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‘At least so long as nobody else ran into us,’ said Pierre.
‘Let’s say that we buried ourselves at the Pôle Nord, and then jumped straight into a taxi. There’s only Elisabeth, but I’ve warned her.’ Françoise ran her hand across the back of her head and smoothed her hair. ‘That would be a bore,’ she said. ‘Not so much the fact itself, but the lie, that would hurt him terribly.’
Gerbert had retained from his adolescence a rather timid touchiness and, above all, he dreaded feeling that he was in the way. Pierre was the only person in the world who really counted in his life; he was quite willing to be under some sort of obligation to him, but only if he felt that it was not from a sense of duty that Pierre took an interest in him.
‘No, there’s not a chance,’ said Pierre. ‘Besides, yesterday evening he was still gay and friendly.’
‘Perhaps he’s worried,’ said Françoise. It saddened her that Gerbert should be sad and that she could do nothing for him. She liked to know that he was happy: his steady and pleasant life delighted her. He worked with discernment and success. He had a few friends whose varied talents fascinated him: Mollier who played the banjo so well, Barrisson who spoke in flawless slang, Castier who had no trouble in holding six Pernods. Many an evening in the Montparnasse cafés he practised bearing up under Pernod with them: he had more success with the banjo. The rest of the time he deliberately shunned company. He went to the movies; he read; he wandered about Paris, cherishing modest and persistent little dreams.
‘Why doesn’t that girl come?’ said Pierre.
‘Perhaps she’s still asleep,’ said Françoise.
‘Of course not, yesterday evening when she dropped into my dressing-room she said quite clearly that she’d have herself called,’ said Pierre. ‘Perhaps she’s ill, but then she would have telephoned.’
‘Not she, she’s got a holy fear of the telephone, she thinks it’s an instrument of evil,’ said Françoise. ‘But I do think it’s likely she’s forgotten the time.’
‘She never forgets the time except out of spite,’ said Pierre, ‘and I don’t see why she should have a sudden change of mood.’
‘She does occasionally, for no known reason.’
‘There’s always a reason,’ said Pierre, a little irritably. ‘Only you don’t try to understand them.’
Françoise found his tone unpleasant; it was in no way her fault.
‘Let’s go and fetch her,’ said Pierre.
‘She’ll think that’s indiscreet,’ said Françoise. Perhaps she did treat Xavière rather like a piece of machinery, but at least she handled the delicate mechanism with the greatest care. It was very annoying to have to offend Aunt Christine; but, on the other hand, Xavière would take it greatly amiss if they were to go to her room to fetch her.
‘But it’s she who’s in the wrong,’ said Pierre. Françoise rose. After all, Xavière might be ill. Since her discussion with Pierre a week earlier, she had not had the slightest change of mood: the evening the three had spent together, the Friday after the dress rehearsal, had passed in cloudless merriment.
The hotel was quite close and it took them only a moment to get there. Three o’clock. There was not a minute more to be lost. As Françoise disappeared up the stairs the proprietress called her.
‘Mademoiselle Miquel, are you going to see Mademoiselle Pagès?’
‘Yes, why?’ said Françoise a little arrogantly. This plaintive old lady was fairly accommodating, but her inquisitiveness was sometimes misplaced.
‘I would like to have a word with you about her.’ The old woman stood hesitatingly on the threshold of the little drawing-room, but Françoise did not follow her in. ‘Mademoiselle Pagès complained a little while ago that the basin in her room was stopped up. I pointed out to her that she had been throwing tea-leaves, lumps of cotton-wool and slops into it.’ She added: ‘Her room is in such a mess! There are cigarette ends and fruit-pips in every corner, and the bedspread is singed all over.’
‘If you have any complaints to make about Mademoiselle Pagès, please speak to her,’ said Françoise.
‘I have done so,’ said the proprietress, ‘and she told me that she wouldn’t stay here one day more. I think she’s packing her bags. You’ll appreciate that I have no trouble in letting my rooms. I have enquiries every day and I’d be only too happy to let a tenant like that go. The way she keeps the lights burning all night long, you have no idea how much it costs me.’ She added, ingratiatingly: ‘Only because she’s a friend of yours, I wouldn’t want to inconvenience her. I wanted to tell you, that if she changes her mind I won’t raise any objections.’
Ever since Françoise had lived there, she had been treated with unusual consideration. She showered the good woman with complimentary tickets and the old lady was flattered by it: and, most important of all, she paid her rent very regularly.
‘I’ll tell her,’ said Françoise. ‘Thank you.’ With decisive steps, she went on up the stairs.
‘We can’t let that little wretch become a damned nuisance,’ said Pierre. ‘There are other hotels in Montparnasse.’
‘But I’m very comfortable in this one,’ said Françoise. It was well heated and well located: Françoise liked its mixed clientèle and the ugly-flowered wallpaper.
‘Shall we knock?’ said Françoise hesitantly. Pierre knocked. The door was opened with unexpected promptitude and Xavière stood there, bedraggled and almost scarlet in the face; she had pulled up the sleeves of her blouse and her skirt was covered with dust.
‘Oh, it’s you!’ she said with a look of complete surprise.
It was useless to try to anticipate Xavière’s greeting, one was always wrong. Françoise and Pierre stood rooted to the spot.
‘What are you doing here?’ said Pierre.
Xavière’s throat swelled.
‘I’m moving,’ she said in a tragic voice. The scene was stupefying. Françoise thought vaguely of Aunt Christine whose lips must have already begun to tighten, but everything seemed trivial in comparison with the cataclysm that had ravaged this room as well as Xavière’s face. Three suitcases lay gaping in the middle of the room; the cupboards had disgorged on to the floor piles of crumpled clothing, papers, and toilet articles.
‘And do you expect to be finished soon?’ asked Pierre who was looking sternly at this havoc-stricken sanctuary.
‘I’ll never get finished!’ said Xavière. She sank into an arm-chair and pressed her fingers against her forehead. ‘That old hag …’
‘She spoke to me just now,’ said Françoise. ‘She told me that you could stay on for tonight, if that suits you.’
‘Oh!’ said Xavière. A look of hope flashed into her eyes and died immediately. ‘No, I ought to leave at once.’
Françoise felt sorry for her.
‘But you aren’t going to find a room this evening.’
‘Oh, surely not,’ said Xavière. She bent her head and sat prostrated for some time. Françoise and Pierre stood as if spellbound, staring at her golden head.
‘Well, leave all that,’ said Françoise with a sudden return to consciousness. ‘Tomorrow we’ll go and look together.’
‘Leave this?’ said Xavière. ‘But I couldn’t live in this rubbish heap for even an hour.’
‘I’ll help you to tidy it up tonight,’ said Françoise. Xavière gave her a look of plaintive gratitude. ‘Listen to me. You are going to get dressed and wait for us at the Dôme. We’ll dash off to the private view and we’ll be back in an hour and a half.’
Xavière jumped to her feet and clutched her hair.
‘Oh, I would so like to go! I’ll be ready in ten minutes. I just have to tidy myself up a bit.’
‘Aunt has already begun to fume,’ said Françoise.
Pierre shrugged his shoulders.
‘In any case, we’ve missed the port,’ he said angrily. ‘Now, there’s no longer any point in getting there before five o’clock.’
‘As you wish,’ said Françoise. ‘But the blame will fall on me again.’
‘Well, after all, you don’t give a damn,’ said Pierre.
‘You’ll smile at her winningly,’ said Xavière.
‘All right,’ said Françoise. ‘You’ll have to think of a good excuse for us.’
‘I’ll try,’ grumbled Pierre.
‘Then we’ll wait for you in my room,’ said Françoise.
They went upstairs.
‘It’s an afternoon wasted,’ said Pierre. ‘There won’t be enough time left to go anywhere after we leave the exhibition.’
‘I told you she couldn’t learn how to live,’ said Françoise. She walked over to the looking-glass: with this upswept coiffure it was impossible to keep the back of one’s neck looking neat. ‘If only she doesn’t insist on moving.’
‘You haven’t got to move with her,’ said Pierre. He seemed furious. He had always been so cheerful with Françoise that she had almost reached the point of forgetting that he was not good-tempered, that his fits of anger were legendary at the theatre. If he took this affair as a personal offence, the afternoon was going to be grim.
‘But I will; you know that. She won’t insist, but she’ll sink into black despair.’
Françoise glanced over the room.
‘My nice little hotel. Fortunately, I can rely on her inertia.’
Pierre walked over to the pile of manuscripts stacked on the table.
‘You know,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll hang on to Monsieur le Vent. This fellow interests me, he ought to be encouraged. I’ll ask him to have dinner with us one of these evenings so that you can form some opinion of him.’
‘I also want to look at Hyacinthe,’ said Françoise. ‘I think it’s promising.’
‘Show it to me,’ said Pierre. He began to look through the manuscript and Françoise leaned over his shoulder to read with him. She was not in a good mood: alone with Pierre, she would have got the private view over and done with very quickly, but with Xavière about, everything tended to become burdensome, it made one feel that one was walking through life with clods of clay on the soles of one’s shoes. Pierre should never have decided to wait for her; even he looked as though he had got out of the wrong side of the bed. Nearly half an hour passed before Xavière knocked. Then they hurried downstairs.
‘Where do you want to go?’ said Françoise.
‘I don’t mind,’ said Xavière.
‘Since we’ve only an hour,’ said Pierre, ‘let’s go to the Dôme.’
‘How cold it is,’ said Xavière, tightening her scarf round her face.
‘It’s only a few steps from here,’ said Françoise.
‘We haven’t got the same conception of distance,’ said Xavière whose face was screwed up.
‘Or of time,’ said Pierre dryly.
Françoise was beginning to read Xavière very well. Xavière knew that she was in the wrong. She thought they were angry with her and she was taking the lead; and besides, her attempts at moving had worn her out. Françoise wanted to take her arm: wherever they had gone on Friday night, they had walked arm in arm, and kept in step.
‘No,’ said Xavière, ‘it’s much faster on one’s own.’
Pierre’s face darkened again, Françoise was afraid he was going to lose his temper. They sat down at the back of the café.
‘You know,’ said Françoise, ‘this private view won’t be at all interesting. Aunt’s protégés never have an ounce of talent, she’s never been known to fail in that respect.’
‘I don’t care a hang about that,’ said Xavière. ‘It’s the reception I’m interested in. Pictures always bore me stiff.’
‘That’s because you’ve never seen any,’ said Françoise. ‘If you were to come with me to exhibitions, or even go to the Louvre …’
‘That wouldn’t make any difference,’ said Xavière. She made a wry face. ‘A picture is so arid, it’s completely flat.’
‘If you were to get to know a little about it, I’m sure you would enjoy it,’ said Françoise.
‘You mean I would understand why I ought to enjoy it,’ said Xavière. ‘I’d never be satisfied with that. The day when I no longer feel anything, I’m not going to look for excuses to feel.’
‘What you call feeling is really a way of understanding,’ said Françoise. ‘You like music, well then …!’
Xavière stopped her short.
‘You know, when people speak about good and bad music, it goes right over my head,’ she said with aggressive modesty. ‘I don’t understand the first thing about it. I like the notes for themselves; the sound alone is enough for me.’ She looked Françoise in the eye. ‘The pleasures of the mind are repulsive to me.’
When Xavière was being obstinate it was useless to argue. Françoise looked reproachfully at Pierre; after all, it was he who had wanted to wait for Xavière, he could at least join in the conversation, instead of entrenching himself behind a sardonic smile.
‘I warn you that the reception, as you call it, is not a bit amusing,’ said Françoise. ‘Just a lot of people exchanging polite remarks.’
‘Oh, still there’ll be a crowd, and excitement,’ said Xavière in a tone of passionate insistence.
‘Do you feel a need for excitement now?’
‘Of course I need it!’ said Xavière, and a wild untamed look glinted in her eyes. ‘Shut up in that room from morning till night, why, I’ll go mad! I can’t stand it there any more, you can have no idea how happy I’ll be to leave that place.’
‘Who prevents you from going out?’ asked Pierre.
‘You say that there isn’t any fun in going dancing with women, but Begramian or Gerbert would be only too glad to take you, and they dance very well,’ said Françoise.
Xavière shook her head.
‘Once you decide to have a good time to order, it’s always pitiful.’
‘You want everything to fall into your lap like manna from heaven,’ said Françoise, ‘you don’t deign to lift your little finger, and then you proceed to take it out on everyone. Obviously …’
‘There must be some countries in the world,’ said Xavière, as if in a dream, ‘warm countries – Greece or Sicily – where it surely isn’t necessary to lift a finger.’ She scowled. ‘Here you have to grab with both hands – and to get what?’
‘You have to do the same out there,’ said Françoise.
Xavière’s eyes began to sparkle.
‘Where is that red island that’s completely surrounded by boiling water?’ she said hungrily.
‘Santorin, one of the isles of Greece,’ said Françoise. ‘But that isn’t exactly what I told you. Only the cliffs are red, and the sea boils only between two small black islets thrown up by volcanic eruptions. Oh, I remember,’ she said, warming to her subject, ‘a lake of sulphurous water in the midst of the lava. It was all yellow and edged by a peninsula as black as anthracite and on the other side of this black strip the sea was a dazzling blue.’
Xavière looked at her with rapt attention.
‘When I think of all you’ve seen,’ she said in a voice filled with resentment.
