A Favourite of the Gods and a Compass Error

by Sybille Bedford

  Flavia who had meant to tell them about Italian truffles decided to let it go; she had no great wish really to impart anything of her own. The talk turned to events of the day, plans for the next one, to motor cars. She listened, waited. Seduced though she was, her thirst for the general was not in abeyance. At the age of nine one stops asking, Do you believe in God? Only a year ago she would have asked them, Do you believe in the Republican form of government? How high would you place Balzac? What is your idea of life? It was no longer possible.

  She felt her youth as well when Therese told her—in the nicest possible way—that from now until her mother’s return she must have dinner with them every night: the house was open, her place would be laid. “I think your mother would prefer you to come here.”

  Flavia, shedding further years, said gravely, “I’m sure she will think it extremely kind of you.”

  Therese said, “You shouldn’t eat by yourself in a place like Chez Auguste.”

  “Why not?”

  “It isn’t suitable.”

  Flavia saw that Therese meant it and was a bit shocked in her turn. She leapt to Constanza’s defence. “She doesn’t know about it” (nor mind, bless her), “and I don’t only eat at Chez Auguste.” She explained about the classic restaurant.

  Therese was not impressed. “From now on, mon petit coco, you are having dinner here.”

  The others were still on the Citroëns.

  “Take the new Eleven now, years in advance—it’s going to be the model T of the decade.”

  “The Americans will never catch up again, they’ve missed the boat with front-wheel traction.”

  “Not everybody wants it—too hard on the steering.”

  “Does hold the road.”

  “So ugly.”

  “All cars are. They have to be out for a year or two before one doesn’t see them.”

  “I always say, a new cheap car and drive it for all it’s worth; sheer madness nowadays to hang on to great big old thing like Michel Devaux’s Delahaye——”

  There was a fraction of silence, noticed by Flavia and filled by Therese, “Ah, but that’s such a fine car.” Giles, who apparently had not noticed, went on, “By the way, where is Michel? I haven’t seen him this year.”

  The second silence was longer. Flavia had a giggly impulse to put the cat among the pigeons by naming what everybody here (excepting Giles) appeared to know. She could hear herself say with an exaggerated English accent, Michel voyage avec ma mère.

  Therese said, “Michel’s had a lot of trouble again lately with his wife.”

  “Can she do anything—haven’t they been divorced for years?” “That’s what people think. They’re not. She said she would and then refused to sign the papers. She’s supposed to have told him that she never will.”

  “But surely he could now? After all these years, he can get off on desertion.”

  “Now he could. If all goes well.”

  There was a third silence. Flavia’s impulse had passed.

  When everyone went home Giles and Jeannine offered Flavia a lift. She said, No thank you, she would walk. They were standing in scented darkness by the gate facing the road.

  “It’s on our way, don’t be polite, hop in.”

  “I mean it,” Flavia said, “I always walk, I like to walk at this time.”

  “That little girl’s got a will of her own,” Giles called to Therese as they drove off.

  Therese and Flavia stood alone. Therese said, “You know what you want—that’s good.” She gave her a light tap on the cheek, “See you tomorrow, coco,” and turned towards the house.

  •

  The very next night an incident occurred. It was a banal incident, an evening incident such as will occur and one which, with those particular undertones, must have been exploding then among people dining together throughout the world. There was a newcomer, a man who had arrived earlier that day on his way to somewhere else and was spending a night or two in the house. Flavia had seen his car at the gate and he had joined them on the beach for a bathe. He was a big man, well-built, perhaps a touch out of condition but well-built all the same. The others addressed him by his surname which sounded like Clary or Clarin.

  They were cracking langouste shells when he said, “You’ll be interest to hear that I’ve persuaded the Crédit du Nord to give those murals to Loulou.”

  Paul said, “But Loulou doesn’t do murals.” “He will. When he hears the price.” He looked at Therese. She said nothing.

  “He will, won’t he?”

  She said, “You must ask Loulou.”

  “He ought to do them if he knows what’s good for him. You don’t turn down the Crédit du Nord.”

  She said again, “You must ask him, it’s his business.”

  Clary or Clarin said in loud tones, “I am asking you—we all know who wears the trousers here. I came to ask you.”

  Therese turned her eyes on him, then lowered the hooded lids. Flavia thought, how right expressions are: her face has turned hard.

  The mouth-piece of the second most important bank in France bent over his plate. General conversation picked up, drifted. The new ministerial crisis, the slump, the franc, America, Tardieu, Camille Chautemps, Poincaré, Pierre Laval, Herriot, half-hearted talk of people who have heard it all, said it all before, who haven’t got much confidence, hope or inside knowledge.

  “Vieille fripouille——”

  “Lui, alors, quel con——”

  “At least he has what it takes——”

  “Mark my word, he’ll be back next month——”

  “He’s getting soft——”

  Not analytical, Flavia thought, not the historical view.

  Melons were brought. Therese sniffed them, cut them, handed out the crescents impartially.

  Clary, who had recovered, tilted back in his chair and said, “I have it on good authority that the National-Socialists will be in by next year, with the right backing they’ll get Germany on her feet again in no time at all. And not a bad thing either. Economic stability and a strong government in Germany can be turned to good advantage for France; what we want now is a policy of rapprochement.”

  The atmosphere changed. Clary, encircled by a current of hostility, went on in his loud voice. “Like it or not, there’s where the future lies.”

  Flavia piped up, “But they’re fascists.”

  “That’s the last word, is it? You’re all afraid of labels. It’s a dynamic movement, something we don’t seem to be capable of any more, and all you can think about is that a few Jews will get rubbed out.” The actual word he used was Youpins.

  Therese rose.

  In a smaller voice he said, “You can’t make an omelet——”

  “No. Not Here! Not in this house!” In one fluid movement Therese strode round the table, was by his chair (his face had turned red, now he picked up his spoon), seized that big man by the scruff of his neck—literally, lifted him clear, propelled him on to the path, down the drive, into the dark. That swift ejection completed she returned, sat down. Nobody spoke a word.

  It was, one must repeat, a banal incident; what made it indelible for those present was Therese: her strength, her unhurried speed, the inevitability with which she had moved in—Medusa, the statue in Don Giovanni. That, and the power of the emotion that united these people round the table.

  From below there came a tiny sound, a tinkle as though a thimble had struck pebbles.

  “My spoon,” said Therese.

  Then they heard the car starting up. Flavia sat big-eyed and shaken. “Eat up your melon,” said Therese.

  But they could not keep away from it.

  “What worries me most,” said Giles, “is where he must have picked up those pretty thoughts—considering the company he keeps. If the bankers have started singing in that tune, God help us all.”

  Paul said, “Therese—his things?”

  She said with complete brutality, “He can buy himself a tooth-brush—at a night ch
emist’s.”

  “Oughtn’t one——?”

  “I’m going to pack his bag in the morning and dump it into the sea. He can well afford it.”

  “Those silk shirts.”

  “No, waste,” said Therese; she turned to the maid who was clearing. “Tomorrow you will pack up the stuff and take it to the Asile des Vieux. An anonymous gift.” She laughed.

  Presently someone said, “Loulou won’t like it.”

  “No more he won’t.”

  Therese did not respond.

  “That swine’s done a lot for Loulou.”

  Later on Jeannine said, “Ma Therese, I believe that story about you must be true.”

  “What story?”

  “That when you were first married to Loulou you took a job in a circus.”

  •

  They broke up late. Flavia’s walking being now established, the cars drove off. Again, as twenty-four hours ago, they were alone. Flavia put her arms round Therese and kissed her on the mouth. Once more she was surprised—never remotely, consciously, had she envisaged anything of the kind—and unsurprised by her impulse. It happened. After a fraction of hesitation Therese responded. Flavia mainly felt an overwhelming sense of triumph. Therese ran a hand through her soft hair, “Do you want to stay the night, coco?” Flavia, who had foreseen, did foresee, nothing, leapt to a decision, Yes.

  That lovely orderly house: how right it made everything. Therese went up the white staircase, Flavia following her.

  “Do you hear something?” Therese had stopped.

  “No,” said Flavia, lying.

  They reached the landing. Again that whimpering sound. Therese said, “Listen. It’s Pierrot.” (How the devil can she tell?) “I must go to him.”

  Left behind, Flavia waited, paced, waited, rigid with bafflement, suspension, will. Something—what? but she shut off thought—was in danger of being snatched from her; something, a chance, a cue, an opening, of huge importance to herself, something that had been offered, now, like that, free, that must not be missed (strangle the little brute), might not come her way again: she had to have it, have it now, have it over. Her perceptions were shut to anything but this. For one so avid to learn, those moments might have provided a startling lesson. She merely prayed; Please let her come back.

  Therese appeared, Pierrot had got a stomach ache. Too many green figs though he would not admit it; he had been frightened, poor kid, waking up with a pain. “He wants some mint tea.”

  The vast kitchen at that hour had an almost shrouded look. The great pots and pans were scoured and hung up, the charcoal range was lidded. Pierrot’s mother got busy. Flavia stood tense and alien.

  “Have a cup?”

  Flavia scowled.

  Unhurriedly Therese bore off the tea and tray. “I’m going to sit with him till he’s asleep, you had better go up to my room, coco.”

  Later Therese found Flavia standing by the window. She went to her, “Now is another hour.” Flavia’s resentment vanished. And then this forceful, simple, subtle, many-sided woman in a manner compounded of protectiveness, sensuality and a great ease took her into her bed.

  To the young, so much is known and unknown. Before: the mystery, the blue-print, the half-imagined, half-refused. Once on the other side: the always-known, the click into place, acceptance; the unthought unthinkable turned fact, the plunge accomplished, the ship afloat. (Or: revulsion; recoil; regression.) For Flavia the shock—the double shock—of recognition was in the heart (pleasure itself still eluded her that day), was a lightening, a light slight puff of happiness such as persists sometimes after awaking from a serene although forgotten dream. She told herself (the mind would not turn off) how cosy, how reassuring, how nice.

  As usual she woke at cockcrow. Time to go to work. Therese, who must have willed herself awake for a few moments, said, “Why don’t you swim on your way back, it’s the best hour.”

  “I will. All hours are best.” Therese muttered some approval. “Bain à toute heure,” Flavia said; not much of a joke, but she did so feel like making one.

  “Have a good day, my coco, see you at dinner-time.”

  “How not!”

  Practically asleep again Therese said, “That’s not French.”

  Flavia, leaving, said, “Course not. Italian. Straight translation. Constanza language.”

  •

  Swinging home she was still lifted by that sense of lightness, that sense of some puzzlement, some latent uncertainty, some ambivalence, cleared. The grown-up future now looked safe; the faces of those lovers hitherto so obstinately veiled appeared at last revealed. Arrived at her own bay she did as she had been told; swimming, the phrase that poured into her mind was French, Tout rentre dans l’ordre.

  Back in the tower, back at her desk, she was filled with a renewal of love for those books and what they held. Cheerfully, with concentration, she set to work. Only once was she intruded upon by a spark of the irreverent Italian mood, as poor Anna called it who had deplored it so, first in her own daughter then in her grandchild. In mid-Gibbon, Flavia looked up and giggled: The sensual life is in the bag.

  3.

  Quite soon, of course, Flavia required a hundred and one definitions; but Therese was not one to be drawn at will into human intricacies. The analytical talk, the literate gossip about behaviour and events to which Flavia was accustomed from her mother who had spent her formative years in articulate London, would have been dismissed by Therese as superfluous. Flavia had to wait and do with such scraps as came her way. Indeed almost the first thing she learnt from the older woman was that it is possible to get to know people first and ask questions, if any, afterwards. One evening Therese came out with at least one casual answer.

  “Oh well, you know, it doesn’t really matter very much which of one’s friends one goes to bed with.” Thus she disposed of the problem, if to her problem it was, of bi-sexuality.

  Flavia drank it in. She found the attitude enlightened, generous and nicely debonair. All the same it did not take one all the way.

  “Any kind of friend? Regardless——?”

  “If one is attracted.”

  “But there are preferences?”

  “Evidently,” said Therese.

  Flavia longed to ask a personal question. Absolutely did not dare.

  After a while she ventured, “Aren’t some . . . preferences more usual than others?”

  “Usual?”

  “Well, to most people, the majority? All the people who get married.”

  “We weren’t talking of marriage.”

  “What I mean,” Flavia said, “even outside marriage, isn’t it more usual? or isn’t it?”

  Therese gave her some attention. “One needs different things at different times,” she said.

  Flavia considered this. After another while she said, “I think I’m pretty sure about mine.”

  “Your what, coco?”

  “My preferences.”

  Therese got nearly angry. “You are too young for such idiocies. You have a life in front of you.”

  Aping the tones of a glib Frenchwoman, Flavia said, “You must look out for a boy of your own age.”

  “Certainly. Some day. At present you need older people.”

  “I only like older people.”

  “There you go again, coco. One changes.”

  Again Flavia would have liked to probe. It was the first time that she knew anyone at all well without at the same time knowing about their past.

  Therese said, “Paul?”

  “Paul?”

  “He finds you attractive. Tu lui plais.”

  Flavia had not thought of herself in that light in one way or another. She felt flattered. “He is a very good art critic, isn’t he?”

  “My poor child.”

  Therese combined the principle of not meddling—very much a principle with her—and a sporadic sense of responsibility. She also had intuitions. Now out of the blue she asked, “Coco, does your mother know that you have bee
n quite on your own all this time?”

  The question or at least the meaning of the question that Flavia so resented had always been, How can your mother leave you on your own so long? not, Does your mother know? She simply blushed. Then she giggled. “Well, as a matter of fact she probably thinks that a maid of ours is with me.”

  “But she isn’t?”

  “Well . . . no. You see, she went to Italy for a rest. She’s got a bit of land in the Udine and she means to settle it on her nephew, that’s a lot of paper-work, chez nous. And she isn’t very well, you know—she had that shock, poor Mena—so she does rather want to keep away for a time. She thinks it’s all right because an old friend of ours had come to stay near me at Bandol.”

  “But he never came?” said Therese. She said it without irony; for herself she was quite devoid of that Gallic strain; she simply wanted to know.

  “Well . . . no. He’s not awfully well either, he’s quite old. That journey and only for me. He would have come but I rather think he thinks that Mena is still here. His name is James. Initials and James; we call him Mr. James. My mother and I have known him since we were born but we never call him anything else, not Uncle James or anything like that, perhaps because to us he is unique.” Flavia could hear herself becoming garrulous. “He’s very intelligent; when I was a child I thought he was the most intelligent man in the world. He’s an American. Now he’s old.”

  Therese said, “Your mother believes that your maid is here; your maid believes that your American friend is here; your American friend believes——”

  Half guilty, half pleased with herself, Flavia said, “There’s been some hankypanky.” She said it in English of which Therese was supposed to understand a few words.

  “What?”

  “I was the go-between. Oh, I did forward the messages and all that, only I allowed them all to . . . form impressions.”

  Therese said quite sternly, “I don’t like that.”

  “I thought you did when Giles said I had a will of my own.”

  “That is not the same.”

  “I only did it because it is what everybody really wants.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  Flavia met this seriously. “I know. What is for the best? But sometimes I think one knows.”