Arch of Triumph (2 page)

“Are you Russian?” he asked.

“No.”

Ravic paid and rose to say goodbye. At the same moment the woman got up, too. She did it silently and naturally. Ravic looked
at her uncertainly. All right, he thought then, I can do it just as well outside.

It had begun to rain. Ravic stopped in front of the door. “Which way are you going?” He was determined to take the opposite direction.

“I don’t know. Somewhere.”

“But—where do you live?”

The woman made a quick movement. “I can’t go there! No, no! I can’t do that! Not there!”

Suddenly her eyes were full of a wild fear. She has quarreled, Ravic thought, has had some sort of row and has run away. By tomorrow noon she will have thought it over and will go back.

“Don’t you know anyone to whom you could go? An acquaintance? You could call them up from the bistro.”

“No. There’s nobody.”

“But you must go somewhere. Haven’t you any money for a room?”

“I have.”

“Then go to a hotel. There are lots of them in the side-streets.”

The woman did not answer.

“You must go somewhere,” Ravic said impatiently. “You can’t stay in the streets in this rain.”

The woman drew her raincoat tighter around her. “You are right,” she said as though she had suddenly come to a decision. “You are quite right. Thanks. Don’t trouble about me any more. I’ll find a place all right. Thank you.” With one hand she pulled the collar of her coat together. “Thank you for everything.” She glanced up at Ravic with an expression of misery, and tried unsuccessfully to smile. Then she walked away through the misty rain unhesitatingly and with soundless steps.

Ravic stood still for a moment. “Damn it!” he grumbled, surprised
and irresolute. He did not know how it happened or what it was, the hopeless smile, or the look, or the empty street or the night—he knew only that he could not let this woman go alone through the mist, this woman who suddenly looked like a lost child.

He followed her. “Come with me,” he said gruffly. “We’ll find something for you.”

They reached the Etoile. The square lay before them in a drizzling grayness, huge and unbounded. The mist was thicker now and one could no longer see the streets that branched off. There was only the broad square with the scattered dim moons of the street lamps and with the monumental stone arch which receded into the mist as though it would prop up the melancholy sky and protect beneath itself the faint lonely flame on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which looked like the last grave of mankind in the midst of night and loneliness.

They walked across the square. Ravic walked fast. He was too tired to think. Beside him he heard the soft, pattering steps of the the woman following him silently, with head bent, hands hidden in the pockets of her coat, a small alien flame of life—and suddenly in the late loneliness of the square, strangely she seemed to belong to him for a moment although he did not know anything about her, or just for that reason. She was a stranger to him, as he felt a stranger everywhere—and, in an odd fashion, this seemed to bring her closer to him than many words and the grinding habit of time.

Ravic lived in a small hotel in a side street off the Avenue Wagram behind the Place des Ternes. It was a rather dilapidated house with just one new touch: the sign above the entrance, bearing the inscription:
Hôtel International
.

He rang the bell. “Is there a vacant room?” he asked the boy who opened the door.

The boy stared at him sleepily. “The concierge is not here,” he mumbled finally.

“I see that. I asked you if there was a vacant room.”

The boy shrugged his shoulders helplessly. He saw that Ravic had a woman with him; but he could not understand why he wanted another room. According to his experience this was not why women were brought in. “Madame is asleep. She’d fire me if I woke her up,” he said. He scratched himself vigorously.

“All right. Then we’ll have to see for ourselves.”

Ravic tipped the boy, took his key, and walked upstairs, followed by the woman. Before he unlocked his door, he examined the door next to it. There were no shoes in front of it. He knocked twice. Nobody answered. He certainly tried the knob. The door was locked. “This room was empty yesterday,” he muttered. “We’ll try it from the other side. The landlady has probably locked it for fear the bedbugs will get away.”

He unlocked his room. “Sit down for a minute.” He pointed to a red horsehair sofa. “I’ll be back right away.”

He opened a large window leading to a narrow iron balcony and climbed over the connecting trellis to the adjacent balcony, where he tried the door. It too was locked. He came back resignedly. “It’s no use. I can’t get you another room here.”

The woman sat in the corner of the sofa. “May I sit here for a moment?”

Ravic looked at her closely. Her face was crumpled with fatigue. She seemed hardly able to get up again. “You may stay here,” he said.

“Just for a moment—”

“You can sleep here. That’s the easiest thing.”

The woman did not seem to hear him. Slowly, almost automatically
she moved her head. “You should have left me on the street. Now—I think I won’t be able—”

“I don’t think so either. You may stay here and sleep. That’s the best thing for you to do. We’ll see what tomorrow will bring.”

The woman looked at him. “I don’t want—”

“My God,” Ravic said. “You won’t disturb me at all. It’s not the first time someone has stayed here overnight because he had nowhere else to go. This is a hotel for refugees. Something like this happens almost every day. You can take the bed, I’ll sleep on the sofa. I’m used to it.”

“No, no—I’ll just stay where I am. If I may only sit here, that’s all.”

“All right, just as you like.”

Ravic took off his coat and hung it on a hook. Then he took a blanket and a cushion from his bed and moved a chair close to the sofa. He fetched a bathrobe from the bathroom and hung it over the chair. “Here,” he said, “this is what I can give you. If you like, you can have pajamas too. You’ll find some in the drawer over there. I won’t trouble about you any more. You may use the bathroom now. I’ve got to do something in here.”

The woman shook her head.

Ravic stood in front of her. “But we’ll take off your coat,” he said. “It’s pretty wet. And let me have your hat too.”

She gave him both. He put the cushion in the corner of the sofa. “That’s for your head. Here is a chair so that you won’t fall off when you go to sleep.” He moved it closer to the sofa. “And now your shoes! Soaked through, of course! A good way to catch cold.” He took off her shoes, got a pair of short woolen socks out of the drawer and slipped them over her feet. “Now, that’s better. During critical times have an eye for comfort. That’s an old soldier’s maxim.”

“Thanks,” the woman said. “Thanks.”

Ravic went into the bathroom and turned on the tap. The water gushed into the basin. He undid his tie and stared absent-mindedly at himself in the mirror. Challenging eyes in deep-shadowed sockets; a narrow face, dead tired, only the eyes giving it life; lips too soft for the furrow running from the nose to the mouth—and above the right eye, disappearing into the hair, a long jagged scar—

The telephone bell cut into his thoughts. “Damn it!” For an instant he had forgotten everything. There were such moments of complete oblivion. And there was still the woman sitting in the other room.

“I’m coming,” he called.

“Frightened?” He lifted the receiver. “What? Yes. All right. Yes—naturally—immediately, yes—it will do, yes. Where? All right, I’ll be there at once. Hot strong coffee—yes—”

He carefully put the receiver down and for a few seconds remained seated on the arm of the sofa. “I’ve got to go,” he said, “right now.”

The woman rose immediately. She swayed a little and leaned on the chair.

“No, no—” For a moment Ravic was touched by this obedient readiness. “You can stay here. Go to sleep. I will be gone for an hour or two, I don’t know exactly how long. Do stay here.” He got into his coat. He had a passing thought. And at once forgot it. The woman would not steal. She was not the type. He knew it too well. And there wasn’t much she could steal.

He was already at the door when the woman asked, “Can’t I go with you?”

“Impossible. Stay here. Take whatever you need. The bed, if you want. There’s cognac over there. Go to sleep—”

He turned away. “Leave the light on,” the woman said suddenly and quickly.

Ravic took his hand from the knob. “Afraid?” he asked.

She nodded.

He pointed to the key. “Lock the door behind me. But don’t leave the key in the lock. There’s another key downstairs with which I can get in.”

She shook her head. “It’s not that. But please leave the light on.”

“I see!” Ravic looked at her sharply. “I wasn’t going to turn it off anyway. Leave it on. I know that feeling. I’ve gone through such times, too.”

At the corner of the Rue des Acacias he got a taxi. “Drive to Rue Lauriston. Fast!”

The driver made a U-turn and drove into the Avenue Carnot and then into the Avenue de la Forge. As he crossed the Avenue de la Grande Armée a small two-seater raced toward them from the right. The two cars would have collided, had not the street been wet and smooth. But when the two-seater’s brake took hold it skidded into the middle of the street just past the radiator of the taxi. The light car whirled like a carrousel. It was a small Renault driven by a man wearing glasses and a black bowler hat. At every turn one saw his white indignant face for a moment. Then the car came to a stop facing the Arc at the end of the street as though facing the huge gates to Hades—a small green insect out of which a pallid fist rose menacingly toward the night sky.

The cabdriver turned around. “Have you ever seen anything like that?”

“Yes,” Ravic said.

“But with such a hat. Why does anyone with such a hat have to drive so fast at night?”

“It was his right of way. He was on the main road. Why are you cursing?”

“Of course he was right. That’s just why I am cursing.”

“What would you have done if he had been wrong?”

“I would have cursed just the same.”

“You seem to make life easy for yourself.”

“I wouldn’t have cursed like that,” the driver explained and turned into the Avenue Foch. “Not so surprised, you understand?”

“No. Drive slower at intersections.”

“That’s what I was going to do. That damn oil on the street. But what makes you ask me if you don’t want to listen to an answer?”

“Because I’m tired,” Ravic replied impatiently. “Because it’s night. Also, if you like, because we are sparks in an unknown wind. Drive on.”

“That’s something else.” The driver touched his cap with a certain respect. “That I understand.”

“Listen,” Ravic said with suspicion. “Are you Russian?”

“No. But I read a lot while waiting for customers.”

I’m out of luck with Russians today, Ravic thought. He leaned his head back. Coffee, he thought. Very hot black coffee. Let’s hope they have plenty of it. My hands have to be damned steady. If they aren’t—Veber will have to give me a shot. But I’ll be all right. He pulled the window down and slowly and deeply breathed in the moist air.

THE SMALL OPERATING ROOM
was lighted bright as day. It looked like a very hygienic slaughterhouse. Pails with blood-drenched cotton stood here and there, bandages and tampons lay scattered, and the red was a loud and solemn protest against all the white. Veber was sitting at an enameled steel table in the anteroom, making notes; a nurse was boiling the instruments; the water bubbled, the light seemed to hum, and only the body on the table lay quite independent—nothing any longer mattered to it.

Ravic let the liquid soap run over his hands and began to wash. He did it with a furious sullenness as if he wished to rub off his skin. “Damn!” he muttered. “Damned confounded crap!”

The nurse looked at him with disgust. Veber glanced up. “Calm down, Nurse Eugénie. All surgeons swear. Particularly if something has gone wrong. You should be used to it.”

The nurse threw a handful of instruments into the boiling water. “Professor Perrier never swore,” she explained in an offended tone.

“Professor Perrier was a brain specialist. A most subtle mechanic, Eugénie. We work in the abdomen. That’s something else.”
Veber closed his notebook and got up. “You did your best, Ravic. But after all one can’t win against quacks.”

“Oh yes—sometimes you can.” Ravic dried his hands and lit a cigarette. The nurse opened the window in silent disapproval. “Bravo, Eugénie,” Veber praised her. “Always according to rules.”

“I have responsibilities. I don’t want to be blown up.”

“That’s nice, Eugénie. And reassuring.”

“Some have none. And some don’t want to have any.”

“That’s meant for you, Ravic.” Veber laughed. “We’d better disappear. Eugénie is always aggressive in the morning. Anyway there’s nothing to be done here.”

Ravic turned around. He looked at the dutiful nurse. She returned his look fearlessly. The steel-rimmed glasses made her bleak face somehow untouchable. She was a human being like himself, but to him she appeared more alien than a tree. “Pardon me,” he said, “you are right, nurse.”