Vertigo

by Pierre Boileau

  All the same he hadn’t yet thrown away her lighter. Perhaps because of that absurd news-reel. He could do it at any moment, now even—just throw it out of the window. Perhaps he would. There were objects that had evil emanations, slowly poisoning the lives of their owners. Diamonds, for instance. Why not a lighter? Then why not get rid of it? All the same, he knew he never would. It was the one proof that he had once almost been happy. He’d have it put in his coffin.

  To be put under the ground hugging a gold lighter! Another absurd idea! Yet he nursed it, and, to the steady rhythm of the wheels, he let his fancy roam… Why had he always been haunted by those underground caverns, by the drip of water in dim light, by the musty air of tunnels, the tortuous entrails of the earth which led down to black pools full of sleeping precious stones? That was where the story had begun, at Saumur, perhaps because of his lonely childhood, which had driven him to books. His favourite, an old mythology, which he had read and re-read, shivering with the chill of death, had been a school prize of his grandfather’s. On the fly-leaf was a device and the motto Labor Omnia Vincit Improbus, and amongst the mould-marked pages were weird pictures: Sisyphus and his great block of marble, the Danaides pouring water into a sieve, Orpheus emerging from a tomb holding Eurydice by the hand.

  His head jolting against the grubby white antimacassar, Flavières watched the real world flit by, hardly seeing it. He felt better: he was playing a game with himself, enjoying his fatigue and his new-found liberty. At Nice he might buy himself a nice little house just outside the town. He’d sleep most of the day. Then when the bats fluttered noiselessly in the evening air, he’d stroll down to the sea-front without thinking of anything. Ah! Not to think! He was advancing towards the black abysses of unconsciousness like the wanderer who quickens his step nearing home.

  When the express stopped at Marseilles, Flavières got out. No question of staying there, of course. To make sure of it, he consulted a ticket collector, but the man’s answer was unhelpful.

  ‘Your ticket allows you to break your journey for a week.’

  All right, if that’s how the land lay, he’d stay. Might just as well be frank about it. Nothing to be gained by cheating. But only for a night. Just long enough to check up. He hailed a taxi.

  ‘The Astoria.’

  ‘The Waldorf Astoria?’

  ‘Naturally,’ answered Flavières, chuckling inwardly.

  In the hall of the huge hotel, he looked round warily. He knew very well he was playing a game with himself. He was frightening himself—not such a bad game, either. He got a kick out of this uneasiness, this expectation of he knew not what.

  ‘For one night? Or are you staying several days?’

  ‘I don’t know… that is… I might be staying.’

  ‘We’ve only got a suite on the first floor—a large room with a small salon.’

  ‘That’ll do me nicely.’

  In fact he was delighted. He needed this luxury: it was the proper setting for the comedy he was playing. He questioned the lift-boy as he went up.

  ‘When was it General de Gaulle came here?’

  ‘A week ago last Sunday.’

  Flavières calculated. Twelve days. That was a long time.

  ‘Have you by any chance noticed a middle-aged man who wears a pearl tie-pin?’

  In painful suspense, he waited for the answer, well though he knew it would lead to nothing.

  ‘No… I can’t say I have… We get so many here.’

  Of course they did. It was nothing to be disappointed about. The first thing he did in his room was to lock the door. An ingrained habit. He had always been a bit mad about locks and bolts and patent security devices, and it was growing on him all the time. He shaved and changed and had a good look at himself in the glass. That was all part of the game. And the eyes he saw in the glass glittered like an actor’s. He sauntered down to the bar casually, one hand in a pocket, exactly as if he was expecting to meet an old friend of former days. His eyes glanced round rapidly, pausing for a second at every woman’s face. He perched himself on a stool at the bar.

  ‘A whisky.’

  Round a narrow space kept clear for dancing, people in deep easy chairs were chatting. Standing near the bar with cigarettes between their fingers, a group of men were talking confidentially. The little flags stuck in glasses, the high-lights on the bottles, the slowly throbbing syncopated music, conspired to make life like a story. It was all slightly feverish, and as Flavières rapidly gulped down his whisky, the fever caught hold of him. He felt ready. For what?

  ‘I’ll have another.’

  Ready to meet them without flinching. Ready to take one good look at them. That was all. He asked no more… Perhaps they were in the dining-room. He went into the vast room where a waiter promptly adopted him, piloting him towards a table.

  ‘Is Monsieur alone?’

  ‘Yes,’ answered Flavières, his mind elsewhere.

  A bit dazzled by the lights and intimidated by the people, he sat down without having dared scrutinize the faces. He ordered his meal almost at random, then somewhat awkwardly began looking about him. Lots of officers; few women. Nobody took any notice of him. Why should they? He was of no interest to anybody, and he felt suddenly forced to admit that he was wasting his time. He had been building hopes on an off-chance: there was no reason on earth why the couple he’d seen at the cinema should have been staying at this hotel. They could have put up at any other. Was he going to search the whole town? They could have been merely driving through Marseilles on their way to some other place altogether. And if he did find them, would that get him any further? To find a woman vaguely resembling Madeleine? To kindle once again the fires he’d sworn to let die out?

  He forced himself to eat, feeling horribly alone. Why had he made himself go back to Paris, plunging into the tumult of joy and hate that was sweeping over Europe? A pilgrimage? No, that had been merely a pretext. And now he felt like a bit of wreckage washed up on the beach. The only thing for him to do was to go back to Dakar and his dreary occupations. If he needed treatment, there were clinics there.

  ‘Coffee? Liqueurs?’

  ‘Just a mirabelle.’

  The hands of the clock moved slowly forward. He smoked a cigarette, then another, his eyes dull, his forehead clammy. People got up and went, amid a clutter of plates and cutlery. No need to stay a week. Tomorrow he would go on to Nice to get a little rest before saying goodbye to France. He too got up, his limbs aching, as though from a long, long journey. He was one of the last to go. On all sides, mirrors reflected the weedy figure slinking between the tables. He went upstairs as slowly as possible, to give himself a last chance, but only met two Americans running down, two steps at a time. In his room at last, he threw his clothes down in a heap and got into bed. He took a long time to go to sleep, and, even when he did, he still seemed to be looking for someone who kept dodging round the corner.

  In the morning he woke up with a taste like blood in his mouth and feeling wretched. He dressed in a state of complete discouragement. This was what he had come to, and it was his own fault! If he had forgotten that woman in 1940, if he hadn’t deliberately kept himself in a state of mourning, if he’d taken a little more care of his health… Now, in all probability he was a condemned man. How he hated his own twisted, tortuous character, which made him, with a sort of aesthetic dilettantism, dally with dubious emotions! He gently massaged his eyelids and pressed his forehead—a gesture that was destined to become a habit… A sick man, was he?… Well, anyhow, people would have to speak kindly to him in future.

  He finished dressing, in a hurry to look at the time-table. Marseilles seemed to him a forbidding place with its smoke, its noise and bustle. He was in a hurry, too, to be coddled by motherly women in white aprons, to bask in silence. He was busy constructing another romance to ward off the terrible idea which nevertheless kept forcing its way into his consciousness: ‘I’m done for.’

  His head was still aching as he walked along the
thickly carpeted corridor. Breathing became a little easier as he went slowly downstairs to the reception desk. In a small room opening on the right, people were having their coffee and rolls, robust people whose jaws moved with repulsive gusto. Flavières saw a stout man… was he dreaming?… in whose tie…

  Mon Dieu! Could that be him?… A well-dressed man of fifty, who was cutting a roll in two as he chatted with a young woman, whose back was turned to Flavières. She had very long, dark hair, partly concealed by the collar of the fur coat thrown over her shoulders. To look at her face he would have to go into the room… He would. Presently, though. For the moment he was too upset. These silly emotional shocks weren’t good for him at all. Mechanically he fished a cigarette out of his case, then hastily replaced it. He mustn’t start smoking before breakfast. He tried to convince himself that he wasn’t remotely interested in the couple at the table, then, giving up the pretence, he asked at the desk in a low voice:

  ‘That man there… the one going bald, talking to the woman in a fur coat… do you know his name?’

  ‘Almaryan.’

  ‘Almaryan!… What’s he do?’

  The man at the desk winked.

  ‘A bit of everything… There’s plenty of money to be made these days if you know the ropes. He does.’

  ‘Is that his wife?’

  ‘Oh no. He never keeps the same one long.’

  ‘Can I see the time-table?’

  ‘Certainly, Monsieur.’

  Flavières sat in the hall turning its pages, but he couldn’t keep his eyes on it for long. The woman had turned a little and from where he was sitting he could get a fairly good view of her. A sudden certitude blazed up within him. Madeleine! How could he have hesitated? She had changed, of course. She was a little fatter in the face, and older. It was another Madeleine and yet the same Madeleine… The same!

  He sank gently back in his chair, leaning his head against the back. He hadn’t the strength to take out his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from his face. He felt he would lose consciousness altogether if he moved a muscle or even if he framed a thought. So he sat absolutely still. His eyes were closed but the lids couldn’t shut out the image of Madeleine which burnt into his brain.

  ‘If it’s her, I’ll die,’ he muttered, letting the time-table slip from his hands on to the floor.

  Slowly and cautiously he pulled himself together. He really mustn’t lose his head because he’d caught sight of Madeleine’s double. He opened his eyes. No, she wasn’t a double. What is it that gives absolute certitude to the act of recognition? He knew that Madeleine was sitting there, opposite the portly Almaryan, in the same way as he knew that he wasn’t dreaming, that he was really and truly Flavières, that he was suffering agonies. He suffered because, at the same time, he was equally certain Madeleine was dead.

  Almaryan stood up and took the young woman by the arm. Flavières quickly picked up the time-table and buried himself in it while they passed. He saw the bottom of the fur coat and elegant shoes. When he finally looked up, he saw them through the gate of the lift, the shadows of which on her face had somewhat the same effect as that little veil she had worn, and he felt again a sharp stab of his old love. He got up irresolutely, wondering whether she had seen him. He returned the time-table to the desk.

  ‘Will you be keeping your room, Monsieur?’

  ‘Of course!’

  All the morning he sauntered about in the sunshine, exploring the old port, whose activity was divided between civilian trade and war shipments. The stones trembled as military convoys rumbled away. Shivering, Flavières immersed himself in the clatter and the hubbub, jostling with the crowd. There would never be people enough in the world to stave off his fear. For he had seen the body. So had Gévigne. So had the old woman who had laid Madeleine out. The police had investigated her suicide, even if none too intelligently. There must have been at least ten people to verify her death… In that case the woman with Almaryan wasn’t Madeleine… He drank a pastis in a bar on the Canebière. He would restrict himself to that. Already he could feel the faint delirium kindle within him. He lit a cigarette with the lighter, that lighter which couldn’t lie, which was there in his hand, polished by his fingers which had fondled it so often in silent prayer, as though it had been a bead in a rosary… Madeleine had died at the foot of that church tower… And, before her, Pauline… Nevertheless…

  He had to have a whisky, because the idea that had flashed into his mind was so extraordinary that he needed all his faculties to examine it properly. He could remember every word of their conversation at the Louvre.

  ‘I’ve already walked through these rooms on the arm of a man,’ she had said. ‘He was like you, only he had sidewhiskers.’

  How clear it became all of a sudden. At the time he had been unable to understand; he had been too full of life, too blinded by prejudices, he hadn’t yet been initiated by suffering and illness… Now he was quite able to accept the truth, as consoling as it had so far been inconceivable. Just as Pauline’s spirit had housed itself in Madeleine’s body, so Madeleine’s had now… It could even be the same with himself. Perhaps in some far-off forgotten time he had already gazed at that purplish sea, those brown sails… He, too, might have been dead before—more than once perhaps, many times… If only one could be sure! But Madeleine had been.

  If he was right, why should he be afraid? What was there to be afraid of? Of waking up? Of no longer believing the miracle? Of having chased foolishly a will-o’-the-wisp? No. He was only afraid of seeing her again, as he would have to speak to her. Nothing would hold him back. And of course he wanted to. Yet would he be able to bear the look in her eyes, the sound of her voice?

  That evening, he changed for dinner. He put on a black suit. To convince himself he was still in mourning. The moment he went into the bar, he saw her in the dining-room. With her chin resting on her hands, she seemed to be dreaming, while Almaryan talked in a low voice to the head-waiter, presumably trying to dodge the food restrictions. Flavières sat down, making a sign to the barman, who, knowing him by now, promptly poured out a whisky. Two or three couples were dancing. Through the wide-open folding doors to the dining-room, he could inspect the diners and watch the trolleys laden with hors-d’oeuvres being slowly wheeled along by white-clad waiters. She looked sad, and it was her sadness which fascinated Flavières. Already in the old days… Though Gévigne must have given her everything she wanted. It was strange to think that others had inherited her fortune, while she was poor, obliged to cling to a man like this Almaryan, who looked like a wily caliph. Her ear-rings were in bad taste and her nails were painted. How much more distinguished the other Madeleine had been! Flavières had the impression he was looking at a badly dubbed film, with some nonentity speaking the part of a star. She ate little, now and again taking a sip of wine. She looked relieved when at last Almaryan got up. They came into the bar and found themselves a table. Flavières swivelled round on his stool, but he could hear Almaryan behind him ordering the coffee. Was this the moment? Would he ever have the courage?

  He handed the barman a note and slipped off his stool. He had only to turn round and take three steps forward. Then four years of misery would be lifted from his heart; past and present would be reconciled; Madeleine would be there before him, just as if they had left each other the previous evening after a trip to Versailles. Perhaps she would even forget how she had slipped away from him…

  And suddenly he did it. He turned; he took the three steps forward; he bent ceremoniously over the young woman, and asked her to dance with him. For a few seconds he had a close view of Almaryan’s slightly yellowing cheeks and his velvety black eyes. Then he saw Madeleine’s face raised towards him, her pale blue eyes which expressed nothing but annoyance. She accepted sulkily. Was it possible she simply hadn’t recognized him? As they swayed to and fro over the dancing floor, Flavières’ throat was strangled. He felt as though he were breaking all the ten commandments at a go, flouting some inexorable ta
boo.

  ‘My name’s Flavières,’ he murmured at last. ‘Doesn’t that ring a bell?’

  Politely, she seemed making an effort to recall it.

  ‘No. I’m sorry… I really can’t say that it does.’

  ‘And what’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Renée Sourange.’

  He was on the point of contradicting her when it occurred to him that she had necessarily acquired a new name, and he was more disturbed than ever. He studied her sidelong. The forehead, the colour of the eyes, the line of the nose, the prominent cheek-bones—each one of those details was just as he had known it of old, just as he had cherished it in the secret recesses of his memory. If he had shut his eyes, he could have imagined himself once again in the Louvre… But there were other things: the way the new Madeleine did her hair lacked style, her mouth had lost its line, despite the efforts of lipstick. Not that it mattered: she was almost better as she was, because less intimidating. He could approach her more easily now, feeling her to be made of the same clay as he was. He had been afraid of embracing a shadow. He found her a woman, and he reproached himself for desiring her already, as though he was profaning something very profound and very pure.

  ‘You used to live in Paris before the occupation, I believe?’

  ‘No. In London.’

  ‘Come on! Didn’t you go in for painting?’

  ‘No. I have done a little to while away the time, that’s all.’

  ‘Did you ever go to Rome?’

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Why are you trying to deceive me?’

  She looked at him with those pale, slightly vacant eyes that were unforgettable.

  ‘I’m not doing anything of the kind, I assure you.’

  ‘This morning you saw me in the hall. You recognized me. And now you’re pretending…’

  She tried to break away from him, but Flavières held her tightly against him, blessing the music which showed no signs of stopping.