know?”
“No.”
Gabriel opened his eyes with mocking amazement. “And I who always believed that every woman is born with more innate experience than a man can acquire in a lifetime.”
“That’s called instinct?” said Inés, more calmly.
“No!” exclaimed Gabriel. “I assure you that a chef d’orchestre needs more than instinct. He needs more personality, more strength, more discipline, precisely because he isn’t a creator.”
“And your brother?” Inés insisted, with no fear now of a forbidden suspicion.
“Elsewhere,” Gabriel answered simply.
This affirmation opened a broad horizon of free associations for Inés. She kept to herself the most secret one, which was about the boy’s physical beauty. She gave voice to the most obvious ones: France, the lost war, the German occupation.
“Hero or traitor, Gabriel? If he stayed in France—”
“Oh, a hero, obviously. He was too noble, too committed. He didn’t think about himself, he thought about serving … even if simply to resist, without acting.”
“Then I can imagine him dead.”
“No, I imagine him a prisoner. I would rather think he’s been captured. Yes. You know, as boys we were fascinated with maps of the world, and globes, and we’d throw dice to see who won Canada or Spain or China. When one of us won some territory or other, we’d yell and shout, you know, Inés, like those terrible cries in Faust I was demanding from all of you yesterday, we’d scream like animals, like screeching monkeys marking their territory and communicating its boundaries to the other monkeys in the jungle. Here am I. This is my land. This is my space.”
“Then maybe your brother’s space is a cell.”
“Or a cage. Sometimes I imagine him in a cage. I’ll go further. Sometimes I imagine that he chose the cage himself and has confused it with freedom.” Gabriel’s dark eyes looked toward the other side of the Channel.
The retreating sea was gradually giving up the land it had won. It was a cold, gray afternoon. Inés was cross with herself for not having brought a muffler.
“I hope that like a captive animal my brother defends his space—by that I mean the territory and the culture of France. Against Nazi Germany. An alien and diabolical enemy.”
Winter birds flew by. Gabriel looked at them with curiosity. “Who teaches a bird to sing? Its progenitors? Or are its instincts randomly organized? It inherits nothing, and has to learn everything from scratch?”
Again he put his arms around her, this time roughly, a disagreeable
roughness she read as fierce machismo, the decision not to take her back alive to the corral … The worst of it was that he disguised it, masked his sexual appetite as artistic zeal and fraternal feeling.
“It’s possible to imagine anything. Where did he go? What was his fate? He was the brilliant one. Much more so than me. Then why am I the one to triumph and he the one to lose, Inés?” Gabriel was squeezing her harder, pressing his body against hers but avoiding her face, avoiding her lips. Finally he touched his lips to her ear.
“Inés, I’m telling you all this so you will love me. Understand that. He exists. You’ve seen his photograph. That proves that he exists. I’ve seen your eyes when you look at the photo. You like that man. You want that man. Except that he isn’t here. I’m the one who’s here. Inés, I’m telling you all this so—”
Calmly, she moved away from him, hiding her disgust. He did not restrain her.
“If he were here, Inés, would you treat him the way you’re treating me? Which of us would you prefer?”
“I don’t even know his name.”
“Scholom, I told you.”
“Stop making things up,” she said, now without hiding the bitter taste the situation left in her mouth. “You’re exaggerating terribly. Sometimes I wonder whether men really love us; what they want is to compete with other men and best them … You still wear your war paint, you men. Scholom,
“No.”
Gabriel opened his eyes with mocking amazement. “And I who always believed that every woman is born with more innate experience than a man can acquire in a lifetime.”
“That’s called instinct?” said Inés, more calmly.
“No!” exclaimed Gabriel. “I assure you that a chef d’orchestre needs more than instinct. He needs more personality, more strength, more discipline, precisely because he isn’t a creator.”
“And your brother?” Inés insisted, with no fear now of a forbidden suspicion.
“Elsewhere,” Gabriel answered simply.
This affirmation opened a broad horizon of free associations for Inés. She kept to herself the most secret one, which was about the boy’s physical beauty. She gave voice to the most obvious ones: France, the lost war, the German occupation.
“Hero or traitor, Gabriel? If he stayed in France—”
“Oh, a hero, obviously. He was too noble, too committed. He didn’t think about himself, he thought about serving … even if simply to resist, without acting.”
“Then I can imagine him dead.”
“No, I imagine him a prisoner. I would rather think he’s been captured. Yes. You know, as boys we were fascinated with maps of the world, and globes, and we’d throw dice to see who won Canada or Spain or China. When one of us won some territory or other, we’d yell and shout, you know, Inés, like those terrible cries in Faust I was demanding from all of you yesterday, we’d scream like animals, like screeching monkeys marking their territory and communicating its boundaries to the other monkeys in the jungle. Here am I. This is my land. This is my space.”
“Then maybe your brother’s space is a cell.”
“Or a cage. Sometimes I imagine him in a cage. I’ll go further. Sometimes I imagine that he chose the cage himself and has confused it with freedom.” Gabriel’s dark eyes looked toward the other side of the Channel.
The retreating sea was gradually giving up the land it had won. It was a cold, gray afternoon. Inés was cross with herself for not having brought a muffler.
“I hope that like a captive animal my brother defends his space—by that I mean the territory and the culture of France. Against Nazi Germany. An alien and diabolical enemy.”
Winter birds flew by. Gabriel looked at them with curiosity. “Who teaches a bird to sing? Its progenitors? Or are its instincts randomly organized? It inherits nothing, and has to learn everything from scratch?”
Again he put his arms around her, this time roughly, a disagreeable
roughness she read as fierce machismo, the decision not to take her back alive to the corral … The worst of it was that he disguised it, masked his sexual appetite as artistic zeal and fraternal feeling.
“It’s possible to imagine anything. Where did he go? What was his fate? He was the brilliant one. Much more so than me. Then why am I the one to triumph and he the one to lose, Inés?” Gabriel was squeezing her harder, pressing his body against hers but avoiding her face, avoiding her lips. Finally he touched his lips to her ear.
“Inés, I’m telling you all this so you will love me. Understand that. He exists. You’ve seen his photograph. That proves that he exists. I’ve seen your eyes when you look at the photo. You like that man. You want that man. Except that he isn’t here. I’m the one who’s here. Inés, I’m telling you all this so—”
Calmly, she moved away from him, hiding her disgust. He did not restrain her.
“If he were here, Inés, would you treat him the way you’re treating me? Which of us would you prefer?”
“I don’t even know his name.”
“Scholom, I told you.”
“Stop making things up,” she said, now without hiding the bitter taste the situation left in her mouth. “You’re exaggerating terribly. Sometimes I wonder whether men really love us; what they want is to compete with other men and best them … You still wear your war paint, you men. Scholom,
Similar Books
