The Dogs and the Wolves (22 page)

‘Forgive
me
? I haven’t done anything!’

‘You forced him back amongst us, the Jewish scum, the opportunists, the immigrants, the foreigners . . . What else could he be after this? He had friends, a family, a fortune, a French wife! Can you imagine the contrast? What is scandal or dishonour to me? I’ve never been respected! What does going into exile mean to me? I have no real home. But to him . . . And you think he’ll forgive you for that?’

All she could do was whisper, her voice faltering, ‘You are disgusting! Go to hell! I wish you were dead! I hope you die alone!’

The ferocious curses that came from her mouth frightened even her. She fell silent.

‘Come with me!’ he said again. ‘Will you, Ada?’

Suddenly he was speaking in an almost childlike voice, like when they were young, when he would call out to her beneath the open windows to come with him, at night, to the river’s edge. And, just like back then, she replied, ‘No. Go alone,’ opening the door for him to leave.

He leaned forward and kissed Ada’s hand. Then he went calmly down the stairs, walked out of the house and disappeared.

Ada ran down the stairs after him. At first she had thought of rushing over to Harry’s, but she knew he couldn’t be persuaded to flee. He wouldn’t abandon his uncles or the business when they were threatened by scandal. How could he run away? He was still held there by so many family ties. No, it was pointless trying to find him. Besides, she felt sorry for him. It was nearly five o’clock in the morning. Let him have one more peaceful night’s sleep. She was afraid of him too. Ben was right: it was all her fault. How could he ever forgive her? She had dragged him far away from his family, into her own dark and tangled woods. No, she wouldn’t go to Harry’s house. But whom could she turn to? Whom could she beg for help? She had no one in the world except Aunt Raissa and Madame Mimi. Aunt Raissa had come back to France when Lilla had abandoned her prince, running off with the leading court musician.

Ada walked up the staircase that, a few years before, she had fled down, her cheeks still burning from the slap she’d received, to throw herself into Ben’s arms. On the first floor, there was an empty little alcove made of painted wood, and she remembered how she had stopped there for a moment before rushing away and running into the street. And now she was hurrying to Aunt Raissa to ask for help!

When she remembered this, she clung on to the memory for a moment and managed to give shape to an idea that was her only bitter consolation: ‘If you’ve forgotten that, you’ll also forget about Ben, and Harry.’

She’d reached the door; she rang the bell and knocked several times. Aunt Raissa finally appeared; she was still slim and agile, but her red hair had turned white and her lively, harsh expression had given way to a look of defiant and false resignation, as if she were thinking, ‘Oh, I won’t make the same mistake again. I know now, you don’t have to tell me: it’s all over for me; the bets were placed long ago, the cards dealt out, and I can only watch other people play without playing myself, happy that I’m still allowed even to be here.’

‘What is it now?’ she shouted, looking at Ada.

‘I’ve just seen Ben,’ she said, and her voice seemed extraordinarily calm and distant to her, detached, like the echo of someone else who had spoken her despairing words in the most self-controlled way, just to mock her. ‘Ben has gone away. He was going to be arrested tonight.’

Aunt Raissa said nothing, but her cheeks and forehead turned red and blotchy, as always happened when she felt any real emotion. She never cried, which was one good thing. It was comforting to hear her say in the sullen voice that was just as it had always been, ‘Come in or go out. Don’t leave me standing here in a draught.’

Ada followed her inside. There were piles of material, pins and patterns all over the little sitting room, as always. Aunt Raissa automatically picked up and folded the fashion photos that covered the table. Then suddenly, she stopped, and with a surprised, weak gesture, covered her cheeks and forehead with her hands.

‘It’s hard at my age.’

‘I know, Aunt Raissa,’ Ada said, with pity.

It hadn’t occurred to them to switch on the lamp; the dawn
light lit up the grey canvas tailor’s dummy that stood in the corner of the room. The two women sat on the settee in silence for a moment.

‘How was he?’ asked Aunt Raissa.

Ada shrugged her shoulders.

‘The same as ever.’

‘Yes, even on the gallows he’d be the same as ever, full of hope. What did he want from you? You’ve separated.’

Ada didn’t reply.

‘Are you going with him?’

‘No.’

‘You’re wrong. The scandal will come out and land on you too, because you’re his wife and you have the same name. Whether you like it or not, you’re tied to each other. You should have gone with him. What will happen to you here? Your lover will leave you. He won’t forgive you for getting him mixed up in a scandal.’

‘Where is Madame Mimi?’ Ada asked, her voice shaking.

Madame Mimi was her last hope: unlike Ben and Aunt Raissa, she wouldn’t tell her she had betrayed and ruined Harry.

Aunt Raissa pointed to the next room.

‘Go to her. She’s sleeping. She won’t have heard you come in; she sleeps like a log. I never even close my eyes at night, not me. But she doesn’t have, has never had children, the lucky thing, so she can sleep!’

Ada went into the little back bedroom that was Madame Mimi’s. To her surprise, she found the old woman out of bed; she was wearing a red silk shawl with fringes and sitting at a little table with a lamp on it, her playing cards spread out in front of her. She raised her eyes and looked straight at Ada.

‘Come in,’ she said softly. ‘I heard what you said, you poor thing. How alone and in despair you must be feeling to make you come back here!’

For the first time, Ada couldn’t hold back her tears. She threw
herself down into a chair and repeated everything Ben had said. Her voice was low and broken.

‘What should I do, Madame Mimi?’ she murmured.

‘Nothing. Wait.’

‘But that’s impossible!’ she cried, in anguish.

A smile flickered across the old woman’s face.

‘Ah, that’s just like you, just like all of you. You fight until the very end.’

‘You know as well as I do,’ said Ada in a cold, distant voice that rang in her ears as if it belonged to some stranger, ‘you know as well as I do that only his wife, only that French family can save him.’

‘If they want to, Ada.’

‘If they don’t want to, then he’ll be mine and mine alone . . .’

But Ben’s words and Aunt Raissa’s came flooding back.

‘Whatever happens, I’ve lost him,’ she said.

She had hoped for some advice from the two old women, but she now understood that nothing had changed: she had always been alone, and she would always be alone, listening only to herself, to a sort of hopeless, wise twin who was hidden deep within her.

‘It’s true, isn’t it?’ she said out loud, more to herself than to Madame Mimi. ‘It’s true that I have nothing to complain about, in the end. After all, if anyone had told me back then, in the Ukraine, that one day Harry Sinner would leave his wife and child for me . . .

‘For me . . .’ she said again.

‘How you demean yourself! And you get such pleasure from doing it, such proud satisfaction . . .’

‘Oh, Madame Mimi!’ she begged as if she were a child. ‘Who can give me the courage I need? . . . It’s the only thing that can save him. I have to make his wife think that I’ve gone away with Ben; I have to make Harry believe it! She’ll go back to him then,
she loves him; she couldn’t possibly allow such scandal and dishonour . . . They have a child. Alone or with me, Harry is nothing. But with her and her powerful family to support him, he could be saved.’

‘And what about you?’

‘I’ll come back here. Or I’ll go away somewhere. It hardly matters . . . It’s so easy to disappear in this city when no one cares about you. He won’t come looking for me. That’s the thing I find most painful. He loves me, but he won’t come looking for me. It’s like when you truly want to kill yourself and someone wrenches the gun away from you: you don’t put up a fight because, deep down, you’re afraid of death. And to Harry, I’m that wrench, a second chance to live, or death,’ she said, more quietly.

Madame Mimi nodded.

‘Yes, they could come to an arrangement. The case against him could be withdrawn. With a respectable family around him, a French name to back up his own, yes, I think that would be the best thing for Harry . . . I said for Harry, but for you . . .’

Ada didn’t reply. She had thrown herself down on the bed, exhausted. Madame Mimi looked at her, went and got a blanket and covered her with it. Then she sat down again. She had that visible impassiveness that comes with old age and which, though it seems uncaring, gives comfort without a word being spoken or a tear being shed: she was living proof of forgetfulness and the end of all things. Ada kept her eyes closed, but she wasn’t asleep; she was thinking.

When Harry left Ada that same evening, he realised it wasn’t late, so he could spend an hour with some friends who lived in the outskirts of Paris. They had been inviting him to come for some time. He’d had to turn down the dinner invitation but the party afterwards wouldn’t finish until four or five in the morning. He could be there by midnight. He set off.

He went into the house. It was a warm night and the servants told him everyone was in the garden. He didn’t wish to be announced and replied that he would find his hosts himself. A floodlight on the terrace lit up the small dance floor, but the grounds behind were dark.

He walked beneath the trees, hoping it would be cooler there. A few women and two men were sitting apart from the others. They were talking excitedly. Harry couldn’t hear what they were saying. He walked on quietly: he had the silent step of all the Sinners. His friends didn’t see him until he was quite close to them. One of them said ‘Hem!’ quite loudly, as you do when you want to warn indiscreet gossips. Everyone stopped talking.

Harry was not unduly bothered when he realised they were talking about him: he knew very well that his close friends were aware of his separation from Laurence and his affair with Ada. Their curiosity
did not surprise him. He feared neither their judgment nor their harshness when the moment came to announce his second marriage: he lived in the world of the rich bourgeoisie where divorce and adultery were so common they shocked no one. He was even prepared for whispered jokes and sly allusions from one of the women who was there; nearly all of them had sought his ‘attentions’, both before and after his marriage. It was their silence that surprised him. Then one of the men called out in that artificially lively and ringing tone of voice used when you want to disguise your secret thoughts.

‘Where the devil have you been hiding? We were just talking about you. No one ever sees you any more.’

‘That,’ thought Harry, ‘is in case I hear someone say my name as I walk up to them.’

He felt mildly irritated. What did they want of him? Why couldn’t they leave him be? He stopped himself, thinking it was absurd to attach such importance to malicious gossip. But, in spite of himself, his voice sounded hesitant and upset as he replied, ‘Yes. I’ve had so much to do . . .’

Once again, silence. Every one of his words met with an attention and hostility that was barely perceptible, yet noticeable nevertheless. And, after he spoke, after making an effort to say something carefully chosen to be insignificant, the silence lasted a few seconds longer. A few seconds too long . . . like when you’re waiting for a stone to hit the bottom of a ravine in order to measure its depth. He felt as if he were separated from the others by an ever-growing abyss. Then everyone started talking and laughing at the same time.

‘Got lots of work on these days?’ someone asked.

Harry remembered that he hadn’t been seen anywhere since Laurence had left, not even in June when the members of their social circle saw each other ten times a day in ten different places. He hastened to assure his friends that he had, in fact, been very busy at work.

‘You’re lucky,’ said the man who had first spoken to him. ‘I would just as soon close down my offices and go away for six months: things couldn’t be any worse.’

One of the women asked how Laurence was in a tone of voice that wasn’t nasty or awkward, but the way you ask any old question in order not to ask something else, something more embarrassing.

His reply was curt and evasive. One of the couples walked away, followed by another. The two women who remained were smoking their cigarettes without saying a word.

‘It’s rather cool out here,’ said Harry.

They seemed happy for the excuse he purposely gave them, for he could tell that they too wanted to get away from him.

‘Yes, it is, isn’t it?’ they cried. ‘It must be late. That wind coming from the lake isn’t very nice.’

They stood up, smiled at him and disappeared. He remained seated where he was, watching the light that shone dimly over the lake.

With his head lowered, his thin hands clasped around his knees, and his long, delicate neck tilted to one side, he resembled a bird alone on its perch amid other birds from a different species whom he watches from a distance without daring to approach. That image came to mind in spite of himself, and remained with him from then on. He stood up, making an effort to be cheerful and proud. After all, what had he done that should make him feel guilty like this?

‘Nothing,’ he thought forcefully, ‘nothing. My wife and I separated on good terms, and besides, my personal life is nobody’s business. What’s wrong with everybody tonight?’

He tried to reassure himself. On a number of occasions in the past he had surprised himself by how vulnerable he felt. He reacted so strongly to the slightest hint of blame or coldness.

‘Well, I don’t give a damn about these people,’ he murmured brutally. ‘I don’t give a damn!’

He felt cold, yet his forehead was covered in perspiration. Nervously he wrung his hands.

‘Something terrible has happened,’ he thought. ‘Something I know nothing about. But
they
all know!’