Life Embitters (35 page)

My two compatriots, who initially listened to my tale most attentively, gradually lost interest as I proceeded. In the end, they seemed almost disappointed. I felt that it was nothing new as far as they were concerned, that it was quite normal.

“When you’ve finished eating your roast beef and carrots,” said Niubó, “take a sly look towards the back corner, by the window.”

I looked briefly in that direction. I saw a young woman sitting on the table at the back. She was blonde, with pinkish skin, ample dimensions, and was eating ravenously. She was wearing a very English, mallow-colored nighttime dress that did her no favors – I imagine she had some social engagement that night. It showed off her opulent, perfect, bronzed, rather languid arms. At that very moment she looked up and stared at my friends. Her features were chubby and cheerful, as well as being immaculate in the manner of a
kermesse flamande
Venus – a broad, gleaming forehead and eyes of blue and green water. She smiled for a second, and revealed moist, dazzling teeth.

She shortly got up from her table, smiled at my friends for a second time and left the dining room. She seemed very tall.

“That’s Srta Claudette,” said Tàpies folding his napkin. “Quite the Belgian wench …”

“Dear Tàpies, what exactly do you mean by ‘quite the Belgian wench’?”

“I wouldn’t know how to put it. A young lady …” and he stammered.

“Let’s say, to give you an idea, that she’s a young lady who acts in good faith …” rasped Niubó.

“I understand. A young lady who acts in good faith … That’s clear enough.”

To further clarify Niubó’s definition, Tàpies tried to wink, giving it the usual sly touch. But when Tàpies attempted this gesture, he nearly always botched it, failed entirely. He was a man who couldn’t wink, like so many. When he was thinking of doing it, he’d shut both eyes, and everything was quite a mess, improbable and totally unconvincing. Even so, I cottoned on without having to make too much of an effort.

After his optical intervention, Tàpies felt compelled to say things I felt were quite enigmatic: “Srta Claudette,” he said, “is a very generous, extremely kindhearted person … It’s his turn today,” he continued pointing at Niubó.

“My dear Tàpies, I really don’t understand,” I countered. “Please be so good as to explain yourself …”

In the meantime, annoyed by his friend’s allusion, Niubó had turned as red as a rose. Tàpies fell silent. I didn’t feel strong enough to rescue the conversation from the cul-de-sac it had entered. We changed the subject.

That night, while I was reading the newspaper comfortably reclining on the chaise-longue in my bedroom, I heard a conversation strike up in the neighboring room. I started to hallucinate when I heard the first words. A man and woman were talking and the male voice was Niubó’s. My friend’s French seemed rather unsure and dodgy – sometimes difficult to understand.

“Claudette, you’re so lovely … I’d like to ask you a favor,” said Niubó’s voice.

“Have you lost another button?” responded the female voice.

“Yes, another button. I’m very sorry to ask you, but it’s beyond me. You know how sad it is to live alone, in a foreign country, among complete strangers who are often hostile. This way of life just shows how when you lack the warmth of the family hearth, you have nothing …”

“I find your bouts of nostalgia rather boring …”

“Yes, I know, but what do you expect me to do? Who else can I tell? Only you understand me … Claudette, you understand me! And don’t you deny it … If you only knew how I sometimes feel like catching the train, going back, escaping …”

“I’ll sew your button on, but it’s the last time. I have other things to do in life.”

“You really mean that?”

“Take off your shoes!”

There was a similar lull to the previous day, a lull that ended in exactly the same fashion. I didn’t hear another word, and the night seemed to melt into the dull hum, the opaque buzz from the urban sprawl.

The next day I made no reference to this around the table. Nor did Tàpies. After some visibly awkward circumlocutions, with a doubtful, confused logic to them, Niubó finally began to speak about the mysteries within the lodging house – the last episode of which had starred him as its hero. Then, lo and behold, at the end of his monologue Niubó came out with a statement that shocked me it was so flippant, not to say so moronic. Pointing at me in a most relaxed, natural gesture, he said, while consulting a small pocket diary: “Your turn will come too. It’ll be around the twenty-ninth of this month.”

I burst into a series of noisy guffaws though I quickly had to put the brake on that spontaneous outburst because of its deplorable impact on the people who were in the dining room at the time. Almost every head present turned
surreptitiously my way to let me know that I had overstepped the mark. However, it was Tàpies and Niubó whose expressions were quite desolate. First they looked at me as if I were a rare beast. Then, with infinite sorrow. I’m sure that if I’d let myself be carried away and continued guffawing, they’d have got up and left me there and then. In London – and this must be true for the whole of England – you never make an excessive show of your feelings. Do what you must, but do so discreetly. When you want to laugh, smile; when you want to cry, don’t go overboard, and don’t overwhelm people with your exaggerated emotions. My laughter had been spontaneous and, though I’d had good reason to act that way, it was completely the wrong thing to do.

I had a further surprise that night. The male voice I heard behind the partition wall wasn’t the one from the first day or Niubó’s. It was the voice of an Englishman who spoke terrible French. I first thought it was a voice I didn’t recognize and then I decided it was very similar to Colonel Morton’s. In the end, I couldn’t really pinpoint whose voice it was. I thought it was a highly entertaining exchange.

“Mademoiselle Claudette,” I heard the voice say, “might I ask you a question?”

“Only one? Why are men so pathetic?”

“Could you please tell me how many kilometers it is from Brussels to Anvers?” said the voice in a tender, slightly passionate tone. “I don’t want to defer for a single day more my visit to your country that is so admirable on so many fronts. The expectations I have cherished for so long are on the brink of becoming a most wondrous reality …”

“I doubt that …” said the female voice. “After all my country is like any other, it certainly has its pros, but it also has its cons …”

“How can you possibly say that? I can’t find the words to tell you what bliss it will be on this occasion to cross the Channel. One is always rather
reluctant to leave one’s country. This time, however, the outcome will be infinitely enjoyable. I mean that sincerely.”

“I couldn’t say how many kilometers it is from Brussels to Anvers. I don’t think it’s very many. But I’ll look it up …”

“Will you really?”

The shoe-related warning followed immediately and the long lull that ended in exactly the same fashion as on the previous occasions. Then I heard not a single word more, but could hear the dull, blind hum from nighttime in the big city.

The days passed – or more precisely the nights – with identical monotony: the scene as repeated, more or less, in the same terms. Every day, after the rehearsing of different ritual words, always with the same end in mind, in the room next door, I’d hear a pair of shoes of a different weight and shape drop on the floor. Unity doesn’t exist in the world of shoes: it’s a real shame. In the meantime, my friends introduced me to the mademoiselle. She was charming, with a very broad vision of the world, great energy and – at least on the surface – in wonderful health. In the short initial conversation, of polite niceties, I heard the word mentioned: twenty-ninth. I got it immediately. My friends Tàpies and Niubó – who were present at the exchange – tittered. A few days after, when I bumped into her in the small lounge by the dining room, I noted that she alluded once again to the aforementioned number. What did it all mean? I began to float on air. In any case, I should add, so that the state of play of my feelings is clear, that I was still in doubt to the very last minute. I should also say that, left to my own devices, I would still be in doubt. The ice was broken, when the day came, by the mademoiselle herself who knocked discreetly on the wall with her knuckles.

My shoes dropped as well.

The day after, I was rather weary. In keeping with local customs, I
invited my compatriots to a whisky. It’s a splendid drink when one is tired. If one doesn’t drink in excess, it’s a positive tonic favoring the restoration of one’s mental lucidity. Brightened by the alcohol, I made a little – quite insignificant – speech for their benefit, a speech that didn’t lead to the outcome I was hoping for.

“Dear Niubó, dear Tàpies, there’s no denying that this is a most pleasant place to stay. It is certainly a puritanical establishment; nevertheless, if one keeps to specific rules in terms of tact, one soon discovers that the same spontaneous harmony reigns here that great minds have found in nature. There is a very reasonable ambience. The young lady you made out to be a terrible person seems to be generosity incarnate. She manages her female charms in a gentle, silent manner. She is admirably suited to the scope offered by the household. I reckon it would be all wrong to preserve its routines, and, if at all possible, perfect them. This establishment has pleasant ceilings … Not that I’m in favor of making reality over-perfect; I believe that one shouldn’t tamper with things that are working. What I mean, when I speak of perfecting things, is that perhaps it would be best not to touch anything, to leave everything as it is at the moment …”

When I reached this point, I stopped because I felt that neither Tàpies nor Niubó shared my moderate opinions. Niubó was nervously making balls with breadcrumbs with the tips of his fingers. Tàpies’s blank eyes were glancing absentmindedly at the ceiling. He was visibly most upset by my state of mind, even indignant. I have always admired young people when they are being cautious – although it’s only a surface reaction or even quite inauthentic. At the same time, I have always believed that caution can be compatible with good manners and civility.

I realized at once – for God’s sake! – that his aloofness didn’t reflect a rude, momentary, superficial state of mind that was happy to express itself
in a gauche silence; on the contrary, I realized that his aloofness was for real and deeply felt.

What had made him like that?

I can only say one thing: things worsened as days went by.

I have never been one for not saying things straight. That’s hardly surprising, if reality is the only productive vein I can mine. Being next-door neighbors created a relationship of friendship between myself and that young lady – and it translated, as usually happens between friends, into copious dialogues. Unfortunately this situation upset my friends. Both Niubó and Tàpies stated that there had been an exchange of keys of the respective bedrooms; however, this was only true metaphorically speaking. It would have been contrary to the very essence of the country that was lodging us with such hospitality and so few hassles. There are countries – and this is one of them – where everything is forgiven, providing certain customs are maintained. Correct behavior is almost always about not transforming one’s woes into noise or fallout that jars on the ear or touch of others. To be true, our bedrooms weren’t in the center, were far from the to-ing and fro-ing, at the bottom of the passage. This situation would appear to strengthen all the hypotheses about clandestine activity. In any case, I don’t recall the boarding houses of London seething at night – something I couldn’t say of other countries – with ghosts in pajamas down passageways and in dark corners clutching a dying match – a match that would burn the tips of your fingers as soon as you made a silent effort to rekindle it. No, I don’t recall ever seeing anyone performing this ghostly role in England.

The friendship I established with the mademoiselle didn’t wreak havoc with the house’s set routines. Everything continued as before. Like the others, I shared in her generosity. The only difference was that, as I had more idle
time by virtue of my work, I had more time to talk to her. I have always liked countries in the north, because they seem ready-made, given their climate, for the exercise of sociability, for talking to people in some sheltered spot. This dismayed my friends. Their brows knitted. When we met in the passage or on the stairs, they glared crossly at me. We still had lunch at the same table, but rarely spoke. One chewed reading the paper or staring at the ceiling. It was pathetic and ridiculous.

Mademoiselle Claudette told me that one day Tàpies told Niubó: “Niubó, I feel so nostalgic! I feel more nostalgic than at any other time in my life.”

“I do too, Tàpies! But what can you do?”

“I feel desperate when I hear you talk with such resignation about these things.”

“So how would you like me to talk? You say you feel nostalgic. I do too. In any case, you are at an advantage. You have some thing, you’ve got money … If I were in your position, I could do so much!”

“What do you mean, Niubó? What would you do?”

“When you’ve got money, you can do so many things! If you don’t understand that, it’s because you’re acting the fool.”

“Chapter and verse! Niubó, what would you do if you were in my position? And don’t wander off the point …”

Niubó wiped the back of his neck.

“I am sure that, if you were in my situation,” said Tàpies staring at him, “you would get married. What do you bet that was what you wanted to say?”

“That’s one solution, of course! We’re getting on in years now. At our age, if you have something stashed away, marriage is one thing to do.”

“Yes, we’re beginning to age, and every day we feel a little more nostalgic. But marriage, marriage … What does that mean? Who do you want to marry me off to? You must see it’s not that easy.”

“Obviously not! We’re no longer the age to chase after the young things! That would be laughable. They’d pull our legs. But even so, what would you do?”

Niubó plucked up his courage again and asked him, “Don’t you like the Belgian girl?”