SHE WAS CONCEIVED AFTER much difficulty—I do not know if this is significant—and born in the fall of 1944, the last autumn of the war. Her father had already been gone for two months. Her mother, whom I shall never see, had a poor, unhappy life, even though she eventually married again. There is a winter in which her child is sick, a depressing winter. She struggles through it alone. The restaurants are lighted. Behind the flat, steamy windows of the Café du Commerce businessmen are talking. The pale, neon script of the dance hall sign illuminates a narrow court—as she passes, coming home from the hospital in the evening darkness, she can see the couples enter. Her fingers are cold, her feet. Her life has no solution. It is like a crime that cannot be undone.
I don’t know how to think of this mother, this uncomplaining woman I am so inclined to like. I picture her as a little plain and fond of gossip. I’m not even sure where she was born, in Metz, I think, one with Toul and Verdun of the three old bishoprics. There’s no reason to say Metz, but one must place it somewhere.
Edouard, the father, was something of a dandy, although as he grew older he became stout. He was born in Belgium. Anne-Marie sees him from time to time. He lives in the sunshine of later years (he was considerably older than her mother) with a young wife north of Paris. She has a job as he’s not able to work too much any more. He has a few investments, and they’re able to get by. He’s very careful with his money, even more than most French, which is in itself quite something. They have a little boy eleven years old. The surprising thing is that Anne-Marie and her mother both think fondly of this villain. The mother has even gone so far as to keep the little boy for a few weeks while Edouard and his wife were off in Scandinavia. Of course, she was paid something, but still it seems extraordinary. As for her present husband, I know nothing about him, nothing at all. He’s saved her from a lonely life; that’s it.
There’s a photograph of Annie and her father and stepbrother, the three of them looking directly at the camera. She is sixteen but seems younger. Behind them is what appears to be the railroad station, large windows, distinguished façade. It’s one of those ordinary little snapshots which illustrate the life of almost everybody. It was taken in the sunshine. Their faces are blazing white, their eyes are narrowed. The only exceptional thing about it is her presence which makes one pick it up and look closely to see if she had already become anything at that age, if there is something in her face… She keeps it in the armoire, propped up so it can be seen when the door is opened. Just behind it is a small, cardboard box and in that, two or three hundred francs, her savings. Dean knows the money is there. He’s seen her put some in. She sends part of her pay to her mother, but the existence of that thin sheaf of bank notes, a couple of months’ rent is all it amounts to, is somehow touching. I see it there like the motive for a betrayal, but of course, it’s just the opposite. Still, it’s remarkable that it should be there, so lightly hidden. She is careful about money. She is humorless about it. She never spends any when she is with him. Perhaps she might buy some postage stamps, nothing more. She has never bought him a gift of any kind, at least not that I know of. And still, with the stale taste of poverty all around her, I am certain Dean could have those two hundred francs if he asked for them. I am terrified that he could. It seems she is ready to give too much—I am haunted by the idea—and like a fool hastening to introduce all the tedious concerns of his own life into hers, I want to warn her. On the other hand, I know there’s not the slightest chance he could ever be made to take it. Or perhaps he would do so without a qualm, as if he were entitled to it just as he is to her person, her thoughts, her very dreams. I am sure of one of the two things, but I can’t decide which. The money distracts me. That small, tea-colored box about the size a wristwatch might come in, with the photograph leaning against it—I can actually see it through walls of stone. Objects have their shape and weight, their color, and beyond this a dimension for which there is no scale, their importance, and her room, her life about which I really know so little, are furnished with articles that have gradually become surreal. They appear wherever I look. They steal the identity of things that actually surround me. There is her clock which has luminous hands, which runs a little slow, a clock she had in Orléans, perhaps, in Contrex, the alarm going off early, shrill. No, there she was awakened by another girl. Summer mornings. She has been out late and is sleepy. On the floor her shoes have fallen over. Her dress has been tossed on a chair… There is her washcloth, sewn in the shape of a glove. Her cosmetics. Her comb. The box where her savings lie hidden. Oh, Anne-Marie, your existence is so pure. You have your poor childhood, postcards from boys in St. Léger, your stepfather, your despair. Nothing can affect you, no revelation, no crime. You are like a sad story, like leaves in the street. You repeat yourself like a song.
Dean sees her almost every night. Sometimes they don’t bother to eat. An orange. A cup of tea. They drive around in the cold. In the room she undresses him and puts him to bed. He submits like a huge child. She pours a glass of wine and sets it near him. Then leisurely, as if alone, she removes her clothing and puts on a robe. She washes. She begins to brush her hair. The cloth clings to her body, Dean can make out her hips, her round buttocks. She wants a room that has carpets and mirrors, she tells him. Dean is silent. She slips out of the robe and stands naked before the mirror. And a large bed, she adds, looking at herself. He barely listens. His eyes are drifting slowly between substance and reflection. She turns to see if he is awake.
“Phillip?”
There is no answer. She approaches the bed. His hands rise silently in the dark to receive her, to draw her down.
“Pretending you are asleep,” she says. “You are a naughty child.”
“No.”
He has turned her over to admire her, those pale cheeks, firm as calves. He caresses her, slips his hand between her legs.
“It’s nourishing,” he says.
“Comment?”
“Je t’aime,” he says.
They lie on their sides. The clock is ticking. The metal of the heater cracks like glass. Downstairs the Corsicans are talking. Their passionate voices echo through the stairwell. The street door closes.
“Wait a minute,” he whispers.
She is on top of him.
“I don’t have anything.”
“It’s all right,” she says.
“Are you sure?”
She is struggling. He is in agony.
“Anne-Marie?”
“Si!” she insists. He half releases her, half guides.
It begins slowly, his hands on her waist. It seems he is crowning his life.