Her Lover (Belle de Seigneur)

by Albert Cohen

  At five in the morning, remembering she had told him in Geneva that she knew Marseilles, he slipped quietly into her room and leaned over her sleeping form, which exuded a smell of warm biscuits. No, let her be, leave the questions till later, when she was awake.

  'Who were you with that time you came to Marseilles?'

  She opened one eye then the other, her mouth gaped, stupid with sleep.

  'Oh there you are. What's the matter?'

  'Who did you come with that time you were here in Marseilles?'

  She raised herself, sat up, and drew her hand clumsily across her forehead: it was the same harrowing gesture that he'd seen from the sick chimpanzee at Basle Zoo the day he'd taken Saltiel and Solomon there, the same gesture that Rachel made too.

  'No,' she murmured foolishly.

  'Was it Dietsch?' he asked, and she looked away, no longer having the strength to deny it. 'When your husband was away on an official visit?'

  'Yes,' she breathed.

  'Why Marseilles?'

  'A concert, he was conducting here. I didn't know you then.'

  'He was conducting here! How splendid! How very splendid that he was able to read a musical score written by someone else! And how did he conduct, with a baton or without a button? Unbuttoned was he? No flies on him, eh? And which hotel did you stay at? Answer me!' he ordered, and once more she raised her hand to her brow and made the face which was a sign of tears to come. 'Here? Was it this hotel? Get dressed.'

  She threw back the bedcovers, stepped barefoot on to the carpet, and then proceeded as though sleepwalking to put on a slip and her stockings, took some time to fasten her suspenders, failed to shut her case by the lock and did up the straps instead. O God! She was with a madman, a raving lunatic who had beat himself up and was proud of his swollen, black eye. He glared at her with his good eye. So she had been in this hotel with Dietsch, perhaps in this very bed, two noble-souled fish twisting and squirming, and the bed had groaned, and the manager had come and put his hands together and pleaded with them not to wreck his furniture! But they had gone on broncoing, and the manager had turned them out! Bed-smashers and mattress-wreckers, known to all the taverns of Marseilles, blacklisted by all the hotels in Marseilles! Just then she sneezed twice, and he felt a surge of pity, searing pity, pity for a frail human creature doomed to sickness and death. He took her by the hand.

  'Come, my sweet.'

  They went down by the stairs, hand in hand, each carrying a suitcase, he with a coat over his pyjamas and she wearing only a slip under her mackintosh. On the ground floor she put down her case and mechanically hitched up her drooping, wrinkled stockings, while the deskman was hard put to understand why this client. with higgledy-piggledy hair and a tie in one hand should be telling him that the Splendide was too old for his taste, that he wanted a young hotel, as young as possible. A banknote was instrumental in persuading him to mention the Bristol, which hadn't been up long.

  'Built when?'

  'Last year, sir.'

  'Perfect,' said Solal, and he gave him another note.

  The cases were stowed into a taxi. It was the same driver with the white pom. From Ariane's case strayed half of one stocking and a strong fragrance of eau-de-Cologne. He watched her once more out of the corner of his left eye. Should he leave her, so that she was rid of him? But what would she do then? Their love was all the poor girl had left. Besides, he loved her. Oh, that wonderful first evening together! 'Spare me,' she'd said on that first night. But had Dietsch spared her only hours before? He would never know. 'Tvoya zhena,' she had whispered that night, 'tvoya zhena,' while only hours before her mouth had been pressed to the mouth of a man with white hair. And wavy white hair, at that! Yes, her mouth, the same mouth that was now next to him in this taxi, exactly the same identical mouth. His angel was trembling. She was afraid of him. What could he do to stop making her suffer? How could he fight the pair of them, loins joined, groins grinding? Try and make her repulsive? Imagine her thirty feet of intestines? Imagine her skeleton? Imagine the food passing through her oesophagus and entering her stomach and its progress thence through to the end of the process? Imagine her lungs, soft and red, like offal in a butcher's shop? It was no good. She was his beautiful, his pure, his saintly love. But his saintly love had reached out her hand and touched a man's abomination, felt the bestial desire of a man, and had done so without revulsion. What could he do about it if his mind was filled with a constant picture of her with her male, an ineradicable image of his saintly love with a male ape who was not loathsome in her sight, a male ape who did not disgust her: that was what amazed him, shocked him. Yes, she was good to him, of course, kind and loving, walking miles to bring him halva, yet all the same she'd scrubbed herself clean before going to see her male ape, scrubadubdub and soapysudsud, to be a tasty dish for Dietsch, to get herself thoroughly dietsched, but there it was, that was the size of it, so don't think about it any more. I promise. You have my word on it.

  'So now it's the Hotel Bristol,' she murmured, sitting on the edge of the bath, still wearing her mackintosh, not having the strength to get undressed. The bathroom was hideous. They'd been much better off at the Noailles. The stupid porter had dumped their bags in the bathroom. Serge had been weak, a bit spineless really, but at least he was gentle and attentive. A fly landed on her and made her flinch. She sniffed, rummaged through her handbag, but found only a small, torn handkerchief which was quite useless. She bent down and opened her case. No handkerchiefs. Left them all behind at the Noailles. Never mind. She blew her nose on a stiff, shiny face-towel then tossed it under the bath. The door opened. Enter, limping, a lord with a black eye which was swollen and half closed. She shivered. Why was he limping? Oh, never mind, it didn't matter.

  'There is a man in your eyes. Hide your eyes.'

  Don't struggle, do whatever he said. What could she hide her eyes with? He stood over her like an implacable torturer. Actually he was hoping for a miracle, for a wondrous reconciliation. She unfolded another towel and placed it on her warm-gold hair. The starched cloth dangled down.

  'Not big enough. Your lips are visible and I don't want to see your lips. They've been used too much.'

  She found a large hand-towel and draped it over her head. 'Thank you,' he said. Then, as she sheltered under her white tent, she was seized by the most excruciating fit of giggles, which she camouflaged as sobs to sidetrack the lunatic she could see through a chink, who was staring with his one good eye at the hiccuping towel, disappointed that she'd acquiesced without putting up a fight. What was he supposed to do with a woman disguised as a towel? He couldn't talk to her, because he couldn't see her. To start a conversation, should he begin with a hello? Eventually her fake sobs died away. He found the veiled, unspeaking figure rather eerie. He scratched his head. How long was she going to sit there under her burnous, like a ghost? And why didn't she move? He felt intimidated, confused, felt he had somehow been diddled. How could he break the deadlock?

  'Can I take it off now?' asked a muffled voice.

  'If you wish,' he said with an air of unconcern.

  'We're absolutely worn out, both of us,' she said, shrugging off her mantle and not looking at her one-eyed jailer to avoid any risk of another appalling fit of giggles. 'Don't you want to go to bed and sleep? It's after six in the morning.'

  'It is sixty o'clock in the morning. I'm waiting.'

  'What are you waiting for?'

  'I'm waiting for you to say what I'm waiting for you to say.'

  'How am I supposed to know what that is? Just tell me what you want me to say.'

  'If I told you, there wouldn't be any point. I want it to be spontaneous. So I'm waiting.'

  'I can't guess.'

  'If you are who I still hope you are, in spite of all that's happened, you must guess. Either guess or shut up.'

  'Well, I'll just have to shut up then, it's all the same to me, everything's all the same to me, I'm exhausted.'

  He stared at her as she perched once mor
e on the edge of the bath, head bowed, contemplating her stockings, which had collapsed around her ankles. How could she be so dim that she couldn't guess, would never guess what he expected from her, which was to hear her say that Dietsch made her feel sick, that he was ugly, that he was stupid, that she'd never really enjoyed doing it with him? But, alas, she was far too much of a lady for that. She would never dream of disowning her baton-waver, a leech who lived off musical geniuses, sucked their blood, and bowed at the end of a symphony as if he'd actually written the damned thing himself!

  Searching through his case for a packet of cigarettes, he came across the black monocle he hadn't worn since Geneva. He immediately screwed it into his bruised, swollen, half-closed eye, glanced at himself in the mirror, approved of the effect, lit a cigarette, and sighed. How could he go on living with her? There was nothing she could say that she hadn't already said to her other lover-man or been told by him. Since her other lover-man was apparently so cultured, it was very likely that it was from him she had got all those long words she was so fond of. 'Integration', 'slippage', 'exemplarity', and the nauseating 'explicate' so beloved of pedants everywhere — all those words came from Dietsch. From this day forth, each 'explicate' would stick in his gullet like a fishbone. Oh yes, very cultured was Dietsch. Yesterday in the train, when they had still been on speaking terms, she had mentioned that Dietsch also taught the history of music at the University of Lausanne. Which made him the compleat leech. But far worse than that were all the little things, the gestures, the habits of intimacy which she had picked up from him. She had done it all with Dietsch. She had eaten with him, gone for walks with him. Never eat with her again, no more walks with her! He scratched his head. At a pinch, he could always make her walk on her hands, upside down, with her legs in the air. It was most unlikely that she'd ever done that with Dietsch. But he could hardly make her walk on her hands all the time. No, but he would never go to bed with her again. The two of them had done everything. Though maybe they hadn't done it swinging on a chandelier. Not a very comfortable prospect.

  'You look absolutely whacked. Come and sleep by me. Come into my room,' she said, and she took his hand.

  In her room, he sat down, lit another cigarette, inhaled deeply, felt a sudden rush of inexpressible happiness, but then remembered. The most awful aspect of the whole predicament was that with him she had experienced, and would experience again, long hours of unadulterated but far from adulterous tedium. And his idiot girl, her head filled with romantic longings, vulnerable to regrets like all her sex, ever questing like all her sisters, would make unconscious comparisons. Under time's forgiving spell, Dietsch would be remembered only for the happy days. But he, a complete fool who had turned into a mere spouse, went on and on about Dietsch, and in doing so had in fact appointed himself his spokesman, magnified his attraction, and carved out for himself the role of retrospectively hoodwinked husband. Oh, all that plotting arranged by the Boygne woman! Oh, how exciting to rush off on the sly to be with Dietsch and spend an illicit night of love with him! And, then next morning, la Boygne would dial the number of Dietsch the Leech of Beethoven: 'Daahling, your husband's just this minute rung from his office, I told him you were still asleep, that I didn't want to wake you, but do try to phone him so that he doesn't bother me again.' Big, bad Boygne! O hapless Solal, the tiresome gooseberry, not up to providing vibrant, illicit nights of love, the no-hope challenger in the ring with a conductor of symphonies who had the starry weight advantage of not being there. There was only one way of making her sick of him and that was to order her back to Geneva to live with him for a few months. Then he, Solal, would revert to being the lover. Yes! Tell her she must leave for Geneva at once!

  But, straightening up and catching her in the act of wiping her nose, he was disarmed by the modest scale of her nasal emissions, which sacrificed efficacy to the cause of unobtrusiveness. Poor shiny nose, it was quite swollen now and not very pretty. Poor eyes, all puffy with tears. He wanted to kiss her but did not dare: too daunting. Poor little torn handkerchief which she used for her dainty discharges. He would get a better one for her.

  When he returned from the bathroom with a large, spanking-new cambric handkerchief which he'd got from his suitcase, he came close so that he could give it to her, and was struck by her vulnerability. Oh, the way she looked up at him, so humble, like a dog begging for a bone. Then he took a sudden step back. The fact was that, if her bandleader's hands had been granted the power to leave indelible prints, then at this moment she would be black and blue, blue and black all over, except maybe for the soles of her feet. And was he supposed to be content with the soles of her feet? He put the clean handkerchief in his pocket.

  'Know what I think?' he asked, after screwing his black monocle more firmly into his eye. 'Not going to ask? Then I'll tell you. I think that all things considered, and thanks to your most helpful brokering, I've come to know your gentleman friend very well. Intimately in fact. My lover in a sense. What do you say to that?'

  'Oh please, please, stop it,' she moaned, and she reached for his hand. But he shook her off, flinching from any touch of Dietsch.

  'What do you say?'

  'I don't know anything any more, I just want to sleep. It's half past six.'

  He fumed inwardly. Who did she think she was: the speaking clock? He gave himself the once-over in the mirror, noted that the black monocle made him look like a jolly-rogering buccaneer and righter of wrongs, then resumed his station facing her, legs splayed and hands akimbo.

  'And when you were with him, were you never awake at half past six?'

  'No. At half past six I was always asleep.'

  The laughter of the buccaneering lord scored the silence of the room. Asleep! And she had the gall, the effrontery, to tell him to his face! Of course she'd been asleep! But who had she been asleep next to, and after doing what? Oh vile, the man's maleness! And she hadn't shrunk from the sight! And she hadn't shrunk from a lot worse than that! Oh, the soft touch of those hands!

  'You like men, don't you?'

  'No. Men disgust me!'

  'Me included?'

  'Yes, you too!'

  'So we've got there at last,' he said with a smile, and he sharpened his nose between thumb and forefinger, not without a certain satisfaction, for this at least was simple and clear-cut.

  'O God, if only you knew how little that man Dietsch meant to me.'

  '"That man"! My, my! And why "that man"? Why this sudden animosity for somebody you used to visit with an overnight bag and a certain end in view? Want to try again?'

  'I said: "If only you knew how little Monsieur Dietsch meant to me."'

  'Monsieur'! She called a man who had sprawled naked on top of her 'Monsieur'? He grabbed her by one ear, though he was moved to pity by her pale face and blue-ringed eyes.

  'Ah, so it's "Monsieur" now, is it! "O sir, my legs are open, do come in, pray, and oblige your infinitely obedient"!'

  'You're horrible, horrible, horrible!' she cried, the little girl in her surfacing from the past. 'I'd never have taken from him what I take from you!'

  'Who is this "him"?'

  'Dietsch!'

  'I will not tolerate the way you talk about him as if he were a friend of mine. Who are you talking about?'

  'D.'

  'You didn't call him "D" to his face! Say "Serge"!'

  'I never used his Christian name.'

  'Then what did you call him?'

  'I don't remember!'

  'In that case, call him "Monsieur Urge". You see, I'm being nice, I could make you call him far worse things than that, but "Monsieur Urge" will do. And what about Monsieur Urge?'

  'I won't say it. Let him be.'

  'Whowhowho? Answer me! Whowhowho?'

  'God, you're mad!' she cried, and she squeezed her temples with both hands, exaggerating her panic. 'I'm spending the night with a madman!'

  'I would draw your attention to the fact that it's light outside. But no matter, we'll let that pass. So
you would prefer to spend the night with a man in his right mind? Isn't that so, whore?'

  'I can't take any more of this!' she cried. 'I hate everybody!'

  She picked up the glass inkwell, checked an impulse to fling it at the wall, put it down, and vented her hatred first on the blotting-pad, which she attempted to twist and bend, and then on the hotel notepaper, which she tore into little pieces.

  'What did that paper ever do to you?'

  'It's whore's confetti!'

  'There's one sheet left, don't tear it up. Write down that you slept with Dietsch and sign it. Here's a pen. And don't break the nib.'

  She did as she was told and appended her signature, Ariane d'Auble, three times. He was satisfied with what she had written. It was definite now. No more doubts. He folded the paper and put it in his pocket. Now he had proof. Say what you like, though, he mused, she was a sweet girl. Any other woman in her position would have walked out on him long before this. She stretched out on the bed, her teeth chattering, glared at him angrily, and coughed quite unnecessarily several times. At which he forced himself to cough too, and coughed long and loud like a sick animal.

  'What's the matter?' she asked. 'Why are you coughing like that?'

  He coughed louder, great baying, hacking coughs, shuddered like a tubercular lion, and kept it up for so long that eventually she realized that he was doing it on purpose, to frighten her. She got up.

  'That's enough!' she said firmly. 'Stop it, do you hear? Don't cough any more!'

  But as he persisted with his infuriating coughing, she went up to him and slapped his face. He smiled and crossed his arms, looking strangely serene. Normal service had been restored.