderato cantabile meant?”
“No, he didn’t.”
Tonight the magnolias will be in full bloom. Except for the one she is wearing, the one she picked tonight on her way home from the port. Time moves monotonously past this forgotten flowering.
“Darling, how could he have guessed?”
“He couldn’t.”
“He’s sleeping, I suppose.”
“Yes, he’s sleeping.”
Slowly the digestion of what was a salmon begins. The osmosis of the species that ate it was carried out like a perfect ritual. Nothing upset the solemnity of the process. The other waits, snug and warm, in its orange shroud. And now the moon rises on the sea, and on the man lying on the ground. Through the white curtains you now could barely distinguish the shapes and forms of night. Madame Desbaresdes contributes nothing to the conversation.
“Mademoiselle Giraud told me that story yesterday. She gives my little boy lessons also, you know.”
“Is that so?”
People laugh. A woman somewhere around the table. Little by little the chorus of conversation grows louder and, with considerable effort and ingenuity, some sort of society emerges. Landmarks are discovered, cracks open, allowing familiarities to slip in. And little by little a generally biased and individually noncommittal conversation builds up. It will be a successful party. The women bask in their own brilliance. The men have covered them with jewels according to their bankrolls. Tonight one of them suspects he may have made a mistake.
In the sequestered garden the birds sleep peacefully, for the weather is still fine. The same son of sleep as the child’s. The remains of the salmon are offered around again. The women will devour it to the last mouthful. Their bare shoulders have the gloss and solidity of a society founded and built on the certainty of its rights, and they were chosen to fit this society. Their strict education has taught them that they must temper their excesses in the interest of their position. They stuff themselves with mayonnaise, specially prepared for this dish, forget themselves, and lap it up. The men look at them and remember that therein lies their happiness.
Tonight one of them does not share the others’ appetite. She comes from the other end of town, from beyond the breakwaters and oil depots at the other end of the Boulevard de la Mer, from beyond the limits imposed upon her ten years before, where a man had offered her more wine than she could handle. Full of this wine, an exception to the general rule, she could not bring herself to eat. Beyond the white blinds lay darkness, and in this darkness a man, with plenty of time to kill, stands looking now at the sea, now at the garden. Then at the sea, at the garden, at his hands. He doesn’t eat. He cannot eat either, his body obsessed by another hunger. The capricious wind still bears the scent of magnolias to him, taking him by surprise, tormenting him as much as the scent of a single flower. A light in the second story was turned out a little while ago, and was not turned back on. They must have closed the windows on that side of the house, to shut out the oppressive odor of the flowers at night.
Anne Desbaresdes keeps on drinking. Tonight the champagne has the annihilating taste of the unknown lips of the man outside in the street.
The man has left the Boulevard de la Mer and circled the garden, keeping watch from the dunes which bound it on the north, then he has retraced his steps and descended the slope to the beach. And there he lay down again in the same place. He stretches, stares for a moment out to sea, then turns
and looks again at the bay windows with their white blinds. Then he gets up, picks up a pebble, aims at the windows, turns back again, tosses the pebble into the sea, lies down, stretches again, and says a name out loud.
Two women, alternately and cooperatively, prepare the second course. The other victim is waiting.
“As you know, Anne is defenseless when it comes to her child.”
Her smile broadens. The remark is repeated. Again she runs her fingers through the blond disorder of her hair. The circles under her eyes are deeper than before. Tonight she cried. By now the moon has risen above the town, and above the man lying on the beach.
“That’s true,” she says.
Her hand falls from her hair, and pauses at the wilting magnolia at her breast.
“We’re all alike really.”
“Yes,” Anne Desbaresdes says.
The petals of the magnolia are smooth. Her fingers crumple it, pierce the petals, then stop, paralyzed, lie on the table, wait, affecting an attitude of nonchalance, but in vain. For someone has noticed it. Anne Desbaresdes tries to smile apologetically, as if to imply that she couldn’t help it, but she is drunk, and her expression shamelessly betrays it. He scowls, but remains impassive. He has already recovered from his surprise. He has always expected as much.
With half-closed eyes, Anne Desbaresdes drinks another glass of wine in one swallow. She has reached the point where she can’t help it. She derives from drink a confirmation of what was till then her hidden desire, and a base consolation for that discovery.
Other women drink in turn, raising their bare arms, their enticing, irreproachable, matronly arms. The man on the beach is whistling a tune heard that afternoon in a café at the port.
The moon has risen, and as the night advances it begins to grow cold. Perhaps the man is cold.
They begin to serve the pressed duck. The women help themselves generously, fully capable of doing justice to the delicacy. They murmur softly in admiration as the golden duck is passed around. The sight of it makes one of them grow faint. Her mouth is desiccated by another hunger that nothing, except perhaps the wine, can satisfy. A song she cannot sing comes back to her, a song heard that afternoon in a café at the port. The man is still alone on the beach.
He has just spoken the name again, and his mouth is still half open.
“No thank you.”
The man’s closed eyes are caressed by the wind, and, in powerful, impalpable waves, by the scent of the magnolias, as the wind ebbs and flows.
Anne Desbaresdes has just declined to take any of the duck. And yet the platter is still there before her, only for a brief moment, but long enough for everyone to notice. She raises her hand, as she has been taught to do, to emphasize her refusal. The platter is removed. Silence settles around the table.
“I just couldn’t. I’m sorry.”
Again she raises her hand to her breast, to the dying flower whose scent slips beyond the garden and drifts to the sea.
“Perhaps it’s that flower,” someone suggests, “the scent is so strong.”
“No, I’m used to it. It’s nothing really.”
The duck continues on its course. Someone opposite her looks on impassively. And again she tries to force a smile, but succeeds only in twisting her face into a desperate, licentious grimace of confession. Anne Desbaresdes is drunk.
Again she is asked if she is not ill. She is not ill.
“Perhaps that flower,” the voice insists, “is making you nauseous without your knowing it.”
“No, I’m used to the scent of magnolias. I just don’t happen to be hungry.”
They leave her alone, and begin to devour the duck. Its flesh will be digested in other bodies. A man in the street closes his eyes, his eyelids fluttering from such willful patience. His body is chilled to the bone, and nothing can warm him. Again his mouth has uttered a name.
In the kitchen they announce that she has refused the pressed duck, that she is ill, there is no other explanation for it. Here they are talking of other things. The meaningless shapes of the magnolias caress the eyes of the solitary man. Once again Anne Desbaresdes takes her glass, which has just been refilled, and drinks. Unlike the others, its warmth fires her witch’s loins. Her breasts, heavy on either side of the heavy flower, suffer from its sudden collapse, and hurt her. Her mouth, filled with wine, encompasses a name she does not speak. All this is accomplished in painful silence.
The man has left the beach and approached the garden railings. He seizes them and grips them tightly. The lights are still on in the bay windows. How come it has not yet happened?
The pressed duck is passed around again. With the same gesture as before Anne Desbaresdes implores him not to serve her. She is passed by. She returns to the silent agony of her loins, to their burning pain, to her lair.
The man has let go of the garden railings. He looks at his empty hands, distorted by the strain. There, at arm’s length, a destiny was decided.
The sea wind blows cooler through the town. Most people are already asleep. The second story windows are dark and closed, to keep the scent of the magnolias from disturbing the child’s sleep. Red motorboats sail through his innocent dreams.
Some of the guests have taken a second helping of duck. The conversation flows more and more easily, increasing the distance of the night with every passing minute.
Bathed in the brilliant light of the chandeliers, Anne Desbaresdes continues to smile and say nothing.
The man has decided to leave the garden and walk to the edge of town. As he goes, the scent of the magnolias grows fainter, giving way to the smell of the sea.
Anne Desbaresdes will accept a little coffee ice cream, for the sake of appearances.
In spite of himself the man will retrace his steps. Again he sees the magnolias, the railings, the bay windows in the distance, still lighted, still lighted. On his lips, the song heard that afternoon, and the name that he will utter a little louder this time. He will come.
She knows it. The magnolia at her breast is completely wilted. In one hour it has lived through a whole summer. Sooner or later the man will pass by the garden. He has come. She keeps torturing the flower at her breast.
“Anne didn’t hear what you said.”
She tries to smile more broadly, but it is useless. The words are repeated. One last time she runs her fingers through her blond hair. The circles under her eyes are even darker than before. Tonight she cried. They repeat the words for her benefit alone, and wait.
“Yes,” she says, “we’re going on vacation. We’re taking a house by the sea. It will be hot there. In a house off by itself at the seashore.”
“Darling,” someone says.
“Yes.”
While the guests pass from the dining room into the main living room, Anne Desbaresdes will go upstairs. From the big bay window of the long corridor of her life she will look at the boulevard below. The man will already have left. She will go into the child’s room, and lie down on the floor at the foot of the bed, paying no attention to the magnolia crushed to pieces between her breasts. And to the inviolable rhythm of her child’s breathing she will vomit forth the strange nourishment that had been forced upon her.
A shadow will appear in the doorway leading into the hall, deepening the shadow of the room. Anne Desbaresdes will run her hand through her disheveled hair. This time she will offer an apology.
The shadow will not reply.
Eight
THE GOOD WEATHER CONTINUED. It had lasted longer than anyone had dared hope. People talked about it now with a smile, as of a completely unseasonal phenomenon whose very persistence concealed some irregularity that would soon be discovered, thus reassuring everyone that the seasons were indeed following their normal course.
Today, even compared to the previous days, the weather was so lovely, at least for that time of year, that when the sky was not too overcast, when the sun shone through for a while, it would have been easy to believe that the weather was better, more pr
ecocious, more summery, than ever. In fact it took so long for the clouds to cover the sun that today was almost more beautiful than the preceding days had been. Even the seawind was balmy, much like the wind of certain summer days still far away.
Some people declared that the day had been hot. Others—and they were the majority—did not deny it had been a beautiful day, but claimed that it had nevertheless not been hot. Still others had no opinion.
Anne Desbaresdes did not return to the port till the second day following her previous visit. She arrived only slightly later than usual. As soon as Chauvin saw her—she was still a good distance away, beyond the breakwater—he went back into the café to wait for her. The child was not with her.
Anne Desbaresdes entered the café during one of those moments when the sun was out from behind the clouds for a long time. The patronne, seated in the shadow behind the counter, did not lift her eyes from her knitting when she came in. The knitting was progressing nicely. Anne Desbaresdes joined Chauvin at their usual table in the back of the room. Chauvin had not shaved that morning, but only the day before. Anne Desbaresdes’ face was not as carefully made up as usual. Neither of them seemed to notice it.
“You’re alone,” Chauvin said.
It took her a long time to acknowledge that obvious fact. She. tried to evade it, and was again surprised to find she could not.
“Yes.”
To escape the stifling simplicity of this confession she turned towards the café door, towards the sea. To the south the foundries were humming. There, in the port, the sand and coal were being unloaded as usual.
“It’s a nice day,” she said.
Chauvin followed her gaze and looked outside, squinting at the weather, at what kind of weather it was out today.
“I wouldn’t have believed it could happen so quickly.”
In the ensuing silence the patronne turned around and switched on the radio, with no show of impatience, rather almost tenderly. In a foreign town, a woman sang. It was Anne Desbaresdes who moved closer to Chauvin.
“Starting this week someone else is taking my child to Mademoiselle Giraud for his lesson. I finally agreed that someone else should take him.”
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