Four Novels (27 page)

“There’s no point in waiting,” Maria said. “He’s dead.”

“What?”

“The heat probably. It’s all over.”

Pierre stayed motionless next to Maria. They looked at each other without speaking. Maria was the first to smile. A very long time ago, they had looked at each other in nearly the same way.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “Let’s go.”

She didn’t move. Pierre left her, went toward the spot she had just left, where the wheat opened up. It was his turn to bend over Rodrigo Paestra. He took a long time to get back. But he walked back to Maria. Claire and Judith were waiting for them, completely silent. Maria picked up a grain of wheat, and another, held them, let them go, picked more and let those go again. Pierre was next to her now.

“He killed himself,” he said.

“An idiot. An idot. Let’s not talk about it anymore.”

They stayed on the road, facing each other. Each one was waiting for the other to say a word that would serve as a conclusion, a word which didn’t come. Then Pierre took Maria by the shoulder and called her.

“Maria.”

From the Rover came another call. Claire. She had forgotten her. It was Pierre she was calling. Pierre answered, motioning. They were coming.

“And the man?” Judith asked.

“He won’t be coming,” Pierre said.

Maria opened the back door and asked Claire to sit in front. She would keep Judith with her in the back.

“He’s dead,” Pierre whispered to Claire.

“How did it happen?”

Pierre hesitated.

“Sunstroke, probably,” he said.

He started the Rover and began to make a U-turn. It was difficult to manage. He had to drive up on the sides a bit because the dirt road was very narrow. Over his shoulder Pierre could see Maria, who had taken Judith in her arms and was wiping her forehead. She was doing this carefully, as always. Claire, in front, was silent. Maria didn’t look at her beautiful neck outlined against the wheat fields.

Pierre had managed the turn. He drove up the dirt road and, while on it, moved slowly. Then came the road to Madrid.

“What are we going to do?” Claire asked.

Nobody answered.

“Am I thirsty,” Judith said.

The road to Madrid. Monumental, straight, on and on. Again the harvesters must have looked up, in the fields, but they couldn’t be seen anymore. Pierre stopped again and turned around, looking at Maria without speaking.

“There is no reason,” she said, “absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t do what we had decided to do.”

“Exactly one-hundred fifty-two miles,” Claire said. “We can be there before dark.”

Pierre started to drive again. The heat was more bearable because of the speed. It blew away your sweat, made your head less heavy. Judith complained again about being thirsty. Pierre promised her they would stop in the next village. Twenty-nine more miles. Judith still complained. She was bored.

“She’s bored,” Claire said.

Then, well before the village, the road changed all of a sudden. First it climbed imperceptibly toward a spot that was very far away. Then it went down, in the same fashion, through a higher, rockier, lunar region. It didn’t go down as much as it had gone up; then it became flat and straight again.

“We must have entered Castile,” Claire said.

“Probably,” Pierre said.

Judith once again cried that she was thirsty.

“Judith, if you cry,” Maria said calmly, “if you cry . . .”

Judith cried.

“I’ll leave you on the side of the road,” Maria shouted. “If you cry, Judith, you’d better watch out.”

Pierre went faster. Faster and faster. The Rover was leaving clouds of dust and gravel behind it. The air was torrid. Claire leaned back, looking at the road ahead.

“There’s no point in killing ourselves,” she said.

The wheat fields disappeared. All that was left were stones, heaps of stones, completely discolored by the sun.

Judith stopped crying, huddled against her mother. Pierre was driving faster and faster in spite of Claire’s warning. Maria was silent.

“Mummy,” Judith called.

“We’ll get killed,” Claire announced.

Pierre didn’t slow down. He was driving so fast that Judith was tossed from one side to the other, from the back of the seat to her
mother. Her mother reached out to hold her against her hip. And Judith stayed there, whimpering again.

“Pierre,” Claire shouted, “Pierre.”

He slowed down a little. They reached the end of the plateau and the road started climbing again. On the top, it became flat once more, but this time it was not going to go down again. At the end of the road, there was an amphitheater of mountains with round summits. As they moved ahead, other mountains appeared, strangely piled up. Now there were mountains on all sides, one on top of the other, some resting on others with their whole weight, white, pink or blue from the sulfides exposed to the sun, jostling each other madly.

“Mummy,” Judith called again.

“Be quiet, that’s enough,” Maria shouted.

“She’s afraid,” Claire said. “Judith is afraid.”

Pierre slowed down even more. In the rear-view mirror he saw Maria put her arm around Judith and kiss her, and Judith, who at last was smiling.

They were now traveling at a normal speed. They were only six miles from the village that Pierre had announced. There was a pause, the first since the mood that set in after they discovered Rodrigo Paestra’s body in the wheat field, when time had started to rush forward.

“Our rooms,” Claire said a little later. “Let’s not forget to reserve them by phone before this evening. Yesterday we had planned to do this before three.”

Maria let go of Judith, who had now calmed down. Maria became aware of Claire again, and of Claire’s beauty which nearly made her cry. Claire was there, her profile outlined against the sky and the sulfurous and milky mountains on the horizon, which marked the progress of their trip and foretold its end that evening, in Madrid. Tonight, Pierre. She had been afraid earlier, when Pierre was driving so fast, that she would die while waiting. Now she had become thoughtful and her fear had been erased as she waited for a room, in Madrid, that very night in Madrid, as she waited to be coiled up against Pierre, that night, in Madrid, naked, in the warm moistness of a room closed to daylight, when Maria would be asleep in a lonely slumber brought on by liquor.

Could she see them already, in their white bed, in Madrid, that night, hiding? Yes, except for Claire’s nakedness which she didn’t know.

“I’ll always love you, Claire,” Maria said.

Claire turned around and didn’t smile at Maria. Pierre did not turn. There was complete silence in the Rover. Claire had never shown herself naked to Maria. She would tonight, to Pierre. This was just as ineluctable as the coming of twilight in a while would be. She could read the fate of that night in Claire’s eyes.

“Look Judith,” Pierre shouted.

It was the village they wanted to reach. Looking like Rodrigo Paestra’s, it moved quickly toward them. Pierre slowed down. His hands on the wheel were beautiful, supple, long, brown, uniquely docile from now on. Claire kept looking at them.

“There’s an inn,” Pierre said. “At the other end of the village.”

The village was already enjoying a peaceful siesta. The inn was surrounded by pine trees, where Pierre had said it would be.

It was a rather old, immense residence, entirely shielded from the heat. There were many cars under the pine trees. A round terrace, looking out on the countryside, was empty.

They hadn’t even noticed that it was already lunch time. Everybody was eating. Some of the people they had seen at the Hotel Principal. The recognized one another. Claire smiled at a young woman.

Judith discovered she was hungry and said so.

They felt unexpectedly at ease because of the coolness of the staggered, crowded rooms.

“Was it hot,” Maria said at last.

They were shown to a table that looked out on the pine trees—they could see them through the blinds and discovered, next to the pines, a small olive grove. There was a path between them. Judith was brought some water. Judith drank and drank. They watched her drink. Then she stopped.

Maria was between Claire and Pierre. Surrounded by them. Even they had ordered a manzanilla. Judith was coming back to life and began to move about between their table and the entrance to the inn. Maria was drinking manzanillas.

“It’s good,” she said. “I think I’ll drink forever.”

She drank. Claire stretched out on the bench and laughed.

“As you like, Maria,” she said.

She threw a quick, circular glance of happiness around her. The dining room was full. It was summer, in Spain. There were fruity food smells in the air about that time, every day, and they always made you feel somewhat nauseous.

“I’m not at all hungry,” Claire announced.

“We’re not hungry,” Maria said.

Pierre smoked and drank his manzanilla. Ever since their trip had begun, he was silent, for long periods of time, between these two women.

Pierre ordered fried shrimp. Maria asked for good, tender meat for Judith. It was promised. They put Judith on a chair piled with cushions, the only one at the table.

“We could have arranged a good life for him,” Maria began, “and perhaps I would have loved him.”

“Who will ever know?” Claire said.

They laughed together, then were silent, and then Maria went on drinking manzanillas.

Judith was brought some acceptable meat. Then they brought the fried shrimp and olives.

Judith ate well.

“Finally,” Pierre said, looking at his child, “finally she’s hungry.”

“The storm,” Claire said. “This morning she was hungry too.” Judith, well behaved, was eating. Maria was cutting her meat. She chewed and swallowed. Maria cut some more. They ate while watching Judith eat so nicely. The shrimps were fresh and hot, cracking under their teeth, smelling of fire.

“You will like this, Pierre,” Claire said.

She had one in her mouth. You could hear her teeth biting into it. Again she was unable to escape her desire for Pierre. She had left her ferociousness behind, she was beautiful again, saved from the menace that Rodrigo Paestra had been, alive. Her voice was like honey when she asked him—her voice was completely transformed—whether he liked it, as much as she.

“They’ll find him in a while,” Maria said, “in about four hours. In the meantime, he is still in the wheat field.”

“You know, to talk about it won’t change anything,” Claire said.

“I still feel like it,” Maria said. “Must you stop me?”

“No,” Pierre said, “no, Maria. Why?”

Maria drank some more. The shrimp were the best in Spain. Maria asked for more. They were eating more than they had thought they would. And, while Maria was giving in to her tiredness, Claire was coming to life like Judith, and devoured the shrimps. The same shrimps he was eating.

“We had hardly started playing, when the game was lost,” Maria went on. “Lost games like that make you rationalize endlessly.”

“It would have pleased me very much to save Rodrigo Paestra,” Pierre said, “I must admit.”

“It wasn’t the sun, was it?” Claire asked.

“It was the sun,” Pierre said.

Judith was no longer hungry. She was willing to have an orange. Pierre peeled it for her with great care. Judith followed this with envious attention.

They were no longer hungry. Green shade was seeping through the shutters and blinds. It was cool. Claire had stretched out again, completely, on the bench, where Pierre could see her. He wasn’t looking at her, but how could he not be aware of her? She was looking toward the blinds and the olive grove, without seeing it. The reflection of the heat was still dancing in her eyes. Her eyes were violently awake, restless like water. Blue, like her dress, dark blue in the green shade of the blinds. What had happened in the morning at the hotel while she, Maria, was sleeping?

Maria half closed her eyes to see this woman, Claire, better.

But nothing could be seen of Claire except her quivering stare at the blinds. And all of a sudden, Maria’s vigilance was discovered and had to stop.

Then Pierre suddenly got up, walked to the door, opened it—in a flash of light—and went out. Ten minutes went by.

“I wish he’d come back,” Maria said.

Claire made a vague gesture: she didn’t know where Pierre had gone. She stayed in the same position, her face toward the door, refusing to look at Maria. They were silent until he came back. He was smoking a cigarette that he must have lit on the terrace.

“The air is scorching,” he said.

They made Judith get down from the chair.

“Where were you Pierre?” Claire asked.

“On the terrace. The road is deserted.”

There was a little bit of manzanilla left in the jug. Maria drank it.

“Please, Maria,” Pierre said.

“At last I’m getting tired,” Maria said. “But this is my last one.”

“We can’t leave yet, in this heat, can we Pierre?” Claire asked.

She pointed at Judith. Judith was yawning.

“Certainly not,” Maria said. “She must sleep a little.”

Judith objected. Pierre took her in his arms and placed her on a large couch in the cool shade at the back of the entrance hall. Judith let him. Pierre walked back toward Maria and Claire. Claire was looking at him, all of him, as he came back. He sat down on the bench. They had to wait for Judith to finish her siesta.

“She’s already asleep,” he said—he had turned around to look at his child.

“We would have taken him to France,” Maria went on. “Maybe he would have become a friend. Who knows?”

“We’ll never,” Pierre said—he smiled—“stop drinking, Maria.”

Eight

“H
OW TIRED I AM
,” Maria said—she was speaking to Pierre—“it seems you can fight against anything except this kind of tiredness. I’m going to sleep.”

Maria spoke gently. And Pierre was as used to her gentleness as he had been to her body. He smiled at Maria.

“It’s a tiredness,” he said, “that comes from very far, that has accumulated, and is made of all kinds of things, of everything. Sometimes it makes itself felt. Like today. But you know all that, Maria.”