She went out onto the Avenue George-V. The afternoon greeted her with gold and wind and automobiles. For a moment, she stood still, thinking over the dresses she had ordered. She really had intended to do no more buying; she’d thought she had enough dresses to last out her life. But Clerfayt had insisted again that she let him buy one for her, and then she had decided to buy another to make up for Venice—the hemorrhage there had probably cost her days and weeks of life—and instead of allowing this to plunge her into melancholy, self-recrimination and regrets, it had made it simpler to tell herself that now she would need even less money for her keep and could therefore afford one more dress. She had chosen it with particular care. She had had in mind something dramatic, but what she finally ordered proved to be simpler than any of her others. On the other hand, the one Clerfayt was paying for was dramatic; it was a protest against Toulouse and what she imagined Toulouse to be.
She smiled at herself in the mirror of a shop window. In many things one could not be superficial enough, she thought. And clothes could give one greater moral support than all appeals to justice, more than any amount of sympathy and understanding, more than all confessors, all wisdom, all perfidious friends, and even a lover. This was not frivolity; it was simply knowledge of the comfort and power that could lie in small things.
It was good to know that, Lillian thought, and for her, it was almost all that was left. She no longer had time for grand justifications, not even for rebellions. She had made the one rebellion that meant anything to her, and sometimes she was already beginning to wonder about that; now, all other recourses were closed to her and the only thing left was to settle her account with fate.
She knew that everything she was using to deceive and to console herself could also be viewed as a collection of rather cheap tricks; but she had already moved so far beyond the honorable major tricks which men practiced in trying to make their existence bearable that the differences in magnitude no longer existed for her. Moreover, it seemed to her that it took just as much, if not more, discipline, courage in facing facts, and self-conquest to believe in the petty tricks and to enjoy them, as it did to put your faith in the kind of tricks that had high-sounding names. She bought her clothes and derived as much comfort from that as another might from philosophy—just as she mixed up her love for Clerfayt with her love for life, and tossed them both into the air and caught them again, and knew that sooner or later both would smash. You could fly in a balloon until it came down to earth, but you could not hang houses from it. And when it came down to earth, it was just a big, flapping rag—not a balloon any more.
She met the Vicomte de Peystre when she turned into the Champs-Elysées near Fouquet’s. He started. “How happy you look,” he said. “Are you in love?”
“Yes. With a dress.”
“How sensible,” de Peystre said. “That is love without anxiety and without difficulties.”
“In other words, not love.”
“A portion of the only love that has any meaning: love of self.”
Lillian laughed. “You call that a love without anxiety and difficulties? Are you made of cast iron or sponge rubber?”
“Neither. I am a belated scion of the eighteenth century and share the fate of all scions, to be misunderstood. Would you care to have something with me here on the terrace? A cocktail?”
“Coffee.”
They took a table in the late-afternoon sunlight. “Sometimes it’s almost the same thing,” de Peystre said, “to sit in the sun or to talk about love or life—or about nothing. Are you still staying at the little hotel by the Seine?”
“I think I am. Sometimes I am no longer quite sure. When the windows are open in the morning, it often seems to me that I am sleeping in the midst of the noise on the place de l’Opéra. And at night it’s sometimes as if I were drifting down the Seine—on a still boat or in the water, on my back, with my eyes wide open, without myself and entirely within myself.”
“You have strange thoughts.”
“On the contrary, I have almost none. Dreams sometimes, but not many of those either.”
“Don’t you need any?”
“No,” Lillian said. “I really don’t need any.”
“Then we are alike. I don’t need any either.”
The waiter brought a sherry for de Peystre and a pot of coffee for Lillian. De Peystre frowned at the coffee. “That really should come after one has eaten,” he declared. “Wouldn’t you rather have an apéritif?”
“No. How late is it?”
“Almost five o’clock,” de Peystre replied, astonished. “Do you drink by the clock?”
“Only today.” Lillian beckoned to the headwaiter. “Have you heard anything yet, Monsieur Lambert?”
“Of course. From Radio Rome. They’ve been reporting for hours. All of Italy is either glued to the radio or in the streets,” the headwaiter said excitedly. “The heavy cars ought to be starting out in the next few minutes. Monsieur Clerfayt is driving with Monsieur Torriani. They’re not relieving one another, but driving together. Torriani is going along as mechanic. It’s a sports-car race. Would you care to hear it on the radio? I brought my portable here today.”
“That would be nice!”
“Is Clerfayt in Rome?” de Peystre asked.
“No, in Brescia.”
“I know nothing about races. What kind is this one?”
“The Brescia thousand-mile race.”
The headwaiter came to the table with his radio. He was a racing fan and had been garnering every scrap of news about the race for hours. “They are being started at intervals of a few minutes,” he explained. “The fastest cars last. It’s a race against the stop watch. I’ll turn on the Milan station. Five o’clock—time for the news broadcast.”
He turned the knobs. The radio began to squawk. Then the Milan station came in, the announcer rapidly disposing of political events as if he could not wait to reach the sports news. “We now bring you a report from Brescia,” he went on in an altered, passionate voice. “A number of the contestants have already started on their way. The market place is so choked with people that they can scarcely move—”
The set squawked and spat. Then, piercing through the babel of voices, came the howl of a motor, which immediately grew fainter. “There’s one roaring away,” Monsieur Lambert whispered excitedly. “Probably an Alfa.”
It had become quiet on the terrace. The curious came over toward the radio, or leaned forward from their various tables. “Who’s leading?”
“It’s too soon to say,” the headwaiter replied with authority. “The fast cars are just starting.”
“How many cars are there in the race?” de Peystre asked.
“Almost five hundred.”
“Good Lord!” someone exclaimed. “And how long is the course?”
“A thousand miles, sir. At a good average, they’ll take fifteen to sixteen hours. Or maybe less. But it’s raining in Italy. They’re having a heavy storm in Brescia.”
The broadcast came to an end. The headwaiter carried his radio set back into the restaurant. Lillian leaned back. For a moment, a picture seemed to hang almost visibly in the still golden afternoon light of the terrace, between the subdued clink of ice in the glasses and the rattle of plates which, heaped one upon the other, kept score of the drinks each patron had ordered. The picture was colorless, transparent as are some jellyfish in water, so that she could still see behind it the chairs and tables: the scene of a gray market place, abstract noise which had lost its individual tone, and the ghosts of cars, one behind the other, with two tiny sparks of life in them whose sole aim was to risk itself. “It’s raining in Brescia,” she said. “Just where is Brescia, anyway?”
“Between Milan and Verona,” de Peystre replied. “Would you care to have dinner with me tonight?”
The garlands hung down in shreds, battered by the rain. The flags slapped wetly against the flagpoles. The storm raged as though a second cavalcade with invisible automobiles were r
oaring through the clouds. The artificial and the natural thunder alternated; the ascending roar of a car was answered by the lightning and thunder from above. “Five minutes to go,” Torriani said.
Clerfayt crouched behind the wheel. He was not very tense. He knew that he had no chance to win; but in a race there were always surprises, and in a long race freaks of fortune.
He thought of Lillian and the Targa Florio. That time, he had forgotten her, then hated her, because the remembrance of her had come to him suddenly during the race and had distracted him. Then the race had been more important than she. Now it was different. He was no longer sure of her, and for that reason thought of her all the time. The devil knows whether she is still in Paris, he thought. He had talked with her over the telephone only that morning; but in this racket the morning seemed infinitely far away. “Did you telegraph Lillian?” he asked.
“Yes,” Torriani replied. “Two minutes to go.”
Clerfayt nodded. The car rolled slowly from the market place toward the Viale Venezia and stopped. There was no longer anyone standing in front of it. The man with the stop watch would be, from now on and for more than half a day and half a night, the most important thing in the world for them. He ought to be, Clerfayt thought, but he isn’t any longer. I think about Lillian too much. I ought to let Torriani drive, but now it’s too late. “Twenty seconds,” Torriani said.
“Thank God. Let’s go, damn it all!”
The starter waved, and the car roared away. Shouts flew after it.
“Clerfayt has started,” the announcer cried, “with Torriani as mechanic.”
Lillian returned to the hotel. She felt that she had fever, but decided to ignore it. She had it often, sometimes only two degrees, sometimes more, and she knew what it meant. She looked into the mirror. At least I don’t look so done in at night, she thought, and smiled to herself at the trick she was employing again: to change the fever from an enemy to a nocturnal friend which lent a glow to her eyes and the animation of high temperature to her face.
When she stepped back from the mirror, she saw the two telegrams on the table. Clerfayt, she thought, with a heartbeat of panic. But what could have possibly happened so quickly? She waited a while, staring at the small, folded and pasted papers. Cautiously, then, she picked up the first and opened it. It was from Clerfayt: “We’re starting in fifteen minutes. Deluge. Don’t fly away, flamingo.”
She laid it aside. After a while, she opened the second. She was even more afraid than before that it might be from the management of the race, reporting an accident, but it was also from Clerfayt. Why is he doing this? she thought. Doesn’t he know that a telegram at such a time is frightening?
She opened her wardrobe to choose a dress for the evening. There was a knock at the door. It was the porter. “Here is the radio, Mademoiselle. You can reach Rome and Milan easily with it.”
He plugged it in. “And here is another telegram.”
How many more will he send? she thought. He might just as well post a detective in the next room. She picked out a dress. It was the one she had worn in Venice. It had been cleaned and all the stains were gone. She had decided that it was her lucky dress, and wore it like a mascot. Now she held it firmly in her hand while she opened the last telegram. It was not from Clerfayt, but contained wishes of good luck for him. How was it that it had come to her? She looked at the signature once more in the deep dusk. Hollmann. She stared at it. She deciphered the point of origin. The telegram had been sent from the Bella Vista Sanatorium.
She laid the slip of paper on the table with great care. Today is the day for ghosts, she thought, sitting down on her bed. Clerfayt, sitting there in the radio set, waiting to fill the room with his roaring motor—and now this telegram which makes silent faces stare in through the window.
It was the first word she had had from the sanatorium. She had never written, had no impulse to. She had wanted to leave it completely behind her forever. She had been so certain she would never return that the parting had been like death.
For a long while, she sat still. Then she turned the knobs of the radio; it was time for the news broadcasts. Rome rushed in with a surge of noise, with names, known and unknown villages and cities, Mantua, Ravenna, Bologna, Aquila, with hours and minutes, with the overwrought voice of the announcer who spoke of minutes gained as if they were the Holy Grail, who described defective water pumps, frozen pistons, and broken gasoline lines as if they were cosmic disasters, who hurled the race with time into the dimness of the room, the dashing for seconds, not for seconds of life, but in order to arrive, after hurtling along a wet road with ten thousand curves and a screaming mob, at a particular spot a few hundred yards sooner, only to leave it again immediately; a wild dash as if the atom bomb were behind one.
Why don’t I understand it? Lillian thought. Why do I feel nothing of the thrill of millions of people who are lining the highways of Italy to watch this? Shouldn’t I feel it more strongly? Isn’t it something like my own life? A race to gather in as much as I possibly can? A pursuit of a phantom that speeds along in front of me like the artificial rabbit in front of the pack in a greyhound race?
“Florence,” the voice on the radio announced triumphantly, and began listing times, names, and brands of car, average speeds and maximum speeds. And then, bursting with pride: “If the leading cars keep up this pace, they’ll be back in Brescia again in a new record time.”
She started. In Brescia, she thought. Back in the little provincial town of garages, cafés, and shops, back where they had started. They play with death, they roar through the night, they endure the terrible weariness of early morning, with stiff, masklike faces encrusted with filth; they race on, on, as though all the glory of the world were at stake—and all this only to return again to the little provincial town from which they had come! From Brescia to Brescia!
She switched off the radio and went to the window. From Brescia to Brescia! Was there any more vivid symbol of meaninglessness? Had life given them such miraculous gifts as healthy lungs and hearts, incomprehensible chemical factories like liver and kidneys, a soft white mass inside the skull which was more fantastic than all the stellar systems—had life given them all that so that they could risk it and, if they had luck, go from Brescia to Brescia? What horrible folly!
She looked out at the endless chain of cars gliding along the quay. Was not every one of them driving from Brescia to Brescia? From Toulouse to Toulouse? From self-complacency to self-complacency? And from self-deception to self-deception? Me, too? she thought. Yes, probably me, too. In spite of everything. But where is my Brescia? She looked at Hollmann’s telegram. Where it came from there was no Brescia. Neither a Brescia nor a Toulouse. At that place there was only the quiet, inexorable struggle for breath on the eternal border. There was no self-complacency and no self-deception there.
She turned away from the window and for a while walked about the room. She felt her dresses, and it suddenly seemed to her that ashes were trickling through them and in them. She picked up her brushes and combs and laid them down again, without knowing that she had held them in her hand. Like a dim shadow, there entered through the window a premonition that she had made a terrible mistake, a mistake that had been unavoidable and that was now irrevocable.
She began dressing for the evening. The telegram still lay on the table. In the light of the lamps, it seemed to be brighter than any other object in the room. She glanced at it from time to time. She heard the plashing of the river, and smelled the water and the foliage of the trees. What are they doing up there now? she thought, and began for the first time to remember. What were they doing, while Clerfayt raced behind the glare of his headlights over the dark roads outside Florence? She hesitated a while longer; then she picked up the telephone and gave the number of the sanatorium.
“Siena,” Torriani shouted. “Gas up and change tires.”
“When?”
“In five minutes. This damned rain!”
Clerfayt made a face
. “We’re not the only ones who have it. The others, too. Watch out for the pit.”
The houses were coming closer together. The headlights wrenched them out of the pattering darkness. Everywhere people stood in raincoats and beneath umbrellas. White walls appeared, people who spurted away like splashes of water, umbrellas that swayed like mushrooms in the storm, the car skidding—“The pit!” Torriani screamed.
The brakes caught; the car shook itself and stood still. “Gas, water, tires, get going!” Clerfayt shouted into the echoing resonance of the motor. His ears were ringing as if they were empty old halls in a thunderstorm.
Someone gave him a glass of lemonade and a new pair of glasses. “What’s our position?” Torriani asked.
“Fine! Eighteenth!”
“Lousy,” Clerfayt said. “Where are the others?”
“Monti in fourth, Sacchetti in sixth, Frigerio in seventh place. Conti has dropped out.”
“Who’s first?”
“Marchetti, with a ten-minute lead. Then Lotti, three minutes behind him.”
“And what about us?”
“Nineteen minutes behind. Don’t worry—the first team in Rome never wins the race. Everybody knows that.”
The manager appeared at their side. “The Lord has fixed it that way,” he declared. “Mother of God, sweet blood of Christ, you know it, too!” he prayed. “Punish Marchetti because he was first. A little gas-pump breakdown no more. And one for Lotti, too. Holy Archangels, protect …”
“How did you get here?” Clerfayt asked. “Why aren’t you still in Brescia?”
“Ready!” the mechanics shouted.
“Let’s go!”
“I’m taking planes—” the manager began, but his words were snatched out of his mouth by the roar of the motor. The car raced away, scattering people to both sides, and the ribbon of the road to which they were glued again began its endless windings. What would Lillian be doing now? Clerfayt thought. He didn’t know why he had expected a telegram at the pit. But telegrams could be delayed; perhaps it would be at the next pit. Then the night was there again, the lights, people whose shouts he could not hear because of the motor’s roar, so that they seemed like characters in a silent movie, and finally there was only the road, this snake which seemed to run around the earth, and the mystical beast that screamed under the hood of the car.
Heaven Has No Favorites Page 22
