A Sport and a Pastime

“I won’t.” Laugh, laugh.

Of course, he adores her, I know they’re going to tell me that.

“Don’t ever marry a Frenchman,” she says. Then she laughs. She is hugging Coco, her poodle, and laughing. She is opening boxes from Lanvin, the tissue crashing as she brushes it aside. The telephone rings, and it’s one of her friends. She laughs and laughs, she talks for hours.

“Do you live in Paris?” Dean asks me.

“Pardon?”

“Do you live in Paris?” he says.

Isabel is telling about her husband’s family. She’s sick of them. All they’re interested in is their grandbaby, she says. I explain I’m living in the Wheatlands’ house. It’s in a little town.

“You know Dijon?”

“Yes.”

“It’s near Dijon.”

“It’s in the center of France,” he decides.

“The very heart. It’s a small town, but it has a certain quality. I mean, it’s not rich, it’s not splendid. It’s just old and well-formed.”

“What town is it?”

“I doubt if you’ve ever heard of it. Autun.”

“Autun,” he says. Then, “It sounds like the real France.”

“It is the real France.”

“He’s crazy,” Billy warns.

It’s almost five in the morning when we drive Isabel home. There are just the four of us left, Dean has gone. I am exhausted. I feel as if I am entering a grave crisis of the soul. The streets are completely abandoned. The sky has begun to pale. We pull up before a building on the Avenue Montaigne, Billy takes her to the door. I stay in the car with Cristina, our heads leaning back, our eyes closed.

“He’s a nice boy,” she says. “Don’t you wish you were that young again?”

“I’m not that old.”

“Baby…” she says soothingly.

“I only feel it.”

“No, you look very young. Really. You look as if you could still be in school.”

“Thank you.”

“What were you like then?” she says sleepily.

“It’s too long ago.”

“No, really, what were you like?”

“I was the idol of my generation.” I can hear her head move.

“Didn’t you know that?” I tell her.

The door opens, it’s Billy. He slumps down in the seat. We start to drive.

“Let’s go somewhere for a drink,” Cristina says.

He is silent.

“Billy?”

“Do you really want to?”

“Where can we go?”

“The Calvados,” he says.

“Yes,” she says, “let’s go there.”

[4]

COURTYARDS WITH RUSTY GATES receive me back. Enclosures. Great walls crumbling at the sill. The trees stand like brewers in the Place d’Hallencourt. Bricks are laid beneath them. The sidewalks are veined with moss. As one descends, the streets begin to flower out. Rue Dufraigne. Faubourg St. Blaise, a fine house here, small iron balcony, enormous garden. The trees pour over the wall and shade the public side as well. The doors look quite secure.

There’s another house on rue de la Grille. A marvelous color—faded brick, with the doors, windows, all the major lines set in white stone. Gravel driveway. Tall, iron gates. I pass it in the morning as a girl in a pink smock opens the shutters room by room. Belongs to a doctor, I’m sure. They’re all doctors. Veterinaires. Yeux, nez, gorge, oreilles. They’re fortified within the most solid houses in town, the biggest ones, commanding every street. The fixtures are polished. The plaques are always shined.

Posters for football stuck in the windows of cheap cafes. Autun against Charolles. Autun against Chagny. No one seems to read them. A few men are playing dominoes; they look like North Africans. At the bottom of town the factories are silent. The old ones have been abandoned, tanneries with their tall chimneys cold, their windows dark. Beyond, the river lies still.

Four in the afternoon. The trees along the street, the upper branches, are catching the last, full light. The stadium is quiet, some bicycles leaning against the outer wall. I read the schedule once again and then go in, turning down towards the stands which are almost empty. Far away, the players are streaming across the soft grass. There seem to be no cries, no shouting, only the faint thud of kicks.

It is the emptiness which pleases me, the blue dimensions of this life. Beyond the game, as far as one can see, are the fields, the trees of the countryside. Above us, provincial sky, a little cloudy. Once in a while the sun breaks out, vague as a smile. I sit alone. There are the glances of some young boys, nothing more. There’s no scoreboard. The game drifts back and forth. It seems to take a long, long time. Someone sends a little boy to the far side to chase the ball when it goes out of bounds. I watch him slowly circle the field. He passes behind the goal. He trots a while, then he walks. He seems lost in the journey. Finally he is over there, small and isolated on the sideline. After a while I can see him kicking at stones.

I am at the center of emptiness. Every act seems purer for it, easier to define. The sounds separate themselves. The details all appear. I stop at the Cafe St. Louis. It’s like an old schoolroom. The varnish is worn from the curve of the chairs. The finish is gone from the floor. It’s one large, yellowing room, huge mirrors on the wall, the same size and position as windows, generous, imperfect. Glass doors along the street. Wherever one looks, it seems possible to see out. They’re playing billiards. I listen without watching. The soft click of the balls is like a concert. The players stand around, talking in hoarse voices. The rich odor of their cigarettes… They’re never there in the daytime. It’s very different with the morning light upon it, this cafe. Stale. The billiard table seems less dark. The wood is drawing apart at the corners. It’s quite old, at least a hundred years I should think, judging from the elaborate legs. Beneath the pale green cloth which is always thrown over it, the felt is worn, like the sleeves of an old suit.

“Monsieur?”

It’s the old woman who runs the place. False teeth, white as buttons. Belonged to her husband probably. I can hear them clattering in her mouth.

“Monsieur?” she insists.

Later on, about nine, there’s the hotel where there’s music in the bar and somebody at least, a few couples, sitting around. The three or four gilded youths of the town, too, slouched on the divans. I know them by sight. One is an angel, at least for betrayal. Beautiful face. Soft, dark hair. A mouth like spoiled fruit. Nothing amuses them— they don’t talk until somebody leaves, and then they begin little, laughing cuts, sometimes calling over to the barman. The rest of the time they sit in boredom, polishing the gestures of contempt. The angel is taller than the rest. He has an expensive suit and a tie knotted loosely at the neck. Sometimes a sweater. Soft cuffs. I’ve seen him on the street. He’s about seventeen, and he seems less dangerous in the daylight, merely a bad student or a boy already notorious for his vices. He’s ready to start seductions. Perhaps he even says it’s easy, and that women are simple to get. To believe is to make real, they say. A chill passes through me. I recognize in him a clear strain of assurance which has nothing to imitate, which springs forth intact. It feeds on its own reflection. He looks carefully