‘I was telling Pierre that Eloy has spent the entire evening hanging round Tedesco,’ she said. ‘Canzetti is simply furious.’
‘Eloy looks very well tonight,’ said Pierre. ‘That coiffure changes her. She has more physical attractions than I thought.’
‘Guimiot told me that she throws herself at the head of every man,’ said Elisabeth.
‘At the head, that’s one way of putting it,’ said Françoise.
The words had slipped out: Xavière did not bat an eyelash, perhaps she had not understood. When conversation with Elisabeth was not formal, it easily became vulgar. It was annoying to feel this virtuous little madam at her side.
‘They all treat her like the lowest of doormats,’ said Françoise. ‘And what’s so funny is that she’s a virgin, and is determined to remain one.’
‘Is it a complex?’ said Elisabeth.
‘It’s for the sake of her complexion,’ said Françoise with a laugh.
She stopped, for Pierre seemed to be in agony.
‘Aren’t you dancing any more?’ he hurriedly asked Xavière.
‘I’m tired,’ said Xavière.
‘Are you interested in the stage?’ said Elisabeth in her most engaging manner. ‘Do you really feel it to be your vocation?’
‘You know, when you first start, it’s rather thankless,’ said Françoise.
There was a silence: Xavière was a mass of living resentment from head to foot. In her presence, everything assumed such tremendous importance that it became oppressive.
‘What about you, are you working now?’ said Pierre.
‘Oh, yes, all’s going well,’ said Elisabeth; and she added casually: ‘Lise Malan has just put out some feelers on behalf of Dominique, about decorating her night-club. I might accept.’
Françoise felt that she would have liked to keep the secret, but that she could not resist the longing to dazzle them.
‘Accept it!’ said Pierre. ‘That’s a job with a future. Dominique will make a fortune with that joint.’
‘Little Dominique,’ said Elisabeth laughing: ‘That’s funny!’ For her, people were classified once and for all. All possibility of change was excluded from this rigid universe where she sought so stubbornly to find landmarks.
‘She has a lot of talent,’ said Pierre.
‘She was charming to me. She’s always had a tremendous admiration for me,’ said Elisabeth in a matter-of-fact tone.
Françoise felt Pierre’s foot kicking her under the table.
‘You simply must keep your promise,’ he said. ‘You’re far too lazy. Xavière is going to make you dance this rumba.’
‘All right!’ said Françoise in a tone of resignation. She rose and dragged Xavière off with her.
‘It’s just so that we can get away from Elisabeth,’ she said. ‘Let’s dance for three minutes.’
With a business-like step Pierre crossed the stage.
‘I’ll wait for both of you in your office,’ he said. ‘We’ll have a quiet drink up there.’
‘Are we inviting Paule and Gerbert?’ said Françoise.
‘No, why? Let’s just the three of us go,’ said Pierre a little curtly.
He disappeared. Françoise and Xavière followed shortly afterwards. On the staircase, they passed Begramian who was feverishly kissing the Chanaud girl. There was a running farandole across the first-floor landing.
‘At last we’ll have a little peace,’ said Pierre.
Françoise took a bottle of champagne from his cupboard; it was good champagne, kept for special guests. There were also some sandwiches and petit fours which would be served at dawn before the party finally broke up.
‘Here, uncork this for us,’ she said to Pierre. ‘The amount of dust one swallows on that stage is amazing, it makes one’s throat so dry.’
Pierre skilfully popped the cork and filled the glasses.
‘Are you having a good evening?’ he said to Xavière.
‘A heavenly evening!’ said Xavière. She drained her glass and began to laugh.
‘Goodness, you looked so important when you were talking to that stout fellow. I thought I was looking at my uncle!’
‘And now?’ asked Pierre.
The tenderness that flitted across his face was still restrained and almost veiled; a slight change of expression would be enough to restore imperceptibly the mask of smooth indifference.
‘Now, it’s you again,’ said Xavière, pouting.
The restraint vanished from Pierre’s face, and Françoise eyed him with uneasy concern. In the past, whenever she had looked at Pierre, she had seen the whole world through him, but now she saw only him alone. Pierre was precisely where his body was, his body that could be focused in a single glance.
‘That stout fellow?’ said Pierre. ‘Do you know who that was? Berger – Paule’s husband.’
‘Her husband?’ For a second, Xavière looked disconcerted; then she said sharply: ‘She does not love him.’
‘She’s strangely fond of him,’ said Pierre. ‘She was married, with a child, and she got a divorce so that she could marry him; all of which caused a great to-do because she comes from a very devout Catholic family. Did you ever read any of Masson’s novels? He’s her father. She’s very much the great man’s daughter.’
‘She’s not really in love with him,’ said Xavière. Her pout was almost cynical. ‘People get into such muddles!’
‘I love your gems of worldly wisdom,’ said Pierre, gaily. He smiled at Françoise. ‘If you only heard her a little while ago. Young Gerbert is one of those fellows who are so deeply in love with themselves that they don’t even take the trouble to make themselves pleasant …!’
He had imitated Xavière’s voice to perfection and she looked at him half in amusement and half in anger.
‘The worst of it is that she’s often right,’ said Françoise.
‘She’s a witch,’ said Pierre tenderly.
Xavière laughed foolishly, as she did when she was very happy.
‘What I think can be said about Paule Berger, is that she’s a frigid enthusiast,’ said Françoise.
‘She can’t possibly be frigid,’ said Xavière. ‘I liked her second dance so much. At the end, when she falters with fatigue, she gives the impression of such utter exhaustion that it becomes voluptuous.’
Her fresh lips slowly plucked off each syllable of the word: vol .. up .. tu .. ous.
‘She knows how to evoke sensuality,’ said Pierre, ‘but I don’t think she is sensual herself.’
‘She’s a woman who is aware of her body,’ said Xavière with a smile of hidden connivance.
‘I am not aware of my body,’ thought Françoise. That was another lesson learnt, but it was no help in the long run to add to the sum total of negatives.
‘In that long black dress,’ said Xavière, ‘when she stands motionless, she makes me think of those stiff, medieval virgins; but when she moves, she’s like a bamboo in the wind.’
Françoise refilled her glass; she was not in the conversation; she, too, might have commented on Paule’s hair, her lithe figure, the curve of her arms, but she still remained apart because Pierre and Xavière were so deeply engrossed in what they were saying. There was a long empty silence. Françoise had ceased to follow the ingenious arabesques which the voices were weaving in the air. Then, once more, she heard Pierre speaking.
‘Paule Berger is pathos, and she expresses pathos entirely in yielding movements. To me, pure tragedy was in your face while you were watching her.’
Xavière blushed.
‘I made a spectacle of myself,’ she said.
‘No one noticed it,’ said Pierre. ‘I envy you for feeling things so intensely.’
Xavière stared at the bottom of her glass.
‘People are so funny,’ she said, ingenuously. ‘They clapped, but no one seemed really moved. Perhaps it’s because you know so many things, but even you, too, do not seem to differentiate.’ She shook her head and added sternly: ‘It
’s very strange. You spoke to me about Paule Berger in an off-hand way, much as you speak about someone like Harbley, and you dragged yourself to this party tonight as if you were on your way to work. I have never had such a good time.’
‘That’s true,’ said Pierre. ‘I don’t differentiate enough.’
He stopped. There was a knock at the door.
‘Excuse me,’ said Inès. ‘I came up to tell you that Lise Malan is going to sing her latest numbers, and then Paule will dance. I went to fetch her music and her masks.’
‘We’ll come down in a moment,’ said Françoise.
Inès closed the door.
‘We were so comfortable here,’ said Xavière grumpily.
‘I don’t give a damn for Lise’s songs,’ said Pierre. ‘We’ll go down in a quarter of an hour.’
As a rule, he never made a final decision without consulting Françoise; she felt the blood mounting to her cheeks.
‘That’s not very kind,’ she said.
Her voice sounded more abrupt than she would have wished, but she had drunk too much to have perfect control. It was gross discourtesy not to go down; surely they were not going to start following Xavière along her wayward path.
‘They won’t even notice our absence,’ said Pierre with finality.
Xavière smiled at him. Each time something, more especially someone, was sacrificed for her, a look of angelic sweetness spread over her face.
‘We ought never, never to leave this room,’ she said and she laughed. ‘We’ll lock the door, and we can have our meals sent up from outside on a rope.’
‘And you’ll teach me to differentiate,’ said Pierre.
He smiled affectionately at Françoise.
‘She’s a little witch,’ he said. ‘She looks at things with virgin eyes, and lo and behold, the things come into existence for us exactly as she sees them. In the old days we would have clenched our fists; there used to be nothing but an endless series of little worries. Thanks to her, this is a real Christmas Eve that we’re enjoying tonight!’
‘Yes,’ said Françoise.
Pierre’s words were not intended for her, nor for Xavière either; Pierre had spoken for himself. There lay the greatest change: formerly, he had lived for the stage, for Françoise, for ideas; one could always collaborate with him; but there was absolutely no way of participating in his relations with himself. Françoise drained her glass. She would have to make up her mind once and for all to face up to all the changes that had taken place; for days and days now her thoughts had had a tinge of bitterness, Elisabeth must feel like that in her heart of hearts. She must not be like Elisabeth.
‘I want to see clearly,’ Françoise said to herself. But her head was filled with a flame-like, searing giddiness. ‘We must go down,’ she said brusquely.
‘Yes, now we really must,’ said Pierre.
Xavière’s face tightened. ‘But I want to finish my champagne,’ she said.
‘Drink it down,’ said Françoise.
‘But I don’t want to pour it down. I want to drink it while I finish my cigarette.’ She threw herself back in her chair. ‘I don’t want to go down.’
‘You were so anxious to see Paule dance,’ said Pierre. ‘Come along, we simply must go down.’
‘Go without me,’ said Xavière. She wedged herself into her arm-chair and repeated stubbornly: ‘I want to finish my champagne.’
‘All right, we’ll see you presently,’ said Françoise, opening the door.
‘She’ll finish all the bottles,’ said Pierre uneasily.
‘She’s intolerable with her fads and fancies,’ said Françoise.
‘Those weren’t fads and fancies,’ said Pierre acidly. ‘She was happy to have us to herself for a while.’
The moment Xavière seemed fond of him, he found everything perfect, of course; Françoise almost told him so, but she held her tongue; there were so many thoughts that she now kept to herself.
‘Am I the one who has changed?’ she thought. She was suddenly appalled to feel how much hostility she had put into her thought.
Paule was wearing a kind of gandoura of white wool; she was holding in her hand a mask of closely woven mesh. ‘I’m nervous, you know,’ she said, smiling.
Very few people were left. Paule hid her face behind the mask. Wild music burst from the wings and she leapt on to the stage. She was miming a storm: she was a hurricane personified; sharp, pulsating rhythms, inspired by Hindu music, controlled her movements. Suddenly the fog in Françoise’s head lifted; she saw clearly what lay between herself and Pierre; they had built beautiful, faultless structures in whose shadow they were sheltering, without giving any further thought to what lay behind them. Pierre still repeated: ‘We are but one,’ but now she had discovered that he lived only for himself. Without losing its perfect form, their love, their life, was slowly losing its substance, like those huge, apparently invulnerable cocoons, whose soft integument yet conceals microscopic worms that painstakingly consume them.
‘I’ll speak to him,’ thought Françoise, and she felt relieved; there was a danger ahead, but together they would ward it off; they must above all pay more attention to each other at every moment. She turned towards Paule and concentrated on watching her beautiful gestures without allowing her mind to wander.
‘You ought to give a recital as soon as possible,’ said Pierre, warmly.
‘Ah, I wonder,’ said Paule with a note of uncertainty in her voice. ‘Berger says that it is not an art which can stand by itself.’
‘You must be tired,’ said Françoise. ‘I have some fairly good champagne upstairs, we’ll drink it in the foyer; we’ll be much more comfortable than here.’
The stage floor was far too vast for the few remaining people, and it was strewn with cigarette ends, fruit pips, and scraps of paper.
‘You’re going to carry the records and glasses,’ said Françoise to Canzetti and Inès.
She drew Pierre towards the switch box and pulled down the levers.
‘I want to break it up quickly, and then I’d like the two of us to go for a walk together,’ she said.
‘Gladly,’ said Pierre. He looked at her with a certain curiosity. ‘Don’t you feel well?’
‘Of course I feel well,’ said Françoise, with a shade of annoyance in her voice. Pierre did not seem to think that she could be hurt in any way but physically. ‘But I would like to see you. This sort of party takes it out of you.’
They began to climb the stairs and Pierre took her by the arm.
‘I thought you looked a little low,’ he said.
She shrugged her shoulders; her voice trembled slightly.
‘When you look at people’s lives – at Paule, Elisabeth, Inès – they make a strange impression. You begin to wonder how you’d look at your own from without.’
‘You’re not satisfied with your life?’ said Pierre anxiously.
Françoise smiled. It was not very serious; after all, as soon as she had explained things to Pierre, it would all be forgotten.
‘The trouble is that you can’t have proofs,’ she began. ‘You require an act of faith.’
She stopped. With a tense and almost agonized expression, Pierre was staring at the door at the head of the stairs behind which they had left Xavière.
‘She must be dead drunk,’ he said.
He dropped Françoise’s arm and rushed up the last steps. ‘There’s not a sound.’
For a moment he stood motionless. The anxiety which now strained his face was not the same kind of anxiety Françoise had stirred in him, and to which he had calmly responded; this time he was shaken despite himself.
Françoise felt the blood ebbing from her cheeks; had he suddenly struck her, the shock could not have been more violent; she would never forget how his friendly arm had unhesitatingly withdrawn from her own.
Pierre pushed open the door. On the floor, in front of the window, Xavière lay sound asleep, curled up into a ball. Pierre bent over her. Françoise took a cart
on of food and a butler’s basket filled with bottles from the cupboard and left without a word. She wanted to get away, anywhere, to try to think, and to be able to cry. So it had come to this: a pout from Xavière was more important than all her own distress; and yet Pierre kept on telling her that he loved her.
The gramophone was grinding out some old melancholy refrain. Canzetti took the basket from Françoise’s hands and sat down behind the bar. She passed the bottles to Ramblin and Gerbert who, along with Tedesco, were perched on stools. Paule, Berger, Inès, Eloy and Chanaud were seated near the big bay windows.
‘I’d like a little champagne,’ said Françoise.
Her head was throbbing. She felt as if something inside her – an artery, or her ribs, or her heart – were going to burst; she was not accustomed to suffering: it was, indeed, unbearable. Canzetti was stepping carefully towards her, carrying a brimming goblet; her long skirt gave her the dignity of a young priestess. Eloy, holding a glass in her hand, suddenly came in between her and Françoise. For a second, Françoise hesitated and then she took the glass.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and she smiled at Canzetti with a look of apology. Canzetti threw a mocking glance at Eloy.
‘One gets one’s own back where one can,’ she muttered between her teeth; and also between her teeth, Eloy answered something that Françoise did not catch.
‘How dare you! And in front of Mademoiselle Miquel!’ cried Canzetti.
Her hand struck Eloy’s pink cheek. Eloy looked at her for a moment, nonplussed, then she threw herself upon her; they grabbed each other by the hair and, then and there, began to struggle where they stood, their jaws set. Paule Berger jumped up.
‘What’s come over you?’ she said, laying her beautiful hands on Eloy’s shoulders.
A shrill laugh rang out. Xavière was coming towards them, staring with glazed eyes, and looking as white as chalk. Pierre was walking behind her. Every face turned towards them. Xavière’s laugh stopped short.
‘That music is horrible,’ she said. With a sullen look of determination, she walked towards the gramophone.
‘Wait, I’ll put on a different record,’ said Pierre.
Françoise looked at him in bewildered pain. Up to now, when she thought: ‘We are separate,’ that separation was still a mutual misfortune that struck both of them, and that together they would remedy. Now she understood: to be separate was to live out the separation alone.
She Came to Stay Page 19
