by Albert Cohen
Still plying the comb backwards and forwards, he read on, moving his lips to give each word its shape, to force it into his mind, to make it mean sense. She was terribly keen on whipped cream, and when her plate was empty she used to scrape away at it with her spoon, like a little girl. Would her new man notice, would he love her the more for it? He stood up, bare-buttocked, gave another heave on the chain, though there was still no need, to fill the silence of the house, to hear the sound of reality, so that he did not feel alone.
He sat down again while the cistern refilled, and resumed his obsessive combing with a sense of humiliation. But why not? Fiddling with his hair was all the fun he had left. You needed a little fun to bear the misery, to go on living, he knew that now, any kind of fun would do, even if it wasn't much fun, even if it was stupid. Besides, when he was combing his hair and twisting it into knots and pulling it out by the roots, he did not feel so lonely. He was in dialogue with his hair. He had a relationship with his hair. His hair was company.
Sitting there fiddling with his locks, his companions in misery, he mulled over old joys. The morning tea he used to bring her in bed on Sundays. He would come in holding the cup feeling pleased as Punch. 'Morning, sweetie-pie. Did my little sweetie-pie sleep well, then? Feel rested? Here's a nice cup of tea for my sweetie-pie!' She would be so fast asleep that at first she'd open just one eye, looking dazed, and he loved her terrifically when she looked at him with one eye. Darling, darling girl. And then she'd sit up, open the other eye, and hold the cup with both hands, fuddled with sleep, hair sticking up like a clown, a very pretty clown.
He murmured: 'Here's a nice cup of tea for my sweetie-pie!'
And she would say 'Goody' as she took the cup, 'Oh thanks,' she'd say, and she would hunch over the cup and his heart would be riveted on her face as she drank. He would watch carefully to see if she liked the tea he had made for her and waited on her approval. 'That's nice,' she would say after the second or third sip. 'Nice tea,' she would say in her waking-up, little-girl voice. And then he, proud of having made a nice cup of tea, gratified by this small thing which made her happy, would watch the happiness on her face as she drank, still half-asleep, a coddled baby-doll, while he stood with hand braced to steady the cup if it tilted too far. 'Goody! And when I've had this I'm going back to sleep,' she'd say.
'Goody! And when I've had this I'm going back to sleep,' he murmured.
When she was done, she would hand the cup back to him. 'I'm going to snuggle down again now,' she'd say, and she would face the wall, turn over on her side, pull the covers up to her chin, and curl up into a ball, and it was an agreeable thing indeed to see her curl up into a ball. 'Have a good rest, darling, sleep tight, I'll bring you up breakfast later on, in an hour, all right?' With her mouth pressed into her pillow, she'd say: 'Yes'. Sometimes she said: 'Yeah', because she was so sleepy, and she'd curl up into an even tighter ball. Seeing her curl up like that, seeing her so snug, made him feel good. Before he went, he always leaned over for another look at her face and packed the bedclothes firmly round her back to make her even more comfortable. Once, when he'd brought her morning tea, she'd said he was a good husband.
'So why, for God's sake, why?' he muttered, and he tweaked his pubic hairs, tried to pull them out.
After morning tea, when she'd had her bath, it was time for her breakfast, which he brought to her in bed, only too happy to wait on her and sucks to the way Mummy glared when they passed on the stairs. Everything set out nicely on the tray: toast, butter, jam. The slices of toast she could put away! And he was so pleased to see her lay the butter on thick, on account of the vitamins. He would watch her eat, loved watching her eat, watching her build up her strength. Sometimes he'd play a trick on her as he came in. He'd say the gardener's donkey was very sick, or that Mariette had broken a leg, so he could enjoy telling her straight away that it wasn't true, so he could see her smile, so he could make her happy.
After breakfast she'd light up a cigarette, and the smoke always got into her eyes. Oh, what pretty faces she'd pull! And then they used to chat like old pals, husband and wife together, they'd talk about everything under the sun. When she told him about her pet owl or her cat, she'd get so excited. She was so sweet then, interrupting her tale to see if he was listening appreciatively. Sometimes she would read out stories about animals faithful unto death. She got carried away, was so innocent, and interrupted her reading to see if he liked the tale, to see if he was joining in, to make him see for himself just how faithful that old elephant was. He always made a great show of being interested, to keep her happy. Sometimes she told him about her childhood, how when she was a little girl she used to say 'letters' instead of 'lettuce'. They'd go on chatting endlessly, they were friends at breakfast time. He was her husband, she was his wife, and it was good, it was what life was all about.
'Please return, come back to me, Life's not worth living Now you're not near,' he hummed softly, still sitting on the mahogany-effect lavatory seat, trousers undone, buttocks bared, hands joined in prayer.
God, how he used to love phoning her from the Palais, to say hello, for no reason, to hear her voice, to know what she was doing at that moment. And when VV got up to one of his nasty manoeuvres, quick, he'd phone home and ask her to come down to the office, and just knowing that she'd soon be there made him feel better. From the stool where it sat with its legs splayed, the teddy-bear watched him with equanimity.
'A couple of fat-heads sitting face to face.'
Cruel, she was so cruel. But what was the good of calling her cruel? It wouldn't make her come back. It wouldn't stop her, you know, with him. Weak, that's what he was, weak, that was the size of it. Serve him right, he'd been punished for being weak. Without getting up, he pulled the chain, shivered as his buttocks were splashed by the rushing waters, ran the comb through his hair once more, brought it low over his forehead, and then swept it back. Strong men and dictators never fiddled with their hair, nor did they stay perched on a lavatory seat for hours on end. But that was all he was capable of doing.
Losing interest in the comb, he felt for the loading-clip. Six bullets. The first one, being on top, was fully exposed to view. So small and yet quite a little number, eh, sweetie-pie? He inserted the clip, removed the safety-catch, pulled the loading-mechanism and then released it. Right you are, the first bullet was in the spout. That line in the kitchen, absolutely taut, dead straight, a pleasure to behold. He'd managed to put it up awfully well, he liked looking at it whenever he went into the kitchen, he'd made a definite success of it. He was attached to it, but there it was, he'd have to say goodbye to it now. Oh yes, the first one was in the barrel for sure. Did you sleep well, sweetie-pie? No, got thoroughly pleasured, more like. The hell with it, who gave a toss about her? She went to the lavatory like everyone else, didn't she?
The answer, that's it, was the outside world, where life was real, other people. Get out and about, yes, go to a nightclub, the Donon, for instance, it was where everyone went. First have a bath, then monkey-suit, taxi and voilà, the Donon. His new dinner-suit, the one he'd worn to dinner at the Ritz. Quick now, into the bath. He smiled to perk his spirits up. He got to his feet, pulled up his trousers, and stamped his foot to put the pep back into his system.
'Right. Take a bath. Salvation lies in the bath.'
Lying in the bath, he felt his unhappiness like a pain. All alone in the water, making himself clean to no purpose and for nobody's benefit. In the old days, whenever he'd got spruced up it had always been for her. All alone in the water, while the two of them would be asleep in each other's arms. Or perhaps they weren't asleep. Perhaps they. Perhaps at this very moment. Oh yes, and with that face of hers which was so pure, so childlike when she got worked up about one of her animal stories. Would they take precautions? But he felt his unhappiness even more intensely when, after mechanically shampooing his hair, he ducked his head under the water to rinse off the suds and stayed under for several seconds, ears blocked, as he always did. God
, how alone he was here in the water, in the silence. He was drowning in unhappiness in water, all alone, submerged in water, with his eyes open. He lifted his head to breathe, then plunged beneath the surface once more, to be in deep water, to be at the rock-bottom of his misery.
Wearing his dinner-jacket, his trousers with the silk stripe lowered round his knees, buttocks bared and once more ensconced on the mahogany-effect lavatory seat, he pored over the first photograph he'd ever taken of her, when they were engaged. Just before the shutter clicked, she'd said that as she looked into the camera she would be thinking how much she loved him. His throat felt tight, his eyes were dry, as, with wispy beard quivering and hands like ice, he stared at that beautiful face which said 'I love you' and would go on saying it every time he looked at it. Phone up Kanakis and ask him to come round? Out of the question, it was too late, it was eleven o'clock at night, what sort of fool would he look? Anyway, Kanakis couldn't care less if he was unhappy. After a funeral, everybody went off and fed their faces.
'The Donon it is, then.'
But he would come home and not find her there! Who was he to say goodbye to in the morning, and good-night at bedtime? Each night, after they'd said good-night, he used to shout through the wall from his bedroom, to be near her still, even if it was at one remove, he'd call good-night again. He'd sing out good-night several times. 'Sleep tight, darling, good-night, good-night, sleep tight, see you tomorrow.' Love-calls, that's what they were. Whenever there was a beautiful piece of music on the wireless he'd call to her right away, he couldn't possibly listen to anything beautiful unless she was there to share it. He stood up again. Getting tangled in the trousers of his dinner-suit, which were now wrapped around his ankles, he shuffled over to the wash-basin mirror, took a long look, and gave himself a smile. So that was despair: smiling at yourself in a mirror when you were all by yourself alone.
'What am I going to do?' he asked the mirror.
All those school lessons he'd learned so carefully, staying up until eleven o'clock, even midnight. 'Time for bed now, Didi, it's late,' Mummy used to say. But he wanted to be top in Recitation and switched the light on again when she'd gone and got up at five in the morning to go over the test-piece. What had been the point? And the pleasure he'd taken in starting new exercise books in back-to-school October. The care, the love with which he had written his name, form and subject on them. What had been the point? Herstal, Belgium. Once, when he'd brought her morning tea, she'd winked at him for no reason, because they were friends, to say how well they got on together. He winked at the mirror. His eyelids lived, they obeyed.
Sitting on the seat once more, he removed the safety-catch on the Browning, put it back on again, ran his fingers through his sweaty hair, inspected his fingers, and wiped them on the jacket of his pyjamas. He was afraid. Runnels of perspiration trickled down his beard and collected under his chin. He was afraid. He took the safety-catch off again. Even if you wanted to die, you still had to make a living gesture, you had to pull the trigger. Forefinger squeezing the trigger, then moving once more so that it need never move again. That was what it boiled down to, a forefinger with a mind to act. But not him, he was young, he had the whole of his life before him. He'd soon make adviser, then head of section. Tomorrow he'd dictate his report. On your feet now, ring for a taxi, then the Donon. That's right, the Donon.
But first let it rest against your temple for a moment, just to see what it was like when a person made the decision. Not that he was such a case, oh no, he wasn't that stupid, he was young and had the rest of his life before him. He only wanted to see, that's all. To go through the motions, to feel what it was like, to get an idea of how it was done. Yes, that was how it was done, you put the barrel against your temple, so. Not that he'd do it, his forefinger simply wouldn't want to. With him it was just testing. He'd never, oh no, he wasn't the sort, he wasn't a fool. Sleep well, darling, had a good rest? Once, she'd winked at him.
She winked at him, and his finger made up its mind. 'Time for bed now, it's late,' a voice whispered in his ear as he subsided slowly. His forehead came to rest on the stool between the legs of the teddy-bear, and he stepped back into the warm bedroom of his childhood.
PART FIVE
CHAPTER 8l
Here in the hotel at Agay they had no thought but for themselves, no thought save for discovering all there was to know about each other and, between conjunctions of alarming frequency, for telling all there was to know about themselves. Identical nights, sweet fatigues, welcome cessations of love's labours, and she would let her fingers run over the bare shoulder of her lover-man to give him thanks or bind him in her spell, and he would close his eyes and smile his delight. Locked in each other's arms, they rested from their momentous labours, fell asleep in a murmur of tender words and fascinating exegeses, surfaced from sleep to join their lips or cling more closely or fuse muzzily, still only half awake, or to take furious, carnal knowledge of the other in a sudden stirring of loins. After which, sweet slumber returned. Symbiotically. How could they sleep if not together?
Come the dawn and he would leave quietly,' taking care not to wake her, and go back to his room. Sometimes, opening her eyes, she protested. 'Don't go,' she moaned. But he would tear himself free of her weakly restraining arms, speak reassuringly, say he would come back soon. There was a reason for his early-morning leave-taking: he did not want to be seen as anything less than perfect, not shaved and not freshly bathed. He was also afraid that when she went to take her bath he would hear the appalling preliminary, the thunder of the lavatory flushing in ruinous tumult.
Shaved and bathed and wearing his dressing-gown, he would phone and ask if he could come. 'Give me a few minutes,' she would say. Groomed and bathed and wearing her white morning gown, she would open the bathroom window to clear the air, then close the door behind her, pause momentarily to check the face of She-Who-Was-Loved, nod with satisfaction, note the shadows under her eyes with pride, straighten the curl over her forehead, and then phone to say that she was ready. And he would come, and there was wonder as they stood and drank with their eyes, demigods, poetic and clean-scrubbed, clad in the priestly robes of love.
Masking the badges of love, she would ring for the head waiter, who appeared almost at once bearing the large tray. And then unfolded the scherzo of breakfast ingested with smiles, a sprightly appetite and an unquenchable desire to please He-Who-Was-Loved, whose toast was buttered by her own fair hand. When, duly summoned, the head waiter returned to remove the tray, they both averted their eyes, he because he was mortified at the thought of being served by an unfortunate forced to be in harness so early in the day, she because she felt uncomfortable in her all-too-revealing morning gown. She stared at the carpet to make herself invisible.
When the door closed, she would draw the curtains, and then was performed the allegro of the return to bed, the resumption of kisses, meandering talk and childhood memories. They had so much to tell each other. Oh the joy of those moments of friendship free of desire! Sometimes, with a look of tender reproach, she would show him those badges which she had masked moments before, and demand that he make amends by delicate kissings of her emblems of love, which she was proud to bear. There is absolutely no point in telling what happened next, though they found it absorbing.
In late morning she would ring for the chambermaid, give her a radiant smile, and ask her to do both their rooms. Then, after flashing another toothy signal of neighbourly love at the elderly maid, who was to die a few months later of chronic myocarditis, she would leave and join Solal, who was waiting for her below, outside the hotel. Then they would make for the beach nearby, arrogant and handsome in their bathing-wraps, heedless of the stares of the genteel.
When they reached the sea, she would shrug off her wrap and sprint away, glorying in the knowledge that he worshipped her, a fleet-footed nymph on the gleaming, soft sand, arms outspread to catch every shred of breeze, and she would plunge into the waves and call to him. They swam side by side,
sometimes starting fights which made her laugh in a mood of rediscovered childhood, laugh so much that the salt water went up her nose. Then she would beat a hasty retreat so that she could not be seen blowing her nose with her fingers, and then she would rejoin him, and then there were races or competitions to see who could stay under water longest. When their games were over, they lounged in the sun on the now empty beach. Afterwards it was the showers for them, clean water raining down on their tall bodies which sometimes pulsed and joined.
They would be back by two and order lunch in their sitting-room, because they preferred not to go down to the restaurant, hating the idea of meeting the other hotel guests. Sitting at the table in the French window which overlooked the dazzling sea, they would laugh at little things, because a little birdie had stopped its pecking on the balcony and was staring at them, with head to one side and beak raised in surprise, or because, when the hors-d'oeuvres finally came, she announced that she was pitifully hungry. He watched admiringly as she ate ravenously yet daintily, with her mouth closed, as she unselfconsciously set about satisfying her healthy woman's appetite, an exhibition which boded well for the jousts to come.
The elbow of the inamorata nuzzled the elbow of the inamorato and proclaimed their love with each intrusion of the waiter, who seemed more than happy to serve them even though the hour was late. His keenness thrilled her. She interpreted it somehow as a promise of a future oozing with bliss. Delightedly, she put his attentiveness down to the sheer charm of the man she loved. She also fondly imagined that the hotel staff were quite starry-eyed to see them so much in love and had fallen in love with their love, that they were the most willing accessories and revered them as the Prince and Princess of Passion. She had no concept of the efficacy of generous tipping.