Christmas Holiday (27 page)

Presently the patron touched her on the shoulder.

“I have a word to say to you,” he muttered.

Lydia released herself from Charley’s arms and going to one side with the fat landlord listened to what he said. Charley could see that she was startled. He was evidently trying to point someone out to her, for Charley saw her craning her neck; but with the thick mass of dancers in the way she could see nothing, and in a moment she followed the patron to the other end of the long cellar. She seemed to have forgotten Charley. Somewhat piqued, he went back to his table. Two couples were sitting there comfortably enjoying his champagne, and they greeted him heartily. They were
all very familiar now and they asked him what he had done with his little friend. He told them what had happened. One of the men was a short thick-set fellow with a red face and a magnificent moustache. His shirt open at the neck showed his hairy chest, and his arms, for he had taken off his coat in that stifling heat and turned up his shirt-sleeves, were profusely tattooed. He was with a girl who might have been twenty years younger than he. She had very sleek black hair, parted in the middle, with a bun on her neck, a face dead-white with powder, scarlet lips and eyes heavy with mascara. The man nudged her with his elbow.

“Now then, why don’t you dance with the Englishman? You’ve drunk his bubbly, haven’t you?”

“I don’t mind,” she said.

She danced clingingly. She smelt strongly of scent, but not so strongly as to disguise the fact that she had eaten at dinner a dish highly flavoured with garlic. She smiled alluringly at Charley.

“He must be rotten with vice, this pretty little Englishman,” she gurgled, with a squirm of a lithe body in her black, but dusty, velvet gown.

“Why do you say that?” he smiled.

“To be with the wife of Berger, what’s that if it isn’t vice?”

“She’s my sister,” said Charley gaily.

She thought this such a good joke that when the band stopped and they went back to the table she repeated it to the assembled company. They all thought it very funny, and the thick-set man with the hairy chest slapped him on the back.

“Farceur, va!”

Charley was not displeased to be looked upon as a humorist. It was nice to be a success. He realized that as the lover of a notorious murderer’s wife he was something of a personage there. They urged him to come again.

“But come alone next time,” said the girl he had just danced with.

“We’ll find you a girl. What d’you want to get mixed up with one of the Russians for? The wine of the country, that’s what you want.”

Charley ordered another bottle of champagne. He was far from tight, but he was merry. He was seeing life with a vengeance. When Lydia came back he was talking and laughing with his new friends as if he had known them all his life. He danced the next dance with her. He noticed that she was not keeping step with him and he gave her a little shake.

“You’re not attending.”

She laughed.

“I’m sorry. I’m tired. Let’s go.”

“Has something happened to upset you?”

“No. It’s getting very late and the heat’s awful.”

Having warmly shaken hands with their new friends, they left and got into a taxi. Lydia sank back exhausted. He was feeling happy and affectionate and he took her hand and held it. They drove in silence.

They went to bed, and in a few minutes Charley became aware from her regular breathing that Lydia had fallen asleep. But he was too excited to sleep. The evening had amused him and he was keenly alert. He
thought it all over for a while and chuckled at the grand story he would make of it when he got home. He turned on the light to read. But he could not give his attention to the poems of Blake just then. Disordered notions flitted across his mind. He switched off the light and presently fell into a light doze, but in a little while awoke. He was tingling with desire. He heard the quiet breathing of the sleeping woman in the bed by his side and a peculiar sensation stirred his heart. Except on that first evening at the Sérail no feeling for Lydia had touched him except pity and kindliness. Sexually she did not in the least attract him. After seeing her for several days all day long he did not even think her pretty; he did not like the squareness of her face, her high cheek-bones, and the way her pale eyes were set flat in their orbits; sometimes, indeed, he thought her really plain. Notwithstanding the life she had adopted—for what strange, unnatural reason—she gave him a sense of such deadly respectability that it choked him off. And then her indifference to sexual congress was chilling. She looked with contempt and loathing on the men who for money sought their pleasure of her. The passionate love she bore for Robert gave her an aloofness from all human affections that killed desire. But besides all that Charley didn’t think he liked her very much for herself; she was sometimes sullen, almost always indifferent; she took whatever he did for her as her right; it was all very well to say that she asked for nothing, it would have been graceful if she had shown, not gratitude, but a glimmering recognition of the fact that he was trying to
do his best for her. Charley had an uneasy fear that she was making a mug of him; if what Simon said was true and she was making money at the brothel in order to help Robert to escape, she was nothing but a callous liar; he flushed hotly when it occurred to him that she was laughing behind his back at his simplicity. No, he didn’t admire her, and the more he thought of her the less he thought he liked her. And yet at that moment he was so breathless with desire of her that he felt he would choke. He thought of her not as he saw her every day, rather drab, like a teacher at a Sunday school, but as he had first seen her in those baggy Turkish trousers and the blue turban spangled with little stars, her cheeks painted and her lashes black with mascara; he thought of her slender waist, her clear, soft, honey-coloured skin, and her small firm breasts with their rosy nipples. He tossed on his bed. His desire now was uncontrollable. It was anguish. After all, it wasn’t fair; he was young and strong and normal; why shouldn’t he have a bit of fun when he had the chance? She was there for that, she’d said so herself. What did it matter if she thought him a dirty swine? He’d done pretty well by her, he deserved something in return. The faint sound of her quiet breathing was strangely exciting and it quickened his own. He thought of the feel of her soft lips when he pressed his mouth to hers and the feel of her little breasts when he took them in his hands; he thought of the feel of her lissom body in his arms and the feel of his long legs lying against hers. He put on the light, thinking it might wake her, and got out of bed. He leaned over her. She lay on her
back, her hands crossed over her breast like a stone figure on a tomb; tears were running out of her closed eyes and her mouth was distorted with grief. She was crying in her sleep. She looked like a child, lying there, and her face had a child’s look of hopeless misery, for a child does not know that sorrow, like all other things, will pass. Charley gave a gasp. The unhappiness of that sleeping woman was intolerable to see, and all his passion, all his desire, were extinguished by the pity that overcame him. She had been gay during the day, easy to talk to and companionable, and it had seemed to him that she was free, at least for a while, from the pain that, he was conscious, lurked always in the depths of her being; but in sleep it had returned to her and he knew only too well what unhappy dreams distraught her. He gave a deep sigh.

But he felt more disinclined for sleep than ever, and he could not bear the thought of getting into bed again. He turned the shade down so that the light should not disturb Lydia, and going to the table filled his pipe and lit it. He drew the heavy curtain that was over the window and sitting down looked out into the court. It was in darkness but for one lighted window, and this had a sinister look. He wondered whether someone lay ill in that room or, simply sleepless like himself, brooded over the perplexity of life. Or perhaps some man had brought a woman in, and their lust appeased, they lay contented in one another’s arms. Charley smoked. He felt dull and flat. He did not think of anything in particular. At last he went back to bed and fell asleep.

C
HARLEY WAS AWAKENED
by the maid bringing in the morning coffee. For a moment he forgot the events of the previous night.

“Oh, I was sleeping so soundly,” he said, rubbing his eyes.

“I’m sorry, but it’s half-past ten and I have an engagement at eleven-thirty.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s my last day in Paris and it would be silly to waste it in sleep.”

The maid had brought the two breakfasts on one tray and Lydia told her to give it to Charley. She put on a dressing-gown and sat down at the end of his bed, leaning against the foot. She poured out a cup of coffee, cut a roll in two and buttered it for him.

“I’ve been watching you sleep,” she said. “It’s nice; you sleep like an animal or a child, so deep, so quiet, it rests one just to look at you.”

Then he remembered.

“I’m afraid you didn’t have a very good night.”

“Oh, yes, I did. I slept like a top. I was tired out, you know. That’s one of the things I’m most grateful
to you for, I’ve had such wonderful nights. I dream terribly. But since I’ve been here I haven’t dreamt once; I’ve slept quite peacefully. And I who thought I should never sleep like that again.”

He knew that she had been dreaming that night and he knew what her dreams were about. She had forgotten them. He forebore to look at her. It gave him a grim, horrible, and rather uncanny sensation to think that a vivid, lacerating life could go on when one was sunk in unconsciousness, a life so real that it could cause tears to stream down the face and twist the mouth in woe, and yet when the sleeper woke left no recollection behind. An uncomfortable thought crossed his mind. He could not quite make it explicit, but had he been able to, he would perhaps have asked himself:

“Who are we really? What do we know about ourselves? And that other life of ours, is that less real than this one?”

It was all very strange and complicated. It looked as though nothing were quite so simple as it seemed; it looked as though the people we thought we knew best carried secrets that they didn’t even know themselves. Charley had a sudden inkling that human beings were infinitely mysterious. The fact was that you knew nothing about anybody.

“What’s this engagement you’ve got?” he asked, more for the sake of saying something than because he wanted to know.

Lydia lit a cigarette before she answered.

“Marcel, the fat man who runs the place we were at last night, introduced me to two men there and I’ve
made an appointment to meet them at the Palette this morning. We couldn’t talk in all that crowd.”

“Oh!”

He was too discreet to ask who they were.

“Marcel’s in touch with Cayenne and St. Laurent. He often gets news. That’s why I wanted to go there. They landed at St. Nazaire last week.”

“Who? The two men? Are they escaped convicts?”

“No. They’ve served their sentence. They got their passage paid by the Salvation Army. They knew Robert.” She hesitated a moment. “If you want to, you can come with me. They’ve got no money. They’d be grateful if you gave them a little.”

“All right. Yes, I’d like to come.”

“They seem very decent fellows. One of them doesn’t look more than thirty now. Marcel told me he was a cook and he was sent out for killing another man in the kitchen of the restaurant where he worked. I don’t know what the other had done. You’d better go and have your bath.” She went over to the dressing-table and looked at herself in the glass. “Funny, I wonder why my eyelids are swollen. To look at me you’d think I’d been crying, and you know I haven’t, don’t you?”

“Perhaps it was that smoky atmosphere last night. By George! you could have cut it with a knife.”

“I’ll ring down for some ice. They’ll be all right after we’ve been out in the air for five minutes.”

The Palette was empty when they got there. Late breakfasters had had their coffee and gone, and it was too early for anyone to have come in for an apéritif
before luncheon. They sat in a corner, near the window, so that they could look out into the street. They waited for several minutes.

“There they are,” said Lydia.

Charley looked out and saw two men walking past. They glanced in, hesitated a moment and strolled on, then came back; Lydia gave them a smile, but they took no notice of her; they stood still, looking up and down the street, and then doubtfully at the café. It looked as though they couldn’t make up their minds to enter. Their manner was timid and furtive. They said a few words to one another and the younger of the two gave a hasty anxious glance behind him. The other seemed on a sudden to force himself to a decision and walked towards the door. His friend followed quickly. Lydia gave them a wave and a smile when they came in. They still took no notice. They looked round stealthily, as though to assure themselves that they were safe, and then, the first with averted eyes, the other fixing the ground, came up. Lydia shook hands with them and introduced Charley. They evidently had expected her to be alone and his presence disconcerted them. They gave him a look of suspicion. Lydia explained that he was an Englishman, a friend who was spending a few days in Paris. Charley, a smile on his lips which he sought to make cordial, stretched out his hand; they took it, one after the other, and gave it a limp pressure. They seemed to have nothing to say. Lydia bade them sit down and asked them what they would have.

“A cup of coffee.”

“You’ll have something to eat?”

The elder one gave the other a faint smile.

“A cake, if there is one. The boy has a sweet tooth, and over there, from where we come, there wasn’t much in that line.”

The man who spoke was a little under the middle height. He might have been forty. The other was two or three inches taller and perhaps ten years younger. Both were very thin. They both wore collars and ties and thick suits, one of a gray-and-white check and the other dark green, but the suits were ill-cut and sat loosely on them. They did not look at ease in them. The elder one, sturdy though short, had a well-knit figure; his sallow, colourless face was much lined. He had an air of determination. The other’s face was as sallow and colourless, but his skin, drawn tightly over the bones, was smooth and unlined; he looked very ill. There was another trait they shared; the eyes of both seemed preternaturally large, and when they turned them on you they did not appear to look at you, but beyond, with a demented stare, as though they were gazing at something that filled them with horror. It was very painful. At first they were shy, and since Charley was shy too, though he tried to show his friendliness by offering them cigarettes, while Lydia, seeming to find no need for words, contented herself with looking at them, they sat in silence. But she looked at them with such tender concern that the silence was not embarrassing. The waiter brought them coffee and a dish of cakes. The elder man toyed with one of them, but the other ate greedily, and as he ate he gave his
friend now and then little touching looks of surprised delight.