He recognized her in the same moment as she him. He let the camera sink and stared at her. The woman with the black hair noticed at once that something had happened, and turned around. All three of them stared at one another, and the air between them seemed loaded with tension.
Julien stood up and cried out. “Beatrice! What are you doing here?”
He spoke French, and she answered him in that language.
“I don’t think it’s so unusual that I’m here. What are you doing here?”
He smiled. He’d gotten hold of himself and could now meet the situation with composure.
“I’m ambling after the remnants of my past. Suzanne wanted to know where I spent the war.”
The woman with the black hair smiled. “Julien has spoken so much about this time. Finally, I said to him, at last I want to get to know where these scenes from your life took place.”
“Oh,” was all Beatrice said, and immediately she felt dumb for this comment, but nothing else occurred to her.
“Wouldn’t you like to introduce us?” asked Suzanne, turning to Julien. Clearly she was in charge of the situation.
Julien responded to the request after a faint hesitation. “My wife Suzanne,” he said. “Beatrice Stewart, a … friend from that time.”
Beatrice extended her hand to Suzanne. “Beatrice Shaye. I’ve gotten married since then.”
Suzanne smiled once more. An overwhelming charm poured off of her. “How nice to meet you Beatrice. I’m so curious about all the people who were in some way a part of my husband’s life in that time. Would you do me the pleasure of dining with us this evening?”
Beatrice saw at once that Julien was in no way excited about this idea, but naturally he couldn’t contradict her, and so he nodded with a forced joy. “Of course, that would be nice. If you have the time, Beatrice …”
An instinct told her that it would be better not to accept the invitation. At the same time she knew that she was too curious, too frazzled by the coincidence of their meeting, to be able to decline. Something old, buried, submerged fluttered to the surface; some of the wildness, the carelessness, the taste for risk from times gone past made a string start to vibrate that for a long time had been silent. She would do it. She wanted to feel that string vibrating once more.
She learned that evening that Julien and Suzanne had been married for four years and had known each other for six months before that. Suzanne worked as a model, and they had met in Côte D’Azur, where Julien was on vacation and Suzanne was on a fashion shoot.
Julien said little the whole time, but Suzanne gabbed, jabbered and laughed all the more.
She had put on a little makeup and a white ensemble and looked elegant and stunning. Again and again she threw back her black, shoulder length hair and flashed her radiant white teeth. Beatrice felt more insignificant with every passing minute.
She had spent half an eternity in front of the mirror, had tried to coax her unruly hair into some kind of coiffure, but when she passed by a store’s display window on the way to the restaurant and had been able to make out her reflection, she was frustrated to notice that her hated tresses were once more flung out in all directions. And of course her dress wasn’t half as elegant as Suzanne’s, the fabric was on the heavy side and too warm for the evening, and suddenly the color, too, a cool green, which Frederic had claimed suited her very well, struck her as being ridiculous.
I look like a hunk of old cheese, she thought, deeply insecure.
Suzanne had suggested a seafood restaurant in St. Peter Port. They sat looking out on the harbor and ate sole, but Beatrice could have been in a dark pub with a basket of fish and chips, it would have made no difference. She barely took notice of what she was eating, didn’t notice at all the enchanting evening light that lay over the harbor. She looked at Julien and asked herself what he was thinking when he looked her.
She couldn’t compare to Suzanne, and Julien must have seen it too, of course. She didn’t have her beauty, her elegance, her esprit.
She was a gray mouse from Cambridge.
The most horrible thing was that she actually felt like it: a gray mouse from Cambridge. And that label, Cambridge, which suddenly seemed to stick to her, like it was grafted on, made her feel more profoundly unspectacular. Cambridge — it meant quiet days, an even progression of events, a calm row of occurrences that never arrived unexpectedly. Cambridge was long conversations with Frederic, foggy evenings in front of the hearth, highly intellectual talks put on by the university, weekends when there was work to be done and some time or another you cooked something together or drank a glass of wine and sat across from each other reading the paper out loud … Cambridge was Frederic. She thought of his warm, intelligent eyes. Then she looked in Julien’s burning black eyes and knew she shouldn’t have felt what she actually was feeling. Not this strange excitement, and not this pain that suddenly made her think that life was passing her by.
Julien lived in Paris and worked as a political editor at a newspaper. He traveled a lot, met wildly interesting people, led a hectic, exciting life, the rigors of which he overcame with cup after cup of strong coffee and untold numbers of cigarettes. Suzanne had shoots all over Europe; she also got to know fascinating people, actors above all. Today she was in Rome, tomorrow in London, and the day after that in Nice, and sometime in between they reconvened in Paris and dined with politicians or went to parties with artists and intellectuals. Suzanne rattled off names that one usually never heard outside of newspapers. Eventually she paused, laughed, flashed her enchantingly pretty smile and asked, “What is your life like, Beatrice? I always only talk about myself, but I’m sure you’ve got plenty of exciting things to talk about.”
“Oh — not so much, really,” said Beatrice. “Things are relatively calm in Cambridge. I work at the university library, and that’s, you know, not really all that terribly exciting.”
“Don’t sell yourself short,” said Julien. It was the first time he had brought something to the conversation, other than greeting when she had arrived and giving his food order. “You act as if your existence consisted of one uneventful day after another. You were always an adventurous girl.”
“I’d like to hear more about that!” Suzanne exclaimed. “I can imagine you two had a whole bunch of adventures together!”
“The war was on,” Julien reminded her. “The island was occupied. I stayed in hiding and would probably have been shot if they had caught me. A certain amount of risk in day-to-day life couldn’t be at all avoided.”
“Did you spend a lot of time together?” Suzanne inquired. The question sounded harmless, but Beatrice understood that Suzanne was undertaking a very thorough investigation.
“Beatrice visited me,” said Julien. “I was a wretched, unhappy prisoner. The Château d’If couldn’t have been worse … We read books together, and I taught her the perfect French that she speaks today.”
“We read The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” said Beatrice.
“How fitting!” Suzanne said. “Victor Hugo. How old were you Beatrice?”
“When Julien went into hiding? Fourteen or fifteen.” She avoided his gaze. “Rather young, in any case.”
“It all seems quite romantic somehow,” Suzanne said and laughed, but this time her laugh didn’t sound as bubbly as before, but rather somewhat put on. “I can imagine how you two huddled in a dusty garret on hot, sunny days and read Victor Hugo, and how Julien gazed longingly at the blue sky, while little Beatrice tried to ease the burden of his fate … a beautiful story, no?”
“In memory,” said Julien, “it might sound like a beautiful story. In reality it was only just horrible.”
“I can imagine,” Suzanne conceded. She reached for her handbag. “Will you two excuse me for a moment?”
After she had gone off in the direction of the ladies’ room, Julien said so
ftly, “You’ve changed quite a bit.”
“Many years have gone by. I’ve gotten older.”
He flicked a few breadcrumbs off the table. “Of course. But that’s not what I mean. Before you had so much fire in your eyes. You were hungry for life, you were bold, determined — it fascinated me. Where has it all gone?”
She pulled back her hands, which lay on the table, though Julien had made no move to reach for them. “If you found me so fascinating, back then, you sure picked a quick and complication-free way of saying goodbye.”
He sighed. “Yes. It was …” He searched for the words, but it seemed he didn’t rightly know what he wanted to say or how he wanted to say it. “I was thinking of nothing except my freedom.” He said finally. “Freedom and life. I was burned out. I was parched. I was full of hunger. Years of my life had been stolen, and I wanted them back. I was thinking of nothing else back then.”
“And you forgot about me.”
“I never forgot you,” Julien defended himself. “Not in May ’45, when the liberators came, and not since, even before today. But you had faded into the background. And then …”
“… then we lost track of each other.”
“Yes. I was in France, and you were here. Not even a large distance, really … but obviously at a certain time in life insurmountable.”
“Yes. Obviously. And then came Suzanne.”
“Then came Suzanne.” He grew silent, seemed to listen to the echo of the name. “She came and was there, and somehow everything that happened then was completely unavoidable.”
“Why did she want to see Guernsey?”
“I had told her a lot about it.”
“Had you told her about me?”
“No. Have you told your husband about me?”
“No.”
Julien smiled. “What’s he like?”
“Who? My husband?”
“Yes. What’s he like?”
“He’s …” She hesitated. “He gives me constancy and security. A great deal of warmth and peace.”
Julien had not stopped smiling. “Your eyes don’t have that feverish fire anymore.”
“Yes. That happens when you experience warmth and peace.”
He didn’t seem convinced by this, but he could say no more, since at that moment Suzanne came back to the table. She had put on more lipstick and brushed her hair and was looking beautiful and blossoming and almost otherworldly in her perfection.
“Hello, you two,” she said. “Were you exchanging a few memories?”
“We did some reminiscing about the old times,” Julien answered. “You look very beautiful chérie. Would you like some coffee?”
“I’d rather have a glass of champagne to end with,” said Suzanne. “It’s a special night, after all. Our last night on Guernsey.” She leaned in closer to Beatrice. “I have to go to Venice tomorrow. Fashion shoot for a magazine.”
“We’d agreed that I would stay a few days longer,” Julien reminded her, “and meet you back in Paris at the end of the week.”
“I’ve changed the plan,” Suzanne responded lovingly. “You’ll accompany me to Venice. I’ll be able to concentrate much better on my work that way.”
“I’d rather stay here,” Julien replied.
“You’re coming,” said Suzanne.
She probably made a rather large scene, thought Beatrice. She is most certainly not the kind of woman who simply says okay when someone doesn’t go along with her plans.
The sun was unusually hot for June, and at the horizon a haze lay over the water. The boulders in Petit Bôt Bay were warm and smooth. The buzzing of bees came from the bushes and hedges along the cliff path. A sleepy mood seemed to hang over the entire island. Elsewhere there might have been bustling activity, but none of it pressed its way down into the bay. Two old women had taken off their shoes and rolled up their pants and were tripping along the line of breaking surf. The sea’s white foam ran over their feet and filled the tracks they left behind them in the sand. Otherwise, there was no one to be seen far and wide.
“It’s just too hot,” Julien murmured. “Too hot to do anything sensible.” He lay upon a wide rock, his head propped against another, and squinted in the sun through half-closed eyelids. His tanned face had turned an even deeper shade of brown. He looked fantastically healthy and young. “We should go cool ourselves off a bit in the water,” said Beatrice. “Like those two old ladies over there. It’s extremely invigorating.”
Julien mumbled something. His relaxed demeanor was downright brash when you considered — and Beatrice was considering it — that he had probably drawn all kinds of anger from Suzanne. She’d had no choice but to leave, since she was locked into the photo shoot in Venice, and Julien had stayed behind on Guernsey without her being able to do anything to prevent it. Beatrice assumed that she called frequently to berate him, but Julien didn’t say a word about it. Suzanne might well be going nuts over in Italy, it seemed to leave him rather cold. He was on Guernsey and enjoying life; whatever problems might have arisen, he would deal with them later. And in a disarmingly natural way he had made plans with Beatrice at once, he seemed to take it as a matter of course that they would spend the time together. Beatrice never even had the opportunity to question this request. She wasn’t asked, and surprisingly she felt no need to be. She had a powerful feeling that large waves were rolling towards her and would crash on top of her, but she couldn’t find the will to guard against them.
“I don’t think I’d like to play around in the water with the two old aunties just now,” murmured Julien. “I think I’d like it best if the two of them would get lost.”
“Why? They’re not bothering anyone.”
“No?” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “You think it’s good that they’re here?”
“No.” She tried to ignore the pull of his eyes. “What I mean is, I don’t think it’s either good or bad. Basically, I’m indifferent to it.”
“I see.” He closed his eyes again. “There were times when we were completely alone in this bay.”
“Yes, but that was quite a long time ago.” She waited to see if he would say something in reply, but he was silent for a good long while, and she guessed that he’d fallen asleep. But suddenly, his voice clear and wide-awake, he asked, “do you actually love your husband?”
After a second of surprised silence she fired back, “do you love Suzanne?”
“I believe so,” he said thoughtfully.
The jealousy was like the pricking of a razor sharp needle. “Because she’s so beautiful?”
“She’s got a few other qualities,” he remarked casually.
“What are they?” She felt like she was jumping through the hoop he was holding out for her, but she couldn’t stop herself. “What qualities does Suzanne have aside from looking wonderful, brimming with all sorts of charm, and wearing clothes that other women can only dream about?”
Julien thought for a moment. “Life with her is full of variety. Suzanne is always traveling, and when she comes home, she’s full of energy, of big events and successes. She’s a motor that never stops running. Around her, the air is always humming. There’s never a second of calm.”
“Is that not really stressful?”
“Of course it’s stressful. And my job’s not exactly calm either. But I couldn’t live any other way.”
“You couldn’t live like I do?”
“No. That tranquility wouldn’t be for me. I’ve still never made up for what was taken from me. I’ll probably never make up for it. I’m chasing after the years that were stolen from me, but often I have the feeling I’ll never be able to lean back and say: They’re mine again.”
“But Suzanne gives you the illusion, at least temporarily, that you might be able to reach your goal.”
Juli
en smiled. “Yes. It is an illusion, of course. But a lot of people, maybe even most, move from one illusion to the next their whole lives, and in a way that’s how they ensure their survival. Which, in my opinion, makes clinging to illusions a legitimate thing to do.” He sat up. His gaze was now alert and clear. “The two women are gone,” he confirmed. “We’re alone.”
His tone, his voice gave Beatrice goose bumps. “We’re both married,” she reminded him.
Julien took her hand. His eyes flashed. “Oh, right,” he said. “That’s true. Did you get the sense that I could forget that?”
She tried to regain her clarity, the cool composure with which she took care to approach critical situations, but her usual strategies didn’t seem to want to work. Neither her head nor her body were at all concerned with what she wanted.
“You might be able to forget,” she said, her voice husky.
“You might be able to forget,” Julien corrected her, and he kissed her.
She wanted to push him away. But she wasn’t capable of doing so. Not even when his hand glided under the hem of her dress, slowly tested the tops of her thighs, when his fingers dug gently into her skin — not even then did she find the strength to resist. It was summer. It was warm. She heard the ocean’s surf and felt a tender wisp of wind brush her face. She was young again. She was the girl that ran over the cliff path to meet her lover, whose heart was pounding with longing and expectation — and also because she was running so fast, because the Germans were on the island and the night’s outing could have a deadly end.
She lay between the boulders in the wet sand, and Julien was on top of her, and it seemed not a day had passed since that time when her heart never stopped pounding.
“Say that you’re bored to death with your husband,” said Julien, before he would urge himself inside her, and she wanted him so absolutely, so undeniably, that she forgot her pride and every last shred of loyalty.
The Rose Gardener Page 39