Her Lover (126 page)

'Please don't go on. I know you don't really mean to be cruel. Get a grip on yourself, Sol.'

That's not my name. If you don't call me by my real name I won't ever kiss you again, I'll never Adrisergeolalize you again. Or, better still, call me "Monsieur Three-in-One".'

'No.'

'Why not?'

'Because I won't let you sink so low. Because you're my only love.'

'I'm not your only love. I don't want to be called by names that have already been used for somebody else. I want a name all to myself, an honest name. Come, my little stockpiles let's have a little honesty! Call me "Monsieur Three-in-One"!'

'No,' she said, and looked him straight in the eye, stared back at him, beautiful and aggressive.

She was wonderful. Which was why he toyed with the notion of throwing the sauce-boat and its contents at the wall. But that would only cause unpleasantness with the hotel management. He abandoned the idea and turned on the radio. That swine Mussolini was speaking, and a whole nation listened adoringly. And meanwhile what was he doing? Tormenting a defenceless woman, that's what. If only she would suddenly shout out that Dietsch disgusted her, that she'd never felt anything when she was with him. But she did not say the only words, even if they were untrue words, that would have calmed him, nor would she ever, for she was too decent a girl to repudiate or blacken or ridicule an old flame. He respected her for that. But he also hated her for it.

'Get a grip on yourself, darling,' she said, holding out both hands. (He frowned. What right did she have to call him "darling"?) You must get a grip on yourself, Sol,' she repeated.

'That's not my name. I'll get a grip on myself if you ask properly. Come on, make an effort!'

'Get a grip on yourself, Monsieur Three-in-One,' she said sofdy, after a moment's silence.

He rubbed his hands. At last a glimmer of honesty! He gave her a little thank-you smile. But suddenly her conductor in tails and white tie was unbuttoning her silk blouse. Oh, that black moustache nuzzling her golden breasts! And she cooing and crooning while the mouth belonging to her white-maned moustachioed baby suckled at her and his head drove greedily and aggressively against her. Oh, the nipple held between those front teeth, and that tongue maypoling around the nipple! And she had the gall to sit there looking innocent and so modest! Now the orchestra-conducting baby unclenched its teeth and ran its hairy tongue, its rasping ox-tongue, over a breast that was
spikier than a Prussian helmet! And as the bull Hcked, the mistress of the keyboard chorale smiled! Oh, now one hairy paw was lifting her skirt! He shuddered with horror and dropped his amber beads. She bent down to pick them up, and as she did so the top of her dressing-gown yawned and revealed her breasts. The same breasts, not replacements, which had been offered to her other man! The full set! All that was missing now was the man and his hairiness!

'Did he use any fancy German techniques when he fornicated?' She did not answer. So he picked up the dish of chocolate mousse and threw the contents at the fornicatee, deliberately pulling his aim to avoid hitting her. But, having little or no talent for slapstick, he misjudged it. The missile hit the target, and her luminous face was spattered with chocolate mousse. She did not move, deriving a not unenjoyable sense of self-righteousness from letting the brown goo dribble unchecked, then touched her cheek and stared at her messy hand. So it was to end up like this that she had led love's march of triumph on the day she had waited for him to return to Geneva! He made a dash for the bathroom, came back with a towel, applied one damp end to her sticky face, and wiped it gently. He knelt before her, kissed the hem of her dressing-gown, kissed her feet, and then looked up at her. 'Go to bed,' she said, 'I'll come to you, I'll stroke your hair and you'll sleep.'

Suddenly waking in the dark, they held hands. 'I'm a brute,' he murmured. 'Hush, it's not true, you are my sick boy,' she said, and he kissed her hand, wet her hand with his tears, put it -to her that he should slash his face, cut himself with one of the table-knives, to prove it to her. He'd do it now if she wanted! 'No, darling, no, my sick boy,' she said, 'save your face for me, save all your love for me,' she said.

All of a sudden he got out of bed, lit the ceiling light and a cigarette, inhaled deeply, frowned deeply, strode round the room, tall and slim, pouring smoke from his nostrils and poison from his eyes, tossing his tufted hair like angry snakes. He approached the bed like the Archangel of Wrath and, turning the cord of his dressing-gown into a sling, made as if to threaten her.

'On your feet,' he said. She obeyed and got up. 'Call Geneva. Get him on the phone.'

'No, don't make me. I couldn't possibly phone him.'

'But you could get into his bed easily enough! That's a lot harder than phoning! Go on, ring him. You must know his number by heart! Go on, remind him of the good old days!'

'He doesn't mean a thing to me any more.'

Suddenly aware of his liver, he stared at her in horror. So, she simply drifted from one man to the next, had the gall just to write off a man to whom she had been so very close! What were women made of? The eyes which had gazed on Dietsch were now brazenly turned on him! And, only moments before, she who had explored secret latitudes of Dietschland had dared to hold his hand!

'Pick up the phone!'

'Please don't make me. It's past midnight, and I'm so tired. You can't have forgotten what last night was like at Agay. I'm exhausted, I've got nothing left,' she sobbed, and she fell back on the bed.

'Not on your back,' he barked, and she turned over, broken, on to her stomach. 'That's even worse,' he bellowed. 'Get out! Go to your room: I don't want to see either of you ever again! Get out, you bitch!'

Shrunken and gaunt, the bitch went! Disconcerted, he stared at his hands. He needed her, for she was all he had. He called her back. She came, and stood motionless and white-faced in the doorway.

'Well? Here I am.' (He loved her little clenched fists.)

'Did you go studding in the afternoons?'

'O God, why are we living together? Is this what love is?'

'Did you go studding in the afternoons? Answer me. Did you go studding in the afternoons? Answer me! Did you go studding in the afternoons? Answer me! I'll go on asking until you answer. Did you go studding in the afternoons? Answer me!'

'Yes, sometimes.'

'Where?'

'At the stud-farm,' she said and fled.

To make her come back without having to call her, he picked up the brass inkstand and threw it at the wardrobe mirror. Then he proceeded to annihilate the wineglasses and next the crockery. She did not budge, and that made him angry. The noise made by the bottle of champagne exploding against the wall was more successful. She came back, appalled.

'What do you want now? Get out!'

She turned on her heel and made a quick exit. Disappointed, he tore down the curtains and then looked around him. Hm. The room wasn't exactly inviting now, too much mess. All this broken glass lying about glassassinated on the floor. He ruffled his hair and whistled '
Voi che sapete'
under his breath. The best thing would be to see if they could patch things up. Agreed. Attempt reconciliation. He tapped on the communicating door. Yes, when she came he would tell her that he would sign in her presence, there and then, a binding pledge by which he undertook never to mention the other man again. 'Darling, it's all over, that's the end of it. After all, it's quite true, you didn't know me in those days.' He knocked again and cleared his throat.

She came and halted before him, dignified and defenceless, a victim who stood her ground. He admired her. Noble, yes. Honest, yes. But, if so honest, why had she lied so consistently to her husband? Damn that Boygne woman, a dyspeptic old trollop whose own frolicking days were over and who made up for it by making beds for young women to lie on! And when poor Deume used to phone in the morning and ask to speak to his wife, the lying old harridan would tell him pleasantly that Ariane was still asleep and then, quick, ring Dietsch's number! Oh, the life of romance and variety which she had lived with Dietsch and would never know with him! Furthermore, Dietsch must have been tremendously attractive with all that silver hair. So how could he compete? His hair was black just like everybody else's.

'Well?' she said. 'I'm here.'

What right did she have to such an honest face? Her face was a provocation.

'Say you're a whore.'

'It's not true, as you very well know,' she said calmly.

'You paid him! You told me!'

'All I said was that I loaned him money to bale him out.'

'Did he pay you back?'

'I never mentioned it, and he must have forgotten.'

Angered by her feminine indulgence for her sometime stallion, he grabbed her by the hair. The idea that this stupid woman should have let herself be cheated made him mad with rage. Oh, he ought to take the first plane out and force her musical pimp to cough up!

'Say you're a tart.'

'It's not true, I'm a respectable woman. Let go of me!'

Still holding her by the hair, but not too roughly, because he pitied her, because he did not want to hurt her, he yanked her head from side to side, infuriated by the thought that she had let herself be swindled because she was grateful for sex, infuriated because he felt powerless to make her see that the man was a swindler. She'd never admit it! Oh, the tried and tested indulgence of women! Such stupid creatures, letting themselves be taken in by any suitably equipped male capable of satisfying them! 'I am a respectable woman, and he was a decent man,' she repeated, head see-sawing, eyes popping, teeth chattering, and beautiful. She was defending his rival! Saying that she preferred his rival! Still holding her by the hair, he slapped her beautiful face. 'Stop it,' she said in her miraculous little-girl voice. 'Stop it! Don't hit me again! For your sake, for the sake of what we mean to each other, don't hit me!' To cover his shame by an even more shameful act, he hit her again. 'Sol, O my darling love!' she cried. He let go of her hair, utterly deflated by her words. 'No, my love, you must never,' she sobbed, 'you mustn't ever do that again, my love, for your sake, not for mine, my darling love! Be a man I can respect!' she sobbed.

Once more he took her in his arms, once more he held her close. Never again, never again. They stood tear-wet cheek to tear-wet cheek. He had been a brute, an utter brute, to have struck such innocence, such saintly innocence. 'Help me, help me,' he pleaded, 'I don't want to hurt you any more, you are my own darling, help me.'

He drew away from her, and she was suddenly afraid of his seeing eyes. Another man had dishonoured her far more and yet she respected him, and called him a decent man! Dietsch had struck her in far more shameful ways but she had not greeted his blows with tears, she had not pleaded with Dietsch to stop, she had not said 'Stop it! don't do it again!' to him. All these months the two of them had been together and she had kept all this carefully hidden from him! And most of all, oh yes, most of all, during those first nights in Geneva, she had behaved like some inexperienced virgin, she who had pawed and patted Dietsch!

'Pawed and patted, pawed and patted!' he cried, and he pushed her away.

She collapsed on to the floor, holding her smarting face in her hands. She had stopped crying and was staring at the broken plates, the shattered wineglasses, the cigarette-ends which littered the carpet, staring at her life. Her love, the only love of her life, was coming to a squalid end. Oh the day she had waited for him to return, oh her ducky dress flapping in the breeze as she walked. And now she was just another woman knocked about by her lover.

Kneeling down, one elbow propped on an armchair, she picked up the pearl necklace he had given her, which had fallen on the floor. He had looked like a delighted Uttle boy when he'd opened the case to show her. She wound the necklace around one finger, unwound it, put it on the carpet, made it into a triangle, then a square. She was numb with misery, a Uttle girl playing. But maybe the playing is in part play-acting, he thought, to show her tormentor just how pale and drawn unhappiness made her look.

'Get out.'

She stood up and shuffled back to her room, shoulders drooping. Suddenly he felt terrified of being all alone. Oh, if only she would come back of her own accord, give some sign that she forgave him! Call her, yes, but without showing how much he needed her.

'Hey, bitch!'

She returned, elegant, weary, shivering.

'Here I am.'

'Get out!'

'Very well,' she said, and left.

He felt a surge of self-loathing, threw away a half-smoked cigarette, Ut another, stubbed it out. From his suitcase he took the damascene dagger which was a present from Michael, tossed it high in the air, caught it, put it back in its sheath, and called her again.

'Hey, whore!'

She appeared at once, and it crossed his mind that she was using submission as a form of retaliation.

'Here I am,' she said.

'Tidy this mess up!'

Whether the room was a mess or not mattered little to him. What he wanted was to be able to see the face he loved. She went down on hands and knees and picked up the cigarette-ends, the pieces of mirror, and the remains of the broken plates and glasses. He wanted to tell her to take care, to be careful she didn't cut herself. But he didn't dare. To hide his shame, he pretended to watch her with the cold eyes of the torturer who leaves no stone unturned. Oh that pliant neck! The proud girl of yore, the laughing girl of Geneva, was now on all fours picking up cigarette-ends like a charwoman. He coughed to clear his throat.

'That's enough tidying. You're too tired.'

Still on her knees, she turned and said she'd soon be done, and resumed her chore. Aha, thinks she can get round me by showing willing, he thought. Poor kid, life hasn't finally got to her yet, hope still springs eternal in her. And maybe she was also being a bit of a martyr. But mostly she was feeling grateful for the few kindly words he had just thrown her way, and wanted to thank him by gathering up the debris. Still on her knees, reaching out with her hands, she went on carefully picking up the pieces. Suddenly he saw her kneeling for Dietsch! Her face was the face of a child and a saint - but a saint accustomed to be on the receiving end of missionary zeal! No. No more of that.