‘It’s nearly four o’clock, Madame.’
‘Oh, then I really should go and get dressed … Are we still going to Biarritz to buy your trunk, Jacques?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well,’ said Yves, ‘I’m going to have another swim.’
‘Aren’t you afraid you’ll tire yourself out?’
‘Absolutely not, I could live in the water!’
They walked off together while Jessaint stayed on the terrace to finish his coffee. Yves watched the young woman in white as she walked in front of him. Against the dazzling sunlight, her black curls were light and bluish, like smoke rings from oriental cigarettes. At the foot of the stairs she turned round and smiled.
‘Goodbye, Monsieur, I’m sure I’ll see you again soon …’
She shook his hand. Her gaze was beautiful, frank, direct, something he had already noticed about her and which he liked. Then she walked away, going through the rotating door of the hotel as Yves made his way slowly down to the beach.
5
THE NEXT DAY at siesta time he saw her again on the warm beach. Jessaint had gone to London as he had said he would. Yves walked over and stroked little France’s damp blonde hair, then spoke to her mother about her husband and the friends you discover you have in common as soon as you take the trouble to ask.
He saw her later in the restaurant and noticed their tables were next to each other; he spotted her again in the foyer where she was reading the papers. And so on … every day, at every hour of the day, from then on, he would run into her. It was hardly surprising: Hendaye is a very small place and neither of them left Hendaye. Denise didn’t like being far from her daughter: she had the worrying nature and anxious imagination of a true mother. Yves was soothed by this charming, regular life that flew by with the unusual speed of certain happy daydreams … luminous mornings, long, lazy days in the sun, a brief moment of dusk followed by those Spanish nights that carry the sweet scents of Andalusia back out to sea …
To Yves, the presence of Denise seemed as natural and strangely precious as the presence of the ocean. Her feminine silhouette glided among the swaying tamarisk trees like a graceful shadow, born of the sun and the shade. She no longer surprised Yves just as the crashing sound of the waves filled both his wakeful nights and his dreams with brash colours, wild music, which he no longer noticed because he had grown used to them. Denise’s beauty left him calm and impassive; even though she ran along the beach in her swimsuit, half-naked, every morning, with the serene lack of modesty you find in very young, very beautiful creatures, Yves was not troubled by desire: he did not experience the arousal, the burning curiosity that plagues men when they first begin to fall in love. She was pretty and, more important, she was wholesome and modest, and her simplicity, her energy, charmed Yves in a way he almost failed to notice. He didn’t wonder whether she was an honest woman, if she had one or several lovers. He didn’t undress her with his eyes. Why should he? She had no secrets and, because of that, there was no mystery about her. When she was with him he didn’t think about her. But wasn’t she always with him? In the morning, when he first saw her, he felt happy: to him, was she not the symbol, the visible representation of these joyful holidays? When he had been in Hendaye as a schoolboy, every evening he would see two women pass by on the pier; two Spanish women who wore black mantillas … they spoke a coarse, throaty language that he couldn’t understand. He couldn’t see their faces in the darkness, but when the bright beam from the lighthouse swept over them they were suddenly lit up, almost too brightly, as if they were standing in a spotlight. Then they would fade into the distance, their skirts swaying.
Yves had never spoken a word to them; later on he thought they must have been maids in the hotel. They weren’t beautiful, and even if he was vaguely in love with them, as you are at fifteen, he was certainly more smitten with the daughter of the guard, his first mistress, and the little American he kissed on the lips behind the bathing huts. He had forgotten about those girls, though, and when he thought back to that summer of his adolescence, those two foreign women chatting in their strange language, with their swaying skirts and black mantillas in their hair, immediately came to mind … In the same way, he told himself, that if he later saw Denise again on some street in Paris, he would remember in incredible detail, all the wild splendour of a summer’s day, the warm, golden beach that curved along the Bidassoa river. Music has the same power to evoke days gone by, thought Yves, very simple music preferably, and certain women’s faces as well.
6
ONE DAY DENISE wasn’t at the beach. Yves did not notice at first; he went into the water, as always, swam for a long time, his eyes dazzled by the glittering flecks of gold that dance between the waves. He lay down in the sand in his usual spot, very close to Denise’s beach tent. The young woman was not there. Little Francette, in her bathing suit, made sand pies and then immediately demolished them, bashing them with her spade with wild, destructive energy. Her nanny was reading.
Yves tossed and turned, sighing nervously, like a sleeping dog having a dream. He felt anxious but couldn’t understand why; he was having difficulty breathing and he could hear his heart beating faster. ‘I stayed in the water too long,’ he thought. He raised himself up on one elbow and waved at the child to call her over: she recognised him, started to laugh, stood up, took a few steps forward, then turned away and ran off with the inexplicable instinct children have for teasing. He lay back down, so frustrated that he bit his lips in irritation. He stubbornly continued to try to discover the cause of his nervousness by looking for natural, physical reasons: it was hot, the sun weighed heavily down on his shoulders like a leaden cloak; every now and then a burning breeze scattered sand over his legs, tickling his bare skin in a way he found unbearable. He didn’t consciously wonder where Madame Jessaint was yet answered this unspoken question with vague, hypocritical replies: ‘She’ll be here … she’s been delayed … maybe she’s not well … she’s not going swimming but she’ll come down to the beach when her child goes in the water … it’s not that late yet …’ And he turned over again on the warm sand, like a sick man in his bed, unable to lie still, not actually unhappy, but feeling exactly what the English call ‘uncomfortable’, without managing to understand why. All the while, the sun rose in the sky above his head; more and more people left the beach; only the half-naked young boys playing beach ball at the water’s edge remained. Eventually they too left. The lifeguard and his assistants passed by, dragging the lifeboat they stored away at lunchtime; their wet, muscular, tanned arms strained like cables as they slowly walked away. The flat, deserted beach seemed endless, dazzling in the midday sun. Yves remained there, motionless, his head heavy and his throat tight with emotion. Suddenly he leaped up, told himself he was a fool; she must not have been feeling well so hadn’t come to the beach that morning, but she would surely come down for lunch! She wasn’t so ill, he reasoned, that she would have to stay in bed on such a beautiful day: but it must be terribly late; by the time he’d shaved and dressed she’d be gone. Hastily throwing his robe over one shoulder, he ran quickly towards the hotel.
Twenty minutes later he was in the lobby, but Denise was not there; her table was laid but untouched. Yves thought his lamb chop was burned, his peas undercooked, his coffee undrinkable and the waiters incompetent. He complained bitterly to the maître d’ and asked for the wine waiter to be sent over so he could tell him that in any cheap restaurant in Paris the house red was better than his Corton 1898, a remark that almost made the dignified man burst into tears.
Without even touching the peach he’d put on his plate, Yves threw down his napkin and went out on to the terrace. In Denise’s chair, a serious-looking Mademoiselle Francette was rocking back and forth, wearing a short linen dress, as blue as the sky. When she saw the young man walking towards her, she jumped up, threw her arms round him and swung from his neck.
‘Sing “This is the way the ladies ride” for me, please, Monsieur Loulou!’
r /> She couldn’t pronounce ‘Monsieur Harteloup’ as her mother did, so she had given her friend a nickname. Yves sat her on his knee while humming the refrain of the English nursery rhyme.
‘Tell me, Fanchon,’ he said, ‘your mama isn’t ill, is she?’ and his flat tone of voice sounded strange even to him.
‘No,’ said Francette, and she started shaking her head from left to right and right to left, like some Chinese toy. ‘No.’
‘Where is she?’
‘She went away.’
‘Will she be gone long?’
‘Oh, I don’t know!’
‘Of course you do, just think,’ Yves gently encouraged her. ‘Your mama told you before she left, I bet … And when she was kissing you goodbye this morning, didn’t she say: “Goodbye, my darling, be a good girl and I’ll be back in a day … or two”? Didn’t she say that?’
‘No,’ said Francette, ‘she didn’t say anything.’
Then she thought for a moment and added: ‘You see, I was still asleep when she came in to kiss me this morning before she went away.’
Yves was tempted to ask the nanny, but didn’t dare: he feared arousing any suspicion, even though there was nothing to be suspicious about for heaven’s sake! He set the little girl down on the ground and walked away.
Where could she have gone? For how long? It was so absurd: he knew perfectly well she couldn’t be gone for long because she’d left Francette in Hendaye. Perhaps Denise had gone to Biarritz to do some shopping? But then, who was she meeting for lunch? Friends? Which friends? For the first time his exasperated mind began to roam wildly through the world that belonged to Denise; unknown like everyone’s, but whose mystery, until that moment, had not caused him to suffer. Perhaps she was having an intimate lunch with someone? He pictured all the restaurants he knew in Biarritz, one after the other, from the most expensive hotels down to the inns on the outskirts, hidden away in the countryside. Blind rage swept through him. It took all his strength of will to calm himself down, but he was trembling, ashamed, unable to concentrate. Then he went down to the beach and started walking, just walking without knowing where he was going. Maybe her friends had taken her on an outing? Oh, friends he needn’t worry about, relatives perhaps … She hadn’t said anything about it to him the day before, but they didn’t normally say very much to each other … Yes, that must be it … An outing … some of them can last for quite a while, two or three days … But if she’d gone to Spain or to Lourdes, she could be away from Hendaye for a week … away from him … Seven days, seven mornings, seven long evenings … it may seem like nothing, but it’s horrible … Perhaps her husband had suddenly called her to London? An accident, illness, who knows? She wouldn’t come back … The nanny would take Francette to England … He began to panic, as if someone had told him that Denise had died. He threw himself to the ground. The sun beat down on him brutally; he buried his hands deeper into the sand to feel the moist freshness of the sea water; its sharp coolness made him shiver; he stood up.
He flew into a rage, furious, began lashing out at himself: ‘She’s gone … so what? I’m not in love with her, am I? Am I? So what then …? I couldn’t care less … I’m an idiot, a complete idiot.’
He passionately believed what he was thinking, but his lips were trembling and he automatically repeated again and again what he had first said: ‘She’s gone … that’s all there is to it … She’s gone.’
He walked back to the hotel and went to bed. For a long time he lay there without moving, his head turned to the wall, just the way he used to when he was a little boy and was feeling sad.
At five o’clock he went out, walked aimlessly around the terrace, paced up and down the garden several times, then, defeated, set off for the Casino, although she rarely went there. Young men, young women, their heads bare, danced on a platform set on pillars above the water. The endless movement of the sea around the pillars, the canopy flapping in the wind, the creaking noises and the smell of the salty sea air, everything made you feel as if you were on a boat moored in port. Yves thought he would enjoy the solace; he ordered a cocktail, drank only half of it and left.
At seven o’clock the sea was growing pale beneath the sun; very small pink clouds formed delicate coils in the sky. Yves listened to the sea; it had always consoled him and tonight he would entrust his poor, weary body to its core.
He took off his clothes and walked slowly towards the Bidassoa river. The sea wall was carefully kept in good condition for several metres, but further along it was riddled with fine sand; there was no railing any more; little bushes bristling with thorns sprung up between the stones. Then the sea wall suddenly stopped. Yves kept on walking until he got to the beach; it was a narrow arc, its shape carved out by the water. To the left was the bay; to the right the sea, and linking them was the Bidassoa, so calm that it did not even shimmer, and as pale as the watery reflection of the pallid sky. On the other side was Spain.
Yves sat down, folding his legs under him, his chin resting on his closed fist. There wasn’t a soul in sight. It was strange … The crashing of the waves did not disturb the magical silence of the evening. A small boat passed by, gliding along the river from one coast to the other, from France to Spain, without a sound. A golden glow, more delicate than the midday light, washed over the mountain tops, but shadows were already spreading across the valleys. Yves’s anger suddenly began to ebb and an inexplicable feeling of sadness rushed through him.
Night was falling very quickly; in the solitary darkness the sea seemed further away again, vast in its primal majesty. Yves felt very small, lost in the immensity of this ancient earth. He thought about himself, about his failed life. He was unhappy, he was alone, he was poor. From now on his days would be spent without joy. No one needed him. Life was hard, so hard … He wanted to cry; through one final desperate effort of masculine pride he held back his tears, but they welled up in his heart, rose to his throat, choking him.
A lovely dusk, hazy blue and pink, settled over the countryside, growing gradually darker. Church bells were ringing. On the opposite shore you could see the lights of Fuenterrabia: the windows in houses, bright tramways, the outline of its streets; only the large square tower of the old church looked dark and bleak. The bells rang out slowly, as if they were weary, discouraged, sad. And in the mountains farmhouses lit up, one by one, like stars. Night had fallen.
All around Yves a mysterious world was coming to life: murmurings, humming, the sounds of a swarm of living creatures, invisible insects that live in the sand and are heard only at night. Yves listened, trembling with inexplicable fear. Then, suddenly, overwhelmed by his sadness, he burst into tears. He put his head in his hands and cried – for the first time in so very many years – he cried like a child, letting the tears rush down his face.
‘Is that you?’ a voice he knew asked rather hesitantly. ‘You’re going to catch cold; it’s so late …’
Yves raised his head and opened his eyes wide. It was Denise, her dress a glimmer of white in the dark night.
‘I’ll have to scold you,’ she continued softly. ‘You have no more sense than my daughter … Do people go swimming this late at night?’
‘Is it that late?’ Yves mumbled.
He had instinctively stood up.
‘It’s after nine.’
‘Oh! Is it really … I … I didn’t know … No, truly, I’d forgotten …’
‘Good Lord,’ she said anxiously, ‘what’s wrong?’
She tried to look at his face but it was far too dark. Yet she could tell he had been crying from his voice, from the sobs he was barely holding back … Instinctively her soft, maternal hands reached out towards him, hands that could console, could bring such peace. He stood before her, trembling, and lowered his head. He was crying softly, without shame; he felt as if all the blood and poison from a very old wound were flowing away with those tears. He savoured the taste of salt and water on his lips with a unique feeling of sensuality, a taste he’d forgotten l
ong ago.
‘What is it?’ she whispered again, her voice choked with emotion. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘nothing.’
Suddenly she wondered if she had perhaps interrupted a moment of private grief. She started to walk away; in an instant he was by her side. She could feel Yves’s warm hand on her bare arm.
‘Don’t go, please don’t go …’ he stammered, not quite knowing what he was saying.
Then, all at once, sounding almost angry, he shouted: ‘Where were you all day?’
Taken aback, all she could do was reply meekly: ‘I was in Biarritz.’
Then, with a strange insight into how much he had been suffering, she added: ‘My mother lives there …’
A short silence fell between them. In the dim light from the stars she could see his tormented face, his harsh yet tender mouth, his pleading eyes.
Suddenly she put her arms round his neck. They did not kiss; they simply stood there, holding each other tightly, overcome with emotion, their hearts pounding with heavy, exquisite sadness.
Instinctively, in a timeless gesture, he buried his head in her shoulder as she leaned towards him and she stroked his forehead, in silence but with a sudden desire to cry herself.
All around them the waves from the sea flowed wild and free; the wind from Spain carried with it the faint sound of music; the ancient earth quivered, alive with the mysterious, nebulous life of the night.
Slowly, reluctantly, they let go of one another. He stood before her, half-naked; her eyes had grown accustomed to the faint light that fell from the sky so she could just about make out the shape of his tall, masculine body in nothing but his swimming trunks. She’d seen him like this a hundred times; but tonight, like Eve, she realised for the first time that he was naked. Then she felt ashamed and afraid, as if she were a young girl. She pushed him away gently, vanished up a sand dune and into the night.