Girl at the Lion D'Or (8 page)

‘Did she bring you up a Catholic?’

‘Oh yes, though I wasn’t very good at it.’

‘They say the Jewish people are persecuted in Germany, just because of their religion.’

‘I know,’ said Hartmann. ‘I’ve read that we’re already taking refugees. But it’s happening everywhere, throughout Europe, even in this country. The young men and the war veterans in their leagues, they seem insane to me.’

Anne thought she had taxed Hartmann’s patience enough with her questions. She picked up a brush and began to sweep the grate.

It was he who eventually broke the silence. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with all these books. I’m going to have to get rid of half of them unless I want the house to look like a library.’

‘There’s room in the hall.’

‘I suppose so. Do you like reading, Anne?’

‘Oh yes. It’s a wonderful way of escaping, isn’t it?’

‘Escaping? Yes . . . I’ve always thought of it as more of a means of coming to grips with things.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Anne uncertainly. ‘You do learn things from books, I’m sure. I just like . . . stories, I think.’

Hartmann picked up some papers and put them down in a different place which Anne assumed had some significance in his private sorting system. Then he sat down again.

He looked her straight in the eye and said, ‘You’re a very self-confident girl, Anne, aren’t you?’

His voice held such gentleness that Anne found herself calm. ‘Not really, monsieur. I’m frightened most of the time, just like anyone else. There’s so much in one’s life over which one has no control – whether people will be kind to you, and so on.’ She paused. ‘I never know what’s going to happen to me.’

Hartmann looked sceptical, which pleased her. ‘Robust,’ he said. ‘Perhaps that’s the word.’

‘Do you mean because I can do this heavy work?’ She glanced down at her body, whose lightness was concealed by her white apron, and laughed. Hartmann’s eyes followed hers. She looked up and met his gaze, feeling now a slight confusion.

‘Not physically,’ he said. ‘I meant you seemed to be a person who is naturally happy and who wouldn’t be easily upset.’

‘Oh, I hope so.’ She smiled. ‘I’d like very much to be like that.’

Hartmann frowned and looked away. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘it’s really none of my business. Sometimes I forget I’m no longer in Paris.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh, nothing. A different place, old habits . . . Here in the country people are more formal, don’t you think?’

‘Yes,’ said Anne, then added boldly, ‘Don’t you hate it?’

Hartmann laughed. ‘Yes! I can’t bear it!’

‘So why did you come?’

‘Lots of reasons. But first I want to hear about your life.’

‘Oh, monsieur, there’s nothing to hear. It’s not interesting like yours. No government scandals or meeting famous people.’

‘But everyone’s life is interesting. Did your parents come from Paris? Were you born there?’

‘I – no, we came from the south. But then we moved.’

His questions, about her family and her home, were simple and polite enough, but Anne’s answers were oblique.

As she heard herself going through the quick formulations that had saved her so many times before from having to talk too frankly about herself, she felt the intimacy she had created with Hartmann begin to evaporate. Where he had been so honest with her about his life, she was giving him nothing but evasions. No bond, she miserably told herself, can grow between two people when only one is telling the truth.

More than anything she would have liked to trust him and tell him the secrets and fears of her life, but it was impossible. It was a double burden for her; not only did she live with a history forcibly closed to other people, but the keeping of the secret made it far harder to make the sort of contact that would enable her to reveal it.

Now Hartmann was laughing. ‘Really, Anne, you make the simplest question sound impertinent. I was only asking where you went to school!’

Anne went quiet and bent down over the grate.

Hartmann stood up. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make fun of you. It’s none of my business. Listen, come over to the window. Isn’t that a lovely view, over the lake? Now
that
, since you were asking, is one of the reasons I came to live here; the countryside, the lake, the wild birds and of course the house itself.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Anne brightly. ‘I love this house, it’s like a house you dream about, where nothing quite makes sense.’

‘I know what you mean. Have you been up to the attic yet? That’s mysterious too.’

‘Could I go and see it?’

‘What, now?’

‘Not if it’s inconvenient. Some other time. I . . .’

‘Come on.’

He led the way across the hall and up the big staircase. On the landing he turned one of the rattling door-handles and led Anne down a dark corridor in which the floorboards creaked. They passed several doors, through some of which she glimpsed marble-topped tables or wooden bedsteads, piles of dusty linen and opened suitcases. She wanted to grab Hartmann’s arm and pull him back so he would show her round these cavernous rooms with their old closed shutters, garish crucifixes and spectacular jumble of family history. But equally she was thrilled by the momentum of the expedition, which brought them finally to the foot of a tiny staircase which rose more or less vertically into the roof.

Hartmann went up first and held out his hand to Anne, who felt the grasp of his fingers enclose her wrist and pull her up. Here there were more boxes and papers, as well as an old rocking horse. The attic stretched away down the whole length of the house.

‘It was dark as hell in here,’ said Hartmann. ‘My father’s eyesight was going and I don’t think it occurred to him that he could unblock the window. It only needed a hammer to take the nails out of the boards – though I admit I did have the help of one of the builders.’

‘The fat one?’

‘Yes, with the blue overalls. He seemed quite relieved to get out of the cellar for a change. It’s not very nice down there. I hate to think what it’s doing to that young man’s chest. He hasn’t stopped coughing since he’s been here.’

‘And is this all your father’s wine?’ said Anne, pointing to a long row of dusty bottles.

‘It’s all that’s here, yes. But there’s more in Vienna. He had a small house there, too. And I’ve still got some in Paris. It’s quite a hoard altogether. That’s why I need a proper cellar.’

Anne wandered round the attic, not really noticing what she looked at. Hartmann knelt down to examine a box full of papers beneath the recently unblocked window. The light fell across his body, illuminating the dark, springy hair and the grave, flat expanse of his cheek. The longing Anne felt was so powerful that she had to turn away from him for fear that she might throw herself into his arms and beg for his protection. It was difficult now to say whether this was happiness or not; she was intoxicated by frustration. She walked to the other end of the attic so she should no longer be too close to him.

Hartmann raised his head from the papers and began to speak again, though in some ways Anne wished he wouldn’t. She could not believe he did not now feel the same thing that she had felt by the tennis court. She was sure that he too must sense that their polite conversations weren’t really necessary because they could more easily communicate on a different level. What she couldn’t say for sure was whether he had deliberately chosen to exclude these feelings because he was afraid of what they might lead to, or whether all men were incapable of recognising what they felt until it was pointed out to them.

He walked down the attic and stood beside her, so they were both looking out of the window, to the south over the woods. He was so close to her that she could smell his clothes – a mixture of tweed and new cotton. His leather boots creaked as he leaned forwards.

He said, ‘Would you be happier if you lived in a room in town rather than in the hotel?’

‘I . . . I don’t know. I couldn’t afford to.’

‘But if you could?’

‘I suppose if I could afford to then I would, yes. But it’s not possible on what I’m paid.’

Hartmann nodded. He seemed to be almost touching her. She could hear him breathing. For the first time she felt in herself the sudden intake of desire, which had previously been inseparable from other vague and more powerful feelings. Shocked a little by the simplicity of it, she turned away and looked down to the dusty floor.

‘Books!’ he said, walking past her and throwing half a dozen violently into a different trunk. ‘Books and more wretched books.’

Anne picked one of them up and said, ‘Is this one good?’

‘What is it?’

‘
Essays by
 . . .’ She turned the book on its side to read the name on the spine. ‘Montaigne.’

‘Yes.’

He seemed to want to say no more. To fill the silence Anne picked up another. ‘And this one?
The Story of Troilus and Cressida.
What’s it about?’

‘About the lives of two people.’

‘A love story?’

‘Yes, a love story.’

‘Will you tell it to me?’

‘Not now. It’s too long. One day, perhaps.’

‘Do you promise?’

He looked up, surprised by her vehemence. She blushed. ‘I just –’

‘I promise.’

Anne felt no more desire, no more happiness, but only the gradual loosening of control on her emotions which she dreaded because it meant she was going to cry.

Robust, she thought: that’s what he thinks I am. Perhaps, then, I had better be.

So she said, ‘I think I must be going back to work now, monsieur.’

‘All right, Anne. If you like.’

She moved to the top of the stairs. He said, ‘Do you mind finding your own way back? I want to stay here for a few minutes.’

She was hurt by his coldness. ‘No,’ she said. ‘That’s all right.’ She quickly descended the steps before he should see the hot swell and flow of her tears.

7

O
N SUNDAY EVENING
Hartmann went to play chess with Jean-Philippe. Since his father had spent so much of his life travelling, Hartmann had seldom spent time at what was supposed to be his home. He had scarcely seen Jean-Philippe since they had been at school together, though that shared experience was enough to form the basis of a renewed friendship.

He left shortly before midnight, and on the way home the headlights of the car picked out the sandy paths that led away into the pines; through the open window came the smell of the trees and the black onrushing loneliness of the night. Such troubles as Hartmann had were barely yet stirring in his head and were not enough to prevent his taking pleasure in the scented darkness and the approach of home.

He climbed the broad wooden stairs on tip-toe, seeing the lights were out, then undressed in the bathroom and quietly opened the bedroom door in his nightshirt. There was no movement from the bed. Gently he pulled the shutters open and stood, barefooted in front of the big window watching the woods on the other side of the lake and the grey moon apparently charging upstream against the current of the clouds. He heard a rustle of bedclothes, then a hand touched his shoulder. Christine murmured in his ear as she ran her fingers over his chest and kissed his neck.

‘Why are you so late?’

‘It’s not late, is it? I went to play chess with Jean-Philippe.’

‘I was tired, I went to bed early.’ She ran her hands through his hair. ‘Come to bed now.’

Hartmann stood where he was, disinclined to move. Christine circled round in front of him, placing herself between him and the window. She kissed him on the lips, then let her head fall to his chest. She murmured to him as she knelt, and let her lips travel over his body. Hartmann felt a complete absence of desire – a condition that was so unusual in him that for a moment he couldn’t recognise it. Then he quickly turned away. He could barely believe what he had felt, or rather failed to feel, as he climbed into bed.

During her subsequent weekly visits to the Manor, Anne found herself devising little tricks to try to be alone with Hartmann. She disliked having to be so cunning but she couldn’t bring herself to disapprove of the feeling itself: there seemed nothing in it that was mean or calculated to do harm; and, this being the case, there was surely no reason why she shouldn’t act on the impetus of such a natural and friendly emotion. She felt some slight misgivings towards Mme Hartmann, but it would have been presumptuous to elevate them to the status of guilt.

Her chief problem lay in breaking down Hartmann’s reserve. Although he was pleasant to her and talked to her as she worked, both at the Manor and the hotel, he never overstepped the limits of propriety. His relations with her were those that a married man of once bohemian habits, confident in his position, might have with a waitress of slightly unusual qualities. If he was occasionally more intimate or more indiscreet than one might expect, that merely proved his disregard for bourgeois prescriptions of behaviour. The spirit of that prescription, however, was one he followed faithfully. Anne thought that if she could once cajole him into something rash, it would perhaps unlock the feeling she felt sure he must be harbouring unknown, perhaps, even to himself. So when he ordered brandy in the town bar of the hotel she half-filled a tumbler with it; when he asked for red wine she placed the bottle on the counter and constantly refilled his glass. On one occasion she even fortified a dark beer with a covert shot of eau de vie. But his constitution or his self-control remained stronger than anything she could concoct.

Mattlin, on the other hand, needed no encouragement to continue his campaign of attrition. He was philosophical in his pursuit of women. At this time he was carrying on an affair with a doctor’s widow who lived on the Boulevard. Her husband had been twenty years her senior and had lived for only five years after their marriage. Mattlin’s affair with her had begun before she met the doctor, had continued after his death and, as far as anyone knew, had not stopped at any point in between. He went to her house each Wednesday and Sunday for lunch. The visits were not without their disagreeable sides – chiefly the small but sharp-toothed dog that seemed to suspect Mattlin’s motives, and the widow’s own vague resentment of his behaviour. She was, however, a formidable cook who specialised in fish bathed in cream and brandy sauces and in elaborate puddings of her own devising built with egg yolks, spun sugar and yet more cream. As he hiccuped gently into his
digestif
, Mattlin sometimes felt too bloated to follow the widow through the double doors of her bedroom to fulfil the function of his visit, but the thought of losing her incomparable lunches proved a potent aphrodisiac.