Her Lover (Belle de Seigneur)

by Albert Cohen

  'Let's go back to torso-man. Again I put the question, which is not the least ridiculous. (He spoke slowly, savouring each word.) Let's suppose advanced gas gangrene left the doctors with no option but to amputate my arms and both my legs to the groin, that is to say to leave me a human torso, and to which add that I also stink and am covered with pustules from the effects of the gangrene,' he smiled sweetly, and his cup of joy overflowed. 'It could happen. Such disorders do exist. Well then, if I were just an abridged torso, an immobilized, fetid, reeking heap, would you still love me in the grand poetic manner, along the lines of Cherubino and the Brandenburg Concertos? And would you still shower me with sublime, amour-piercing kisses? Answer me!'

  'Stop this, stop it!' she begged. 'I can't take-any more of this, I'm so tired. You can say whatever you like, but you won't get another word out of me.'

  'Clerk of the court!' he barked, pointing with his forefinger. 'You will take note that the accused again refuses to answer the question. What would really happen, my dear, if I were an abbreviated, foul-smelling torso, is that you would manage to think up perfectly valid reasons for finding that my soul is no longer what it was, that it has gone off, and you would stop loving me for good. Which is hardly fair. Am I to blame for gangrene? There I am, stretched out on a table, a poor, stinking lump, with no arms, no legs, not even stumps, but with my masculinity unimpaired, laid out for your despair and disgust, picture it, poor me, not much left of me to speak of, flat out on my table, head aching, a single punch would knock me off on to the floor and I'd never be able to pick myself up again unaided! But God in heaven, there's no need to go to the trouble of being lopped and butchered! A couple of missing front teeth would do the trick as well and make quite sure that your soul suddenly ceased to find delight in mine.'

  He rubbed his hands and smiled as he thought of a pretty prank to play on her. A first-class jape! He'd go out first thing in the morning, get his head shaved by a barber, and then all his teeth pulled out by a dentist! Oh the look on her face when he showed up looking like some comic-opera convict with a wide, empty grin! It would be worth doing as a homage to truth!

  'Darling,' she said. 'Don't go on. Why do you want to spoil everything? (He gave a despairing laugh. So she too was an anti-Semite!) Please, darling,' she begged. (How easily she said 'darling', when her darling could just as well have been somebody else!) 'Darling, drop it. Wouldn't you rather tell me about when you were a little boy, or about your uncle you love so much? What does he look like? Describe him to me.'

  'He's very ugly,' he said brusquely. 'Nothing doing there.'

  Why did women hanker so after good looks? The other day she had told him he had beautiful eyes. Ought he now to be jealous of his own eyes? You have beautiful eyes: that meant that later on, when his eyes had become dull and rheumy, it would be all up with him! He got to his feet.

  'Women are serpents with angel faces, for one fine day they suddenly, swooningly decide that they have fallen out of love! Then imitate the action of the spider! Bring on the spider we know so well! "Dear human torso," they say to the poor heap on the table, "what's the point of lying, I just don't love you any more! My mouth must remain as pure as my inner being, nor must it with pointless name-calling defile the noble memory of our past happiness!" (She bit her lip to ward off a heavy-hearted attack of giggles at the thought of the poetess haranguing her truncated lover.) Behold the spider at work! Still, who knows,' he went on mellifluously, 'perhaps you would go on loving me after all, torso notwithstanding, though that would be infinitely worse. For then you would turn into the Heroine Who Sacrifices All to her human torso, who takes care not to breathe in too much when she's near him, because he stinks to high heaven, who washes him, has to carry him about, and with a saintly smile sits him on the lavatory. But in reality your damned human torso would be a devil of a nuisance! And beneath your oh-so-heroic conscious mind your much more sensible unconscious would be busy wishing that the useless lump would die and have done with it! And that, my dear, is the top and bottom of it!'

  Sure of himself, tall in his long, red dressing-gown, he crossed his arms challengingly, awaiting her reply which he would then proceed to demolish. But her head remained bowed and she said nothing. At length he unfolded his arms and began to speak in a kindly, smooth, lecturing voice.

  'There is another problem which we failed to thrash out last night. With your permission, I shall raise it now.'

  'No, stop, please stop! Look at me. I love you, you know I do. So why are you tormenting me? Why do you go on torturing yourself? My love, kiss me!'

  He felt a sudden desire, oh yes such a desire, to kiss her cheeks and hold her close! But, when the kissing stopped, there would still be music playing downstairs and the two of them would still be up here, alone with their dominoes. Billing and cooing wasn't exactly an all-consuming pastime; kissing and cuddling was no match for the clapping at the end of a tango and the applause of a happy crowd of dancers clamouring for an encore. There was no choice but to go on.

  'And that other problem is: you and sex.'

  He nodded knowingly and stared. It had been obvious during these last weeks at Agay that she had taken only a theoretical interest in sex, had forced herself to show a certain enthusiasm for it without being aware that she wasn't really all that keen any more. But back in Geneva, when he'd been new — a novelty — she had been very interested in sex indeed. Ergo, quite likely to be interested in sex with some other novelty newcomer! In Geneva, oh the kissing she had given him, her tongue turning and twisting like a flailing aeroplane propeller!

  Still holding her in his stare, he pictured her during those first nights, moaning, urging him on, suddenly bold with her words, with her touch, with her bucking body. She was still like that at Agay sometimes. The other evening, after the scene when he'd told her it was all over and then asked her to forgive him, she had flailed with her tongue just as she used to in the old days. Because a scene made him into a novelty again for an hour or two. 'Which means . . .' he murmured, and he glared at her with wild eyes. She licked her lips. Don't argue, let him get it off his chest, don't cross him.

  'Interested in sex and therefore doomed to be unfaithful!' he declared. 'Which means that there'll be some kicking over of traces once I'm dead. Oh yes, when I'm dead you'll be devastated of course, and you'll think of ending it all and you'll go back to Geneva feeling very sorry for yourself. And then what happens? I'll tell you. You're bound to run across Christian Cuza, you remember him, my last PPS, I introduced you, handsome, urbane, dreamy Christian who also happens to be a Romanian prince. Oh you'll see him again because I always said very nice things about him to you and because he was genuinely fond of me. And you won't mind his being there because then you'll be able to talk about me, because only Cuza will understand how you feel, understand what pearl of great price you have lost. To cut a long story short, the pleasure of a grief shared, the hours of friendship spent communing over the memory of the dear departed, going through old photos of him together on a sofa, sitting side by side with a gap of six flimsy inches between the two of you, six respectable inches which do not bode well! Am I right? Not going to answer, eh? As you wish! And then one warm evening, with the summer lightning puncturing the sky and the thunder growling, you will burst into tears when you're discussing something the dear departed used to say or do. Then Cuza will comfort you, he'll say he wants to be a brother to you, that you can always rely on him. And he'll believe it too, he's a very decent sort, thought the world of me. And then he'll put his arm around your waist so that he feels sure and you feel sure that you can rely on him. And now raise the floodgates! And all at once, because good, kind friend Cuza has brought his cheek nearer, to comfort you, there is a sudden outbreak of triple-turbine, full-throttled kisses, just like the ones you used to give me, only now they come tasselled with tears! (To avoid seeing the kisses, he closed his eyes, then opened them again.) The tears and the sobbing are genuine enough, but they were unleashed by your unconsci
ous as a way of prodding dear Christian, who is a slow starter. You don't believe me? Please yourself! But the worst of it is that you will give Cuza not merely your body, that much I am resigned to, but also your love, and that I find unbearable! But that's women for you. They will give their sweetness, that most precious part of themselves, exclusively to a man with pawing hands, and only then if they have first been pawed! And poor Solal a corpse, so soon forgotten!'

  He glared at her accusingly. Oh yes, she was interested in sex, alas! For proof, you needed to look no further than the air of respectability she kept up when not stormily probing with her tongue, the demure way she behaved with other men, the keep-off-the-grass signals she gave out, which were an indication of her fear of other men, who were all a threat if they were young enough to serve, to serve her. Such unbearable coyness! And that unbearably prim way in which she was now sitting there on her chair, with her knees unbearably together! What right did she have to make herself out to be so very proper when she was the same woman who would proceed with Cuza from tears to the commingling of tongues, while he, the poor discarded lover six feet under, would be left to his own devices in his wooden box! Naturally, her conscience would prick her, all the Aubles enjoyed healthy consciences, of course it would, but she would find some noble justification for dancing on his grave, she would even think of a way of making the poor corpse contribute to his own eclipse! It was Solal, my Solal, our Solal who brought us together, she would murmur, and the pass would be sold, and to Cuza she would speak the same words she had spoken to her previous lover-man when he was alive. I like it when you undress me, I like you to see me naked, she would say. Oh stop it, I can't take much more of this.

  'Actually, there's no need to wait until I'm dead,' he said, smiling grimly, not noticing that she was trembling. 'With a little nudge from me, you could be unfaithful to me while I'm still alive! All I'd have to do is force you to spend a whole night in a narrow bed, naked, by the side of some lusty young athlete, also naked, and you'd see! Oh, the two of you there side by side! And such a narrow bed! And I'd have brought it all on myself! Of course, you'd resist the temptation. Naturally, you'd want to be faithful, but the bed is awfully narrow and your thigh presses deliciously against another brawny young thigh! And what happens next, my sweet? Answer me!'

  'Let me be!' she cried.

  'What happens next?'

  'I'd get up and go,' she cried. 'I wouldn't stay there in that bed!'

  He gave a bitter laugh. Aha! She was afraid of temptation! Aha! She was incapable of remaining unstirred by the side of a lusty young athlete! He turned quickly and stared at this virtuoso of the pelvic thrust whose thrusting was, for the time being, reserved for his exclusive use.

  'And now I have another question for you,' he began gently. 'Tell me, darling, if you had to be raped, who would you prefer to be raped by, a man who was good-looking or a man who was ugly? Just supposing. Let's say you've been captured by bandits and they sit in a circle in their cave, all shaggy and hairy, and give you the choice. Go on, tell me which you'd rather: an ugly man or a good-looking man? You can't avoid being raped, the bandit chief has ordered it done, and orders are orders. But he's willing to let you choose. So what's it to be? Ugly or good-looking?'

  'God, you're mad! I never heard such an idea!'

  'It's the bandit chiefs idea. Ugly or good-looking? Come, my sweet, be a good girl and answer.'

  'I won't answer! It's too absurd!'

  Aha! Dodged the issue again! She wouldn't say! Suddenly another picture came into his head. Ariane and a young, married Protestant clergyman cast away on a desert isle after their ship had gone down! She would obviously deny it if he told her that within three months she and her cleric would be bouncing up and down on the bed of dried leaves in the hut built by the said cleric's own hand! No, make that two months! Or even one month if there chanced to come a summer's night and the breeze was warm and the smell of the sea was rising and the hut comfortable and no cold in the head and a myriad stars in the firmament or a crimson sunset with clouds of green and pink, just the way she liked them.

  'A fortnight would be enough!'

  And even if there were no desert isle, even if she were to remain faithful for ever, there were any number of ways open to her in which she might be unfaithful. At least the brazen ones did it openly. They slept with another man, which was straightforward, honest in a way, at least it was not hypocritical. But with her, even if desert islands never came into it, there were so many lures, so many openings for sly little adulterous betrayals! A sidelong glance would do it! One glance in the direction of some Greek god or a gleaming-toothed Algerian or a Spanish dancing-girl or a regiment marching by or a boy scout or even a tree which reminded her of virile man, not to mention tigers! And the tickle of the hairdresser's snipping scissors spelled danger too, for they unquestionably started pleasant tinglings on the nape of the neck! It was impossible to love this woman and keep your peace of mind! Should he lock her away and allow her to see only hunchbacks who weren't hairdressers? The dreams, the memories would stay with her! No, he wasn't overstating the case! All women were unfaithful, at least in their unconscious minds. He was so stricken by the thought that when he put the Calabrian question to her again, his heart wasn't in it.

  'The ugly man,' she replied, for the sake of peace and quiet, to have done with it.

  He could not bear to hear the word 'man' from the mouth of this woman! So barefaced! Oh, the foul reek of the word, the male-hairy word on such pretty lips! What did she mean by saying 'ugly'? She obviously felt that the good-looking man was dangerous, temptingly dangerous! He pictured her pulsating beneath the weight of a handsome Calabrian bandit wearing green leggings and soft moccasins with curved toes! The lusty bandit stank! But she was not put off by the Calabrian bandit! Women were all so indulgent towards the roughness of the male and his attributes! He looked away to blot out the sight of the bandits' camp-follower. He found the young Calabrian's large nose especially offensive, for it was a distressingly suggestive nose, enormous and full of promise! The female's weakness for virility, worse, the way women worshipped virility and anything which was its badge and bestial affirmation, such loathsome indulgence angered and shocked him. He found it hard to believe, yet he had to bow to the facts. These creatures, so delicate, so gentle, had a taste for male crudeness! So why, then, in street or drawing-room, did they pose, why did they act so prim and pretty? The duplicity of it was enough to unhinge him. Enough!

  'That'll do for this time. I'm gentle as a lamb now. Observe: I even kiss your hand. Kiss me. Here, on the neck, on the left. And now the right. Thank you. And now let's go out, it's stopped raining. That's right, I shall keep my dressing-gown on. It's late, there won't be anyone about outside.'

  Meekly walking along the corridor by his side, she felt worthless, drained, a tailor's dummy in an evening gown. In the lift, she smiled wanly at the Negro attendant with the kindly face, and Sol bore this whiff of adultery in silence. But then, seeing her drop her gaze, he toyed with the idea that it was her way of overcoming the attraction she felt. Oh yes, all women covertly lusted after black men. A black man was their secret ideal. Only social prejudice and inherited custom prevented them performing symphonies in black and white. Regrettable, but there it was. The old lift finally creaked to a halt. In the lobby, people were chatting quietly or playing patience: they were not living on love alone.

  'Take us up again,' he said to the Negro lift attendant.

  'That dress looks very nice on you,' he said, being kind, as he sat cross-legged on the sofa. 'And now, darling, I'm all ears. Get the Conrad novel. Read me the beginning again.'

  She fetched the book, cleared her throat, and gave it all she had. Unfortunately the novel began badly from her point of view, for the hero was the dynamic captain of an ocean-going vessel and, in her eagerness to read with all the right intonations, she gave him a gruff, manly voice. This was torture to Solal. Aha! A deep voice, a sensual voice! She was admitting, m
ore brazenly than ever, what kind of men she loved, what she wanted men to be like!

  'Stop it!' he barked in an unbearably shrill voice. 'Stop! I insist on a modicum of decency and restraint! But don't be alarmed,' he added in his normal voice, 'you can still go on loving me. I can still kill and I am still good for fathering offspring! Don't worry, I'm fully functional, I'm as fit as any three of Conrad's captains! Right then, let's get back to the shipwreck. There you are, on your desert island. Now what if the only other survivor was the hotel waiter who was here a while back, or another man of the cloth, or even, perish the thought, a rabbi, and you and this other castaway could never escape from your island? What then?'

  'Darling, please. I'm so tired.'

  'Quite. There's not much point in asking you anyway. You won't give me a straight answer, you'll never give me the satisfaction of admitting the truth, though it's as plain as a pikestaff! I know exactly what would happen. At first not much, obviously. You'll stay faithful to me because you'll still be hoping to be picked up by some passing ship. So you light fires as beacons at night, and by day you hoist a flag made out of a shirt belonging to the waiter, who as a result will become deliciously tanned. So to begin with, then, nothing happens. Especially since the waiter isn't somebody you can discuss Proust with, perish the thought! But within a few weeks, when hopes of being rescued by that passing ship have faded and you know beyond doubt that you and he are doomed to be stuck on your desert island, sentenced to living together far from other people and civilized rules, you start putting Tahitian flowers in your hair! (Carried away, elated by the truth, he strode round the room, oblivious of the fact that she was shaking.) And you'll make him tasty things to eat with the fish he's caught and the various kinds of aromatic herbs which you go out to pick in a sarong! It's all innocent enough, but already you are living like man and wife! I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that what I'm saying is the truth! You think I'm mad, but I'm not mad at all! And so time passes, until finally, one sweet-scented night, what was bound to happen will surely come to pass in your palm-thatched hut, in, out, in, out! Or maybe,' he went on lyrically and with much feeling, 'maybe at the end of one fine day there you are, sitting side by side, barefoot, holding hands, on the shore of an indigo and purple sea, watching the sun go down in a blaze of romantic, conniving colours, and then it happens. This woman, who lives and breathes for me alone — and this she believes in all sincerity — will lay her flowered head on the tanned and gleaming shoulder of the waiter or the rabbi, whichever, who has become her lord, just as I am now, her man in the warmth of the night and the fragrance of the mangrove tree. And she will murmur "Tvoya zhena"' he exclaimed, and he went over to the window and looked out.