The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (18 page)

'Oh, no,' I said. 'Not dreadful, not dangerous. Clever, if you like, and all that. But.... No, I must see for myself.'

'He who will live will see,' said Madame Lecerf. 'Now, look here. I've got a suggestion. I am going away tomorrow. I am afraid that if you drop in here on Saturday, Helene may be in such a rush — she is always rushing, you know — that she'll put you off till next day, forgetting that next day she is. coming for a week to my place in the country: so you'll miss her again. In other words, I think that the best thing would be for you to come down to my place, too. Because then you are quite, quite sure to meet her. So, what I suggest is that you come Sunday morning — and stay as long as you choose. We've got four spare bedrooms, and I think you'll be comfortable. And then, you know, if I talk to her first a little, she'll be just in the right mood for a talk with you.
Eh bien, êtes-vous d'accord?'

Very curious, I mused: there seemed to be a slight family likeness between Nina Rechnoy and Helene von Graun — or at least between the two pictures which the husband of one and the friend of the other had painted for me. Between the two there was not much to choose. Nina was shallow and glamorous, Helene cunning and hard; both were flighty; neither was much to my taste — nor should I have thought to Sebastian's. I wondered if the two women had known each other at Blauberg: they would have gone rather well together — theoretically; in reality they would probably have hissed and spat at each other. On the other hand, I could now drop the Rechnoy clue altogether — and that was a great relief. What that French girl had told me about her friend's lover could hardly have been a coincidence. Whatever the feelings I experienced at learning' the way Sebastian had been treated, I could not help being satisfied that my inquiry was nearing its end and that I was spared the impossible task of unearthing Pahl Pahlich's first wife, who for all I knew might be in jail or in Los Angeles.

I knew I was being given my last chance, and as I was anxious to make sure I would get at Helene von Graun, I made a tremendous effort and sent her a letter to her Paris address, so that she might find it on her arrival. It was quite short: I merely informed her that I was her friend's guest at Lescaux and had accepted this invitation with the sole object of meeting her; I added that there was an important piece of literary business which I wished to discuss with her. This last sentence was not very honest, but I thought it sounded enticing. I had not quite understood whether her friend had told her anything about my desire to see her when she telephoned from Dijon. I was desperately afraid that on Sunday Madame Lecerf might blandly inform me that Helene had left for Nice instead. After posting that letter I felt that at any rate I had done all in my power to fix our rendezvous.

I started at nine in the morning, so as to reach Lescaux around noon as arranged. I was already boarding the train when I realized with a shock that on my way I would pass St Damier where Sebastian had died and was buried. Here I had travelled one unforgettable night. But now I failed to recognize anything: when the train stopped for a minute at the little St Damier platform, its inscription alone told me that I had been there. The place looked so simple and staid and definite compared to the distorted dream impression which lingered in my memory. Or was it distorted now?

I felt strangely relieved when the train moved on: no more was I treading the ghostly tracks I had followed two months before. The weather was fair and every time the train stopped I seemed to hear the light uneven breathing of spring, still barely visible but unquestionably present: 'cold-limbed ballet-girls waiting in the wings', as Sebastian put it once.

Madame Lecerf's house was large and ramshackle. A score of unhealthy old trees represented the park. There were fields on one side and a hill with a factory on the other. Everything about the place had a queer look of weariness, and shabbiness, and dustiness; when later I learned that it had only been built some thirty-odd years ago I felt still more surprised by its decrepitude. As I approached the main entrance I met a man hastily scrunching down the gravel walk; he stopped and shook hands with me:

'Enchanté de vous cannaître,'
he said, summing me up with a melancholy glance, 'my wife is expecting you.
Je suis navré...
but I am obliged to go to Paris this Sunday.'

He was a middle-aged rather common-looking Frenchman with tired eyes and an automatic smile. We shook hands once more.

'Mon ami,
you'll miss that train,' came Madame Lecerf's crystal voice from the veranda, and he trotted off obediently.

Today she wore a beige dress, her lips were brightly made up but she had not dreamt of meddling with her diaphanous complexion. The sun gave a bluish sheen to her hair and I found myself thinking that she was after all quite a pretty young woman. We wandered through two or three rooms which looked as if the idea of a drawing-room had been vaguely divided between them. I had the impression that we were quite alone in that unpleasant rambling house. She picked up a shawl lying on a green silk settee and drew it about her.

'Isn't it cold,' she said. 'That's one thing I hate in life, cold. Feel my hands. They are always like that except in summer. Lunch will be ready in a minute. Sit down.'

'When exactly is she coming?' I asked.

'Écoutez,'
said Madame Lecerf, 'can't you forget her for a minute and talk about other things?
Ce n'est pas très poli, vous savez.
Tell me something about yourself. Where do you live, and what do you do?'

'Will she be here in the afternoon?'

'Yes, yes, you obstinate man,
Monsieur l'entêté.
She's sure to come. Don't be so impatient. You know, women don't much care for men with an
idée fixe.
How did you like my husband?'

I said that he must be much older than she.

'He is quite kind but a dreadful bore,' she went on, laughing. 'I sent him away on purpose. We've been married for only a year, but it feels like a diamond wedding already. And I just hate this house. Don't you?'

I said it seemed rather old-fashioned.

'Oh, that's not the right term. It looked brand new when I first saw it. But it has faded and crumbled away since. I once told a doctor that all flowers except pinks and daffodils withered if I touched them — isn't it bizarre?'

'And what did he say?'

'He said he wasn't a botanist. There used to be a Persian princess like me. She blighted the Palace Gardens,'

An elderly and rather sullen maid looked in and nodded to her mistress.

'Come along,' said Madame Lecerf.
'Vous devez mourir de faim,
judging by your face.'

We collided in the doorway because she suddenly turned back as I was following her. She clutched my shoulder and her hair brushed my cheek. 'You clumsy young man,' she said, 'I have forgotten my pills.'

She found them and we went over the house in search of the dining-room. We found it at last. It was a dismal place with a bay window which had seemed to change its mind at the last moment and had made a half-hearted attempt to revert to an ordinary state. Two people drifted in silently, through different doors. One was an old lady, who, I gathered, was a cousin of Monsieur Lecerf. Her conversation was strictly limited to polite purrs when passing eatables. The other was a rather handsome man in plus-fours with a solemn face and a queer grey streak in his fair sparse hair. He never uttered a single word during the whole lunch. Madame Lecerf's manner of introducing consisted of a hurried gesture which did not bother about names. I noticed that she ignored his presence at table — that indeed he seemed to sit apart. The lunch was well cooked but haphazard. The wine, however, was quite good.

After we had clattered through the first course the blond gentleman lit a Cigarette and wandered away. He came back in a minute with an ashtray. Madam Lecerf, who had been engaged with her food, now looked at me and said:

'So you have travelled a good deal, lately? I have never been to England you know — somehow it never happened. It seems to be a dull place.
On doit s'y ennuyer follement, n'est-ce-pas?
And then the fogs.... And no music, no art of any sort.... This is a special way of preparing rabbit, I think you will like it.'

'By the way,' I said, 'I forgot to tell you, I've written a letter to your friend warning her I would be down here and... sort of reminding her to come.'

Madame Lecerf put down knife and fork. She looked surprised and annoyed. 'You haven't!' she exclaimed.

'But it can't do any harm, can it, or do you think — '

We finished the rabbit in silence. Chocolate cream followed. The blond gentleman carefully folded his napkin, inserted it into a ring, got up, bowed slightly to our hostess and withdrew.

'We shall take our coffee in the green room,' said Madame Lecerf to the maid.

'I am furious with you,' she said as we settled down. 'I think you have spoiled it all.'

'Why, what have I done?' I asked.

She looked away. Her small hard bosom heaved (Sebastian once wrote that it happened only in books but here was proof that he was mistaken). The blue vein on her pale girlish neck seemed to throb (but of that I am not sure). Her lashes fluttered. Yes, she was decidedly a pretty woman. Did she come from the Midi, I wondered. From Arles perhaps. But no, her accent was Parisian.

'Were you born in Paris?' I asked.

'Thank you,' she said without looking, 'that's the first question you've asked about me. But that does not atone for your blunder. It was the silliest thing you could have done. Perhaps, if I tried.... Excuse me, I'll be back in a minute.'

I sat back and smoked. Dust was swarming in a slanting sunbeam; volutes of tobacco smoke joined it and rotated softly, insinuatingly, as if they might form a live picture at any moment. Let me repeat here that I am loath to trouble these pages with any kind of matter relating personally to me; but I think it may amuse the reader (and who knows, Sebastian's ghost too) if I say that for a moment I thought of making love to that woman. It was really very odd — at the same time she got rather on my nerves — I mean the things she said. I was losing my grip somehow. I shook myself mentally as she returned.

'Now you've done it,' she said. 'Helene is not at home.'

'Tant mieux,'
I replied, 'she's probably on her way here, and really you ought to understand how terribly impatient I am to see her.'

'But why on earth did you have to write to her I' Madame Lecerf cried. 'You don't even know her. And I had promised you she would be here today. What more could you wish? And if you didn't believe me, if you wanted to control me —
alors vous êtes ridicule, cher Monsieur.'

'Oh, look here,' I said quite sincerely, 'that never entered my head. I only thought, well... butter can't spoil the porridge, as we Russians say.'

'I think I don't much care for butter... or Russians,' she said. What could I do? I glanced at her hand lying near mine. It was trembling slightly, her frock was flimsy — and a queer little shiver not exactly of cold passed down my spine. Ought I to kiss that hand? Could I manage to achieve courteousness without feeling rather a fool?

She sighed and stood up.

'Well, there's nothing to be done about it. I'm afraid you, have put her off and if she does come — well, no matter. We shall see. Would you like to go over our domain? I think it is warmer outside than in this miserable house —
que dans cette triste demeure.'

The 'domain' consisted of the garden and grove I had already noticed. It was all very still. The black branches, here and there studded with green, seemed to be listening to their own inner life. Something dreary and dull hung over the place. Earth had been dug out and heaped against a brick wall by a mysterious gardener who had gone and forgotten his rusty spade. For some odd reason I recalled a murder that had happened lately, a murderer who had, buried his victim in just such a garden as this.

Madame Lecerf was silent; then she said: 'You must have been very fond of your half-brother, if you make such a fuss about his past. How did he die? Suicide?'

'Oh, no,' I said, 'he suffered from heart-disease.'

'I thought you said he had shot himself. That would have been so much more romantic. I'll be disappointed in your book if it all ends in bed. There are roses here in summer — here, on that mud — but catch me spending the summer here ever again.'

'I shall certainly never think of falsifying his life in any way,' I said.

'Oh, all right. I knew a man who published the letters of his dead wife and distributed them among his friends. Why do you suppose the biography of your brother will interest people?'

'Haven't you ever read' — I began, when suddenly a smart-looking though rather mud-bespattered car stopped at the gate.

'Oh, bother,' said Madame Lecerf.

'Perhaps it's she,' I exclaimed.

A woman had scrambled out of the car right into a puddle.

'Yes, it's she all right,' said Madame Lecerf. 'Now you stay where you are, please.'

She ran down the path, waving her hand, and upon reaching the newcomer, kissed her and led her to the left where they both disappeared behind a clump of bushes. I espied them again a moment later when they had skirted the garden and were going up the steps. They vanished into the house. I had really seen nothing of Helene von Graun except her unfastened fur coat and bright-coloured scarf.

I found a stone bench and sat down. I was excited and rather pleased with myself for having captured my prey at last. Somebody's cane was lying on the bench and I poked the rich brown earth. I had succeeded! This very night after talking to her I would return to Paris, and.... A thought strange to the rest, a changeling, a trembling oaf, slipped in, mingling with the crowd.... Would I return tonight? How was it, that breathless phrase in that second-rate Maupassant story: 'I have forgotten a book.' But I was forgetting mine too.