Four Novels (32 page)

Idle, and alone, Mr. Andesmas examined with boredom what had finally become of him. Still nothing came from the path. From where he was now, he could have seen again, if he had wanted to, Valérie’s black car, parked.

But, he related, he had been unable for a moment either to look at this black car of Valérie’s, or to think about the child. These memories surrounded him, linked one to another, in a coexistence which, for a long moment, had made them one in his mind. He knew that he could contemplate neither Valérie’s blondness nor the other betrayed child’s madness without being equally terrified. Mr. Andesmas did not even
look at the trees which also, so innocently, partook of this same inconceivable fate, to exist that afternoon.

Mr. Andesmas looked at himself. And at the sight of himself he found some comfort. It filled him with a secure, irreversible disgust. It was, that evening, the equivalent of the only certainty he had ever known in the course of his life.

It is the wind coming up. It is never Michel Arc.

Time passes, and Mr. Andesmas reaccustoms himself to waiting.

He can even cherish the secret hope that the child has not returned to the village, that she is still lingering near the plateau; he reaccustoms himself to the idea of her presence there, nearby, and he even hopes for it, and his desire to see the child reappear exceeds his desire to see Michel Arc and Valérie.

A franc piece, fallen from her hands, shines in front of him in the sand. She has again dropped it, again and again.

“She opens her hands and drops things, she doesn’t know how to keep anything. Yet she has some memory. You can’t really tell.”

Mr. Andesmas makes an effort to get hold of the coin, then gives up. And instead of picking it up, he pushes it with his foot as far as possible from his sight. But it does not reach the little thickets alongside the plateau, as he would have liked it to; it travels a yard in the soft sand and remains there, half buried.

No, she won’t come back today. She must have arrived in the village by now. She went down without difficulty, whistling at times, looking right and left, at the trees and the ground—her legs, so frail and deft, carry her wherever she wants—gathering things, pebbles, or leaves, which for her, only her, for an instant have an obscure interest that captivates her. Then she opens her hands, drops her possessions.

“Yet sometimes she remembers having forgotten.”

Was she afraid during her walk? Did she run once or twice? Did she take the wrong path?

“No, the paths, she knows them better than her brothers and sisters, who have all their wits. Why? You tell me.”

At what moment did she remember she had forgotten the franc piece? If she did remember? Then, yes, she would have had to stop on the path, find herself alone on that deserted path, and with sharp regret must have wondered whether she shouldn’t go back to the old man. But she decides against it in the obscure foreknowledge of her madness, she
does not make this childish, irrational move, and, on the contrary, she continues on to the village.

Mr. Andesmas made an effort, threw some sand on the franc piece which he wanted completely out of his sight. He could no longer see it. He sighed deeply, as he did after any effort.

He feels somewhat calmer again. If he goes down early enough this evening, there’s a chance of his seeing this child again on the village square.

Mr. Andesmas had forgotten that Valérie often speaks to him about Michel Arc’s daughter.

But he never goes to the village square. What then?

He sighs, then reassures himself. He’ll manage to find the child. He’ll ask Valérie for a way to find her. He’ll give her back her treasure. The wait for Michel Arc is relegated behind this other wait, to give back to the child this treasure she had perhaps forgotten.

What an unexpected turn of events, Mr. Andesmas thinks, what a new and final responsibility! Would she remember him? Yes. She had looked at him so much just before, that if he proved himself with enough friendliness she would make an effort to remember. That rich idle, very old man whose daughter is Valérie, you know? Yes. She had called him by his name when she arrived on the plateau.

“She doesn’t understand what others understand, and yet she knows and remembers certain things. Whatever she feels like, one might think.”

Shouts of pleasure rose up from the valley. Then dance music drowned them out. It was a waltz with lyrics. Ah, let them dance, let them dance, as much as they want, they shouldn’t feel they have to suffer, as long as they’re dancing, and stop soon because of an obligation to me.

Is it after arriving in the square, thinking she still possesses that franc piece, torn between the desire for a bag of candy and the obligation to inform her father that Mr. Andesmas would wait for him until dusk, that this child notices she has lost her treasure? That the memory of what she forgot comes back to her?

She makes her way toward the square, she is so docile, so docile, then through the dancers. There is her father who dances so well. Does she keep herself from crying with regret?

“Mr. Andesmas said he would wait for you as long as there’s light.”

“That’s right, good Lord, that’s right!” Valérie exclaimed.

Isn’t it, rather, as she wanders around the square in search of a bag of candy, that she notices that once again she must have lost the franc piece which she had found near the old man?

Does she cry, in a corner, at being that forgetful?

He will know this evening. This evening. He has to know.

“That’s right, good Lord!” Valérie cries. “How late it is.”

No, the child must not have forgotten the errand her father had asked her to run. She must have looked for the franc piece in the dust of the square. People look at her with pity. Is she crying?

Then, through the dancers, she went up to Michel Arc. The errand is done.

“He has nothing better to do after all,” Michel Arc says.

“But he knows nothing about that forest. It’s painful to wait.”

No. The child did not remember the errand. The forgotten franc piece, the terrace. She is crying, alone. Her father is dancing with blind pleasure. She is crying, where? Who sees her cry, who?

Mr. Andesmas’ waiting once again finally grows calm. The sun was still high. Since he had said so, he would wait until evening. He knows the little girl has forgotten the old man.

What could he do but wait? Wait for Valérie’s car. He laughs. He is imprisoned in the forest by Valérie—his child.

From being on this plateau such a long time, he ended up knowing the instructions he would give Michel Arc, concerning the shape of the terrace, its dimensions. Their meeting would be short. In a few words he would tell Michel Arc what he thought should be done, up to what point the railings should go on the plateau.

The terrace will be a half circle, with no angles, it will come within two yards of the chasm of light.

When Valérie wakes up, her blond hair is so mussed that it falls over her eyes. It will be through the foliage of her blond hair that, from her terrace, upon waking, she will discover the sea, this child of Mr. Andesmas.

Had the sun turned? Apparently, Mr. Andesmas noticed. A beech tree, a few yards away from him, swept him with its noble and impressive shade. This shade began to mingle with the shade of the whitewashed wall.

When the lilac blooms my love

When our hope is there every day,

A very young voice was singing, slowly. The song lasted a long time. It was played twice in a row.

When it ended, the joy was less violent. Some laughter, and it died down.

Did Mr. Andesmas fall asleep again, after the song?

Two

Y
ES, HE MUST
have fallen asleep. The shade from the beech tree now covered the whole site of the future terrace. Mr. Andesmas found himself protected by it without at all remembering having noticed any of its progress.

Yes, he must have fallen asleep again, once again.

Now, from the village square, nothing can be seen of him any more. The shade from the tree is denser than the one from the wall, it covers a vast expanse and he is in the middle of it. It was useless for him to have moved closer to the precipice a moment before. Never again, from now on, never again.

The proof that he has slept is that he can distinguish this sleep from the other, the one that preceded it, disentangle these dreams—wonderful and torturing—from the other ridiculous ones that preceded them, and finally remember that he had discovered the little girl’s mad eyes under a blazing sun, as well as the image he had of how she must have dirtied her hands on the muddy edge of the pond.

Without a stir, the shade kept spreading without his noticing it, while he felt surprise at having once again surrendered to sleep.

“It will probably take me several days,” Mr. Andesmas says, “to recover from the strain of such a wait.”

These phrases, spoken aloud in the solemnity of his loneliness, rendered Michel Arc’s offense more serious. Thus, Mr. Andesmas, in order to make this trial more bearable, was trying to lie to himself as to the length and the consequences of Michel Arc’s delay.

Thus he waits, pretending not to be able to understand Michel Arc’s rudeness toward him.

Once again, in a soft, polite voice, he tells this lie to himself.

“I don’t understand. It isn’t right of Mr. Arc, it isn’t fair to make an old man wait for hours, as he is doing.”

He stops speaking, somewhat ashamed. He lowers his eyes, then slowly raises them, examining in bewilderment the site of the terrace- to-be.

“How can he allow himself to do something like this?”

One of these days, on this terrace, wearing a sumptuous, light-colored dress, Valérie would be gazing down this path, at this time of the evening. Under this beech tree which would extend the benefits of its shade to anyone who might be here at this hour, in the future, in this same season, Valérie would be waiting for someone to come. It would have to be here, in effect, that this waiting of Valérie’s would soon take place.

Mr. Andesmas makes this reflection calmly. He moves back farther on the plateau until he can no longer see anything of the village.

In the square, which he can no longer see, the dancing stops.

No one is coming yet.

But Mr. Andesmas, who had claimed he could not bear waiting this way for such a long time, is becoming more and more adjusted to the wait. His strength returns with coolness of the late afternoon. So much so that he kicks the white sand on the plateau with his feet, thinking thus to express his anger. He smiles at dirtying his shoes and at his strength, ridiculous from now on. But it is a way for him to make the hours pass, like any other hours, like those which pass during other afternoons when he waits for dinnertime in his garden.

A wind blew over. The beech tree trembled. And in its rustling, the arrival of a woman took place, which escaped the notice of Mr. Andesmas.

She stood in front of him and spoke to him.

“Mr. Andesmas,” she began.

For how long had she been looking at him, she too, while he played in that way with his feet in the sand? Probably a very short time. The time she had needed to come from the path and walk up to him.

Mr. Andesmas rose slightly from his armchair and bent forward.

“Mr. Andesmas, I’m Michel Arc’s wife,” she said.

She had rather long, straight black hair, which fell a little below her shoulders, light eyes which Mr. Andesmas recognized as being the little girl’s eyes, very large, larger perhaps than the little girl’s. She too wore canvas shoes and a summer dress. She seemed taller than she probably was, because of her slenderness.

She stood facing Mr. Andesmas.

“This contractor you’re waiting for,” she repeated once more, “I’m his wife.”

“I see,” said Mr. Andesmas.

She sat down at the edge of the plateau, very straight, her head turned toward the armchair.

She seemed by nature reserved, neither sad nor depressed, but this rigidity of her body and the expressionless intensity—carried to perfection—of her eyes on the old man arose from a desire to censure, which could have been misleading to anyone but Mr. Andesmas. Except when her eyes closed for a few seconds, weary of looking at nothing, one could have thought they were that way, vacant. But when her eyes closed, she was beautiful in such a different way, she was so beautiful—that was when her eyes came back to life in the dark night of their eyelids—that Mr. Andesmas understood that Michel Arc’s wife was not this woman standing in front of him, that she must have been different, and he feared he would never know her.

Would he ever know the one who had been Michel Arc’s wife?

“You go out very little,” she said; “I’ve never seen you.”

She pointed at the hill.

“This is high up. I’ll rest a little.”

Laboriously, Mr. Andesmas raised himself from his armchair and moved aside.

“Please,” he said.

The woman examined the empty armchair, hesitated a moment, then refused.

“Thank you, but I’m all right here.”

Mr. Andesmas didn’t insist. He fell back heavily into his armchair. The woman stayed where she was, seated at the edge of the plateau, her head this time turned toward the chasm. She was outside the reach of the tree’s shade, still in the sun, like her child. Like her child, too, she didn’t talk. Even though it was likely she had come to bring a message from her husband to Mr. Andesmas, she said nothing. But then, how could one know if she hadn’t just come to be silent there, near this old man, rather than elsewhere? If she had not chosen this spot, this witness?

Panic-stricken at again having to break so much silence, Mr. Andesmas hunted for words. His hands, clutching the arms of his chair, made the wicker stir with slight continuous cracklings which she didn’t hear, still turned toward the chasm of light.

The square cannot be seen any more from where Mr. Andesmas has retreated forever. Apart from a few unidentifiable sounds coming from the village, but which could be coming from any other village, the valley is now calm.