Her Lover (120 page)

your unconscious has it in for me for not saying I liked the thesis your late brother wrote about those two pretentious prigs Madame de Stael and that insufferable George Sand sorry but it's not my fault if your brother was a donnish pedant but above all your unconscious will never forgive me for making you live in a goldfish bowl of course you'd kill yourself if I were to leave you but deep-down you're heartily sick of me and who knows maybe your heart of hearts has never really loved me as required by the standards of your pedigree and class oh yes you came to me because I made you but I'm not your type sweetie I swept you off your feet because I'm clever in any case you were ripe for plucking by the first man who came along and offered to take you away from poor Deume and when your unconscious fell in love with me because it felt trapped and had no choice it loved me mainly to spite your husband loved me because it fancied the role of mistress extraordinaire a part which you couldn't wait to get your teeth into and which I offered you hello she's stopped sewing so she can scratch her nose on the sly her itching nose may very well be a sublimation of her desire to be married to the English lord an itch she can soothe by scratching but of course that's not true it's just a playful little joke to cover my drooping spirits darling what can I say or do to make you feel once more what you felt that first night when we danced at the Ritz because that is what your unconscious requires she's not saying anything at the minute because she thinks I'm concentrating on my book and is far too polite to disturb me but when she's finished sewing I'll have to stop pretending I'm reading and when that happens what topic of conversation can I float perhaps she'll come up with some poetic thoughts along the lines of the pervasive sense she sometimes has of the joy of leafless trees which commune with mother earth yes she'll say pervasive or possibly how the branch of some tree suddenly seemed to her to have a soul she was so intelligent in Geneva but that soon wore off oh outside the wind shrieks like a posse of mad women screaming in terror for help crazy women with their hair hanging down when she's finished sewing the dressing-gown which I deliberately ruined she might well suggest a game of dominoes she'll suggest it in her brightest most animated manner something along the lines of I want my revenge I'm sure I'll win tonight the noise she makes as she mixes the dominoes before the game starts is terrifying the sound of it scares me it's the knell of our love tolling or maybe she'll say yet again how clever she was to get a record-player that works off electricity it's so much nicer don't you think darling or maybe she'll suggest listening to some new thing by Bach and explain that the recording she says pressing which I find very irritating is really of much much better quality than the previous pressings she's bought all those damned Bach records I'm quite aware of course that Bach is a great musician I only call him a metronome for long-distance wood-saws to get my own back for all the anti-anaemic force-feeding that goes on poor girl she does her best never forget that she will die and therefore cherish her without stint or maybe she'll suggest reading me a novel will she never get over her mania for massaging my feet while she reads what did my feet ever do to her to make her want to be forever fiddling with them and she's so irritating when she says darling I think I've improved my massage technique and so grave when she starts on the talc actually she isn't as good at it as Isolde when she reads she emphasizes the words to breathe life into the thing it's ghastly when she puts on that damned gruff voice for the hero that's-how she likes them assertive dynamic outgoing sporty morons she gets on my nerves and she melts my heart she is delightful and absurd when she's imitating a man and she rubs my feet the right way but she rubs me up the wrong way I'm sorry my dear I love you and I tell you so when I'm alone in my room I love you but I get bored being with you and I honestly feel no desire for you she'll soon be finished with her sewing she'll say there all mended now and she'll smile and then I'll say she's sweet and she'll probably turn pert and demand a little kiss as a reward and I will give her a kiss and be scared she'll go for my lips but I'm good at evasive action and then there'll be some anti-anaemic brainwave such as pausing and then saying that she's thinking of taking up painting again darling I'd so love to paint a portrait of you how splendid what a good idea but perhaps you'll get bored posing not at all on the contrary oh the tedium of it all in the old days I only
had to turn on the charm and conquered and was loved but I never belonged it was all pretence I've never gone along with it all never believed in their standards and values and categories always the odd man out never part of the crowd I was always on my own even when I was playing the role of government minister even when I was cast as Under-Clown-General Solal solitary solecism oh how bored I am oh I am pursued by boatfuls of skeletons which skim a river that runs past banks lined with temples with many windows through which poke countless tiny laughing faces I am also followed by lions wearing mitres men burning incense old women holding aloft little girls transfixed on long bamboo poles and then I tear out my eyes and throw them into the precipice where they bounce and burst in a shower of little green flames when I reach the palace I yank the bell-pull which makes a sound like a man guffawing and the door opens it's a lift which whisks me down into the depths of the Middle Ages then I have to change lifts and I step into the room with a false window I open the shutters but beyond is still a landscape painted on canvas and I enter the room where the horse gallops non-stop but stays in the same place and the tall woman endlessly arranges her hair with a comb which picks up little green men and I go into the room full of gesticulating bodies piled high one on top of the other in a pyramid in a hullabalooing mound the tongues of those below lick the heels of those above while the heels tread on the heads of the lickers below and spittle runs down the pyramid collects in the basin which overflows and behind the altar made of clay and granite is the goat which strains desperately in a frenzy of copulation oh the tall empress in a blonde wig embraces the nakedness of a slave-girl with great round eyes I am afraid of what lies in store for me later and to avoid finding out I leave and wander through corridors suffering because of the cruel walls there is so much going on in the corridors of the centuries which swarm with actresses dancers circus-performers sacred animals painted harlots bear-tamers raddled queens a barebacked horse galloping with its long thick mane flowing in the wind of its passage and behind it at full stretch and decked with vines run two tigers which keep up a hell-for-leather pace and sometimes weave and pass beneath the magnificent steed the smell of intrigue is palpable there are revolts in burning palaces and century follows century and conquerors come and the conquerors are conquered in turn pass O ye races tribes and empires I remain hello she's all but finished if I tell her it's time for bed she's bound to say no not yet it's only just ten best adopt the fatherly approach darling you look tired better get some rest but do make a special point of saying I'm feeling pretty bushed too that will clinch it with her and then no hanging about get up give her a quick kiss on one eye no make that both eyes the effect is altogether more loving so make it a double kiss make your move now let's get shot of her it's only being cruel to be kind.'

CHAPTER 95

Supine, with the family photograph album propped up against her, twisting and untwisting a ribbon like a bed-fast convalescent with nothing to do, she lay playing with her ribbon, alone with the sound of the sea, alone with her ribbon. Abrupdy she tossed it aside and opened the album, a weighty tome bound in leather and buckram with metal corners and clasps, and began leafing through it. Sitting at a little cloth-draped table, a great-grandmama in a crinoline, with unforgiving eyes, armed with a Bible in which she keeps her place with one finger. A short great-uncle in a colonel's uniform, elbow leaning on a wreathed column, standing impishly in front of a palm-tree on a painted backdrop, legs raffishly crossed and one foot resting on a roguishly arched toe. Herself at six months, a well-fed, sunny-faced credit of a baby on a cushion. Daddy getting an honorary doctorate. Uncle Agrippa chairing a meeting of the synod of the Swiss Protestant Church. Herself at thirteen with bare legs and ankle-socks. Cousin Aymon, Swiss Minister in Paris, with the legation staff. Tantlérie having tea with some chichi English lady. A garden party at Tantlérie's.

She closed the album, quelled the silver clasps, popped a chocolate into her mouth, and let the resulting bitter mud slowly dissolve. All of Genevan high society was there, at the garden party. Charming people, people with taste. -She fiddled with her hair, curling it with one finger then uncurling it. The corners of her mouth drooped in a childish scowl, her diaphragm contracted, and the air in her lungs was expelled sharply. A sob, in other words. Outside, the immortal sea.

Oh the Swiss mountains, those summer holidays in the mountains with Éliane. Lying under a buzzing pine-tree, holding hands, how happily they had listened to the distant tapping, to the sound of a peasant sharpening the blade of his scythe with a hammer, a regular tapping borne on the diamond air, clear and resonant in the hot summer sun and so reassuring. Oh her mountain pulsating with life in high summer, insects busy in the sun, ceaselessly going about their business, families to feed, ants scurrying, the simple, strong men cutting the hay, simple, good men with long moustaches cutting the hay, hardworking men, honest Swiss mountainfolk, simple and true. Christians.

She switched off the light, turned on her side, immediately caught the smell of dust and hot sun, and saw once more Tantlérie's attic where in the holidays she and her sister were secretly great actresses dressed up in old clothes purloined from trunks, two skinny adolescent girls too tall for their age, declaiming a tragedy, dying deaths and snorting with passion, she as Phedre amorously hoarse-voiced, Éliane as faithful Hippolyte, and then suddenly collapsing in a fit of giggles and the laughter of youth. She switched the light back on to see what time it was. Nearly midnight and not sleepy. She had another look at the photo of herself when she was thirteen. A pretty little thing with those curls and her great big bow.

In the bathroom, wearing a short tennis skirt and a close-fitting top which showed the shape of her full breasts, bare-legged, with ankle-socks and tennis shoes, she made up her lips and her eyes, dampened her hair, which she arranged in ringlets and tied up in a big blue ribbon, then took a step back to get a better view of herself in the mirror. There was something disturbing about the little girl with a made-up face who stared back at her. She sat down, crossed her legs, stuck out her tongue, moistened her top lip, and crossed her legs higher.

'Oh no,' she murmured and suddenly stood up, wiped off the make-up, uncurled her ringlets, removed all trace of her little-girl disguise, and then stopped absolutely still. Yes, go and speak to him, tell him everything, unburden herself. It was vile of her to have kept him in the dark all this time. She combed her hair, put on her dressing-gown and stepped into her white sandals, applied perfume to give herself courage, and consulted the mirror mirror on the wall.

CHAPTER 96

That's it that's the answer pretend I'm mad pretend she's my mother the Queen and I'm the King her son the King with the crown which Rachel the midget my lovely midget Rachel gave me that day in the coach in the cellar as I was leaving she said I was to take it with me the battered cardboard crown with imitation rubies from the Feast of Lots the Feast of Queen Esther blessings be upon her yes I'll put on the crown and I'll go cross-eyed and doolally to make it look genuine to make her think I've gone mad but then I'll suddenly switch to warm smiles to make her think everything's fine yes as madman and son I shall be able to love her absolutely without having to play the lover play the animal game of the lover without any of that regulation bumping and grinding and groaning and shunting and pummelling yes no more having to dominate and subdue her through the sweaty collision of two rumpling crumpling bodies yes free of passion free of having to humiliate her free of having to take the wind out of her poor sails a son is not expected to share a bed all that's required of a son is to cherish oh I'll do all the cherishing that's needed oh miracle no more striving to turn each day into love's sweet dawn a son is not expected to breathe fire oh miracle no more having to be prodigious all the time no more having to be a sloe-eyed exciting lover no more having to be tall and dark and enigmatic oh miracle no more of those wild tonguing kisses which make both participants look so moronic that they'd die laughing or curl up with shame if they could only see the doggy expressions they had on their faces O darling darling at last I'd be free to be tenderly loving and not be afraid that you'd find my
tenderness dull afraid that you'd see it as a sign of weakness the sort of weakness that women despise because they all go wild for gorilla muscles and then my darling you could catch as many colds as you liked you could rumble away to your heart's content rumble your fill rumble all you wanted a sneezing nose-wiping rumbling mother or even a mother with bad breath is no less loved yes loved just as much and even more if she sneezes nicely or rather pretend I'm mad a mad father and she's my daughter no a mother and a mad son is heaps better a mother never deserts her son but a daughter always ends up running away with a gorilla carried off in the long hairy arms of a gorilla and she stops loving her father and on her wedding day she spits in his face and says go to hell and drop dead for she is counting on what he'll leave her in his will and also if I were a son I could serve and honour and respect her I so want to respect her oh yes I'd respect her yes I would if I were her son for ever and ever oh miracle not feeling bored with her any more and helping in all sorts of ways a man who is mad is entided to yes sweep the floor together do the cooking together cook and talk about salt and winter savory yes and summer savory too doing the cooking together getting on with it quietly like friends oh miracle to be two friends and even up to a point two girls together oh miracle to go shopping in the market at Saint-Raphaël a man who is mad is perfectly in his rights to go shopping in the market with his mother his pretty mother yes and I'll carry the bags yes one day if she's tired I'll say that although I'm King I'll do the shopping by myself and she'll agree to avoid upsetting the madman and if she's tired she'll also let me sweep the floor all by myself I shall insist on it such is my good pleasure Madame but I'll do the sweeping right royally I'll always wear my crown wear my cardboard crown tilted slighdy to one side to make myself look like a dotty sort of king but nice with it yes while she takes a bath I who am King and son will make the beds as a nice surprise yes get a move on with the beds do them properly pull the underthingumajig straight no creases a surprise for the Queen-mother and then as a reward for giving her a surprise she'll give me a kiss oh miracle just a peck on the cheek on both cheeks we can kiss all the time with no more need to be afraid of surfeit no more need to be afraid of losing face no more need to be beastly no more need to pretend to be one of those heartless types women always fall for just to please her and prevent her being bored yes starting tomorrow it's son and mother for ever and ever and an end to juices flowing boot out the man the beast the swine the father she deceived me with deceived her son I'll ask her if she loves me more if she loves her son more than she loves the man who died and is no more and she will say why of course I do and I'll tell her to send to Cannes and order me a golden throne and I shall always be dignified and royal and royally enthroned when she comes knocking on my door I shall say that at the King's court etiquette requires that you scratch on the door as at the court of Louis XIV when she comes in I'll order her to curtsy true Madame you may be my mother but you are also a subject so pray Madame curtsy thrice to your King and after you've dropped your curtsies I shall stand and in turn shall bow three times to my lady mother as behoves a loving son a mad son yes I shan't mind pretending to be mad until the day I die if it means that I can at last love her truly O my love I shall love you with the love which never dies.'