David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn & The Courilof Affair (2008) (7 page)

A
VIOLENT STORM
was beating down on Paris the day of Marcus’s funeral; everyone was in a hurry to bury the dead man deep within the wet earth and then leave.

Golder was holding his umbrella in front of his face, but when the coffin went past, balanced on the shoulders of the pallbearers, he stared at it; the black fabric, embroidered with tear-shaped silver drops, had slipped away, revealing the cheap wood and tarnished metal handles. Golder turned sharply away.

Next to him, two men were talking loudly. One of them pointed to the hole being filled in.

“He came to see me,” Golder could hear one of them saying, “and offered to pay me with a cheque drawn on the French Bank of America in New York, and I was foolish enough to agree. It was the night before he died, Saturday. As soon as I’d heard he’d killed himself, I cabled and only got a reply the following morning. Naturally, he’d cheated me. Insufficient funds. But I’m not going to let it drop, his widow will have to make it good …”

“Was it for a lot of money?” someone asked.

“Not to you perhaps, Monsieur Weille, not to you,” the voice replied bitterly, “but to a poor man like me, it was an awful lot of money.”

Golder looked at him. He was a small, hunched old man, rather shabbily dressed, who stood shaking in the wind, shivering and coughing. As no one said anything, he continued complaining in a low voice. Someone else started laughing.

“You’d be better off asking the madam at the Rue Chabanais, she’s the one who’s got your money.”

Behind Golder, two young men were whispering behind an open umbrella: “The thing’s a farce…You know they found him with some little girls? Only thirteen or fourteen years old… It’s absolutely true, and on top ofthat…” He lowered his voice.

“Who would have guessed he had a taste for that…”

“Maybe he was just trying to satisfy a secret desire before dying, what do you think?”

“Trying to hide his predilections more likely …”

“Do you know why he killed himself?”

Golder automatically took a few steps forward, then stopped. He looked at the gleaming gravestones, the battered wreaths, whipped by the wind. He vaguely muttered something. The man next to him turned around.

“What were you saying, Golder?”

“What a mess, don’t you think?” Golder said, suddenly sounding angry and oddly pained.

“Yes, when it’s raining, a funeral in Paris is never much fun. But it will happen to all of us one day. Good old Marcus, even on the last day we’ll ever have anything to do with him, he’s arranged for all of us to die of pneumonia. If he can see us now plodding about in the mud, it will make him so happy… He was pretty tough, wasn’t he? By the way, you’ll never guess what I heard yesterday.”

“What?”

“Well, I heard that the Alleman Company was going to bail out Mesopotamian Petroleum. Have you heard anything about that? You’d find that interesting, wouldn’t you?”

He stopped speaking and pointed with satisfaction at the umbrellas that were beginning to move in front of them. “Ah! It’s over at last, about time. Let’s get going…”

With their collars up, the mourners pushed each other to escape the rain as quickly as possible. Some of them even ran over the graves. Like everyone else, Golder held his open umbrella with both hands and hurried away. The storm was pounding down on the trees and gravestones, beating them with a kind of futile, savage violence.

“How smug they all look, the lot of them,” Golder thought. “One down, and now there’s one enemy less … And how happy they’ll all be when it’s my turn.”

They had to stop on the path for a moment to let a procession pass that was going in the opposite direction. Braun, Marcus’s secretary, caught up with Golder.

“I have some more papers on the Russians and Amrum which will be of interest to you,” he whispered. “Everyone seems to have been stabbing everyone in the back… Not a very nice business, Monsieur Golder.”

“You think so, young man?” replied Golder, with a sarcastic look on his face. “No, not very nice. Well, bring everything to me at the train station at six o’clock, to the train for Biarritz.”

“Are you going away, Monsieur Golder?”

Golder took a cigarette and crushed it between his fingers.

“Are we going to be here all night, for God’s sake?”

The line of black cars was still filing past, relentless and slow, blocking the way.

“Yes, I’m going away.”

“You’ll have wonderful weather. How is Mademoiselle Joyce? She must be even more beautiful now… You’ll be able to have a rest. You look nervous and tired.”

“Nervous,” grumbled Golder, suddenly furious, “no, thank God! Where do you get such rubbish? Now Marcus was another story … He was as jittery as a woman … And you can see where it got him…”

He pushed his way past two undertakers in shiny, dripping hats who were walking in the middle of the path, and fled, cutting through the funeral procession to get outside the gates.

It wasn’t until he was in the car that he remembered he hadn’t paid his respects to the widow. “Oh, she can go to hell!” He tried in vain to light his cigarette, but the rain had soaked it, so he spat the crushed tobacco out of the window. He huddled in the corner and closed his eyes as the car pulled away.

GOLDER
DINED
QUICKLY,
drank some of the heavy Burgundy he liked, then smoked for a while in the corridor. A woman bumped into him as she passed by and smiled, but he looked away, indifferent. She was one of those little sluts from Biarritz… She disappeared. He went back into his compartment.

“I’m going to sleep well tonight,” he thought. He suddenly felt exhausted; his legs were heavy and painful. He raised the blind and looked out blankly at the rain streaming down the dark windows. The drops of water ran into each other forming little, wind-whipped rivers, like tears… He undressed, got into bed, and buried his face deep in the pillow. He had never felt so exhausted. He stretched his arms out with difficulty; they were stiff, heavy … The berth was narrow… even narrower than usual, it seemed. “A bad choice of compartment, of course … the idiots,” he thought vaguely. He could feel his bodyjolt as the wheels beneath him revolved with a heart-rending screech. The heat was suffocating. He turned over his pillow, then turned it again; he was burning up. He punched it down with his fist, angrily. It was so hot… It would be better to open the window. But the wind was blowing furiously. In a flash, all the letters and newspapers on the table flew into the air. He swore, closed the window again, pulled the blind down, switched off the light.

The air was heavy and smelled of coal mixed with a faint odour of eau de toilette. It made him feel sick. Instinctively, he tried to breathe more deeply, as if to force the heavy air into his lungs, but they rejected it, could not absorb it; it remained in his throat, choking him, like trying to force food into a nauseous stomach… He kept coughing. It was irritating… Worst of all, it was preventing him from sleeping. “And I’m so terribly tired,” he murmured, as if complaining to some invisible companion.

He turned on to his back, then rolled slowly over on to his
side again, pushing himself up on his elbows. He gave a deliberate, hard cough in an attempt to shrug off the unbearable feeling of heaviness high in his chest, in his throat. It didn’t work; he felt even worse. He yawned with difficulty, but a sharp spasm turned the yawn into a painful fit of choking. He stretched his neck, moistened his lips. Perhaps his head was too low? He reached for his overcoat, rolled it up, slipped it under the pillow, then pulled himself into a sitting position. It was worse. His lungs felt as if they were swelling up. And… it was strange … He had pains… yes, pains in his chest, in his shoulder, around his heart… Suddenly a shiver ran down his spine. “What’s happening?” he whispered anxiously. Then he said bravely, “No, it’s nothing, it will stop. It’s nothing…” and he realised he was talking out loud, talking to himself. He braced himself, put all his effort into inhaling deeply, but it was no use. He couldn’t breathe. He felt an invisible weight crushing his chest. He threw off the covers, the sheet, opened his nightshirt. “What’s going on?” he panted. “What’s wrong with me?” The thick, black darkness bore down on him like a stone. That’s what was suffocating him, yes, that was it… He reached out his shaking hand to turn on the light, but it fumbled along the wall in the dark, trying in vain to find the little lamp set in the wall above the bed. He sighed angrily, shuddered. The pain in his shoulder was becoming sharper, more insistent… Cunningly lying in wait, he thought, pacing about somewhere deep inside his body, in the very core of his being, in his heart, waiting for him to make the slightest movement and then it would strike. Slowly he lowered his arm; it was as if he was forcing it down. Just wait… don’t move. Whatever happens, don’t move … He was breathing more and more heavily and quickly. The air entered his lungs with a strange, grotesque sound, like steam hissing from the lid of a cauldron; and when he breathed out, his entire chest began to convulse, filled with a hoarse, choked wheezing, like a moan, like a death-rattle.

The thick darkness flowed into his throat with soft, insistent pressure, as if earth were being pushed into his mouth, as it was into
his…
the dead man’s… Marcus… And when he thought finally of Marcus, when he finally allowed himself to be taken
over by the image, the memory of death, the cemetery, the yellow clay soaked with rain, the long roots clinging like serpents deep inside the grave, he suddenly felt such a tremendous need, such a desperate desire for light, to see familiar, ordinary things around him … his clothing swaying from the hook on the door… the newspapers on the little table … the bottle of mineral water… that he forgot about everything else. Angrily he stretched out his arm, and an excruciating pain, as sharp as a knife, like a bullet, deep and violent, shot through his chest, seemed to embed itself within his heart.

He had time to think “I’m dying,” to feel he was being pushed, thrown over the edge of a precipice into a hole, a crater, as narrow and suffocating as a tomb. He could hear himself calling out, but his voice sounded as if it were coming from very far away, as if it were someone else’s voice, separated from him by deep, murky water that swept over him and was dragging him down, lower and lower, into the wide, gaping hole. The pain was unbearable. Soon he fainted, which eased the pain a little, transforming it into a feeling of heaviness, suffocation, an exhausting and vain battle. Once again, he could hear someone calling in the distance, panting, shouting, struggling. He felt as if someone were holding his head under water and that it went on for centuries.

Finally, he came to.

The sharp pains had stopped. But his entire body felt wracked, as if all his bones had been broken, crushed beneath heavy wheels. And he was afraid to move, afraid to lift a single finger, afraid to call out. The slightest sound, the slightest movement would make it start all over again, he was sure of it… and this time, it would mean death. Death.

In the silence, he could hear his heart beating, hard and hollow; it seemed to tear at the muscles in his chest.

“I’m afraid,” he thought desperately, “I’m afraid…”

Death. No, it wasn’t possible, no! Couldn’t anyone tell, sense that he was here, alone like a dog, abandoned, dying? “If I could only ring the bell, call someone. No, I just have to wait, wait… The night will soon pass.” It had to be very late already, very late … He peered anxiously into the darkness that surrounded
him; it was as thick and deep as before, without a glimmer of light, without even that vague halo that illuminates everything just before dawn. Nothing. Was it ten o’clock, eleven o’clock? To think that his watch was right there, the light was there, that he only had to reach out, stretch out his arm to press the alarm. It was worth the risk! But no, no … He was afraid to make a sound, afraid to breathe. If it happened again, if he felt his heart failing… and that horrible pain… No! The next time, he would surely die. “But what’s happening, for God’s sake? What is it? My heart. Yes.” But he’d never had heart trouble. He’d never even been ill… A bit of asthma, perhaps… Especially recently. But at his age, everyone had something wrong. A bit of discomfort. It was nothing. Watch your diet, get some rest. But this! Oh, what difference if it was his heart or something else? They were only words, words that mean one thing: death, death, death. Who was it who’d said, “It will happen to all of us one day”? Oh, yes. All of us. And him. Those old Jews with their vicious faces who rubbed their hands together, sniggering… It would be worse for them! The dogs, the bastards! And the others… His wife … His daughter… Yes, even her, he was no fool. He was nothing more than a money machine … Good for nothing else …Just pay, pay, and then, drop down dead…

Good Lord, wouldn’t this damned train ever stop? It had been hours, they’d been travelling for hours without a break! “Don’t people sometimes make a mistake at stations and open the door of a compartment that’s already occupied? My God, if only that would happen now!” He imagined hearing a sound in the corridor, the door banging open, people’s faces… He would be taken away… It didn’t matter where—to a hospital, a hotel… Anywhere, as long as they had a stretcher…

The sound of footsteps, human voices, some light, an open window …

But no, nothing… Nothing at all. The train was going faster. Long, piercing whistles filled the air, then faded away… There was the sound ofwheels pounding the tracks in the darkness… a bridge… For a moment he thought that the train was slowing down. He listened hard, gasping for breath. Yes, they were going slower… slower… they’d stopped… A shrill whistle sounded,
hung for a moment over the open countryside, and the train started moving again.

He shuddered. He had lost all hope. His mind was blank. He wasn’t even suffering any more. There was nothing now but fear: “I’m afraid, I’m afraid, I’m afraid,” and his racing, thundering heart.

Suddenly he thought he could make out something shining, faintly, through the thick blackness. It was opposite him. He strained to see. Barely a glimmer of light. Greyish, pale … But nevertheless something bright, distinct, in the darkness. He waited. It expanded, became clearer, spread, like a pool of water. It was the glass of the window, the window. It was dawn. The darkness was fading, becoming less dense, more fluid. He felt as if an enormous weight was lifting from his chest. He was breathing. This lighter air glided, flowed into his lungs. With infinite care, he moved his head. Cool air swept across his damp brow. Now he could make out shapes around him, outlines. His hat, for example, which had fallen on the floor… The water bottle… Maybe he could reach the glass, drink a bit? He stretched out his hand. He felt no pain, nothing. With beating heart, he moved his wrist. Still nothing. His hand felt its way to the table, held the glass. It had water in it, thank God; he never would have been able to lift the bottle. He raised his head slightly, put the glass to his lips, and drank. How wonderful it was … The flow of cool water across his lips, moistening his dry, swollen tongue, his throat. With the same care, he put the glass down, moved back a bit, waited. His chest still hurt. But less, a lot less, as each moment passed. It was more like a kind of neuralgia in his bones. Maybe it wasn’t so serious after all…

Perhaps he could open the blind. All he had to do was press a button. Trembling, he stretched out his hand again. The blind suddenly sprang up. It was day. The air was white, cloudy and thick as milk. Slowly, with measured, methodical movements, he picked up his handkerchief, wiped his cheeks and lips. Then he put his face against the window. The cold of the glass felt wonderful as it ran through his whole body. He looked out at the hills where the grass was gradually recovering its greenness, at the trees… Far away in the distance he could see lights glowing
faintly in the dawn fog. A railway station. Should he call someone? It would be easy. But how strange that it should have gone away like that… Though it did prove that it wasn’t anything serious, at least not as serious as he had feared. An anxiety attack perhaps? Still, he couldn’t ignore it, he’d have to see a doctor. But it didn’t have to be his heart. Asthma, maybe? No, he wouldn’t call anyone. He looked at his watch. Five o’clock. Come on now, just wait a bit. No need to get all worked up like this. It was his nerves. Braun had been right, the little crook… Cautiously, he probed the spot beneath his breast as if it were an open wound. Nothing. His heart-beat, however, was strange, irregular. So what, it would pass. He was tired. If he could just sleep for a while, that would surely fix things. Just to be oblivious … No more thinking. No more remembering. He was absolutely exhausted. He closed his eyes.

He was already half asleep when, suddenly, he sat up. “That’s it,” he said out loud. “I see it now… It’s Marcus. But why? Why?” At that moment he felt he could see within himself with extraordinary lucidity. Was it… a kind of remorse? “No, it’s not my fault.” Then he added more quietly, more angrily: “I have nothing to regret.”

He fell asleep.