Bird in a Cage Read online

  She turned around twice as she walked down the street. She wasn’t making an invitation, but she wasn’t frightened either. It was just a quick look back, a completely instinctive gesture, I could feel it. She wanted to find out if I was going to follow them. She wasn’t afraid of that, but she wasn’t asking for it either.

  I started off in the same direction. Let me be clear: I was not following them. I picked the same street simply because it was the way to my flat.

  We covered a few hundred metres with a good distance between us. Then there was a crossroads and I lost sight of them. That was normal. I felt an unpleasant tightness in my chest, but I accepted a separation that was just as random as our meeting had been. Only I felt sad; sad like six years ago when I saw Anna dead. A disbelieving sadness. Something inside me would not accept the separation.

  I continued on my way towards my flat.

  As I passed by a cinema I saw them in the entrance gazing at the photos on display.

  The mother was looking at the stills. As for the child, her eyes were fixed on the scrawny Christmas tree in the lobby.

  It was a puny little pine from some suburban back garden. By way of decoration, photos of stars were hanging from its branches.

  I knew that cinema well. It was the Majestic. I’d seen so many Westerns there, at the time I could have given you the title of any one of them just by listening to a few bars of the soundtrack.

  I went into the lobby. The woman noticed me. It was as if she had been expecting me to crop up again. This time she scarcely looked at me but her face was suddenly drained of colour.

  I realized that if I let her get to the ticket office before me I wouldn’t have the courage to follow her. So I took the initiative. In the mirror behind the cashier I saw her come up behind me. I paid for my ticket. I moved away. She was there, holding her daughter by the hand.

  “Two seats.”

  As at the restaurant I opened the door for them and as at the restaurant she looked “right through me”. But this time she muttered a timid “thank you”.

  The film had already begun. It was a documentary about Ukraine: fields of ripening corn reaching as far as the eye could see.

  An usherette dashed up to us, making signals with her pocket lamp. The woman gave her two tickets. The usherette probably didn’t notice the little girl and so she thought we were together and seated us next to each other in a row quite near the front.

  My heart was thumping wildly, like it had on the day when I went out with Anna for the first time. I sat bolt upright with my eyes on the screen, not seeing anything of what it showed and hearing nothing but the chaotic beating of my heart. I could feel the human warmth of the woman, and it overwhelmed me. The perfume of her overcoat shattered me.

  Her daughter was asking questions aloud and the woman kept on leaning over towards her and whispering:

  “Lucienne, be quiet. You are not supposed to talk!”

  The child eventually stopped speaking. The documentary was coming to an end in any case and the house lights came back on.

  I saw my dear old fleapit again. It hadn’t been redecorated. It was still that nasty shade of dark red and it had kept its fluffy scarlet wall hangings, its squeaky seats and the greenery painted on cardboard at the foot of the screen.

  An usherette went past, reciting the list of goodies in her tray in a bored and whining tone.

  “Sweets!” the little girl cried.

  It was a unique opportunity, an ideal if hardly original ploy. I was seated between the usherette and the woman. I could buy a packet of sweets and pass them to the child while mumbling an unanswerable, “May I, Madame?”

  But instead of doing that I stayed stiff and inexpressive. I didn’t even offer to act as a relay when the usherette held out the packet of sweets.

  The interval ended. I was impatient for the lights to go down. Impatient to return to a state of reticent intimacy. I didn’t even know what the film was called. That was the least of my worries.

  Letters began parading across the screen but I had no wish to read them.

  I fell back into the sense of ease and well-being that the restaurant had given me. It was primarily a sense of security, and being certain that I had a few minutes of real happiness ahead of me.

  The little girl fell asleep. She started whining a little as she tried to find a comfortable position but couldn’t. So her mother put her on her lap. The child’s legs stuck into mine.

  “Excuse me,” the woman mumbled.

  “You’re welcome. I, er… You can let her stretch out.”

  But instead she put her hand around the girl’s ankles to stop the child from kicking me.

  That hand mesmerized me. I waited a bit as I tried to suppress the wish to grasp it gently and to hold it in mine. I needed that contact. I could imagine it. My own skin intuited what hers was like. I could have tried to play a trick, or to cheat a bit, by adopting a position on the armrest that would have allowed my hand to move quite naturally towards hers and brush her fingers in a way that would not cause her to take offence.

  Yet again I didn’t dare.

  I turned towards her. She also looked at me. And it was so simple that I thought I would die of ecstasy, seeing how strong my will was.

  I took her hand. She let go of the child’s legs. Our fingers opened and then closed on each other as if we were praying together. It was strange, voluptuous and fierce.

  I felt powerful, and, in a flash, six whole years were wiped away. I was with Anna. She was still alive and she loved me. She gave me her warmth, I gave her my strength.

  Why did I want to lean towards this nameless woman and tell her:

  “I love you.”

  Because I really did?

  Many people imagine that love is a feeling that needs to be “set up”, that it is the end of a process. I know that is not so, because I loved Anna and this woman from the very moment our eyes first met.

  We stayed like that for a long time with fingers entwined, making love with our hands. Then the child kicked her legs and began to whimper in her sleep. Her mother withdrew her hand and it felt to me like a bereavement.

  She whispered to the sleeping child:

  “We’re going home, my little Lucienne. You’ll get back to sleep…”

  She was speaking for me.

  “If I may,” I stammered.

  I lifted the girl, settled her in my arms, and got up. She was heavy; she still smelt like a baby and sleep made her unappealing little face beautiful and touching.

  I went up the aisle beside the woman. It felt as if I knew her intimately. Her gait had a rhythm that was familiar to me. Once we were in the lobby we looked at each other in the harsh light of the sickly neon. She looked a little tense and I was afraid it was in reaction to my presumptuousness.

  On the other hand, had she not encouraged it?

  “Do you have a car?”

  “No, sir, I live nearby.”

  She cradled her arms.

  “Thank you… She’s not used to being up late.”

  “I’ll walk you home.”

  She was expecting that, for sure, yet something in her eyes—whatever was it?—was unsteady. She stood still with her arms held out towards her child. Then she let them drop.

  “Thank you.”

  And she set off without bothering about the two of us. I found it hard to keep up because the girl was getting heavier and heavier. It was the first time in my life that I had held a child in my arms and I would never have thought it could be so moving. I walked with great care: I was afraid of falling with such a precious cargo.

  So on we went in single file to the end of the street. Then she turned right towards a newly built-up area that I didn’t know because it had hardly existed when I had left.

  These streets were less well lit. There weren’t any more shops or shellfish stalls, and no more Christmas trees unless they were indoors, because there were hints of coloured lights gleaming in the windows.

  Whit
ewashed buildings rose up in the shadows. That’s where the woman was heading. She didn’t say a word to me during the whole journey. You might have thought she’d forgotten about me and her daughter.

  Two or three times the child struggled and I had to hold her tight to my chest to keep her quiet. She must have been a very agitated lass.

  Televisions and radios could be heard. Some people were already singing the midnight carol, ‘O Holy Night’, even though it was barely ten. But these noises off were like an unreal soundtrack: the only real noise came from the rhythmic tap of our heels on wet pavement.

  I was quite exhausted when she finally stopped in front of a brand-new iron gate with a nameplate in yellow letters on a black background saying:

  J. DRAVET & CO. — BINDERS

  She took a key from her pocket and opened the gate. The moment of truth had come. I peered at the dark and mysterious area that lay behind the half-opened gateway. I could just about make out a yard with two lorries parked in it. At the back stood two-storey buildings whose large glazed roofs caught the light of the lamp-post at the street corner. Everything was black, new and silent.

  We exchanged the same glance as we had in the cinema lobby.

  “Right,” she murmured, adding three perhaps very simple words that would nonetheless acquire a strange meaning later on:

  “This is it!”

  Was she taking her leave?

  Or was she inviting me in?

  It was simpler to ask her.

  “Should I leave you here?”

  She went on in without answering.

  It was an invitation.

  2

  The First Visit

  Under glazed awnings on both sides of the yard there were mountains of paper stacked up in reams.

  At the rear stood the bindery. To the right was a wide iron door painted black with the word “Private” crudely stencilled on it.

  The woman opened that door. She put her hand inside and turned a switch, but no light came on.

  “That’s right,” she mumbled without any other explanation.

  She took my arm and led me through the dark. I stumbled into the blackness like a blind man, terrified that I might bump the child’s head into something.

  My companion stopped. She fumbled around for a moment and then slid open the door of a lift.

  “We’re going to use the goods lift,” she declared.

  I followed her into a wide metal cage. Through its lattice ceiling, I could make out the faint gleam of a skylight two storeys above.

  “You must be weary,” she whispered in the dark. “She’s heavy, isn’t she?”

  I could feel her hip against mine. I wished it would last all night.

  The steel cage rose quite slowly. Then it jarred to a halt. My companion slid open the door and held it for me as I got out with the sleeping child.

  “Mind the gap.”

  I took a long stride. She was holding my arm and her nails dug into my flesh. Presumably because she was worried I might drop the child?

  It was pitch dark, because the narrow glass pane in the roof was directly above the lift shaft and didn’t cast any light on the landing.

  She needed a third key to open the front door of her dwelling.

  This time the switch did its job. I found myself in a white-painted hallway. Glazed double doors opposite the entrance led to the lounge.

  She led me in. The sequence of doors made me feel I was entering an unexpected labyrinth.

  Why was I so stressed? What could be more reassuring than this young mother and her sleeping daughter? What more relaxing or soothing image could I hope for?

  The room, which was painted white like the hallway, was not large, and a fair part of it was occupied by a Christmas tree. How many magic trees had I not already come across that day? It was a Christmas forest!

  This one was decorated with real candles that gave it much more character than the strings of electric lights draped over the others. Modest decorations had been suspended from the tips of the branches.

  “We had to move some furniture out because of the tree,” the woman explained. “It must have looked quite a small tree in its native forest, but not here!”

  What was left was a leather sofa, an armchair, a bar trolley and a gramophone on a low table.

  “Do sit down and make yourself a drink! I’ll put Lucienne to bed, it’ll only take a few minutes. Do you like Wagner?”

  She switched on the gramophone, adjusted the volume and gracefully took her daughter from me. She seemed to be waiting for something.

  “So, what will you drink?”

  “Well, that depends on what you’ve got to offer me,” I bantered.

  For the first time since I met the woman I managed not to look like a starved wolf.

  “Oh, there’s a bit of everything: cognac, whisky, cherry brandy…”

  “In that case I’ll have a cognac.”

  She hovered attentively. Why was she so keen for me to serve myself a drink? I didn’t like serving myself. It was a bad habit Ma had given me. At home she always served everybody and when we had guests she sometimes grabbed their plates to stop them serving themselves.

  “The cognac is the big bottle on the left.”

  I took it, then turned up a brandy glass that was standing upside down on a white doily. Hesitantly, I poured myself a measure.

  It made her smile.

  “You must excuse me.”

  “Of course.”

  She went out, closing the door behind her. I undid the buttons on my overcoat and, to fill the time, I stood up and went to look at the Christmas tree. A strange evening indeed!

  I didn’t know how far the affair would go, but it certainly was one!

  When I put my hand in my pocket my fingers alighted on the edges of the little cardboard box containing the purchase I’d made that evening. Then it occurred to me that I could hang the silver-glittered birdcage with its blue and yellow bird on that tree. The thought made me feel really happy. God was smiling on me, on that Christmas night. Yes, the mere fact of unwrapping and attaching a cheap trinket to the prickly needles of a Christmas pine gave me a moment of pure joy.

  I stepped back to admire the birdcage. I would not have felt prouder had I made it with my own two hands. It dangled on the end of the branch like a bell, sprinkling traces of its glitter-dust. The cloth bird rocked back and forth on its perch. I was looking at my own lost childhood with an unspeakable sense of wonder.

  I squashed the cardboard box and put it back in my pocket. My tree offering had to stay secret so as to have a supernatural touch to it.

  Perhaps my hostess and her daughter would never notice, but maybe they would find it and be puzzled no end.

  I threw my coat on the sofa and picked up my glass of cognac. I hadn’t drunk the stuff for a very long time. This was a top-class brand. The first sip gave me a feeling of euphoria. A dose of happiness!

  The lady of the house came back after fifteen minutes. What surprised me was that she was still wearing her astrakhan coat. She followed my eyes and seemed to understand.

  “That poor mite was so sleepy!” she said as she took off her coat.

  Then she went to the drinks trolley.

  “Let’s see, what will I have? Cointreau, perhaps? Or a cherry brandy?”

  She spoke up, because the music at that point was all trumpets and cymbals.

  I watched her with secret admiration. I liked her gracefulness and ease. She had simple and expressive gestures that weren’t put on at all. For me it was a magical experience to see her moving around the room, pouring herself a drop of cherry brandy, raising her glass in a silent toast and wetting her lips with the beetroot-coloured beverage.

  My shoulder ached from carrying her daughter so far. To ease the discomfort I let my arms hang loose.

  She went and turned down the volume on the gramophone.

  “Do you live near here?”

  “Yes, I do. But I’ve been away for six years, and I
only came back this afternoon.”

  “That must be emotional for you, especially on Christmas Eve!”

  Her voice was calm, with a rather flat intonation. It matched her body language perfectly.

  “Did you come back because it was Christmas?”

  “No. It just turned out that way.”

  “Were you far away?”

  “Yes, a long way away.”

  The record came to an end. She switched the machine off and there was silence. She could feel I was reticent and held back from asking me questions. Yet I wanted to be interrogated. I was happy to talk as long as I didn’t have to start the conversation. I needed some kind of priming.

  “Isn’t there anyone expecting you for the midnight ceremony?”

  “No, nobody. I was on my own, as you were. And you noticed, didn’t you?”

  She looked away.

  “I did.”

  Then, after a moment’s thought:

  “I would like to…”

  “You would like what?”

  “To dispense with any misunderstanding that my… my behaviour might have aroused…”

  She was finding it hard to say what she meant and she seemed extremely embarrassed.

  “What misunderstanding?”

  “Well, I suppose that when a gentleman sits down in a cinema next to a lady he doesn’t know and when that gentleman takes the lady’s hand and the lady doesn’t withdraw it, he must imagine he’s just made an easy conquest.”

  I shook my head.

  “It wasn’t easy for me to take your hand, and you didn’t find it easy to let me do so.”

  She drank a drop of cherry brandy, daintily.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll believe me if I tell you that it’s the first time anything like that has happened to me?”

  “Why should I not believe you on a night that is spent celebrating a miracle?”

  She threw me one of her devastatingly strange, sweet smiles.

  “Thank you. I liked your taking my hand… I was in such distress.”

  “Me too!”