The room with the double bed was not at all bad, but Margot kept tapping her heel gently on the floor and repeating in a low sulky voice: “I won’t stay here, I won’t stay here.”
“But really, it’s quite nice for one night,” said Albinus entreatingly.
The servant opened an inside door to the bathroom; went through and opened a second door, disclosing a second bedroom.
Rex and Margot suddenly exchanged glances.
“I don’t know if you’ll mind sharing the bathroom with us, Rex?” said Albinus. “Margot is rather splashy and long about it.”
“Good,” laughed Rex. “We’ll manage somehow.”
“Are you quite sure you haven’t got another single room?” asked Albinus, turning to the servant, but here Margot hurriedly intervened:
“Nonsense,” she said. “It’s all right. I refuse to traipse around any longer.”
She walked to the window while the baggage was being brought in. There was a big star in the plum-colored sky, the black tree-tops were perfectly still, crickets chirped … but she saw and heard nothing.
Albinus began to unpack the toilet-things.
“I’m going to have a bath first,” she said, undressing hurriedly.
“Go ahead,” he answered cheerily. “I’ll be shaving. But don’t be too long—we must get some dinner.”
In the mirror he saw Margot’s jumper, skirt, a couple of light undergarments, one stocking and then the other, fly swiftly through the air.
“Little slattern,” he said thickly, as he lathered his chin.
He heard the door shut, the bolts rattle and the water pour in noisily.
“You needn’t lock yourself in, I’m not going to turn you out,” he called out laughingly, as he stretched his cheek with his finger.
There was a loud and steady rush of water behind the locked door. Albinus carefully scraped his cheek with a heavily plated Gillette. He wondered whether they had lobsters à l’Américaine here.
The water went on rushing—and grew louder and louder. He had turned the corner, so to speak, and was about to return to his Adam’s apple, where a few little bristles were always reluctant to go, when suddenly he noticed with a shock that a stream of water was trickling from beneath the door of the bathroom. The roar of the taps had now taken on a triumphant note.
“Surely she can’t be drowned,” he muttered, running to the door and knocking.
“Darling, are you all right? You’re flooding the room!”
No answer.
“Margot, Margot!” he shouted, rattling the handle (and quite unconscious of the queer part doors played in his and her life).
Margot slipped back into the bathroom. It was full of steam and hot water. She swiftly turned off the taps.
“I went to sleep in the bath,” she called out plaintively through the door.
“You’re crazy,” said Albinus. “How you frightened me!”
The rivulets blackening the pale gray carpet weakened and stopped. Albinus walked back to the mirror and lathered his throat once more.
In a few minutes Margot emerged fresh and radiant, and began to smother herself with talc-powder. Albinus, in his turn, went to have a bath. The place was reeking with moisture. He knocked at Rex’s door.
“I won’t keep you waiting,” he cried. “The bath’ll be free in a moment.”
“Oh, take your time, take your time!” shouted Rex happily.
At supper Margot was in splendid spirits. They sat on the terrace. A white moth fluttered round the lamp and fell down on the tablecloth.
“We’ll stay here a long, long time,” said Margot. “I like this place tremendously.”
27
A WEEK passed, and a second. The days were cloudless. There were lots of flowers and foreigners. An hour’s drive took one to a beautiful sand beach set in dark red rocks against the dark blue sea. Pine-clad hills surrounded their hotel, a fine building as such buildings go, in a sickening Moorish style that would have made Albinus’ flesh creep had he not been so happy. Margot was happy too; so was Rex.
She was much admired: by a silk manufacturer from Lyons; by a quiet Englishman who collected beetles; by the youths who played tennis with her. But no matter who stared at her or danced with her, Albinus felt no jealousy. It quite surprised him to recall the pangs he had suffered at Solfi: why had everything made him uneasy then and why did he feel so sure of her at present? He did not notice one little thing: that she no longer had any wish to please others; she needed only one man—Rex. And Rex was Albinus’ shadow.
One day the three of them went for a long ramble in the mountains, got lost, and finally came down by a difficult stony path that took them the wrong way. Margot, who was not used to walking, blistered her foot badly, and the two men carried her by turns, well-nigh crashing down with their burden, as neither was very robust. At about two in the afternoon they reached a sun-drenched little village, and found the Rouginard bus ready to start from a cobbly square where some men were playing bowls. Margot and Rex got inside, Albinus was about to do the same, but then, observing that the driver had not yet seated himself and would be some time yet helping an old farmer to get his two large crates in, he tapped on the half-open pane at which Margot was sitting and said he would make a dash for a drink. He made the dash and entered a small bar on the corner of the square. As he was reaching for his beer, he jostled against a delicate little man in white flannels who was hurriedly paying. They looked at each other.
“You here, Udo?” exclaimed Albinus. “This is an unexpected pleasure.”
“Very unexpected,” said Udo Conrad. “You’ve grown a little balder, old man. Are you here with your family?”
“Well, no … You see, I’m staying at Rouginard and—”
“Good,” said Conrad. “I’m living at Rouginard too. Heavens, the bus is starting. Hurry up.”
“I’m coming,” said Albinus, and swilled down his beer.
Conrad trotted toward the bus and boarded it. The horn tooted. Albinus fumbled with elusive French coins.
“Oh, there’s no hurry,” said the bartender, a melancholy man with a black drooping moustache. “It’ll first go round the village and then stop again at this corner before going on.”
“Ah, well,” said Albinus. “Then I’ll have another drink.”
Through the bright doorway he saw the long, low, yellow bus speed away through a speckled maze of plane-tree shadow which seemed to mingle with it and dissolve it.
“Funny, meeting Udo,” Albinus mused. “He’s grown a little blond beard, as if to compensate for my loss of hair. When did we last see each other? Six years ago. Am I thrilled to see him? Not at all. I thought he lived in San Remo. A quaint, frail, rather eerie and not very happy man. Celibacy, hay-fever, hates cats and the ticking of clocks. A fine writer. A delightful writer. Funny that he hasn’t the faintest idea that my life has changed. Funny, my standing here in this hot, drowsy little place where I’ve never been before and shall probably never come again. I wonder what Elisabeth is doing now? Black dress, idle hands. Better not think of it.”
“How long does the bus take to go round the village?” he asked in his slow, careful French.
“A couple of minutes,” said the bartender sadly.
“Not quite clear what they do with those wooden balls. Wooden? Or is it some metal? First cupped in the palm, then launched forward … rolling, stopping. Awkward if he happens to get into conversation with the little girl on the way and she blurts it all out before I tell him. Will she? I wonder. Not much chance of their talking though. She was unhappy, poor child, and will sit quite still.”
“It seems to be quite a big village, judging by the time it takes to go round,” he remarked.
“It doesn’t go round,” said an old man with a clay pipe who was sitting at a table behind him.
“It does,” said the gloomy bartender.
“It did up to last Sunday,” said the old man. “Now it goes straight on.”
“Well,�
�� said the bartender, “that’s no fault of mine, is it?”
“But what shall I do now?” cried Albinus in dismay.
“Take the next one,” said the old man judiciously.
He got home at last and found Margot in a deck chair on the terrace, eating cherries, with Rex sitting on the white parapet in bathing shorts, his long hairy brown back turned to the sun. A quiet happy picture.
“I missed the blessed thing,” said Albinus, grinning.
“You would,” said Margot.
“Tell me, did you notice a small man in white with a goldenish beard?”
“I did,” said Rex. “Sat behind us. What about him?”
“Nothing—just a man I used to know once.”
28
THE next morning. Albinus made conscientious inquiries at the Tourist Office and then at a German boarding house, but no one could tell him Udo Conrad’s address. “After all, we’ve nothing much to say to each other,” he thought. “Probably I’ll run into him again, if we stay here any longer. And if I don’t, it doesn’t much matter.”
A few days later he woke up earlier than usual, threw open the shutters, smiled at the tender blue sky and at the soft green slopes, luminous yet hazy, as if it were all a bright frontispiece under tissue paper, and he felt a strong longing to climb and wander, and to breathe the thyme-scented air.
Margot awoke. “It’s still so early,” she said drowsily.
He suggested they should dress quickly and go out for the whole day—just the two of them …
“Go by yourself,” she murmured, turning over to the other side.
“Oh, you lazybones,” said Albinus sadly.
It was about eight. At a good pace, he got out of the narrow streets, cut longitudinally in two by the morning shade and sunshine, and began the ascent.
As he was passing a tiny villa, painted a warm pink, he heard the click of shears, and saw Udo Conrad pruning something in the small, rocky garden. Yes, he had always had a green thumb.
“Got you at last,” said Albinus gaily, and the other turned but did not smile back.
“Oh,” he said drily, “I didn’t expect to see you again.”
Solitude had developed in him a spinsterish touchiness, and now he was deriving a morbid pleasure from feeling hurt.
“Don’t be silly, Udo,” said Albinus, as he approached, gently pushing aside the feathery foliage of a mimosa tree, which leaned wistfully in his way. “You know quite well I didn’t miss it on purpose. I thought it would go round the village and come back again.”
Conrad softened a little. “Never mind,” he said, “it often happens like that: one meets a man after a long interval and suddenly feels a panicky desire to give him the slip. I took it that you didn’t enjoy the prospect of having to chatter about old times in the moving prison of a bus; and you avoided it neatly.”
Albinus laughed: “The truth is, I’ve been hunting for you these last days. Nobody seemed to know your exact whereabouts.”
“Yes, I only rented this cottage a few days ago. And where are you staying?”
“Oh, at the Britannia. Really, I’m terribly glad to see you, Udo. You must tell me all about yourself.”
“Shall we go for a little walk?” suggested Conrad dubiously. “All right. I’ll put on some other shoes.”
He was back in a minute and they started to climb up a cool shady road winding between vine-clad stone walls, its blue asphalt still untouched by the hot morning sun.
“And how’s your family?” asked Conrad.
Albinus hesitated and then said:
“Better not ask, Udo. Some terrible things have been happening to me lately. Last year we separated, Elisabeth and I. And then my little Irma died from pneumonia. I prefer not to talk of these matters if you don’t mind.”
“How very distressing,” said Conrad.
They both fell silent; Albinus pondered whether it might not be rather glamorous and exciting to talk about his passionate love-affair to this old pal of his, who had always known him as a shy, unadventurous fellow; but he put it off till later. Conrad, on the other hand, was reflecting that he had made a mistake in going for this walk: he preferred people to be carefree and happy when they shared his company.
“I didn’t know you were in France,” said Albinus. “I thought you usually dwelt in Mussolini’s country.”
“Who is Mussolini?” asked Conrad with a puzzled frown.
“Ah—you’re always the same,” laughed Albinus. “Don’t get into a panic, I’m not going to talk politics. Tell me about your work, please. Your last novel was superb.”
“I’m afraid,” said Udo, “that our fatherland is not quite at the right level to appreciate my writings. I’d gladly write in French, but I’m loath to part with the experience and riches amassed in the course of my handling of our language.”
“Come, come,” said Albinus. “There are lots of people who love your books.”
“Not as I love them,” said Conrad. “It’ll be a long time—a solid century, perhaps—till I am appreciated at my worth. That is, if the art of writing and reading is not quite forgotten by then; and I am afraid it is being rather thoroughly forgotten this last half century, in Germany.”
“How’s that?” asked Albinus.
“Well, when a literature subsists almost exclusively on Life and Lives, it means it is dying. And I don’t think much of Freudian novels or novels about the quiet countryside. You may argue that it is not literature in the mass that matters, but the two or three real writers who stand aloof, unnoticed by their grave, pompous contemporaries. All the same it is rather trying sometimes. It makes me wild to see the books that are being taken seriously.”
“No,” said Albinus, “I’m not at all of your mind. If our age is interested in social problems, there’s no reason why authors of talent should not try to help. The War, post-War unrest—”
“Don’t,” moaned Conrad gently.
They were silent again. The winding road had taken them to a pine grove where the creaking of the cicadas was like the endless winding-up and whir of some clockwork toy. A stream was running over flat stones which seemed to quiver under the knots of water. They sat down on the dry, sweet-smelling turf.
“But don’t you feel rather an outcast, always living abroad?” asked Albinus, as he gazed up at the pine-tops that looked like seaweeds swimming in blue water. “Don’t you long for the sound of German voices?”
“Oh, well, I do run into compatriots now and then; and it is sometimes quite amusing. I’ve noticed, for instance, that German tourists are inclined to think that not a soul can understand their language.”
“I could not always live abroad,” said Albinus, lying on his back and dreamily following with his eye the outlines of blue gulfs and lagoons and creeks between the green branches.
“That day we met,” said Conrad, also reclining, with his arms under his head, “I had a rather fascinating experience with those two friends of yours in the bus. You do know them, don’t you?”
“Yes, slightly,” replied Albinus with a little laugh.
“So I thought, judging from their merriment at your being left behind.”
(“Wicked little girl,” thought Albinus tenderly. “Shall I tell him all about her? No.”)
“I had quite a good time listening to their conversation. But I did not feel exactly homesick. It is a queer thing: the more I think of it, the more I feel certain that there comes a time in an artist’s life when he stops needing his fatherland. Like those creatures, you know, who first live in an aquatic state and then on dry land.”
“There would be something in me yearning for the coolness of water,” said Albinus with a sort of heavyish whimsicality. “By the way, I found a rather nice bit in the very beginning of Baum’s new book Discovery of Taprobana. A Chinese traveler, it appears, ages ago, journeyed across Gobi to India, and stood one day by a great jade image of Buddha in a shrine on a hill in Ceylon, and saw a merchant offering a native Chinese present—a w
hite silk fan—and—”
“… and,” interrupted Conrad, “ ‘a sudden weariness of his long exile seized upon the traveler.’ I know that sort of thing—though I haven’t read that dreary fool’s last effort and never will. Anyway, the merchants I see here aren’t particularly good at provoking nostalgia.”
They were both silent again. Both felt very bored. After contemplating for a few minutes more the pines and the sky, Conrad sat up and said:
“You know, old boy, I’m awfully sorry, but would you mind very much if we went back? I’ve got some writing to get done before midday.”
“Right you are,” said Albinus, rising in his turn. “I must be getting home too.”
They descended the path in silence and then shook hands at Conrad’s door with a great show of cordiality.
“Well, that’s over,” thought Albinus, much relieved. “Catch me calling on him again!”
29
ON HIS way home, as he was entering a bar-tabacs to get some cigarettes and pushing aside with the back of his hand the streaming, tinkling bead-and-reed curtain, he collided with the retired French colonel who, for the last two or three days, had been their dining room neighbor. Albinus stepped back onto the narrow sidewalk.
“Pardon,” said the colonel (a hearty fellow). “Fine morning, what?”
“Very fine,” agreed Albinus.
“And where are the lovers today?” inquired the colonel.
“What d’you mean?” asked Albinus.
“Well, people who cuddle in corners (qui se pelotent dans tous les coins) are usually called so, aren’t they?” said the colonel, with what the French call a goguenard look in his porcelain-blue, bloodshot eye. “I only wish,” he added, “they wouldn’t do it in the garden immediately under my window. It makes an old man envious.”
“What d’you mean?” repeated Albinus.
“I don’t feel equal to saying it all over again in German,” laughed the colonel. “Good morning, my dear sir.”
He walked away. Albinus entered the shop.
“What nonsense!” he exclaimed, staring hard at the woman who sat on a stool behind the counter.
Laughter in the Dark Page 13