Arch of Triumph (33 page)

“
SHE IS HERE
,” Morosow said.

“Who?”

Morosow smoothed his uniform. “Don’t act as if you didn’t know whom I mean. You musn’t annoy your father Boris in a public thoroughfare. Do you think I can’t guess why you have been at the Scheherazade three times in two weeks? Once accompanied by a miracle of blue eyes and black hair, but twice alone? Man is weak—otherwise where would his charm be?”

“Go to hell,” Ravic said. “Don’t humiliate me, just when I need all my strength, you gossipy doorkeeper.”

“Would you rather I hadn’t told you?”

“Of course.”

Morosow stepped aside and let two Americans in. “Then go away and come back again some other evening,” he said. “Is she here alone?”

“We don’t even admit reigning princesses unattended. You ought to know that. Sigmund Freud would have liked your question.”

“What do you know about Sigmund Freud? You are tight
and I’ll complain about you to your manager, Captain Tschedschenedse.”

“Captain Tschedschenedse was lieutenant in the same regiment in which I was a lieutenant colonel, my boy. He still remembers that. Just try.”

“All right. Let me by.”

“Ravic!” Morosow put his heavy hands on his shoulders. “Don’t be a fool! Go, telephone the miracle with the blue eyes and come back with her, if you feel you must. That’s the simple advice of an experienced old man. Extremely cheap, but none the less effective.”

“No, Boris.” Ravic looked at him. “Tricks have no place here. I’ll have none of them.”

“Then go home,” Morosow said.

“To the musty Palm Room? Or to my hole?”

Morosow left Ravic and strode ahead of a couple that wanted a taxi. Ravic waited until he returned. “You’re more sensible than I thought,” Morosow said. “Otherwise you’d be inside already.”

He pushed back his cap with the gold braid. Before he could go on, an intoxicated young man in a white tuxedo appeared in the door. “Colonel! A racing car!”

Morosow called the next taxi in the row and helped the wavering man in. “You don’t laugh,” the drunk said. “But colonel was a good joke, or wasn’t it?”

“Very good. Racing car was perhaps even better.”

“I’ve thought it over,” Morosow said when he came back. “Go in. I’d do it, too. It will have to happen sometime anyway; why not now? Finish it one way or another. When we’re no longer childish we are getting old.”

“I’ve thought it over, too. I’m going somewhere else.”

Morosow looked at Ravic in amusement. “All right,” he said finally. “Then I’ll see you again in half an hour.”

“Maybe not.”

“Then in an hour.”

Two hours later Ravic was sitting in the Cloche d’Or. The place was still rather empty. Whores sat at the long bar, like parrots on a perch, chattering. Near them several peddlers of fake cocaine stood around waiting for tourists. In the room upstairs, a few couples sat and ate onion soup. In a corner, on a sofa, two Lesbians whispered together drinking sherry brandy. One of them in a tailored suit with a tie was wearing a monocle and the other was a red-haired buxom person, in a very low-cut sparkling evening gown.

How idiotic, Ravic thought. Why didn’t I go to the Scheherazade? What am I afraid of? And why do I run away? It has grown, I know. These three months have not destroyed it—they have made it stronger. There’s no point in going on deluding myself. It was almost the only thing that stayed with me in all that creeping across frontiers, waiting in hidden rooms, in all that dripping loneliness of alien starless nights. Absence has strengthened it more than she herself could ever have, and now—

A stifled scream woke him out of his brooding. A few women had come in meanwhile. One of them who looked like a very light Negress, rather drunk, a flowered hat pushed to the back of her head, threw away a table knife and walked slowly down the stairs, shouting threats in the direction of the corner where the Lesbians were. No one stopped her. A waiter came upstairs. Another woman stood there and blocked his way. “Nothing has happened,” she said. “Nothing has happened.”

The waiter shrugged his shoulders and turned back. Ravic saw the red-haired woman in the corner getting up. At the same time, the woman who had kept the waiter off went quickly downstairs
to the bar. The redhead stood still, her hand at her full bosom. She carefully opened two fingers of her hand and looked down. Her gown was slashed a few inches and underneath one saw the open wound. One did not see any skin; only the open wound in the green iridescent evening gown. The red-haired woman stared at it as though she could not believe it.

Ravic made an involuntary movement. Then he let himself sink back. One deportation was enough. He saw the woman in the tailored suit pulling the redhead back onto the sofa. At the same moment the second woman came back upstairs from the bar with a glass of brandy. The woman in the tailored suit knelt on the banquette, with one hand she kept the redhead’s mouth closed as she quickly pulled her hand away from the wound. The other woman poured the brandy into it. A primitive form of disinfectant, Ravic thought. The redhead moaned, moved convulsively, but the other one held her in a grip of steel. Two other women hid the table from the remaining guests. The whole thing was done extremely fast and skillfully. Hardly anyone saw the occurrence. A minute later a number of Lesbians and homosexuals crowded into the place as if summoned by magic. They surrounded the table in the corner, two lifted the redhead, held her up, the others, laughing and chattering, shielded the group, and they all left the place as if nothing had happened. Most of the guests were hardly aware of the disturbance.

“Good, wasn’t it?” someone asked Ravic from behind. It was the waiter.

Ravic nodded. “What was it about?”

“Jealousy. These perverts are an excitable lot.”

“Where did all the others come from so quickly? That seemed sheer telepathy.”

“They smell it, sir,” the waiter said.

“Very likely one of them telephoned. But it went fast.”

“They smell it. And they stick to each other like death and the devil. They don’t give each other away. No police—that’s all they want. They settle it among themselves.” The waiter picked up Ravic’s glass from the table. “Another? What was it?”

“Calvados.”

“All right. Another calvados.”

He shuffled away. Ravic looked up and saw Joan sitting a few tables from him. She had come in while he was talking with the waiter. He hadn’t seen her enter. She was sitting with two men. At the same moment she noticed him. She turned pale under her tan. She sat still a few seconds, without taking her eyes from him. Then, with a brusque movement, she pushed her table aside, got up, and came toward him. As she walked her face changed. It relaxed and became soft; only her eyes remained steady and transparent as crystals. To Ravic they appeared brighter than ever. They were of an almost furious intensity.

“You are back?” she said breathlessly in a low voice.

She stood close to him. For a moment she made a move as if she were about to put her arms around him. But she did not do it. Nor did she shake hands with him. “You are back?” she repeated.

Ravic did not answer.

“How long have you been back?” she asked in the same low tone as before.

“For two weeks.”

“For two—and I didn’t—you didn’t even—”

“No one knew where you were. Neither at your hotel nor the Scheherazade.”

“The Scheherazade—but I was—” She interrupted herself. “Why did you never write?”

“I could not.”

“You are lying.”

“All right. I didn’t want to. I didn’t know whether I would come back again.”

“You are lying again. That’s no reason.”

“It is. I could come back or not come back. Don’t you understand?”

“No. But I do understand that you have been here for two weeks and you haven’t done the least thing to—”

“Joan,” Ravic said calmly. “You didn’t get those brown shoulders in Paris.”

The waiter passed by, sniffing. He cast a look at Joan and Ravic. He was still full of the scene that had occurred earlier. As if by chance he removed the two knives and forks together with a plate from the red and white checked tablecloth. Ravic noticed it. “Everything is all right,” he said.

“What is all right?” Joan asked.

“Nothing. Something happened here a while ago.”

She stared at him. “Are you waiting here for a woman?”

“My God, no. Some people had a scene. One of them was bleeding. This time I did not interfere.”

“Interfere?” Suddenly she understood. Her expression changed. “What are you doing here? They will arrest you again. Now I know all about it. Half a year’s imprisonment next time. You must go away! I didn’t know you were in Paris. I thought you would never come back again.”

Ravic did not answer.

“I thought you would never come back again,” she repeated. Ravic looked at her. “Joan—”

“No! Not a thing is true! Nothing is true! Nothing!”

“Joan,” Ravic said warily. “Go back to your table.”

Suddenly her eyes were moist. “Go back to your table,” he said.

“It’s your fault!” she burst out. “Yours! Yours alone!”

Abruptly she turned around and went back. Ravic pushed his table to one side and sat down. He looked at the glass of calvados and made a move as if to drink it. He didn’t. He had been calm while speaking to Joan. Now, suddenly, he felt the excitement. Strange, he thought, the chest muscles vibrate under the skin. Why just those? He lifted the glass and observed his hand. It was steady. He emptied half the glass. While he was drinking he could feel Joan’s look. He did not glance her way again. The waiter passed by. “Cigarettes,” Ravic said. “Caporals.”

He lighted a cigarette and drained the remaining half of his glass. He could feel Joan’s look again. What does she expect? he thought. That I will get drunk from misery right here in front of her? He called the waiter and paid. The moment he got up Joan began talking vivaciously to one of her companions. She did not look up as he passed her table. Her face was hard and entirely expressionless and her smile was forced.

Ravic wandered through the streets and found himself unexpectedly in front of the Scheherazade again. Morosow’s face lit up. “Well done, soldier! I almost gave you up for lost. One is always pleased when a prophecy comes true.”

“Don’t be pleased too soon.”

“Don’t you be either. You’ve come too late.”

“I know that. I have already run into her.”

“What?”

“In the Cloche d’Or.”

“What the—” Morosow said, taken aback. “Mother Life has always new tricks up her sleeve.”

“When will you be through here, Boris?”

“In a few minutes. Everyone has gone. I have to change. Come in meanwhile. Have a drink of vodka on the house.”

“No. I’ll wait here.”

Morosow looked at him. “How are you feeling?”

“I feel like vomiting.”

“Did you expect anything else?”

“Yes. One always expects something else. Go and change.”

Ravic leaned against the wall. Beside him the old flower woman packed up her roses. She did not offer him any. It was a foolish thought, but he would have liked her to ask him. Now it was as if she did not think he would need any. He looked along the rows of houses. A few windows were still lit up. Taxis passed slowly. What did he expect? He didn’t exactly know. What he had not expected was that Joan would take the initiative. But why not? How much in the right anyone was already the minute he attacked!

The waiters left. During the night they had been Caucasians and Circassians in red coats and high boots. Now they were tired civilians. They slunk home in everyday clothes which looked strange on them. The last was Morosow. “Where to?” he asked.

“I’ve been everywhere today.”

“Then let’s go to the hotel and play chess.”

“What?”

“Chess. A game with wooden figures which simultaneously diverts you and makes you concentrate.”

“Good,” Ravic said. “Why not?”

He woke up and knew at once that Joan was in the room. It was still dark and he could not see her, but he knew she was there. The room was different, the window was different, the air was different, and even he was different. “Stop this nonsense!” he said. “Turn on the light and come here.”

She did not move. He did not even hear her breathe. “Joan,” he said. “We are not going to play hide-and-seek.”

“I’m not playing hide-and-seek.”

“Then come here.”

“Did you know that I would come?”

“No.”

“Your door was open.”

“My door is almost always open.”

She remained silent for a moment. “I thought you wouldn’t be here yet,” she said then. “I only wanted—I thought you would be sitting somewhere and drinking.”

“I thought so, too. I was playing chess instead.”

“What?”

“Chess. With Morosow. Downstairs in the hole that looks like a dry aquarium.”

“Chess!” She came out of her corner. “Chess! But that’s—! Someone who can play chess when—”

“I wouldn’t have thought it myself. But it worked. In fact it worked well. I was able to win a game.”

“You’re the coldest, most unfeeling—”

“Joan,” Ravic said. “No scenes. I’m in favor of good scenes. But not today!”