Authors: Albert Cohen
CHAPTER 88
Two hours later, after dinner, they settled down in her room and there was a silence which she filled by offering him a cigarette and then lighting it in a scrupulous and heart-melting quest for perfection. The poor girl does her level best, he thought. Ha, now she's taking one herself. To put some life into the proceedings. To create a relaxed atmosphere. She's wearing that evening dress entirely for my benefit. We make an odd couple, she pointlessly got up in her glad-rags which would be more appropriate at Buckingham Palace, and me in a red dressing-gown, slippers and no socks.
'Those old hags downstairs were quite nauseating,' she said after another silence. 'I can't think why we stayed there listening to them. (You because you hunger for social contacts, however squalid. Me to lick the pebble of my unhappiness.) Basically, I'm beginning to think I'm becoming unsociable, that I hate other people. I only feel right when I'm with you. You are the only person who exists. (Oh yes? And what about that handsome waiter just now? When he went out, you took a good peek at yourself in the mirror above the fireplace. That little unconscious of yours just had to make sure if you'd been judged and found beautiful. But good luck to you if being considered attractive by somebody else made you feel happy.) Tomorrow I'll whizz over to Saint-Raphaël and get the gramophone repaired,' she said, after a third silence. 'If they can't mend it while I wait, I'll buy another one. (He kissed her hand.) And while I'm there I'll try to get hold of the Mozart Horn Concerto. It's not terribly well known but it's very fine. Do you know it?'
'Oh yes,' he lied. 'The horn part is astounding.'
She gave an approving smile. When she'd used up all her smile, she said she'd forgotten to show him the surprise she'd got for him, a box of Turkish nougat she'd found yesterday in a little shop in Saint-Raphaël.
'It rejoices in the name of halva, I believe. (She pronounced it "chalva" for the local colour of it. This irritated Solal almost as much as the 'rejoices in the name of", which she evidently considered nobler than "is called"'.) I thought it might take your fancy.'
Inflated language everywhere, he thought. She asked him if he'd like to taste some halva. He said he'd love to, but not now, later. Then she produced another surprise, an electric coffee-maker, also bought yesterday, plus all the necessary: ground coffee, sugar, cups and spoons. Now she'd be able to make him coffee herself, which would be better than the hotel's. He said she was very clever to have thought of it and, as it happened, he felt like a cup of coffee.
'In that case I think I'm entided to a little kiss,' she said. (Continuing fall in the value of the Palestinian pound, he thought as he gave her a little kiss on the cheek. They had started giving each other more and more little kisses. And actually they were sincerely meant.)
In high spirits, she set to with a will and assembled the coffee-maker according to the instructions in the leaflet. As he raised the cup to his lips, she peered at him to see if he liked it. 'Excellent,' he said, and once more she inhaled through her nose. But when the coffee had been drunk it was drunk, and there wasn't anything else to drink, or "do, and silence fell again. So she suggested reading out the last two chapters of the novel she'd started some days before. He agreed with alacrity.
She settled herself comfortably - to establish a cosy, natural, relaxed atmosphere, he thought - removed one of his slippers, then proceeded to massage his naked foot as she read. As usual, she tried to breathe hfe into the dialogue, putting on a gruff, soldierly voice when it was the hero of the tale who was speaking. That's how she liked them, he thought, men with positive attitudes, the sort who didn't duck a challenge. That's the sort she ought to have had really, a modern, dynamic clergyman say, or a legation secretary who played polo, or an English lord who went exploring in the Himalayas. She had no luck, poor kid.
When she had finished reading, they moved on to a pointlessly intelligent analysis of the novel, smoking expensive cigarettes as they talked. Then she suggested that they might start another book by the same author. He indicated that he'd rather not. He'd had enough of geometrically constructed novels which were nauseatingly clever and drier than dust. So she suggested she should read him a biography of Disraeli instead. Oh no, not that sly old fox who, possessing no talents beyond a certain low cunning, had taken good care not to make a mess of his life. After a silence, she mentioned how dull the weather had been that day, which led her on to observe that she felt cheered that it would soon, be spring, in about ten weeks actually, which prompted her to speak of the strange, almost religious, awe she experienced when she saw little green shoots appear out of the earth, humbly reaching out for life. He nodded in earnest agreement, but thought to himself that this was the third time since they'd been at Agay that she had dredged up green shoots and almost religious awe. It wasn't easy to renew the stock. Again he felt pity, but that solved nothing. She was doing her best to share things with him. Very well, let's share. So he was very sharing and understanding and said that he too felt deeply moved every time he saw little green shoots. At this point she would probably expatiate on crows (underestimated intelligence of), a subject to which he braced himself to tip his hat as it flew by. But he was spared the crows, and there was a silence.
What could they do now? Should he kiss her like a tempest, like in the Geneva days? Have a care, that could be dangerous. If the kiss were pcssionate enough, and she responded conscientiously and doubtless out of a sense of duty, the snag was that she would wonder why there was no follow-up. Best make it just an affectionate brush on her eyes with his lips. So he kissed her eyes, and she expressed her gratitude with a ghastly, petted, schoolgirly Thank you.' There followed a silence. Unable to come up with a new topic of conversation or a novel way of telling her either that she was beautiful or that he loved her, which being new would make some impact on her, he decided nevertheless to press ahead with an ardent, long-distance embrace. The which he did, and during the performance he marvelled yet again at this practice to which men and women were given, a quite ludicrous custom really, the peculiar notion of seeking some furious conjoining through orifices designed for eating. When the conjoining was over, the silence returned and she smiled at him, compliant, perfect, game for anything, for kisses or dominoes or childhood memories or bed. Absolutely perfect. Still, when they'd played dominoes last night she'd had to bite her lip to stifle a yawn.
'How about a game of dominoes?' she said playfully. 'I insist on having my revenge. I just know I'll win tonight.'
Returning from the sitting-room carrying the box of games, she got out the dominoes and they divided them. But just as she was putting down her first double-six the music struck up below. Once more the happy crowd down there would be dancing now, mocking the two lonely lovers. His poor girl was excluded from all the fun. He said he didn't want to play any more and pushed away the dominoes, which ended up on the floor. She bent down to pick them up. Quick, think up something to compete with the social world downstairs, anything to stop the poor creature dwelling on the contrast between their anaemic life among the dominoes and the offensive gaiety which floated up to them, the wholesome gaiety of the herd of morons who were now clapping and laughing. Anything, but make it alive, exciting, riveting. How about slapping her across the face? But those waiting, lustrous eyes unmanned him. The best and simplest way of course was to want her and have her. Easier said than done. But in Geneva it was easier done than said. He stood up suddenly, and she started.
'What if I were torso-man?' he asked, and she licked her fear-dried lips.
'I don't follow you,' she said with an attempt at a smile.
'Sit down, noble lady and loyal companion. You aren't cold, are you, feeling all right, everything ticking over as should be? We'll come to torso-man in a moment. But first let's settle another problem. The other day, before we went out riding, because you were so keen to go, you came up to me, you smoothed the lapels of my jacket, and you said how handsome I was and how well I looked in my riding clothes. Well?'
'But I don't understand.'
'"My darling is so handsome, he looks so well in his riding clothes," that's what you said, and then you started fiddling some more with my lapels. Answer me!'
'What am I supposed to say?'
'Do you admit saying those words?'
'Yes, of course. What harm was there in that?'
'A great deal! Because it's not me you love but a man, any man, provided he was good-looking! So, if you hadn't met me, you'd have now been slobbering over somebody else my size and telling him the same revolting things! Clucking and cooing, head back, eyes gazing up inanely at some blond Viking with a commanding manner and a pipe stuck in his mouth, stroking his lapels in the same nauseating way, only too anxious to open that mouth of yours! Be quiet!'
'But I didn't say anything.'
'Hold your tongue, I said! And if the man were to take the pipe out of his mouth, you are not repelled by the foul taste of tobacco spittle on his lips. I know, I know, that main clause needs a conditional tense, but it's all the same in the end! Whoever would not be repelled is already not repelled! And you also said my boots suited me! Women always get excited about boots! Boots mean virility, military glory, the victory of the strong over the weak, and the rest of the gorilla chest-beating rigmarole women love so much! You and your kind are worshippers of nature and its ignoble laws! And there's worse to come: to a pagan like you, boots are a symbol of social power! Oh yes, a man who rides is invariably a gentleman, a grandee, a headman of the tribe, in other words a descendant of the robber-barons of the Middle Ages, a knight on a charger, a receptacle of power and might, a noble! Noble! A squalid, double-edged word which speaks volumes about the sordid glorification of might, a squalid word which means both oppressor of the weak and man worthy of respect. Have I said all this before? Quite possibly. But did not the prophets too play tunes on the same strings? In a word, the woman who worships boots is a plucked and trussed oven-ready fascist! Knight, chivalry, man of honour, ugh! Ask Naileater to tell you what lies behind honour, that same honour which you laud to the skies! Hold your tongue!
'Poor, good, mild-mannered Deume, whom she deserted for me —
for me! - simply because I flexed my muscles at the Ritz, casually beat my chest like a gorilla, and humiliated poor, inoffensive Deume! And while I was humiliating him by phone I felt totally and utterly ashamed, but I had no choice, because that was the despicable price she demanded for her love! How ironic: I denounced strength and virility, but it was with strength and virility that I won her, ignobly swept her off her feet! I feel ashamed each time I think of myself swaggering that night at the Ritz, like a gorilla, strutting like a peacock, prancing about like some rutting wild beast! But what else could I have done? I had offered her a mild-mannered, inoffensive old man, but she wouldn't have him and threw a tooth-glass or something of the kind in his face! Hold your tongue!
'Am I mad? Am I crazy with my talk of the animal worship of strength, of strength which is the power to kill? I don't think so, for I see her now — oh yes I see you, my sweet — in my mind's eye I see her that day in Nice, between the acts at the circus, looking strangely aroused and submissive, staring into the tiger's cage! And what a gleam of sensuality there was in that look! In her excitement she grabbed my hand, making do with mine because she could not hold the hand of the tiger! Oh yes, I know, I should have said paw. Excited, aroused by the tiger, just as good Europa was of yore by the bull from the sea! Jupiter was no fool: he knew women! Europa, the virgin with the flowing hair, doubtless lowered her eyes chastely and spake thus to the bull: "Ooh! What big muscles you have, sweetikins." And consider that other good woman, the senorita in the play, who tells her man that he is her proud and noble-hearted Hon! Her Hon! So you see that the word which to that lickerish trollop Dona Sol, the very word which to her seemed the most tender, the most adoring, the most agreeable of all words, is the word which stands for a brutish beast with enormous teeth and claws and deadly power! "You are my proud, my noble-hearted Hon!" O unclean, impure creature!
'Moreover, did not this woman, this same silent woman who now stands before me putting such a noble face on things, did she not have the effrontery that day in Nice as we paused before the tiger's cage to say that she would love to touch the tiger's fur? Yes, touch it! A clear case of sexual attraction! Sin begins with the work of hands! Hold your tongue! Who knows, maybe she prefers the fur of the tiger to the skin of Solal! And the way you flirt with all the cats you meet! That one yesterday, a miniature tiger, lethal to birds, you tickled its belly with a pleasure that was so very revealing. Hold your tongue, daughter of Moab! But she doesn't stroke slugs, oh no! She turns up her nose at slugs! Why such revulsion, why not flirt with slugs? Because they are soft and non-erectile, because they have no muscles or teeth, because they are harmless and incapable of murder! But a tiger or a generalissimo or a dictator or a Solal being arrogant and forceful at the Ritz is a different matter altogether: he carries all before him, his hand is kissed on that first evening, until such time as his lapels can be patted! Is there no end to this base worship of the power of life and death, the base worship of sordid virility! Hold your tongue!'
Trembling-lipped, he glared for a moment at the guilty woman before him, then picked up the riding-crop where it lay and thwacked an armchair so violently that she recoiled in fear.
'And if I had them cut off,' he asked. 'Answer me!'
'I don't know what you mean,' she replied.
'Don't be evasive! You know very well what I mean! If I had both of those two loathsome testifiers removed, would you still stroke my lapels so lovingly, you know, lovingly as in Mozart, as in
"Voi che sapete"?
And would your soul still be twinned with mine? Answer me!