“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.
“He, Maurice, was my friend … a friend I lived with for ten years … no need for the priest or the mayor. But he died of a stupid throat cancer that killed him in a few months. These things only happen to me,” she muttered, trying to smile as she thought of Maurice’s once plump face, his cheeks yellow and hollowed out as if being eaten from within by his illness. “He used to say, ‘Don’t worry, Ginette! I’ll leave my money to you, not to my slut of a sister.’ But as his illness became worse, he could only think about himself. When they get close to
death, people don’t worry much about those they’ll be leaving behind. It’s as if they’re jealous of them, that they think it’s enough just to be alive, and their resentment makes them think, ‘Oh well, let them manage as best they can. Their gratitude isn’t going to bring me back to this earth.’ Of course, when Maurice died, his sister took everything, even the furniture.”
As she remembered her bed, made of lemon wood and decorated with shining dark bronze angels, cool and smooth to the touch, she felt downcast and her eyes filled with tears. She stretched out her hand feverishly.
“You’ll give me one more cigarette, won’t you? Let’s not talk about all that anymore. Tell me about yourself. It does one good to see people who are happy and who love each other. He’s good-looking, your friend. Love is wonderful, you’ll see. Of course, there are things you don’t know about yet, a young girl like you, but you’ll be a fast learner, as they say. Ah! You have nothing to worry about.”
“I know everything there is to know,” Christiane said, taking a peculiar and rather perverse delight in proving herself to be as mature and worldly-wise as this old sinner. She decided that Ginette had no idea who she was and would probably never find out her name.