Four Novels

by Marguerite Duras

  After the houses, the shacks, there were the wheat fields. And nothing but wheat under the blue light. Blue was the wheat. It went on and on. Maria was driving slowly, but moving ahead. At some point in the night, at a turn, she saw a sign, clearly lit up by her headlights, and noticed that she was eight miles out of the town she had just left, Rodrigo Paestra’s town.

  She went on, up to a dirt road that looked dark next to the light wheat field. She turned into it, went on for about a third of a mile, and stopped. On both sides of this road there was the same wheat as before, and the night was just as full. There was no village in sight. And there was total silence as soon as Maria turned off the engine.

  When Maria turned around, Rodrigo Paestra was getting out of his shroud.

  He sat down on the back seat and looked around him. His face looked blurred in the blue light of the night.

  If there were birds in this plain, they were probably still sleeping in the sodden clay, between the blades of wheat.

  Maria took some cigarettes out of her pocket. She pulled one out and handed it to him. He pounced on it and when she lit it for him she noticed that Rodrigo Paestra was shivering with cold. He smoked the cigarette with both hands so as not to let it fall. It is cold in Spain, on stormy nights, an hour before dawn.

  He was smoking.

  He hadn’t looked at this woman.

  But she was looking at him. His name is Rodrigo Paestra. While looking at the wheat, she could see him.

  His hair was glued to his scalp. His clothes were stuck to his body as if he had drowned. He probably was tall and robust. Was he about thirty? He was still smoking. What was he looking at? The cigarette. Most likely, as he looked at it, his eyes were black.

  Maria unfolded the blanket next to her and held it out to him. He took it and put it on the back seat. He hadn’t understood. He was smoking again. Then he looked at both sides of the car. He was the first to speak.

  “Where are we?”

  “The road to Madrid.”

  He didn’t say anything else. Maria didn’t either. She turned again, facing the windshield. They were both smoking. He finished first. She gave him another one. He was still shaking. In the light of the match, his expression was vacant, reduced to his concentrating on not shaking.

  “Where do you want to go?” Maria asked.

  He didn’t answer immediately. He was probably looking at her for the first time, from very far away, without caring. Anyway, this was a glance from him. Maria didn’t see his eyes, but she saw his glance as clearly as in broad daylight.

  “I don’t know,” Rodrigo Paestra said.

  Again Maria turned to the front. Then, not being able to bear it, she turned back to face him. She intensely wanted to look at him. The haggard expression he had had when he had looked at her had vanished. There were only his eyes now. And, over his eyes, the eyelids opening automatically whenever he raised his cigarette to his mouth. Nothing. Rodrigo Paestra had no strength left except to smoke. Why had he followed Maria this far? Probably just to be nice, a last polite gesture. Someone calls you and you answer. What was Rodrigo Paestra now? Maria devoured him with her eyes, devoured with her eyes this living prodigy, this black flower which had bloomed that night in the licentiousness of love.

  He had split her head open with one shot of his gun. And his love was resting, in an improvised morgue in the town hall, dead at nineteen, still naked, wrapped in a brown blanket, identical with the one he had wrapped around himself on the roof. As for him, the other one, the bullet went through his heart. They were separated.

  “What time is it?” Rodrigo Paestra asked.

  Maria showed him her watch, but he didn’t look at it.

  “A little after two thirty.”

  His eyes looked at the wheat fields again. He was resting against the back seat and it seemed to Maria that she had heard a man sigh in the silence. Then the silence came back. And also the slow passing of time before dawn. Interminable.

  It was cold. Had the warm wind blowing on the town before really existed? A gust that had followed the storm and had disappeared. The swelling, ripe wheat, tortured by the showers of the preceding day, remained motionless.

  The cold that suddenly surged from the motionless air bit their eyes and their shoulders.

  Rodrigo Paestra must have fallen asleep. His head was resting on the back of the seat. And his mouth was slightly open. He was sleeping.

  Something changed in the air they were breathing, a pale light blew over the fields. For how long? For how long had he been sleeping? An onslaught began somewhere on the horizon, colorless, uneven, impossible to define. An onslaught began somewhere in her head and in her body a growing uneasiness, unrelated to the memory of any other, searching for its identity. And yet, and yet, the sky was clear and blue if you wanted it that way. It still was. Of course this was only an accidental light, the perfect illusion of a change of mood, happening through a sudden complaisance, coming from far away, from various strains and from the strain of that night. Perhaps?

  No. It was dawn.

  He was sleeping. Sleeping.

  There still wasn’t any specific color in the dawn.

  Rodrigo Paestra was dreaming. He was so deeply asleep he could dream. Maria had her chin on the back of the seat, and was watching him. Sometimes the sky too, but always him. Very attentively. That is to say she was watching Rodrigo Paestra. Yes, there he was, sleeping soundly, flying over all his troubles with the wings of a bird. You could see it. He was carried well above his troubles, in spite of his new weight, and he consented unconsciously.

  Maria was deprived of Rodrigo Paestra’s perfectly empty glance while he was sleeping.

  He had just smiled in his sleep. Above his slightly open mouth, she could swear that a smile had taken shape, a quivering smile, unmistakably like a smile of life and joy. Other words were banished from dawn.

  Between his thighs, next to his sex, there was the shape of his gun. His blanket was on the floor. The car blanket next to him. It was useless to cover him. Anyway she wanted to see all of him and forever. She could see him clearly. And that his sleep was sound, and good.

  She had to avoid looking up at the sky.

  It wasn’t worth it. Dawn was rising upon him. The livid light had covered his whole body, little by little. His body had clear, obvious proportions. He again had a name: Rodrigo Paestra.

  The time had come now when he would have been caught like a rat.

  Maria spread out, a little like him, on the front seat, and she watched the dawn move over him.

  Too late, the memory of a child came back to her. She pushed it away. While he was still dreaming just as he had dreamed the day before.

  She still had to wait. And later, she would have to call him.

  Then he became pink. A steady weariness blew over the countryside and over Maria. Peacefully, the sky took on color. She still had some time. A car going to Madrid drove by on the highway. Maria furtively looked at the sky, on the other side. The pink color that was on him did come from the sky. They had reached the time of the first departures. The car going to Madrid undoubtedly had come from the hotel. In one of the still dark corridors, stretching painfully after a bad night, Claire must have greeted the day that was rising on their love. And then, she fell asleep again.

  He was sleeping. Maria got up and took the brandy out of the door pocket. Because of her empty stomach, the liquor came up in her throat, burning and familiar, with a feeling of nausea that woke her up. The sun. There was the sun on the horizon. All at once it was less cold. Her eyes hurt. He had been sleeping for nearly an hour. The sun swept over his body, entered his slightly open mouth, and his clothes began to let off a cloud of steam that looked like smoke. His hair let off the same smoke. Very tenuous smoke of an abandoned fire. He still couldn’t feel the light. His eyes barely trembled. But his eyelids sealed in his sleep. He no longer smiled.

  Wouldn’t it be better to call him immediately, as soon as possible, so it would be al
l over?

  Again Maria took the brandy, drank, put it back in the door pocket. She was still waiting. She hadn’t done it yet. She still hadn’t called Rodrigo Paestra.

  And yet, it would be best if that moment in Maria’s life, when Rodrigo Paestra would wake up in the Rover with this stranger near him in the wheat road, would be over as fast as possible. His memory would come back—predictably—a few seconds after he woke up. He would remain disconcerted just long enough to understand that he had been dreaming. Maria would have to decide to wake Rodrigo Paestra.

  The sun was half off the horizon. Two cars, six cars went by on their way to Madrid. Again Maria took the brandy, took another gulp. This time she felt so nauseous she had to close her eyes. Then, afterwards, she began to call softly.

  “Rodrigo Paestra.”

  He hadn’t heard. His eyes trembled then sealed up still tighter. She was still nauseous from the brandy. She felt like vomiting. Maria closed her eyes so she wouldn’t have to vomit and to look at him.

  “Rodrigo Paestra.”

  She fumbled about to replace the brandy in the pocket and she let her head sink back onto the seat.

  “Rodrigo Paestra.”

  Something must have moved in the back. Then nothing happened. He didn’t wake up. Maria sat up and, this time, looked at him.

  “Rodrigo Paestra.”

  His eyes had blinked. Maria, her nausea gone, started again. She took the brandy, drank some more. This gulp was bigger than the last one. Was she going to faint? No. It just prevents you from seeing, prevents you from speaking calmly, only lets you scream.

  “Rodrigo Paestra, Rodrigo Paestra.”

  Again Maria buried her head in the back of the front seat.

  It must have happened. This must have been his waking. A soft cry, a long moan had come from the back of the car.

  When Maria turned he was already past the first moments of waking. He was sitting up on the seat and with rheumy, bloodshot eyes was looking at the wheat fields, his land of wheat fields. Was he surprised? Yes, he was still surprised, but just a little. Then his eyes wandered from the wheat fields. He was sitting up straight now, but no longer looking at anything. He remembered everything.

  “I have to get back to the hotel.”

  He was silent. Maria handed him a cigarette. He didn’t see it. She was holding the cigarette out to him, but he still didn’t see it. He started to look at Maria. When she had told him that she would have to get back to the hotel, he had grabbed his brown blanket and his gesture had stopped abruptly. He had discovered Maria’s existence. It was probably by seeing her that he had remembered.

  She was trying not to breathe too deeply so as not to vomit. The last gulp of brandy at daybreak, probably, coming up in her throat like a sob that you have to keep holding in.

  He was looking at her, looking at her, looking at her. An empty stare, inconceivably disinterested. What else did he notice looking at Maria? From what surprise, exactly, was he returning when he saw Maria? Had he noticed just then that he could expect nothing more from Maria, from Maria or anyone else? That with this dawn a new certainty was exposed which night had kept hidden?

  “I have a child at the hotel,” she said, “that’s why I have to get back.”

  It was over. His eyes moved away from her. Again she held out to him the cigarette she had kept in her hand; he took it, and she lit it for him. He picked up the brown blanket from the seat.

  “Listen,” Maria said.

  Perhaps he hadn’t heard. She had spoken very softly. He had opened the door, he had got out, and was now standing next to the car.

  “Listen,” Maria repeated. “The border isn’t very far. We can try.”

  He was standing in the dirt road and again he looked at his land of wheat fields all around him. And then he came back, he remembered, he closed the door. He remembered. In the same way, during the night, he had been willing to answer when his name was called. He had been gracious then. The sun was glaring and forced him to squint.

  “We can try,” Maria repeated.

  He shook his head, as if to refuse, very slowly, he had no opinion.

  “At noon,” Maria said. “At noon I’ll be here. I’ll be back. At noon.”

  “Noon,” Rodrigo Paestra said after her.

  With her fingers, she pointed to the sun and opened her hands wide toward him.

  “Noon, noon,” she kept saying.

  He nodded, he had understood. Then he turned around and looked for a spot where he could go, where he could settle down, in this wide, in this free expanse of wheat. The sun was completely above the horizon, and was hitting him full blast, his shadow was perfect, a long shadow on the wheat.

  He could have found a spot to go to, where he could rest. He went off on the dirt road. Alongside of him, his blanket, which he held in his hand, was dragging. He was barefoot in his rope sandals. He had no jacket, only a dark blue shirt like all the men in his village.

  He walked on the road, stopped, hesitated it seemed, then walked into the wheat field, about twenty yards from the Rover, and just dropped as if struck by lightning. Maria waited. He didn’t get up.

  When she got back on the highway, away from the humid clay of the wheat fields, it was already hot. It would get hotter still, until noon, inevitably, and would stay that way all day until sundown. She knew that.

  With the sun on her neck, her nausea came back, throbbing. Maria fought off sleep, her hands gripping the steering wheel. Whenever she felt she had won, she would be engulfed again. However, she was getting closer to the hotel.

  She passed the shop.

  Then the garages.

  There were already a few peasants. But very few cars going toward Madrid.

  Just when Maria thought she could no longer fight off sleep, the memory of Judith got her to the outskirts of the town, then to the town. And then, the square.

  The police were still there. The ones from the night must have been sleeping. These men, in broad daylight, looked discouraged. They were yawning. Their feet were muddy, their clothes crumpled, but they were still whistling throughout the town. In front of the town hall, wearily, they kept watch over the two victims of the day before.

  The hotel gate was open. The young watchman had been replaced by an old man. There was room in the shed. The cars had been coming from the hotel. Maria left through the gate, took the street around the hotel where, during the night, she had met Rodrigo Paestra. She had some trouble walking because she had had so much brandy, but the street was still deserted and nobody saw her.

  There was room in the corridor. Her nausea was so strong that she first had to lie down next to her child to gather enough courage to look around. The brown blanket was warm from Judith’s body. Somebody had closed the doors leading to the balcony, so that the hall was still cool and quiet. And restful. Judith turned over, still happily sleeping. Maria rested.

  They were still there, both of them. They were still sleeping. Two hours had gone by since she had left the corridor. It was very early. Four in the morning. In their sleep, they had moved closer to each other, probably without realizing it. Pierre had Claire’s surrendered ankle against his cheek. His mouth was brushing against it. Claire’s ankle was resting on Pierre’s open hand. If he closed his hand, that woman’s ankle would be completely contained in it. Maria kept looking, but it didn’t happen. They were sleeping like logs.

  Six

  “MARIA.”

  Maria woke up. Pierre was calling her. He was amused by such sleepiness. He was leaning against the wall and looking at her.

  “It’s ten o’clock,” he apologized. “Everybody has left.”

  “Judith?”

  “She’s playing in the courtyard. She’s all right.”

  The corridor around Maria was empty. The balcony window was open and the sun was shining obliquely into the corridor. It shone on the red, glaring ground, like the day before, and was reflected on Pierre’s face. Maria felt nauseous again. She got up and then lay
down again.

  “One more minute, and I’ll get up.”

  At the end of the corridor, waiters were already going back and forth carrying trays of cool drinks. The bedroom doors were open. Women were singing while they made the beds. And the heat was there, already.

  “I told them to let you sleep,” Pierre said. “But in a few minutes the sun would have been shining on you.”

  He looked at her insistently. She had taken a cigarette, she tried to smoke it, and threw it away. She smiled at Pierre through her nausea.

  “It’s hard for me, in the morning,” she said. “But I’m going to get up.”

  “Do you want me to stay?”

  “Wait for me in the dining room. When alcoholics wake up they should be alone.”

  They both smiled. Pierre left. Maria called him back.

  “Claire, where is she?” Maria asked.

  “With the child, downstairs.”

  When she managed to get up and reach the dining room, the coffee pot was steaming on Pierre’s table. Pierre knew what Maria needed on those mornings. He let her drink, drink all the coffee, without speaking. Then stretch, stretch, run her hands through her hair, and finally smoke.

  “I feel better now,” she said.

  Except for two other tables, they were alone in the dining room, which was once more perfectly neat and orderly. The tables, all white, were already set for lunch. A large, brownish-gray canvas had been hung under the skylight that had been blue during the night, and was filtering the sun. Here the heat was bearable.

  “You drank last night, Maria,” Pierre stated.

  She moved her hand over her face. It was through her hands on her face that she could feel, that she knew she had been beautiful, but had started to be less so. It was from the way in which she moved her hands on her face, without caution, that she knew she had accepted defeat forever. She didn’t answer Pierre.

  “It’s a question of will power, again,” Pierre went on. “You could drink less, at night at least.”

  Maria gulped down the rest of her coffee.