“Why all this secrecy? Why not tell your wife?” Mrs. Taneran would have liked her daughter-in-law to suffer in turn from the agony of being in debt. But Jacques had not involved his wife in any questions regarding money, and for good reason. By the same token, he had never wanted her to know his family, because it repulsed him. She had died without visiting even once.
No doubt Jacques had loved her more than any other, and in a more sincere and lasting way. For a long time Muriel had kept up the image of the ideal woman that she had had at the beginning of their relationship.
The tragedy had erupted this particular night, brutal and unexpected. It was probably going to resolve the tangled mess they were trapped in and strangely facilitate its elimination. In reality, each one had expected this conclusion throughout the months that Jacques and his mother’s ordeal had lasted.
Toward ten o’clock in the evening, Maud heard her older brother calling her. As she approached, Jacques lifted his swollen face and then sank back into his pillow, finding himself there, as it were, at the heart of his sadness. His suffering absorbed him as much as it prostrated him. He was no doubt amazed that it was possible to go on living with this sorrow.
She sat down beside him and partially opened up his tense fingers, grabbing a strand of hair that he was clenching. Immediately he slumped down, let himself go slack, and moaned in total abandonment. “No doubt about it, she was a true blonde,” said Maud. “Her hair was smooth and fine, like a child’s.” He gave a weak, almost complicit smile, to show her she had fully grasped the direction of his thoughts. He cast off his pain for a moment and smiled at the memory of Muriel.
Maud explained to him at length that he shouldn’t consider this death to be an unusual event. What was extraordinary was that, as she spoke to him, an inner voice repeated her own words, which took on a different meaning than the one she wanted to give them. As for Jacques, he wished only to bring back the memory of the deceased. He described that horrible night when she had been brought to him with her chest crushed.
“The chums who were with her brought her back to me,” he said. “They left her with me because they thought she had had it. But even though she had lost consciousness, she was still breathing, and I kept her all night before taking her to the hospital.”
He stopped from time to time and then resumed, looking absorbed in his thoughts. “She didn’t have any wounds, so I thought she had passed out. I put her under the covers, but little by little she got cold and I felt the warmth of her body leaving her. I thought at a certain point I was going crazy. She was laughing, I swear, the same way as when she made fun of me. I began to talk to her idiotically all night… It was only at daybreak that I understood, when I looked at her in the light. I saw the grimace I had taken for her smile. I took her to the hospital—she didn’t die until this evening.”
“What do you think…?” Maud asked.
“I have no idea, none. She told me she had never been so happy. But there’s no reason to think it was an accident. The street was free of traffic and it wasn’t raining. Even the chums are in doubt. I never caused her the slightest bit of pain, though. She was the only one, the only one I ever loved.”
He readily repeated the last sentence. As soon as he shook himself and stopped being absorbed in a very private contemplation of his sorrow, he began to cry again. “The only one,” he kept repeating, “the only one I ever loved.”
Being embarrassed, he didn’t know quite how to express himself. “I called you because I don’t have a cent… I had to borrow so I could have her better taken care of. And you know I can’t ask Mother for that…” Maud looked at him with his big, lucid eyes, his face devoid of all expression. She thought about the letter from the bank that was waiting on the buffet.
They had already given him so much money! Didn’t he always skillfully extract some benefit from the emotions he caused? In the past minute he had been playing up his misfortune to his advantage. She hesitated, however, to leave the room. It was astonishing to see him lower himself to this point, just to get a bit of cash. And, of course, she might be mistaken. Jacques himself, who seemed so pitiful, probably remained convinced of his own sincerity.
Finding her composure again, she weighed the pros and cons quickly, like someone who is used to these kinds of deals. Already, Jacques’s look had hardened because she had been slow to reply. “How much do you want?”
He specified the amount in a small, humble voice. He felt obliged to add, his eyes glistening as much from crying as from greed, “I rushed around all day trying to hunt down some dough, but there was no way to get hold of any of my buddies. It’s ridiculous, for an amount like that, ridiculous.”
Maud didn’t answer. She got her purse, counted the little money she had, and replied, “You’ll have the rest tomorrow.” Embarrassed, she avoided looking at him. She didn’t hand him the bills, but just put them on his chest.
CHAPTER 2
JACQUES BURIED HIS WIFE THE NEXT DAY. MRS. TANERAN accompanied him. They felt suddenly reconciled upon returning from this bleak ceremony. In the coolness of the morning, the sap made the buds burst open, and puffs of air already carried the odor of hot tarmac and dust. The smell made one’s nose tingle and put winter far behind. Summer was coming, early. Jacques and his mother talked about leaving for Uderan.
“That will put you back on your feet, dear, and at the same time I can keep a closer watch on my own interests. Besides, we haven’t gone for such a long time…”
Jacques didn’t say anything. He already felt his strength returning. Since his childhood illnesses, he had never again appreciated the comfort of convalescence and almost dreaded the moment when his insatiable nature would take over. For now, he let himself glide happily down the gentle slope of the sunny boulevard he was descending on his mother’s arm. He should have been sad, but he wasn’t really, although he didn’t mind being consoled, while his stiff bearing and toneless, dreary voice expressed a decency he felt proper to keep for some time to come. Because he remained quiet, his mother added, “As for Taneran, he’ll get along fine without us, since obviously he won’t want to come, as usual.” (When she mentioned her husband to her older son, she always called him “Taneran.”)
Uderan was in Dordogne. The Tanerans had settled there after their marriage. Henry was born there. Although the purchase of the property had soon proved to be a poor investment for them, they had nevertheless lived there for seven years and had never thought of selling it. When they had gone to live in Paris, despite the low income derived from the tenant farmers, they had kept the place.
Mrs. Taneran remained the only one who occasionally remembered its existence, whenever she feared the future darkened by political events. “Happily we have Uderan! Blessed are those who possess land!” she would proclaim sen-tentiously. They had lived through some long, difficult years confined to a few rooms of the house, which was too big.
For seven years they devoted themselves to restoring the estate. But Uderan had belonged to a whole series of people who, not coming from the region, understood very little about how to cultivate it, and it was extremely dilapidated. The fruit trees, poorly pruned over a long period of time, and the vines, much too old, produced less and less fruit. Only the fields had not suffered too much, as they fed the six cows of the tenant farmer, whereas the woods that encircled the domain, which people had neglected to cut for years, were quite dense.