The Mahé Circle (9 page)

‘You don't have a sweetheart?'

He already felt awkward saying that, but he didn't yet know where it would lead him.

His nephew, blushing, proud to be treated as a man, admitted:

‘Yes, there is someone, in Poitiers. But please don't tell my aunt.'

‘Of course not. And?'

He didn't put the question any more clearly, but Alfred understood, blushed even deeper and stammered:

‘Well, yes, of course …'

Next morning, Elisabeth was doing the washing outside the building.

‘Pretty girl, eh?'

No. Alfred didn't think her pretty. To him, she still looked like a little girl, but he dared not contradict his uncle.

‘She's the daughter of Frans, the one who was in the Legion.'

‘Oh.'

‘I wonder …'

‘What?'

‘I wonder if she has any lovers.'

How stupid, how odiously stupid. There he was, an enormous figure with the sun burning his skin, next to
another imbecile painting a watercolour in dull, drab shades, and he was getting aroused all by
himself at the sight of a red dress with a skinny body inside it, or rather he was trying to arouse his companion.

Because that was where all this was leading. In an underhand way. He couldn't remember ever having acted underhandedly in his life, but this time, he certainly was.

‘She keeps looking at you.'

He moved away, that would be better. He wandered off to the harbour, went into Maurice's bar, drank a glass of rosé at the counter. That evening, he asked:

‘Did you speak to her?'

‘Didn't get a chance.'

And the next day, with an innocent air:

‘Going back up there today?'

‘I think so.'

That was the crude truth of it. He was thirty-five, married with a family and he had been amusing himself getting this youngster interested in a girl to whom he had never addressed a single word.

Amusing himself? Not even! Never had he been in such a black mood. Luckily, there was this looming thunderstorm, perpetually threatening, which gave him an excuse. His wife didn't suspect that he was going more and more often to
Maurice's, where there was already a place reserved for his elbow at the counter.

‘Glass of white, please, Jojo.'

The waitress, an eighteen-year-old, was probably just as desirable as Frans's daughter, but he didn't notice that. And anyway, he didn't desire Elisabeth.

So?

‘You know, uncle, I talked to her …'

‘I've already told you not to call me uncle. It's ridiculous. Call me François.'

‘I'd feel uncomfortable …'

‘What did she say?'

‘I asked her to come and have a look at what I'd painted, so she came over …'

‘Did she like it?'

‘She said there were prettier scenes on the island to paint. So I said …'

Idiot. Oh God, what an idiot! Of course, the boy had replied that he hadn't seen anything prettier than her. And the stupid little chicken would have been flattered, puffed up with pride.

‘And what you said to me … You know …'

No, he couldn't remember. What had he said?

‘Whether she had any lovers … Well, I don't think so.'

‘You're just saying that because of her big innocent blue eyes.'

‘No, no, uncle. I tell you, I'm pretty sure.'

What if he were to tell his wife or his sister-in-law, the boy's mother, who had entrusted her son to them precisely because she was afraid of him meeting women! – or indeed tell any reasonable man, his friend Péchade, for instance?

Or his mother, who last year, when they had returned from holiday, had looked at him with an expression he well knew, one that had made him blush when he was a boy. It was as if she had guessed everything, when there was nothing to guess.

Because there really wasn't anything! Nothing but some idle remarks one afternoon when it was too hot, when he was feeling irritated for no reason, addressed to his nephew, who was daubing away on
paper with his brushes.

And now …

The rain was stopping already. Some young people had switched on a gramophone and were dancing in the tiny dining room of the Arche. You could hear the rhythm of their steps, and the dripping of water from the eucalyptus trees. They had lit the
lamps too early. Now that the sky had cleared there was a misty twilight, full of strong fragrances.

Young fool, rushing to wash his hands! That alone would have been enough to reveal the truth to the doctor. Typical!

‘I
was
the first, you know!'

The doctor called back Jojo, who was passing, and ordered another brandy.

‘I don't really know how it happened … She was on her own … I went in to ask for a glass of water. Yesterday I'd tried to kiss her. She almost let me, then she ran away. It's very clean inside the
house. A bit weird. It doesn't look like any other place I've been into. Are you cross?'

‘Why on earth would I be cross?'

‘Don't know … Just now, when I came back, you looked …'

‘Go on, silly.'

‘Well I kissed her again, and I held her so tightly she couldn't get away. I could see she was looking over my shoulder at the door. She didn't shut her eyes. She just stood still, looking blank. I got panicky.'

‘Yes.'

‘She started struggling to pull away from me, and she said:

‘“The doctor!”

‘Because you were outside, looking at my easel and the paint box. I thought you would guess. But she was trembling with fear. She seemed to think you would come in and be angry …

‘“Does he know you're here?” she said.

‘I said no, and she said: “Go away.” And I thought I
would
go away, because she didn't want to. Then I grabbed her again, she fell over, and that's how …'

The doctor's gaze had become as opaque as the sky.

‘And well, that was that,' Alfred concluded.

Mahé made an effort to add in a casual voice:

‘Satisfactory?'

And the other, unconvinced:

‘Yes, uncle.'

‘You did take precautions, didn't you?'

‘Oh, yes, uncle!'

‘Are you planning to go back tomorrow?'

‘I don't know.'

‘What do you mean, you don't know?'

‘I'm a bit scared to. On the way back, I met her father going up. If he'd been a few minutes earlier he'd have caught us.'

There was a silence. The eucalyptus leaves were still dripping, the ice was melting in his glass of brandy and water, couples were dancing, embracing each other tightly, as the cool evening air reached the terrace.

‘And another thing …'

‘Another thing?'

‘I wonder if she really liked it. Afterwards I got the feeling she hated me. She turned away when I tried to kiss her. “Go now, quickly” was all she said. Nothing else. I turned around on the way out, still hoping she'd
make some little sign.'

‘Jojo!'

The teenager looked in astonishment at his uncle, who was ordering his third brandy.

‘I think I'm going to turn in now.'

‘Yes, off you go!'

‘Are you sure you're not cross?'

‘Of course not, don't be silly.'

‘Goodnight, uncle.'

And the gangling youth, right there on the terrace, offered his uncle his cheek to kiss, as he'd done as a child.

‘If Auntie asks me …'

‘Tell her I'll be back before long.'

But he did not go back. The alcohol made him feel light-headed and his thoughts became thicker and more painful. From time to time, he would repeat in a low voice:

‘What a fool!'

He wanted another drink. He dared not order a fourth glass, so he got up heavily, paid, and made his way to a different bar on the square where he could satisfy his craving at the counter.

All the frogs in creation started making a din. He walked towards the harbour where boats and yachts were moving up and down with the swell, sometimes bumping gently
against each other. Elisabeth had fallen.
Alfred had said she'd fallen. To the floor. It had happened on the floor. She hadn't kissed him. She hadn't said goodbye to him.

He walked on through the sodden dust on the path. And now he was talking to himself, out loud, since he was alone in the night:

‘What a bastard!'

He meant himself. The army huts were two hundred metres ahead of him. They weren't visible. There was just a darker patch of shadow, without any lights showing. Was she asleep?

Why, oh why had he … Oh, now that he had been drinking, he understood. It was complicated, but he understood. In the first place, he had perhaps been hoping she wouldn't give in …

No! That wasn't true. He had on the contrary supposed that … But anyway, if she hadn't given in, what good would that have done him?

What he had hoped for, what he had wanted, was for her to be soiled, broken.

Then he would be rid of her once and for all, because it couldn't go on like this.

He wasn't even in love, it wasn't that. If he had been in love, the problem would no doubt have been a great deal simpler.

No, it was an obsession, that was the word, a haunting obsession. And it had started that very first day, but faintly, insidiously, like those incurable illnesses that you only become aware of when it is too late for treatment.

It wasn't about a woman, it wasn't about the flesh. It
was about two stick-like legs under a scrap of red fabric, a little figure curled up alongside a dead woman in a miserable hovel, two blue
eyes, clear and dry; about a kind of doll, stiff-legged and indifferent, who led a small girl by the hand to the nuns, and who went fearlessly up to a man in the harbour to confiscate the money hidden in his pockets.

It was all that and much else, it was the disavowal of his own life, of everything his life had been, the foursquare grey stone house, as tidy as a child's building set, with its box trees trimmed into topiary by his maniacal pre-decessor,
the black metal gate, and himself, a fat man of thirty-five – for he was thirty-five now – playing at making his motorbike roar along the country lanes, playing at hunting partridge or rabbit, the disavowal of Saint-Hilaire and the two women sewing for him from morning to night, and telling
him when to change his underwear.

It was … he needed another drink. He had drunk at once too much and too little. It was years since he had been drunk – the last time was during his student days and he had been terribly sick.

He went into a bar where there were no other customers, and the woman behind the counter looked at him with surprise.

‘What'll you have, doctor?'

Too bad! Well, let her think what she liked.

‘A cognac with water.'

He could feel an unsteadiness which he recognized. He was already drunk. So now he had returned to Porquerolles twice, and this was where it had led him!

And Alfred was fast asleep! He had carefully washed his hands, and the rest. Tomorrow, the doctor was sure, he would avoid going up to the army huts. He was scared to.

‘Same again, Madame Cabrini.'

In the Arche, they were still dancing. Men about to do some night fishing went past with a huge acetylene lamp.

‘Night, doctor!'

And he replied almost gaily:

‘Goodnight!'

This was such madness. He had to fumble to find the front door knob and he made a noise going upstairs. People were asleep behind all those doors.

‘Is that you?'

He felt like answering: ‘No!'

The stage he'd reached now …

Bells. Masses of bells plunging into a sky like the sea, making trembling circles there. The circles widened, collided, merged with each other, and then the bells, with the elegance of dolphins, began to plunge again. He frowned and said:

‘There must be some ceremony going on …'

A funeral? A wedding? He couldn't remember what it was. But he had to go to it. He was walking quickly. His mother was behind him, chivvying him.

‘Hurry up, François,' she was saying, without seeming to notice that he was naked. And she added this curious sentence:

‘
You'll miss all the weddings
.'

What weddings was she talking about? His own, or ones he had been invited to?

He was puzzled. His hand, feeling his chest, discovered that he really was naked. The sun was shining through his eyelids. He was lying down. He realized where he was: on the iron bed pulled up close to the window, so that the children's
beds could be nearer their mother's. The window was open. Fresh air and sunlight were coming in through the slats of the shutters and streaming over him in his bed. He was also streaming with sweat.

He frowned, because he knew he had something
unpleasant to deal with. The first thing he managed to place was the bells: nothing to worry about, it was just Sunday morning, that was all. He had forgotten it
was Sunday.