HERE, as though to belie the words she write, a drop fell on the page. Rose looked at it astonished. Was it a tear? A drop of sweat from her bent brow? She did not know. Yet surely its source was somewhere in her head behind her heavy and her constant frown. Bright, winking, it lay upon the glazed surface of the paper. One would not expect such clarity. With her hand she smeared it across her last words. She looked up to listen. It was dark outside and Rose was alone in the flat. The room was brightly lit and she was expecting guests for dinner. Simon, perhaps for the last time, was to be among them. Rose, recalling this fact, started writing again.
Journal:
I’ll tell you a disturbing thing that Pierre doesn’t know: Simon has asked me if he might dedicate his present book to me. Why? The idea frightens me, like the feeling one gets when a policeman looks at one. I asked him the title and he said it was to be called La Vie en Rose. How absurd! Is it a joke? And if so what’s the point? I almost know but not quite. In any case I have started reading his other books (relegated now to the top shelf in Pierre’s study) and I don’t care for them. They are like his eyes and his jaws and we women certainly don’t get much of a chance. But he told me this was to be different.
“You are making it, not me,” he said.
Simon wasn’t very happy about going up to Montmartre that night. He considered it a bore and personally I agree. One has to have a reason for doing things like that and then they become the most exciting places in the world. Any place, I mean; even a street corner, or a bare little cafe without any atmosphere—I know what I’m talking about!
Anyway so far I didn’t have a reason. I knew that our neighbor Jason played his accordion up at the O.K., that was all. I thought it would be interesting to go and see what kind of a place it would be. I regretted asking to go the minute I’d done so although I was relieved when he invited the girl, Heidi, to come along too.
In the taxi, as we were crossing the Seine, I thought of Pierre. “That good Pierre,” Simon called him apropos of some remark I made. Simon, whom I thought so far beneath my husband. It made me angry to have him spoken of like some shaggy dog who lifts his head for a pat. And then a habit of Pierre’s came into my mind; that when he was—is—very tired, he winds a cowlick on the crown of his head, winds and rewinds it around his finger and at the same time purses up his mouth. It’s an infantile remainder, I suppose. But when men like Pierre have such habits, normal, everyday type of men, it makes them touching. One fears for them despite their solidity, as if they had exposed something of themselves to peril; laid visible, perhaps, the secret and childish goodness of their hearts.
Yes, I recall thinking such thoughts of Pierre that night as the taxi rolled over the bridge, and something hurt me inside like the first twinges of an illness.
I spoke quite vehemently. “Pierre’s book will be finished soon,” I said.
“Oh books!” cried Simon, moving his head on the back of the seat. “If you only knew how I despised them.”
“Except your own I suppose,” I said (and it wasn’t worthy of me). To my surprise he put his hand over mine. I could feel those rigid fingers, icy cold.
“I am diseased, my dear,” he said. “I spit my germs up on the page.”
Heidi said “Oo-la-la,” in world-weary, sarcastic tones and after that they left me alone and bickered together.
Later we were walking around the Place Pigalle in silence. Men ran after us and touted erotic exhibitions of various sorts. One of these men was very insistent. He took me by the arm—really—almost as though he wanted to drag me into his den. I was startled and looked up into his face. Gold teeth flashed in its swarthy oval and I could almost imagine myself lured by him, by the perfidy of his smile and the stale ugliness of his wares. Or perhaps by something else entirely, by the idea of other lives which he was offering and which might after all turn out to be one’s own.
Then Simon tapped him on the shoulder with the back of his hand. “Go easy my friend,” he said. I must admit Simon did and said this very well.
There was another flash of gold and, above, a reptile’s glance examined Simon. He dropped behind us with a bow.
Now this is the second thing that happened in the evening. I know so I’m telling you. That’s why I think it’s helping me to write this. At the beginning I don’t think I’d have known and of course I still don’t know why and maybe I never will. But in the end, after I’ve told you everything, then, after you have listened—and even judged, who knows?—then at last you might render me the answer.
Anyway we got to the bal, which was crowded with small-looking dancers taking small steps. A strange creature showed us a table and served us drinks. He put one off until one understood that he was a giant midget. He was that same shape and his face, full of wrinkles, had absolutely no trace of a beard. But it had its interest; each of its many seams was dredged with sweat. They glistened like those threads of water which shine on the steeps of rocky mountains. I’ve seen them in Switzerland. Was this man the third thing that happened this evening? I hope not. In any case once I had placed him as a midget I felt better about him. He could have been terrifying otherwise. Why is it so comforting to place people, to classify them and, snipping off an edge or two if necessary, put them away in files? I despise that habit really.
My eyes are very farsighted and keen. They say blue eyes often are. So the minute I came in I saw not only Jason on the bandstand, but La Cigale at a table in the corner across the way. I wished I were a thousand miles off. I looked at Heidi who was facing me. She resembled a vicious schoolboy, an English one, with her blond hair brushed forward as though the curls had recently been cut off, and her soft little mouth so used by lies.
Our drinks came—fine à l’eau—and I gulped some of mine. The brandy was terrible but it must have had an effect because when a man came and asked me to dance I accepted. I guess you know it’s done at such places, but I don’t think I would have consented unless—well I’ll be honest, I have to be: I was pleased that I had been asked first rather than Heidi. Pleased because I knew Simon and other people in the room would note it.
That’s base, but I can’t bother about it. I must go and dress and comb my hair and look like Pierre’s well-behaved (if unfashionable) wife. It’s a pity I feel so sleepy. I feel like yawning and yawning and stretching the aching muscles of my head. Only the yawn never gets far enough. It always stops at my ears.
THIRTEEN
Journal:
We had guests last night as you know and Simon’s successor was there as well as Simon. The successor is younger than I thought despite the beard; a sulky, pouty little man. One can easily picture him having tantrums. But I don’t recall much about the evening except that I laughed. Someone asked me if I ever tried composition and Simon said in a loud, spiteful voice, “No, only transpositions for the accordion.”
That’s why I laughed, only all at once it wasn’t laughing any more. I thought Pierre noticed something from across the room where he was sitting with his editor’s wife. He tensed. He was like those people who, sleepless, listen to the slow voice of a tower clock striking the hour. They have heard one chime and await another with uncertainty. They fear perhaps that the insomniac beating of their hearts will break the sound in their ears.
And while I remember I must write down how it hurt me to laugh last night—not at first but later—and other people felt it too as I could tell by their expressions.
Once when I was quite young father drove me to the vet’s with a sick puppy. It was in the country and the vet lived in a shabby-looking house whose yard was filled with chickens and cats. As we were driving away again I suddenly saw a kitten playing in the dust of the yard—playing, playing so hard, twisting and leaping and rolling over. I laughed with pleasure at the sight. It was such a sweet little thing twirling around in the sunshine. Then, all of a sudden, it wasn’t sweet any more. It wasn’t a kitten playing, but an animal in its death throes. Mark had hit it, you see, while backing up the car. I had thought it was having fun when it was writhing on the dusty ground.
That’s the end of that story and I think you’ll know how to take it.
But then in those days, and until last night, it didn’t hurt me to laugh at all and I loved doing it and I insist on that because the way people react is important.
Afterward, when the evening was over, Simon didn’t even say good night to me. It’s funny how he once used to look down on me for being a good, quiet, ordinary wife. He scorned me to the point of rudeness. But he’s not at all pleased now. He suffers, in fact. But why? What is it to him? And how furious he was that night in the O.K. ballroom when I saw Jason on the bandstand. I laughed that night too and Jason grinned back. He showed his teeth, pointed and foxy as his eyes. They looked as though they might wound the pulp of his lip. He sprang to his feet, still playing, and beckoned to a man standing nearby.
“Replace me for a moment, Jacquot,” he said. “I must dance with this bel enfant.”
Well, I can’t help it; the phrase, “handsome child,” didn’t displease me. Do you think that’s vulgar? But I must be honest, mustn’t I? So I’ll tell you the truth. No, it didn’t displease me; more, it warmed me. It felt like when I used to be given a lump of sugar with camphor on it after being out in the snow.
But dancing with Jason for the first time wasn’t really any fun. Musette seems stilted to me. One is whirled around in a rigid embrace. There is no lilt in a musette waltz, no leaning back and swaying from the waist; only tiny steps and stiff whirlings. The pull of the turns is counterbalanced by even closer contact. I didn’t do it right at first and Jason was quite rude about it.
“You’re not dancing a solo,” he remarked. “You’re dancing with me.”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “I’m not used to this type of waltz, and it confines me.”
“Oh, so Mademoiselle would like to let herself go,” he said in a way that was meant to be witty and quelling. It depressed me and robbed me of all the pleasure I had felt before. I wondered why I had thus left myself open to affront, why I had come and what I had expected. Yet even as I asked myself, we were turning faster, his knee was locked with the inside of my knee so that our two legs were a pivot. They were merged into one limb.
After the dance Jason took me back to my table and when we skirted the floor I couldn’t help feeling that La Cigale’s eyes were on me. Although I just hated her being there, or perhaps just because of that, I had to go up to her table and bid her good evening.
She gave me her hand, a surprising touch. Her flesh is hard you know, and yet it seems completely loosened from the bones inside, in fact to have nothing to do with them. Her other hand was clamped around a glass and there were rings on her fingers. Like her spectacles, the settings were empty. No doubt she had long ago sold the jewels belonging to them. Her face was heavily made up as usual and it looked dark and powerful. A brown turban covered her hair save for the artificial fringe which lay dustily on her forehead. Her eyes escaped mine to send their lost glances into the throng. Then she signaled imperiously to the waiter. He was looking our way so I know he saw her gesture, but he turned his back. He was wearing a sweater instead of a jacket and his back with its enormous hips and narrow shoulders was thus revealed. It was expressive. It had an expression of anger and intense concentration. La Cigale seemed undisturbed by this attention. No that’s not right; she was glad of it. There was a faint change in her mouth which straightened the lines of her nostrils. Perhaps having long ago renounced true masculine admiration, she was making this do, as mutilated soldiers must with artificial limbs. It served her and her heart was brave enough to use it.
“She comes every night,” said Jason after we had left her. “Every night she comes—no doubt to put me off my beat.”
I was angry. “And where else is she supposed to go?” I demanded. “Where will you go, Jason, when you are old and poor?”
