The Great and the Good

by Michel Déon

  ‘You see, I’m well guarded. I’m not going to ask you up. We’d run the risk of getting sentimental and tomorrow I’d have bags under my eyes.’

  She abandoned Arthur with a light kiss on the lips. Pausing at the glass doors, she added, ‘Oh, by the way, Getulio told me something about Augusta when he came to see me. I’ve forgotten exactly what—’

  ‘No, you haven’t.’

  ‘Oh yes! He told me – I’m not making any of this up – “Augusta’s unhappy, she’s getting divorced, and she’s started to believe in God.”’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  Deciding to go back downtown on foot, Arthur paid off the cab driver, and when he turned round the doorman was in front of him.

  ‘Before she closed the lift door, Miss Murphy asked me to tell you that you must come back to New York soon.’

  Arthur walked down Madison Avenue, heading for the private club on 37th Street where he stayed on his New York trips. He far preferred it to a hotel; it was a discreet refuge in monochrome colours: grey walls, black carpet, chrome lift, black maids in grey tunics, white valets in black trousers and polo necks, immaculate crockery on grey tablecloths, a breakfast room draped in coarse grey cotton with – the single splash of colour in this symphony – jugs of fruit juice and pots of jam. Only the sound of newspaper pages being turned disturbed the silence. The service was silent and unseen. The guests were mostly men; occasionally a woman sat at a distant table and drank half a cup of coffee, black of course, a briefcase at her feet. At the desk, in her black blazer over a grey silk shirt, stood an unusual South American-looking woman with a luxuriant head of curly hair that went down to her shoulders. Erect behind her counter, she never smiled, a woman-torso who hardly turned to take down a guest’s key or tear off a bill spat out by the computer. Because of her severe appearance Arthur called her Medea, to which she responded by pointing to the name badge she wore on the lapel of her blazer.

  ‘My name is Juana!’

  He could, equally appropriately, have called her Cerberus, so closely did she attend to the selection of the club’s guests and their needs.

  ‘How,’ Zava would ask him, ‘can you like being in such a dismal place? Every time I come here I think I’m at an undertaker’s.’

  ‘Dear Zava, to my lasting regret I’ve never belonged to a secret society. But here the black and grey give me the illusion of an oratory where you come to give thanks to the All-Powerful – by which I mean the dollar, obviously – for having blessed an infinitely delicate deal.’

  ‘The same old Arthur. Always the same guilty feelings when it comes to money.’

  ‘It wasn’t there when I needed it. Now it rains down on me.’

  ‘The day I see you behind the wheel of a Rolls-Royce or a Ferrari and living on Avenue Foch or Park Avenue, I’ll start worrying.’

  With the exception of a stretch of Broadway and Times Square, and perhaps Greenwich Village where he had hung out with Elizabeth before bourgeois Manhattan reclaimed her, which it always did, New York dies every night. The city is not like Paris, Rome or Madrid, where, as darkness falls, another life awakens. At the heart of this San Gimignano of the future, with its gigantic twinkling towers that rose into a sky daubed with mottles of pink, grey and yellow gas and smoke, Arthur held sway over streets abandoned to their last fevered souls. The walk, which that night took him the best part of an hour, was also an antidote to the memories that Elizabeth and Getulio had stirred up. He would never forget how Elizabeth had extended her hand to him, a young Frenchman adrift in a new, potentially hostile and certainly indifferent world.

  Medea handed him his key. When did she sleep?

  Next morning, before he caught his flight at Kennedy airport, he called Elizabeth and left her a message on her answering machine.

  Paris at midnight was a carnival city in a crown of bright lights.

  The apartment in Rue Verneuil smelt as though it had been closed for a long time. He opened the windows wide.

  In the narrow Rue Allent below, two women chatted as their dogs pissed on trees made sickly by so much nocturnal urination.

  From a drawer Arthur took out the photograph of Augusta, the dried petals of a rose, the sari she had worn at Key Largo, another photograph of Elizabeth outside her apartment, and a programme from the evening at the docks.

  A month later Arthur met Getulio again, in Paris this time, and found himself standing on Rue des Saints-Pères in possession of a phone number that he was not sure he wanted.

  At Brig he was surprised at me asking him to go via the Simplon Pass and, after Domodossola, to carry on down to Stresa instead of taking the short cut via Santa Maria Maggiore. ‘It’s much longer!’ But I’m hardly going to explain that, having waited twenty years for this meeting, I have plenty of time and can easily put it off till tomorrow. I must have been over this pass ten times. Patches of grubby snow that the spring sunshine has forgotten still lie here and there. Jean-Émile, that’s his name, is a cautious driver; as a Swiss citizen he respects the highway code, never exceeding the speed limit, not even by a kilometre. In New York I remember a day once when I was obsessed by the hairstyles of the cab drivers: there was a Haitian with a frizzy black ball, another skull that was totally bald, a blond man with a perm, and then at the Brasilia restaurant, where they were waiting for me, Luis de Souza’s slicked-down waves and Getulio’s first signs of baldness. There’s nothing remarkable about the back of Jean-Émile’s head: recently clipped, not a hair out of place under his cap. The owner of the chauffeur-driven car-hire business must inspect his staff every morning. Jean-Émile’s blue suit, white shirt, and black tie are impeccable. He would probably be surprised to hear that in Paris I get around on a bicycle and wear bicycle clips, and sometimes a face mask when the heat makes the air in the traffic jams unbreathable. It’s the sort of contrast that makes my life beguiling. When I gave up driving, I discovered the pleasure of being able to talk to myself while I paid someone else to deal with all the boring details: parking, filling up with petrol, changing a tyre. It’s practically the only luxury I ask for, and it matters to me. Apart from books, of course, although books aren’t a luxury but company. They’re conversational partners for a recluse. I deliberately don’t count the girls: they’re for my health. In the driver’s mirror, I catch Jean-Émile yawning again. ‘If you’re tired, let’s stop.’ ‘No, I’m not tired, but if Monsieur would like a bite to eat there’s an auberge just before the tunnel where they serve raclette.’ Not raclette, it furs up your mouth. But I know the place he means; I’ve often stopped there for a little treat of dried beef and a Fendant wine that copes very well with the altitude. The excellent Jean-Émile becomes embarrassed when I ask him to join me at an outside table under a red parasol with the valley, russet and dark, at our feet. With a toothpick and considerable finesse he cleans his fingernails under the table. To the job description of the ideal chauffeur, his employer will need to add a new section: ‘Other skills’. What does Jean-Émile think of his passenger? I wonder. That I’m a multimillionaire? Or an accountant who has fled with the takings, treating himself to a luxury holiday before he’s put away for five years? He probably stopped asking himself those kinds of questions a long time ago. In Germany, a chauffeur is an impenetrable robot; in Italy he’ll immediately get out his photos of mamma and the children, then look round at you all the time he’s driving, taking no notice of the road; in England he’ll look down on you, make you feel he’s used to driving the crème de la crème, not some wretched commoner; in France he’ll stop regularly at country restaurants, ‘little places’ he knows. Jean-Émile, a Vaudois, is suspicious of everyone including, I think, me. He looks preoccupied, turning to stare at the valley as if something’s happening there when the waitress in her Valais costume brings the bill over: an attractive girl who counts out the change from a black cloth purse on a belt around her waist. On the far side of the pass there’s an Italian customs post. Only when we’re over the bor
der do I start to feel like quoting Jean Giono, his words about his hero Angelo Pardi: ‘He was bursting with happiness.’ But I can’t quite work up the energy, and the detour to Stresa feels more like an excuse to revisit the hotel where I spent a pleasant week with one of the treasured Madame Claude’s girls, and to postpone the inevitable moment of truth with Augusta. Or is it because I’m feeling wary? Nothing good can come from Getulio. Why, after so many years of hiding his sister from me, did he suddenly decide, on the corner of Rue des Saints-Pères and Rue Jacob, to let me get closer? I made enquiries: Luis de Souza divorced Augusta for a younger model. He’s a very long way from penury, whereas Getulio lives on a pension left him by Helen Murphy, comfortable but decidedly scant for his taste, and cannot draw on the capital. What a curse of Tantalus! Having heard from mutual acquaintances that I went round Paris by bicycle, he must have thought for a long time that I was a down-and-out, till someone set him straight. With perfect synchronicity, Zava, who I confided in last week, said, ‘Be very careful. You’d be better off going to Kamchatka,’ then ten minutes later Brustein, who also knows exactly how the world works, said, ‘Be careful, you’d be better off coming to Seville.’ Elizabeth was next. ‘Careful. You can never glue the old bits back together; you’d be better off coming to see me in New York.’ As if, struck by the same premonition, they were all suddenly afraid to see me embark on a dangerous course. Yet the real danger’s one I’m already too well aware of: it’s the way I accept things, that profound personal weakness of mine; Augusta leaves me and I let her go without a fight; Elizabeth makes an exhibition of herself and I turn my back on her in disgust only to realise afterwards that I reacted like a child. The valley road down to Domodossola is dismal. There’s none of the pleasure you expect when you arrive in Italy. The road’s so twisting, the traffic so heavy, we creep down it like a tortoise. Jean-Émile’s composure starts to slip as the Italian drivers, more devious than he, sneak in front of him and refuse to give way. I look for trees in blossom and see only derelict cars, corrugated-iron sheds, hideous trattorias. What was the name of the girl I took to Stresa? What a telling lapse of memory, when I have no difficulty remembering how perfect her body was and how, the first morning, she got out of bed wearing only a pyjama top, opened the window wide, and leant her elbows on the balcony. Her firm, dimpled bottom was a lovely sight. She called me over to admire another view, looking towards the far bank of Lake Maggiore, invisible in the morning mist. ‘I adore the sea!’ she exclaimed in her attractive central European accent. I didn’t correct her, and for several days she genuinely thought she was at the seaside. She watched for dolphins that failed to appear. During the day she sat on the floor and painted her nails, red, then black, then silver. The smell of acetone and nail polish, a scent of strawberries and boiled sweets, filled our room. Conversation being impossible, I regaled myself with The Diary of A. O. Barnabooth, which ever since has gone with me wherever I go. Her name comes back to me: Melusine, which she pronounced Méloussine, a nom de guerre that didn’t suit her at all. The closer we are to the lake, the prettier the road gets, with big gardens running down to it full of mimosas still in bloom, Judas trees, and the first white and purple lilacs. The style of the houses is remarkably heavy. The mixture of the classic elegance of Tuscan architecture and solid Swiss common sense makes for an unsuccessful marriage. Jean-Émile is driving more and more cautiously and must be cursing my whim of going through Italy instead of over the Furka and St Gotthard passes. He will be even more surprised at my wanting to spend the night at the Grand Hotel on the Borromean Islands. The season has hardly begun. No tourist buses, just Mercedes with German registration plates. The Germans got themselves killed in their millions to conquer Europe when it was so simple, and much more pleasant, to buy it peacefully with nice stable Deutschmarks. There’s the hotel, the islands gently floating on the black waters of the lake, the antiquated luxury, the privacy. Here I can escape from the idea people have had of me ever since Elizabeth and Augusta first walked past me without seeing me. At the desk, for almost twenty years now, there’s been the same manager, as affable as can be to the guests and odious to his staff. ‘Ah, Monsieur Morgan, we were despairing of ever seeing you again. Are you on your own? Your room is waiting for you.’ To be greeted by name in a dozen great hotels around the world is a secret pleasure. His short black beard, trimmed like Marshal Balbo’s, has gained some distinguished streaks of silver, and he still wears the same black-edged jacket, striped trousers, starched collar, and gleaming silk tie. Being able to recognise a guest is one of the great imperatives of the hotel business. I remember Flaubert’s disappointment when, having enjoyed a bewitching night at Esna with that dancer, Kuchuk Hanem, he hurried back from Aswan, eagerly looking forward to his second meeting with the woman who had shown him so many signs of love, only to discover, absolutely crestfallen, that she had forgotten who he was. Yet I have none of the memorable habits Getulio affects: breakfasts of caviar and champagne, wearing a dinner jacket to dine on a few lettuce leaves and a glass of mineral water. Plus possibly leaving without paying the bill, or settling it with a dud cheque. Another time I came to Stresa, it was with a sweet French girl who had set her heart on dancing. It couldn’t be done: the band on the terrace had never played anything but The Blue Danube and the barcarole from The Tales of Hoffmann. When I got back, Madame Claude was requested not to provide any girl who was an expert at anything in future. The reason I often treat myself to these short-term companions is that without a girl, all the luxury, the windows overlooking Lake Maggiore or the Pincio, the cruises, the San Fermín fiesta at Pamplona, the Fasnacht at Basel and the Setaïs Palace at Sintra, would be unbearable. The few times I’ve travelled on my own, I find Augusta and the ten radiant days we spent at Key Largo going round and round in my head, to the point where I start to panic. This evening, because I’m going to see her tomorrow, I feel the weight I’ve been carrying around ever since lifting from my shoulders. It’s not important: to have had Key Largo is the most important thing!

  Jean-Émile has been on a war footing since eight this morning. From the balcony I can see him patrolling around his car with a chamois leather and a small brush in his hand. He strokes its wings, polishes the radiator cap, rubs a speck of dust off the windscreen with a moistened fingertip, sees off with an energetic (not very Swiss) kick a dog that was about to lift its leg against one of the rear tyres (an Italian dog, of course!). You can hardly see the far bank. The lake is an inky black. Not far from the shore is a pretty boat with a white awning stretched over some hoops. A gold-coloured dog is asleep on its bow. There’s a happy man fishing. On the jetty two tourist couples are getting into a Riva, whose varnished hull and chrome are sparkling in the sun. A compulsory tour of the Borromean Islands. The little French girl went on her own. Melusine was no more interested in them than I was. We stayed in our room, her painting her nails, me reading Valery Larbaud.

  And you, Italy, one day, on my knees

  I piously kissed your warm stone,

  You remember …

  The Riva pushes away in a beautiful V out over the velvet waters. A memory of A Farewell to Arms: Henry, the American tenente, and Catherine leave the Grand Hotel of the Borromean Islands by the service entrance and get away in a dinghy bound for the Swiss border. It’s the middle of the night. Thirty-five kilometres to go, but they have the wind behind them, and for a while the parasol the concierge has lent them acts as a spinnaker. Hemingway studied the route carefully. I like these pages for the tender, loving complicity of the two fugitives, their banal exchanges – ‘Are you warm enough?’ ‘Don’t you want to eat something?’ ‘Take a rest and a drink.’ ‘Tell me when you’re tired.’ ‘Aren’t you dead?’ ‘My hands are sore, is all’ – much truer about what passes between two people than passionate bleating and heartbreaking declarations. In the morning – both of them exhausted, he with stiffened hands, she hunched with cold – they arrive at Brissago, on neutral territory, and their first act is to order a royal
breakfast: four eggs, coffee, jam, toast, because to Catherine’s regret there are no rolls, Switzerland having tightened its belt. But it makes your mouth water. In such small details Hemingway’s novels have a reality you rarely find elsewhere. I look for writers for whom sitting down to a meal is a cause for celebration. It’s a shame I haven’t brought my copy … I’d have reread that passage on the way, stopping at each stage of that forced row: Pallanza, the lights of Luino on the far bank, the frontier post at Cannobio (too dangerous for Henry and Catherine, half-Italian, half-Swiss), and finally their salvation at Brissago. For heaven’s sake … let’s be honest! Shouldn’t I be rushing now, putting behind me the last kilometres between me and Lugano instead of daydreaming on my balcony as if this meeting, so longed for since Key Largo, had suddenly left me cold? Am I going to be like that character in a novel whose name and title I forget who travels to England in pursuit of an adolescent love affair, discovers the setting and the object of his love and then, for fear of destroying his dream, makes do with sending her a message and returning to Paris? Imagine me doing the same, for fear of finally coming face to face with the completely unreal image I made of her. It goes this way: I ask Jean-Émile to stop beneath the windows of the Villa Celesta and sound his horn. She appears on the balcony. I say, ‘How are you?’ She says, ‘Very well!’ but doesn’t ask me to come up. I say, ‘Till we meet again, in twenty years’ time!’ and then, to Jean-Émile, ‘Lausanne, please, by the shortest possible route.’ He’ll need every ounce of his Vaudois impassivity. Come on … the time has come … be brave, let’s go! The tourists’ Riva is tying up at Isola Bella. In a few minutes the caretaker will be showing them the bed Napoleon slept in the night before Marengo. I believe the sheets have been changed.