She saw him for a few seconds only, before the roundabout took this god to the other side of the world.
BACK HOME MARIE FOUND the kitchen in a state of disarray; she’d left straight after lunch without having time to do anything. All that to arrive at the rue Marguerin on the dot, all because of that idiot Denis! She put some water on to boil, tidied up the room, and then paused, her mind going back to the merry-go-round, singing as the man had done, with the words they’d made up. When the water was hot she washed the dishes and put them away. The stove had got spattered as she’d prepared lunch, so she wiped it, ran an emery cloth over it, spread it with a steel-coloured paste and began to scrub it, happily, until the cast iron shone, like a mirror.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I T WAS A FINE OCTOBER , with steady temperatures, every day lit by a pale sun. As the trees of Paris gently shed their leaves, the air filled with a smooth, peaceful sense of mortality.
Marie felt neither enthusiasm, hatred, distress or even indifference, but a kind of wild peace. If she had any desire at all, it was to be a man walking along a road, sleeping and eating on the hoof, sitting on a pile of stones and cutting up his bread with a knife. If she experienced any happiness, it was the strange, hard pleasure of availability. She walked with a steady step, her eyes clear, her head unusually high. The season of the year was dying too gently for the season of her heart which, in the remembrance of a single night, was struck by a flash – a crude, almost cold clarity.
Marie had hardly seen Claudine, and even then it was usually by chance, at a gathering of friends. She had hardlyspoken to her, not wanting to see those distressed, abandoned looks that Claudine bestowed on her.
From the outside it looked as if nothing had changed between Jean and Marie. Then one evening, Jean expressed a desire to go to a cinema to see a new Russian film that everyone was talking about. Marie was not drawn to the idea, and said so. Jean seemed surprised and upset by her refusal, but Marie added: ‘But you could go on your own – why don’t you?’
He was at first astonished, then delighted. He ate his supper fast and after he’d left she heard him whistling away on the stairway – something he hardly ever did. She told herself that Simone and Alice would be at the cinema and that he would come home very late. He hadn’t even bothered to finish his pudding; his plate was still half full.
She took all this in without feeling unhappy about it; it only proved what she already knew.
When he came home he found her in bed. Opening her eyes, she said unreproachfully: ‘How late you are.’
‘I stayed on to have a chat with Alice.’
He was right next to her, and she could see a light-red mark on his cheek, just by his mouth.
‘Go and wipe your mouth,’ she said.
He went up to the mirror then came towards her. He thought she was going to issue her usual little series of rebukes, or to say how sad she felt, and he wanted to lean over her, kiss her and say, as he always did, that these encounters meant nothing, that the love they shared was unshakeable.But he could tell from her face that she had gone back to sleep. Her skin seemed paler and her beautiful hair, spread out in curls on the pillow, looked like a shining helmet. That nervous tension in her mouth, which was always there even when she was asleep, had gone, and her breathing was slow, barely perceptible, showing no sign of sadness or precipitation. She was lying on her back with her wrists chastely crossed on her breast, just as she used to when she was fifteen.
When Jean came home late, however deeply asleep Marie was, she would move at the touch of his body when he slipped in beside her; instinctively, she would stretch out her arm and fling it over his chest, in a gesture of protectiveness. Today, in her virginal sleep, she stayed dead to the world.
CHAPTER NINE
A T THE BEGINNING of November
BACK HOME MARIE FOUND the kitchen in a state of disarray; she’d left straight after lunch without having time to do anything. All that to arrive at the rue Marguerin on the dot, all because of that idiot Denis! She put some water on to boil, tidied up the room, and then paused, her mind going back to the merry-go-round, singing as the man had done, with the words they’d made up. When the water was hot she washed the dishes and put them away. The stove had got spattered as she’d prepared lunch, so she wiped it, ran an emery cloth over it, spread it with a steel-coloured paste and began to scrub it, happily, until the cast iron shone, like a mirror.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I T WAS A FINE OCTOBER , with steady temperatures, every day lit by a pale sun. As the trees of Paris gently shed their leaves, the air filled with a smooth, peaceful sense of mortality.
Marie felt neither enthusiasm, hatred, distress or even indifference, but a kind of wild peace. If she had any desire at all, it was to be a man walking along a road, sleeping and eating on the hoof, sitting on a pile of stones and cutting up his bread with a knife. If she experienced any happiness, it was the strange, hard pleasure of availability. She walked with a steady step, her eyes clear, her head unusually high. The season of the year was dying too gently for the season of her heart which, in the remembrance of a single night, was struck by a flash – a crude, almost cold clarity.
Marie had hardly seen Claudine, and even then it was usually by chance, at a gathering of friends. She had hardlyspoken to her, not wanting to see those distressed, abandoned looks that Claudine bestowed on her.
From the outside it looked as if nothing had changed between Jean and Marie. Then one evening, Jean expressed a desire to go to a cinema to see a new Russian film that everyone was talking about. Marie was not drawn to the idea, and said so. Jean seemed surprised and upset by her refusal, but Marie added: ‘But you could go on your own – why don’t you?’
He was at first astonished, then delighted. He ate his supper fast and after he’d left she heard him whistling away on the stairway – something he hardly ever did. She told herself that Simone and Alice would be at the cinema and that he would come home very late. He hadn’t even bothered to finish his pudding; his plate was still half full.
She took all this in without feeling unhappy about it; it only proved what she already knew.
When he came home he found her in bed. Opening her eyes, she said unreproachfully: ‘How late you are.’
‘I stayed on to have a chat with Alice.’
He was right next to her, and she could see a light-red mark on his cheek, just by his mouth.
‘Go and wipe your mouth,’ she said.
He went up to the mirror then came towards her. He thought she was going to issue her usual little series of rebukes, or to say how sad she felt, and he wanted to lean over her, kiss her and say, as he always did, that these encounters meant nothing, that the love they shared was unshakeable.But he could tell from her face that she had gone back to sleep. Her skin seemed paler and her beautiful hair, spread out in curls on the pillow, looked like a shining helmet. That nervous tension in her mouth, which was always there even when she was asleep, had gone, and her breathing was slow, barely perceptible, showing no sign of sadness or precipitation. She was lying on her back with her wrists chastely crossed on her breast, just as she used to when she was fifteen.
When Jean came home late, however deeply asleep Marie was, she would move at the touch of his body when he slipped in beside her; instinctively, she would stretch out her arm and fling it over his chest, in a gesture of protectiveness. Today, in her virginal sleep, she stayed dead to the world.
CHAPTER NINE
A T THE BEGINNING of November
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