Dimanche and Other Stories (16 page)

I would like to tell Mademoiselle that she mustn’t believe from all this that it was her Mother who was to blame. Her loneliness was what pushed her toward Monsieur Pécaud. But her affections were misplaced.

I think that if Mademoiselle saw this Gentleman when she was little, she will remember that he was small and thin; he looked like a fox with his ginger hair and pointed ears; and his whole face was as scrawny, red, and alert as a fox’s muzzle. Thanks to his Wife
Monsieur had many investments, and Monsieur Pécaud looked after everything. Looked after things rather too well, as Mademoiselle will see.

Now, as soon as Monsieur had turned his back, we had Monsieur Pécaud at the house. But even that didn’t last long. Madame was out all the time, coming back cheerful and happy. No one knew anything, because it seemed beyond belief that a Lady like her, married to such a handsome man, a Don Juan, should prefer such a plain and insignificant fellow. Women would have had themselves chopped into little pieces for the sake of just one hour with a lover like Monsieur, and would have accepted every rebuff and thanked him yet again for an hour of love, whereas his wife … Say what you like, Mademoiselle, women are strange creatures.

I should also say that Madame was certainly not abandoned by Monsieur, as they said at the trial. Monsieur never forgot what a man owes his wife before God. That’s just to say to Mademoiselle that he did have his good side.

But he was too handsome, too striking compared with Madame. People had eyes only for him and, as a result, nothing he did could be kept secret. At home, he was like the sun. People saw only him. People discussed his every movement, but nobody saw what was being plotted in the shadows. Witnesses stated that he was in the park with the Baroness on the morning of November 2nd. They thought they were quite alone,
but a number of people were ready to report, or invent, what they had whispered to each other, their words of love, and the way they looked at each other; but nobody in the world knew what Madame was doing that morning, because nobody was interested.

On the morning of November 2nd Madame got up earlier than usual. She went to the window and stayed there for a long time watching, no doubt waiting to see Monsieur leave. She dressed to go out. She said, “I’m going out, Clémence. I’ll be back at eleven. I’ve got a headache.”

Everyone saw her go and nobody found it odd that, in the awful weather I’ve described, Madame should have calmly gone off for a walk, whereas everyone had smiled to see Monsieur pacing up and down on the terrace, in spite of the rain, and suddenly rushing off when he saw his Lady Friend’s blue coat under the trees. It was always like that. Monsieur would say that he wouldn’t be in for dinner and everyone thought, “He’s having a good time.” Madame would go out at two o’clock and we wouldn’t see her again until eight; it seemed perfectly natural that she should have been delayed at the dentist. In some ways, she had luck on her side.

So off Madame went. But she didn’t go far. I’d followed her several times. She went across the park and into the little summerhouse, by the greenhouse where the children kept their toys. Does Mademoiselle
Monique remember it? No one ever went there except for the children, and of course all three of them were ill. So I saw her going in, and ten minutes later Monsieur Pécaud. I went quietly into the greenhouse, where you could hear everything. I’m telling the truth as before God, Mademoiselle.

Monsieur Pécaud was repeating frantically, “Help me, Nicole, help me!”

I can’t repeat word for word what they said, as it’s twelve years since I listened to that poor, unhappy victim of her passion (or of her pride) and to that dishonest man. I can remember the sense of the words but not the words themselves. I certainly understood what it was all about. Monsieur Pécaud had falsified Monsieur’s documents to procure money for himself: he was playing the Stock Market. Madame had several times paid for the losses. The latest debt was huge; he had not dared to tell her about it before. Monsieur had found out about it and was going to dismiss him and take him to court.

“So what do you want me to do?” she asked him.

He replied, “You have proof of his infidelity. Offer him your silence in exchange for his. He’ll have to agree to that.”

“He has to agree!” she said, after a moment’s silence, in such a tone of voice … Ah! If, the jury, the lawyers, the judge, and the public could have heard that tone of voice when they were talking about the love Madame
had for Monsieur! She hated him, Mademoiselle Monique! I had often thought so, but now I was sure. Now Mademoiselle will understand what must have happened in the car. Each wanted to outsmart the other, Madame offering her silence if he didn’t destroy Monsieur Pécaud, and Monsieur realizing that he had her cornered and that he could lay down his conditions for divorce; but Monsieur refused and, witty and sardonic as he was, he couldn’t help laughing at the idea that the wife he had discarded, older than him, plain and neglected by him, could be having an affair. But he didn’t laugh for long.

It must have been that laugh that sent her mad, poor thing! I can’t help but pity her. I think you can do anything to a woman: deceive her, beat her, and abandon her, but whereas a man might forgive being laughed at, a woman never would! Naturally you can mock a woman for her ignorance or the way she dresses and how she leads her life; you can mock her work as much as you like, but never her body, her face, or her lovemaking. Mademoiselle, I’ve always thought she sensed contempt in Monsieur’s manner toward her. Maybe even before they got married. Perhaps it went back to when they were both children: he was so handsome, spoiled by everyone, charming and brilliant, and she was so inconsequential and awkward. And after they were married! I’m certain he never laughed at her like a workman or a farmer might have done.
He was a well-educated Gentleman. But a woman can sense what she’s not being told, and suffers for it. When they were alone in the evening, which didn’t happen very often, Monsieur would look at her with a bored smile. And she … well, I often thought, Mademoiselle, that if her eyes had been pistols, poor Monsieur would have been dead.

I think it’s quite wrong to make first cousins like them marry. They didn’t treat each other as man and wife, but felt the same about each other as they had when they were children, with Madame’s jealousy and Monsieur’s scorn. How, or rather why, they married, and what pushed them into something as serious as it can be joyful (as I hope it has been for Mademoiselle Monique) but more often than not turns out to be a disaster, we’ll neither of us ever know. No doubt it was money for Monsieur, and for Madame the triumph over her friends in at last catching her handsome cousin for keeps. The poor woman may have been guilty, but she certainly suffered.

Mademoiselle, when the Tragedy happened, I quickly realized that if nobody knew anything about Madame, she’d be acquitted; but she had a great deal to lose if ever the story of what really happened came out. All those women crying over her, calling her a Martyr, would have ripped her to pieces, just like the bitches women so often are to each other.

In Madame’s wardrobe, under the pink crêpe de
Chine dresses, there was a bundle of letters from Monsieur Pécaud. I took them and hid them even before I went down to see Monsieur’s body. My first thought was to ask Madame what to do with them, but the doctors, the police, and the family wouldn’t let me near her. I wanted to keep them until after the trial. Everything was in those letters: the business with the money, their love affair—I hid them in a trunk, right at the bottom.

I thought that Madame would come home that evening, after the trial and acquittal, and that I would go to see her one day, when she had recovered. But then she fell ill, and the Countess took her to Switzerland, where she lived for three years before dying. As for Monsieur Pécaud, he got married almost at once. Poor Madame never had any luck. What was I to do, Mademoiselle? I carried on waiting. After all, the letters were safe in my house. I’d hoped to give them back to her when she was better, but she died in the sanatorium over there, alone and abandoned by everyone, apart from the Countess, who stayed with her until the end, as it was her duty to do, although I imagine that didn’t make poor Madame any happier.

When I heard about her death, I felt very uneasy. At first I thought I’d tear them up. Then I didn’t dare. After all, they’re not mine. It’s one thing to act as I did to help out but quite another to take on such a responsibility. I thought, “If ever one of the children
needs money—and who knows what might happen—here’s the proof that Madame gave almost a hundred thousand francs to that Monsieur Pécaud, who’s now so rich … It’s all very delicate.” I would die if I thought I could have deprived any of the children of a single penny, I who loved them and have never deprived anyone of a penny, as God is my witness.

Mademoiselle was living in Strasbourg; otherwise I would have come to see her. But Mademoiselle Monique must understand: when you don’t have anyone to look after you and you’ve had a hard life, you have to be careful with your money. I had almost made up my mind to come last summer, but the train fares increased again. I don’t know what the world is coming to. Then I suddenly fell ill. I was taken to the hospital where I’m now waiting. The letters are in my trunk, with my things, in my married niece’s house in Nice. At first, I thought I’d write and ask her to send them to me here, but I know my niece. She and my nephew, who lives in Belfort, are furiously jealous of each other. She would never part from the trunk, as she would think it contained jewelry or valuable documents that I might be going to give to my nephew instead of to her. They’ll be very surprised when I die, as I spent everything I had on building my house in Souprosse, where I thought I’d end my days, and they’ll never agree about selling it. Well, I can’t worry about that! Money isn’t the most precious thing when you consider
where I am now. They’ve got their lives ahead of them, but mine is over.

Mademoiselle Monique, I’m sending the key to the trunk with this letter. I could not have allowed my niece to rummage through it: she’d have read everything. Mademoiselle must go to Nice. I think she’ll decide to go now that she knows everything. She must tell them I sent her. The address is: Madame Garnier, 30 Rue de la République. She must ask for the trunk and open it. In the left-hand corner, under the woolens, she’ll find all her poor mother’s letters, neatly folded in my great-nephew’s christening box, which also contains a rosary blessed at Lourdes. It would make me very happy if Mademoiselle would send me the rosary. I’d like to have it with me when I die. The letters belong to Mademoiselle and she can do what she wants with them, but if she will allow her old servant to give her a bit of advice, she shouldn’t read them. There are some things in life it’s better not to know. The people who wrote them are dead, or will die one day, like us. Mademoiselle must let God judge them. That’s not for us to do.

Good-bye, Mademoiselle Monique. I hope your children are a source of great comfort to you.

Believe me, Mademoiselle, your most respectful and devoted servant,

Clémence Labouheyre

Le sortilège

[  THE SPELL  ]

IT IS THE ELEMENT OF MYSTERY IN CHILDHOOD
memories that gives them their power. The people and events of the past seem to have been disguised; you thought you knew what was happening but, years later, you realize your mistake. What seemed simple was in fact masked by secrets and shadows: what intrigued you then was just an everyday matter of inheritance or adultery. A child’s ignorance creates a world that is only half-understood and partly concealed. Perhaps that is the reason it remains so vivid in the memory.

When I was eight, in the Ukrainian town where I was born, there lived a family I often used to visit with my young aunt. The father was a retired soldier. I have forgotten his rank and his name, but I can still visualize the house, the furniture, and the faces.

Their home was a long way from ours; we lived in the center of the town, and they were on the outskirts. Getting there was quite an excursion. I remember the old brown walls, tin roofs eaten away by rust, and countless drainpipes. The first time I went there it was a day in spring. The snow was melting, trickling away with a lively, joyful sound like the clinking of silver coins, surrounding the house with its shimmering sparkle as it flowed over the paving stones. I went inside, but then felt shy and hung back. A little girl came and took me by the hand. She was called Nina and later would become my friend. I stood in the hall while my aunt unwrapped the shawls and capes I wore against the cold. The little girl smiled as she looked at me; she had a wide mouth and dark eyes.

“Go and play in the nursery,” said my aunt, who was impatient to be alone with Nina’s older sister, Lola, so they could talk about their suitors.

Both my aunt and this young woman were twenty years old. My aunt was pretty, with soft skin and a trim figure, and no more intelligence than a flower. Nina’s sister was a tall, pale, thin girl, with a fine, sharp profile and such beautiful grass-green, almond-shaped eyes that one never wearied of gazing at them. Nina took me through the drawing room. I had never seen such an old house. There were many rooms, all of them small. To get from one to another you had to go up and down uneven, rickety brick steps. It was great fun. Signs of
disorder, dilapidation, and neglect were everywhere, yet at the same time it was full of life and the most welcoming home I have ever been in. There were cobwebs and dust everywhere, wobbly little armchairs and ancient, overflowing trunks all over the place. The house smelled of strong tobacco, wet fur, and mushrooms, for it was damp. The walls in the nursery were gray and sweating.

“Don’t you worry about Nina’s health?” asked Mademoiselle, my nursemaid.

My friend’s mother shrugged her soft, plump shoulders.

“No. What can I do about it? The children are well. It’s God who sends us illness and health, my dear Mademoiselle.”