by Marie Ndiaye
“Please, stop talking about Paris,” said Herman softly, turning toward the window in spite of himself.
“Yes, yes, I know, your problem, your case!”
Gilbert gave a broad wave of disdain. Yes, he’d heard about it, what was the big deal? If something’s meant to be found it turns up, if it’s meant to be lost and forgotten no one will ever lay eyes on it again. So all Herman had to do was find out which of those his problem was, and then he’d understand, and there was no point in tormenting himself or trying to outsmart people.
Herman frowned and crossed his arms, but he was too tired to answer. Then Gilbert’s face and manner abruptly changed. He smiled, put on a genial air and slightly flexed his knees, bending his upper body toward Herman, charmingly casual. A thick lock of fine, almost white hair slipped over his forehead. In a much gentler voice he told Herman he was going to organize a four-man tennis match, and Herman would be his partner against Lemaître and someone from L., no doubt a friend of Lemaître’s—they’d have to see about that. It would be an interesting thing to do from many points of view.
Herman protested that he hadn’t played in years. And the thought of a tennis match, however improbable the prospect, made him even more tired than before. There was nothing appealing about Gilbert—but how very flattering and captivating he could be… It was all because of this place’s tradition of profound graciousness, because otherwise he was hardly even civil. He gave Herman the impression of a crude, menacing innocence, and he found it strangely agreeable not to resist him, although it wasn’t long ago at all that he would have serenely scorned these naïve attempts to charm him or maybe wouldn’t even have noticed them, wouldn’t have seen them or felt them.
“I went to Paris once,” said Gilbert, “but I didn’t have the money to stick around.”
He confided to Herman that he was counting on the district councilor, Lemaître, to give him a boost toward a comfortable, reasonably plush existence in Paris. Now he was counting on Herman too. Did Herman doubt the two of them could be friends? With a smile, Gilbert assured him he knew just how to go about winning Herman over.
“Yes, we’ll see,” murmured Herman, on the point of falling asleep on his chair.
He thought he could feel Gilbert bending his pale, hairless face even closer, friendly, interested, aquiver with the little calculations and ruses churning in his mind, and now intent on Herman with a persistence that—Herman thought, half-dreaming—would soon surely turn tiresome. He had to try to get back to Paris before anyone asked him for help he didn’t want to give, even as he was depending on everyone’s help to solve his problem. So from here on out he would have to be careful not to cross anyone.
4 – He must have slept soundly for three or four hours, because he woke up in the dark. From his pitch-black room, he saw the window across the way blazing with light, but with no sign of the face. Even as he was feeling a rush of relief, the woman reappeared, as if she’d made out that Herman was up now. She smiled at him broadly, which gave her rumpled features a certain elegant beauty, then nodded, pleased to see Herman again, relaxed and open-hearted. Then she put her forehead to the windowpane and stayed perfectly still. Slightly nettled, he wondered what had made her suspect he was awake and watching for her. What else could he conclude but that she’d felt it? He didn’t dare close the curtain, out of consideration for her feelings. Not to mention that he feared any failure to observe the ways of the village, and the danger of her spreading it around that he’d just moved in and was already hiding.
He left the room; it was six o’clock. In the silent hotel, heading downstairs to the lobby, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being spied on from every conceivable corner, but, he realized, he was growing used to the idea that he was never alone, no matter how it might seem, and even beginning to find, alongside his tenacious but fading resentment, a timid sort of pleasure in it.
Now he was outside, on the main street, his umbrella unfurled.
“How shameful,” he told himself, “sleeping all afternoon instead of looking for Rose while it was light.”
Then, almost gleefully, he hunched his shoulders, rounded his back, and set off for the town hall. This time he didn’t glance into the shops, reflecting that he lived in the heart of the village now, and didn’t have to face the inquisitive stares of the beribboned, breast-bound shopkeepers. Would they still look at him like that, seeing him come out of the Relais? Very possibly not, he told himself. So everything was going according to plan. He stopped to pick up a few things at the Co-op. He was almost out of money. And there was no bank or cash machine in the village. He’d have to go all the way to L., an undertaking whose prospect he found tedious and, though he didn’t know why, worrisome. If not to be heading home to Paris, was it a good idea to leave the village?
In the town hall’s vast, brightly lit lobby, he spotted Charlotte slumped on a chair, hands in her coat pockets, legs outstretched. Delighted at this excuse to go in, as he’d been wanting to do since he woke up not long before, he pushed open the glass door and cheerily hailed Charlotte, who answered him as always without surprise, pleasant and neutral. What was she doing here? She was waiting for Métilde, who got off at six thirty. Did she wait for her every evening? Oh no, today they’d made special arrangements. Ordinarily she’d be helping her mother at the Relais right now.
Herman put down his umbrella, pulled up a chair. The fleet-footed office girls came and went with the same vigorous gait as early that morning, never glancing their way, displaying, Herman understood, a professional conscientiousness that nothing could be allowed to distract. Charlotte studied the floor, her feet, seemingly impervious to boredom. Little wrinkles marked the corners of her mouth and eyes. With a slightly unwholesome compassion, Herman observed that beneath her loosely tied blouse her body was saggy for a young woman’s, and she wasn’t displaying it to its best advantage half sprawled out like that, with an indifference that bothered and saddened Herman. Again he felt a nagging desire to grab and shake her, to make her mouth divulge everything that was in her, everything she was, which he assumed to be incomprehensibly ordinary and flat but which, for that reason, he thought, would never stop goading his desire to know more, his curiosity and impatience—the more ordinary it was, he told himself, the less his longing would be satisfied, and the more his imagination would chase after what he dimly saw as the essence of Charlotte, perhaps still hidden to him alone. But she didn’t seem like she’d ever had the desire or capacity to hide anything at all; she didn’t seem as if she’d ever conceived of any reason for doing so.
Herman pulled his chair closer to Charlotte’s, and she gave him a vague smile. Where exactly in the Relais did she live, if she didn’t mind his asking? No, she didn’t mind, room eleven, with the president, she’d been living there for three years. So she lived with Alfred? A little taken aback at Herman’s surprise, Charlotte sweetly shrugged her shoulders. With Alfred, yes, so she and Herman were neighbors, and besides room eleven was one of the best and most expensive in the hotel. Needless to say it was Alfred who paid for it. But Charlotte didn’t have any ribbons? She let out an amused little chuckle.
“We’re not married,” she explained, “or engaged, so no, no ribbons in sight yet for me.”
Suddenly her eyes were twinkling as if someone had told a good joke. Where had that come from, asked Herman, displeased, the idea of moving in with Alfred? Wasn’t that a slightly odd way to live? Oh no, because Charlotte had had a room of her own for a very long time, until she was twenty-three or -four, on the second floor, overlooking the courtyard, but once her parents had needed it for an extra customer, and since they didn’t know where to put Charlotte her mother suggested she move in with the president, who liked her and agreed right away, and who was away all day long in any case and didn’t bother her at all. That was how her life with Alfred began. Charlotte had nothing to complain about. It worked out for everyone. Besides, wasn’t she a little too grown up now to have a room all to herself
, a room that could bring in money; even if, from another point of view, she did work at the Relais, to be sure, as hard as she could?
Herman snickered, and then, since the subject angered and saddened him, he dropped it to ask about Gilbert, Charlotte’s brother. He told her Gilbert had raised the possibility of a doubles match with the county councilor, but Herman wasn’t inclined to accept.
Charlotte blushed slightly, and for the first time since the start of their conversation she turned to Herman and looked at him straight on. But the tone of her voice was unchanged, slightly leaden, apathetic. She made pronunciation mistakes that offended Herman’s ears, however he tried to ignore them. He mustn’t refuse, she was saying, because Gilbert would be hurt and there had to be a good reason why Gilbert wanted Herman as a partner, something to do with the way he’d been courting the district councilor for two or three years—it was time something came of that, and why shouldn’t Herman help out if he could? Gilbert deserved it, Charlotte was convinced of that. And according to him when you live in such a remote village your only chance at bettering yourself is to climb onto the solid shoulders of some well-placed person, earning his goodwill and even making yourself—as Gilbert was doing with Lemaître—indispensable. No doubt the tennis match with Herman would put the crowning touch on certain specific efforts Gilbert had made, efforts whose nature Charlotte didn’t know, but all along he’d shown a willingness to do many things to ingratiate himself with Lemaître, in a spirit of self-abnegation that Charlotte admired and supported, she herself having no ambition to pride herself on. Gilbert’s willingness to do anything, yes, she admired that. His willingness, if necessary, to abandon all pride, respect for custom, decency, yes, she admired that too. Because she herself was far too weak and too stupid to set her mind on anything, that’s just how it was.
And Charlotte went on in a flurry of banal truisms, deformed proverbs, and tired clichés that Herman was no longer listening to. He simply looked at her, frowning, unsatisfied. And with great difficulty he held back from touching her, groping her, pawing her in some way—pitying her and vaguely resenting her for it.
“What about Alfred?” he said. “What are you hoping for from him?”
But she couldn’t think what she might hope for from anyone, because there was nothing she wanted. It was enough for her to help out by staying on at the Relais instead of moving to the Hôtel du Commerce, the village’s other boarding house, where the prices were slightly lower. She had nothing to complain about. Everyone treated her well, particularly Alfred, who was very nice to share his room with her. Charlotte’s mother didn’t even give him a discount.
“You’re not sharing his room,” said Herman. “He took you in, that’s all.”
But Charlotte didn’t understand these semantic subtleties. She shrugged, and her slightly weary face went even blanker than before. Doing nothing to hide it, she waited for Herman to change the subject or stop talking, and she too was capable of anything, although she hadn’t chosen to be, and didn’t realize that she was.
Finally, Métilde appeared, the last of thirty-some secretaries and office workers to come through the door. Emerging behind her, a man gently pushed her aside and hurried out into the street. He’d put on a rain hat, a yellow oilcloth hat, like a sailor’s.
“Hey, the mayor,” said Charlotte, dully.
“I have to see him!” Herman cried.
But he didn’t even try to go after him. He was more eager to say hello to Métilde, to exchange a few words with her there in the lobby.
“I’ll talk to him tomorrow,” he said.
He thought informing the mayor of his situation was simply his duty, and he was no longer convinced the mayor would be shocked and take immediate, concrete steps to help him. In all honesty, he no longer even saw that as a possibility. Happily resigned, he told himself the village would decide his fate. But he didn’t like people openly disregarding his case, and in a firm voice, meant to be heard by the two women, he added:
“Yes, tomorrow I’ll talk to him, definitely.”
He was happy to see that Métilde greeted his presence with visible pleasure and curiosity. She invited him to come along to her apartment for an aperitif. And her chignon was as perfectly smooth as it had been that morning, her cheeks dewy and fresh, her brow authoritarian and resolute. She brazenly grasped Charlotte’s arm. In fact, she seemed to share Herman’s irrepressible desire to handle her friend’s flaccid body, because he saw her poking and kneading it with a sort of implacable ardor but no plausible pretext. She clasped Charlotte’s waist as if to help her up, then clutched Charlotte’s two hands in hers, then suddenly squeezed her shoulders and palpated the back of her neck with little sighs of hungry contentment, while Herman, envying her freedom to give Charlotte this unusual treatment, wondered what sort of agreement between them had accorded Métilde the privilege she was so casually exercising there in the lobby of the town hall, before the eyes of a stranger.
Charlotte did nothing to stop her. Suddenly annoyed, as if in a fit of frustration at some vague, repeated failure, Métilde let go of her friend and called to Herman:
“Let’s go to my apartment. You can help me make her see sense.”
And Charlotte let out a little giggle.
Soon they were in Métilde’s room on the top floor of the bakers’ house, for which she paid what Herman considered a vastly inflated fifteen hundred francs a month. But rooms to rent were scarce in the village. Having left the family farm some thirty kilometers away to come and work in the town hall, Métilde had been delighted by the bakers’ price. Besides, as Herman understood it, no one saw anything contemptible—only the natural order of things—in the greed of the local merchants, highly regarded as they were for their influence over the mayor, for their network of contacts all over the region, even beyond L., and also perhaps for the indisputable majesty of the wives, whether straight and severe or gracefully bowed behind their counters, twelve hours a day—their grace was genuinely inexhaustible, unaffected by late-afternoon fatigue or miserly customers.
Herman was surprised to find Métilde’s tidy little room filled with books. Everywhere he looked he saw works on accounting, manuals for word processing machines, self-taught courses in secretarial skills, treatises on marketing, all the many ways to self-improvement. Apart from that, there were only a few old pieces of furniture loaned by the bakers; the bed was draped with a comforter, the curtains were crocheted. Charlotte half reclined on the comforter, sighing with happiness.
“She’s going to fall asleep,” said Métilde.
She hurried forward to tug at Charlotte and sit her up on the edge of the bed. Charlotte frowned gently. But she obediently held the position Métilde had imposed on her, arms crossed over her thighs, mouth agape from dreaminess or exhaustion. As Métilde got out the bottles and glasses, scurrying from the sink to the armoire, she explained to Herman, in her crisp voice untouched by the slightest trace of weariness, that she’d been studying tirelessly for two years, all on her own, in hopes of one day finding work as an administrative assistant in L., because her ambition was not, absolutely not, to end up as a receptionist in the village town hall, or even a summer employee at the Chamber of Commerce; no, her ambition was to push herself, through work and will, all the way to L., where she’d set her sights on a number of businesses. She would soon take the exam for the Vocational Training Certificate, which meant going to L., sometime in April. She blushed a little as she spoke, and turned away in what Herman told himself was a blend of pride and trepidation.
He complimented her, but the sight of her books with their dry titles and cover photographs of determined, striving people filled him with a sudden exhaustion, as when Gilbert brought up the tennis match. He wished he could bury his nose in the comforter and its very discreet attic smell. But he was stirred by Métilde’s intensity. Again he wished her immediate success.
“Oh yes,” said Charlotte.
She was visibly forcing herself not to drop back on
the mattress. Métilde poured glasses of fortified wine and sat down beside Charlotte. Again she explained to Herman what she’d meant earlier when she spoke of making Charlotte see sense. She meant nothing less than convincing her to give up the life she was leading, persuading her to follow in Métilde’s own footsteps, who would gladly sacrifice all she had to support and guide her, to convince her to work toward a career, like Métilde, and to become at long last a free and accomplished person, far from the village, where pernicious influences kept her down. Charlotte, said Métilde, was by nature an undemanding and cooperative person, powerless to resist the machinations aiming to make her serve the most ignoble interests, and—worst of all—interests deeply counter to her own, which out of pure apathy she refused to see. But Métilde knew what Charlotte’s best interests were. And so, bent toward Herman, her eye slightly fevered, she admitted unblinkingly that she would gladly renounce her ambitions if it meant she could give her friend a hand, as long as Charlotte committed to following her advice. Everything she’d read, everything she’d learned, all the efforts she’d made over the previous two years, she would happily offer it all up to Charlotte if she would only say at last that she was ready to receive her teaching, that it was long past time. She could quickly teach Charlotte the rudiments of secretarial work. Then she would help her study for her Vocational Training Certificate, which Métilde called the true key to a freedom no one had ever thought of giving Charlotte; a freedom she was too weak to demand, couldn’t even imagine, a freedom that would blossom in the lively, hard-working life of an executive secretary, for instance, at the Bodin Marble Works in L., where Métilde knew the switchboard operator. And then, if Charlotte ever appeared in the village again, it would be at the wheel of her own car, and no one would ask anything of her; she would sleep in her own room and pay for everything with her own money. Such was Métilde’s vision for Charlotte. And all her own successes meant nothing to her next to that.