Her Lover (5 page)

'By eleven she was back in her handsome villa at Champel, which, with her open carriage, was her only luxury. She was, as I've said, most charitably inclined, but spent hardly anything on herself. I can still see those black, very stylish dresses with a hint of train at the back, but they were all old, shiny and carefully mended. At noon the gong was sounded. At half past twelve it was sounded again and everyone had to go into lunch at once. Lateness was not tolerated. Uncle Agrippa, Jacques, Éliane and I had to remain standing while we waited for the arrival of the "chieftainess", as we sometimes called her among ourselves. Of course, we never sat down until she did.

'At table, after grace had been said, the conversation would turn on respectable subjects such as flowers ("with sunflowers, you must always bruise the ends of the stems if you want them to last") or the colours of setting suns ("I have always loved them so, I was so terribly grateful for the gift of such splendour!") or changes of temperature ("I felt rather cold when I got up this morning") or the latest sermon of a favourite minister ("it was thoroughly thought out and prettily expressed"). There was much talk too of the progress of evangelization in the Zambezi, which explains why I am very well up in the black tribes of Africa. For instance, I know that in Basutoland the King's name is Lewanika, that the Basutos call their country Lesotho and speak Sesotho. On the other hand, it was not the done thing to speak of what my aunt called "material things". One day I remember being scatty enough to say that I thought there was a mite too much salt in the soup. She frowned and froze me with these words: "Tsk, Ariane, really!" I got the same reaction another time when I could not prevent myself commending a chocolate mousse which had been served. I felt my heart in my mouth when she cast her cold eyes on me.

'Cold is right, but she was also profoundly good-hearted. She did not know how to show it though, or express it. It wasn't insensitivity but aristocratic reserve, or perhaps a fear of the carnal. Hardly ever a kind word, and on the rare occasions when she kissed me it was just a brush with the lips on my forehead. On the other hand, when I was ill she would get up several times a night and trot along in her old, regal dressing-gown to see if I had woken up or thrown the covers off. O darling Tantlérie, though I never dared call you that.

'I must remember to put somewhere in my novel the blasphemous things I used to say when I was little. I was very pious and yet when I was in the shower I couldn't help myself saying suddenly: "Mangy old God!" But then I would shout out straightaway: "No, no, I didn't say it! God is good, God is very kind!" And then it would begin all over again and I'd come out with more blasphemies. It made me ill, and I used to hit myself as a punishment.

'Another memory comes back. Tantlérie had told me that the sin against the Holy Ghost was the worst of all. So sometimes when I was in bed at night I couldn't resist the temptation of whispering: "I do sin against the Holy Ghost, I do!" Of course, I had no idea what it meant. But immediately afterwards I'd feel really scared and hide under the bedclothes, and tell the Holy Ghost that I'd only said it for ajoke.

'Poor Tantlérie had no idea of all the anguish she caused Éliane and me. For example, she believed she was acting in our best spiritual interests by talking to us frequently about death, in order to prepare us for the only thing that mattered: life eternal. We couldn't have been more than ten or eleven when she was already reading us stories about model children expiring, their faces alight, with heavenly voices in their ears, going to their death rejoicing. Result: nervous wrecks, both my sister and me. I remember how terrified we were once when we read the text for the following Sunday in a Bible calendar: "Thou shalt die and be hid in the Lord." One of our little Armiot cousins had invited Éliane and me to tea for that Sunday, so I told her we weren't certain we'd be able to come because we might be hid in God instead. Ever since, though I suppose I haven't really lost my faith, I've always hated hymns, especially the one that begins: "In the land of eternal glory". I always feel miserable when I hear the assembled congregation sing it in church with the false joy and sickly exaltation with which they convince themselves they'd be only too glad to die, though in reality they ring up the doctor at the slightest scratch for him to come and make it better.

'More memories, scribble them down higgledy-piggledy, so I won't forget. I'll pad them out in the novel. Tantlérie, working at her embroidery on her tambour after morning and evening service. At church, we would often finish with the hymn "As pants the hart", which always gave me the giggles which I covered up. But Tantlérie did a lot of praying in her boudoir by herself, thrice daily and always at the same times, and we had to be ever so careful not to disturb her. Once I spied on her through the keyhole. She was on her knees with her head bowed and her eyes shut. Suddenly she smiled: it was a strange, wonderful smile, and it made a great impression on me. Also say somewhere that she wouldn't have anything to do with doctors, not even Uncle Gri. She believed in the healing power of prayer. When talking about her fear of the carnal, which I referred to earlier, mention the towels in her bathroom. She had different ones for different parts of her body. The one she used for her middle could never be used for her face. The unconscious fear of sin, the separation of sacred and profane. But no, I shan't say anything about the towel business in the novel; I wouldn't want to run the risk that people might laugh at her. I forgot to say she never read a novel in her life, for the same reason: she detested lies.

'Here I'll make a start on the telegrammese. After death of Jacques and Éliane, just Tantlérie and me at the villa, with Uncle Gri gone off to Africa as a medical missionary. My religious neurasthenia. I didn't believe any more or at least thought I didn't. That was called "the spirit drying up" in our circles. I decided to do an arts degree. At University, I met Varvara Ivanovna, a young Russian emigree, shrewd and very bright. We soon became friends. I thought she was very beautiful. I loved kissing her hands, her pink palms, her thick hair. I thought about her all the time. In short, it was love.

'Tantlérie unhappy about our friendship. "A Russian! Tsk! I ask you!" (The "ask" very long and drawn out, like steam escaping.) She wouldn't let me introduce Varvara to her but didn't forbid me to go on seeing her, which was a lot. But one day the police came round asking questions about a girl called Sianova, who held a temporary residence permit. I wasn't home. From the policeman, Tantlérie made two appalling discoveries. First, that my friend had been a member of a group of Mensheviks, or some sort of Russian revolutionaries. Second: she had been the mistress of the group's leader, who had been deported from Switzerland. When I got back late that afternoon, she told me I was to have nothing more to do with a lewd hussy who was being watched by the police, and a revolutionary to boot! I defied her. Give up my Varinka? Never! After all, I was of age. That evening, I packed my bags. Mariette, our elderly maid, helped me. Tantlérie had locked herself in her room. She refused to see me, so I went. Could I turn all this into a novel? But to proceed.

'I went to live with my friend in town in a ghastly little furnished flat. I had very little money of my own, Daddy having lost almost every penny in some financial collapse known as a "crash". She and I were happy. We used to go off to the University together, me to Humanities and she to Social Sciences. Lived like students. The little eating places. I began using a touch of face-powder, something I'd never done at Tantlérie's. But I never wore lipstick and never shall. It's dirty and it's common. I started learning Russian so I could talk with her and we'd be closer. We slept together. Yes, it was love, but pure, or very nearly. One Sunday, I discovered through Mariette, who often used to come to see me, that my aunt was leaving soon for Scotland. This made me feel awful, because I sensed very strongly that it was the life I was leading that was in effect driving her into exile.

'A few months later, during the Easter vacation, Varvara told me she had tuberculosis and couldn't go to the University any more.

She'd kept it from me so I wouldn't worry but also to avoid making our financial situation any worse with rest cures in the mountains. I went to see her doctor at once and he told me that in any case it was too late to send her to a sanatorium and that she had a year to live at most.

'During that last year of her life, I didn't behave terribly well. Naturally, I'd given up my studies to devote myself entirely to her. I looked after her, made her meals, did the washing and ironing. But in the evenings sometimes I'd suddenly feel like going out and accepting invitations from University friends, usually foreign students, not young men and women from my own set. So now and then I'd go out to dinner or a student hop or the theatre. I knew she was very ill yet I didn't put up much of a fight when I wanted to get away for a while. Varvara, darling, forgive me, I was so young. When I'd get back, I'd feel ashamed and what made it worse was that she never grumbled. But one evening, getting back from a dance at two in the morning, I was wheeling out some excuse or other for being late, when she said quietly: "That's all very well, but I am going to die." I shall never forget the way she looked at me.

'The day after she died, I looked at her hands. One glance was enough for you to sense how heavy they were, like marble. The sheen was gone, they were a dull white colour and the fingers were swollen. It was then that I knew it was all over, that everything was over.

'After the funeral, the fear I felt in the tiny flat where she had waited for me to come back at night. So I made up my mind to move into the Hotel Belle Vue. Adrien Deume had just got a job at the League of Nations and since his parents had not then landed on him, he was living in that same hotel. One evening, it dawned on me that I had hardly any money left. Couldn't pay the week's bill. Alone in the world. Not a soul I could turn to. My uncle was in the middle of Africa and my aunt somewhere in Scotland. Anyway, even if I'd had her address, I wouldn't have dared write to her. The people in my set, cousins, distant relatives, acquaintances, had dropped me since I'd run away and started living with "the Russian revolutionary"..

'I don't exactly know what happened after I took all those veronal tablets. I must have opened the door of my room, because Adrien, returning to his, found me stretched out in the corridor. He picked me up and carried me back into my room. He saw the empty pillbox. Doctor. Stomach wash. Injected with all sorts of stuff. I gather I was at death's door for several days.

'Convalescence. Adrien's visits. I talked to him about Varvara, about Éliane. He comforted me, read to me, brought me books and records. The only person in the whole world who cared about me. I was numb. The poison I'd swallowed had softened my brain. One evening he asked me if I'd marry him, and I said yes. I needed somebody who was kind, somebody to be on my side who thought a lot of me, though I fully realized that I had committed social suicide. Also that I had no money and was ill-equipped for life's battle, not trained for anything, not even fit to be a secretary. We were married before his parents arrived. His patience when I told him that I was scared of what goes on between a man and a woman.

'Shortly after I got married, death of Tantlérie in Scotland. Summoned by her lawyer to his office. By the terms of her will, though it had been drawn up after my scandalous elopement, I inherited everything, except the villa at Champel, which went to Uncle Agrippa. Arrival of Adrien's parents. Trouble with my nerves. For weeks I stayed in my room in bed reading, with Adrien bringing me my meals. Then I decided I wanted to get away from Geneva. He requested several months unpaid leave. Our travels. His kindness. My moods. One evening I sent him away because he was there and not Varvara. I called him back. He came, so gentle, so sweet. I said that I was a horrible woman but all that was over and done with now, that I'd be nice in future and that he was to go back to his work. We returned to Geneva and I did my best to keep my promise.

'When we got back, I invited my old girl friends round. They turned up with their husbands. That was the finish. Never heard from them again. They took one look at old Madame Deume and her pint-sized husband and that was that. True, my cousins, the Armiots and the Saladins in particular, invited me to things, but by myself, without a mention of my husband. Of course, I never went.

'I simply must put in old Monsieur Deume, of whom I'm quite fond, as one character, and also have old Madame Deume as another - as Bogus Christian Lady given to Pious Posing. The other day, this nasty piece of work asked me about the state of my soul and said she was at my entire disposal if I should ever want to have a serious talk with her. In her vocabulary, a serious talk means a discussion about religion. Once she had the nerve to ask if I believed in God. I said not always. Thereupon, setting out to convert me, she explained that Napoleon believed in God and consequently I ought to as well. All this guff is just her way of trying to get the upper hand. I loathe her. She is no Christian. She's the very opposite. She's a cow and a cat too. Now Uncle Agrippa is a true Christian. Good through and through, a saint. People don't come any better than true Protestants. Long live Geneva! Tanderie was good too. Her faith was a bit Old Testamentish, but noble and sincere. And the way old Madame Deume talks is appalling. Instead of "lovely" she says "lervely". For "nice" she says "naice", for "middle" she says "middel" and "little" is "littel", and "perlease" for "please". And she sticks in unnecessary words whenever she can.

'In my novel, I must talk about her talent for making barbed comments with a smile. She always clears her throat before she does this. When she clears her throat I know there's some piece of sugar-coated spite in the offing. For example, yesterday morning as I was coming downstairs I heard the awesome clacking of her heels! She was on the first-floor landing! Too late for me to escape! She took me by the arm, said she had something interesting to tell me, led me off to her room, and asked me to sit down. She cleared her throat. Then that ghastly, luminous, child-of-God smile and she started: "Dear, I must tell you something terribly naice: I'm sure you'll be perleased. You'll never guess, but just now, before he went off to the office, Adrien popped in, sat on my lap, threw his arms around my neck and said: Mummy darling, it's you I love best in the whole world! Now wasn't that naice, dear?" I stared at her and then left the room. If I'd told her she made me feel sick I know exactly what would have happened. She would have put her hand to her heart, like a martyr about to be thrown to the lions, and told me that she forgave me and would even pray for me. She's wicked, but all the same isn't she the lucky one, because she's absolutely convinced that there's an afterlife and that she'll be there fluttering round Almighty God for all eternity. She even claims that she'll be glad to die, or as she says in her way: "to get her marching orders".