David Golder, the Ball, Snow in Autumn, the Courilof Affair

by Irene Nemirovsky

  Golder looked up sharply. “What? Yes,” he murmured, absent-mindedly. “Where’s the report from New York?”

  Seeing Loewe begin riffling through his papers again, Golder angrily swept them away with his fist.

  “Couldn’t you have got them in order before, for God’s sake?”

  “I only just arrived… I didn’t even stop at my hotel.”

  “I should think not,” grumbled Golder.

  “You see the letter from the Bank of England?” Loewe said, coughing nervously. “If the overdraft hasn’t been paid off within a week, they’re going to start selling your collateral.”

  “We’ll see about that… The bastards! This is Weille’s doing. But he won’t get his hands on it for long, that I can promise you. My overdraft with them is about four million, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Loewe, nodding. “Everyone is very negative about Golmar at the moment, very negative. The most depressing rumours have been going around the Stock Market ever since poor Monsieur Marcus… And your own enemies have even gone so far as to spread the most malevolent lies about your illness, Monsieur Golder…”

  Golder shrugged his shoulders. “Well…”

  He wasn’t surprised to hear it. Nor was he surprised at the effect Marcus’s suicide had had. “That must have been of some consolation to him before he died,” he mused.

  “None ofthat,” he said, “is anything to worry about. I’ll have a word with Weille. The thing that worries me the most is New York… It is absolutely essential that I go to New York. Is there nothing from Tubingen?”

  “Yes, there is. A telegram arrived just as I was leaving.”

  “Well, give it to me for heaven’s sake!”

  “WILL BE IN LONDON 28TH,” he read and gave a sly smile. With Tubingen’s help everything would be easy to sort out.

  “Send a telegram at once to Tubingen, and tell him I’ll be in London the morning of the twenty-ninth.”

  “Yes, Sir. Excuse me, but… is it true what certain people are saying?”

  “What are they saying?”

  “Well, er, that you’re the one whom Tubingen has asked to negotiate an agreement with the Soviets for the Teisk concession, and that Tubingen is buying your shares and taking you into the company? Oh, that would be wonderful, a real coup, and we’ll have no trouble getting credit once it’s made public…”

  “What day is it?” Golder interrupted, making rapid calculations. “Four o’clock… We could still leave today… No, there’s no point travelling on a Saturday. I absolutely must see Weille in Paris. Tomorrow, then. Monday morning in Paris; I could leave by four o’clock and be in London on Tuesday. Then I could get a ship to New York on the first. If only I could avoid going to New York. No, impossible. Though I’m supposed to be in Moscow on the fifteenth, the twentieth at the latest. It’s all very tricky.”

  He rubbed his hands together as if he were cracking walnuts between his closed palms.

  “It’s not easy. I have to be everywhere at once. Well, we’ll see…”

  He fell silent. Loewe handed him a sheet of paper covered in names and figures.

  “What’s this?”

  “Would you please take a look? It’s the salary increases for the employees. Perhaps you remember? We spoke to you and Monsieur Marcus about it last April.”

  Golder frowned and looked at the list.

  “Lambert, Mathias, fine … Mademoiselle Wieilhomme? Oh yes, Marcus’s typist… the little slut who couldn’t even be bothered to type a letter properly! I don’t think so! The other one, yes, the little hunchback one, what’s her name?”

  “Mademoiselle Gassion.”

  “Yes, that’s fine … Chambers? Your son-in-law? Tell me, don’t you think it was enough to hire that moron? He deigns to come to the office twice a week when he’s got nothing better to do, and for all the work he does … Not a penny, you hear me, not a penny more!”

  “But in April…”

  “In April, I had money. Now, I don’t. If I gave a raise to all the freeloaders, all the spoiled little rich kids you and Marcus crammed into the offices … Give me your pencil.”

  He angrily crossed out several names.

  “What about Levine? His fifth child has just been born.”

  “I don’t give a damn!”

  “Come now, Monsieur Golder, you’re not as hard as all that.”

  “I don’t like people being generous with my money, Loewe. It’s very nice making promises left, right, and centre … but then it’s up to me to sort things out when there’s not a penny left in the pot, isn’t it?”

  He suddenly stopped speaking. A train was passing. They could hear it clearly through the still air; it was getting louder, coming closer. Golder listened with lowered head.

  “Won’t you reconsider?” murmured Loewe. “Levine … It’s difficult trying to feed five children on two thousand francs a month. You have to feel sorry for him.”

  The train was moving further and further away. Its long whistle hovered in the air like a plea, like a fearful question.

  “Sorry!” shouted Golder, suddenly angry. “Why? No one ever feels sorry for me, do they? No one has ever felt sorry for me…”

  “Oh, Monsieur Golder…”

  “It’s true. I’m just expected to pay, pay, and keep on paying… That’s why I’ve been put on this earth!”

  He breathed in with difficulty, then said quietly in a different voice, “Forget about the increases I crossed out, all right? And make those reservations. We’ll leave tomorrow.”

  “I’M LEAVING TOMORROW,” Golder said abruptly as he got up from the dining table.

  Gloria trembled slightly. “Oh… Will you be gone long?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you… sure that’s a good idea, David? You’re still ill.”

  He burst out laughing.

  “Why would that matter? I don’t have the right to be ill like everyone else, do I?”

  “Oh,” hissed Gloria angrily, “that tone you take to make yourself sound like a martyr.”

  He walked out, slamming the door so hard behind him that the chandelier swayed, the glass tinkling in the silent room.

  “He’s nervous,” said Hoyos softly.

  “Yes. Are you going out tonight? Do you want the car?”

  “No thanks, darling.”

  Gloria turned sharply towards the servant.

  “I won’t be needing the driver tonight.”

  “Very good, Madame.”

  He placed a silver tray with liqueurs and cigarettes on the table and went out.

  Mosquitoes were buzzing around the lamps; Gloria nervously brushed them away.

  “Goodness, how irritating… Would you like some coffee?”

  “What about Joy? Have you heard from her?”

  “No.”

  She said nothing for a moment, then continued in a sort of rage, “It’s all David’s fault! He spoils that girl like a mad fool, and he doesn’t even love her! She just flatters his inflated ego! As if he has anything to be proud of. She behaves like a little slut! Do you know how much money he gave her the night he collapsed at the casino? Fifty thousand francs, my darling. Charming, just charming! I heard all about it. How she was practically walking in her sleep in that gambling joint, wads of notes stuffed into her hands, just like some prostitute who’d rolled an old man! But when it comes to me, it’s always the same arguments, the same old story: business is bad, he’s fed up with having to work for me, et cetera! Oh, I’m so unlucky! ButwhereJoyce is concerned…”

  “But still, she is a charming girl…”

  “I know,” Gloria cut in.

  Hoyos stood up and went over to the window to breathe in the fresh evening air.

  “It’s such wonderful weather. Wouldn’t you like to go down to the garden?”

  “If you like.”

  They went out together. It was a beautiful, moonless night; the large white spotlights on the terrace cast an almost theatrical light over the gravel on t
he path, the branches of the trees.

  “Smell how delicious it is,” said Hoyos. “The wind is blowing in from Spain, there’s cinnamon in the air, don’t you think?”

  “No,” she replied, curtly.

  She leaned against a bench. “Let’s sit down. I find it tiring walking in the dark.”

  He sat down beside her and lit a cigarette. For a moment, his features were caught in the flare of the lighter: his delicate eyelids were like the withered petals of dead flowers; his perfectly shaped lips were still those of a young man, bursting with life.

  “Well, now, what’s going on? Are we alone tonight?”

  “Were you expecting someone else?” she asked absent-mindedly.

  “No, not especially. I’m just surprised. The house is usually as full as a country inn when there’s a fair. Mind you, I’m not complaining. We’re old, my darling, and we need people and noise around us. It wasn’t like that in the past, but everything changes…”

  “In the past,” she repeated. “Do you know how many years it’s been? It’s terrifying …”

  “Nearly twenty!”

  “Nineteen O one. The carnival in Nice in 1901, my darling. Twenty-five years.”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “You were just a little foreigner, aimlessly wandering the streets, in your simple dress and straw hat. But that soon changed.”

  “You were in love with me then. Now, all you care about is my money. I can sense it, you know. Without my money…”

  He gently shrugged his shoulders.

  “Hush, now … Don’t get yourself in a state. Being angry ages you … and I’m feeling very sentimental tonight. Do you remember, Gloria, how everything looked silver and blue?”

  “Yes.”

  They fell silent, as they both suddenly remembered a street in Nice, thronging on carnival night with people wearing masks and singing as they passed by; remembered the palm trees, the moon, and the shouts of the crowd in Place Massena… remembered their youth… the beautiful night, as sensual and simple as an Italian love song.

  Suddenly he threw away his cigarette. “Oh, my darling! Enough reminiscing; it makes me feel cold as death!”

  “It’s true,” she said, unconsciously shivering. “When I think about the past… I so wanted to come to Europe. I can’t remember any more how David managed to get the money to pay for my trip. I travelled third class. I watched from the deck as the other women danced, covered in jewels. Why do we have to wait until we’re old to have such things? And, when I got here, I lived in a little family-run boarding house. If, at the end of the month, no money had come from America, I would stay in my room with nothing but an orange for supper. You never knew that, did you? I put on a brave face. God knows, it wasn’t always easy. But what I wouldn’t give now for those days, those nights…”

  “It’s Joyce’s turn now. It’s odd how that idea both annoys and consoles me at the same time. But that’s not how you feel, is it?”

  “No.”

  “I didn’t think so,” he murmured.

  She could sense by the way he said it that he was smiling.

  “There’s something I’m worried about,” she said suddenly. “You’ve often asked me what Ghedalia said about what was wrong with…”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “Well, it was a heart attack. He could die at any moment.”

  “Does he know?”

  “No. I… I arranged things so that Ghedalia wouldn’t say anything. He wanted to make him give up work. How would we have managed? He hasn’t saved any money for me, nothing, not a penny. It’s just that… well, I didn’t think he would have to leave here so soon. And tonight he looked like death. So, really, I don’t know what’s best any more …”

  Hoyos was quietly clicking his fingers; he looked annoyed. “Why did you do that?”

  “I thought I was doing the right thing,” she said angrily. “I was thinking of you, as usual. What would happen to you if David stopped earning money? You know very well, don’t you, where my money goes?”

  “Oh,” he said, laughing, “I’d rather die than live to see the day when women stopped paying for me. There’s something about being an old lover that I find wickedly appealing.”

  She shrugged her shoulders impatiently.

  “Oh, do be quiet! Can’t you tell how nervous I am! What should I do? What would happen if I told him the truth and he dropped everything? Don’t tell me he wouldn’t. You don’t really know him. Right now, all he cares about is his health, he’s obsessed with the idea of dying. Surely you’ve seen him every morning in the garden, wearing that old overcoat even in the sun? Oh, my God! If I had to watch him dragging on like that for years to come! I’d sooner see him die right now! If only … I swear, no one would miss him.”

  Hoyos bent down and picked a flower; he gently rubbed it between his fingers, then inhaled its perfume on his hand.

  “How wonderful that smells,” he murmured, “it’s divine … The faint aroma of pepper… I think it’s these lovely little white carnations that are planted along the edges of the flowerbeds … You’re unfair to your husband, my darling. He’s a good man.”

  “A good man?” she scoffed. “Do you have any idea how many people he’s ruined, how much misery he’s caused, how many suicides? It’s because of him that Marcus, his partner, his friend of twenty-six years, killed himself! You didn’t know that, did you?”

  “No,” he replied with seeming indifference.

  “Well,” she continued, “what should I do?”

  “Oh, there’s only one thing you can do, my poor darling. Prepare him gently, as gently as possible, make him understand … I don’t think he’ll give up the deal he’s working on at the moment. Fischl told me a bit about it, but you know that I don’t really understand much about business. As far as I could work out, your husband’s business affairs are in a truly terrible state at the moment. He’s counting on some negotiations with the Soviets to get him back on his feet. Something to do with oil, I think … In any case, one thing is certain: given his current financial situation, if he suddenly dies now, you’ll end up with nothing but a series of terrible debts, no money at all… “

  “It’s true,” she murmured, “his business is in chaos; I don’t think even he realises how bad it is.”

  “Does anyone know?”

  “Well, no,” she said, angrily shrugging her shoulders. “I don’t think he trusts anyone, and especially not me. His business! He hides it from me as if it were his mistress!”

  “Well then, you see, if he knew, if he suspected that his life was in danger, he would make provisions, I’m sure. And of course, it would be an incentive to him, as well…”

  He laughed quietly.

  “His last deal, his last chance…Just imagine … Yes, you have to make him understand.”

  Both of them turned around instinctively to look at the house. On the first floor, Golder’s light was on.

  “He’s still awake.”

  “I don’t want to see him,” she whispered. “I … He’s never understood me, never loved me. Just money, money, for as long as he’s lived. He’s like a robot—no heart, no feelings, nothing. I’ve been in his bed, slept with him, for years, and he’s always been exactly as he is now: hard, cold as ice. Money, business… Never a smile, a caress, just shouting and endless scenes. Oh, I’ve been so unhappy!”

  She fell silent. When she moved, the light from one of the outside lamps hanging along the path made her diamond earrings sparkle.

  Hoyos smiled.

  “What abeautiful night,” he said dreamily. “The flowers smell so divine, it’s wonderful. Your perfume is too strong, Gloria, I’ve told you before. It overpowers these poor little autumn roses. What silence … It’s extraordinary. You can hear the sound of the sea. How peaceful the night is. Listen, there are women singing on the road. Delightful, don’t you think? Those clear, beautiful voices, the night… I love this place. I would be so upset, truly upset, if this house were sold.”

&n
bsp; “Are you mad?” she murmured. “What are you talking about?”

  “My God, it could happen … This house isn’t in your name, is it?”

  She didn’t reply.

  “You’ve tried so many times,” he continued, “remember? And what did he always say? Oh, the same old song: ‘I’m still here…’”

  “I really should speak to him, tonight…”

  “Yes, that would be best, I think.”

  “Right away.”

  “That would be best,” he repeated.

  She slowly stood up.

  “Oh, this whole business is so upsetting. Are you staying here?”

  “Yes, it’s so beautiful…”

  WHEN SHE WENT into Golder’s room, he was sitting on the bed working, propped up on piles of crumpled pillows; his shirt was open at the neck, the unbuttoned sleeves hanging from his bare arms. He had placed the lamp on the bed, on a tray with the remains of a half-empty cup of tea, a plate full of orange peel. Its light fell full on to his bent head, making his white hair gleam eerily.

  He turned sharply when the door opened and looked at Gloria, before bending even further over his work and grumbling, “What is it? What do you want now?”

  “I need to speak to you,” she replied coldly.

  He took off his glasses and slowly wiped his puffy eyes with the corner of his handkerchief. She sat down stiffly on the bed beside him, fidgeting nervously with her pearls.

  “David, listen. I really must speak to you. You’re going off tomorrow … You’re not well, you’re tired … Have you considered that, if anything happened to you, I’d be all alone in the world?”

  He listened to her with a cold, gloomy expression, without moving, without saying a word.

  “David…”

  “What do you want from me?” he asked finally, staring at her in that harsh, fearful, stubborn way he reserved for her alone. “Leave me be, I have work to do.”

  “What I have to say is just as important to me as your work. You won’t get rid of me that easily, I can assure you.”

  She clenched her teeth in cold fury.