The Devil in the Flesh (12 page)

Since they lived in Paris, the Lacombes, who Marthe went to see more and more rarely, didn’t suspect a thing. They simply thought she was becoming increasingly odd, and found her less and less to their liking. They were worried about what the future might hold. They wondered where this marriage would be in a few years’ time. All mothers want nothing so much for their sons than for them to get married, but make it a matter of principle to disapprove of the wife they choose. So Jacques’s mother felt sorry for him for having such a wife. As for Mademoiselle Lacombe, the main reason for her spiteful tongue was the fact that Marthe was the sole possessor of the secret of the perfect romantic idyll, having spent a summer by the sea with Jacques. His sister predicted the most dismal future
for their marriage, and said that Marthe would cheat on Jacques, if indeed she hadn’t already done so.

The relentless fury displayed by his wife and daughter sometimes forced Monsieur Lacombe, a decent man who loved Marthe, to leave the dinner table. At which point mother and daughter would give each other meaningful glances. Madame Lacombe’s was saying: “There, my girl, see how a woman like that knows how to cast a spell over our menfolk.” While Mademoiselle Lacombe’s meant: “It’s because I’m not like Marthe that I can’t find a husband.” The truth was, by assuming that manners changed with the times and using the fact that marriage wasn’t what it was as an excuse, the hapless young woman scared off any likely husbands by giving the impression of not being feisty enough. Her matrimonial aspirations lasted as long as a summer holiday by the sea. Young men would promise to come and ask for her hand the moment they were back in Paris. They were never seen again. Perhaps the main injustice that piqued Mademoiselle Lacombe, who would be going to that year’s St Catherine’s Day ball, was that Marthe had found a husband so easily. She consoled herself with the thought that only a fool like her brother could have been caught with so little effort.

YET WHATEVER SUSPICIONS THE TWO FAMILIES might have had, no one imagined that the child’s father could be anyone but Jacques. This rather offended me. There were even times when I accused Marthe of cowardice for not telling them the truth. Being prone to see weakness in everyone except myself, I thought that since Madame Grangier had made light of the beginnings of this crisis, she would turn a blind eye right to the end.

The storm drew nearer. My father threatened to send certain letters to Madame Grangier. I wished he would carry out his threats. But then I stopped to think. Madame Grangier would conceal them from her husband. Neither of them would want there to be a storm. I felt oppressed. So I brought the storm to me. My father had to send the letters to Jacques personally.

On the day of wrath, when he told me he had done it, I wanted to throw my arms round him and kiss him. At last! At last! He had done me the kindness of telling Jacques what he had to know. I felt sorry for my father for thinking that my love was so weak. Besides, these letters would put a stop to any others in which Jacques might express affection for what was our child. In the heat of
the moment I failed to see just how crazy, ridiculous, this course of action was. I only began to understand the next day, when my father, now in calmer mood, reassured me—or so he thought—by admitting that he had been lying. He regarded it as inhuman. Undoubtedly so. But what is human, and what is inhuman?

I was using up all my nervous energy on cowardice and effrontery, exhausted by the thousand and one paradoxes faced by a person of my age wrestling with an experience that belonged to the world of men.

LOVE NUMBED ME TO ANYTHING THAT WASN’T Marthe. I didn’t believe that my father might be suffering. I viewed everything in such a narrow, mistaken way that in the end I thought the two of us were at war. And, dare I admit it, it wasn’t just out of love for Marthe that I was trampling on my filial obligations, it was sometimes a way of retaliating!

I didn’t take much notice of the letters that my father sent to Marthe’s house now. It was her who begged me to spend more time at home, to behave sensibly. At which point I would burst out: “Go on then, why don’t you gang up on me as well?” I would clench my teeth, stamp my foot. The fact that I could work myself into such a state at the thought of being away from her for a few hours, Marthe interpreted as a sign of passion. The certainty that she was loved gave her a determination I’d never noticed before. Confident I would be thinking of her, she would insist that I go home.

I soon realised what it was that made her so brave. So I changed tactics. I pretended to see reason. Suddenly her attitude changed. Seeing me so sensible (or so fickle), she was frightened I might not love her so much. It was her turn to beg me to stay, because she so needed reassurance.

There was one time, however, when nothing worked.
I hadn’t shown my face at home for three days, and I announced to Marthe that I was going to spend another night with her. She tried everything to get me to change my mind: cajolery, threats. She was capable of putting on an act as well. In the end she said that if I didn’t go back to my parents’ house then she would sleep at hers.

I told her that my father would completely disregard this noble gesture. Fine—she wouldn’t go to her mother’s then! She would go down by the Marne. She would catch cold and die; she would be free of me at last: “Show some pity for our child at least,” she said. “Don’t put its life at risk for the sake of pleasure.” She accused me of playing games with her love, of trying to find out how far I could push it. Faced with such an assertion, I told her what my father had said—that she was cheating on me with all and sundry; I wasn’t going to be made a fool of. “There’s only one thing stopping you from giving in to me,” I said. “You’re seeing one of your lovers here tonight.” What response is there to such wild accusations? She turned away. I berated her for not springing to her own defence. My words eventually had their effect, because she agreed to spend the night with me. On condition that it wasn’t in her apartment. When the messenger came from my parents the next day, the last thing she wanted was for her landlord to be able to tell him that she was here.

So where were we going to sleep?

We were like children standing on a chair, proud of being taller than the grown-ups. Circumstances had put us in
this lofty position, but we were unable to live up to it. Yet if lack of experience made us see certain complexities as simple, then very simple things, in contrast, turned into obstacles. We’d never dared make use of Paul’s bachelor apartment. I didn’t believe it possible that we could just slip the concierge something and tell her that we would occasionally be there.

So we would have to go to a hotel. I’d never been to one. I was terrified at the prospect of even walking in the door.

A child always tries to find excuses. Constantly required to explain himself to his parents, it is inevitable that he will lie.

I even imagined that I would have to explain myself to a shady hotel desk clerk. Which was why, claiming we would need a change of clothes and a few toiletries, I made Marthe pack a case. We would ask for two rooms. People would think we were brother and sister. I would never have dared ask for a double room, because at my age (the age when you get thrown out of nightclubs) I risked humiliation.

The journey, at eleven at night, seemed endless. There were two other people in our carriage—a woman taking her captain husband to the Gare de l’Est. There was no heating or light. Marthe rested her head against the damp window. She was being subjected to the whims of a callous boy. I felt rather ashamed of myself, and it grieved me to think that Jacques, who was always so affectionate with her, was more deserving of her love than I was.

I couldn’t help mumbling excuses. She shook her head: “I prefer being unhappy with you than being happy with him,” she whispered. There they were, those meaningless
words of love which we are ashamed to admit having used, but which, coming from the mouth of the loved one, make you feel exhilarated. I even thought I understood what she was saying. And yet what exactly did Marthe mean? Can you be happy with someone you don’t love?

And I wondered, I wonder still, if love gives you the right to drag a woman away from a fate that might be prosaic, but which gives her peace of mind. “I prefer being unhappy with you …” Did these words contain a subconscious rebuke? Because she loved me, Marthe had undoubtedly enjoyed moments with me that she had never imagined having with Jacques, but did these happy times give me the right to be cruel?

We got off at the Bastille. Inside the station building, the cold, which doesn’t bother me because I think of it as the cleanest thing in the world, was worse than the vile heat at a seaside harbour, only without the cheerful atmosphere that makes up for it. Marthe complained of the cramps. She clung to my arm. What a pathetic couple, their youth and beauty forgotten, as ashamed of themselves as a pair of beggars!

I found the fact of Marthe being pregnant grotesque, and walked with my eyes downcast. I was far from being filled with paternal pride.

We roamed around between the Bastille and the Gare de Lyons in the freezing rain. Every time we saw a hotel, I made up some feeble excuse for not going in. I told Marthe I was looking for a respectable hotel, a hotel for travellers, nothing but travellers.

By the time we got to the Place de la Gare de Lyon it was difficult for me to shy away from the issue any longer. Marthe ordered me to put an end to this agony.

While she waited outside, I went into a hotel lobby, with no real idea of what I was expecting. The man at the desk asked if I wanted a room. The easiest thing would have been to say yes. But that was too easy, and, looking for an excuse like a hotel thief caught in the act, I asked for Madame Lacombe. I blushed as I did so, afraid that he would reply: “Are you playing the fool, young man? She’s out there in the street.” He looked through the register. I must have got the wrong address. I went back outside and told Marthe that they hadn’t got any rooms and that we wouldn’t find one anywhere in the neighbourhood. I could breathe again. I was in a hurry, like a thief in the night.

Until that moment, my fixation with avoiding the very hotels where I was forcing Marthe to go had prevented me from thinking of her. But now I looked at the poor girl. I fought back my tears, and when she asked where we were going to sleep, I begged her not to hold it against me for being a madman, and to be sensible and go home, her to J …, and me to my parents. Madman! Sensible! She just smiled mechanically to hear these words, so out of place.

My feelings of shame turned the return journey into a tragic scene. When after all this brutal behaviour, Marthe made the mistake of saying: “Honestly, it was very unkind of you,” I lost my temper, told her she was uncharitable. Yet if she kept quiet, seemed to have forgotten about it, I was frightened that she was behaving like that because she thought I was a madman, insane. So I wouldn’t give her any peace until I’d made her say that she wouldn’t forget, and that even if she did forgive me I mustn’t take advantage of her generosity, and that eventually, weary of my
ill-treatment, the strain would get the better of our love and she would leave me. While I was making her speak to me so forcefully, and despite not believing her threats, I had a wonderful sensation of distress, not unlike the excitement I feel on the roller coaster, only more intense. So I threw myself into her arms and kissed her more passionately than ever.

“Tell me again that you’ll leave me,” I said breathlessly, holding her so tight that she almost broke. Submissive, not like a slave, but as only a clairvoyant is capable of being, just to make me happy she repeated these words that she didn’t understand.

AFTER SO MUCH OUTRAGEOUS BEHAVIOUR, I didn’t realize that this night of the hotels was a turning point. But if I imagined that it was possible to stumble through life in this way, then Marthe, sitting in the corner of the carriage on our return journey, exhausted, devastated, teeth chattering,
understood everything
. Perhaps, in a speeding railway carriage, she even saw that at the end of this mad year of ours, it could only end in death.

THE NEXT DAY I ARRIVED TO FIND MARTHE IN bed as usual. I wanted to join her, but she pushed me away affectionately. “I’m not feeling very well,” she said, “so be off with you, don’t come near me or you’ll catch my cold.” She gave a feverish cough. Smiling so that it wouldn’t seem like a rebuke, she said she must have caught it the night before. Yet despite her distressed state she told me not to fetch the doctor. “It’s nothing,” she said. “I just need to stay warm.” The truth was she didn’t want to send me to the doctor’s because it would compromise her in front of an old family friend. I was in such need of reassurance that her decision put my mind at rest. But my fears were re-awoken, and even more so than before, when, as I set off for dinner at home, she asked me to make a detour and drop off a letter at the doctor’s.

When I got to her house the next day, I bumped into him on the stairs. I didn’t dare ask any questions, and just looked at him apprehensively. His calm appearance made me feel better, but it was just a professional manner.

I went into Marthe’s apartment. Where was she? There was no one in her room. Marthe was under the bedclothes, in tears. The doctor had told her that she had to stay in bed until after the birth. Not only that, in her condition she
needed looking after; she would have to go and stay with her parents. We were being separated.

We refuse to recognise our misfortunes. We believe that our one inalienable right is to be happy. By not rebelling against our separation, I wasn’t being brave. It was simply that I didn’t understand. I listened to the doctor’s decision in a daze, like a condemned man does his sentence. If he doesn’t turn pale, people say: “Isn’t he brave!” Not in the least—it’s just lack of imagination. When they wake him up on the morning of his execution, it’s then that he
hears
his sentence. In the same way, I didn’t realize that we weren’t going to see each other again until they came and told Marthe that the cab sent by the doctor had arrived. He had promised not to tell anyone, because Marthe insisted on arriving at her mother’s without warning.