Good Morning, Midnight (7 page)

'You came here just after the war?'

'Yes, and I lived here up to five years ago. Then I went back to England.'

'Yes, it must be very changed, very changed,' he says, pursing his lips and nodding his head.

'Oh, terrible,' I say. 'But I don't believe things change much really; you only think they do. It seems to me that things repeat themselves over and over again.'

He says: 'I think you are getting cold, madame. You are shivering. Would you like to go to a patisserie and have a cup of chocolate? There is a nice one near here.'

I say: 'I'd much rather go to a cafe and have a drink.'

I have an idea that he disapproves of this, but he says: 'Yes, certainly. Let's go.'

I make no mistake this time. We go to the neutral cafe.

When we are in a corner with a coffee and fine each he says: 'Do you know what I feel about you? I think you are very lonely. I know, because for a long time I was lonely myself. I hated people, I didn't want to see anyone. And then one day I thought: "No, this isn't the way." And now I go about a lot. I force myself to. I have a lot of friends; I'm never alone. Now I'm much happier.'

That sounds pretty simple. I must try it when I get back to London....

I say: 'I liked your friend the other night.'

'Ah, yes,' he says, shaking his head. 'But he was vexed, and he's had bad news....(The optimist hasn't any more use for me, I can see that.) 'But I have many friends. I'll introduce you to all of them if you wish. Will you allow me? Then you will never be alone and you'll be much happier, you'll see.'

'But do you think they'd like me, your friends?'

'But certainly. Absolutely yes.'

This young man is very comforting - almost as comforting as the hairdresser.

'Will you come along now and see a friend of mine? He's a painter. I think he is a man you'd like. He's always gay and he knows how to talk to everybody....Yes, Serge understands everybody - it's extraordinary.' (And, whether prince or prostitute, he always did his best....) 'Mais au fond, vous savez, il s'en fiche de tout, il s'en iche de tout le monde.'

He sounds fine.

'Yes, I'd like to,' I say. 'But I can't this afternoon. I have to go and buy a hat.'

'Well, would you like to come tomorrow?' he says, and we arrange to meet at four o'clock the next day.

There used to be a good hat shop in the Rue Vavin. It doesn't exist any longer. I wander aimlessly along a lot of back streets where there aren't any hat shops at all. And then a street that is alive with them - Virginie, Josette, Claudine....I look at the window of the first shop. There is a customer inside. Her hair, half-dyed, half-grey, is very dishevelled. As I watch she puts on a hat, makes a face at herself in the glass, and takes it of very quickly. She ties another - then another. Her expression is terrible - hungry, despairing, hopeful, quite crazy. At any moment you expect her to start laughing the laugh of the mad.

I stand outside, watching. I can't move. Hat after hat she puts on, makes that face at herself in the glass and throws it of again. Watching her, am I watching myself as I shall become? In five years' time, in six years' time, shall I be like that?

But she is better than the other one, the smug, white, fat, black-haired one who is offering the hats with a calm, mocking expression. You can almost see her tongue rolling round and round inside her cheek. It's like watching the devil with a damned soul. If I must end like one or the other, may I end like the hag.

I realize that I can't stay gaping in on them any longer and move of, very much shaken. Then I remember the Russian saying: 'I didn't ask to be born; I didn't make the world as it is; I didn't make myself as I am; I am not one of the guilty ones. And so I have a right to....' Etcetera.

There are at least ten milliners' shops in this street. I decide to go into the last but one on the left-hand side and hope to strike lucky.

The girl in the shop says: 'The hats now are very difficult, very difficult. All my clients say that the hats now are very difficult to wear.'

This is a much larger shop than the other one. There is a cruel, crude light over the two mirrors and behind a long room stretching into dimness.

She disappears into the dimness and comes back with hat after hat, hat after hat, murmuring: 'All my clients are complaining that the hats now are very difficult to wear, but I think -I am sure -I shall manage to suit you.'

In the glass it seems to me that I have the same demented expression as the woman up the street.

'My God, not that one.'

I stare suspiciously at her in the glass. Is she laughing at me? No, I think not. I think she has the expression of someone whose pride is engaged. She is determined that before I go out of the shop I shall admit that she can make hats. As soon as I see this expression in her eyes I decide to trust her. I too become quite calm.

'You know, I'm bewildered. Please tell me which one I ought to have.'

'The first one I showed you,' she says at once.

'Oh, my God, not that one.'

'Or perhaps the third one.'

When I put on the third one she says: 'I don't want to insist, but yes - that is your hat.'

I look at it doubtfully and she watches me - not mockingly, but anxiously.

She says: 'Walk up and down the room in it. See whether you feel happy in it. See whether you'll get accustomed to it.'

There is no one else in the shop. It is quite dark outside. We are alone, celebrating this extraordinary ritual.

She says: 'I very seldom insist, but I am sure that when you have got accustomed to that hat you won't regret it. You will realize that it's your hat.'

I have made up my mind to trust this girl, and I must trust her.

'I don't like it much, but it seems to be the only one,' I say in a surly voice.

I have been nearly two hours in the shop, but her eyes are still quite friendly.

I pay for the hat. I put it on. I have a great desire to ask her to come and dine with me, but I daren't do it. All my spontaneity has gone. (Did I ever have any? Yes, I think sometimes I had - in lashes. Anyway, it's gone now. If I asked her to dine with me, it would only be a failure.)

She adjusts the hat very carefully. 'Remember, it must be worn forward and very much on one side. Comme ca.'

She sees me out, still smiling. A strange client, l'etrangere....The last thing she says is: 'All the hats now are very difficult. All my clients are complaining.'

I feel saner and happier after this. I go to a restaurant near by and eat a large meal, at the same time carefully watch ing the effect of the hat on the other people in the room, comme ca. Nobody stares at me, which I think is a good sign.

A man sitting near by asks if he may look at my evening paper, as he wants to go to the cinema tonight. Then he ties to start a conversation with me. I think: "That's all right....'

When I go out into the Place de l'Odeon I am feeling happy, what with my new hair and my new hat and the good meal and the wine and the fine and the coffee and the smell of night in Paris. I'm not going to any beastly little bar tonight. No, tonight I'm going somewhere where there's music; somewhere where I can be with a lot of people; somewhere where there's dancing. But where? By myself, where can I go? I'll have one more drink first and then think it out

Not the Dome. I'll avoid the damned Dome. And, of course, it's the Dome I go to.

The terrace is crowded, but there are not many people inside. What on earth have I come in here for? I have always disliked the place, except right at the start, when the plush wasn't so resplendent and everybody spat on the floor. It was rather nice then.

I pay for my drink and go out. I am waiting to cross the street. Someone says: 'Excuse me, but can I speak to you ? I think you speak English.'

I don't answer. We cross side by side.

He says: 'Please allow me to speak to you. I wish to so much.'

He speaks English with a very slight accent. I can't place it. I look at him and recognize him. He was sitting at a table in the corner opposite to mine at the Dome.

'Please. Couldn't we go to a cafe and talk?'

'Of course,' I say. 'Why not?'

'Well, where shall we go?' he says in a fussy voice. 'You see, I don't know Paris well. I only arrived last night.'

'Oh?' I say.

As we walk along, I look sideways at him and can't make him out. He isn't trying to size me up, as they usually do - he is exhibiting himself, his own person. He is very good-looking, I noticed that in the Dome. But the nervousness, the slightly affected laugh....

Of course. I've got it. Oh Lord, is that what I look like ? Do I really look like a wealthy dame trotting round Montparnasse in the hope of - After all the trouble I've gone to, is that what I look like ? I suppose I do.

Shall I tell him to go to hell ? But after all, I think, this is where I might be able to get some of my own back. You talk to them, you pretend to sympathize; then, just at the moment when they are not expecting it, you say: 'Go to hell.'

We are passing the Closerie des Lilas. He says: 'This looks a nice cafe. Couldn't we go in here?'

'All right. But it's very full. Let's sit on the terrace.'

The terrace is cold and dark and there is not another soul there.

'What about a drink?'

'You'll have to get hold of the waiter. He won't come out here.'

'I'll get him.'

He goes into the cafe and comes back with the waiter and two brandies.

He says: 'Have you ever felt like this - as if you can't bear any more, as if you must speak to someone, as if you must tell someone everything or otherwise you'll die '

'I can imagine it.'

He is not looking at me - he hasn't looked at me once. He is looking straight ahead, gathering himself up for some effort. He is going to say his piece. I have done this so often myself that it is amusing to watch somebody else doing it.

'But why do you want to talk to me?'

He is going to say: 'Because you look so kind,' or 'Because you look so beautiful and kind,' or, subtly, 'Because you look as if you'll understand....

He says: 'Because I think you won't betray me.'

I had meant to get this man to talk to me and tell me all about it, and then be so devastatingly English that perhaps I should manage to hurt him a little in return for all the many times I've been hurt....'Because I think you won't betray me, because I think you won't betray me....'

Now it won't be so easy.

'Of course I won't betray you. Why should I betray you?'

'No,' he says. 'Why?'

He throws back his head and laughs. That's the gesture for showing of the teeth. Also, I suppose he is laughing at the idea of my being able to betray him.

'Very nice, very nice indeed. Beautiful teeth,' I say in an insolent voice.

'Yes, I know,' he answers simply.

But I have jarred him a bit. He finishes his drink and starts again.

'I am what they call in French a mauvais garcon.'

'But I like them. I like les mauvais garcons.'

For the first time he looks straight at me. He doesn't look away again, but goes on in the same nervous voice: 'I got into bad trouble at home. I ran away.'

'I am a Canadian, a French-Canadian,' he says.

'French-Canadian? I see.'

'Shall we have another drink?'

Again he has to go inside the cafe to fetch the waiter and the drinks. Now it's creeping into me, the brandy, creep ing into my arms, my legs, making me feel hazy.

I listen to his story, which is that he joined the Foreign Legion, was in Morocco for three years, found it impossible to bear any longer, and escaped through Spain - Franco Spain. Just escaped from the Foreign Legion....La Legion, La Legion Etrangere....

'I had enormous luck, or I couldn't have done it. I got to Paris last night. I'm at a hotel near the Gare d'Orsay.'

'Is it as bad as they say, the Legion?'

'Oh, they tell a lot of lies about it. But I'd had enough....You don't believe me, do you? You don't believe anything I'm telling you. But it's always when a thing sounds not true that it is true,' he says.

Of course. I know that....You imagine the carefully - pruned, shaped thing that is presented to you is truth. That is just what it isn't. The truth is improbable, the truth is fantastic; it's in what you think is a distorting mirror that you see the truth.

'I'll tell you one thing I don't believe. I don't believe you're a French-Canadian.'

'Then what do you think I am?'

'Spanish Spanish-American?'

He blinks and says to himself: 'Elle n'est pas si bete que ca.' Well, that might mean anything.

'It's awfully cold here,' I say, 'too cold to stay any longer.'

'No, please. Please don't go, you mustn't go. Or, if you wish, let's go somewhere else. But I must talk to you.'

His voice is so urgent that I begin to feel exasperated.

'But, my dear friend, I don't know what you think I can do. People who are in trouble want someone with money to help them. Isn't it so? Well, I haven't got any money.'

The corners of his mouth go down. They all say that.

I want to shout at him 'I haven't got any money, I tell you. I know what you're judging by. You're judging by my coat. You oughtn't to judge by my coat. You ought to judge by what I have on under my coat, by my handbag, by my expression, by anything you like. Not by this damned coat, which was a present - and the only reason I haven't sold it long ago is because I don't want to offend the person who gave it to me, and because if you knew what you really get when you try to sell things it would give you a shock, and because - '

Well, there you are - no use arguing. I can see he has it firmly fixed in his head that I'm a rich bitch and that if he goes on long enough I can be persuaded to part.

'But it isn't money I want,' he says. 'Really it isn't money. What I hoped was that we could go somewhere where we could be quite alone. I want to put my head on your breast and put my arms round you and tell you everything. You know, it's strange, but that's how I feel tonight. I could die for that - a woman who would put her arms round me and to whom I could tell everything.