Vertigo (6 page)

He lay down on his bed and lit a cigarette. And suddenly he felt so sleepy that he hadn’t the energy to take his clothes off. His body went numb, petrified like those statues in the Louvre… Madeleine…

He woke up with a clear head, instantly recognizing the noise. Sirens. They howled in chorus over the roofs and the darkened city seemed like a hastily abandoned ship. In the house, a door slammed, then another. Steps hurried down the stairs. Flavières switched on his bedside lamp. Three o’clock. He turned over and went to sleep again.

At eight next morning he switched on the wireless with a yawn to hear the news. The German offensive had begun. And curiously enough he could only feel a sense of relief. Real war, at last. That would soon shake him out of his own personal troubles, making him share the general ones, which were both more exciting and more legitimate. Events would now take charge of things, making decisions for him which he shirked making for himself. Yes, the war was coming to his rescue. He
had merely to let himself go, float down on the stream. A new spark of life kindled in him. He was hungry. His fatigue was gone. Madeleine rang up. The usual rendezvous. Two o’clock.

All the morning he worked briskly, saw clients, answered the telephone. He could detect in people’s voices an excitement akin to his own. News was scarce. The papers and the radio made a lot of fuss over some initial successes, but without giving any precise details. That, of course, was only to be expected. He had lunch near the Palais de Justice with a colleague and they lingered over their coffee, talking. Everyone talked, even to strangers, discussing the situation, unfolding maps. Flavières enjoyed the free and easy atmosphere and the feeling of crisis, which he drank in with all his senses. He just had time to jump into his Simca and dash to the Etoile. He was drunk with words, with bustle, with sunshine.

Madeleine was waiting for him. Why had she chosen the same little brown suit she had worn the day she had…? For a moment Flavières retained her gloved hand in his.

‘I nearly died of anxiety,’ he said.

‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t very well. Can I drive?’

‘By all means. I’m living on my nerves today. They’re attacking. Have you heard?’

‘Yes.’

She drove down the Avenue Victor-Hugo and Flavières realized at once she was still not quite herself. She changed gears clumsily, let the clutch in with a jerk, and jammed on the brakes. She had a bad colour.

‘Let’s go for a good long drive,’ she said. ‘It may be our last.’

‘Why?’

She shrugged her shoulders.

‘No one knows what’s going to happen now. In any case I may be leaving Paris.’

So Gévigne had raised the question. Perhaps they’d had a row about it. Flavières didn’t talk. He didn’t want to take her mind off her driving till they were clear of the traffic. They left Paris by the Porte de la Muette and plunged into the Bois de Boulogne. Then he began:

‘Why should you leave Paris? There’s little risk of air raids, and this time the Germans won’t even reach the Marne.’

When she didn’t answer, he went on:

‘Is it because of… because of me?… I don’t want to disturb your life, Madeleine… You don’t mind me calling you that now, do you?… All I want is that you promise never again to write a letter like that one you tore up… You understand what I mean?’

She pursed her lips, apparently intent on overtaking a lorry. The race-track at Longchamp looked like a huge meadow, and the eye instinctively looked for cows or sheep. There was a traffic jam at the Pont de Suresnes and for a while they only advanced at a walking pace.

‘Don’t let’s talk about that any more,’ she pleaded. ‘And let’s forget all about the war for a moment.’

‘But you’re sad, Madeleine. I can see you are.’

‘Me?’

She made a brave attempt at a smile, which wrung his heart.

‘No, I’m just the same as usual,’ she went on. ‘Really I am. I’m enjoying every moment of this drive. That’s what I like—just to take whatever road turns up, without thinking about anything. I wish it was possible to stop thinking altogether. Oh, why aren’t we animals?’

‘You don’t really mean that.’

‘I do. I don’t pity animals at all. On the contrary. They eat, they sleep, and they’re innocent. They have no pasts and no futures.’

‘Some philosophy, that!’

‘I don’t know whether it’s a philosophy, but I can’t help envying them.’

For the next hour they only exchanged an occasional remark. At Bougival they found the Seine again and followed the left bank for a while. A little later Flavières caught sight of the Château de Saint-Germain. In the deserted forest, Madeleine speeded up, only slowing down a little when they came to Poissy. Then she drove straight on, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. On the far side of Meulan a woman with a handcart full of logs was right in the middle of the road. Without waiting for her to pull over to the side, Madeleine turned down a lane to the right. They passed a makeshift saw-mill, which had been erected on the site for some job or other, and then abandoned. Only the smell of sawn timber told of its recent use. Coming to some cross-roads, Madeleine chose the righthand turning, presumably attracted by the hedges which were in full flower. A horse with a white spot on its forehead gazed at them over a five-barred gate.

Madeleine seemed to be in a hurry, though there was no reason for it, and the car bumped over the ruts. Furtively, Flavières looked at his wrist-watch. It was about time they stopped. Then they could walk together side by side. That would be the moment to question her. She was certainly hiding something. Possibly she had something on her conscience, something from long ago, perhaps before her marriage. Remorse could easily explain her obsession. She wasn’t ill, she wasn’t mad, she wasn’t untruthful. Yet there might be something she
had never been able to tell anybody, not even her husband. The more he thought of this idea, the more plausible he found it. But what could she be guilty of? For it would obviously be something serious.

‘Do you know that church?’ she asked. ‘Have you any idea where we are?’

‘What?… I’m sorry… That church?… No, I don’t know where we are. Let’s stop, anyhow. It’s already half past three.’

They drew up in the empty square in front of the church. To one side, on a lower level, some roofs were visible behind a few trees.

‘Queer mixture,’ said Madeleine, looking critically at the church. ‘Part Romanesque, part modern. It isn’t good.’

‘The tower’s too tall for the rest.’

They went in. A notice over the stoup explained that the priest, having to minister to several other parishes, was only able to say one mass a week here, on Sundays at 11 a.m.

‘That’s why the place looks so neglected,’ whispered Madeleine.

They went slowly on, between the rush-seated chairs. The clucking of hens came from a garden near by. The pictures of the stations of the cross were peeling. A wasp was buzzing round the altar. Madeleine crossed herself and knelt down on a dusty
prie-dieu.
Flavières stood by her, keeping very still. For what sin was she asking forgiveness? Would she have gone to hell if she had succeeded in drowning herself? Unable to hold out any longer, he knelt down beside her.

‘Madeleine… Do you really believe?’

She turned her head slightly. She was so white he thought she was ill.

‘What’s the matter?… Tell me, Madeleine.’

‘Nothing,’ she whispered. ‘Yes, I believe… I’m obliged to believe that nothing finishes when we think it does… That’s what’s so terrible.’

For a long minute she buried her face in her hands.

‘Come on,’ she said at last. ‘Let’s go.’

She stood up and crossed herself again, facing the altar. He plucked at her sleeve.

‘Yes. We’d better go. I don’t like to see you in this state.’

‘I’ll be all right outside in the fresh air.’

They passed a tumbledown confessional. Flavières was sorry he couldn’t put Madeleine into it. That’s what she needed: a priest. Priests forget. Would he forget, if she told her trouble to him? He heard her groping in the dim light for a latch. A door opened on a spiral staircase.

‘That’s the wrong door, Madeleine. It leads up into the belfry.’

‘I’d like to have a look,’ she answered.

‘It’s getting late.’

‘I shan’t be a minute.’

She had already started up the stairs. He couldn’t very well stay behind. Reluctantly he followed, gripping the greasy rope which served as a banister rail.

‘Don’t go so quickly, Madeleine.’

His voice resounded in the narrow vaulted staircase. Madeleine took no notice; her steps hurried on. Reaching a little landing, he saw through an aperture the roof of the Simca, and, behind a screen of poplars, a field in which women were working, their hair bound in kerchiefs. Already at this height he felt uncomfortable and, hurriedly turning away from the loophole, he went on up the stairs.

‘Madeleine!… Wait for me.’

He was panting and his temples were throbbing. Another landing, another loophole. This time he took care not to look. Nor on the other side either—that was worse. For the stairs swept round so as to leave an open shaft in the middle, down which hung the bell-rope. Rooks were cawing round the tower. He didn’t know how he’d ever be able to get down again.

‘Madeleine!’

His voice was hoarse with anxiety. Was he going to start yelling like a child in the dark? He was coming to another landing; he could see a glint of the light of the loophole. He knew very well what giddiness awaited him there: yet, when he got to it, he couldn’t help looking. This time he was above the tree-tops and the Simca was no more than a little patch of black. The air came whistling in from everywhere, swirling round him. On the landing he found his further passage barred by a door. He tried to open it, but couldn’t. He wasn’t at the top. Looking across the bell-rope shaft he could see the stairs went on, though they were now encased, so there was no question of getting round the door that way.

‘Madeleine!… Open the door.’

Frantically, he shook the handle and banged with his fist on the door. What was Madeleine up to? Could she be?…

‘No, Madeleine!’ he shouted wildly. ‘You mustn’t… Don’t do that… Listen to me.’

His voice was picked up by the bells, which returned it with a slightly metallic resonance, a queer inhuman quality. Frantic, he turned towards the loophole. No, it was more than a loophole: on this landing it was quite a large aperture, divided in two by the door. Even the half was broad enough for a human
body to squeeze through. Could a man pass the door that way, getting out one side and in the other? Yes, all the more so as there was a cornice on the level of the landing broad enough to offer a meagre foothold. Yes, it was possible… For a man!… Not for him! He’d fall: he knew it… No, he couldn’t face it…

‘Madeleine!’ he shouted. ‘Madeleine!’

She answered with a shrill cry and a shadow passed across the opening in the wall. Biting his knuckles he counted, as, when a boy, he had counted between the lightning and the thunder. And the thunder came—a horrid dull thud from below. In the voice of a dying man, Flavières repeated:

‘Madeleine… Madeleine… No…’

He had to sit down. He felt he was going to faint. Then, without standing up, he lowered himself from step to step. It was a slow progress, and all the way he couldn’t help groaning with terror and despair. On the first landing he risked a look. Kneeling, he peered out through the loophole. Beneath him, on the left, was an old churchyard, and straight below him, at the bottom of the horribly smooth wall, lay an ugly, shapeless heap of brown clothes. He wiped his eyes: he had to see at all costs. There was some blood on the gravel, a gaping black handbag from which a shining gold lighter had escaped.

Flavières wept. He didn’t even think of going to her assistance. She was dead. And he was dead with her.

From a distance Flavières contemplated the body. He had come through the cemetery, but was now unable to advance another step. He remembered Madeleine’s voice murmuring:

‘It doesn’t hurt to die.’

Desperately, he clung to that idea. No, she hadn’t had time to suffer. They had said the same thing about Leriche. Like her, he had fallen head first. No time to suffer? Really? How could one be sure? When Leriche’s head had smashed on the pavement, spattering blood all round…

Flavières couldn’t finish the sentence. He had seen his companion’s remains in the hospital; he had seen the doctor’s report. And his fall had been from a lesser height than hers. He could imagine the terrible shock, a sort of explosion splintering the mind into little fragments… like a precious mirror reduced suddenly to atoms. Nothing was left of Madeleine now but that lifeless bundle made only of clothes, like a scarecrow.

He forced himself to come closer, obliging himself to look and to suffer, since he was responsible for everything. Through his tears he saw a blurred picture: her hair had come undone and to that faint mahogany tint was now added streaks of blood, a hand was already wax-like, her wedding ring glittered on one of the fingers. If he had dared, he would have taken that ring and worn it on his little finger. Instead he merely picked up the lighter.

Poor little Eurydice! She would never come back from the nothingness into which she had plunged.

He backed slowly away, still staring at her as though he had killed her himself. He was suddenly frightened of this horrible heap, across which flitted the occasional shadow of a rook. He fled. Hurrying between the gravestones, his fingers tightly clenched on the lighter, it suddenly occurred to him that it was in a cemetery that he had first studied Madeleine, and it was in a cemetery again that he was taking leave of her.

It was all over. No one would ever know why she had killed herself. No one would ever know he had been there, or that he had not had the courage to get beyond that door. He made his way round to the front of the church and took refuge in his car. His reflection in the windscreen filled him with disgust. He hated himself for being alive—if you could call it that. It was more like being in hell.

He drove for a considerable time without knowing where he was. Then, to his amazement, he recognized the station of Pontoise. In the town he passed the
gendarmerie
. Ought he to go in and raise the alarm? Ought he to give himself up? No. He had committed no fault in the eyes of the law. They would merely think him insane. What could he do, then? Put a bullet through his brain? Impossible: he’d never have the guts. More than ever now, he had to live with the knowledge that he was a coward. He had no head for heights! Rubbish. That was no excuse. It was willpower he lacked. Ah! How right Madeleine had been! Far better be an animal! To graze peacefully till it was time for the pole-axe!

It was six o’clock when he entered Paris by the Porte d’Asnières. Of course, he had to tell Gévigne: there was no
avoiding that. He stopped at a café in the Boulevard Malesherbes. He washed his face and brushed his hair, then went into the telephone-box. A voice he didn’t know informed him that Gévigne was out and not expected back at the office that day. He drank a glass of brandy, standing at the bar. Grief pervaded him like a sort of drunkenness. He had the impression he was living in an aquarium, that other people swam past him noiselessly as fish. He had another brandy. Every now and again he would tell himself that Madeleine was dead. He wasn’t surprised—not really. How could he be? Hadn’t it been obvious all along that he would lose her in this way? He would have had to pour out far more vitality than he possessed to keep her in this world.

‘Garçon, la même chose.’

Yes, he needed yet another. He had saved her once. That was something, wasn’t it? He really had no right to reproach himself. Even if he had got past that door, he would have been too late to stop her. She was too set on dying. Gévigne had chosen the wrong man for the job—that was the long and short of it. He should have chosen someone very charming, brilliant—an artist perhaps—but in any case someone brimming over with energy and gaiety. He had chosen a niggling type, too preoccupied with himself, a prisoner of his own past… But what was the good?… The damage was done now…

Flavières paid for his drinks and went. God, he was tired! He drove slowly to the Etoile. A few hours ago she had held that wheel he was holding now. He envied those clairvoyants who, from merely holding a handkerchief or an envelope, could read a person’s most secret thoughts. How dearly he would have liked to know the last agony of Madeleine’s mind. No, that was putting it badly—there hadn’t been any agony. It
was her indifference to life—that was the real secret. She had walked out of it without a qualm. She had plunged head first, her arms wide open, welcoming the earth that was about to kill her. It wasn’t so much that she was escaping this life, she was going
back
to something, going home…

It had been a mistake to drink all that brandy. His thoughts were all over the place. He turned into the Avenue Kléber and parked the Simca behind Gévigne’s big black car. He was no longer afraid of Gévigne. This was the last time he’d see him. He walked up the stairs, rather too ceremonial with their red carpet and white stone. Gévigne’s brass name-plate was on a double door. Flavières rang. He took his hat off before the door was open and stood waiting humbly.

‘Monsieur Gévigne?… Maître Flavières.’

Madeleine’s home! He tried to put a special meaning into his eyes as they roamed over the furniture, the curtains, the ornaments. He was saying good-bye. The pictures in the
salon
were disturbing in their strangeness. They were mostly of animals—unicorns, swans, birds of paradise, which were painted in a way which recalled Douanier Rousseau. Flavières went up to one of them and read the signature:
Mad. Gév.
Was it these fantastic creatures that were now welcoming her in the other world? Where had she seen that black lake, those water-lilies like chalices full of poison, that forest of tree-trunks and lianas which stood solemnly watching a dance of humming-birds? Over the mantelpiece was the portrait of a young woman round whose slender neck was an amber necklace. Pauline Lagerlac. Her hair was done just like Madeleine’s. The face, tortured without being distorted, had an absent expression as if the soul was at grip with some problem known to her alone.
Profoundly troubled, Flavières stood gazing at it till the door opened behind him.

‘You at last!’ said Gévigne.

Flavières turned round and managed to find just the right tone of voice in which to say:

‘Is she here?’

‘What?… It’s you who ought to know where she is.’

Flavières sank into an easy chair. He didn’t have to do any play-acting to look distraught.

‘We didn’t go out together today,’ he explained. ‘I waited for her at the Etoile up to four o’clock… Then I went to the hotel in the Rue des Saints-Pères, to the Passy Cemetery, anywhere where I thought I had a chance of finding her… I’ve just got back… And, if she’s not here…’

He looked up at Gévigne, who had gone quite white. His eyes were staring, his mouth open, like a man being strangled.

‘No, Roger,’ he stammered. ‘You’re not… You’re not telling me… You can’t be…’

Flavières opened his hands.

‘I tell you I’ve looked everywhere.’

‘It’s impossible… Do you realize that…’

He tapped with his foot on the carpet, wrung his hands, then flopped down in a corner of a sofa.

‘We must find her,’ he gasped. ‘We must find her at once… At once… I couldn’t bear it if…’

He thumped the arm of the sofa with all his might, and there was in that reflex such rage, such suffering, and such violence that it reacted on Flavières who began to get angry, too.

‘When a woman’s made up her mind to run away,’ he said spitefully, ‘it’s pretty hard to stop her.’

‘Run away? Run away? As if Madeleine was a woman to run away! I only wish I could think it possible… By now she may well be…’

He jumped up, almost knocking over a small table. He walked to the far end of the room. With his shoulders hunched and his head forward, he looked like a wary boxer.

‘What does one do in a case like this?’ he asked. ‘You ought to know. Does one call in the police?… For heaven’s sake say something, man!’

‘They’d laugh in our faces. If she’d been gone two or three days, it would be a different matter.’

‘Not if it came from you. They know you… And if you explained that Madeleine had already tried to kill herself, that you’d dragged her out of the Seine with your own hands, and that she might well have tried again today, they’d believe you, I’m sure…’

‘We’ve nothing to go on, old chap. She’s been out a few hours. She’ll be back for dinner—you’ll see.’

‘Supposing she’s not?’

‘In any case it’s not my business to report her missing.’

‘So you wash your hands of it?’

‘It’s not that… Try and understand… It’s the normal thing for the husband to call in the police.’

‘All right, I’ll do so at once.’

‘You’d only be making a fool of yourself. In any case they wouldn’t take any action on such flimsy evidence. They’d merely take down the particulars and promise to let you know if she turned up. That’s all. I know.’

Slowly Gévigne put his hands in his pockets.

‘If I have to sit here and wait, I’ll go out of my mind.’

He began pacing up and down, then stopped in front of a bowl of roses on the mantelpiece, which he contemplated mournfully.

‘I must be going now,’ said Flavières.

Gévigne didn’t budge. He went on looking at the flowers. Only a slight tremor passed over his face.

‘In your place,’ went on Flavières hurriedly, ‘I’d simply put the thing out of my mind. It’s only just gone seven. She might have lingered in a shop, or met someone.’

‘You just don’t care,’ snarled Gévigne. ‘Why should you?’

‘There’s absolutely no need to get all worked up about it. If she’s run away, she can’t have got far.’

He explained politely to Gévigne the various methods employed by the police to track down missing persons. He warmed up to the subject in spite of his exhaustion. He seemed to have become two people at once. One was eagerly proving that Madeleine couldn’t escape, and almost proving it to himself. The other would have liked to fling himself down on the carpet and sob out his heart’s despair. Still gazing at the flowers, Gévigne seemed completely lost in thought.

‘Give me a ring when she comes in,’ said Flavières, making for the door.

Yes, it was high time he went. He could no longer control his features, no longer trust his eyes. The truth was surging up within him. At any moment he might burst out:

‘She’s dead… Madeleine’s dead.’

‘Don’t go,’ muttered Gévigne.

‘I must. I’d stay if I could, of course. But if you knew how my work was piling up…’

‘Don’t go,’ pleaded Gévigne again. ‘I couldn’t bear to be alone when they… when they bring her back.’

‘Come on, Paul. You’re losing your sense of proportion.’

Gévigne’s immobility was positively frightening.

‘If you’re here, you can explain to them all we’ve done, the struggle we’ve had…’

‘Of course… But no one’s going to bring her back. Take my word for it.’

Flavières’ voice had faltered. To gain time, he whipped out his handkerchief, coughed, blew his nose.

‘Keep your chin up, Paul… It’ll all come right… Don’t forget to give me a ring.’

As he opened the door he looked back. With his head sunk on his chin, Gévigne seemed turned to stone. Flavières went out, shutting the door gently behind him. He crossed the hall on tip-toe. He felt sick with disgust, and yet relieved. The hardest part was over. The Gévigne Case was wound up. As for what Gévigne was suffering… But wasn’t he, Flavières, suffering just as much? More! He had to admit, as he got into his car and slammed the door, that he had almost from the first regarded himself as Madeleine’s real husband. Gévigne was only a usurper. And you don’t sacrifice yourself for a usurper; you don’t go to the police, to your former colleagues, and explain to them that you’ve allowed a young woman to kill herself because you hadn’t the courage to go to her rescue… You don’t for the second time in your life accept dishonour for the sake of a man who… No. Leave that alone! Silence! Peace! The thing now was to get away, and did not that client of his at Orléans provide an excellent pretext for leaving Paris?

Flavières never knew how he managed to drive back to the garage. He was walking now, not caring where he went, down a street bathed in an evening light which seemed to float in
straight from the country, very blue, sad, and with overtones of war. At a crossing there was a crowd pressing round a car which had two mattresses lashed down on the roof. The world was becoming chaotic. As darkness fell all lights were extinguished, and the subdued crowd ebbed back into their homes leaving deserted squares whose silence tore at one’s heart. Everything conspired to bring his mind back to the dead woman. He entered a small restaurant in the Rue Saint-Honoré and chose a table in the far corner.

‘
A la carte
?’ asked the waiter.

‘No, I’ll have the
table d’hôte
.’

He couldn’t bear to choose, yet he must eat something. He must try to go on living as before. He thrust his hand in his pocket to touch the lighter, and Madeleine’s face sprang up before him, floating between his eyes and the white tablecloth.

‘She never loved me,’ he mused. ‘She never loved anybody.’

He swallowed his soup mechanically. He was detached from the things of the world, like an ascetic. He would live henceforth as a pauper, wallowing in his grief, imposing penances to punish himself. He might even buy a whip and take to flagellation. It was only right he should hate himself. He must hate himself for a long time before he had a right to any self-respect.

‘They’ve broken through at Liège,’ said the waiter. ‘Seems the Belgians are falling back, just as they did in ’14.’

‘Gossip,’ said Flavières. ‘Pay no attention to it.’