They stepped out into the street. It had begun to rain. Joan stopped. “Ravic! Do you love me?”
“Yes, Joan. More than you think.”
She leaned against him. “Sometimes it doesn’t look like it.”
“On the contrary. Otherwise I’d never tell you such things.”
“You’d better tell me other things.”
He looked into the rain and smiled. “Love is not a pond into which one can always look for one’s reflection, Joan. Love has its ebb and flow. And wrecks and sunken cities and octopuses and storms and chests with gold and pearls. But the pearls lie deep.”
“I don’t know anything about that. Love is belonging together. Forever.”
Forever, he thought. The old fairy tale. When one can’t even hold the minute.
Shivering, she buttoned her coat. “I wish it were summer,” she said. “I’ve never longed for it as I have this year.”
———
She took her black evening gown out of the wardrobe and flung it on the bed. “How I hate this sometimes. Always the same black dress! Always the same Scheherazade! Always the same! Always the same!”
Ravic looked up. He didn’t say anything.
“Don’t you understand?” she asked.
“Oh yes—”
“Why don’t you take me away from here, beloved?”
“Where to?”
“Anywhere.”
Ravic unwrapped the bottle of calvados and drew the cork. Then he fetched a glass and filled it. “Come,” he said. “Drink this.”
She shook her head. “It doesn’t help. Sometimes it doesn’t help to drink. Sometimes nothing helps. I don’t want to go there tonight, to those idiots.”
“Stay here.”
“And then?”
“Phone that you are sick.”
“Nevertheless, I’ll have to go tomorrow. It will be even worse then.”
“You could be sick for a few days.”
“That’s just the same.” She looked at him. “What can it be? What’s wrong with me, Ravic? Is it the rain? Is it this wet darkness? Sometimes it’s like lying in a coffin. These gray afternoons that drown me. I had forgotten it a while ago, I was happy being with you in that little restaurant—why did you have to talk about things like leaving and being left? I don’t want to know or hear anything about that. It makes me sad, it holds pictures out to me which I don’t want to see, and it makes me restless. I know you don’t mean it this way, but it hits me. It hits me, and then rain and darkness come. You don’t know that. You are strong.”
“Strong?” Ravic repeated.
“Yes.”
“How do you know that?”
“You have no fear.”
“I haven’t any fear left. That’s not the same, Joan.”
She wasn’t listening to what he said. She walked across the room with her long strides for which the room was too small. She always walked as if she were walking against a nonexistent wind. “I want to get away from all this,” she said. “Away from this hotel, this night club with those greedy eyes, away from it all.” She stopped. “Ravic! Must we live the way we live? Can’t we live like other people who love each other? Can’t we be together and have things that belong to us around us, and evenings and security, instead of these suitcases and empty days and these hotel rooms where one is a stranger?”
Ravic’s face was indecipherable. There it comes, he thought. He had expected it any time. “Do you actually see that for us, Joan?”
“Why not? Other people have it! Warmth, belonging together, a few rooms, and when one closes one’s door the restlessness has gone and it doesn’t creep through the walls as it does here.”
“Do you really see that?” Ravic repeated.
“Yes.”
“A neat little apartment with a neat little bourgeois life. A neat little security on the edge of the abyss. Do you really see that?”
“You could just as well call it something else,” she said defiantly. “Something not quite so—contemptuous. When one is in love one finds other names for it.”
“It remains the same, Joan. Do you really see that? Neither of us is made for it.”
She stopped. “I am.”
Ravic smiled. There were tenderness, irony, and a shadow of sadness in it. “Joan,” he said, “not you either. You even less than I. But that isn’t the only reason. There is still another.”
“Yes,” she replied with bitterness. “I know.”
“No, Joan. You don’t know. But I’ll tell you. It will be better so. You shouldn’t think what you are thinking now.”
She still stood before him. “Let’s get it over quickly,” he said. “And don’t ask many questions afterwards.”
She did not answer. Her face was empty. Suddenly it was again the face she had had formerly. He took her hands. “I live illegally in France,” he said. “I have no papers. That’s the real reason. That’s why I’ll never be able to rent an apartment. Nor can I marry if I love someone. I need proofs of my identity and visas for that. I don’t have them. I’m not even permitted to work. I must do it clandestinely. I can never live otherwise than now.”
She stared at him. “Is that true?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “There are a couple of thousand people who are living in a similar way. I’m sure you know that, too. Everyone knows it nowadays. I am one of them.” He smiled and let her hands go. “A man without a future, as Morosow calls calls it.”
“Yes—but—”
“I’m even very well off. I work, I live, I have you—what are a few inconveniences?”
“And the police?”
“The police don’t bother too much about it. If they happened to catch me, I’d only be deported, that’s all. But that’s improbable. And now go and telephone your night club that you won’t come. We’ll have this evening for ourselves. The whole evening. Tell them that you’re sick. If they want a certificate I’ll get you one from Veber.”
She did not go. “Deported,” she said as if she could understand it only slowly. “Deported? From France? And then you would be away?”
“For a short while only.”
She did not seem to hear him. “Away!” she repeated. “Away? And what would I do then?”
Ravic smiled. “Yes,” he said. “What would you do then?”
She sat there, leaning on her elbows as if paralyzed. “Joan,” Ravic said, “I have been here for two years and it has not happened.”
Her face did not change. “And if it should happen in spite of that?”
“Then I would be back soon. In a week or two. It’s like a trip, nothing more. And now call the Scheherazade.”
She got up hesitantly. “What shall I say?”
“That you have bronchitis. Speak a little hoarsely.”
She walked over to the telephone. Then she came quickly back. “Ravic—”
He freed himself carefully. “Come,” he said. “Let’s forget it. It’s really a blessing. It protects us against becoming rentiers of passion. It keeps love pure—it remains a flame—and doesn’t become the stove for the family cabbage. Now go and telephone.”
She lifted the receiver. He looked at her while she spoke. At first her heart wasn’t in it; she still looked at him as if he were going to be arrested immediately. But then she began gradually to lie, easily and casually. She was actually lying more than was necessary. Her face became alive and reflected the pain in her chest which she was describing. Her voice became more tired and steadily hoarser and finally was punctuated by coughs. She was no longer looking at Ravic; she looked straight ahead and was completely absorbed in her role. He watched her silently and then drank a big gulp of calvados. No complexes, he thought. A mirror which gives a wonderful reflection—but which holds nothing.
Joan put the receiver down and smoothed her hair. “They believed everything.”
“You did it first rate.”
“They said I should stay in bed. And if it wasn’t completely gone by tomorrow, for
heaven’s sake, stay there then.”
“You see! That takes care of tomorrow too.”
“Yes,” she said, gloomy for a second. “If you take it that way.” Then she came to him. “You frightened me, Ravic. Tell me it isn’t true. You often say things just for the sake of saying them. Tell me it isn’t true. Not the way you said it.”
“It isn’t true.”
She leaned her head on his shoulder. “It can’t be true. I don’t want to be alone again. I’m nothing when I’m alone. You must stay with me. I’m nothing without you, Ravic.”
Ravic looked down at her. “Joan,” he said. “Sometimes you are like the janitor’s daughter and sometimes Diana of the woods. And sometimes both.”
Her head did not move on his shoulder. “What am I now?”
He smiled. “Diana with the silver bow. Invulnerable and deadly.”
“You should tell me that more often.”
Ravic remained silent. She had not understood what he meant. Nor was it necessary. She took what she liked the way she liked and did not bother about anything else. But wasn’t it just this that attracted him? Whoever wanted someone who was like himself? And who would ask for morals in love? That was an invention of the weak. And the dirge for the victims.
“What are you thinking of?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Something,” he said. “We’ll go away from here for a few days, Joan. There where the sun is. To Cannes or Antibes. To hell with all caution! To hell too with all dreams of three-room apartments and the vulture cry of the middle class! And to hell with the darkness and the cold and the rain! Aren’t you Budapest and the odor of blooming chestnuts at night when the entire city, hot and longing for summer, is sleeping with the moon?”
She had straightened up quickly. “Do you really mean that?”
“Yes.”
“But—the police—”
“To hell with the police. It is no more dangerous there than here. Resorts for tourists are not so painstakingly checked. Particularly not the expensive hotels. Have you never been there?”
“No. Never. I was only in Italy and on the Adriatic. When are we leaving?”
“In two or three weeks. That’s the best time.”
“But have we any money?”
“We have some. In two weeks we’ll have enough.”
“We could live in a small pension,” she said hastily.
“You don’t belong in a small pension. You belong in a hole like this or a first-rate hotel. We’ll live in the Cap Hôtel in Antibes. Besides, it’s very sensible. Those hotels are entirely safe and no one asks for papers there. In the next few days I have to carve open the stomach of someone of importance, a governor or minister; he’ll provide the money we still need.”
Joan got up quickly. Her face was changed. “Come,” she said. “Let me have more of that old calvados, Ravic! It really seems to be a calvados of dreams.” She went to the bed and lifted the evening gown. “My God! And I only have these two old black rags!”
14
ANDRÉ DURANT WAS honestly incensed. “There’s no working with you any more,” he declared.
Ravic shrugged his shoulders. He had learned from Veber that Durant was to receive ten thousand francs for the operation. Unless he arranged with him in advance how much he was to get, Durant would send him only two hundred francs. That’s what he had done last time.
“Half an hour before the operation. I would never have thought it of you, Doctor Ravic.”
“Neither would I,” Ravic said.
“You know you can always rely on my generosity. I don’t understand why you are so businesslike now. At the very moment when the patient knows that we have his life in our hands it is painful for me to talk about money.”
“It isn’t for me,” Ravic replied.
Durant looked at him for a while. His wrinkled face with the white goatee expressed dignity and indignation. He adjusted his gold-rimmed pince-nez. “How much were you thinking of?” he asked reluctantly.
“Two thousand francs.”
“What?” Durant looked as though he had been shot and could not yet believe it. “Ridiculous,” he then said briefly.
“All right,” Ravic replied. “You can easily find someone else. Take Binot; he is excellent.”
He reached for his coat and put it on. Durant stared at him. His dignified face labored. “Wait a minute,” he said when Ravic picked up his hat. “You can’t let me down like that! Why didn’t you tell me this yesterday?”
“Yesterday you were in the country and I could not reach you.”
“Two thousand francs! Do you know that even I won’t ask that much? The patient is a friend of mine whom I can only charge for my expenses.”
Durant looked like the Heavenly Father in a child’s book. He was seventy years old, a fairly good diagnostician, but a poor surgeon. His excellent practice had been based mainly on the work of his former assistant, Binot, who, two years ago, had finally succeeded in making himself independent. Since that time Durant had engaged Ravic for his more difficult operations. Ravic was known for making the smallest incisions and working in such a fashion that hardly any scar was left. Durant was an excellent connoisseur of Bordeaux wines, a favorite guest at elegant parties, and his patients came mostly from there.
“If I had known that,” he murmured.
He had always known it. That was why before important operations he remained for one or two days in his house in the country. He wanted to avoid talking about the price before the operation. Afterwards it was simpler—then he could hold out hopes for the next time—and then the next time it was the same thing. This time, to the astonishment of Durant, instead of coming in at the last moment Ravic had arrived half an hour before the appointed time for the operation and so had got hold of him before the patient was anesthetized. There was no possibility of using this as a reason for breaking off the discussion.
The nurse put her head through the open door. “Shall we begin the anesthetic, professor?”
Durant looked at her. Then imploringly and compassionately at Ravic. Ravic answered his look compassionately but firmly. “What do you think, Doctor Ravic?”
“The decision rests with you, professor.”
“Just a minute, nurse. We do not yet see the procedure quite clearly.” The nurse withdrew. Durant turned toward Ravic. “Now what?” he asked reproachfully.
Ravic put his hands in his pockets. “Postpone the operation until tomorrow—or for an hour and take Binot.”
Binot had performed almost all of Durant’s operations for twenty years and had made no headway because Durant had systematically cut him off from almost all chance of becoming independent and had always characterized him as a better-class underling. He hated Durant and would demand at least five thousand francs, Ravic knew that much. Durant knew it, too.
“Doctor Ravic,” he said. “Our profession shouldn’t be involved in this sort of business discussion.”
“I agree with you.”
“Why don’t you leave it to my discretion to settle this matter? Haven’t you always been satisfied up to now?”
“Never,” Ravic said.
“You never told me that.”
“Because it wouldn’t have done any good. Besides, I wasn’t very much interested. This time I am interested. I need the money.”
The nurse came in again. “The patient is restless, professor.”
Durant stared at Ravic. Ravic stared back. It was difficult to get money from a Frenchman, that he knew. More difficult than from a Jew. A Jew sees the transaction; a Frenchman only the money he is going to hand out.
“One minute, nurse,” Durant said. “Take the pulse, blood pressure and temperature.”
“I have done that.”
“Then start the anesthetic.”
The nurse left. “All right then,” Durant said, “I’ll give you a thousand.”
“Two thousand,” Ravic corrected him.
Durant did not consent. He stroked his goatee. “Listen, Ravic,” he said then with warmth. “As a refugee who isn’t allowed to practice—”
“I should not perform any operations for you,” Ravic interrupted him calmly. Now he expected to hear the traditional comment that he ought to be grateful to be tolerated in the country.
But Durant forewent that. He could see that he wasn’t getting anywhere and time pressed. “Two thousand,” he said bitterly, as if each word were a bank note fluttering out of his throat. “I’ll have to pay it out of my own pocket. I thought you would remember what I’ve done for you.”
He waited. Strange, Ravic thought, that bloodsuckers like to moralize. This old cheat with the rosette of the Legion of Honor in his buttonhole reproaches me for being exploited by him, instead of being ashamed. And he even believes it.
“Well, two thousand,” Durant said. “Two thousand,” he repeated. It was as if he had said home, love, God, green asparagus, young partridges, old St. Emilion. Gone!—“Well, can we start now?”
The man had a fat potbelly and thin arms and legs. Ravic happened to know who he was. His name was Leval and he was a high official whose department handled refugee matters. Veber had told him this as a special joke. Leval was a name known to every refugee in the International.
Ravic made the first cut quickly. The skin opened like a book. He clipped it tight and looked at the yellowish fat which popped up. “We’ll take a few pounds off as a free gift. Then he can eat them on again,” he said to Durant.
Durant did not answer. Ravic removed the layers of fat in order to get close to the muscles. There he lies now, the little god of the refugees, he thought. The man who holds hundreds of little fates in his hand, in this whitish swollen hand which lies here now lifeless. The man who had ordered the deportation of old Professor Meyer who hadn’t enough strength left to walk once more the road to Calvary and who had simply hanged himself in a closet of the Hôtel International the day before his deportation. In the closet, because there was no hook elsewhere. He could do it; he was so emaciated that a clothes hook was strong enough to hold him. Not much more than a bundle of clothes with a bit of strangled life inside—that was what the maid had found in the morning. If this potbelly had had mercy, Meyer would still be alive. “Clips,” he said. “Tampon.”