Bonjour Tristesse (2 page)

"This is like the house of the Sleeping Beauty!" she said.

"How brown you are, Cécile! I am so pleased to see you."

"I too," I answered, "but have you just come from Paris?"

"I preferred to drive down, and by the way, I'm worn out."

I showed her to her room and opened the window in the hope of seeing Cyril's boat, but it had disappeared. Anne sat down on the bed. I noticed little shadows round her eyes.

"What a delightful villa!" she said. "Where's the master of the house?"

"He's gone to meet you at the station with Elsa."

I had put her suitcase on a chair, and when I turned round I received a shock. Her face had suddenly collapsed, her mouth was trembling.

"Elsa Mackenbourg? He brought Elsa Mackenbourg here?"

I could not think of anything to reply. I looked at her, absolutely stupefied. Was that really the face I had always seen so calm and controlled? . . . She stared at me, but I saw she was contemplating my words. When at last she noticed me she turned her head away.

"I ought to have let you know sooner," she said, "but I was in such a hurry to get away and so tired."

"And now ..." I continued mechanically.

"Now what?" she said.

Her expression was interrogatory, disdainful, as though nothing had taken place.

"Well, now you've arrived!" I said stupidly, rubbing my hands together. "You can't think how pleased I am that you're here. I'll wait for you downstairs; if you'd like anything to drink the bar is very well stocked."

Talking incoherently I left the room and went downstairs with my thoughts in a turmoil. What was the reason for that expression, that worried voice, that sudden despondency? I sat on the sofa and closed my eyes. I tried to remember Anne's various faces: hard, reassuring; her expressions of irony, ease, authority. I found myself both moved and irritated by the discovery that she was vulnerable, Was she in love with my father? Was it possible for her to be in love? He was not at all her type. He was weak, frivolous, and sometimes unreliable. But perhaps it was only the fatigue of the journey, or moral indignation? I spent an hour in vain conjecture.

At five o'clock my father arrived with Elsa. I watched him getting out of the car. I wondered if Anne could ever love him? He walked quickly towards me, his head tilted a little backwards; he smiled. Of course it was quite possible for Anne to love him, for anyone to love him!

"Anne wasn't there," he called to me. "I hope she hasn't fallen out of the train!"

"She's in her room," I said. "She came in her car."

"No? Splendid! Then all you have to do is to take up the bouquet."

"Did you buy me some flowers?" called Anne's voice. "How sweet of you!"

She came down the stairs to meet him, cool, smiling, in a dress that did not seem to have travelled. I reflected sadly how she had appeared only when she heard the car, and that she might have done so a little sooner to talk to me; even if it had been about my examination, in which, by the way, I had failed. This last thought consoled me.

My father rushed up to her and kissed her hand.

"I spent a quarter of an hour on the station platform, holding this bunch of flowers, and feeling utterly foolish. Thank goodness you're here! Do you know Elsa Mackenbourg?"

I averted my eyes.

"We must have met," said Anne, all amiability. "What a lovely room I have. It was most kind of you to invite me, Raymond; I was feeling very exhausted."

My father gave a snort of pleasure. In his eyes everything was going well. He made conversation, uncorked bottles; but I kept thinking, first of Cyril's passionate face, and then of Anne's, both with the stamp of violence on them, and I wondered if the holidays would be as uncomplicated as my father had predicted.

This first dinner was very gay. My father and Anne talked of the friends they had in common, who were few, but highly colourful. I was enjoying myself up to the moment when Anne declared that my father's business partner was an idiot. He was a man who drank a lot, but I liked him very much, and my father and I had had memorable meals in his company.

"But Anne," I protested. "Lombard is most amusing; he can even be very funny."

"All the same, you must admit that he's somewhat lacking, and as for his brand of humour ..."

"He has perhaps not a very brilliant form of intelligence, but..."

She interrupted me with an air of condescension:

"What you call 'forms' of intelligence are only degrees."

I was delighted with her clear-cut definition. Certain phrases fascinate me with their subtle implications, even though I may not always understand their meaning. I told Anne that I wished I could have written it down in my notebook. My father burst out laughing:

"At least you bear no resentment!"

How could I when Anne was not malevolent? I felt that she was too completely indifferent, her judgments had not the precision, the sharp edge of spite, and so were all the more effective.

The first evening Anne did not seem to notice that Elsa went quite openly into my father's bedroom. She had brought me a jersey from her collection, but would not accept any thanks; it only bored her to be thanked, she said, and as I was anyhow shy of expressing enthusiasm, I was most relieved.

"I think Elsa is very nice," she remarked as I was about to leave the room.

She looked straight at me without a smile, seeking something in me which at all cost she wished to eradicate: I was to forget her earlier reaction.

"Oh yes, she's a charming girl . . . very
sympathique,"
I stammered.

She began to laugh, and I went up to bed, most upset. I fell asleep thinking of Cyril, probably dancing in Cannes with girls.

I realise that I have forgotten an important factor —the presence of the sea with its incessant rhythm. Neither have I remembered the four lime trees in the courtyard of a school in Provence, and their scent; and my father's smile on the station platform three years ago when I left school, his embarrassed smile because I had plaits and wore an ugly dark dress. And then in the car his sudden triumphant joy because I had his eyes, his mouth, and I was going to be for him the dearest, most marvellous of toys. I knew nothing; he was going to show me Paris, luxury, the easy life. I dare say I owed most of my pleasures of that time to money; the pleasure of driving fast, of having a new dress, buying records, books, flowers. Even now I am not ashamed of indulging in these pleasures, in fact I just take them for granted. I would rather deny myself my moods of mysticism or despair than give them up. My love of pleasure seems to be the only coherent side of my character. Perhaps it is because I have not read enough? At school one only reads edifying works. In Paris there was no time for reading: after lectures my friends hurried me off to cinemas; they were surprised to find that I did not even know the actors' names. I sat on sunny café terraces, I savoured the pleasure of drifting along with the crowds, of having a drink, of being with someone who looks into your eyes, holds your hand, and then leads you far away from those same crowds. We would walk slowly home, there under a doorway he would draw me close and embrace me: I found out how pleasant it was to be kissed. In the evenings I grew older: I went to parties with my father. They were very mixed parties, and I was rather out of place, but I enjoyed myself, and the fact that I was so young seemed to amuse everyone. When we left, my father would drop me at our flat, and then see his friend home. I never heard him come in.

I do not want to give the impression that he was vain about his affairs, but he made no effort to hide them from me, or to invent stories in order to justify the frequent presence at breakfast of a particular friend, not even if she became a member of our household (fortunately only temporarily!). In any case I would soon have discovered the nature of his relations with his 'guests', and probably he found it easier to be frank than to take the trouble to deceive me, and thereby lose my confidence. His only fault was that he imbued me with a cynical attitude towards love which, considering my age and inexperience, should have meant happiness and not only a transitory sensation. I was fond of repeating to myself sayings like Oscar Wilde's:

"Sin is the only note of vivid colour that persists in the modern world."

I made it my own with far more conviction, I think, than if I had put it into practice. I believed that I could base my life on it.

3

The next morning I was awakened by a slanting ray of hot sunshine that flooded my bed and put an end to my strange and rather confused dreams. Still half asleep I raised my hand to shield my face from the insistent heat, then gave it up. It was ten o'clock. I went down to the terrace in my pyjamas and found Anne glancing through the newspapers. I noticed that she was lightly, but perfectly, made up; apparently she never allowed herself a real holiday. As she paid no attention to me, I sat down on the steps with a cup of coffee and an orange to enjoy the delicious morning. I bit the orange and let its sweet juice run into my mouth, then took a gulp of scalding black coffee and went back to the orange again. The sun warmed my hair and smoothed away the marks of the sheet on my skin. I thought in five minutes I would go and bathe. Anne's voice made me jump:

"Cécile, aren't you eating anything?"

"I prefer just a drink in the morning."

"To look presentable you ought to put on six pounds; your cheeks are hollow and one can count every rib. Do go in and fetch yourself some bread and butter!"

I begged her not to force me to eat, and she was just explaining how important it was when my father appeared in his sumptuous spotted dressing-gown.

"What a charming spectacle," he said, "two little girls sunning themselves and discussing bread and butter."

"Unfortunately there's only one little girl," said Anne, laughing. "I'm your age, my dear Raymond!"

"Caustic as ever!" he said gently, and I saw Anne's eyelids flutter as if she had received an unexpected caress.

I slipped away unnoticed. On the stairs I passed Elsa. She was obviously just out of bed, with swollen eyelids, pale lips, and her skin crimson from too much sun. I almost stopped her to say that Anne was downstairs, her face trim and immaculate; that
she
would be careful to tan slowly and without damage. I nearly put her on her guard, but probably she would have taken it badly: she was twenty-nine, thirteen years younger than Anne, and that seemed to her a master trump.

I fetched my bathing suit and ran to the creek. To my surprise Cyril was already there, sitting on his boat. He came to meet me looking serious, and took my hands.

"I wanted to beg your pardon for yesterday," he said.

"It was my fault," I replied, wondering why he was so solemn.

"I'm very annoyed with myself," he went on, pushing the boat into the water.

"There's no reason to be," I said lightly.

"But I am!"

I was already in the boat. He was standing in the water up to his knees, resting his hands on the gunwale as if it were the bar of a tribunal. I knew his face well enough to read his expression and realised that he would not join me until he had said what was on his mind. It made me laugh to think that at twenty-five he saw himself as a seducer.

"Don't laugh," he said, "I really meant it. You have no protection against me. Look at the example of your father and that woman! I might be the most awful cad for all you know."

He was not at all ridiculous. I thought he was kind, already half in love with me, and that it would be nice to be in love with him too. I put my arms round his neck and my cheek against his. He had broad shoulders and his body felt hard against mine.

"You're very sweet, Cyril," I murmured. "You shall be a brother to me."

He folded his arms round me with an angry little exclamation, and gently pulled me out of the boat. He held me close against him, my head on his shoulder. At that moment I loved him. In the morning light he was as golden, as soft, as gentle as myself. He was protecting me. As his lips touched mine we both began to tremble, and the pleasure of our kiss was untinged by shame or regret, merely a deep searching interrupted every now and then by whispers. I broke away and swam towards the boat, which was drifting out. I dipped my face into the water to refresh it. The water was green. A feeling of reckless happiness came over me.

At half-past eleven Cyril left, and my father and his women appeared on the mule path. He walked between the two, supporting them, offering his hand to each in turn with a charm and naturalness all his own. Anne had kept on her beach wrap. She removed it with complete unconcern, while we all watched her, and lay down on the sand. She had a small waist and perfect legs, and, no doubt as the result of a lifetime of care and attention, her body was almost without a blemish. Involuntarily I glanced at my father, raising an eyebrow of approval. To my great surprise he did not respond, but closed his eyes. Poor Elsa, who was in a lamentable condition, was busy oiling herself. I did not think my father would stand her for another week. . . . Anne turned her head towards me:

"Cécile, why do you get up so early here? In Paris you stayed in bed until mid-day."

"I was working," I said. "It made my legs ache."

She did not smile. She only smiled when she felt like it, never out of politeness, like other people.

"And your exam?"

"Ploughed!" I said brightly. "Well and truly ploughed."

"But you
must
pass it in October."

"Why should she?" my father interrupted. "I never got any diplomas and I live a life of luxury."

"You had quite a fortune to start with," Anne reminded him.

"My daughter will always find men to look after her," said my father grandiloquently.

Elsa began to laugh, but stopped when she saw our three faces.

"She will have to work during the holidays," said Anne, shutting her eyes to put an end to the conversation.

I gave my father a despairing look, but he merely smiled sheepishly. I saw myself in front of an open page of Bergson, its black lines dancing before my eyes, while Cyril was laughing outside. The idea horrified me. I crawled over to Anne and called her in a low voice. She opened her eyes. I bent an anxious, pleading face over her, drawing in my cheeks to make myself look like an overworked intellectual.