Shadows 7 (10 page)

Whether the wine was good or not good, after a glass or two, the demon father began noticeably to brighten. I was struck by the flash of his eye, and realized that generalized contempt was about to flower into malice. I am afraid only two thoughts occurred to me at that moment. One was, I regret, that this was very intriguing. The other was concerned with wondering what
I
would do if he grossly insulted me. For I could sense, the way animals scent a coming storm, how the thunder was getting up. I reasoned though I was safe, being not such fun to attack as his own. He had not had time to learn my weaknesses and wants. While the rest of them—they had been his playground from birth.

Honorine—there was no attempt at fashionable order—sat three seats away from me, with Semery and an empty chair between. Behind Honorine, above the mahogany sideboard, a large framed photograph with black ribbon on it seemed to depict the dead wife and mother. My current angle prevented any perusal of this, but to it Monsieur Laurent now ordered our attention.

"That woman," he said, "was a very great nuisance while she lived. I drink, as you see, to her departure. Ah, what a nasty, wicked sentiment. Correction, an honest one. Besides, she has taken her revenge. Look what she saddled me with. All of you." There was a concerted dismal rustle round the table. One of the old ladies dabbed her face with a handkerchief, but one saw it was a sort of reflex. It was plainly not the only occasion all this had been voiced. I looked surreptitiously at Charles. He was a perfect blank, composed and cool. Small wonder he could keep his head in a courtroom after being raised to the tune of this!

Beside me, however, Semery either deliberately, or uncontrollably, acted out the role of foil by snarling: "Cher Papa. Can't you leave anything in decent peace?"

"Ah, my little Semery," said Cher Papa, smiling at him now. "You have toiled up from the slime of your slum to say this? And how is the painting going? Sell well, do you, my boy? You came to ask . . . now what was it for? Ah, yes. For money. And I told you I would think about it, but after all, what use is it to give you cash?" (Semery had gone white. I could hardly believe what I was hearing or that Semery could have given such a faultless cue for his own public castigation. It was as if he had
had
to do it.) "You squander everything. And have such slender talent. No, I really think after all you must do without. Tighten your belt. Or, you could return and live here. My doors are always open to you."

"I'd rather die in the gutter," shouted Semery.

"No you wouldn't. Or why are you here?"

"Not to ask anything from
you,
as you well know."

"Begging from your brother Charles then. This afternoon's most touching scene. Such a pity I disturbed you. But Charles isn't a fool with his money if he's a fool with everything else. You won't get it from him. And I promise you, you won't get it from me."

Semery rose. An amazing change reshaped the monster's face. It grew rock-hard, petrified. But the eyes were filled by potent electricity. "Down," rasped the father. The room seemed to shake at the command. Semery sank back into his chair and his trembling hands knocked over his wineglass. Seldom have I witnessed such a display of the casual, absolute power one mortal thing may obtain over another. I felt myself as if I had received a blow in the stomach, and yet what had actually happened? To set it out here does not convey anything.

"Yes, Semery," Monsieur Laurent said, "you should return under my roof, and make your name painting portraits of this beautiful sister of yours."

Having leveled one gun emplacement with his unerring cannon, the warmonger had turned his fire from the rout of the wounded to the demolition of the totally helpless. I could not prevent myself glancing at her, in horrid fascination, to see how she took it. Of course, she too was well used to such treatment. She cowered, her eyes down, her terrible, unmatched chignon shuddering. Yet the pose was native to her. It seemed almost comfortable. Her body sagged in the lines of abjection so readily, easily.

"Compliment your coiffeur, Honorine," said Monsieur Laurent. "These enemies of yours have succeeded in making of you, yet again, a fright. Heaven hurry the day," he added, drinking his wine in greedy little sips, "when this pretense at having hair is done. A daughter who is completely bald will be a novelty. All this scraping and combing and messing. Fate intended you as a catastrophe, my child. You should accept the part. Look at you, my dear, graceless lump—" At this point I put out my hand and picked up my own glass. I believe I had every intention of throwing it at his head, anything to make him stop. But thank God Charles interrupted with a (perhaps faked) gargantuan sneeze. The father turned slowly, fire duly drawn. "And you," he said to the recovering Charles, "our moneylender, the wealthy gigolo of the bookstalls. What have you to say for yourself?"

Charles shrugged. "What I always say for myself. And what you also have just said. I've a private income and you don't frighten me. You could put me out on the street tomorrow—"

"I put none of my own tribe onto the street. They put themselves there. As for your books—what are they? You plagiarize and you steal, you botch and bungle—"

"And
livres
pour into my hands," said Charles.

My God, I thought, at last the razor of the father's tongue was going into a block of cork. Naturally, the confounded devil knew it. This means of hurting pride no longer worked, it seemed, or at least without evidence. Talented, loved, an egoist, and lucky, Charles was not a happy target. Unerringly, the father retraced his aim.

"A pity," he said, "your sister has taken to reading your works. Filling her hairless skull with more predigested idiocy than is already in there. She puts her hat on her bald head and goes puttering off to the bookshop to discuss your successes. And so has fallen into the clutches of madwomen."

Strangely, Honorine was moved by this to murmur quickly, "No, Father, no, you mustn't say they are—"

"Mustn't?
Mustn't I? You keep your mouth closed, my fat, balding daughter. I say what I know. Your great friends are lunatics, and I'm considering whether or not I shall approach the police—"

"Father!" The cry now was anguished.

"What? You think they're friends of yours, hah? You, with a friend? How should you have friends, you overweighted slug? Do you think they're captivated by your prettiness and charm? Eh? It's my money they like the idea of, and your insane acquaintances from the bookshop are a fine example of a certain animal known as a charlatan."

"I won't go there ever again," said Honorine.

This startled me. Her voice was altered when she spoke. It had grown deeper, it was definite. By agreeing with him she had, albeit temporarily, removed the bludgeon from his grasp.

At the time, the business of the "charlatan madwomen" and the bookshop were only a facet of an astonishing whole. I paid no particular attention. Nor do I think much more needs to be said of the dinner. Dishes came in and were taken away, and those with the heart to eat (they were few) did so. There were many and various further sallies from the indefatigable Monsieur Laurent. None were aimed at me, though I was now primed and eager for them and, I imagine, slightly drunk. In my confusion, even as I sat there, I was already mentally composing a letter to Anette, telling her everything, word for word, of this unspeakable affair. (It is from the same letter, penned fresh and with the vivid recall of insomniac indignation at two that morning, that I am able to quote fairly accurately what I have just set down.) I also wished him dead at least twenty times. I backed the big heavy body and the thick red face for an apoplexy, yet they looked more like ebullient good health.

As soon as I could, without augmenting the casualties of that war zone of a table by slamming out halfway through the meal, I left. I bade Charles a brisk adieu and walked by myself beside the river until well past midnight, powerlessly on the boil. As I told Anette, my entertaining friend was out of favor now completely. I reckoned never to see him again, for it was not simple, after the fact, to forgive him this exposure to alien filial strife. I even in a wild moment suspected some joke at my expense.

However, my having ignored two notes and a subsequent attempted visit, he finally caught me up in the gardens of the Palais. There was an argument, at least on my side, but Charles was not to be fought with if he had no mind for it.

"I can only apologize," he said, in broken accents. "What more can I say?"

"Why in God's name did you make me a party to the bloody affair?"

"Well, frankly, my friend, because—though you'll find it hard to credit—he is kinder to us when there is some stranger present."

I fell silent at that, moodily staring away between the green groves of trees. Now and then, Anette and I had contrived a meeting here, and the gardens filled me always with a piercing sweet sadness that tended to override other emotions. I looked at Charles, who seemed genuinely contrite, and acknowledged there might be some logic in his statement. Although the idea of Monsieur Laurent
un
kind, if such was a version of his restraint, filled one with laughing horror.

So, if you will, ends the first act.

The second act commences with a scene or two going on offstage. There had been an improvement in my own fortunes, to wit, Anette's father deeming it necessary, in the way of business, to travel to England. This brought an unexpected luster to the summer. It also meant that I saw very little of Charles Laurent.

Then one morning, strolling through the covered market near the cathedral, I literally bumped into Semery and, after the usual exchanges, was invited to an apartment above a chandler's, on the left bank of the river.

Here is the area of the Montmoulin, the medieval hill of the windmill, the namesake of which is long since gone. One hears the place referred to frequently as being of a "picturesque, quaint squalor." Certainly, the poor do live here, and the fallen angels of the bourgeoisie perch in the garrets and studios above the twisting cobbled lanes. The smell of cabbage soup and the good coffee even the poverty-stricken sometimes manage to get hold of, hang in the air, along with the marvelous inexpressible smell of the scarlet geraniums that explode over balconies and on walls above narrow stairways, and against a sky tangled with washing and pigeons.

We got up into a suitable attic studio and found a table already laid with cheese and bread and fruit and wine, and a fawn cat at play with an apple. A very pretty girl came from behind a curtain. She ran to kiss Semery and, her arms still around him, turned to beam at me in just the way women in love so often do when another man comes on the scene. Even in her loose blouse, I could tell she was carrying a child. Little doubt of the father, though her hand was ringless. I remembered, with a fleeting embarrassment, Semery's supposed request for money from his brother, or Monsieur Laurent. Here might be the excuse.

There were pictures, naturally, everywhere—on the walls, on easels, stacked up, or even horizontal on the floor for the cat to sit on.

"Courage," said Semery, seeing me glance around, "I won't try to sell anything to you. Not at all." This in turn reflected Charles' avowal, on first inviting me to the gruesome dinner party, that they would not try to marry Honorine off to me. It was a little thing, but it made me conscious of some strange defensiveness inherent, and probably engendered in them by their disgusting father. "But," added Semery, "look, if you like." "Of course he will like," said the girl mischievously. "How nice the table is, Miou," said Semery. "Let's have some wine."

A very pleasant couple of hours ensued. Semery was acting at least as fine a companion as Charles; I was charmed by Miou, and by the cat, and the simple luncheon was appetizing. As for the art—I am no critic, but suppose I have some slight knowledge. While not being in that first startling rank of original genius, Semery's work seemed bright with talent. It had enormous energy, was attractive, sometimes lush, yet never too easy. Particularly, I liked two or three unusual night scenes of the city, one astonishingly lit by a flight of birds escaping from some baskets and streaming over a lamp-strung bridge.

"Yes," he said, coming to my side, "I call that one
Honorine."
I was at a loss to reply. "I don't mean to make you uncomfortable," he said. "But you've been blooded, after all. You were there just the last time I was."

"Hush, Semery," said Miou, who was rocking the cat in an armchair, practicing for her baby. "Talking of
him
makes you sick and gives you migraine."

"True," said Semery. He refilled our glasses with wine. "But I can talk of Honorine? Yes? No? But I must. That poor little sack of sadness. If there were any money, I'd take her in with me, though God knows she bores me to despair. Our dear father, you understand, has stamped and trampled all the life from her. She can no longer talk. She only answers questions. So you say to her, 'Would you care to do this?' And you get in return, 'Oh yes, if
you
wish.' And she drops things. And she stumbles when she walks even when there's nothing to stumble over. However," he said, with a boy's fierceness, "there was one service I think I did her. I first took her to the bookshop on the Rue Danton. And so introduced her to the three witches."

Miou began to sing a street song, quietly but firmly disowning us.

"That's the bookshop your father objected to? And the witches?"

"Well, three old ladies, in particular one, very gray and thin, read the tarot there in the backroom. And sometimes, when the moon is full, work the planchette of a Ouija board."

"And Honorine . . ."

"Honorine attended a session or two. She wouldn't reveal the results, but you could tell she enjoyed every moment. When you saw her after, her cheeks would be flushed, her eyes had a light in them. Unfortunately, that limping gargoyle who serves
mon pere
found out about it all and duly informed. Now Honorine's one poor, pitiful pleasure is ended. Unless she can somehow evade the spies, and our confounded father—"