Arch of Triumph (9 page)

“
Salute
,” Joan Madou said and drank.

The hors d’oeuvres were rolled in on a small wagon. “What would you like?” Ravic looked at the woman. “I think it will be simplest if I fill a plate for you.”

He piled a plate full and handed it to her. “It won’t matter if you don’t like any of it. There are more wagons to come. This is just the beginning.”

He filled a plate for himself and began to eat, not concerning himself further about her. Suddenly he felt very hungry. When he looked up after a while he saw that she too was eating. He shelled a langoustine and held it out to her. “Try this. It’s better than langouste. And now the pâté maison. With a crust of white bread. So, that’s not bad at all. And a little of the wine with it Light, dry, and cool.”

“You are going to a lot of trouble for me,” Joan Madou said.

“Yes—like a headwaiter.” Ravic laughed.

“No. But you are going to a lot of trouble for me.”

“I don’t like to eat alone. That’s all there is to it. Just like you.”

“I’m not a good companion.”

“You are,” Ravic replied. “For dining, you are. For dining you are a first-rate companion. I can’t bear garrulous people. Or those with loud voices.”

He looked across the room toward Albert. The red-feathered hat was just explaining to him very audibly why he was such a swine, at the same time rhythmically rapping on the table with her umbrella. Albert was listening and did not seem impressed.

Joan Madou smiled briefly. “Neither can I.”

“Here comes the next wagon with supplies. Would you like to have something at once or do you want a cigarette first?”

“A cigarette first.”

“All right. Today I have different cigarettes, not those with black tobacco.”

He gave her a light. She leaned back and inhaled the smoke deeply. Then she looked straight at him. “It is good to sit this way,” she said and for a moment it seemed to him that she was going to cry.

They drank coffee in the Colisée. The large room facing the Champs Elysées was overcrowded, but they secured a table downstairs in the bar. The upper part of the walls was glass behind which parrots and cockatoos hovered and multicolored tropical birds soared to and fro.

“Have you thought about what you’re going to do?” Ravic asked.

“No, not yet.”

“Did you have anything definite in mind when you came here?”

The woman hesitated. “No, nothing in particular.”

“I’m not asking out of curiosity.”

“I know that. You think I should do something. That’s what I want, too. I say so to myself every day. But then—”

“The landlord told me you were an actress. I didn’t ask him. He told me when I asked for your name.”

“Had you forgotten it?”

Ravic glanced up. She looked at him calmly. “Yes,” he said. “I left the slip of paper in my hotel and couldn’t recall it at the moment.”

“Do you know it now?”

“Yes. Joan Madou.”

“I’m not a good actress,” the woman said. “I only played small parts. Nothing at all in the last few years. Also I don’t speak French well enough.”

“What do you speak then?”

“Italian. I was brought up in Italy. And some English and Roumanian. My father was Roumanian. He is dead. My mother is British; she is still living in Italy; I don’t know where.”

Ravic only half listened. He was bored and he no longer knew what to talk about. “Have you done anything else?” he asked, just for the sake of asking. “Besides those small parts you played?”

“Only what went with them. Some dancing and singing.”

Ravic looked at her doubtfully. She didn’t seem suited for that. There was something pale and vague about her and she was not attractive.

“That may be easier to try here,” he said. “For that you need not speak perfectly.”

“No. But first I have to find something. It is difficult if one doesn’t know anyone.”

Morosow, Ravic suddenly thought. The Scheherazade. Naturally! Morosow ought to know about such things. The idea revived him. Morosow had dragged him into this dull evening—now the woman could be passed on to him and Boris would have a chance to show what he could do. “Do you know Russian?” he asked.

“A little. A few songs. Gypsy songs. They are similar to Roumanian ones. Why?”

“I know someone who knows about these things. Maybe he can help you. I’ll give you his address.”

“I don’t think there’s much point to it. Agents are the same everywhere. Recommendations are of little help.”

Ravic realized she thought he wanted to get rid of her in the
easiest way. Since that was so, he protested. “The man I mean is not an agent. He is the doorman of the Scheherazade. That’s a Russian night club on Montmartre.”

“Doorman?” Joan Madou lifted her head. “That is something else,” she said. “Doormen are much better informed than agents. That may be something. Do you know him well?”

Ravic looked at her in surprise. Suddenly she had spoken like a professional. “He is a friend of mine,” he said. “His name is Boris Morosow and he has been with the Scheherazade for the last ten years. There’s always a pretty big show. They change the numbers frequently. He’s on good terms with the manager. If there’s no spot for you in the Scheherazade he will be sure to know of something else. Will you try it?”

“Yes. When?”

“It would be best around nine o’clock in the evening. He’s not busy then and he will have time for you. I’ll tell him about it.” Ravic looked forward to seeing Morosow’s face. Suddenly he felt better. The slight burden of responsibility he had still felt had disappeared. He had done what he could and now it was up to her. “Are you tired?” he asked.

Joan Madou looked straight into his eyes. “I’m not tired,” she said. “But I know that it is no pleasure to sit here with me. You came out of pity and I thank you for it. You took me out of my room and you spoke to me. That means a great deal to me, since I’ve hardly spoken to anyone for days. Now I’ll go. You have done more than enough for me. What would have become of me otherwise?”

My God, Ravic thought, now she is starting that. He looked uncomfortably at the glass wall before him. A fat dove was trying to ravish a cockatoo. The cockatoo was so bored that she did not even shake him off. She merely went on eating and ignored him.

“It was not pity.”

“What else?”

The dove gave it up. He hopped down from the broad back of the cockatoo and began to clean his feathers. The cockatoo indifferently lifted her tail and defecated.

“We’ll both drink a cognac now,” Ravic said. “That’s the best answer. But believe me I’m not really such a philanthropist. There are many evenings when I sit around by myself. Do you consider that particularly interesting?”

“No, but I’m a bad partner. That’s worse.”

“I’ve given up looking for partners. Here’s your cognac.
Salute!
”

“Salute.”

Ravic put his glass down. “So. And now we’ll leave this menagerie. You wouldn’t like to go back to your hotel, would you?”

Joan Madou shook her head.

“All right. Then let’s go somewhere else. Let’s go to the Scheherazade. We’ll have a drink there—we both seem to need it—and at the same time you can find out what’s going on there.”

It was almost three o’clock in the morning. They stood in front of the Hôtel de Milan. “Have you had enough to drink?” Ravic asked.

Joan Madou hesitated. “I thought I had enough when I was there, in the Scheherazade. But now here, looking at this door—it wasn’t enough.”

“Something can be done about that. Maybe we can still get something here in the hotel. Otherwise we’ll go to some bar and buy a bottle. Come.”

She looked at him. Then she looked at the door. “Very well,” she said with determination. Yet she continued to stand there. “To go up there,” she said, “in that empty room—”

“I’ll go with you. And we’ll take a bottle with us.”

The doorman woke up. “Have you anything to drink?” Ravic asked.

“Champagne cocktail?” the doorman asked immediately, businesslike, but still yawning.

“Thank you. Something stronger. Cognac, a bottle.”

“Courvoisier, Martell, Hennessy, Bisquit Dubouchée?”

“Courvoisier.”

“Very well, sir. I’ll take the cork out and bring the bottle up.” They walked upstairs. “Have you got your key?” Ravic asked the woman.

“The room is not locked.”

“Your money and your papers might be stolen if you don’t lock it.”

“That could happen even if I locked it.”

“That’s true with these keys. Although it isn’t quite as easy then.”

“Maybe. But I don’t want to come in alone from outside and take a key and open a door in order to enter an empty room—that’s as if I were opening a tomb. It is enough already to have to enter this room—in which nothing awaits one but a few suitcases.”

“Nothing awaits us anywhere,” Ravic said. “We always have to bring everything with us.”

“That may be. But there is at least sometimes a merciful illusion. Here there’s nothing—”

Joan Madou flung her Basque beret and coat on the bed and looked at Ravic. Her eyes were light and large in her pale face and as though fixed in a furious desperation. She stood thus for a moment. Then she began to walk in the small room back and forth, with long strides, hands in the pockets of her jacket, resiliently swinging her body when she turned. Ravic watched her attentively.
Suddenly she had strength and a catlike grace, and the room seemed much too narrow for her.

There was a knock. The doorman brought in the cognac. “Would the lady and gentleman care to eat something?” he asked. “Cold chicken, a sandwich—”

“That would be a waste of time, brother.” Ravic paid and shoved him out of the room. Then he poured two glasses full. “Here. It is simple and barbaric—but the more primitive the better in difficult situations. Refinement is something for quiet times. Drink this.”

“And then?”

“Then you will drink another.”

“I have tried that. It didn’t help. It is not good to be drunk when one is alone. Things just become sharper.”

“One only has to be drunk enough. Then it works.”

Ravic sat on a narrow wobbly chaise longue which stood by the wall opposite the bed. He hadn’t seen it before. “Was this here when you moved in?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I had it put there. I didn’t like to sleep in the bed. It seemed so pointless. A bed, and to have to undress and all that. What for? Mornings and in the daytime it was somehow possible. But nights—”

“You must have something to do.” Ravic lit a cigarette. “It’s too bad we didn’t meet Morosow in the Scheherazade. I didn’t know that today was his day off. Do go there tomorrow night. About nine o’clock. I’m sure he’ll find something for you. Even if it’s work in the kitchen. Then at least you would be busy at night. That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Joan Madou stopped walking. She drank her glass of cognac and sat down on the bed. “I’ve walked about, outside, every night. As long as one walks everything is easier. Only when one sits down and the ceiling falls on one’s head—”

“Didn’t anything ever happen to you on the street? Nothing stolen?”

“No. I probably don’t look as if I had anything one could steal.” She held her empty glass out to Ravic. “And as for the other—I waited for it often enough. At least to have someone speak to me! To be something more than mere nothing, mere walking! That at least eyes would look at one, eyes and not just stones. That one would not run around like an outcast! Like someone on a strange planet!” She threw her hair back and took the glass that Ravic handed her. “I don’t know why I’m talking about it,” she said. “I don’t want to. Maybe it is because I was silent all those days. Maybe because today for the first time—” She interrupted herself. “Don’t listen to me—”

“I’m drinking,” Ravic said. “Say whatever you want. It is night. No one hears you. I am listening to myself. Everything will be forgotten by tomorrow.”

He leaned back. Somewhere in the house there was the sound of rushing water. The radiator rattled and the rain knocked with soft fingers at the window.

“When one comes back and switches off the light—and the darkness falls on one like chloroform on a wad of cotton, and one turns on the light again and stares and stares—”

I must be drunk already, Ravic thought. Earlier than usual today. Or it may be the faint light. Or both. This is not the same insignificant, faded woman any longer. This is someone else. Suddenly there are eyes. There is a face. Something is looking at me. It must be the shadows. The soft fire behind my forehead that is illuminating her. The first glow of drunkenness.

He did not listen to what Joan Madou said. He knew about all that and no longer wanted to know about it. To be alone—the eternal refrain of life. It wasn’t better or worse than anything else. One talked too much about it. One was always and never alone. A
violin, suddenly—somewhere out of a twilight—in a garden on the hills around Budapest. The heavy scent of chestnuts. The wind. And dreams crouched on one’s shoulders like young owls, their eyes becoming lighter in the dusk. A night that never became night. The hour when all women were beautiful.

He looked up. “Thank you,” Joan Madou said.

“Why?”

“Because you’ve let me talk without listening. It helped me. I needed it.”

Ravic nodded. He noticed that her glass was empty again. “All right,” he said. “I’ll leave the bottle here for you.”

He got up. A room. A woman. Nothing else. A pale face in which there was no longer any radiance. “Do you really want to go?” Joan Madou asked. She looked around as if someone were hidden in the room.

“Here is Morosow’s address. His name, so that you won’t forget it. Tomorrow night at nine.” Ravic wrote it on a prescription pad. Then he tore the sheet off and put it on the suitcase.

Joan Madou had got up. She reached for her coat and beret. Ravic looked at her. “You needn’t see me down.”

“I don’t mean to do that. I just don’t want to stay here. Not now. I want to walk around somewhere.”

“But you’ll have to come back again later anyhow. The same thing all over again. Why don’t you stay here? Now that you’ve already overcome it.”

“It will be morning soon. When I come back it will be morning. Then it will be easier.”