Her Lover (Belle de Seigneur)

by Albert Cohen

  'While I'm on the subject of Annemasse, a childhood memory comes back to me. Oh sorry, I already told you about it one evening. But I've remembered something else, this time from when I was an adolescent. When I was fifteen or sixteen, I used to look up naughty words in the dictionary, such as embrace, loins, passion and others I can't mention. I don't need to do that any more.

  'I'll carry on saying what I've been doing today. When I got back to Geneva, ring on finger, I bought you an absolutely gorgeous dressing-gown, the biggest size they had, and said I'd take it with me, because I wanted to spread it out on my bed. Next I bought twelve Mozart records, which I also refused to have delivered though they weighed a ton. After that I went and got weighed in a chemist's. Appalled by how much weight I'd put on. Had I got fat without noticing? Then I realized it was because I was still holding both sets of records, which were terribly heavy. Walked out of the chemist's humming: "Oh my love, I'm yours for ever." Aren't I silly?

  'Got back to Cologny at half past five. Removed ring to avoid questions, for Mariette knows jolly well I never wear one. Had a go at Hegel, doing my best to understand. Then as a reward allowed myself a shameful peep at a woman's magazine: looked through the agony column then studied my horoscope to find out what's in store for me this week, though naturally I didn't believe a word of it. After that I tried to draw your face. The result was grisly. Then I looked you up in the International Organizations Year-Book. Then I cut your face out of one of several photographs I have of you and stuck it on a postcard of the Apollo Belvedere, over the head. Ghastly. Then I wondered if there was anything I could do for you, like knit something. No, too too tasteless.

  'I went downstairs to see how they were getting on with decorating my little sitting-room. Mariette was there, and I had to put up with her in one of her medical moods. She launched with gusto into a recital of various ailments which had laid assorted nieces and cousins low. Going on and on about illness is her idea of fun, her dismal way of having a good time. I tried to stop her by saying it was better not to dwell on such depressing matters. Her eyes glazed over, she got quite carried away, and she didn't even hear what I said but just went on and on describing various operations, dragging out all the family insides for my benefit.

  'Darling, a few days ago my uncle turned up in Geneva, just got back from Africa, where he's been working as a medical missionary. I'll tell you why he's come and why he's gone straight back into practice when I see you, so as not to make this letter longer than it need be. I'll describe him to you in telegrammese to hurry things along.

  'I've changed places. I'm lying face down on the floor to write, it's ever so cosy. Right, I'll make a start. Agrippa Pyrame d'Auble. I've always called him Uncle Gri ever since I was a little girl. Aged sixty. Tall, thin, close-cropped white hair, drooping moustache, innocent blue eyes, monocle because he's short-sighted in one eye. When embarrassed, keeps screwing monocle in and out while Adam's apple bobs up and down. Looks like Don Quixote. Ancient green-tinged black suit. Detachable wing-collar and starched tubular oversleeves. Badly knotted white tie. Big boots with hobnails so they won't need resoling, which does away with a complication, he says. But he isn't the least bit miserly. On the contrary. But he has few needs and never bothers to look after himself. In spite of said threadbare suit and hobnails, looks terribly distinguished. The day after he got back, I managed — and it wasn't easy — to get him to buy himself a new suit. Wouldn't hear of anything made to measure, being loyal to an old shop, called The Prodigal Son, where they sell off-the-peg clothes. I took him there like a lamb to slaughter. Has few material needs, though he lives in a grand house. The contradiction is only superficial. As last male survivor of the Aubles, he believes he has a duty to his name to live in surroundings worthy of his forebears. It's a small failing. But what saint is without blot?

  'I forgot to say that he has the Legion of Honour and other medals too. But for all his decorations, none of which he ever asked for, he is very shy, especially with bumptious people. It's fascinating to watch him hold out his hand when he's being introduced to someone. Elbow tucked well into his sides, he holds it out gingerly as though the other person is about to stick it into a vat of boiling oil. He often makes me think of a little boy lost, yet, though he has nothing of the grand manner and self-confidence of the eminent doctor, that is precisely what he is, and very highly regarded by his colleagues. He discovered something terribly important called the d'Auble syndrome. The Academy of Medicine in Paris elected him a corresponding member, which is supposed to be a great honour for a foreign doctor. The minute news got out that he was back in Geneva, the Journal de Genève published a very flattering article about him.

  'I'm sitting down at the table again, because writing lying down was giving me a pain in the back of my neck. Darling, I do miss you so. Darling, we will go away together, won't we? I want to see the countries I love with you. We'll go to England, for instance, see the country around Norwich. You'll love it there, the plain stretching away endlessly, the wide sweep of the horizon, the great wind blowing, woods with avenues like cathedral naves, hills softened by bracken, and, far off, the sea. We'll roam through the deepest parts of the woods, we'll walk softly on thick moss, and pheasants will cross our path and squirrels will jump out of the trees. And then we'll stand on the cliff edge and look out to sea with the wind in our faces and we'll hold each other by the hand.

  'But getting back to my uncle. I also omitted to mention that he is a past President of the Calvinist Consistory and a past Vice-President of the National Democratic Party, which is the party which decent people belong to. He is deeply religious, and I respect his faith because it is true and noble. It's the very opposite of Old Ma Deume's bigotry. Now I'll explain why he went to Africa. Some years ago, when he learned that there was a shortage of medical missionaries in the Zambezi, he decided to go out and offer his services free of charge to the evangelical missions there. At his age and though not a well man, he gave up a thriving medical career to care for the blacks and bring them what he calls, in his sweet phraseology, the Good News.

  'If I dared tell my uncle that I know you and see you often, I'm sure he'd never guess there was anything untoward going on between us. With a kindly twinkle in those smiling blue eyes of his which see no evil, he'd say he was happy for my sake that I'm "such good pals" with a man. And that's why I'll never be able to bring myself to tell him about you. It isn't that he's slow on the uptake, the very opposite. The simple fact is that he's an angel. He's so honest himself that it would never cross his mind that I might be capable of hiding the truth from him. He's a real Christian, a kind of saint, so full of goodwill to all men, always ready to love and understand and see things from the other person's point of view, having eradicated all love of self and always putting others first. And so generous. Of the money he charges his rich patients — and he only sends bills to the rich ones, that is, when he remembers to send out bills at all — he just keeps the bare minimum necessary to maintain his modest style of living. All the rest goes to the poor and to charitable causes.

  'When I was little, every time he came to Champel to see my aunt he used somehow to sneak a pile of chocolate money into the drawer of my table, which was delicious, especially in winter, when I used to put it out on a radiator to get soft. Last night he paid me a visit here at Cologny. Well, after he'd gone, I happened to open a drawer and found a pile of the same chocolate money in it!

  'Darling, I suddenly have this memory of hot sunny afternoons in my aunt's garden loud with insects buzzing. Lying on the terrace, a skinny little thing of twelve, I was staring at the hot air, which shimmered. The cat was padding warily through the grass, and it was then that the miracle began. The terrace, which was paved with small slabs, turned into a deserted plain strewn with fearsome rocks like giants who'd had a spell cast on them and been turned to stone, while beyond the grass was the jungle and out of it, with fearsome stealth, emerged a little-girl-eating tiger. Then the scene would change and bec
ome a world heaving with little people. From under the eaves, spice-laden caravels set sail for overpopulated cities near the chaise longue; and dozens of pretty little horses, no bigger than your thumb but perfectly formed, galloped round and round the watering-can.

  'Another memory comes back from when I was fourteen and my uncle had come for the holidays to Champel, to the house he now lives in, my aunt left it to him in her will. One night I couldn't sleep and, feeling hungry, I went to his bedroom to wake him up so he could keep me company, and we both went ever so quietly downstairs to the kitchen, he in his dressing-gown and me in pyjamas, for a secret midnight beano, and we talked in whispers because we were afraid of what Tantlérie would say. It was wonderful. But I dropped a plate and it made a fearful racket. We were both petrified at the thought of being found out by my aunt. I was terrified and dug my fingernails into my cheeks, while Uncle Gri automatically switched off the light, though that wouldn't have done us any good at all if Tantlérie had woken up. I can see us now picking up bits of broken plate, which he took back to his room and hid in his case.

  'And now I must tell you about his car. It was born in 1912, does about ten miles to the gallon, make unknown, presumably because the manufacturer never dared admit responsibility or else killed himself in a fit of guilt after letting it see the light of day. It's a frightening creature and has all sorts of ways of its own. Sometimes it sort of jogs on the spot then staggers off down the road and then stops and starts jogging up and down again. He won't get rid of it and buy a new one. It's a matter of filial respect, because his juggernaut was given to him by his father when the century was young, at the time he was first starting up in practice. "I know she's on the temperamental side," he told me, "but I know how to handle her, and anyway I'm used to her."

  'And now Euphrosine. She worked as Aunt's cook and wouldn't hear a word said against her. When his sister died, my uncle thought he was in duty bound to go on employing Euphrosine. When he decided to go to Africa, she went to live with some nephews of hers and my uncle arranged for an allowance to be paid her. Last Saturday he made the mistake of going along and asking how she was. She begged him to take her back into service, moaning about her nephews, who, she said, treated her shamefully. Feeling sorry for her, he agreed and presented me with a fait accompli. So Euphrosine turns up at the house at Champel next morning. Very bad move. The old witch is over seventy, and age has withered her faculties. Anyway, she didn't last. Two days after she arrived at the Champel house, she announced that she was exhausted and took to her bed. So, since the day before yesterday, she's been having a fine old time of it, staying in bed all day, and poor Uncle Gri has been fetching and carrying for her. Yesterday I engaged a daily until we can get a proper maid.

  'Just one more thing and then I'll stop. For years my uncle has been working on three manuscripts. A book called Things and People of Old Geneva, a translation of The Aeneid and a biography of Calvin. The last mentioned is rather dull. When he reads pages out to me, I open my eyes very wide, lost in wonder, and he's happy.

  'One other thing about him. Now and then he comes out with a sentence in English, especially if he's ill at ease, because he seems to think he can hide behind English. But he does it not just out of a feeling of awkwardness but also because he loves England. Saying a few words in English gives him confidence, reminds him that the country he reveres exists. The Aubles have always been great Anglophiles. For instance, it was a family tradition to pack its young off to England or better still Scotland, where the religious atmosphere is more fervid. They'd stay a year or two and then come back, sometimes betrothed to a young Honourable but invariably mad about England and the greenness of its lawns. These Anglophile leanings are shared by the whole Calvinist establishment in Geneva, which has more in common with the United Kingdom than with the rest of the Swiss cantons. Anyway, my uncle never says he's Swiss but Genevan. So now you know him. Please try and like him.

  'I thought about you a long time this morning when I woke up, lying there in bed, too long perhaps. I hope you won't understand what that means. But afterwards I just thought about your eyes. Sometimes they have a far-away look, and I love that. Or else they can seem full of childish delight, and I love that too. Or else icy and hard, which is awful but I also love that. Tomorrow I'll get a train timetable so I can follow your progress on Saturday. Aha, he's at Dijon now, now he's at Bourg, now he's got to Bellegarde, yummy! Darling, please do take care of yourself, n'est-ce pas? Don't smoke too much, please. Not more than twenty a day! Darling, I'll close now because it's ten to nine. I'm going out into the garden loving you.

  'Here we are, back again. I stayed watching the polestar from nine minutes to nine until ten past, tilting my head back till it hurt, fighting off dizziness and not taking my eyes off the distant, twinkling light which is our rendezvous in the sky, trying to see your face looking back at me. If I went out at ten to nine and stayed watching it for twenty minutes, it was to be on the safe side because your watch might be fast or slow and I didn't want to run the risk of missing you. Actually it was just as well I did, because it wasn't until four minutes past that I felt your presence and our eyes met up there. Thank you, my darling. But put your watch right, please, it's four minutes slow.

  'The pretty little blue beads I've just sewn in the shape of a corolla are supposed to be a myosotis, and I shouldn't need to remind you that the myosotis is more usually called the forget-me-not. It wasn't easy to sew them on without tearing the paper, even though I used a very fine needle. It's strange: a few weeks ago I didn't know you, and now, just because our lips met one night, you are the only person alive, the only one who matters. It's a mystery.

  'Yesterday evening I sat in front of the mirror for ages trying to get an idea of how I would look to you the day after tomorrow. I have such a lot to do the day after tomorrow. I shall have to get up good and early.

  'I'm back with you. I just went over to the window for a moment to listen to the silence of the night in the garden now pricked by glow-worms. In the distance, in the aristocratic part of Cologny, an amorous cat was wowling — in vain, because its owners, the Chapeau-rouges, won't let it plight its troth before the return of a tom named Sarasin, who is very clean and very well cared for and absolutely reliable in every way but who, unfortunately, is currently away on matrimonial duty at the residence of another lady cat, named d'Aubigne."

  'I realize that everything I've written is intended to make me out to be intelligent and charming, to please you, kind sir. Poor, pathetic me, I feel so sorry for myself. But it doesn't matter, doesn't matter at all, as long as you love me. But you must feel sorry for me too, for I am utterly at your mercy. I write to you too much, I love you too much, I tell you I do too often. And more than all the rest is the tenderness I feel, darling, when you're asleep and you snuggle up close to me, so off your guard and trusting. Then inside of me I tell you moy dorogoy, moy zolotoy. O my love, if only you knew how completely you are my love! When I was at my wits' end because I had no news of you, I gave myself a deadline and when it was up I was going to kill myself with two tubes of barbiturates and slit wrists in the bath.

  'Yours.

  'My very dearest darling, I've just reread this letter. If I've gone on for so long about my uncle, it was because I've already told you a lot of beastly things about Ma Deume. Now I want you to understand, by comparing her with my uncle, that she is the exact opposite of a Christian, a caricature of the real thing. Your true Christian is my uncle, who is all kindness, all purity, all selflessness, all generosity. And if I talked a lot about him, it was also because I wanted you to like him and, in the person of this great Christian and great Genevan, to like and respect Genevan Protestantism, which is a most estimable moral commonwealth whose virtues he embodies so well. Yes, he is a kind of saint. Rather as I think your uncle must be.

  'Last night, before going to bed, I put on my secret wedding ring. After turning out the lights, I stroked it, turned it round on my finger so I could feel it ther
e, and went off to sleep so happy, my own darling's wife. The four Russian words I used earlier mean my precious, my treasure. Darling, I wrote Beloved at the start of my letter on purpose. I think it looks much better with an e.'

  CHAPTER63

  Maroon, with savaged mudguards and standing oddly tall on woebegone wheels, she threw a tantrum in the Avenue de Champel, jogged up and down, then weaved away erratically, leaving a snaking trail of black oil in her wake. One moment consumed by fury and the next pensive and musing, but with bonnet permanently festooned with belching vapours which spurted like sea water from the blow-hole of a whale, she turned at length into the Chemin de Miremont, where her master strove manfully to coax her to a halt. After backfiring three times and discharging an angry squawk, she yielded, though not without exacting a terrible revenge in the form of a final squirt of oil which spattered a pleasant-natured little bulldog as it went about its lawful occasions.

  Tall and gaunt, with shoulders stooping and moustache drooping, Ariane's uncle extricated himself from the clutches of the beast still snorting with hate, extinguished both oil-burning headlamps, gave the bonnet an amiable pat, doffed his Cronstadt to the neighbours' maid, and pushed the front door open.