Sunday Page 5

  'For my last two nights here I will have your room,' Madame Harnaud had said to her daughter.

  It was as striking as a transfer of power. They were henceforth to occupy the room of the grown-ups, the parents, with the walnut bed, the cupboard with the looking-glass, the chest-of-drawers.

  Emile, who had drunk too much—everybody had drunk too much, except Berthe—had tried, as he was undressing, to make a short speech to his wife. Wouldn't it be useful to settle their respective positions once and for all?

  With the help of the wine and the liqueurs, he had imagined, during the evening, a kind of preliminary declaration.

  'You've got what you wanted. Here we are married. From tonight onwards . . .'

  He had thought up whole sentences, which appeared magnificent to him at the time, but which he had already forgotten.

  There remained one thing he wanted to tell her, a declaration which he did not have the courage to make.

  'Since we are married, I shall make love to you. But I had better admit to you right away that. . .'

  One cannot say that to one's wife, not even to a girl one meets casually. It was nonetheless true. He felt no desire for her. He was obliged to make an effort. Was it his fault if, even though there was no resemblance between the two women, she made him think of his mother ?

  Fortunately the day had exhausted Berthe. She was strained, worn out. It was she who had murmured:

  'Not tonight . . .'

  This was a sign too: it was going to be for her to decide which nights he would make love to her and which nights they would go to bed without doing anything.

  He was not unhappy. The proof is that next morning when he came downstairs ahead of everybody else and opened the kitchen shutters, he felt the same joy as on other days at looking at the countryside, the pale green of the two olive trees and the darker green of the pines in the sun, the golden shimmer of the water in the roadstead of La Napoule and the two pigeons cooing near the door.

  They were not the same pigeons as they had now. The couples had succeeded one another, generation after generation. From time to time, instead of eating the young ones, they ate the old. The idea was for there always to be a couple to coo around the house, for it pleased the guests to see them caressing one another with their beaks and swelling their crops.

  Madame Harnaud had decided to come and spend a month on the Riviera every year, in winter for preference, when there were no guests and when, too, the weather at Luçon was at its most disagreeable. It was written into the agreement they had accepted, and if she had not thought of this precaution herself, Palud had taken it on her behalf.

  Her first inspection, in November, had been of her daughter's belly. A short while later, alone with her, she had murmured, not without an unexpressed reproach:

  'I was hoping to find you in an interesting condition.'

  This was to become an old refrain, an obsession. In all her letters there was a similar sentence:

  '. . . Above all, don't fail to write as soon as you have hopes in that direction . . .'

  The second winter there had been something like suspicion in the gaze she allowed to fall, no longer on her daughter, but on her son-in-law. And, towards the end of her stay, she had no longer been able to contain herself.

  They were in the middle of a meal. It was still old Paola who was serving them. War had already been declared between her and Berthe, a veiled warfare, without respite, and it would not be long before one or other was the victor.

  Berthe, of course! And it was true that Paola was dirty, that she had never taken a bath in her life and that she spread around her an aroma of old skirts.

  But it was also true that Paola was passionately attached to Emile, that for her he was the man, that there was no questioning his every deed or word, and that nothing Berthe said was of any importance.

  If Berthe gave her an order, Paola would not reply yes nor no, would keep a tight face, as if carved in seasoned olive wood and, a little while later, would go and seek confirmation from Emile.

  There would be other little wars of the kind to follow. Emile was resigned in advance.

  He could feel then, in advance as well, just from the quiver of his mother-in-law's lips, that she was going to attack him.

  Berthe had this same characteristic. When she was about to say something unpleasant, her face became quite expressionless, no doubt because she was keeping a hold on herself, but she could not stop her upper lip from trembling.

  'Do you know, my children, I lately read an article in the newspaper which will interest you. I even cut it out for you. It's in my bag. I'll give it to you presently . . .'

  The article had not appeared in a newspaper, but in a popular weekly which dedicated two pages to horoscopes, two others to more or less new methods of healing and the rest to film stars.

  'In the old days, when a family was without children, it was considered always to be the fault of the wife. It seems this isn't correct, that it's more often because of the man . . .'

  The lip was quivering more than ever, the eyes were fixed upon the wine glass on the table, while the voice grew soft.

  'Perhaps you should consult a doctor, Emile?'

  He had said nothing, had simply turned a shade paler, his nostrils slightly pinched.

  If he had an answer on the tip of his tongue, he swore to himself not to utter it:

  'I would like to have a child off any girl in the street just to show you I am capable . . .'

  The fact was that Berthe answered for him.

  'I don't want any children, Mama.'

  'You? What are you saying?'

  'The truth. I am perfectly all right as I am.'

  She believed it, plainly. She had got everything she wanted. Not only did Emile belong to her, but La Bastide as well, and, if the guests did sometimes make mistakes, she was nonetheless the real mistress of the house.

  That was the name, besides, which the local people gave her: the mistress. They had not chosen the name at random. They were in the habit of watching people, especially outsiders, and they knew Emile, who played bowls with them on winter afternoons, well.

  The second year he had bought a van. Then Berthe had forced him to sack Paola, for she insisted that it should be he who spoke to her, who should seem to have taken the decision.

  'If she stays in the house, I shall not come down from my room again.'

  When Emile had taken Paola aside, she had already understood.

  'Don't you worry about me, my poor monsieur. I've been expecting it for a long time, and I'm ready to pack up my bits and pieces.'

  Berthe, who had put an advertisement in the newspaper, had chosen Madame Lavaud from among the applicants. Here was a clean body at last, one who had a certain air of dignity.

  Was Berthe hoping that the new arrival would join forces with her instead of going over to Emile's camp?

  For that was the point they had reached. It was not obvious. There was no open struggle, no declared sides.

  What it was, was that nobody, either in the house or in the neighbourhood, had adopted her. She remained an outsider. People were polite with her, too polite even: they showed her only too willingly an exaggerated respect and she was subtle enough to understand.

  When the postman came in the morning, leaving his bicycle on the terrace, he would go and lean on the bar.

  'How about it, Emile? Shall we make up a game tonight?'

  If he caught sight of Berthe, he would take off his cap and appeared ill at ease as he drank his glass of rosé which Emile had just poured out for him.

  It was nothing in itself, but it was the same with everybody.

  'Is Emile in?'

  'No. He's gone down to Cannes.'

  'It doesn't matter. I'll look in again later.'

  'Can't I give him a message?'

  'Don't bother.'

  People knew his habits, knew where to find him. A kind of freemasonry was being created around Berthe, against her, which constantly opposed
her.

  'You haven't seen my husband?'

  Instead of replying, people would look at her with an artificially innocent air as if they were trying not to give him away.

  To avenge himself for Paola's departure, Emile had bought a little boat, a second-hand pointu. He had wanted one for a long time. For him it represented part of the Midi; it was the complement of La Bastide, of the games of bowls outside the post office at Mouans-Sartoux, of the Forville market and the little bar where he used to linger over a coffee or a glass of white wine.

  The boat, however, from the moment he had bought it, looked like a challenge. He hadn't mentioned it in advance to his wife, had simply announced, one evening:

  'I've bought a pointu.'

  He knew that at heart she felt the shock, even though she had enough self-control not to let it show.

  'A new one?'

  'Second-hand. It's in perfect order. I managed to get a complete set of fishing gear with it, including five lines for rainbow-wrasse, two baskets for congers and one for bogues.'

  She did not ask him how much he had paid. Nor did she ask when he intended to go fishing.

  In the height of the season he could not even think of it, as he had his hands full with work from the moment he woke up. In the winter months the sea was seldom calm enough, and in any case the fishing was not so good.

  February, March, April, sometimes May were idle months, during which they seldom had more than two or three residents at a time, like the Belgians who were there now, with several guests passing through at midday and in the evening.

  It was about the same in October and November, until the heavy rains which marked the beginning of winter.

  Then he would get up as early as four o'clock in the morning, dress in the dark, and the idea never entered his head of planting a kiss on Berthe's forehead, where she lay pretending to be asleep. From the moment he put his hands to the steering-wheel of the van he became a free man, and he would drive down to the port whistling, to find, along the wharf, other fishing enthusiasts, nearly all of them older than himself, preparing their tackle and starting up their motors.

  "Morning, Emile!'

  "Morning, you old bastard!'

  He had taken to quipping as they did, expressing a cruel truth sometimes beneath the guise of a joke.

  'How's the mistress? Did she forget to lock you in last night?'

  He got as good as he gave, naturally. Anyhow, it was the others who had started it.

  He liked the throbbing of the motor, the silky sound of the water against the hull, the sight of the whitish furrow which widened in his wake, and it was a pleasure, later on, to lower the big stone which acted as an anchor, to break open the hermit-crabs which he used as bait for catching boulantin.

  He had familiarized himself with the colours of the fishes, so different from the ones he had sometimes caught at L'Aiguillon, in Vendée, when he was a boy. He had learned to detach the spiny hogfish from the hook or from the net, and to cut the heads off the murry-fish, which had a nasty bite, with a single blow of his knife.

  The sky would grow lighter, the boat rock in a world which seemed each time to be new, and little by little the air would grow warmer, the sun would rise over the horizon, Emile would take off his coat, at times his shirt as well.

  Wasn't it worth the price he was paying? Sometimes he asked himself the question, only less brutally. Why couldn't he get rid of the feeling that he had been tricked?

  He sensed, at the basis of their life together, God knows what treachery. As for Berthe, she had got what she wanted, had done exactly what she had set out to do, and he suspected old Mother Harnaud of having been her accomplice, just as Palud had been hers.

  Even poor Big Louis, who was no longer with them, must already have had an idea in the back of his mind when he had written to him.

  'You're as green as a new-born babe, Emile!'

  It was not in connection with Berthe that they had said that to him, but at bowls, during the early stages. He had determined to become as good a player as the others, he who until then had never touched a bowling iron. At first, when it was his turn to bowl or set the jack, he would pull a face like a schoolboy who had just been asked a difficult question, and they laughed at him because he let the tip of his tongue stick out.

  Then he would sometimes practise all alone on the terrace, in order to show them one day that he was as good as they were.

  It was Dr. Chouard who, surprising him thus, had made the remark: 'You're as green as a new-born babe, Emile!'

  As far as bowls was concerned, at all events, he had proved that that wasn't true, for he had become one of the best players in Mouans-Sartoux.

  Sometimes Dr. Chouard would come and join in the game. He lived at Pegomas, in a dilapidated house, where Paola, when she had had to leave La Bastide, had found refuge.

  The doctor was as untidy as his servant, his shirt always doubtfully clean, his tie, when he wore one, badly knotted, buttons missing from his jacket and even from his flies.

  Like Emile, he had arrived one day as a fairly young man, from another part of the country, from the neighbourhood of Nancy, and no doubt then he had had his ambitions. He had a wife, a well-kept house, the same one which now, from the outside, looked as if it were abandoned.

  His wife was said to have gone off with an English tourist. But he had not waited for her departure before taking to drink and neglecting his practice.

  For a certain number of years he had been the best bowls-player and had been a member of the four which had won the Provence championship two years running.

  His skill came back to him occasionally, by some miracle, since for some time now people had been unable to tell when he was drunk or when he was not.

  Paola drank as well. Emile had caught her several times swigging straight from the bottle. He hadn't said anything to her. He had been careful not to mention it to Berthe.

  For particular reasons, Emile had reserved an important role for Dr. Chouard in what was about to take place. It could even be said that, without Chouard, everything he had patiently been contriving for the past months would not hold together.

  It was not for nothing that he had chosen a Sunday, nor that he had just made sure that Dr. Guerini was safely out at sea aboard his boat.

  As for Ada, if she now at all gave the impression of playing a leading role in his life, she was in reality only an accessory, a secondary cause. But that nobody would believe.

  The first time he had noticed her she must have been fourteen and she already wore a black cotton dress which might have passed for a school tunic.

  He was following the twisty road down, in his van, when he had seen her coming out of the plantation. He had wondered what she was doing there. He was not aware at the time that she was the daughter of Pascali, the old mason, and therefore that she lived on the far side of the pine-forest.

  He retained in his mind the picture of a scrawny, dark-skinned girl with long legs, hair like undergrowth, an animal expression.

  He had seen her again several times and learned, at Mouans-Sartoux, various details about her father. Pascali, who was not a native of France, had come there young, and started work in the mountains, where there was a new road under construction then.

  By a first wife, since dead, he had had two children, a boy and a girl, who were now approaching forty. The boy, who had become an engineer, lived at Clermont-Ferrand. The girl, so the story went, had turned out badly, and although there were few details to go on, some men claimed to have met her in Paris on her beat near the Bastille.

  One fine day, Pascali, alone and already ageing, had installed himself not far from Mouans-Sartoux, in an abandoned hut, and had begun working at his craft for people in the neighbourhood.

  Then, to everybody's amazement, he had bought a piece of land on the hill and had begun, in his spare time, to build himself a house.

  He was never seen at the cafe. He did not play bowls, had no friends. He came to buy his own f
ood and his daily bottle of wine, and everyone regarded him as a kind of savage, some even wondered whether he were not a little mad.

  His house finished, he had disappeared for several days and returned with a woman twenty-five years younger than himself, who brought a small girl with her.

  Since then, it was still he who did the shopping, the woman virtually never setting foot in the village. One day when the postman had a tax form to deliver, he had tried in vain to open the door. As he heard movements in the house, he had called:

  'Francesca!'

  She had finally replied with a grunt.

  'Open the door, Francesca; I have a letter for your husband.'

  'Slip it under the door.'

  'Can't you open it?'

  'I haven't got the key.'

  It was in this way that they learned that Pascali used sometimes to lock his wife in. As for the origin of the rumour that he had disfigured her on purpose, so as to make her ugly and discourage other men, that was more difficult.

  Anyhow, before this same Pascali came to present his daughter as a servant at La Bastide, an incident involving a woman had served more or less as a trial of strength between Emile and Berthe.

  There were eight residents in the house at the time, including two children from near Paris with their mother, who was the wife of a building contractor.

  Had the guests noticed the game that went on?

  An Englishwoman had stepped off the bus, at the bottom of the road, and had mounted the slope carrying her own cases. She could have been equally twenty-five or thirty years old, or even thirty-five. As, bathed in sweat, she came up to the bar mounted on the wine-presses, she had ordered in a somewhat hoarse voice:

  'A double scotch!'

  It was four o'clock in the afternoon and it was Emile behind the counter, in his white jacket. He could remember that it was very hot and he was not wearing his chef's cap. He remembered, too, the large circles of perspiration under the new arrival's arms.

  'Do you have a room free?'

  She had picked up a spoon to remove the ice which, out of habit, he had put into the whisky.

  'For how long?'