Fire in the Blood (2 page)

She was only a few steps away from me; she turned around, gathered up some snow and threw it straight up in the air, laughing; then, since one of her clogs was full of snow, she took it off and stood on the doorstep, hopping on one foot, her black hair flying around her face. You can't imagine how lively and attractive I found this little girl after that icy sitting room and those boring people. My mother told me who she was. It was at that very moment that I decided I would marry her. Go ahead and laugh, my darlings. What I felt was less a desire, or a wish, than a kind of vision. In my mind's eye I could picture her in the future, coming out of church by my side, as my wife . . .

"She wasn't happy. Her father was old and ill; her stepmother didn't care about her. I managed to get her invited to my parents' house. I helped her do her homework; I lent her books; I organised picnics, little outings for her, her alone. She never suspected . . ."

"Of course I did," said Helene, and beneath her grey hair she gave a girlish smile and her eyes lit up with a mischievous gleam.

"I went away to Paris to finish my studies. You don't ask for the hand of a thirteen-year-old girl in marriage; I went off thinking I'd come back in five years and would then ask to marry her. But at seventeen she married someone else. Her husband was a very good man, much older than her. She would have married just about anyone to get away from her stepmother."

"Towards the end she was so mean," said Helene, "that my half-sister and I only had one pair of gloves. In theory w
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ere meant to take turns wearing them when we went out to see people. But my stepmother managed to punish me for something every time we were supposed to go somewhere, so it was her own daughter who always wore the gloves. They were beautiful kid gloves. They made me so envious I decided I would say yes to the first man who asked to marry me, even if he didn't love me, just to have a pair of my own, my very own. The young are so foolish ..."

"I was very upset," said Francois, "and when I came home and saw the lovely, rather sad young woman my friend had become, I fell very much in love . . . As for her . . ." He fell silent.

"Oh, see how they're blushing," cried Colette, clapping her hands, looking back and forth between her mother and father. "Come on, now, tell all! That's when your love story started, isn't it? You spoke to each other, you had an understanding. He went away again, with a heavy heart, because you weren't free. He waited faithfully and when you were widowed, he came back and married you. You lived happily ever after and had many children."

"Yes, that's right," said Helene, "but, my God, before that, what anxiety, what tears! Everything seemed impossible to put right. But how long ago all that was ... When my first husband died, your father was away, travelling. I thought he'd forgotten all about me, that he was never coming back. When you're young, you're so impatient. Every day that passes, every day without your love rips you apart. Finally, he came back."

It was pitch black outside now. I got up and closed th
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eavy wooden shutters; their mournful creak broke the silence and made everyone jump. Helene said it was time for them to go. Jean Dorin obediently stood up and went to get the ladies' coats from my bedroom. I heard Colette ask, "Mama, what happened to your half-sister?"

"She died, my darling. Do you remember, it was seven years ago and your father and I went to a funeral at Coudray, in the Nievre. That was poor Cecile's funeral."

"Was she as mean as her mother?"

"Cecile? Not at all, the poor thing! You couldn't find a sweeter, nicer person. She loved me dearly and I loved her too. She was a real sister to me."

"It's odd that she never came to see us ..."

Helene didn't reply. Colette asked her another question; again, no reply. Colette wouldn't let it go.

"Oh, but it was all so very long ago," her mother said finally, her voice altering to become strangely distant, as if she were speaking through a dream.

Colette 's fiance came back with the coats and we all went outside. I walked my cousins back to their house. They live in a lovely house about four kilometres from here. We took a narrow, muddy road, the boys in front with their father, then Colette and Jean, with Helene and me bringing up the rear. Helene talked about the young couple.

"Jean Dorin seems like a good lad, don't you think? They've known each other for a long time. They have every chance of being happy together. They'll live as Francois and I have, they'll be close, they'll have a dignified, peaceful life ... yes, peaceful ... tranquil and serene ... Is it really s
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ifficult to be happy? I think there's something soothing about the Moulin-Neuf. I've always dreamt of having a house near a river, waking up in the middle of the night, all warm in my bed, listening to the flowing water. Soon, they'll have a child," she continued, dreaming out loud. "My God, if only one could know at twenty how simple life is . . ."

I said goodbye to them at the garden gate; it opened with a squeak and closed again with that heavy, gong-like sound that is as pleasing to the ear as a mature bottle of Burgundy to the palate. The house is covered in thick green vines that quiver in the slightest breeze, but at that time of year only a few dry leaves were left, and the wire trellis glinted in the moonlight. After the Erards had gone inside, I stood next to Jean Dorin for a moment on the road, watching the lights go on, one after the other, in the sitting room and bedrooms; they shed a peaceful glow into the night.

"We're counting on you to come to the wedding. You will come, won't you?" Colette 's fiance asked anxiously.

"But of course! It's been a good ten years since I went to a wedding reception," I said and I could picture all the ones I'd been to, all those great rural feasts: the ruddy cheeks of the men as they drank, the young men borrowed from the neighbouring villages along with the chairs and the wooden dance floor; the Bombe Glacee for dessert and the groom in pain because his shoes are too tight; and, from every nook and cranny of the surrounding countryside, the family, friends and neighbours-people sometimes not seen in years, but who suddenly turn up, like corks bobbing to the surface, each one awakening the memory of quarrels that started back i
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he mists of time, past loves, former grudges, engagements broken then forgotten, inheritances and law suits .. .

Old Uncle Chapelain who married his cook, the two Montrifaut sisters, who haven't spoken to each other in fourteen years, even though they live in the same street, because one of them once refused to lend the other her special jam-making pan, and the lawyer whose wife is in Paris with a travelling salesman, and . . . My God, a wedding in the provinces is such a gathering of ghosts! In big cities, people either see each other all the time or never, it's simpler. Here . . . Corks in water, that's what I say. Hey presto, there they are! And what a stir they cause, how many old memories they dredge up. Then down they go again and, for ten years, they're forgotten.

I whistled for my dog and quickly said goodbye to Colette's fiance. I went home. It feels good at my house, with the fire dying down: when the flames have stopped dancing, when they no longer leap in all directions sending out thousands of little sparks to shine pointlessly without providing light, warmth or benefit to anyone, when the fire is happy simply slowly to boil the kettle, that's when it feels good.

COLETTE GOT MARRIED on 3
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November at twelve o'clock. The family gathered together for a magnificent meal followed by dancing. In the early hours of the morning I walked home through the Maie Forest. At that time of year its paths are so muddy and covered in such a thick carpet of leaves that you have to walk slowly, as if wading through a marsh. I had stayed late at the wedding. I'd been waiting: there was someone I wanted to see dance .. . Moulin-Neuf is near Coudray, where Helene 's half-sister Cecile used to live. On her death, she had left her property to her ward, a child she'd taken in and who is now married; her name is Brigitte Declos. I wasn't sure whether Coudray and the Moulin-Neuf were on friendly terms, or if I would get to see the young woman. But in fact, she did turn up.

She is tall and very beautiful, with a look of boldness, vigour and strength. She has green eyes and black hair. She is twenty-four. She was wearing a short black dress. Of all the women there, she was the only one who hadn't got dresse
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p to attend the wedding. I even had the impression that she had chosen simple clothes deliberately, in order to express the scorn she feels towards this mistrustful place: she's considered an outsider. Everyone knows she was adopted, no better, really, than the welfare girls who work on our farms. And to top it all she married someone who is virtually a peasant, an old, sly, stingy man who owns the best land in the area, but only speaks in the local dialect and herds his cows into the fields himself. It was clear she knew how to squander his money: her dress was from Paris and she was wearing several large diamond rings.

I know her husband well: he is the one who bought up my meagre inheritance bit by bit. I sometimes run into him on Sundays. He has changed his clogs for shoes, shaved himself and put on a cap, in order to come and contemplate the fields I've sold him, where his cattle now graze. He leans against the fence and plants the thick, knotty stick that's always with him in the ground; he rests his chin on his large, strong hands and looks out at the scene in front of him. As for me, I just pass by. I'm off for a walk with my dog, or out hunting. When I return home at dusk he's still there; he hasn't budged; he's been thinking about what he owns; he's happy. His young wife never comes near my land. I had been eager to see her and had tried to find out about her from Jean Dorin.

"Do you know her, then?" he asked. "We're neighbours and her husband is one of my clients. I'll invite them to the wedding and we'll be obliged to see them socially, but I don'
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ant her getting friendly with Colette. I don't like her behaviour when it comes to men."

When the young woman came in, Helene was standing not far from me. She was nervous and tired. The meal was over. A hundred people had been served lunch at tables arranged on a special wooden floor brought in from Moulins for the dance and set up under a marquee. It wasn't too cold out, the weather damp but fine. Every now and again, one of the canvas tent flaps would fly up and you could see the Erards' large garden, the bare trees, the pond covered in dead leaves. At five o'clock the tables were taken away and the dancing began. Some more guests arrived; they were the youngest, the ones more interested in dancing than food; it's rare to have any entertainment in these parts. Brigitte Declos was among them, but she didn't seem to know anyone very well. She was alone. Helene shook her hand, as she did with everyone; but for a moment her lips tightened into a weak, brave smile-the kind that women use to hide their most secret thoughts.

The older people made way for the youngsters in the improvised ballroom and went into the house. We sat in a circle around the large fireplaces; it was stiflingly hot in those stuffy rooms; we drank grenadine and punch. The men talked about the harvest, the farms rented out to tenants, the price of cattle. When older people get together there is something unflappable about them; you can sense they've tasted all the heavy, bitter, spicy food of life, extracted its poisons, and will now spend ten or fifteen years in a state of perfec
t e
quilibrium and enviable morality. They are happy with themselves. They have renounced the vain attempts of youth to adapt the world to their desires. They have failed and, now, they can relax. In a few years they will once again be troubled by great anxiety, but this time it will be a fear of death; it will have a strange effect on their tastes, it will make them indifferent, or eccentric, or moody, incomprehensible to their families, strangers to their children. But between the ages of forty and sixty they enjoy a precarious sense of tranquillity.

I felt this all the more strongly after such a good meal and excellent wine, thinking back to the past and the cruel enemy who made me run away from this place. I tried being a civil servant in the Congo, a merchant in Tahiti, a trapper in Canada. Nothing made me happy. I thought I was seeking my fortune; in reality I was being propelled forward by the fire in my young blood. But as these passions are now extinguished I no longer know who I am. I feel I've travelled a long, pointless road, simply to end up where I began. The only thing I am truly happy about is that I never married. But I shouldn't have roamed all over the world. I should have stayed here and looked after my land; I'd be wealthier today. I'd be the rich uncle. I could take my rightful place in society instead of wandering among these sturdy, calm people like a breeze blowing through the trees.

I decided to go and watch the young people dance. You could see the outline of the enormous marquee in the darkness; you could hear the music of the orchestra. The string
s o
f electric light bulbs that had been rigged up inside cast the dancers' shadows on to the canvas. It's the same tent for Bastille Day and country fairs; that's how things are done here . . . The wind was whispering in the autumn trees and every now and again the marquee seemed to sway, like a ship. And so this sight, seen through the darkness, seemed strange and sad. I don't know why. Perhaps because of the contrast between the stillness of nature and the turbulence of youth. Poor children! They threw themselves into it all with such pleasure. The young girls especially: they're raised so strictly and puritanically around here. Boarding school in Moulins or Nevers until they're eighteen, then lessons in running a household, under the ever-watchful eyes of their mothers, until they get married. Their bodies and souls are bursting with energy, vitality, desire .. .