She came over to him. “I’m here, you know. I’m here,” she said, and she laid her hand on his lapel. The look she gave him — full of devotion and compassion and pain — sent a shiver up his spine. Paul sat down suddenly on the sofa. Yes, no question about it: she, like the others, had no trouble imagining him dead. Women believed in death. Without exception. It was part of their makeup. Whereas men refused to face up to it. Not only death, in fact, but life, too: a man, learning that his wife or girlfriend is pregnant, reacts like some beast of the field — “I can’t believe it’s true!” — while women look at the same situation as either happy news or a momentary inconvenience.
Helen was sitting next to him on the sofa, staring at him intently. She ran her fingers slowly through his hair. He could smell her perfume, and that plus the touch of her hand he found upsetting, but also arousing. And then he had a vulgar reaction that wasn’t really like him, and he thought to himself: “My God, if this keeps up, the combination of keeping Mathilde and Sonia and Helen happy all the time is going to be the death of me yet!” and he had to turn his face away so that Helen would not see the ironic smile on his lips.
“I’ll help you,” she said, “with all the strength I have. For starters, I’m going to cancel my trip.”
“What trip?”
“The trip I was planning to take with Philip. But knowing what I now know, there’s no way in the world I could leave you. I’ll explain to Philip what’s happened. He’ll understand. And if he doesn’t, that’s his tough luck.”
“Ah, yes, that’s true,” he said. “You two were taking a trip together. Or was it a cruise? It somehow slipped my mind.”
Philip Guérand was in the diplomatic service, and a very proper fellow indeed. So proper in fact that Paul regularly forgot his existence, which was that of one more poor bastard in the life of his wife. But of course they should go off together as planned. It would be silly of them not to take this trip, or cruise, or whatever it was. It could be their trial honeymoon.
“I insist that you keep to your plans,” Paul said. “I’m told I’ll be fine for the next three or four months. So I don’t need anyone’s help right now.”
“But of course you do, silly boy. Even if you refuse to face up to it yet, if this new circumstance hasn’t yet become a reality for you, you do need someone. What is marriage all about anyway?”
He looked at her and read in her eyes a kind of excitement, a kind of new drive or energy that completely turned him off.
“Because you married me for better or for worse, is that what you’re referring to?” he said.
Whatever she may think consciously, some part of her inner self is delighted. The inner self that has been waiting for this moment for eight years now. He pictured himself dying in this lugubrious apartment, cared for by a qualified nurse, his wife surrounded by a number of her female friends, all patting her hand and telling her how sorry, how terribly sorry, they are. And the same picture was completely devoid of any of his own friends, all of whom had been denied entrance by his grieving wife. In fact, he saw nothing in the picture but loneliness, sadness, dejection, as he moved slowly, implacably, obediently toward death. Oh, Mathilde! Mathilde! How could he have had a moment’s hesitation about intruding in her life? Sonia was no longer even a remote possibility in his mental landscape. Gone. Over. Done with. Sonia knew Helen, and when she talked about her she either sounded like the little slut she was or she took on grand airs.
The other question was: could he really manage to evade Helen’s clutches? The simple, heartfelt response, provided by Mathilde, came back to him: “I’ll take care of you.” Even Helen was no match for Mathilde’s quiet energy, her commanding presence. He might die in the small, three-room apartment on the rue de Tournon, but he would die pampered and loved. He’d give Mathilde enough money so that she could quit the thankless job that took so much out of her and bored her to tears. He should have told her that right off the bat. The fact that at thirty-five she had been footloose and fancy-free and didn’t give a damn about money or security didn’t mean that at forty-five financial matters shouldn’t be taken care of, especially since this Englishman of hers seemed to have his head in the clouds and a profession that didn’t exactly spell security. Of course, he should have realized it sooner: Mathilde was probably already short of money, which explained why the collar of her dressing gown had a spot on it. She probably couldn’t even afford to pay for dry cleaning! Yes, that had to be it: he remembered that when they were together he had always made sure she had enough to pay for such things, since whatever else he was he was a stickler for cleanliness. He would withdraw the necessary funds from his firm tomorrow. He would show up at her apartment, check in hand, to make sure all her wants and needs were taken care of. He would provide her with something besides love, which she could use to good advantage. Which would last her after love was gone. No need for any further romantic posturing in bed, which only upset him. She was a woman of discriminating taste, and would understand his gesture. And anyway, in two or three months he would not be making love to her. So fast, so far, so impossible, so irrevocable . . .
“I have to make a phone call,” he said.
But Helen held him back. “I have to call the Jackys first,” she said, “and offer our apologies. Then I’ll make us some soup and spaghetti if you’re too tired to go out for dinner.”
There was something formidable about the way she stressed the word “us.” And he got to his feet.
“Don’t bother,” he said. “I want you to run off to the Jackys’ and make my excuses. No, no excuses: just tell them the thought of having dinner with them was more than I could bear. And don’t wait up for me, Helen. . . . And there’s one other thing: I forbid you to cancel your trip with Philip.”
And then, with a final effort to dredge up the poor man’s full name, and as a final act of courtesy, he blurted, “Philip Guérand, right? There’s no reason he ought to sit on his hands for years waiting for you.”
“Because you’re off to sleep with one of your sluts, is that it?” Helen said, furious now. “It doesn’t matter what state you’re in. Even if you can’t . . . even if you’re entirely incapable of . . . you still . . .”
From the next room, the phone rang imperiously.
“It has to be the Jackys,” she said, “wondering what’s happened to us.”
“They probably want to tell you the souffle’s just fallen flat,” he said pleasantly.
Helen was not amused. She gave him an icy glance and went into the living room. Paul slipped on his coat and checked to make sure he had his keys.
“It’s for you,” Helen said, emerging from the living room.
He walked over and picked up the phone. It took him a second to recognize the nasal voice of the hamster. The hamster! Jesus, that was all he needed to make his day complete! Dr. Creep must have set up some appointments for him with his esteemed medical specialists. News of Paul’s superb, full-blooming carcinoma must have already made the rounds of the Paris hospitals, so that the best and brightest could bid on it. . . . How much am I bid for Paul Cazavel? The man with six months to live! Going once, going twice! . . . At dinner, the kids of the top doctors in their respective fields would pray to God that He entrust this cancer patient to the care of their dear dad. . . .
The hamster’s voice seemed less smug, less self-assured than it had been this morning. And if Paul understood correctly, he seemed to be mumbling some sort of excuse, though he couldn’t tell for what.
“Dr. Jouffroy, you know, whatever his other qualities — which as you know are many — but I must say orderliness is not among them, if you don’t mind my saying . . .”
What in God’s name was he going on about?
“Not to mention the inexcusable carelessness of certain laboratories, which if I may say so is unforgivable. No, worse than unforgivable . . . What I’m trying to say is that I hope your day hasn’t been too upsetting, that you haven’t been dwelling too much on what I tol
d you this morning. . . .”
“Will you get to the goddamn point?”
“It’s simply that there was an error. A grave error, I’m afraid. Your tests were, I’m sorry to say, mixed up with somebody else’s. . . .”
Paul was overcome with a rage so total, so complete, that there was no room for any feeling of relief.
“Dr. Hamster,” he said icily, “do you have the slightest idea what your ‘error’ has caused me? Do you have any idea whatsoever? Apparently you don’t even know how to read an X-ray properly, not to mention a CAT scan. Or any other medical report either, I’m sure, Dr. Hamster. . . . What? That’s not your name? What the hell do I care what your goddamn name is, Dr. Hamster? To me that’s your name. And the first thing I’m going to do is apologize to all hamsters. I’m going to pretend I never heard of you, and I strongly suggest you do the same about me. Oh, and one other thing. Go fuck yourself.”
He slammed down the phone, trembling with rage and joy.
He must have been yelling, because from the next room he heard a discreet cough. Helen’s discreet cough, emanating from a thoroughly frightened woman.
He decided to exit the apartment by the kitchen door. He was going to rent a room in that charming old hotel on the rue Fleurus where he hadn’t been for several months now. And there he would fling himself across his bed and fall asleep, fully clothed, without a woman, without a hamster. And without cancer.
He felt his entire being slowly filling with something that he knew was happiness. Something triumphant and modest at the same time. He got up from his chair and found that he had trouble walking steadily, trouble keeping his balance. It was the first time, he said to himself as he tiptoed across the kitchen, it was indeed the first time in his life that solitude was making him drunk. . . .
Françoise Sagan, A Fleeting Sorrow
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