The Tale of the Rose (27 page)

There was no mirror at the Napoli farm, so I couldn’t look at myself. They served as my mirror and gave me advice on my looks, which had taken a turn for the worse since I’d fled from Paris. The women loaned me a handkerchief, a comb, a brooch, and even a pearl necklace.

When I arrived at the Hôtel Central, I was told that my husband had asked that I go directly up to room 70. A bellboy was waiting for me and showed me to the door of the room. I knocked softly. A hoarse voice shouted, “You can come in.” The bellboy jumped and ran away on tiptoe, repeating, “Go in, go in!”

I couldn’t manage to turn the handle correctly. Tonio’s voice repeated, “I’m in bed, turn the handle to the right, come in.”

He was, indeed, in bed.

“I’ve turned the light off,” he said. “I’m about to go to sleep. Turn it on if you want, the switch is to your left, near the door.”

“No,” I answered. “I don’t need light.”

I hadn’t seen him since La Feuilleraie. He was lying down, his face very pale and burrowed into the pillow, his eyes half shut.

I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to take him in my arms, I wanted to tell him all about my wait, my love. He closed his eyes and murmured, “I would really like to sleep.”

Slowly I began to undress. He sat up abruptly and stopped me, in the same hoarse voice. “No, don’t bother. It’s one in the morning, and I’m getting up at three. I have a train to catch. I’m going back to Agay. So, darling . . .”

“Then I barely have time to go and get my things from the farm,” I suggested naively.

“No, I’m leaving for Vichy right away. When I come back, I’ll spend more time with you. You’re best off going back to your friends now.”

I explained weakly that there were no taxis at that hour, that on foot it was a half hour’s walk across the fields and the road was completely dark.

“Listen to me,” he said in a very serious voice. “I strongly advise you to go back.”

My heart sank, all its flames suddenly vanishing into ashes. There was nothing left. I closed my eyes. I didn’t know whether to cry out or to weep. In my bag I had his last love letter, the one that said he would never leave me again. I took it out, reread it, and left it on his pillow. He looked at it and without a word or a sign let me leave the room and set off through the dark night toward the Castel Napoli.

My friends were still sitting in a circle in front of the fire. I came in like a beaten woman, without tears or hope on my face. Something inside me that was ruined, shattered, manifested itself in a continual movement of my head from left to right, like someone who has a tic that makes him signal no, no, no, no.

I had seen Tonio again. Had I really seen him? It wasn’t possible. No, my head shook from left to right and back again. I went over to the fire, not even looking at the faces of my friends, who were anxious about the trembling that was slowly moving down across my entire body. Soon I was able to say, in a very low voice, “No, no.”

“What? No, what? Tell us, Consuelo, what’s happening to you? And your husband, have you seen him?”

“No, yes, no, no.”

“Are you mad?” the major exclaimed. “You’re scaring us, explain yourself.”

“I have nothing to explain. I don’t know, I saw him for a few minutes. He told me he wanted to sleep, that I should come back here and go to bed, that he would come back someday to see me. I didn’t even give him my hand, and he didn’t give me his.”

As I spoke those last words, I was finally able to weep in the major’s arms.

“There, there,” he said. “Pretend you never saw him at all. Here, drink this glass of whiskey.”

It was the bottle I had begged from the Marquis de Guatalmine for Tonio. The major had found it, even though I had hidden it away after writing “For Tonio” on the label. He had discovered it and was offering drinks to everyone. But that was fine with me now. My nerves got the better of me, and I began laughing very hard. The other women burst into hysterical fits of giggles at their inability to console me. We threw more wood on the fire, and far into the night, the major, who had been decorated by the Legion of Honor, was still singing,
“Il reviendra à Pâques ou à la Trinité!”
(“He’ll come back at Easter or at Trinity!”)

I didn’t stir from my armchair, and the sunrise over the Pyrenees found me still seated in front of the fire, trying to comprehend the deep mysteries of the human heart. The major watched over me. From time to time he put another log on the fire or stirred the embers, and sometimes he caressed my hair without saying a word. In the morning, he brought me a cup of coffee to drink. My throat was dry. I loved the smell of café au lait. I looked up at his manly face and found it handsome and good. He held out the steaming white faience cup. I stood up slowly, and he spoke these words: “If you love me, kiss me and we’ll get married. I will never leave you.”

A
T NOON
I
WOKE UP
next to a river. The major was peering into my face and tickling my forehead with a twig.

“You sleep like a child; look what I’ve caught while you napped.”

Crayfish were jumping in a bowl at my feet.

“Come on, let’s cook them. Pick up some stones; we’ll light a fire, and this will make us a good lunch.”

He made for the house, carrying me on his back, suddenly moved by my fragility and my folly and deeply distressed by the mad love that was breaking my heart. He wanted to save me. I asked him how I had come to be in the field, for I had no memory of it. He told me he had carried me there, fast asleep in his arms, that he had washed my face and given me cool water to drink and then sang songs to me until I fell into a peaceful sleep. While he waited for me to wake up, he had taken off his shoes and fished for crayfish.

Feeling more like myself again, I combed through the grass, trying to make a little bouquet of wildflowers. I found some four-leaf clovers. We each took one, and I’ll always remember the advice he gave me then: “Never look back; remember that in the most wonderful legends, the person who looks back is always changed into a statue made of stone or salt.” Whistling a military march, he led me deeper into the green countryside, toward the forest.

T
HEN ONE DAY
I received a letter from my husband, inviting me to lunch in Pau. I showed it to the major.

“Do you really need to go?” he asked me.

I let out a long sigh.

He sighed in turn. “I don’t think you’ve seen the last of your suffering. Go ahead, I’ll drive you to the village and wait there to bring you back.”

There we were, my husband and I, sitting across from each other as if nothing had happened, exchanging the familiar phrases of an old married couple: “How is your family? Were there a lot of people in the train? It was hot. It looks like the sky is clouding over, it’s going to rain. Are you hungry? You should eat a little more rice. It’s hard to get rice right now . . .”

He noticed the four-leaf clover I was wearing in a locket around my neck. He was more interested in this piece of jewelry than in all the rest of me put together. He opened it very easily with his magician’s fingers and was astonished. “Is it a romantic souvenir?” he asked with a somewhat melancholy laugh.

“A little more than that,” I answered seriously.

“May I know?”

“Yes, I was going to tell you. I am engaged.”

“To a clover?” he said ironically.

“To the gentleman who gave me the clover.”

“Since when?” he went on, less ironically.

“Since the other night, when you advised me to go home and go to sleep.”

“But I told you, Consuelo . . . my wife . . . that I would come back to see you. Here I am.”

“It’s too late. Too late. I’m engaged to one of your friends. It’s probably best for both of us, since you’d rather be far away from me than with me.”

“Or so you say.”

“I’m not saying anything, I’m not arguing. I want a companion. I don’t want to be alone anymore. Excuse me, it’s late. Someone is waiting for me.”

“I came because you wrote, in a letter I received in Algeria, that you had made a vow to go to Lourdes if I came back from the war. Since I’m back, alive and here with you, now is the time to fulfill your vow. I know that you were serious about it, and we have plenty of time. We’re only about an hour from Lourdes, you can easily be back home tonight.”

Yes, I remembered. I had made that vow on a day of despair as I was fleeing among the lost souls on the roads of France. I had fallen to my knees beneath a sky charged with misery and saturated with the smell of the enemy, crying, “Lord, Lord, bring my husband back to this land safe and sound. I promise that when he returns I will lead him by the hand to Lourdes to thank You humbly.”

So I went with Tonio to Lourdes, taking him by the hand to fulfill my Christian vow.

He took it very seriously. We baptized each other with the pure water of the fountain of Lourdes. Then my husband started to laugh and declared, “It’s done! You no longer owe anything to Heaven, but I’ll ask you to have dinner with me one last time. I think we have quite a few things to tell each other.”

“No, Tonio. I have nothing more to say to you.”

He laughed again and led me by the hand to the Hôtel Ambassador, assuring me that the port there was very good. The hotel was owned by a captain.

As if they’d been waiting for us, the staff ushered us into a private dining room. I was a little shocked by this since I was engaged to another man, but Tonio explained that if you wanted to eat and drink well it was a good idea to hide away in a private room, since food was becoming scarce in France.

He was in an expansive mood and began to talk about the miracles of Lourdes. I was treated to a whole dissertation on the word “miracle” and the effects of miracles. The port was good, and I felt reconciled with life. I was happy to see him calm, tender, and good again, as I had once known him. In fact, neither of us was at fault. That evening, we were just as we had been when we first met. I was delighted, and I thanked him with all my heart for this miraculous little trip, which had proved to me that I hadn’t been wrong about the nobility of his heart and the honesty of his character.

The port was followed by a sumptuous dinner. Everything smelled wonderful. The owner came to join us. When the electric lights went on, I realized that a lot of time had gone by, that I was in a different city than Pau, and that my major was still waiting for me. My husband read my sudden anguish in the wrinkles on my forehead.

“Do you need to call him? Don’t get up, I’ll go. Give me his number. I’ll explain to him why we came here.”

And he disappeared in the direction of the telephone. I waited for almost an hour. The owner poured me glasses of mirabelle, which was very flavorful.

Tonio finally reappeared and announced in a grieved tone, “The major wants you to know that he’s no longer waiting for you. He’s rather upset. Listen, Consuelo,” he added with a smile, “would you like to become my fiancée?”

The liqueur on my lips had taken on a bitter taste since I’d heard the hard-hearted response of the major, who, for a little trip to Lourdes, was sending me to the Devil.

“Don’t be angry; men are all alike,” Tonio said, still smiling. “Be a good girl and promise to marry me, with the same clover.”

Before I could say a single word he had taken the locket from my neck. And I soon found myself in a magnificent suite at the Hôtel Ambassador, not just engaged but remarried to my husband.