Petite Mort (15 page)

A uniformed footman stands outside the large outer door, hands neatly folded. ‘Madame Durand, how nice to see you again,’ he says, inclining his head. He doesn’t acknowledge me; just holds the door open politely for us, and leads us inside.

We step into the tiny lift, upper arms touching, and as my
stomach drops and we ascend, I turn to find her watching me. ‘Nervous?’

‘A little.’

The footman is shuttling back the iron grille. She leans in and whispers: ‘I have a tip for you. Picture them in bed.’

She winks and, as I turn back to face forwards, my face raging red, a door is opening and a roar of voices fills the hall. Aurélie stands in the doorway, wearing a long blue dress and a tiny hat that fits close to her head, hiding her hair.

‘Look at you!’ she shouts over the din, exchanging kisses with Terpsichore. ‘Can that be a Wallace Monge?’ she asks, and pushes Terpsichore in a little twirl, holding her hand above her head. Then she half turns and calls: ‘Louis! It’s Luce! And,’ – her eyes find mine, and she smiles thinly – ‘is it Mlle Roux?’

A tall, lugubrious man with a walrus moustache appears by Aurélie’s shoulder, and bends to kiss Terpsichore’s hand, and then mine. ‘So charmed,’ he says, ‘I am Louis Vercors, ex-Minister of the Interior,’ and draws himself up impressively. Behind him, Aurélie rolls her eyes and says: ‘Can the Ex-Minister find Mlle Roux a drink?’

Aware of Terpsichore’s eyes on me: ‘Adèle,’ I say, ‘it’s Adèle.’

‘So charmed,’ Aurélie says, and taking Terpsichore’s arm, she leads her away into the room. Terpsichore looks back at me over her shoulder: a little shrug and a smile that’s like a promise.

The room is full of all kinds of people, flushed red faces, cigarette smoke and laughter. A chandelier sparkles overhead, but the rest of the furniture in this wide room is modern, all clean lines and angular shapes; a baby grand piano gleams in the corner. The Ex-Minister snaps his fingers and a servant appears, and pours me a glass of champagne.

‘Your apartment is very chic,’ I say to Louis Vercors, who is standing mute at my elbow.

He puffs up again. ‘It is our official residence; I am granted it in perpetuity in my capacity as a former Minister. On your right, you can see my portrait, painted during my second year in office—’

I swivel obediently, and my eyes travel the room to see where Terpsichore is, and glimpse her glossy head, and her teeth bared in laughter. Aurélie is huddled next to her, their heads close together, pointing out someone else in the room.

I look away. A few feet from us is a strange object: a camera, but a fifth of the normal size, on a correspondingly miniature tripod. Guests are milling around: one reaches out to touch it, and draws her hand back, laughing.

‘What’s that?’ I ask the Ex-Minister, who pauses, irritated at the interruption. ‘That is our Pathé Baby camera, a gift of our dear friend André Durand, a device for recording film in the home, for recreational purposes. Aurélie proposes to make records of our
soirées
for posterity. In fact, we used it only last week, at the ceremony of my investiture into the Collège de France in my capacity as…’

I half-turn, desperate; this time Terpsichore sees me, nudges Aurélie and excuses herself, laughing and trailing a hand away from her. ‘Please, I think my mistress need me,’ I say to Louis Vercors, who nods, sad-eyed – people must be for ever leaving him like this – and go to meet her in the middle of the room.

‘Have you tried my suggestion?’ she asks.

‘I forgot,’ – and she is smiling down at me, and the light seems very bright from above, when there is the sound of someone clapping for silence; we turn; it is Aurélie. ‘Guests! Take a seat, or if you can’t find one, choose the lap of the neighbour who seems most to your taste,’ – she grins, appreciative of the laughter – ‘we will now hear a
lied
by Schubert from our most esteemed guest, M. Leydermann.’

A murmur, and the guests begin to mill about, picking their positions next to friends. An elderly woman in black begins to
flutter her fan; a slender young man in a velvet waistcoat perches on the edge of his seat and shuts his eyes in anticipation.

‘Here is as good as any.’ Terpsichore pulls two chairs towards us, and we sit.

A few moments later, the hubbub dies down. Someone has closed the window, and the heat in the room begins to mount; a fair-haired young man gets to his feet and moves to lean on the piano. A burst of applause; he bows, all seriousness, and stands, smiling in a glazed fashion at the audience, gathering himself.

We wait, watching him close his eyes and open them again – he is sweating, beads lining his forehead – suddenly he crosses to Aurélie’s seat and whispers something. She leaps to her feet, a marionette, clapping her hands together. ‘I quite forgot – M. Leydermann’s usual accompanist cannot join us, but I told him that someone here would be glad to play.’

A silence; five or six people are looking fixedly at the floor, but not out of modesty; there is the hot, yearning silence of wanting to be selected.

Aurélie is looking directly at us. ‘Will you help?’ For a horrible moment I think she means me; then I realise she means Terpsichore. Surprise in the room, but immediately there is a buzz of nodding and encouragement; the wish not to be seen to be ungracious, but also a certain ungenerous interest:
Let us see if her playing matches her acting
.

Terpsichore smiles fixedly. ‘I suppose I can try,’ she says, and there is muted clapping and laughter.

As she gets to her feet, she flashes me a smile – then she walks over and sits at the piano, hands resting gently on the keys, waiting. Behind the audience, Aurélie stoops to put her eye to the camera.

The tenor laces his hands behind his back. ‘The Erlking,’ he says.

A silent signal passes between them: how it works I don’t understand, but they have decided when to begin, her hands
hammering, forcing the notes out; a moment later the singer leans forward and follows her.

Who rides, so late, through night and wind?

It is the father with his child
.

He has the boy close in his arms

He holds him safely, he keeps him warm
.

Her fingers, so precise, so menacing, branches stinging the face of the riders; the child shrinking away from a pale face hovering, keeping pace with them.

My father, my father, don’t you hear

What the Erlking is quietly promising me?

Be calm, stay calm, my child;

The wind is rustling through withered leaves
.

It is as if she draws all the light in the room towards her; the notes flowing out, an unceasing stream. The tenor leans forward, his face a gargoyle:

I love you, your beautiful form entices me;

And if you’re not willing, I shall use force
.

Suddenly, slowing and quiet. The horse stands still, high-stepping, eyes rolling back; a light goes on in the farmhouse ahead.

In his arms, the child was dead
.

You can hear the servants clearing away glasses in a room beyond; the elderly woman’s fan is motionless before her face.

The tenor gives a tense little bow. Terpsichore closes the piano lid, and everyone is on their feet, clapping.

I expect her to get up from the stool to receive the applause, but instead she is pale and pinched. Just as I am starting to worry, she recovers herself, looks towards the audience, and smiles.

A tired-looking young man stands and recites some of his poetry, which has been composed entirely without the use of the letter A; then a thin-voiced woman sings a bawdy boulevard song, hands clasped before her, and everyone murmurs that it’s charming: but it can’t equal what has gone before; the crowd are restless and thirsty, and soon people begin to slip away to continue the evening elsewhere. The Ex-Minister has snared another victim and is showing her a medal case fixed to the wall. I feel Terpsichore’s hand close on my elbow, and she jerks her head towards the door.

Since the music I can barely look at her, so I nod. Aurélie comes across the room and enfolds her in her arms, resting her chin on her shoulder blade: ‘It was a fabulous rescue; if I were a poet I’d write you an ode,’ she says, and then steps towards me and says crisply: ‘We’ll see each other again.’

I give a little curtsy. ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

For a few minutes, driving along with the river oily and shining on our right, we say nothing.

‘I didn’t know you could play.’ My voice sounds odd even to my own ears; I hope the darkness in the car will disguise it.

‘What surprises you? That I can play, or that you didn’t know?’

‘That you could play like that, and that nobody knew.’

‘Lots of people play.’

I stare out of the window. I want to say,
But people should only have one great talent, not more. People shouldn’t be so
—

‘Anyway,’ she says, ‘Aurélie is far more accomplished than I am. She was just being modest.’

I have made a mean little sound before I can stop myself; she turns her head, and I can hear that she has caught it.

It seems as if she may say something, when suddenly the
statue of St Jeanne slides past, lit up from beneath; at its foot, a pair of tramps swing a bottle and sing to each other; one of them raises the bottle to us as we pass, and Terpsichore’s face opens into a smile. She leans forward and cranks the window down: ‘
Vive la France!
’

‘
Vive la France!
’ they reply, arms looped around each other’s necks, midnight friends for life.

She settles back into the corner, against the swaying wall of the car. In the gloom there is just the lustre of her eyes, gleaming like an animal. I suspect, but cannot prove, that she is looking at me.

The car rolls up outside the house; in the now-familiar routine, Hubert hops out and holds the door open for her first, then me.

The hour being late, there is only one table lamp on in the hallway, turned low. When we reach the door, Thomas looms up in front of us, ready to receive our coats. We shrug them off and he hangs them up, and asks Terpsichore if she requires anything else.

‘No, thank you,’ she says, and he leaves us, his footsteps padding away down the hall.

She waves towards the staircase. A faint silvery light shows us the swoop of the spiral and the landing up above. ‘After you, Adèle.’

There are things to say, but what? I do a little spasm, forward and back at the same time; decide on forward, if it’s what she wants: ‘Thank you, Madame.’

Her laugh, high and not quite right. ‘Now we’ve been to a party together, I think you should call me Luce.’ She pauses; the sound of the sea swells and booms in my ears. ‘I think it’s time, don’t you?’

I turn back to her, wanting to offer her something but not knowing what.

She leans in towards me and kisses my cheek. ‘Goodnight.’

She pulls back slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on mine: the pupils large.

I turn and flee up the stairs, taking them two at a time, not stopping till I reach the corridor outside my bedroom, where I pause for breath. On my face, the cool pressure of her lips, now fading, like the touch of a ghost.

Caroline Durand, i
.

Two days after Auguste Durand died, Caroline Durand went to Thibodaux-Nouveau to be fitted for her mourning clothes.

As he wound the black crêpe around her, the tailor pushed his pins firmly into her flesh. The pins did not hurt much but she was surprised: only two days, and already the gossip must have begun.

As she stepped out of the tailor’s, she felt the townspeople watching from doorways without speaking.

Caroline lifted her chin and turned in at the lawyer’s offices.

‘Mme Durand,’ – the attorney pressed her palm between both his – ‘so sad – but if you’ll follow me—’

In the inner office, she sat motionless as the lawyer opened the envelope and drew out the précis of Auguste’s will.

‘M. Durand left his estate to your adopted son,’ he said. There was no way to disguise the bald truth of it; he passed an embarrassed hand over his forehead. But Caroline merely nodded – it was as she had expected – and got up to leave.

‘Wait,’ the lawyer said, ‘there is something else. A painting – a painting of you?’

Caroline nodded.

‘Your husband specified that you be allowed to keep it.’

Caroline nodded again.

For three months she kept up appearances, writing letters, answering condolence cards, eating less, snuffing candles out
earlier, letting the servants go one by one. Of André there came no news.

One day, a gentleman caller came, professing himself an old friend of Auguste’s paying his respects. Caroline guessed the man was one of those itinerant collectors who went from town to town enquiring after the recent widows, but she let him in anyway. The man accepted tea and made polite conversation: and as he did so, his eyes roved over the teak and the mahogany furniture and settled on her portrait.

He looked at it for a moment, then looked away, but too late: Caroline had seen his interest flick its tail.

As he left he passed her his business card.