Heading South (6 page)
CHARLIE QUIT SCHOOL
during second term for one very simple reason: he was too beautiful to spend the whole day cooped up in a classroom. Women had been after him for a long time. He was still a virgin when his geography teacher offered him a ride home and then took him to her house instead. Since then, Charlie realized he could get anything he wanted out of women. So what was the use of staying in school when real life was bustling out on the street? The sweet, ripe fruit of the tree of good and evil was dangling inches from his outstretched hand. And Charlie had a good appetite. All the girls adored him except one: his sister, who, curiously, was not particularly gifted by nature. Every time she bragged that she was Charlie's sister, someone would always say: “But how is that possible!” After that, she changed tactics. Now she says: “Charlie may have looks, but I have intelligence.” But she might as well save her breath. Sometimes I think it best to just say nothing and give in to your fate. Charlie is beautiful, that's all there is to it. There are those who reveal themselves to be beautiful only after you've looked at them for a certain length of time, and others who, as they say, have beautiful souls. At the risk of repeating myself, Charlie is beautiful, by which I mean that whenever he enters a room, heads turn: women look at him with an avidity bordering on dementia (they literally devour him with their eyes), and men with a certain pique. A truly beautiful man is rarer than you might think. At first it was incredible. Charlie would scoop up any woman who gave him a certain come-hither look (and did they ever really look at him any other way?), so that his miniscule room on Christophe Avenue became a kind of bordello. A new girl would arrive as the previous one was leaving, still fixing her hair. Sometimes they met in his bed. These days, however, he's being more selective. He's been known to turn down a staggering beauty and go home with a woman who is more fun to be with, or who makes him laugh, or even one who is downright ugly but has a certain charm, or an interesting walk, or even one who seems to have accepted the fact that no one will ever be interested in her. When he goes to a disco, no one, not even Charlie himself, has the slightest idea who he's going to leave with.
BEFORE WE GO
too much further, you should know that Charlie's parents are poor but respectable. His father threw him out of the house the day he quit school. He went to live with one of his cousins in Carrefour-Feuilles. Said cousin being an Adventist preacher, very strict, who prayed every night at nine o'clock, went to bed at nine-thirty, and didn't let anyone in after ten. After a month of this monastic regime, during which he believed he was going insane, Charlie moved in with a friend who lives in Pacot. This arrangement didn't work, either, since the friend's young wife fell for him in a big way, placing him in an embarrassing situation. He found himself stuck between a benefactor and a woman for whom he felt no desire whatsoever. One of the cardinal rules in the lover's social code is: never live under the same roof with a woman you've turned down. Once again, Charlie had to pack his bags. Eventually he found the miniscule room on Christophe Avenue, above a shoe store. He'd kept in touch with his mother and sister, despite their being absolutely forbidden from contact by his father: no members of the family (including uncles, aunts, and cousins) were allowed to so much as speak to him. “I have only one child,” he was heard to say, watching Rachel do her homework. Ever since discovering the great injustice done to her by nature in the matter of aesthetics, she had sought solace in her studies (it could have been worse: it could have been religion). But since her brother's banishment, Rachel has stopped hating him. Especially now that their parents are getting old. They still work in service for the Abels, a rich family that owns many houses, including the villa in Bourdon. Madame Abel picks them up in the morning and brings them back each evening (a job she never leaves to her driver). Work at the Abels isn't all that demanding, except for the stairway that becomes steeper with each passing year. They are good Christians who treat their domestics charitably. As far as cooking is concerned, the ambassador (François Abel was the Haitian ambassador to London during the Second World War) isn't hard to please. His menu hasn't varied in twenty years, except that for the past two years he hasn't drunk so much as a glass of water after six o'clock in the evening. What the ambassador brought back with him from London (apart from a box of Cuban cigars given to him by Winston Churchill during an unforgettable meeting) was a sense of discipline, sartorial elegance and a heightened respect for the individual. Charlie's elderly parents are therefore treated with the same respect that the ambassador would accord to his colleagues, astonishing in a country where domestics are often treated like slaves. To Charlie's father, it goes without saying, the ambassador is a living god. Work is evenly divided in the Abel household, where it is believed (as one believes that Jesus is the son of God) that England is the most civilized country on the planet. Charlie's mother works inside (kitchen, cleaning and telephone), while his father looks after things around the yard (garden, garage, raising the gate whenever he expects the ambassador's car to arrive). In this way the peaceful lives of these two couples (masters and domestics) have run for more than twenty years.
CHARLIE KNOWS THAT
every Wednesday his father accompanies the ambassador into the city. He takes advantage of his father's absence to spend that day with his mother at the Abels' villa. Even when Charlie and his father were still close, his father never wanted his son to visit the villa, saying that he could not receive him properly in a house in which he was not the master. His mother, on the other hand, has never felt the least bit humiliated by the work she does. So Charlie fell into the habit of visiting his mother on Wednesdays. Sometimes they don't even talk. She'll make him a cup of coffee, which he will sip while she goes on with her housework or prepares the Abels' dinner. This day, he finds his mother sitting at the kitchen table, peeling potatoes.
“Hello, Mama.”
She jumps.
“Don't tell me your father left that gate open again. It's the same thing every Wednesday; he gets as excited as a child when he has to go into town with the ambassador . . .”
“No problem, I closed it . . . Are you okay, Mama?”
Silence.
“What's the matter, Mama? You don't seem yourself today.”
“I'm worried about your father.”
“What for? Is he sick?”
Another silence.
“I don't think he's going to be able to resist . . .”
“Resist what? Now you've got me worried, Mama.”
She takes a deep breath.
“You know what a prideful man your father is . . . Well, here it is: for the past two weeks there's been a young girl living here. The daughter of the ambassador's elder brother, Monsieur Georges, who has just died. Monsieur Georges lived all his life in Paris. He was married there to a Frenchwoman from a noble family . . . The daughter doesn't want to live with her mother in France, and so she came to live here.”
“So, what's wrong with that? The ambassasor's her uncle . . .”
“Yes, but Monsieur Georges was not like the ambassador. He was, how can I put it, more aristocratic. He was even snootier than his wife, who at least is a real aristocrat. They came here two Christmases ago . . .”
“Oh, to hell with Georges and his upper-class hussy . . .”
His mother opens her eyes wide.
“Don't make fun . . . She's a terror, that girl. This morning she yelled at your father again . . . And I could see how much effort it took him to keep from putting her in her place. Truly, she treats us like we were a couple of slaves, and the ambasssador . . .”
“Yes, yes, so why doesn't he just speak to the ambassador? You've always said he was justice incarnate.”
“I know, but the ambassador adored his brother, he's the only brother he had, and it makes him very happy to have his brother's daughter living with us . . . Your father hasn't the heart to tell him what she's like . . . you understand?
“No, Mama, I'm sorry but I don't understand.”
His mother raises a face ravaged by pain.
“He'll never do it, and we'll have to leave the villa.”
“You would rather lose this great job than complain about the behaviour of this girl?”
His mother goes back to peeling potatoes, as though she hasn't heard him.
“That's what I said to him, Charles . . . And he said to me that he'll never speak to the ambassador. And he won't, I know it, and we'll soon have to quit this place.”
“Where is this girl?”
“She's probably at the Bellevue Circle playing tennis. It's just across the way.”
“What does she look like?”
“Very pretty . . . She takes after her mother, but she has the personality of her father . . . very conscious of what she is . . .”
“Okay, Mama, I've got to go . . . Can you lend me a little money?”
“Of course I can, but from now on I'm going to have to watch what I spend . . . Oh, my God, I don't know what he's going to say to the ambassador to explain why we're leaving . . . Oh, Charles, what's going to happen to us? We're like one big family here.”
“I've got to go now . . . See you next week.”
“Maybe . . . I don't know. I don't have any control over my life . . .”
THERE ARE STILL
a few people on the courts, despite the oppressive heat.
“Who's that girl, there?” Charlie asks the gardener who is standing beside him.
“Mademoiselle Abel . . . She just got here . . . She's a good player, but she's got a lousy personality.”
“How do you know that?”
“Ha! When she loses, she shouts insults at everybody, even the umpire.”
“I'd like to speak to her.”
“Why? You doing something for her?”
“No, I just want to speak to her.”
“I doubt that that's possible, my friend.”
“We'll see.”
THE BAR IS
at the far end of the courts.
“Whisky,” Charlie says.
The barman looks at him.
“I don't recall seeing you here before.”
“It's the first time I've been here . . . and it won't be the last.”
“Forgive me, my friend, but I doubt that very much. This is a private club. That's why it's called the Circle, you see? Either you join, or else you have to be invited here by one of the members. Otherwise . . .”
“I see you know the rules pretty well.”
The barman smiles.
“I've been working here for twenty years, my friend . . . I not only know all the rules, I know all the people, and I know their ways.”
“Well, then, you must know my father.”
The barman looks closely at Charlie.
“Your father?”
“No, he's not a member,” Charlie says, laughing. “He works across there, at Ambassador Abel's place.”
The barman's expansive smile.
“You ask me do I know your father? And how! We started working together. Me, here, him at the ambassador's. How is he doing? I haven't seen him in a while, now. A very upright man, your father. And a good friend . . . In a way, he's just like the ambassador. They're like a couple of twins . . . They come from different social classes, but deep down they're the same kind of person . . . What's up with your father?”
“He's having problems.”
“Health, I'd guess.”
“No, thank God, he's all right on that side of things. He's having problems at work.”
The barman can hardly restrain a cry of surprise.
“With the ambassador?”
“No, with his niece.”
“Mademoiselle Abel,” says the barman, dryly. “I can understand that.”
“I'd like to meet her . . .”
“She should be on the court right now . . . I can tell you, though, she's not an easy one to deal with . . .”
The barman gives Charlie a sidelong glance.
“Ah, I get it,” he says with a smile of complicity. “You want to talk to her . . . They'll all be coming here tonight to dance . . . But you have to be a member to get in. During the day you can come in here no problem, but at night it's impossible. I can tell by looking at you that you're no slouch with the ladies, but I'd be very surprised if that one would have anything to do with the son of a servant . . . But let me think for a bit . . . Not everyone here is a snob. I'll ask Hansy; his father's a rich industrialist, but he doesn't let that go to his head. That's it, I'll ask Hansy to invite you. So when you get here tonight, all you do is say you're a guest of Hansy and there won't be any problem . . .” He favours Charlie with a conspiratorial wink.
“It's the least I can do for your father.”
“Thank you, sir.”
CHARLIE SITS
in the sunlight watching the tennis match. Mademoiselle Abel is losing to a good-looking brunette. She's in a foul mood. Every time she misses a shot, Charlie applauds loudly. She looks quickly but furiously at the bleachers. At the end of the match (a terrific smash by her opponent that she could only watch as it went past her) Charlie jumps to his feet and claps. The two women pass in front of him. The winner (the brunette bombshell) smiles at him discreetly; Mademoiselle Abel looks straight ahead.
IN CHARLIE'S MINISCULE ROOM
. Nine o'clock at night.
“Who is it?”
“Fanfan.”
“Come in.”
“What's happening, my man? You're all dressed up like a prince . . . You look like you got something big going on . . .”
“How's your principal friend?”
“I'm giving her a hard time . . . Chico says she drives past the Rex Café ten times an hour . . . You going to tell me where you're going?”
