The Gobi Desert (4 page)

For how many years would we not see each other? When we were led away, each to our own side, the last look we gave each other was the equivalent of a promise that we would find each other again, in spite of everything. I was sent for five years to the penal colony at Doui, on the island of Sakhalin. Against Alzire, the presumption of complicity was dismissed, and only the charge of receiving stolen goods was upheld. She was sentenced to two years imprisonment in the main prison in Vladivostok. After I had spent more than a year without hearing anything about her, you can imagine how I felt when I learnt that my penalty had been reduced by half. According to the most recent news I had, she was living in Vladivostok, and who do you think she was living with? With that same lieutenant Nevelsky who, having exploited her for his own benefit in the way we remember, did everything he could, it seems, to hasten her release. The joy that I felt was so strong that it stopped me from dwelling for a single minute on the treachery of my ex-friend. Besides, what was that treachery, compared to the release of Alzire? From that moment on I thought only of escape and then running to find her again. Within less than three months I was able to put this plan into operation . . .

There would be two years before we met again, and you could say that a lot of water passed under the bridge during those two years. You could also say without being unfair, that Alzire had the right not to feel unduly pleased with the way of life which I had led her to during that time.

‘You're late, Mr Michel! Miss Alzire is not going to be happy.'

I nearly fell over in astonishment. It was Mme Domestici who was calling out to me like that. She was smiling, simpering, and wagging her finger.

‘I'm sorry?'

‘She's been waiting for you for more than an hour. Go on, run and see her, you bad boy!'

For three months this formidable woman had not said a word to me, except to threaten to put us out on the street, Alzire and me. I used every possible strategy to avoid meeting her, leaving the house before dawn and only returning home late at night. I must say she was a bit less overwhelming towards Alzire, whom she declared she felt sorry for, and she reproached me for preventing her from earning an honest living.

What should I make of this sudden friendliness? I didn't know. I only knew that instead of feeling happy about it, I began to tremble. A childish terror took hold of me. Something must have happened during my absence, something which was impossible for me to foresee, but which must have been serious, something more serious than anything I could have feared until then.

Mme Domestici, however, was smiling her most beautiful smile, and held out a bag for me.

‘Do me a favour please and take these two bottles upstairs. It was Miss Alzire who asked me to get them for her before you came home. And tell her that you can look everywhere in Fouzan and you won't find anything of better quality.'

She added, in an engaging little whisper, ‘In a moment I'll come up and have a glass with you. That's a promise.'

I stumbled several times on the damp and mouldy staircase as I tried to half-open the bag and see what was inside. What an irony! And what a surprise. I discovered that the two bottles of champagne were the same as the champagne which Jack Sanders had just been plying us with so freely. How long it had been since I had tasted a drop of champagne! And now in less than one hour! . . . . What a strange day this was, really strange!

My heart beating, and with an awkward smile I went into our room. Alzire was there alone. So that she could be by herself I had installed myself from the first day in a store room next door, which was much bigger and was well ventilated by a window in the ceiling. Alzire liked her creature comforts, the poor thing, and when I think of how little I had managed to provide for her!

She also smiled, and putting a finger to her lips she motioned me to sit down on the settee next to the dressing table where she was sitting. I obeyed with the commotion in my heart of someone who, each time he sees her, always has the impression of seeing her for the first time.

It would be wrong to imagine that, in the year or more since we had been reunited, our life had been one long round of pleasure. First of all it had been essential to get rid of Nevelsky. This foolhardy individual, who had allowed himself, in the middle of the trial, to condemn us both, Alzire with his hatred and me with his commiseration, here he was again in Vladivostok, living with Alzire, in that same town where his own testimony had succeeded in getting her convicted! One must agree that it was a rather unusual situation. And I didn't have too much trouble in putting an end to it.

When I arrived in Vladivostok Nevelsky's days were numbered, and Alzire had pleaded with all her heart and soul not to be separated from him again. But it was not a man, just a wet blanket who I tried to deal with. He could not have been more astonished than when, four days earlier, I had rudely interrupted their intimacy and he had cried, kissing my hands, and begging me not to do anything to prevent Alzire leaving with him to the little garrison where he had just been posted. But she and I were leaving Vladivostok the next morning, without fanfare, me because as you have noticed, I had no special interest in prolonging my stay in a town swarming with police, and she because, as if by chance, once again the poor child had suffered as a result of someone else's thoughtlessness and irresponsibility. It was she who suffered when, all of a sudden and without rhyme or reason, Nevelsky began to do stupid things. And one week earlier, the local authorities had brought up against Alzire a ridiculous piece of legislation, dating from the reign of Nicholas I, under which those who have been brought before a military council and sentenced to more than one year in prison are refused permission to stay in the town where they have been sentenced.

Alzire was granted a delay which was due to expire in just two days. But encouraged by me, for whom Vladivostok definitely had only bad memories, she decided it was pointless waiting to the last minute. This news plunged Nevelsky into floods of tears. He had wanted so much not to be separated from her until the very last moment. The following week he was due to take up his new appointment at Petropavlovsk, the capital of Kamchatka, a capital of four hundred inhabitants, all stylishly dressed in seal skin, on the dark and mysterious Bay of Avatcha. One knew this charming country, where you never see the sun, from hearsay, and could guess that this was not what one might call a promotion for Nevelsky. He had made Alzire swear that she would come and find him there as soon as possible. She had promised of course, the poor thing. What good would it have done to ruin the last moments of this unhappy man?

During this time I had at my disposal quite a considerable sum of money, the result of a somewhat complicated financial operation. One of my friends from the penal colony – and in those circles there is often more respect given to one's word than there is amongst people from other backgrounds – a fur exporter in civilian life, had asked me to recover a large loan which he had made to one of his colleagues in Vladivostok. I had to settle some payments to a bondholder in Dairen with this money, and then deposit the surplus in the State Bank in that city, after having deducted my own expenses, which goes without saying. I hadn't been given a set time to complete this business, since Dairen wasn't exactly next door. All this is to explain the favourable financial situation thanks to which we didn't have too much difficulty, Alzire and me, in setting off on our way after having undergone the rather humiliating obligation of buying false papers.

I shall pass over the details of all the adventures which filled our days in the course of the next eighteen months. At the end of it the money from the fur trader in Sakhalin was considerably less than it was when we started, which was understandable after so many ordeals, and we didn't feel any shame in letting ourselves have a good time. While she was not what one might call an extravagant woman, Alzire was not averse to a bit of luxury. And I myself had learnt to appreciate it in her company. It is a taste which it is not always easy to satisfy, if on the one hand you don't have any regular means of support, and on the other hand you experience all sorts of difficulty in finding any work.

Discouraged by all these obstacles, I got to the stage of not looking for a job any more, and this was with a great deal of conviction, I must admit. For her part, Alzire had the tact not to bear a grudge against me as a result. We were still alive, in spite of everything. This was what was such a mystery, for me especially, a mystery which to be honest I never seriously bothered to examine closely. A strange sort of apathy increasingly took hold of me. I became indifferent to everything, everything except the fear of losing Alzire. I was ready for no matter what so that I wouldn't have to leave her, except perhaps to work, since I had now made up my mind to accept the truth of it. I prefer not to dwell on the nature of these compromises which inevitably arise from this state of affairs. God knows if Alzire tried not to bother me with too much rough exposure to reality, with all the delicacy which she was capable of. But in the end it is nonetheless true that, however brief they may be, there are some things which have never done much to raise a man's self-esteem. Such a situation might be unattractive, but I could perhaps have agreed to put up with it. The trouble was that I knew my self-esteem was low, and I could foresee, indeed it was my constant worry, that Alzire was beginning to get fed up with me. And it is not a good thing when the strength of your happiness depends only on what is left of the pity which a woman may have for you.

What was most curious in all of this was that we still hadn't had a proper talk about it. We would have to have gone back to the start of that extraordinary day when I could be seen wandering around the dockside at Fouzan. From that day, and that night, Alzire had never once ceased to be my most attentive companion. What happened didn't take place until the early morning, at the moment when I was getting ready, on tip-toe, to open the door, then go out onto the staircase, all as surreptitiously as possible, so as to avoid what was always a disagreeable meeting with Mme Domestici. Usually at that hour Alzire was asleep. Perhaps I had been surprised, when I was aware of her in the darkness gently holding me by the arm, and troubled, as if I was already anxiously anticipating everything that was going to be said and was going to happen. Oh, of course, Alzire didn't give way to any excessive language, that was not like her. It was in the most affectionate, and the most persuasive, tone that she had spoken, and I was careful not to interrupt her. Besides, what arguments could I have put up against hers? And what good would it have done to have persisted? I realised that her mind was made up. The extraordinary thing was that she had waited until then.

Her reasoning could be summed up like this: ‘One mustn't dwell on an unsuccessful experience. Just laugh it off! We're both beginning to get on a bit. You are going to be thirty-two, dear Michel, I'm shall be twenty-six. This is the age when you have to realise that life is not just a big party, with masks, fireworks, and games. But that doesn't stop me from having a liking for you, as you well know. I gave you proof of that when I let myself be dragged into the dock with you. Later today I shall give you some more evidence. It's now six o'clock in the morning. You have six hours ahead of you in which to find some means of keeping me. It's not a question of some temporary expedient, this time I mean something immediate and which is reliable – money, or some stable situation. You don't need to be in too much of a hurry. I give you my word that I won't make a decision before midday.'

With that, as I tried to take her in my arms, she gently pushed me away. ‘This is for the sake of our love. Don't waste your time.' The opportunity had gone, and in the drab greyness of the dawn I found myself again, without really knowing how, on the landing.

*

It was snowing again. Very quietly, as if I was a guest, I sat down on the edge of the settee, where Alzire had shown me when I came in. I noticed her delicate profile in the mirror on the dressing-table. She still had her finger to her lips. She continued to look at me, smiling.

I wasn't unduly annoyed by the steady silence with which she looked at me. I had brought some good news, hadn't I? I had no desire to say anything just yet. This was the time when the whole happiness of my life was being played out, and I had once again found the means to be full of largesse, to be the gentleman who does not concern himself with questions of money, and to cap it all to return home more than an hour late. But let's not delude ourselves any longer! I deserved everything that was coming to me. At that moment I understood that everything was now beyond recovery, that Alzire had made her decision, once and for all, and that it was all over.

*

If I still had any doubt at all about this, those two blasted champagne bottles, which I clasped to my chest in a ridiculous way, wouldn't they have given me some advance warning of the fate which was in store for me? The unseemly joy of Mme Domestici was evidence enough for me. What else could they be for if not to consecrate, or to celebrate, the imminent moment of our separation? It was snowing again, as I said. Everything around me no longer seemed to have any real shape. Sounds were also different. The pure and tender face of Alzire in the mirror seemed to be surrounded by a shimmering halo of flakes of gold.

I let my eyes wander to the settee where I was sitting and which, together with the bed, was the only item of furniture of any significance in the room. Brocaded in a garish and pretentious pattern, it was one of the most pitiful things one could imagine, worthy of those supposedly European hotels in Manchuria, Korea, or China. It symbolised, in the most wonderful way and in the most dreadful way, the existence to which, since she had again agreed to share my destiny, I had led Alzire. Rickety tables, disconnected telephones, divans with covers spattered with suspicious stains, serviettes folded and ironed without having been washed; this was all I could offer her. This was what she had walked into, like the ghost of a sad and shy little angel. That she became tired of it in the end was not at all surprising. What was strange, worrying almost, was that she was able to put up with it for so long.

She continued to sit with her back to me, and I forced myself, which was not easy, not to lose sight of any of her movements. What could it be that she was so busy doing? With a fountain pen in her hand she was jotting down some figures on various sheets of paper, which she then folded into envelopes. One of these envelopes appeared to be full of banknotes. It was as if she was carrying out a liquidation, calm, quiet, unhurried. But in spite of the seriousness of the occasion, I lost interest in what she was up to. As soon as you were in the company of Alzire, it was no longer possible to pay attention to anything else except her beauty.

Ah! I shall remember it for ever! That morning she was wearing a dress which I had given to her. If you can imagine a sort of pale pink negligee made of Chinese silk, embroidered and adorned with chinchilla on the belt, on the collar, and on the sleeves, loose-fitting sleeves which broadened out like circles of petals around the thin white ivory of her arms. As far as furs were concerned, in fairness to myself Alzire didn't have too much to complain about. Rather than paying off the total amount of the debt which he owed, the trader in Vladivostok against whom I had a credit note as we know, was only too happy to settle with me partly in goods, on terms of price and quality which I would have searched in vain to find anywhere else. Sable, mink, blue fox, not forgetting Astrakhan stockings, muff, and cap, all this I had had enormous pleasure in displaying to Alzire's dazzled gaze, one evening in a miserable caravanserai where we had stopped to spend the night as soon as we had crossed the frontier out of Siberia. Come hell or high water, whatever awaits us in the next life, only those who have experienced such happiness will have the right to say that they have lived here on earth!