Sat. March 25
Dear Jon,
Believe me, I’m glad you spoke with your doctor and that the news is good! The person who told me you were in a serious way was a little balding fellow with moustache and a glassy eye, early forties maybe. He seemed really concerned, and perhaps you shouldn’t hold it too much against him, as he may have heard it from someone else.
I’m enjoying this town and wish you and Simone were here, esp. as I’m on an expense account…
The man Alan meant was Pierre Gauthier, who had an art supply shop in the Rue Grande. He was not a friend of Jonathan’s, just an acquaintance. Gauthier often sent people to Jonathan to have their pictures framed. Gauthier had been at the house the night of Alan’s send-off party, Jonathan remembered distinctly, and must have spoken to Alan then. It was out of the question that Gauthier had spoken maliciously. Jonathan was only a little surprised that Gauthier even knew he had a blood ailment, though the word did get around, Jonathan realized. Jonathan thought the thing to do was speak to Gauthier and ask him where he’d heard the story.
It was 8.’0 a.m. Jonathan had waited for the post, as he had yesterday morning also. His impulse was to go straight to Gauthier’s, but he felt this would show unseemly anxiety, and that he’d better get his bearings by going to his shop and opening as usual.
Because of three or four customers, Jonathan hadn’t a break till 10.25 a.m. He left his clock card in the glass of his door indicating that he would be open again at 11 a.m.
When Jonathan entered the art supply shop, Gauthier was busy with two women customers. Jonathan pretended to browse among racks of paint brushes until Gauthier was free. Then he said:
‘M. Gauthier! How goes it?’ Jonathan extended a hand.
Gauthier clasped Jonathan’s hand in both his own and smiled. ‘And you, my friend?’
‘Well enough, thank you…. Ecoutez’ I don’t want to take your time – but there is something I would like to ask you.’
‘Yes? What’s that?’
Jonathan beckoned Gauthier farther away from the door which might open at any minute. There was not much standing room in the little shop. ‘I heard from a friend – my friend Alan, you remember? The Englishman. At the party at my house a few weeks ago.’
‘Yes! Your friend the Englishman. Alain.’ Gauthier remembered and looked attentive.
Jonathan tried to avoid even glancing at Gauthier’s false eye, but to concentrate on the other eye. ‘Well, it seems you told Alan that you’d heard I was very ill, maybe not going to live much longer.’
Gauthier’s soft face grew solemn. He nodded. ‘Yes, m’sieur, I did hear that. I hope it’s not true. I remember Alain, because you introduced him to me as your best friend. So I assumed he knew. Perhaps I should have said nothing. I am sorry, it was perhaps tactless. I thought you were – in the English style – putting on a brave face.’
‘It’s nothing serious, M. Gauthier, because as far as I know, it’s not true! I’ve just spoken with my doctor. But —’
‘Ah, bon! Ah well, that’s different! I’m delighted to hear that, M. Trevanny! Ha! Ha!’ Pierre Gauthier gave a clap of laughter as if a ghost had been laid, and he found not only Jonathan but himself back among the living.
‘But I’d like to know where you heard this. Who told you I was ill?’
‘Ah – yes!’ Gauthier pressed a finger to his lips, thinking. ‘Who? A man. Yes – of course? He had it, but he paused.
Jonathan waited.
‘But I remember he said he wasn’t sure. He’d heard it, he said. An incurable blood disease, he said.’
Jonathan felt warm with anxiety again, as he had felt several times in the past week. He wet his lips. ‘But who? How did he hear it? Didn’t he say?’
Gauthier again hesitated. ‘Since it isn’t true – shouldn’t we best forget it?’
‘Someone you know very well?’
‘No! Not at all well, I assure you.’
‘A customer.’
‘Yes. Yes, he is. A nice man, a gentleman. But since he said he wasn’t sure – Really, m’sieur, you shouldn’t bear a resentment, although I can understand how you could resent such a remark.’
‘Which leads to the interesting question how did the gentleman come to hear I was very ill,’ Jonathan went on, laughing now.
‘Yes. Exactly. Well, the point is, it isn’t true. Isn’t that the main thing?’
Jonathan saw in Gauthier a French politeness, and unwillingness to alienate a customer, and – which was to be expected – an aversion to the subject of death. ‘You’re right. That’s the main thing.’ Jonathan shook hands with Gauthier, both of them smiling now, and bade him adieu.
That very day at lunch, Simone asked Jonathan if he had heard from Alan. Jonathan said yes.
‘It was Gauthier who said something to Alan.’
‘Gauthier? The art shop man?’
‘Yes.’ Jonathan was lighting a cigarette over his coffee. Georges had gone out into the garden. ‘I went to see Gauthier this morning and I asked him where he’d heard it. He said from a customer. A man. – Funny, isn’t it? Gauthier wouldn’t tell me who, and I can’t really blame him. It’s some mistake, of course. Gauthier realizes that.’
‘But it’s a shocking thing,’ said Simone.
Jonathan smiled, knowing Simone wasn’t really shocked, since she knew Dr Perrier had given him rather good news. ‘As we say in English, one must not make a mountain out of a molehill.’
In the following week, Jonathan bumped into Dr Perrier in the Rue Grande, the doctor in a hurry to enter the Société Générale before it shut at twelve sharp. But he paused to ask how Jonathan was.
‘Quite well, thank you,’ said Jonathan, whose mind was on buying a plunger for the toilet from a shop a hundred yards away which also shut at noon.
‘M. Trevanny—’ Dr Perrier paused with one hand on the big knob of the bank’s door. He moved away from the door, closer to Jonathan. ‘In regard to what we were talking about the other day – no doctor can be sure, you know. In a situation like yours. I didn’t want you to think I’d given you a guarantee of perfect health, immunity for years. You know yourself—’
‘Oh, I didn’t assume that!’ Jonathan interrupted.
‘Then you understand,’ said Dr Perrier, smiling, and dashed at once into his bank.
Jonathan trotted on in quest of the plunger. It was the kitchen sink stopped up, not the toilet, he remembered, and Simone had lent a neighbour their plunger months ago and – Jonathan was thinking of what Dr Perrier had said. Did he know something, suspect something from the last test, something not sufficiently definite to warrant telling him about?
At the door of the droguerie, Jonathan encountered a smiling, dark-haired girl who was just locking up, removing the outside door handle.
‘I am sorry. It is five minutes past twelve,’ she said.
3
TOM, during the last week in March, was engaged in painting a full-length portrait of Heloise horizontal on the yellow satin sofa. And Heloise seldom agreed to pose. But the sofa stayed still, and Tom had it satisfactorily on his canvas. He had also made seven or eight sketches of Heloise with her head propped upon her left hand, her right hand resting on a big art book. He kept the two best sketches and threw the others away.
Reeves Minot had written him one letter, asking Tom if he had come up with a helpful idea – as to a person, Reeves meant. The letter had arrived a couple of days after Tom had spoken with Gauthier, from whom Tom usually bought his paints. Tom had replied to Reeves: ‘Am trying to think, but meanwhile you should go ahead with your own ideas, if you have any.’ The ‘am trying to think’ was merely polite, even false, like a lot of phrases that served to oil the machinery of social intercourse, as Emily Post might say. Reeves hardly kept Belle Ombre oiled financially, in fact Reeves’ payments to Tom for occasional services as go-between and fence would hardly cover the dry-cleaning bills, but it never hurt to maintain friendly relations. Reeves had procured a f
alse passport for Tom and had got it to Paris fast when Tom had needed it to help defend the Derwatt industry. Tom might one day need Reeves again.
But the business with Jonathan Trevanny was merely a game for Tom. He was not doing it for Reeves’ gambling interests. Tom happened to dislike gambling, and had no respect for people who chose to earn their living, or even part of their living from it. It was pimping, of a sort. Tom had started the Trevanny game out of curiosity, and because Trevanny had once sneered at him – and because Tom wanted to see if his own wild shot would find its mark, and make Jonathan Trevanny, who Tom sensed was priggish and self-righteous, uneasy for a time. Then Reeves could offer his bait, hammering the point of course that Trevanny was soon to die anyway. Tom doubted that Trevanny would bite, but it would be a period of discomfort for Trevanny, certainly. Unfortunately Tom couldn’t guess how soon the rumour would get to Jonathan Trevanny’s ears. Gauthier was gossipy enough, but it just might happen, even if Gauthier told two or three people, that no one would have the courage to broach the subject to Trevanny himself.
So Tom, although busy as usual with his painting, his spring planting, his German and French studies (Schiller and Molière now), plus supervising a crew of three masons who were constructing a greenhouse along the right side of Belle Ombre’s back lawn, still counted the passing days and imagined what might have happened after that afternoon in the middle of March, when he had said to Gauthier that he’d heard Trevanny wasn’t long for this world. Not too likely that Gauthier would speak to Trevanny directly, unless they were closer than Tom thought. Gauthier would more likely tell someone else about it. Tom counted on the fact (he was sure it was a fact) that the possibility of anyone’s imminent death was a fascinating subject to everyone.
Tom went to Fontainebleau, some twelve miles from Villeperce, every two weeks or so. Fontainebleau was better than Moret for shopping, for having suede coats cleaned, for buying radio batteries and the rarer things that Mme Annette wished for her cuisine. Jonathan Trevanny had a telephone in his shop, Tom had noted in the directory, but apparently not in his house in the Rue St Merry. Tom had been trying to look up the house number, but he thought he would recognize the house when he saw it. Around the end of March, Tom became curious to see Trevanny again, from a distance, of course, and so on a trip to Fontainebleau one Friday morning, a market day, for the purpose of buying two round terracotta flower tubs, Tom, after putting these items in the back of the Renault station wagon, walked through the Rue des Sablons where Trevanny’s shop was. It was nearly noon.
Trevanny’s shop looked in need of paint and a bit depressing, as if it belonged to an old man, Tom thought. Tom had never patronized Trevanny, because there was a good framer in Moret, closer to Tom. The little shop with ‘Encadrement’ in fading red letters on the wood over the door stood in a row of shops – a launderette, a cobbler’s, a modest travel agency – with its door on the left side and to the right a square window with assorted frames and two or three paintings with handwritten price tags on them. Tom crossed the street casually, glanced into the shop and saw Trevanny’s tall, Nordic-looking figure behind the counter some twenty feet away. Trevanny was showing a man a length of frame, slapping it into his palm, talking. Then Trevanny glanced at the window, saw Tom for an instant, but continued talking to the customer with no change in his expression.
Tom strolled on. Trevanny hadn’t recognized him, Tom felt. Tom turned right, into the Rue de France, the next more important street after the Rue Grande, and continued till he came to the Rue St Merry where he turned right. Or had Trevanny’s house been to the left? No, right.
Yes, there it was, surely, the narrow, cramped-looking grey house with slender black handrails going up the front steps. The tiny areas on either side of the steps were cemented, and no flower pots relieved the barrenness. But there was a garden behind, Tom recalled. The windows, though sparkling clean, showed rather limp curtains. Yes, this was where he’d come on the invitation of Gauthier that evening in February. There was a narrow passage on the left side of the house which must lead to the garden beyond. A green plastic garbage bin stood in front of the padlocked iron gate to the garden, and Tom imagined that the Trevannys usually got to the garden via the back door off the kitchen, which Tom remembered,
Tom was on the other side of the street, walking slowly, but careful not to appear to be loitering, because he could not be sure that the wife, or someone, was not even now looking out one of the windows.
Was there anything else he needed to buy? Zinc white. He was nearly out of it. And that purchase would take him to Gauthier die art supply man. Tom quickened his step, congratulating himself because his need of zinc white was a real need, so he’d be entering Gauthier’s on a real errand, while at the same time lie might be able to satisfy his curiosity.
Gauthier was alone in the shop.
‘Bonjour, M. Gauthier!’ said Tom.
‘Bonjour, M. Reepley!’ Gauthier replied, smiling. ‘And how are you?’
‘Very well, thank you, and you? – I find I need some zinc white.’
‘Zinc white.’ Gauthier pulled a flat drawer from his cabinet against a wall. ‘Here they are. And you like the Rembrandt, as I recall.’
Tom did. Derwatt zinc white and other Derwatt-made colours were available, too, their tubes emblazoned with the bold, downward slanting signature of Derwatt in black on the label, but somehow Tom did not want to paint at home with the name Derwatt catching his eye every time he reached for a tube of anything. Tom paid, and as Gauthier was handing him his change and the little bag with the zinc white in it, Gauthier said:
‘Ah, M. Reepley, you recall M. Trevanny, the framer of the Rue St Merry?’
‘Yes, of course,’ said Tom who had been wondering how to bring Trevanny up.
‘Well, the rumour that you heard, that he is going to die soon, is not true at all.’ Gauthier smiled.
‘No? Well, very good! I’m glad to hear that.’
‘Yes. M. Trevanny went to see his doctor even. I think he was a bit upset. Who wouldn’t be, eh? Ha-ha! – But you said somebody told you, M. Reepley?’
‘Yes. A man who was at the party – in February. Mme Trevanny’s birthday party. So I assumed it was a fact and everybody knew it, you see.’
Gauthier looked thoughtful.
‘You spoke to M. Trevanny?’
‘No – no. But I did speak to his best friend one evening, another evening at the Trevannys’ house, this month. Evidently he spoke to M. Trevanny. How these things get around !’
‘His best friend ?’ Tom asked with an air of innocence.
‘An Englishman. Alain something. He was going to America next day. But – do you recall who told you, M. Reepley?’
Tom shook his head slowly. ‘Can’t recall his name and not even how he looked. There were so many people that night.’
‘Because —’ Gauthier bent closer and whispered, as if there were someone else present. ‘M. Trevanny asked me, you see, who had told me, and of course I didn’t say it was you. These things can be misinterpreted. I didn’t want to get you into trouble. Ha!’ Gauthier’s shiny glass eye did not laugh but looked out from his head with a bold stare, as if there were a different brain from Gauthier’s behind that eye, a computer kind of brain that at once could know everything, if someone just set the programming.
‘I thank you for that, because it is not nice to make remarks which are not true about people’s health, eh?’ Tom was grinning now, ready to take his leave, but he added, ‘M. Trevanny does have a blood condition, however, didn’t you say?’
‘That is true. I think it’s leukemia. But that is something he lives with. He once told me he’d had it for years.’
Tom nodded. ‘At any rate, I’m glad he’d not in danger. A bientôt, M. Gauthier. Many thanks.’
Tom walked in the direction of his car. Trevanny’s shock, though it may have lasted just a few hours until he consulted his doctor, must at least have put a little crack in his self-confidence
. A few people had believed, and maybe Trevanny himself had believed, that he was not going to live more than a few weeks. That was because such a possibility wasn’t put of the question for a man with Trevanny’s ailment. A pity Trevanny was now reassured, but that little crack might be all that Reeves needed. The game could now enter its second stage. Trevanny would probably say no to Reeves. End of game, in that case. On the other hand Reeves would approach him as if of course he was a doomed man. It would be amusing if Trevanny weakened. That day after lunch with Heloise and her Paris friend Noëlle, who was going to stay overnight, Tom left the ladies and wrote a letter to Reeves on his typewriter.
March 28, 19—
Dear Reeves,
I have an idea for you, in case you have not yet found what you are looking for. His name is Jonathan Trevanny, early thirties, English, a picture-framer, married to Frenchwoman with small son. [Here Tom gave Trevanny’s home and shop addresses and shop telephone number.] He looks as if he could use some money, and although he may not be the type you want, he looks the picture of decency and innocence, and what is more important for you, he has only a few more months or weeks to live, I have found out. He’s got leukemia, and has just heard the bad news. He might be willing to take on a dangerous job to earn some money now. I don’t know Trevanny personally, and need I emphasize that I don’t wish to make his acquaintance, nor do I wish you to mention my name. My suggestion is, if you want to sound him out, come to F’bleau, put yourself up at a charming hostelry called the Hotel de L’Aigle Noir for a couple of days, contact Trevanny by ringing his shop, make an appointment and talk it over. And do I have to tell you to give another name besides your own?
Tom felt a sudden optimism about the project. The vision of Reeves with his disarming air of uncertainty and anxiety – almost suggestive of probity – laying such an idea before Trevanny who looked as upright as a saint, made Tom laugh. Did he dare occupy another table in the Hotel de L’Aigle Noir’s dining-room or bar when Reeves made his date with Trevanny? No, that would be too much. This reminded Tom of another point, and he added to his letter: