Her Lover (Belle de Seigneur)

by Albert Cohen

  He stood back and let her walk on, for he suddenly realized that if she stayed at his rear she might be tempted by the back of his head, start screaming with fear, go for his neck and bite him perhaps. 'Hurry,' she said, and she dragged him roughly after her. Behind the coach lay two doleful, emaciated horses. They were tethered together. The head of one rested on the beaten earth floor, its tongue half-protruding. The other worked its elongated human features, and its shadow swung uncertainly from one wall to the other.

  'These are my grandfather's horses!' she announced. 'My father decided to keep them until the very end of all their days! Out of respect! Before that they lived in the stables upstairs, but now they too hide down here with us, poor old things! They're called Isaac and Jacob! But that's more than enough of that! Take a look at yourself!' she cried in a wild frenzy, once more holding out her mirror to him. 'That's what living outside can do to you, idiot! Into the cellar with you, Jew! You'll be all right with me, but I should tell you that my troth is already plighted to a baron whom I chose in preference to Nathaniel Bischoffsheim, who is too young! I like them when they're ripe and ready, like Camembert, slightly soft to the touch! Furthermore, brandy pickles ears, a fact you might remember if some day you find yours on the floor! At Lodz there was a pogrom when she was pregnant with me, so she took her revenge and I was born little! Anyway, I can take or leave anything you tell me! So it's entirely up to you, and of course anyone who lies in his teeth won't have teeth for long and what girl would want you with no teeth? Surely you know that a person will never amount to much without a pair of well-stocked jaws? (She smiled broadly to show off two rows of fine teeth and put one hand on her hip.) They say I'm a midget, but people take an interest in me! Just ask Rothschild or Bischoffsheim! Anyway, it was written that you would end up confused in the head! Don't deny it, my little wheedling pet, a moment ago you were trying to catch Jacob's shadow on the wall! I saw you and nearly choked laughing! Listen, I'll tell you a secret! When I'm alone I harness Isaac and Jacob to the coach, then I get in, take the reins, and drive round the cellar! A real little queen! Just now when I said "walks in her sleep" I was being considerate, to avoid saying "blind"! Or if I get lonely, when everybody else has gone off to cellars elsewhere to buy things or have chats and they leave me because I'm too small and have a hump and no neck, I try to sleep so I don't have to think. Sleeping dogs have no fleas! Come on, look sharp, get up into grandfather's coach! Quick now, or I'll pinch you!'

  She opened the door, which sparkled with multiple mirrors, pushed him inside with both hands, forced him on to the seat, climbed up beside him, and sat down. She swung her little legs contentedly, stopped suddenly and motioned him to be quiet.

  'Can you hear them outside? Those clowns are happy when they've got a band to march behind. Whereas here we are sitting in a royal coach! Oh beautiful cellar of mine, oh high destiny, oh nails that I love! But now, do you feel like having a bit of fun? We've got masks for the Feast of Lots, they were bought before I was born! I'm terribly young, you know! You want a good laugh? We've got games for the Feast of Lots! Look!' she cried in a ringing voice, and, bending down, produced from under the seat a paper crown decorated with imitation rubies which she put on her head. 'On the Feast of Lots, I was always Queen Esther, I was so graceful, the apple of my father's eye! Here, take this false nose and rejoice! Ignoramus, do you know in what you shall rejoice? I'll tell you: in the death of Haman! Sometimes I behave horribly, because it's not very nice being small. So I say "I like them ripe" or "I'll bite you", but it isn't true, it's just the laughter showing through the tears. And perhaps I was wrong when I said that other nations will be pleased. Let's wait and see! In any case, I don't trust Poland! Don't look at me stupidly like that! Hurry up, put your false nose on!'

  He did as she asked and she clapped her hands as he stroked the grotesque cardboard appendage, stroked it proudly. He gave a sudden start on hearing a knocking which rose from the depths, three knocks, then two. She patted his hand self-importantly, told him not to be afraid, that it was Jews in the cellar in the next house asking for the trapdoor to be opened, a crowd of bores who often came looking for news or food. She got out of the coach and waddled off, holding her train aloft and her little rump swaying.

  'I'll make you wait and wail, you've got no manners!' she shouted as she perched above the trapdoor. 'I'm very busy laughing and powdering my face! I'll open up in an hour from now, and not a minute before! Silence, Jews!'

  Seated beside him once more in the coach, in sober mood, Rachel the midget was plucking the strings of another guitar from which she drew sad strains and from time to time glanced at him shrewdly. He gazed upon her and felt pity, pity for this tiny deformed creature with the large eyes, the beautiful eyes of his people, pity for the crazed little being who was both the culmination of age-old fears and the misshapen fruit of those fears, pity for her hump, and in his heart he felt a reverence for her hump, which was made of fear and the sweat of fear, sweat transmitted from one age to the next in the expectation of sorrow, the sweat and despair of a hunted people, his people and his love, an ancient people marked by genius but crowned with grief, the science of majesty and disillusionment, his mad old King striding alone through the storm bearing its Law, a jangling harp through the dark hurricane of the ages, and the immortal sound of its ecstasy of grandeur and persecution.

  'I'm ugly, aren't I?' she asked, and with her tiny hand she touched her fringe with the heart-rending gesture of a sick monkey.

  'You are beautiful,' he said, and he took her hand and kissed it.

  Without speaking now, they sat holding hands in the ancient coach, he wearing his false nose and she with her paper crown on her head, brother and sister, holding each other tightly by the hand, a queen and a king from some sorry carnival at whom the two horses gazed sadly as they shook their chaste, professorial heads.

  And then the midget removed her crown and put it on the head of her brother whose eyes were closed, and she covered his shoulders with the silk prayer-shawl, and placed in his hands the sacred scrolls of the Commandments. Then, climbing down shakily from the coach, she untethered the listless horses, backed them into the shafts, harnessed them, covered them with velvet cloths embroidered with gold and ancient characters, a curtain from the Ark of the Covenant, while the left-hand horse, the older of the pair and swollen-jointed, looked on approvingly, melancholy but majestic, and the right-hand horse raised its head in joy and whinnied a summons.

  Then from the shadows she appeared, tall and marvellous of face, sovereign Virgin, Jerusalem made flesh, beauty of Israel, hope in the night, a sweet mad creature with sightless eyes, advancing slowly, folding in her arms an old doll over which from time to time she lowered her head. 'She's made a mistake,' whispered the midget: 'she thinks she's cradling the Law in her arms.'

  All at once again there came a loud clamour from outside, and simultaneously the tramp of jackboots rang out beneath the song of the Germans, hymn of venom, hymn of German joy, joy of the blood of Israel spurting beneath German knives. 'Wenn Judenblut unter'm Messer spritzt,' sang the young hopes of the German nation, while from the neighbouring cellar rose another song, hymn of praise to the Lord, sombre hymn of love, which rose out of the mists of time, the song of David my King.

  And there, standing beneath the ventilator outside which the German jackboots tramped past, draped in the ample prayer-shawl with its bar of blue and its hanging tassels, relic of a noble past, the King, crowned with sorrow and bloody-browed, raised aloft the Holy Law, glory of his people, presented it to the worshippers of might, of the might which is a licence to murder, held it against the bars past which, mechanical and victorious, the young hopes of the German nation paraded, singing their joy at Jewish blood spilt, proud in their strength, proud in their strength in numbers, cheered by sweating girls with blonde plaits and arms inanely held high, gross sexual creatures excited by the spectacle of so much jackbooted manliness.

  Indefatigable, son of his people,
he held aloft the Law accoutred in gold and velvet and crowned with silver, gloriously raised it high and proffered the heavy, imprisoned Law, Law of justice and of love, the honour of his people, while outside, glorying in their power of death, pride of the German nation, to the sound of fife and drum and clashing cymbals, endlessly singing their joy in the blood of Israel which spurts beneath their knives, the torturers and killers of the weak and the defenceless marched past.

  CHAPTER 55

  'Dearie me! Mariette you poor old thing! I'm at my wits' end all I do is sit and sigh I don't even fancy a coffee no more, it's been going on like this for two days now, she's changed, she don't say a word and I can't make it out, I daren't ask why, it was the day before yesterday when she started on with the glums, the day after that day when she was so happy, that's right, it's two days she's been this way, Mary Magdalene at the foot of the Cross don't come into it, just has one bath of a morning though she usually has two or three, can't be bothered to get dressed, just stays in bed with books that she don't even read, staring up at the ceiling as if she was waiting for something, I know 'cos naturally I peep through the keyhole, I feel it's my duty seeing that she's an orphing, not talking or singing and I always used to love listening to her, stops in bed doing nothing, there's something fishy going on but what it is I've no idea, if she was the type I'd say she was crossed in love, but I don't think so, I'd have noticed, it's like I say, stays in bed not eating, a terrible sight to see, anything wrong Madame Ariane I've said two or three times thinking that she'd tell me what was up, but all she says is I'm tired I got a headache, and that's my lot, and by the look of her I can tell it's no good asking, she'd only get cross if I started ferreting, could be it's her nerves, her father had nerves, there was days on end when he wouldn't say a word, always thinking thoughts he was, but poor old me I just carry on as best I can, sometimes I say daft things to make her laugh but she don't laugh, yesterday morning to take her mind off things I says Madame Ariane how'd you fancy a little ride down to the Côte d'Azur to see the sea, she always loved the sea she did, and the country, all that sort of thing, though speaking for myself, you know, I never reckoned much to the sea, you can't get washed proper in it, it don't give you much of a lather, anyroad that's the sort of thing I've been telling her, but she shakes her head and says she's ever so tired, the same old tune over and over and not eating enough to keep a sparrow alive, listen I'll give you a for instance, last night I made a little bit of something for supper, just a few starters, to tickle her appetite, and I took it up to her in bed with the little invalid table, very handy is that table, it folds away when you're not using it, radishes, olives, sardines, a nob of butter and with it a nice bit of sausage that cousin of mine sent me from Nanteuil though she'd be better off paying me back the money she owes me, a helping of tuna in mayonnaise with paprika to cheer it up, grated celeriac in mustard sauce, all nicely set out, black olives the biggest I could get, puff-pastry boats, all artistic like, with funnels on to make her laugh and anchovies inside, hard-boiled eggs in mayonnaise arranged like a baby's face for a bit of fun with capers for eyes and a red-pepper mouth, Parma ham, in a word a selection of nibbles to tickle her fancy, flowers on the tray, no trouble spared to take her mind off things, and also I was forgetting the most important bit, smoked salmon that I went specially to that expensive shop in town to get, they're rogues and thieves but they got good stuff, speak as you find, two hundred grams, best quality, the thick part, not too salty, you don't have to eat it all up Madame Ariane, just what you fancy, but she didn't fancy any, all she had was some tea, so in the end I had to finish it all up by meself, made me feel real down in the dumps, mustn't let good food go to waste, and just now when I took her up her breakfast in bed she didn't even look up, drawing things on the bedcovers she was, here's a nice hot cup of coffee for you Madame Ariane, wait a sec and I'll put you another pillow so you're comfy, and she stares at me as if I wasn't there, a few sips of black coffee and that was it, just a mouthful, and what do you say to some nice croissants Madame Ariane, no thanks, Mariette, I'm not hungry, but Madame Ariane you don't have to be hungry to eat a little croissant, they melt in your mouth, it's not proper food, no thanks Mariette dear, and she looks up at the ceiling as if to say I don't want nobody talking to me, I want to be left alone, now to my way of thinking there's something seriously wrong there, I told her go and see the doctor, she didn't even bother to answer, you can't get through to her she's in such a mood, yes Mariette dear she says to me, poor lamb, though I'd much sooner she called me an old bag and ate something, I say Madame Ariane because I always called her Mademoiselle as long as her aunt was alive, on account of Mademoiselle Valérie never wanting me to say just plain Ariane when she got a bit older, you have to know your place, anyroad it's come to be a habit with me, first it was Mademoiselle and then of course Madame, but for all that she's still my little girl, me being a widow and never had children, she filled a gap, she was a sort of daughter to me I mean, because them nieces of mine aren't up to much, always chasing men, always stuffing their faces, whatever that pair haven't got it isn't a good appetite, but we'll see at lunch-time, perhaps she'll fancy a bite to eat then, I'll do her lamb chops, be best to keep it simple p'raps, with creamed potatoes and a nice bit of crispy salad with tarragon in, there's nothing like tarragon for giving a salad a lift, shape yourself Madame Ariane I'll say, just two small chops to keep your strength up, that doctor, the one that had the surgery I used to do for, he always said not eating is bad for the system, clogs it up, gives you swollen glands, that's what the doctor told me, anyhow I'd better shake meself and get a move on, no offence but you're holding me up, so nice to have seen you, ta-ta, thanks for coming, always lovely to see you, why don't you call round at home tonight, we'll have a cup of coffee.'

  CHAPTER 56

  'If you'll hush a minute I'll tell you the whole story, there've been developments, she's got a boyfriend, you see I wasn't far out yesterday when I told you there was some man behind it, all that being sad and not talking, true as I'm standing here silly cow that I am I never suspected a thing, what with her being Mademoiselle Valérie's niece and having me on saying that she had headaches, but when I remembered how she was always asking me if the postman had been yet the penny dropped and I thought oho there's love-lines crossed here, you remember, I told you, she's not a one who can teach her grandmother to suck eggs, so there you are, but to begin at the beginning, this morning eight o'clock, just as I was making a start on the kitchen windows, the rain had made them ever so dirty, there comes a knock at the door, terrygram it was, I took it up at once of course, straight away, I went up them stairs so fast I nearly broke a leg, well the minute she reads the terrygram she jumps out of bed so fast you'd have thought she was an acrobat in a circus, and quick as a flash she's away to her bath, shouting there's no time to explain, she got to go out quick, she'll tell me what it's all about later, but she'd put her terrygram in her pyjama pocket, the top's too short, makes her behind look like an angel's from heaven, anyhow, just as she was zooming off whoosh to the bathroom like a scared rabbit, the terrygram falls on the floor, I think about it telling myself there's a responsibility on me to know what's in it, since she's only young and got no father or mother, so's I can give her advice and help her if it was bad news though it didn't look much like that what with the way she went leaping off for her soak, scalding she has it, you wonder how a body could stand having it so hot, she comes out looking like a lobster, anyway to cut a long story short, after I phone for the taxi she shouted from her steaming hot bath that I had to get for her, ooh I hate phoning, you got to yell if you want them to understand what you're saying, it always gives me a turn, though I'm past the turn I'm happy to say, anyway as I was saying after phoning I went back upstairs and had a bit of a read of the terrygram while she was in the bath, felt it was my duty, and guess what, poor Didi's out on his ear, probably never satisfied her, it had to come, the terrygram was from the boyfriend saying he'll be back on the t
wenty-fifth, ever so lovey-dovey, I'm itching with impatience tell me you're itching too, that's how it went word for word, well not quite word for word exackly, it didn't say he was itching, it said it much more fancy, ever so romantic, but that's what it meant, anyway in for a penny, I have a bit of a rummage through the papers in her drawer while she's still in the bath to see if I can find out what it's all about, I am responsible for her don't forget, she didn't tell me what the taxi she went off in was for but it was clear as daylight it was to go turtle-doving, oh come soon darling I can't wait no more, anyhow, getting back to the notebook, the one I read in her drawer to find out what it was all about with the very best of intentions, it was all about love, went on about the boyfriend, goings on like in a play, I love him, I love him, my own love, stuff like that, went on about kisses and crazy carryings-on, of course I didn't read much of it 'cos it was a scrawl just like when the doctor writes you a prescripshun, anyhow, they met when I was away in Paris and they saw each other of an evening, of course with that Putallaz creature pushing off every day at lunch-time they could kiss and cuddle with nobody to interfere, I ask you, and me thinking she was a saint or similar, poor Didi, I know I don't reckon much to him with his walking-stick and his skimpy overcoat ever so toffee-nosed, but you can't help feeling sorry for him, to my way of thinking he just didn't have a clue, it's a fact, so then we had all that business of being ever so sad and not talking, it's all there in her notebook, and then the boyfriend goes away all unexpected-like for a couple of days and don't come back when he said he was going to come back and he don't give her no news and she don't know where he's got to, so then she gets frantic and phones her darling's hotel her darling's office, can't find out where he's gone to, in the terrygram he explains how he can't explain why he didn't come back on the day he said he would and how he can't explain neither why he won't be coming back till the twenty-fifth, which is not for another eleven days yet, very hush-hush, politics, in her notebook, the one I had a quick read of where she wrote it all out, saying how terribly unhappy she was, before the terrygram come that is, not hearing anything about her sweetheart, thinking about doing herself in if it went on much longer, I'd love to see what this lucky beggar of hers looks like, he must be handsome enough to give you shivers up your back judging by what she says about him in them jottings in her notebook, but all the same what a slyboots not saying a word to old Mariette, a real minx, it would have been nice if she'd cried her heart out to me, I'd have told her there there, never mind Madame Ariane, he'll write to you soon you see if he don't, men don't think, not like women, but she didn't tell me and I'd not forgive her if I was on my deathbed, though of course I'm pleased she's happy like a woman should be, got a taste of joys I know so well, like the song says, but she'll keep it all to herself, you'll see, she won't tell me anything instead of us talking it over nice and cosy, her asking me what to do woman-to-woman, 'cos she's all I got really, my nieces are so coarse, and 'cos that's how things stand I won't read her stuff, cross my heart, I'll not read her letters and her notebook, I'll make myself a nice cup of coffee and I'll have a look at that novel I've got on the go it's much more interesting, and when she gets home I'll be stand-offish, that'll teach her, what a minx though, and me always saying how she was pure as a angel, though if there's blame I don't blame her, you're only young once and it don't last, anyway no good complaining, that's life, all the same what a snake in the grass hiding her big romance from me like that, she had no need to, I'd have been only too glad to know she was getting out of her rut with some good-looking man, she's entitled, 'cos that Didi's got what was coming to him, and besides the heart's the little tinkling bell on the heavy necklace of life, as the song goes.'