Arch of Triumph (32 page)

“Still the same. Thirty-four this time. Slightly sweeter and stronger. Good that you’re back again. It was three months, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. Longer than usual.”

Morosow rang an old-fashioned table bell. It pealed like a sacristan’s bell in a village church. The Catacombs had only electric lights, no electric bells. It didn’t pay; the refugees rarely dared to ring. “What’s your name now?” Morosow asked.

“Still Ravic. I didn’t mention this name at the police station. I called myself Wozzek, Neumann, and Guenther. A caprice. I didn’t want to give up Ravic. I like it as a name.”

“They didn’t find out that you were living here, did they?”

“Of course not.”

“Obviously. Otherwise there would have been a raid. So you can stay here again. Your room is vacant.”

“Does the old lady know what happened?”

“No. Nobody. I told them you went to Rouen. Your things are at my place.”

The girl came in with a tray. “Clarisse, bring a glass for Mr. Ravic,” Morosow said.

“Ah, Mr. Ravic!” The girl showed her yellow teeth. “Back again? You stayed away more than six months, monsieur.”

“Three months, Clarisse.”

“Impossible. I thought it was six months.”

The girl shuffled off. Immediately afterwards the slovenly
waiter of the Catacombs came with a wine glass in his hand. He had no tray; he had been in this place for a long time and could afford to be informal. His face indicated what would follow and Morosow anticipated it. “All right, Jean. Tell me how long Mr. Ravic has been away. Do you know exactly?”

“But Mr. Morosow! Naturally I know to the very day! It’s exactly—” He paused for effect, smiled, and said: “Exactly four and a half weeks!”

“Correct,” Ravic said before Morosow could answer.

“Correct,” Morosow replied too.

“Naturally. I’m never mistaken.” Jean disappeared.

“I didn’t want to disappoint him, Boris.”

“Neither did I. I only wanted to demonstrate to you the feebleness of time once it becomes the past. That’s comforting, frightening, or a matter of indifference. I lost sight of First Lieutenant Bielski of the Neobrashensk Guard Regiment in 1917 in Moscow. We were friends. He went north across Finland. I made my way across Manchuria and Japan. When we met again here eight years later, I thought I had seen him last in 1919 in Harbin; he thought it had been in 1921 in Helsinki. A difference of two years—and a few thousand miles.” Morosow took the bottle and filled the glasses. “You see, at least they recognized you again. That in itself gives one some feeling of being home, doesn’t it?”

Ravic drank. The wine was cool and light. “In the meantime I’ve been close to the border,” he said. “Very close, below Basel. One side of the road belonged to Switzerland, the other was German. I stood on the Swiss side and ate cherries. I could spit the pits into Germany.”

“Did that give you a feeling of being at home?”

“No. I never felt farther away.”

Morosow grinned. “I can understand that. How was it on the way?”

“As usual. It’s getting more difficult, that’s all. They watch the frontiers more closely. Once they caught me in Switzerland, once in France.”

“Why did you never drop us a line?”

“I didn’t know how far the police might go here. Sometimes they have fits of energy. It’s better not to jeopardize anyone. After all, our alibis aren’t really so very good. Old front-line rule: lie still and disappear. Did you expect anything else?”

“Not I.”

Ravic looked at him. “Letters,” he said then. “What are letters? Letters never help.”

“No.”

Ravic took a package of cigarettes out of his pocket. “Strange, how everything turns out when one is away.”

“Don’t fool yourself,” Morosow replied.

“I’m not.”

“When one stays away it’s good. When one returns, it’s different. Then it starts again.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

“You’re pretty cryptic. It’s a good thing you take it that way. Do you want to play a game of chess? The professor died. He was my only worthy opponent. Levy went to Brazil. Job as a waiter. Life moves damned fast nowadays. One shouldn’t get used to anything.”

“One shouldn’t.”

Morosow looked at Ravic attentively. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

“Neither did I. But couldn’t we leave this musty palm grave? I haven’t been here for three months; nevertheless, it stinks just as it always did—of the kitchen, dust, and fear. When do you have to go?”

“Not at all today. It’s my day off.”

“Right.” Ravic smiled briefly. “The evening of elegance, of old Russia, and of the large glasses.”

“Do you want to come with me?”

“No. Not tonight. I’m tired. I’ve hardly slept at all the last few nights. Not very quietly anyhow. Let’s wander around for an hour and sit somewhere. I haven’t done that in a long time.”

“Vouvray?” Morosow asked. They were sitting in front of the Café Colisée. “It’s early evening, old fellow. The hour for vodka.”

“Yes. Nevertheless, Vouvray.”

“I’m getting worried. At least a fine?”

Ravic shook his head. “When one arrives somewhere one-should drink oneself stiff the first night, brother,” Morosow declared. “It’s unnecessary heroism to stare soberly into the dreary faces of the shadows of the past.”

“I’m not staring, Boris. I am enjoying life cautiously.”

Ravic saw that Morosow didn’t believe him. He made no attempt to convince him. He sat calmly at the table, in the first row on the street, drank his wine and watched the strolling evening crowds. As long as he had been away from Paris, everything had been sharp and clear. Now it was misty, pale, and colorful, pleasantly flowing, but as things appear to someone who has descended a mountain too quickly and who can only hear the noise down in the valley as if through cotton-wool.

“Did you go anywhere else before you came to the hotel?” Morosow asked.

“No.”

“Veber asked for you several times.”

“I’ll call him up.”

“I don’t like the way you behave. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nothing in particular. The border at Geneva was too well guarded. I tried it there first. Then at Basel. Difficult there too. Finally I got across. Caught a cold. Rain and snow at night in the open fields. Couldn’t do much about it. It turned into pneumonia. A doctor in Belfort got me into a hospital. He smuggled me in and out. Kept me in his house ten days after that. I’ve got to send the money back to him.”

“Are you all right again?”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s why you aren’t drinking any hard liquor?”

Ravic smiled. “Why are we talking around the point? I’m a little tired and want to get used to things again. That’s really so. Strange, how much you think when you’re on the road. And how little when you arrive.”

Morosow waved this aside. “Ravic,” he said in a fatherly tone, “you are talking to your father Boris, a connoisseur of the human heart. Don’t make detours and ask me quickly so that we can get it behind us.”

“All right. Where is Joan?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t heard anything about her for several weeks now. Haven’t seen her either.”

“And before that?”

“Before that she inquired about you for some time. Then not any more.”

“She is no longer at the Scheherazade?”

“No. She left about six weeks ago. She came there two or three times later. But not after that.”

“Isn’t she in Paris now?”

“I don’t think so. At least it would seem not. Otherwise she would have come again to the Scheherazade from time to time.”

“Do you know what she’s doing?”

“Something in the movies, I think. At least that’s what she told the hat-check girl. You know how it is. One of those damned pretenses.”

“Pretenses?”

“Yes, pretenses,” Morosow said angrily. “What else, Ravic? Did you expect anything else?”

“Yes.”

Morosow remained silent. “To expect and to know are two different things,” Ravic said.

“Only for God damned romantics. Now drink something sensible—not this lemonade. Some decent calvados—”

“Certainly not calvados. Cognac, if it will make you feel any better. Or even calvados, for all I care.”

“At last,” Morosow said.

The window. The blue silhouette of the roofs. The faded red sofa. The bed. Ravic knew that he had to bear it. He sat on the sofa and smoked. Morosow had brought him his belongings and told him where he could find him if he wanted to.

He had thrown away his old suit. He had taken a bath, hot and cold, a long bath with much soap. He had washed away the three months and rubbed it from his skin. He had put on clean underwear and another suit; he had shaved; most of all he would have liked to go to a Turkish bath if it had not been too late. He had done all this and felt fine doing it. He would have liked to do even more, because suddenly now while sitting by the window, the emptiness began crawling out of the corners.

He filled a glass with calvados. Among his belongings had been an opened bottle with a little left in it. He recalled the night when he had been drinking it with Joan, but it evoked little feeling. It
had been too long ago. He merely noticed that it was very good old calvados.

The moon rose slowly above the roofs. The dirty yard opposite became a palace of shadows and silver. Everything could be turned from dirt into silver, with a little imagination. The fragrance of flowers came through the window. The sharp smell of carnations at night. Ravic leaned over the sill and looked down. A wooden box with flowers stood below him on the sill. They belonged to the refugee Wiesenhoff if he was still living there. Ravic had pumped out his stomach once. It had been at Christmas, a year ago.

The bottle was empty. He threw it onto the bed. There it lay like a black embryo. He rose. Why was he staring at the bed? When one had no woman, one had to get one. That was easy in Paris.

He went through the narrow streets to the Etoile. The warm life of the city at night vibrated from the Champs Elysées. He walked back, faster, then gradually more slowly till he arrived at the Hôtel de Milan.

“How is everything?” he asked the porter.

“Ah, monsieur!” The porter got up. “Monsieur hasn’t been here for a long time.”

“Yes, not for quite a while. I wasn’t in Paris.”

The porter took stock of him with his small lively eyes. “Madame isn’t here any longer.”

“I know. Not for quite some time.”

The porter was a good porter. He knew what was wanted of him without being asked. “Four weeks now,” he said. “Four weeks ago she moved out.”

Ravic took a cigarette out of his package. “Is Madame no longer in Paris?” the porter asked.

“She is in Cannes.”

“Cannes!” The porter rubbed his large hand across his face. “You won’t believe it, sir, that I was a porter at the Hôtel Ruhl in Nice eighteen years ago, would you?”

“I do.”

“Those days! Those tips! That wonderful time after the war. Nowadays—”

Ravic was a good guest. He understood hotel employees without need of too broad a hint. He drew a five-franc bill out of his pocket and put it on the table.

“Thank you, sir! Have a good time! You look younger, sir!”

“I feel it, too. Good night.”

Ravic stood on the street. Why had he gone to that hotel? All that was lacking now was to go to the Scheherazade and get drunk.

He gazed at the star-filled sky. He should be glad it had turned out this way. He had been saved a lot of unnecessary recrimination. He had known it and Joan had known it, too. In the long run, at least. She had done what was the only right thing to do. No explanations. Explanations were second-rate. Where feelings were concerned, there were no explanations. Only actions. Thank God the wagon grease of morals had no part in it. Thank God that Joan knew nothing about that. She had acted, and it was done with. No tugging back and forth. He had acted, too. Why was he loitering here now? It must be the air. This soft fabric woven out of May and evening and Paris. And the night, of course. At night one was always different than by day.

He went back to the hotel. “May I use your telephone?”

“Certainly, sir. But we have no booth. Only this instrument.”

“That’s good enough.”

Ravic looked at his watch. Veber might be at the hospital. It was the time for the last nightly round. “Is Doctor Veber in?” he
asked the nurse. He did not recognize her voice. It must be a new one.

“You can’t talk to Doctor Veber now.”

“Is he in?”

“He’s in. But you can’t talk to him now.”

“Listen,” Ravic said. “Go and tell him that Ravic is on the phone. Go immediately. It’s important. I’ll wait.”

“All right,” the nurse said hesitatingly. “I’ll ask him, but he won’t come.”

“We’ll see about that. Ask him. Ravic.”

A moment later Veber was at the telephone. “Ravic! Where are you?”

“In Paris. Arrived today. Do you still have to operate?”

“Yes. In twenty minutes. An urgent appendectomy. Could we meet afterwards?”

“I can come over.”

“Wonderful. When?”

“At once.”

“All right. Then I’ll wait for you.”

“Here is some good liquor,” Veber said. “Here are newspapers and medical journals. Make yourself comfortable.”

“A drink. And a gown and gloves.”

Veber looked at Ravic. “Simple case of appendicitis. Below your dignity. I can get through with it quickly with Morel’s help. Called him already. I’m sure you’re tired.”

“Veber, do me a favor and let me perform the operation. I’m not tired and I’m all right.”

Veber laughed. “You’re certainly in a hurry to get back to work! All right, just as you like. I’ll call off Morel then. In fact, I understand.”

Ravic washed and put on the gown and gloves. The operating room. He inhaled the smell of the ether deeply. Eugénie stood by the head of the table, administering the anesthetic. A second, very beautiful young nurse was putting the instruments in order. “Good evening, Eugénie,” Ravic said.

She almost let the dropper fall. “Good evening, Doctor Ravic,” she replied.

Veber smiled. It was the first time she had addressed Ravic this way. Ravic bent over the patient. The strong operating lights blazed white and intense. They shut the world out. They shut off thought. They were objective and cold and merciless and good. Ravic took the knife which the beautiful nurse handed him. The steel felt cool through the thin gloves. It was good to feel it. It was good to get away from wavering uncertainty to clear preciseness. He made the incision. Narrow and red, the line of blood followed the knife. Suddenly everything was simple. For the first time since he had been back he felt himself again. The soundless humming of the light. At home, he thought. At last!