Marie (9 page)

T
HIS WENT ON
all through the night.

The next day, Claudine opened her heavy eyelids every now and again and tried to look at Marie. Several times those painful spasms rose up from her stomach, still drenched in poison. When someone spoke to her, she made signs to show that she had understood, and a few slow words emerged from her swollen lips.

Marie sorted out some clean clothes for her, tidied her hair, brought a basin of warm water and washed her all over. Whether her woman’s body had been disturbed by this shock to the system or whether it was simply that time of the month, Claudine had started a period: as Marie squeezed the sponge in the basin, the water was pink on her hands. She wrapped Claudine in a blanket and, while the cleaner changed the bedclothes, sat the poor little wretch on
her knee. Although Claudine, at thirty-two, was older than Marie, she seemed like an over-sized little girl whose feet touched the ground. Marie held her in her arms, moving her right shoulder so as to support her head naturally. She placed her lips on Claudine’s forehead, on her hairline, and kept them there, moving ever so gently.

A day later Claudine was following all Marie’s movements around the bedroom with her eyes. She was speaking a few words almost normally. From time to time Marie would give her something to drink, lift up her hair, puff the pillows.

Claudine took her hand and said: ‘Can you understand, I felt so alone, so unhappy … It was like a gigantic despair, a kind of fear, and also like a very deep sense of fatigue. I felt that I was finally going to be able to have a long rest …’

Marie said nothing; she was touched to the quick by these sad, halting words.

‘At the beginning of the day, when this … when this fear became so unbearable … if you had been in Paris, I would have called you, I would have asked you to go out with me … If I had seen someone, perhaps I would have felt less desperate … perhaps this need to sleep would have diminished … I don’t know … I don’t know …’

She moved her head, shrugging her shoulders. She spoke without any sense of tragedy or regret; it was as if she wanted to explain something she didn’t fully understand herself.

‘That’s how it came about. You mustn’t think that I preferred death to life … I wasn’t thinking of either death
or life … To sleep … Yes, that was what I wanted, above all to sleep …’

Marie removed her hand and said, in a voice as feeble as her sister’s: ‘Shush, don’t think about all that. You must put that day out of your mind …’

In an appeasing caress, she gently stroked Claudine’s forehead and cheek, but had to move quickly away from the bed to hide the fact that her eyes were filling with tears. Her emotions were stirred not only by Claudine’s sad little voice and by her suffering but by the painful death of a last illusion.

THAT EVENING
, as Claudine slept, Marie stayed by her bedside for a long time. She followed the movements of her feeble chest, she watched her closed eyelids, still a little swollen and retaining the big bluish circles she’d acquired when she was so close to death. To save Claudine … But Claudine wasn’t one of those creatures whose behaviour was determined by anything that comes from the inside; for such people salvation is always false. Over and over down the years Marie had heard her say: ‘Perhaps if I had a child – or if I fell seriously in love with someone …’; and she imagined the mournful pleasure that Claudine would derive from losing herself, burying herself in another human being. The thought suddenly came to her: If only there were a God …

A strange image entered her mind: a group of sad, languid young girls in the peace and quiet of a convent. With a fervour that nothing about them seems to explain, they prostrate themselves in their black garments, touching
the icy flagstones with their pallid faces, their young breasts. Their eyes shine and their hands join, stretch out, interlock. They are enveloped, transfigured by love; they are invaded and uplifted by a clarity that finally gives meaning to their lives. An immense clarity that comes from elsewhere – because God, with the infinite mercy and tenderness of a creator for the whole of his creation, is calling these lost little creatures back to him. He’d said to them, as he’d said to others before them: ‘I gave you flesh, heart and spirit. Go now, leave me, and try to understand the full value of my work.’

If God exists, Marie thought suddenly, it must be out of a desperate kind of love that he offers himself like this, face to face, to those who have scorned the life they have been given. Would not the real triumph of a creator come from those who love him in his work?

C
LAUDINE NO LONGER
needed twenty-four-hour care: her sick body would recover bit by bit, almost of its own accord, in the course of a long convalescence. Marie had spoken to their mother, because it was now possible to conceal the real cause of the illness.

For the first time in six days Marie left Claudine’s apartment.

SHE STARTED BY WALKING AIMLESSLY
, so elated was she to rediscover the fresh air outside and the bustle of the streets – but she walked quickly, in long strides, propelled by a physical need for action and speed. By instinct she went back towards the Right Bank, to the Paris she loved: a strange quadrilateral, enlarged and heart-shaped, delineated more or less by the stations Buttes-Chaumont, Bastille, Opéra and
Clichy. This was a Paris that people who came from elsewhere found less than dazzling – but for Marie, it was the true heart of the city, where the streets, the houses, the bars, the people, were the most Parisian in the whole of Paris.

She soon realised she was famished. She hadn’t been worried by having to eat quick snacks on the corner of a table in Claudine’s apartment with the fetid smell of illness in the air: she had a good strong digestion, and she wasn’t one of those people who were easily thrown by the presence of a sick body. But now that she was free, she longed for a big healthy meal again, consumed in a place she liked. She went into a restaurant in the rue des Petits-Champs and ordered meat, vegetables, cheese and cider. The thrill she felt at the taste of the fresh, sharp drink was both deep and childlike.

When she had finished her meal she lit a cigarette and smoked quietly, sitting at the table for several more minutes, enveloped in a strange sense of well-being. She was savouring her newfound freedom – and the dawn of a happiness that was beyond doubt. She had definitely made up her mind, so she could reflect confidently and calmly on the difficulties that would have to be faced.

What would she tell the others? She would say that after what she had been through with Claudine in the past few days she felt the urge to be alone, to be free for a while. She would tell them in a voice so firm and reassuring that it would be impossible to raise any objections. What about money? She had a hundred francs left. She smiled to herself: not even enough to buy the rail ticket. She thought for a
few moments, looked at the ring that she wore on the third finger of her right hand, and left the restaurant.

When she walked along the rue du Cherche-Midi, a little later to turn into the rue de Rennes, she was still wearing the same satisfied little smile.

INSIDE THE BUILDING
she saw a long queue of people, mainly women. When they reached the desk they deposited men’s suits, old clothes, sets of cutlery, small wirelesses. While the clerk was estimating the value of an object the women didn’t say anything, as if afraid of putting him in a bad mood; their demeanour was indifferent, almost nonchalant. Their eyes were beseeching, but he wasn’t looking at them; by the time he raised his head to theirs he had definitively established the amount of the loan. They always accepted, the gentleness of their voices belying their sense of resignation. When someone put an object down on the desk everyone pushed forward a bit, so as to get a better view. That was the best part of it, seeing what was contained in other people’s packages. At the window where you collected the money, everyone talked to each other again as they waited.

These people had all been forced there by hunger and misery. Having granted herself the right to behave in the same way, did Marie feel no shame as she slipped among them? No, none at all. If they had come to this place to be able to buy bread, she had come out of her heart’s desire, to preserve a love and a deep happiness. Such things matter, too.

When it was her turn she held out her hand and said quietly: ‘My ring …’

‘You need to go to the other window,’ the clerk said.

People moved aside to let Marie pass, jokingly calling out to her, whistling in admiration.

‘The jewellery counter – lucky you!’ a man said, laughing.

She received a hundred and fifty francs, more or less the price of the rail ticket; the hundred francs she already had on her would cover the rest of the cost of the journey. She felt strangely rich.

Stopping at the post office to send a telegram, she walked slowly back to Claudine’s apartment.

The next day she called Jean, kissed Claudine, pulled the door of the apartment behind her and walked out into the coldest hours of a January morning.

S
HE’D BEEN ON THE TRAIN
for over an hour: it was so full that she was standing up in the corridor as the soldiers passed to and fro. Wanting a change of scene she made her way to the refreshment bar, which was small and packed with soldiers. She elbowed her way through all the strong shoulders, the only woman to venture into this surge of blue. At first the men were astonished, then they offered her coffee, acid drops and rough cigarettes – which she smoked in the same way as they did. She bought them beers; they chatted.

Someone was attempting to get into the refreshment car holding a dog in his arms. Trying and failing to reach the bar, he was brandishing the animal above the men as if to save it from suffocation. He needed a drink – for his dog. Marie and the soldiers took the situation over, passing the dog from hand to hand like a balloon and laughing until they cried; the
fact that its owner looked so appalled only increased their mirth. The dog, a young fox terrier, was barking and generally revelling in the situation. When a handsome African soldier in a red coat lowered his beer glass to allow the dog to take a couple of sips, its master screamed with fear while Marie and the soldiers screamed with laughter.

Exit both master and dog.

In this narrow lair the atmosphere was stifling and filled with cigarette smoke. Marie stayed on, squeezed between their shoulders, struck by all the paraphernalia of leather and metal, breathing in the smell of sweat emanating from the heavy uniforms. Yet she was happy – with the heat and the smoke, with the smell of these young men all packed in together, with the deafening sound of laughter, the singing and the off-colour jokes. She was so happy that she laughed at whatever they said. Life was so sweet she would have laughed at anything. These soldiers were her companions in joy; they saw it germinate, grow and blossom in her eyes.

One of the men had found an unoccupied stool: sitting on it, he raised his legs so that his feet reached right up to the bar. ‘Hey, take those boots off there!’ the barman shouted. ‘It’s all right, I’m quite comfortable,’ the man replied. Taking a small mouth organ from his pocket he began to play snatches from tunes. From time to time some of the men would recognise one and join in.

The handsome soldier in the red coat had rested his arms on Marie’s shoulders and was gently, without any ulterior motive, playing with the curls that lay beneath the nape of
her neck. Outside stretched a fine winter landscape, great expanses of meadow in which slender trees rose up towards a heavy grey sky. The trees were very tall and almost purple in colour, and their leafless silhouettes were filled out with round dark clusters. One soldier dug another with his elbow and said: ‘Look, Pierre, there’s some mistletoe – doesn’t it look pretty!’

And from all this arose a strange, wonderful, almost sorrowful meaning, a sorrow untouched by grief. It came from the voices, the gestures, the faces, the landscape. It came from the sound of the glasses, and from the sound of the train; from the songs and from the men’s laughter; perhaps even from the colour of the uniforms and of Marie’s own dress. It came from little things as much as from big things, and it rose up in Marie, enveloping her and making her catch her breath. She felt that even the slightest increase in the link between her and all of these things would make her dizzy to the point of vertigo; that she would die of excitement if the word that defines these specific meanings were ever to be uttered.

AT THE END OF THE JOURNEY
there would be this immense brightness. Her heart was pounding, in big, deep beats, keeping up with the dull rhythm of the train. It was going fast now, and the kilometres were diminishing … The stations they passed were now carrying fine French names (almost too fine and too French): Lonecourt, Ernoxeville, la Ferté-Grande, Landelin-le-Duc …

As she left the carriage the men grabbed her hands and told her their names. There was no point in them doing this, but it gave them pleasure and it seemed like a proof of friendship: ‘Pierre Malinoi’, ‘René Binet’, ‘Sébastien Rémy’, ‘Jules Bottin’, ‘Marcel Cabillot’.

‘And my name is Marie,’ she said.

‘Marie what?’

She looked at them: the little black one with very deep-set eyes, the redhead with the face of a child, the lieutenant who seemed younger than ever in his smart jacket, the one with a pretty voice who had spoken to Pierre, the blond with a big nose and a flat face, the tall dark hungry-looking one who played the mouth organ, and the magnificent African soldier. She smiled at them all and shrugged her shoulders: ‘Just Marie.’

They said goodbye one more time, calling her by her first name, and sang two verses of a song which began: ‘Farewell, dear comrade, farewell, we must part!’

Back in the carriage where Marie had left her book and her coat, all the seats were still full. In the corridor, to one side of the door, a woman sat on a black case. On the other side a man in a cap was sitting on a kit-bag; he was either her husband or her brother. Between them was a bored, miserable child. Unlike Marie, they were not getting off at the next big station: when the child asked when they would arrive at their destination, the woman replied: ‘Oh, a long time yet!’

The woman’s gestures were small, whether she was pulling the two edges of her coat together or adjusting her
hair. She had a joyless face and frightened eyes; she held her arms too tightly against her body and her hands too closely together, as if she wanted to prevent her unhappiness from deserting her. Everything she said to the child was mournful – there was always misfortune in her voice – and the sadness of the mother transferred to the child.

A soldier walked along the corridor, with all his gear, and Marie leaned against the wall of the carriage to let him pass. He was carrying a bag with a pair of big studded boots attached to it and as he went past they knocked the child’s head, lightly scratching his cheek.

The child didn’t want to complain; he simply wanted some consolation for what had happened. His thoughts turned to the bread and sausage which his mother had brought with them in the case and which he’d been looking forward to for hours. He said: ‘I’m hungry …’

‘It’s not mealtime yet,’ she replied.

The tone of her voice suggested that this was something distressing that she could do nothing about. The child felt the tears beginning to come and since everything was so sad and dismal anyway, went up to his mother to show her his forehead and his cheek. She took his head in her hands and said: ‘You’ve been hurt …’

He was truly hungry, and now he knew that he had been hurt, too. Lowering his head he threw himself upon his mother, and cried, distraught, into her miserable lap. She lifted him up so that he could be closer to her, pressed his head to her chest, and put her arms around him. Speaking
in her sad voice, she consoled him with words far more painful than the minor discomfort he was going through. She smothered and enveloped him, holding him against her, against the pain inside her.

Marie would have liked to take the child away – anywhere, as long as it was far from his mother.

He cried even harder. The man, emerging from his half-sleep, took stock of the situation. ‘Come here, I’ll show you something.’

‘What?’

‘We’re going to play cards.’

The child stood up, holding his breath, suddenly uncertain whether to laugh or weep. The man lightly patted the scratched cheek, to show him it wasn’t worth crying about – and also to give him some sense of the agony and anxiety of daily life: the boredom of waiting for things and the bargain you make with misfortune. The child decided to laugh, sitting on the kit-bag next to him and starting to deal the cards.

Marie smiled at the man and the child then went back to the window of the train. It was going so fast now! They were almost there, only another half-hour to go. Her heart was beating very, very quickly. She gradually calmed herself down by looking at the fine landscape outside the window.

IT IS STARTING TO SNOW
: a light dusting that barely covers the woods, or the paths, where the earth is brown and the big russet-coloured fields undulate gently at the far edge of the landscape. No village, no house, no other colour, nothing
but a light covering of snow on the fields; but the waviness of the landscape makes these big expanses of wild plants seem either darker or lighter than they really are. Marie watches as all the browns and all the russets die and are born again.

The landscape changes, its place taken by the flat line of a canal, with houses, roads, sounds. Cars pass by on a viaduct, and people stop to watch the great train as it slows down below them. All at once, a metal plaque on the station announces a place that is imbued with the full power of reality.