After five or six trips to Calais — it was summertime and my courses had tailed off, and London, now invaded by old ladies in mauve and lilac dresses, seemed like a cage full of strange birds — I noticed that Marta was always accompanied by complete strangers with whom she tried passively to strike up a conversation. They were usually peculiar people — some were frankly eccentric — who seemed to have just landed in town and to be unable to get their bearings. When I bumped into her in such circumstances, she’d greet me with an imperceptible nod, making it clear that frankly she didn’t want me to go near her. One evening at dusk I saw her on a bench in the sickly, brine-ravaged gardens that surround the Calais lighthouse seated between two quite elderly gentlemen who looked English (Marta had an excellent grasp of English). She sat there, as always, not saying a word, listening, passively attentive. The two men spoke most volubly. Evidently, the place — a favorite for loving couples — is very isolated. When twilight faded, the lighthouse lit up at the top of its white cylindrical tower and the gardens were bathed in a milky light.
Her comings and goings notwithstanding, one day I did manage to invite her to dinner. I found that young lady’s company most agreeable, precisely because it was so light and imperceptible — because she never got on your nerves. It’s a demonstrable fact that people are apt to get on one another’s nerves. It is most likely that this tendency to poke our noses where they’re not wanted is why people find it hard to get on. I have never taken it too far. And neither have I allowed people to probe my affairs too closely. I like to be with people who can remain silent for a quarter of an hour, looking at the clouds or simply smoking. These quiet pauses can bring people together much more than the usual endless — and often poisonous — discussions. Marta was a passive, silent type — like some wondrous vegetable matter. She was as blank and still as a bunch of roses in a vase by your side.
Marta knew a bistro that served unpretentious country cooking on the Rue des Maréchaux — a very long, straight street that’s the main arterial road through the modern part of town. We went there for dinner. They gave us a boeuf bourguignon that was quite spectacular. The beef displayed a generous grandeur from times of yore on an imperceptible bed of aromatic herbs. The gravy was thick and deep with divinely subtle eddies. The binding, made by a master’s hand, was just right and welcoming on the palate. We washed that richness down with a Beaujolais that was anonymous, like all sublime things. We then ate a cheese that had the same effect on me as if my legs had been reinvigorated. Cheese, Roquefort, if at all possible, enlightened by red wine, is a crucial element that triggers the greatest curiosity, and that evening I’d have gladly reveled in the most high-flown dialogue. I felt nostalgia for my beloved friends in Montparnasse. An excellent filter coffee, accompanied by several glasses of Calvados, rounded off the meal. In France, that seems so cold and monotone on the outside, the fine, exquisite things of life are all provincial, if not local.
After our dinner, as I lit up one of those cheap cigars that are colloquially referred to as “elephants’ legs,” I thought, through the smoke, that Marta’s eyes possessed a brighter glint.
“Your friends,” I said, “must have missed you tonight …”
“My friends? Who are my friends?” she retorted vivaciously. “I sometimes feel I don’t have any … Are you, for example, a friend?”
“Who can say?”
“Bah …! Don’t make me laugh! If I were to believe you were, I’d be unforgivably frivolous.”
“But aren’t the Greek Panaiotis and Mr Thomson friends of yours?”
“Of course they are … But not what you imagine.…”
“No, no, I’m sorry! I’ve very little in the way of imagination. If I’ve spoken perhaps rather equivocally about your friendship with Panaiotis and Thomson it’s because I think they’re boring, however funny they try to be.”
“You’re wrong. You don’t really know them. They’re both very serious, much more than casual acquaintance might suggest.”
“If you say so …”
“It’s not because I say so. Their acts bear …”
“Please, mademoiselle, this M Panaiotis is a tiny restaurant’s third-rate wit. Every barbershop, every meeting place in this country has its joker who simply repeats the cracks from Le Rire or La Vie Parisienne. Besides, his frogs are insufferable …”
“Nothing much I can do about that. I like frogs …”
“Well, I don’t.”
“That’s not a sin. You must come from a harsh, mountainous country. I’m from a country full of water and canals.”
“Mlle Marta, where might that be, if it’s not a rude question?”
“From Bruges, in Flanders.”
“Do you also think that Thomson is a serious fellow? Frankly, mademoiselle … Mr Thomson lives in my hotel. He’s regarded as a complete idiot. Only three hours ago he told me that he is writing a comprehensive history of firearms …”
“How interesting!” exclaimed Marta, smiling broadly, a smile I’d never seen her make, never ever.
“What can I say? He doesn’t conform to any known type of Englishman. He says he spends most of the year outside his country so he can play roulette, and nobody has even seen him play a hand of piquet. He always acts like an eager beaver, as if he was in the fire service, and always seems to have something on his mind. And if all he does is go from one café to the next … One can’t deny that the English are rather phlegmatic, with their stiff upper lips. Mr Thomson, on the other hand, is always frantic and on edge. This doesn’t mean I don’t think he is highly intelligent. He argues his defense of Rodin’s sculpture extremely well. Now, if you think he’s a serious fellow, you must mean he’s a serious customer.”
“I’ll ignore that last remark,” she said, smiling sadly, “because you’re going to pay for our supper …”
“Marta, I think you are so adorable.”
“Let’s resume our conversation, if you don’t mind. You believe that these two individuals aren’t serious. As you don’t know them, you are speaking out of your hat. I beg you, let’s forget what you said: the human comedy is only the surface of things. A time comes when the comedy ends …”
“But do you know what these gentlemen are like when they’re not play-acting?”
“Of course I do! I know them in a different ambience …”
“A more intimate ambience shall we say?”
“No, monsieur, not more intimate … More passionate, if you prefer …”
Immediately after she’d said that, the situation became one that’s difficult to describe. Through the smoke haze hanging over the place, I saw Marta blanch and start to enter that state of depression and blankness I’d seen at different times. I asked her a few more questions that she answered monosyllabically, as if she were in a dream. I tried to find out whether I’d upset her at some point in the conversation, something I reluctantly had to accept that I must have done. I gave her my apologies that she listened to with a frosty shrug of her shoulders. I ordered more drinks — but she refused to drink a drop more alcohol. At such moments of numbness, her body seemed to lose volume and height. She stooped her back slightly. Her expression became doggishly forlorn. She fell silent.