The Gobi Desert (5 page)

Those people who anticipate difficulties in paying their hotel bills always take an elementary precaution, which is to be kitted out with expensive luggage. Luxury travel bags and trunks, elegant holdalls, spotless hatboxes, sumptuous toiletries: it's a question of inspiring confidence, isn't it, confidence above all and in spite of everything! Our own luggage complied with this rule, of course, but it was beginning to get a bit worn, unfortunately. We realised it was essential to renew it, or at least some of it, on the day when we were due to set off again. Now what did I just get a glimpse of, on the rug? A suitcase, a splendid new suitcase in a creamy yellow colour, full to bursting, with side pockets and nice, shiny locks, everything, in a word, the best of its type. I could never have worked out how it was possible to get hold of such a perfect item in Fouzan. But it was nothing to do with such details, however important, which mattered to me at that moment. The papers which I had just seen in Alzire's hands suddenly made sense, a sense which I could no longer mistake, even when against all the evidence I stubbornly wanted to ignore it . . . Bills paid, tickets bought for the train journey, and for the sea crossing! She was leaving. It had just been settled. We were separating. We were leaving each other.

It was just at that moment when she chose to turn around. My heart beating, I saw a dark violet look in her eyes.

‘Dear Michel, it would be a good idea to have a chat, if you want.'

My throat was too tight for me to speak. I gave a slight nod with my head.

She came up to me, slowly, and kissed me on the forehead, very gently, very kindly.

‘First of all get rid of those bottles!' she commanded. ‘It was Mme Domestici who gave them to you to bring up here, wasn't it?'

She had taken from my hands the bag where the tops of the bottles could be seen. She took them out from the bag and now she was looking at the labels, which said ‘
Private vintage.
' That was all. Vintage of what? And whose vintage?

Alzire shrugged her shoulders. ‘What rubbish they sell you nowadays passing as champagne!' she said. She added with a sad smile: ‘Huh! But this one will always be quite good given the circumstances which it has been called upon to celebrate.'

There was a moment of silence. She sat down next to me and took my hand. ‘Dear Michel, I know I don't need to ask – you haven't come up with any solution, have you? Nothing at all?'

I had nothing to say. I just looked away.

‘Nothing at all?' she repeated.

‘Later, perhaps,' I began in a tone completely lacking in conviction. ‘But for the time being, despite my efforts which you don't doubt, I must admit . . . . ‘

It was her turn not to say anything. She had a folder on her knees, a nice new folder, in which just a moment ago I had seen her sorting out some papers. She began to tap the folder with her finger, a sign which meant:

‘Yes, yes! Later, always later! It's not worth going on about it my dear, I know that song . . .'

‘I knew it,' she murmured at last. ‘It couldn't have been otherwise. I was so convinced of it that I hadn't expected you to come back, so I kept hold of this, as you can see.'

She half-opened the folder. A dark green paper, covered in different stamps, was just about visible. I didn't need to look at it any longer, I guessed what it was: travel documents from a shipping company!

I crumpled as if overwhelmed by the inevitable. ‘So you are leaving?' I stammered in a low voice.

‘Yes!' she said. ‘Oh, but not just yet. It's only Monday today. I'll leave on Thursday.'

*

I couldn't believe it: Mme Domestici must have known something about all this. It was Macao that Alzire was setting off for, a town, I don't know why, which I had never heard anything good about. What was she going to do there exactly? She was hardly forthcoming on the subject, and as for me I couldn't insist on knowing. We all have our pride. Macao is a port of call for Hong-Kong, and is a Portuguese colony which has a reputation as a place where one would never feel melancholy. It wasn't only yesterday, I realised, that the plan had been put together. A very nice gentleman, a Dutchman I believe, and who I had not really noticed, had himself noticed Alzire. This could have been going on for a month. The gentleman in question was the manager of some sort of gambling establishment in Macao. Mme Domestici had been authorised, in the event that Alzire agreed to go there, to accept all the necessary costs. The arrears on our hotel bill, of course, by the same token, had been paid. And the generosity of this envoy from God, as we shall see, didn't stop there.

If anything else could have astonished me, it was unquestionably the name of the ship on which a berth had been reserved for Alzire. The
Bendigo
, would you believe it? The
Bendigo
!

I couldn't contain my disbelief. ‘For a man so generous, my dear, he could have chosen a somewhat more comfortable ship for you. Good heavens! I know that ship, and I can tell you . . . .'

Alzire didn't show any sign of disappointment. ‘You think so? Hah! Two weeks have flown by. Besides, it's not his fault. He left me free to choose the day of my departure, and the ship at the same time. I chose the date which I thought would suit us best. But I admire you! Without seeming to, you know all about it, dear Michel. Ah! if you had taken the trouble. If you had wanted . . .

There was a knock at the door and Mme Domestici came in. Under that awful snow-filled sky there was nothing more gloomy than her Spanish shawl with its red and yellow flowers. And what sort of oil had the old dear put on herself to make her hair shine?

‘I'm not too early am I?' she said in a simpering tone. ‘Look what I've brought you! Some champagne glasses. A young couple is often in need of some little things. I know what it's like.'

‘You're very kind' said Alzire. ‘Michel, help Mme Domestici.'

I would rather have thrown her champagne glasses in the old witch's face! Nonetheless I obeyed, with all the eagerness that one can imagine. I set about the task of opening one of the bottles, equally unhurriedly, I can assure you. I was beginning to have enough astonishment, without having had any champagne. If anyone had told me that, a few hours earlier! . . . . What a day, yes, what a strange day it was turning out to be!

‘Well dear, I suppose you're happy,' said Mme Domestici to Alzire, her eyes shining and her lips moist. ‘Well, that's life! One day everything is black, the next day all is well. You think all is lost, then everything becomes clear. And you, Mr Michel? Are you a little bit sad? That goes without saying. But you shouldn't be, you really shouldn't! This is only a temporary separation, and a necessary one. What she is doing, the dear girl, is in the interests of both of you.'

I didn't bother to reply. I turned my back on her and went to the window. My nose against the window pane, I looked down onto the street, indifferent to what I saw. But it was better like that. Such a dreary spectacle, just what I needed to cheer up a miserable and aimless soul like mine! For those who drag around with them an excess of gaiety, I recommend a little winter stay in Fouzan. They will soon get rid of their baggage there. The fumes from the port hung over the dark black sea. The skeletal Korean children, in their pathetic white tee-shirts, were arguing in the mud over a nameless piece of refuse with some dogs which were in an equally bad way as themselves. This picturesque scene was completed by some lepers who passed by from time to time, their rattles in their hands. There was one of them who looked up and saw me. He smiled at me, with his awful mouth eaten away. I couldn't stand it anymore, and drew the curtain.

‘Ah! At last, here he is, that naughty sulking man who has come back to keep the ladies company! But we haven't waited for him to open the second bottle, oh no! Listen to me Mr Michel, or rather just plain Michel. You don't mind if I call you that, do you?'

‘That is something which perhaps I shall see the point of later on,' I said with a pleasant smile. ‘But for the moment . . .'

‘Huh! Such a rude man! But it doesn't matter, we'll forgive him, won't we Alzire? He's upset. Who wouldn't be in his place? Despite himself we must cheer him up, this big baby. Ah, but he is right to be in love with her, his Alzire! If only he knew what she had done for him! Why don't you tell him, my dear? But would you prefer that I should tell him? Well then, for as long as she is Macao, you should know, Michel, that the Hotel Domestici is yours. You will be waited on like the daughter of the house. No weekly bill to pay. No getting up at the crack of dawn to avoid meeting that poor Mme Domestici. If you imagine that I haven't noticed your little game! Just take a look now and then at the accounts for me, as I'm getting old. That will be an occupation in which you will do very well, and which won't take you more than two or three hours a day. And since you will be alone you won't need such a large room. I'll give you another one just as nice but more cosy, on the fourth floor, with a balcony.'

I had had enough. Wasn't that clear? Mme Domestici, in any case, didn't seem in any doubt. She waited anxiously for me to thank her.

‘You can keep your room,' I said through gritted teeth, ‘your nice cosy room. Just look at the person standing in front of you. I give you my word that I shall never set foot in it. There is in fact something which you do not seem to realise, my dear lady, and that is that I'm also going away. I've had enough of Fouzan! No more Fouzan!'

‘Michel!' cried Alzire in a reproachful tone, a tone which meant ‘What are you saying?'

But Mme Domestici had already interrupted: ‘He doesn't know himself, the poor boy!' she said good-humouredly. ‘I repeat, we mustn't bear a grudge against him, my dear. The news of your departure has come as a shock to him. So like the villain he is, he doesn't want to stay with his mummy Mme Domestici, happy and spoiled like cockerel in clover. You're planning to leave are you, Michel? That's very good, that is. But where will you go? Do you have any idea? Allow me to be sceptical about that. And another thing, another question I would like to ask you: what sort of occupation have you chosen? What are planning to do?'

‘You really want to know? I'm going on a tiger hunt!' I replied, by now completely fed up and hoping to put an end to this ridiculous discussion.

‘What's this story about a tiger hunt?' asked Alzire, five minutes later, when Mme Domestici had left us, overflowing with tenderness and blowing us kisses.

‘What is it?' I said. ‘The truth, that's all.'

Alzire's slim nose became pinched. Her voice took on that metallic inflection which I had heard on only a few occasions before.

‘You know I love you very much Michel', she said. ‘All the same you shouldn't treat me as someone like Mme Domestici. So I would be grateful if you . . . ‘

She fell quiet. There was a knock at the door.

‘Who is it? Yes, come in!'

A young native boy, about fifteen, proudly wearing the bizarre blue and gold uniform of the Myako
,
appeared at the door, holding a parcel. In a nasal voice he repeated my name.

‘Yes' I said, ‘It's for me all right. Thank you.'

This was the present which Sanders had talked about! I admit that I hadn't given it another thought.

*

After the boy had gone there was a silence which I was careful not to disturb. Alzire was obviously dying to ask me what was going on, but she wanted the explanation to come from me. Eventually she couldn't bear it any longer.

‘What are all these mysterious things? Can't you tell me what is in that parcel?'

‘Open it, if it interests you', I said casually. ‘What's inside will have the benefit of proving something to you once again my dear: that is that I never tell a lie. What would be the point?'

I had answered off the top of my head, in all honesty. I maintain that I did not know what was inside Sanders' present. What could have caused me such surprise? That was something which I still didn't know. Alzire unwrapped the parcel. I watched as she took out five books, five large volumes, one after the other. You should have seen the look of alarm on her face as she was busy reading the titles, one by one.
Hunting in the Manchurian Taiga
and
The Great Expedition, the History of a Tiger,
the two books by Nicholas Baikov which Sanders had told me about that same morning; then there was
Panthers and Tigers of the Altai,
by Colonel Rechid Tabriz;
Tiger and Man,
by Bengt Bery; and finally,
The Big Cats of the Koukou-Nor,
by Dr Julius Accarias . . . .So many works which I had not heard of that morning but which were destined to become as familiar to me as the Bible was to an old woman.

Five volumes, and all five devoted to the same subject! Alzire laid them out on her dressing table, methodically, in a row. When she had finished she raised her head and looked at me in silence.

‘So it's true then', she murmured at last.

‘As you can see', I replied. And I added, with an air of authority at which I was the first to be surprised, ‘It's time I began to get all my papers ready.'

Visibly, Alzire was busy wondering whether or not I was making fun of her. It was the moment when she told me she was leaving me that I chose to take life seriously. All the same I felt there was something disagreeable in what I was doing.

She continued to look at me closely with a mixture of surprise and irony.

‘To go tiger hunting?' she said at last. ‘And why not, after all, good heavens! For a man that's better than doing nothing. I shall content myself with regretting that you didn't think to tell me sooner about your plans. It was only an hour ago that you were telling me that you hadn't found a job anywhere. You must have had your reasons to say that. Nevertheless, well done, my dear Michel! But now listen to me. Of all the different professions couldn't you have chosen one that was more lucrative, or at least less dangerous?'

‘In places like Hamburg or Sydney it's very common to see tigers being sold for five or six hundred thousand francs,' I replied.

‘Five or six hundred thousand francs!' she said. ‘Aren't those just figures plucked out of the air?'

‘On my word they are not!'

She was quiet, and seemed thoughtful.

‘Michel, my friend,' she began again with a certain gravity, ‘I'm not at all sure that you are in your right mind at the moment. As for me, on the other hand, I'm certainly in my right mind. You know the reasons why I have to go there. It's a six-month contract which I have signed. I won't do anything during those six months which might commit me in any definite way, at least not without having told you. That will allow you on your side, to let me know if you have managed in that time to improve a situation in which we can no longer decently remain.'

I think I never saw her more beautiful than at that moment. We were standing opposite each other, looking at each other. With her head tilted back she smiled at me with that smile which would send me to the ends of the earth. Her lilac-pink lips parted. There was a sort of moist freshness in her. I kissed her . . . .

‘Please Michel, no tenderness', she murmured. ‘We need all our strength. Let's try and be happy, that's all, since we have two whole days and three whole nights to spend together. There isn't much to enjoy here so we'll just have to try our best. Look, this evening, for example, since Mme Domestici has paid my travel expenses for me, what do you say if we go out for a bit? We haven't done that for a long time. You can put on your nice suit; I'll make myself as beautiful as I can, and we'll have dinner at the Myako.'