Nevertheless, Mme. Boehmer touched her on the arm.
“Are you going home, sweetheart?”
“No, Mama, we’re finishing the evening at Marie-Claude’s.”
Mme. Boehmer gave a faint sigh.
“Oh? It’s two o’clock in the morning, Cri-Cri …”
“I know,” Christiane said impatiently. She added in a mocking tone, “I’m not seven anymore, Mama, darling,” and she bent to kiss her mother’s head with a birdlike peck.
Her friends treated Mme. Boehmer with the teasing condescension due to her age, her position as a mother, and her reputation as a simple soul, a good sort; although this was tempered by envious respect, for the glory of Boehmer Sewing Machines was reflected on the dull, breathless old woman in her plain black dress. One of the girls thought to herself, as she took Christiane’s arm, “The rich old bag!”
Smiling, she asked, “Cri-Cri, are you going to meet Gerald? Do you want me to leave with you so your mother doesn’t notice anything?”
Christiane shrugged her beautiful shoulders, still gilded from the sunny beach at the Lido. “What a silly idea! I’ve got mother well trained, you know. Anyway, my parents know I’m engaged to Jerry and I’m twenty-two, after all.”
It was snowing outside. The trees in the Champ de Mars were hardly visible, dissolving into a white, icy mist, and every streetlight shone rosily through a halo of frost. Christiane started her car and drove off. She had rolled down the window; the wind blew snowflakes onto her hair and they melted into big, cold, heavy drops. She passed a group of men wearing pink paper hats. “How unspeakably vulgar these public holidays are,” Christiane thought. “This time next year, Gerald and I will be in Saint Moritz.”
She would often plan six months ahead, saying in her cold, sharp young voice, “In September, I’ll be doing this; in March it’ll be that. In June I’ll be at the Cowes Regatta, then Cannes for the summer.” Mme. Boehmer would murmur, “As long as everything goes to plan between now and then, Cri-Cri. Nothing is certain in this life, my poor child.” But Christiane would reply, “Your generation didn’t know how to want things, Mama. You just have to know what you want.” In English, she would add, “Make up your mind and stick to it. That’s all.”
She crossed the Seine; a very faint lilac light appeared in the east. It was late. Gerald was waiting for her in the little bar in the Rue du Mont Thabor; they often met in this discreet and, at certain times, deserted spot.
As she approached their meeting place, her heart pounded against her ribs as usual. When she thought about him, she sometimes muttered hesitantly to herself, “Love?” This was said in the same way that you might tentatively mouth the name of a passerby you think you have recognized. Gerald had been putting off the official announcement of their engagement for two years. For the first year he had cleverly given their relationship a tinge of anguish and uncertainty that both pleased and annoyed her—and added a secret stab of pain to her passion for him.
She knew he was not ready to break off a long-standing affair. She accepted the situation with the clear-sightedness of her age, the clear-sightedness that some people mistakenly think is blindness, but it is only the young who can treat life and love like a game, because they have never been defeated or had to face cold reality.
Gerald, Jerry, Gérard Dubouquet was a young man of twenty-five with green eyes, a long nose that tended to twitch like a fox, and fair hair. He was private secretary to Minister Laclos, whose wife was Gerald’s loving and jealous mistress. When Christiane spoke to Marie-Claude, her best friend and confidante, she would always say, “He doesn’t love her, you know, but he can’t leave her. It’s just physical, do you understand, darling?”
She could allow anything, forgive everything, if it was a matter of sex, of the weakness of the flesh. She had only a sketchy and incomplete understanding of love and would say rationally and calmly, “I’m not going to cause any problems, thank you very much. I’m not a little innocent; I know what I’m getting myself into.” She had a naive, exaggerated understanding of physical desire, rather like a child who, given her mother’s jewelry to play with, handles it with exaggerated yet touching respect, not realizing that the pearls she has been given are fake.
In Marie-Claude’s little sitting room, or in Christiane’s studio, they would talk about sex, about the trap of physical desire, about life “as it is, not as our mothers saw it, poor women.” They would shake their young heads knowingly, even though it was still children’s blood that flowed beneath the smooth skin of their faces. Gerald, meanwhile, could not bring himself to leave his mistress, who bored him, because he was afraid of making an enemy of her since she might turn the all-powerful Laclos against him. For Gerald was at the age in which a man’s desire oscillates between ambition and money, and—as if he were a butterfly fluttering from one flower to another—he sometimes landed on the influential mistress, sometimes on the wealthy young girl, without being able to control his erratic flight. In any case, he thought so much about himself, and still felt so young and healthy, that he was loath to commit himself too soon, fearing that he might miss out on a greater happiness, and a larger dowry, that could be waiting for him just around the corner. He procrastinated, like a trader who is not sure what his goods are worth but prefers to wait rather than risk selling at too low a price.
“I’m in love,” Christiane thought, glancing distractedly at the dark and deserted Place de la Concorde.
“I’ve never loved anyone before Gerald,” she said aloud, as she thought back to her life between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two, so short and inconsequential in other people’s eyes but so long and full in her own. She smiled as she thought about Gerald’s kisses, and a slight blush softened her cold face, briefly restoring to her the wild, shy gracefulness of adolescence.
“It’s wonderful, being in love …”
At the same time, something older and more mature within her—for we all have several beings of different ages coexisting peacefully within us, from the child we were once to the old person we will become—that bit of her that was already old and wise recognized how her love would survive once she had lost her instinct to defend her wounded pride. She already loved qualities in Gerald that would only improve with age: his intelligence, the adaptability of his ambition, his cunning, and his tenacity. “He has a brilliant future,” she told herself, seeing herself as a minister’s wife, the prime minister’s wife, bringing her influence to bear on matters of state, of war and peace.
“Things would be a bit better organized than they are now,” she thought, clinking her bracelets together.
She parked the car. The little bar with yellow walls was thickly shrouded with cigarette smoke. Gerald was not there. The bartender stood up and handed Christiane a note; she read a few apologetic words: “Impossible for me to get to you until four o’clock. Wait for me if you can. I have something of the utmost importance to tell you.” Christiane frowned, then slowly tore it up. “How can I go home so early? They think I’m at Marie-Claude’s.” She thought irritably about her mother. “It’s such a bore, lying. Parents are such a nuisance, making difficulties and complications.”
She sat down, looked at the men around her, then, with an expression of cold disdain, at one of the women she always referred to as “bar tarts.” There was one sitting opposite Christiane, morosely contemplating her empty glass. She was alone. Men would pat her lightly on the shoulder as they went past, casually asking, “All right, Ginette?” She would smile deferentially and reply in an exhausted, husky voice, “I’m very well … How are you?”
She was still pretty although faded; her figure was as trim as a young girl’s, and her gestures were shy and diffident. Her eyes were pale and vacant, with dilated pupils; her mouth was fixed in a sad, unchanging little smile. She was wearing a black dress whose creases revealed the greenish tint of dye, and a shabby black hat, which she had tried to liven up by sticking a feather into the threadbare ribbon that adorned it.
Whenever the door opened and a man appeared she would look at him with an expression of mingled fear and hope, tilting her head to one side, conscious that in the old days this movement had been seductive, its timid charm contrasting with the makeup caking her face. But the years had passed, and this did not work its attraction anymore. A man came into the bar and did not even glance at her. She fell back heavily onto her stool and, pretending not to care, cleared her throat with a quiet, sensual, tired “hmm”—half-cough, half-sigh—and said to the bartender in her hoarse little voice, “Just my luck!”
The door opened again. She sat up, putting a sparkle in her eyes and renewing her smile, trying to give it the lively and submissive air that men liked, which made them say to their friends, “Now there’s a woman who looks nice and jolly.” For she knew from experience that the opposite judgment—“That girl looks like a miserable wet blanket”—was the sort of brief, cruel condemnation that could affect the whole of one’s life.
But he did not take any notice of her either. She lowered her head wearily, and her thoughts turned dejectedly to death and to sleeping peacefully forever. Yet from time to time someone would sit with her for a minute and buy her a drink before going away. An enormous, drunken Englishman came up to her, looked at her through his large, opaque eyes, coarsely pinched her thigh, and disappeared like the others.
“What a lout,” she thought resignedly. “But some days are like that …”
Even so, her eyes filled with tears of disappointment. They were so aloof, so indifferent, these men on whom she depended for money and for each night’s supper, although each of them offered the possibility of security, happiness, wealth, affection.
She thought, “That one over there looks nice. He’s old …”
Briefly she imagined the old man (without any heirs) becoming fond of her, the dresses she would have made, the traveling she could do. In her mind she saw herself relieved of all her worries, made more beautiful by happiness, meeting someone young and handsome with whom she would cheat on the wheezing old man in the far corner, who at that moment gave her an unfriendly glance before obsequiously going up to a pretty girl with platinum blonde hair who was sucking her drink through a straw and looking around condescendingly with the superficial sparkle of youth.
Ginette turned away, gazing once again at the door. A man she knew came in. Pinning her last hope on him, imagining that his face was inflamed with desire when in fact it was lit up by the fleeting, intense flush of alcohol, she said to herself, “He’s not bad, he’s got a nice mouth, I’d be prepared to do anything for him.”
But after a few meaningless, polite words, he left her to go and join his friends. Too deeply discouraged to be surprised or irritated she thought, “Of course, how stupid of me. I should have remembered, someone did tell me he doesn’t like women.”
Now when she noticed a man, she was only going through the motions, as she pulled her dress up a little and slowly stroked her stockings, smoothing them with a lazy, sensuous expression, for she knew that she had good legs and that on New Year’s Eve a man might be too drunk to notice her face. But nobody stopped. That night every single person seemed cold or unfeeling or else already supplied with women who were younger and more beautiful than she. Ginette lowered her head and closed her eyes, despair flooding through her.
The bar was gradually emptying. It was three o’clock. Eventually only she and Christiane were left. With a weary gesture she brushed away the wisps of hair falling over her eyes and stared at Christiane. “Some people have all the luck. She’s got lovely skin, that girl. But she looks so pleased with herself! They’re so stupid, young girls. She’s got a good figure. I looked as good as her once,” she thought, as she remembered what her body used to be like and how Maurice used to stroke her lovely curved hips. It was hard, having to return to this way of life after a ten-year relationship, almost a marriage.
“Maurice is dead,” she whispered mournfully, in a daze. “There’s no one who cares about me. I’m alone in the world. It’s all a bit of a—joke.” She sighed, unable to find any other word to express her despair.
She had forgotten about Christiane, but then looked at her again with a mixture of admiration, hostility, and contempt. How arrogant the girl was, how calm and self-confident! Christiane took a cigarette, tapped the end on the gold case lying on the bar, then held it out toward the bartender and accepted the lit match that he extended deferentially; she thanked him with a vague nod of the head and the bare outline of a smile, as if conferring a great favor on a subordinate, allowing him to hope for some reward.
“What a bitch,” Ginette said to herself, “but her boyfriend has stood her up and she’s waiting like other women do. So there is a god after all.”
Almost unconsciously, however, driven by her usual habit of begging for a drink or a cigarette, she stretched her hand out toward the open case, muttering politely:
“May I, do you mind?”
“Of course,” said Christiane. She hesitated; she had never spoken to a woman of this sort before. But curiously intrigued and flattered by the timid way the woman looked at her face and her pearls, Christiane decided to put her at ease. “I can talk to anyone, to a country girl, to old Mme. Donamont, to Laclos … It’s a special talent,” she thought with satisfaction, the corner of her mouth twitching in a proud little smile.
She said out loud, “Not many people around, are there?” She added, “How’s business?”
Embarrassed by her question, Ginette turned her head and addressed it to the bartender. He answered, “It’s the crisis, and anyway this is a slack time. Those men have finished their drinks and gone to have supper. But there’ll be others along soon.”
“Yes, and they’ll doubtless be just as charming,” said Ginette with a shrug. “Did you see the Englishman? He didn’t even say good evening to me and I see the fat drunkard every night … I don’t know what’s the matter with men this year. It’s as if they’re always afraid of being robbed. It must be the crisis making them like that. Although we don’t ask anything of them, do we, just a bit of ordinary courtesy.”
Silence fell again. Christiane mechanically poured herself more champagne. Her cheeks were blazing. Smiling, Ginette said, “Does you good, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. Do you have the time? It must be late.”
“No. It’s three o’clock, but of course it seems longer when you’re waiting.”
Tenderly Ginette fingered the necklace of false pearls around her neck, and then said with an anxious smile, “It’s a long time, nearly two years, since I first saw you come in here with your … friend.”
She hesitated over the word, but gave Christiane a timid, reassuring smile, as if to say, “I know I’m speaking to a woman of the world, don’t worry, the word ‘friend’ doesn’t mean ‘lover’ (but you’re free to do what you want, I’m not going to pass judgment on you), although of course I realize he’s your fiancé.”
“And I’ve often seen you,” Christiane said, knowing that Ginette would feel flattered. “I remember I even said to my … friend, ‘That woman’s pretty.’”
Beneath her makeup, which was beginning to run, Ginette blushed faintly, murmuring doubtfully but gratefully, “Oh! Mademoiselle!”
After a moment’s thought she added in a low voice, “You’re so kind!”
“Would you like something to drink?” Christiane asked. Without waiting for a reply, she pointed at her glass and said to the bartender, “The same for mademoiselle—I’m so sorry, should I say mademoiselle or madame? I don’t know.”
“Oh, you can call me Ginette. Don’t be embarrassed, I’m used to it.”
She swallowed a mouthful of champagne and, looking at Christiane with wide, glittering eyes, murmured, “You’re nice, and intelligent, one can see that. You know about life.”
“Thank God, yes I do,” Christiane replied with a smile.
“That’s unusual, at your age. And your friend, too, he looks intelligent, and you can tell he
loves you! Ah, it’s obvious how much he adores you,” Ginette said, trying to return the compliment and to please this lovely young girl, who was treating her like an equal, like a friend.
“Just as if I were part of her world,” she thought with gratitude.
“It’s beautiful, youth.” She sighed, as she looked admiringly at Christiane’s sparkling eyes, teeth, and jewelry. “But it goes so quickly. Although if you’ve got real affection in your life, you don’t notice you’re getting old. When you’ve had it, as I have, and then you lose it, it’s hard. It’s nights like this give you the blues,” she added vaguely.
“Yes, they do,” said Christiane.
“But at your age, how can you know what it’s like to have the blues?” the woman said, shrugging her shoulders. “However, that’s as it should be, when you’re pretty, rich, and young … but there are moments, you know …”
She stopped, forcing a laugh. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” she went on, looking nervously at the bartender, “I’m very cheerful by nature; anyone will tell you that; it’s just there are some days you don’t feel so bright.”
She realized that the bartender was dozing on his chair; reassured, she continued, “When you’ve had a man’s affection, you don’t have the strength to live alone. I’m always telling myself, ‘No need to worry, Maurice will tell me what to do.’ And then I remember he’s not here anymore. But I’m boring you, mademoiselle, it’s very nice of you to listen to me.”
“Of course you’re not,” Christiane said.
She looked at her with detachment, as if she were a strange animal. Ginette, however, was experiencing the sweet satisfaction of having someone to talk to, of feeling that there was at least one human being in the world who would listen to her and understand her better than the bartender or Captain Alfred ever could. She felt her pain melting away and her depression lifting as she spoke.