She leaned over to him, and there were raindrops on her fur coat. Her lips were burning. They clung to each other for a long moment, the driver’s back to them, and Combe saw the light in her eyes, heard her stammer, as in a dream, “Somehow now it doesn’t feel like going away…it feels like coming home.”
She pulled herself away from him. She had opened the door and gestured to a porter to take her suitcase. Combe would never forget the three quick steps she took, her momentary hesitation, the rain-streaked glass, the rain spattering on the sidewalk.
She turned, smiling, her face pale. She held her purse in one hand. One more step and she would disappear through the immense glass doors.
Then she waved with her other hand, without lifting it much, only reaching out to him slightly, letting her fingers say good-bye.
He saw her again, half hidden by the glass. Then she walked off behind the porter with quick, brisk steps, and the driver turned around to ask him where he wanted to go.
He must have told him the address. And without thinking, he had filled his pipe. His mouth felt furry and dry.
She had said, “Like coming home …”
He sensed a promise of sorts there.
But he didn’t understand.
8
MY DEAR KAY,
Enrico has told you what happened. So you know that Ronald has been very nice about it all, very much the gentleman; he’s acted throughout just the way you’d expect him to, not even going into one of those cold rages of his, which I don’t know how I could have handled, given the state I was in …
Combe hadn’t taken a nosedive, which is what he’d expected. Instead it had been like slowly sinking, day by day, hour by hour.
For the first few days, at least, he was restless but still normal enough. All through that endless night, which now seemed so short, he had begged, “You’ll call me?”
“Here?”
He’d sworn that he would have a phone installed immediately. He’d set about getting one the very first morning, afraid it would take too long and he’d miss her call.
“Will you phone me?”
“Of course, darling. If I can.”
“You can always call if you really want to.”
“I will, I promise.”
The phone had been installed. It turned out to be so easy that he was almost annoyed he hadn’t had to move heaven and earth to get it done.
The city was gray and grubby. It rained. Now sleet was falling, darkening the street to such an extent that it was hard to make out the Jewish tailor in his cell-like room.
The phone had been installed ever since the second day, and he hadn’t dared to go out, even though Kay could barely have made it to Mexico.
“I’ll call information in New York,” she’d explained. “That’s how I’ll get your number.”
He’d already called information five or six times to make sure they knew he was connected.
How strange it was. Kay seemed to have melted away into the rain. He really did see her as through a rain-streaked window, a bit blurry, distorted, but that made him cling even harder to the image of her he was desperately trying to hold in his mind.
Letters came for her, forwarded from Jessie’s address. Kay had told him, “Open them all. There won’t be any secrets in them.”
And yet he hesitated. He let them pile up. He didn’t decide to look until, on one, he spotted the blue-and-orange logo of Grace Lines. It was a letter from Jessie airmailed from the Bahamas.
… the state I was in …
He knew them all by heart now.
… if I hadn’t wanted to avoid a scene at all costs …
And it was all so far away. It was like looking through the wrong end of a telescope and seeing things taking place in a world that made no sense.
I know, if push had come to shove, Ric would have left his wife without a second thought …
He repeated it to himself: “If push had come to shove!”
… but I chose to go away. It’s going to be painful. And it will probably take a while. This is a tough time. How happy we were together, my poor Kay, in our little apartment!
I wonder if those days will ever return. I’m afraid to hope. Ronald gives me chills and he puzzles me, and yet there’s nothing I can reproach him for. Instead of those terrible rages he used to go into, he’s so calm now he scares me. He doesn’t leave me alone for a minute. Sometimes I feel he’s trying to read my mind.
And he’s so sweet, so thoughtful. More than ever before. More than on our honeymoon. Do you remember the story I told you about the pineapple that made you laugh so hard? Well, that could never happen now.
Everybody on board thinks we’re newlyweds, and sometimes it’s just so funny. Yesterday we broke out our linens because we’re coming into the tropics. It’s already hot. It seemed strange to see everybody in white all of a sudden, even the officers. There’s a young one (he has only one stripe) who keeps making eyes at me.
Don’t say anything to poor Ric, who’d just get upset.
I don’t know how things are with you back there, my poor Kay, but I imagine they must be pretty awful. When I put myself in your place, I can picture your confusion and only hope you’re making out somehow …
It was a strange feeling. There were times when he felt almost relieved, his head clear, unclouded, moments when the world was free of shadow, looking so crisp and fresh that it was almost physically painful.
My dear Kay,
This letter had a French stamp and a Toulon postmark. Hadn’t Kay told him to open them all?
I haven’t heard from you in nearly five months now, but I’m not too surprised, since it’s you …
He read slowly, because every word held a special meaning for him.
When we got back to France, there was a surprise waiting for me that at first I found pretty unpleasant. My submarine and a few others had been transferred from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean fleet. In other words, my home port is now Toulon instead of good old Brest.
It wasn’t so bad for me, but my wife, who had just rented a new house and got all settled in, was so disappointed that she fell ill …
This one, Combe knew, had slept with her. He knew where and under what circumstances. He knew everything, down to the last detail, since he’d practically begged to know. It hurt him and pleased him at the same time.
We’re living now in La Seyne. It’s a sort of a suburb, not too nice, but the tram stops outside my door, and there’s a park across the street where the children can play …
That’s right, he had children, too.
Chubby is fine and getting fatter than ever. He sends his regards
Chubby!
Fernand is no longer with us. He was assigned to the Naval Ministry in Paris. It’s what he needed, city boy that he is. He’ll do well at the parties in rue Royale, especially the big receptions.
As for your friend Riri, all I can say is that we haven’t spoken, except in the line of duty, since we left the shores of wonderful America.
I don’t know whether he’s jealous of me or I of him. He probably doesn’t know either.
It’s up to you, my little Kay, to settle the argument and …
He dug his fingernails into the curtain. And yet he was quite calm. He was still calm. It was only the first few days. He was so calm that he mistook the emptiness around him for real emptiness, and it was then that he thought coldly, It’s over.
He was free again, free at six in the evening to have as many drinks as he wanted with Laugier, to talk with him as much as he liked.
If Laugier asked about that “thirty-three-year-old girl,” he was free to say, “Who?”
And there was no denying that it made him feel a little better. Laugier was right. It was bound to turn out badly. There was no way it could turn out well.
Sometimes he wanted to see Laugier again. On several occasions he got as far as the entrance to the Ritz, but he felt too guilty to go in.
Other mail cam
e for Kay, mostly bills. Among them was one from the dry cleaners and there was another from a milliner who’d done something to a hat of hers, probably the one she’d worn on the night they met. He could see it now, perched over one eye, and right away it assumed the value of a memento for him.
Sixty-eight cents!
Not for the hat, but for doing something to it. To have a ribbon put on or taken off, some small, silly, feminine thing.
Sixty-eight cents …
He remembered the amount. And he remembered that the milliner was on Twenty-sixth Street. Then, in spite of himself, he imagined the way there, the way Kay, on foot, must have gone, as if during one of their long night rambles.
They’d done a lot of walking, that was for sure.
Nobody had called since the phone had been put in, nobody could have, since no one knew he had one.
Except Kay. Kay had promised, “I’ll call as soon as I can.”
But Kay hadn’t called. He was afraid to go out. For hours he sat, hypnotized, watching the Jewish tailor. He now knew when he ate, when he assumed or abandoned his hieratic pose at his worktable. Combe lived across the street from this other loneliness, and he knew what it was like.
And he was almost ashamed of the lobster they’d had delivered. Because now he could imagine himself in the other man’s place.
My little Kay …
Everybody called her Kay. It was enraging. Why had she told him to open her letters?
This one was in English, stilted, formal.
I received your letter of August 14. I was delighted to discover that you were in the country. I hope the Connecticut air is doing you good. Business matters have made it impossible for me to escape from New York for as long as I might have wished.
However …
However what? He’d slept with her, too. They all had! Would the nightmare ever end?
… my wife would be delighted if you …
Bastard! But no. Combe was the one who was wrong. And he didn’t have to be. It was all over. All he had to do was write, “Finished. Period, new page.”
Yes, a period and then a brand-new page—and he wouldn’t have to suffer anymore.
That was what he was thinking. That he’d suffer to his dying day on account of her.
And he was resigned to it.
Idiotically.
What would a fool like Laugier say about that?
But it was simple, so simple that … Well, what was there to say?
That’s how it was. Kay wasn’t there, and he needed Kay. He’d seen himself as a tragic figure once because his wife, at the age of forty, wanted to fall in love again, to feel young again. Could he have been any more childish? Did it even matter?
He knew now it didn’t. The only thing that mattered, the only thing in the world that was important, was Kay, Kay and the life she’d led, Kay and …
… and a phone call. That was all, just one phone call. He waited day and night. He set the alarm for one in the morning, then two, then three, to be sure he’d be awake enough to hear the ring.
At the same time, he said to himself: It’s fine. Everything’s fine. It’s over. It couldn’t have ended any other way.
Because he could taste disaster on his lips.
No, really, it couldn’t have ended any other way! He’d become François Combe again. They’d welcome him, at the Ritz, like a man recovering from a serious operation.
“Well, it’s all over?”
“Yes.”
“It didn’t hurt too much? You’re not still sore?”
But there was no one at night to hear him pleading into his pillow, “Kay! My little Kay … Please call, please!”
The streets were empty. New York was empty. Even their little bar was empty, and, one day when he wanted to play their song, he couldn’t because a drunk they’d tried to throw out, a Scandinavian sailor—Norwegian or Danish—had grabbed him by the elbow and insisted on divulging his incomprehensible secrets.
Wasn’t it better like this? She was gone for good. She knew it, they both did. For good.
“Now it doesn’t feel like going away … it feels like coming home.”
What had she meant? Why like coming home? Home where?
Dear Madam: You have probably overlooked our bill for …
Three dollars and change for a blouse he remembered having taken from Jessie’s dresser and put in the trunk.
That was Kay—a threat to his peace of mind and to his future, Kay who was Kay, who he could no longer do without.
He would forsake her ten times a day and then just as many times or more he’d plead for forgiveness, only to forsake her again minutes later. And he avoided men as if they were dangerous. He hadn’t gone to the radio studio once. He hadn’t seen Hourvitch or Laugier. He hated them now.
Finally, on the seventh day, or rather the seventh night, while he was fast asleep, the telephone shattered the silence of his apartment.
His watch lay beside it. It was two o’clock.
“Hello.”
He could hear the long-distance operators exchanging messages. One insistent voice repeated stupidly, “Hello … Mr. Combe … ? Hello, Mr. Combe … ? C … O … M … B … E? Hello … Mr. Combe … ?”
In the background he could hear Kay’s voice, but she hadn’t been connected yet.
“Yes … This is Combe. Hello?”
“Mr. François Combe?”
“Yes, yes.”
And she was there, at the other end of the night. She asked softly, “It’s you?”
And he found nothing better to answer with than “It’s you?”
He had told her once, at the start—and she had laughed—that she had two voices: one that was banal, that could have been anyone’s, any woman’s; the other was deeper, lower. He had loved that one from the very first moment he heard it.
He had never heard her voice over the telephone before, and happily it turned out to be the deeper one, a little lower-pitched even than he remembered, warmer, with a hint of a drawl, tender and seductive.
He wanted to shout, “It’s over, Kay. I’m not going to struggle anymore.”
He understood. He would never abandon her again. He was impatient to tell her, since he had only figured it out just now.
“I couldn’t call any sooner,” she was saying. “I’ll explain everything later. It’s all good news down here. Only it’s been very hard to call. It still is. But from now on I’m going to try every night.”
“Can’t I call you? You’re not at the hotel?”
Why was there a pause? Did she guess that he already felt betrayed?
“No, François. I had to move into the embassy. Don’t worry. And especially don’t think anything’s changed. When I got here, they’d just finished operating on Michelle. It seems to have been very serious. Acute appendicitis, and then peritonitis suddenly set in. Can you hear me?”
“Yes. Who’s there with you?”
“The maid. A nice Mexican woman who has a room on the same floor. She heard some noise and wondered if I needed something.”
He heard her say a few words to the woman in Spanish.
“Are you still there? Anyway, my daughter. She’s had the best surgeons in the country. The operation went well. But for several days there was a danger of complications. And that’s that, my sweet.”
She had never called him that before, and it had a depressing effect on him.
“I think about you, you know, all alone in your room. Are you very unhappy?”
“I don’t know. Yes … no.”
“Your voice sounds funny.”
“Really? It’s because you’ve never heard me on the telephone. When are you coming back?”
“I don’t know yet. As soon as I can, I promise. In three or four days, maybe.”
“That’s a long time.”
“What did you say?”
“I said, that’s a long time.”
She laughed. He was sure he heard her laugh.
“Imagine, I�
�m barefoot and in my bathrobe, since the telephone is by the fireplace and it’s chilly tonight. And you? Are you in bed?”
He didn’t know what to answer. He didn’t know what to say anymore. He had looked forward to this, he’d been waiting so long for it that now he didn’t know who she was.
“Have you been good, François?”
He said he had.
And then, at the other end of the line, he heard her humming, very softly, their song.
He felt something warm welling up in him. He couldn’t move or breathe. He couldn’t speak.
She finished the tune, and after an interval—was she crying, or was she, too, unable to speak?—she whispered, “Good night, my François. Go to sleep. I’ll call you tomorrow night. Good night.”
He heard the faint sound of the kiss she was sending him across all that space. He must have stammered something. The operators were back on the line, and he didn’t understand that they were telling him to hang up.
“Good night.”
And that was that. And his bed was empty.
“Good night, my François.”
And he hadn’t told her what he wanted to tell her, he hadn’t cried out the all-important message, the good news she had to know.
Only after he’d hung up did the words form on his lips.
“You know, Kay … ”
“What, sweetheart?”
“What you told me at the station. The last thing you said.”
“Yes, sweetheart …”
“That you weren’t going away, that you were coming home.”
She would have been smiling. He could see that smile so perfectly that it was as if he were hallucinating it, and he spoke out loud, all alone, in the emptiness of his room: “I understand, at last, what you meant … It’s taken me a while, hasn’t it? But don’t be angry with me.”
“No, sweetheart.”
“Because men, you know, aren’t as subtle as women … And they’re too proud …”
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