The Widow (17 page)

Had she understood? Was she making a fool of him? When she got home, did she not declare to her mother, “He signaled to me again. I think he's going off his head.”

And Tati, every time he went up to her room, searched his eyes as though she hoped to find some clue in them! What clue, of what, could there be in his eyes?

“I was thinking that Saturday you might go to market instead of me, but I'm frightened to stay alone in the house. I'll get Clémence to come up, the one who lives on the right of the path. You know, the little house with the blue gate. If her sister-in-law's better, she can take the eggs and the butter.”

She wanted to find out if he would give a start, or show some sign of pique or ill-temper, for then it would mean he had arranged to meet Félicie in town.

However, it came about at a time she had not foreseen, and in circumstances that Jean had not imagined either. When he displayed his eight fingers between the bars, he had no idea what would happen if Félicie did come at eight o'clock. All he knew was that this was the sweetest moment of the whole day, so sweet as to be almost sad, with the canal dropping off to sleep, as things took on their setting of shadow and the red shawl assumed a special quality in the blue and violet of the newborn night.

In the hutches beneath his feet the rabbits were indulging in noisy antics, and now and then a hen shifted on a perch in the henroost.

He did not know what day of the week it was. He had just eaten, alone in the kitchen. From the foot of the stairs, he had called up to Tati, “I'm going to look at the animals.”

He had got as far as the garden, among the potatoes, when suddenly he saw Félicie less than a yard away from him.

She was the one who had waited. He could not see her eyes—only her shape. She said nothing. He said nothing either and, quite naturally, as though it had been agreed upon long beforehand, he took her in his arms and kissed her mouth to mouth.

And she had not offered the least resistance. She had not been surprised. As soon as he had clasped her in his arms, she had let herself go limp and, under his kiss, her lips remained submissively parted.

Jean's first thought was that they could not remain there, standing among the potatoes, and he led her gently toward the shed, aimlessly still, and still without speaking. Then he kissed her once more and he saw that her eyes were closed, her neck of an unreal whiteness.

It was, truly, as though it had been foreseen from all eternity that they would meet on that evening, at that spot, and that they need say nothing to each other, that they would recognize each other and have only to fulfill their destiny.

At the moment, Jean did not even know upon what he laid her down: it was hay set ready for the rabbits. And, lying down, she remained inert, while he sought the touch of her flesh. Then, all at once, without thinking, with a dreamlike ease he possessed her.

She clenched her teeth. The rabbits were fidgeting a few inches away from their heads. The incubator lamp, in a corner, gave out a faint yellow gleam, like the vigil light in the vast dimness of a church.

She shook her head to warn him that she could not breathe, so closely were his lips welded to hers, and it was as touching as holding a bird in one's hands, a quivering bird that makes timid efforts to escape.

Then with one shudder she stiffened and, the next instant, her whole body relaxed.

And he stammered, “Félicie!”

He felt that she had opened her eyes, that she was looking at him, with some astonishment perhaps, and that she was trying to get free.

She stood up and shook from her dress the twigs of hay she could not see in the dark.

And, listening intently, as he remained awkward before her, she murmured, “I think you're being called.”

Those were the only words she spoke that evening. When she turned to go, he grasped her hand. She abandoned it to him, but she evidently did not feel the need for such a gesture and she wondered still more when he brushed the tips of her fingers with his lips and stammered, “Thank you.”

There was a noise from the house. Tati banging on the floor with her stick.

“Are you there, Jean?”

“Here I am!”

He would have liked to look at himself in the scrap of mirror in the kitchen, but the lamp was not yet lit.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm coming.”

As he climbed the stairs he ran both hands over his face as if to restore his features to normal.

“What were you doing? Light the lamp.”

“I was tending the rabbits.”

He took off the chimney of the lamp, turned up the wick, and struck a match. His fingers still shook a little.

“I thought there were footsteps outside. Like someone moving on tiptoe.”

He did not answer.

“You haven't seen anybody?”

“No.”

“If you could know how afraid I am, Jean! You're getting tired of me, eh? In the end you'll loathe me.”

“Of course not!”

“To think that a woman … and above all that Félicie.”

Why did she mention Félicie just at that moment? She was very red. Toward evening she always ran a temperature and her face appeared more swollen. He looked at her cheek, with the spot that resembled a bit of fur….

“I don't know what I would do, but …”

Jean's body threw a large shadow on the wall, a shadow reaching almost to the ceiling, and in the wallpaper the holes showed where he had torn down the fruit shelves.

“You're not bored?”

“No.”

“Do you think you can stick it here long?”

“Of course I do!”

“That's what I don't understand. When I saw you come back, along the road, I was almost expecting it, because I took you for a foreigner, a sort of Polack, and those folks, far from their own country, need to find shelter—”

She broke off and he did not notice.

“You're not listening?”

“Yes, I am.”

“What was I saying?”

“You were talking about the Polack.”

And, smiling dreamily into space, he bade her good night, groped upstairs to his attic, where he threw himself down fully dressed upon his bed.

O
NE SECOND
… two seconds more and he began to suspect that it was a dream…. He tried to carry it through to the end, not to hear the drops of whey falling one by one from the udder-shaped white cheese. In spite of himself, he opened his eyes on the two oblong panes of glass, blue as slate, forming the skylight under which he lay.

He remained a long time as though stupefied, numb, at once ill-tempered and still trembling with ecstasy. The most extraordinary thing was Tati's presence. Looking at their embrace in the way she looked at her chickens or rabbits, with a happy, encouraging smile, and saying, “Love each other well, my pets.”

Impossible to say just where all this was happening. It was not in a bedroom. It was not in the shed, either. The light was so bright that it might be the firmament itself, and their pulses throbbed to the rhythm of invisible music, as though a hundred violins sought to exalt the lovers.

He wondered whether, in his dream, Tati had had the bit of fur on her cheek and he could not remember, nor could he remember her clothes, except for the gaudy pink of her slip. As for Félicie, she had pressed against him with such ardor….

His eyelids stung as though a tear were welling up under them. Suddenly, he felt that it was beginning again, that the anguish was stealing over him, would fill his breast anew with a wave of agony.

“Oh, God, grant that …”

He sometimes spoke like this, half in earnest, when, in his bed, he felt too much like a little child.

“Grant that I may go back to sleep. Grant that I may have no more nightmares.”

It was too late, he knew.

“
Every person condemned to death shall
…”

No! That did not frighten him anymore. It was already far away. From moment to moment, his head was clearing more and more, so much so that he could lie down no longer and sat up, wide-eyed, in his bed.

What would have happened if, a short time before, when he was in the shed with Félicie, her father had come in? Or if Tati, despite her illness and her boils, had come downstairs in her felt slippers?

What would he say to Félicie when he saw here again? Who knows? Perhaps she would come back on other evenings? Already he could no longer do without her. So, inevitably, one day or another …

He recalled a moment of his life, a moment as airy-light as when he stepped out of prison. It was summer. The examinations were drawing near. The classroom windows were open. The English master looked like a malicious puppet.

Jean had raised his hand, as if asking to be excused. The English master had shrugged. Jean had snapped his fingers.

“Well, what do you want? You need not ask my permission to leave the room, since I regard you as not present.”

“I would like to go home. I don't feel well.”

He was not yet sure, but he decided to be ill. Alone, he crossed the courtyard and, through dozens of open windows, the voices of teachers and pupils flowed out. In the street, a streetcar shaved past him. Before going home, he went to eat ice cream at Pitigrilli's—three, one after another, despite his temperature.

For less than nothing, he might have dropped his books on the pavement. It did not matter anymore. He would not be learning any more lessons. He would not be taking his examinations.

When he came out of prison, he had also gone to eat ice cream. They handed him some money, two hundred—odd francs—he did not know exactly why. He had taken a bus. He had slept in one town, then in another, he was committed to nothing, nothing he did possessed either weight or importance.

Tati's house might have come out of a child's building set. He looked at the ancient gilded calendar as one looks at a curious old print. He sniffed the good smells of kitchen and shed. He puttered about, unhurriedly, lighting the fire, grinding coffee, milking the cows, mixing the chickens' mash….

And yet, at eight o'clock, in the darkness of the shed …

Alone in his bed, he smiled bitterly. It would start all over again—real life, complications, and, as always, he'd be the one to bear the brunt of fate. He was sure of it.

As sure as when, in Paris, he had met Zézette and entered her apartment for the first time.

He lay down again, did not find sleep, got up, and, barefoot, walked around the loft a dozen times, wondering the while whether, down below, Tati was asleep.

He was dreadfully tired. Not only because of the past, or the present, but because of all the complications he could foresee; he was already growing sentimental over the days he had just lived. He was quite clear about it. Twice, and twice only, in the whole of his life, had he known this innocent peace; once when he'd been ill and ceased to consider school a reality; then again here, this very morning, as he strode toward the village and waited with the gossips behind the butcher's truck….

“Jean! … Jean! …”

He could tell that he was being called; he did not know where he was, did not realize that he must get up; on the contrary, he was sinking deeper into an iridescent morning sleep. And suddenly his door opened.

“Monsieur Jean …”

A strange voice. A woman he had barely seen, the one who lived in the little house with the blue gate beside the road. She was young, but two of her front teeth were missing, spoiling her looks.

“It's about the butter and eggs you were to give me…. ”

She watched him jump out of bed in a beam of sunlight. It was late. It was the first time he had awakened so late, having only dropped off to sleep at first light.

He went to Tati's room.

“Didn't you hear me calling?”

“I'm sorry. I slept very heavily.”

“Give her the eggs and butter quick. Go with her as far as the bus.”

He felt heavy, thick. Always that vague sensation of disquiet, even of anguish. He looked around him as if wondering from which quarter the blow would fall on him.

“Is it bad, Tati's illness?”

“Yes … I don't know…. ”

The hazel-lined path had the smell of damp woods. Now and then, he still tried to recapture remnants of his dream. Félicie must be surprised not to see him yet. He must hurry up and milk the cows, and tether them outside. He had not the heart to make any coffee. He would merely take a glass of white wine to wash out his mouth.

He helped the woman to hoist the baskets into the red bus and watched stupidly as it left.

When he took the cows to the meadow, Félicie was at her door, her baby on her arm, and he thought she made a little sign to him. He turned toward the window. Tati was there, her long and stringy graying hair hanging down over her nightgown.

It would be so easy to live the life of his dream! It would only take….

“Are you coming, Jean?”

He did not know that the postman, who on Saturdays made his round earlier than usual, had already been there. The postman had called out, and started up the stairs.

Now, Tati was holding a letter.

“Come in! I've had news from René. Do you want to read it?”

She too was anxious. He did not want to read it. He took the sheet of paper simply to be polite.

The handwriting of a child, and many mistakes.

“Money, always money!” sighed Tati. “Every time he writes to me, it's to ask for money and it's no use anyway. Why don't you sit down? You seem so absent. You haven't had a letter, have you?”

She reverted to her first train of thought.

“It's for him I've done everything that I've done, lived worse than a slave, denied myself everything. So that one day he wouldn't be stark naked in the world. And yet there are times when I wonder …”