Return to the Chateau (9 page)

After six weeks had passed, during which time O had clung faithfully to the hope, in spite of the deception of each new day, that Sir Stephen would come, O noted that if the members who were actually living at Roissy or who came back several days in a row were fairly common, the same generally held true for the customers. So it was that clear-cut preferences became established, or habits (as they did with the valets, to such a degree that often, in the refectory, the same valet would possess the same girl; thus, with O, whom Jos=E9 would order to sit astride him, with his hands holding her waist and buttocks, a pose in which O resembled, the way her back was slightly arched, the swooning woman held by the god Siva in Hindu statues), and O noted Carl’s frequent return less because he sometimes came back four days in a row than because, each time, she tried to pry some information about Sir Stephen from him. He rarely talked of him, and whenever he did it was rather to explain to her what he, Carl, had said to Sir Stephen (about O) than what Sir Stephen had answered. He never left O any money, not once. Not that he was unaware of the practice. One night he had taken another girl upstairs with O, and the girl happened to be Jeanne. He had sent her back downstairs very quickly, keeping O with him, but he had sent Jeanne away with her hands stuffed with banknotes. For O, nothing.

Therefore she was completely in the dark when, one evening in October, instead of leaving as was his custom he told her to get dressed, waited until she was ready, and then handed her an oblong box of blue leather. O opened it. It contained a ring, a collar, and two diamond bracelets.

“You’ll wear them in place of those you’re now wearing,” he said to her, “when I take you away.”

“Take me away?” said O. “Where? You can’t take me away.”

“I’m taking you to Africa first,” he said, “then to America.”

“But you can’t!” O repeated.

Carl made a movement with his hand that very clearly meant for her to keep quiet.

“I’m going to work it out with Sir Stephen,” he said. “And then I’ll take you with me.”

“But I don’t want you to,” O cried, suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of panic. “I don’t want you to. I don’t. I don’t!”

“Yes you do,” Carl said.

And O thought: I’ll run away. Oh, not with him, oh, no; I’ll run away.

The jewel case was open on the unmade bed, and the jewels, that O could not wear, sparkled among the disarray of the sheets, a fortune.

I’ll run away, and I’ll take the diamonds with me, O thought to herself, and she smiled at him.

He did not come back. Ten days later, while she was waiting, early one afternoon, in her gray and yellow dress of the first day, for a valet to come and open the little gate so that she could go into the library, she heard the sound of hurried steps behind her and turned around. It was Anne-Marie, who was holding a newspaper in one hand, which she handed to O. Anne-Marie was paler than O ever remembered seeing her.

“Look’ she said to O.

O’s heart began to pound in her chest. On the first page a face, its expression blank, its mouth slightly parted, its eyes staring straight ahead: his face.

The headline read:

WHO IS THE NAKED WOMAN OF THE CRIME AT FRANCHARD?

The article went on to say:

“A group of Alpine mountain climbers who were practicing in the =46ranchard gorges in the forest of Fontainebleau, alerted by the barking of a dog, discovered the body of a man in the thickets. He had been killed by a bullet in the back of the neck. The unknown man, who appears to be a foreigner, had been stripped of all his papers. The only thing found on him was a woman’s photograph which had been slipped or had fallen into the lining of his suitcoat. The woman was completely naked, and, according to certain signs, in all probability a prostitute. The police are looking for the woman.”

The description that followed left no doubt in O’s mind that it was indeed Carl.

“Do you have any clear idea who might have done it?” said Anne-Marie.

“Oh, yes,” O said. “Sir Stephen … But you mustn’t breathe a word.”

“You’re wrong,” said Anne-Marie. “But you don’t have to say that Sir Stephen sent him to you. Still, you have to realize they may find that out anyway.”

‘When the police arrived at Roissy, Carl had already been identified not only by some laundry marks on his clothing but also by his tailor and the bellboys of his hotel. O was interrogated only as a material witness, and the questioning focused on the person of Sir Stephen. They knew that he was involved in some business dealings with Carl. What were these dealings? O did not know. After three hours of interrogation, O had still not provided them with any useful information, except to assert that she had not seen Sir Stephen for the past two months.

“Then for God’s sake ask him,” she cried out at last in exasperation, “and anyway, what difference does it make?”

“Don’t you understand,” said one of them, “that it was your fine-feathered friend who probably did away with the Belgian, and that’s why he vanished. But between the theory and the proof. .”

They never did prove it. The theory was that Carl, who was known to have an interest in certain mines in Central Africa which produced some unspecified rare metals, had been getting ready to leave Europe after having negotiated-without having any right to do so and after having been paid healthy sums of money (traces of which were later discovered in various bank accounts, but never the money itself)-with a number of foreign agents either for the concessions to the mines or for the products extracted from them. It was at this point that these agents, realizing they had been taken and that they had no recourse whatsoever in law, had taken their revenge. As for laying their hands on Sir Stephen…As for knowing whether or not he would ever come back…

“You’re free now, O,” said Anne-Marie. “We can remove your irons, your collar, and bracelets, and even erase the brand. You have the diamonds, you can go home.”

O did not cry nor did she display any sign of bitterness. Nor did she answer Anne-Marie.

“But if you prefer’ Anne-Marie went on, “you can stay on here.”