Climates (20 page)

It was nearly time
for us to leave for the mountains. The week before, at Hélène de Thianges’s salon, Philippe ran into a couple he had known in Morocco, the Villiers. I want to find a word to depict Madame Villier but cannot. Proud, possibly, but also victorious. Yes, that is more what it is: victorious. Beneath a mass of blond hair, her profile is pure, precise. She was reminiscent of a beautiful thoroughbred animal. She came over to us as soon as we arrived.

“Monsieur Marcenat and I went on a wonderful excursion in the Atlas Mountains,” she told me. “Do you remember Saïd, Marcenat? Saïd,” she added for
my benefit, “was our guide, a little Arab with shining eyes.”

“He was a poet,” said Philippe. “When we took him in the car with us he sang about the speed of Europeans and of Madame Villier’s beauty.”

“Are you not taking your wife to Morocco this year?” she asked.

“No,” said Philippe, “we’re only going on a very short trip, to the mountains. Aren’t you tempted?”

“Is that a serious invitation? Because, believe it or not, my husband and I want to spend Christmas and New Year’s in the snow. Whereabouts are you going?”

“To Saint-Moritz,” said Philippe.

I was furious; I tried to catch his attention, but he did not notice. In the end I stood up and said, “We have to go, Philippe.”

“We do?” he asked. “Why?”

“I’ve arranged to see the managing agent at home.”

“On a Saturday?”

“Yes, I thought it would be more convenient for you.”

He looked at me with some surprise but said nothing and stood up.

“If you like the idea of the trip,” he said to Madame Villier, “telephone me; we’ll make some plans. It would be great fun to do this with another couple.”

When we were outside he said rather abruptly, “Why on earth arrange a meeting at six o’clock on a Saturday? What a peculiar idea! You know perfectly well it’s Hélène’s day and I like to stay late.”

“But I haven’t arranged to meet anyone, Philippe. I wanted to leave.”

“What a fabrication!” he said, astonished. “Are you unwell?”

“Of course not. I just don’t want those Villiers with us on our trip. I don’t understand you, Philippe. You know that, for me, the whole pleasure of vacations is spending them alone with you, and you go and invite people you hardly know, whom you met once in Morocco.”

“Such vehemence! Such a different Isabelle! But the Villiers aren’t people I hardly know. I spent two weeks with them. I spent exquisite evenings in their garden in Marrakesh. You can’t imagine how perfect that house is: the ponds, the fountains, the four cypress trees, the smell of flowers. Solange Villier has exquisite taste. She had arranged it so well: all
Moroccan-style divans and thick carpets. No, truly, I feel closer to the Villiers than friends in Paris whom we meet at dinners three times through the winter.”

“Oh, well! That’s as may be, Philippe. I could have been wrong, but leave me my trip. I was promised it, it’s mine.”

Philippe laughed and put his hand on mine. “Well, Madame, you shall have your trip.”

The following day when we were having coffee together after lunch, Madame Villier telephoned Philippe. I gathered from what he said that she had spoken to her husband, he approved of the plan, and they would both come to Switzerland with us. I noticed that Philippe did not make much of it and even discouraged the Villiers, but his last words were, “Well, then, we’d be delighted to meet up with you there.”

He hung up the receiver and looked at me, rather embarrassed.

“You heard yourself,” he said. “I did what I could.”

“Yes. But what’s happening? Are they coming? Oh, Philippe, that’s too much!”

“But what do you want me to do, darling? I really can’t be rude.”

“No, but you could think of an excuse, say we’re going somewhere else.”

“They would have gone there. Besides, don’t make so much of all this. You’ll see, they’re very kind and you’ll be glad to have them as companions.”

“Listen then, Philippe. Do this: you go alone with them.
I
don’t like the idea anymore.”

“You’re mad! They won’t understand at all. And I don’t think it’s very kind of you. I didn’t have any intention of going anywhere, of leaving Paris; you’re the one who asked me to. I agreed to it to make you happy, and now you’re trying to make me go on my own!”

“Not on your own … with your dearest friends.”

“Isabelle, I’m tired of this ridiculous scene,” Philippe said with a violence I had never seen in him. “I’ve done you no wrong. I didn’t invite the Villiers. They invited themselves. Anyway, they mean absolutely nothing to me. I’ve never made overtures to Solange … I’ve had enough,” he went on, hammering out the words and pacing up and down the dining room. “I can feel how jealous and anxious you are, and I daren’t do or say anything
anymore … Nothing reduces life more drastically than that, you can take it from me …”

“What reduces life,” I told him, “is sharing it with everyone.”

I listened to what I was saying in amazement. I sounded sarcastic, hostile. I was busy irritating the only person in the world I was interested in, and I could not help myself doing it.

“Poor Isabelle!” Philippe said.

And—because, thanks to him, I knew his past life so well and probably lived in his memories more than he did himself—I could see he was thinking, “Poor Isabelle! It’s happening to you too, it’s your turn …”

I slept very badly that night, blaming myself entirely. What grievances did I actually have? There was certainly no intimacy between my husband and Solange Villier because they had not seen each other for a long time. So I had no legitimate grounds to be jealous. Meeting them might even have been fortuitous. Would Philippe have had fun alone with me in Saint-Moritz? He would have come home to Paris grumpy, feeling as if I had forced him to make a pointless and rather lackluster trip. With the Villiers he would be in a good mood, and some of his happiness would reflect on his wife. But I felt sad.

We were meant
to leave a day before the Villiers but our departure was delayed, and all four of us ended up taking the same train.

In the morning, Philippe woke early, and when I came out of the compartment I found him standing in the corridor deep in conversation with Solange, who was also up and ready. I watched them for a moment and was struck by how happy they looked. I went over to them and said, “Good morning!” Solange Villier turned around and, in spite of myself, I wondered, “Does she look like Odile?” No, she did not look like Odile; she was much more vigorous, and her features were less childlike, less
angelic. Solange looked like a woman who had measured herself up against life, who had dominated it. When she smiled at me, I was momentarily won over. Then her husband came to join us. The train was traveling between two tall mountains, and a torrent ran alongside the tracks. I found the scenery otherworldly and sad. Jacques Villier talked to me about boring topics; I knew (because everyone said so) that he was an intelligent man: not only had he been very well received in Morocco, but he had also become a major businessman. “He does a bit of everything,” Philippe had told me, “phosphates, ports, mines.” But the truth is I was trying to listen to the conversation between Philippe and Solange, and the clatter of the train was robbing me of half of it. I heard (
Solange’s voice
): “Well, what would you say charm is?” (
Philippe’s voice
): “… very complex … the face plays a part, and the body … but particularly the natural …” (a word I missed, then
Solange’s voice
): “And taste too, impulsiveness, a spirit of adventure … wouldn’t you say?”

“That’s it,” said Philippe. “A combination. A woman has to be capable of gravity and childishness … What’s intolerable …”

Again the noise of the train snatched the end of the sentence away. The mountains rose up before us. Cut wood, gleaming with resin, was piled up next to a chalet with a wide shallow-sloping roof. Was I going to suffer like this for a whole week? Jacques Villier ended a long description with, “… Anyway, you can see the operation is quite superb.”

He laughed. He had most probably explained some ingenious device to me; all I remembered of it was a name: the Godet Group.

“Superb,” I replied, and I could see he thought me stupid. It did not matter to me. I was starting to hate him.

In my memory, the end of that journey was like a state of delirium. The overheated little train climbed through a backdrop of dazzling white, shrouding itself in clouds of steam that hovered briefly over the snow. It followed mysterious wide curves, which made the white crests topped with fir trees revolve around us. Then a precipice appeared to one side of the tracks and, far down below, we could see the black curve we had just left behind. Solange watched this display with childish glee and kept drawing Philippe’s attention to details in the scenery.

“Look, Marcenat, it’s so beautiful the way the trees keep the snow on their branches … You can just feel the strength of the wood holding all that weight without bowing … And there … Oh, there! … Look at that hotel glittering up there on the peak, like a diamond nestled in white velvet … And the colors on the snow … Do you notice how it’s never white, but bluish white, pinkish white … Oh, Marcenat, Marcenat! I do so love it!”

None of this was spiteful, and even when I think about it in all honesty, there was something gracious about the way she said it, but she irritated me. I was amazed that Philippe, who claimed to prize naturalness above everything else, tolerated this lyrical monologue. “Maybe she’s happy,” I thought, “but still, at thirty-three (perhaps thirty-five … her neck looks drawn), she can’t be happy the way a child is … And, anyway, we can all see that the snow’s blue and pink … Why say so?” I felt Jacques Villier was thinking along the same lines as me because, from time to time, he punctuated his wife’s sentences with a cynical and slightly weary “y-es.” When he said that “y-es,” I liked him for a moment.

I did not understand the Villiers’ relationship. They displayed great courtesy toward each other and she treated him with a familiar sort of tenderness, calling him sometimes Jacquot and sometimes Jacquou, and even kissing him for no apparent reason, just skimming him with her lips. And yet, after spending a few hours with them, it was very clear they were not lovers, that Villier was not jealous and accepted his wife’s excesses in advance with haughty resignation. What did he live for? For another woman? For his mines, his boats, and his Moroccan fields? I could not tell and besides was not interested enough in him to try to tell. I looked down on him for being so indulgent. “He doesn’t want to be here any more than I do,” I thought, “and if he had a bit of drive, neither of us
would
be here.” Philippe, who had bought a Swiss newspaper, was trying to convert prices on the stock exchange into French francs and, thinking this would please Villier, talking about share values. Villier nonchalantly swept aside the strange names of Greek and Mexican factories like a famous writer raising a weary hand when a flatterer quotes from his works. He turned to me and asked whether I had read
Koenigsmark
. The little train was still snaking around between the fluid white shapes.

Why when I remember Saint-Moritz does it appear as the set for a play by Musset, simultaneously cheerful, unreal, and melancholy? I can still see the way out of the station by night, the lights on the snow, the piercing hearty cold, the sleds, and the mules whose harnesses were laden with small bells and red, yellow, and blue pompoms. Then the wonderful embracing heat of our hotel, the English in evening dress in the hall, and, in our vast, warm room, the happiness of being alone with my husband for a few minutes, at last.