David Golder, The Ball, Snow in Autumn & The Courilof Affair (2008) (20 page)

“Alfred, not in front of the child!”

“She doesn’t understand. You just write, Antoinette… Nevertheless, she’s a good person to start with…”

“Don’t forget the Ostiers,” Rosine said quickly. “It seems they give wonderful parties…”

“Monsieur and Madame Ostier d’Arrachon, number two … Antoinette … Well, my dear, I don’t know about them. They’re very prim and proper, very … The wife used to be … “

He made a gesture.

“No!”

“Yes. I know someone who used to see her in a brothel in Marseille… Yes, yes, I can assure you… But that was a long time ago, nearly twenty years. Her marriage completely transformed
her. Now she receives very classy people, and she’s extremely particular when it comes to her friends. As a general rule, all women with a past get like that after ten years.”

“My God,” sighed Madame Kampf, “it’s so difficult…”

“We must be methodical, my dear. For a first party, invite anyone and everyone—as many of the sods as you can stand. When it comes to the second or third you can start to be selective. This time, we have to invite everyone in sight.”

“But if we could at least be sure that everyone would come … If anyone refused, I think I’d die of shame …”

Kampf grimaced and stifled a laugh.

“If anyone refuses to come, then you’ll invite them again the next time, and again the time after that. What do you want me to say? In the end, if you want to get ahead in society, you simply have to obey the Gospels religiously.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“If someone slaps you, turn the other cheek… Society is the best school in which to learn Christian humility.”

“I do wonder,” said Madame Kampf, somewhat shocked, “where you get all these stupid ideas, my dear.”

Kampf smiled.

“Come on then, let’s get on with it… Here’s a piece of paper with some addresses on it. All you have to do is copy them, Antoinette…”

Madame Kampf leaned over her daughter’s shoulder as she continued writing, her head lowered.

“It’s true she has very nice handwriting, very neat… Tell me, Alfred, Monsieur Julien Nassan… Wasn’t he the one who was in prison for fraud?”

“Nassan? Yes.”

“Oh!” murmured Rosine, rather surprised.

“But why that look?” asked Kampf “He’s recovered his position, he’s a charming young man, and a first-class businessman. What’s more.

“Monsieur Julien Nassan, 23A Avenue Hoche,” Antoinette read out. “Who’s next, Papa?”

“There are only twenty-five more,” Madame Kampf groaned. “We’ll never find two hundred people, Alfred!”

“Of course we will. Come now, don’t start getting all upset. Where’s your own list? All the people you met in Nice, Deau-ville, Chamonix last year…”

Madame Kampf took a notepad from the table.

“Count Moissi, Monsieur and Madame Levy de Brunelleschi, and the Marquis d’Itcharra: he’s Madame Levy’s lover; they’re always invited everywhere together…”

“Is there a husband, at least?” asked Kampf doubtfully.

“I understand that they are very respectable people. There are some more marquises, you know, five of them. The Marquis de Ligues y Hermosa, the Marquis… Tell me, Alfred, are we supposed to use their titles when we speak to them? I think we should, don’t you? Not
Monsieur le Marquis
like the servants, of course, but
my dear Marquis, my dear Countess …
If we don’t, the others won’t even notice we’re receiving the aristocracy.”

“Maybe you’d like it ifwe pinned labels to their backs, eh?”

“Oh, you and your idiotic jokes! Come on, Antoinette, hurry up and copy those out, darling…”

Antoinette wrote for a moment, then read out loud: “The Baron and Baroness Levinstein-Levy, the Count and Countess Poirier…”

“That’s Abraham and Rebecca Birnbaum. They bought that title. Don’t you think it’s idiotic to call yourself Poirier, like a tree? If it was up to me, I’d choose …”

She drifted off into a deep dream.

“Just
Count and Countess Kampf
” she murmured. “That doesn’t sound bad at all.”

“Wait a while,” Kampf suggested. “We’ve got at least ten years before that…”

Rosine was sorting through some visiting cards that had been thrown into a malachite bowl decorated with gilt Chinese dragons.

“Still, I’d really like to know who all these people are,” she mused. “There’s a whole batch of cards here I got at New Year… Loads from all those little gigolos I met in Deauville…”

“We need as many people as possible to fill the gaps. So long as they’re dressed correctly…”

“Oh, my dear, you are joking. At least they’re all counts,
marquises, viscounts… But I can’t seem to match their faces to their names… They all look alike. Still, it doesn’t really matter, in the end. You saw how it was done at the Rothwan de Fiesques’ party? You say exactly the same thing to everyone: ‘So
pleased
to see you…’ and then, if you’re forced to introduce two people, you just mumble. No one can ever hear anything… Come on, Antoinette darling, what you’re doing isn’t hard. The addresses are on the cards…”

“But, Mama,” Antoinette interrupted, “this one’s the upholsterer’s card.

“What are you talking about? Let me see. Good God, she’s right. I’m going out of my mind, Alfred, I really am … How many is that, Antoinette?”

“One hundred and seventy-two, Mama.”

“Well, that’s not so bad!”

The Kampfs sighed with satisfaction and smiled at each other with the same expression of weary triumph as two actors after the third curtain call.

“We’re doingwell, aren’t we?”

“Mademoiselle Isabelle Cossette … That’s… that’s not
my
Mademoiselle Isabelle, is it?” Antoinette asked shyly.

“But of course…”

“But why are you inviting her?” exclaimed Antoinette, then blushed violently, expecting a curt “What business is it of yours?” from her mother. But Madame Kampf seemed awkward.

“She’s a fine young woman… We have to be nice to people…”

“She’s absolutely ghastly,” Antoinette protested.

Mademoiselle Isabelle, a cousin of the Kampfs, was music teacher to several families of rich Jewish stock-brokers. She was a boring old maid, as stiff and upright as an umbrella; she taught Antoinette piano and music theory. Extremely short-sighted but refusing to wear glasses because she was proud of her rather pretty eyes and thick eyelashes, she would lean over the piano and glue her big pointed nose, bluish from rice powder, to the music. Whenever Antoinette made a mistake, she would hit her fingers sharply with an ebony ruler that was as hard and flat as she was. She was as malicious and prying as a magpie. The night before her music lessons, Antoinette would whisper a fervent prayer
(her father had converted when he got married; Antoinette had been raised a Catholic): “Please God, let Mademoiselle Isabelle die tonight.”

“The child’s right,” Kampf remarked in surprise. “What’s got into you to make you want to invite that old madwoman? You can’t actually like her…”

Madame Kampf shrugged her shoulders angrily.

“Oh, you don’t understand anything! How do you expect my family to hear about it otherwise? Can’t you just picture the look on their faces? Aunt Loridon, who fell out with me because I married a Jew, and Julie Lacombe and Uncle Martial, and everyone in the family who looked down their noses at us because they had more money than us, remember? It’s very simple: ifwe don’t invite Isabelle, I can’t be sure that the next day they’ll all die of envy, and then it’s not worth having the ball at all! Keep writing, Antoinette.”

“Shall we have dancing in both reception rooms?”

“Of course, and in our hall… It’s very beautiful, our hall… I’ll hire great baskets of flowers. Just wait till you see how wonderful it will look filled with beautiful women in their most elegant dresses and best jewellery, the men in evening dress… It looked positively magical at the Levy de Brunelleschis’. During the tangos, they switched off the electricity and left on two large alabaster lamps in the corners of the room that gave off a red light…”

“I don’t care much for that idea. Makes it look like a dance hall…”

“But everyone seems to be doing it now. Women love letting men have a little feel to the music … The supper, naturally, on small tables…”

“How about having a bar to start off with?”

“That’s a good idea… We need to warm them up when they arrive. We could set up the bar in Antoinette’s room. She can sleep in the linen room or in the box room at the end of the corridor just for one night…”

Antoinette went pale and started trembling violently.

“Couldn’t I stay for just a quarter of an hour?” she whispered, her words almost choking her.

A ball… My God, was it possible that there could take place— here, right under her nose—this splendid thing she vaguely imagined as a mixture of wild music, intoxicating perfumes, dazzling evening gowns, words of love whispered in some isolated alcove, as dark and cool as a hidden chamber… and that she could be sent to bed that night, like any other night, at nine o’clock, like a baby? Perhaps the men who knew the Kampfs had a daughter would ask where she was—and her mother would answer with her hateful little laugh, “Oh, but really, she’s been asleep for hours…” And yet what harm would it do to her if Antoinette, yes, Antoinette as well, had a bit of happiness in this life? My God, to be able to dance, just once, wearing a pretty dress, like a real young lady, held tightly in a man’s arms! She closed her eyes and repeated, “Just a quarter of an hour, can’t I, Mama?” with a kind of bold despair, as if she were pointing a loaded revolver at her heart.

“What?” shouted Madame Kampf, stunned. “Don’t you dare ask again…”

“You’ll go to Monsieur Blanc’s ball,” said her father.

Madame Kampf shrugged her shoulders.

“I think this child must be mad…”

Antoinette’s face suddenly contorted.

“Please, Mama, please, I’m begging you!” she shouted. “I’m fourteen, Mama, I’m not a little girl any more. I
know
girls come out at fifteen, but I look fifteen, and next year…”

Madame Kampf exploded.

“Well, honestly, how wonderful! Honestly!” she shouted, her voice hoarse with anger. “This kid, this snotty-nosed kid, coming to the ball! Can you just picture it? Just you wait, girl, I’ll knock all those fancy ideas right out of you. You think you’re going to ‘come out’ next year, eh? Who’s been putting ideas like that in your head? You listen to me. I’ve only just begun to live,
me
, you hear,
me
, and I have no intention of rushing to lumber myselfwith having to marry off a daughter… I don’t know why I shouldn’t box your ears to teach you a lesson,” she continued in the same tone of voice, while walking towards Antoinette.

Antoinette stepped back and went even whiter. The lost, desperate expression in her eyes caused Kampf to feel a kind of pity.
“Come on now, leave her be,” he said, catching Rosine’s raised arm. “The child’s tired and upset, she doesn’t know what she’s saying… Go to bed, Antoinette.”

Antoinette didn’t move; her mother shoved her by the shoulders.

“Go on, out, and not a word. Move it, or I’m warning you …”

Antoinette was shaking from head to foot, but she walked slowly out of the room holding back her tears.

“Charming,” said Madame Kampf after she’d gone. “That girl’s going to be a handful… I was just the same at her age, though. But I’m not like my poor mother who never knew how to say no to me… I’ll keep her in her place, I promise you that…”

“She’ll calm down when she’s had some sleep. She was tired. It’s eleven o’clock already; she’s not used to going to bed so late. That’s why she got upset… Let’s carry on with the list,” said Kampf, “and forget about it.”

IN
THE MIDDLE
of the night, Miss Betty was woken by the sound of sobbing in the next room. She switched on the light and listened for a moment through the wall. It was the first time she had heard the girl cry: usually when Madame Kampf scolded her, Antoinette managed to hold back her tears and say nothing.

“What’s the matter with you, child? Are you ill?” she called through the wall.

The sobbing stopped.

“I suppose your mother scolded you. It’s for your own good, you know, Antoinette … Tomorrow you’ll apologise to her, you’ll give each other a kiss, and it will be all over. It’s late now, you should get some sleep. Would you like some herbal tea? No? You could answer me, you know, my dearest,” she said, as Antoinette remained silent. “Dear, dear, a little girl sulking isn’t a pretty sight. You’re upsetting your guardian angel…”

Antoinette made a face and stretched out her clenched little fists towards the wall. Bloody woman. Bloody selfish hypocrites, the lot of them… They couldn’t care less that she was crying all alone in the dark, so hard she could barely breathe … that she felt as miserable and lonely as a lost dog!

No one loved her, no one in the whole world… But couldn’t they see, blind idiots, that she was a thousand times more intelligent, more precious, more perceptive than all of them put together—these people who dared to bring her up, to teach her? These unsophisticated, crass nouveaux riches? She had been laughing at them all evening, but of course they hadn’t even realised… She could laugh or cry right under their noses and they wouldn’t deign to notice… To them a fourteen-year-old was just a kid—to be pushed around like a dog! What right did they have to send her to bed, to punish her, to insult her? “Oh, I wish they were all dead,” she exclaimed. Through the wall
she could hear the Englishwoman breathing softly as she slept. Antoinette started crying again, but more quietly this time, tasting the tears that ran down her cheeks into the corners of her mouth and on to her lips. Suddenly, a strange pleasure flooded through her; for the first time in her life she was crying like a true woman—silently, without scowling or hiccoughing. Later on, she would cry the same tears over love … For a long time she listened to the sobs rising in her chest like the deep, low swell of the sea. Her mouth was moist with tears and tasted salty. She switched on the light and looked in the mirror with curiosity. Her eyes were swollen, her cheeks red and mottled. Like a little girl who’s been beaten. She was ugly, ugly … She started sobbing again.