Why not indeed? Here I am again, she thought, about to allow—no, invite—a comparative stranger into my life, maybe my bed. It will be all right. Probably it will be quite enjoyable. In the morning I shall be disgusted, and glad he has left early to creep back to his hotel.
“Who are these?” He was looking at the photographs, a collage of them on the wall above her bureau. “Not all nephews and nieces, surely? You must be very blessed.”
She told him then a little, not too much, about the orphanage. In spite of herself she heard her voice soften. She could not keep hidden her enthusiasm, her love for these children. The one certain thing in my life. I shan’t let him mock it.
He said, “You didn’t tell me whose work this is?” A drawing, violently colored, of a fat woman and even fatter man sitting side by side, smiling. Benoît, whose parents while they were alive had beaten and starved him, had done it for her last week. He couldn’t or wouldn’t remember the bad times.
“A little boy,” she said. “He has drawn his parents.”
While they were speaking, they stood close together. She was terrified by the suddenly violent attraction. Perhaps that’s what has been wrong all evening? Involuntarily she shivered. (Soon he will take me in his arms and it will be all right. For the next few hours, it will be all right.)
“Now I must leave,” he said, “and surprise the night porter. I’ve so enjoyed the cognac, and the talk—”
She leaned forward very slightly, hardly knew that she was doing it. He put his arms around her quickly, trapping her. Their heads bent, lips met. She shut her eyes. Already, her legs … it was as if they had begun the walk to the bedroom.
But he was standing back, smiling. “I do have to go—”
It seemed to her he almost hurried. Thinking about it later, she realized he had left calmly, politely.
And forever.
She lay awake, unable to still her racing heart. Why is this thirty-nine-year-old woman lying sleepless, sixteen again and kissed by Gib in the library? Fm no older and wiser, merely more cynical. Would it have been any better if…?
She opened a barely begun copy of La Passantede Sans Souci and read a few pages. Her attention wandered. It is a love story, she thought. I do not need to read about love.
Waking from a short sleep, drugged almost, she saw it was ten o’clock in the morning. She was glad she hadn’t arranged to go to the orphanage. Blanche, the maid, who had been here two hours already, brought her coffee.
At half-past ten the telephone rang.
“Good morning, Henri Seydoux here. We met last night. …” She held the receiver in one hand, the cup of black coffee in the other. “I unfortunately have only a little time free in the day. At lunchtime. I hope you have too … Prunier’s, downstairs … Yes?”
Yes. She had two hours to get ready. It wouldn’t be enough. I am absurd. Half an hour wasted while I try on three different outfits. A bath run, then left to grow cold. Scent—too much, too little? More jewelry, less? And the hat. Too far forward, the wrong tilt?
She settled for a suit, simple and well cut, and with it a white brocade waistcoat. I am an empty-headed social butterfly, flitting from man to man. But looking at herself in the glass, she saw she was not dressed for the part.
As she came into Prunier’s, seeing first the little pots of caviar on ice, lobsters, crayfish, langoustines, on her right the caisse, she did not dare to look at the tables.
He said, “You are not late—I was very early. And now, please—”
She ate prawns, and then sole. The minutes ticked away, faster than she would have thought possible.
“I chose here because it’s good fast service—and delicious. It’s unfortunate I have these three appointments this afternoon.”
Because she was afraid (what if he should see that I care?) and because of nerves, she was at her most brittle:
“You were lucky to find me at home. My engagement book—”
“Last night, in your home,” he said, “you weren’t like this. Would you stop it, please?”
Her voice came out small and humble: “I’m sorry. I—”
“At some risk,” he said, “allow me to tell you you’re very attracted to me. Although not as much as I to you. But you’re wary, and this rudeness is the form it takes. Am I right?”
“Perhaps—”
“No perhaps. Certainly I’m right. But by itself—all that—it’s not enough. You invited me to your home and then you were angry, I think, or disappointed, when I left you almost exactly as I found you. But why not? Why shouldn’t I respect you?”
“Oh, respect,” she said. “Respect. Whatever next? You sound like an Englishman proposing marriage.”
“Instead of a Frenchman proposing—I think you know … what.”
“By all means—if you can spare the time.”
He held up his hand. “Enough, please. I’ll order coffee. You shall pretend we’re back in the taxi again. You were rather charming then, and natural.”
She felt her mouth work, I certainly don’t need to cry here, among the lobsters and langoustines.
“Are you free tonight?” He spoke hurriedly now. Suddenly the worried one. “I have nothing, but—”
“Quite free.”
“You see, I have only three more days. Then the weekend out of Paris. Monday, here from midday. On the Tuesday, Le Havre, and Montreal.”
“Oh,” she said in a small voice. “Oh well—”
“Yes—oh well. You’re thinking already that I wasted last night? Perhaps I did.”
The bill had come, and he was busy with that. Then suddenly, both hands cupped over hers, holding them down:
“Tonight I shall come straight to your apartment, about seven. We’ll see then where we go. There’s a great hurry, you know. You’ll see.”
It was beyond excitement—she was beyond excitement. There were four hours to live through. She went to her favorite lingerie shop in the Rue de Rivoli, and came out with a nightdress that was almost a dinner gown— halter-necked with a fitted bodice, burgundy chiffon and georgette. I am being extravagant and ridiculous, she thought.
Evening. La Route Enchantée was showing not far away. Charles Trenet sang exuberantly of the country of love: come with us and you’ll see … love, love. … It seemed to her at first wasteful they should sit in the cinema when they might be alone—but the quiet couple of hours, holding hands as if young again, were somehow calming …
When they came out: “You could add Trenet to your repertoire,” she said.
“I was listening carefully, Teddee.” She liked very much how he pronounced her name. It made her seem in a way a different person.
They ate at a small restaurant, a cafe, a few corners down from her apartment. During the soup, she asked him, “Do you have a wife? I want to —must know, if you’re married.” It suddenly mattered terribly.
“I was—until about six years ago. The marriage wasn’t good and I’d become attached elsewhere and wanted to regularize that. She, Christine, had been my mistress for over eight years. I got an annulment—very difficult, causing great distress—so that we might marry. I think Christie became frightened, or met someone better—who knows? But within a week of my freedom it was all off. Since then, I’ve been very careful.”
“I’m always careful,” Teddy said. “Children?”
“One daughter, already married. She lives near Cahors.” He said, “You haven’t married again. Did you wish to?”
“Yes, in principle. Though maybe … in case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a shortage of worthwhile men. My sister found a rotter, married him, and shot him dead.”
His eyebrows went up. “That’s quite a story.”
“It was.”
“Later you can tell me about her, perhaps? Now, it’s your story I want to hear, Teddee. You do have one, I think?”
That first night he shouted in his sleep. She woke in a fright, thinking, Some disaster. A burglar. A heart attack.
“Are you
all right, what is it, darling? Henri, what is it?” She woke him up. She could not bear it. He said only:
“My God, one of my nightmares. I could have done without that. Forgive me.”
She wanted to comfort him, but it was nothing, he said (nothing, she thought afterward, when he had told her, nothing). Only a shell that had exploded in ’16, burying him. Hardly an uncommon experience, he said—and at least he had survived. Since then, occasionally, if he became nervously excited it could happen: this reliving through a nightmare. Clutching, clawing, desperate to reach air …
He said, “I don’t expect to have it again while we’re together.”
While we’re together. That was the giveaway, that the time they would be together was so short. Only two more days and then he must leave for the weekend. After that, one more day, and he would be gone completely.
Over the next two days, except when they went to a restaurant or he had to meet business contacts, he was seldom out of her apartment. Much of the time was spent talking, when they were not making love (and all of that so perfect that superstitiously she did not dare to tell him. Accept, give, but do not appear vulnerable.). A lot of the talking was done by her. It was not that Henri was secretive—he answered questions frankly—but he seemed to have taken it on himself not only to listen to the story of her life, but to shape and alter her memories.
She noticed it first when, as they lay together on the double bed, she told him more about Gib than she had ever told anyone (Ferdy—how to imagine telling him those secrets of the heart. Saint, who had been his friend, even less.).
She ended her tale with the diary, the diary that had been not only comfortless but a death knell too. I slept with a dead man.
“Afterward, when he came back—”
“You should remember only the Gilbert you loved,” Henri said. “The man of the diaries—wasn’t Gilbert. I know, because for years after—the reason in the end why I had no marriage, was that I was no longer Henri, 1915.1 understand this dead man you speak of. I was buried alive, you see. I too came back from the dead.”
She got his name wrong, when she chanced to use it one time: “Feydeau.”
“I’m not a farceur,” he said, laughing, but he didn’t correct her. “Call me what you like—though Henri would be better.”
“You don’t have a pet name?”
“Give me one.”
“Later,” she said, “later. When we have more time together.” She was certain now that they would—but whether they did or not would depend on her. He had said so. Suddenly very serious, he had explained that he did not see it just as an affaire, although she might. On the other hand, she must not rush into anything. Above all, she must give herself a breathing space. The dreaded weekend that he was to spend in the Loire: “I can’t avoid it, since it’s business. But while I’m gone, you must think, very seriously.”
“Couldn’t I come too, as your secretary?”
“No. You’re meant to be thinking, Teddee. Neither of us, can afford a mistake. So, Monday we shall meet for lunch, and you can tell me. We can tell each other. If you are frightened, have changed your mind, then it’s enough not to keep our appointment. That way it is very simple. I shall know —but you will have been spared telling me.”
He went on, “But if all is well, Tuesday we can go to St. Lazare together. Hoping that Danielle Darrieux isn’t traveling the same day—that happened to me once, not a porter left to pay attention. We can plan then what we’ll do, when I’m back from Canada. Or if you would wish to come out too …”
She wanted to say, But I’ve thought already. I think I’ll come now. Try even to get a passage for Tuesday. But to show so much certainty … it would not do.
On their last evening, the Friday, they ate outside Paris on the edge of the Bois de Verrières. She wore a black moiré suit with tight-fitting jacket, and vest and jabot in pale pink organdie. They were at a group of restaurants with tables up in the trees. Everyone wanted to be at a table up in a tree; the waiters naturally encouraged them to take tables on the ground.
He told her, “During the weekend I shall want to telephone you. But I won’t. … It wouldn’t be right or fair.”
They arranged that when—if—she came on Monday, it would be to the little cafe two corners from her apartment, where they had eaten the first night, and sat drinking twice since. It was usually so crowded as to give a sort of privacy.
“I promise that if you are not there I shall do nothing. I shan’t run round to your apartment saying, ‘But I thought you loved me.’”
“It’s wait and see then, isn’t it?” she said in her cooler, teasing voice.
“I woke up this morning,” he said, “when you were still asleep, and thought, I shall go to the Avenue Matignon to Max and buy her a wild mink —full-length. I didn’t, of course. But that is the sort of mad impulse I’ve been having.”
“If you do get one, I shall want only the best.”
“Naturally, Teddee.”
She didn’t expect to sleep on the Saturday night, so was surprised when drowsiness overcame her about two in the morning. Sunday now. Already she’d managed one whole day. When she woke she would go straight to the orphans, spend the day with them, then early to bed. In the morning it would be Monday. And then at lunchtime … “Yes, yes,” she would say, “I want to be with you always, forever.”
Then after the happy-sad-happy night they would wake and dress, and take a cab to the Gare St. Lazare. She would go with him to Le Havre and see the boat off. Then decide about following him and how soon it would be. Meanwhile, about the war … We have the Maginot Line, she repeated to herself like a charm, we have the Maginot Line. France will be safe.
And anyway, it would be all right once they were together. I feel so sure, she thought. The whole of today I was absolutely certain (as only someone who’s made hundreds of mistakes could be). Ever since Gib I have been looking …
The telephone woke her with shocking suddenness. Groping for the light, knocking the receiver off … She could not at first make out the voice: faint, then more clear. Repeating patiently:
“Erik, this is Erik. Teddy …”
Oh dear God, she could not hear properly. Mother … No, not dead. But the doctors … She had been ill about a week, now they were of a sudden worried last night—had arranged to operate early Monday. “They want to see what’s happening with her. The liver, we don’t know what we must think.” The normally unruffled Erik, agitated. She remembered his telling her his father had died under the knife—a pioneer operation for appendicitis.
“Erik, I’ll come immediately—the first boat.”
Yet another time of rushing. For Sylvia … To Romania for Michael. She should be used by now …
The time was half-past three. She had already pulled on her wrap, reached for a cigarette and lit it before she realized. Sunday now. The orphans, that would be all right. But Monday?
I shall tell him what’s happened. She threw clothes into a suitcase, mentally composed notes, instructions for Blanche. I’ll send a letter to his hotel that will make it absolutely clear. A telegram to Le Havre. A telephone call from Yorkshire.
She would leave these practicalities till the last moment. If she did everything quickly she could get a cab in about an hour. The first train out of Paris, an early boat, England by the afternoon, Yorkshire late this evening. She thought about planes. A Sunday. By the time I’ve found out the details I could be half across the Channel. (That man, lover, years ago, who said, “If ever you want flying anywhere in an emergency, just call me.” At four in the morning?)
She’d begin by ringing the night porter at Henri’s hotel, to leave a message. But—oh dear God … which hotel? She had never asked or known. Try ringing some likely ones—so popular at this hour—asking whether they have staying there a M. Henri … a M. Henri … M. Henri who?
Oh, but it’s not possible, I’m mad. Dearest darling Henri, of course I know your name. We were introduced at that d
inner party. Since then she must have heard him use it. He had perhaps left a card? She began a frantic search. He had not.
Feydeau, Feydeau ran around in her head. The playwright. That wasn’t it, but it was somewhere near. Daudet, Feldeau, Feydoux. No. Aimée Ribourel, she gave that party, he was brought as an extra guest—by whom? She would know. But one couldn’t ring her house now. And … of course, they have left for the country. Somewhere in the Romanche, I think. I never bothered to find out.
I could wait till Yorkshire. I must. It is Mother who is important. I could leave a note for Blanche that she try to do something.
The cafe where they were to meet. She ran downstairs and along the deserted street. Perhaps there are late drinkers still, someone will remember us, give a message?
The shutters were up, refuse was piled outside. A gray alley cat scavenged. Mewing, it came over, rubbing its face against her leg. What message could she leave? “If a dark monsieur with glasses seems to be waiting for a guest, tell him that Teddee …”
Impossible. She was paralyzed with sadness, and panic. I shall lose him. I shall lose him. Where was that so sophisticated, so unflappable Teddy? What do I do now? she cried inside, over and over.
All the way home, cab to train to boat to train and train again, she felt sick with worry. If Mother should die before she got home—if, ungrateful, always absent, always wayward daughter, she were to arrive too late …
21
“I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.”
So that’s it, Teddy thought, listening to the tired voice of the Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain. Seeing Willow’s pinched face opposite (her birthday yesterday scarcely noticed. It had not been a time to celebrate.). We have come to this—the war to end all wars, in vain.
The Towers: suddenly full of memories. I walk the corridors, flapper, little help, reading to the officers, singing for them, dancing, falling in love with Gib. Thank you God, for nothing.
Sunday today. By Tuesday evening The Towers would be more or less a children’s home. It would have been sooner had she not insisted they have the chance first to bury Lily quietly, and with dignity.
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