by Jean Rhys
But the fifteen pounds have gone. We raise every penny we can. We sell most of our clothes.
My beautiful life in front of me, opening out like a fan in my hand....
What happened then?....Well, what happens?
The room in the Brussels hotel - very hot. The bell of the cinema next door ringing. A long, narrow room with a long, narrow window and the bell of the cinema next door, sharp and meaningless.
Things haven't gone. Enno saying: 'We've only got thirty francs left.' (My Lord, is that all?) 'Yes, only thirty francs. We'll have to do something about it tomorrow.'
The bell of the cinema kept on ringing and every time it rang I could feel him start.
When he went out next morning he said: T think I'll be able to raise some money. Wait in here for me.'
'Will you be a long time?'
'No....Anyhow, don't go out.'
Sitting on the bed, waiting. Walking up and down the room, waiting. I can't stand it, this waiting.
Then, as if somebody had spoken it aloud in my head - Mr Lawson. Of course, Mr Lawson....
I hadn't remembered how glassy his eyes were, Mr Lawson's.
'Yes?' he says. 'You asked to see me?' Raising his eyebrows a little, he says: 'Ye-es?'
He doesn't recognize me. I must look rather awful. I say: 'I'm afraid you don't remember me. I was staying in those rooms in the Temple that you came to look over, and you took me to dinner. We had oysters and we talked about Ireland. Don't you remember? Then we were on the boat going over to Holland and you gave me your address in Brussels. You said if I got here, would I look you up? Don't you remember?'
'Of course. Little Miss - '
'Not little,' I say, 'not little.' Because I can't have a man like that calling me little.
I talk away, saying, as if it were a joke: 'We're not exactly stranded. We shall be quite all right as soon as we get to Paris. In fact, we shall be quite all right in a day or two. Only, stupidly, just for the moment, we're a bit stranded.'
Mr Lawson talks back and in the end he gives me a hundred francs. 'If this is any good to you. And now, I'm very sorry, but I've got to rush.'
I am standing there with the note in my hand, when he comes up to me and kisses me. I am hating him more than I have ever hated anyone in my life, yet I feel my mouth go soft under his, and my arms go limp. 'Good bye,' he says in imitation American, and grins.
'Did you have any luck?'
'Not much,' Enno says.
I say: 'I've managed to borrow a hundred francs.'
'Who did you borrow it from?'
'Well, it's a woman I used to know very well in London. I knew she lived here and I found her address in the directory. She knew Miss Cavell. Yes, a friend of Miss Cavell's. She lives in the Avenue Louise, and I went and saw her.
'She's not exactly a fiend,' I say. 'As a matter of fact, she was horribly rude, the old bitch. She as good as told me she wouldn't see me if ever I went there again. Mademoiselle regrette, mais mademoiselle ne recoit pas aujourd'hui....'
'Avenue Louise? What number Avenue Louise?'
'Oh, shut up about it.' I lie down on the bed and begin to cry.
'Don't cry. If you cry I shall go mad.'
'Shut up, then, and don't talk about the damned hundred francs.' (With a hundred francs they buy the unlimited right to scorn you. It's cheap.)
'What are you crying about?' he says.
'It's my dress. I feel so awful. I feel so dirty. I want to have a bath. I want another dress. I want clean under clothes. I feel so awful. I feel so dirty.'
'I'll get you another dress as soon as we get to Paris. I know somewhere where we can get credit....You'll see, when we get to Paris it'll be all right.' f He goes out to buy something to eat. I lie there and I am happy, forgetting everything, happy and cool, not caring if I live or die. I think of the way Mr Lawson looked at me when I first went in - his long, narrow, surprised face. I laugh and I can't stop laughing.
The lavatory at the station - that was the next time I cried. I had just been sick. I was so afraid I might be going to have a baby....
Although I have been so sick, I don't feel any better, head up against the wall, icy cold and sweating. Sometimes tries the door, and I pull myself together, stop crying and powder my face.
We are going to Calais. Enno has made pals with a waiter who lives there and who has promised to lend us some money.
He is very good at salad-dressing, this waiter. We eat with him and his wife next day. There he is, with his fat back and thick neck, mixing the dressing. He uses sugar in the German way. His wife watches him, looking spiteful and frightened. She is thin and ugly and not young.
The waiter mixes the dressing for the salad very slowly at the sideboard. I can see myself in the mirror. I look thin - too thin - and dirty and haggard, with that expression that you get in your eyes when you are very tired and everything is like a dream and you are starting to know what things are like underneath what people say they are.
I hadn't bargained for this. I didn't think it would be like this - shabby clothes, worn out shoes, circles under your eyes, your hair getting straight and lanky, the way people look at you....I didn't think it would be like this.
Walking about the streets of Calais with the waiter's wife. We went to see that statue by Rodin. All the time she was complaining in a thin voice that he never let her have any money for clothes, and that it was her money after all; he hadn't a sou when she married him.
She didn't seem at all curious about us, or to want to know where he picked us up. She just went on and on about his unkindness and the clothes she wanted.
It was a grey day. It was like walking in London, like walking in a dream. My God, how awful I looked in that mirror! If I'm going to look like that, there's not a hope. Fancy having to go to Paris looking like that....
When we got back we drank absinthe. The waiter prepared it for us elaborately. It took a long time. I didn't like the taste, but I was cold and it warmed me. We sat there sipping and Enno and the waiter talked in a corner. The wife didn't say anything and after a while I didn't either. But the absinthe made me feel quarrelsome and I began to wish I could shout 'Shut up' at them and to dislike the waiter because I knew he wasn't thinking much of my looks. ('She's not much. I thought she was better looking than that the first time I saw her.')
I stopped listening to them, but when the absinthe went really to my head I thought I was shouting to them to shut up. I even heard my voice saying: 'Shut up; I hate you.' But really I didn't say anything and when Enno looked at me I smiled.
Well, Gustave - the waiter - lent us the money he had promised and we left Calais.
Enno had taken a dislike to Gustave's wife. 'That to call itself a woman!' he said.
'But it was her money,' I said.
'Oh well,' Enno said, 'he makes very good use of it, doesn't he? He makes much better use of it than she would.'
It was a slow train and we were tightly packed in the compartment. Lying in the luggage rack, trying to sleep, propped up by Enno's stick, and the wheels of the train saying: 'Paris, Paris, Paris, Paris...."
A girl came into the cafe and sat down at the next table. She was wearing a grey suit, the skirt short and tight and the blouse very fresh and clean. And a cocky black hat like a Scots soldier's glengarry. Her handbag was lying on the table near her - patent leather to match her shoes.(Handbag....What a lot of things I've got to get! Would a suit like that be a good thing to get? No, I think I had better get....) And she walked so straight and quick on her high heeled shoes. Tap, tap, tap, her heels....
'I'll take you somewhere to wait,' Enno said. 'I must see one or two people.'
Drinking coffee very early in the morning, everything like a dream. I was so tired.
We got out of the Metro into the Boulevard Montparnasse.
'In here,' Enno said. He took me by the arm.
The Rotonde was full of men reading newspapers on long sticks. Shabby men, not sneering, not taking any notice.
Pictures on the walls.
The hands of the clock moving quickly. One hour, two hours, three hours....
How long will they let me sit here? Not a drop of coffee left. The last drop was very cold and very bitter - very cold and bitter, the last drop. I have ive francs, but I daren't order another coffee. I mustn't spend it on that.
The colours of the pictures melting into each other, my head back against the bench. If I go to sleep they'll certainly turn me out. Perhaps they won't, but better not risk it.
Three hours and a half....
As soon as I see him I know from his face that he's got some money. A tall man is with him, a man with a gentle face and long, thin hands.
We go next door to a place called La Napolitaine and eat ravioli. Warming me. Eat slowly, make it last a long time....
I've never been so happy in my life. I'm alive, eating ravioli and drinking wine. I've escaped. A door has opened and let me out into the sun. What more do I want ? Anything might happen.
'I've got a room,' Enno says. 'Rue Lamartine.'
'I had a chase,' he says. 'Paulette wasn't in. I left a note. I ran into Alfred just outside her apartment.'
Alfred smiles, bows, twists his hands nervously and departs.
'He's nice,' I say.
'Yes, he's a nice boy. He's a Turk.'
'Oh, I thought he was French.'
'No, he's a Turk.'
How much money has he got? No, don't ask. I don't want to know. Tell me later on, tell me tomorrow. Let me be happy just for now....
An old man comes up, selling red roses. Enno buys some. He must have enough money for a bit.
The old boy shuffles of. Then he turns round, comes back and puts two extra roses on the table near my plate. 'Vous permettez, monsieur?' he says to Enno, bowing like a prince.
Paris....I am in Paris....
The room we got in the hotel in the Rue Lamatine looked all right. It was on the fourth floor, the top floor. There was a big bed, covered with a red eiderdown, and outside a little balcony. You could stand and lean your arms on the cool iron and look down at the street.
We took it and paid a month's rent in advance - and that night we woke up scratching, and the wall was covered with bugs, crawling slowly.
I didn't mind the bugs much. I didn't mind anything then....
'Impossible, monsieur. Mais qu'est-ce que vous me dites la? Ce n'est pas possible. Voyons' Etcetera, etcetera.
She didn't want to give the money back, and after a while it was arranged that she should have the place fumigated and give us another room while it was being done. I was glad we didn't have to leave.
I am lying on a long chair in the middle of the room, which still smells of sulphur. I have opened the door and stuck a piece of paper in it so that it shall stay open. I have shut the shutters to keep the sun out. The room is dim and the ceiling seems to be pressing on my head. I have been going through the advertisements in the Figaro, marking those of people who want English lessons.
Enno sits by the table, smoking his pipe, Monsieur Alfred on the bed. I watch the beads of sweat trickling down his face from his temples to his chin. I have never seen anybody sweat like that - it's extraordinary. Every now and again he blows through closed lips, takes out his handkerchief and wipes his face. Then, in a minute, it is wet and shining again.
I like Alfred. Once he said to me: 'It's very warm today. I'll make you feel cool and happy.' He took my wist and blew on it, very gently, very regularly. I tried to take it away, didn't because he had lent us five hundred francs, then I began to feel cool, peaceful.
And Alfred recites. 'Answer with a cold silence the eternal silence of the divinity,' he says. Sweating like hell. 'Do you mind if I shut the door, madame? There's a terrible draught in this room.'
'Ah, non, mon vieux, non,' Enno says. 'Leave the door open.'
'Just as you like,' says Alfred, fingering his moustache with his long, beautiful hands. He looks shy and pained, 'I thought it wasn't good for madame to sit in a draught like this.'
'I'm not in a draught,' I say. 'I'm all right.'
Alfred goes on stroking his moustache. His eyes look malicious, in the same way that a woman's eyes look suddenly malicious.
He says, looking malicious: 'I think it's a good idea, madame, this giving lessons.' Then, speaking to Enno: 'Not a bad idea, not at all a bad idea. You get two or three good bourgeois to pay up, and afterwards - ca va. Talk, say what you like, but you can't do without the bourgeoisie.'
Enno doesn't answer.
'If I were married,' Alfred says, 'I wouldn't let my wife work for another man. No, no. I should think it a terrible disgrace to let my wife work for any other man but me. I wouldn't do it. Nothing would make me do it.'
'Tu m'emmerdes!' Enno yelss, jumping up, tu'm'emmerdes, je te dis. What are you trying to say, then?'
'Bon, bon, I'm going,' Alfred says, getting up. 'I see you are in a bad temper. I'm going. You needn't shout at me.'
'Oh, don't go,' I say.
'You shut up,' Enno says.
'Madame,' says Alfred from the door, bowing.
I laugh when he bows. I keep on saying: 'Isn't this funny, isn't this funny?' I remember Alfred blowing on my wrists to cool them and I can't stop laughing. I get so tired that I put my head into my hands.
Enno says: 'I'm going out to buy something to eat.'
'Already? It's too early.'
He goes out without answering, slamming the door.
'You don't know how to make love,' he said. That was about a month after we got to Paris. 'You're too passive, you're lazy, you bore me. I've had enough of this. Good-bye.'
He walked out and left me alone - that night and the next day, and the next night and the next day. With twenty francs on the table. And I'm sure now that I'm going to have a baby, though I haven't said a word about it.
I have to go out to get myself something to eat. The patron knows, the patronne knows, everybody knows.
Waking up at night, listening, waiting....
The third day I make up my mind that he isn't coming back. A blue day. This is the first time that I look at the patronne instead of sliding past her with my eyes down. She inquires about monsieur. Monsieur may be away for some time.
Blue sky over the streets, the houses, the bars, the cafes, the vegetable shops and the Faubourg Montmatre....
I buy milk, a loaf of bread, four oranges, and go back to the hotel.
Squeezing the rind of an orange and smelling the oil. A lot of oil - they must be pretty fresh....I think:
'What's going to happen?' After all, I don't much care what happens. And just as I am thinking this Enno walks in with a bottle of wine under his arm.
'Hello,' he says.
'I've got some money,' he says. 'My God, isn't it hot ? Peel me an orange.' 'I'm very thirsty,' he says. 'Peel me an orange.'
Now is the time to say 'Peel it yourself', now is the time to say 'Go to hell', now is the time to say 'I won't be treated like this'. But much too strong - the room, the street, the thing in myself, oh, much too strong....
I peel the orange, put it on a plate and give it to him.
He says: 'I've got some money.'
He brings out a mille note, a second mille note. I don't ask where he has got them. Why ask? Money circulates; it circulates - and how! Why, you wouldn't believe it sometimes.
He pours me out a glass of wine. 'It's fresh. I've kept it away from the sun.'
'But your hands are so cold,' he says. 'My girl....'
He draws the curtains to keep the sun out.
When he kissed my eyelids to wake me it was dark.
But it wasn't all that that mattered. It wasn't that he knew so exactly when to be cruel, so exactly how to be kind. The day I was sure I loved him was quite different.
He had gone out to buy something to eat. I was behind the curtain and I saw him in the street below, standing by a lamp post, looking up at our window, looking for me. He seemed very thin and small and I saw the expres
sion on his face quite plainly. Anxious, he was....
The bottle of wine was under one arm, and his coat was sticking out, because the loaf of bread was hidden under it. The patronne didn't like us to eat in our room. Just once in a while she didn't mind, but when people eat in their room every night, it means they really have no money at all.
When I saw him looking up like that I knew that I loved him, and that it was for always. It was as if my heart turned over, and I knew that it was for always. It's a strange feeling - when you know quite certainly in yourself that something is for always. It's like what death must be. All the insouciance, all the gaiety is a bluff. Because I wanted to escape from London I fastened myself on him, and I am dragging him down. All the gaiety is going and now he is thin and anxious....
I didn't wave to him. I stayed by the curtain and watched him, and after a while he crossed the street and went into the hotel.
'I can't sleep,' he said. 'Let me lie with my head on your silver breast.'
The curtains are thin, and when they are drawn the light comes through softly. There are lowers on the windowsill and I can see their shadows on the curtains. The child downstairs is screaming.
There is a wind, and the lowers on the window sill, and their shadows on the curtains, are waving. Like swans dipping their beaks in water. Like the incalculable raising its head, uselessly and wildly, for one moment before it sinks down, beaten, into the darkness. Like skulls on long, thin necks. Plunging wildly when the wind blows, to the end of the curtain, which is their nothingness. Distorting themselves as they plunge.
The musty smell, the bugs, the loneliness, this room, which is pat of the street outside - this is all I want from life.
Things are going well. We have settled down. Enno has sold two articles. He has been to see the old boy at the Lapin Agile, and now sings there every night. And there is a real job in prospect. A publicity campaign, to popularize tea in France - Timmins' Tea. He is very excited about this, and he has designed a poster, which he says will appeal to the French: 'Tea is the most economical drink in the world. It costs less than one sou a cup.' I give English lessons. Ten francs an hour. I have three pupils - a girl who works in a scent shop, a man who advertised in the Figaro, and a young Russian whom Enno met at the Lapin Agile. He speaks English just as well as I do.
