Villa Triste Read online

  I would have gladly remained among them, in the soft, soothing light of lamps with salmon-pink silk shades, but I would have had to talk to them or play canasta. Would they have allowed me to stay, I wonder, if I had just sat there unspeaking and watched them? I went back down into the town. At exactly nine fifteen — right after the newsreel — I entered the Regent cinema, or sometimes I chose the Casino, where the theater was more elegant and more comfortable. I’ve found one of the Regent’s old schedules for that summer:

  REGENT CINEMA

  Tendre et violente Elisabeth by H. Decoin June 15–17

  Last Year at Marienbad by Alain Resnais June 24–30

  The Black Chapel by R. Habib July 1–8

  Testament of Orpheus by J. Cocteau July 9–16

  Captain Fracasse by P. Gaspard-Huit July 17–24

  Qui êtes-vous, M. Sorge? by Y. Ciampi July 25–Aug. 2

  La Notte by M. Antonioni August 3–10

  The World of Suzie Wong by R. Quine August 11–18

  Le Cercle vicieux by M. Pécas August 19–26

  Le Bois des amants by C. Autant-Lara Aug. 27–Sept. 3

  I’d really love to see some reels from those old films.

  After the movie, I’d go back to the Taverne and drink another Campari. By that time, midnight, the young people had deserted it. They must have been dancing somewhere else. I contemplated all those chairs, those empty tables, and the waiters who were taking in the umbrellas. I stared at the big illuminated fountain on the other side of the square, in front of the entrance to the Casino. It changed color constantly. I amused myself by counting how many times it turned green. As good a pastime as any, don’t you think? Once, twice, three times. When my count reached fifty-three, I’d get up, but mostly I didn’t even bother to play that game. I’d go off into a dream, taking mechanical sips of my drink. Do you remember Lisbon during the war? All those guys slumping in the bars and lobby of the Aviz Hotel, with their suitcases and their steamer trunks, waiting for an ocean liner that never came? Well, twenty years later, I had a feeling I was one of those guys.

  On the rare occasions when I wore my flannel suit and my only tie (an American had given it to me; it was navy blue, decorated with fleurs-de-lis, and sewn on the back was a label with the words “International Bar Fly.” I would later learn that this was a secret society for alcoholics. Thanks to that tie, they could recognize one another and perform small services if needed), I might step into the Casino and stand on the threshold of the Brummel Lounge, watching the people dance. They were generally between thirty and sixty years old, but sometimes a younger girl could be seen among them, in the company of a tall, slim fiftyish man. The clientele was international and rather stylish, and they’d be swaying to popular Italian hits or Jamaican calypso tunes. Later I’d go upstairs to the gaming rooms. Often enough, someone would win a serious jackpot. The most extravagant players came from quite nearby in Switzerland. I remember a very stiff Egyptian with glossy red hair and gazelle eyes who would pensively stroke his English officer’s mustache with one forefinger. He played with five-million-franc gaming plaques and was said to be King Farouk’s cousin.

  I’d be relieved to find myself in the open air. I would go back to Carabacel, walking slowly along Avenue d’Albigny. I’ve never known nights so lovely, so crystal clear as those were. The sparkling lights of the lakeside villas dazzled me, and I sensed something musical in them, like a saxophone or trumpet solo. I could also perceive the very soft, immaterial rustling of the plane trees on the avenue. I’d wait for the last cable car, sitting on the iron bench in the chalet. The room was lit only by a night-light, and I’d let myself slip into that purplish semidarkness with a feeling of total confidence. What was there for me to fear? The noise of war, the din of the world would have had to pass through a wall of cotton wool to reach this holiday oasis. And who would have ever thought of coming to look for me among these distinguished summer vacationers?

  I got off at the first stop, Saint-Charles-Carabacel, and the now empty cable car continued its climb. It looked like a big, shiny worm.

  Back at the Lindens, I’d take off my moccasins and tiptoe down the hall, because old folks are light sleepers.

  3.

  She was sitting in the lobby of the Hermitage, settled on one of the big sofas in the back and not taking her eyes off the revolving door, as if waiting for someone. My armchair was only two or three meters away, and I could see her profile.

  Auburn hair. Green shantung dress. And the stiletto-heeled shoes women wore. White.

  A dog lay at her feet. From time to time, he yawned and stretched. He was a huge, lethargic Great Dane. He had a white coat with black patches. Green, red, white, black. The combination of colors affected me with a kind of numbness. How did I wind up next to her on the sofa? Did the Great Dane perhaps serve as a go-between, lumbering up to me lazily so he could sniff me?

  I noticed that she had green eyes and very light freckles, and that she was a little older than me.

  That same morning, we walked in the hotel gardens. The dog led the way. We followed him along a path that ran under a canopy of clematis with big blue and purple flowers. I pushed aside hanging clusters of laburnum; we skirted lawns and privet hedges. There were, if I recall correctly, some rock plants of various frosty hues, some pink hawthorn blossoms, a flight of steps bordered with empty basins. And the immense bed of yellow, red, and white dahlias. We leaned on the balustrade and looked at the lake below us.

  I’ve never been given to know exactly what she thought of me in the course of that first encounter. Maybe she took me for a bored rich boy, some millionaire’s son. In any case, what amused her was the monocle I wore on my left eye to read, not out of foppishness or affectation but because my vision was very much worse in that eye than in the other.

  We’re not talking. I can hear the whisper of water from a sprinkler in the middle of the nearest lawn. Someone’s coming toward us down the stairs, a man whose pale yellow suit I spotted from some distance away. He waves to us. He’s wearing sunglasses and wiping his brow. She introduces him to me as René Meinthe. He corrects her at once: “Doctor Meinthe,” stressing both syllables of the word “doctor.” And he smiles, but with a grimace. It’s my turn to introduce myself: Victor Chmara. That’s the name I used on the registration form at the Lindens.

  “You’re a friend of Yvonne’s?”

  She answers that she’s just met me in the lobby of the Hermitage, and that I use a monocle to read. This obviously amuses her no end. She asks me to put on my monocle to show Dr. Meinthe. I comply. “Very good,” says Meinthe, nodding and looking pensive.

  So her name was Yvonne. And her family name? I’ve forgotten it. I conclude that twelve years suffice for you to forget the legal name of people who have mattered in your life. It was a pleasant name, very French, something like: Coudreuse, Jacquet, Lebon, Mouraille, Vincent, Gerbault …

  At first sight, René Meinthe seemed older than we were. Around thirty. Medium height. He had a round, nervous face and wore his blond hair combed back.

  We returned to the hotel through a part of the garden I wasn’t familiar with. The gravel paths were rectilinear, the lawns symmetrical and laid out in picturesque English style. Around each of them were flamboyant beds of begonias or geraniums. And here as well, there was the soft, reassuring whisper of the sprinklers. I thought about the Tuileries of my childhood. Meinthe proposed that we have a drink and then go to lunch at the Sporting Club.

  They seemed to find my presence natural, and you would have sworn we’d known one another for years. She smiled at me. We talked about trivial things. They asked me no questions, but the dog laid his head on my knee and examined me.

  She stood up and announced she was going to her room to get a scarf. So she lived in the Hermitage? What was she doing here? Meinthe took out a cigarette holder and nibbled at it. That was when I began to notice he had a great many tics. At long intervals, the muscles in his left cheek tensed, as if he were tryi
ng to catch a slipping, invisible monocle, but his dark glasses hid much of this twitching. Occasionally he’d thrust out his chin as though provoking someone. And then his right arm was shaken from time to time by an electrical discharge that communicated itself to his hand, which would trace arabesques in the air. All these tics were coordinated most harmoniously, and they gave Meinthe an agitated elegance.

  “You’re on vacation?”

  I replied that I was. And I said I was lucky the weather was so “splendid.” And I found this holiday resort a “paradise.”

  “Is this the first time you’ve come here? You didn’t know the area before?”

  I heard a touch of irony in his voice and took the liberty of asking him in my turn if he himself was here on vacation. He hesitated. “Oh, not exactly. But I’ve known this place for years …” Stretching out his arm nonchalantly, he indicated a point on the horizon and said in a weary voice, “The mountains … The lake … The lake …”

  He took off his dark glasses and gave me a sad and gentle look. He was smiling. “Yvonne is a marvelous girl,” he told me. “Mar-vel-ous.”

  She was walking back to our table with a green chiffon scarf tied around her neck. She smiled at me and then never took her eyes off me. Something expanded in the left side of my chest, and I decided I was having the best day of my life.

  We climbed into Meinthe’s car, an old cream-colored Dodge convertible. All three of us sat in front, with Meinthe at the wheel, Yvonne in the middle, and the dog on the backseat. Meinthe stamped violently on the gas pedal, and the Dodge skidded on the gravel, barely missing the gateway of the hotel. We drove slowly along Boulevard Carabacel. I couldn’t hear the engine anymore. Had Meinthe switched it off so we could coast down? The umbrella pines on either side of the road blocked the sun’s rays and cast patterns of light and shadow. Meinthe was whistling, I abandoned myself to the car’s gentle swaying, and Yvonne’s head rested on my shoulder every time we went around a curve.

  At the Sporting Club, we were the only diners in the restaurant, the former orangery shaded from the sun by a weeping willow and some large rhododendron bushes. Meinthe explained to Yvonne that he had to go to Geneva and would come back that evening. I thought they might be brother and sister. But no. They didn’t look at all alike.

  A group of about a dozen people arrived and chose the table next to ours. They’d come from the beach. The women wore colored terry cloth sailor shirts, and the men had on swim robes. One of them was taller and more athletic than the others, with wavy blond hair. He made a remark to no one in particular. Meinthe took off his dark glasses. He was suddenly quite pale. He pointed at the tall blond man and spoke in a very high-pitched voice, practically a squeal: “Look, there’s that tramp Carlton. The biggest SUH-LUTT in Haute-Savoie …”

  The man pretended not to hear, but his friends turned toward us openmouthed.

  “Did you understand what I said, Miss Carlton?”

  For several seconds there was absolute silence in the dining room. The athletic blond man lowered his head. His companions were petrified. Yvonne, on the other hand, didn’t bat an eye, as if accustomed to incidents of this sort.

  “Have no fear,” Meinthe whispered, leaning toward me. “It’s nothing, nothing at all …”

  His face had become smooth, childlike; all his tics were gone. Our conversation resumed, and he asked Yvonne what she’d like him to bring back for her from Geneva. Chocolates? Turkish cigarettes?

  He left us at the entrance to the Sporting Club, saying we could meet again at the hotel around nine o’clock that evening. He and Yvonne spoke of a certain Madeja (or Madeya), who was giving a party in a lakeside villa.

  “You’ll come with us, won’t you?” Meinthe asked me.

  I watched him walk over to the Dodge as though propelled by a succession of electric shocks. He drove off the way he’d done the first time, his wheels spinning in the gravel, and once again the automobile just missed the gate before disappearing. He raised his arm and waved to us without turning his head.

  I was alone with Yvonne. She suggested a stroll in the Casino gardens. The dog walked ahead of us, more and more wearily. Sometimes he sat down in the middle of the path and we had to call out his name, “Oswald,” before he’d consent to go on. She explained that it was not laziness but melancholy that made him so lackadaisical. He belonged to a very rare strain of Great Danes, all of them congenitally afflicted by sadness and the ennui of life. Some of them even committed suicide. I wanted to know why she’d chosen a dog with such a gloomy nature.

  “Because they’re more elegant than the others,” she replied sharply.

  I immediately thought about the Habsburgs, whose royal family had included some delicate, hypochondriac creatures like the dog. This was attributed to intermarrying, and their depressive character became known as “the Portuguese melancholy.”

  “That dog,” said I, “is suffering from the Portuguese melancholy.” But she didn’t hear me.

  We’d reached the wharf. About ten passengers were boarding the Amiral-Guisand. Then the gangway was drawn up. Some children leaned out over the rail, waving and shouting. The boat moved off, and it had a dilapidated, colonial charm.

  “We’ll have to take that boat one afternoon,” Yvonne said. “It would be fun, don’t you think so?”

  She’d just addressed me with the familiar tu for the first time, and she’d spoken with inexplicable urgency. Who was she? I didn’t dare ask her that.

  We walked on Avenue d’Albigny, shaded by the plane trees’ leafy branches. We were alone. The dog was about twenty meters ahead of us. His habitual languor was gone, and he marched along proudly, head up, abruptly veering off from time to time and performing some quadrille figures, like a carousel horse.

  We sat down and waited for the cable car. She laid her head on my shoulder, and I was seized by the same giddiness I’d felt when we drove down Boulevard Carabacel in Meinthe’s Dodge. I could still hear her saying, “One afternoon … we’ll take … boat … fun, don’t you think so?” in her indefinable accent, which I thought might be Hungarian, English, or Savoyard. As the cable car slowly climbed up, the vegetation on either side of the track looked thicker and thicker. It was going to bury us. The flowering bushes pressed against the glass panels of the funicular, and sometimes a rose or a privet branch was carried off by our passage.

  In her room at the Hermitage, the window was half open, and I could hear the regular plunk of tennis balls and the players’ distant cries. If there still existed some nice, reassuring idiots who wore white outfits and whacked balls over a net, then that meant the world was continuing to turn and we had a few hours’ respite.

  Her skin was sprinkled with very faint freckles. There was fighting in Algeria, apparently.

  Night came. And Meinthe was waiting for us in the lobby. He wore a white linen suit with a turquoise scarf impeccably knotted around his neck. He’d brought some cigarettes from Geneva and insisted we should give them a try. But we didn’t have a moment to lose — he said — or we’d be late for Madeja’s (or Madeya’s) party.

  This time we zoomed down Boulevard Carabacel at top speed. Meinthe, his cigarette holder dangling from his lips, accelerated into the curves, and I don’t know by what miracle we reached Avenue d’Albigny safe and sound. I turned to Yvonne, and I was surprised to see that there was not the slightest expression of fear on her face. I’d even heard her laugh once when the car swerved.

  Who was this Madeja (or Madeya) person whose party we were going to? Meinthe told me he was an Austrian filmmaker. He’d just finished shooting a film in these parts — in La Clusaz, to be specific, a ski resort twenty kilometers away — and Yvonne had played a part in it. My heart beat faster.

  “You’re in the movies?” I asked her.

  She laughed.

  “Yvonne is going to be a very great actress,” Meinthe declared, trampling the accelerator pedal to the floor.

  Was he serious? A movie actress? Maybe I’d already se
en her picture in Cinémonde, or in the cinema yearbook I’d discovered in the depths of an old bookstore in Geneva, the book I would page through during my nights of insomnia. In the end, I knew the names and addresses of the actors and “technicians.” Some of them remain in my memory:

  JUNIE ASTOR: Photograph by Bernard and Vauclair. 1 Rue Buenos-Ayres, Paris VII.

  SABINE GUY: Photograph by Teddy Piaz. Comedy — Song — Dance. Films: Les Clandestins … The Babes Make the Law … Miss Catastrophe … La Polka des menottes … Hi Doc … etc.

  GORDINE (SACHA FILMS): 19 Rue Spontini, Paris XVI. KLE. 77–94. M. Sacha Gordine, MGR.

  Did Yvonne have a “movie name” I might know? When I asked her that, she murmured, “It’s a secret,” and placed a finger on her lips.

  Meinthe added, with a distressingly high, thin laugh, “You understand, she’s here incognito.”

  We followed the lakeshore road. Meinthe slowed and switched on the radio. The air was warm, and we slipped through that limpid, satiny night, like no night I’ve ever known since, except in the Egypt or Florida of my dreams. The dog had set his chin in the hollow of my shoulder, and his breath was scorching me. The gardens to our right sloped down to the lake. Past Chavoires, the road was lined with palms and umbrella pines.

  We passed the village of Veyrier-du-Lac and turned onto a steep uphill road. The front entrance of the villa stood below the level of the road. An inscription on a wooden panel named the place: THE LINDENS (the same name as my hotel). A fairly wide gravel drive, bordered by trees and a mass of neglected vegetation, led to the very threshold of the villa, a big white building in the style of Napoleon III, with pink shutters. A few cars were parked close together. We crossed the hall and stepped into what must have been the salon. There, in the filtered light of two or three lamps, I made out about ten people, some standing near the windows and others lolling on a white sofa, which was apparently the only piece of furniture. They were filling their glasses and carrying on animated conversations in German and French. A tune came from a record player on the floor, a slow melody accompanying a singer who kept repeating, in a very deep voice,