Vertigo (8 page)

He knew very well he had never been really in love. He had never seen himself with such clarity as now. He had taken to drink just to silence this sceptical, sneering observer who liked to knock the bottom out of every illusion, who accused him of deluding himself with storybook stuff, of reciting to himself an interminable elegy to gratify his taste for melancholy, solitude, and impotence. Only, it needed always more and more drink to banish this cynical debunker. Only when several glasses had spread their numbing warmth through his brain could Madeleine reappear, gentle and merciful. She spoke to him of the life that might have been, and he glowed with happiness. But it was the other Flavières who woke up next morning with his mouth full of bitter, insulting words.

‘Here’s Sailly,’ cried Gustave.

With his fingers, Flavières cleared a space on the misty window.

‘Turn right at the next crossing. Then it’ll be two or three kilometres.’

The taxi rattled along a lane full of ruts and potholes. Drips from the wet trees, blackened by the rain, fell on to the dead leaves in the ditches. Now and again a house slipped by, a wisp of blue smoke rising from the chimney.

‘There’s a church ahead,’ said Gustave.

‘With a tall tower? That’s the place.’

The car drew up in front of the church, just as the Simca had
done long ago. Flavières got out and looked up at the cornice which ran round the tower. He wasn’t moved. But he had never felt colder in his life. He went off to find the houses whose roofs he had seen from the tower. There they were, huddled on the side of the hill under the bare branches of the chestnut trees, a dozen or so cottages round which hens were silently wandering about. A low shop-window, the lettering almost effaced. Flavières went in. A smell of candles and paraffin. A few picture postcards were turning yellow on a shelf.

‘What do you want?’ asked an old woman, emerging from the room behind.

‘Is there any chance of getting some eggs? Or some meat? I’m an invalid, and you know what it’s like in Paris.’

He didn’t ask humbly or insinuatingly enough. He was certain she was going to refuse. With an off-hand air, he studied the picture postcards.

‘Never mind,’ he said, ‘I’ll try somewhere else. But I’ll take this card of the church… Saint-Nicolas, is it?… That rings a bell. Didn’t I read about it in the papers way back in 1940—in May, I think. Wasn’t there some talk of a suicide?’

‘Yes. A woman fell from the church tower.’

‘I remember now. Wife of a Paris industrialist, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes. Madame Gévigne. I shall never forget the name. It was I who found the body. We’ve had troubles enough since then, but I still think of that poor creature.’

‘You wouldn’t have any
eau-de-vie
, would you? I don’t seem able to keep the cold out.’

She looked at him with eyes that had seen the flux and reflux of war and which no longer expressed anything.

‘I dare say I could give you a drop.’

Flavières stuffed the postcard into his pocket and put some coins on the counter. The woman soon came back with a bottle and a glass. It was horrible stuff and burnt his throat.

‘A funny idea to throw oneself from a church tower.’

She stowed her hands away under her shawl. Perhaps she didn’t think it such a bad idea as all that.

‘She made sure of getting what she wanted,’ she answered. ‘Why, it’s sixty feet and more up to that belfry. She fell head first.’

It was on the tip of Flavières’ tongue to say:

‘I know. I saw her.’

His breath was coming a bit quicker now, but he didn’t really think he was suffering. Only, he felt again Madeleine was slipping from him, was really destroying herself for good and all. Each word that fell from the old woman’s lips was like a shovelful of earth on the half-filled grave.

‘I was all alone in the village at the time,’ she went on. ‘All the men had been called up, and the women were out working in the fields. At six o’clock I went into the church to say a prayer for my boy who was right up in the front—in the
Corps Franc,
you know.’

She was silent for a minute. A shrunken little woman in black clothes.

‘I came out through the sacristy door to take a short cut across the churchyard, so I couldn’t help seeing her, lying at the foot of the tower… What a job I had getting through to the
Gendarmerie
…’

She stared at the hens scratching about round the doorway. She was no doubt recalling the fear and oppression of that evening, the gendarmes coming and going and examining the ground by the light of their electric torches.

‘It must have been a painful experience,’ said Flavières.

‘Yes. And to make it worse we had the gendarmes here for a whole week. They would have it the poor woman had been pushed.’

‘Pushed? What made them think that?’

‘Someone in Sailly said he’d seen a man and a woman in a car, driving this way.’

Flavières lit a cigarette. So that’s what it was! Someone had seen him, and he’d been taken for the husband. So he was more than ever responsible for Gévigne’s death.

But what was the good of trying to straighten things out now? No one would be interested. He emptied his glass and looked round for something else he could buy. There was nothing but brooms, bundles of firewood, and balls of string.

‘Thanks for the
eau-de-vie
,’ he murmured.

‘You’re welcome.’

He went out; he threw away his cigarette, which was making him cough. Back at the church, he hesitated. Should he go in once again, to kneel where she had prayed? No. Her prayer had been in vain. Her body had been blasted into space. He thought of the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. How could Madeleine’s body be pieced together again on the Day of Judgment from the atoms into which it had disintegrated?

‘
Adieu, Madeleine
,’ he whispered, looking up at the cross round which the rooks were cawing.

‘Back to Paris, Monsieur?’

‘Back to Paris.’

And as the taxi jostled once again along the lane and he turned to cast a final glance at the receding church, he felt sure that at last he was leaving the past behind. At the turning they were just coming to, it would, with that ominous tower,
be blotted out for ever. He shut his eyes and dozed all the way back to Paris.

Yet that afternoon he couldn’t resist going to see Dr. Ballard and pouring out the whole story, as to a father confessor. With a few omissions, of course. He didn’t pronounce the name of Gévigne, nor did he mention the suspicions of the police. He could no longer bottle it up. More than once he almost wept.

‘So it comes to this,’ said the psychiatrist, ‘you’re still looking for her. You refuse to believe she’s dead.’

Flavières demurred.

‘It’s not exactly that. She’s dead, obviously. I know she is. But I can’t help thinking all the same… of course you’ll say this is crazy… I can’t help thinking of her great-grandmother, Pauline Lagerlac… There was something closer than mere family relationship between them, something…’

‘What you’re trying to tell me is that this young woman, Madeleine, had already been dead once. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s what you believe?’

‘It’s not a belief, Doctor. What I’ve been telling you is what I heard with my own ears and saw with my own eyes.’

‘Whatever you heard or saw, it boils down to this: that Madeleine may quite well be alive, since she has come back from the grave once already.’

‘If you put it in that way…’

‘You don’t put it quite so baldly, of course. On the contrary you unconsciously do all you can to blur the outlines… Lie down on the couch, will you?’

The doctor spent a long time testing his reflexes. He made a face.

‘Did you drink before?’

‘No. I began in Dakar, and little by little…’

‘Drugs?’

‘Never.’

‘I’m wondering whether you really want to be cured.’

‘I certainly do.’

‘Then you must stop drinking. You must get this woman out of your mind. You must tell yourself she’s dead. Permanently dead. Do you understand? Permanently… But once again: do you really want to be cured? Sincerely?’

‘Yes, sincerely.’

‘Then you must take the bull by the horns. No wobbling. I’ll give you a note for a friend of mine who has a home near Nice.’

‘You’re not going to shut me up?’

‘No, no. You’re not as bad as that. I’m sending you there partly because of the climate. Coming back from the tropics, you need plenty of sunshine. Have you got any money?’

‘Yes.’

‘I warn you, it may take quite a long time.’

‘I’ll stay as long as necessary.’

‘Splendid.’

Flavières sat down, feeling weak in the legs. He hardly listened any more to the doctor. He was too busy repeating to himself:

‘I want to be cured. Sincerely.’

And to begin the treatment he really regretted having ever loved Madeleine. He was going to start life afresh, turn over a new leaf. Later on, he would be able to approach other women, be like other men… The doctor was still giving him advice. Flavières accepted it, promising this, promising that. Yes, he would take a train south that very evening. Yes, he would stop drinking. Yes, he would rest. Yes… yes… yes.

‘Shall I call a taxi for you?’ asked the doctor’s secretary.

‘It’ll do me good to walk a bit.’

He went to a travel agency. A notice said that all trains were booked up for a week ahead. Flavières took out his wallet and booked a seat for that very night. All he had to do now was to telephone to the Palais de Justice and his bank. When everything was settled, he wandered about this town in which he was now a stranger. His train went at nine. He’d have dinner at his hotel. That left four hours to kill. He went into a cinema without even bothering to see what was showing. All he wanted was to forget his visit to Dr. Ballard and all those questions he’d been asked. He had never for a moment seriously considered the possibility he might be going mad. Now he was afraid. He felt clammy between the shoulders. He was dying for a drink. Once again he began to hate himself with a shudder of disgust.

The screen lit up and with a blare of music the news was announced. It began with General de Gaulle’s visit to Marseilles. Uniforms, flags, bayonets, the crowd being with difficulty pressed back on to the pavement. Close-ups of spectators caught with their mouths wide open, yelling cheers that couldn’t be heard. A fat man waving his hat. A woman who turned slowly round and faced the camera. The eyes were pale, and the delicate features recalled some portrait by Lawrence. The camera moved on, but Flavières had had time to recognize her. Half rising from his seat he thrust a terrified face towards the screen.

‘Sit down,’ cried a voice. ‘Sit down.’

He dragged at his collar, his chest bursting with a suffocating cry. He gazed blindly at the marching troops and heard a flourish of trumpets. A rough hand dragged him back into his seat.

No. It was not Madeleine… He had stayed till the news came round again, and forced himself to look coolly at the picture. He had waited for that face with all his attention concentrated, determined not merely to see it clearly, but to memorize it. And suddenly there it was, for a second or two, and one part of him, as before, had been completely bowled over, while the other part hadn’t so much as winced. The woman on the screen was about thirty and inclined to be plump. What else?… Her mouth certainly wasn’t the same. Yet the resemblance was undeniable—particularly the eyes. Mobilizing all his faculties, Flavières tried to compare the two faces, but in the end he could only see splodges of colour, as if he had been gazing too long at a bright light.

He went back again in the evening. Never mind: he would take the train tomorrow night… And in the evening he made a discovery: the man next to her was obviously with her—a husband or a lover. He was holding her arm, afraid perhaps of losing her in the crush. On this occasion, Flavières noticed quite a lot he hadn’t seen before. The man was well dressed, with a rather showy pearl tie-pin. The woman had a fur coat on.

Flavières came away after the news. The streets were poorly lit. It was still drizzling and he pulled his hat down over his eyes, because of the wind. As he did so, other things came back to him. The man at Marseilles had an overcoat on, but
was bareheaded, and behind him, rather out of focus, was the façade of a hotel with three big letters one above the other: RIA. Probably the name of the hotel, lit up at night; something like
Astoria
… What else?

Nothing else. At least nothing factual. But it amused Flavières to see how much he could build on what he had seen. It was such a long time since he’d played the detective. They would be staying in that hotel, and would have dashed out to see the procession pass… As for the resemblance…

There certainly was one. But what of it? A likeness—what a thing to make a fuss about! As though one wasn’t reminded of people every day! And he had allowed himself to get upset once again. There was a certain happy man in Marseilles who had a girl whose eyes happened to… As for happy men, they’d be common as dirt now, with a war just over. He’d have to get used to that idea, even if it was a slightly painful one… At his hotel, Flavières made straight for the bar. Admittedly he’d promised that medico… but he needed a glass or two to get his own back on the happy couple staying at the
Astoria
.

‘Whisky, please.’

He had three. It didn’t matter now that he was going to take himself in hand seriously. He found whisky more efficacious than brandy. Almost at a blow, it dispelled the regrets, the suspicions, the resentments. There always remained something—a confused feeling of enormous injustice—but no alcohol on earth would ever quite remove that. Flavières went to bed. He’d been a fool to postpone his departure.

The next morning, slipping some notes into the ticket collector’s hand, he settled down in a first-class compartment. This infinite power of money! But it had come too late. It
didn’t bring serenity, didn’t stop him being feverish, gloomy, or washed out. If he’d been rich before the war, if he’d been able to offer Madeleine… There he was again! He was going to put an end to that.

All the same he hadn’t yet thrown away her lighter. Perhaps because of that absurd news-reel. He could do it at any moment, now even—just throw it out of the window. Perhaps he would. There were objects that had evil emanations, slowly poisoning the lives of their owners. Diamonds, for instance. Why not a lighter? Then why not get rid of it? All the same, he knew he never would. It was the one proof that he had once almost been happy. He’d have it put in his coffin.

To be put under the ground hugging a gold lighter! Another absurd idea! Yet he nursed it, and, to the steady rhythm of the wheels, he let his fancy roam… Why had he always been haunted by those underground caverns, by the drip of water in dim light, by the musty air of tunnels, the tortuous entrails of the earth which led down to black pools full of sleeping precious stones? That was where the story had begun, at Saumur, perhaps because of his lonely childhood, which had driven him to books. His favourite, an old mythology, which he had read and re-read, shivering with the chill of death, had been a school prize of his grandfather’s. On the fly-leaf was a device and the motto
Labor Omnia Vincit Improbus
, and amongst the mould-marked pages were weird pictures: Sisyphus and his great block of marble, the Danaides pouring water into a sieve, Orpheus emerging from a tomb holding Eurydice by the hand.

His head jolting against the grubby white antimacassar, Flavières watched the real world flit by, hardly seeing it. He felt better: he was playing a game with himself, enjoying his fatigue
and his new-found liberty. At Nice he might buy himself a nice little house just outside the town. He’d sleep most of the day. Then when the bats fluttered noiselessly in the evening air, he’d stroll down to the sea-front without thinking of anything. Ah! Not to think! He was advancing towards the black abysses of unconsciousness like the wanderer who quickens his step nearing home.

When the express stopped at Marseilles, Flavières got out. No question of staying there, of course. To make sure of it, he consulted a ticket collector, but the man’s answer was unhelpful.

‘Your ticket allows you to break your journey for a week.’

All right, if that’s how the land lay, he’d stay. Might just as well be frank about it. Nothing to be gained by cheating. But only for a night. Just long enough to check up. He hailed a taxi.

‘The
Astoria
.’

‘The
Waldorf Astoria
?’

‘Naturally,’ answered Flavières, chuckling inwardly.

In the hall of the huge hotel, he looked round warily. He knew very well he was playing a game with himself. He was frightening himself—not such a bad game, either. He got a kick out of this uneasiness, this expectation of he knew not what.

‘For one night? Or are you staying several days?’

‘I don’t know… that is… I might be staying.’

‘We’ve only got a suite on the first floor—a large room with a small
salon
.’

‘That’ll do me nicely.’

In fact he was delighted. He needed this luxury: it was the proper setting for the comedy he was playing. He questioned the lift-boy as he went up.

‘When was it General de Gaulle came here?’

‘A week ago last Sunday.’

Flavières calculated. Twelve days. That was a long time.

‘Have you by any chance noticed a middle-aged man who wears a pearl tie-pin?’

In painful suspense, he waited for the answer, well though he knew it would lead to nothing.

‘No… I can’t say I have… We get so many here.’

Of course they did. It was nothing to be disappointed about. The first thing he did in his room was to lock the door. An ingrained habit. He had always been a bit mad about locks and bolts and patent security devices, and it was growing on him all the time. He shaved and changed and had a good look at himself in the glass. That was all part of the game. And the eyes he saw in the glass glittered like an actor’s. He sauntered down to the bar casually, one hand in a pocket, exactly as if he was expecting to meet an old friend of former days. His eyes glanced round rapidly, pausing for a second at every woman’s face. He perched himself on a stool at the bar.

‘A whisky.’

Round a narrow space kept clear for dancing, people in deep easy chairs were chatting. Standing near the bar with cigarettes between their fingers, a group of men were talking confidentially. The little flags stuck in glasses, the high-lights on the bottles, the slowly throbbing syncopated music, conspired to make life like a story. It was all slightly feverish, and as Flavières rapidly gulped down his whisky, the fever caught hold of him. He felt ready. For what?

‘I’ll have another.’

Ready to meet them without flinching. Ready to take one good look at them. That was all. He asked no more… Perhaps
they were in the dining-room. He went into the vast room where a waiter promptly adopted him, piloting him towards a table.

‘Is Monsieur alone?’

‘Yes,’ answered Flavières, his mind elsewhere.

A bit dazzled by the lights and intimidated by the people, he sat down without having dared scrutinize the faces. He ordered his meal almost at random, then somewhat awkwardly began looking about him. Lots of officers; few women. Nobody took any notice of him. Why should they? He was of no interest to anybody, and he felt suddenly forced to admit that he was wasting his time. He had been building hopes on an off-chance: there was no reason on earth why the couple he’d seen at the cinema should have been staying at this hotel. They could have put up at any other. Was he going to search the whole town? They could have been merely driving through Marseilles on their way to some other place altogether. And if he did find them, would that get him any further? To find a woman vaguely resembling Madeleine? To kindle once again the fires he’d sworn to let die out?

He forced himself to eat, feeling horribly alone. Why had he made himself go back to Paris, plunging into the tumult of joy and hate that was sweeping over Europe? A pilgrimage? No, that had been merely a pretext. And now he felt like a bit of wreckage washed up on the beach. The only thing for him to do was to go back to Dakar and his dreary occupations. If he needed treatment, there were clinics there.

‘Coffee? Liqueurs?’

‘Just a
mirabelle
.’

The hands of the clock moved slowly forward. He smoked a cigarette, then another, his eyes dull, his forehead clammy.
People got up and went, amid a clutter of plates and cutlery. No need to stay a week. Tomorrow he would go on to Nice to get a little rest before saying goodbye to France. He too got up, his limbs aching, as though from a long, long journey. He was one of the last to go. On all sides, mirrors reflected the weedy figure slinking between the tables. He went upstairs as slowly as possible, to give himself a last chance, but only met two Americans running down, two steps at a time. In his room at last, he threw his clothes down in a heap and got into bed. He took a long time to go to sleep, and, even when he did, he still seemed to be looking for someone who kept dodging round the corner.

In the morning he woke up with a taste like blood in his mouth and feeling wretched. He dressed in a state of complete discouragement. This was what he had come to, and it was his own fault! If he had forgotten that woman in 1940, if he hadn’t deliberately kept himself in a state of mourning, if he’d taken a little more care of his health… Now, in all probability he was a condemned man. How he hated his own twisted, tortuous character, which made him, with a sort of aesthetic dilettantism, dally with dubious emotions! He gently massaged his eyelids and pressed his forehead—a gesture that was destined to become a habit… A sick man, was he?… Well, anyhow, people would have to speak kindly to him in future.

He finished dressing, in a hurry to look at the time-table. Marseilles seemed to him a forbidding place with its smoke, its noise and bustle. He was in a hurry, too, to be coddled by motherly women in white aprons, to bask in silence. He was busy constructing another romance to ward off the terrible idea which nevertheless kept forcing its way into his consciousness:
‘I’m done for.’

His head was still aching as he walked along the thickly carpeted corridor. Breathing became a little easier as he went slowly downstairs to the reception desk. In a small room opening on the right, people were having their coffee and rolls, robust people whose jaws moved with repulsive gusto. Flavières saw a stout man… was he dreaming?… in whose tie…

Mon Dieu!
Could that be him?… A well-dressed man of fifty, who was cutting a roll in two as he chatted with a young woman, whose back was turned to Flavières. She had very long, dark hair, partly concealed by the collar of the fur coat thrown over her shoulders. To look at her face he would have to go into the room… He would. Presently, though. For the moment he was too upset. These silly emotional shocks weren’t good for him at all. Mechanically he fished a cigarette out of his case, then hastily replaced it. He mustn’t start smoking before breakfast. He tried to convince himself that he wasn’t remotely interested in the couple at the table, then, giving up the pretence, he asked at the desk in a low voice:

‘That man there… the one going bald, talking to the woman in a fur coat… do you know his name?’

‘Almaryan.’

‘Almaryan!… What’s he do?’

The man at the desk winked.

‘A bit of everything… There’s plenty of money to be made these days if you know the ropes. He does.’

‘Is that his wife?’

‘Oh no. He never keeps the same one long.’

‘Can I see the time-table?’

‘Certainly, Monsieur.’

Flavières sat in the hall turning its pages, but he couldn’t keep his eyes on it for long. The woman had turned a little and from where he was sitting he could get a fairly good view of her. A sudden certitude blazed up within him. Madeleine! How could he have hesitated? She had changed, of course. She was a little fatter in the face, and older. It was another Madeleine and yet the same Madeleine… The same!

He sank gently back in his chair, leaning his head against the back. He hadn’t the strength to take out his handkerchief to wipe the perspiration from his face. He felt he would lose consciousness altogether if he moved a muscle or even if he framed a thought. So he sat absolutely still. His eyes were closed but the lids couldn’t shut out the image of Madeleine which burnt into his brain.

‘If it’s her, I’ll die,’ he muttered, letting the time-table slip from his hands on to the floor.

Slowly and cautiously he pulled himself together. He really mustn’t lose his head because he’d caught sight of Madeleine’s double. He opened his eyes. No, she wasn’t a double. What is it that gives absolute certitude to the act of recognition? He knew that Madeleine was sitting there, opposite the portly Almaryan, in the same way as he knew that he wasn’t dreaming, that he was really and truly Flavières, that he was suffering agonies. He suffered because, at the same time, he was equally certain Madeleine was dead.