Vertigo Page 8

  Flavières wept. He didn’t even think of going to her assistance. She was dead. And he was dead with her.

  SIX

  From a distance Flavières contemplated the body. He had come through the cemetery, but was now unable to advance another step. He remembered Madeleine’s voice murmuring:

  ‘It doesn’t hurt to die.’

  Desperately, he clung to that idea. No, she hadn’t had time to suffer. They had said the same thing about Leriche. Like her, he had fallen head first. No time to suffer? Really? How could one be sure? When Leriche’s head had smashed on the pavement, spattering blood all round…

  Flavières couldn’t finish the sentence. He had seen his companion’s remains in the hospital; he had seen the doctor’s report. And his fall had been from a lesser height than hers. He could imagine the terrible shock, a sort of explosion splintering the mind into little fragments… like a precious mirror reduced suddenly to atoms. Nothing was left of Madeleine now but that lifeless bundle made only of clothes, like a scarecrow.

  He forced himself to come closer, obliging himself to look and to suffer, since he was responsible for everything. Through his tears he saw a blurred picture: her hair had come undone and to that faint mahogany tint was now added streaks of blood, a hand was already wax-like, her wedding ring glittered on one of the fingers. If he had dared, he would have taken that ring and worn it on his little finger. Instead he merely picked up the lighter.

  Poor little Eurydice! She would never come back from the nothingness into which she had plunged.

  He backed slowly away, still staring at her as though he had killed her himself. He was suddenly frightened of this horrible heap, across which flitted the occasional shadow of a rook. He fled. Hurrying between the gravestones, his fingers tightly clenched on the lighter, it suddenly occurred to him that it was in a cemetery that he had first studied Madeleine, and it was in a cemetery again that he was taking leave of her.

  It was all over. No one would ever know why she had killed herself. No one would ever know he had been there, or that he had not had the courage to get beyond that door. He made his way round to the front of the church and took refuge in his car. His reflection in the windscreen filled him with disgust. He hated himself for being alive—if you could call it that. It was more like being in hell.

  He drove for a considerable time without knowing where he was. Then, to his amazement, he recognized the station of Pontoise. In the town he passed the gendarmerie. Ought he to go in and raise the alarm? Ought he to give himself up? No. He had committed no fault in the eyes of the law. They would merely think him insane. What could he do, then? Put a bullet through his brain? Impossible: he’d never have the guts. More than ever now, he had to live with the knowledge that he was a coward. He had no head for heights! Rubbish. That was no excuse. It was willpower he lacked. Ah! How right Madeleine had been! Far better be an animal! To graze peacefully till it was time for the pole-axe!

  It was six o’clock when he entered Paris by the Porte d’Asnières. Of course, he had to tell Gévigne: there was no avoiding that. He stopped at a café in the Boulevard Malesherbes. He washed his face and brushed his hair, then went into the telephone-box. A voice he didn’t know informed him that Gévigne was out and not expected back at the office that day. He drank a glass of brandy, standing at the bar. Grief pervaded him like a sort of drunkenness. He had the impression he was living in an aquarium, that other people swam past him noiselessly as fish. He had another brandy. Every now and again he would tell himself that Madeleine was dead. He wasn’t surprised—not really. How could he be? Hadn’t it been obvious all along that he would lose her in this way? He would have had to pour out far more vitality than he possessed to keep her in this world.

  ‘Garçon, la même chose.’

  Yes, he needed yet another. He had saved her once. That was something, wasn’t it? He really had no right to reproach himself. Even if he had got past that door, he would have been too late to stop her. She was too set on dying. Gévigne had chosen the wrong man for the job—that was the long and short of it. He should have chosen someone very charming, brilliant—an artist perhaps—but in any case someone brimming over with energy and gaiety. He had chosen a niggling type, too preoccupied with himself, a prisoner of his own past… But what was the good?… The damage was done now…

  Flavières paid for his drinks and went. God, he was tired! He drove slowly to the Etoile. A few hours ago she had held that wheel he was holding now. He envied those clairvoyants who, from merely holding a handkerchief or an envelope, could read a person’s most secret thoughts. How dearly he would have liked to know the last agony of Madeleine’s mind. No, that was putting it badly—there hadn’t been any agony. It was her indifference to life—that was the real secret. She had walked out of it without a qualm. She had plunged head first, her arms wide open, welcoming the earth that was about to kill her. It wasn’t so much that she was escaping this life, she was going back to something, going home…

  It had been a mistake to drink all that brandy. His thoughts were all over the place. He turned into the Avenue Kléber and parked the Simca behind Gévigne’s big black car. He was no longer afraid of Gévigne. This was the last time he’d see him. He walked up the stairs, rather too ceremonial with their red carpet and white stone. Gévigne’s brass name-plate was on a double door. Flavières rang. He took his hat off before the door was open and stood waiting humbly.

  ‘Monsieur Gévigne?… Maître Flavières.’

  Madeleine’s home! He tried to put a special meaning into his eyes as they roamed over the furniture, the curtains, the ornaments. He was saying good-bye. The pictures in the salon were disturbing in their strangeness. They were mostly of animals—unicorns, swans, birds of paradise, which were painted in a way which recalled Douanier Rousseau. Flavières went up to one of them and read the signature: Mad. Gév. Was it these fantastic creatures that were now welcoming her in the other world? Where had she seen that black lake, those water-lilies like chalices full of poison, that forest of tree-trunks and lianas which stood solemnly watching a dance of humming-birds? Over the mantelpiece was the portrait of a young woman round whose slender neck was an amber necklace. Pauline Lagerlac. Her hair was done just like Madeleine’s. The face, tortured without being distorted, had an absent expression as if the soul was at grip with some problem known to her alone. Profoundly troubled, Flavières stood gazing at it till the door opened behind him.

  ‘You at last!’ said Gévigne.

  Flavières turned round and managed to find just the right tone of voice in which to say:

  ‘Is she here?’

  ‘What?… It’s you who ought to know where she is.’

  Flavières sank into an easy chair. He didn’t have to do any play-acting to look distraught.

  ‘We didn’t go out together today,’ he explained. ‘I waited for her at the Etoile up to four o’clock… Then I went to the hotel in the Rue des Saints-Pères, to the Passy Cemetery, anywhere where I thought I had a chance of finding her… I’ve just got back… And, if she’s not here…’

  He looked up at Gévigne, who had gone quite white. His eyes were staring, his mouth open, like a man being strangled.

  ‘No, Roger,’ he stammered. ‘You’re not… You’re not telling me… You can’t be…’

  Flavières opened his hands.

  ‘I tell you I’ve looked everywhere.’

  ‘It’s impossible… Do you realize that…’

  He tapped with his foot on the carpet, wrung his hands, then flopped down in a corner of a sofa.

  ‘We must find her,’ he gasped. ‘We must find her at once… At once… I couldn’t bear it if…’

  He thumped the arm of the sofa with all his might, and there was in that reflex such rage, such suffering, and such violence that it reacted on Flavières who began to get angry, too.

  ‘When a woman’s made up her mind to run away,’ he said spitefully, ‘it’s pretty hard to stop her.’

 
‘Run away? Run away? As if Madeleine was a woman to run away! I only wish I could think it possible… By now she may well be…’

  He jumped up, almost knocking over a small table. He walked to the far end of the room. With his shoulders hunched and his head forward, he looked like a wary boxer.

  ‘What does one do in a case like this?’ he asked. ‘You ought to know. Does one call in the police?… For heaven’s sake say something, man!’

  ‘They’d laugh in our faces. If she’d been gone two or three days, it would be a different matter.’

  ‘Not if it came from you. They know you… And if you explained that Madeleine had already tried to kill herself, that you’d dragged her out of the Seine with your own hands, and that she might well have tried again today, they’d believe you, I’m sure…’

  ‘We’ve nothing to go on, old chap. She’s been out a few hours. She’ll be back for dinner—you’ll see.’

  ‘Supposing she’s not?’

  ‘In any case it’s not my business to report her missing.’

  ‘So you wash your hands of it?’

  ‘It’s not that… Try and understand… It’s the normal thing for the husband to call in the police.’

  ‘All right, I’ll do so at once.’

  ‘You’d only be making a fool of yourself. In any case they wouldn’t take any action on such flimsy evidence. They’d merely take down the particulars and promise to let you know if she turned up. That’s all. I know.’

  Slowly Gévigne put his hands in his pockets.

  ‘If I have to sit here and wait, I’ll go out of my mind.’

  He began pacing up and down, then stopped in front of a bowl of roses on the mantelpiece, which he contemplated mournfully.

  ‘I must be going now,’ said Flavières.

  Gévigne didn’t budge. He went on looking at the flowers. Only a slight tremor passed over his face.

  ‘In your place,’ went on Flavières hurriedly, ‘I’d simply put the thing out of my mind. It’s only just gone seven. She might have lingered in a shop, or met someone.’

  ‘You just don’t care,’ snarled Gévigne. ‘Why should you?’

  ‘There’s absolutely no need to get all worked up about it. If she’s run away, she can’t have got far.’

  He explained politely to Gévigne the various methods employed by the police to track down missing persons. He warmed up to the subject in spite of his exhaustion. He seemed to have become two people at once. One was eagerly proving that Madeleine couldn’t escape, and almost proving it to himself. The other would have liked to fling himself down on the carpet and sob out his heart’s despair. Still gazing at the flowers, Gévigne seemed completely lost in thought.

  ‘Give me a ring when she comes in,’ said Flavières, making for the door.

  Yes, it was high time he went. He could no longer control his features, no longer trust his eyes. The truth was surging up within him. At any moment he might burst out:

  ‘She’s dead… Madeleine’s dead.’

  ‘Don’t go,’ muttered Gévigne.

  ‘I must. I’d stay if I could, of course. But if you knew how my work was piling up…’

  ‘Don’t go,’ pleaded Gévigne again. ‘I couldn’t bear to be alone when they… when they bring her back.’

  ‘Come on, Paul. You’re losing your sense of proportion.’

  Gévigne’s immobility was positively frightening.

  ‘If you’re here, you can explain to them all we’ve done, the struggle we’ve had…’

  ‘Of course… But no one’s going to bring her back. Take my word for it.’

  Flavières’ voice had faltered. To gain time, he whipped out his handkerchief, coughed, blew his nose.

  ‘Keep your chin up, Paul… It’ll all come right… Don’t forget to give me a ring.’

  As he opened the door he looked back. With his head sunk on his chin, Gévigne seemed turned to stone. Flavières went out, shutting the door gently behind him. He crossed the hall on tip-toe. He felt sick with disgust, and yet relieved. The hardest part was over. The Gévigne Case was wound up. As for what Gévigne was suffering… But wasn’t he, Flavières, suffering just as much? More! He had to admit, as he got into his car and slammed the door, that he had almost from the first regarded himself as Madeleine’s real husband. Gévigne was only a usurper. And you don’t sacrifice yourself for a usurper; you don’t go to the police, to your former colleagues, and explain to them that you’ve allowed a young woman to kill herself because you hadn’t the courage to go to her rescue… You don’t for the second time in your life accept dishonour for the sake of a man who… No. Leave that alone! Silence! Peace! The thing now was to get away, and did not that client of his at Orléans provide an excellent pretext for leaving Paris?

  Flavières never knew how he managed to drive back to the garage. He was walking now, not caring where he went, down a street bathed in an evening light which seemed to float in straight from the country, very blue, sad, and with overtones of war. At a crossing there was a crowd pressing round a car which had two mattresses lashed down on the roof. The world was becoming chaotic. As darkness fell all lights were extinguished, and the subdued crowd ebbed back into their homes leaving deserted squares whose silence tore at one’s heart. Everything conspired to bring his mind back to the dead woman. He entered a small restaurant in the Rue Saint-Honoré and chose a table in the far corner.

  ‘A la carte?’ asked the waiter.

  ‘No, I’ll have the table d’hôte.’

  He couldn’t bear to choose, yet he must eat something. He must try to go on living as before. He thrust his hand in his pocket to touch the lighter, and Madeleine’s face sprang up before him, floating between his eyes and the white tablecloth.

  ‘She never loved me,’ he mused. ‘She never loved anybody.’

  He swallowed his soup mechanically. He was detached from the things of the world, like an ascetic. He would live henceforth as a pauper, wallowing in his grief, imposing penances to punish himself. He might even buy a whip and take to flagellation. It was only right he should hate himself. He must hate himself for a long time before he had a right to any self-respect.

  ‘They’ve broken through at Liège,’ said the waiter. ‘Seems the Belgians are falling back, just as they did in ’14.’

  ‘Gossip,’ said Flavières. ‘Pay no attention to it.’

  Liège was a long way off, right up at the top of the map. What happened up there had nothing to do with Flavières. In any case, this war they talked so much about was only a tiny episode in the death-struggle which was his.

  ‘On the Place de la Concorde one of our customers saw a car that was fairly riddled with bullets.’

  ‘The next course, please,’ said Flavières.

  Why couldn’t they leave him alone? Belgians! Why not Dutchmen? Silly ass! He hurried over the meat. It was tough, but he didn’t complain, since he had resolved never to complain again. He would accept anything. What was painful would be grist to his mill. With the fruit, however, he drank two glasses of brandy, and his thoughts began to emerge from the fog in which they had been floundering for the last few hours. His elbows on the table, he lit a cigarette. With the lighter, of course, and that gave the smoke he inhaled something of the substance of Madeleine. He tasted her, retained her for a moment within him.

  He was certain now that Madeleine hadn’t done anything wrong before her marriage. It was a stupid supposition. Gévigne would have made enquiries: he wasn’t the man to buy a pig in a poke. Another thing: Madeleine’s remorse would have been inexplicably tardy, since for several years she had appeared quite normal. The trouble had started at the beginning of February—there was no getting away from that.

  Flavières pressed on the spring of the lighter, and watched the thin tongue of flame for a moment before blowing it out. The metal was warm in his hand. No, Madeleine’s motives were not everyday ones. He had approached the problem too crudely, trying to boil everything down to simple cause and effec
t. He wouldn’t make that mistake again: he would purify himself, cauterize himself with red-hot needles, until one day he would be worthy to fathom the mystery of Pauline Lagerlac. In the end it would no doubt come to him in a flash. He pictured himself a monk, kneeling down on the beaten earth which formed the floor of his cell; but it was not a crucifix to which he raised his eyes, but Madeleine’s photograph, the one he had seen on Gévigne’s desk.

  He rubbed his eyes, wiped his forehead, and asked for the bill. Hell! They knew how to sting you in this place!… Never mind. No recriminations. They weren’t allowed: it was part of the punishment. He went out. It was quite dark now, except for a narrow band of stars between the tall houses. Sometimes a car passed, its lights dimmed and shaded. Flavières couldn’t make up his mind to go home. He dreaded the telephone call which told him the body had been found. And he wasn’t sorry to impose still more fatigue on this body of his which he held responsible for such a catastrophe. He walked at random in a sort of dizzy abandon. He would keep watch till dawn. It was a question of dignity. Of something else, too: where Madeleine had gone she might be in need of a friendly thought. Little Eurydice!

  Tears welled up into his eyes. He tried hard to form as it were a concrete picture of nothingness, so that he could keep her company at least for her first night there. The nearest he could get to it was Paris in the black-out, and he had to make the best of that. Yes, it was good to wander through those shadows. The land of the living was far away. Here were only the dead, solitary figures slinking through the streets, haunted by the bright days of long ago, tortured by a remembered happiness. Some stopped for a moment to look down at the dark river licking its banks, then slunk on again. Were they preparing themselves for the Day of Judgment? What was it the waiter had said?