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Authors: Francoise Sagan

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BOOK: Aimez-vous Brahms
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He looked rather cowed. Paule began to experience a faint liking for him. At all events, he did not seem unduly conscious of his looks: this was unhoped for.

"I suppose it's still raining?" She laughed. She was thinking of the look on Roger's face if he could see her sitting here with professional poise, terrorising an over-endowed young creature, in his dressing-gown, at ten in the morning.

"Oh yes, it's still raining," she said gaily. He glanced up.

"What do you expect me to say?" he said. "I don't know you. If I did, I'd tell you how happy I was to see you again."

She stared at him, taken aback. "Why?"

"I just would."

He looked away. She found him odder and odder. "This flat could certainly do with a bit more furniture," she said. "Where do you sit when there are more than three of you?"

"I don't know," he said. "I'm seldom here. I'm out at work all day and I come home so tired that I go straight to bed."

Paule was losing all her preconceptions. He did not parade his looks; he worked all day. She nearly asked: "What do you do?" but she restrained herself. Such inquisitiveness was unlike her.

"I'm devilling for a barrister," pursued Simon. "It's a hard life: working till midnight, up at dawn . . ."

"It's ten o'clock," Paule pointed out.

"My chief client went to the guillotine this morning," he said languidly.

She gave a start. He kept his eyes lowered.

"Good heavens!" she said. "You mean . . , he's dead?"

The pair of them burst out laughing. He rose and took a cigarette from the mantel-shelf.

"No, actually I don't do much work—not enough. Whereas you . . . Up at ten, all set to furnish this frightful room. I'm overawed."

He strode up and down, looking very worked up.

"Take it easy," said Paule.

She felt in excellent spirits, thoroughly restored. She also began to dread the arrival of Simon's mother.

"I'll go and put some clothes on," said Simon. "It won't take a minute. Do wait for me."

* * *

She spent an hour making lavish plans with Mrs. Van den Besh, visibly disgruntled and rather haggard in the morning, and came downstairs in raptures, mapping out her finances and completely forgetful of Simon's existence. Outside, it was still raining. She raised her hand to call a taxi, and a small, low-slung car stopped in front of her. Simon opened the door.

"Can I drop you off? I was just leaving for the office."

He had obviously been waiting for an hour, but his artful look melted Paule. She bent double, struggled in and smiled.

"I'm going to the Avenue Matignon."

"Did you settle things with my mother?"

"Admirably. You'll soon have downy couches to rest your weary limbs. You're sure I shan't be making you too late? It's gone eleven. They've had time to send everyone to the guillotine."

"I've plenty of time," he said sullenly.

"I'm not getting at you," she resumed gently. "I feel in good form because until today I had money troubles, and thanks to your mother I can say goodbye to them."

"Make her pay up before you start," he said. "She's as mean as they come."

"That's no way to speak of one's parents," said Paule.

"I'm not a kid of twelve."

"How old
are
you?"

"Twenty-five. And you?"

"Thirty-nine."

He gave a low whistle, so rude that for a split second she was close to losing her temper; then she roared with laughter.

"What are you laughing at?"

"The admiring whistle ..."

"It was much more admiring than you think," he said, and he looked at her so tenderly that she felt embarrassed.

The windscreen-wipers beat time with supreme inefficacy and she wondered how he was able to drive. She had laddered one of her stockings getting in; she felt marvellously gay in this uncomfortable car, with this young and clearly captivated stranger and the rain trickling down from the hood and soiling her light-coloured coat. She began to hum: after paying her taxes, after posting off her mother's allowance and settling her debts at the shop, she would have . . . she didn't feel like working it out. Simon was another fast driver. She thought of Roger and the night she had spent and grew gloomy again.

"You wouldn't care to have lunch with me one day?"

Simon spoke quickly, without looking at her. She felt a momentary panic. She did not know him; it would mean making efforts at conversation, asking him questions about himself, entering a new existence. She rebelled at the idea.

"I can't at the moment. I've too much work."

"Ah," he said.

He did not insist. She shot a glance at him, he had slowed down and seemed even to be driving sadly. She took a cigarette and he held out his lighter. He had boyish wrists; they were too thin and projected comically from a heavy tweed jacket. You shouldn't dress like a trapper with your build, she thought, and she had a momentary hankering to take him in hand. He was just the type to arouse maternal instincts in a woman of her age.

"Here we are," she said.

He got out without a word and opened the door for her. He looked mulish and downcast.

"Thank you again," she said.

"It was nothing."

She took three paces towards the door and turned. He had not moved. He was looking at her.

 

3

 

S
IMON
spent a quarter of an hour looking for a space and finally parked six hundred yards from his office. He was devilling for a friend of his mother's, a very famous and entirely odious barrister who, for reasons Simon dreaded understanding, put up with his nonsense. There were times when he felt like pushing him too far, but his laziness deterred him. Stepping out on to the pavement he stumbled and at once began to limp, looking meek and resigned. Women turned as he passed and Simon felt their thoughts hit him in the back: "So young, so handsome—and a cripple! How tragic!", though he derived no assurance from his looks, only relief: "I'd never have had the strength to be ugly." And the thought brought in its wake a glimpse of an ascetic life: now the outcast painter, now the shepherd in the blazing Landes.

He limped into the office, and old Alice shot him a glance which was part solicitous, part sceptical. She knew his pet diversions and suffered them with regretful condescension. Had he taken his work seriously he might, with his looks and his imagination, have become a great advocate. He made her a grandiloquent bow and sat down at his desk.

"Why the limp?"

"It isn't a proper limp. Who killed who last night? When am I going to have a nice, fat, juicy murder to deal with?"

"You've been buzzed for three times this morning. It's half-past eleven."

The buzzer could only be the Grand Maître. Simon glanced at the door.

"I overslept. But I met someone really terrific."

"A woman?"

"Yes. You know: lovely face, very soft, a little drawn . . . gestures which were really gestures . . . Afflicted with some secret sorrow ..."

"Your time would be better spent looking at the Guillaut file."

"Of course."

"Is she married?"

Simon was jerked out of his dreams. "I don't know . . . But if she is, they're not happy. She's been having money troubles, but they cleared up this morning and she was so gay. I love women who delight in money."

She shrugged. "Then you love them all."

"Nearly all," said Simon. "Except when they're too young."

He immersed himself in his file. The door opened and Maître Fleury's head appeared.

"Monsieur Van den Besh . . . one moment." Simon exchanged looks with the secretary. He rose and stepped inside the English-style office which he hated for its perfection. "Are you aware of the time?" Maître Fleury launched into a speech extolling punctuality and hard work, rounding it off with a tribute to his own patience and that of Mrs. Van den Besh. Simon stared out of the window. It seemed to him that he was reliving a scene from the distant past, that he had always lived in this English-style office, always heard these words; it seemed to him that something was tightening around him, choking him, leading him to his death. What have I done, he suddenly thought, what have I done in twenty- five years but pass from teacher to teacher, forever reprimanded, forever flattered at being so? It was the first time he had put it to himself in such strong terms and he automatically spoke aloud.

"What have I done?"

"Done? But my dear boy, you haven't done a thing. That's just it: you never do."

"Come to think of it, I've never even loved anyone," continued Simon.

"I'm not asking you to lose your heart to me or old Alice," exploded Maître Fleury. "I'm asking you to work. There are limits to my patience."

"There are limits to everything," returned Simon thoughtfully.

He felt entirely adrift, entirely out of touch with the world. As though he had not slept for ten days, as though he were starving, dying of thirst.

"Are you trying to be funny?"

"No," said Simon. "Forgive me, I'll pay attention."

He backed out of the office and sat down at his desk with his head in his hands, under the surprised gaze of Madame Alice. What is the matter with me? he thought. What on earth is the matter with me? He tried to think back: a childhood in England, universities, a passion—yes, at fifteen—for a friend of his mother's who had initiated him at the end of a week, an easy life, bright friends, girls, roads in the sun . . . everything swirled in his memory, but he could focus on no particular item. Perhaps nothing was the matter. He was twenty-five.

"Don't fret yourself," said Madame Alice. "You know he'll get over it."

He did not answer. He doodled on a blotter.

"Think about your girl friend," Madame Alice continued anxiously. "The Guillaut file, rather," she checked herself.

"I haven't got a girl friend," said Simon.

"How about the one you met this morning?
What
was her name?"

"I don't know."

It was true, he did not even know her Christian name. There was someone in Paris he knew nothing about: that in itself was wonderful. Completely unhoped for. Someone he could picture as he wanted for days on end.

* * *

Roger lay on the divan in the drawing-room; he was smoking slowly, feeling quite worn out. He had spent the day down at the wharf, counting his lorries in; he had been soaked to the skin and, to crown it all, he'd been robbed of his lunch by an accident on the road to Lille which, as he had found on arrival, would cost him over a hundred thousand francs. Paule was clearing the table. "How about Teresa?" he said.

"Teresa Who?"

"Van den Besh. Her Christian name came back to me this morning—God knows why."

"It's all settled," said Paule. "I'm to do the whole flat. I didn't tell you before because you had so many worries ..."

"Do you think the fact that yours are over would have made me feel worse?"

"No. I just thought..."

"Am I so selfish, Paule?"

He had straightened up on the divan and was staring at her out of his blue eyes: he wore his furious look. She was going to have to calm him, to explain to him that he was the best of men— which in a sense was true—and that he made her very happy. She sat down beside him.

"You're not selfish. Your mind is on your work: it's natural you should talk about it. . ."

"No—I mean, in the way I treat you. Do you think I'm very selfish?"

He realised he had been thinking about this all day, probably since he had left her at her door, the night before, with that blurred look in her eyes. She hesitated: he had never asked her before and this might be the time to talk it over with him. But she felt in good form, sure of herself, and he looked so tired . . . She backed down.

"No, Roger. There are times, it's true, when I feel a bit lonely, not so young as I was, unable to keep up with you. But I'm happy."

"You're happy?"

"Yes."

He lay back. She had said: "I'm happy", and now he could rid his mind of the minor disquiet which had dogged him all day. That was all he asked.

"You know, those little flirtations of mine are . . . you don't need me to tell you what they're worth."

"Of course not," she said.

She looked at him; she found him childish, lying there with his eyes shut, so tall, so hefty and asking such puerile questions: "You're happy?" He reached his hand towards her; she took it and moved closer to him. He kept his eyes shut.

"Paule," he said. "Paule . . . Without you, you know, Paule ..."

"Yes."

She bent and kissed him on the cheek. He was already asleep. Insensibly he removed his hand from Paule's, lifted it up and placed it on his heart. She opened a book.

An hour later he woke with great excitement, consulted his watch and decreed that it was time to go dancing and drinking, so as to forget all those damned lorries. Paule felt sleepy, but no argument could withstand Roger's wants.

He took her somewhere new: a shadowy cellar in the Boulevard Saint-Germain which had been given an outdoor look and was alive with the Latin-American rhythms of a record player.

"I can't go out every night," said Paule as they sat down. "I shall feel a hundred tomorrow. This morning was bad enough ..." It was only then she remembered Simon. She had entirely forgotten him. She turned to face Roger.

"This morning—can you imagine?—I ..."

She broke off. Simon was standing in front of her.

"Good evening," he said.

"Monsieur Ferttet, Monsieur Van den Besh," said Paule.

"I was looking for you," said Simon. "I've found you—it's a good sign."

And without waiting to be asked, he flopped on to a stool. Roger bridled.

"I've been looking for you everywhere," Simon continued. "I was beginning to think you were just a dream."

His eyes sparkled. He laid his hand on Paule's arm. She was speechless.

"Haven't you a table of your own?" said Roger.

"You're married?" Simon asked Paule. "I liked to think you weren't."

"He bores me," Roger said aloud. "I'm going to pack him off."

BOOK: Aimez-vous Brahms
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