Act of Passion (7 page)

I knew my colleagues before I came to settle there, but only in the way a little country doctor knows the doctors of the district.

We would have to invite them to the house. All my friends said that it was the thing to do. We were both very much frightened, my mother and I, but we nonetheless made up our minds to give a bridge party and to invite at least thirty people.

Does it bore you, perhaps, my telling you all these little details? The house was turned topsy-turvy for several days. I took charge of the wines, liqueurs and cigars; Mama attended to the sandwiches and
petits
fours.

We wondered how many would come, and everybody came, even one extra person, and that person, whom we had never met before, whom we had never heard of before, was Armande.

She came with one of my colleagues, a laryngologist, who had taken upon himself the task of keeping her diverted, for she was a widow who had lost her husband about a year before. Most of my friends at La Roche-sur-Yon were doing the same thing, taking her out in turn, trying to cheer her up.

Was it really necessary? I have no idea. I don't judge anyone. I shall never judge anyone again.

All I knew is that she was dressed in black with touches of mauve and that her blond hair was arranged with exceptional care and formed a heavy and sumptuous mass.

She spoke very little, but she made up for it by looking at everything, seeing everything, especially what she should not have seen, and a little smile would play on her lips, as for example when Mama served tiny little sausages - the caterer had assured her that it was the latest fashion - with our heavy silver forks, instead of sticking them on toothpicks.

It was because of her presence, because of that vague smile which kept playing over her face, that I suddenly became conscious of the emptiness of our house, our few sticks of furniture indiscriminately scattered about now appeared to me absurd, and our voices seemed to reverberate against the walls as in an empty house.

Those walls were almost bare. We had never owned any pictures, we had never thought of buying any. At Bourgneuf our house was decorated with photographic enlargements and calendars. At Ormois I had had framed some of the reproductions published in the art reviews which pharmaceutical companies get out especially for the medical profession.

There were a few of them still hanging on our walls, and it was during this first reception of ours that it occurred to me that my guests, since practically all of them received the same reviews, would recognize them.

It was Armande's smile that opened my eyes. And yet that smile was imbued with the utmost goodwill. Or should I say with an ironic condescension? I have always had a horror of irony and I don't understand it. In any case I felt extremely uncomfortable.

I did not wish to play bridge, for at that time I was not even a middling good player.

'Of course you must,' she said, 'I insist. I want you to be my partner. You'll see, it will go very well ...'

Mama bustled about in agony at the thought of a possible
faux
pas
, at the thought that she might shame me. She apologized for everything. She apologized too much, with a humility that was embarrassing. It was obvious that she wasn't used to this sort of thing.

In my whole life I have never played as badly as I did that night. The cards swam before my eyes. I forgot the bids. When it was my lead, I would hesitate, look at my partner, and her smile of encouragement would make me blush all the more…

'Take your time,' she would say. 'Don't let these gentlemen fluster you ...'

There was the matter of the smoked-salmon sandwiches which were much too salty. As we had not tasted them, my mother and I, we fortunately knew nothing about it that evening. But the next day my mother picked up I don't know how many of these sandwiches which had been surreptitiously dropped behind the furniture and curtains.

For several days I kept wondering if Armande had tasted them. I was not in love with her. I never dreamed such a thing possible. The recollection of her simply exasperated me, and I was angry with her for having made me conscious of my clumsiness, if not a lack of breeding. And especially for having done it with that cordial air of hers.

It was the next day at the café where I was in the habit of going almost every evening for an apéritif before dinner that I found out a few details about her life.

Hilaire de Lanusse had four or five children, I don't remember just how many; all of them were married by the time Armande was twenty. She had taken successive courses in singing, dramatic art, music and dancing.

As often happens with the youngest child, a family nucleus no longer existed when she really began to take her place in life and she found herself as free in her father's big house, Place Boildieu, as in a boarding-house.

She had married a musician of Russian origin, who had taken her to Paris, where she lived with him for six or seven years. I know him from his photographs. He was young, with an extraordinarily long narrow face, nostalgic and infinitely sad.

He was tubercular. In order to take him to Switzerland, Armande had claimed her portion of her mother's estate and they lived on this money for another three years, alone in a chalet in the high mountains.

He died there, but it wasn't until several months later that she came back to take her place in her father's house.

I didn't see her again for a week, and if she was often in my thoughts, it was only because her memory was linked to that of our first party, and because in this recollection I looked for the criticism of our behaviour, that of my mother and myself.

One late afternoon when I was having an apéritif at the Café de l'Europe, I saw her through the curtains, walking along the pavement. She was alone. She walked without seeing anyone. She was wearing a black tailored suit, cut with an elegance and a simplicity not often seen in small provincial towns.

I was not in the least moved. I simply remembered the sandwiches dropped behind the furniture, and the thought was extremely disagreeable.

A few days later at another bridge party given by another doctor, I found myself at the same table with her.

I am not familiar with Paris customs. But at home each doctor, each person belonging to the same milieu, gives at least one bridge party a year, which in the end brings us together two or three times a week at one house or another.

'How are your little girls? I hear you have two adorable little girls.'

Someone had been telling her about me. I was embarrassed, I wondered what they could have said.

She was no longer a girl. She was thirty. She had been married. She knew from experience much more of the world than I, who was a trifle older, and this was perfectly apparent in her slightest remark, in her attitudes, in her way of looking at me.

I had the impression that she was, in a way, taking me under her wing. And she did, indeed, take my part in the bridge game that evening over the question of a finesse I had ventured at random. One of the players was discussing it:

'Admit,' he said, 'that you were lucky. You had forgotten that the ten of spades had been played ...'

'Not at all, Grandjean,' she declared with her usual serenity. 'The doctor knew it very well. The proof is that in the previous trick he discarded a heart, which he would never have done otherwise.'

It wasn't true. She knew that I knew it. And I knew that she knew.

Do you understand what that meant?

A short time after this, when we had met not more than four times in all, my elder daughter Anne-Marie went down with diphtheria. My daughters, like most doctor's children, acquired during their childhood every one of the infectious diseases.

I was unwilling to send her to the city hospital, which at that time I did not consider up to standard. There was not a bed available in any of the private hospitals.

I decided to quarantine Anne-Marie at home and, as I did not want to take the responsibility myself, I called in my friend the laryngologist.

Dambois, that's his name. With what passionate interest he must have read all the newspaper accounts of my trial! He is very tall and thin, with an excessively long neck, a prominent Adam's apple, and the eyes of a clown.

'What we'll have to find first of all,' he said, 'is a nurse. I'll do some telephoning in a minute, but I very much doubt if I'll succeed ...'

There was an epidemic of diphtheria throughout the Department and it was not even easy to get serum.

'In any case, it is out of the question for your mother to continue to nurse our little patient and to take care of your younger daughter at the same time. I don't know just what I am going to do, but I'll take care of it. Don't you worry, old man ...'

I was in a state of collapse. I was frightened. I didn't know what I was doing. To tell the truth, I left everything to Dambois, I had no will of my own left.

'Hello!... Is that you, Alavoine?... This is Dambois ...' It was hardly half an hour since he had left the house.

'At last I've found a solution. As I thought, not a nurse to be had, not even at Nantes, where the epidemic is even worse than here ... Armande, who overheard me telephoning, has offered of her own accord to nurse your daughter ... She is used to sickness ... She is intelligent ... She has the necessary patience ... She will be at your house in an hour or two ... Just set up a camp bed for her in our little patient's room ... Not at all, old man, it's no trouble to her at all ... quite the contrary ... Between ourselves, I confess I'm delighted, it will be something to occupy her mind ... You don't know her ... People imagine because she is always smiling that she got over it... My wife and I, who see her every day, who know her intimately, we realize that she is completely demoralized, and, I tell you this confidentially, for a long time we thought it would finish badly ... So no scruples...

'If you really want to put her at her ease, you will treat her like an ordinary nurse, pay no attention to her, and show her that you have confidence in her as far as the patient is concerned...

'I'll hang up, old man, because she's downstairs now, waiting for your answer before going home to pack her bag ... She'll be at your house in an hour or two ...

'She likes you very much ... But it's true ... only she doesn't show her feelings readily...'

'We'll have the serum tomorrow evening. Go back to your patients and leave the rest to us...'

That, your Honour, is how Armande entered our house, a little travelling bag in her hand. The first thing she did was to put on a white hospital coat and tie a kerchief over her fair hair.

'And now, Mme Alavoine,' she said to Mama, 'under no consideration must you enter the sick-room. You know it is a question of the health of your other little girl. I have brought an electric stove with me and everything I shall need. You don't have to bother about a thing ...'

A few moments later I found Mama in tears in the hall outside the kitchen. She didn't want to cry in front of the maid — nor in front of me.

'What's the matter?'

'Nothing,' she replied, blowing her nose.

'Anne-Marie will be well taken care of ..'

'Yes ...'

'Dambois assures me that she is in no danger and he wouldn't say so if he had the slightest doubt ...'

'I know ...'

'Then why are you crying?'

'I'm not crying ...'

Poor Mama, she knew very well that what had entered our house was a will stronger than her own, to which she would have to yield.

Another thing, your Honour. You are going to say that I accumulate the most ridiculous details. But do you know what, in my opinion, was the most painful thing of all for my mother? The electric stove which the
other woman
had had the foresight to bring with her.

The
other woman
had thought of everything, you understand? She needed no one. She refused to need anyone.

Chapter Four

It happened the second night. She probably knocked on my door but did not wait for an answer. Without turning on the electric switch and, as though familiar with the room, she came over and lighted the lamp by my bed. I was vaguely conscious of someone touching my shoulder. I sleep heavily. My hair at nights gets plastered down over my skull and makes my face look even broader than usual. I am always too hot, and my face must have been shiny.

When I opened my eyes she was seated on the edge of my bed in her white hospital coat, her kerchief on her head, and calm and serene, began by saying:

'Don't be frightened, Charles. I simply wanted to talk to you.'

There were little mouse-like noises in the house - my mother probably, for she hardly slept at all and must have been on the alert.

That was the first time Armande ever called me Charles. It is true, she had lived where a certain familiarity comes naturally.

'Anne-Marie is not worse, so don't worry ...'

She had no dress on under her hospital coat, only her lingerie, so that in places the material seemed moulded to her flesh.

'Henri is certainly an excellent physician,' she went on, 'and I should not like to hurt his feelings. I talked to him seriously a little while ago, but he does not seem to understand. You see, in medicine he is inclined to be over-cautious, and in this case, you being a colleague, he feels his responsibility all the more.'

I would have given a good deal to run a comb through my hair and rinse my mouth. I was obliged to keep under the covers on account of my wrinkled pyjamas. She thought of handing me a glass of water, and proposed:

'A cigarette?'

She lighted one too.

'In Switzerland I happened to nurse a case similar to Anne-Marie's, the daughter of one of my neighbours. That will explain why I know something about it. Besides we had many friends who were doctors, and we used to spend night after night discussing medical questions...'

My mother must have been frightened. I saw her standing there framed in the open doorway, grey all over, lighter than the darkness of the hall beyond. She was wearing a wrapper, and her hair was done up in curlers.