The Dogs and the Wolves (17 page)

‘You won’t ask them for anything, will you, Ben?’ she asked, before they reached the Sinners’ house, in a voice that was both defiant and pleading.

He smiled.

‘You’re so afraid of me!’

‘You hate them!’

‘I won’t waste my time wondering if I love them or hate them. If they can be useful to me, that’s enough.’

‘But that’s exactly what I don’t want!’

‘Really? And why not, my sweet? What are you going to tell them? Have I done anything wrong? I’ve earned my living, our living, as best I could. I’m not a murderer or a thief. Why would you want to stop me asking them for help and support, as in the past?’

‘What do you want from them?’

‘Your Harry could help me out . . . put in a good word for me to one of his uncles . . .’

‘He won’t want to.’

‘Is that what you think? Why? I’m not going to ask them to
give me an allowance, just to hire me, offer me a job, the lowest possible, and I’m telling you, Ada, they’ll take me.’

‘More of your pipe dreams,’ she murmured with pity and anger.

‘No. I know these people. They can be as Europeanised and cultured as you like, but deep in their hearts, they still have a weakness for people who started out humbly, harshly, with difficulty, like they did. Because when all is said and done, those Sinners, with their racing stables and famous art collections, had fathers who were kids like me: starving, beaten, humiliated. And that creates a bond that is never forgotten, not one of race or blood, but a bond of tears. Do you understand? Why don’t you want to let me try my luck, Ada? What else can I hope for on this earth, aside from money? I’ve already lost you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You love that damned boy.’

Profound pity filled Ada’s heart. She looked at him with kindness.

‘Ben, I’ve never been in love with you, you’ve always known that. But you’re more than my husband, you’re like my brother. I’m begging you to give up your idea of getting involved with these rich people and I . . . I’ll go with you. I’ll never see Harry again. What would be the point? He’s married. He belongs to another woman. It was a dream, a childish fantasy. Come on. Let’s go back home.’

‘Ha!’ Ben replied sadly, shrugging his shoulders. ‘Our three destinies have been linked since we were children. There’s nothing we can do about it.’

‘And you don’t want to let a chance to make yourself a fortune slip by,’ she said with bitter resentment.

‘I can’t . . .’ he said, between clenched teeth, ‘let something slip away . . . that is within my reach. That’s how I am . . . It’s not my fault . . .’

They had arrived. They stopped for a moment, their hearts pounding. What courage it took for them to walk through the grand entrance, to enter the large private house and look the servant in the face as he opened the door for them.

Ada was terrified for a moment when she saw the women going into the formal drawing room wearing their furs. She quickly took off her coat and went into the room.

The elderly Madame Sinner shook her hand and said very loudly, ‘We are related, are we not?’

Oh, if only Aunt Raissa could have heard this family tie she was so proud of proclaimed for all to hear.

‘Yes, I think so, Madame,’ Ada murmured. ‘Distantly related . . .’

‘And you’ve been living all alone, with no one, in this big city, without ever thinking you could come to us! But why?’

‘I don’t know. I suppose it never occurred to me, Madame.’

‘Well, no harm done, since here you are now. You have some admirers who would like to meet you.’

So many curious faces! So many smiles! So many friends! And Harry walking towards her, at last. He could see that she was weary and embarrassed, close to tears. He took her by the arm and led her through the dining room which she had glimpsed, one summer’s night, in the shimmering shadows as she watched the party, alone in the street. She had often tried to imagine this room, but in vain. He took her into a small empty sitting room.

‘You’re going to sit down here, calmly have a glass of champagne and look at all these people, without having to speak to them or smile at them, just as if you were at the theatre, all right?’

‘I’ve already watched them as if I were at the theatre.’

‘When?’

She explained.

‘You’ve never been happy, you poor thing,’ Harry remarked with a softness in his voice that was unusual for him.

She looked at him with an expression that was nearly disconcerting in its perceptive irony.

‘Neither have you,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m free, yes, free. I can work all day long if I feel like it, or stay in bed and do nothing, and no one will worry or ask me if I’m ill. I can spend the whole afternoon strolling along the Seine to look at the colour of the water and I know that no one in all of Paris cares whether I’m dead or alive, whether I’ll come home that night or not.’

‘And you think that’s a good thing?’ he asked with curiosity.

‘Well, it’s the only good thing I’ve ever known, and can recommend to others,’ she replied, smiling.

‘What about your husband?’

‘He’s always busy, always travelling. I have no idea where he is or what he’s doing for months at a time. But that’s how he is and he’s still my only friend.’

‘You have another friend now,’ he whispered, touching her hand.

He was deeply moved. With Laurence, he anxiously listened to every word she said, trying in vain to understand what she wasn’t saying; but with Ada, words themselves were pointless: the subtleties in her voice, in her eyes, revealed to him the very essence of her soul.

Ben paced back and forth past the open door. He made his way through the dazzling crowd as if he were at a train station. His frizzy hair, burning eyes, pale cheeks and sharp features made him look striking and strange.

When he recognised Harry, he headed towards him. Ada walked away, back into the drawing room. People spoke to her and she replied shyly. But she never took her eyes off Harry and Ben. A few moments later, she saw an older man with yellowish skin, a hooked nose and large, dark eyes go over to them. She guessed
he was one of Harry’s uncles. So, once again, Ben’s determination, passion and arrogance had got him what he wanted.

‘But me too,’ she thought. She looked once more at everything around her with curiosity and surprise. The women were beautiful and dazzling, the men elegant, with light, lively voices. Yet, in spite of that, this reception at the Sinners’ home and the afternoon tea dance she had once watched from a distance were as different from each other as reality is to a dream.

She realised that Harry had come to stand beside her.

‘Do you like all this?’ he asked her.

‘Yes, but . . .’ She sighed, sadly. ‘Somehow, it was even better seen from below!’

Ben was on his way back from Brussels. It was the night before a religious holiday and the train was full of priests and children going on a pilgrimage in the north of France. Ben had spent the several hours of the journey in the corridor, sitting on a suitcase that did not belong to him and sleeping soundly, his head knocking against the metal side of the carriage every time the train lurched. He did not feel tiredness any more than he felt fear, hunger or despair. Tiredness never really took hold of him, or rather it over-stimulated him to such an extent that he forgot about his frail body. Certain extreme emotions seemed literally to thrust him outside himself, endowing him with superhuman agility and stamina.

They were approaching Paris; he woke up. He looked at the people in the neighbouring carriages with scornful curiosity. How slow they were. How heavy. They dragged women, children, packages behind them. Even people like him who had a profession that sent them constantly roaming from city to city, from country to country – travelling salesmen, stallholders, actors on tour – even they looked confused, weighed down, battered, while to him, none of it mattered at all. Everywhere was the same to him; he wandered indifferently from place to place, left each behind with no regrets.
Ever since he was a child, he had been taught and made to feel that he belonged to nothing, to no one. Well, fine!
They
had got what they wanted. (Ben thought of the rest of the world as
they
,
them
, not exactly as enemies but not as friends either, simply as incomprehensible creatures.) Yes, they had achieved their goal in turning him into a wonderfully free person, unfettered by any obstacles. It was just as well that nothing meant anything to him because if ever the fever of passion took hold of Ben, it was not easily satisfied, not easily forgotten.

He could be up and ready in a second, while the others were still fishing around for their tickets, rounding up their children, calling out to their friends, putting the collars on their dogs. He was travelling with no luggage, just a pair of old pyjamas stuffed into his pocket, along with a bit of soap wrapped in newspaper; he needed nothing more. That way, he was always first, always ready to snatch the deal away from his rivals. And how they would complain afterwards. How unfair they were! All they had to do was copy him! Did he waste his time languishing in his wife’s arms, drinking his coffee in bed, stroking the cat, fiddling with the dials on the radio, spending two hours politely eating some slowly cooked meal like the French? Not that he looked down on such habits. Quite the contrary. But they were foreign and incomprehensible to him. He had to hurry, pursue something he wanted, triumph over everyone else, because he knew that once beaten, he might as well be dead. Who cared about Ben? Who would help Ben up if he fell to the ground? Who would dress his wounds? Only Ada . . . and even then, it wouldn’t be out of love – no one loved Ben – it would be out of a bond, out of pity. As for the others . . . Perhaps everything might change now. He was on his way to becoming rich: the wealthy Sinners were taking an interest in him. Oh, they were cautious, haughty towards him . . . but he didn’t care if people respected him or not. When old Salomon, to whom he was related after all, didn’t even ask him to sit down
when he went to see him, that didn’t bother him a bit. All he asked was for them to throw him a bone from time to time. He worked tirelessly, for he knew that the two old men were keeping an eye on him. He had sensed it before he’d even met them. Hardened as they were by time and weakened by luxury, they retained enough of their memories to recall their origins, and Ben’s passion, his eagerness, appealed to some very ancient tendency within them, even though they might not be conscious of it, even though they might even be ashamed of it, but one that had more life than their dried-out old bodies. Oh, to manage to go even further, to get inside the business, to see how it worked, discover its secrets! Wasn’t he, Ben, more worthy of being their heir than Harry, that boy he so despised?

‘Slow down,’ Ben whispered to himself, ‘slow down.’

It was like putting a leash on an excited animal. Yet his longing for immediate success, his passion, was both his strength and his weakness. In his mind, he could already see himself sitting at the place of honour, next to Isaac and Salomon, instead of Harry. And so many deals would be possible, so many wonderful triumphs! The world was no longer the same, and in this changing universe, what was the point of prudently saving, sacrificing everything out of concern for the opinion of society and superficial vanity? Pulling off deals quickly, audaciously, snapping up millions overnight and using the money to speculate again, that’s what you had to do! That’s what he, Ben, wanted to do! No swindling, no! Deals. Taking a chance on countries in a state of chaos, in Europe or Asia . . . lending them money and getting mines, oil fields, concessions for building railroads in exchange. That was how to get rich! In his third-class carriage, swaying between the two walls, amid the smoke, the noise, the night, the winter rain, in the train station of a suburb, Ben fantasised about enormous deals, imagined financial schemes just as an artist creates a universe purely from his imagination. He alone understood what he was capable
of, what he was worth. He had already conned so many others, known so many different people; he had the experience of an old man. Perhaps his race also played a part? Perhaps he felt, like all Jews, that vague and slightly frightening feeling of carrying within oneself a past that was heavier than the past of most men. At times when someone else might need to learn something, he, Ben, was remembering it – at least, that’s what he believed.

Paris, at last! He jumped off the train. The station was heaving with people; he was the first to get outside because he knew how to slip in between the hurrying crowds, how to find the weak spot in a barrier, push through it, instinctively working out the shortest route. He wore an old hat and shabby raincoat. His hair fell in thick, dark little curls over his forehead. He had an unpleasant face: he’d always known that. Not that he was ugly, but his face was so thin that his features seemed to merge, as if there was not enough room for them all. His fine, reddish eyebrows met above his nose; his pinched, animated nostrils almost touched his upper lip; his mouth and chin were crowded together, and his straight teeth were set almost one on top of each other. His face never looked at peace. It quivered constantly, like rippling water. When he spoke, ten gestures accompanied each word, and each movement was the manifestation of an emotion pushed to the extreme: anger, joy, curiosity, anxiety – none of these was ever exhibited as they were by other people, in large waves of emotion, but rather by short little passionate ripples, which made his features look perpetually in conflict over a thousand contradictory thoughts. He was forced to stop for a moment; he had crossed the street and gone down into the metro. But the doors had just shut in front of him. That moment of forced stillness seemed to cause him to suffer. He blushed, went white, bit his nails, took off his hat, twisted it, put it back on his head, and finally rushed towards the second-class carriage as if his life depended on it.

He said nothing, but his lips were moving; he tapped his agile
fingers on his knees and against the dark window of the train. He leapt out on to the platform. He was home. He checked the time: past midnight. He went into the lodging house and opened the door to his rooms. ‘Ada!’ he called out. No one replied, but someone was stretched out on the settee in the studio. When she had pulled herself up into a sitting position, he recognised Madame Mimi’s white hair, set in old-fashioned little curlers.