The Wretches Read online

  As you’d expect, Mum came to visit Jess. She thanked him for the clothes to begin with, then asked him what he planned to do with me. Jess told her unceremoniously that he still needed me, and gave her another twenty thousand francs like you’d throw some change in a beggar’s hat. I was ashamed for Mum. I barely recognized the poor woman any more. She was getting greedy with age. If you’d seen her stuffing the notes into her bag I swear it would have sickened you too. When she left I said to Monsieur Rooland:

  “I’m ashamed of my mother.”

  “Why?”

  “I feel like she’d agree to anything at all if there was some money in it for her.”

  He could tell how bitter I was about it and took pity on me.

  “No, that’s not true. She’s never had much money so it makes an impression on her, you’re right, but if she’s leaving you here it’s above all because she understands that I’m a respectable man.”

  And, believe it or not, those words hurt me more than everything else.

  FOURTEEN

  We built a new life for ourselves, Jess and me. After a few days he went back to work, and started coming back to Léopoldville later and later in the evening. My dinners would often go uneaten. From that time on, my life was spent waiting. When he did get home he’d go straight up to bed, sparing me a kind word as he passed.

  One week after it happened he bought a new car: a beautiful charcoal-coloured Mercury, with grey and coral-pink upholstery, which I’d shine every morning. I still believe he would have left that house if it wasn’t for me, or rather if it wasn’t for the atmosphere that I’d created there—no one will convince me otherwise. Even so, I could see he wasn’t happy there, and in the evenings the house disturbed him as much as if it were haunted by Thelma’s ghost. Was he really grieving? At first I was sure he was, but by the second day I was beginning to have my doubts. You can’t imagine how sad it was at the airport, when they loaded that great big coffin into the belly of that enormous Pan Am plane. Some of Jess’s friends were there, including the general, in uniform this time. I stood quietly to the side, alongside the police commissioner. I don’t know why, but it seemed we were the same, him and me—united by a certain way we had of existing and suffering in silence.

  The most moving moment came when the plane took off. As its engines began to rumble and it moved off towards the runway, a ripple of tension went through our little gathering. The general stood to attention. Jess had gone a bit pale, but other than that to look at him he could have been seeing a living Thelma off at the airport. He watched the plane as it rose into the air, and closed his eyes for a second. Then his body hunched over, and for a moment I thought he was going to collapse, but the men around him started to talk and Jess seemed totally relaxed and at ease—relieved, even.

  The fine days returned. We had a blazing summer—even a little bit too dry, according to the local farmers. Great clouds of dust twisted in the air behind their tractors as they worked. I must be a funny sort of girl, really. Anyone else my age would’ve hated the hollow life I was leading, all alone in that big house with the memory of a dead woman, waiting for a man who didn’t even look at me—that could get you down in the end, right? Well, not me—I was enchanted by it all. I found all that solitude and silence calming. Despite Jess’s coolness, I felt as if he belonged to me somehow, that he was mine and no one else’s, and that sooner or later he’d realize it himself. Everything would be possible then. And so, I waited, with a total confidence in the future.

  The sun and the warmth reminded me of my first days there. I saw myself in my mind’s eye wandering past the house, and I tried to recall how I’d felt the previous year. One afternoon I went out to have a proper look at the place. I leant on the gate for ages, thinking, trying to work out what was missing from this picture of my desert island, because there was definitely something missing. In the end I got it: it was the garden swing seat that we’d packed away in the winter and never taken out again.

  I ran to the shed. The swing seat was sleeping under a layer of dust. Its blue canopy seemed a little faded, but once I’d given it all a good shake and run the vacuum cleaner over the cushions it looked just as chic as it had the year before, apart from a few bits of rust around the screws. Using a wheelbarrow, I managed to drag it to its old spot by the side of the house. It really was all the place needed to look just as bright and happy as before. I sat on the big swing seat, holding on to the frame.

  I thought back to those Sundays with Thelma and Jess. I saw his foot in its white sandal, pushing off from the ground to send the swing gliding through the air, and I could smell his wife’s perfume. I don’t know where she bought it. It must have come from the US, because you can’t buy a fragrance like that in Paris. It smelt of cinnamon and jasmine, and pepper too. I read somewhere that perfumiers add it to their perfumes to give them that extra special something.

  But all I could really smell that day, on the swing, was the overpowering scent of lilies. It’s a smell that’s always reminded me of church. I suppose I think of them as altar flowers. Maybe that’s because of one of the statues in our church—of Saint Joseph, holding a bunch of lilies (I don’t know why) and looking so embarrassed about it all that I used to laugh to myself all through Sunday school at the awkward look on his face.

  I lazed there on the swing for quite a while. I’d rediscovered the island—all in one piece, and even more enchanting, even more mysterious now that Thelma was gone. I had all the time in the world. It was like I was on holiday: I’d finished all my work for the day and Monsieur Rooland wouldn’t be back until very late…

  Suddenly a familiar noise tore me from my peaceful doze. I sat up to see Jess’s car parked outside the gate, which he opened, calling out cheerfully: “Hello, Louise!”

  My heart was in my mouth. He hadn’t been back this early for months. Did this unexpected arrival mean a change in his feelings? I’ve won, I thought at once. From now on he’d begin to enjoy spending time at the house again. We’d relive all those beautiful evenings I still dreamt of. Just the two of us!

  “What a nice surprise, Monsieur!”

  “You’re going to make us something nice for dinner, OK Louise?”

  “OK, Monsieur.”

  My joy was so intense, so bright, that it hurt, like when you have pins and needles and you know it won’t do you any harm, but still your whole body is covered with little pricks of pain.

  “Something nice for dinner,” he’d said. “Make us something nice for dinner”! Oh Jess, my darling Jess…

  He was bringing the car in now. I was standing on the drive and I skipped onto the lawn to let him past. That was when I saw her. She was sitting next to him, one elbow on the armrest, just behind the curve of the windscreen, where the reflections stop you from seeing inside properly. She was very beautiful. Much more beautiful than me, of course; much more beautiful than Thelma too! A blonde. A blonde so light her hair was almost white, with haughty, piercing blue eyes.

  When she got out of the car I said to myself that she had the prettiest figure I’d ever seen. A model for the swankiest fashion house would have had nothing on her.

  I was stunned, standing there on the lawn, rooted to the spot. Jess was smiling. He almost seemed proud of himself. Oh, God—maybe he even thought this would be a nice surprise for me!

  “Come here, Louise…”

  I went over, squeezing my thumbs hard enough to crush them inside my clenched fists.

  “Hello, Madame.”

  Jess introduced us, in American, because the girl didn’t speak a word of French. I think she said her name was Jennifer. When he said my name she just mumbled “uh-huh”—you know, like they do in a dubbed film when they can’t find the right words for the translation.

  Jess stopped dead when he noticed the blue swing seat was out. He’d looked at it when he was arriving, but hadn’t really taken it in, as you don’t when you’ve seen something so often that it blends into the background.

  The
sight of it upset him now. It must have reminded him of his evenings with Thelma. And to make matters worse Jennifer headed straight over to it with her magnificent, elegant panther’s prowl.

  Where on earth had Jess got this pin-up girl from anyway? From the NATO offices? I thought it was only tin cans and cars they flew in from America!

  Make us something nice for dinner!

  There are times when you could understand a maid spitting in the soup.

  I made them a decent meal in the end, though: quiche Lorraine and stuffed veal escalopes, with a chocolate mousse for pudding. From my kitchen I could see everything they got up to, and, believe me, it was enough to turn your stomach. The girl was playing the vamp, striking poses, pulling faces like you wouldn’t believe. I think it was a point of principle with her never to sit without showing off her suspenders, and never to smoke a cigarette without lighting one for a man first.

  It was all play-acting—or all movie-acting, more like! Lingering glances. Those uh-huhs and the little dabs of the tongue to moisten her lips, making them even more sensual. This well-off widower with his tanned skin and brand-new Mercury must really have caught Jennifer’s eye. It was too good an opportunity to let slip through her fingers.

  They picked at their food, then went back to the swing seat to take in the dusk: the faint stars in the sky, the breeze and the drunken insects weaving through the air. Jess was giving his conquest little pecks on the neck, making her giggle with pleasure.

  Their fingers intertwined. I wondered whether she was going to stay the night. It certainly seemed that way to me. Casually, I went and ran an eye over the car, and saw a little leather suitcase on the back seat. I was right—the little miss was planning on “stopping out”, as Arthur called it. I was trembling with anger—with hatred, even. I wanted to make a scene, do something scandalous; anything to set me free, to cure me of this burning pain.

  The bonnet of the car was hot. I put my hands flat on the bodywork and stared bitterly at the happy couple through both car windows. Just like the other car’s windscreen, the tinted glass gave them an unreal appearance. How romantic the pair of them looked on the swing, cooing at each other. My heartbeat had never been so slow or so strong.

  I could see a new happiness for Jess, growing before my eyes with every one of his little fluttering kisses. What could I do about it? Who could tell me how to put a stop to it? Not the good Lord, that was for sure. Maybe Thelma? If there was an afterlife, she couldn’t have been happy looking down at this, could she? I put all my effort into thinking of her, asking for her to come to my aid. And, believe it or not, I didn’t have to wait long for an answer!

  FIFTEEN

  It wasn’t complicated. But aren’t the simplest ideas always the most effective?

  I went up to my room. Thelma’s record player was there, under my bed, along with her records, which I’d salvaged from the fireplace. When you’ve grown up somewhere like Arthur’s house you don’t throw anything away, and coming from where I did I didn’t have the luxury of making grand gestures like an American. I also had my late employer’s old dressing gown and an almost-full packet of her cigarettes. (Her last!) I got undressed in the blink of an eye and put on the dressing gown, fighting the strange disgust I felt at its touch. I picked up the record player and records and made my way down to the living room, taking a bottle of Scotch from the kitchen along the way.

  It was freakish—all of a sudden, I felt as if I really was the reincarnation of Thelma. Mimicking her gestures, striking the same poses as she had done, I felt I was beginning to understand her a little. I was playing at being Thelma. I felt American; I loved drinking and I wanted to stretch out on the sofa, listen to music from back home, and try to forget this strange, alien country, this grey town, and this endless wait for a man I had disappointed by failing to provide him with a child.

  Yes, she was with me that evening, Thelma. Even better—she was in me.

  I plugged in the record player and Elvis Presley’s magical voice rose up amid the silence.

  Loving you,

  Just loving you…

  The sad, gentle song seemed like a hymn. I lit up a Camel. The tobacco had a sweet taste to it—not bad. I poured myself a glass of whisky. That was more difficult to swallow and I almost lost my “link” with Thelma, but I saw it through and felt the alcohol spark a kind of warm explosion, filling my whole being.

  Loving you…

  Couldn’t Jess hear? Wasn’t he drawn to the music? Or were that little tart’s grasping fingers more powerful than the pull of his memory?

  The song finished. He wasn’t there… I took another slug of Scotch and put the needle back at the beginning of the record.

  Loving you!

  Loving you,

  Just loving you…

  The door flew open. Jess stood in the doorway. Seeing me on the sofa, draped in the striped dressing gown with a cigarette between my lips, he closed his eyes, just like at the airport when the aeroplane took off with Thelma’s coffin. He hunched over in the same way too.

  “Jess,” I sighed.

  I felt something had snapped inside him. For a moment, I thought he was going to throw himself on me and beat me black and blue, but he shut the door. Presley carried on singing, pointlessly now. After a moment, I heard the soft purr of the car’s engine. They were leaving! I drained my glass of whisky and let myself slide into drunkenness.

  “Louise!”

  I opened my eyes. For a second the room span around the sofa, and then it was still. Jess was standing in the doorway again. If I hadn’t remembered the sound of the car leaving, I’d have thought he’d never moved.

  The light on the record player, which I’d left plugged in, cast a reddish glow in the darkened room. Its motor was droning away.

  “Louise!”

  He came into the room. There was a hardness to his features that I’d never seen before.

  “Louise!”

  “Yes, Monsieur!”

  “Why did you do this dreadful thing?”

  My tongue was sticking to the roof of my mouth. I could hardly speak.

  “Has she left?”

  “I took her back to her place, yes. Well?”

  “What did you tell her?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I told her. Answer the question! What’s the meaning of this performance you’ve put on?”

  “I didn’t want her to stay.”

  “You don’t say!”

  I lifted a leg. The dressing gown fell back, exposing bare flesh. It was the first time in my life I’d felt a physical hunger for a man.

  “Jess!”

  I held out my arms to him.

  “Jess!” I groaned again.

  “Get up. Go to your room…”

  But there was a note in his voice that no girl could mistake, not even a virgin. I felt a sudden urge to grab hold of his jacket. I caught hold of the cloth and pulled him towards me in a wild, feminine gesture.

  “Jess! Oh! Jess…”

  He fell to his knees by the sofa and, at long last, he crushed his lips against my own.

  What happened next, I couldn’t tell you if my life depended on it. You try to put ecstasy into words, if you can!

  SIXTEEN

  We each slept in our own bedroom in the end, but just afterwards we went upstairs together, and Jess had his arm around my waist.

  When we reached the landing he kissed me like a madman, pressing my body against his. Unsteady on my feet, I opened the door to my room, by which I mean “their” room. I thought he was going to follow me, but when I turned around he’d already disappeared into his own. I shut my door gently, and slid between the white sheets, quivering with pleasure.

  My body was burning, bruised and happy. Falling asleep feeling like that was just stretching out the pleasure Jess had given me.

  When you shake the grille of a central-heating furnace, the sound travels through the whole house because of the pipes. I recognized that sound when it woke me up the next mo
rning. It worried me straight away, because I’m usually the first to get up, and we hadn’t lit the central heating for a couple of months.

  What was Monsieur Rooland doing in the cellar at this time in the morning? In my hurry to go and find out, I wanted to put on the dressing gown from the night before, but it wasn’t in my bedroom any more. This new mystery only added to my unease. I flung my dress on with nothing underneath, shoved my feet into a pair of old red slippers and hurtled down the stairs. A horrible burning smell was rising from under the floorboards. Bursting into the coal cellar I found Jess in his blue pyjamas, stamping angrily on the record player, breaking it to pieces.

  “Jess!”

  But he didn’t even look up. Sweat poured down his face as he trampled the turntable under his feet. It must have been hurting him—he wasn’t wearing shoes, just his usual sandals.

  The furnace door was open, the inside ablaze. In the flickering light of the flames I could see the dressing gown and several records, all shrivelled up, like those mushrooms people leave to dry at their windows in the countryside.

  “What are you doing?”

  As if in answer, he gathered up the remains of the record player in his hands. It looked like some poor animal that had been squashed at the side of a road, its guts all hanging out. Jess threw it in the furnace and wiped his dripping face with his sleeve.

  “Why did you do that, Jess?”

  “I didn’t want it any more.”

  What didn’t he want any more? What was he trying to get rid of? His memories of Thelma, or of our lovemaking? I threw myself against his heaving chest.