‘I think the way you came to it was terrible. I’ve spent the last few months killing people, of whom I know nothing but where their conscription papers came from, and I was thinking about doing that for a living, afterwards. I can’t see that you’ve done anything so bad.’
‘Oh, tu sais répondre, toi! You don’ ‘ave to go to any ‘ouse, you, if you talk so well to girls. Then when I was nineteenMonsieur le Vicomte made an arrangement with Madame Sophie, and kept me in ‘is… in ‘is residence, at Auteuil – it is no secret, forle tout Paris knows these things – and I lived like a princess for seven years. Oh, the prince is lucky who ‘as such a princess, and the princess who ‘as such a prince! Only I don’ wearhaute couture, never at all.’
‘Oh? I thought you did.’
Again came the Gallic noise, half-laughing this time.
‘Then ‘e married Mademoiselle de Lavelle, such a lovely girl. We both knew it must ‘appen someday. It was the family. Twenty years younger than him,les salauds! But I am sure ‘e was never unkind.’
‘So he abandoned you?’
‘Andrew, you read too many stories!Les nouveaux riches, they will abandon, but did you never hear thatnoblesse oblige? He say “Where you like to live?”, and that Paris is not good for me, which I know better than ‘e does. I can’t think of anywhere, so of course I say “Armentières”, and ‘e buy the house in Armentières for me, better than this, and give me money to live well. I choose my town quickly, jus’ like that, but truly I find I chose a wonderful place. So I open the best house north of Paris, and really, I don’ think south can be better. Would you believe that people, people with names, come from Paris for our weekend parties in Armentières? And do you know where I find my girls?’
‘Er, no, I never really wondered…’
‘In Belleville, or places very similar. Ha, you don’t think it, to look?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought of it of you. Or you of me, perhaps.’
‘Just so. But they are strays, orphans,apaches, people marked for death. But I teach them to make beautiful something which could be ugly, to be nobody’s fool, and yet to be warm, valued people after they leave me. Do themoralistes do so much? Then comes the war. Then the world abandonM. le Vicomte, my true friend and the friend of the least among the French. For ‘e was killed at Maubeuge, and Andrew, I weep for ‘im, and also for Armentières. I don’ even know if my house is standing.’
Andrew knew, better that her, what it meant to be three kilometres from the lines.
The servants brought in the main course, which was delicious little peppered tournedos with diced and fried potatoes, which in some way were very different from thepommes de terre frites he knew so well. There was a burgundy, which even Andrew could tell was very good, with the beef, and a sweet yet clean-tasting Montbazillac, of which Andrew prayed he would remember the name, with theprofiteroles and cream. She led him back to the sofa, and in some mysterious fashion the lighting dimmed.
The talk became inconsequential for a time, but at length she drew out the stories he had only hinted at, and thought he never would tell to anyone, of how much had been vacant and barren in his Glasgow childhood, and about the eternal, numbing fear and horror of war. He could not well deny what the dull little ribbon of the Victoria Cross on his chest was, and with just a word here and there, she drew forth more of its importance than Andrew thought he told her, and a far more real story of the storming of the Taupière than any other civilian had heard. As he came to an end, on top of that filthy, sliding slagheap, with the distant, antlike figures clustering around the dying General Von Zechlin in his sunlight-gilded puddle on the road to her childhood home of Lens, it shocked him to realise that he had done more talking than ever before in his life, and he thought it too much. But Mademoiselle, whom men must have queued up to impress, seemed spellbound.
‘Oh, Andrew, you ‘ave done this for France, and… and for Armentières.’
‘Well, I don’t believe I thought about France, the day we enlisted. But I’ve seen what bringing war to a country means, and nobody has done that to the Germans.’
‘You know, Andrew, we French are not a grateful people. Notcollectivement, you understand, when the nephews and grandchildren of those who fought will talk of obligation in future years, mostly for politics. But those who fought and shed their blood for France will never be forgotten.’
‘I’ve hardly bled at all, to speak of.’
‘Thank God. You make it sound, Andrew, like this war ‘as been good for you.’
‘Up to now, in a way, it has. I feel a stronger person than I ever thought I could be. But it could get a lot worse in a minute, any minute of any day, and I’ve seen a lot of good people die. I’ve never lost a home I loved, as you have, and plenty of other French and Belgian people.’
‘Oh, where I am is my ‘ome. In a way the war ‘as made my business easier. We are busy, and the war brings a better class of person to us. Our peacetimeclientele, do you see, they are all damaged in some way, to come to us. Oh, I don’ feel guilty, because we don’ damage them any worse, and what is better to do for them? Don’ you forget that the girls are damaged too, even me. If you were some brave British major of forty with a tobacco smell, a practical age, I should be afraid to ‘ave you ‘ere, I think, because I might show damage, and make you despise me. But in war, in our manner, I believe we serve France. I think men away from women, men leading a hard, maybe short life, they idealize us, and they like to take away kind memories. Only a fool, I think, wants his last memory of a woman to be an unpleasantness.
‘We saw unpleasantness tonight, I think. We have some soldiers like that, not many I hope. I think the strain destroys some men’s judgement.’
‘Bien sûr. But I don’ want the police to know. If soldiers do wrong, could God ever ‘ave a better chance torégler sa compte, no? If ‘e doesn’t, ‘e is not looking for my ‘elp.’
‘Well, maybe you’re right. But I wouldn’t want to think of them going and doing the same to another woman, who might be more easily hurt. They can’t all have a man with a pistol turn up.’
‘You think they will do it again? Andrew, did you see ‘ow terrified they were? And me too. When I was in Belleville I tell myself that I can endure the worst any man can do, if it happens. But I never thought they would cover my face. Andrew, sit closer.’
Andrew, in some fashion, suddenly felt a lot more flustered than the previous time he had sat down so close to the lady. With a non-smoker’s keen senses, he had always hated perfume, but there was something irresistible in the subtlety of the fragrance the woman wore, and ‘subtle’ is a word Andrew had always loved. Now hadn’t he heard that perfume was diffused by the warmth of the skin? The boy was not sure whether he ought to be thinking about skin.
She called for something, and the footman brought a tray with decanter, glasses and a jug of water. She poured some water, and then a green liquid from the decanter, through a lump of sugar held in a little spoon with a pierced lid. A milky opalescence spread in the glass.
‘La fée verte. The green fairy.Absinthe.’
‘I… I see. Isn’t the government making it illegal this year?’
‘If someone ‘as to drink too much, it is the cheapest. But those will pay a few sous more,v’là tout, and solve their problems in worse ways. Like my business, do you see? But a little is relaxing, that is all. Let me tell you something. Do you see a line on the decanter, just a centimetre from the surface?’
‘No.’
‘There is no line. But me, I see it, just like I saw it every night in Belleville. A woman must know ‘ow much she drinks, Andrew, absinthe or anything else, or there wait the marble slab, and the brass tap. Yes, and perhaps the marks policemen don’t want to see. You try it?’
‘Well, all right…’
There was a strangely attractive bitter pungency to the green liqueur, and it did indeed seem no stronger than many another drink he knew. She went over to the piano in the corner, with a lamp behind her which turned her hair into a golden halo, and played for some time. Perhaps it was the absinthe, but for Andrew, like silent music inside his own head, she seemed to have the knack of converting the most petty little traditional airs into something far greater. The memory he would always associate with that halo-like head was a curious, tinkling little French tune with a deceptively strong rhythm, which he had already heard in anestaminet somewhere. But now it seemed to speak to the human soul, and he grew unafraid. Perhaps it was her marvellous talent for putting him at his ease. Or perhaps it was the absinthe.
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