by Jean Rhys
What, then?
This.
Always?
Yes, always.
She comes and wipes my forehead. She speaks to me in a language that is no language. But I understand it.
Back, back, back....This has happened many times.
What are you? I am an instrument, something to be made use of....
She darts from one room to another, encouraging, soothing, reproaching. 'Now, you're not trying. Courage, courage.' Speaking her old, old language of words that are not words.
A rum life, when you come to think of it. I'd hate to live it. However, to her it is just life....
Afterwards I couldn't sleep. I would sleep for an hour or two, and then wake up and think about money, money, money for my son; money, money....
Do I love him? Poor little devil, I don't know if I love him.
But the thought that they will crush him because we have no money - that is torture.
Money, money for my son, my beautiful son....
I can't sleep. My breasts dry up, my mouth is dry. I can't sleep. Money, money....
'Why!' she says. 'Can't you sleep? This will never do, never do.'
She probably knows why I can't sleep. I bet some of the others here can't either. Worrying about the same thing. (This is not a child; this is my child. Money, money....)
'Well, why can't you sleep?' she says. 'Does he cry, this young man?'
'No, he hardly cries at all. Is it a bad sign, that he doesn't cry?'
'Why no, not at all. A beautiful, beautiful baby....But why can't you sleep?'
She has slanting eyes, very clear. I like people with clear, slanting eyes. I can still give myself up to people I like. (Tell me what to do. Have you a solution? Tell me what to do.)
She pats me on the shoulder and says: 'You're worrying about nothing at all. Everything will come right for you. I'll send you in a tisanc of orange - flower water, and tonight you must sleep, sleep....'
I can't feed this unfortunate baby. He is taken out and given Nestle's milk. So, I can sleep....
The next day she comes in and says: 'Now I am going to arrange that you will be just like what you were before. There will be no trace, no mark, nothing.'
That, it seems, is her solution.
She swathes me up in very tight, very uncomfortable bandages. Intricately she rolls them and ties them. She gives me to understand that this is usually an extra. She charges a great deal for this as a rule.
'I do this better than anyone in the whole of Paris,' she says. 'Better than any doctor, better than any of these people who advertise, better than anyone in the whole of Paris.'
And there I lie in these damned bandages for a week. And there he lies, swathed up too, like a little mummy. And never crying.
But now I like taking him in my arms and looking at him. A lovely forehead, incredibly white, the eyebrows drawn very faintly in gold dust....
Well, this was a funny time. (The big bowl of coffee in the morning with a pattern of red and blue lowers. I was always so thirsty.) But uneasy, uneasy....Ought a baby to be as pretty as this, as pale as this, as silent as this? The other babies yell from morning to night. Uneasy....
When I complain about the bandages she says: 'I promise you that when you take them of you'll be just as you were before.' And it is true. When she takes them of there is not one line, not one winkle, not one crease.
And five weeks afterwards there I am, with not one line, not one wrinkle, not one crease.
And there he is, lying with a ticket tied round his wist because he died in a hospital. And there I am looking down at him, without one line, without one wrinkle, without one crease....
The hair-dresser also ends by calling me 'Ma petite dame'.
He reflects for some time about my hair, feels it be tween his fingers. Then: 'In your place, madame, I shouldn't hesitate. But not for a moment. A nice blond cendre,' he says.
That was just the right way to put it. 'If I were in your place, madame, I shouldn't hesitate.'
He touches my hair gently. The smell of soap, scent, hair lotion, the sound of the dryer in the next cubicle, his fingers touching my hair - I could go to sleep.
'Very well,' I say in a sulky voice. (At it again, dearie, at it again!)
Of course I can't look on at this operation. I read magazines - Feminas, Illustrations, Eves. Then I start in on the Hairdresser, the Art of Hairdressing, the Hairdresser's Weekly and a curious journal, with a large section called 'the Hive' - answers to correspondents.
'Pierrette Clair de la Lune - No, mademoiselle, your letter is nonsensical. You will never get thin that way - never. Life is not so easy. Life, mademoiselle, is difficult. At your age it will be very difficult to get thin. But....
'Petite Maman - No, Petite Maman, you are not reason able. Love is one thing; marriage - alas! - is quite another. If you haven't found that out yet you soon will, I assure you. Nevertheless....'
No, mademoiselle, no, madame, life is not easy. Do not delude yourselves. Nothing is easy. But there is hope (turn to page 5), and yet more hope (turn to page 9)....
I am in the middle of a long article by a lady who has had her breasts lifted when he takes the dryer of my head.
'Voila,' he says....
'Yes,' he says, 'a very good blond cendre. A success.'
I had expected to think about this damned hair of mine without any let-up for days. (Is it all right? Is it not all right ?) But before the taxi has got back to Montparnasse I have forgotten all about it.
I don't want to eat. I decide to go into the Luxembourg Gardens and sit there as I did yesterday. It's curious how peaceful I feel - as if I were possessed by something. Not that way - this way. Not up that street - this street. Just dance, and leave the music to me....Like that.
There are some fish in the pool of the Medicis fountain. Three are red and one gold. The four fish look so forlorn that I wonder whether they are just starting them, or whether they have had a lot, and they have died off.
I stand for a long time, watching the fish. And several people who pass stop and also watch them. We stand in a row, watching the fish.
I must go and buy a hat this afternoon, I think, and to morrow a dress. I must get on with the transformation act. But there I sit, watching the same procession of shabby women wheeling prams, of men tightly buttoned up into black overcoats.
One of the figures detaches itself from the procession and comes towards me. It is only when he is close to me and puts his hand out that I recognize him. The younger Russian, the melancholy one.
He also is tightly buttoned into a black overcoat. His scarf is carefully tied. He is wearing a black felt hat. Just like all the fathers attending the prams. Very correct, very respectable. He bows and shakes hands.
'You allow me?' He brings a chair close up to mine.
'You didn't go to meet my friend yesterday afternoon,' he says. 'No, I'm sorry, but I wasn't feeling well.' 'He was angry. He thought it wasn't at all nice of you. He said-' He starts to laugh. 'Well, what did he say?' 'Oh, he was in a bad temper. He had an annoying letter this morning.' 'I was vexed with myself,' I say, 'but I couldn't go.'
He says, not taking his eyes from mine: 'When I make an appointment I always keep it, even though I think the other person won't be there.' 'Do you? That's not my idea of a Russian at all.' 'Oh, Russians, Russians - why do you think they are so different from other people?'
He comes from the Ukraine, he tells me, and it's very hot there, and very cold in the winter. But again he slides away from the subject of Russia and everything Russian, though in other ways he is communicative about himself. He is a naturalized Frenchman and he has done his military service in France. He says his name is Nicolas Delmar, which doesn't sound very Russian to me. Anyway, that's what he calls himself, and he writes it on a bit of Le Journal, with his address, and gives it to me. He lives in Montrouge. He has some female relative - sister, mother, aunt, I can't make out - who is ill, which makes him very sad.
&nb
sp; 'But I can forget it,' he says. 'Every day I come up to the Quartier Latin, or I walk in the Luxembourg Gardens, I can forget it.'
He speaks French slowly and ponderously. This gives me confidence. Of we go into a full blast of philosophical discussion.
He says: 'For me, you see, I look at life like this: If someone had come to me and asked me if I wished to be born I think I should have answered No. I'm sure I should have answered No. But no one asked me. I am here not through my will. Most things that happen to me - they are not my will either. And so that's what I say to myself all the time: "You didn't ask to be born, you didn't make the world as it is, you didn't make yourself as you are. Why torment yourself? Why not take life just as it comes ? You have the right to; you are not one of the guilty ones. When you aren't rich or strong or powerful, you are not a guilty one. And you have the right to take life just as it comes and to be as happy as you can.'
While he is talking I have a strange idea that perhaps it is like that....Now then, you, X - you must go down and be born. Oh, not me, please, not me. Well then, you, Y, you go along and be born - somebody's got to be. Where's Y? Y is hiding. Well, come on Z, you've got to go and be born. Come on, hurry up, hurry up....There's one every minute. Or is it every second?
'But don't you ever wish to be rich or strong or powerful?'
'No longer,' he says, 'no longer. I prefer to be as I am. As things are now, I wouldn't wish to be rich or strong or powerful. I wouldn't wish to be one of the guilty ones. I know I am not guilty, so I have the right to be just as happy as I can make myself.'
We go on in this strain for some time. I wonder what on earth he does, what he is. He looks like a person who is living on a very small fixed income. As I am thinking this he tells me that he loves this part of Paris, the Quartier Latin, because he loves youth. I look very hard at him when he says this. But he just means that he loves youth.
'Yes,' I say. 'I love youth too. Who doesn't? And this is just the place, full of prams, babies and so forth.'
'I very seldom go to Montmartre,' he says. 'I very seldom go anywhere else. This is the part of Paris that I like - the Quartier Latin and Montparnasse.'
'Side by side and oh, so different.'
'Have you ever noticed,' he says, 'that when you go from one pat of Paris to another, it's just like going from one town to another - even from one country to another?
The people are different, the atmosphere is different, even the women dress differently.'
I don't know why I don't quite like him. This gentle, resigned melancholy - it seems unnatural in a man who can't be much over thirty, if so much as that. Or perhaps it is because he seems more the echo of a thing than the thing itself. One moment I feel this, and another I like him very much, as if he were the brother I never had.
I say: 'Montparnasse is very changed since I knew it first, I can tell you. That was just after the war,' I say recklessly. (As you love youth so much, that'll give you something to think about.)
'You came here just after the war?'
'Yes, and I lived here up to five years ago. Then I went back to England.'
'Yes, it must be very changed, very changed,' he says, pursing his lips and nodding his head.
'Oh, terrible,' I say. 'But I don't believe things change much really; you only think they do. It seems to me that things repeat themselves over and over again.'
He says: 'I think you are getting cold, madame. You are shivering. Would you like to go to a patisserie and have a cup of chocolate? There is a nice one near here.'
I say: 'I'd much rather go to a cafe and have a drink.'
I have an idea that he disapproves of this, but he says: 'Yes, certainly. Let's go.'
I make no mistake this time. We go to the neutral cafe.
When we are in a corner with a coffee and fine each he says: 'Do you know what I feel about you? I think you are very lonely. I know, because for a long time I was lonely myself. I hated people, I didn't want to see anyone. And then one day I thought: "No, this isn't the way." And now I go about a lot. I force myself to. I have a lot of friends; I'm never alone. Now I'm much happier.'
That sounds pretty simple. I must try it when I get back to London....
I say: 'I liked your friend the other night.'
'Ah, yes,' he says, shaking his head. 'But he was vexed, and he's had bad news....(The optimist hasn't any more use for me, I can see that.) 'But I have many friends. I'll introduce you to all of them if you wish. Will you allow me? Then you will never be alone and you'll be much happier, you'll see.'
'But do you think they'd like me, your friends?'
'But certainly. Absolutely yes.'
This young man is very comforting - almost as comforting as the hairdresser.
'Will you come along now and see a friend of mine? He's a painter. I think he is a man you'd like. He's always gay and he knows how to talk to everybody....Yes, Serge understands everybody - it's extraordinary.' (And, whether prince or prostitute, he always did his best....) 'Mais au fond, vous savez, il s'en fiche de tout, il s'en iche de tout le monde.'
He sounds fine.
'Yes, I'd like to,' I say. 'But I can't this afternoon. I have to go and buy a hat.'
'Well, would you like to come tomorrow?' he says, and we arrange to meet at four o'clock the next day.
There used to be a good hat shop in the Rue Vavin. It doesn't exist any longer. I wander aimlessly along a lot of back streets where there aren't any hat shops at all. And then a street that is alive with them - Virginie, Josette, Claudine....I look at the window of the first shop. There is a customer inside. Her hair, half-dyed, half-grey, is very dishevelled. As I watch she puts on a hat, makes a face at herself in the glass, and takes it of very quickly. She ties another - then another. Her expression is terrible - hungry, despairing, hopeful, quite crazy. At any moment you expect her to start laughing the laugh of the mad.
I stand outside, watching. I can't move. Hat after hat she puts on, makes that face at herself in the glass and throws it of again. Watching her, am I watching myself as I shall become? In five years' time, in six years' time, shall I be like that?
But she is better than the other one, the smug, white, fat, black-haired one who is offering the hats with a calm, mocking expression. You can almost see her tongue rolling round and round inside her cheek. It's like watching the devil with a damned soul. If I must end like one or the other, may I end like the hag.
I realize that I can't stay gaping in on them any longer and move of, very much shaken. Then I remember the Russian saying: 'I didn't ask to be born; I didn't make the world as it is; I didn't make myself as I am; I am not one of the guilty ones. And so I have a right to....' Etcetera.
There are at least ten milliners' shops in this street. I decide to go into the last but one on the left-hand side and hope to strike lucky.
The girl in the shop says: 'The hats now are very difficult, very difficult. All my clients say that the hats now are very difficult to wear.'
This is a much larger shop than the other one. There is a cruel, crude light over the two mirrors and behind a long room stretching into dimness.
She disappears into the dimness and comes back with hat after hat, hat after hat, murmuring: 'All my clients are complaining that the hats now are very difficult to wear, but I think -I am sure -I shall manage to suit you.'
In the glass it seems to me that I have the same demented expression as the woman up the street.
'My God, not that one.'
I stare suspiciously at her in the glass. Is she laughing at me? No, I think not. I think she has the expression of someone whose pride is engaged. She is determined that before I go out of the shop I shall admit that she can make hats. As soon as I see this expression in her eyes I decide to trust her. I too become quite calm.
'You know, I'm bewildered. Please tell me which one I ought to have.'
'The first one I showed you,' she says at once.
'Oh, my God, not that one.'
'Or pe
rhaps the third one.'
When I put on the third one she says: 'I don't want to insist, but yes - that is your hat.'
I look at it doubtfully and she watches me - not mockingly, but anxiously.
She says: 'Walk up and down the room in it. See whether you feel happy in it. See whether you'll get accustomed to it.'
There is no one else in the shop. It is quite dark outside. We are alone, celebrating this extraordinary ritual.
She says: 'I very seldom insist, but I am sure that when you have got accustomed to that hat you won't regret it. You will realize that it's your hat.'
I have made up my mind to trust this girl, and I must trust her.
'I don't like it much, but it seems to be the only one,' I say in a surly voice.
I have been nearly two hours in the shop, but her eyes are still quite friendly.
I pay for the hat. I put it on. I have a great desire to ask her to come and dine with me, but I daren't do it. All my spontaneity has gone. (Did I ever have any? Yes, I think sometimes I had - in lashes. Anyway, it's gone now. If I asked her to dine with me, it would only be a failure.)
She adjusts the hat very carefully. 'Remember, it must be worn forward and very much on one side. Comme ca.'
She sees me out, still smiling. A strange client, l'etrangere....The last thing she says is: 'All the hats now are very difficult. All my clients are complaining.'
I feel saner and happier after this. I go to a restaurant near by and eat a large meal, at the same time carefully watch ing the effect of the hat on the other people in the room, comme ca. Nobody stares at me, which I think is a good sign.
A man sitting near by asks if he may look at my evening paper, as he wants to go to the cinema tonight. Then he ties to start a conversation with me. I think: "That's all right....'
When I go out into the Place de l'Odeon I am feeling happy, what with my new hair and my new hat and the good meal and the wine and the fine and the coffee and the smell of night in Paris. I'm not going to any beastly little bar tonight. No, tonight I'm going somewhere where there's music; somewhere where I can be with a lot of people; somewhere where there's dancing. But where? By myself, where can I go? I'll have one more drink first and then think it out
