Her Lover (Belle de Seigneur)

by Albert Cohen

  'Sit down,' he said. 'I'll make you some tea.'

  As soon as she was alone, she got up, felt in the pocket of her dressing-gown for her comb and compact, tidied her hair, blew her nose, powdered her face, sat down again, waited, looked around the room, and was surprised to see the teddy-bear: he'd never mentioned any teddy-bear to her, it was the twin of the one he'd given her. She ran her finger through its fur. When he returned, carrying a tray, she began shivering again.

  'Drink this, darling,' he said when he'd poured her a cup. (She sniffled, looked up at him with eyes like a beaten dog, swallowed a mouthful, and shivered some more.) 'Want a biscuit? (She said no with a meek little shake of her head.) Have some more tea.'

  She steeled herself and said: 'Do you still love me?'

  He smiled, and she took his gloved hand and kissed it gingerly.

  'Did you disinfect it?'

  'Yes.'

  'Won't you have some tea too? I'll get you a cup.'

  'No, don't bother.'

  'Drink out of mine, then.'

  He took a sip and then sat down facing her. The sound of dance music floated in from the neighbours' house across the way, and there was a burst of happy voices. They paid no attention. It was late, but she did not feel sleepy. Nobody's bored tonight, he thought. She picked up a cigarette-box off the table, held it out to him, and gave him a light. He took two pulls on the cigarette, then stubbed it out. He smiled again, and she sat on his knee and held out her lips. Their kiss lasted some time. She wanted him, and in no time at all, as though nothing untoward had happened, she knew that he wanted her too. Women sometimes have a way of catching on. But, suddenly remembering that these lips had been offered to another, he freed himself, but calmly and without fuss.

  'It's over now, darling girl, and I want to say I'm sorry. But, if you really want it to be over for good, you must tell me everything.'

  'But afterwards things would be worse, not better.'

  'On the contrary, it'll make me easier in my mind: I won't have this unbearable feeling that you're hiding things from me. I was impossible back there, and I'm truly sorry. It's just that I felt excluded from a part of your life, I felt like a stranger who had no right to know. It was too hurtful.'

  He gently rearranged a lock of her hair.

  'Are you sure it'll be all right afterwards?'

  'Afterwards you will be a sweet girl who's made a clean breast of everything to the man she loves. Besides, after all, so what, dull as Dietsch-water, all passed under the bridge now, right? (He's so sweet, she thought, still so young, very loving, if a little shell-shocked.) We mustn't let him loom so large: he's not worth it. Oh, I know that the a conductor/the conductor business wasn't important. And anyway you broke it off with him at once. (He rearranged another lock of her hair.) Actually I'm not in any hurry, just knowing that you'll tell me everything sooner or later has eased my mind. You see, I'm quite a different person already. If you don't want to talk about it tonight, you can tell me when you're good and ready: tomorrow, the day after, next week.'

  'I'd rather get it over with now,' she said.

  Now in buoyant mood, he kissed her, all smiles, surrendering to the anticipated pleasure of hearing the tale. Like a boy at the circus waiting for the clowns to be brought on. Fussing over her, he brought her another, warmer, coat, his vicuna, which he spread over her legs, and then offered to make more tea. He danced attendance, treating her as though she were pregnant or a genius about to deliver herself of a masterpiece and not to be ruffled at any cost. He turned off the ceiling light, lit the bedside lamp, and even suggested that she had a lie-down, but this she refused.

  'I'd prefer it if you asked me questions,' she said, taking his hand.

  'How did you get to know him?'

  'Through Alix de Boygne, a friend of mine, the only one I had left, much older than me, middle-aged. (Enter the Bawd, he thought.) She was very kind to me.'

  'Tell me about her,' he said warmly, all ears.

  'Good society background, but there had been someone in her life, a married man whose wife wouldn't give him a divorce, it all caused a bit of a stir in Geneva at the time. But all that was ages ago, and it's forgotten now. (The hypocrisy of that "someone in her life" filled him with anger, and he felt a sudden hatred for the lascivious old tart. But he didn't let it show, and nodded understandingly.) She's very generous, keeps an open mind. (And that's not all she keeps open, he thought.) She was very interested in art, helped to fund a chamber orchestra and invited budding musicians down to stay at her house in the country. (A taste for young flesh, he thought.) She was tremendously cross with the people we knew for dropping me. She rallied round and rather spoilt me.'

  She sniffed and wiped her nose.

  'Was she fat?'

  'A bit,' she said awkwardly. (He smiled, thrilled by her obesity.) 'But terribly elegant. (Courtesy of steel-boned stays, he thought, and a maid to pull the draw-strings tight.) And tremendously cultured too.'

  'You never mentioned her when we were in Geneva.'

  'That was because I'd stopped seeing her. She left town just before I, before I got to know you. She went off to Kenya to live with her married sister.' (And with black men, he thought.)

  'And you met him at her house?'

  'Yes,' she said, underlining the word with an affirmative but restrained nod.

  The respectable, conventional gesture set his teeth on edge, but he overrode his irritation. After all, she wasn't going to launch into the dance of the seven veils just because the man had crept into the conversation.

  'How old was he?' he asked with a twinge of unease.

  'Fifty-five.'

  He smiled faintly. That meant he'd be about fifty-six now. Good. And four years from now, sixty. Even better.

  'Tall?'

  'Not tall, but not short either. Middling.'

  'What sort of middling? Middling to tall or middling to short?'

  'A bit shorter than average height. (He smiled benignly. He was almost getting to like comrade Dietsch.) Look, can't we drop this now?'

  'No. Describe him some more.'

  'If I do, it won't all turn nasty, will it?'

  'On the contrary, darling. I told you. What about his hair, for example?'

  'White, combed straight back,' she said, looking at her sandals. (He put his hands on her knees and squeezed gently.) 'Now that's enough describing, if you don't mind.'

  'And his moustache. Also white?'

  'No.'

  'Black?'

  'Yes.'

  He relaxed his grip, changed his mind, and squeezed again. He did not dare ask for further details. Comrade Dietsch was quite capable of being trim and well-proportioned. Stick to his head. Not bald, unfortunately. But at least his hair was white, thank God.

  'Yes,' he said earnestly, 'I can quite see that the contrast between the black moustache and the white hair must have been quite striking. (She coughed.) Sorry?'

  'I didn't say anything. Throat tickling a bit.'

  'But the contrast was striking?'

  'At first, I found him off-putting. (Fine, but let's get on to later!) It was his moustache, it looked dyed. But I soon realized ... I can tell you everything, can't I?'

  'Darling, look at me. I'm calm as can be, and that's because you've stopped holding me at arm's length. You were saying that you soon realized.'

  'That he was an intelligent man, cultured, refined and a bit shrinking. (Not in every department, he thought.) We just talked.'

  'Yes, darling. And then?'

  'Well, as I went home I felt quite happy. Then a few days later Alix and I went to see him conduct. The Pastoral was on the programme.'

  He frowned. Of course, the lady was artistic and so one simply said 'the Pastoral': it gave the impression that one was close to Beethoven. And to Dietsch. She'd have to pay for 'the Pastoral'.

  'Go on, darling.'

  'Well, anyhow, he was standing in for the regular conductor, whose name I've forgotten. (Couldn't remember the name
of the regular conductor. But she remembered the name of the stand-in perfectly. She wouldn't get away with any of this.) I liked the way he conducted.'

  In his mind's eye he saw Dietsch the genius twitching like a puppet, conducting without a baton, and the two dim-witted women swooning, convinced that here was Beethoven himself before their very eyes! Beethoven and Mozart were never admired the way people admired conductors, who were the fleas of genius, the ticks of genius, bloodsuckers of genius who took themselves so seriously and had a ridiculously inflated sense of their own importance and had the nerve to let themselves be called maestros and took bows as though they were actually Beethoven and Mozart and earned so much more than Beethoven and Mozart ever did! And why did she admire the leech Dietsch? Because he could read music written by someone else! Dietsch, the little tick, was just about up to writing, at a pinch, a short military march.

  'I can see that he was a more interesting proposition than your husband.'

  'True,' she conceded, giving the matter her serious and objective consideration. He was so angry that he bit his lip until it bled.

  'Tell me just a little more about him, darling, and then it will all be over.'

  'Well, he was Principal Conductor with the Dresden Philharmonic. When the Nazis came to power he resigned. Actually he was a member of the Social Democratic Party.'

  'That's nice. And?'

  'Well, he came to Switzerland and had to settle for being Second Conductor of the Geneva Symphony, although he had been Principal Conductor of the leading orchestra in Germany. (She was obviously crazy about Dietsch! So what on earth was she doing at Belle de Mai with a man who couldn't read a note of music?) There, I think that's plenty for now, if you don't mind.'

  'Just one last thing, darling, and then we'll draw a line under it all. Did you sometimes spend the whole night with him?'

  The question was crude, so he squeezed her hands lovingly, kissed her hands.

  'No, but can we please stop? All that is dead and buried, and I don't like thinking about it.'

  'It's absolutely the last question. Did you ever spend the night together?'

  'Very infrequently,' she said in her angel voice.

  'There, you see? Nothing dreadful happens when you give me a straight answer. But how did you manage it?' he smiled, amused and teasing.

  'Through Alix,' she said, smoothing her dressing-gown over her knee. But please let's just leave it there.'

  He took a long, hard pull on his cigarette so that his voice would be steady when he spoke. Then he gave her a nodding, winking smile of complicity.

  'Ah, I get it! You were supposed to have gone to see her, whereas in reality you were with him, and you rang your husband to say it was too late to get back and that she insisted you stay the night! That's how it was, right, sly little minx?'

  'Yes,' she breathed, head down, and there was a silence.

  'Tell me, darling, have you had any other men?'

  'God, what sort of woman do you take me for?'

  'A whore, of course,' he said sweetly. 'A very sly little whore.'

  'It's not true!' she exclaimed, rising to her feet, hackles raised. 'I forbid you to say that!'

  'But why? You don't mean to tell me that you really believe you're an honest woman?'

  'Certainly I do! And you know very well that it's true! I was trapped in my horrible marriage, didn't know which way to turn. (Enter spiderwoman, he thought.) I am an honest woman!'

  'Pardon me, but . . . (He gave a polite, hesitant shrug.) But when you got back to your husband you were . . . (He pretended to search for a suitably polite adjective.) Damp after what you'd been up to with Dietsch and, well anyhow, it struck me that you weren't being entirely honest.'

  'I admit I was wrong not to have told him everything, but I was afraid of hurting him. It's the only thing I did that was wrong. I'm not ashamed of any of the rest of it. My husband was an oaf. And I met a man who had a soul, yes, a soul!'

  'A big one, was it?'

  She gawped at him, nonplussed. Then the penny dropped.

  'You are disgusting!'

  He clapped his hands and raised his eyes to take heaven as his witness. That beat everything! She had done it three maybe four times a night with her bandleader, gone at it hammer and tongs, and he was the one who was disgusting! It was enough to make a chap want to run away and hide his face.

  To hide his face, he yanked a sheet off the bed and put it over himself. Draped in his white winding-sheet, he stalked around the room. As she watched his ghostly figure striding to and fro, she told herself she wasn't to laugh and said sobering things to herself. It's very serious, my life is at the crossroads, she said to herself. Eventually he abandoned his shroud and lit a cigarette. She wasn't laughing now. Yes, she was at the crossroads.

  'Listen, darling,' she said, 'all that's dead and done with now.'

  'On the contrary, it's very much alive. Dietsch will always lie between you and me. And of course on you. He's there now. He's at it all the time. I can't live with you any more. Go! Get out of this house!'

  CHAPTER 99

  No, it was impossible. He could not bear to be alone, he needed, her, needed to see her. If only she would smile at him, that would be the end of it, everything would be all right again. He stepped out into the hall, sounded his chest, tweaked his hair, sharpened his nose with thumb and forefinger, and made up his mind. To avoid losing face, he didn't knock but just walked in masterfully. She did not look up but went on putting clothes into the open case on the bed, first folding them neatly, absorbed, impassive. She was enjoying making him suffer. This was it, he'd see that she'd made up her mind and was going.

  To hide how much he needed her, to show her how little he cared, he said sarcastically: 'So it's goodbye then, not au revoir?'

  She nodded a yes and carried on with her careful packing. To make her suffer, to show her that he was fully expecting her to leave, he lent a hand and passed a dress from the wardrobe.

  'That'll do, my case is just about full,' she said as he held out another dress. 'I'm not taking everything. I'll write and let you know where to send the rest.'

  'Let me give you some money.'

  'No thanks. I've got all I need.'

  'What train are you catching?'

  'It doesn't matter. The first one that comes along.'

  'It's almost three in the morning. The first train out is the Marseilles train, and it doesn't leave until seven.'

  'I'll wait at the station.'

  Brows knitted and forehead furrowed, she stuffed shoes into one corner of the case.

  'Mistral's blowing. It'll be cold hanging about in the waiting-room. Don't forget to take a coat.'

  'I'm not bothered about the cold. Catching pneumonia would be one way out.'

  She forced the family photograph album into another corner of the case. He whistled under his breath.

  'I suppose you'll make for Geneva. Is that so you can go to more symphony concerts?'

  She turned on him belligerently, fists clenched.

  'You lied when you said it would be all right if I told you everything. I trusted you: I don't have a suspicious mind.'

  She was quite right, of course. She was an honest woman. Still, that honest mouth of hers had been intimate with a moustache.

  'You shouldn't have made bed-spring music with your bandleader three hours before you turned up and kissed my hand!'

  His breath rasped in his throat. It was intolerable to be perpetually confronted by the spectacle of the most loving, the noblest of women, so pure in face, and have to picture her incomprehensibly impaled beneath the weight of an orchestra-conducting chimpanzee, gasping, panting beneath her chimpanzee. Yes, the most loving of women. What other woman had ever loved him as much as she had? That night at the Ritz, as she kissed his hand, she had seemed so pure. And afterwards, at her house, she had looked so young and so innocent sitting at her piano, so gravely robed in love. And yet only hours before, sprawled under the chimp!

  'Y
ou ought to be ashamed of yourself, talking to me like that! What harm did I ever do you? It all happened before I met you.'

  'Get on with it. Shut your case.'

  'So it doesn't bother you at all to let me walk out by myself into the night and the cold?'

  'It's a pity, of course. But there it is. We can't go on living together. Don't forget your coat.'

  He was pleased with his answer. The cool manner was the most convincing, it made the fact that they were going their separate ways crystal clear. She was crying and blowing her nose. Fine. At least at this moment she preferred him to Dietsch. She snapped the case shut, blew her nose again, and turned to face him.

  'You know, don't you, that there's no one in the world I can turn to?'

  'Just keep a firm grip on your conductor's baton. (Oh, if she would only take one step forward, if she would only hold out her hand, he'd take her in his arms and all this would be over. Why didn't she come to him?) So you think I'm coarse?'

  'I didn't say a word.'

  'No, but that's what you were thinking! You believe that being noble means using quality words, avoiding words which are supposed to be cheap and vulgar, and doing exactly and as often as possible the things the cheap, vulgar words describe. I said "keep a firm grip on your conductor's baton" and that makes me vulgar, I can see it in the curl of your eyelashes! But, if you're so noble, what precisely were you up to on the quiet behind locked doors in a bedroom with Dietsch while your poor husband waited for you trustingly, lovingly?'

  'If what I did with D was wrong . . .'