Her Lover (Belle de Seigneur)

by Albert Cohen

  All of a sudden he got out of bed, lit the ceiling light and a cigarette, inhaled deeply, frowned deeply, strode round the room, tall and slim, pouring smoke from his nostrils and poison from his eyes, tossing his tufted hair like angry snakes. He approached the bed like the Archangel of Wrath and, turning the cord of his dressing-gown into a sling, made as if to threaten her.

  'On your feet,' he said. She obeyed and got up. 'Call Geneva. Get him on the phone.'

  'No, don't make me. I couldn't possibly phone him.'

  'But you could get into his bed easily enough! That's a lot harder than phoning! Go on, ring him. You must know his number by heart! Go on, remind him of the good old days!'

  'He doesn't mean a thing to me any more.'

  Suddenly aware of his liver, he stared at her in horror. So, she simply drifted from one man to the next, had the gall just to write off a man to whom she had been so very close! What were women made of? The eyes which had gazed on Dietsch were now brazenly turned on him! And, only moments before, she who had explored secret latitudes of Dietschland had dared to hold his hand!

  'Pick up the phone!'

  'Please don't make me. It's past midnight, and I'm so tired. You can't have forgotten what last night was like at Agay. I'm exhausted, I've got nothing left,' she sobbed, and she fell back on the bed.

  'Not on your back,' he barked, and she turned over, broken, on to her stomach. 'That's even worse,' he bellowed. 'Get out! Go to your room: I don't want to see either of you ever again! Get out, you bitch!'

  Shrunken and gaunt, the bitch went! Disconcerted, he stared at his hands. He needed her, for she was all he had. He called her back. She came, and stood motionless and white-faced in the doorway.

  'Well? Here I am.' (He loved her little clenched fists.)

  'Did you go studding in the afternoons?'

  'O God, why are we living together? Is this what love is?'

  'Did you go studding in the afternoons? Answer me. Did you go studding in the afternoons? Answer me! Did you go studding in the afternoons? Answer me! I'll go on asking until you answer. Did you go studding in the afternoons? Answer me!'

  'Yes, sometimes.'

  'Where?'

  'At the stud-farm,' she said and fled.

  To make her come back without having to call her, he picked up the brass inkstand and threw it at the wardrobe mirror. Then he proceeded to annihilate the wineglasses and next the crockery. She did not budge, and that made him angry. The noise made by the bottle of champagne exploding against the wall was more successful. She came back, appalled.

  'What do you want now? Get out!'

  She turned on her heel and made a quick exit. Disappointed, he tore down the curtains and then looked around him. Hm. The room wasn't exactly inviting now, too much mess. All this broken glass lying about glassassinated on the floor. He ruffled his hair and whistled 'Voi che sapete' under his breath. The best thing would be to see if they could patch things up. Agreed. Attempt reconciliation. He tapped on the communicating door. Yes, when she came he would tell her that he would sign in her presence, there and then, a binding pledge by which he undertook never to mention the other man again. 'Darling, it's all over, that's the end of it. After all, it's quite true, you didn't know me in those days.' He knocked again and cleared his throat.

  She came and halted before him, dignified and defenceless, a victim who stood her ground. He admired her. Noble, yes. Honest, yes. But, if so honest, why had she lied so consistently to her husband? Damn that Boygne woman, a dyspeptic old trollop whose own frolicking days were over and who made up for it by making beds for young women to lie on! And when poor Deume used to phone in the morning and ask to speak to his wife, the lying old harridan would tell him pleasantly that Ariane was still asleep and then, quick, ring Dietsch's number! Oh, the life of romance and variety which she had lived with Dietsch and would never know with him! Furthermore, Dietsch must have been tremendously attractive with all that silver hair. So how could he compete? His hair was black just like everybody else's.

  'Well?' she said. 'I'm here.'

  What right did she have to such an honest face? Her face was a provocation.

  'Say you're a whore.'

  'It's not true, as you very well know,' she said calmly.

  'You paid him! You told me!'

  'All I said was that I loaned him money to bale him out.'

  'Did he pay you back?'

  'I never mentioned it, and he must have forgotten.'

  Angered by her feminine indulgence for her sometime stallion, he grabbed her by the hair. The idea that this stupid woman should have let herself be cheated made him mad with rage. Oh, he ought to take the first plane out and force her musical pimp to cough up!

  'Say you're a tart.'

  'It's not true, I'm a respectable woman. Let go of me!'

  Still holding her by the hair, but not too roughly, because he pitied her, because he did not want to hurt her, he yanked her head from side to side, infuriated by the thought that she had let herself be swindled because she was grateful for sex, infuriated because he felt powerless to make her see that the man was a swindler. She'd never admit it! Oh, the tried and tested indulgence of women! Such stupid creatures, letting themselves be taken in by any suitably equipped male capable of satisfying them! 'I am a respectable woman, and he was a decent man,' she repeated, head see-sawing, eyes popping, teeth chattering, and beautiful. She was defending his rival! Saying that she preferred his rival! Still holding her by the hair, he slapped her beautiful face. 'Stop it,' she said in her miraculous little-girl voice. 'Stop it! Don't hit me again! For your sake, for the sake of what we mean to each other, don't hit me!' To cover his shame by an even more shameful act, he hit her again. 'Sol, O my darling love!' she cried. He let go of her hair, utterly deflated by her words. 'No, my love, you must never,' she sobbed, 'you mustn't ever do that again, my love, for your sake, not for mine, my darling love! Be a man I can respect!' she sobbed.

  Once more he took her in his arms, once more he held her close. Never again, never again. They stood tear-wet cheek to tear-wet cheek. He had been a brute, an utter brute, to have struck such innocence, such saintly innocence. 'Help me, help me,' he pleaded, 'I don't want to hurt you any more, you are my own darling, help me.'

  He drew away from her, and she was suddenly afraid of his seeing eyes. Another man had dishonoured her far more and yet she respected him, and called him a decent man! Dietsch had struck her in far more shameful ways but she had not greeted his blows with tears, she had not pleaded with Dietsch to stop, she had not said 'Stop it! don't do it again!' to him. All these months the two of them had been together and she had kept all this carefully hidden from him! And most of all, oh yes, most of all, during those first nights in Geneva, she had behaved like some inexperienced virgin, she who had pawed and patted Dietsch!

  'Pawed and patted, pawed and patted!' he cried, and he pushed her away.

  She collapsed on to the floor, holding her smarting face in her hands. She had stopped crying and was staring at the broken plates, the shattered wineglasses, the cigarette-ends which littered the carpet, staring at her life. Her love, the only love of her life, was coming to a squalid end. Oh the day she had waited for him to return, oh her ducky dress flapping in the breeze as she walked. And now she was just another woman knocked about by her lover.

  Kneeling down, one elbow propped on an armchair, she picked up the pearl necklace he had given her, which had fallen on the floor. He had looked like a delighted little boy when he'd opened the case to show her. She wound the necklace around one finger, unwound it, put it on the carpet, made it into a triangle, then a square. She was numb with misery, a little girl playing. But maybe the playing is in part play-acting, he thought, to show her tormentor just how pale and drawn unhappiness made her look.

  'Get out.'

  She stood up and shuffled back to her room, shoulders drooping. Suddenly he felt terrified of being all alone. Oh, if only she would come back of her own accord,
give some sign that she forgave him! Call her, yes, but without showing how much he needed her.

  'Hey, bitch!'

  She returned, elegant, weary, shivering.

  'Here I am.'

  'Get out!'

  'Very well,' she said, and left.

  He felt a surge of self-loathing, threw away a half-smoked cigarette, lit another, stubbed it out. From his suitcase he took the damascene dagger which was a present from Michael, tossed it high in the air, caught it, put it back in its sheath, and called her again.

  'Hey, whore!'

  She appeared at once, and it crossed his mind that she was using submission as a form of retaliation.

  'Here I am,' she said.

  'Tidy this mess up!'

  Whether the room was a mess or not mattered little to him. What he wanted was to be able to see the face he loved. She went down on hands and knees and picked up the cigarette-ends, the pieces of mirror, and the remains of the broken plates and glasses. He wanted to tell her to take care, to be careful she didn't cut herself. But he didn't dare. To hide his shame, he pretended to watch her with the cold eyes of the torturer who leaves no stone unturned. Oh that pliant neck! The proud girl of yore, the laughing girl of Geneva, was now on all fours picking up cigarette-ends like a charwoman. He coughed to clear his throat.

  'That's enough tidying. You're too tired.'

  Still on her knees, she turned and said she'd soon be done, and resumed her chore. Aha, thinks she can get round me by showing willing, he thought. Poor kid, life hasn't finally got to her yet, hope still springs eternal in her. And maybe she was also being a bit of a martyr. But mostly she was feeling grateful for the few kindly words he had just thrown her way, and wanted to thank him by gathering up the debris. Still on her knees, reaching out with her hands, she went on carefully picking up the pieces. Suddenly he saw her kneeling for Dietsch! Her face was the face of a child and a saint — but a saint accustomed to be on the receiving end of missionary zeal! No. No more of that.

  'Nearly finished,' she said with a voice like that of the model pupil who is always good and invariably gets top marks for conduct.

  'Thank you,' he said. 'All nice and tidy now. It's one in the morning. Go to your room, get some rest.'

  She got to her feet: 'In that case I'll say good-night,' she said. 'Good-night,' she repeated, begging for a crumb of kindness.

  'Wait. Wouldn't you like to take something to eat with you?' he asked, watching the smoke spiralling up from his cigarette.

  'I don't think so,' she said.

  He sensed that she felt awkward about taking food away with her, that she did not want to be thought in any way shallow or unfeeling. But she must be absolutely starving. To save her face and preserve her dignity as a woman in torment, to make it crystal clear that it was not she who wanted to eat but he who was forcing her to, he said in his most categorical manner:

  'I want you to eat something.'

  'All right,' she said obediently.

  Choosing what seemed to him the most wholesome, he held out the plate of cold meats, the tomato salad and two rolls.

  'That's plenty, thank you,' she said sheepishly, and closed the door behind her.

  He stared at the hole in the mirror and the pile of broken shards she had left in one corner. Passion, alias love, was a complete and utter shambles too. If unaccompanied by jealousy, it meant boredom. If attended by jealousy, then it was sheer, animal hell. She was a slave, and he was a brute. Novelists were a disgrace: a gang of liars who dressed up passion and made brainless males and females chase after it. Novelists were a disgrace: they were the suppliers and flatterers of the owning classes. And stupid women revelled in their filthy lies and double-dealing and lapped it all up. And worst of all was the real reason why she had brought the Dietsch business into the open, why she had felt a sudden rush of honesty. He knew exactly why she had wanted, in all self-deceiving good faith, to be unburdened of the famous secret she simply could not keep to herself any longer. When they'd been out for walks these last few days, he hadn't been able to think of anything to say and had hardly spoken. Add to which they'd shared a bed only once since he'd got back, the first night, and since then nothing. And on top of that, last night at Agay, he'd said goodnight to her far too early, a mistake which had given her unconscious time to work, assert itself, whip up a storm of jealousy, not the real thing of course, more a fit of pique really, at an acceptable, controllable level. Just enough to make her seem interesting again. When she'd come to his room, she had been ready to tell all, but in a nonspecific, noble sort of way, with no physical details, along the lines of there'd-been-another-man-in-her-life. Poor girl. She had meant well.

  Two knocks, ladylike and polite, at the door. She came in. In a pathetic little voice which made her sound like a half-drowned kitten, she said she'd forgotten a knife and fork, took what she needed, then went away again, head bowed. She did not dare go back to ask for a napkin, which she had also forgotten. Instead, she made do with a face-towel from the bathroom. She attacked the food ravenously, and as she ate she read the woman's page of an old newspaper which she had found in a drawer. Oh what a pitiable thing is a human, dear brothers in man.

  A little while later he asked her through the door if there was anything else she wanted. She wiped her mouth with the face-towel, patted her hair, and said no thank you. But shortly after this the door opened a little way and a plate was pushed along the carpet bearing petits fours arranged in a circle on a paper doily. 'No chocolate mousse, it's all gone,' murmured the invisible victualler for his own benefit. Whereupon he closed the door, sat down, crossed his legs, and, removing the damascene blade from its sheath, slowly began making incisions in the sole of his right foot.

  CHAPTER 102

  A little before three in the morning he went to her, fully dressed, apologized for waking her, said that he felt uncomfortable in his room, jittery, on account of the wrecked curtains and all that broken glass lying around and the cracked mirror. The room was, frankly, off-putting. The obvious solution was to move to another hotel. There was one fairly near, the Splendide. But what story could they spin the people in the Noailles to explain the mess? She sat up in bed, rubbed her eyes, and paused for a moment without speaking. If she said: 'No, not the Splendide', he would guess why and there'd be another scene. Whey-faced, her eyes ringed with blue, she stared at him for a moment, then said she'd take care of everything, that all he need do was to go on ahead to the Splendide and she would join him there as soon as she could. She smiled weakly, and asked him to remember to take his overcoat. It would be quite cold outside at this time of night.

  He did as he was bid with alacrity, only too happy to obey, cleared his throat to say well in that case he'd be off, that he'd left his wallet with enough to cover the hotel bill, so toodle-oo for now, thanks, see you shortly, and he went, feeling none too proud of himself, eyes on the ground and hat pulled well down, limping a little, for his gashed foot was hurting. 'So sweet-natured, so willing, and ready to take care of everything,' he murmured in the fourth-floor corridor.

  He had been a brute, he had behaved disgracefully, quite disgracefully, he told himself firmly as he went down the stairs. On reaching the third floor, he slapped his face twice, hard, and then gave himself an upper-cut under the chin which proved so hefty that he had to sit down for a moment on a stair. When his head cleared, he stood up and continued his cautious way down. When he got to the first floor, he paused, for it dawned on him that leaving her to sort out everything with the hotel management all by herself was an absolutely vile thing to have done. Hating himself, he punched himself very hard in the right eye, which swelled up immediately. On the ground floor, where the night man was snoring, he made a furtive exit on tiptoe, crossed the now almost deserted Canebière, waving his arms as though addressing a public meeting and still limping. 'My poor boy, my poor mad boy,' she murmured, leaning over the narrow balcony, from which vantage point she followed his progress. What was wrong? Why was he limp
ing? 'Be nice to me, don't be nasty any more,' she murmured.

  She shut the window and phoned down to the desk, said that they'd been called away to an illness and were leaving immediately, so could their bill be made up? After shutting the cases, she drafted several versions of a letter, made a clean copy, and read it over in a whisper: 'Dear Sir, Please find enclosed reimbursement together with our sincere apologies for the damage occasioned by circumstances beyond our control.' Should she finish with a thank-you? Certainly not. Several thousand francs said it all. She put the letter and the banknotes into an envelope on which she wrote: 'Personal. For the attention of the Manager of the Hotel Noailles. Urgent.'

  She dared not call the lift but walked down the four flights of stairs carrying both the cases. On reaching the ground floor, she smiled at the night man, gave him a large tip to get on the right side of him, and found an opportunity while he was busy receipting the bill to slip the envelope furtively under a newspaper spread out on the counter.

  Taxi. An elderly driver, with a white Pomeranian on the seat beside him. 'Station, please,' she said for the benefit of the night man, who was putting the cases into the boot. That way the hotel people wouldn't know where to start looking for them when they discovered the mess in their room. Two minutes later, she leaned forward, tapped the glass, told the driver she'd changed her mind, and asked him to take her to the 'Sordide, sorry, Splendide. Thank you so much.'

  She felt a sudden stabbing pain in her chest and had the odd feeling that something very similar had already happened to her before, in another life, something very dreadful, with the police on her tail, with her switching hotels and covering her tracks like a hunted criminal. They were alone in the great wide world. He a dot some place in the great city, and she another dot at a different place. Two dots joined by a very thin thread. Two destinies which would fuse. If he hadn't gone to the other hotel, how would she ever find him again? Why didn't he go back to his job at the League of Nations? Why had he asked to have his leave extended? What was he hiding? Ah, here's the Splendide. What else could she have done? She could hardly have refused out of hand: he would have guessed. She got out of the taxi, paid, stroked the white pom, and asked if it had had distemper. 'Yes, lady, had it twelve years ago,' answered the old man in a voice which sounded as though it had not yet broken.