Love, Anger, Madness

“I’ve missed you,” he whispered.

Revived, seductive, charming, Louis Normil underwent a transformation.

“Look,” she said, freeing herself, and ran to the armoire, opening it to take out a beaded dress that sparkled in the lamplight.

“I made it myself,” she said proudly. “Would you like me to wear it for our little supper tonight?”

“Yes,” he murmured.

She undressed in front of him and slipped her sun-kissed skin into a dress that made her look like an Oriental princess.

An old black woman, who had been in her service since she was a child, came in to announce dinner. They went into the living room, where a princely table had been set. At the end of the meal, she lifted her glass, saying:

“I drink to our love.”

Beneath her many guises she played any role she liked, trusting in no one. Condemning marriage as a dull and revolting institution, she congratulated herself for having managed to resist the temptations of bourgeois life, and in this handsome grife, so self-effacing and impoverished, she saw the flickering shade of Armand Duval. [31] She nevertheless snuggled up tamely into this affair and avoided displaying herself in the company of her lover, supposedly for his wife’s sake. Since even the wealthy may come to feel insecure, she suspected that her gentlemen callers lusted after her fortune more than her beauty. Orphaned very young, she had been raised by her old maid, who had learned to look away and keep her mouth shut, for since her early youth she had been drawn to mature and even graying men in whom she sought the paternal affection she had been weaned from too early. Her father, a government minister in all the past regimes, who had the wisdom to amass a tidy fortune during his political career, had died when she was only ten.

“You are my father, my lover, and my friend at the same time,” she had once said to Louis Normil. “That is a lot to discover in a single man.”

Once they were in bed, having had their fill of love, he tried in vain to bring up the topic of money. Finally giving up hope, he used a back door.

“Have you learned what happened to us?”

“No. What do you mean?”

“Some men in uniform have set up camp on our land.”

She gave a start as if stung.

“When? Why? What have you done or said to make this come upon you? Your children? Who have they been seeing? That kind of curse doesn’t just fall from the sky out of nowhere…”

He had the painful feeling that she was more frightened than saddened by their misfortune. She lit a cigarette with trembling hands.

“Have you taken any steps? Do you know anyone powerful enough to help you?” she added with forced calm.

“Yes, a lawyer. He has demanded five hundred dollars and I don’t have it.”

“Why didn’t you just say so, darling!” she said with relief. “Wait.”

She opened the armoire, grabbed a wad of bills that she put in an envelope.

“I would love to slip in a love note but you’re liable to leave it lying around.”

“I’ll pay you back, Maud.”

“But of course.”

He didn’t like her overly conciliatory tone, agreeing with him before he even said anything. And then the fear he had aroused in her upset him. Would she, like everyone else, fear being seen with him? This distracted him, and he forgot that he had promised himself to make her sign a receipt. He got up and got dressed. She stayed in bed, smoking, eyes half-closed, silent and suddenly so distant that he understood that his news had just destroyed the smooth course of their affair. He had dressed too quickly and only realized his tactlessness when he was done.

“You’re leaving… already?”

It seemed to him that there was a slight involuntary irony in her question.

“I’ll stay as long as you wish.”

He was too troubled. Despite himself, he was already thinking of the drama in store for tomorrow. He could see Rose going to the lawyer’s office, see her trembling before the short man with the gorilla hands who would be there, no doubt about it, and he decided right then to bring the money himself to the attorney.

“Would you like a ride home?”

He glanced at his watch and leaned in to kiss her.

“Would you please,” he replied.

The minute he had opened his mouth to talk about his problems, the evening had been ruined. Suddenly he had discovered that she too was afraid. She too was contaminated. This despite her wealth, despite the self-appointed isolation in which she lived and its assurance of some kind of protection. Perhaps he had only taken refuge in this affair to feel stronger! he realized to his surprise. Until now he had thought that she at least could allow herself to live with contempt for the permanent threat that had been hanging over all their heads like a curse for some time now. A threat made manifest in all the obvious signs that he had refused to interpret in order to preserve his peace of mind and that false congeniality into which he had withdrawn once and for all. One recollection he thought long dead suddenly arose in his memory. About six years ago, he was going home after stopping by the home of a colleague when the noise of gunfire interrupted his stroll. He hid under the porch of a house and waited there trembling for a long while. Then, without any hesitation, he walked over the dead body of a man lying in the street and ran home with his head down. The next day, he read in the newspaper an article about the accidental death of an unfortunate father of blessed memory. How many along with him had witnessed this murder? How many had been careful to keep silent? Just like him. Right after that, there was Maud to comfort him and help him forget. But she had just disappointed him, and he felt as if he had been rejected from her life. Her reactions had not been those of a woman in love. And he was struck by an inadvertent recollection of several remarks she had made about self- serving friends who only cared about her fortune. Bah! When everything is settled, I’ll sell off one of the lots if I have to and pay her back and everything will be forgotten…

He was unable to fall asleep. His wife had her back turned to him and lay there like a corpse. But he was also sure she was awake. He leaned over her and noticed that her eyes were indeed open.

“You’re not asleep?”

She immediately changed her position and he saw she was crying.

“What’s the matter, Laura?”

She shrugged and huddled up in a corner of the bed.

“And you have to wake me up on top of it,” she reproached him dryly.

He mumbled something that she did not understand, so she pulled up the sheets to cover herself and pretended to sleep.

They both stayed that way, motionless, back-to-back. That’s all she could think to say to me, he thought bitterly. The brute! Nothing can bother him, he’s already sleeping, she was telling herself at the same time. They had both finally plunged into a deep sleep when a terrible noise from the yard woke them. They rushed together to the window to witness an onslaught: a truck and two motorcycles driven by men in black uniform parked under the oaks; about twenty men stepped out of the truck while the two on the motorcycles started them again and roared full speed across the property. Skirting the stakes, they entered the yard and stopped. Ten men, their weapons displayed across their shirts, walked up to the veranda and knocked on the door to the living room, which Melie opened wide for them. The father saw his wife clasping her hands, disheveled, disfigured by fear. Lifting up the mattress, he slid the money beneath it and threw on his clothes as quickly as he could. From the stairs, he looked at the others.

“I’ll go down by myself,” he said firmly.

“Open up in the name of the law,” they heard.

“Yes, coming,” the father answered and went down.

He took the stamped papers handed to him and quickly ran his eyes over them without understanding a thing. The weapon that one of them had pulled from his belt to point to his temple-telling him “Sign here!”-left no room for discussion. He looked for a pen, was given one by the same man and signed. After which, the maid, opening the