Marie

‘Madeleine Bourdouxhe is one of the more remarkable literary discoveries of the last few years.’ Jonathan Coe

‘A short, intense novel, suffused with tenderness, humour and sensuality…. mixing passion and politics as its existentialist heroine embarks on a desire fuelled route of living at full-tilt.’ – Michèle Roberts

‘Exquisite, elegant, and nonsentimental … Bourdouxhe conveys the sharp, almost physical intensity of thought experienced by a character suspended between apathy and restless curiosity.’ –
Irish Times

‘An unforgettable, thrilling achievement … stakes a claim to Bourdouxhe’s rightful position alongside Proust and Virginia Woolf … inspiring and impassioned.’ –
Sunday Times

‘M
ARIE, ARE YOU READY
?’

She could tell Jean was cross by the way he opened the bedroom door. She moved sharply away from the window, pretending to be busy, closing the curtains: ‘Yes, I’m ready … best to keep the curtains drawn in this heat.’

‘I’ve been waiting for half an hour, you know.’

She looked at his angry face and followed him out of the room.

Marie hadn’t even done her hair. She’d entered the room, looked through the open window, spotted a boat in the sea. She’d moved forward to see it more clearly and then stayed where she was, resting her head on the window-frame. She’d heard the din of the old bus that ran through the village, the reverberating noise of a motor-boat on its way into port, the cries of a group of children as they ran up to the harbour.
The boat that had attracted her attention had long since moved out of sight, and silence had returned. A whiff of resin drifted up from below.

They were the only people on the stairs. She put her arm round his shoulders: ‘Are you cross with me?’

In the ground-floor lobby she stopped for a moment in front of the mirror. ‘Is my hair all right?’ Her chignon needed attention and a dark lock was falling too low over the right side of her forehead, just as it had before she’d gone upstairs.

‘Yes, it’s fine. You took your time, but you look great.’

She didn’t argue. He wasn’t very observant: so keen was he to get off that he must have looked at her without really seeing her at all. And she had made him wait for half an hour, it was true …

As they were leaving the house, she said: ‘It’s so hot! You’ll really enjoy your swim.’

‘What about you?’

‘I don’t know, I’ll tell you when I’ve seen the water.’

‘You always say that, but you never go in!’

THE ROAD
is white, dry, without shade. They enter into the heat, cutting across it without saying a word. Marie’s dress is faintly transparent in the sunlight, and the outline of her long supple legs shows through the cloth; in the shifting light her hair looks chestnut, red, blonde. Head high, she blinks her eyes and wrinkles her forehead; from time to time she raises her big, beautiful hands to shield her face.

They come to a narrower road leading directly to the sea. They walk very close to each other, on the right-hand side of the road, in the partial shade offered by some young cypresses. Marie’s hair returns to a more consistent colour, her face relaxes and her eyes are more clearly visible: those distant eyes that seem to rise up to things with a kind of indifference. Then suddenly the road stops, runs into the beach; the light regains its searing intensity.

AS THEY SAT
close to each other on the sand, Jean started to remove his sandals.

‘Do wait a little before going in,’ Marie said. ‘It’s too soon since you finished lunch …’

Turning towards his wife he looked into her anxious eyes. ‘Two hours – that’s enough! But if you want me to wait I will. I don’t want you to start panicking the moment I walk into the water.’

Marie moved nearer to him and closed her eyes, leaning her head on his shoulder. Jean is right next to me. Jean, the only man I love in the whole world … Her heart was drowning in an infinite tenderness, and her mind began to create strange pictures. She was going with Jean into a place full of warm, intimate shadows; he was pushing her gently towards a table. Lightly touching her bare arm with his hand, he held it there for a long time before letting go. ‘Do you want to dance, my darling?’ He took her up to a raised, narrow dance floor, put his arms around her, almost lifting her up, transporting her to the rhythm of some popular,
sensual music. (She hesitated: was it mediocre music? Yes – the music has to be sensuous, vulgar, the more mediocre the better.) How well they were dancing; and that loving gesture of his, lightly brushing her forehead with his lips!

Marie, sitting on the beach, snuggled even further into Jean’s shoulder. They were dancing so very close that his happiness must surely equal her own: he too must want their embraces to last forever.

‘It’s so hot, my love … don’t cling to me like that!’

Marie disentangled herself. Closing her eyes again, she raised her knees and rested her head upon them. He wanted their embraces to last forever … they were still dancing. On the way back to the table he looked at her and said, in a voice sweet with promise: ‘Shall we go home?’

MARIE LOOKS UP
and her eyes rediscover, without actually taking them in, the water, the boats, the sand and the scattering of light on the sea. She remembers the conversations she has had with friends – pointless, irritating conversations that are always the same but in which she participates none the less. She hears Lucy saying: ‘Marie, you love your husband very deeply; you’ve managed to find complete fulfilment in your love; you are the only one amongst us who really knows what happiness is.’ Smiling, she always replies: ‘Yes, it’s true.’ And now, recalling that exchange, that same mysterious smile returns to her mouth. She turns round and stretches full out, her face towards the ground; the smile has disappeared. ‘What
is
happiness?’ she asks herself. ‘What does happiness mean?’

‘Whether you want me to or not, it’s time I went for my swim!’ Jean shouts, taking off.

SHE GETS UP
immediately, and looks for him anxiously in the direction of the sea. He’s a bad swimmer, but nothing will stop him from going further out than he should. When she finally spots him her eyes do not leave him – she follows his every movement. He dives, and something in her tenses up; she holds her breath until his head reappears a bit further on, gleaming with water between the waves. He starts to come in; the water is now only up to his waist. He waves at her and, hands on hips, stands watching the other bathers.

Taking advantage of this moment of respite Marie sits down again and looks to her left. She sees someone sitting on a rock; he’s only half visible, but from the rear he looks very young. He is getting ready for a swim. His hair is black and rather untidy, and his shoulders are lean, though firm and strong. Head down, he walks along the pebbles, then he jumps up and takes a few steps up the beach, towards where she is sitting.

He raises his head, and her eyes meet his.

Marie is the first to blink and turn away: where is Jean? There he is, among the other bathers. She turns to the left again. The young man is now stretched out on the sand, face towards the sun. Just as she thought, he has slender, strong, tanned shoulders, and long, muscular legs, even browner than hers. Slowly, her eyes take in the full extent of his body
as he lies there, following all the contours, scrutinising his young flesh.

He raises his arms and crosses his wrists over his face to protect his eyes from the sun. How young he is! What enthusiasms, what hopes, what expectations lie behind those closed eyelids?

Suddenly she hears Jean’s voice. ‘I’m hungry! I’ll get dressed and then we’ll go and have a snack!’

He runs towards the rocks, stopping at the very point where Marie first noticed the young man. She sees Jean, in the same frame, making the same movements: it’s practically the same scene, but touched with another halo. Jean leans over and stands up, remaining still for a moment, offering his bare chest to the sun. Inclining her head, she watches him, watches all those gestures that she knows so well and so intimately. Reality tamed: a tender halo emerging from sweetness, from the warmth of the familiar, from someone you love.

And before? The unknown young man who thought he was invisible between two rocks? Another moment, another halo … A reality to guess at, to seize on, to make your own. The realm of the possible; the fascination and excitement of a new world.

Marie swivels round again, letting her gaze rest for a moment on the young, immobile body. Lives which form life, worlds which give shape to the world … Her face lights up, as if she had suddenly rediscovered a memory. Folding her arms on the sand, she completely buries her head in them
and, in the narrow chapel of her crossed arms, she breathes her own breath: ‘Are you there, Marie? Yes, I’m still here, quite alone in my own arms … Marie!’

JEAN AND MARIE
had taken to sitting on the balcony of the hotel where, every day at the same time, you could see the same holidaymakers sitting with a coffee, a cup of tea, a
menthe
. It wasn’t as hot as earlier on, but as the afternoon came to an end, everything remained steeped in torpor, retaining the heat of the whole day. There was something ineffable around Marie that was making her happy. Jean was next to her, serving her coffee, giving her a cigarette: an intimate little scene, on the balcony of a hotel, overlooking the sea.

A large parasol protected the table, and in the shadowy light Jean’s face showed up clearly, those rather slack features that could sometimes tense into irritability. She watched him run his broad hands, the little fingers shadowed by down, through his fair hair, which the holiday sun had lightened even more. There was definitely strength in his character – or rather, there were bouts of strength. Jean had a way of claiming his due, or more than his due: a somewhat egotistical way of deciding, of drinking, of eating, of sitting, of occupying his place.

‘You’re very quiet, Marie?’

‘I’m watching you.’

He smiled and filled his cup, adding a cube of sugar. Turning towards her again he asked: ‘Do you love me?’

‘I love you.’

She had spoken quietly, deeply. She lowered her eyes and, pausing a moment as if she was thinking about it, looked back at him again and repeated, in a more normal, stronger voice: ‘I love you. Yes, I love you.’

Laughing, she went on: ‘You’ve known that for such a very long time!’

‘Six years – it’s beginning to add up, isn’t it?’

And he laughed, too, clasping her slender wrist a little too tightly.

A group of young women carrying tennis rackets came up. Marie exclaimed: ‘What, you’ve been playing in this heat?’

‘The courts are in shade, and we take a break between each game. You ought to come with us, Marie. What about tomorrow?’

‘Fancy asking Marie to come with us! Don’t go on at her: Jean doesn’t play tennis and it’s unthinkable that Marie, the most loving, the most faithful woman of them all, would ever abandon him for an afternoon!’

Marie smiled, calmly. She watched the young women, she watched Jean, and then, as if absentminded or indifferent, let her gaze wander to the sea, to the horizon, fixing it upon that uncertain infinity.

Jean was all attention: ‘What do you want to drink? Do join us.’

‘No, we’re on our way back. Are you staying in the hotel this evening? We’ll come and find you there.’

Alone again, Jean and Marie sat on, in an easy silence.

Gradually the weather had changed. The sky was still clear over the sea but over the village it grew dull, and threatening clouds began to appear above the land. They heard a heavy, far-off rumble and a short while later, another, less muffled rumble echoed in the nearby mountains. Marie looked worried. ‘Do you think it’s coming in this direction?’ she asked.

‘I don’t think so, the wind seems to be coming from—’

A third, louder rumble interrupted him. He turned towards Marie and made a face: ‘Poor Marie – you’d better get ready to suffer …’

She tried to laugh. She saw the hotel waiters fold up the tablecloths and close the parasols; then there was a brief, dull flash of lightning, like a reflection. She raised a pathetic, taut face towards the sky, then looked down again, wilting with fear. ‘Let’s go back,’ she said. ‘You know how frightened I get, I hate thunderstorms.’

He urged her to wait, promised her it would soon be over. She sat in silence, doing her best to stifle her unease.

After several spaced-out drops the rain stopped abruptly: the only sound was another clap of thunder, but a long way away. Marie’s face relaxed. The sun suddenly reappeared. She regained her cheerfulness and suggested a walk along the harbour.

Marie took Jean’s arm, and the two of them walked close together in the sweetness of the rediscovered sun, watching the little boats and the extended fishing rods. When Jean started talking to a fisherman Marie, still holding her
husband’s arm, turned towards the mountains. Behind the high bare peaks she imagined a deluge of water, noise, and streaks of lightning; she saw herself rushing down those dry slopes, looking up at the flashing light, her face pitched against the cold, hard storm, entirely alone.

Gasping a little, she turned back towards the harbour. Her eyes were still sparkling, but they gradually lost their brightness and finally softened as they came to rest, calmly and tenderly, upon Jean.

In the evening the friends were reunited in the garden of the hotel. Jean, in high spirits, was chatting with Lucy and two other young women.

‘I’m going as far as the road,’ Marie said, so softly that the others barely noticed.

THE LEAVES ON THE TREES
along the road are completely still; the smell of pines, overheated by the day, still rises in waves, but the night is full and fresh, and the earth has eased up. Marie reaches the road that she took that afternoon with Jean and follows it to the end.

It is hard to see, now, where the beach ends and the sea begins. She goes on walking; she hears the lapping of the water against a boat. She has never tried untying a craft and rowing it in the sea; she does not know the precise movements that are required. But she is suddenly overtaken by curiosity.

Under the thrust of her hands the boat slides along the sand, and finally floats. She gets in, takes the oars, and fumbles clumsily in the water. It’s hard … If Jean was there,
he would row vigorously and the boat would move quickly. He would say: ‘Look at me!’ They would go out a little further and would stay sitting in the boat, for a long time, leaning against each other. But Jean is not here. He is of less concern to her now than the sea, the boat and its oars. And the oars must be raised – yes, like that – and then forced backwards, plunged into the water, brought back, raised again, and while this is happening you must lean your chest forward, then straighten up again; you must embrace the rhythm so as to become the very movement itself.