The Mandarins

‘Indifference is also a stand,’ he said sharply. ‘You see, in politics if you’re not completely with me you’re very far from me.’

‘Then you shouldn’t have asked me to go up to your room,’ I said reproachfully.

A sly smile wrinkled his eyes. ‘If I really want a woman, it’s all the same to me whether she agrees with my politics or not. I wouldn’t even have any qualms about sleeping with a fascist.’

‘But apparently it isn’t all the same to you, since you were hostile.’

He smiled again. ‘In bed, it’s not bad to hate each other a little.’

‘That’s horrible,’ I said, staring at him. ‘You’re quite an introvert, aren’t you? You can pity people and feel remorse for them, but I doubt if you could ever really like anyone.’

‘Ah! so you’re the one who’s doing the analysing today,’ he said. ‘Go on; I love being analysed.’

In his eyes I saw the same look of maniacal greed I had noticed the night before when he looked down at my naked body. I could not have tolerated it except in a child or a sick person.

‘You believe loneliness can be cured by force; but in making love, there’s no greater blunder.’

He got the point. ‘What you’re saying is that last night was a failure. Is that right?’

‘More or less.’

‘Would you be willing to begin all over again?’

I hesitated. ‘Yes. I don’t like to stop at a failure.’

His face hardened. ‘That’s a pretty poor reason,’ he said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘You don’t make love with your head.’

That was precisely my opinion. If his words and desires had wounded me, it was because they came from his head. ‘I think both of us do things too much with our heads,’ I said.

‘In that case, I suppose it’d be better if we didn’t try again,’ he said.

‘Yes, I suppose so.’

Yes, a second failure would have been even more disastrous than the first, and a happy outcome was inconceivable. We had absolutely no love at all for each other. Even talk was useless; there had been nothing worth saving and the whole affair, in any case, didn’t lend itself to a conclusion. We politely exchanged a few idle words and then I went home.

I hold nothing against him, and I hold hardly anything against myself. Besides, as Robert told me immediately, the whole thing was quite unimportant – nothing but a distasteful remembrance lingering in our minds and concerning no one but ourselves. But when I went up to my room, I promised myself I would never again attempt to remove my kid gloves. ‘It’s too late,’ I murmured, looking into the mirror. ‘My gloves are grafted to my flesh now; they’d have to skin me alive to get them off.’ No, it wasn’t only Scriassine’s fault that things turned out the way they did; it was my fault too. I had slept with him out of curiosity, out of defiance, out of weariness, to prove to myself God only knows what. Well, whatever it was, I certainly proved the contrary. I thought casually that my life might have been different. I might have dressed more elegantly, gone out more often, known the little pleasures of vanity or the burning fevers of the senses. But it was too late. And then all at once I understood why my past sometimes seemed to me to be someone else’s. Because now I am someone else, a woman of thirty-nine, a woman who’s aware of her age!

‘Thirty-nine years!’ I said aloud. Before the war I was too young for the years to have weighed upon me. And then for five years, I forgot myself completely. And now I’ve found myself again, only to learn that I’m condemned. Old age is awaiting me; there’s no escaping it. Even now I can see its beginnings in the depths of the mirror. Oh, I’m still a woman, I still bleed every month. Nothing’s really changed, except that now I know. I ran my fingers through my hair. Those white streaks are no longer a curiosity, a sign; they’re the beginning. In a few years, my head will be the colour of my bones. My face still seems smooth and firm, but overnight the mask will melt, laying bare the rheumy eyes of an old woman. Each year the seasons repeat themselves; wounds are healed. But there’s no way in the world to halt the infirmities of age. ‘There isn’t even any time left to worry about it,’ I thought, turning away from my reflection. ‘It’s even too late for regrets. There’s nothing left to do but to keep going.’

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_b28bac70-03b8-5e3d-8b15-d74802ee27e8)

Nadine went to meet Henri several evenings in a row at the offices of the newspaper. One night, in fact, they even took a room in a hotel again, but it didn’t amount to much. For Nadine, making love was clearly a tedious occupation and Henri, too, tired quickly of it. But he enjoyed going out with her, watching her eat, hearing her laugh, talking to her. She was blind to a great many things, but she reacted strongly to those she did see – and without ever cheating. He was convinced she would make a pleasant travelling companion, was touched by her eagerness. Each time she saw him she would ask, ‘Did you talk to her about it yet?’ And he would answer, ‘No, not yet.’ She would lower her head in such utter desolation that it made him feel guilty, made him feel as if he were depriving her of all those things she had for so long gone without: sun, plenty of food, a real trip. Since he had decided in any case to break off with Paula, why not let Nadine profit from it? Besides, it would be a lot better for Paula’s sake if he explained things to her before leaving, rather than let her ruin herself with hope while he was gone. When he was away from her, he felt he was in the right; he had rarely acted falsely towards her and she was only lying to herself when she pretended to believe in the resurrection of a dead and buried past. But when he was with her, it often occurred to him that he, too, might be at fault. ‘Am I a bastard for not loving her any more?’ he would ask himself, watching her come and go in the apartment. ‘Or was I wrong ever to love her in the first place?’

He had been at the Dôme with Julien and Louis and seated at the next table, making a great show of reading The Accident, was a woman of extraordinary beauty, dressed from head to foot in mauve. She had placed her long violet gloves on the table and, as Henri arose to leave, he remarked, ‘What beautiful gloves!’

‘Do you like them? Take them, they’re yours.’

‘And just what, may I ask, would I do with them?’

‘You can keep them as a souvenir of our first meeting.’

They exchanged a soft, lingering look. A few hours later he was holding her naked body in his arms and saying, ‘You’re too beautiful, much too beautiful.’ No, he really couldn’t blame himself. How could he have helped but be captivated by Paula’s beauty, by her voice, by the mystery of her words, by the distant wisdom in her smile? She was slightly older than he, knew many things of which he was ignorant and which seemed at that time much more important to him than the bigger things. What he admired in her above all was her complete disdain for worldly goods; she soared in some supernatural region, and he despaired of ever joining her there. He was amazed that she permitted herself to become flesh in his arms. ‘Naturally, it went to my head a little,’ he admitted to himself. And she, for her part, had believed in his declarations of eternal love and in the miracle of being herself. Therein no doubt was where he had been guilty – by first exalting Paula immoderately and then too lucidly taking her true measure. Yes, they had both made mistakes. But that wasn’t the question; the question now was to break it off. He turned over words in his mind. Did she have any suspicion of what was about to come? Generally, when he remained silent for any length of time, she was quick to question him.

‘Why are you moving things around?’ he asked.

‘Don’t you think the room looks nicer this way?’

‘Would you mind sitting down for just a minute?’

‘Why? Am I annoying you?’

‘No, not at all. But I’d like to have a talk with you.’

She let out a choked little laugh. ‘How solemn you look! You aren’t going to tell me you don’t love me any more, are you?’

‘No.’

‘Then anything else does not matter.’ She sat down, leaning towards him with a patient, slightly mocking expression. ‘Go ahead, darling, I’m listening.’

‘Loving or not loving each other isn’t the only thing in the world,’ he said.

‘To me, it’s all that matters.’

‘But not to me; I’m sure you know that. There are other things that count, too.’

‘Yes, I know – your work, travelling. I’ve never tried to dissuade you from them.’

‘There’s another thing that’s important to me, and I’ve told you this often – my freedom.’

She smiled again. ‘Now don’t tell me I haven’t given you enough freedom!’

‘As much as living together permits, I suppose. But for me, freedom means first of all solitude. Do you remember when I first came here to stay? We agreed then that it would only be till the end of the war.’

‘I didn’t think I was a burden on you,’ she said, no longer smiling.

‘No one could be less of a burden than you. But I do think it was better when we lived apart.’

Paula smiled. ‘You used to come here every night. You used to say you couldn’t sleep without me.’

True, he had told her that, but only during the first year, not after. He didn’t, however, contest the point. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘but at least I used to work in my room at the hotel …’

‘That room was just one of your youthful whims,’ she replied in an indulgent voice. ‘No promiscuity, no living together – you must admit your code was rather abstract. I really can’t believe you still take it seriously.’

‘But it’s not at all abstract. When two people live together, you can’t avoid building up tensions on the one hand and becoming negligent on the other. I realize I’m often disagreeable and negligent, and I know it hurts you. It would be much better for us not to see each other except when we really felt like it.’

‘But I always feel like seeing you,’ she said reprovingly.

‘When I’m tired, or out of sorts, or when I’m working, I prefer being alone,’ Henri said coldly.