Four Novels (15 page)

The child turned his head slightly towards the window, and looked obliquely at the watery mark on the wall made by the reflection of the sun on the sea. His mother was the only one who could see his eyes.

“Shame on you, darling,” she whispered.

“In four-four time,” the child said listlessly, without moving.

That evening his eyes were almost the same color as the sky, except that they sparkled with flecks of gold the color of his hair.

“Some day,” his mother said, “some day he’ll know it, and he’ll say it without hesitating, it’s inevitable. Even if he doesn’t want to he’ll know it.”

She laughed gaily, silently.

“You ought to be ashamed, Madame Desbaresdes,” said Mademoiselle Giraud.

“So they say.”

She unfolded her arms, struck the keyboard with her pencil, just as she had been doing for the thirty years she had been teaching, and shouted:

“Scales. Ten minutes of scales. To teach you a lesson. Begin with C major.”

The child turned back to the piano, raised both hands and placed them on the keyboard with triumphant meekness.

A C major scale rose above the sound of the surf.

“Again. Again. That’s the only way to teach boys like you.”

The child began again at the point he had started the first time, the
exact and mysterious point of the keyboard where it was necessary to start. A second, then a third C major scale rose amid Mademoiselle Giraud’s anger.

“Again. I said ten minutes.”

The child turned and looked at Mademoiselle Giraud, his hands resting quietly on the keyboard.

“Why?”

A look of such ugly rage filled Mademoiselle Giraud’s face that the child turned back to the piano and froze in a pose of seemingly academic perfection. But he did not play.

“Really, he’s impossible.”

“They don’t ask to come into this world,” Anne Desbaresdes said with another laugh, “and then we force them to take piano lessons. What can you expect?”

Mademoiselle Giraud shrugged her shoulders, and without replying directly to Madame Desbaresdes, without replying to anyone in particular, composed herself and said for her own benefit:

“Strange how children end up by making you lose your temper.”

“But one day he’ll know his scales too,”—Anne Desbaresdes made an effort to placate her—“he’ll know them as well as his tempo, I’m sure of it, he’ll even be bored from knowing them so well.”

“The way you bring that boy up is absolutely appalling, Madame,” Mademoiselle Giraud shouted.

She seized the child’s head with one hand and twisted it around, forcing him to look at her. He lowered his eyes.

“You’ll play them because I told you to. And impertinent to boot. G major three times, if you please. And C major once more.”

The child began playing the C major scale again. He played it a little more carelessly than the preceding times. Then he waited again.

“I said G major now. G major.”

He dropped his hands from the keyboard. Stubbornly, he lowered his head. His little dangling feet, still a long way from the pedals, rubbed angrily against each other.

“Perhaps you didn’t hear what I said?”

“You heard,” his mother said, “I’m sure you heard.”

The child was seduced by the tenderness of the voice. Without answering, he again placed his hands on the keyboard at exactly the right spot. One, then two G major scales were encompassed by the mother’s love. The siren from the dockyards signalled the end of
the working day. The light was fading. The scales were so perfect the lady acknowledged them.

“It’s good for the fingers as well as the character,” she said.

“You’re quite right,” his mother said sadly.

But the child balked at playing the third G major scale.

“I said three times. Three.”

This time the child withdrew his hands from the keyboard, placed them on his knees, and said:

“No.”

The sun began to dip in such a way that suddenly, obliquely, the sea was illuminated. Mademoiselle Giraud grew utterly calm.

“The only thing I can say to you, Madame Desbaresdes, is that I pity you.”

The child glanced surreptitiously at his mother, who was so much to be pitied and who was laughing. Then he sat rigidly at his post, his back necessarily to the sea. Twilight was falling, the rising wind crossed the room in little eddies, rustling the stubborn child’s hair like grass. In silence his little feet began dancing jerkily under the piano.

“You don’t mind playing it once more,” his mother said laughingly, “just once more.”

The child turned to her, ignoring his teacher.

“I don’t like scales.”

Mademoiselle Giraud watched both of them, first one then the other, not listening to what they were saying, too discouraged even to be indignant.

“I’m waiting.”

The child turned back to the piano, but swung as far away as he could from the lady.

“Darling,” his mother said, “just once more.”

Her words made him blink. And yet he still hesitated.

“No scales then.”

“Yes,” she said, “you must play the scales.”

He still hesitated; then, just as they were about to give up, he made up his mind and began to play. But Mademoiselle Giraud was too disturbed and frustrated to be placated.

“You know, Madame Desbaresdes, I don’t know whether I can go on giving him lessons.”

The G major scale was again perfect, perhaps faster than the time before, but only a trifle.

“I admit he’s not really trying,” his mother said.

When he had finished the scale the child, completely unperturbed by the passage of time, raised himself on the piano stool and tried to see what was going on below on the docks, but it was impossible.

“I’ll explain to him that he’ll have to apply himself,” his mother said with false penitence.

Mademoiselle Giraud looked upset and said pompously:

“You shouldn’t explain anything to him. It’s not up to him to decide whether or not he’s going to take piano lessons, Madame Desbaresdes. That’s what is called education.”

She struck the piano. The child gave up trying to see out the window.

“And now your sonatina. In four-four time.”

The child played it as he had played the scales. He knew it perfectly. And although his heart was not in it, he played it musically, there was no denying.

“There’s no getting around it,” Mademoiselle Giraud went on above the music, “there are some children you have to be strict with. Or else they’ll drive you to distraction.”

“I’ll try,” Anne Desbaresdes said.

She listened to the sonatina. It came from the depths of the ages, borne to her by her son. Often, as she listened to it, she felt she was on the verge of fainting.

“The trouble is, don’t you see, he thinks he can decide for himself he doesn’t like to study the piano. But I know perfectly well I’m wasting my breath saying that to you, Madame Desbaresdes.”

“I’ll try.”

The sonatina still resounded, borne like a feather by this young barbarian, whether he liked it or not, and showered again on his mother, sentencing her anew to the damnation of her love. The gates of hell banged shut.

“Begin again, and this time play it a little more slowly.”

The child did as she said, playing more slowly and subtly. Music flowed from his fingers as if, in spite of himself, it seemed to make up its mind, and artfully crept out into the world once again, overwhelming and engulfing the unknown heart. Down below, on the docks, they listened to it.

“He’s been working on it for a month,” the patronne said. “It’s a pretty piece.”

A first group of men was heading towards the café.

“Yes, at least a month,” she added. “I know it by heart.”

Chauvin, at the end of the bar, was still the only customer. He looked at the time, stretched and hummed the sonatina in time to the child’s playing. The patronne kept an eye on him as she arranged the glasses under the counter.

“You’re young,” she said.

She estimated how long it would take the first group of men to reach the café. She spoke quickly, but her words were well-meaning.

“Sometimes, you know, when the weather’s good, I seem to remember that she goes the long way around, by the second dock. She doesn’t always come this way.”

“No,” the man laughed.

The group of men passed the door.

“One, two, three, four,” Mademoiselle Giraud counted, “that’s the way.”

Beneath the child’s hands the sonatina flowed on, although he was unconscious of it—it built and rebuilt, borne by his indifferent clumsiness to the limits of its power. And as the music built, the light visibly declined. A huge peninsula of flaming clouds rose on the horizon, its frail and fleeting splendor compelling other thoughts. In ten minutes all the color of day would have vanished. For the third time the child finished his task. The sounds of the sea, mingled with the voices of the approaching men, rose to the room.

“By heart,” said Mademoiselle Giraud. “Next time I want you to know it by heart, do you understand?”

“All right. By heart.”

“I promise you he will,” his mother said.

“Because it can’t go on like this. He’s making fun of me. It’s outrageous.” “I promise.”

Mademoiselle Giraud reflected, not listening.

“We might try having someone else come with him to his lessons,” she said. “We could see if it did any good.”

“No,” the child shouted.

“I don’t think I could bear that,” Anne Desbaresdes said.

“And yet I’m afraid that’s what it will have to come to,” said Mademoiselle Giraud.

When the door was closed, the child stopped on the staircase.

“You saw how awful she was.”

“Do you do it deliberately?”

The child gazed at the cluster of cranes, now motionless in the sky. The lights in the suburbs were coming on.

“I don’t know,” the child said.

“I love you so much.”

The child began slowly descending the stairs.

“I don’t want to take any more piano lessons.”

“I never could learn the scales,” Anne Desbaresdes said, “but how else can you learn?”

Six

A
NNE DESBARESDES DID NOT
go in, but paused at the door of the café. Chauvin came over to her. When he reached her she turned towards the Boulevard da la Mer.

“There are so many people here now,” she said softly. “These piano lessons finish so late.”

“I heard the lesson,” Chauvin said.

The child let go of her hand and fled to the sidewalk, wanting to run, as he ran every Friday evening at that time. Chauvin raised his head towards the dark blue sky, which was still faintly lighted, and moved closer to her. She did not move back.

“It’ll soon be summer,” he said. “Come on.”

“But here you can hardly tell the difference.”

“Sometimes you can. If you know how. Like tonight.”

The child jumped over the rope barriers, singing the Diabelli sonatina. Anne Desbaresdes followed Chauvin. The café was full. The men dutifully drank their wine as soon as it was served, and hurried home. Others, arriving from more distant factories, replaced them at the bar.

When she entered Anne Desbaresdes lost her nerve and drew back near the door. Chauvin turned and gave her an encouraging smile. She went to the end of the bar, which was fairly secluded, and, like the men, downed her glass of wine quickly. The glass in her hand was still shaking.

“It’s been seven days now,” Chauvin said.

“Seven nights,” Anne said casually. “How wonderful wine is.”

They left the bar, and he took her to the back of the room and had her sit down at the place he had picked out for her. The men at the bar still looked at this woman but distantly, and were still surprised. The room was quiet.

“So you heard the lesson? And all those scales she made him play?”

“It was early. I was the only customer. The windows overlooking the docks must have been open. I heard everything, even the scales.”

She smiled gratefully at him, and drank some more. Her hands, holding the glass, were almost calm now.

“I had somehow got the idea that he had to learn music, you know. He’s been studying for two years.”

“Sure, I understand. So, the grand piano, to the left as you go into the room?”

“Yes.” Anne Desbaresdes clenched her fists and struggled to maintain her composure. “But he’s still so little, such a little child, you have no idea. When I think about it, I wonder whether I’m not wrong.”

Chauvin laughed. They were still the only ones seated at the back of the room. There were fewer customers at the bar now.

“Do you know that he knows his scales perfectly?”

Anne Desbaresdes laughed, this time wholeheartedly.

“Yes, he knows them. Even his teacher had to admit that, you see . . . sometimes I get strange ideas . . . They make me laugh to think of them now.”

As her laughter began to subside Chauvin spoke to her in a different way.

“You were leaning on this grand piano. Your breasts were naked under your dress, and between them there was that magnolia flower.”

Anne Desbaresdes listened to his story with rapt attention.

“Yes.”

“When you lean forward this flower brushes against the outline of your breasts. You’d pinned it carelessly, too high up. It’s a huge flower, too big for you, you picked it at random. Its petals are too hard, it has already reached full bloom the night before.”

“I’m looking outside?”

“Have a little more wine. The child is playing in the garden. Yes, you’re looking outside.”

Anne Desbaresdes did as she was asked, and drank some more wine, trying to remember, then returned from the depths of her surprise.

“I can’t remember having picked that flower. Or having worn it.”

“I only glanced at you, but long enough to see the flower too.”

She concentrated on holding the glass very tightly, and her voice and gestures seemed slow and wooden.

“I never really knew how much I liked wine.”

“Now, talk to me.”

“Oh, let me alone,” Anne Desbaresdes begged.

“I can’t, we probably have so little time.”

Twilight was so far advanced that only the café ceiling reflected the last pale light of day. The bar was brightly lighted, the room in shadow. The child came running up, not surprised at how late it was, and announced: