“Would you like to tell me about it?”
“Oh, my troubles are very much inside of me. If I put them into words, they lose their mystery and their power, you know…”
“Have a go, all the same.”
“Seven years ago I’d just got my engineering diploma from technical school and landed a decent job when a great misfortune befell me.”
“What kind of misfortune?”
“I fell in love.”
“That could have been a great joy, couldn’t it?”
“I thought it would be. At the beginning, it actually was. Only she was married, and what’s more, married to my boss… We ran away. I left everything behind—my aged mother who’d slaved away so I could go to college, and my job, and the whole bang shoot!”
“And then?”
I’d not said a word about Anna to anyone for years. Long-buried images rose to the surface. I could see Anna in our hotel bed with one breast visible outside her nightgown. Or Anna with her hair in the wind by the seaside. Anna laughing! Anna crying! Anna dead!
“She died.”
“Oh! Yes, that must have been dreadful.”
“Yes, it was awful. After that I… went away.”
“I understand.”
“And while I was away Ma died too. The world has become a cemetery without any crosses for me now, it’s full of graves and ghosts. And today I came back to this wasteland. I went back to our little flat round the corner from here. Instead of a Christmas tree there was just a sprig of holy palm in a glass that had once been full of holy water. I couldn’t take it and went out. And I saw you in the restaurant with your daughter. You will always represent life for me.”
“What you’re telling me is very beautiful. To be able to be for someone else what one so rarely is for oneself is a great comfort.”
I held out my hand towards her and she put hers in it. This time it wasn’t frightened fingers pressing each other in the dark, it wasn’t a liberty taken, but a deliberate act, more a gesture of human solidarity than a stolen caress.
“Tell me about yourself, now that we’re swapping stories…”
“I’m from the other side.”
“Meaning?”
“The side of the man whose wife you took.”
She stopped talking. I was eager to learn more but I didn’t dare rush her into a confession. She stared at my hand for a moment. I was ashamed because I no longer had middle-class hands.
“For me, it’s seven years as well! I was a fine art student. I wanted to be a cinema set designer. I met the man who later became my husband. He was very handsome and he was rich, he had a sports car that impressed me a lot. Girls of today often marry motorcars! It’s a sickness of our age! I thought he was bringing me paradise on the chrome-plated luggage rack of his Jaguar. When he asked me to marry him I didn’t say yes—I yelled it out loud! His family made a bit of a fuss because I didn’t have any capital. My father is a retired army officer. When the Dravets learned that Papa had the right to wear his uniform at the wedding, they gave us the thumbs-up. A colonel in full dress really adds something to a wedding!”
She fell silent again as if she was letting her memories come back to her. Then it hit me again the way it had done in the cinema: I wanted to tell her I loved her.
“Since it’s Christmas, may I tell you that I love you?”
“Oh, yes, you may! You may! Nobody has said that to me for a long time.”
“Go on.”
“You’re interested in my story?”
“It’s not a story.”
“No,” she muttered. “Hardly that. So I got married to that fine lad. His parents built him this bindery. Then Lucienne came along…”
“You too could have been very happy.”
“I could. Only there’s always something out of gear in real life, and that’s what ruins it. The snag for you was the fact that you were in love with your boss’s wife.”
“And the snag for you?”
“It came from the fact that Lucienne was born six months after we got married and seven months after my first encounter with Jérôme. And she was the prettiest baby in the maternity ward. And in no need of an incubator,” she added with bitter humour.
Her story was as classic as mine but much less romantic. She sighed.
“In business circles you don’t make light of that kind of thing!”
“Divorce?”
“Catholic businessmen don’t divorce.”
“You hadn’t… er… warned your fiancé about your… expectations?”
“No. I hadn’t… Why am I telling you about such horrid things? I didn’t expect to have my expectations, if you see what I mean. Before I met Jérôme I’d undertaken… Oh, let’s use the polite words: I underwent a procedure. I’m telling you, it’s utterly sordid.”
“And then?”
“High drama. My in-laws would have nothing to do with me. And my husband lost interest in me very quickly, if that’s not an understatement. At the beginning it wasn’t too bad, he went with other women. But one day there was only one other woman, and my life became sheer torture. I hardly see him any more. He comes to the downstairs to look after his business. When he comes up here, it’s to slap Lucienne or to call me a whore.”
She poured me a serious measure of cognac and served herself another drop of cherry brandy.
“It’s an odd kind of Christmas Eve, isn’t it?” she went on. “We met an hour ago. I don’t know your name and you know only my husband’s. Yet we’ve just told each other our life stories straight off.”
“Excuse me. My name is—”
Her hand shot up to cover my mouth.
“Please, no, don’t tell me your name. It’s so much better not to know. We’ve got time… Now I’d like to ask you for something…”
“Whatever you like.”
“Let’s go out! The kid’s asleep, and she’s a heavy sleeper. I can take a chance on leaving her alone for an hour or two. I’d like to go out on a man’s arm and watch Christmas happening.”
“On any man’s arm?” I sighed.
She was enchanted.
“Heavens above! That’s jealousy speaking. Do you see, that’s probably what I miss the most: the jealousy…” She was about to say something like “the jealousy of a man” but stopped herself in time and burst out laughing.
“Will you come?”
She picked up the glass I’d put on the mantelpiece and returned it to the top shelf of the drinks trolley. She must have been a good housekeeper and a natural tidier-up. She switched off the lights in the lounge and the hall. We were back in the dark on the landing.
“The bulb went two days ago,” she said.
She took me by the hand and opened the door of the goods lift. She didn’t let go all the way down. I liked the odd feeling of being swallowed that I always get from a lift cage going down.
The streets were quiet now. The sky was clearing and the night gleamed like burnished metal because of the frost. The shop windows were dark. Now and again groups of partygoers emerged from side streets forcing themselves to keep on laughing.
We walked arm in arm, at a gentle and happy pace, along empty streets that now looked immense.
The illuminated face of a street clock showed it was now ten forty. We came across a drunken beggar who asked me for a handout.
“Do you yourself believe that the night of Christmas Eve is not a night like any other?” she asked me.
“Of course I do, because that’s what people have decided.”
“You aren’t a believer, then?”
“It comes and goes. I’m the opposite of other people. I believe when I am happy.”
“Are you a believer at the moment?”
“Yes.”
She was leaning on me heavily. I could feel her womanly warmth spreading through my body. A troubling desire for her had been nagging me ever since we started walking side by side, with our hips brushing each other.
At one point I felt a s
hiver go through her.
“Are you cold?”
“A bit.”
“Do you want to go into a bar?”
“I don’t want to see anybody.”
It struck me all of a sudden: none of this made any sense. In my mind I flew way up and looked down on the area as if it were a matchstick model of a new town.
In it there was the woman’s flat with a little girl asleep inside; my own mournful and desolate dwelling… And the freezing streets we were moving along like sleepwalkers… Suddenly she stopped.
“I’d like you to take me to your place.”
I wasn’t entirely surprised.
“I don’t dare.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s horrible and it’s been empty for so long.”
“Doesn’t matter. I’d like to see for myself.”
“See what?”
“Does it bother you?”
“It does, actually, but if you insist…”
So we turned down my street. It was extremely unappealing and less well lit than other streets in the area. A dog padded contentedly along the pavement opposite, seemingly knowing where he was going, and stopped ceremoniously here and there to sniff at a wall.
“Here we are,” I said as we stopped in front of a block of flats.
Its peeling façade looked like an ill-healed scorch mark. The main door was still open and a sneaky, foul-smelling draught blew through the porch.
I fumbled for the timer switch on the hallway light. I’d lost the habit of doing things like that. A twenty-year-old knack had been blunted by prolonged absence.
“No, don’t switch on the light,” she pleaded. “It’s more mysterious in the dark.”
We climbed the wooden staircase that had a carpet only up to the first floor. The middle part of it was worn down to the cord. On the next flight our feet trod on bare wood and sounded like drums. The steep balustrade was slightly sticky to the touch. I was as ashamed of it as I was of the smell of bleach that stung our nostrils.
In the old days when I had to open my own door after the timer had put the stair light out I would get the key straight into the hole out of sheer habit. But it took me a good two minutes to find it that night.
A yellow glass light fitting shaped like an upturned urn lit our hallway. It was attached to the ceiling by three plaited ropes ending in bobbles. The spiders had had it all to themselves. The wallpaper had buckled with the damp.
“Hasn’t anybody been looking after the place since your mother died?”
“Yes, the stair lady, but she hasn’t done it very well, as you can see.”
I showed my companion into the dining room.
“A slice of life, right?” I joked as I nodded towards the few sticks of furniture, the brass pot-holders, the embroidered napkins, the check-patterned curtains, the beaded lampshades and the awful reproductions on the walls.
She didn’t respond.
I showed her the oval table on which stood my mother’s pride and joy, a statuette of an athlete with inordinately large muscles straining to push a cartwheel forward. The wheel was utterly absurd. As was the athlete, who seemed to be straining himself to the utmost for no good reason.
“There you are,” I said. “I used to do my homework on this table because we ate all our meals in the kitchen, except on special occasions. For years I thought this was in very good taste. Then one day I realized, and I felt a bit ashamed. All the same I still liked the décor. Mainly because it gave me a sense of security that I’ve now lost forever.”
There were tears in her eyes. I pushed her towards the room where Ma had died. I didn’t have to explain, she understood. She stared at that painful place where I was still trying to find the shadow of a loved one.
She took the initiative and dragged me on to my bedroom.
“Will you go on living here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have any plans?”
“I expect I’ll go away. Only first I want to try and stay here for a while. Because of my mother, you understand? She died here alone because I was away. I’m going to try and make up for that by living here alone when she is away.”
My voice cracked and yet I had thought it was steady enough. I put my head to the wall and pushed my clenched fists into my eyes as hard as I could.
A neighbour’s radio was playing ‘Come Back to Sorrento’.
The woman put her hands around my shoulders and nestled her head in my back.
“Tell me your first name, after all,” she whispered.
3
The Outing
She went over to my bed and sat down.
She kept repeating my name in an undertone: “Albert… Albert…”
Seeing her sitting on the bed with her overcoat unbuttoned I realized she was the first woman ever to come into my room, and I think I blushed.
“It’s strange how much you look like the woman I loved.”
“Really?”
“Maybe it’s clumsy of me to tell you that at a time like this.”
She waved her arm vaguely to say, “Doesn’t matter.”
“What was she like?” Mme Dravet asked.
“Like I said: like you. A little less dark and slightly taller. But the shape of the face was the same and her eyes were like yours, intense and thoughtful.”
“Was it because of the resemblance that you took an interest in me?”
“No.”
“Do you still love her?”
The question upset me. I’d never asked it of myself since Anna’s death.
“However strong your feeling may be for someone who’s gone, it can’t be called love.”
I slid to my knees on the moth-eaten rug. I hugged her legs with fervour and her long-fingered and dainty hand moved towards my face to stroke it with gentle sadness.
“You’ll always be a shy little boy, Albert!”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why, I just know.”
I let go of her legs and took her hand. I brought it to my lips. She had delicate, silky skin that was enchantingly cool.
“The prettiest hand in the world,” I stammered.
She smiled with contentment.
“I’m glad you noticed my hands. Usually, men don’t talk to women about their hands.”
That was the moment when she noticed two tiny reddish spots shaped like stars on the edge of her cuff. They were set some distance apart and though they were really small they stood out clearly on the light fabric of her dress sleeve.
“What are those stains?” she muttered, realizing I had seen them too.
I laughed.
“Can you really call those pinpricks stains?”
My jokey tone didn’t reassure her. She was really bothered. It doesn’t take much to wreck a state of grace. I realized with dismay that ours had suddenly ended. Seconds before the incident with the dress, we’d been floating in a slightly unreal world. The woman was already mine. Everything we’d been saying, everything we’d been doing, including when we were not saying anything, was leading us to the logical conclusion of physical love.
And then it was over. The charm was broken. Back to where we began: at a loss and on our own, infinitely alone, on this strange Christmas night.
“I’d like some water to try and get rid of the stain.”
Our flat didn’t have a bathroom. For twenty years I’d washed at the kitchen sink. So I took her to the kitchen. But the water had been switched off, despite the fact that I’d written to the housekeeper to keep on paying the service charges. When I turned on the tap, not a single drip came out.
My companion seemed distressed.
“Come on,” I sighed. “Let’s go to a bar.”
And that’s why we left the flat. As I watched her walk out the door it struck me that but for a moment’s silence I would have been holding her in my arms. The disappointment was physically painful, as if my whole body were sorry for itself.
As a young man, how
many times had I dreamed that I was lying with a woman in my bachelor’s bed? Never the same one twice, of course. I adorned my imaginary partners with faces I’d come across during the day: a salesgirl who’d smiled at me, a smart lady I’d watched on the sly as she got out of a car, or simply an actress featured on a magazine cover…
Years too late, but in a manner far more magical than in my teenage dreams, I’d just missed making them come true.
“Are you feeling down?” she observed as we were sauntering once again along empty streets.
“Yes, a bit.”
“Why, Albert?”
“Please don’t call me Albert.”
“Don’t I say it right?”
“No.”
I wasn’t being rude, I only meant to be honest.
“To say a man’s name properly, you have to be in love.”
“You sound resentful.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
“I think it’s not fair that I should have feelings for you that you don’t share.”
“Who says I don’t?”
“I can tell. Love at first sight, the real thing, that only happens to men. Women are much too sensible to soar to the heights of love in a few minutes.”
She stopped in her tracks.
“Kiss me,” she said.
It was almost a command. She sounded determined, and fierce.
I took her by the waist and squashed my lips on hers. Her kiss drove me quite insane.
When our lips parted we started walking again, very fast, like people who are scared.
“You wanted to do it just now, in your bedroom, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you are a bit cross with me?”
“Not any more. It was better this way.”
She shrugged.
“Of course it is better this way. Only a man could think the opposite.”
We were outside a big café that was packed. We went in and stood at the bar because all the tables were taken. A jukebox thumped away. Young people in their Sunday best and paper hats blew toy trumpets in time with the music.
At the back of the premises four old guys were playing cards. On Christmas Eve! Unbelievable!
“Excuse me for a minute.”
With her airy stride she wound her way through the boozers towards the toilets. I ordered a very strong coffee and filled the time waiting for her by watching the way the lighting of the jukebox changed colour. The record rotated vertically like a grinding wheel, and the pickup arm was shaped like a piston.
Bird in a Cage Page 3
