Four Novels (18 page)

“One last time,” she begged, “tell me about it one last time.”

Chauvin hesitated, his eyes somewhere else, still fixed on the back wall. Then he decided to tell her about it as if it were a memory.

“He had never dreamed, before meeting her, that he would one day want anything so badly.”

“And she acquiesced completely?”

“Wonderfully.”

Anne Desbaresdes looked at Chauvin absently. Her voice became thin, almost childlike.

“I’d like to understand why his desire to have it happen one day was so wonderful?”

Chauvin still avoided looking at her. Her voice was steady, wooden, the voice of a deaf person.

“There’s no use trying to understand. It’s beyond understanding.”

“You mean there are some things like that that can’t be gone into?”

“I think so.”

Anne Desbaresdes’ expression became dull, almost stupid. Her lips had turned pale, they were gray and trembled as though she were on the verge of tears.

“She does nothing to try and stop him?” she whispered.

“No. Have a little more wine.”

She sipped her wine. He also drank, and his lips on the glass were also trembling.

“Time,” he said.

“Does it take a long time, a very long time?”

“Yes, a very long time. But I don’t know anything.” He lowered his voice. “Like you, I don’t know anything. Nothing at all.”

Anne Desbaresdes forced back her tears. Her voice was normal, momentarily awake.

“She will never speak again,” she said.

“Of course she will. Suddenly one day, one beautiful morning, she’ll meet someone she knows and won’t be able to avoid saying good morning. Or she’ll hear a child singing, it will be a lovely day and she’ll remark how lovely it is. It will begin again.”

“No.”

“You can think whatever you like about it, it doesn’t matter.”

The siren went off, a loud wail that quickly spread to the far corners of the town and even beyond, into the suburbs, and to certain neighboring villages, borne by the sea wind. The sunset was a welter of even brighter yellow on the far wall. As often at sunset, the clouds billowed in fat clusters in the still sky, revealing the last fiery rays of the
sun. That evening it seemed that the siren would never stop. But it finally did.

“I’m afraid,” Anne Desbaresdes murmured.

Chauvin moved closer to the table, searched for her, searching for her, then gave up.

“I can’t.”

Then she did what he had been unable to do. She moved close enough to him for their lips to meet. They lingered in a long embrace, their lips cold and trembling, so that it should be accomplished, performing the same mortuary ritual as their hands had performed a moment before. It was accomplished.

From the nearby streets a subdued murmur reached them, punctuated by calm, carefree shouts. The dockyards nearby had opened their gates to eight hundred men. The patronne turned on the neon light above the bar, although the place was flooded with sun. After a moment’s hesitation she went over to the now silent couple and solicitously served them some wine, although they had not asked for it. Then she remained there after she had served them, close to their table, hunting for something to say, but she found nothing and moved away.

“I’m afraid,” Anne Desbaresdes said again.

Chauvin did not reply.

“I’m afraid,” Anne Desbaresdes almost shouted.

Still Chauvin did not reply. Anne Desbaresdes doubled over, her forehead almost touching the table, and accepted her fear.

“So we’re going to leave things just as they are,” Chauvin said. “That happens sometimes,” he added.

A group of workers, who had already seen them there before, entered the café. Like the patronne and everyone else in town, they knew what was going on, and avoided looking at them. The café resounded with the chorus of various conversations.

Anne Desbaresdes raised her head, and tried to reach Chauvin across the table.

“Maybe I won’t be able to,” she murmured.

Perhaps he wasn’t listening any longer. She pulled her suitcoat tightly around her, and buttoned it. Again she moaned, and was surprised to hear herself.

“That’s impossible,” she said.

Chauvin heard that.

“Wait a minute,” he said, “and we’ll be able to.”

Anne Desbaresdes waited a minute, then she tried to stand up. She succeeded in getting to her feet. Chauvin was not looking at her. The men still kept their eyes turned away from this adulteress. She stood there.

“I wish you were dead,” Chauvin said.

“I am,” Anne Desbaresdes said.

Anne Desbaresdes moved around her chair so as to avoid having to sit down again. Then she took one step back and turned around. Chauvin’s hand fluttered and fell to the table. But she was already too far away to see him.

She passed the cluster of men at the bar and found herself again moving forward into the fiery red rays of the dying day.

After she had left, the patronne turned the radio up louder. Some of the men complained that in their opinion it was too loud.

TEN-THIRTY on a SUMMER NIGHT

TRANSLATED BY

ANNE BORCHARDT

One

“H
IS NAME IS PAESTRA.
Rodrigo Paestra.”

“Rodrigo Paestra.”

“Yes. And the man he killed is Perez. Toni Perez.”

“Toni Perez.”

On the square, two policemen were walking by in the rain.

“When did he kill Perez?”

The customer didn’t know exactly, at the beginning of the afternoon that was coming to an end. At the same time that he killed Perez, Rodrigo Paestra had also killed his wife. Both victims had been found two hours earlier, at the back of a garage belonging to Perez.

In the café, it was already getting dark. Candles had been lit on the wet counter in the back, and their yellow light mingled with the blueness of the dying day. The shower stopped suddenly, as it had started.

“How old was she, Rodrigo Paestra’s wife?” Maria asked.

“Very young. Nineteen.”

There was a look of regret on Maria’s face.

“I would like another glass of manzanilla,” she said.

The customer ordered it for her. He was also having a manzanilla.

“I wonder why they haven’t caught him yet,” she went on, “the town is so small.”

“He knows the town better than the police. Quite a man, Rodrigo.”

The bar was full. Everyone was talking about Rodrigo Paestra’s crime. They all agreed about Perez, but about his young wife they didn’t. A child. Maria was drinking her manzanilla. The customer looked at her with surprise.

“Do you always drink like that?”

“It depends,” she said, “more or less, yes, almost always like that.”

“Alone?”

“At the moment, yes.”

The café wasn’t directly on the street but on a square arcade, divided, split right through by the town’s main avenue. This arcade was bordered by a stone balustrade, with a top that was wide and strong enough to hold children who sometimes jumped over it and sometimes lay flat on it while watching the rain come down or the police walk by. Among them was Judith, Maria’s daughter. Leaning against the balustrade, she was looking at the square, with only her head showing above it.

It must have been between six and seven in the evening.

Another shower started and the square became empty. A group of palmettos in the middle of the square were bending under the wind, crushing the flowers between them. Judith came back from the arcade and huddled against her mother. But her fear had vanished. The strokes of lightning came so close together that they seemed like one, and the noise in the sky was continuous. It was a noise that sometimes burst like metal fireworks, but which would immediately rise again, its modulation less and less defined as the shower let up. In the arcade there was silence. Judith left her mother and went to take a closer look at the rain, and the square that was dancing in the streaks of rain.

“This will last all night,” the customer said.

All of a sudden the shower stopped. The customer left the counter and pointed at the dark blue sky, patched with large spots of dark gray, and so low that it brushed the rooftops.

Maria wanted to go on drinking. He ordered the manzanillas without saying anything. He was also going to have one.

“It’s my husband who wanted us to spend our vacation in Spain. I would have preferred somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“I haven’t thought about it. Everywhere at once. Including Spain. Don’t pay attention to what I say. Actually, I’m quite happy to be in Spain this summer.”

He picked up her glass of manzanilla and handed it to her. He paid the waiter.

“You got here around five, didn’t you?” the customer asked. “Weren’t you in the little black Rover that stopped on the square?”

“Yes,” Maria answered.

“It was still very light,” he went on. “It wasn’t raining yet. There were four of you in the black Rover. There was your husband, driving.
Were you next to him? Yes? And in the back there was a little girl”—he pointed at her—“that one. And another woman.”

“Yes. We had been running into thunderstorms since three o’clock, out in the country, and my daughter was afraid. That’s why we decided to stop here instead of going on to Madrid.”

During the conversation, the customer was watching the square, and the police who had come out again with the end of the rain; and, through the noise of the storm, he listened hard to the whistles which rang out from every street corner.

“My friend was also afraid of the storm,” Maria added.

The sun set at the end of the main avenue. The hotel was in that direction. It wasn’t quite as late as it seemed. The storm had scrambled the hours, pushed them on, but here they were again, reddening the sky.

“Where are they?” the customer asked.

“At the Hotel Principal. I must go and join them.”

“I remember. A man, your husband, got half out of the black Rover and asked some young people how many hotels there are in town. And you left in the direction of the Hotel Principal.”

“There were no rooms left, naturally. Already, there were none left.”

The sunset was covered again. A new phase of the storm was getting ready. The afternoon’s dark blue, oceanlike mass moved slowly over the town. It was coming from the east. There was just enough light left to see its threatening color. They must still be at the threshold of the balcony. There, at the end of the avenue. Look, now your eyes are blue, Pierre is saying, this time because of the sky.

“I can’t go back yet. Look what’s coming.”

Judith, this time, wasn’t coming back. She was watching children playing barefoot in the gutter around the square. The water that ran between their feet was filled with clay. The water was dark red, like the stones of the town and the earth around it. All the young people were outside, on the square, under the lightning and the constant grumbling of the sky. You could hear songs whistled by some youngsters, so sweet they pierced the thunder.

Another shower. The ocean spilled onto the town. The square disappeared. The arcades filled with people. In the café they had to talk louder to be heard. Some screamed at times. And the names of Rodrigo Paestra and Perez.

“Leave Rodrigo Paestra alone,” the customer said.

He pointed at the police who had taken shelter in the arcade and who were waiting for the shower to end.

“He was married six months,” the customer went on. “He found her with Perez. Who wouldn’t have done the same. He’ll be acquitted, Rodrigo.”

Maria kept on drinking. She made a face. The time of day had come when liquor turned her stomach.

“Where is he?” she asked.

The customer leaned toward her. She could smell the thick, lemony odor of his hair. His lips were smooth, beautiful.

“On one of the roofs.”

They smiled at each other. He moved away. She could still feel the warmth of his voice on her shoulder.

“Drowned?”

“No,” he was laughing, “I’m just repeating what I heard. I don’t know.”

At the back of the café, a very noisy argument about the crime had started, which made the other conversations stop. Rodrigo Paestra’s wife had thrown herself into Perez’s arms, was it Perez’s fault? Can you push away a woman who falls into your arms like that?

“Can you?” asked Maria.

“It’s hard. But Rodrigo had forgotten that.”

Perez had some friends who were mourning him that night. His mother was there, alone, next to his body in the town hall. And Rodrigo Paestra’s wife? Her body was also in the town hall. But she didn’t come from here. No one was with her tonight. She came from Madrid, she had come here for the wedding, in the autumn.

The shower was over and with it the nerve-racking noise of the rain.

“Once she was married, she wanted every man in the village. What was mere to do? Kill her?”

“What a question,” Maria said and she pointed to a spot on the square, a big, closed door.

“That’s where it is, that’s right,” said the customer, “that’s the town hall.”

A friend came back into the café. Again they talked about the crime.

Once more, with the end of the shower, the square filled with children. It was hard to see the end of the avenue, where the town ends, and the white shape of the Hotel Principal. Maria noticed that Judith was among the children in the square. She inspected the paving
carefully and finally stepped into the red, muddy water. The customer’s friend offered Maria a manzanilla. She accepted. How long had she been in Spain? Nine days, she said. Did she like Spain? Of course. She knew it from before.

“I have to go back,” she said. “With this storm, you don’t know where to go.”

“My place,” said the customer.

He was laughing. She laughed, but not as much as he would have liked.

“One more manzanilla?”

No, she didn’t want to drink any more. She called Judith who came in with red boots dyed onto her by the muddy water.

“Will you be back? Tonight?”

She didn’t know, it was possible.

They took the sidewalk leading to the hotel. Stable smells and smells of hay were blowing through the town. The night was going to be good, sea-like. Judith was walking in the puddles of red water. Maria let her. They met the police who were guarding every street corner. It was nearly night. There was still no electricity, and there probably wouldn’t be any for some time. On the rooftops there was the glimmering of the sunset for those who could see it. Maria took Judith’s hand and talked to her. Judith, as usual, was not listening.

They were there, sitting opposite each other, in the dining room. They smiled at Maria and Judith.

“We waited for you,” Pierre said.

He looked at Judith. On the road, she too had been very afraid of the storm. She had cried. She still had rings under her eyes.

“The thunderstorm hasn’t stopped yet,” Pierre said. “It’s a shame. We could have been in Madrid tonight.”

“It was to be expected,” said Maria. “They still have no rooms? No one dared to leave?”

“None. Not even for the children.”

“Tomorrow will be much less hot,” Claire said, “that’s one consolation.”

Pierre promised Judith they would stay.

“We shall eat,” Claire told her. “And they’ll put blankets in the halls for little girls like you.”

There wasn’t one free table in the dining room.

“And they’re all French,” Claire said.

In the candlelight her beauty was even more obvious. Had someone told her he loved her? She was there, smiling, ready for a night that wouldn’t happen. Her lips, her eyes, her uncombed hair, her hands spread apart, open, loose in anticipation of happiness growing closer, none of this proved that tonight they had set aside for the silent fulfillment of the promise of approaching happiness.

The rain again. It made so much noise on the skylight above the dining room that the guests had to shout their orders. Children were crying. Judith hesitated, did not cry.

“What rain,” Claire said—she stretched with impatience—“it’s crazy how it’s raining, crazy, crazy; listen, Maria, how it’s raining.”

“Remember how afraid you were, Claire?”

“Yes.”

Everything in the hotel had been upside down. It hadn’t been raining yet, but the storm was always present, threatening. When Maria had joined them, they were in the hotel lobby. They were talking, next to each other in the hotel lobby. She stopped, filled with hope. They hadn’t seen Maria. That’s when she noticed their hands, discreetly linked together, their bodies close. It was early. You might have thought that evening had come, but it was the storm darkening the sky. There wasn’t a trace of fear left in Claire’s eyes. Maria had decided that she had enough time—enough time—to go to the square, to the café they had seen when they arrived.

So as not to look at Pierre, they watched the waiters juggling trays of manzanilla and other sherries. Claire caught a waiter on his way by and asked him for manzanillas. You had to shout because of the noise of the rain on the skylight. They shouted louder and louder. The dining room door opened every minute. People were still coming in. The storm was huge, very spread out.

“Where were you, Maria?” Pierre asked.

“In a café, with a friend of that man Rodrigo Paestra.”

Pierre leaned toward Maria.

“If you really want to,” he said, “we can go on to Madrid tonight.”

Claire was listening.

“Claire?” Maria questioned.

“I don’t know.”

She almost moaned. Pierre’s hands moved toward hers and then pulled back. Earlier he had made the same gesture, in the car when she was afraid of the storm, the sky rolling over on itself, hanging over the
wheat fields; Judith screaming; the day dark like twilight. Claire had become pale, so much so that her paleness was even more surprising than the fear it revealed.

“You don’t know, Claire, you don’t know this type of inconvenience, sleepless nights spent in hotel corridors.”

“Of course I do. Who doesn’t know?”

She was struggling, immersed in the thought of Pierre’s hands on her, only a few hours ago under Maria’s blinded eyes. Did she grow pale again? Did he notice she was getting pale again?

“We’ll stay here tonight,” he said. “Just this time.”

He smiled. Did he ever smile before?

“Just this time?” Maria asked.

Pierre’s hands, this time, reached their goal and touched the hands of his wife, Maria.

“I meant that I wasn’t used to these inconveniences enough to be as frightened as you, Maria.”

Maria moved away from the table and, clutching at the chair while speaking, closed her eyes.

“Once, in Verona,” she said.

She didn’t see what was going on. It was Claire’s voice which, through the noise of the other voices, cut a bright path.

“In Verona? What happened there?”

“We slept badly,” Pierre said.

The meal had started. The smell of the candles was so strong that it overpowered the smell of the food which perspiring waiters were carrying in big loads. There were shouts and complaints. The hotel manager asked that she be forgiven, she was in a difficult spot that night, because of the storm.

“Did I drink,” Maria announced. “Again, did I drink!”