by Marie Ndiaye
“Does she answer?” asked Herman.
No, of course not. Didn’t Herman understand, asked the mayor in surprise, that he was talking about emanations, not people? About visible, gracious souls, not bodies and minds?
Herman let out a little laugh. An awkward silence ensued. Although clearly bored with the discussion of things that ordinarily needed no explaining, the mayor seemed politely insistent on telling Herman everything he knew, as if, thought Herman, he was a villager now, and had to be taught.
“And why does what happens happen?” Herman asked meekly.
A brief flash of gratification further brightened the mayor’s almost transparent eyes. He couldn’t tell him anything certain, but his opinion was this: in the cases he knew best, though Herman’s wasn’t yet among them, one of the spouses felt an insurmountable repulsion when it came time to start back to Paris on the thirty-first of August. On one pretext or another, that person got away from the house, set off into the countryside or came down to the village in the no doubt half-aware hope that something would happen to prevent the return. Their distress in that moment, thought the mayor, must have been intense. And then they were seen again some time later, in the airy form Herman had observed in Alfred’s wife, and—most importantly—bound for all time to the village. The abandoned wife or husband generally stayed. Some left for home, but the stubborn soul never did go back to Paris. It settled into the village or in some quiet spot on the plateau; it showed itself or it didn’t. Those beings’ personalities varied. They were never a nuisance—yes, people were fond of them. And they’re so discreet, why get hung up on them? The mayor assured Herman that people forgot about them like they forgot about the rain, like they forgot about the stones and the grass by the roadsides.
“Is it really because they suddenly can’t stand the thought of Paris?” asked Herman. “Why would that be?”
“I have no idea, I don’t know Paris,” said the mayor.
He added that, in his opinion, the repugnance for Paris and the longing to stay that transformed those afflicted with what he called village sickness into pure evanescences might, without either one’s knowing it, have met a similar repugnance and a similar longing, only a little less powerful, in the other partner, who for that reason adapted without difficulty to the new state of affairs, and, like Alfred, no longer seriously considered trying to change it. Who knows, the mayor went on with a sly smile, maybe Alfred had endeavored to inspire that illness in his wife, not having the courage and will to enter the floating state himself? But the souls were happy—the mayor could assure Herman of that. They had what they’d pined for as captives of the practical world: an eternal, peaceful existence in the village, a knowledge of the off-season far from Paris, and the constant rain, and the comfort it brings. Gloating, the mayor asked:
“Have you noticed, Monsieur Herman, you can’t even see the hills anymore! By the eighth or ninth of September the horizon disappears, everything’s gray; this is nowhere, we’re in the very middle of nowhere!”
Seeing Herman smile but make no reply, he added by way of conclusion that if all this interested him he had only to wait for the gliding, impalpable forms of Rose and the little boy to appear, though they might very well stay hidden. He said again that he thought he recognized Herman as one of those husbands who wouldn’t be going home.
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Herman protested weakly.
If he did stay, and if he needed money, the mayor could find him work giving math lessons to the shopkeepers’ children—private lessons being greatly sought-after in the village at the moment, primarily for the touch of prestige they conferred.
“For now, I’d just like to withdraw some money from the bank,” said Herman.
“Then ask Gilbert to drive you to L.”
The mayor stood up. He probably knew the details of Herman’s life in the village better than Herman did himself.
Back at the hotel, as Herman lay stretched out on the bed, drifting off to sleep, Charlotte’s mother came to tell him he was wanted on the telephone downstairs. He went down in his stocking feet, as he inevitably did in the Relais now, lacking the initiative to put on his shoes.
It was the principal of the Parisian high school where Herman had been teaching for nearly twenty years. Herman listened in contrite silence as the principal complained about the difficulties he’d had getting ahold of him. It was a little after ten o’clock. Herman heard recess sounds on the other end of the line. A little surge of nostalgia made him tighten his grip on the receiver, absorbed in his thoughts. They were worried; they’d been surprised not to see him there on the first day of class. What were they supposed to think, what decision should they make? Herman wearily explained that he couldn’t possibly consider going back to work until he’d seen Rose and the child, which the principal entirely understood, his tone turning grave and respectful. He was aware of Herman’s case, thanks to a brief story from the local press reprinted in a Paris newspaper. It was known in Paris that such things happened, and the principal was deeply sorry, but not shocked. He simply hoped Herman would be home before they were forced to find a replacement for him. He offered his condolences. And when, with a little laugh, Herman refused them, the principal didn’t back down, defending the opinion of the newspaper he’d read, which said people who disappeared there disappeared forever.
“That’s not exactly what they told me,” Herman asserted.
But the principal was sure of his information, although that was as much as he knew: no family thus separated had ever been reunited.
“Well, we’ll see,” said Herman, breezily.
And he shivered with relief as he heard the end-of-recess bell ring back in Paris. He was so happy to be standing in his socks in the Relais’s silent dining room, observed and spied on by Charlotte’s mother, to be sure, and robbed of any opportunity to be completely alone, but, he reflected, since he never had to deal with anyone who thought like he did, as his Parisian friends and colleagues did, strangely delivered of the obligation to keep up a dignified appearance.
3 – Two or three days later, just before dinnertime, Herman was coming home from Métilde’s, where they’d examined a pamphlet she’d gotten on the career opportunities offered by a Vocational Training Certificate. With Gilbert not there and both of them sitting on the bed, she’d taken the opportunity to vigorously press her body to Herman’s.
“I’m bothering you,” she’d said sadly, as Herman sat stock still.
He was simply a little afraid of Gilbert, now that it had been agreed he’d be taking Herman to L., but he didn’t dare admit it to Métilde, who sighed, turning away. In profile, he saw her nose turn red. And so his mood was downcast when he left her.
Out on the main street, he didn’t immediately open his umbrella. The cold was sharper than the day before, and he thought there would be a freeze that night, the rain had become a fine drizzle. And then, as if they’d just come out of the closed house-wares store on the corner of the main street and the square, he saw Rose and the little one, hand in hand. They came toward him, bareheaded, in the same summer clothes they were wearing three weeks ago. Like Herman’s, their hair was dripping, and Rose’s short skirt clung to her thighs. The boy looked terribly thin, and his T-shirt was plastered to his ribs. Herman stood frozen in terror. Why was he afraid? In spite of the cold, neither Rose nor the child trembled. There was nothing unusual about the look on their faces: it was peaceful, a little misty, but not so changed that Herman had any reason to be petrified. And yet he was. The umbrella fell to the ground and rolled into the gutter. Rose looked at him and smiled as they strolled past. It was a distant, impersonal gaze, a polite smile, nothing more. The sidewalk wasn’t wide, and Herman thought Rose’s arm had to have brushed against his. But he hadn’t felt it—he was in fact sure there’d been no real physical contact. With great difficulty, he forced himself to turn around, and—relieved but still shivering—he watched them walk off, quickly, lightly, with eminently graceful
steps. It almost seemed that the boy’s slender legs were being moved by strings, delicately pulled to make him look as if he were dancing. Shouldn’t Herman catch up with them and take them in his arms? It was only his fear of Gilbert that had stopped him from going to bed with Métilde a while ago, and so perhaps this meeting with Rose filled him with guilt, however convinced he was that she couldn’t possibly know.
He forced himself to follow them all the same. In a tiny little voice, he even called out:
“Hey, Rose!”
But he was glad to see that she didn’t turn around. They soon stopped at the window of the shoe store, and Rose seemed to reach for the door. Before Herman could see the door open they went in, disappeared into the dark shop, and if the door had opened, it was now closed again. Nothing was moving on the main street. No light filtered from the windows of the shoe shop. Herman didn’t hear a sound, not even the rain, which his ears had grown used to and no longer noticed, by day or by night.
He hurried back to the Relais, but he didn’t dare speak of what he’d seen to Alfred. He’d already noticed that the president walked with a perfectly relaxed gait back and forth in front of his window, in front of the attentive, ever benevolent gaze of the form across the way, sometimes glancing toward the glass—never speaking of the face, but never avoiding it either.
But the next morning Herman went back to the shoe store.
“If Rose did recognize me,” he asked himself, “what must she have thought?”
Now he was thinking he could make up for his behavior the evening before by showing Rose he had been looking for her. He stood for a moment at the rain-blind window. The shop sold nothing but slippers, espadrilles, and rubber boots. He was afraid to go in, terrified at the idea of seeing Rose again. The shopkeeper welcomed him into the empty store with the wide, charming, cold smile Herman was now so used to seeing in the village, which he sensed he was slowly coming to imitate, showing his teeth more than he ever did before, ducking his head until his chin almost touched his chest, and so peering up in an involuntarily cajoling way. Severely confined by her blouse, the woman’s breath was labored and loud. Her face was deep red from the tightly pulled cords, her posture was unnaturally straight, and she often put her hand to her chest as if asking its forgiveness for what she was forcing it to endure. Ill at ease, Herman tried hard to seem relaxed. He wandered around the shop for a moment, then asked, too abruptly: did she have any rooms that weren’t occupied by the house’s inhabitants?
“Yes, we have two or three empty bedrooms,” she graciously answered, and she nodded once, twice, although every move left her even more short of breath. Pulled up into a chignon, her hair was so pale and fine that Herman began to wonder if it was indeed a physical substance and not a sort of halo, discreetly ordinary in its appearance, but a halo all the same.
“And is it possible,” Herman went on, “is it possible that there’s someone living in one of those rooms at the moment?”
“Of course, there might be. Who can ever be sure there isn’t? At the moment,” the woman assured him, “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
She laughed a little, vaguely flirtatious. But Herman sensed she was taking particular care to put on a charming, carefree face because she wasn’t happy with his questions. He realized he shouldn’t have forced her to speak of her permanent tenants, who were obviously well known to everyone. Still, didn’t he have every right to seek some confirmation of what he’d felt upon running into Rose the evening before?
And now, at the hotel, Alfred was taking him to task for his behavior with the woman in the shoe shop, having heard of it even before Herman came back. Herman had committed a grave offense against good taste, said Alfred. He must never again question any villager on those phenomena; there was nothing remotely interesting about them. Then he smiled, triumphant:
“Didn’t I tell you you’d see them again?”
“But I want to talk to them,” said Herman.
“That’s impossible, they’re not going to answer you, that’s just how it is. And why bother them? From this point forward,” Alfred said solemnly, “you must try to be as perfectly happy in the village as they are in their eternal drifting—without cares, without ambitions, free of any binding relationship.” He lowered his voice. He was standing in Herman’s room with his back to the window, but Herman could see that the face across the way never took its eyes off him.
“We just have to stay, don’t you agree, it would be too terrible to abandon them,” Alfred whispered, his eyes damp.
4 – The days went by in the village, Herman no longer troubling to determine the date. Lying on his bed, hands clasped behind his neck, he watched the comings and goings through his open door, and that was all that occupied him for the day. When Charlotte went by he sat up, called out to her, and they exchanged a few words about the rain. Now he wished he’d accepted Alfred’s offer to have Charlotte serve him his breakfast. But ever since his meeting with Rose and the child, ever since he’d learned that they’d both taken up residence in the village, he’d noticed that Alfred seemed less bent on convincing him to stay, clearly thinking the matter was settled, so Herman feared that Charlotte’s services would end up on his bill rather than Alfred’s as Alfred had first suggested, back, as Herman remembered, when Alfred still had some reason to fear he might go home to Paris. And out of pure laziness Herman still hadn’t challenged the absurdly high rate he was being charged for his bed and board. He could easily imagine Charlotte’s mother asking an outrageous price for her daughter’s attentions. With calculated regularity she bemoaned the fact that she was still supporting her two adult children, deploring the dearth of career opportunities in the village, grimly portraying herself as ruined through the fault of those two jobless young people. And she strongly encouraged any contacts or connections they might forge here or there—Charlotte at the Relais, Gilbert on his excursions to the subprefecture—so strongly that it would have been difficult to break them off without her permission. She had, according to Alfred who didn’t trust her, the typical mindset of a village merchant.
She came looking for Herman, greeted him with a deep bow, and said:
“They’re holding the annual merchants’ dinner tonight, at the charcuterie, around eight o’clock. Would you do us the honor of joining us, dear Monsieur Herman?”
Still lying on his bed, he vaguely lifted his head and asked if the owner of the shoe store would be there.
“Of course, every shopkeeper, hotelier, and café owner in the village will be there, and so will the mayor. You’ll be a special guest, we’d so like to have you,” Charlotte’s mother purred.
She slipped out, certain of Herman’s consent, and her espadrilles slapped lazily down the stairs, a little sound now familiar and dear to Herman’s ear, like the sound of the rain.
That evening, he had to walk only a few steps to reach the neighboring charcuterie. Charlotte had pressed his one suit, a linen suit he’d been wearing since summer. He’d shaved for the occasion, and trimmed the hair on the back of his neck. He was excited by the invitation, but apprehensive. This, he understood, was an exceptional honor they were granting him, seeking his presence at a gathering to which only merchants were called. He believed they were even allowing the mayor a privilege that was in no way automatic, about which he had every reason to be flattered, mayor though he be. And he, Herman, a former Parisian, had earned this honor by his rigorously appropriate attitude, and also no doubt by his presumed ability to offer invaluable services of some sort—as a teacher full of wise counsel—even if at the moment he wasn’t working, and regularly showed himself in the most slovenly attire.
He opened the door to the closed shop, the little bells tinkling overhead. The charcutière immediately appeared and led him up the traditional narrow, winding staircase to the second floor. The other guests were already there, she told him, and Herman saw her tall mass of tightly bound, nearly white hair dimly luminescing in the darkness. He nervously stepped into the dining r
oom, where a long table of twenty-five or thirty places had been set, and hurried to sit in the seat pointed out by his hostess, between Charlotte’s mother and the head of the village real-estate agency. The room was small and low-ceilinged, as was usual in houses in the center of the village, darkened by thick beams and meagerly windowed. The table completely filled the room, which was lit only by a floor lamp in the corner, so it took Herman some time to make out his tablemates’ faces. A fire was crackling in the oversized fireplace just behind the couple who ran the antique shop, both of them peering down their noses. The rain slapped the windowpanes, and the two satellite dishes recently installed on a slope of the roof knocked together in the furious wind.