Aminadab 0803213131 (29 page)

a tangle of threads that had not yet been unraveled and that drew one's gaze ceaselessly in every direction in search of the image they were meant to construct. Perhaps it was a map, perhaps a simple work of embroidery; it hardly mattered. Although it was an equally minute task, he cleaned the other furnishings without difficulty, relying on his experience to avoid errors and finding again the ornamental motifs - always the same ones - whose enigmatic character took the monotony out of his efforts. Soon he had transformed a large part of the room, and he looked around: everything was in order, and now he was able to look directly and without discomfort at the space where not long ago he had almost fallen into a faint. In a corner he saw a small sliding window that struck him with its ruined appearance. The boards in which the frame was mounted were in a very bad state; they were broken in several spots; the dampness had badly cracked the run ners, and to keep the shutter from falling, it had been clumsily nailed onto two diagonal crosspieces. Thomas tried to pull it open, but of course since everything was nailed down and screwed tight, it would not open, and he could only shake the whole contraption in frustration. Then he leaned his ear against it, hoping to hear a noise from outside. He even drew the cur tain behind him; and from that moment on he forgot about the room, the young woman, and all the rest. He waited for quite a long time. He neither saw nor heard anything, but this silence seemed to be the prelude to a great effort that was destined to break down every barrier and lead to someone who was out of reach. Soon enough a voice did indeed make itself heard; it was still very weak, although it appeared to be quite close; a sort of faith was necessary to hear it, to follow it without confusing it with the sound of his own voice, of which it seemed the very echo. It evoked for Thomas the shouts he heard when he first entered the house. His heart beat fast as he listened to it, as if it reproduced a moan that he himself had uttered in some very distant past. After remaining with his ear pressed to the appara tus, he realized that the voice was coming from inside the room. He quickly raised the curtain and saw the young woman standing on the steps leading to the second part of the room. "I beg your pardon," he said, "I did not know that you had called me." "I didn't call you," answered the young woman. "But since I have the opportunity to speak to you, I will point out that the item you are so inter ested in is no longer in service. It is therefore useless for you to try to repair it." 161

"Not in service?" said Thomas, with a look of surprise, although he him selfhad already seen that this was so. "I was under the impression that you had used it to receive the communication concerning me." The young woman shrugged her shoulders. "In any case," she said, "it's not in use now. So leave off worrying about it. If you would really like to make yourself useful, there is other work here that requires your attention." "What work?" asked Thomas, still looking astonished. The young woman did not answer directly, but pointed to the room he had just cleaned in such a conscientious manner. What had he forgotten? He reexamined the floor, the furnishings, the drapery, the columns; he saw no signs of negligence. Obviously, the vaults of the ceiling could not have been very clean, but he could hardly see them, so high and indifferent were they, and he had no way to reach them. "Are you referring to the ceiling?" he asked. He immediately regretted his words, for at that very instant he saw hid den in the curtains, which hung along the walls, a rope ladder that was probably used for cleaning the higher parts of the room. The ladder was far from new, some of its rungs had been eaten away by moisture and mold, but next to the ladder there was a sturdy rope with knots that could be used for support. With one hand holding the broom and the rag, and the other grasping the rope, he slowly climbed up, keeping his eyes all the while on the drapery with its bright silvery color. Having gotten about halfway up, he looked up and noticed that the ladder did not rise all the way to the top of the structure but was attached by two hooks to the capital of the column, above which there was another column that went farther up. This very obviously settled the matter. Nevertheless, he held it as a point of honor to climb as high as he possibly could. He continued his ascent, and when he reached the cornice, he looked up again to see where he was. This time the vaults seemed very near. He was some thirty feet from the first arches, perhaps a little more. As for their highest point, he could not tell how far it was, for the stone was so white and shone with such brilliance that one could only feel far away from all this light. There was some cleaning to be done, no doubt about that. Thomas grew dizzy at the thought of his task. To regain his balance, he grabbed onto the column and sat down on the entablature. There was something icy and frozen in the light that fell from above. It did not force one's gaze away, on the contrary, it attracted it, but 162

then it gave nothing back, and this gaze, after rejoicing at the splendor to which it had been admitted, felt disdained and returned from this upward surge with nothing but bitterness and disgust. And where were the vaults? Was there really any stone behind this sparkling powder, with its innumer able drops that constantly broke apart and reformed without forcing one's gaze away? It was possible to think that the arches, reaching their high est point, had been broken and that what seemed to be the key element of the structure was only a large opening through which poured the light of day. Thomas would like to have spoken to this light. Was it possible that it shone on him in vain? Could he not say to it that no man can be lost this way, without a sign, without a word of explanation, without understand ing anything about the infinite efforts he has made to come this far? Again he looked up. Absurd, foolish thoughts. Who could hear him? Who knew anything of his story? Without thinking of whether or not he had com pleted his task, he climbed back down the ladder, and as soon as he placed a foot on the ground, he was addressed in a loud voice by the young woman. "Well, now, there you are," she said. "I kept my eyes on you the entire time, and I was very pleased by your enthusiasm. The way you carried your work through to the end deserves nothing but praise." Thomas, still out of breath, answered her calmly: "Your praise is no doubt ironic, and it probably disguises a sharp rebuke. But if my work has not corresponded to your wishes, I am only partly responsible, for I did not receive all the instructions that could have clarified this task for me. What should I have done?" He stared at her intently and saw that, still motionless on the steps, she hesitated to go down into the first room and seemed rather ready to leave. Was she not about to go away for good? Should he try to hold her back? Perhaps he ought to walk over and speak to her. In an attempt to satisfy her, he began his work again. He hid the ladder in the curtains and went around the room wiping away the footprints that marred the shiny floor. When he came to the door, it still stood open, and he could feel a little air from the hallway; he wanted to lean out, but at that moment he heard the young woman moving around and saw that, regardless of his renewed efforts, she was preparing to leave him. He angrily threw all the cleaning equipment into the hallway and said in a stentorian voice: "Please stay." His words resounded like thunder through the entire room. He was as terrified as if he himself had been the object of some tremendous order.

He dared not turn around; he gently closed the door and began to walk back and forth, wanting neither to look at what was going on around him, nor to form any idea of what would happen to him. Nevertheless, after a few moments, surprised that no one had come to take him away, he looked down at the lock and remembered that the door could not he opened from outside. How forgetful! He hurriedly tried to push the bolt to and turn the key, but either he had somehow jammed the mechanism or he had become so clumsy that he could not carry out the simplest operations. He was un able to disengage the handle and was hurting his fingers for nothing. He examined the door more closely without being able to find the cause of the problem. Then he stood quietly, understanding finally that the door was closed from both sides and slowly realizing the misfortune that this situation represented to him. Hanging his head, he went to sit down on the armchair and, closing his eyes, gently slipped into a dream. He saw the room just as it was, but instead of peacefully enjoying his rest, he noticed that the floor was slanted and that it was causing everything to slide toward the steps and into the second part of the room. He too was undergoing the effects of this inclined plane. It seemed to him - strange vertigo! -that he was being pulled along in a slow movement that forced him to stare into immense empty spaces. The young woman drew him out of his dream by asking him to bring over the little stool. He stood up quickly and, despite his aching body, swiftly climbed the steps. His neighbor was half hidden behind a larger and more imposing desk than the one in the first room. She was bent over a notebook and was leafing through it, her feet covered with beautiful white rugs. Slowly straightening up, she said to him: "You are not authorized to be here." She approached, and he looked at her with extreme pleasure. "Such a serious attitude," he thought. "At least with her, there is no point in wasting one's time begging and pleading. I'm lucky; she's completely inflexible." She came right up next to him, and he had to raise his head to look at her. She was really very young; but her strict attitude was all the more pro nounced because of it. "Finally," he thought, "here is a fine soul who will not leave me to my despair. Everything will quickly be taken care of." But she did not seem to be in any hurry. Her gaze fell on him from time to time, but then she forgot him. So, using all the strength he had left, he rose up and almost pressed himself against the young woman; her face seemed im-

mense, and he recognized none of the features he thought he had seen be fore. She bent over abruptly and threw herself at his face, which her mouth lightly touched, like a young animal trying to soak up all the water from a spring with a few laps of the tongue; then she squeezed him with rage, pressing his face with one hand, holding him by the back of the neck with the other; although her hands were rather small, they were very strong, and they held his head in a veritable vice. "Obviously," thought Thomas, "there is nothing very pleasant in any of this, but it is better to have done, even at the price of a few inconveniences." This thought gave him cour age, and when the young woman began to chew furiously at his mouth, as though to exhaust this source of false words, he even pulled her against him to show that he was in perfect agreement with what was happening. To him, these were moments that seemed endless. He struggled desper ately not for this life but to find the limit of this life. At times they stopped and looked at each other with a grimace. Then they rolled again on the floor, knocking against the stool and then against the desk, attracting each other and repelling each other with moans that were only incomprehen sible words; both of them were lost, wandering among loathsome punish ments they could not quite reach, with no hope for light, in deeper and deeper shadows, now with neither hands nor body to touch each other, pulled along by a shattering transformation into a world of misfortune and despair. Finally, Thomas heard the sound of the heavy desk as it fell, after a shock more violent than the rest, and he thought with terror that, given their blind struggle, it could only end like this: from the moment when they had strayed so far, they could just as well have rolled to the bottom of the steps. So when he opened his eyes, he had a feeling of satisfaction at seeing that there were no other signs of disorder in the room; the stool had simply been knocked over, and the rugs, the precious rugs, had escaped unharmed from the furious destruction. Right away he tried to get up and to eliminate these vestiges of the struggle - was he not still a domestic? - but the girl placed her hand on his arm; he felt like a prisoner and abandoned himself to a strange feeling of sleep and peace. This rest could only last a moment; his eyes closed; his body relaxed; he said to himself that he had returned from a great distance and had nothing more to seek; he too placed his hand on the girl's arm, and in this restless peace, he tried to think of what it was he could have done during such a long journey, unknown to all; then he thought that it didn't

matter after all because the journey was over. Looking at the arm he gently touched, he thought: "Why could she not be a woman like any other, with whom I could forget my cares, rest in comfort, and become once again the man I used to be? But what is it that distinguishes her? Can I not hold her wrist in my hand? Is she not my own? Will I not, in a moment, fall asleep by her side? Who could take her away from me now?" All these thoughts were very relaxing. He had not felt such calm in a very long time. "Like wise," he said to himself, looking at the room again, "how could I complain about such a beautiful dwelling as this? It is a magnificent structure, and I never would have dreamed of finding such a grandiose residence. When it comes to quiet and calm, it too is perfect. No one contests my right to stay here; no one asks me to leave; on the contrary, I am welcomed and smiled upon; if there have been a few disapproving comments here or there, they had no practical consequences, and it was all soon forgotten. Why then am I so anxious?" Half closing his eyes, he looked at the fingers on her hand; they were smooth and pink but a little plump, as if they had never done any hard work. It was a very pretty hand, and it was a pleasure for him to hold it. The girl did not seem to mind this admiration. "I don't want to trouble you," she said to him, "but I must ask you a ques tion. Have you stared at Barbe's arms with the same look in your eyes? Did you not find them pleasing? What was your impression?" A strange question. "Barbe," said Thomas absently. "Yes," said the girl, "Barbe, the maidservant. You certainly know her; she was your friend." Thomas did not want to answer; he had the impression that if he turned toward this memory, he would suddenly lose his footing and would see everything disappear that still made it possible for him to live. "It would actually be very helpful if you remembered her," continued the girl. "The moment has come to compare the present and the past, and it is an important choice to make. But perhaps," she added, "you prefer to withhold judgment." Thomas made an effort to recall the features of the maidservant. It was not easy. She had shown herself in very different guises, and in addition there had been the story from the two employees who had given a memo rable description of her. How to sort out all these memories? 166