Act of Passion (16 page)

It is a wide avenue. It runs along the old ramparts. A neighbourhood of barracks. There aren't more than two or three shops to throw a rectangle of light on the sidewalk.

I was feverish, my heart pounded. I saw the house with a light on the ground floor and another light upstairs. I rang the bell. I heard Mme Debeurre's slippers flip-flapping down the hall.

'Oh, it's you, Doctor ... The young lady has just come in ...'

I went upstairs four steps at a time. I knocked. While I stared at the line of light under the door, a placid voice bade me come in.

There was a blue silk shade over the lamp, and under the shade smoke was curling.

Why did I scowl? Why did I have that empty feeling? No doubt I was expecting immediately to have Martine standing there, her body pressed against mine. I had to look all around the room before I saw her lying on the bed in her clothes, smiling, a cigarette in her mouth.

Then, instead of rushing over to embrace her, instead of announcing my two pieces of good news, which I had kept repeating to myself all the way, brutally I asked:

'What are you doing there?'

Never in my life had I spoken like that. I have never been domineering. I have always been afraid of shocking, of wounding. My voice surprised me.

Smiling, she replied, but perhaps already with a shade of anxiety in her eyes:

'I was taking a rest while waiting for you to come ...'

'You didn't know that I was coming...'

'But I did ...'

What irritated me, I think, was to find her looking exactly as I had seen her at the American bar in Nantes, with her cover-girl smile, which I was beginning to hate.

'You went out?'

'I had to eat. Here, there was nothing ready ...'

I felt like being cruel to her, I, who had been so patient with Armande, whom I did not love.

It was so simple to go over to her, to kiss her, to fold her in my arms. I had been thinking about it all day. I had lived that moment a hundred times in advance and everything was happening differently. I remained standing, without even taking off my overcoat, with my boots dripping on the carpet.

'Where did you have dinner?'

'In a little restaurant, called the Green Oak, somebody told me about...'

'Not Mme Debeurre at any rate...'

I knew the Green Oak. It is not a restaurant for strangers, who would have difficulty finding it, tucked away at the back of a courtyard which looks like the courtyard of a farm. It is practically a pension, frequented by bachelor functionaries of the city, habitués, and a few travelling salesmen who pass through La Roche periodically.

'You had a cocktail, I'll bet.. .'

She was no longer smiling. She was sitting on the edge of the bed and was looking at me with an anxious hurt expression, like a little girl who wonders why she is being scolded.

After all, she didn't know me yet. She had no idea what my true character was, what our love would be.

And yet, your Honour, that love, whatever it would be, she accepted. Do you understand what that means? I myself understood it only much later.

I was tense, and haunted by a fixed idea, like a man who has drunk too much.

'You went to the Poker-Bar .. .'

I had no idea she had. But I had been so afraid of it that I made the statement feeling almost certain that I was not wrong.

'I think that is what it's called ... I couldn't stay shut up all day ... I had to have some air ... I took a little walk ...'

'And you wanted a drink ...'

Damn it all! Wasn't everything I knew about her mixed up with bars?

'You couldn't wait, could you, to wallow in your filthy atmosphere again?'

Because, suddenly, that atmosphere was what I hated most in the whole world. Those high stools where she perched with her legs crossed so naturally! And the cigarette-case she took out of her bag, the cigarette - the cigarette stained with lipstick which she couldn't do without any more than she could do without cocktails which she would watch being mixed ... and after that letting her eyes wander from one man to another, seeking attention - hungry for attention...

I seized her wrists, not even knowing what I was doing. I jerked her to her feet.

'Admit that you were missing it already ... Admit that you wanted to see Bouquet... Go on, admit it...'

I was gripping her wrists hard enough to hurt her. I no longer knew if I loved her or if I hated her.

'Admit it! ... I'm so sure I'm right ... You just had to go and start something with him ...'

She could have denied it. That is what I expected. I think I should have been satisfied. She hung her head. She stammered:

'I wonder... Perhaps ...'

'You wanted to play around with him, didn't you?'

I gave her wrists several hard jerks and I saw that I was hurting her, that she was frightened, that automatically her eyes sought the door.

I think from that day, from that moment, I was to strike her. And yet I was moved. I was filled pity for her, she was so pale, her face drawn anguish and fatigue. Her cigarette had fallen on carpet and she was trying to put it out with her foot for fear of fire. I noticed her movement and increased my rage to think that she could, at a mom like this, bother about such a trifle.

'You had to have a man, didn't you?'

She shook her head.

'Admit it ...'

'No.'

'You had to have a drink .. .'

'Perhaps .. .'

'You had to have attention ... You have to have men paying attention to you all the time and you are capable of stopping a policeman on the street with any old excuse, just so he'll make love to you.'

'You're hurting me .. .'

'You're nothing but a whore .. .'

As I uttered the word, I jerked her wrists even harder than before and sent her rolling on the floor. She did not make a sound. She remained there with one arm crooked in front of her face in fear of the blows she was expecting.

'Get up .. .'

She obeyed me slowly, staring at me as though terror-stricken, but there was no trace of hate or resentment in her eyes.

Little by little I realized all this and I was stupefied. I had just behaved like a beast and she accepted it. I had just insulted her and she did not resent it.

She stammered something like:

'Don't hurt me …'

At that I stood motionless, I said in a voice which must have sounded much the same as before:

'Come here .. .'

She hesitated an instant. Finally she came towards me, still protecting her face with her arm. She was sure that I was going to strike her. But she came, your Honour. That is the point, she came!

And we had met each other for the first time three days before.

I had no idea of beating her. I wanted her to come of her own accord. When she was close to me, I opened my arms and I pressed her to my breast so hard she could scarcely breathe, while tears filled my eyes.

I stammered in her ear, all warm against my cheek:

'Forgive me .. .'

We were standing in a close embrace a few steps from the bed.

'Did you see him?'

'Who?'

All this was no more than a whisper.

'You know perfectly well...'

'No ... he wasn't there ...'

'And if he had been there?'

'I would have told him that I was not going to be his secretary ...'

'But you would have had a drink with him ...'

'Perhaps ...'

She was speaking low as at confession. I could not see her eyes, which must have been looking over my shoulder.

'Who was it you talked to?'

'No one ...'

'You're lying ... Someone must have told you about the Green Oak .. .'

'That's so. But I don't know his name ...'

'He asked you to have a drink, didn't he?'

'I think so... Yes...'

Suddenly I was sad, your Honour. A tender sadness. I had the impression that I was holding a sick child in my arms. She was a liar. She was depraved.

But just the same, she had come to me when she thought I was going to hurt her. She in turn stammered:

'Forgive me ...'

Then these words, which I shall never forget, these words which more than anything else came like an echo from her childhood:

'I won't do it again ...'

She too wanted to cry, but she did not cry. She kept very still for fear of unleashing my demons again, and then I drew her gently towards the bed which still held the imprint of her body.

Again she stammered, perhaps with a certain astonishment:

'You want to?'

I wanted to, yes. But not as at Nantes. I wanted to feel that she was mine. I wanted her flesh to mingle intimately with mine, and it was slowly, with full consciousness, my throat tight with emotion, that I took possession of her.

I understood right away what was worrying her, the reason for that look of anxiety in her eyes. She was afraid of offending me. She was baffled by the calmness of my caress which seemed free from voluptuous pleasure...'

After a long moment I heard a whisper:

'Should I?...'

I said no. It wasn't her panting body striving for a deliverance she could not find, it wasn't her haggard eyes, her mouth open as though to utter a cry of despair that I desired today. All that, in fact, I had decided never to desire again. That was what the others had had. That was the old Martine, the Martine of cocktails, cigarettes and bars.

That evening I never considered her pleasure. Nor my own. It was not pleasure I was looking for.

What I wanted was, deliberately and with, I repeat, full consciousness of my act, to impregnate her with my substance, and my emotion was that of a man living through the most solemn hour of his life.

Once and for all I accepted my responsibilities. Not only mine but hers. I was taking her life in charge, both her present and her past, and that is why, your Honour, I held her almost sadly in my arms.

She remained calm and serious. As soon as she felt me melting into her, she turned her head slightly on the pillow, probably to hide her tears. Her hand sought mine, pressed my fingers with the same deliberateness and tenderness as mine when I possessed her.

We lay there for ä long time like that in silence, and now we heard Mme Debeurre moving about downstairs, intentionally making a lot of noise, annoyed, probably, by our long tête-à-tête.

These perfectly transparent wiles of hers ended by amusing us, for the good woman, every now and then, would come to the foot of the stairs and stand there listening, as though worried not to hear our voices. Was it because she had heard Martine's fall?

Quietly I disengaged myself.

'I almost forgot to tell you ... You are invited to spend Christmas Eve at the house .. .'

And I had imagined myself shouting the words in an outburst of joy! But here I was speaking of it in the simplest way in the world, as though of some fortuitous event.

'Another thing. After the holidays, probably the day after New Year's, you will work with me as my assistant.'

We had already gone beyond that.

'I have to go ...'

She rose. She smoothed her hair a little before coming up to me, putting her two arms on my shoulders and, in an artless gesture, holding up her lips to mine.

'Good night, Charles...'

'Good night, Martine ...'

The throatiness of her voice that evening moved me to the depth of my being. To hear it once more, I repeated:

'Good night, Martine...'

'Good night, Charles...'

I took another look around the room and moved away. I stammered:

'Tomorrow ...'

She did not ask me what time, and that meant she would be waiting for me all day, because in the future she would always be waiting for me.

I had to leave quickly, for my emotion was too much for me and I did not want to give in to it again. I needed to be alone, to be once more in the cool darkness of the street, the solitude of the deserted avenues.

She opened the door for me. I don't know how we managed to break away from one another. I had already gone down a few steps when she repeated, in exactly the same tone of voice as before, like an incantation - and indeed, from that evening on, it became a kind of incantation:

'Good night, Charles.. .'

Little did we care for Mme Debeurre spying on us behind her half-open door.

'Good night, Martine ...'

'I won't go there any more, you know...'

I rushed out. I had just time to reach my car and to slip in behind the wheel before bursting into tears, and as I drove along, the street-lamps and the headlights of the few cars I passed were so blurred that I had to draw up to the kerb and stop for some time.

A policeman came up, looked in, recognized me.

'Your car break down, Doctor?'

I didn't want him to see my face. I took my appointment book out of my pocket. I pretended to be consulting it.

'No ... just looking up an address ..'

Chapter Eight

We spent a quiet Christmas among ourselves - Armande, my mother, my daughters, Martine, my friend Frachon and I. Frachon is a bald-headed bachelor who has no family at La Roche - one of those bachelors, in fact, who takes his meals at the Green Oak - and whom for years we always invited for Christmas Eve. Armande received a piece of jewellery, a platinum clip which she had wanted for some time. She seldom wears jewellery but she likes to own it, and I think the first time I ever saw her lose her composure, even to the point of actually weeping, was the day that, wanting to offer her a little present of no importance, I had bought her some imitation pearls. I don't say that she is avaricious. Even if she were, I should not think myself justified in resenting it or blaming her, for everyone has his own vice. She likes to possess beautiful things, valuable things, even if she never takes them out of her drawer.

I had bought nothing of value for Martine for fear of attracting attention. I even pushed caution so far as to ask my wife to buy two or three pairs of silk stockings to give her.

This very peaceful Christmas was invoked in court. I don't know if you were present. The prosecutor stigmatized my
cynicism
, accusing me of having, by
ignoble and hypocritical means, insinuated my concubine into the family circle
.