Sunday Page 8

  He was even more afraid of Pascali, who was not like other men, whose reactions were incalculable.

  He pictured him arriving at La Bastide, not, this time, to sit in the kitchen and drink his glass of wine in silence, but to demand satisfaction.

  Finally, he had taken no precautions and Ada was too ignorant to have taken any herself.

  Supposing she were to have a child?

  It was he who began to do the spying, puzzled at finding her as impassive as usual, with, at the very most, the reflection of an interior joy in her expression.

  Perhaps after all he was wrong, and it was all a figment of his imagination? It was the fault of Berthe, of her oppressive presence, of the insidious way she had imprisoned him in an invisible but real circle.

  He wanted to revolt and did not dare. He was so helpless that at certain moments it was Ada whom he accused of disrupting what he now termed his tranquility.

  'I won't go on with it!'

  Five days later, he no longer kept to his resolve. His mood had changed. Alone in the Cabin, during the siesta hour, he thought about Ada in a piercing, painful way.

  'In a while, when my wife has gone to lie down, come and see me.'

  It humiliated him to hide, to whisper behind doors, to wait like a young man in love for the first time, for a flicker of the wild creature's eyelids.

  'Do you understand? Pretend you are getting some wood.'

  They burned wood in the kitchen range, and the firewood happened to be kept behind the Cabin.

  As he waited for her he found himself hoping that she would not come. But she came. And he threw himself upon her like a starving man upon a loaf of bread.

  'You must come every time I ask you. Will you come?'

  Amazed at the question, she said yes. It seemed so obvious to her!

  She did not understand his nervousness, his feverishness. He took her, one might have thought, as if he hated her and strove to destroy her.

  It was days, weeks, before he recovered a certain equilibrium, which bore no resemblance to what he had known before. Emile was getting used to it. His fear was dissipating. He no longer thought of Pascali, nor of a possible pregnancy.

  Life continued, with the seasons marking its successive stages and their rhythm, the season of mimosas, then of oranges and jasmine, the season of cherries, that of peaches and, finally, before the calm of the winter, the olive and wine harvest.

  They had several vines, which Maubi looked after. As the old winepress had been demolished to make room for the dining-room, they sold the grapes to a neighbour, who paid with wine from the year before.

  On the sea, as well, the seasons alternated, and he fished in succession for rainbow-wrasse, mackerel, bogue and gilt-head.

  To his surprise almost two years had passed in this fashion, and he no longer needed to speak to Ada, a lowering of the eyelids was sufficient, to which she gave no answer, but a gleam in her eyes.

  Nobody, apart from himself, noticed that she had become a woman, that she had lost her stiffness and her angles, that her carriage was more supple, marked with a curious dignity.

  Although she remained as secretive, as wild in her bearing, there emanated from her a serenity which he could only compare with that of a happy animal. Wasn't it rather in the manner of an animal that she loved him? Nothing else counted for her but to live in his wake, and the moment he made a sign to her, she would come running to bury herself in his arms.

  She was at once his pet dog and his slave. She did not judge him, did not try to understand him or guess what he was thinking. She had adopted him as master, just as a stray dog, for no apparent reason, attaches itself to the heels of a passer-by.

  A miracle was happening. Berthe-the-know-all did not dream of keeping watch on them, because of that very same pride which made her so fiercely jealous of all other women.

  The idea never occurred to her that Emile could so much as look upon this creature as a woman, whom she regarded as half-baked, this slut, this scrawny savage girl, regarded by all and sundry as mentally arrested.

  Thus, between Emile and his wife, an apparent peace had been established. He had fewer stirrings of rebellion. A little of Ada's serenity was spreading to him and he sometimes had to stop himself from singing, from seeming too happy, for fear he should be questioned about the reason for his joy.

  Every now and then, at long intervals, from duty and from prudence, he would make love to Berthe, but despite himself, he would turn his face away when she sought to kiss him on the mouth.

  He refused to think where it was all leading. And, in January, he had such an unhoped-for week that he did not really believe it until Berthe was on the train.

  Madame Harnaud, who had come as usual to spend a month on the Riviera early in the winter, was now ill with pneumonia back there, at Luçon. Berthe could not avoid going to see her. As she packed her case she was pale, less because her mother's health worried her than because her husband was going to stay behind on his own.

  On this occasion she had said something revealing, not without having hesitated a long time beforehand. They were both in the bedroom, where she was finishing putting her underclothes into her suitcase. He had noticed that her lip was starting to tremble as it always did when she was preparing to say something disagreeable.

  'I know that you're going to take advantage of my absence, but I must ask you to swear . . .'

  'Swear how?' he had pretended to joke.

  She was not joking, however. Her expression was serious and hard.

  'Swear to me that no other woman will sleep in this bed.'

  Why had he been unable to stop himself blushing?

  'Swear!'

  'I swear.'

  'On the head of your parents.'

  'On the head of my parents.'

  On the way down to Cannes, she seemed to be almost ill, and at the station she had turned her head away several times when they were waiting for the train. She had not waved. He had watched the outline of her face, blurred by the compartment window, to the last.

  On the way home he had not yet taken any decision. There were no residents in the house. Nobody was sleeping in, apart from Ada and himself.

  When he got back, past nine o'clock in the evening, Ada was already in her room.

  He had mounted the stairs, three at a time, feeling over-excited rather than out of breath.

  'Come on . . .'

  She had understood and shown a certain fear.

  'Come on, quickly!'

  For the first time, they were going to be together at last in a real bed, without being afraid, without starting at the slightest sound, and fall asleep beside one another.

  Was it not worth breaking his oath for this?

  Madame Harnaud had recovered. Berthe had returned, taken up her place once again at the head of the household, and life had continued in its habitual rhythm.

  Some Swiss women had arrived as guests, three together, for in the clientele too, there were different successive seasons. In winter, for example, and in the beginning of spring, they never had more than two or three people at a time, nearly always women of a certain age, widows or spinsters, who came from Switzerland, Belgium, or the northern départements of France.

  Then, over Easter, the families which only came for a short stay began to turn up, and there was a further relative calm until May.

  Sundays brought Italians in cars, couples mostly, who mixed on the terrace with the local clientele, until the holiday season fully broke.

  Sometimes several days would elapse without Ada being able to join Emile in the Cabin. Other weeks, she came to him two or three days running, and he had not cured himself of a ticklish anxiety which would lodge in his chest the moment he had given her the signal, while he was waiting for her, while he listened for her furtive step, and then while she was with him.

  He had other periods of alarm, each month, for he continued to take no precautions, out of defiance, perhaps also out of respect for her and for himself.


  They had never had any serious qualms, and though this relieved him each time, it was not without its worrying aspect, reminding him of what his mother-in-law had said about impotence in certain men. He rejected these ideas with impatience, refusing to admit that Madame Harnaud could be right, wondering whether at times his wife didn't have the same suspicion.

  Wasn't it strange that she never made any reference to eventual motherhood, as if it stood to reason that they were destined not to have children?

  The big scene occurred in June. He had drunk, in the morning, two or three more glasses of wine than usual, because Dr. Chouard had called and he had kept him company at the bar for a considerable while.

  It was on these occasions that he wanted Ada most, and he had given her the signal. The scorching air vibrated with the song of crickets, and the sea, in the distance, was motionless, with grey-green reflections like a sheet of cast iron.

  Ada had come and slid up against him on the divan. He had decided long since that, if anybody disturbed them, she was to dash up to the first floor and stay there motionless, that if the worst came to the worst, she was to jump out of the window, which wasn't very high.

  She did not have a chance. The door was locked, the shutters closed, but the windows remained open, creating a draught without which they would have suffocated. Emile had always been convinced that the shutters could not be opened from the outside and he gave a start when he suddenly saw the sun streaming into the room as violently as water surging through a broken dam.

  Berthe cut a motionless silhouette in the rectangle of light, and the flood of sunshine following immediately on the semi-darkness prevented Emile from making out her features, or taking in the expression on her face.

  Ada was already on her feet, had picked up her dress and was looking hesitantly at the staircase.

  He heard himself say:

  'Stay here.'

  Berthe still did not move. She was waiting. He got up slowly, ran his fingers through his hair and finally strode over to the door.

  Without a word the two of them headed not for the house, but for the plantation, which was not far off, and where a footpath began, the one which, like the path from the kitchen garden, came out at the Flat Stone.

  So long as they were in the sun, which dulled their senses, they remained silent, and it was Emile who first, once in the shade of the pines, could no longer hold his peace.

  'Well, now you know,' he said, without looking at her.

  She was not crying, did not seem to be on the point of an outburst. There was no hint of impending violence.

  'All things considered,' he went on, almost lightly, 'it's better that way.'

  'Who for?'

  'For everybody.'

  He felt he was being clumsy, but he could find no other attitude to adopt. It was true that he was relieved. Things could not go on indefinitely as they were.

  'Still, I would never have believed that of you.'

  She seemed perplexed, overwhelmed. Had she, perhaps, had no inkling of the truth right up to the last minute, and only stumbled across it by chance?

  'That girl does not stay in the house another hour.'

  He felt, all of a sudden, almost happy. He had feared tears, despair, reproaches. A hundred times he had been tempted to believe that Berthe loved him in her way, and the idea of making her suffer used to upset him.

  Yet it was of Ada that she was thinking, with her voice full of cold rancour, like venom.

  'Yes, she does!' he replied without thinking, or asking himself what his decision would lead to.

  'What do you mean?'

  'Simply that if she goes, I go with her.'

  Berthe's astonishment was so great that she stopped, rooted to the spot, staring at him with eyes which no longer understood.

  'You would leave me for that halfwit?'

  'Without hesitation.'

  'Do you love her?'

  'I don't know about that, but I won't allow her to be thrown out.'

  'Listen, Emile. You had better think things over. For the moment you are out of your senses.'

  'My mind is made up. I shall not change it.'

  'And if it were I who left?'

  'I should let you go.'

  'Do you hate me?'

  'No. I don't think so.'

  'Emile!'

  In the end she had come to tears, but too late, and they could no longer move Emile.

  'Do you realize what you are doing? You are destroying everything, soiling everything . . .'

  'Soiling what?'

  'Us! You and me! And all because a vicious child has got it into her head to take my place.'

  'She is taking nobody's place.'

  The words didn't express his exact thoughts, but on the spur of the moment he could find no others. Similarly, in a fight, one does not always strike where one intends to strike.

  'And if I told everything to Pascali?'

  He looked at her, a hard look, with his teeth clenched, for she had found a threat which carried weight.

  'I should leave just the same.'

  'Without her?'

  'With or without her.'

  'You would abandon La Bastide?'

  Viciously, she was casting about for arguments to wound him.

  She sneered:

  'Would you get yourself a job again as a hotel cook?'

  'Why not?'

  Something was slipping somewhere. There was no longer any point of contact.

  'Think carefully, Emile.'

  'No.'

  'And if I killed myself?'

  'I should be a widower.'

  'Would you marry her?'

  He preferred not to reply. Already he regretted his unintended cruelty. It was Berthe who had started it. He had felt no tremor in her which could be attributed to love.

  Nothing but disappointment, the fury of outraged ownership.

  They were walking in silence now, and when they crossed a patch of sunlight, some grasshoppers chirped at their feet.

  'You're sure you don't want to wait until tomorrow?'

  'I'm sure.'

  He was obdurate. Even as a small boy his mother used to claim that sometimes he made people want to give him a good slap on account of his pigheadedness.

  They covered another hundred yards without a word.

  'There is one thing, at least, which I have the right to insist on.'

  'What is that?'

  'For the others, even for Madame Lavaud and the Maubis, there must be no change.'

  He was not sure he had understood.

  'We shall go on living to all appearances as we have done in the past, and we shall continue to share the same bedroom.'

  He just stopped himself from putting in:

  'And the same bed?'

  But he didn't want to take too much advantage of her.

  'As for this girl, she has ceased to exist as far as I am concerned, and I shall not address another word to her except to give her essential orders.'

  He had to restrain a smile of contentment. After all, it was a victory he had won, thanks to Berthe's pride.

  'Your dirty little tricks have nothing to do with me, but I don't want everybody to know about them, and if you're lucky enough to give her a child, I forbid you to recognize it.'

  He had never considered the problem from this angle and he knew nothing of the law.

  'Is that settled?'

  They had come to a halt, face to face, and this time they were now definitely nothing more to each other than strangers.

  Was Berthe tempted, as he feared for a few seconds, to throw herself into his arms?

  'It's settled!' he said quietly.

  Without waiting for her, he headed with long strides towards La Bastide, and in the kitchen doorway found Ada helping Madame La-vaud to peel potatoes as if nothing had happened.

  He simply gave her a wink, to let her know that everything was all right.

  He was satisfied and bewildered. In a ridiculously short time ev
erything had changed, and yet life was going to go on as it had in the past. He didn't know yet how he would face it. He had never asked himself whether he loved Ada, nor with what sort of love, and he was still incapable of answering the question.

  For the moment, she was only playing a subsidiary role in the drama. What counted was the rupture between Berthe and himself, a rupture accepted on both sides.

  If, a few hours before, they were still husband and wife, they were from now onwards no more than strangers, colleagues to be more accurate, for there remained La Bastide, and it was doubtless on account of this that Berthe had proposed her strange status quo.

  La Bastide held them both, love or no love, hate or no hate.

  Berthe had bought him, just as Big Louis had bought the old farmhouse, he was more acutely aware of it than ever, and she had just dictated her terms.

  He went to play bowls at Mouans-Sartoux. The hardest thing, that night, was undressing in front of her, for it seemed suddenly indecent to show her his naked body. Nor did he know whether he ought to say good-night to her or not. He avoided her gaze, slipped in between the sheets, keeping to the extreme edge of the bed.

  It was she who switched out the light and said:

  'Good-night, Emile.'

  He made an effort.

  'Good-night.'

  Was he going to have to go to bed, each night for the rest of his life, under the same conditions?

  Next morning, he went downstairs a few minutes earlier than usual, so as to be there before the arrival of Madame Lavaud.

  'What did she say?'

  'You're staying.'

  'Isn't she giving me the sack?'

  Ada did not realize that this was acknowledging that Berthe was the real mistress of the house and that Emile had no say in the matter.

  'No.'

  A silence. She did not understand. Perhaps she did not try to understand? Yet she wanted to know where they stood.

  'And us?'

  'Nothing is changed.'

  They caught the sound, still fairly far off, in the roadway, of Madame Lavaud's footsteps.

  'I wonder whether I'll still be able to, now that she knows.'

  Instantly he stiffened, and, without any precise reason, almost slapped her in the face, rapped in a dry voice:

  'You will do what I tell you to do.'