The Camargue

She got on at a small station between Marseilles and Arles, passed down the carriage, wiggling the whole of her Spanish gypsy body, sat down by the window on a single-seat bench and, as if seeing no one, began shelling and gnawing roasted pistachios, from time to time lifting the hem of her black outer skirt and thrusting her hand into the pocket of her well-worn, white underskirt. The carriage, full of common people, was not made up of compartments, but was divided only by benches, and many of those sitting facing her just kept on staring at her.

Her lips moving over her white teeth were blue-grey, the bluish down on her upper lip thickened above the corners of her mouth. Her delicate, swarthily dark face, lit up by the brilliance of her teeth, was anciently savage. Her eyes, long, golden-brown and half-covered by swarthily brown lids, somehow gazed inside themselves – with a dull, primitive lassitude. From beneath the coarse silk of her jet-black hair, divided with a centre parting and falling in curling locks onto her low forehead, long silver earrings gleamed alongside her rounded neck. The faded lightblue shawl lying on her sloping shoulders was prettily tied at the breast. Her hands, wiry, Indian, with mummy-coloured fingers and lighter nails, kept on shelling more and more pistachios with simian quickness and dexterity. Finishing them, and sweeping the shells from her knees, she closed her eyes, crossed her legs and reclined against the back of the bench. Beneath her gathered black skirt, which gave a particularly feminine emphasis to the curve of her slender waist, her buttocks stood out in firm mounds, smoothly outlined. The thin, unstockinged foot, with its delicate tanned skin shining, was shod in a black cloth slipper and laced with differently coloured ribbons – blue and red…

Outside Arles she got off.

“C’est une Camarguaise,” said my neighbour – for some reason very sadly, and following her with his eyes – a Provençal as mighty as an ox, with dark, ruddy skin covered in blood vessels.

23rd May 1944

One Hundred Rupees

I saw her one morning in the courtyard of the hotel, the old Dutch house in the coco forests on the ocean shore where I lived in those days. And afterwards I saw her there every morning. She sprawled in a reed armchair in the light hot shade that fell from the building, a stone’s throw from the veranda. His bare feet crunching over the gravel, a tall, yellow-faced, agonizingly narrow-eyed Malay, dressed in a white canvas jacket and trousers of the same kind, would bring her a tray with a cup of golden tea and set it down on a little table beside the armchair, would say something to her deferentially, without stirring his dry, tightly pursed lips, would bow and withdraw; and she would sprawl, and slowly flap her straw fan, rhythmically fluttering the black velvet of her astonishing eyelashes… To what species of earthly creations could she be assigned?

Her small body, tropically strong, had its coffee-coloured nakedness revealed at the breast, on the shoulders, on the arms and on the legs as far as the knees, while the torso and hips were somehow entwined with bright green cloth. Her small feet with red toenails peeped out between the red straps of varnished yellow-wood sandals. Her tar-black hair, piled up high, strangely failed to correspond in its coarseness with the delicacy of her childlike face. In the lobes of her small ears swung hollow gold rings. And improbably huge and magnificent were her black eyelashes – the like of those heavenly butterflies that flutter so magically on heavenly Indian flowers… Beauty, intelligence, stupidity – none of those words went with her at all, nor did anything human: she truly was as if from some other planet. The one thing that did suit her was speechlessness. And she sprawled and was silent, rhythmically fluttering the black velvet of her butterfly lashes, slowly flapping her fan…

Once, in the morning, when into the courtyard of the hotel ran the rickshaw with which I usually went into town, the Malay met me on the steps of the veranda and, with a bow, said quietly in English:

“One hundred rupees, sir.”

24th May 1944

Vengeance

In the pension in Cannes, where I had arrived at the end of August with the intention of bathing in the sea and painting from life, this strange woman drank coffee in the mornings and dined on her own with an invariably concentrated, gloomy air, as though seeing no one and nothing, and after her coffee she went off somewhere until almost the evening. I had been living in the pension for almost a week or so, and still looked at her from time to time with interest: thick black hair, a big black plait encircling her head, a strong body in a cretonne dress, red with black flowers, a pretty, rather coarse face – and that gloomy look… We were waited on by an Alsatian girl of about fifteen, but with large breasts and a broad backside, very plump, with an amazingly delicate and fresh plumpness, uncommonly stupid and nice, who at every word would blossom into fright and a smile; and so, encountering her one day in the corridor, I asked:

“Dites, Odette, qui est cette dame?”

She, prepared for both fright and a smile, raised her unctuous blue eyes to me:

“Quelle dame, monsieur?”

“Mais la dame brune là-bas?”

“Quelle table, monsieur?”

“Numéro dix.”

“C’est une Russe, monsieur.”

“Et puis?”

“Je n’en sais rien, monsieur.”

“Est-elle chez vous depuis longtemps?”

“Depuis trois semaines, monsieur.”

“Toujours seule?”

“Non, monsieur, il y avait un monsieur…”

“Jeune, sportif?”

“Non, monsieur… Très pensif, nerveux…”

“Et il a disparu un jour?”

“Mais oui, monsieur.”

“Right, right!” I thought. “Some things make sense now. But where is it she disappears to in the mornings? Is she forever looking for him?”

The next day, soon after coffee, through the open window of my room I heard, as always, the crunch of shingle in the pension’s little garden, and I took a glance – bare-headed, as always, beneath a parasol the same colour as her dress, she was going off somewhere at a rapid pace in red espadrilles. I grabbed my cane and boater and hurried after her. From our side street she turned into Boulevard Carnot, and I turned as well, hoping that in her constant state of concentration she would not turn around and would not sense me there. And so it was – she did not once turn around all the way to the station. She did not turn around at the station either, getting into a compartment of a third-class carriage. The train was going to Toulon and, just in case, I took a ticket as far as Saint-Raphaël and got into the next compartment. She was evidently not going far, but where? I leant out of the window at Napoule, at Théoule… Finally, leaning out for the minute’s stop at Trayas, I saw she was already walking towards the exit from the station. I slipped out of the carriage and set off after her again, keeping, however, at a certain distance. Here I was obliged to walk for a long time – both round bends in the highway alongside cliffs above the sea, and along steep, stony paths through little pinewoods by which she shortened the route to the shore, to the little coves that indented the shore in this rocky and desolate area covered in woodland, this slope of the coastal mountains. Midday was approaching, it was hot, the air was still and thick with the smell of hot conifer needles, not a soul nor a sound anywhere – only the cicadas sawing and scraping – and the open sea to the south glittered and leapt with big silver stars… Finally she ran down a path towards a green cove between sanguine crags, threw her parasol onto the sand, quickly took off her shoes – all she had on her feet – and began undressing. I lay down on the stony slope below which she was undoing her gloomy-coloured dress, I gazed and thought that her swimming costume was probably just as sinister too. But there proved to be no costume at all beneath the dress – there was only a short pink vest. Throwing off the vest as well, suntanned brown all over, strong and sturdy, she set off over the pebbles towards the light, transparent water, her pretty ankles tensing, the steep halves of her backside twitching, the tan on her hips shining. She stood for a moment beside the water – its dazzle must have been making her squint – then she splashed about in it with her feet, squatted down, plunged in up to her shoulders and, turning, lay down on her stomach, stretched out her legs and pulled herself up towards the sandy beach, onto which she laid her elbows and her black head. In the distance the plain of the sea flickered, wide and free, with prickly silver, the enclosed cove and all its rocky cosiness was baked ever more hotly by the sun, and such quietness reigned in this torrid wilderness of cliffs and young southern woodland that from time to time the network of little glassy ripples could be heard running up onto the body lying face down below me, and then retreating from its glittering back, bifurcated backside and big, parted legs. Lying and glancing out from behind the rocks, I was becoming more and more disturbed by the sight of this magnificent nakedness, more and more forgetful of the absurdity and audacity of my action, and I raised myself a little, lighting a pipe in my agitation – and suddenly she too raised her head and stared up at me enquiringly, continuing, however, to lie as she had been lying. I stood up, not knowing what to do, what to say. She was the first to speak:

“I could hear somebody walking behind me all the way. Why did you come after me?”

I made up my mind to give a plain and simple answer:

“Forgive me, out of curiosity…”

She interrupted me:

“Yes, you’re evidently inquisitive. Odette told me you’d been asking her questions about me, and I heard by chance that you were Russian and so wasn’t surprised – all Russians are excessively inquisitive. But all the same, why did you come after me?”

“Still on the strength of that same inquisitiveness – professional, in particular…”

“Yes, I know, you’re a painter.”

“Yes, and you’re very paintable. What’s more, you were going off somewhere in the mornings every day, and that intrigued me – where, why? – you missed lunch, which people who are staying in pensions don’t often do, and you always had a not entirely ordinary air too, you were concentrating on something. You’re solitary, taciturn in your behaviour, as if you’re concealing something within you… Well, and why didn’t I leave as soon as you began undressing…”

“Well, that’s easy to understand,” she said.

And after a pause, she added:

“I’m coming out now. Turn away for a minute and then come here. You’ve got me interested as well.”

“Not for anything will I turn away,” I replied. “I’m an artist and we’re not children.”

She shrugged a shoulder:

“Well, all right, I don’t care…”

And she rose to her full height, showing the whole of herself from the front in all her womanly strength, and she unhurriedly made her way across the shingle, threw her pink vest over her head, then uncovered her serious face from inside it and let it down over her wet body. I ran down to her and we took a seat next to one another.

“Besides the pipe, do you perhaps have cigarettes too?” she asked.

“I do.”

“Give me one.”

I did, and lit a match.

“Thank you.”

And, inhaling, she began gazing into the distance, shifting her toes and not turning round; suddenly she said ironically:

“So I can still be found attractive?”

“I’ll say!” I exclaimed. “A splendid body, wonderful hair and eyes… Only a really very unkind facial expression.”

“That’s because I am, indeed, occupied with a wicked idea.”

“I thought so. You’ve recently parted with someone, someone’s left you…”

“Not left, but dumped. Run away from me. I knew he was a hopeless case, but somehow I loved him. As it turned out, it was simply a scoundrel that I loved. I met him about a month and a half ago in Monte Carlo. I was gambling that evening at the casino. He was standing next to me, gambling as well, following the ball with crazy eyes, and he kept on winning – once he won, twice, three times, four… I kept winning as well, he saw it and suddenly said: ‘That’ll do! Assez!’ and he turned to me: ‘N’est-ce pas, madame?’ Laughing, I replied: ‘Yes, that’ll do!’ – ‘Ah, you’re Russian?’ – ‘As you see.’ – ‘Then let’s go on the razzle!’ I had a look at him – a very shabby man, but elegant in appearance… The rest isn’t hard to guess.”

“No, it isn’t. You felt close over supper, talked endlessly, were amazed when the time came to part…”

“Absolutely correct. And we didn’t part, and began squandering the winnings. Lived in Monte Carlo, in Turbie, in Nice, had lunch and dinner in bars on the road between Cannes and Nice – you probably know what that costs! —even stayed at one time in a hotel at Cap d’Antibes, pretending to be rich… But there was less and less money left, trips to Monte Carlo on our last coppers ended in failure… He started disappearing off somewhere and coming back again with money, though what he brought was trifling – a hundred francs or so, fifty… Then he sold my earrings and wedding ring somewhere – I was married once – my gold crucifix…”

“And, of course, he assured you he would be getting back some big debt from somewhere at any time, that he had distinguished and well-to-do friends and acquaintances.”

“Yes, precisely so. Who he is, I don’t know exactly even now, he avoided speaking clearly and in detail about his past life, and I was somehow inattentive to the fact. Well, the usual past of many émigrés: St Petersburg, service in a brilliant regiment, then the war, revolution, Constantinople… In Paris, thanks to his former connections, he was allegedly getting himself fixed up, and could always do so very nicely, but for the time being – Monte Carlo, or else the permanent possibility, as he said, of short-term borrowing from some titled friends in Nice… I was already becoming despondent, falling into despair, but he only grinned: ‘Don’t worry, rely on me, I’ve already taken several démarches in Paris, of what kind specifically – that, as they say, is no matter for a woman to worry her head over…’”

“Right, right…”

“Right what?”

And she suddenly turned towards me, her eyes flashing, throwing the cigarette, which had gone out, a long way away:

“All this amuses you?”

I grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze:

“You should be ashamed of yourself! You know, I’ll paint you as Medusa or Nemesis!”

“Is that the goddess of vengeance?”

“Yes, and a very angry one.”

She grinned sadly:

“Nemesis! What sort of Nemesis am I! No, you’re a good man… Give me another cigarette. He taught me to smoke… Taught me everything!”

And lighting up, she again began looking into the distance.

“I forgot to tell you as well how surprised I was when I saw where you come to bathe – an entire expedition every day, and to what end? Now I understand: you’re seeking solitude.”

“Yes…”

The heat of the sun flowed ever thicker, the cicadas on the hot, fragrant pines sawed and scraped ever more insistently and furiously – I sensed how burning hot her black hair, exposed shoulders and legs must be, and said:

“Let’s move into the shade, it really is baking, and then finish telling me your sad story.”

She came to:

“Yes, let’s…”

And we walked around the semicircle of the cove and sat down in light and sultry shade below red crags. I took her hand again and kept it in my own. She failed to notice.

“What is there to finish telling?” she said. “Somehow I no longer want to recall this truly very sad and shameful story. You probably think that I’m an habitual kept woman of one swindler after another. Nothing of the kind. My past’s the most ordinary too. My husband was in the Volunteer Army, first with Denikin, then with Wrangel, and when we rolled up in Paris he became a driver, of course, but he started drinking, and took to it so heavily that he lost his work and turned into a genuine down-and-out. I couldn’t possibly have continued living with him any more. I last saw him on Montparnasse, by the doors of the Dominique – you know that little Russian restaurant, of course? Night-time, rain, and he’s in down-at-heel shoes, standing around in puddles, he runs up to passers-by, bent double, reaches out his hand for a tip, awkwardly helps, or, to put it better, hinders the people driving up and climbing out of their taxis… I stood for a while, looked at him, went up to him. He recognized me and got frightened, embarrassed – you can’t imagine what a splendid, kind, tactful man he is! He stands looking at me in bewilderment: ‘Masha, is it you?’ He’s little, ragged, unshaven, all overgrown with ginger stubble, wet, trembling with cold… I gave him everything I had in my handbag, he grabbed my hand with his own wet, icy little hand, began kissing it and shaking with tears. But what on earth could I do? Only send him a hundred or two hundred francs two or three times a month – I have a milliner’s studio in Paris, and I earn quite a decent amount. And I came here to have a holiday, to do some bathing – and so… I’ll be leaving for Paris in a few days. To meet with him, give him a slap in the face and the like is a very silly dream, and do you know when I realized it properly? Only now, thanks to you. I started telling the story and realized it…”

“But all the same, how did he come to run away?”

“Ah, that’s the whole point, that it really was very low. We’d taken up residence in that very same little pension where you and I have found ourselves neighbours – this was after the hotel at Cap d’Antibes – and one evening we went out, only about ten days ago, to have tea at the casino. Well, of course, there was music, several couples dancing – I was simply no longer able to see it all without repulsion, I’d seen enough! – however, I’m sitting eating the pastries he orders for me and for himself, and he’s all the time laughing, strangely somehow – look, look, he says about the musicians, real monkeys, the way they stamp their feet and pull faces! Then he opens up an empty cigarette case, calls a chasseur and orders him to bring some English cigarettes, he brings them, and he absent-mindedly says merci, I’ll pay you after tea, then gazes at his fingernails and says to me: ‘What dreadful hands! I’ll go and wash them…’ He gets up and goes…”

“And doesn’t come back again.”

“No. And I sit and wait. I wait ten minutes, twenty, half an hour, an hour… Can you imagine it?”

“I can.”

I could imagine it very clearly: they sit at the tea table, looking in silence, thinking in different ways about their loathsome situation… Beyond the panes of the large windows the sky is drawing towards evening, and there is the gloss, the calm of the sea and the darkening fronds of the palms are hanging there; the musicians, as if inanimate, are stamping their feet on the floor, blowing into their instruments, beating on metal cymbals, the men shuffling and swaying in time with them are pressing against their ladies, as though pushing them towards a clearly defined objective. A chap in leggings and some semblance of a green dress uniform doffs his cap deferentially and hands him a packet of High Life…

“Well and so? You’re sitting…”

“I’m sitting, feeling that I’m done for. The musicians have gone, the room has emptied, the electric light has come on…”

“The windows have turned blue…”

“Yes, and all the time I can’t get up from my seat: what am I to do, how am I to escape? In my handbag there’s only six francs and some loose change!”

“And he had, indeed, gone to the lavatory, done what he needed to there, thinking about his cheating life, then he’d done himself up and run on tiptoe down the corridors to the other exit and slipped out into the street… Good God, think who it was you loved! Look for him, take revenge on him? What for? You’re not a little girl, you should have seen what he was and the situation you were in. Why on earth did you continue that life, dreadful in every sense?”

She was silent, then twitched a shoulder:

“Who was it I loved? I don’t know. There was, as they say, a need for love, which I’ve never really experienced… As a man, he gave me nothing, and couldn’t have, he’d already lost his manly capabilities long before… Should I have seen what he was and the situation I was in? Of course, I should have, but I didn’t want to see, to think – for the first time in my life I was living that sort of life, that celebration of vice, all its pleasures, I was living in a kind of delusion. Why did I want to meet him somewhere and somehow take revenge on him? Again a delusion, an idée fixe. Did I not sense that, apart from a vile and pitiful scene, I couldn’t achieve anything? But you say: what for? Well, for the fact that it’s thanks to him, after all, that I fell so low, lived that cheating life, and most of all, for the horror, the shame that I experienced that evening at the casino when he ran away out of the toilet! When, beside myself, I told some sort of lie at the casino’s cash desk, trying to extricate myself, imploring them to take my handbag as security until the next day – and when they wouldn’t take it, and scornfully let me off paying for the tea and the pastries, and the English cigarettes! I sent a telegram to Paris, two days later received a thousand francs, went to the casino – they took the money there without looking at me, even gave me a receipt… Oh, my dear, I’m no Medusa, I’m simply a woman, and, what’s more, a very sensitive, lonely, unhappy one, but don’t get me wrong – even a chicken has a heart, you know! I’ve simply been ill all these days since that damned evening. And it was simply God Himself that sent you to me, I’ve suddenly come to my senses somehow… Let go of my hand, it’s time to get dressed, there’ll be the train from Saint-Raphaël soon…”

“To hell with it,” I said. “Better look around at these red cliffs, the green cove, the gnarled pines, listen to that heavenly scraping. We’ll come here together from now on. Yes?”

“Yes.”

“And we’ll leave for Paris together too.”

“Yes.”

“And what happens thereafter isn’t worth thinking about.”

“No, no.”

“May I kiss your hand?”

“Yes, yes…”

3rd June 1944