The ministries lay pale and colorless, the garlands of light had gone out, the dancing Tritons and Nereids of the white nights of foam had stiffened to gray shapeless lumps on their dolphins, the fountains were laid waste, the flowing water obscured, the once brilliant obelisk rose leadenly like a mighty threatening finger of eternity in the darkened sky, and everywhere, like microbes, crept out the small, dim blue, hardly visible electric bulbs of the air-raid alarm, and with a dirty glimmer spread like cosmic tuberculosis over the silently collapsing city.
Ravic returned the car. He took a taxi and drove to the International. At the door the son of the landlady was standing on a ladder. He was screwing in a blue bulb. The light of the hotel entrance had always been strong enough only to light up the sign; but now the small blue gleam was no longer adequate. It missed the first half of the sign. One could just make out the word “—national,” and even that only with care.
“Thank God, you are here,” the landlady said. “Someone has gone crazy. Number seven. The best thing would be to get her out of the house. I can’t have lunatics in the hotel.”
“Maybe she isn’t crazy. Maybe it’s only a nervous breakdown.”
“It’s all the same! Lunatics belong in an asylum. I’ve told them. Of course they don’t want to. What trouble they cause! If she doesn’t calm down, she must get out. It can’t go on. The other guests have to sleep.”
“The other day someone went crazy at the Ritz,” Ravic said. “A prince. All the Americans wanted to move into his suite afterward.”
“That’s something else. That’s becoming crazy from folly. That’s elegant. Not crazy from misery.”
Ravic looked at her. “You understand life, madame.”
“I have to. I’m a good-natured person. I took the refugees into my house. All of them. All right, I made money out of them. A little. But a crazy woman that cries, that’s too much. She must get out of the house if she doesn’t calm down.”
It was the woman whose son had asked why he was a Jew. She sat, squeezed into a corner of the bed, her hands to her eyes. The room was brightly lit. All the bulbs were turned on and, in addition, two holders with candles stood on the table.
“Cockroaches,” the woman murmured. “Cockroaches! Black fat shiny cockroaches! There, in the corners, there they sit, thousands, innumerable, turn on the light, turn on the light, the light, or else they will come, light, light, they are coming, they are coming—”
She yelled, pressed into the corner, her arms braced in front of her, her legs pulled high, her eyes glassy and wide open. Her husband tried to take her hands. “But there is nothing, mamma, nothing in the corners—”
“Light, light! They are coming! Cockroaches—”
“We do have light, mamma. But there is light, only look, even candles on the table.” He took a flashlight out of his pocket and directed the beam into the bright corners of the brightly lit room. “Nothing is in the corners, look here, look how I shine the light there, there is nothing, nothing—”
“Cockroaches! Cockroaches! They are coming, everything’s black with cockroaches, out of all the corners, light, light, they are creeping on the walls, they are falling from the ceiling!”
The woman’s breath rattled and she raised her arms over her head. “How long has this been going on?” Ravic asked the man.
“Since it became dark. I was not in. I was trying again; I was told to go to the Haitian consulate, I took the boy with me; it was useless again, and when we got back, she was sitting there in the corner on the bed and yelling—”
Ravic had the needle ready. “Was she asleep earlier?”
The man looked at him helplessly. “I don’t know. She was always quiet. We have no money for an asylum. We also have no—our papers are not sufficient. If only she would be quiet. But, mamma, everyone is here, I’m here, Siegfried is here, the doctor is here, no cockroaches are here—”
“Cockroaches,” interrupted the woman. “From all sides! They smell! How they smell!”
Ravic gave her the injection. “Has she ever had anything like this before?”
“No. Never. I can’t understand it. I don’t know why she just—”
Ravic raised his hand. “Don’t remind her of it. In a few minutes she will become tired and fall asleep. It could be that she dreamed of—and was startled. Maybe she will wake up tomorrow and not remember anything. Don’t remind her of it. Act as if nothing had happened.”
“Cockroaches,” the woman muttered drowsily. “Fat, thick—”
“Do you need all this light?”
“We put them on because she kept crying for light.”
“Put out the upper light. Keep the others on until she is sound asleep. She’ll sleep. The dose is large enough. I’ll look in on her tomorrow morning at eleven.”
“Thank you,” the man said. “You don’t think—”
“No. These things happen often nowadays. Some caution during the next few days. Don’t show your worries too much—”
Easily said, he thought, as he went up to his room. He turned on the light. A few books stood by his bed. Seneca, Schopenhauer, Plato, Rilke, Lao-Tze, Li Po, Pascal, Heraclitus, a Bible, other books—the hardest and the softest, many in thin-paper editions for someone who was on the road and could take little with him. He selected what he intended to take along. Then he looked through his other things. There was not much to destroy. He had always lived so that they could call for him at any time. His old blanket, his dressing gown—they would help him like friends. The poison in the hollow locket which he had previously taken with him into the German concentration camp—the knowledge that he had it and could use it at any moment had made the ordeal easier to stand—he put the locket into his pocket. Better to have it with him. It gave one reassurance. One could never tell what might happen. One might be caught again by the Gestapo. Half a bottle of calvados was still standing on the table. He took a drink. France, he thought. Five years of unquiet life. Three months in prison, illegal residence, deported four times, returned. Five years of life. It had been good.
33
THE TELEPHONE RANG. He lifted the receiver drowsily.
“Ravic—” someone said.
“Yes—” It was Joan.
“Come,” she said. She spoke slowly and softly. “Right away, Ravic—”
“No—”
“You must—”
“No. Leave me in peace. I am not alone. I’m not coming.”
“Help me—”
“I cannot help you—”
“Something has happened—” Her voice sounded broken. “You must—right away—”
“Joan,” Ravic said impatiently. “There is no more time for such play acting. You’ve done this to me before and I was taken in. Now I know about it. Leave me alone. Try it with someone else.”
He hung up the receiver without waiting for an answer and tried to go to sleep again. He did not succeed. The telephone rang once more. He did not lift the receiver. It rang and rang through the gray, desolate night. He took a pillow and put it over the instrument. It continued its muffled ringing and then stopped.
Ravic waited. It remained silent. He got up and reached for a cigarette. It did not taste good. He put it out. The remainder of the calvados stood on the table. He took a swallow and put it away. Coffee, he thought. Hot coffee. Butter and fresh croissants. He knew a bistro that stayed open all night.
He looked at his watch. He had slept for two hours, but he wasn’t tired any more. There was no point now in falling into a second deep sleep and waking up groggy. He went into the bathroom and turned on the shower.
A noise. The telephone again? He turned off the tap. A sound of knocking. Someone was knocking at his door. Ravic put on his bathrobe. The knocking became louder. It could not be Joan; she would have come in. The door was not locked. He waited a moment before going. If it were the police already—
He opened the door. Outside stood a man whom he did not know but who reminded him of somebody. He was wear
ing a tuxedo.
“Doctor Ravic?”
Ravic did not reply. He looked at the man. “What do you want?” he asked.
“Are you Doctor Ravic?”
“You’d better tell me what you want.”
“If you are Doctor Ravic, you’ve got to come immediately to Joan Madou.”
“Really?”
“She has had an accident—”
“What kind of accident?” Ravic smiled incredulously.
“With a gun,” the man said. “It went off—”
“Was she hit?” Ravic asked still smiling. Probably a fake attempted suicide, he thought, to frighten this poor devil.
“My God, she’s dying,” the man whispered. “You must come! She’s dying! I shot her!”
“What?”
“Yes—I—”
Ravic had already thrown off the bathrobe and reached for his things. “Have you a taxi downstairs?”
“I have my car—”
“Damn it—” Ravic flung his bathrobe over his shoulders again, took his bag and reached for his shoes, and his shirt, and his suit. “I can put these on in the car—come—quickly.”
The car shot through the milky night. The city was completely blacked out. There were no streets any longer—only a floating misty space out of which blue air-raid lights emerged forlornly and too late—as if the car were driving on the bottom of the sea.
Ravic put on his shoes and his other things. He squeezed the bathrobe in which he had run down, into the corner by the seat. He had no socks and no tie. He stared restlessly into the night. There was no point in asking anything of the man who was driving. He drove with full concentration, very fast and paying complete attention to the direction in which he was going. He had no time to say anything. He could only swing the car around, make way for others, avoid accidents, and take care not to lose his way in the unaccustomed darkness. Fifteen minutes lost, Ravic thought. At least fifteen minutes.
“Drive faster!” he said.
“I can’t—without headlights—dimmed—air-raid precautions—”
“Damn it, then drive with headlights!”
The man turned on the big lights. A few policemen shouted at the intersections. A dazzled Renault almost collided with them. “Go on. Keep going! Faster!”
The car stopped with a jerk in front of the house. The elevator was at the ground floor. Its door was open. Somewhere, someone was ringing for it furiously. Probably the man had not shut the door when he had rushed out. Good, Ravic thought, a few minutes saved.
The elevator crept upward. It stopped at the fourth floor. Someone looked through its window and opened the door. “What do you mean by keeping the elevator downstairs for such a long time?”
It was the man who had been pressing the button. Ravic pushed him back and closed the door. “Right away! We must go up first.”
The man, outside, cursed. The elevator continued its crawl. The man on the fourth floor pressed the button furiously. The elevator stopped. Ravic flung the door open before the man downstairs could start any nonsense and get the elevator down again with them in it.
Joan was lying on her bed. She was dressed. An evening gown. High at the neck. Silver, with stains of blood. Blood on the floor where she had fallen. Then the idiot had laid her on the bed.
“Be calm!” he said. “Be calm! Everything will be all right. It isn’t very bad.”
He cut the shoulder straps of the evening gown and carefully pulled it down. Her breast was uninjured. It was her throat. The larynx could not have been hurt; otherwise she would not have been able to telephone. The artery was uninjured.
“Are you in pain?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Very much?”
“Yes—”
“That will be over soon.…”
The injection was ready. He saw Joan’s eyes. “Nothing. Only for the pain. It will stop at once.”
He applied the needle and drew it out. “All done.” He turned to the man. “Call up Passy 2741. Order an ambulance with two stretcher-bearers. Right away!”
“What is it?” Joan asked with an effort.
“Passy 2741,” Ravic said. “At once! Go ahead! Start telephoning!”
“What is it, Ravic?”
“Nothing dangerous. But we can’t examine it here. You’ve got to go to a hospital.”
She looked at him. Her face was smeared, the mascara had run from her eyelashes and her lipstick was rubbed up on one side. One side of her face looked like that of a cheap circus clown, the other with the black smear under her eye like that of a tired, worn-out whore. Over it her hair shone.
“I don’t want to be operated on,” she whispered.
“We’ll see. Maybe we won’t have to.”
“Is it—” She stopped.
“No,” Ravic said. “Not serious. Only we have all the instruments there.”
“Instruments—”
“For the examination. Now I’ll—it won’t hurt—”
The injection had taken effect. Her eyes lost their anxious fixity, while Ravic cautiously examined her.
The man returned. “The ambulance is on its way.”
“Call up Auteuil 1357. It’s a hospital. I’ll talk to them.”
The man disappeared obediently. “You will help me—” Joan whispered.
“Of course.”
“I don’t want to have pain.”
“You won’t.”
“I can’t—I can’t endure—” She became drowsy. Her voice died down. “I can’t—”
Ravic looked at the wound where the bullet had entered. None of the large vessels was injured. He saw no wound where the bullet had left. He did not say anything. He applied a compress bandage. He did not say what he feared. “Who put you on the bed?” he asked. “Did you—”
“He—”
“Were you—could you walk?”
Alarmed, her eyes returned from veiled lakes. “What? Is it—I—no—I could not move my foot. My leg—what is it, Ravic?”
“Nothing. I thought so. You’ll be all right again.”
The man appeared. “The hospital—”
Ravic quickly went to the telephone. “Who is it? Eugénie? A room—yes—and call up Veber.” He looked toward the bedroom. Softly: “Have everything ready. We must go to work right away. I’ve ordered an ambulance. An accident—yes—yes—right—yes—in ten minutes—”
He hung up. He stayed where he was for a while. The table. A bottle of crème de menthe, disgusting stuff, glasses, perfumed cigarettes, abominable, all this was like a bad movie, a gun on the rug, blood here too, everything unreal, what makes me feel that? he thought. It is true—and now he also knew who the other man was that had called for him. The suit with those padded shoulders, that smoothly brushed pomaded hair, the slight smell of toilet water that had irritated him in the car, those rings on his fingers—it was the actor all right about whose threats he had laughed so much. Well aimed, he thought. Not aimed at all, he thought. Such a shot could not have been aimed, one could hit with such precision only when one had no such idea and did not intend to hit at all.
He went back. The man was kneeling by the bed. Of course kneeling, it could not be otherwise, talking, wailing, talking, syllables rolling from his tongue. “Get up,” Ravic said.
The man rose obediently. Absent-mindedly he brushed the dust from the knees of his trousers. Ravic looked at his face. Tears! That too! “I did not intend to, sir! I swear I didn’t mean to hit her, I did not intend to, an accident, a blind, unhappy accident!”
Ravic’s stomach contracted. Blind accident! Soon he’ll talk in blank verse! “I know that. Now go down and wait for the ambulance.”
The man wanted to say something. “Go!” Ravic said. “Keep that damn elevator ready. God knows how we’ll get down with the stretcher.”
“You’ll help me, Ravic,” Joan said drowsily.
“Yes,” he said without hope.
“You are here. I am always at peace when you are with me.
”
The smeared face smiled. The clown grinned, the whore smiled laboriously.
“Bébée, I didn’t—” the man said at the door.
“Get out!” Ravic said. “Damn it, go, will you!”
Joan lay still for a while. Then she opened her eyes. “He is an idiot,” she said with surprising clarity. “Naturally he didn’t intend to—the poor lamb—only wanted to show off.” A strange, almost impish expression was in her eyes. “I too never believed it—I teased him—into—”
“You must not talk.”
“Teased—” Her eyes narrowed to a slit. “Now that’s the way I am, Ravic—my life—he didn’t want to hit—hit—and—”
The eyes closed completely. The smile died away. Ravic kept listening in the direction of the door.
———
“We can’t get the stretcher into the elevator. It is too narrow. At best, half upright.”
“Can you get it around the landings?”
The interne went out. “Maybe. We would have to raise it high. We’d better tie her down.”
They fastened her. Joan was half asleep. At times she groaned. The internes left the apartment. “Have you a key?” Ravic asked the actor.
“I—no, why?”
“To lock the apartment.”
“No. But there is a key somewhere.”
“Look for it and lock the door.” The internes were busy on the first landing. “Take the revolver with you. You can throw it away outside.”
“I—I’ll—I’ll give myself up to the police. Is she seriously hurt?”
“Yes.”
The man began to perspire. The sweat surged from his pores so suddenly, it seemed there was nothing else under his skin. He went back into the apartment.
Arch of Triumph Page 46
