Honeymoon (13 page)

When the teashop closed, she would find herself outside, in the rain. And she would have to look for somewhere to shelter until midnight. And after the curfew? Panic gripped her. She hadn't thought of that when she was walking along, hugging the walls to escape the other curfew, the six o'clock one. She had noticed a couple of young men at a table near hers. One was wearing a light grey suit. His chubby face was in contrast to
the severity of his gaze and his thin-lipped mouth. What made his gaze severe and staring was a big patch over his right eye. His blond hair was combed backwards. The other was dark, and wearing a shabby tweed jacket. They were talking in low voices. Her eyes had met those of the dark one. The other snapped open a gold-plated cigarette case, put a cigarette between his lips and lit it with a lighter that was also gold-plated. It looked as if he was explaining something to the dark one. Occasionally he raised his voice, but the piano music drowned his words. The dark one listened, and nodded from time to time. She met his eyes again, and he smiled at her.

•

The fair-haired man in the light grey suit waved a nonchalant goodbye to the other, and went out. The dark one stayed alone at the table. The pianist was still playing the tune from Vienna Waltt.es· She was afraid that closing time had come.

Everything around her began to swim. She tried to stop her nervous trembling. She gripped the edge of the table and kept her eyes fixed on the cup of chocolate and the macaroon she hadn't been able to eat.

The dark young man stood up and went over to her. "You look as if you're not feeling well …"

He helped her to stand up. Outside, they took a few steps in the rain and she felt better. He was holding her arm.

"I didn't go home ... In the eighteenth arrondissement ... because of the curfew ..."

She had said these words very quickly, as if she wanted to get rid of a great weight. Suddenly she began to cry. He pressed her arm.

"I live very near here ... You can come home with me ..."

They walked round the bend in the road. It was just as dark as it had been earlier when she was on the border of the curfew, and fighting with all her strength against the impulse to leave the ninth arrondissement pavement. They crossed an avenue whose dimmed street lamps gave out a blue light.

"What do you do? Is it interesting?"

He had asked her this in affectionate tones, to give her confidence. She had stopped crying, but she felt the tears trickling over her chin.

"I'm a dancer."

•

She felt intimidated as they went through the gate and crossed the courtyard of one of the big town houses round the Place de l'Étoile. He opened a front door on the second floor and stood aside to let her go in first.

Lighted lamps and chandeliers. The curtains were drawn to conceal the lights. She had never seen such enormous rooms or such high ceilings. They crossed a hall, and then a bedroom whose walls were covered with shelves full of old books. A log fire in the salon was almost out. He told her to take off her coat and sit on the settee. At the far end of the salon there was a conservatory under a big glazed rotunda.

"You can phone home."

He put the phone down beside her on the settee. She hesitated for a moment. You can phone home. She remembered the number all right: MONTMARTRE 33–83, the number of the café on the ground floor of the hotel. The
patron
would answer, unless he'd closed the café because of the curfew. With a hesitant finger, she dialled the number. He was bending over the fire, poking a log.

"Could you leave a message for Doctor Teyrsen?"

She had to repeat the name several times.

"The doctor who lives in the hotel ... Yes ... From his daughter ... Tell him that everything is all right ..."

She hung up, very quickly. He went and sat beside her on the settee.

"You live in an hotel?"

"Yes. With my father."

Their two rooms could easily have fitted into a corner of the salon. She visualized the front door of the hotel, and the red-carpeted spiral staircase that led up steeply to the first floor. On the right of the corridor, rooms
3
and
5
. And this salon where she now was, with its silk curtains, its panelling, its chandelier, its paintings and conservatory … She wondered whether she was in the same town or whether she was dreaming, as she had been earlier in the métro, when she had imagined herself returning to the Boulevard Ornano in a horse-drawn cab. And yet there were no more than twelve métro stations between this place and the Boulevard Ornano.

"And you? Do you live here alone?"

He shrugged his shoulders ruefully, as if he were apologizing.

Something suddenly gave her confidence. She noticed, when he made a rather too abrupt gesture as he removed the phone from the settee, that the lining of his tweed jacket was torn. And his big shoes. One of them didn't even have a lace.

•

They had dinner in the kitchen, at the far end of the flat. But there wasn't very much to eat. Then they went back to the salon, and he said:

"You'll have to stay the night here."

He led her into the next room. In the over-bright light of the chandelier there was a four-poster bed with wooden carvings and a silk canopy.

"This was my mother's room …"

He noticed that she was surprised by the four-poster bed and by the room, which was almost as big as the salon.

"Doesn't she live here any more?"

"She's dead."

The bluntness of this reply took her aback. He smiled at her.

"My parents have been dead for quite some time."

He walked round the room, as if on a tour of inspection. "I don't think you'll feel very comfortable here ... It would be better for you to sleep in the library ..."

She had lowered her head, and couldn't take her eyes off that big shoe without a lace that made such a strong contrast with the four-poster bed, the chandelier, the panelling and the silks.

•

In the book-lined room they had crossed earlier, after the hall, he pointed to the divan:

"I must give you some sheets."

Very fine voile sheets, pinkish beige and edged with lace.
He had also brought her a tartan wool blanket and a little
pillow without a pillow slip.

"This is all I could find."

He seemed to be apologizing.

She helped him make the bed.

"I hope you won't be cold ... They've turned the heating off …"

She had sat down on the edge of the divan, and he in the old leather armchair in the corner of the library.

"So you're a dancer?"

He didn't really seem to believe it. He was giving her an amused look.

"Yes. A dancer at the Châtelet. I was in the cast of
Vienna Waltzes
."

She had adopted a haughty tone.

"I've never been to the Châtelet ... But I'll come and see you …"

"Unfortunately, I don't know whether I'll be able to go on working …"

"Why not?"

"Because my father and I are in trouble."

•

She had hesitated to tell him about her situation, but the tweed jacket with the torn lining and the shoe without a lace had encouraged her. And then, he often used slang words that didn't go with the refinement and luxury of the flat. She had even begun to wonder whether he really lived there. But on one of the shelves in the library there was a photo of him much younger, with a very elegant woman who must have been his mother.

He left her, wishing her a good night, and saying that at breakfast the next day she would be able to drink some real coffee. Then she was alone in the room, amazed to find herself on that divan. She didn't put the light out. If she felt she was falling asleep she would put it out, but not just yet. She was afraid of the dark because of the curfew that evening in the eighteenth arrondissement, the dark that reminded her of her father and the hotel in the Boulevard Ornano. How reassuring it was to contemplate the bookshelves, the opalescent lamp on the little table, the silk curtains, the big Louis XV bureau over by the windows, and to feel the fresh lightness of the voile sheets ... She hadn't told him
the truth. In the first place she had pretended that she was nineteen. And then, she wasn't really a dancer at the Châtelet. Next, she had said that her father was an Austrian doctor who had emigrated to France before the war, and that he worked in a clinic in Auteuil. She hadn't touched on the root of the problem. She had added that they were only living in the hotel temporarily, because her father was looking for another flat. She hadn't admitted, either, that she had purposely let the time of the curfew go by so as not to go back to the Boulevard Ornano. In other times, no one would have attached much importance to this fact, it would even have seemed quite normal for a girl of her age, and would simply have been seen as an escapade.

•

The next day, she didn't go back to the hotel in the Boulevard Ornano. She again phoned
MONTMARTRE 33–83
. Doctor Teyrsen's daughter. They must leave a message for the doctor: "Tell him not to worry." But the
patron
of the café and the hotel, whose voice Ingrid recognized, replied that her father was expecting this phone call and that he'd go and fetch him from his room. Then she hung up.

Another day went by. Then another. They didn't leave the flat, she and Rigaud, except to go and have dinner in a nearby black market restaurant in the Rue d'
Armaillé
. They went to the cinema in the Champs-
Élysées
. The film was
Remorques
. A few more days went by and she didn't phone
MONTMARTRE 33–83
again. December. Winter was beginning. The Resistance mounted more attacks, and this time the curfew was imposed at half past five for a week. The whole town was plunged into darkness, cold and silence. You had to go to
ground wherever you happened to be, keep your head down as far as possible, and wait. She didn't ever want to leave Rigaud, and the Boulevard Ornano seemed so far away...

•

At the end of the curfew week, Rigaud told her that he had to leave the flat because the building was going to be sold. It belonged to a Jew who had taken refuge abroad and whose property had been sequestrated. But he had found another flat near the Vincennes zoo and, if she liked, he could take her there.

•

One evening they had dinner in the restaurant in the Rue d'Armaillé with the fair-haired young man in the light grey suit and the patch over his eye. Ingrid instinctively disliked and distrusted him. And yet he was very affable, and asked her questions about the Châtelet where she pretended she had been a dancer. He called Rigaud
tu
. They had known each other as children, in the lower forms of their Passy boarding school, and he would have liked to reminisce about this period of their life at greater length, if Rigaud hadn't said curtly:

"That's enough about that ... It brings back unpleasant memories ..."

The blond young man made a lot of money out of black market deals. He was in contact with a Russian who had offices in a town house in the Avenue Hoche, and with a whole lot of other "interesting" people whom he would introduce to Rigaud.

"There's no point," Rigaud had said. "I'm thinking of leaving Paris …"

And the conversation had come back to the flat. The young man was offering to buy all its furniture and paintings before Rigaud left. He had mentioned them to one of his "connections", whose agent he would be. He prided himself on being a connoisseur of antique furniture. He acted the man of the world and mentioned with feigned indifference that one of his ancestors had been a Marshal of the Empire. Rigaud simply called him Pacheco. When he had introduced himself to Ingrid, he had said, with a slight bow of the head: Philippe de Pacheco.

•

The next afternoon there was a ring at the flat door. A youth in a lumber-jacket announced that Pacheco had sent him with a van and the removal men. He had taken the liberty of opening the street gates and parking the van in the courtyard, if no one had any objection. As the removal men began collecting the furniture, Ingrid and Rigaud took refuge at the far end of the salon, in the conservatory. But after a few moments they decided they would rather go out. A van covered by a tarpaulin was waiting by the steps.

They walked down the gently-sloping Avenue de Wagram. The snow had melted on the pavements, and a pale winter sun was breaking through the clouds. Rigaud told her that Pacheco was going to bring him the money from the sale of the furniture that evening, and that they could move into their new flat at once. She asked him whether he was sorry to leave this area. No. He had no regrets, and he was even glad not to be staying there.

They had reached the Place des Ternes. Suddenly she felt an impulse: to carry straight on to Montmartre and return to the hotel in the Boulevard Ornano, to retrace, in the opposite direction, the steps she had taken the other evening to get away from the curfew zone. She sat down on a bench. Once again she began to tremble.