Louise shrugged her shoulders under the blankets, then turned round so that her face was on the pillow. She felt like nothing.
Why aren’t you my friend, she thought, why don’t you explain to me about this void inside and around me, and tell me what to do about it? You would know, you are the person who would know. ‘Don’t be sad, Louise, you know that I love you. Kiss me, Louise, kiss me… Would you like us to go to the cinema together?’ If that happened, between them they would be able to understand all sorts of things. What things? Oh, don’t ask me…
Behind Louise’s closed eyelids there appeared sketches of two different foreheads: a high, pensive, female one and a plain obstinate one. The two intertwined and became all mixed up – but what does it matter, kiss me, whatever you look like…
‘Odette, get up quick, you’re going to be late for school!’
She took the child to school and went on to her work at Madame’s house. The day started all over again: she scrubbed, washed, polished the floor, peeled the vegetables. She stayed later today, because there was some ironing to do. At four o’clock Madame said:
‘I’m hungry – what about you, Louise?’
She pushed aside the ironing cover and cleared a space on the table. ‘Lay the table here in the kitchen, I’ll have a little something with you.’
Louise happily did as she suggested.
They sat down opposite each other and Madame helped herself to some jam.
‘What about you, Louise, don’t you want some jam?’
‘No, thank you, I like it better like this.’
Madame spread butter and jam and ate, with her long slender hands. Louise soaked her bread in her coffee and ate slowly, a vague look in her eyes.
It wasn’t late and yet already the light coming from the windows was beginning to fade. Summer was slowly dying. Tomorrow it would be autumn, a long succession of days, and after that a whole lifetime to come. An everyday life made up of slow, ordinary days, days without hope. Life would be what it had always had been; but now there would always have been this moment. There would always have been this moment, when Louise was happy with Madame… and perhaps before it died Madame might speak.
LEAH
‘IT’S CHUCKING IT DOWN,’ said the stranger who was standing in front of the open door of the café. The rain splashed on to the pavement and spattered his feet. The air smelled of heat: the day flowed out into the scorching heart of July, and the dark heat in the air seemed as if it had been washed up on earth by the torrential rain. That was how it was raining; that was the kind of storm it had been.
‘It’s really pelting down,’ the stranger said.
‘That’s obvious,’ said the barman. ‘Good God, it’s obvious enough, there’s no need to say it twice.’
It was raining the way it rained in my own part of the country… I remembered the day when you and I stood in the corner of a doorway, watching the water streaming down, making rivulets in the ground beneath the appletrees in the orchard. ‘Just look at the water bouncing,’ I said, pointing at the stone bench opposite.
‘“The water’s bouncing”… You can see the water bouncing, can you?’ you said, smiling.
And we’d started pushing each other out from under the awning, in and out of the rain. After a few minutes of this game, you said, ‘You’re a crazy girl, really crazy, you’re wet through…’ You brought me back into the corner of the doorway, holding me close. We stayed there like that, your hand on my shoulder, watching the water crushing into the earth the blossom that it had plucked from the apple-trees.
I couldn’t see him all the time, the stranger who was watching the rain fall. There was a group standing by the bar and from the table where I was sitting I could see him only when heads and bodies moved, according to the play of the conversations. But I could see the window of the café very clearly – all of it – and behind its backcloth of rain I saw a silhouette sliding past and then, between parted heads, Carrol coming in through the door. Leaning over the bar he said something to the barman, who responded by nodding in my direction. Carrol greeted all the men standing by the bar and ordered a glass of red wine to drink with them. Then, as if he had suddenly spotted me, he walked towards me and stretched out his hand.
‘Good evening, Madame,’ he said, then returned to his friends. A little while later he came back again and said in a very loud voice, ‘Hello again, is everything still OK?’
Sitting down next to me, Carrol leaned across and said in an undertone, ‘Leah, I came as soon as I could… I had to take the evening tram, those bastards kept us in an hour longer to make us realise they were prepared to force us to buckle under… They couldn’t have come up with a better trick. As soon as the tram stopped I ran straight here to you; even my mother doesn’t know I’m back.’
He was still wearing his factory clothes and his blue canvas jacket was soaked. His thin, bitter face was hardened by anger but his eyes were tender as he looked at me. I watched some fine drops of rain fall from his black hair on to his forehead.
‘Leah…’ he said again.
‘You ought to go and change, you’re wet through,’ I said.
‘I want to stay with you.’
‘But you might catch cold if you stay soaked like that.’
‘I’m boiling with anger,’ he said, laughing. ‘Don’t go away, I’ll come back and sit here in a few minutes, I’m just going to finish my drink with the others.’
My eyes wandered over the faces of the workmen, and over Carrol’s too. When the heads moved, I could see again the stranger who was standing on the threshold of the café. He was quite alone with the rain, which was falling hard, noisily, on to the cobble-stones of the little street. All of a sudden, the rain seemed to fade away in the reality of the present: it faded even as I watched it, only to switch and become real again, slipping visibly, torrentially, into my memory and furrowing the orchard full of apples. I could hear your voice, I could see your high forehead with its lock of fair hair. We were standing side by side, and the weight of your hand was on my shoulder. We were absolutely the same, not one and the other but one being, and it was like this for an eternity of silence, as if we had come together from the depths of a great abyss of time, and were moving towards the same night, both eaten up by the slow impatience of time.
And so it was every time that we were together. That day when the rain was falling as hard and as noisily as it was now, we went back into the house and closed the door behind us. Sitting at the table, we tucked into our bread without further ado, like children who enjoy themselves while they’re eating; and like deprived children at a party we laughed and fought over an apple that was bigger than the others. When we stopped laughing, darkness stretched over our silence. Was it the night that was falling outside and spreading into the room? Was it our night, unfurling in our souls and obscuring everything? I didn’t know, I couldn’t remember. But I did remember that everything went slowly dark and that in the heart of that darkness my hand met yours. We drew gently closer to each other until our elbows touched.
Everything was upside down. Against my back I could feel the ice-cold of a glass of water that had spilled on to the hard wooden table; and there you were leaning on me; and once again we missed our chance of love. And yet, my God, is it not perfection in love when two beings join together in the eternity of a shared night? I felt your freezing hands wander over my body, I felt them grasping my hips and shoulders. Your hands and your eyes, sparkling in the shadow of the terrestrial night and in the shadow of our hearts, were saying, ‘You are still alive,’ and that ‘still’ contained a whole future of nothingness, so that ‘You are still alive’ meant, very precisely, ‘You are already dead.’
We went out into the night, our bodies still heavy under their own weight, and walked through the garden, an icy wind lashing our faces and whipping through our clothes. We walked up the road and sat down on the damp earth near some trees halfway up a steep slope. The night was still drenched with rain and th
e cold froze us to the bone.
You pushed aside some leaves on the earth with your bare hands and arranged some twigs on the place you had cleared. ‘The fire won’t take,’ I said. ‘No, it won’t,’ you replied. You took some matches and paper from your pocket and slipped them under the twigs: for a few moments I could see your pale face in the glow of the flames. We stretched out our hands towards our wet hearth, towards the rising wisp of smoke that was already all that remained of the fire.
‘Right, let’s warm ourselves up…’ we said, and we laughed again.
All over the sky black masses were rolling on top of each other and I said, ‘Look, they’re filling the whole sky, as deep as they are long… What’s going on? What are they?’
‘They’re nothing,’ you said, ‘nothing. They’ll continue on their useless course, or else they’ll break above our heads, and all we’ll get from them is a downpour of icy water.’
I could feel you shudder with cold next to me, and reaching out to touch you I felt the dampness of the garment that was covering your shoulders. The material was cold and soaking wet, as wet as Carrol’s jacket had been just now.
I turned back to Carrol. I saw his face, and the way he was looking at me. Seeing that I’d raised my head towards him again, he smiled and offered me a drink.
‘Would you like a glass of red wine?’
He placed two glasses on the table and sat down next to me.
‘You see, I’ve come to keep you company.’
We raised our glasses and clinked them. The contact was definitely reassuring. Carrol’s glass, compared with his hand, was a small receptacle, quite simple and real; in touching mine it made my glass seem quite simple and real too. But when my glass met his, this touching fantasy did not materialise, because the glass which was nothing in my hand met the glass that was nothing in his. What was it that Carrol had just said? ‘You see, I’ve come to keep you company.’
The small café was brightly lit. The men drinking there were letting themselves go a bit after their day’s work, talking among themselves, and Carrol’s face had relaxed slightly. I could see all the shapes and colours clearly, and everything seemed wholly present. Carrol looked at me, then looked around him. The walls were of a faded red colour and covered with a layer of paint which I could touch with my finger and whose precise thickness could be established by flaking off a tiny piece.
‘Look,’ Carrol said. ‘I’ll be back in a moment, I must go and reassure my mother and then I’ll come back for you here. You’ll wait for me, won’t you? We’ll go to Paulu’s together – I’ve arranged to meet two of my mates there. They’re good blokes, you ought to know them. It’s us three who’ve been put in charge of this business at work tomorrow. They’re really good mates of mine, we went through the war together, you see, so… Anyway, I’ll be back in a moment, so you must wait for me here.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘You’re going to get soaked again, Carrol, it’s still raining. Do change your clothes, don’t keep that wet jacket on.’
‘OK, I’ll change,’ Carrol said, ‘and what’s more I’ll bring an umbrella for you. Why are you laughing? Isn’t it nice of me to bring you an umbrella?’
‘Yes, Carrol, it’s very nice of you.’
Carrol got up and went out into the alley.
The walls were faded red, the little room was all lit up, and all its colours and shapes seemed vividly present. And yet…
I waited for Carrol.
The stranger who was watching the rain left the doorway. Only the big empty doorframe remained, so nothing now obstructed my view. The drops of water were falling more gently, more intermittently. But the stranger hadn’t gone altogether; he was still in the alley-way, leaning against the window of the café, still hesitating before going on with his walk. He turned up his collar and slipped his hands into his pockets. I wondered why he didn’t come into the café to wait for the rain to stop. Perhaps he had no money, but in a place like this you could come in without any: after you’d stood by the wall for a minute, talking to the people around you, these men would always end up buying you a drink. When you talk together at a bar, you drink together too – that’s the way it is. Maybe this man didn’t like talking.
Ah, look, there’s Jasminot. Jasminot walked past the stranger and came in. He’d just had a shave, and his greying hair was neatly cut: he’d come straight from the barber’s. The other men round the bar greeted him with hoots of laughter.
‘Hey, Jasminot, don’t you look handsome!’
‘You in love or something?’
‘In love?’ Jasminot said. ‘It’s all very well for you idiots, I’m a lot older than you.’
‘Haven’t you heard, Jasminot, you’re only as old as you feel?’
‘Only as old as you feel,’ Jasminot said. ‘That reminds me of a story I know…’
‘Come on, tell us, we’ll buy you a drink.’
‘No, it’s my round,’ Jasminot said, ‘I’ve only just arrived.’
‘Right then, is it a love story?’
‘Definitely,’ Jasminot said.
‘Barman, Jasminot’s said he’ll stand six drinks…’
‘Seven including me,’ the barman said.
‘Once upon a time, there was this poor bloke,’ Jasminot said.
‘It’s not amusing, your story.’
‘It’s not amusing, but it is funny,’ Jasminot said.
‘We’re listening. Thanks, cheers…’
‘Once upon a time there was this poor bloke,’ Jasminot said, ‘this poor bloke who had killed his mistress. He’d chopped her up into little pieces and thrown her into the river at nightfall. At the trial, he didn’t say anything, he just sat there on his bench looking pathetic, as if he hadn’t heard what was going on. “Come on,” the judge roared at him, “you must answer the questions. What made you kill your girlfriend?” After a little while the chap opened his mouth and said feebly, “I loved her…” The judge yelled, “But for God’s sake, man, why did you chop her up into pieces and throw her in the river?” And the chap replied again, “I loved her.” “All right,” said the judge, “let’s leave him be, let’s pass sentence and give him hard labour for…”’
‘For life?’
‘No, for twenty years,’ Jasminot said, ‘but you mustn’t interrupt. At the verdict, the bloke still didn’t speak; he seemed indifferent, as if he hadn’t heard a thing. The judge shouted at him, “Twenty years! Did you hear me? You’ve got twenty years.” The poor bloke lifted his pathetic face a little and said, “When you’re in love, you’ve always got twenty years.”’
The men looked at Jasminot as he downed his drink and put his glass back on the counter.
‘That’s an odd story,’ said the barman. ‘You’ve taken us for a ride, Jasminot.’
‘It said what it wanted to say,’ Jasminot said. ‘And that’ll teach you to think I’m a show-off just because I’ve had my hair cut.’
Carrol was back. He propped an umbrella up against the bar and mingled with the group of men.
‘You go about with an umbrella these days?’ Carouges asked him.
‘And why shouldn’t he go about with an umbrella?’ Jasminot said.
Carrol looked at Jasminot and smiled; Jasminot winked back at him. I couldn’t see the man waiting outside the window any more. He’d gone, I didn’t know how long ago – presumably because the rain had stopped. Yes, Carrol’s jacket was perfectly dry. He’d changed his clothes: he was no longer wearing the blue canvas jacket, the jacket which had so often been soaked with rain, cold and wet like the material which my hand had touched when you and I were sitting on that slope and those black masses had filled the whole sky above our heads.
*
You had shivered with cold at my touch and I’d said, ‘Let’s not stay here,’ but you didn’t move. ‘You’re perished,’ I said. ‘Let’s go back, or go our separate ways, but let’s not stay here.’ ‘You’re cold too,’ you said. We crossed the road and came to the entrance to the gard
en, where we paused for a moment in the silence of the night. And then you said, ‘I’m leaving.’ You took my hand and held it in yours, saying, ‘You’re frozen.’ You held my hand against your cheek, then walked off down the road; I went back into the house.
I haven’t seen you since that night. But there have been long spells when we haven’t met. There was nothing to be done about it; there was absolutely nothing else to be done. The only way to construct a life, and to pretend to live, was outside that vision of ours. But its allure was so strong that in spite of our wish to escape, whenever we found each other again, by chance or by a miracle, we were quite unable to part for hours or even days on end. We stayed close to one another, on the threshold of our shadowy gate, our hands and bodies totally interlinked in a fierce tenderness. And if our eyes met, we’d say nothing, but we’d recognise the very same unique thought that made both our faces shine. It was as if that vision, which bound us together quite as strongly as the force which made us reject each other, was our only possible hope, our only chance of salvation.
‘Shall we go to Paulu’s place, then?’ Carrol said.
‘Yes,’ I said.
It was dark in the alley, but it was no longer raining, so Carrol’s umbrella had become unnecessary. He used it like a walking stick – it was the only sound that accompanied us on our way. As we crossed the little square, a swirl of wind shook the trees, releasing a brief shower of uneven raindrops. Suddenly, the view opened up and I could see, in the distance, that the sky had cleared; I could already see the glimmer of a clear night on the mountains. But still rising from the ground was that beautiful after-storm smell, a perfume hot and wet at the same time; it was as if the heat in the air was finally releasing itself after flowing back into the earth under the torrential rain. Everywhere there was silence and torpor: on the vines and the hard agaves, in the undergrowth, everywhere.
A Nail, a Rose Page 6