Four Novels (10 page)

“I don’t think it matters. If it suits us so well we should go on not knowing.”

“But the dreadful part is that when the Dance is over I start remembering. Suddenly it’s Sunday and I mutter ‘Old Bitch’ as I wash her. I don’t think I’m a nasty person, but of course I have no one to reassure me on this point and so I can only believe myself. When I say ‘Bitch’ she smiles.”

“I can tell you that you are not a nasty person.”

“But when I think about the people I work for my thoughts are so evil, if you only knew, just as if my wretchedness was their fault. I try to reason with myself but I can never manage to think in any other way.”

“Don’t worry about those thoughts. You are not a nasty person.”

“Do you really think so?”

“I do. One day you will be very giving, with yourself and with your time.”

“You really are nice.”

“But I didn’t say that out of niceness.”

“But you, what will happen to you?”

“Nothing. As you can see I am no longer very young.”

“But you. . . . You who once thought of killing yourself—because you did say that.”

“Oh, that was only laziness at the thought of having to go on feeding myself: nothing serious really.”

“But that’s impossible. Something will happen to you or else it will only be because you don’t want anything to happen.”

“Nothing happens to me except the things that happen to everyone, every day.”

“You say that, but in that town?”

“There I was not alone. And then, afterwards, I was alone again. I think it was just luck.”

“No. When someone is without any hope at all, as you are, it is because something happened to him: it’s the only explanation.”

“One day you will understand. There are people like me, people who get so much pleasure from just being alive that they can get by without hope. I sing while I shave—what more do you want?”

“But were you unhappy after you left that town?”

“Yes.”

“And did you think of staying in your room and never leaving it again?”

“No, not then. Because then I knew that it is possible not to be alone, even if only by accident.”

“Tell me what else you do, apart from singing while you shave?”

“I sell my goods, then I eat, then I travel, then I read the newspapers. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy the newspapers. I read them from cover to cover including the advertisements. I get so absorbed in a newspaper that when I put it down I have to think for a minute who I am.”

“But I meant other things: what do you do apart from all the obvious things, apart from shaving and selling your goods and taking trains and eating and reading the newspapers? I mean those things which no one appears to be doing, but which everyone is doing all the same.”

“I see what you mean. . . . But I really don’t know what I do apart from the things I mentioned. I don’t deny that sometimes I do wonder what I am doing, but just wondering doesn’t seem to be enough. I probably don’t wonder hard enough and I think it’s perfectly possible that I shall never know. You see I believe that it is quite usual to be like me and that a great many people go through life without ever exactly knowing why.”

“But it seems to me that one could try to know a little harder than you do.”

“But I hang by a thread. I even hold on to myself by the merest thread. So you see life is easier for me than it is for you, which explains everything. And then too I can manage to live without having to know certain things.”

Once more they were silent. Then the girl went on:

“I still can’t understand. Forgive me for going back to the subject, but I still can’t understand how you came to be as you are, nor even how you came to do the work you do.”

“But as I told you, little by little. My brothers and sisters are all successful people who knew what they wanted. And I can only say once again that I didn’t know. They can’t understand either how I managed to come down so much in the world.”

“That seems an odd way of putting it: I would rather say, how did you come to be so discouraged? And it’s still beyond me to understand how you came to do such wretched work.”

“Perhaps it comes from the fact that the idea of success was always a little vague in my mind. I never quite understood what it had to do with me. And after all I don’t find my work quite so wretched.”

“I am sorry to have used that expression, although I thought it would have been all right from me since my own work can hardly even be described as work. I only said that to try and make you tell me more. I wanted you to see that I found you mysterious, not that I was blaming you.”

“I understand that and I’m sorry I took you up. I know there are people in the world who can judge what I do on its own merits and not necessarily despise it. I didn’t mind anything you said. To tell you the truth I was only half aware of what I was saying myself. I am afraid it always bores me to talk of myself in the past.”

Again they were silent. This time the memory of winter became insistent. The sun would no longer reappear: it had reached the stage where it was hidden by the mass of the city’s buildings. The girl remained silent. The man started to talk to her again:

“I wanted to say,” he went on, “that I would be very unhappy if you thought, even for an instant, that I was trying to influence you in any way. Even when we talked about that old woman we were, after all, only talking. . . .”

“Please let’s not talk about that any more.”

“All right, let’s not talk about it any more. All I meant was that by understanding people, by trying at least to put yourself in their place, by trying to determine what might make their waiting easier you make certain suppositions and hypotheses. But from there to giving advice is quite a step to take, and I regret having taken it unconsciously. . . .”

“Please let’s not talk about me any more.”

“All right.”

“But I wanted to ask you something. What happened after you left that town?”

The man was silent and the girl did not try to break his silence. Then, when she no longer seemed to expect a reply, he said:

“I told you. I was unhappy.”

“But how unhappy?”

“I believe as unhappy as it is possible to be. I thought I had never been unhappy before.”

“Did that feeling go eventually?”

“Yes, in the end.”

“You were never alone in that town?”

“Never.”

“Neither during the day nor the night?”

“Never, not by day nor by night. It lasted eight days.”

“And then you were alone again? Completely alone?”

“Yes. And I have been alone ever since.”

“I suppose it was tiredness that made you sleep all day in the wood with your suitcase beside you?”

“No, it was unhappiness.”

“Yes, you did say you were as unhappy as it was possible to be. Do you still believe that?”

“Yes.”

It was the girl’s turn to be silent.

“Please don’t cry, I beg you,” the man said, smiling.

“I can’t help myself.”

“Things happen like that. Things that cannot be avoided, that no one can avoid.”

“Oh, it is not that. Those things hold no terrors for me.”

“You want them to?”

“Yes, I want them.”

“You are right, because nothing is so worth living as the things which make one so unhappy. Don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying any more.”

“You will see. Before the summer is out you will open that door and it will be forever.”

“Sometimes it almost doesn’t seem to matter any more.”

“But you will see. You will see. It will happen quite quickly.”

“It seems to me you should have stayed in that town. You should have tried to stay by all possible means.”

“I stayed as long as I could.”

“No, I don’t believe you did everything. I cannot believe it.”

“I did everything I thought could be done. Perhaps I didn’t go about it in the right way. Don’t think about it any more. You will see, before the summer is out things will have turned out all right for you.”

“Perhaps. Who knows? Sometimes I wonder if it is all worth so much trouble?”

“Of course it is. And after all, as you said yourself, since we are here—we didn’t ask to be but here we are—we must take the trouble. There is nothing else we can do, and you will do it. Before the summer is out you will have opened the door.”

“Sometimes I think I will never do it. That when I am ready to open it I will draw back.”

“No. You will open it.”

“If you say that it must be because you think I have chosen the best way of getting what I want, of ending my present life and finally becoming something?”

“Yes, I do think so. I think the way you have chosen is the best for you.”

“If you say that it must be because you think there are other ways which other people would have taken?”

“I expect there are other ways but I also believe they would suit you less well.”

“Are you sure of what you are saying?”

“I believe what I am saying, but neither I nor anyone else could tell you with complete certainty.”

“I ask because you said you understood things through traveling and seeing so many different places and people.”

“Perhaps I understand less well where hope is concerned. I think that if I understand anything it’s probably more than the small, ordinary things of everyday life: little problems rather than big ones. And yet I can say this: even if I am not absolutely and entirely sure of the means you have chosen, that before this summer is out you will have opened that door.”

“Thank you ail the same, very much. But tell me once again, what about you?”

“Spring is on its way and the fine weather. I will be off again.”

They were silent one last time. And one last time it was the girl who took up the conversation:

“What was it that made you get up and start off again after sleeping in the wood?”

“I don’t really know. Probably simply that one just had to get up and go on.”

“A short while ago you said it was because from then on you knew it was possible not to be alone, even if only by accident?”

“It was later that I knew that. Some days later. At the time it was different. I knew nothing at all.”

“You see how different we really are. I think I should have refused to get up.”

“But of course you would not. What or who would you have refused?”

“Nothing or no one. I would have simply refused.”

“You’re wrong. You would have done as I did. It was cold, I was cold, and I got up.”

“But we are different all the same.”

“Oh, doubtless we are different in the way we take our troubles.”

“No, I think we are even more different than that.”

“I don’t think so. I don’t think we are more different than anyone is different from anyone else.”

“Perhaps I am mistaken.”

“Since we understand each other. Or at least we try to. And we both like dancing. You said you went to the Mecca?”

“Yes. It is a well-known place. A lot of people like us go there.”

Three

T
HE CHILD CAME OVER
quietly from the far side of the Square and stood beside the girl.

“I’m tired,” he announced.

The man and the girl looked around them. It was darker than it had been. It was evening.

“It is true, it is late,” said the girl.

This time the man made no comment. The girl wiped the child’s hands, picked up his toys and put them into her bag, all without rising from the bench. Tired of playing, the child sat down at her feet to wait.

“Time seems shorter when one is talking,” said the girl.

“And then afterwards, suddenly, much longer.”

“Yes, like another kind of time. But it does one good to talk.”

“Yes, it does one good. It is only afterwards that it is rather sad: after one has stopped talking. Then time becomes too slow. Perhaps one should never talk.”

“Perhaps,” said the girl after a pause.

“Only because of the slowness afterwards: that was all I meant.”

“And perhaps because of the silence to which we are both returning.”

“Yes, it is true that we are both returning to silence. It seems as though we are already there.”

“No one wilt talk to me again this evening: I will go to bed in silence. And I am only twenty. What have I done to the world that my life should be like this?”

“Nothing. There are no answers to be found in thinking in that direction. You should be thinking rather of what you will do to the world. Yes, perhaps one should never talk. When one starts it is like picking up a delightful habit one had abandoned: even if it is a habit one had never quite acquired.”

“Yes, that is right. As if we knew how wonderful it was to talk. It must be very deep instinct to be so strong.”

“And to be talked to is as deep and as natural an instinct.”

“I expect so, yes.”

“Later you will understand how much. At least for your sake I hope that you will.”

“I have talked so much that I feel ashamed,”

“Oh, that is the very last thing you should worry about, if indeed there is any need for you to worry at all.”

“Thank you.”

The girl rose. The child got up and took her hand. The man remained seated.

“It is getting quite cold,” the girl said.

“Yes, it is not yet summer although sometimes, during the day, one has the illusion that it is already here.”

“Yes, one forgets that it is still too soon. It is rather like going back into silence after talking.”

“Yes, it is the same thing.”

The child tugged at the girl’s hand.

“I’m tired,” he repeated.

The girl did not seem to have heard the child.

“I really must go back,” she said at last.

The man made no move. His eyes rested vaguely on the child.

“And you, are you not leaving?” asked the girl.

“No. I will stay here until the Square closes and go then.”

“Have you nothing to do this evening?”

“No. Nothing in particular.”

“I must go back,” said the girl after a moment’s hesitation.

The man rose slightly from the bench, and very lightly blushed.

“Could you not, just for once I mean, go back a little later?”