The Age of Reason (9 page)

‘Do you still want to go and see the Gauguins?’

‘What Gauguins? Oh yes, the exhibition you were talking about. Well, we might go.’

‘You don’t look as if you wanted to.’

‘Yes, I do.’

‘But if you don’t want to, Ivich, you must say so.’

‘But
you
want to go.’

‘I’ve been already, as you know. I would like to show it to you, if it would amuse you, but if you don’t care about it, I’m no longer interested.’

‘Very well then, I would sooner go another day.’

‘But the exhibition closes tomorrow,’ said Mathieu in a disappointed tone.

‘I’m sorry for that,’ said Ivich indifferently: ‘but it will come back.’ And she added briskly: ‘Things like that always come back, don’t they?’

‘Ivich,’ said Mathieu, kindly but with some irritation, ‘that’s just like you. You had better say you no longer want to go, you know quite well that it won’t come back for a long tune.’

‘Oh well,’ she said amiably: ‘I don’t want to go because I’m upset about this examination. It’s hell to make us wait so long for the results.’

‘Aren’t they to come out tomorrow?’

‘That’s just it.’ And she added, touching Mathieu’s sleeve with the tips of her fingers: ‘You mustn’t mind me today, I’m not myself, I’m dependent on other people, which is so degrading; I keep on seeing a vision of a little white paper stuck to a grey wall. I just can’t help it. When I got up this morning, I felt as if it was tomorrow already: today isn’t a day at all, it’s a day cancelled. They’ve robbed me of it, and I haven’t so many left.’ And she added in a low, rapid voice: ‘I made a mess of my Botany Prelim.’

‘I can well understand that,’ said Mathieu.

He wished he could discover in his own recollections a time of trouble that would enable him to understand what Ivich was enduring. The day before his Diploma test, perhaps. No, that wasn’t really the same thing. He had lived a placid sort of life, one that involved no risks. At present he felt precarious, beset by a menacing world, but that sensation was reflected through Ivich.

‘If I qualify,’ said Ivich, ‘I shall have a few drinks before going to the oral.’ Mathieu did not reply. ‘Just a few,’ repeated Ivich.

‘You said that in February, before going up for the Intermediate, and you know what happened, you drank four glasses of rum and you were completely tight.’

‘However, I shan’t qualify.’

‘No doubt, but if, by chance, you do?’

‘Well, I won’t drink anything at all.’

Mathieu did not insist; he was sure that she would turn up drunk at the oral. ‘I wouldn’t have done such a thing, I was much too careful.’ He was annoyed with Ivich, and disgusted with himself. The waiter brought a stemmed glass, and half filled it with green mint.

‘I’ll bring you the ice-bowl right away.’

‘Thank you,’ said Ivich.

She looked at the glass, and Mathieu looked at her. A violent and undefined desire had taken possession of him: a desire to
be
for one instant that distracted consciousness so pervaded by its own odour, to feel those long slender arms from within, to feel, at the hollow of the elbow, the skin of the forearm clinging like a lip to the skin of the arm, to feel that body and all the discreet little kisses it so ceaselessly imprinted on itself. To be Ivich, and not cease to be himself. Ivich took the bowl from the waiter’s hand and dropped a cube of ice into her glass.

‘It’s not to drink,’ she said, ‘but it’s prettier like that.’

She screwed up her eyes a little and smiled a girlish smile. ‘How pretty it looks.’

Mathieu eyed the glass with irritation, he set himself to observe the thick, ungraceful agitation of the liquid, the turbid whiteness of the ice-cube. In vain. For Ivich, it was a little viscous delight that made her sticky down to her finger-tips: for him it was nothing. Less than nothing: a glass full-of mint. He could
think
what Ivich felt, but he never felt anything: for her, objects were oppressive, insinuating presences, eddies that entered into her very flesh, but Mathieu always saw them from a distance. He flung a glance at her and sighed: he was behindhand, as usual. Ivich was no longer looking at the glass, she wore a sad expression, and was nervously tugging at one of her curls.

‘I should like a cigarette.’

Mathieu took a packet of Goldflake out of his pocket and handed it to her.

‘I’ll give you a light.’

‘Thank you, I prefer to light it myself.’

She lit the cigarette, and took a few whiffs. She held her hand close to her mouth, and with a sort of crazily intent expression amused herself by making the smoke trickle along her palm. And she said, by way of explanation to herself: ‘I wanted the smoke to look as though it came out of my hand. It would be funny to see a hand smouldering.’

‘It isn’t possible, the smoke moves too quickly.’

‘I know, it’s tiresome, but I can’t help trying. I can feel my breath tickling my hand, right through the middle, as though it were divided by a wall.’

She laughed lightly and fell silent, still breathing on her hand with a sort of peevish persistence. Then she threw her cigarette away and shook her head: the smell of her hair reached Mathieu’s nostrils. A smell of cake, and of vanilla-flavoured sugar, from the egg-yolks which she used to wash her hair: but that pastried perfume left a fleshy taste behind it.

Mathieu began to think about Sarah.

‘What are you thinking about, Ivich?’ he asked.

She sat for a moment with her mouth open, disconcerted, then she resumed her meditative air and her face again became impenetrable. Mathieu found himself tired of looking at her, the corners of his eyes began to smart.

‘What are you thinking about?’ he repeated.

‘I...’ Ivich shook herself. ‘You’re always asking me that. Nothing definite. Things that can’t be expressed, there are no words for them.’

‘Still — what?’

‘Well, I was looking at that fellow coming towards us, for instance. What do you want me to say? I should have to say: “He’s fat, he’s wiping his forehead with a handkerchief, he’s wearing a made-up tie” — it’s funny you should force me to tell you all this,’ she said, in sudden disgust and indignation, ‘it isn’t worth saying.’

‘Yes it is — for me. If I could be granted a wish, it would be that you should be compelled to think aloud.’

Ivich smiled involuntarily.

‘That’s morbid,’ she said. ‘Words aren’t meant for that.’

‘It’s fantastic, you’ve got a savage’s respect for words: you apparently believe that they were made simply for announcing deaths and marriages, and saying Mass. Besides, you don’t look at people, Ivich, I’ve been watching you. You looked at your hand and then you looked at your foot. Anyway, I know what you’re thinking.’

‘Then why ask? You don’t need to be very clever to guess: I was thinking of the examination.’

‘You’re afraid of being ploughed, is that it?’

‘Of course I’m afraid of being ploughed. Or rather — no, I’m not afraid I know I’m ploughed.’

Mathieu again sensed the savour of catastrophe in his mouth: ‘If she is ploughed, I shan’t see her again.’ She would certainly be ploughed: that was plain enough.

‘I won’t go back to Laon,’ said Ivich desperately. ‘If I go back to Laon after having been ploughed, I’ll never get away again. They told me it was my last chance.’

She fell to tugging at her hair again.

‘If I had the courage —’ she faltered.

‘What would you do?’ asked Mathieu anxiously.

‘Anything and everything rather than go back to that place, I won’t spend my life there. I just won’t!’

‘But you told me your father might sell the sawmill in a year or two from now, and the whole family come and settle in Paris.’

‘Oh my God! That’s what you’re all like,’ said Ivich, turning towards him, her eyes glittering with rage. ‘I should like to see you there. Two years in that hole, two years of black endurance. Can’T you get it into your head that those two years would be stolen from me? I’ve only got one life,’ she said passionately. ‘From the way you talk, you sound as though you believed yourself immortal. According to you, a year lost can be replaced.’ The tears came into her eyes. ‘That’s not true, it’s my youth that will be oozing out there, drop by drop. I want to live immediately, I haven’t begun, and I haven’t time to wait, I’m old already, I’m twenty-one.’

‘Ivich — please!’ said Mathieu. ‘You frighten me. Do try for once at least to tell me clearly how you got on in the practical test. Sometimes you look quite pleased, and sometimes you’re in despair.’

‘I messed it all up,’ said Ivich gloomily.

‘I thought you did all right in physics.’

‘I don’t think!’ said Ivich sardonically. ‘And then my chemistry was hopeless, I can’t keep the formulae in my head, they’re so dismal.’

‘But why did you go in for it?’

‘What?’

‘The P. C. B.?’

‘I had to get away from Laon,’ she said wildly.

Mathieu made a helpless gesture: and they fell silent. A woman emerged from the cafe and walked slowly past them: she was handsome, with a very small nose in a sleek face, and she seemed to be looking for somebody. Ivich must first have smelt her scent. She raised her brooding face, saw the woman and her whole expression was transformed.

‘What a magnificent creature,’ she said in a low, deep voice. Mathieu hated that voice.

The woman stood motionless, blinking in the sunshine, she might have been about thirty-five, her long legs could be seen in outline through her thin silk frock: but Mathieu had no desire to look at them, he was looking at Ivich. Ivich had become almost ugly, she was squeezing her hands hard against each other. She had said to Mathieu one day: ‘Little noses always make me want to bite them.’ Mathieu leaned forward until he could see her in three-quarter profile: she looked somnolent and cruel, just, he thought, as though she would like to bite.

‘Ivich,’ said Mathieu gently.

She did not answer: Mathieu knew that she could not answer: he no longer existed for her, she was quite alone.

‘Ivich!’

It was at such moments that he was most attracted by her, when her charming, almost dainty little person was possessed by a gripping force, an ardent, uneasy, graceless love of human beauty. ‘I,’ he thought, ‘am no beauty,’ and he felt alone in his turn.

The woman departed. Ivich followed her with her eyes, and muttered passionately: ‘There are moments when I wish I were a man.’ She laughed a short dry laugh, and Mathieu eyed her regretfully.

‘Monsieur Delarue is wanted on the telephone,’ cried the commissionaire.

‘Here!’ said Mathieu.

He got up: ‘Excuse me, it’s Sarah Gomez.’

Ivich smiled coldly: he entered the cafe and went downstairs.

‘Monsieur Delarue? First box.’

Mathieu picked up the receiver, the door would not shut.

‘Hullo, is that Sarah?’

‘Morning again,’ said Sarah’s nasal voice. ‘Well, it’s fixed up.’

‘I’m thankful to hear it.’

‘Only you must hurry: he’s leaving for the United States on Sunday. He would like to do it the day after tomorrow at latest, so as to have time to treat the case during the first few days.’

‘Right... Well then, I’ll tell Marcelle this very day, only it catches me a bit short, I shall have to find the money. How much does he want?’

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ said Sarah’s voice: ‘but he wants four thousand francs, cash down. I did tell him that you were rather hard up at the moment, but he wouldn’t budge. He’s a dirty Jew,’ she added with a laugh.

Sarah was always brimming with superfluous compassion, but when she had undertaken to do anyone a service, she became as abrupt and bustling as a Sister of Charity. Mathieu was holding the receiver, a little away from his ear: ‘Four thousand francs,’ he thought, and he heard Sarah’s laugh crackle on the little black disc, with a positively nightmarish effect.

‘In two days from now? Right — I’ll fix it. Thank you, Sarah, you’re a treasure. Will you be at home this evening before dinner?’

‘All day.’

‘Good. I’ll be along. There are one or two things to arrange.’

‘Till this evening?’

Mathieu emerged from the box.

‘I want to telephone, mademoiselle... No, it doesn’t matter, after all.’

He threw a franc into a saucer and walked slowly upstairs. It wasn’t worth while ringing up Marcelle before he had settled the money question. ‘I’ll go and see Daniel at midday..’ He sat down again beside Ivich and looked at her without affection.

‘My headache is gone,’ she said politely.

‘I’m glad to bear it,’ said Mathieu.

His heart felt sooty.

Ivich threw a sidelong glance at him, through her long eyelashes. There was a blurred, coquettish smile upon her face.

‘We might... We might go and see the Gauguins after all.’

‘If you like,’ said Mathieu equably.

They got up, and Mathieu noticed that Ivich’s glass was empty.

‘Taxi!’ he cried.

‘Not that one, it’s open, we shall have the wind in our faces.’

‘No,’ said Mathieu to the chauffeur: ‘drive on, it wasn’t for you.’

‘Stop that one,’ said Ivich; ‘it’s as neat as a travelling tabernacle for the Holy Sacrament, and besides it’s closed.’

The taxi stopped, and Ivich got into it. ‘While I’m there,’ thought Mathieu, ‘I’ll ask Daniel for an extra thousand francs — that will see me to the end of the month.’

‘Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Faubourg Saint-Honoré.’

He sat in silence beside Ivich. They were both ill at ease.

Mathieu noticed near his feet three half-smoked gold-tipped cigarettes.

‘There’s been a very nervy person in this cab.’

‘How do you know?’

‘It was a woman,’ said Ivich, ‘I can see the marks of lipstick.’

They smiled and fell silent. Mathieu said: ‘I once found a hundred francs in a taxi.’

‘You must have been pleased.’

‘Oh, I gave them to the chauffeur.’

‘Did you?’ said Ivich. ‘I should have kept them. Why did you do that?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Mathieu.

The taxi crossed the Place Saint-Michel.

Mathieu was on the point of saying: ‘Look how green the Seine is,’ but he said nothing. Ivich suddenly remarked: ‘Boris suggested we might all three go to the Sumatra this evening — I should rather like to...’