Vertigo (2 page)

‘All the best, Roger.’

They looked into each other’s eyes as they lifted their glasses. Standing up, Gévigne was short and square. The light from the window fell full on to his Roman features, fleshy ears, and truly noble forehead. Not that Gévigne had anything great in him: a little Provençal blood in his veins had sufficed to endow him with this deceptive profile of a proconsul. This war was going to make the fellow a millionaire… Flavières banished the thought, ashamed of it. Was he not himself profiting from the absence of others who had been called up? It is true he had failed to pass a medical, but was that really a valid excuse? He put his glass back on the tray.

‘I can see this business of yours is going to get under my skin… Has your wife anyone at the front she might be worried about?’

‘A few distant cousins we never see… No one she really cares about.’

‘How did you meet her?’

‘Accidentally. It was quite romantic.’

Gévigne studied his glass. He was weighing his words. Always that fear of making himself ridiculous which had paralysed him as a student, making him fail in his
vivas
.

‘I met her in Rome, where I was doing some business. We were staying in the same hotel.’

‘Which one?’

‘The
Continental
.’

‘What was she doing in Rome?’

‘Studying painting. She had a real talent, or that’s what they say. I’m not much of a judge of that sort of thing.’

‘Was she studying with a view to teaching?’

‘Good heavens, no!… Just because she liked it. She never had to think about earning her living. Why, she had her own car at the age of eighteen. Her father was a big industrialist.’

Gévigne turned and walked back into the office. In the way he walked, at any rate, he showed real assurance now. Formerly he had had a hesitant step, a sort of stammer in his movements. His wife’s money had transformed him.

‘Does she still paint?’

‘No. She gave it up little by little. Found she hadn’t got the time. The life they lead, these Parisian women!’

‘But… these troubles you’ve been telling me about… they must have had a cause. Can’t you think of any incident that might have started the ball rolling? A quarrel, for instance, or a bit of bad news… You must have thought of that.’

‘Of course I’ve thought of it, and I’ve racked my brains to discover something… Don’t forget I spend half the week at Le Havre.’

‘These… these attacks, as you call them… could they have anything to do with your being away?’

‘I don’t think so… The first one occurred soon after I got back. It was a Saturday. I had found her in excellent spirits; then in the evening I thought there was something odd about her. Naturally I didn’t pay much attention to it at that moment, particularly as I was tired at the end of a heavy week.’

‘Before that?’

‘She may have been a bit moody at times, but no more than anybody is.’

‘On that Saturday, you’re sure nothing unusual happened?’

‘Absolutely. All the more so as we were together the whole time. I got back about ten in the morning. Madeleine had just got up. We chatted for a while… But you can’t expect me to remember every detail of the day. There was no reason for me to remember them. I know we lunched at home.’

‘Where do you live?’

Gévigne looked surprised, then smiled.

‘Of course… I was forgetting we’ve completely lost touch with each other. I bought a block of flats on the Avenue Kléber, quite close to the Etoile. We live in one of them. Here—you’d better have my card.’

‘Thanks.’

‘In the afternoon we went out. I had to drop in at the Ministry for a few minutes, but she wasn’t left alone for long. After that we pottered about round the Opera, and then… Well, it was an afternoon like any other.’

‘And the attack?’

‘It came on just after supper.’

‘Can you give me the exact date?’

‘Really! How should I know?’

But he studied the calendar on the lawyer’s desk.

‘I know it was in February, and towards the end of the month. I see the 26th was a Saturday. Then it was certainly the 26th.’

Flavières sat down on the arm of an easy chair, close to Gévigne.

‘What gave you the idea of coming to me?’ he asked.

Again Gévigne wrung his hands. It had been a tic of his in the old days. He had had others—several—but this was the
only one left. It was a way of taking hold of himself when he wasn’t sure of his foothold.

‘I’ve always thought of you as one of my oldest friends,’ he murmured. ‘And then I remembered how interested you always were in psychology and all that… You wouldn’t have expected me to go to the police, would you?’

Flavières winced, and Gévigne noticed it.

‘It was just because you’d left the police that I felt I could come to you about it,’ he added.

‘Yes,’ said Flavières, stroking the leather upholstery, ‘I left the police.’

He looked up sharply.

‘Do you know why?’

‘No. But—’

‘You’d find out sooner or later. Things like that can’t be kept dark for ever.’

He would have liked to smile, so as to prove his self-possession, but a sour note had already crept into his voice.

‘I came a cropper… Another glass of port?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘It’s a rotten story… I was a detective. In the police you have to go right through the mill even if you have a degree. I never liked the job. If my father hadn’t pushed me into it… But he was a divisional inspector and for him it was the one and only career. I ought to have refused. It’s all wrong to force a boy… but there’s no use going into that now… To come to the point, I had to arrest a chap. He wasn’t a very dangerous one, only he took it into his head to take refuge on the roof… I had a man called Leriche with me—as nice a fellow as you could meet…’

He emptied his glass. Tears scalded his eyes. He coughed and shrugged his shoulders, trying to recover his poise.

‘You see. As soon as this story crops up my feet slip off the pedals,’ he said in an attempt to laugh it off. ‘The roof was a sloping one. I could hear the traffic a long way below in the street. The chap was behind a chimney. He was unarmed. It was just a matter of collaring him. I couldn’t do it.’

‘I remember now,’ said Gévigne, ‘you never had a head for heights.’

‘Leriche went in my place. He slipped and fell.’

‘Ah!’

Gévigne looked discreetly at the carpet. Flavières studied his face without being able to read his thoughts.

‘It’s best you should know—’

‘Anyone’s nerve can give way,’ said Gévigne.

‘I know it can,’ answered Flavières with something like a snarl.

Nothing was said for a moment. Then Gévigne raised his hands in a vague gesture.

‘Most unfortunate. But you can’t hold yourself responsible because your friend’s foot slipped.’

Flavières opened a box of cigarettes.

‘Have a fag, old man.’

He always encountered the same bewildered incredulity when he told his story. No one ever took it seriously. How could he ever make them hear Leriche’s scream, which went on and on, passing from a shrill note to a lower one with the distance? Perhaps Gévigne’s wife too was burdened by some gnawing secret, but it couldn’t be half as hideous a one as his. Were her dreams torn by a scream like that? Had she allowed someone to die in her place?

Gévigne interrupted this reverie.

‘Can I count on you then?’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Have a look at her. Above all I want your opinion. It’s already done me a lot of good to talk to you about it. You will help me, won’t you?’

‘If it is a help.’

‘You’ve no idea how much… Are you free this evening?’

‘No.’

‘A pity. I’d have asked you home to dinner. It’ll have to be another day.’

‘No. Better she shouldn’t know me. It’ll make things easier.’

‘Perhaps you’re right. But I’ve got to show her to you somehow.’

‘Go to the theatre together. I can have a good look at her without her noticing.’

‘Good idea. We’re going to the
Marigny
tomorrow. We’ve got a box.’

‘Right. I’ll be there.’

Gévigne took both Flavières’ hands in his.

‘Thanks, Roger… You see how right I was to come to you. You know a trick or two. I shouldn’t have thought of the theatre.’

He fumbled in his inside pocket, hesitated.

‘Don’t be offended… We’ve still got the dibs to consider… You’re doing me a great favour…’

‘Oh,’ said Flavières, ‘never mind about that now.’

‘All the same—’

Flavières patted him on the back.

‘It’s the case I’m interested in, not the money. I’ve already the feeling your wife and I have something in common, and…
yes… there’s a chance I may be able to find out what she’s hiding.’

‘I assure you she’s not hiding anything.’

‘We’ll see.’

Gévigne picked up his grey felt hat and his gloves.

‘Business good?’

‘Pretty good. I can’t complain.’

‘You know, if I can be useful to you in any way, you’ve only to say the word. I’d be only too glad. I’m in touch with some pretty influential people, particularly with this war contract…’

‘Profiteer,’ thought Flavières.

The word flashed involuntarily into his mind, and he turned away to avoid Gévigne’s eye.

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to use the stairs again. The lift’s not working.’

They went out on to the narrow landing. Gévigne leant over to say confidentially to his friend:

‘Go about it in your own way. I give you a free hand. As soon as you’ve anything to tell me, give me a ring at my office, or, better still, come to see me. Our Paris office is in the building next to the
Figaro
… All I ask is that Madeleine is kept absolutely in the dark. She mustn’t even suspect anything. If she thought she was being watched… I wouldn’t answer for the consequences.’

‘Trust me.’

‘Thank you.’

Gévigne started down the stairs. Twice he turned to give a friendly wave of the hand. Flavières went back into his office and leant out of the window. He saw a huge black car pull out into the road and glide smoothly away… Madeleine… He liked
the name. It had a gentle, plaintive sound. But how could she have brought herself to marry this stocky, corpulent man? Of course she was carrying on with somebody else… Those attacks!… Dragging a red herring across her own tracks… Serve him right. Gévigne deserved to be made a fool of by his wife. Because of his smug affluence, his cigars, his contract for building small craft—because of everything. Flavières didn’t like people with too much self-assurance—and, outwardly at least, Gévigne had plenty—though it was a quality he would have given anything to possess himself.

He shut the window irritably. Then he mooched about in the kitchen, trying to persuade himself he was hungry. He surveyed the tins in the cupboard; for he too had laid in a stock of provisions, stupid as he considered such a precaution to be, as by all appearances the war was going to be a short one. Far from tempting him, the sight of so much food made him feel slightly sick. Finally he took some biscuits and the remains of a bottle of wine. He was on the point of sitting down when he decided the kitchen was ugly, and he went, munching, back into the office. As he passed it, he switched on the wireless. He knew beforehand what the
communiqué
would say: Patrol activity, artillery duels here and there on the Rhine. All the same the announcer’s voice would be something living.

He sat down. He drank some of the white wine… He hadn’t been a success in the police. He wasn’t cut out for any service… What was he cut out for?… He opened a drawer and took out a green folder. In the top righthand corner he wrote:
Dossier Gévigne.
Then he slipped a few blank sheets of paper into it, and sat staring in front of him with vacant eyes.

‘It must look pretty silly,’ said Flavières to himself.

He certainly felt it as he sat, trying to look distinguished and unconcerned, fidgeting with the mother-of-pearl opera-glasses which he couldn’t bring himself to raise to his eyes to study Madeleine’s face. There were lots of uniforms round him, and the women with the officers had a look all of their own, proud, satisfied. And Flavières hated them. Now he came to think of it, he hated the army, lock, stock, and barrel, and the war, and this overdecorative theatre which breathed an atmosphere at once martial and frivolous.

He had only to turn his head a little to see Gévigne, who sat with his clasped hands resting on the ledge of the box. Madeleine was sitting back in her chair. She seemed to be dark and slim. Flavières couldn’t see her features clearly, but he had the impression she was pretty, with something a bit fragile about her. That might have been due to her abundant hair which seemed too heavy for her face. How could a man like Gévigne have procured a wife of such elegance and grace? How could she have put up with his advances? The curtain went up on a play which Flavières found insipid. He shut his eyes and let his mind run back to the days when he and Gévigne had shared a room to save money. They had been as shy and awkward the one as the other. The women students used to laugh at them, adopting vamping airs just to tease them. They
lacked the audacity to cope with girls. Others, on the other hand, seemed able to have any girl they wanted. One in particular. The students called him Marco. He was not remarkably endowed either with brains or good looks. Flavières had once tried to pump him. Marco had smiled, saying:

‘Talk to them as though you’ve already been to bed with them… That’s the trick.’

More easily said than done! Flavières lacked the effrontery even to call them
tu
instead of
vous
. And in the police his colleagues used to make fun of him. Nor was it really friendly fun: they didn’t take to him—thought him a bit sly. Sometimes they were even a little afraid of him… When had Gévigne finally plucked up his courage? And with what sort of woman? Could it have been with Madeleine? Flavières already called her by her Christian name in his own mind, as though there was already some bond between them, as though they were united in a common hostility to Gévigne.

He tried to picture the dining-room at the
Continental
. He put himself into Gévigne’s place, dining with Madeleine for the first time, beckoning the head-waiter, choosing the wines… Ridiculous, of course: he knew very well that one glance from the head-waiter would have made him go hot under the collar… And then… Walking with Madeleine the whole length of the immense dining-room… Upstairs, the bedroom… Madeleine undressing… And finally…

Flavières opened his eyes, fidgeted in his seat. He would have liked to leave the theatre there and then. But he was right in the middle of a row. It would mean disturbing all those people. You needed effrontery for that—the very thing he lacked! There was a ripple of laughter round him; a little burst of applause spread
quickly to the whole of the auditorium, then suddenly died out. The actors must have been talking about love. Actors! Flavières shuddered with disgust. Furtively he looked at Madeleine out of the corner of his eye. In that gilded half-light she stood out like a portrait. Jewels glittered on her neck and hung from her ears. Her eyes seemed luminous. She listened with her head slightly to one side, perfectly still, like those unknown beauties admired in the Louvre, the
Mona Lisa, La Belle Ferronière
… Her hair which had a tint of mahogany in it was done in a massive bun on the back of her neck… Mme Gévigne…

Flavières almost lifted his opera-glasses to look at her, but his neighbour was showing obvious signs of irritation. Humbly, Flavières smuggled them back into his pocket and tried to make himself as small as possible. He would leave at the interval. He was certain now of being able to recognize her anywhere. It made him uneasy to think that he was going to follow her, pry into her life. It was of doubtful taste, what Gévigne was asking him to do. Supposing Madeleine found out? After all, she had every right to have a lover if she wanted to. Though he knew he would suffer acutely if he found she had. There was some more applause and a confused murmur of approval. He looked again: Madeleine was sitting in exactly the same position and from the diamonds in her ear-rings came the same steady sparkle. At the corner of her eyes there was a glint of eagerness; her long white hand rested on the red plush ledge, and the box formed a pale gilt frame. All that was lacking was a signature in the corner of the picture. For a second Flavières could almost see one there—the initials R. F. in small red letters. Roger Flavières… No. It was too silly: he wasn’t going to fall for that preposterous story of Gévigne’s. He mustn’t let his imagination
run away with him… Perhaps he ought really to have been a novelist, with this host of images which so readily and of their own accord flooded his brain. They weren’t vague ones either: they had all the relief, the dramatic intensity of life… That roof, for instance—the shiny wet slates, the discoloured red-brick chimneys, the wisps of smoke all blowing the same way, the rumble of the traffic below, like a torrent at the bottom of a gorge. He wrung his hands, just as Gévigne had done.

If he had chosen the lawyer’s profession, it was to discover the secrets that prevent people living. Even Gévigne, with his money, his factories, his influential friends, wasn’t really living. They were liars, all of them, these people who, like Marco, pretended they could ride rough-shod over every obstacle. Who knew whether Marco wasn’t at that moment in desperate need of a friend to lean on? A man on the stage kissed a girl… It looked so easy, but that was a lie too. Gévigne kissed Madeleine, yet she remained a stranger to him…

The truth was that they were all like him, Flavières, trembling on the edge of a slope at the bottom of which was the abyss. They laughed, they made love, but they were afraid. What would become of them if there weren’t whole professions whose job it was to prop them up—the priest’s, the doctor’s, the lawyer’s?

The curtain fell, then rose again. The lights shed a harsh glare which made all the faces look a little grey. People stood up so as to have elbow-room for clapping. Madeleine fanned herself slowly with her programme, while her husband leant over to say something into her ear. Another well-known picture—
La Femme à l’Eventail.
Or was it the portrait of Pauline Lagerlac?

It was certainly better for him to go. He followed the crowd pouring into the corridors and the foyer. For a moment or two
he was held up by the crush outside the cloakroom. When he finally got clear, he almost bumped into Gévigne and his wife. He brushed past Madeleine. He had a close-up view of her, yet only realized who she was a moment later. He wanted to look back, but got swept along in a stream of young officers making a dash for the bar. He went down a few steps, still intending to find her again, then suddenly gave it up. He needed to be alone.

He liked those nights of the war, those long deserted avenues, refreshed by a soft, gentle wind which had caressed lawns and smelt of magnolias. He walked noiselessly as a thief. He had no difficulty in recalling Madeleine’s face and her dark hair discreetly tinted with henna, and his thoughts lingered over her eyes, intensely blue, but so pale that they didn’t seem quite alive, eyes which certainly could never express passion. The cheeks were slightly hollowed out under prominent cheek-bones, just sufficiently to harbour a faint shadow which suggested languor. Her mouth was small with hardly any lipstick on it—the mouth of a dreamy child. Madeleine—yes, that was undoubtedly the right name for her. But Gévigne! When she could so well have carried off an aristocratic surname in several pieces, futile but charming. She was unhappy, of course. Gévigne had worked up a ridiculous fable instead of seeing that she was bored to death with him. She was much too delicate, too sensitive, to resign herself to a life of showy luxury. Wasn’t it that which had caused her to drop her painting? It was no longer a question of watching her, but of helping her, protecting her.

‘There I am, going off the rails again,’ he mused. ‘If I don’t look out I shall find myself in love with her. Madame Gévigne needs a tonic and that’s all there is to it!’

He quickened his step, annoyed, vaguely humiliated. By the time he reached home, he had made up his mind to ring Gévigne up and tell him he was called away urgently and would have to chuck up the case. Why should he sacrifice his peace of mind for a man who didn’t really care a straw for him? He’d done very well without him for fifteen years, hadn’t he? No, he wasn’t having any. The Gévignes could go to blazes!

He made himself some camomile tea, saying to himself:

‘What would she think of me if she saw me now? A fussy old bachelor encrusted in his solitude and his little fads!’

He had a bad night. On waking, he remembered he was due to follow Madeleine and was mortified by the joy he felt at the prospect. Try as he would, however, he couldn’t rid himself of it. It clung to him, humble but obstinate, like a dog you haven’t the heart to chase away. He switched on the wireless. More patrol activity! More artillery duels! Good. That wouldn’t stop anybody feeling happy. He settled down to his morning’s work, whistling.

He lunched at a little restaurant whose customers were all
habitués
. He no longer felt ill at ease to be in civilian clothes—not even when people gave him a dirty look. After all it wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t got through his medical. He didn’t wait till two o’clock to station himself outside the block of flats in the Avenue Kléber. Though the weather had turned fine after a sulky week, there were few people about. Flavières at once spotted the big black car, a Talbot, drawn up in front of the building. He sauntered past it casually.

He took a newspaper out of his pocket and glanced at it idly as he wandered on. Sometimes he actually read a paragraph—a reconnaissance plane shot down in Alsace, reinforcements for
Narvik. What did he care? He was on holiday. He had a tryst with Madeleine! He noticed a little café: three tables on the pavement, a couple of spindle-trees. He sat down.

‘A coffee, please.’

He was well placed for studying the building. High windows with complicated mouldings in the style of 1900, a balcony with flowers in pots. Dormer windows in the roof, above which the sky was a watery blue. When his eyes came down to earth again, the Talbot was starting up—Gévigne. Madeleine wouldn’t be long now.

He gulped down the scalding coffee, smiling at himself. How did he know she would be coming out this afternoon? Was there any reason why she should?… Yes, there was. She’d come all right. Because of the sunshine, because of the tender green leaves, because of those fluffy seeds floating past on the balmy spring air. Lastly, she’d come because he was waiting for her!

And all of a sudden there she was, standing on the pavement. Flavières promptly dropped his paper, got up and crossed the road. She was wearing a grey suit, very tight at the waist, and her black handbag was tucked under her arm. She looked round her as she finished putting on her gloves. Some delicate white lace fluttered at her throat. Her forehead and eyes were half concealed by a short veil which masked her gracefully. Another portrait!
La Femme au Loup
.

He would have liked to paint that slim silhouette standing in an aura of sunshine, with the pale background of over-ornate architecture. For he too had dabbled in painting in his day. Without much success. The same with the piano. He played just well enough to envy the masters. He was one of those people who hate mediocrity without themselves being able to scale
the heights. Plenty of minor talents… plenty of regrets… But never mind about that! Madeleine was there!

She followed the avenue right to the Place du Trocadéro, where she went out on to the terrace of the Palais de Chaillot, whose whiteness was almost blinding. Paris had never looked so like a park. Blue and browny-red, the Eiffel Tower rose up from the lawns, the familiar totem of Parisians. On the near side, the gardens sloped down towards the Seine, surrounding the flights of steps which thus looked like motionless cascades bordered by flowers. A tug blew a raucous blast on its siren, quickly muffled as it swept under a bridge. One seemed here to be suspended between peace and war, gripped by a facile emotion that was nevertheless poignant. Was that why Madeleine was now walking with a certain lassitude? She appeared to hesitate, to be taking herself to task. She stopped in front of the entrance to the museum, then drifted on as though caught by some invisible current. She crossed the Place du Trocadéro, loitered a moment among the people at the end of the Avenue Henri-Martin, then, making up her mind, went into the Cimetière de Passy.

She walked slowly between the gravestones, and Flavières could have sworn she was just continuing her walk. She had branched off almost at once from the central alley with its solemn row of crosses in marble and bronze. She went along the little paths, looking casually about her—at the black lettering on the stones, the rusty railings round a vault, the sudden splash of colour where some flowers had recently been left. Sparrows hopped about in front of her. The roar and clatter of the town seemed to come, filtered, from far away. One might have been transported to some other country on the margin
of this life of ours. There was no one to be seen, though many to be felt, each inscription conjuring up an unseen presence.

Amongst them and their stony monuments, Madeleine walked on, her shadow striking between the gravestones or zigzagging up the steps of one of those little chapels over a vault, in which crumbling cherubs kept their vigil. Sometimes she stopped for a moment to read some half-effaced inscription.

There were some gravestones tumbling over sideways like shipwrecked boats. On others lizards basked in the warmth, their throats palpitating, their serpents’ heads lifted towards the sun. Madeleine seemed to feel quite at home in this neglected corner, where no relations ever came. She went on along the path which presently took her right into the heart of the cemetery. She stooped to pick up a red tulip, fallen from a vase, and still with the same leisurely gait went up to one of the graves and stopped. Hidden behind a mausoleum, Flavières was able to watch her at his ease. Madeleine’s face showed neither exaltation nor sorrow. On the contrary, the expression on it was one of peace and happiness. What thoughts were running through her mind? Her arms hung limply at her sides; her fingers still held the tulip. Once again she looked like a portrait, her whole being turned inwards, lost in some interior contemplation.