Hedi Kaddour - Waltenberg

‘Anyway you’re never here

Within seconds, they’d got on to the actual length of his stay in Paris, which was not certain.

‘Muriel, you know I can’t be away from Moscow for long.’

He was getting dressed, he added in one breath:

‘You misheard, darling, I never said one thing while meaning another, those two days in Dinard, it was just a thought, as you knew all along.’

He paused a moment, to let the words sink in, it’s true, Muriel does always know but she invariably acts as if she doesn’t, so that she can keep the argument going, put him in the wrong, it’s also true that he pretends to believe that he’ll have time to go to Dinard while all the time he knows he won’t, he makes much of it, he imagines going, but she also behaves as if it were true, and he cannot see why he should deny himself the prospect, and then when it all comes to nothing Muriel makes a meal of it, although she too had been looking forward to it. She seizes on his words:

‘Knew all along? I never know anything with you, it’s true, I never know a thing!’

She has raised her voice to him, she breathes in through her mouth, her voice drops:

‘But I’m not going to get angry about it.’

Her mouth is a scornful curve, then her eyes relax, she smiles, he’s been caught without his braces, he smiles, he’ll have to carry on the argument sans braces, she’s holding them in her hand, she has decided not to get angry, she’s just said so, he’d better believe her, she looks down at the braces with a smile, all maternal:

‘You know, I think this red is far too lurid for braces.’

She laughs, shaken by two little ripples of laughter, but there is no real amusement in it, it’s to get what’s bothering her off her chest, she repeats ‘this red’, exaggerating the movements of her lips, dropping her chin, hollowing her cheeks, her voice scolds, mocks, ‘this red’, a woman giving a young child or an old husband a good ticking off:

‘And don’t tell me it’s maroon, maroon isn’t as hot a colour, and it’s more dignified, this is just red.’

She holds the braces up in the light streaming in at the window. ‘Bright red, so unflattering. At your age!’

A silence. She looks him up and down.

‘You wear braces when you don’t need to, and when you do wear braces you choose red, it makes you look like an ageing dandy trying to look like a young man.’

Another silence, it’s like an invitation, de Vèze says nothing, don’t answer back, look sad, sad at being forced to leave her when she’s looking so lovely, the crucial point is the meeting with the Minister, ‘ageing dandy’, ‘young man’, he doesn’t answer, her malice should take the sting out of her mood, her voice is softer as she amends her words:

‘Whereas you are neither one nor the other.’

She smiles, more relaxed now, her prettiness returns, de Vèze relaxes, armistice signed, she goes on:

‘Tell me, when did you buy them?’

De Vèze knows that ‘when’ means ‘who were you with when’ because he wasn’t with her, she is wondering ‘with whom?’ but will not put the question, it would be only too easy for de Vèze to say ‘I was by myself, of course, I don’t even remember where’, obviously, there’s no answer to that, she knows it, this way de Vèze could then take her by the hand and speak of jealousy in a gentle, understanding voice, ‘I also buy my cigarettes by myself, maintain the tender note, and if she doesn’t buy it you could ask ‘do you really have to be jealous? Is it so hard to love someone straightforwardly?’ Leave it at that, don’t get schmaltzy, I don’t do schmaltzy very well, but play up the jealousy angle because all she’s got to go on is the purchase of a pair braces, that’s the way to do it.

She knows all that, which is why she doesn’t ask ‘with whom?’ but ‘when?’ it’s not so provocative, de Vèze replies:

‘I really don’t know.’

The ‘really’ is good, say ‘I don’t know’ by itself and you give the impression that you’re clutching at straws, floundering, in the wrong, whereas ‘really’ is a clincher, it lends your answer an edge of exasperation, most effective, but not with her, she doesn’t give a fig for ‘really’, she moves to what always comes next:

‘You never know anything.’

She clears her throat, cigarette and venom, only moments ago she was saying ‘I never know with you’, and now it’s ‘you never know anything’, it’s not a particularly serious thing to say, ‘you never know anything’, it might just mean something along the lines of ‘I’m feeling upset and want you to know’.

She holds your braces in her left hand, slides them between the thumb and forefinger of her right, the movement uncovers her breasts, a beauty spot high on the right breast, a chocolate chip, ‘You never know anything’, you feel her sadness, she’s not wrong, a person could lie back and settle into sadness like that, life, circumstances, work, you promise you’ll change, that you’ll learn how to know, each of you contributes a quotient of inertia, and then you start all over again, you’re back together for a couple of days, we’ve so little time, at least we shouldn’t quarrel, but after saying ‘you never know’ she added:

‘— ever.’

But there was nothing miserable at all about the way she said ‘You never know anything — ever’. Always a bad sign with her.

De Vèze stands facing the double bed, Muriel shows no intention of getting out of it, well ensconced, shoulders leaning back on the cushions propped up against the wall, now she’s playing with the braces like a catapult, like chest-expanders, she has always liked her hands, small, almost plump, but ‘plump’ is banned, much better say I love to nibble your fingertips, she’s just lobbed ‘ — ever’ at him and is waiting for him to ask for his braces back.

She looks him up and down, from head to toe, not possible to suck in his stomach or else his trousers will end up around his ankles, and if I hold my trousers up I’ll just look stupid, now where’s my other shoe got to, I must go.

A friend of de Vèze once lived for a week in Geneva with a lady chemist, a rich nymphomaniac who kept him under house arrest, she’d go out early in the morning while he was still asleep, she never locked the door, she just shut her pet lynx up in the hall, the lynx wasn’t particularly aggressive but I never wanted to put it to the test, I didn’t try to go out, every morning for a fortnight I read books, I also used the exercise bike, she’d be back at twelve-thirty, off duty until the next day, a whale of a time, absolutely, we’d go out for a breath of air in the afternoon, not for long, she was an expert, she could open your flies using only her toes.

Muriel has certainly chosen her moment, she looks at de Vèze, eyes dewy, eyelashes long, eyebrows arched, then a tetchy mannerism, her hand hooks her hair behind one ear, a little apple, at her best this woman is a little apple, vivacious, elegant, normally a couple of minutes at most would see him, braces, shoes, jacket, peck on the cheek, through the door.

He thought he’d left his braces attached to his trousers, but no, she had unfastened them last night while he was still wearing them, just playing, he’s never sufficiently on his guard, and she has this way, as soon as she’s swallowed the last mouthful of croissant, of kicking her legs out under the bedclothes, but he’s run out of time.

‘What are you thinking? You’ve as good as gone.’

And then a discharge of electricity, shoulders juddering fractiously against the cushions, I’m going to have to go looking for my shoes under the bed on all fours but I’m still in control of the situation, she’s calming down, her face which had looked so hard is softening, she’s forgotten the ‘— ever’, she’s not on the attack any more, soon I can bend down and reclaim my shoe from under the bed, she smiles, not a big smile, so as not to accentuate the quote-mark wrinkles around her mouth and nose, and she says: