She was irritated by his way of walking in and out between the furniture like a cat, he liked to show off his body; his movements were supple and smooth, his gestures graceful and overdone.
‘I was only passing by. I don’t want to be in your way,’ he said. He also overdid his smile, a thin smile that made his eyes wrinkle. ‘It’s a pity that you couldn’t come last night. We drank champagne until five o’clock this morning. My friends told me that I was a sensation. What did Monsieur Labrousse think?’
‘It was very good,’ said Elisabeth.
‘It seems that Roseland wants to meet me. He thinks I have a very interesting head. He is expecting to put on a new play soon.’
‘Do you think it’s your head he’s after?’ said Elisabeth. Roseland made no secret of his habits.
Guimiot gently pressed one moist lip against the other. His lips, his liquid blue eyes, his whole face made one think of a damp spring day.
‘Isn’t my head interesting?’ he said coquettishly. A pansy grafted on to a gigolo, that was Guimiot.
‘Isn’t there a scrap to eat here?’
‘Go and look in the kitchen,’ said Elisabeth-‘Bed, breakfast and what have you,’ she thought harshly – he always managed to cadge something, a meal, a tie, a little money borrowed but never returned. Today, she did not find him amusing.
‘Do you want some boiled eggs?’ shouted Guimiot.
‘No, I don’t want anything,’ she answered. The sound of running water, and the clatter of pots and dishes came from the kitchen – she did not even have the courage to throw him out – when he left she would have to think.
‘I’ve found a little wine,’ said Guimiot. He put a plate, a glass and a napkin on one corner of the table. ‘There’s no bread, but I’ll make the eggs soft-boiled. Soft-boiled eggs can be eaten without bread, can’t they?’
He sat himself on the table and began to swing his legs.
‘My friends told me that it’s a pity I have such a small part. Do you think that Monsieur Labrousse might at least let me be an understudy?’
‘I mentioned it to Françoise Miquel,’ said Elisabeth – her cigarette tasted acrid and her head ached – it was just like a hangover.
‘What did Mademoiselle Miquel say?’
‘That she would have to see.’
‘People always say they’ll have to see,’ said Guimiot sententiously. ‘Life is very difficult.’ He leapt toward the kitchen door. ‘I think I hear the kettle singing.’
‘He ran after me because I was Labrousse’s sister,’ thought Elisabeth – that was nothing new – she’d been well aware of it for ten days. But now she put her thoughts into words. She added: ‘I don’t care.’ With unfriendly eyes she watched him put the pot on the table and open an egg with finicky gestures.
‘There was a stout lady, rather old and very smart, who wanted to drive me home last night’
‘Fair, with a pile of little curls?’
‘Yes. I refused to go because of my friends. She seemed to know Monsieur Labrousse.’
‘That’s our aunt,’ said Elisabeth. ‘Where did you and your friends have supper?’
‘At the Topsy, and then we wandered round Montparnasse. At the bar of the Dôme we met the young stage-manager who was completely squiffy.’
‘Gerbert? Whom was he with?’
‘There were Tedesco and the Canzetti girl and Sazelat and somebody else. I think Canzetti went home with Tedesco.’ He opened a second egg.
‘Is the young stage-manager interested in men?’
‘Not that I know of,’ said Elisabeth. ‘If he made any advances to you it was because he was plastered.’
‘He didn’t make any advances to me,’ said Guimiot, looking shocked. ‘It was my friends who thought he was so handsome.’ He smiled at Elisabeth with sudden intimacy. ‘Why don’t you eat?’
‘I’m not hungry,’ said Elisabeth – this couldn’t last much longer – soon she would begin to suffer; she could feel it beginning.
‘That’s pretty, that thing you’re wearing,’ said Guimiot, his feminine hands running lightly over her silk pyjamas. The hand became gently insistent.
‘No, leave me alone,’ said Elisabeth wearily.
‘Why? Don’t you love me any more?’ said Guimiot. His tone carried the suggestion of some lewd complicity, but Elisabeth had ceased to offer any resistance. He kissed the nape of her neck, he kissed her behind her ear; strange little kisses; it almost seemed as if he were grazing. This would always retard the moment when she would have to think.
‘How cold you are!’ he said almost accusingly. His hand had slipped underneath the silk and he was watching her through half-closed eyes. Elisabeth surrendered her mouth and closed her eyes; she could no longer bear that look, that professional look. She felt suddenly that these deft fingers which were scattering a shower of downy caresses over her body were the fingers of an expert, endowed with a skill as precise as those of a masseur, a hairdresser, or a dentist. Guimiot was conscientiously doing his job as a male. How could she tolerate these services rendered, ironic as they were?
She made a movement to free herself. But she was so heavy, so weak, that before she could pull herself together she felt Guimiot’s naked body against hers. The ease with which he had stripped, this too, was one of the tricks of the trade. His was a sinuous and gentle body that too easily embraced hers. Claude’s clumsy kisses, his crushing embrace … She opened her eyes. Guimiot’s mouth was curved and his eyes were screwed up with pleasure. At this moment, he was thinking only of himself, with the greed of a profiteer. She closed her eyes again. A scorching humiliation swept over her. She was anxious for it to end.
With an insinuating movement Guimiot put his cheek on Elisabeth’s shoulder. She pressed her head against the pillow. But she knew that she would not be able to sleep any more. Now things must take their course, there was no help for it. That was that: one could no longer avoid suffering.
Chapter Five
‘Three coffees, and bring them in cups,’ said Pierre.
‘You’re pig-headed,’ said Gerbert. ‘The other day, with Vuillemin, we measured it out; the glasses hold exactly the same amount.’
‘After a meal, coffee should be drunk from a cup,’ said Pierre with finality.
‘He maintains that the taste is different,’ said Françoise.
‘He’s a dangerous dreamer!’ said Gerbert. He thought for a minute. ‘Strictly speaking, we might agree that it cools less rapidly in cups.’
‘Why does it cool less rapidly?’ said Françoise.
‘Surface of evaporation is reduced,’ said Pierre sententiously.
‘Now you’re well off the rails,’ said Gerbert. ‘What happens is that china retains the heat better.’
They were always full of fun when they debated a physical phenomenon. It was usually something they had made up on the spur of the moment.
‘It cools all the same,’ said Françoise.
‘Do you hear what she says?’ said Pierre.
Gerbert put a finger to his lips with mock discretion; Pierre nodded his head knowingly: this was the usual mimicry to express their impertinent complicity, but today, there was no conviction in this ritual. The luncheon had dragged out cheerlessly; Gerbert seemed spiritless, they had discussed the Italian demands at great length: it was unusual for their conversation to be swamped in such generalities.
‘Did you read Soudet’s criticism this morning?’ said Françoise.
‘He’s got a nerve. He asserts that to translate a text word for word is to falsify it.’
‘Those old drivellers!’ said Gerbert. ‘They won’t dare admit that Shakespeare bores them stiff.’
‘That’s nothing, we’ve got vocal criticism on our side,’ said Françoise, ‘that’s the most important thing.’
‘Five curtain calls last night, I counted them,’ said Gerbert.
‘I’m delighted,’ said Françoise. ‘I felt sure we could put it across without making the slightest compromise.
’ She turned gaily to Pierre. ‘It’s quite obvious now that you’re not merely a theorist, an ivory tower experimenter, a coterie aesthete. The porter at the hotel told me he cried when you were assassinated.’
‘I’ve always thought he was a poet,’ said Pierre. He smiled, as if somewhat embarrassed, and Françoise’s enthusiasm subsided. Four days earlier, when they had left the theatre at the close of the dress rehearsal, Pierre had been feverishly happy and they had spent an intoxicating night with Xavière! But the very next day, this feeling of triumph had left him. That was just like him: he would have been devastated by a failure, but success never seemed to him to be any more than an insignificant step forward towards still more difficult tasks that he immediately set himself. He never fell into the weakness of vanity, but neither did he experience the serene joy of work well done. He looked at Gerbert questioningly.
‘What is the Péclard clique saying?’
‘That you’re right off the mark,’ said Gerbert. ‘You know they’re all for the return to the natural and all that tripe. All the same, they would like to know just what you’ve got up your sleeve.’
Françoise was quite sure she was not mistaken, there was a certain restraint in Gerbert’s cordiality.
‘They’ll be on the look-out next year when you produce your own play,’ said Françoise. She added gaily: ‘Now, after the success of Julius Caesar, we can count on the support of the public. It’s grand to think about.’
‘It would be a good thing if you were to publish your book at the same time,’ said Gerbert.
‘You’ll no longer be just a sensation, you’ll be really famous,’ said Françoise.
A little smile played on Pierre’s lips.
‘If the brutes don’t gobble us up,’ he said.
The words fell on Françoise like a cold douche.
‘Do you think we’ll fight for Djibouti?’
Pierre shrugged his shoulders.
‘I think we were a little hasty in our rejoicings at the time of Munich. A great many things can happen between now and next year.’
There was a short silence.
‘Put your play on in March,’ said Gerbert.
‘That’s a bad time,’ said Françoise, ‘and besides, it won’t be ready.’
‘It’s not a question of producing my play at all costs,’ said Pierre. ‘It’s rather one of finding out just how much sense there is in producing plays at all.’
Françoise looked at him uneasily. A week earlier when they were at the Pôle Nord with Xavière, and he had referred to himself as an obstinate mule, she had chosen to interpret it as a momentary whim; but it seemed that a real anxiety was beginning to possess him.
‘You told me in September that, even if war came, we should have to go on living.’
‘Certainly, but how?’ Pierre vaguely contemplated his fingers. ‘Writing, producing … that’s not after all an end in itself.’
He was really perplexed and Françoise almost felt a grudge against him, but she must go on quietly trusting in him.
‘If that’s the way you look at it, what is an end in itself?’ she said.
‘That’s exactly the reason why nothing is simple,’ said Pierre. His face had taken on a clouded and almost stupid expression: the way he looked in the morning when, with his eyes still pink with sleep, he desperately began searching for his socks all over the room.
‘It’s half-past two, I’ll beat it,’ said Gerbert.
He was never the first to leave as a rule; he liked nothing so much as the moments he spent with Pierre.
‘Xavière is going to be late again,’ said Françoise. ‘It’s most aggravating. Your aunt is so particular that we should be there for the first glass of port sharp at three o’clock.’
‘She’s going to be bored stiff there,’ said Pierre. ‘We should have arranged to meet her afterwards.’
‘She wants to see what a private view is like,’ said Françoise. ‘I don’t know what her idea of it can be.’
‘You’ll have a good laugh!’ said Gerbert.
‘It’s one of aunt’s protégés,’ said Françoise, ‘we simply can’t get out of it. As it is, I cut the last cocktail party, and that didn’t go down too well.’
Gerbert got up and nodded to Pierre.
‘I’ll see you tonight.’
‘So long,’ said Françoise warmly. She watched him walk off in his big overcoat which flapped over his ankles; it was one of Péclard’s old casts-off. ‘That was all rather forced,’ she said.
‘He’s a charming young fellow, but we don’t have a great deal to say to each other,’ said Pierre.
‘He’s never been like that before; I thought he seemed very depressed. Perhaps it’s because we let him down on Friday night; but it was perfectly plausible that we should want to go home to bed right away when we were so exhausted.’
‘At least so long as nobody else ran into us,’ said Pierre.
‘Let’s say that we buried ourselves at the Pôle Nord, and then jumped straight into a taxi. There’s only Elisabeth, but I’ve warned her.’ Françoise ran her hand across the back of her head and smoothed her hair. ‘That would be a bore,’ she said. ‘Not so much the fact itself, but the lie, that would hurt him terribly.’
Gerbert had retained from his adolescence a rather timid touchiness and, above all, he dreaded feeling that he was in the way. Pierre was the only person in the world who really counted in his life; he was quite willing to be under some sort of obligation to him, but only if he felt that it was not from a sense of duty that Pierre took an interest in him.
‘No, there’s not a chance,’ said Pierre. ‘Besides, yesterday evening he was still gay and friendly.’
‘Perhaps he’s worried,’ said Françoise. It saddened her that Gerbert should be sad and that she could do nothing for him. She liked to know that he was happy: his steady and pleasant life delighted her. He worked with discernment and success. He had a few friends whose varied talents fascinated him: Mollier who played the banjo so well, Barrisson who spoke in flawless slang, Castier who had no trouble in holding six Pernods. Many an evening in the Montparnasse cafés he practised bearing up under Pernod with them: he had more success with the banjo. The rest of the time he deliberately shunned company. He went to the movies; he read; he wandered about Paris, cherishing modest and persistent little dreams.
‘Why doesn’t that girl come?’ said Pierre.
‘Perhaps she’s still asleep,’ said Françoise.
‘Of course not, yesterday evening when she dropped into my dressing-room she said quite clearly that she’d have herself called,’ said Pierre. ‘Perhaps she’s ill, but then she would have telephoned.’
‘Not she, she’s got a holy fear of the telephone, she thinks it’s an instrument of evil,’ said Françoise. ‘But I do think it’s likely she’s forgotten the time.’
‘She never forgets the time except out of spite,’ said Pierre, ‘and I don’t see why she should have a sudden change of mood.’
‘She does occasionally, for no known reason.’
‘There’s always a reason,’ said Pierre, a little irritably. ‘Only you don’t try to understand them.’
Françoise found his tone unpleasant; it was in no way her fault.
‘Let’s go and fetch her,’ said Pierre.
‘She’ll think that’s indiscreet,’ said Françoise. Perhaps she did treat Xavière rather like a piece of machinery, but at least she handled the delicate mechanism with the greatest care. It was very annoying to have to offend Aunt Christine; but, on the other hand, Xavière would take it greatly amiss if they were to go to her room to fetch her.
‘But it’s she who’s in the wrong,’ said Pierre. Françoise rose. After all, Xavière might be ill. Since her discussion with Pierre a week earlier, she had not had the slightest change of mood: the evening the three had spent together, the Friday after the dress rehearsal, had passed in cloudless merriment.
The hotel was quite close and it took them only a
moment to get there. Three o’clock. There was not a minute more to be lost. As Françoise disappeared up the stairs the proprietress called her.
‘Mademoiselle Miquel, are you going to see Mademoiselle Pagès?’
‘Yes, why?’ said Françoise a little arrogantly. This plaintive old lady was fairly accommodating, but her inquisitiveness was sometimes misplaced.
‘I would like to have a word with you about her.’ The old woman stood hesitatingly on the threshold of the little drawing-room, but Françoise did not follow her in. ‘Mademoiselle Pagès complained a little while ago that the basin in her room was stopped up. I pointed out to her that she had been throwing tea-leaves, lumps of cotton-wool and slops into it.’ She added: ‘Her room is in such a mess! There are cigarette ends and fruit-pips in every corner, and the bedspread is singed all over.’
‘If you have any complaints to make about Mademoiselle Pagès, please speak to her,’ said Françoise.
‘I have done so,’ said the proprietress, ‘and she told me that she wouldn’t stay here one day more. I think she’s packing her bags. You’ll appreciate that I have no trouble in letting my rooms. I have enquiries every day and I’d be only too happy to let a tenant like that go. The way she keeps the lights burning all night long, you have no idea how much it costs me.’ She added, ingratiatingly: ‘Only because she’s a friend of yours, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience her. I wanted to tell you, that if she changes her mind I won’t raise any objections.’
Ever since Françoise had lived there, she had been treated with unusual consideration. She showered the good woman with complimentary tickets and the old lady was flattered by it: and, most important of all, she paid her rent very regularly.
‘I’ll tell her,’ said Françoise. ‘Thank you.’ With decisive steps, she went on up the stairs.
‘We can’t let that little wretch become a damned nuisance,’ said Pierre. ‘There are other hotels in Montparnasse.’
‘But I’m very comfortable in this one,’ said Françoise. It was well heated and well located: Françoise liked its mixed clientèle and the ugly-flowered wallpaper.
‘Shall we knock?’ said Françoise hesitantly. Pierre knocked. The door was opened with unexpected promptitude and Xavière stood there, bedraggled and almost scarlet in the face; she had pulled up the sleeves of her blouse and her skirt was covered with dust.
She Came to Stay Page 11
