Madame Henrouille hadn’t had enough education to follow me any further … Character, yes, she had plenty of that … But no education! That was the rub. No education! Education is indispensable! That’s why she couldn’t understand me anymore, or understand what was going on around us, vicious and stubborn as she was … That’s not enough … You need a heart and a certain amount of knowledge to go further than other people … To get back to the Seine I took the Rue des Sanzillons and then the Impasse Vasson. My worry was all straightened out. I was pleased, almost happy, because now I knew that there was no point in batting my brains out over the Henrouille woman, I’d finally dropped her by the wayside, the bitch! … What a number! We’d been pretty good friends in our own way … We had understood each other for quite some time … But now she wasn’t low enough for me, and she couldn’t go down any further … To catch up with me … She had neither the education nor the strength. You don’t go up in life, you go down. And she couldn’t get down to where I was … There was too much night around me.
Passing the house where Bébert’s aunt had been the concierge, I’d have liked to go in and see who was living now in the lodge where I’d taken care of Bébert and where he had died. Maybe his schoolboy picture was still hanging over the bed … But it was too late to be waking people up. I went on without showing myself …
A little further on, on the Faubourg de la Liberte, I saw the light still burning in Bézin’s junk shop … I hadn’t expected that … But it was only a gas jet in the middle of the window. Bézin knew all the news and gossip of the neighborhood from hanging around the cafés … He was known all the way from the Flea Market to the Porte Maillot.
He could have told me some good ones if he’d been awake. I pushed his door. The bell rang, but no one answered. I knew that he slept in the back room, his dining room actually … And there he was in the dark with his head between his arms on the table, sitting twisted beside his cold dinner that was still waiting, lentils. He had begun to eat. Sleep had grabbed hold of him the moment he started. He was snoring loudly. True, he’d been drinking. I well remember what day it was, a Thursday, the day of the market at Les Lilas … He had a green cloth full of his acquisitions spread out at his feet.
I had always liked Bézin, he was no crummier than most. Obliging, easygoing … I wasn’t going to wake him up just out of curiosity, just to get answers to my few little questions … So I turned off the gas and left.
I’m sure he had a hard time making ends meet in that business of his. But at least he found no difficulty in falling asleep.
I can’t deny that I felt sad as I started back to Vigny at the thought that all those people, those houses, those dirty, dingy, dismal things no longer spoke to me at all, no longer spoke straight to my heart as they had in the old days, and that, chipper as I might seem, I quite possibly didn’t have the strength to go on much further like that alone.
About meals at Vigny, we had stuck to the same arrangements as in Baryton’s day, that is, we all got together at table, except that now we usually ate in the billiard room above the concierge’s lodge. It was cosier than the regular dining room, where unpleasant memories of English conversations still hung in the air. And besides, the furniture in the dining room was too good for us—genuine “1900” pieces with opaline stained-glass windows.
From the billiard room you could see everything that was going on in the street. That could come in handy. We’d spend whole Sundays in that room. Now and then we’d invite a doctor from the neighborhood to dinner, but our usual guest was Gustave, the traffic cop. He was regular. I can vouch for that. We’d got acquainted out of the window one Sunday, watching him on duty at the crossroads coming into town. The cars were giving him trouble. First we just exchanged a few words, and then from Sunday to Sunday we really got acquainted. It so happened that I’d cared for his two sons in Paris, one with measles, the other with mumps. Gustave Mandamour, that was his name, from Cantal, was our faithful friend. Conversation with him could be kind of trying, because he had trouble with his words. He could find them all right, but he couldn’t get them out, they’d stay in his mouth making noises.
One evening Robinson invited him into the billiard room, as a joke I think. But it was Gustave’s nature to keep on with anything he had started, so after that he came every evening at the same time, eight o’clock. He felt at ease with us, better than at the café, as he himself told us, because of the political discussions at the café that often got out of hand. We, on the other hand, never talked politics. In Gustave’s case politics was a ticklish subject. It had got him into trouble at the café. The fact is, he should always have steered clear of politics, especially when he had a few drinks under his belt, which sometimes happened. In fact he had a reputation for drinking, that was his weakness. While with us he felt safe in every respect. He admitted it. We didn’t drink. At our place he could let himself go and no harm would come of it. He knew he could trust us.
When Parapine and I thought of the situation we had escaped from and the one that had fallen into our laps at Baryton’s, we didn’t complain, there was no call to, because all things considered we’d had a miraculous stroke of luck, and we had all the social standing and material comfort we needed.
Still, for my part, I had never imagined that the miracle would last. I had a crummy past behind me, and already it was coming back at me like the belchings of fate. At the very start in Vigny I had received three anonymous letters that had seemed as suspicious and as menacing as could be. And then scads of other equally vicious letters. It’s true that we often received anonymous letters at Vigny and didn’t pay much attention to them as a rule. Usually they came from former patients, whose persecution mania had followed them home.
But these letters and their turns of phrase had me worried, they weren’t like the others, their accusations were precise, and they were all about me and Robinson. To come right out with it, they accused us of shacking up together. A crummy insinuation. At first I was reluctant to mention them to Robinson, but I finally decided to when I kept receiving more and more letters of the same kind. So then the two of us tried to figure out who could have sent them. We drew up a list of all the possible people we both knew. That didn’t get us anywhere. Anyway, this accusation didn’t make sense. Homosexuality wasn’t my line, and Robinson didn’t give a damn about sex one way or the other. If anything was bugging him, it certainly wasn’t sex. Only a jealous woman could have dreamed up such rotten calumnies.
In short, of all the people we knew, only Madelon seemed capable of pursuing us all the way to Vigny with such foul fabrications. She could go on writing her poisoned letters for all I cared … What I feared was that, exasperated at getting no answer, she’d come around in person one of these days and kick up a ruckus at the Institute. You had to expect the worst.
For several weeks we jumped every time the bell rang. I was expecting a visit from Madelon, or still worse, from the police.
Every time Gustave Mandamour came around for his game a little earlier than usual, I wondered if he didn’t have a summons tucked in his belt, but in those days Mandamour was still as friendly and easygoing as could be. It wasn’t until later that he too underwent a striking change. At that time he came almost every day and lost every game he played with perfect equanimity. If his disposition changed, it was definitely our fault.
One evening, just out of curiosity, I asked Mandamour why he never won at cards. I had no serious reason for asking him, only my mania for knowing the why and the wherefore … Especially seeing that we didn’t play for money. While we were talking about his bad luck, I stepped up to him, studied him closely, and saw that he was extremely farsighted. The fact is that with the lighting we had there he could barely distinguish clubs from diamonds. Something was bound to happen.
I corrected his infirmity by giving him a nice pair of glasses. At first he was delighted with them, but not for long. Since he played better with his glasses, he didn’t lose as
often as before, and then he took it into his head to stop losing altogether. That was impossible, so he cheated. And when, as sometimes happened, he lost in spite of his cheating, he sulked for hours. In short, he became impossible.
I was aghast, he’d get sore for no reason at all, and to make matters worse he’d try to upset us, to give us things to worry about. When he lost, he’d get even, in his own way … And yet, I repeat, we weren’t playing for money, only for fun and glory … But he was furious all the same.
One evening when his luck had been bad, he harangued us before leaving: “Gentlemen, I’m warning you to watch your step! … Considering the people you associate with, if I were you, I’d be careful! … Among others, there’s a dark-haired woman who’s been passing your house for days! … A lot too often, if you ask me! … She must have her reasons! … I wouldn’t be surprised if she had a bone to pick with one of you gentlemen! …”
That’s the pernicious way Mandamour threw this thing in our faces before leaving the room. That got a rise out of us all right! … Nevertheless, I pulled myself together in an instant. “Oh, thank you Gustave,” I answered calmly. “I don’t see who this dark-haired woman you refer to can be … None of our former female patients, as far as I know, has had reason to complain of our care … It must be some poor deranged creature … We’ll find out … Anyway, you’re right, it’s always best to know … Thanks again for telling us, Gustave … And good evening.”
Robinson’s consternation was such that he couldn’t get up from his chair. When the policeman had gone, we examined the information he’d given us from every angle. After all, it could be another woman, it didn’t have to be Madelon … There were others who used to hang around under the windows of our nuthouse … Still, there was good reason to believe it was she, and the mere possibility scared us out of our wits. If it was Madelon, what was she up to now? And what could she have been living on all these months in Paris? And supposing she was going to turn up in person, we’d better talk it over right away and decide what to do.
“Look here, Robinson,” I said. “Make up your mind, it’s high time, and don’t change it … What do you want to do? Do you want to go back to Toulouse with her?”
“No, I tell you. No no no!” That was his answer. Plain enough.
“Okay,” I said. “But in that case, if you really don’t want to go back with her, the best thing, in my opinion, would be for you to leave the country for a while and try and make a living somewhere else. That’s the surest way to get rid of her … She wouldn’t follow you out of the country, would she? … You’re still young … You’ve recovered your health … You’re rested … We’ll give you a little money, take it and shove off … That’s my advice … Besides, you must be aware that this is no job for you … You can’t go on like this forever …”
If he had listened to me, if he had cleared out then and there, it would have suited me, I’d have been really glad. But he wouldn’t buy it.
“Why are you so mean to me, Ferdinand?” he said. “It’s not nice of you at my age … Just look at me! …” He didn’t want to shove off. He was sick of moving around.
“This is as far as I’ll go,” he said. “Say what you please … do what you please … I won’t go …”
That was how he requited my friendship. Still, I kept trying.
“But what if Madelon were to turn you in, just supposing, in connection with old Madame Henrouille? … You told me yourself that you wouldn’t put it past her.”
“That would be just too bad,” he said. “She can do as she pleases …”
That kind of talk was something new, coming from Robinson. Up until then he had never been a fatalist …
“At least go find yourself some little job nearby, in a factory, then you won’t have to be here with us all the time … If somebody comes looking for you, we’ll have time to warn you.”
Parapine was in complete agreement with me. The matter must have struck him as really grave and urgent because he even went so far as to say a few words to us. We’d have to figure out some place to put Robinson, where he wouldn’t be noticed … One of our business connections was a carriage maker not far away who owed us a small debt of gratitude for certain little favors we’d done him in awkward situations. He agreed to give Robinson a trial at hand painting. It was delicate work, not hard and nicely paid.
“Léon,” we told him the morning he started in. “Don’t make a fool of yourself in your new job, don’t attract attention with your screwed-up ideas … Arrive on time … Don’t leave before the others … Say good morning to everybody … In other words, behave. It’s a decent shop, and you’ve been well recommended …”
But right away he got himself spotted, though you can’t say it was his fault. A stool pigeon, who worked in one of the other workshops, saw him going into the boss’s private office. That did it. Reported. Undesirable element. Fired.
So a few days later Robinson came back to us, jobless. It was bound to happen.
Then, just about the same day, he started coughing again. We auscultated him and found a whole collection of rales all up and down his right lung. Calling for bed rest.
One Saturday evening just before dinner someone asked for me personally in the reception room.
A woman, they tell me.
It was her all right, wearing a little three-cornered hat and gloves. I remember well. No need of preliminaries. She couldn’t have picked a worse moment. I give it to her straight before she can say a word.
“Madelon,” I said, “if you’ve come to see Léon, I can tell you right away to forget it … Just turn around and go home … His lungs are affected and so is his head … Quite seriously, I might add … You can’t see him … Anyway, he has nothing to say to you …”
“Not even to me?”
“No, not even to you … Especially not to you,” I added.
I expected her to flare up. No, she only stood there in front of me, shaking her head from side to side and compressing her lips. With her eyes she tried to find me where she had left me in her memory. I wasn’t there anymore. I, too, had moved in her memory. In that situation I’d have been afraid of a husky man, but from her I had nothing to fear. She was only a weak woman, so to speak. I had always wanted to slap a face consumed with anger, to see what a face consumed with anger would do under the circumstances. A slap or a fat check is what it takes if you want to see all the passions that go beating about behind a face take a sudden tack. It’s as beautiful as watching a sailing ship maneuvering in a stormy sea. The whole person keels over in the changed wind. That’s what I wanted to see.
For at least twenty years that desire had been goading me. On the street, in cafés, wherever aggressive, touchy, boastful people quarrel. I’d never have dared for fear of getting hit back and even more of the shame that comes of getting hit. But here for once I had a golden opportunity.
“Get out!” I said, just to raise her fury to white heat.
She couldn’t get over my talking to her like that. She started to smile, hideously, repulsively, as if she thought me ridiculous and really contemptible … “Smack! Smack!” I slapped her face twice, hard enough to stun a mule.
She slumped down on the big divan on the other side of the room, against the wall, with her head between her hands. Her breath came in short gasps and she moaned like a puppy that’s been beaten too much. Then, as if she’d thought it over, she jumped up, light and bouncy, and went out the door without even turning her head. I hadn’t seen a thing. I’d have to try again.
But regardless of what we did, she was smarter than all of us together. She saw her Robinson again, she saw him as often as she pleased … It was Parapine who first spotted them together. They were on the terrace of a café across from the Gare de l’Est.
I’d suspected they were seeing each other, but I didn’t want to seem to be taking the slightest interest in their relations. After all, it was none of my business. He was doing his work at the
rest home, and not at all badly, taking care of the paralytics, a nasty job if ever there was one, wiping them, sponging them, changing their underwear, helping them slobber. We couldn’t expect any more of him.
If he chose to see his Madelon on the afternoons when I sent him to Paris on errands, that was his business. We definitely hadn’t seen her at Vigny-sur-Seine since those slaps in the face. But I was pretty sure that since then she must have told him some rotten things about me.
I stopped talking to Robinson about Toulouse, as if none of all that had ever happened.
Six months passed for better or worse, and then there was a vacancy on our staff, and we suddenly needed a nurse, skilled in massage. The old one had gone off to get married without giving notice.
Quite a few fine-looking girls applied for the job. In fact, so many strapping young women of all nationalities flocked to Vigny as soon as our ad appeared that we were hard put to it to choose among them. In the end we picked a Slovak by the name of Sophie, whose complexion, energetic yet gentle bearing, and divine good health struck us, I have to admit, as irresistible.
This Sophie knew only a few words of French, but I undertook without delay, the least I could do, to give her lessons. And lo and behold, in contact with her youth and freshness I felt my interest in teaching revive, though Baryton had done everything in his power to disgust me with it. Impenitent! But what youth! What vigor! What muscles! What an excuse! Supple! Springy! Amazing! Her beauty was diminished by none of that false or true reticence that impedes all-too occidental converse. Frankly, I couldn’t admire her enough. From muscle to muscle, I proceeded by anatomical groups … By muscular slopes, by regions … I never wearied of pursuing that concentrated yet relaxed vigor, distributed in bundles which by turns evaded and consented to the touch … Beneath her satin, taut or relaxed, miraculous skin! …
The era of these living joys, of great undeniable physiological and comparative harmonies is yet to come … The body, a godhead mauled by my shameful hands … The hands of an honest man, that unknown priest … Death and Words must give their permission first … What foul affectations! A cultivated man needs to be rolled in a dense layer of symbols, caked to the asshole with artistic excrement, before he can tear off a piece … Then anything can happen! A bargain! Think of the saving, getting all your thrills from reminiscences … Reminiscences are something we’ve got plenty of, one can buy beauties, enough to last us a lifetime … Life is more complicated, especially the life of human forms … A hard adventure. None more desperate. Compared with the addiction to perfect forms, cocaine is a pastime for stationmasters.
Journey to the End of the Night Page 48
