Vertigo

by Pierre Boileau

  ‘Does she still paint?’

  ‘No. She gave it up little by little. Found she hadn’t got the time. The life they lead, these Parisian women!’

  ‘But… these troubles you’ve been telling me about… they must have had a cause. Can’t you think of any incident that might have started the ball rolling? A quarrel, for instance, or a bit of bad news… You must have thought of that.’

  ‘Of course I’ve thought of it, and I’ve racked my brains to discover something… Don’t forget I spend half the week at Le Havre.’

  ‘These… these attacks, as you call them… could they have anything to do with your being away?’

  ‘I don’t think so… The first one occurred soon after I got back. It was a Saturday. I had found her in excellent spirits; then in the evening I thought there was something odd about her. Naturally I didn’t pay much attention to it at that moment, particularly as I was tired at the end of a heavy week.’

  ‘Before that?’

  ‘She may have been a bit moody at times, but no more than anybody is.’

  ‘On that Saturday, you’re sure nothing unusual happened?’

  ‘Absolutely. All the more so as we were together the whole time. I got back about ten in the morning. Madeleine had just got up. We chatted for a while… But you can’t expect me to remember every detail of the day. There was no reason for me to remember them. I know we lunched at home.’

  ‘Where do you live?’

  Gévigne looked surprised, then smiled.

  ‘Of course… I was forgetting we’ve completely lost touch with each other. I bought a block of flats on the Avenue Kléber, quite close to the Etoile. We live in one of them. Here—you’d better have my card.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘In the afternoon we went out. I had to drop in at the Ministry for a few minutes, but she wasn’t left alone for long. After that we pottered about round the Opera, and then… Well, it was an afternoon like any other.’

  ‘And the attack?’

  ‘It came on just after supper.’

  ‘Can you give me the exact date?’

  ‘Really! How should I know?’

  But he studied the calendar on the lawyer’s desk.

  ‘I know it was in February, and towards the end of the month. I see the 26th was a Saturday. Then it was certainly the 26th.’

  Flavières sat down on the arm of an easy chair, close to Gévigne.

  ‘What gave you the idea of coming to me?’ he asked.

  Again Gévigne wrung his hands. It had been a tic of his in the old days. He had had others—several—but this was the only one left. It was a way of taking hold of himself when he wasn’t sure of his foothold.

  ‘I’ve always thought of you as one of my oldest friends,’ he murmured. ‘And then I remembered how interested you always were in psychology and all that… You wouldn’t have expected me to go to the police, would you?’

  Flavières winced, and Gévigne noticed it.

  ‘It was just because you’d left the police that I felt I could come to you about it,’ he added.

  ‘Yes,’ said Flavières, stroking the leather upholstery, ‘I left the police.’

  He looked up sharply.

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘No. But—’

  ‘You’d find out sooner or later. Things like that can’t be kept dark for ever.’

  He would have liked to smile, so as to prove his self-possession, but a sour note had already crept into his voice.

  ‘I came a cropper… Another glass of port?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘It’s a rotten story… I was a detective. In the police you have to go right through the mill even if you have a degree. I never liked the job. If my father hadn’t pushed me into it… But he was a divisional inspector and for him it was the one and only career. I ought to have refused. It’s all wrong to force a boy… but there’s no use going into that now… To come to the point, I had to arrest a chap. He wasn’t a very dangerous one, only he took it into his head to take refuge on the roof… I had a man called Leriche with me—as nice a fellow as you could meet…’

  He emptied his glass. Tears scalded his eyes. He coughed and shrugged his shoulders, trying to recover his poise.

  ‘You see. As soon as this story crops up my feet slip off the pedals,’ he said in an attempt to laugh it off. ‘The roof was a sloping one. I could hear the traffic a long way below in the street. The chap was behind a chimney. He was unarmed. It was just a matter of collaring him. I couldn’t do it.’

  ‘I remember now,’ said Gévigne, ‘you never had a head for heights.’

  ‘Leriche went in my place. He slipped and fell.’

  ‘Ah!’

  Gévigne looked discreetly at the carpet. Flavières studied his face without being able to read his thoughts.

  ‘It’s best you should know—’

  ‘Anyone’s nerve can give way,’ said Gévigne.

  ‘I know it can,’ answered Flavières with something like a snarl.

  Nothing was said for a moment. Then Gévigne raised his hands in a vague gesture.

  ‘Most unfortunate. But you can’t hold yourself responsible because your friend’s foot slipped.’

  Flavières opened a box of cigarettes.

  ‘Have a fag, old man.’

  He always encountered the same bewildered incredulity when he told his story. No one ever took it seriously. How could he ever make them hear Leriche’s scream, which went on and on, passing from a shrill note to a lower one with the distance? Perhaps Gévigne’s wife too was burdened by some gnawing secret, but it couldn’t be half as hideous a one as his. Were her dreams torn by a scream like that? Had she allowed someone to die in her place?

  Gévigne interrupted this reverie.

  ‘Can I count on you then?’

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Have a look at her. Above all I want your opinion. It’s already done me a lot of good to talk to you about it. You will help me, won’t you?’

  ‘If it is a help.’

  ‘You’ve no idea how much… Are you free this evening?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘A pity. I’d have asked you home to dinner. It’ll have to be another day.’

  ‘No. Better she shouldn’t know me. It’ll make things easier.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re right. But I’ve got to show her to you somehow.’

  ‘Go to the theatre together. I can have a good look at her without her noticing.’

  ‘Good idea. We’re going to the Marigny tomorrow. We’ve got a box.’

  ‘Right. I’ll be there.’

  Gévigne took both Flavières’ hands in his.

  ‘Thanks, Roger… You see how right I was to come to you. You know a trick or two. I shouldn’t have thought of the theatre.’

  He fumbled in his inside pocket, hesitated.

  ‘Don’t be offended… We’ve still got the dibs to consider… You’re doing me a great favour…’

  ‘Oh,’ said Flavières, ‘never mind about that now.’

  ‘All the same—’

  Flavières patted him on the back.

  ‘It’s the case I’m interested in, not the money. I’ve already the feeling your wife and I have something in common, and… yes… there’s a chance I may be able to find out what she’s hiding.’

  ‘I assure you she’s not hiding anything.’

  ‘We’ll see.’

  Gévigne picked up his grey felt hat and his gloves.

  ‘Business good?’

  ‘Pretty good. I can’t complain.’

  ‘You know, if I can be useful to you in any way, you’ve only to say the word. I’d be only too glad. I’m in touch with some pretty influential people, particularly with this war contract…’

  ‘Profiteer,’ thought Flavières.

  The word flashed involuntarily into his mind, and he turned away to avoid Gévigne’s eye.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to use the stairs again.
The lift’s not working.’

  They went out on to the narrow landing. Gévigne leant over to say confidentially to his friend:

  ‘Go about it in your own way. I give you a free hand. As soon as you’ve anything to tell me, give me a ring at my office, or, better still, come to see me. Our Paris office is in the building next to the Figaro… All I ask is that Madeleine is kept absolutely in the dark. She mustn’t even suspect anything. If she thought she was being watched… I wouldn’t answer for the consequences.’

  ‘Trust me.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Gévigne started down the stairs. Twice he turned to give a friendly wave of the hand. Flavières went back into his office and leant out of the window. He saw a huge black car pull out into the road and glide smoothly away… Madeleine… He liked the name. It had a gentle, plaintive sound. But how could she have brought herself to marry this stocky, corpulent man? Of course she was carrying on with somebody else… Those attacks!… Dragging a red herring across her own tracks… Serve him right. Gévigne deserved to be made a fool of by his wife. Because of his smug affluence, his cigars, his contract for building small craft—because of everything. Flavières didn’t like people with too much self-assurance—and, outwardly at least, Gévigne had plenty—though it was a quality he would have given anything to possess himself.

  He shut the window irritably. Then he mooched about in the kitchen, trying to persuade himself he was hungry. He surveyed the tins in the cupboard; for he too had laid in a stock of provisions, stupid as he considered such a precaution to be, as by all appearances the war was going to be a short one. Far from tempting him, the sight of so much food made him feel slightly sick. Finally he took some biscuits and the remains of a bottle of wine. He was on the point of sitting down when he decided the kitchen was ugly, and he went, munching, back into the office. As he passed it, he switched on the wireless. He knew beforehand what the communiqué would say: Patrol activity, artillery duels here and there on the Rhine. All the same the announcer’s voice would be something living.

  He sat down. He drank some of the white wine… He hadn’t been a success in the police. He wasn’t cut out for any service… What was he cut out for?… He opened a drawer and took out a green folder. In the top righthand corner he wrote: Dossier Gévigne. Then he slipped a few blank sheets of paper into it, and sat staring in front of him with vacant eyes.

  TWO

  ‘It must look pretty silly,’ said Flavières to himself.

  He certainly felt it as he sat, trying to look distinguished and unconcerned, fidgeting with the mother-of-pearl opera-glasses which he couldn’t bring himself to raise to his eyes to study Madeleine’s face. There were lots of uniforms round him, and the women with the officers had a look all of their own, proud, satisfied. And Flavières hated them. Now he came to think of it, he hated the army, lock, stock, and barrel, and the war, and this overdecorative theatre which breathed an atmosphere at once martial and frivolous.

  He had only to turn his head a little to see Gévigne, who sat with his clasped hands resting on the ledge of the box. Madeleine was sitting back in her chair. She seemed to be dark and slim. Flavières couldn’t see her features clearly, but he had the impression she was pretty, with something a bit fragile about her. That might have been due to her abundant hair which seemed too heavy for her face. How could a man like Gévigne have procured a wife of such elegance and grace? How could she have put up with his advances? The curtain went up on a play which Flavières found insipid. He shut his eyes and let his mind run back to the days when he and Gévigne had shared a room to save money. They had been as shy and awkward the one as the other. The women students used to laugh at them, adopting vamping airs just to tease them. They lacked the audacity to cope with girls. Others, on the other hand, seemed able to have any girl they wanted. One in particular. The students called him Marco. He was not remarkably endowed either with brains or good looks. Flavières had once tried to pump him. Marco had smiled, saying:

  ‘Talk to them as though you’ve already been to bed with them… That’s the trick.’

  More easily said than done! Flavières lacked the effrontery even to call them tu instead of vous. And in the police his colleagues used to make fun of him. Nor was it really friendly fun: they didn’t take to him—thought him a bit sly. Sometimes they were even a little afraid of him… When had Gévigne finally plucked up his courage? And with what sort of woman? Could it have been with Madeleine? Flavières already called her by her Christian name in his own mind, as though there was already some bond between them, as though they were united in a common hostility to Gévigne.

  He tried to picture the dining-room at the Continental. He put himself into Gévigne’s place, dining with Madeleine for the first time, beckoning the head-waiter, choosing the wines… Ridiculous, of course: he knew very well that one glance from the head-waiter would have made him go hot under the collar… And then… Walking with Madeleine the whole length of the immense dining-room… Upstairs, the bedroom… Madeleine undressing… And finally…

  Flavières opened his eyes, fidgeted in his seat. He would have liked to leave the theatre there and then. But he was right in the middle of a row. It would mean disturbing all those people. You needed effrontery for that—the very thing he lacked! There was a ripple of laughter round him; a little burst of applause spread quickly to the whole of the auditorium, then suddenly died out. The actors must have been talking about love. Actors! Flavières shuddered with disgust. Furtively he looked at Madeleine out of the corner of his eye. In that gilded half-light she stood out like a portrait. Jewels glittered on her neck and hung from her ears. Her eyes seemed luminous. She listened with her head slightly to one side, perfectly still, like those unknown beauties admired in the Louvre, the Mona Lisa, La Belle Ferronière… Her hair which had a tint of mahogany in it was done in a massive bun on the back of her neck… Mme Gévigne…

  Flavières almost lifted his opera-glasses to look at her, but his neighbour was showing obvious signs of irritation. Humbly, Flavières smuggled them back into his pocket and tried to make himself as small as possible. He would leave at the interval. He was certain now of being able to recognize her anywhere. It made him uneasy to think that he was going to follow her, pry into her life. It was of doubtful taste, what Gévigne was asking him to do. Supposing Madeleine found out? After all, she had every right to have a lover if she wanted to. Though he knew he would suffer acutely if he found she had. There was some more applause and a confused murmur of approval. He looked again: Madeleine was sitting in exactly the same position and from the diamonds in her ear-rings came the same steady sparkle. At the corner of her eyes there was a glint of eagerness; her long white hand rested on the red plush ledge, and the box formed a pale gilt frame. All that was lacking was a signature in the corner of the picture. For a second Flavières could almost see one there—the initials R. F. in small red letters. Roger Flavières… No. It was too silly: he wasn’t going to fall for that preposterous story of Gévigne’s. He mustn’t let his imagination run away with him… Perhaps he ought really to have been a novelist, with this host of images which so readily and of their own accord flooded his brain. They weren’t vague ones either: they had all the relief, the dramatic intensity of life… That roof, for instance—the shiny wet slates, the discoloured red-brick chimneys, the wisps of smoke all blowing the same way, the rumble of the traffic below, like a torrent at the bottom of a gorge. He wrung his hands, just as Gévigne had done.

  If he had chosen the lawyer’s profession, it was to discover the secrets that prevent people living. Even Gévigne, with his money, his factories, his influential friends, wasn’t really living. They were liars, all of them, these people who, like Marco, pretended they could ride rough-shod over every obstacle. Who knew whether Marco wasn’t at that moment in desperate need of a friend to lean on? A man on the stage kissed a girl… It looked so easy, but that was a lie too. Gévigne kissed Madeleine, yet she remained a stranger to
him…

  The truth was that they were all like him, Flavières, trembling on the edge of a slope at the bottom of which was the abyss. They laughed, they made love, but they were afraid. What would become of them if there weren’t whole professions whose job it was to prop them up—the priest’s, the doctor’s, the lawyer’s?

  The curtain fell, then rose again. The lights shed a harsh glare which made all the faces look a little grey. People stood up so as to have elbow-room for clapping. Madeleine fanned herself slowly with her programme, while her husband leant over to say something into her ear. Another well-known picture—La Femme à l’Eventail. Or was it the portrait of Pauline Lagerlac?

  It was certainly better for him to go. He followed the crowd pouring into the corridors and the foyer. For a moment or two he was held up by the crush outside the cloakroom. When he finally got clear, he almost bumped into Gévigne and his wife. He brushed past Madeleine. He had a close-up view of her, yet only realized who she was a moment later. He wanted to look back, but got swept along in a stream of young officers making a dash for the bar. He went down a few steps, still intending to find her again, then suddenly gave it up. He needed to be alone.

  He liked those nights of the war, those long deserted avenues, refreshed by a soft, gentle wind which had caressed lawns and smelt of magnolias. He walked noiselessly as a thief. He had no difficulty in recalling Madeleine’s face and her dark hair discreetly tinted with henna, and his thoughts lingered over her eyes, intensely blue, but so pale that they didn’t seem quite alive, eyes which certainly could never express passion. The cheeks were slightly hollowed out under prominent cheek-bones, just sufficiently to harbour a faint shadow which suggested languor. Her mouth was small with hardly any lipstick on it—the mouth of a dreamy child. Madeleine—yes, that was undoubtedly the right name for her. But Gévigne! When she could so well have carried off an aristocratic surname in several pieces, futile but charming. She was unhappy, of course. Gévigne had worked up a ridiculous fable instead of seeing that she was bored to death with him. She was much too delicate, too sensitive, to resign herself to a life of showy luxury. Wasn’t it that which had caused her to drop her painting? It was no longer a question of watching her, but of helping her, protecting her.