Till We Meet Again (8 page)

“I won’t do that, darling, if you don’t want me to,” he whispered. She made no sign, which was, he knew, as much an acquiescence as if she had been able to ask for it. He reached down, parted the curls and again found the exact spot in the heat between her legs that cried out for his touch. He caressed her teasingly but now maintaining the contact between his finger and her flesh, now he looked greedily at her face as his fingers moved faster and faster, now he watched her bite her lips, now he watched her pant for air, now he watched the contortions of her features as she strained toward she knew not what, now all five of his fingers had surrounded the delicious flesh because he wanted to feel every quiver, every jolt, every wild, unleashed contraction of the first spasm of a virgin’s life. When, at last, she reached the moment she hadn’t dreamed existed and madly, unknowingly screamed his name, he thrust his middle finger a few inches inside her so that she would remember, forever after, who was her
master, so that she would be branded by his touch and would never forget him, for that was the ultimate pleasure he had been so determined to secure.

“Jules, for God’s sake, you’ve got to help me,” Alain said, grabbing the stage manager’s arm and pulling him into his dressing room so that they could talk without being overheard. “Old pal, I’m in trouble!”

“What’s wrong?” Jules had never seen Alain appear at the theater in his present unshaven, disheveled condition, nor had Alain ever shown up at the theater early in the morning.

“Christ, Jules, why did I ever make that bet with you?”

“Did I win or lose?”

“Neither—both—what difference does it make, here, take the damn money. Jules, I have to get out of Dijon on the next train to Paris.”

“Calm down, Alain! You have a matinée and an evening performance today, and the troupe isn’t leaving Dijon until Monday morning, you know that perfectly well. You can’t leave here for four more days.”

“I know all that—it changes nothing. I have to
disappear
, Jules, without a trace, before tonight. You have to cover for me with the management and with Eve.”

“Come on! With the girl, perhaps, but the management—what can I tell them—don’t be a fool, you’re the star—I don’t want to lose my job. What happened? You forced her, didn’t you?”

“No. I didn’t even screw her—I had her all ready for it, primed, I tell you, primed to perfection, when she burst into tears of joy, and told me that she loved me, that I was the wonderful, wild thing she’d wanted all her life. And then she told me who she really is. Her father’s the most famous doctor in town—they’ll ruin me, Jules, powerful people like that, they’ll run screaming rape, to the management—who knows how far it will go? Rape, that’s what they’ll be sure to call it. Even you thought so a minute ago. They’d never believe she was willing. Oh Christ! Jules, for the love of heaven, help me!”

The stage manager sat down heavily and looked at his haggard friend. “You and your virgins. What did you expect?”

“I was crazy, Jules, what more can I say? I bundled her home just as fast as I could, once I understood what trouble I was in. Jules, this will end badly if I don’t get out of here.”

“Do you have a story I can tell, at least?” Jules said after a minute’s reflection.

“I’ve been up all night fixing one up. Say that my mother died suddenly, that I got a telegram here at the theater, that you read it with your own eyes, and I had to go home immediately for the funeral. The management can’t object to that. A mother’s funeral—that’s sacred. Tell them I’ll be back at work the day you get back to Paris. Tell Eve only about the death of my mother. She doesn’t know where I live in Paris. When she asks you how to find me, say you haven’t any idea, that in this business people are always moving from place to place. Tell her I only had time to leave a message that I would never forget her … yes, that’s what you must say to her, that I will remember her for the rest of my life. And believe me, I will!”

“What if she shows up at the theater in Paris?”

“No, that couldn’t happen. She told me how closely guarded she always is during the day. She has no freedom—she has a chaperone—a chaperone, mind you!—wherever she goes. I knew she was lying about being a shopgirl, but I had no idea …”

“You have to do the matinée at least, Alain. There isn’t a train until night—I’ll tell the management that the telegram came during the matinée and I gave it to you right after the performance.”

“Whatever you say, Jules. You’re a real pal. What would I do without you?”

“Fall on your knees and pray for a miracle.”

All that day Eve sat at the piano in her mother’s boudoir. Wave after wave of severely erotic sensations attacked her and filled her with an almost unbearable sensitivity. She was consumed by thoughts of the undreamed-of ecstasy Alain had given her. She still didn’t fully understand it, but it was the only thing that mattered in life. Alain, Alain, Alain … until she saw him again she wanted to tear things to pieces with her teeth, to run and run until she fell down, unable to move, to bite her lips until they bled … it was so long to wait until nightfall! She avoided Louise, knowing that the extraordinary thing that happened to her must surely show on her face. She played the piano for hours on end, picking out one after another of the popular songs she had learned in the streets, but not singing a note because she knew that if
she did, she would break into tears of nerves. She didn’t play any of Alain’s songs, because her longing for him was so acute that she was terrified that anything that would aggravate it might drive her over the brink into a fit of animal howling.

Night finally fell on the endless summer evening, and Louise, strangely restless, took refuge in a good gossip with the cook, going upstairs to her room later than usual. It was almost ten-thirty before Eve could close the little door of the Rue Buffon behind her, and flee to the Alcazar.

She didn’t even bother to knock on Alain’s dressing room door, but opened it in the same wild, heedless rush in which she had run from home. The tiny room was empty, his clothes nowhere in sight. It was the wrong room, she thought, and turned back into the narrow corridor. On either side she saw the familiar dressing rooms that she had passed night after night, filled with the same performers she had grown to recognize.

“Jules!” Eve shouted, as the stage manager approached her. “Where is Alain? Why isn’t he in his room?”

“He’s gone. His mother died suddenly … a telegram came this afternoon. He had to go to Paris for the funeral—he didn’t sing tonight. He left me a message for you.”

“Tell me!”

“He said he’d never forget you, he’d remember you all his life.”

“That’s—all? There isn’t any
more
?”

“That’s all.” Jules felt sorry for her. She wasn’t the first woman to confuse the singer with his songs, but she was certainly the youngest and the most beautiful.

“Where does he live, Jules? Give me his address, oh please, you must tell me where I can find him!”

“I don’t know myself … he never said, I have no idea.”

Eve turned and ran out of the theater, moving without any realization that she was moving. Soon she found herself on the Rue de la Gare, which led toward the railroad station of Dijon. Within minutes she was inside the huge metal rotunda, looking around desperately for the placard that announced the departures and arrivals of all the trains that passed through the city. She knew that from late afternoon until night only one train for Paris stopped at Dijon.

“The train for Paris?” she asked imploringly as a porter hurried toward her.

“Quai
number four, but hurry, it’s about to leave,” he shouted.

Eve raced toward the entrance to the long
quai
where the train still stood and leaped up the high step into the last ear. Once she was safely inside, she stood almost too winded to catch her breath, listening to the train whistle, until gradually, it picked up enough force to move with a jerk. Only when it was smoothly chugging through the Tranchée des Perrières on the outskirts of the city did she recover enough strength in her legs to begin searching the length of the train.

She found Alain in a second-class carriage, far up the line of cars, standing in the corridor, his hands in his pockets and his head bent, looking gloomily at the iron rails of the roadbed. As soon as she recognized his figure in the distance she began to stumble toward him, the roughness of the roadbed throwing her so forcefully from side to side of the corridor that she couldn’t call out. Eve pitched forward onto Alain with a final lurch, clutching at him to break her fall. He started violently.

“You’re insane!” He shook off her arms.

“Thank God I found you!”

“You’re getting off this train at the next station!”

“I’m never going to leave you.”

“You must! Your family—”

“What have they got to do with it?
Nobody
can take me away from you.”

“You don’t understand anything,” he said brutally. “I’m not a marrying man. I’ll never settle down.”

“Did I say anything about marriage? A single word?”

“No, but you were thinking of it. Do you imagine I don’t know women?”

“I despise marriage, I despise everything about it,” Eve proclaimed truthfully, and the unbanked embers of her eyes, the proud, willful turn of her head, everything that was intemperate and unharnessed about her, told him that she meant what she said.

“Does anyone know you followed me?” he asked, suddenly tempted beyond wisdom by tormenting memories of her body.

“Nobody. Nobody in my world even knows you exist.”

“In that case—it’s on your own head,” he said rashly, and pulled her close. She was too necessary to give up now, not when he thought of the blood-stirring unfinished business that lay ahead.

3

E
VE’S first letter had arrived mercifully soon, two days after she had gone. Although it was addressed to her parents, Louise, frantic, had opened it immediately. It said only that she was safe, happy beyond belief, and, by her own incredible account, living with a man she loved. The parlor maid, too terrified even to hint at the catastrophe to anyone else in the household, had gone to the post office to wire the Couderts in Deauville, saying only enough to bring them home at once.

“Louise, you wretched creature,” Madame Coudert had screamed, as soon as they arrived. “Tell me what you know, or I’ll have you put in jail!”

“Chantal, be quiet,” Doctor Coudert interrupted impatiently. “This letter says in three different places that Louise knows nothing, that she lied to Louise, that it isn’t Louise’s fault.” Didn’t his wife realize yet that no matter what Louise knew or didn’t know, they needed her help in order to keep this matter secret until Eve came home?

“Now, Louise, think carefully,” Doctor Coudert continued. “What man do you think Mademoiselle Eve has gone away with? You won’t be punished if you tell us, I promise you, but we must find her before any harm is done. I beg you, Louise, tell us how she met this man, when did you see her talking to him? What did he look like?… Just tell us what you remember about him.”

“There has never been a strange man who talked to Mademoiselle Eve. I swear it on the Virgin Mother. She’s never been alone with a man in her life except when she went to confession, and even then I was always right outside, and so was Mademoiselle Helene before me. She never talked to me about men, never even asked me questions about what happened after a girl got married—except to say that she didn’t want to marry, not ever.” Louise broke into tears, remembering their walks in the garden only a few months
earlier, in that cold beginning of spring. “She knew nothing, I swear it.”

“Nothing,” Chantal Coudert snorted. “Look at this letter!
She has run away with some man!
It’s either one thing or the other. It can’t be both!”

“Please, Chantal, try to calm yourself.” Doctor Coudert took her hand firmly. “If we’re lucky, Eve will be back in a day or two. This is some kind of madness, some kind of adolescent problem to which girls of her age are prone. When she comes back we’ll understand what happened and not before. But meanwhile, until she gets home, it’s essential that nobody must know she’s not here except the three of us. Louise, are you listening carefully?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“Louise, you must tell the cook that Mademoiselle Eve is sick and that I believe that she is coming down with the mumps. I’ve left strict orders that none of the other servants go into her room. Tell them that she’s in quarantine. You alone will carry her trays back and forth and dispose of the food. Bring her only broth and bread and honey. She will have no appetite. I shall be seen visiting her room four or five times a day. If any of the servants finds out the truth, I will have you dismissed immediately without any reference and make sure that you never get another job in Dijon. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“Chantal, if for any reason Eve hasn’t returned by the time Marie-France returns to Paris from Deauville, we will ask her to come here immediately. We need her advice. And by then, if it should come to that, we’ll need her help.”

“What do you mean, Didier? What are you talking about—her help?”

“Do you think that a doctor doesn’t know what goes on in this world, my dear? Eve won’t be the first girl to spend a few months outside of Dijon and return with no one the wiser.”

“My God, how can you speak of your daughter so heartlessly? How can you talk about
months
, Didier?”

“I’m trying to be sensible and I advise you to do so as well. If we think ahead we can avoid a scandal, and that’s the most important thing, next to getting Eve back. She’ll thank us for this someday, you wait and see. Now, Louise, go to your room and try to stop crying. Wash your face and change
your apron. It’s only the mumps, you know, not the end of the world.” He spoke as much for his own sake as for the parlor maid’s.

On the same day that the Baronne de Courtizot arrived in Dijon from Paris, a second letter arrived. It was postmarked from Paris and told them little more than the first letter had. Eve had only sent it to reassure her parents about her well-being, for she knew too well what would happen if they found out where she was.