David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn & The Courilof Affair (2008) (14 page)

SOME
TIME LATER
, he got up and dragged himself into the adjoining bathroom. He needed something to drink. He spent a while trying to find the jug of purified water that was left for him at night, but eventually gave up. Instead, he turned on the taps of the bathtub and wet his hands and mouth. He found it difficult to pull himself upright again; his legs were shaking like an old horse who has collapsed, half-dead, and can’t get up, despite being urged on by the whip.

The cool night air blew in through the open window. Mechanically, he walked towards it and looked out. But he might as well have been blind: he saw nothing. He felt cold and went back into his room.

He stepped on some broken glass, let out a muffled curse, looked indifferently at the blood flowing from his bare feet, and got back into bed. He was shivering. He pulled the covers tightly around his body, over his head, pressing his forehead into the pillow. He was exhausted. “I’m going to fall asleep … to forget. I’ll think about it tomorrow… tomorrow …” Why tomorrow? There was nothing he could do about it. Nothing. Hoyos… that filthy pimp … and Joyce … “It’s true that she looks like him!” he cried out, despair in his voice. But almost immediately, he fell silent, his fists clenched. “She loves him so much,” Gloria had said. “Haven’t you noticed? She guessed a long time ago…” She knew, she was laughing at him, she was affectionate towards him only when she wanted money. “Little slut, little … I didn’t deserve this,” he murmured painfully, his lips dry.

He had loved her so much, been so proud of her. None of them had given a damn about him, none of them. A child of his own… What a fool he was! He had really believed he could possess something precious on this earth … To work all his life just to end up empty-handed, alone, and vulnerable, that was
his fate. A child! Even at forty he’d been as old and cold as a corpse! It was Gloria’s fault, she’d always hated him, mocked him, pushed him away… Her laugh… Because he was ugly, heavy, clumsy … And at the beginning, when they were poor, her fear, her terror at having a child… “David, be careful. David, listen, if you get me pregnant, I’ll kill myself…” Wonderful nights of love they’d been! And then … He remembered now, he remembered it all quite clearly… He counted. It was in 1907. Nineteen years ago. She was in Europe, he was in America. A few months earlier, for the first time, he had earned some money, a lot of money in a construction deal. Then he had nothing again. Gloria was wandering about alone, somewhere in Italy. Now and again, she’d send short telegrams: “
NEED
MONEY.
” He always managed to get some for her. How? Ah, a Jewish husband always has to find a way…

A company was formed by some American financiers to construct a railway line in the West. A terrible region, vast empty spaces, swamps… Eighteen months later, all the money was gone. Everyone got out, one after the other, and he’d stepped in to take control of the business. He’d raised more capital, gone out there, stuck it out… Whenever he got his big, heavy hands on some deal, he didn’t let go easily, no …

He’d lived alongside the workmen in a wooden hut made of rotting boards. It was the rainy season. Water dripped through the badly constructed roof and down the walls; when night fell, enormous mosquitoes from the swamp whined in the air. Every day, men died, burning with fever. They were buried at night so as not to interrupt the work. The coffins would sit waiting all day long under wet, shiny tarpaulins that rattled in the wind and rain.

And it was in that place that Gloria had arrived one fine day, with her fur coat, her painted nails, her high heels that stuck in the mud…

He remembered how she went into his room, how she forced open the small, filthy window. Outside the frogs were croaking. It was an autumn evening; the sky reflected in the swamps was deep red, almost brown… It was a pretty sight! A miserable little village… the smell of moss on wood, of mud, of damp …
“You’re mad,” he kept saying, “What are you doing here? You’ll catch a fever… As if I need a woman to worry about…”

“I was bored, I wanted to see you. We’re man and wife yet we live like strangers, at opposite ends of the world.”

Later on, he asked, “Where will you sleep?” There was only one narrow, hard camp bed. He remembered how she had replied softly, “With you, David…” God knows he hadn’t wanted anything to do with her that night. He was numb with exhaustion, work, lack of sleep, fever… He breathed in her perfume with a kind of fear; he’d almost forgotten. “You’re mad,” he kept saying, “you’re mad…” as she pressed her burning body against his and whispered angrily through her clenched teeth, “Don’t you feel anything? You’re still a man, aren’t you? Aren’t you ashamed?” Had he really suspected nothing? He could no longer really remember. Sometimes, you close your eyes and turn away: you don’t want to see. What’s the point? When there’s nothing you can do anyway? And afterwards, you forget… That night, she had pushed him aside, with that weary gesture of an animal who’s had its fill. She’d fallen asleep where she lay, her arms crossed over her chest, her breathing heavy, as if she were having a nightmare. He had got up, started working, as he did every night. The kerosene lamp burned and went black, it was raining outside, the frogs were croaking beneath the windows.

A few days later she left. That same year, Joyce was born. Of course …

“Joy…Joy …” He said her name over and over again, with a kind of hoarse, dry sob, like the cry of an animal in pain. He had really loved her, his Joy, his daughter, his little girl… He had given her everything, and she couldn’t care less about him. She had snuggled against him in the same way a slut caresses and kisses the sad old man who’s in love with her. She knew very well that he wasn’t her father. Money. Money was the only thing that mattered to her. Otherwise, why would she have gone away like that? And when he kissed her, she would turn away from him, saying, “Oh, Dad! You’ll ruin my make-up.” She was ashamed of him. He was heavy and clumsy, unsophisticated… A feeling of wild humiliation stabbed at his heart. One full, hot tear dropped from his swollen eyes on to his cheek. He wiped it away
with a trembling hand. Cry over her? He, David Golder? Over that little slut? “She’s gone off… she’s left you, old, sick and alone…” But at least she hadn’t taken any of his money this time. He remembered with sharp, savage pleasure how she’d left without a penny. And Hoyos… how he’d said, “You should have slapped her.” What was the point? Refusing her money had been the best revenge. They had forgotten that the money belonged to him, and that if he wanted, they would all die of hunger, all of them… He said “all of them,” but he was really thinking only of Joyce. She’d get nothing more from him, not so much as, he harshly snapped his fingers, a penny. Ah, they had forgotten who he was. A sad, ill man, close to death, but still David Golder! In London, Paris, New York, when someone said the name David Golder, it evoked an old, hardened Jew, who all his life had been hated and feared, who had crushed anyone who wanted to do him harm. “The snakes…” he muttered, “the snakes. Oh, I’ll teach them a lesson, before I die … since that’s what she said: that I’m going to die…” His trembling hands were clutching the sheets; he looked at his heavy fingers, shaking with fever, with a sort of hopeless sadness. “What have they done to me?” He closed his eyes, wincing in hatred. “Gloria.” Her pearls had been as icy and slippery as a mass of slithering serpents… And as for the other one … that little whore… “And what are they without me? Nothing, trash. I’ve worked, I’ve killed,” he said suddenly, out loud, in a strange voice; he stopped. “Yes, I killed Simon Marcus,” he said, slowly wringing his hands, “I know I did … Come on, you know very well, you did,” he muttered darkly to himself, “and now … So they think I’m going to carry on working like a dog until I drop dead, well if that’s what they think, they’ve got another think coming!” He let out a sharp, bizarre little laugh that sounded as if he were being strangled. “That mad old hag… and as for the other one, the…” He swore in Yiddish, cursing her in a low voice. “No, my pretty one, it’s over, I’m telling you, all over…”

It was light now. He could hear someone at his door. “What is it?” he called out mechanically.

“It’s a telegram, Sir.”

“Come in.”

The servant entered. “Are you ill, Sir?”

He didn’t reply. He took the telegram and opened it.

“
NEED
MONEY. JOYCE
.”

“If you would like to reply, Sir,” the servant said, looking at him oddly, “the messenger is still here …”

“What was that?” he said slowly. “No … There’s no reply.”

He got back into bed and lay there motionless, his eyes closed. That was how Loewe found him, a few hours later. He hadn’t moved. He was breathing with great difficulty, his face contorted with pain, his head thrown back, his quivering lips colourless with fever and thirst.

He refused to get up, to speak; he uttered not a single order, not a word; he seemed half-dead, not of this world. Loewe put letters into his hands: letters with demands for money, delays, assistance, but he signed none of them; they just fell from his lifeless fingers. Loewe, terrified, left the same night.

Three days later, David Golder’s crash on the Stock Market was over, dragging down many other fortunes along with his own, like a senseless tide.

JOYCE
AND ALEC
planned to spend the night near Ascain. They had left Madrid ten days earlier and were wandering through the Pyrenees, unable to tear themselves from each other’s arms.

Joyce usually drove, while Alec and her dog, Jill, dozed, worn out by the heat of the sun. They would stop when it was dark and have dinner in the garden of some rural hotel where couples in love were serenaded by accordion players. The wistaria was in full bloom, and the trees hung with paper lanterns that sometimes caught light in a burst of golden flame that lapped at the leaves before turning to ash and falling to the ground. The young couple would sit at a wobbly wooden table caressing each other, while a girl with her hair tied back in a dark head-scarf served them chilled wine. Then they would go upstairs to spend the night in a sparsely furnished, cool bedroom, where they would make love, fall asleep, then leave the next day.

As evening fell, they were driving along a road near Ascain, in the mountains. The setting sun bathed the houses of the small village in a pale-pink light the colour of sugared almonds.

“Tomorrow,” said Alec, “it’s back to work… Lady Rovenna.

“Oh!” muttered Joyce, angrily. “She’s so ghastly, so ugly and mean…”

“We have to live,” he said, then added, laughing, “When we’re married, Joy, I’ll only sleep with pretty young women.” He placed a gentle hand on Joy’s delicate neck and gave it a squeeze. “Joy, I really want you, you know that. Only you …”

“Of course I know,” said Joy, glibly, her lovely painted lips in a triumphant little pout. “Of course I know.”

It was getting darker. Deep within the Pyrenees, the peaceful little clouds that formed at night were beginning to slip down into the valleys where they would nestle until morning. Joyce
stopped the car outside a hotel. A woman came out and opened the car door. “Monsieur, Madame. A single room with a large bed?” she asked with a smile, as soon as she saw them.

It was a very large room with a pale wood floor and an enormous, high bed. Joyce ran and threw herself down on the flowered quilt.

“Alec … come here…”

He leaned over her.

A little later, she gave a moan: “Mosquitoes… look…”

They were flying around the light on the ceiling. Alec quickly switched it off. Night had secretly, suddenly descended while they were kissing. Through the window, from the narrow garden full of sunflowers, came the sound of water flowing in a fountain.

“Where’s the white wine we left to chill?” asked Alec, his eyes shining. “I’m hungry and thirsty …”

“What have we got to eat?”

“I ordered some crayfish and the wine,” said Alec. “As for the rest, we’ll have to make do with the dish of the day, my love. Do you realise we only have five hundred francs left? We’ve spent fifty thousand in ten days. If your father doesn’t send you some money…”

“When I think ofthat man,” said Joyce, bitterly, “how he let me leave without a penny! I’ll never forgive him. If it hadn’t been for old Fischl…”

“What exactly did old Fischl ask you to do for his fifty thousand francs?” asked Alec coyly.

“Nothing!” she shouted crossly, “I swear! Just the idea of him touching me with his ugly hands is enough to make me sick! You’re the one who sleeps with old women like Lady Rovenna for money, you horrible little toad!”

She covered his mouth with hers and angrily bit his lip as if it were a piece of fruit.

Alec let out a cry. “Oh! I’m bleeding, you horrible little beast, look…”

She laughed in the darkness.

“Come on, let’s go downstairs…”

They went out into the garden, Jill following close behind them. They were alone; the hotel seemed empty. In the clear
evening sky, a large yellow moon hung suspended between the trees. Joy lifted the lid of the steaming hot soup tureen, breathing in its aroma with a little growl of pleasure.

“Oh, that smells good… Give me your bowl…”

She served him standing up; she looked so strange with her make-up, her bare arms, and her pearls flung behind her that he suddenly burst out laughing as he watched her.

“What’s the matter?”

“Oh, nothing… It’s funny … You don’t look like a woman who…”

“A
young
woman,” she interrupted, frowning.

“I can’t picture you ever being a little girl… I bet you came into this world singing and dancing, with rings on your fingers and make-up on your eyes, didn’t you? Do you know how to cut this bread? I want some.”

“No, do you?”

“No.”

They called the serving girl who cut the round, golden loaf, pressing it against her chest. Joy watched her with her head thrown back, lazily stretching out her bare arms. “When I was little, I was very beautiful… They would stroke me, tease me…”

“Who do you mean by
they?
”

“Men. Especially old men, of course …”

The servant took away the empty dishes and came back with an earthenware bowl of crayfish swimming in a steaming, delicious-smelling, spicy broth. They devoured them with great gusto. Joyce added even more pepper and then stuck out her tongue as if it were on fire. Alec slowly poured the chilled wine; it made the glasses turn misty.

“We’ll have champagne in our room tonight, as we always do,” murmured Joyce, slightly tipsy, while cracking an enormous crayfish between her teeth. “What kind of champagne do they have? I want some Clicquot, very dry.”

She raised her glass between her cupped hands.

“Look… the wine is the same colour as the moon tonight, all golden.

They drank together from the same glass, merging their moist,
peppery lips, lips so young that nothing could change the way they tasted of ripe fruit.

With the chicken sauteed with olives and sweet pimentos, they drank a bottle of ruby Chambertin, full-bodied and warm, that left a wonderful taste in the mouth. Then Alec ordered some brandy and poured drops of it into two large glasses of champagne. Joyce drank. While they were having dessert, she started acting wild. With her dog on her lap, she threw back her head, looked up at the sky, then, with all her strength, pulled the golden locks of her short hair straight into the air.

“I want to sleep outdoors all night… I want to spend my whole life here … I want to spend my whole life making love … What do you say?”

“I love your little breasts,” said Alec. Then he fell silent.

He didn’t speak much when he drank. He continued pouring the brandy into the golden champagne, drop by drop.

It was a peaceful night in the country; the mountains were bathed in moonlight; the cicadas were chirping.

“They think it’s daytime,” murmured Joyce, delighted. The little dog had fallen asleep in her arms; she didn’t want to move. “Alec,” she said, “put a cigarette in my mouth and light it for me.

Alec groped about in the dark, found a cigarette, and put it between her lips, then passionately grabbed the back of her neck and muttered something she couldn’t understand.

When Joy suddenly uncrossed her legs, the little dog woke up, jumped down, stretched out on the grass, and nuzzled the moist, sweet-smelling September earth.

“Come, Joy,” Alec urged quietly. “Come and play at love.

“Come on, Jill,” Joyce said to her dog.

Jill looked up and seemed to hesitate. But the couple were already disappearing into the darkness, walking towards the house with slow, tottering steps, their young, intoxicated faces leaning towards each other. Jill got up with a throaty little noise that sounded like someone sighing and followed them, stopping every few steps to sniff the ground.

As usual, once inside the bedroom, the dog lay down facing the bed, and Joy repeated, as she did every night, “Jill, you naughty girl, we should make you pay to watch!”

The moon spread great puddles of silver over the floor. Joy undressed slowly, then went and stood naked in front of the window, wearing only her pearls; they shimmered in the cool moonlight.

“I’m beautiful, aren’t I, Alec? Do you want me?”

“It’s our last night together,” Alec replied wistfully, like a child. “We have no more money, there’s nothing left. We have to go back, we have to part… Until when?”

“My God, you’re right…”

That night, for the first time, they didn’t throw themselves hungrily into making love only to fall asleep afterwards, like wild young animals tired after doing battle; instead, with heavy hearts, they lay beneath the flower-covered quilt and, bathed in moonlight, cradled each other for a long time, wrapped in each other’s arms, without speaking and almost without desire.

Then they felt cold and closed the shutters, pulling the heavy blue and pink curtains across the window. The electricity had been turned off, it was late; a burning candle on the edge of the table sent their shadows dancing to the ceiling. They could hear, very far away, the muffled sound of hooves hitting the ground.

“There’s a farm nearby, most likely,” said Alec, as Joy looked up. “The animals must be dreaming…”

Jill, still asleep, turned over with a great sigh, so weary and sad that Joy laughed and whispered, “Daddy sighs like that when he’s lost on the Stock Market… Oh, Alec, your knees are so cold…”

On the white ceiling, their shadows mingled, forming an eerie knot, like a bouquet of flowers whose stems are entwined.

Joyce let her hands slide, slowly, down her trembling aching hips.

“Oh, Alec! I’m so in love with love …”