by D. M. Thomas
Entirely spent, the couple lay side by side in bed. It was strange and refreshing not to have to listen to any sounds of grief. They had no idea what time it was. Time, that had raced during the evening, now dragged for Madame Cottin, lying open-eyed in the dark; and did not exist, in different ways, for the sleeping guests, for the dead down in the cool store rooms, and for the lovers. Their souls, balancing on the edge of sleep, like someone oppressed by heat who makes his bed perilously on the balcony, attuned themselves to total silence. Her hearing was keener than his, and she heard silences he was unaware of. Not even their fingers touched. Occasionally his hand tiredly brushed the tangled mound of her pubic hair, in affection rather than lust; she liked him doing that.
He broke the stillness by whispering that it reminded him of a hill he had often played and picnicked on as a boy. The hill was covered in ferns, and he had played hunter and hunted with a cousin. He remembered the fearful pleasure of stalking or being stalked through the stiff ferns with their heavy summery smell. It was the only time he had ever felt really close to the earth.
“My father says there are four people present whenever lovemaking takes place,” he said. “They are here now, of course. My parents.”
The young woman saw the stern figure of Freud, beside his timid wife, at the bed’s foot. Freud’s black suit and his wife’s white nightgown dissolved and melted into her dress, lying shadowily on the floor where he had flung it.
They loved the sunsets best. The mountains spun pink clouds out of themselves, like flowers. (The old nurse, in fact, one evening saw the whole sky turn into a huge crimson rose, with endlessly inwoven petals; and dutifully she went straight to the major to report it.) The rose, though eternally still, seemed to spin within itself, and the lovers had the eerie impression that the whole earth was turning. So were her breasts turning, in his hands, as night stole over them; and his tongue turned too, as it delicately tilted at her sex, or tried to get deeper and deeper in, as if wanting to force her into the mountainside. She was opening up so much that she felt her vagina hollowing into a cave, so that it expelled air in a way that was like breaking wind and brought a blush to her face, though she knew and he knew it was not.
Time, with his bland surgeon’s hands, was quietly healing Madame Cottin. While the lovers spent their day in the stuffy room, she was out walking around the lake with Father Marek, the kindly old Catholic priest. His certainties were a great comfort to her. He urged her to return to the Church, likening its effect to one of her stout corsets. The Church’s dogmas, he said, smiling, were the whalebone of the soul. The analogy delighted her, and she chuckled. After a beautiful long morning’s walk through woods and wildflowers, the priest and the corsetière stopped at a pleasant lakeside inn, miles from anywhere, for refreshment. Carrying their bread and cheese out to the lakeside tables, they spotted Vogel and Bolotnikov-Leskov. They felt bound to join them, though neither party relished the meeting. Bolotnikov-Leskov was midway in a political peroration, and had built up too much momentum to stop. The problem, he explained (while Madame Cottin smiled sadly and let her gaze stray over the lake), was that his party was best for the masses but unfortunately the masses could not see this. The only answer, he feared, was the bomb.
Vogel’s eagle eye noticed the tremor in the priest’s hand as he drank his plum juice; noted also the red complexion. His legal training told him that the priest had been sent on a vacation to dry out. The male and female corseters finished their bread and cheese quickly and apologized for their haste in leaving. They wanted, they said, to walk the circuit of the lake.
The young lovers were having their second disagreement, a more serious one. He was interrogating her jealously about her sexual relationship with her husband; which irritated her, because all that was so far in the past, and so irrelevant. The argument brought out, for the first time, his immaturity; the few years’ difference in their ages had never before seemed significant. Indeed she had never even noticed it. But it was all too clear now, in this childish outburst of jealousy over the dead. It made her irritated with other things, such as the foul Turkish cigarettes he kept smoking, filling the room with stale scent and no doubt ruining her singing voice forever.
In the end, of course, it was even more enchanting than before. Lying joined in love, gazing into each other’s eyes, they could not believe unfriendly words had passed between them. But she had to show that she thought more of him than she had of her husband by doing something strange—taking his penis into her mouth. It was horribly intimate to be eye-to-eye with that rich tulip bulb, that reeking dewy monster. Actually to take it in her mouth was as inconceivable as taking in a bull’s pizzle. But she closed her eyes and did it, fearfully, to show she loved him more than her husband. And it was not unpleasant, it was so far from unpleasant that she became curious; squeezing, caressing and sucking the shaft so that it swelled even bigger in her mouth and spurted into her throat. In his jealousy he abused her in foul terms, which stirred her most peculiarly.
It was a new excitement, just when they thought they had reached the end of novelty. By a curious transubstantiation, about the same time her breasts began to give out milk, so endlessly had they been sucked on.
When they went down to dinner, her breasts felt bursting. They enjoyed the hubbub of activity, the laughter of guests, the dash of waiters, the sparkle of the gypsy band, the aroma of dishes; her breasts, full and bouncing under silk as she walked between the tables, enjoyed all this. The atmosphere of the white hotel had been restored. Time had healed. Animal spirits had revived. The gypsy band had found an Italian guest who played the fiddle with one of the great orchestras and who was incomparably better than the fiddler who had died, and so, though they mourned their comrade, they rejoiced in the splendid sound they were making, because the new player challenged their own modest skills to fresh heights.
Since several guests had moved out, the head waiter had been able to offer the young lovers a better, bigger table. They sat down to dinner with Madame Cottin and the priest. They were in a relaxed, jovial mood after a whole day in the sunshine and fresh air. The red-faced old man waved his hand in a permitting, approving gesture when the young woman opened the front of her dress, explaining how sore and full her breasts were. He was sympathetic, because his mother had suffered from that trouble in her younger days. The young man, dabbing red wine from his lips with a napkin, leaned across to take the nipple into his mouth, but before he could do so her milk spurted out and landed on the table cloth. She blushed scarlet and was full of apologies, but Father Marek and Madame Cottin laughed deprecatingly and a waiter hurried up smiling and adroitly cleaned up the splash with his white towel, leaving just a faint stain. He asked if they would like another table cloth, but everyone said it was not necessary; it was only harmless milk.
The young woman saw the priest looking wistfully at her plump breast as her lover sucked. He was toying with his glass of water, and inwardly yearning for something a little stronger. She asked him if he would care to take out the other breast, and drink from it.
“Are you sure you don’t mind?” the old priest said, touched and flattered. “I admit it’s very tempting.” He glanced at Madame Cottin, who smiled agreement. “It is. Yes! We’ve had a long walk, after all.” She drained her wine glass and poured herself another. “It’ll do you good. Water is no drink for a man!” He still looked hesitant, embarrassed.
“I really wish you would,” said the young woman. “Please.” And the young man took his mouth from the fat nipple to say, “Please do. It’s too much for me, honestly.” The priest needed no further invitation, and was soon sucking away contentedly. The young woman leaned back, no less contented and eased, and stroked her lover’s thick glossy hair and the priest’s thin dome. The top of his head had caught the sun, she noticed. Over their heads she smiled at the people at the next table, the baker and his wife and their two young children. They were sipping glasses of water. The baker had saved up for years for this holiday,
but still could not afford to be extravagant. He smiled back, though, at the thirsty quartet.
“I don’t blame them, do you?” he remarked to his wife and children. “If you can afford it, why not enjoy it while you can?” His wife, her envy dowsed by the aroma of the roast duck placed before her at that moment, cut off the tart comment she was about to make, and said simply, “Well, it’s nice to see everyone looking cheerful.”
Indeed, there was not a doleful face in the whole big dining room. As if everyone had decided simultaneously to compensate, this evening, for the gloom of previous dinners. The waiters were in a holiday mood all of their own, doing little skips to the music as they scurried around, and pretending to juggle with their loaded trays. Even the portly cook quit his ovens to come through and see what all the fun was about. He was given a tremendous cheer, and he grinned his delight, wiping the streaming sweat from his round face. Madame Cottin stood up, walked across to him, and presented him with her empty wine glass. She indicated her engrossed friends, and tugged the chef’s arm. Shy, reluctant, he allowed his portly frame to be tugged across the room, his wide grin showing a gap where he had lost a tooth. There were cheers and the stamping of feet as Madame Cottin pulled him to their table. The young bare-breasted woman smiled and nodded at the shy, grinning giant, and gently detached her lover from her nipple—the priest went on sucking contentedly, not even noticing the good-humoured events taking place around him. The young man, his lips circled in white, smiled his willing agreement, and the chef, stooping, tenderly took the plump nipple between thumb and finger and milked it into the wine glass. When it was filled, he lifted the glass triumphantly and drank the sweet milk in one satisfying draught. To grateful comments from all sides, on the quality of his cuisine, he rolled grinning back to his kitchen, the swing doors springing shut behind him.
At one of the other tables, a large one for a family of eight, the celebratory hubbub rivalled even the young lovers’ table for the other guests’ amused attention. Whole magnums of champagne were being got through in record time; glasses were being smashed; roaring toasts drunk; tuneless but joyful voices raised in the gypsy songs. Word spread that the head of the family, an ancient Dutchman, almost blind, had climbed the mountain behind the hotel and returned with mountain spiderwort, so named because it grows only in high places and in rock crannies accessible only to the spider. The old man had turned to botany late in life, and today’s find was the realization of his most cherished dream.
When they heard of this, Madame Cottin and the young woman had a whispered exchange and summoned their waiter. He sprang to their side, all attention, then as nimbly skipped to the Dutch table with their invitation. Almost before he could get his words out they were leaping from their chairs and pouring across to take up the kind offer. And after they had drained their glasses, or drunk directly from her breast, other smiling, slightly merry guests got up to join the queue. The band, too, demanded their refreshment. And even Vogel, without ever losing his supercilious expression and air of boredom—as if to say, I’m here, so I’d better join the herd—came over and sucked briefly at the breast. Returning to his sister, he wiped the milk from his lips with a sarcastic grin.
The sun, dropping suddenly, spread butter on the trees beyond the french windows, and the guests sobered. The priest took his mouth from the nipple, contentedly, and thanked her; then feeling a stab of pain in his heart as he remembered his mother, his guilt at her loneliness and poverty, so far away in his native Poland. Also, sadly, he had broken his vow. He had to get himself ready for the funeral service for those who had died in the flood and the fire. He felt more in the mood for a nap; but his duty had to be done. He stood up and looked for the pastor. They were to share the duties. The young woman fastened her dress.
She could feel her lover’s hand touching her beneath the table cloth. Her head was spinning from their having drunk too much. Her lover and Madame Cottin had to support her as they made their way slowly out of the dining room. She protested that she could manage perfectly well, and for Madame Cottin to go upstairs ahead and get her coat for the funeral procession. But Madame Cottin said she was not going. She could not face it.
In the bedroom Madame Cottin undressed the young woman and laid her gently on the bed. Her young lover’s penis had been inside her even while they were struggling up the stairs; and now Madame Cottin left her corset and stockings on so that he could stay in her all the time. Vaguely she heard the chants of the mourners as they set off for the cemetery, and she lay peacefully enjoying him. Her eyes were shut, but she felt him take her hand and guide it to where he wanted to press her fingers a little way into her vagina beside his penis. He felt, beside the stroke of the young woman’s fingernail, the hardness of Madame Cottin’s ring. “It’s helping me to get through,” whispered Madame Cottin, and the young woman mumbled that she understood: her own wedding ring had been a help to her in her sorrow, and she still could not bear to take it from her finger.
The corpses were being taken on carts, which they heard for a while rumbling through the pines, before fading to silence. The young woman felt empty where she was most filled, and asked for more, sleepily. Dragging her eyes open, she watched Madame Cottin and her lover kissing passionately.
The path around the shore to the mountain cemetery was very long, and the priest had made this journey on foot once today already. Also, he felt weighed down with the food he had eaten and the strong liquor he had drunk. Clearly others felt much the same as he, and they soon grew tired of singing the funeral hymns. They fell silent, listening to the grumbling of the cart wheels on the sandy path.
The priest fell into hesitant conversation with the pastor. It was the first time he had talked at some length to a minister of the opposite faith; but disaster makes strange bedfellows, he thought. It was an interesting talk, on matters of doctrine. They could agree at least that God’s love was beyond analysis. It ran without a seam or join through the whole of His creation. They were stumbling now with fatigue—because the pastor was not a young man either—and stopped talking to conserve their strength. The priest’s thoughts went back to the breast at which he had sucked. He tried to remember its roundness and its warmth. He thought also of Madame Cottin, who had given him such good advice, in their trek today, about his feelings of guilt.
Madame Cottin’s ample flesh, released from the whalebone that dug into her after her heavy meal, was being tickled and poked by her two young friends, and she was threshing, crying and laughing as she fought to escape from their hands. Foolishly she had said she was ticklish, and they were taking full advantage. She was no match for a strong young man, let alone a young woman bearing down on her too. Once or twice she was almost free and off the bed, but each time the young man dug his thumbs into the tenderest part of her thighs, and she had to submit, lying back panting. Then, while she was weak and off balance they caught hold of her legs and pulled them wide and she was shrieking and struggling again, and rumbling with laughter as they tickled her feet. The young man got between her legs and stopped her cries with his mouth, and she had to promise, in order to be able to breathe, to be a good girl and let him do it. She panted and laughed, more quietly, and her laughter faded into quick-taken breaths, through lips that gently smiled, or joined his in brief, swift kisses.
A stiff breeze tugging the hem of his military coat, Major Lionheart recalled other mass graves he had stood over, and all the letters he had had to write. As colour began to leave the sky and the day to darken under the mountain’s shadow, he believed he saw an orange grove floating down towards the lake; and roses too. The impression was strong enough for him to decide to mention it at his next meeting, planned for the next night. The roses matched oddly the vision of the rose seen by the elderly nurse. He had not paid much attention to that before, as she was very nearly in her dotage. He felt sorry for the quiet, sad, charming girl who was in her charge. But maybe she had seen a rose at sunset. The mountain spiderwort—that too was strange. Father M
arek began to address the line of stiff, cold mourners, and the major turned his thoughts to the handsome young lieutenant, his nephew, who would be arriving on the first train tomorrow. They would have some good skiing. Up there was his favourite ski slope.
The universe, thought Bolotnikov-Leskov, is a revolutionary cell comprising one member: the perfect number for security. God, if he existed, would clench his teeth under the bitterest torture, and no word of betrayal would spring from his lips, because he would have nothing to betray, he would know nothing.
Only half listening to the mumbles of the priest, he looked down with curious dispassion at the coffin lid which hid from sight the naïve young woman who had shared his zeal; so dedicated, in fact, that often she had talked to him about the coming millennium even while they made love.
Cats, thought Enrico Mori, a violinist, have no one to read consoling lies over them. Cats know there is no resurrection, except in transplantation to my music. He stroked the head of the black cat who had followed them all the way from the hotel. She lay now, purring, in the arms of the cancer-troubled prostitute. He knew she was a prostitute because he had been entertained by her once when he was a music student in Turin. They had recognized each other on the first night, and the whore had flushed, and looked away.
Father Marek in his address was speaking about the shroud of Jesus, stained with His blood. The miraculous face was saying, Trust in me, I have borne for you the grave’s darkness and chill. Mori noticed that the pastor at the priest’s side was looking uncomfortable. Of course, he thought, he doesn’t like this talk of images.
As the pastor took up the service, reading the Protestant committal, Mori glanced down and to his right, where a tiny coffin lay. The weeping parents were throwing down flowers. Mori had met the little girl only for a few minutes; the girl had asked if she could try his violin. But they had made friends in those few minutes, and it had shocked him when he found that she had burnt to death.