For a moment, Françoise stood motionless before the door. This room made her feel shy: it really was a holy place. Here more than one worship was held, but the supreme deity towards whom there rose the smoke of Virginian cigarettes, the scent of tea and of lavender, was Xavière herself, as she imagined herself to be.
Françoise knocked softly.
‘Come in,’ said a cheerful voice.
A little surprised, Françoise opened the door. Standing in her long green-and-white house-coat, Xavière was smiling, enjoying to the full the astonishment she had clearly intended to arouse. A lamp, shaded in red, threw a blood-coloured hue over the room.
‘Would you like to spend the evening here?’ said Xavière. ‘I’ve made a little supper.’
Beside the wash-hand stand, the kettle was purring on a spirit stove and in the half-light Françoise was able to make out two plates of multicoloured sandwiches; refusal was out of the question: beneath their apparent timidity, Xavière’s invitations were always imperious orders.
‘How sweet of you,’ she said. ‘Had I known this was going to be a gala evening, I would have dressed for it.’
‘You look very beautiful as you are,’ said Xavière affectionately. ‘Make yourself comfortable. Look, I’ve bought some green tea. The tiny leaves look as if they’re still alive, and you’ll see in a moment how strongly scented it is.’
She puffed out her cheeks and blew hard at the flame of the stove. Françoise was ashamed of her ill will. ‘It’s true that I’m hard,’ she thought, ‘I’m growing sour.’ How bitter her voice had been just now, when she was talking to Pierre!
The rapt attention with which Xavière was bending towards the tea-pot was certainly very disarming.
‘Do you like red caviare?’ asked Xavière.
‘Oh, very much,’ said Françoise.
‘Oh, that’s good. I was afraid you might not like it.’
Françoise looked at the sandwiches a little apprehensively. Pieces of rye bread cut in rounds, squares and diamonds and spread with many coloured jams, and here and there between them peeped an anchovy, an olive, or a slice of beetroot.
‘No two are alike,’ said Xavière proudly. She poured the steaming tea into a cup. ‘I had to put a drop of tomato sauce on a few of them,’ she added quickly, ‘that made them so much prettier, but you won’t even taste it.’
‘They look delicious,’ said Françoise with resignation; she loathed tomatoes. She chose the sandwich that looked the least red; it had a queer taste, but was not too bad.
‘Did you notice that I have some new photographs?’ said Xavière.
On the green-and-red flowered wallpaper she had pinned a set of artistic nudes. Françoise carefully studied the long curved backs, the proffered breasts.
‘I don’t think Monsieur Labrousse thought them very pretty,’ said Xavière with a tight little pout.
‘The blonde might perhaps be said to be a little too fat,’ said Françoise, ‘but that small brunette is charming.’
‘She has a beautiful long neck like yours,’ said Xavière in a caressing tone.
Françoise smiled at her. She suddenly felt relieved; all the evil poetry of the day had vanished. She looked at the couch, at the arm-chairs covered in a material patterned with yellow, green and red lozenges like a harlequin costume. She liked the varying values of strong and light colours, and this sombre light, and the scent of dead flowers and living flesh that always emanated from Xavière. Pierre had known no more than this, and Xavière had turned to him a face no more moving than the one she now raised to Françoise; these charming features went to make up the honest face of a child, and not the disquieting mask of a witch.
‘Do eat some sandwiches,’ said Xavière.
‘I’ve really eaten enough,’ said Françoise.
‘Oh!’ said Xavière, looking downcast, ‘you don’t like them!’
‘Of course I like them,’ said Françoise reaching towards the plate. Only too well did she know this gentle tyranny. Xavière did not try to make others happy; she selfishly delighted in the pleasure of giving pleasure. But was she to blame for that? Wasn’t she lovable like this? Her eyes shining with satisfaction, she watched Françoise get down a thick tomato purée sandwich: one would have to be a stone not to be moved by her joy.
‘I had a real thrill a little while ago,’ said Xavière, in a confidential tone.
‘What was that?’ said Françoise.
‘That handsome Negro dancer!’ said Xavière. ‘He spoke to me.’
‘Take care that the blonde doesn’t scratch your eyes out!’ said Françoise.
‘I met him on the stairs as I was coming back with my tea and all my little parcels.’ Xavière’s eyes sparkled. ‘He was so nice! He had on a light-coloured overcoat and a pale grey hat – it went so well with his dark skin. My parcels fell out of my hands. He picked them up for me and with a big smile said: “Good evening, Mademoiselle, enjoy your dinner.”’
‘And what did you answer?’ said Françoise.
‘Nothing!’ said Xavière in a shocked tone. ‘I ran.’ She smiled. ‘He’s as graceful as a cat, and he looks just as ruthless and treacherous.’
Françoise had never really taken a good look at this Negro; beside Xavière, she felt very barren: what reminiscences Xavière would have brought back with her from the flea-market! And all she had been able to see were filthy rags and tumble-down hovels.
Xavière refilled Françoise’s cup.
‘Did you work much this morning?’ she asked with a fond look.
Françoise smiled. This was a deliberate advance that Xavière was making to her; usually, she loathed the work to which Françoise devoted most of her time.
‘Quite a lot,’ she said. ‘But I had to leave at noon to go and lunch with my mother.’
‘May I read your book some day?’ Xavière asked with a coquettish pout.
‘Of course,’ said Françoise. ‘I’ll show you the first chapters whenever you like.’
‘What’s it about?’
She sat down on a cushion, tucked her legs up under her, and blew lightly on her scalding tea. Françoise looked at her with slight remorse, she was touched by the interest which Xavière was exhibiting in her; she should have tried more often to have a real talk with her.
‘It’s about my youth,’ said Françoise. ‘I want to explain in my story why people are so often misfits when they’re young.’
‘Do you think young people are misfits?’
‘Not you,’ said Françoise. ‘You’re a superior soul.’ She thought a moment. ‘You see, when you’re a child, you very easily resign yourself to being regarded as of little account, but at seventeen things change. You begin to want to have a definite existence, and since you still feel the same inside yourself, you foolishly have recourse to external guarantees.’
‘How do you do that?’ asked Xavière.
‘You seek the approbation of others, you write down your thoughts, you compare yourself with accepted models. Now, take Elisabeth,’ said Françoise, ‘in a sense, she has never passed that stage. She’s a perennial adolescent.’
Xavière laughed. ‘You are certainly not like Elisabeth,’ she said.
‘I am, in a way,’ said Françoise. ‘Elisabeth annoys us because she listens slavishly to Pierre and me, because she’s constantly remodelling herself. But if you study her with a little sympathy you’ll perceive in all that a clumsy attempt to give a definite value to her life and to herself as a person. Even her respect for the social formulas – marriage, fame – is still a form of this anxiety.’
Xavière’s face clouded slightly.
‘Elisabeth is a vain, pathetic jellyfish,’ she said. ‘That’s all.’
‘No, that isn’t precisely all,’ said Françoise. ‘You still have to understand the cause of it.’
Xavière shrugged her shoulders.
‘What’s the good of trying to understand people who aren’t worth it?’
Françoise repressed a movement
of impatience. Xavière was affronted as soon as anyone but herself was spoken of indulgently or even fairly.
‘In a way, no one is worth it,’ she said to Xavière, who was listening with sulky attention. ‘Elisabeth is completely bewildered when she looks into herself, because all she finds is an empty shell. She has no idea that it’s the common fate. On the other hand, she sees other people from without, through the shape of words, gestures and faces. It produces a kind of mirage.’
‘It’s funny,’ said Xavière. ‘Usually, you don’t make so many excuses for her.’
‘But it’s not a question of excusing or condemning,’ said Françoise.
‘I’ve already noticed that,’ said Xavière. ‘You and Monsieur Labrousse always make people out to be far too mysterious. But they’re a lot simpler than that.’
Françoise smiled. That was the reproach she had once made to Pierre – of taking pleasure in complicating Xavière.
‘They’re simple if you look only at the surface!’ she said.
‘Perhaps,’ said Xavière in a polite and careless tone that definitely closed the discussion. She pushed away her cup and gave Françoise a winning smile.
‘Do you know what the chamber-maid told me?’ she said. ‘There’s someone in Room 9 who’s both a man and a woman.’
‘Room 9. So that’s why she has that craggy head and husky voice!’ said Françoise. ‘That strange creature does dress like a woman. Is that the one?’
‘Yes, but he has a man’s name. He’s an Austrian. It seems that when he was born they couldn’t make up their minds. Finally, they decided that he was a boy and when he was fifteen something happened to him that was decidedly feminine, but his parents didn’t change his birth certificate.’ Xavière lowered her voice and added: ‘Besides, he has hair on his chest and other characteristics. He was famous in his own country. They made a film of him and he made a lot of money.’
‘I should imagine that in the heyday of psycho-analysis and sexology, it must have been a godsend to be a hermaphrodite in Vienna,’ said Françoise.
‘Yes, but when there were all those political goings-on, you know,’ said Xavière vaguely, ‘he was driven out. Then she took refuge here. She’s penniless and it seems that she’s very unhappy because she’s drawn to men, but men won’t have anything to do with her.’
‘Oh, the poor thing! That’s true; she wouldn’t even find favour with the homosexuals,’ said Françoise.
‘She weeps all the time,’ said Xavière, seemingly heartbroken. She looked at Françoise. ‘Still, it isn’t her fault. How can you be driven out of a country because you’re made one way or another? People have no right to do that.’
‘Governments have the rights they take,’ said Françoise.
‘I don’t understand that,’ said Xavière accusingly. ‘Isn’t there any country where people can do as they like?’
‘No.’
‘Then I’ll have to go to a desert island,’ said Xavière.
‘Even desert islands belong to people now,’ said Françoise. ‘You’re cornered.’
Xavière shook her head.
‘Oh, I’ll find a way,’ she said.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Françoise. ‘You’ll have to accept a number of things you don’t like, just like everyone else.’ She smiled. ‘Does that idea disgust you?’
‘Yes,’ said Xavière. She looked sideways at Françoise. ‘Did Monsieur Labrousse tell you that he was not pleased with my work?’
‘He told me that you had a long talk about it.’ Françoise added cheerfully: ‘He was extremely flattered at having been invited to your room.’
‘Oh, it just happened,’ said Xavière laconically.
She turned away to fill the kettle with water and there was a brief silence. Pierre was wrong if he thought she had forgiven him; with Xavière, the last impression was no true indication of her feelings. She must have thought over the events of the afternoon in anger and become enraged above all by the final reconciliation.
Françoise looked at her carefully. Wasn’t this charming welcome just a form of exorcism? Hadn’t she been taken in once again? Surely the tea, the sandwiches, the beautiful green gown were not intended to honour her, but rather to deprive Pierre of a privilege foolishly granted. Françoise felt a lump in her throat. No, it was impossible to proceed with this friendship unreservedly. Try as she would, it left an unwholesome taste in her mouth, a taste of metal shavings.
Chapter Seven
‘Won’t you have some fruit salad?’ said Françoise. She elbowed a path to the buffet for Jeanne Harbley. Aunt Christine had never left the table for an instant; she was now smiling adoringly at Guimiot, who was eating a coffee ice with an air of condescension. Françoise ran her eyes over the plates of sandwiches and petits fours to make quite certain that they still looked presentable. There were twice as many people as at the previous Christmas-Eve party.
‘The decorations are charming,’ said Jeanne Harbley.
For the tenth time Françoise answered: ‘Begramian is responsible for them: he’s got excellent taste.’
He deserved no little credit for his rapid transformation of a Roman battlefield into a ballroom, but Françoise had no great liking for the profusion of holly, mistletoe and pine branches. She looked round the room, seeking new faces.
‘It was so nice of you to have come! Labrousse will be so happy to see you!’
‘Where is the dear master?’
‘Over there, with Berger, you really had better go and rescue him.’
Blanche Bouguet could hardly be said to be any more amusing than Berger, but she would at least be a change. Pierre looked very far from being infected by any party spirit; from time to time his eyes roved apprehensively; he must be worried about Xavière, afraid that she would get drunk or disappear suddenly. At the present moment she was sitting beside Gerbert on the proscenium, their legs were dangling over the edge and they seemed horribly bored with each other. The gramophone was playing a rumba, but the stage was too crowded for anyone to dance.
‘Well, it’s just too bad about Xavière!’ thought Françoise. The evening was trying enough as it was; it would become intolerable if her opinions and moods had to be taken into account. ‘Just too bad!’ repeated Françoise to herself, a little uncertainly.
‘Are you leaving so soon? Oh, what a pity!’
She followed Abelson’s retreating figure with some satisfaction; when all the important guests were gone, she could afford to relax a little. Françoise made her way towards Elisabeth; for the past half-hour, she had been leaning against an upright, smoking and staring abstractedly, without speaking to a soul. But to cross the stage was like going on a perilous voyage.
‘It was so nice of you to have come! Labrousse will be so happy! He’s in Blanche Bouguet’s clutches, do try to rescue him.’ Françoise gained a few inches. ‘You look magnificent, Marie-Ange. That blue with the purple is really lovely.’
‘It’s a little ensemble I picked up at Lanvin’s; it is pretty, isn’t it?’
A few more handshakes, a few more smiles, and Françoise found herself at Elisabeth’s side.
‘That was tough going,’ she said brightly. She suddenly felt very tired; she had been feeling tired very often lately.
‘It’s a real fashion parade tonight!’ said Elisabeth. ‘Do you notice what ugly complexions all these actresses have?’
Elisabeth’s own skin, puffy and rather yellowish, was not particularly pretty, for that matter. ‘She’s letting herself go,’ thought Françoise. It was hard to believe that six weeks earlier, at the dress rehearsal, she had been almost dazzling.
‘It’s the grease-paint,’ said Françoise.
‘Their figures are marvellous,’ said Elisabeth impartially. ‘When you think that Blanche Bouguet is over forty!’
The bodies were young and so was the too exact colouring of the hair, and even the firm outline of the faces, but this youth had none of the freshness of living things, it was an embalme
d youth; not a wrinkle, not a crow’s-foot marred this carefully massaged flesh; that stretched look round the eyes was only the more disturbing. They were ageing underneath, they could go on ageing for a long time before the glaze cracked; and then one day, suddenly, this flawless shell, grown thin as tissue paper, would crumble into dust. Then the effigy of an old woman would emerge, complete in every detail, with wrinkles, large brown moles, swollen veins, and knotted fingers.
‘Well-preserved women,’ said Françoise. ‘That’s a dreadful expression. It always makes me think of tinned lobster and of the waiter saying: “It’s every bit as good as the fresh.” ’
‘I don’t think so very much of the young, either,’ said Elisabeth. ‘Those young people are so badly turned out that they look like nothing on earth.’
‘Don’t you think Canzetti looks charming in her wide gypsy skirt?’ said Françoise. ‘And look at the Eloy girl, and Chanaud! Obviously, the cut isn’t perfection …’
These slightly clumsy dresses had all the charm of the tentative lives of those whose ambitions, dreams, hardships and resources they were the reflection: Canzetti’s wide yellow belt, the embroidery Eloy had plastered over the bodice of her dress, were as intimate a part of them as their smiles. That was just the way Elisabeth used to dress.
‘Believe me, these little ladies would give anything to look like Harbley or Bouguet,’ said Elisabeth bitterly.
‘They certainly would, and if they make good, they’ll be exactly like the others,’ said Françoise.
Françoise took in the scene at a glance; beautiful successful actresses, beginners, respectable failures, a whole host of separate fates went to make up this mixed congeries; it was almost enough to make her head spin. At certain moments, it seemed to Françoise that the orbits of these lives had intersected expressly for her at me particular point in time and space where she happened to be: at others, the very reverse; people seemed to be dotted about, each a separate entity.
‘In any case, Xavière looks positively dowdy tonight,’ said Elisabeth. ‘Those flowers she’s stuck in her hair are in the worst possible taste!’
Françoise had spent some little time with Xavière arranging that shy spray, but she did not want to contradict Elisabeth; there was hostility enough already in her expression even when she agreed with her.
She Came to Stay Page 17
