The Blue Room (Romans Durs), page 1
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“Of course, they prefer that I not see certain things. But, above all, that I not tell them about others.”
* * *
“Will you say everything?”
“Will you?”
“I will try. If I don’t, I’ll regret it the rest of my life.”
—Georges Simenon, Peuples qui ont faim, 1934
1.
‘Did I hurt you?’
‘No.’
‘Are you angry with me?’
‘No.’
It was true. At that time, everything was true, for he was living in the moment, without questioning anything, without trying to understand, without suspecting that one day he would need to understand. Not only was it all true, it was all real: himself, the room, Andrée still lying on the ravaged bed, naked, thighs spread, a thread of sperm seeping from the dark patch of her sex.
Was he happy? If anyone had asked him, he would have said ‘yes’ without any hesitation. It had not occurred to him to be angry at Andrée for biting his lip. That was part of it all like everything else and he stood, also naked, in front of the wash-basin mirror, dabbing at his lip with a towel moistened with cold water.
‘Is your wife going to ask you any questions?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Does she ever ask any?’
The words hardly mattered. They were talking for the pleasure of it, as one does after making love, bodies still flushed with sensation and minds slightly dazed.
‘You have a beautiful back.’
A few pink stains dotted the towel, and in the street an empty lorry bounced over the cobblestones. On the terrace, some people were talking. A few words were audible, here and there, without making complete sentences or any real sense.
‘Do you love me, Tony?’
‘I think so…’
He spoke in jest but without smiling, because he was still patting his lower lip with the damp towel.
‘You’re not sure?’
He turned around to look at her and was pleased to notice that semen, his semen, in such intimacy with his companion’s body.
The room was blue, ‘washing-blue’ he had thought one day, a blue that reminded him of his childhood, the tiny muslin sachets of blue powder his mother dissolved in the washtub water for the final rinse, right before she went to spread the laundry out on the gleaming grass of the meadow. He must have been five or six years old and often wondered through what miracle the blue colour could turn the laundry white.
Later, long after the death of his mother, whose face was already fading from his memory, he had also wondered why people as poor as they were, dressed in patched clothing, attached such importance to the whiteness of their linen.
Were those things going through his mind at that moment? He would find out only later. The blue of the room was not just washing-blue, but the sky-blue of certain hot August afternoons as well, shortly before it turns pink, then red, in the setting sun.
It was August. The 2nd of August. Late in the afternoon. At five o’clock gilded clouds, as light as whipped cream, began to float up over the train station, leaving its white façade in shadow.
‘Could you spend your whole life with me?’
He had hardly noticed her words; they were like the images and odours all around him. How could he have guessed that this scene was something he would relive ten times, twenty times and more – and every time in a different frame of mind, from a different angle?
For months, he would struggle to recall the slightest detail, and not always of his own free will, for sometimes others would demand it of him.
Professor Bigot, for example, the psychiatrist appointed by the examining magistrate, would keep after him about it, studying his reactions.
‘Did she bite you often?’
‘A few times.’
‘How many?’
‘All in all, we only met eight times at the Hôtel des Voyageurs.’
‘Eight times in one year?’
‘In eleven months … Yes, eleven, since it all began in September…’
‘How many times did she bite you?’
‘Maybe three or four.’
‘During intercourse?’
‘I think so … Yes…’
Yes … No … Today, actually, it was afterwards, when he had withdrawn from her and was lying on his side, looking at her through half-closed eyelashes. The light spilling all around them delighted him.
It was hot outside, in Place de la Gare, and hot as well in the hotel room bathed in sunshine, in a heat that seemed alive and breathing.
As he had left a gap some twenty centimetres wide when closing the shutters over the open window, they could hear the sounds of the little town; some were like the murmur of a distant choir while others, such as the voices of the customers on the terrace, were closer, crisp and distinct.
A little earlier, while they were both lost in wild lovemaking, those sounds had reached them and become one with their bodies, saliva, sweat, the whiteness of Andrée’s belly, the darker tone of his own skin, the blue of the walls, the diamond-shaped sunbeam cutting the room in two, a shifting reflection in the mirror and the odours of the hotel, which still smelled of the countryside – of the wine and spirits served in the main room, the ragout simmering in the kitchen, even the slightly musty fi bre stuffing of the mattress.
‘You’re handsome, Tony.’
She said this to him every time they met, always when she was still lying there while he moved around the room, looking for his cigarettes in the pocket of his trousers flung across a straw-bottomed chair.
‘Are you still bleeding?’
‘It’s almost stopped.’
‘What will you tell her, if she asks about it?’
He shrugged, couldn’t see why that should worry Andrée. Right now, nothing seemed important to him. He felt good, in tune with the universe.
‘I’ll tell her I bumped into something. My windshield, say, from braking too suddenly…’
He lit his cigarette, which had a special taste. When he reconstructed this conversation, he would remember another distinctive smell among all the others: the smell of trains. A freight train was manoeuvring behind the engine sheds, and the locomotive occasionally blew short blasts on its whistle.
Professor Bigot – short, thin, with red hair and thick, unruly eyebrows – would press him further.
‘Did it never occur to you that she was biting you on purpose?’
‘Why?’
Later, Maître Demarié, his lawyer, would bring it up again.
‘I think we might be able to use these bites to some advantage…’
But again, how could he have thought about such things when he was completely caught up in experiencing them? Was he thinking of anything at all? If so, then he wasn’t aware of it. He was answering Andrée off the top of his head, carelessly, in a light, teasing tone, convinced that such words had no weight and would therefore leave no lasting impression.
One afternoon, during their third or fourth assignation, after telling him that he was handsome, Andrée had added, ‘You’re so handsome that I’d like to make love with you in front of everyone, in the middle of Place de la Gare…’
He had laughed but hadn’t really been surprised. When they were in each other’s arms, he didn’t mind keeping some slight contact with the outside world, with sounds, voices, the flickering light on the walls and even footsteps on the pavement, the clinking of glasses on the terrace tables.
One day, a brass band had marched past, and they’d had fun making love to the beat of the music. Another time, when a storm had sprung up, Andrée had insisted that he throw the window and shutters wide open.
Wasn’t it a game? In any case, he had seen no harm in it. She was naked, lying across the bed in a deliberately provocative pose. She made a point of behaving as provocatively as possible as soon as she entered the room.
Sometimes, after they had undressed, she would murmur with an obviously feigned innocence that was all part of the game, ‘I’m thirsty. Aren’t you thirsty too?’
‘No.’
‘You will be later. Ring for Françoise, why don’t you, and order something to drink.’
Françoise, the maid, was about thirty and had been working in cafés or hotels since she was fifteen, so nothing surprised her.
‘Yes, Monsieur Tony?’
She called him Monsieur Tony because he was the brother of her employer, Vincent Falcone, whose name was painted on the front of the hotel and whose voice they could hear on the terrace.
‘You never wondered if she might have behaved th is way through some ulterior motive?’
What he was living through – a half hour, if that, just a few minutes of his life – would be broken down into images, detached sounds, peered at through a magnifying glass, not only by others but by himself.
Andrée was tall. That wasn’t obvious, on the bed, but she was three or four centimetres taller than he was. Although she was a local girl she had the brown, almost black, hair of people in Italy or the south of France, a startling contrast with that smooth white skin gleaming in the light. She was amply proportioned, a little heavy, and her flesh was voluptuously firm, especially her breasts and thighs. At thirty-three, he had known many women. None of them had given him as much pleasure as she had, an animal pleasure, complete and wholehearted, untainted afterwards by any disgust, lassitude or regret.
On the contrary! After two hours spent seeking the maximum of pleasure from both their bodies, they would remain naked, prolonging their carnal intimacy, savouring the contentment they now felt not only with each other, but with everything around them.
Everything counted. Everything had its place in a vibrant universe, even the fly perched on Andrée’s belly that she watched with a satisfied smile.
‘Could you really spend your whole life with me?’
‘Sure…’
‘Really sure? Wouldn’t you be a little afraid?’
‘Afraid of what?’
‘Can you imagine what our days would be like?’
Those words would crop up again as well, so lightly spoken today, so threatening in a few months.
‘We’d get used to it in the end,’ he murmured casually.
‘Used to what?’
‘To us.’
He was candid, innocent. Only the present mattered. A virile male, a highly sexed female had just enjoyed each other to the full, and if Tony ached a bit afterwards, the pain was healthy and satisfying.
‘What do you know! The train’s here…’
It wasn’t Tony who’d spoken, but his brother, outside. Intrigued, Tony had gone automatically to the window, to the slit of blazing light between the shutters.
Could anyone see him from outside? He didn’t care. Probably not, because the room must seem dark to those outdoors, and, as it was one floor up, only his torso might show.
‘When I think of the years you cost me…’
‘I cost you?’ he replied playfully.
‘Who was it who left? Me?’
They’d been in school together from the age of six. Only after they were both over thirty and married to others …
‘Answer me seriously, Tony. If I became free…’
Was he listening? The train had arrived, invisible behind the white station, and passengers were beginning to appear through the door on the right, where a man in uniform was collecting the tickets.
‘Would you free yourself too?’
Before leaving, the train blew its whistle so loudly that he couldn’t hear anything else.
‘What did you say?’
‘I’m asking if, in that case…’
He had turned his face halfway to the blue of the room, the whiteness of the bed and Andrée’s body, but something he saw out of the corner of his eye made him look outside again. Among the anonymous figures – men, women, a baby in its mother’s arms, a little girl dragged along by the hand – he had just recognized a face.
‘Your husband…’
Tony’s expression changed in an instant.
‘Nicolas?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where is he?… What is he doing?’
‘He’s crossing the square…’
‘He’s coming here?’
‘Straight here.’
‘How does he seem?’
‘I can’t tell. He’s got the sun behind him.’
‘Where are you going?’
For Tony was collecting his clothes, his shoes.
‘I can’t stay here … As long as he doesn’t find us together…’
He wasn’t looking at her any more, wasn’t interested any more in her, her body, what she might say or think. In a panic, he darted one last glance out of the window and ran from the room.
If Nicolas had come to Triant by train while his wife was here, it was for an important reason.
It was cooler out in the dark staircase with the worn steps. His clothes over one arm, Tony headed up one floor, then down the corridor to a half-open door at the end. Busy changing a bed in her black dress and white apron, Françoise looked him up and down and burst out laughing.
‘Well, here’s Monsieur Tony!… Did you have an argument?’
‘Hush…’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Her husband…’
‘He caught you?’
‘Not yet. He’s coming towards the hotel…’
He dressed feverishly, listening hard, expecting to recognize the shuffling footsteps of Nicolas climbing the stairs.
* * *
‘Go and see what he’s doing then come and tell me, quick…’
Tony was fond of Françoise, a brisk, sturdy girl with laughing eyes, and she returned the feeling.
Half the ceiling was on a slant, the wallpaper had a pattern of pink flowers, and a black crucifix hung over the walnut bed. In the blue room as well, a smaller crucifix hung over the fireplace.
He had no tie, and his jacket was down in the van. The precautions he and Andrée had been taking for almost a year were suddenly proving useful.
Whenever they met at the Hôtel des Voyageurs, Tony left his little van in Rue des Saules, a quiet old street running parallel to Rue Gambetta, while Andrée parked her grey Citroën 2CV in Place du Marché, more than 300 metres away.
Through the dormer window, he could see the hotel courtyard with stables at the end, where some hens were scratching for food. On the third Monday of every month, a livestock fair was held in front of the engine sheds, and many country folk still came to Triant in horse carts.
Françoise came back upstairs in no hurry.
‘Well?’
‘He’s sitting on the terrace and he’s just ordered a lemonade.’
‘How does he seem?’
He was asking the same question Andrée had.
‘He doesn’t seem like anything.’
‘Has he asked about his wife?’
‘No. But from where he is, he can watch both exits.’
‘Didn’t my brother say anything to you?’
‘That you should slip out the back and go through the courtyard of the garage next door.’
He knew the way. Going over a wall a metre and a half high, he would be behind the Garage Chéron, with its petrol pumps lined up on Place de la Gare, and from there an alley led to Rue des Saules, coming out between a pharmacy and the Boulangerie Patin.
‘Do you know what she’s doing?’
‘No.’
‘Did you hear any noise in the room?’
‘I didn’t listen for any.’
Françoise didn’t much care for Andrée, perhaps because she was fond of Tony and felt jealous.
‘You’d better not go through the ground floor, in case he goes to the toilet.’
Tony imagined Nicolas, with his bilious complexion and eternally sad or grumpy expression, sitting at a table on the terrace with his lemonade when he should have been behind the counter of his grocery store. He must have had to ask his mother to take his place while he was off in Triant. What reason had he given her for this unusual trip? What did he know? Who had told him?
‘Did you never think, Monsieur Falcone, about the possibility of an anonymous letter?’
The question had come from the examining magistrate, Maître Diem, a man so shy it was disconcerting.
‘No one in Saint-Justin knew about our affair. Or in Triant, either, aside from my brother, my sister-in-law and Françoise. Andrée and I were careful. She used to enter via the little door on Rue Gambetta, which opens on to the foot of the stairs, allowing her to head up to the room without going through the café.’
‘You’re sure about your brother, of course?’
Tony could only smile at that question. His brother was like another self.
‘And your sister-in-law as well?’
Lucia loved him almost as much as she loved Vincent, in a different way, naturally. Like the two of them, she was of Italian parentage, and family came before everything else.
