Jealousy and in the Labyrinth (13 page)

The face, hidden because of her position, is bending over the table where the invisible hands are busy with some long- drawn-out and laborious task: mending a stocking, polishing nails, a tiny pencil drawing, erasing a stain or a badly chosen word. From time to time she straightens up and leans back to judge her work from a distance. With a slow gesture, she pushes back a shorter strand of hair which has come loose from this unstable arrangement and is annoying her.

But the rebellious curl remains on the white silk of her shoulder, where it traces a wavy line ending in a hook. Under the moving mass of hair, the delicate waist is divided vertically, along the spine, by the narrow line of the metal zipper.

A ... is standing on the veranda, at the corner of the house, near the square column that supports the southwest corner of the roof. She is leaning both hands on the railing, facing south, looking over the garden and the whole valley.

She is in full sunlight. The sun strikes her directly on the forehead. But she does not mind it, even at noon. Her foreshortened shadow falls perpendicularly across the flagstones of which it covers, lengthwise, no more than one. A quarter of an inch behind it begins the roof shadow, parallel with the railing. The sun is almost at its zenith.

The two extended arms are an equal distance from either side of the hips. The hands are both holding the wooden hand-rail in the same way. Since A ... is standing with half her weight on each of her high-heeled shoes, the symmetry of her whole body is perfect.

A ... is standing in front of one of the closed windows of the living room, directly opposite the dirt road that comes down from the highway. Through the glass she looks straight ahead of her, toward the place where the road enters the dusty courtyard, which the shadow of the house darkens with a strip about three yards wide. The rest of the courtyard is white in the sunlight.

The large room, in comparison, seems dark. Her dress takes on a cold blue tinge from the shadows. A . . . does not move. She continues to stare at the courtyard and the road between the banana trees, straight ahead of her.

A ... is in the bathroom, whose door to the hallway she has left ajar. She is not washing. She is standing against the white lacquer table in front of the square window that comes down to her breast. Beyond the open window-recess, above the veranda, the openwork balustrade, the garden down the slope, her eyes can see only the green mass of the banana trees, and farther on, passing above the highway going down to the plain, the rocky spur of the plateau, behind which the sun has just disappeared.

The night does not take long falling in these countries without twilight. The lacquered table suddenly turns deep blue, like her dress, the white floor, and the sides of the bathtub. The whole room is plunged into darkness.

Only the square of the window makes a spot of paler violet, against which A . . .'s black silhouette appears: the line of her shoulders and arms, the contour of her hair. It is impossible, in this light, to know if her head is turned toward the window or in the opposite direction.

In the office, the light suddenly fades. The sun has set. A . . . can no longer be seen. The photograph can be distinguished only by the mother-of-pearl edges of its frame, which gleam in the remaining light. In front of it shines the oblong of the razor blade and the metal ellipse in the center of the eraser. But this lasts only a moment. Now the eye can distinguish nothing any longer, despite the open windows.

The five workmen are still at their post, in the hollow of the valley, squatting in a quincunx on the little bridge. The running water of the stream still glitters in the last reflections of the daylight. And then, nothing more.

On the veranda, A ... will have to close her book soon.

She has continued reading until the light has become too faint. Then she lifts her face, puts the book down on the low table within arm's reach, and remains motionless, her bare arms stretched out on the elbow-rests, leaning back in her chair, her eyes wide open, staring at the empty sky, the absent banana trees, the railing engulfed in its turn by the darkness.

And the deafening racket of the crickets already fills the night, as if it had never ceased to be there. The continuous grating, without progression or nuance, immediately reaches its full development, has been at its climax for some time already, minutes or hours, for no beginning can be perceived at any one moment.

Now the area is altogether dark. Although there is time for eyes to become accustomed to it, no object appears, even those closest.

But now once again there are balusters toward the corner of the house, half-balusters, more precisely, and a hand-rail on top; and the flagstones gradually appear at their feet. The corner of the wall reveals its vertical line. A warm glow appears behind it.

It is a lighted lamp, one of the big kerosene lamps that reveals two walking legs as far up as the bare knees and calves. The boy approaches, holding the lamp at arm's length. Shadows dance in all directions.

The boy has not yet reached the little table when A .. .'s voice can be heard, precise and low; she tells him to put the lamp in the dining room, after being careful to shut the windows, as every evening.

"You know you're not supposed to bring the lamp out here. It attracts mosquitoes."

The boy has said nothing and has not stopped for even a moment. Even the regularity of his gait has not been altered. Having reached a point opposite the door he makes a quarter-turn toward the hallway where he disappears, leaving behind him only a fading gleam: the doorway, a rectangle on the veranda flagstone, and six balusters at the other end. Then nothing more.

A . . . has not turned her head in speaking to the boy. Her face received the lamp's beams on the right side. This brightly illuminated profile still clings to the retina. In the darkness where no object can be seen, even those closest, the luminous spot shifts at will, without its intensity fading, keeping the outline of the forehead, the nose, the chin, the mouth. . . .

The spot is on the wall of the house, on the flagstones, against the empty sky. It is everywhere in the valley, from the garden to the stream and up the opposite slope. It is in the office too, in the bedroom, in the dining room, in the living room, in the courtyard, on the road up to the highway.

But A . . . has not moved an inch. She has not opened her mouth to speak, her voice has not interrupted the racket of the nocturnal crickets; the boy has not come out on the veranda, so he has not brought the lamp, knowing perfectly well that his mistress does not want it.

He has carried it into her bedroom, where his mistress is now preparing to leave.

The lamp is set on the dressing-table. A ... is putting on the last of her discreet make-up: the lipstick which merely accentuates the natural color of her lips but which seems darker in this glaring light.

Dawn has not yet broken.

Franck will come soon to call for A . . . and take her down to the port. She is sitting in front of the oval mirror where her full face is reflected, lit from only one side, at a short distance from her own face seen in profile.

A . . . bends toward the mirror. The two faces come closer. They are no more than four inches from each other, but they keep their forms and their respective positions: a profile and a full face, parallel to each other.

The right hand and the hand in the mirror trace on the lips and on their reflection the exact image of the lips, somewhat brighter, clearer, slightly darker.

Two light knocks sound at the hallway door.

The bright lips and the lips in profile move in perfect synchronization :

"Yes, what is it?"

The voice is restrained, as in a sickroom, or like the voice of a thief talking to his accomplice.

"The gentleman, he is here," the boy's voice answers on the other side of the door.

No sound of a motor, however, has broken the silence (which has no silence, but the continuous hissing of the kerosene lamp).

A ... says: "I'm coming."

She calmly finishes the curving rim above her chin with an assured gesture.

She stands up, crosses the room, walks around the big bed, picks up her handbag on the chest and the white wide-brimmed straw hat. She opens the door without making any noise (though without excessive precautions), goes out, closes the door behind her.

The sound of her steps fades down the hallway.

The entrance door opens and closes.

It is six-thirty.

The whole house is empty. It has been empty since morning.

It is now six-thirty. The sun has disappeared behind the rocky spur which bounds the main section of the plateau.

The night is black and heavy, without the least breath of air, full of the deafening noise of crickets which seems to have been going on forever.

A ... is not returning for dinner, which she will take in town with Franck before starting back. She has said nothing about preparing anything for her return. Because she will not need anything. It is useless to expect her. In any case it is useless to expect her at dinner.

On the dining room table the boy has set a single place, opposite the long, low sideboard which takes up almost the entire wall between the open pantry door and the closed window overlooking the courtyard. The curtains, which have not been drawn, reveal the six black panes of the window.

A single lamp illuminates the large room. It is placed on the southwest corner of the table (that is, toward the pantry), lighting up the white cloth. To the right of the lamp, a little spot of sauce marks Franck's place: an elongated, sinuous stain surrounded by more tenuous markings. On the other side, the lamp's beams strike perpendicularly against the nearby naked wall, showing quite clearly in the full light the image of the centipede Franck squashed.

If each of the Scutigera's legs consists of four joints of varying lengths, none of those which are outlined here, on the dull finish of the paint, is intact—except perhaps one, the first on the left. But it is stretched out, almost straight, so that its joints are not easy to determine with any certitude. The original leg may have been considerably longer. The antenna, too, has doubtless not been printed on the wall to its very tip.

On the white plate, a land crab spreads out its five pairs of clearly jointed, muscular legs. Around its mouth, many smaller appendages are arranged in pairs. The creature uses them to produce a kind of crackling sound, audible at close range, like that which the Scutigera makes in certain cases.

But the lamp prevents any such sound from being heard because of its constant hissing, of which the ear is aware only when it tries to hear any other sound.

On the veranda, where the boy has now carried the little table and one of the low chairs, the sound of the lamp fades whenever an animal cry interrupts it.

The crickets have fallen silent for some time now. The night is already well-advanced. There is neither moon nor stars. There is not a breath of air. It is a black, calm, hot night, like all the rest, occasionally interrupted only by the short, shrill calls of tiny nocturnal carnivores, the sudden buzzing of a beetle, the rustle of a bat's wings.

Then a silence. But a fainter sound, something like a hum, makes the ear strain. ... It stops at once. And again the lamp's hissing can be heard.

Besides, it was more like a growl than the sound of a car motor. A ... has not yet returned. They are a little late, which is quite normal, on these bad roads.

There is no doubt the lamp draws mosquitoes; but it draws them toward its own light. So it is enough to put it at some distance in order not to be bothered by them or by other insects.

They all turn around the glass, accompanying the even hiss of the kerosene lamp with their circular flights. Their small size, their relative distance, their speed—all the greater the closer they fly to the source of light—keep the shapes of the bodies and wings from being recognized. It is not even possible to distinguish among the different species, not to mention naming them. They are merely particles in motion, describing more or less flattened ellipses in horizontal planes or at slight angles, cutting the elongated cylinder of the lamp at various levels.

But the orbits are rarely centered on the lamp; almost all fly further to one side, right or left, than the other—so far, sometimes, that the tiny body disappears in the darkness. It immediately returns to view—or another returns in its place—and soon retraces its orbit, so that it circles with others of its kind in a common, harshly illuminated zone about a yard and a half long.

At every moment, certain ellipses narrow until they become tangent to the lamp on each side (front and back). They are then reduced to their smallest dimensions in both directions, and attain their highest speeds. But they do not maintain this accelerated rhythm long: by a sudden withdrawal, the generating element resumes a calmer gravitation.

Besides, whether it is a question of amplitude, shape, or the more or less eccentric situation, the variations are probably incessant within the swarm. To follow them it would be necessary to differentiate individuals. Since this is impossible, a certain general unity is established within which the local crises, arrivals, departures and permutations no longer enter into account.

Shrill and short, an animal's cry sounds quite close, seeming to come from the garden, just at the foot of the veranda. Then the same cry, after three seconds, indicates its presence on the other side of the house. And again there is silence, which is not silence but a succession of identical, shriller, more remote cries in the mass of the banana trees near the stream, perhaps on the opposite slope, reaching from one end of the valley to the other.

Now there is a duller sound, less fugitive, that attracts the attention: a kind of growl, or rumble, or hum. . .

But even before being sufficiently clear to be identified, the noise stops. The ear, which vainly tries to locate it again in the darkness, no longer hears anything in its place except the hiss of the kerosene lamp.