“I slept so well,” Maria said.
The head waiter brought the coffee and Marie drank it greedily. Pierre sat down next to her, smoked a cigarette and didn’t speak. He didn’t look at Maria but kept looking at Judith, sometimes Judith, and sometimes the door. When Claire arrived, he moved back a little to make room for her.
“Did you sleep?”
“Yes,” Maria said, “for a long time?”
“I don’t know,” Claire said. “Everybody has gone. I suppose it was for a long time. Yes.” She added, “I’m glad you slept.”
“You should have some coffee,” Maria said. “For once it’s good.”
Claire ordered some. She turned toward Maria.
“While you were sleeping we took a walk in the woods behind the hotel,” she said.
“And the heat was terrible?”
“Terrible. But you have to accept it. You know.”
“I’ve reserved rooms in Madrid,” Pierre said. “So we can leave whenever you want, Maria.”
“I’ll give Judith her shower. And we’ll leave for Madrid after that?”
They agreed. Maria took Judith to the shower on the ground floor. Judith went along without objecting. Maria put her under the shower. Judith laughed. Then Maria joined her under the shower. And they both laughed.
“How cool you look,” Claire said when they came back. And she pounced on Judith and embraced her.
Outside it seemed at first that the heat had remained unchanged. But the mood wasn’t the same. It was very different from the morning and its anguish. And now the approaching evening brought hope. The workers were back in the fields, harvesting the same wheat, and the pale red mountains on the horizon recalled the spent youth of the morning.
Claire drove. Next to her Pierre was silent. Maria had wanted to stay in the back with Judith. They moved toward Madrid. Claire was driving safely, just a little faster than usual. It was only in that respect that, outwardly, their trip seemed to have changed. There was no point in talking about it, since each one of them had accepted and understood this change.
They drove through Castile until the late hours of the afternoon.
“In an hour and a half at the latest,” Pierre said, “we’ll be in Madrid.”
As they drove through a village, Maria said she wanted to stop. Pierre saw no reason why not. Claire stopped. Pierre lit a cigarette for her. Their hands met and touched. They now had precise memories.
The village was quite large. They stopped near its entrance, at the first café they passed. All the workers were still in the fields. They were the only customers. The café was very large and empty. You had to call to get served. A radio, in the back room, didn’t manage to drown out the tireless lisping of the flies on the windows. Pierre called several times. The radio stopped. A man, still young, came out. Maria wanted wine that evening. So did Pierre. Claire wasn’t going to have anything. Nor was Judith.
“It feels so good here,” Maria said.
They didn’t answer. Judith ran around the room and looked at the paintings on the walls. Harvesting scenes. Under a cart, children playing with dogs. A family, naively solemn, eating a meal in a wheat field, on and on, on all the walls, as far as you could see.
“Just looking at her,” Pierre said, “you can tell it’s getting less hot.”
Maria called her and fixed her hair a little. She was thin, wearing nothing but a tiny bathing suit. She made faces as her hair was being combed.
“She will be as beautiful as you,” Claire said.
“I think so too,” Pierre said. “She looks exactly like you.”
Maria pushed her back a little to see her better and then let her go back to the wheat on the walls.
“It’s true that she’s beautiful,” she said.
Maria drank her wine. The man, behind the bar, was looking at Claire. Pierre stopped drinking. They had to wait for Maria to empty the carafe. It was a cheap wine, sour and warm. But she said she liked it.
“Tonight,” she said, “we could go out. We’ll register at the hotel, take a shower, change, and then we can go out, all right? I can leave Judith with a maid as soon as we arrive. All right?”
“Of course,” Pierre said. Maria was drinking again. Pierre was watching the wine in the carafe go down. She drank slowly. They had to wait.
“But you’re tired,” Claire answered.
Maria pursed her lips as if the wine, all of a sudden, was not wanted.
“No, at night, never.”
She motioned to the man behind the bar.
“Has there been any news of Rodrigo Paestra since this morning?”
The man thought and remembered. A murderer.
“Dead,” he said.
He raised his hand and placed an imaginary gun against his temple.
“How do you know?” Pierre asked.
“The radio, an hour ago. He was in a field.”
“Already,” Maria said. “I’m sorry I bothered you with this story.”
“You’re not going to start again, Maria.”
“I knew it,” Claire said.
Maria had finished her wine. The man had gone back behind the bar.
“Come, Maria,” Pierre said.
“I had no time to choose him,” Maria said. “He fell on me. At the border, we would have let him loose in the woods and waited for him, at night, on the banks of a river. Such suspense. He would have come. Had he spent all the time needed to reach the border without killing himself, he wouldn’t have killed himself later, after getting to know us.”
“Can’t you try to forget him?”
“I don’t want to,” Maria said. “He takes up all my thoughts. It was only a few hours ago, Claire.”
They walked out. Carts were already coming back from the fields. The ones who finished first. They smiled at the tourists. Their faces were gray with dust. There were also a few children, asleep.
“The Jucar valley is beautiful,” Claire said. “Sixty miles to Madrid. We should be getting to the valley now.”
Pierre was driving. Claire wanted Judith with her. Maria let her. Claire’s hands were on Judith. After the village, Maria quickly fell asleep once more. They didn’t wake her to see the Jucar valley, but only when Madrid was in sight. The sun hadn’t completely disappeared yet. It was level with the wheat fields. They reached Madrid as planned, before the sun set.
“Was I tired!” Maria said.
“Madrid, look.”
She looked. At first the city moved toward them like a mountain of stone. Then they noticed that this mountain was pierced with black holes bored by the sun, and that its rectangular shapes were spread out geometrically, at various levels, separated by empty spaces that swallowed up the pink light like a weary dawn.
“How beautiful,” Maria said.
She sat up, ran her fingers through her hair, and looked at Madrid surrounded by a sea of wheat.
“What a shame,” she added.
Claire turned around abruptly and, like an insult, uttered:
“What?”
“Who knows? Maybe the beauty.”
“You didn’t know?”
“I was sleeping. I just noticed it.”
Pierre slowed down, he had to because Madrid was so beautiful even from that distance.
“The Jucar valley was beautiful too,” Claire said. “You didn’t want to wake up.”
The hotel was full, like the other. But their rooms had been reserved.
They were able to get something to eat for Judith, who was very tired.
The rooms were still warm with the heat of the day. The shower was wonderful. Long, brisk, tepid because the heat had penetrated the city to the very depths of its water. Each one of them showered alone.
In her room, Claire was getting ready for her wedding night. Pierre, lying on his bed, thought of this new wedding made sad by the memory of Maria.
They had adjoining rooms. Claire, tonight, in the fulfillment of her desire, would not be able to scream.
Judith was asleep. Claire and Maria were getting ready, each for her own night. Memories of Verona came back to Pierre. He got up from his bed, left the room, and knocked at his wife’s door. He felt an urgent taste for a dead love. When he walked into Maria’s room, he felt enshrouded in his love for her. What he didn’t know was the poignant magic of Maria’s solitude, brought on by him, and of Maria’s mourning for him that evening.
“Maria,” he said.
She had been waiting for him.
“Kiss me,” she said.
There was about her the irreplaceable perfume of his power over her, of his breach of love, of his wishing her well, there was about her the odor of their dying love.
“Kiss me again, again,” Maria said. “Pierre, Pierre.”
He kissed her. She moved back and looked at him. Judith was asleep. He knew what would come next. Did he know? She moved back toward the wall and kept looking at him, instead of coming closer to him with her usual lack of shame.
“Maria,” he called out.
“Yes”—she too called out his name—“Pierre.”
Her attitude was one of shame, her eyes lowered on her body. And there was even fear in her voice.
He moved toward her. He placed a finger on his mouth to signal her not to wake up Judith. He was upon her. She didn’t stop him.
“Kiss me, kiss me, quick, please, kiss me.”
He kissed her again. And again she moved back, very calmly.
“What can we do?” she asked.
“You’re part of my life,” he said. “I can no longer be content with a woman just for the novelty. I cannot do without you. I know it.”
“It’s the end of our story,” Maria said. “Pierre, it’s all over. The end of the story.”
“Be quiet.”
“I’ll be quiet. But, Pierre, this is the end.”
Pierre moved up to her, took her face in his hands.
“Are you sure?”
She said she was. She looked at him, horrified.
“Since when?”
“I just noticed it. Perhaps for a long time.”
Someone knocked at the door. It was Claire.
“You’re taking so long,” she said—she seemed pale all of a sudden—“Are you coming?”
They went.
A man was dancing alone on the stage. The place was full. There were many tourists. The man danced well. The music took turns with his steps on the bare and dirty floor. He was surrounded by women, in loud, hastily put on, faded dresses. They must have been dancing all afternoon. The height of the summer with its overwork. Whenever the man stopped dancing, the band would play paso-dobles and the man would sing them into a microphone. Plastered on his face, he had at times a chalky laugh, and at times the mask of a loving, languorous, nauseous drunkenness that made an impression on his audience.
In the room, among the others, packed together like the others, Maria, Claire and Pierre were looking at the dancer.
THE AFTERNOON of MR. ANDESMAS
TRANSLATED BY
ANNE BORCHARDT
I have just bought a house. A very beautiful spot. Almost like Greece. The trees around the house belong to me. One of them is enormous and, in summer, will give so much shade that I’ll never suffer from the heat. I am going to build a terrace. From that terrace, at night, you’ll be able to see the lights of G . . . There are moments here when the light is absolute, accentuating everything, and at the same time precise, relentlessly shining on one object . . .
Words overheard during the summer of 1960
One
HE EMERGED FROM THE path on the left. He came from the part of the hill completely overgrown by the forest, rustling the small shrubs and bushes which marked the approach to the plateau.
He was a small reddish dog. He probably came from one of the hamlets on the other slope, beyond the summit, about six miles from there.
On this side the hill fell away sharply toward the plain.
When he had emerged from the path, trotting briskly, the dog suddenly slowed down as he advanced along the precipice. He sniffed at the gray light which bathed the plain. On this plain there were crops surrounding a village, this village, and numerous roads leading from it to a Mediterranean sea.
At first, he didn’t see the man who was seated in front of the house—the only house on his route since leaving the distant hamlets on the other side—and who, like him, was staring at this same bright empty space, crossed at times by flocks of birds. He sat down, panting from fatigue and from the heat.
During this breathing spell, he became aware that his solitude was not complete, that it was being undone behind him by the presence of a man. The very slight and very slow squeaking of the wicker armchair on which Mr. Andesmas was seated followed the rhythm of his labored breathing, and this singular rhythm did not fool the dog.
He turned his head, discovered the man’s presence, and pricked up his ears. No longer tired, he examined him. The dog must have known this plateau in front of the house ever since he was old enough to wander over the mountain and find his way about on it. But he could not have been old enough to have known an owner other than Mr. Andesmas. This must have been the first time a man had been there, in his path.
Mr. Andesmas did not move, nor did he show any sign of hostility or friendliness toward the dog.
The dog did not study him for long, in this contemplative way. Intimidated by this meeting and finding himself forced to bear the burden of it, he lowered his ears, took a few steps toward Mr. Andesmas, wagging his tail. But he gave up very quickly, his efforts not being repaid by any sign from the man, and he stopped short before reaching him.
His fatigue returned, he began panting again and took off through the forest, this time heading for the village.
He probably came to this hill every day, looking for bitches or food; he probably went all the way to the three villages on the west slope, every day, and made this very long journey in the afternoon in search of some windfall.
“Out for bitches, or garbage,” Mr. Andesmas thought. “I’ll be seeing this dog again; he has his habits.”
The dog would need water, one would have to give this dog water here, make this a refreshing stop on his long trips through the forest, from one village to another, as much as possible ease his difficult existence. There is that pond about half a mile from here, where he can also drink, of course, but bad, stale water, choked with weeds. That water must be green and sticky, heavy with mosquito larvae, unhealthy. This dog, so eager for his daily pleasures, should have good water.
Valérie would give this dog something to drink whenever he passed by her house.
He came back. Why? Once more he crossed the plateau overlooking the precipice. Once more he looked at the man. But although, this time, the man gave him a friendly greeting, he again did not come close. Slowly he left, not to return that day. With a stroke of color, he had cut through the gray space where the birds flew. Yet so discreetly had he picked his way over the sandstone rocks along the cliff that the dry scraping of his nails, in the surrounding air, had conveyed the memory of a passage.
The forest was dense and wild. It had few clearings. The only path which crossed it—the dog took it, this time—bent very sharply beyond the house. The dog turned the corner and disappeared.
Mr. Andesmas raised his arm, looked at his watch, saw that it was four o’clock. So, while the dog had been passing by, Michel Arc was already late for the appointment they had made together, two days before, on this plateau, Michel Arc had said that a quarter of four was a good time for him. It was four o’clock.
When his arm fell back, Mr. Andesmas changed positions. The wicker armchair creaked more loudly. Then, once again, it breathed regularly around the body it held. The already blurred memory of the reddish dog faded away, and Mr. Andesmas was left alone with the oversized bulk of his seventy-eight years. When motionless, this bulk stiffened easily, and from time to time Mr. Andesmas shifted it, moved it a little in the wicker
armchair. This way he could bear the waiting.
A quarter to four, Michel Arc had said. But it was still the warm season, and siestas probably lasted longer during summer in this region than elsewhere. Mr. Andesmas, for his part, always took exactly the same siesta, always for his health, in summer and winter. That is why he remembered other people’s siestas, deep Saturday siestas under the trees of village squares, or amorous ones, sometimes, in bedrooms.
“It’s to build a terrace,” Mr. Andesmas had explained to Michel Arc, “a terrace that will overhang the valley, the village, and the sea. On the other side of the house, a terrace would be useless, but this side calls for one. Although I’m prepared to spend what it will take to make this terrace beautiful, large and solid, I would like as a matter of principle, of course, and you must understand this, Mr. Arc, I would like an estimate. Since this terrace is something my daughter Valérie wants, I am willing to make a considerable financial sacrifice. But an estimate is still indispensable, you understand.”
Michel Arc understood.
Valérie is going to buy the pond where the dog had rested. That’s agreed upon.
There was no other building in the forest besides the house Mr. Andesmas had just bought. With its yards, it took up the whole surface of the highest of the plateaus which formed a succession of terraces, on the slope of the hill, leap by leap, down to the plain, the village, and to the sea, so calm today.
Mr. Andesmas has been living in the village for a year, ever since he had reached an age sufficiently advanced to give him an excuse to stop working and wait for death, doing nothing. This is the first time that he has seen the house he had bought for Valérie.
When the lilac blooms my love.
When the lilac blooms forever.
In the valley, somebody sang it. Perhaps siesta time was coming to an end? Perhaps, yes, it was coming to an end. The singing certainly came from the village. Where else could it be coming from? Between this village and the house, newly acquired by Mr. Andesmas for his child, Valérie, there were, in fact, no other buildings.
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