Serenely Maria raised her hand, again. He answered, again. Oh, how marvelous. She raised her hand to tell him that he must wait. Wait, her hand was saying. Did he understand? He did. His head had completely emerged from the black shroud, as white as snow. They were eleven yards away from each other. Did Rodrigo Paestra understand that she wanted to help him? He had understood. Maria started again, patiently, reasonably. Wait, wait Rodrigo Paestra. Wait a little longer, I’m going down, I’m coming to you. Who knows, Rodrigo Paestra?
The patrol arrived. This time Maria entered the corridor. The head too had heard and had covered itself again with the shroud. But they couldn’t see anything from down below. The idea would never occur to them. Again they spoke about their work, about their low pay, of how hard it is to be a policeman. Like the previous patrol. Just wait. They were gone.
On its own the head had again come out of the shroud, and looked toward the balcony where this woman was waiting. Again she signaled that he should wait. The head nodded. Yes, he had understood that he should wait, that she was going down, coming to him.
Everyone in the corridor was sleeping. Maria took off her shoes to walk around the sleeping bodies. Her little girl was there, in a position of blissful tranquility, lying on her back. There was Claire too, asleep. And Pierre. Two steps away from her, wanted by Claire but unaware. Claire, this beautiful fruit of the slow degradation of their love.
Maria had gone beyond the corridor. She was holding her shoes in her hand. Through the skylight the brightness of the sky shone on the tables and made the tablecloths look blue, as well as the air. The tables were half cleared. Bodies were lying on the benches: the waiters had probably given their rooms to the tourists. The whole staff was still asleep.
Maria again crossed this area of sleep. It was summer. The staff was exhausted. The back doors must have been left open. It had been a crime of passion, just a one-time murderer. Why would they have locked the doors? On the right there was the manager’s office, where Claire and Pierre, last night, had at last been alone, without her, for a long time. The office was dark. Maria looked through the glass pane. Nobody was sleeping there. If Maria wanted to leave by this side of the hotel, she would have to cross a short glass-enclosed passage adjoining the corridor.
The door to this passage was locked.
Maria tried again. Sweat covered her face. The door was locked. There was no other exit to the street besides the stairs leading from this passage. The only other way of leaving was through the servants’ hall.
Maria walked back through the dining room. Toward the doors in the rear. One of them was open. Leading to the kitchen. First there was a pantry. Then a long, immense kitchen. Everything was in complete disorder. This was noticeable because a big bay window let in more light there than in the dining room. Could it be dawn? It was impossible that it was dawn. Maria looked through the bay window. It was just a lamp in the courtyard where the cars were parked. The heat from the ovens could still be felt, sticky, heavy, nauseating.
There in the kitchen, near the exit, a young man was sleeping on a camp bed.
A door had been left open in the back; where the walls narrowed, between the bay window and a cupboard. Maria pulled it toward her. The young man turned over and groaned. Then he was quiet and Maria opened the door. The door opened on a spiral staircase. Had Rodrigo Paestra kept on hoping? The stairs were made of wood. They creaked under Maria’s footsteps. It was as hot there as during the day. Sweat was running down from Maria’s hair. Two floors. The staircase went on for two floors and was completely dark.
The glazed door was unlocked. It opened onto the garage, and the courtyard within the hotel. Maria hadn’t thought of that. But probably there was a watchman there too. He couldn’t have heard Maria calling Rodrigo Paestra. The courtyard was far from the street. Perhaps there was no one there. And in that case the gate would be locked. Maria looked at her watch. It was five past two. Pierre had driven the car into the garage. Maria didn’t know where it was. She went out. The courtyard seemed sandy, white. The cars were in the back, many of them under a shed, in the dark.
Maria was near the door. She closed it. The door made a long, shrill sound, but apparently no one heard it. No one? Wait. No, apparently no one had heard the door complain.
Between this door and the shed, the courtyard was empty, wide and empty. She had to cross this space. A quarter moon lit up the courtyard. In the middle of this courtyard, the shadow of a roof. The roof of the last house in the town, before the wheat fields. Yes, the light which shone in the kitchen through the bay window came from a storm lamp hanging from the shed, very high, and dancing in the light night wind. The cars were shining. There probably was a reliable watchman. But where?
Just as Maria decided to cross the courtyard, the police went by in the street behind the courtyard gate. They were coming straight from the other street, the one where Rodrigo Paestra was. Maria recognized their soft footsteps in the mud of the street: the last one before the wheat fields. They were still talking. She looked at her watch. And noticed that thirteen minutes had gone by since she had left the balcony, in other words, since the previous patrol. She had put her shoes back on before opening the glazed door at the bottom of the staircase. She went on through the courtyard. And she reached the shed. Already the patrol was in the distance.
It was probably best to make a noise. There was the black Rover. Maria opened the door. Then she waited. A familiar perfume came out of the car: Claire’s perfume. Maria noisily slammed the door shut.
Someone coughed in the shed. Then someone asked what was the matter. Maria opened the door again, left it open, and walked toward the voice.
The man hadn’t moved. He had sat up on his camp bed, against the wall, in the corner of the shed that was farthest away from the gate.
“I’m a guest at the hotel,” Maria said. “I was looking for the little black Rover.”
She took out her cigarettes from her skirt pocket. She offered him one, lit it for him. He was about thirty. Very casually he took the cigarette. He probably had been asleep. He was covered with the same brown blanket as Rodrigo Paestra.
“You’re already leaving for Madrid?”
He was surprised. Maria pointed to the sky.
“No,” she said. “The weather is so nice. I couldn’t sleep in the corridor. I’m going for a ride.”
The man got up completely. He stood in front of her. She smiled at him. There were still men who would look at her. Both of them were smoking and could see each other in the light of their cigarettes.
“I disturbed you, I’m sorry. But it’s because of the gate.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not locked. It’s the same every summer.”
He pulled himself together. Spoke about the weather, about the coolness which, every night, comes about that same time.
“You should go back to sleep,” Maria said. “I’ll close the gate.”
He lay down on his bed, went on looking at her. And as she moved away, all of a sudden he became bolder.
“You’re going for a ride, like that, alone? I could come along if you want. If you don’t take too long.” He laughed.
Maria also laughed. She could hear her laughter in the empty courtyard. The man didn’t insist.
Maria took her time. She lowered the top, fastened it. The man heard her. He cried out softly, already half asleep.
“The storm is over,” he said. ‘Tomorrow will be beautiful.”
“Thanks,” Maria said.
She got into the Rover, backed up, and drove to the gate without headlights. She idled. She had to wait for the next patrol which was due in two minutes. She could see the time.
There it came. The patrol stopped in front of the gate, was silent, and moved on. Tourists, they must have thought, leaving for Madrid at night to take advantage of the cool temperature.
When Maria opened the gate, the patrol had vanished. She had to get out of the Rover again, but this time, very fast. Maria got out
, then closed the gate. Still this heat in her hair. Why be so scared? Why?
Once, the surface of a lake had been as calm as this night. The weather was sunny. Maria remembered the reflection of the sun on the lake and, suddenly, from the boat, through the calm water, you could see the depth of the lake shining also. The water was clear. Shapes appeared. Normal shapes, but raped by the sun.
Pierre was in the boat with Maria.
Maria got back into the Rover. The watchman hadn’t followed her. She looked at her watch. Dawn would be there in less than an hour and a half. Maria took the brandy bottle and drank. A long, enormous gulp. It burned so much that she had to close her eyes with pleasure.
Five
SHE HAD TO ENTER the street the patrol had just left. Their paths went in different directions at the end of that street. They had gone to the right, taking the last street in the town, the one along the wheat fields. She would move toward the main square, driving parallel to the front of the hotel. From the balcony she had been able to see clearly the layout of the town. It was possible. Two perpendicular streets bound Rodrigo Paestra’s roof.
She started very slowly, up to the turn, a few yards from the gate. Then she had to speed up. Only ten minutes left before the next patrol. Unless her calculations were wrong. If they were, it was probable that Maria would give Rodrigo Paestra to the town police two hours before dawn.
The Rover was making a dull noise, but it drowned out the sound of the patrol’s footsteps, dimmed by the mud. Still, she had to move forward. She reached the corner of the two streets from which you could see their whole length. They were still deserted. In just an hour people would be getting up to go to the fields. But these people were still asleep.
The noise of the engine didn’t wake anyone at that time of night.
Maria didn’t get out of the Rover. Could he hear her? She sang softly.
From where she was, she couldn’t see him. She could only see the sky and, in the sky, the clearly outlined mass of the chimney. The section of the roof on Maria’s side was plunged in the darkness of night.
She went on singing the song she had been singing earlier, when she was losing hope that he was there. And she went on singing as she got out of the Rover. She opened the back door, put away the numerous objects Judith always picked up wherever they stopped and then left behind on the back seat. There were also newspapers. One of Pierre’s jackets. Claire’s scarf, even her own scarf, there. Newspapers, more newspapers.
There were about eight minutes left before the next patrol.
A shadow broke up the neat angle of the roofs against the clear sky. It was he. He had gone around the chimney. Maria kept singing. Her voice clutched at her throat. You can always sing. She couldn’t stop singing once she had started. He was there.
The warm wind was again blowing all over. It made the palm trees on the square cry out. It alone was moving through the deserted streets.
He had gone around the chimney, still wrapped in the black shroud in which she had seen him earlier. He was down on all fours. He had become a mass more shapeless than before, monstrously inapt. Ugly. He crawled over the tiles while Maria sang.
Probably six more minutes before the police would come by.
He must have been barefoot. He made no noise except a sound like the wind when, in its course, it blows against trees, houses, street corners.
He was slow. Did he know there was so little time left? Did he know? His legs, stiff after such a long wait, were clumsy. His face was exposed and his whole body, enormous, on the ridge of the roof, was spread out like an animal in a butcher’s stall. With both hands, while singing, Maria signaled him to roll over, down the slope of the roof. And then she pointed to the Rover. Showing him that he would, at the end of his fall, land in the Rover. She sang faster, still faster, more and more softly. The wall was blind for twenty yards on this side of the town. Nobody could hear Maria.
He was doing it. He got ready to do it, his legs raised at first and then falling down, and he was doing it. Again his face had disappeared in the black shroud and a bundle of rags worn by time, its color nondescript like soot, moved toward Maria.
Still no one in the streets. He now rolled cleverly, trying not to make the tiles of the roof squeak under him. Maria made more noise with the engine. She was still singing, not realizing that she was singing for nothing. He was there, he was coming, he was getting there. She sang.
He had covered a yard. She was still singing, still the same song. Very softly. Another yard covered. He had covered three yards. In the street, there still was no one, not even the watchman who must have gone back to sleep.
A patrol should have left the square and gone northward, in the direction of the Hotel Principal. That was their route. Voices were coming from there, loud at first, then becoming dimmer. There were probably four minutes left before these voices would burst out at the end of the street alongside the hotel. Rodrigo Paestra had to cover one more yard to reach Maria.
Just as she thought her calculations were wrong because, before the four minutes were up, steps were already echoing that would turn up in the street alongside the hotel balconies, just as she thought that she wasn’t hearing right, that it was impossible, Rodrigo Paestra must have thought so too because he covered the one yard that was left and fell into the Rover, rolling more quickly, flexible, his body like a spring. He had hurled himself forward. He had fallen into the Rover. A bundle of soft, black laundry had fallen into the Rover.
That was it. Just as Maria started, the patrol must have turned into the street. He had fallen on the seat. And he must have rolled onto the floor. Nothing moved. And yet he was there, close to her, on the floor, wrapped in his blanket.
A window lit up. Someone shouted.
Whistles rang out through the town, taking turns endlessly. Maria was approaching the main square. When he had fallen from the roof, the gutter had broken under his weight and had made a catastrophic noise, an obscene racket. One window lit up? Yes. Two, three windows lit up. Things crying out. Doors of the night.
Was it the warm wind that had just risen? Was it Rodrigo Paestra? The whistling went on. The patrol on the hotel street had sounded the alarm. But it hadn’t seen the Rover taking off fifty yards away, in another street. The wind had carried its noise toward the fields. Those squares of light over the countryside were windows. The electricity still wasn’t working and the windows were slow to light up. After making a turn, Maria was about a hundred yards from where the police must have been searching the roofs.
A patrol was coming toward her on the double. She stopped. The patrol slowed down in front of her, looked at the empty car and went on. It stopped further on, under a window, and called out. No one answered. It went on to the end of the street.
She had to go more slowly. Why would the Rover have been where the gutter was still vibrating, broken, in the wind? The black Rover belonged to a guest at the hotel, a guest who was free, alone, disturbed by this difficult night. What should Maria be afraid of?
Was she no longer afraid? Her fear had practically disappeared. It had left only a fresh, just matured, flowering memory of what it had been. Less than a minute had gone by. Fear became as inconceivable as the heart’s jumbled adolescence.
Maria had to make up her mind to cross the square. She did it. She knew now that behind her nothing could be seen of Rodrigo Paestra. The seat was empty. It was impossible to leave the town without crossing the square, where the two roads leading out of the town started, one going to Madrid, the other to Barcelona and France.
At that time of night, only one car, it had to start at some point, was driving toward Madrid. The first tourist, people would say.
About twenty policemen were standing opposite the café where Maria had had her manzanillas the day before. They were listening to the whistles, were answering, waiting for orders to move on. One of them stopped Maria.
“Where are you going?”
He looked at the empty car, was reassured, s
miled at her.
“I’m staying at the hotel. We didn’t get a room and I can’t sleep,” she added, “with all the noise you’re making. I’m going for a ride. What’s going on?”
Did he believe her? Yes, he looked at her carefully, then glanced away from her and pointed toward the hotel, in the distance. He explained: “They must have found Rodrigo Paestra on a roof, but I am not sure.”
Maria turned around. Spotlights swept the rooftops just before the hotel. The policeman said nothing else.
She started off slowly. The road to Madrid was right opposite her. You had to turn around a clump of palmettos. She remembered very clearly that it was there, the road to Madrid. There couldn’t be any doubt.
The engine of the car worked smoothly. Claire’s black Rover took off, then moved in the direction Maria wanted, toward Madrid. Maria was at the wheel and, carefully and methodically, she drove around the square. The whistling went on in the part of town where the gutter was still yelping. A jackal. The young policeman, puzzled and smiling, watched Maria drive away. She was driving around him, around the square. Was she smiling at him? She would never know. She drove into the main street, the westward extension of the hotel street. She didn’t look whether any balconies, adjacent to corridors she knew, were lit up.
It was the road to Madrid. The biggest road in Spain. Straight ahead, monumental.
True, this was still the town. One patrol, two patrols, empty-handed, saw and looked at the black Rover with foreign license plates which was moving toward Madrid so early in the day. But the recent storm, and this sudden youthfulness of the night, made several of them smile.
One called out to the woman who was driving alone.
There were two garages. And then some kind of a shop, quite large, and isolated. And then very small houses. Maria no longer knew what time it was. It was just any time before dawn. But dawn wasn’t there yet. It needed its usual amount of time to get there. It wasn’t there yet.
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