by F. R. Tallis
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Henri must know now,’ she replied.
‘Know what?’
‘How I deceived him. I keep on imagining Henri, on the other side, heartbroken, appalled.’
Taking her hand in mind, I tried to console her, ‘You placed your domestic responsibilities before your own happiness. That was a selfless thing to do.’
‘There was nothing selfless about my behaviour,’ she responded. ‘I was frightened of losing Philippe, that’s all.’
‘You cannot blame yourself for what happened, and if, as is commonly supposed, the newly departed are obliged to examine their consciences, then Henri will appreciate that he too was at fault. He neglected you, patronized you and made no real effort to understand you.’ A long silence ensued and I added, ‘What’s done is done. He is no longer with us and we are now free to do as we please.’
On hearing these words, Thérèse’s expression became anxious and some lines appeared on her brow. ‘We cannot be together. Not yet. It’s too early and people are sure to talk.’
‘If they wish to gossip,’ I said, sweeping my hand through the air with scornful disregard, let them, I really don’t care.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Thérèse, ‘but I do. A woman has good reason to concern herself with the opinion of others.’
‘Then perhaps we should leave Paris altogether, start a new life in a spa town. Lamalou-les-Bains, perhaps? I could get a position in the sanatorium where Charcot sends his patients for the thermal cure.’
‘What about Philippe?’
‘What about him?’
‘Are you prepared to—’
‘I’ll treat him like a son,’ I interrupted. Something in my voice, a strained note of impatience, must have betrayed my insincerity.
Thérèse looked down at the floor and said, ‘I think we need to consider our situation very carefully.’
We did not make love that day; however, when we met again (for the second time after Courbertin’s death) Thérèse responded readily to my tentative caresses, throwing her head back to expose her long neck, welcoming each advance with a tremulous, breathy sigh. As my passion mounted, I found myself treating her roughly, my nails digging into her skin, the urge to tear and rip so powerful that I only stopped when she emitted a cry. I removed my hand, but she drew my fingers back to her flesh. ‘More,’ she whispered. ‘More.’ Her invitation was so exciting that my passion found its ultimate expression prematurely. Such was the violence of my paroxysm, and so depleted did I feel after, that I was completely unable to recover my potency. I was still lying on top of her when Thérèse said, ‘I attended a seance last night.’
Oh?’ I responded.
‘I received a communication from the realm of the spirits.’ She hesitated before adding, ‘From Henri.’
‘Did you?’ I rolled off her body and reached for my cigarettes. After lighting one, I said, ‘What did he say?’
‘He said that Philippe and I were in great danger.’
‘How, exactly?’
‘The medium, Madame Gravois, was unable to be more specific. She said that the communication was very faint.’
‘I don’t think you should go to these seances any more. I’m not sure you are in the right frame of mind.’
‘Do you think it was him? Coming through?’
‘I don’t know.’ I stroked a damp strand of hair from her forehead and wanted to say something more comforting, but all I achieved was a flat repetition of the same sentence.
The question of when we should make our relationship known to the wider world was raised intermittently, although with decreasing frequency. Since Courbertin’s demise, it no longer seemed quite so necessary that we should live under the same roof. The proximity of a child would, I realized, very likely dampen our ardour and we had had insufficient opportunity to enjoy our newfound liberty. One rainy afternoon, Thérèse asked the inevitable question: ‘Do you still want to marry me?’
‘Yes,’ I replied, without making eye contact.
Her instincts must have served her well, because she had the good sense not to press for a date.
Weeks became months and we continued to meet in secret. The Saint-Germain apartment, which had always had a dusty, mouldering atmosphere, was now looking distinctly shabby and ill-used, and something of its character seemed to have found a corresponding weariness in Thérèse’s soul. Her movements had become slow and languid, her gaze unfocused. This may have been because of the morphine, which she now injected on her own as well as in my company. Even so, there was something about her lassitude that seemed to require more than just a chemical explanation. When I contemplated her malaise, my brain supplied an apposite image: a wilting flower. Yes, that was what she had become, a wilting flower, with petals turning brown at the edges.
Thérèse continued to encourage my excesses. She permitted me to tug at her hair and bite her so hard that impressions were left in her flesh, to rut on her back like an animal. She would get down on her knees at my command and, taking me into her mouth, prolong her humiliation until I found release. She was incapable of disobeying me and exquisitely responsive to my needs. Indeed, there were moments when it seemed that I had only to think of a novel transgression and she was at once positioning herself for my convenience.
This willingness to comply with my wishes seemed to extend into other areas of her life. It occurred to me that she had not mentioned her spiritualist circle for some time and I pointed this out.
‘I stopped going,’ she replied.
‘Why?’ I asked.
She coiled a lock of hair around her finger and pouted. ‘You were right. It just made me upset.’
Beyond the walls of our retreat, the city went about its business, and when we emerged, we would join the flow of pedestrians and blend into the anonymous traffic. I would usually go to the hospital, and she would usually go home, and so it went on. Although I often crossed the large open square in front of Saint-Sulpice, I no longer ventured inside the church, and rarely spared a thought for my old friend the bell-ringer, but a chance encounter quite literally brought us together again. We were both rounding the Fountain of the Four Bishops, and neither of us was paying very much attention to his surroundings, when we stepped into each other’s paths and collided.
‘Paul!’ Bazile took my hand and shook it vigorously. ‘How good it is to see you again. Where have you been?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I replied. ‘The hospital, you know how it is – Charcot works us like mules.’
‘Why don’t you come inside for a cider?’ He gestured towards the north tower. ‘Surely you can spare a few minutes?’
‘That is very kind of you, but I must decline. My day has been very demanding.’
‘Then next week, perhaps?’
He was insistent and did not let me go until I had committed myself to a dinner engagement. At the time, I felt quite irritated by Bazile’s tenacity, but in due course I would be grateful.
Memory is not reliable, and a distinctive event can easily erase the impressions that preceded it. Consequently I have only the poorest recollections of Thérèse’s arrival at the apartment and what happened immediately after: skirts and stockings on the floor, my thumb on the plunger of the syringe, writhing limbs, parted lips, tears rolling down her cheeks, leaving gritty black trails of mascara. But what followed, I remember all too clearly.
She was lying on the bed, her body curled around a pillow that she clutched against her breasts. On her back, I could see the imprints of my barbarity, scratches, bruises, bleeding traces, and I experienced a certain creative pride in my accomplishment. She was exuding her inimitable fragrance in copious quantities. It seemed to fill the room like a thick, scented fog. I imagined its restless movement, pouring out of her wounds, flowing over the bedclothes, cascading to the floor and creeping into corners and crevices: the oil of the damask rose, figs in honey, sweetmeats, glazed fruit, lavender, civet and bergamot: all of these things combined, a
nd yet so much more – luscious, heady, delight – beyond description. I brushed my mouth against her lacerations and licked the blood off my lips. With eager fingers I tore a scab from her shoulder and examined it closely: a red-black crystal that when held up to the gaslight seemed to glow like a garnet with a dancing spark imprisoned at its core. I placed the scab on my tongue, and, as it dissolved, my palate was suffused with new registers of sensation. My body was electrified and I was filled with a profound sense of well-being. The skin where the scab had once been darkened and a bead of blood appeared, ripening until it reached its natural limit of expansion, before trickling from one shoulder blade down to the other. I licked at the rivulet of blood, and licked again, until my mouth was pressed against the source and I was sucking with the concentrated energy of a newborn baby. Thérèse stirred and made a mewling sound, but her personality was submerged in a bottomless opiate sea. The blood was intoxicating, and when I had sucked the capillaries dry, I raised myself up, my knees sinking into the mattress as I became upright.
Thérèse’s neck was exposed and beneath its gleaming surface I could see the pulsing of her carotid artery. I was seized by a desire to slice it open and quench my thirst: a thirst that was suddenly urgent and demanding.
She is yours, now – all yours. The thought was sonorous and persuasive. Yours to enjoy.
Thérèse was very still, so still that even her breathing was impossible to detect. Only the pulse on her neck indicated that she was alive. My thoughts progressed logically: Her surrender excites you. The ultimate surrender is death. Therefore, in order to experience the ultimate pleasure. . . I raised my hand and a faint shadow crept across the spoiled surface of Thérèse’s back. At once, I could feel the moist heat of her interior, the throbbing of her heart. My fingers closed and I began to exert pressure. A rasping sound emanated from Thérèse’s throat as she struggled to take in air.
The bells of Saint-Sulpice rang out, their peal oddly transformed into a harsh, plangent clangour.
I looked towards the window and what I saw made me freeze. A paralysing horror robbed me of the power to move. In the glass, I did not see a copy of myself, but a demon, a hideous creature, leering, salivating, grinning maniacally, its arm lifted high, displaying a set of lethal talons. Its eyes were yellow, eyes that I recognized – eyes that, once seen, could never be forgotten – poisonous eyes radiating malice and wickedness. I felt as if I were Standing on the edge of an abyss. The sweetness in my mouth turned sour and I screamed. Leaping off the bed, I ran to the washstand, where I coughed a thin stringy liquid into the bowl. Thérèse said something, a soft murmur, but she was still asleep. I saw clearly what, until that moment, I had been blind to. The cuts and bruises that covered her body were no longer pleasing to look at, but repellent. She looked pitifully thin – wasted, broken. I stepped towards the window, my whole body quivering, but all that I saw was my own ghostly reflection suspended in darkness.
10
That night, I had bad dreams: awful, vivid dreams of hell and damnation. In the last of these, I found myself returned to that bleak arena of boulders and belching magma pools, and once again witnessed the arrival of a troupe of demons. As before, the leader was carrying a naked woman and, when he threw her onto a rock and began hammering nails through her hands, I realized that it was Thérèse Courbertin. She was writhing, shrieking, straining to break free, begging for mercy, while all around her the demons flapped their wings and created an infernal din. I was not frightened, but excited by what I saw, and utterly indifferent to Thérèse’s ordeal. She squirmed, twisted and cycled her legs furiously in the air, all the time, wailing and screeching. I drew closer, close enough to catch her ankles, pull them apart, and hunker down between her thighs. She was yelling, ‘No – please – no,’ but I was deaf to her cries. I leaned forwards, punched a hole through her ribcage and ripped her heart out. Then, I held the organ up, a grisly trophy, the aorta dangling, before crushing the ventricles over my open mouth and squeezing the blood out like water from a sponge. The fragrant liquid scattered over my face and trickled down my gullet. I stretched my wings, howled at the roiling sky and awoke with a bestial moan still issuing from my mouth. The bed sheets were clammy, and during the course of my troubled sleep I had torn them to shreds.
I was haunted by images of Thérèse, fleeting impressions of her flesh, her curves and crevices, the neatly folded pleat of her womanhood, all of which made me eager to see her. I knew, of course, that I must resist the urge, that if we met again she would be in mortal danger. But exercising self-control only seemed to increase the urgency of my desire, and a prolonged inner struggle ensued. It was as if my mind had been divided and I was no longer a single person, but two antagonistic personalities: one permissive, encouraging me to satisfy my needs, the other prohibitive, demanding abstinence. My head swam, I felt sick and dizzy; I vacillated between states of acceptance and denial, insight and confusion.
What was I to do? Find a church and pray? Ask the all-knowing God to intercede? He, who created everything and watched, impassively, as the ripples of cause and effect spread from His person, bringing evil and suffering into being – our Holy Father and architect of hell. I sank into a quagmire of theological debate, becoming desperate for the reassuring certainties of science. Once again, I tried to make sense of my experience with reference to peripheral nerve damage, and, once again, the demon had cause to celebrate another victory.
A week later I kept my dinner engagement with Bazile. He and his wife welcomed me with their customary warmth and, after aperitifs and some cheery exchanges, we all took our places at the table. Madame Bazile had prepared a succulent belly of pork served with vegetables and a creamy sauce. The cider, however, was rather sour and I was unable to drink very much of it. ‘No more,’ I said, placing my hand over the tankard, ‘I really should stop.’
‘But you’ve hardly had any,’ pleaded Bazile.
I feigned embarrassment. ‘Last night . . .’ My expression communicated remorse.
Oh, I see,’ said Bazile. ‘You over-indulged? That is most unfortunate, because my dear wife returned from Normandy with several bottles of my favourite cider, a speciality of the region where she was born. You really must try some! I asked her to pack an extra bottle, a very heavy one, might I add, just for you!’
‘Don’t listen to him, Monsieur Clément,’ said Madame Bazile, ‘It was no trouble at all.’
Bazile excused himself and returned to the table with another jug, but the new cider tasted no different from the old – again, the same sourness, an acrid undertow. I doubt that I was able to disguise my dislike of the beverage, because Bazile said, ‘Being uncommonly sweet, it is something of an acquired taste, but persevere and I’m sure you will learn to appreciate its virtues.’ Not wishing to upset my hosts, I was obliged to drink the whole lot while making dishonest remarks about its vitality. It made me feel quite ill.
When we had finished eating, Madame Bazile retired for the evening. Bazile lit his pipe and our conversation soon became more serious. Before long, we were engaged in one of our deep philosophical discussions, but as the evening drew on, I was gradually overcome by a creeping sense of despair. Great rifts of nothingness seemed to be opening up inside me.
‘What is the point of prayer?’ I asked. ‘God is supposed to be unchanging. Even before a prayer is recited, He must have already decided whether or not He will answer it.’
‘There is no contradiction,’ said Bazile. ‘Prayer is not separate from the causal order of the world, but an essential part of it. We bring about by prayer those things that God has already determined should result from prayer.’
I found the circularity of his argument irritating: ‘If human beings are not free to make choices, then there can be no such thing as morality. We are only good or bad insofar as God wills it so. Either God is all-knowing, in which case we are not free, or we are free, in which case God is not all-knowing.’
‘The God in whom I believe is perfect,’ said
Bazile gravely, ‘and all-knowingness is a fundamental condition of His perfection.’ The bell-ringer pressed more tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. ‘All-knowingness and freedom need not be considered irreconcilable. Just because God knows that you will do something does not mean that he is responsible for your actions. Rather, God has foreknowledge of what it is that you freely decide to do.’
‘Sophistry,’ I said, shaking my head.
Bazile sucked on the stem of his pipe. ‘Yes, to an extent. I accept that charge. Complex ideas do not lend themselves to easy expression. Perhaps we have reached that point at which language itself is no longer serviceable and, as a consequence, arguments appear more suspect. Indeed, one must suppose that, ultimately, God is unknowable because the human intellect is of limited capacity. You would not try to scoop up the ocean with a thimble, so why do you expect your mind to encompass the infinite?’
‘If God is unknowable, why conclude that He is perfect or benign? Why make any assumptions about His goodness? The Bible exhorts us to be kind, but the world, with all of its manifest imperfections – injustice, cruelty and disease – does not look like the handiwork of a loving Father.’
Bazile frowned. ‘As a doctor, you must have seen many children being subject to painful medical procedures?’
‘Yes.’
‘A very young child cannot understand why it must suffer. It is incapable. But such suffering is necessary. Evils may be the price we pay for the greater good that outweighs them.’
‘You truly believe that this is the best of all possible worlds?’
‘Yes. How could imperfection arise from perfection? The existence of injustice, cruelty and disease do not demonstrate that the world was not perfectly created. These things are requisite, unavoidable, in ways that perhaps we will never fully appreciate.’
