Good Morning, Midnight (8 page)

Couldn't we go somewhere like that?'

'No, we can't,' I say. 'Impossible.'

'Well,' he says, accepting this calmly, 'if you won't do that, I thought perhaps you could help me about my papers. You see, I have no papers, no passport. That's just why I'm in trouble. The slightest accident and I'm finished. I have no papers. But if I could get a passport, I would go to London. I'd be safe there. I could get in touch with fiends.'

I say: 'And you think I can help you to get a passport? I ? Me ? But who do you think I am ? This must be one of my good nights.'

At this moment I find everything so funny that I start laughing loudly. He laughs too.

'I can't stay on this damned terrace any longer. It's too cold.'

He raps on the window and, when the waiter comes, pays for the drinks. 'Now, where shall we go?' He puts his arm through mine and says, in French: 'Now, where?'

Well, what harm can he do to me? He is out for money and I haven't got any, I am invulnerable.

There we are, arm in arm, outside the Closerie des Lilas and when I think of my life it seems to me so comical that I have to laugh. It has taken me a long time to see how comical it has been, but I see it now, I do.

'You must tell me where to go,' he says, 'because I don't know Paris.'

I take him to the cafe where I go most nights - the place that is always empty. This is the first time that I have seen him in a bright light, close by. It is also the first time that, on these occasions, I haven't cared in the least what the man thinks of me, and am only curious to see what he looks like.

He doesn't look like a gigolo - not my idea of a gigolo at all. For instance, his hair is rather untidy. But, nice hair.

Another brandy and soda. I suppose all this money that he is spending on me is the sprat to catch a whale.

The waiter, giving him change, brings out of his pocket the most extraordinary collection of small money. Pieces of twenty five centimes, of ten, of five - the table is covered with them. When he has slowly collected it all once more, he goes into the corner of the room, takes of his shoes and starts cleaning them.

I say: 'This is my sort of place - this chic, gay place. Do you like it?'

'No, I don't like it, but I understand why you come here. I'm not always so fond of human beings, either.'

Well, here's another who isn't as stupid as all that.

He says: 'You know, that waiter - he was quite sure we loved each other and were going to be very happy tonight. He was envying us.'

'Yes, I expect he'll stay awake all night thinking of it. Like hell he will.'

He looks disconsolate, tired; as if he were thinking: 'No good. Everything's got to be started all over again.' Poor gigolo!

I say: 'About your papers - there are people here who sell false passports. It can be done.'

'I know. I'm in touch with somebody already.'

'What, and you only got here last night! You haven't wasted much time.'

'No, and I'd better not, either.'

He is in some sort of trouble. I know that look. I want very much to comfort him - to say something to cheer him up.

'I like les mauvais garcons,' I say. He smiles. 'I know exactly what you want,' I say. 'You want somebody very rich and very chic.'

'Yes,' he says, 'yes, that's what would just suit me. And beautiful.'

'But, my dear, you're not going to find that at the Dome.'

'Where shall I go, then? Where shall I find all that?'

'Ritz Bar,' I say vaguely.

After this I start my piece. I tell him my name, my address, everything. He says his name is Rene, and leaves it at that. I say I am sick of my hotel and want to leave it and find a lat or a studio.

He is on the alert at once. 'A studio? I think I could get you exactly the place you want.'

I am not so drunk as all that.

'I thought you said you'd just escaped from the Foreign Legion and only got to Paris last night and were going away again as soon as you could.'

'Why should that prevent me from trying to get you a studio if you want one?'

(Let it pass, dearie, let it pass. What's it matter?)

'Can I take you back to your hotel?'

'Yes, but it's too far to walk. I want a taxi.'

We sit in the taxi in silence. At the corner of the street we get out. I let him pay. (So much the worse for you. That will teach you to size up your types a bit better.)

'Let's have one more drink,' he says.

We walk up the street, trying to find a place that is open. Everything seems to be shut; it is past twelve. We go along the Rue St Jacques hand in hand. I am no longer self-conscious. Hand in hand we walk along, swinging our arms. Suddenly he stops, pulls me under a lamppost and stares at me. The street is empty, the lights in the bars are out.

'Hey, isn't it a bit late in the day to do this?'

He says: 'Mais c'est completement fou. It's hallucinating. Walking along here with you, I have the feeling that I'm with a - '

'With a beautiful young girl?'

'No,' he says. 'With a child.'

Now I have had enough to dink, now the moment of tears is very near. I say: 'Well, nothing's open. Everything's shut. I'm going home.'

He looks up at the door of my hotel.

'Can I come up to your room?'

'No, you can't.'

'Well, can I come back in a little while and get a room here myself and then come to see you?'

(The patronne saying: 'L'Anglaise has picked up some one. Have you seen?')

'No, don't come here. I shall be awfully vexed if you come here. Please don't.'

'Of course I won't if you ask me not to,' he says. Tactful. 'What about the hotel next door? Perhaps I could get a room there.'

PART TWO

All the same, at three o'clock I am dressing to meet the Russian.

He is waiting. He says his fiend Serge is expecting us. 'Le peintre,' he calls him.

I suggest taking a taxi but he seems horrified at the idea.

'No, no. We'll go by bus. It's quite near. It's only a few minutes away.' 'Couldn't we walk, then?' 'Oh yes, we could walk. It's just of the Avenue d'Orleans, about five minutes' walk.' 'It's more than five minutes,' I argue. 'It's more like half an hour.'

Soon now it will be winter. There are hardly any leaves on the trees and the man outside the Luxembourg Gardens is selling roast chestnuts.

We stand at the end of a long queue. No bus.

'Do let's take a taxi.' 'Very well. If you like,' he says unwillingly. 'But the man will be very vexed at having to go such a short distance. - Place Denfet-Rochereau, the Metro,' he says to the driver. - 'It won't be far to walk from there.' 'But couldn't we go straight to the place where your friend lives?' 'No, I don't know the name of the street.' 'You don't know the name of the street?' 'No, I've never noticed it.'

When I see how anxiously he is watching the meter I am sorry I insisted on taking the taxi. All the same, I should have dropped dead if I had tried to walk this distance.

'Do let me pay, because it was I who insisted.'

But he has got the money in his hand already and is counting it out.

He takes my arm and we walk along. 'It's just a minute, it's just a minute,' he keeps saying.

Walking to the music of L'Arlesienne, remembering the coat I wore then - a black and white check with big pockets. We have just passed the hotel I lived in. That was the high spot - when I had nothing to eat for three weeks, except coffee and a croissant in the morning.

I slept most of the time. Probably that was why it was so easy. If I had had to go about a lot I might have felt worse. I got so that I could sleep fifteen hours out of the twenty four.

Twice I said I was ill, and they sent me up soup with meat in it from downstairs, and I could get an occasional bottle of wine on tick from the shop round the corner. It wasn't starvation at all when you come to think of it. Still, I'm not saying that there weren't some curious moments.

After the first week I made up my mind to kill myself - the usual whiff of chloroform. Next week, or next month, or next year I'll kill myself. But I might as well last out my month's rent, which has been paid up, and my credit for breakfasts in the morning.

'My child, don't hurry. You have eternity in front of you.' She used to say that sarcastically, Sister Marie - Augustine, because I was so slow. But the phrase stayed with me. I have eternity in front of me. Soon I'll be able to do it, but there's no hurry. Eternity is in front of me....

Usually, in the interval between my afternoon sleep and my night sleep I went for a walk, turned up the Boulevard Arago, walked to a certain spot and turned back. And one evening I was walking along with my hands in the pockets of my coat and my head down. This was the time when I got in the habit of walking with my head down....I was walking along in a dream, a haze, when a man came up and spoke to me.

This is unhoped-for. It's also quite unwanted. What I really want to do is to go for my usual walk, get a bottle of wine on tick and go back to the hotel to sleep. However, it has happened, and there you are. Life is curious when it is reduced to its essentials.

Well, we go into the Cafe Buffalo. Will I have a little aperitif? I certainly will. Two Pernods arrive.

I start thinking about food. Choucroute, for instance - you ought to be able to get choucroute garnie here. Lovely sausage, lovely potato, lovely, lovely cabbage....My mouth starts watering violently. I drink half the glass of Pernod in order to swallow convenablement. And then I feel like a goddess. It might have made me sick, but it has done the other thing

The orchestra was playing L'Arlesienne, I remember so well. I've just got to hear that music now, any time, and I'm back in the Cafe Bufalo, sitting by that man. And the music going heavily. And he's talking away about a friend who is so rich that he has his photograph on the bands of his cigars. A mad conversation.

'One day', he says, 'I too will be so rich that I shall have my photo on the bands of the cigars I offer to my friends. That is my ambition.'

Will I have another little Pernod? I certainly will have another little Pernod. (Food? I don't want any food now. I want more of this feeling - fire and wings.)

There we are, jabbering away as if we had known each other for years. He reads me a letter that he has just had from a girl.

What's the matter with it? It seems to me a letter any man ought to be proud to have. All about frissons and spasms and unquestionable reussites. (Cheri, cheri, rappelles-tu que....) A testimonial, that letter is.

But the snag is at the end, as usual. The girl wants a new pair of shoes and she is asking for three hundred francs to buy them. Cheri, you will remember the unforgettable hours we passed together and not refuse me when I tell you that my shoes are quite worn out. I am ashamed to go into the street. The valet de chambre knows that there are large holes in both my shoes. Really, I am ashamed to be so poor. I stay all the time in my room. And so, cheri, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera....

He is chewing and chewing over this letter. 'I don't believe it,' he says. 'It's all a lie, it's a snare, it's a trap. This girl, you understand, is a liar. What she wants is three hundred francs to give to her maquereau. Will I give her three hundred francs for her maquereau? No, I won't. I will not....All the same,' he says, 'I can't bear to think of that poor little one with holes in her shoes. That can't be amusing, walking about with your feet on the ground.

'No, it isn't amusing,' I say. 'Especially on a rainy day.'

'Well, what do you think? Do you think this letter can be genuine? What do you think ?'

Every word has been chewed over by the time we have finished our second drink.

'Besides,' he says, 'even if it is genuine, I mustn't send the money at once. That would never do. If she thought she had only to ask, to have - that would never do. No, no, I must keep her waiting.'

Chew, chew, chew....

'No. I think she's lying.'

All the time he is staring at me, sizing me up. He has his hand on my knee under the table.

He is not a Parisian. He lives in Lille. He is staying at a friend's lat, he says, and it's a very nice lat. Will I come along there and have a little porto?....Well, why not?

What does this man look like? I don't remember. I don't think I ever looked at him. I remember that he had very small hands and that he wore a ring with a blue stone in it.

We get out into the street. And, of course, vlung - first breath of fresh air and I'm so drunk I can't walk.

'He la,' he says. 'What's the matter? Have you been dancing too much?'

'All you young women,' he says, 'dance too much. Mad for pleasure, all the young people....Ah, what will happen to this after-war generation? I ask myself. What will happen? Mad for pleasure....But we'll take a taxi.'

We cross the road unsteadily and stand under a sickly town-tree waiting to signal a taxi. I start to giggle. He runs his hand up and down my arm.

I say: 'Do you know what's really the matter with me? I'm hungry. I've had hardly anything to eat for three weeks.'

'Comment?' he says, snatching his hand away. 'What's this you're relating?'

'C'est vrai,' I say, giggling still more loudly. 'It's quite true. I've had nothing to eat for three weeks.' (Exaggerating, as usual.)

At this moment a taxi draws up. Without a word he gets into it, bangs the door and drives of, leaving me standing there on the pavement.

And did I mind? Not at all, not at all. If you think I minded, then you've never lived like that, plunged in a dream, when all the faces are masks and only the trees are alive and you can almost see the strings that are pulling the puppets. Close-up of human nature - isn't it worth something?

I expect that man thought Fate was conspiring against him - what with his girl's shoes and me wanting food. But there you are, if you're determined to get people on the cheap, you shouldn't be so surprised when they pitch you their own little story of misery sometimes.

In the middle of the night you wake up. You start to cry. What's happening to me? Oh, my life, oh, my youth....

There's some wine left in the bottle. You drink it. The clock ticks. Sleep....