Pierre looked at her, admiring once more the beauty of her face and that silent melody that emanated from her. She was wearing a turban made of very hairy fur that called to mind something from sixteenth-century Poland and made one want her to wear (which she was not wearing) a slightly orange-red dolman. Pierre felt quite affectionate when he recalled that she had not laughed when Fromentine had started to tease him, and that on the contrary she had seemed saddened. No doubt Fromentine combined the natural maliciousness of redheads with the innocent sadism of girls who suffer and enjoy making others suffer because they are unhappy themselves.
The waiter came to present the plat du jour: duck with peas.
“It’s very nice, very nice,” said Pierre, “but just leave the duck on our table. Dishes that are presented to one ceremoniously only to be spirited away immediately afterwards drive me to despair.”
“But I’m about to bring it back to you, monsieur!” said the waiter, half turning around.
Pierre grabbed him by the apron.
“No, no, my friend, bring the chopping board and tell the maître d’hôtel to carve it here, in front of us. I’m fed up with waiting!”
Fromentine squirmed. Hedwige smiled in embarrassment. In this way did Pierre gradually ruin an evening that had begun so well. There he was sitting opposite two beautiful, undiscovered girls, at a well-attended table, in a warm restaurant, where everything was progressing normally, according to ritual, with that quiet sophistication and smooth good manners that generations of Parisians had perfected. And yet he had only one desire, one longing, which was to create panic and commotion there. “What a boor I am!” he told himself. “If all these delectable things collapse on me one day, I shall be sorry, but I shall have brought it upon myself.”
Pierre had already wolfed down his duck before the waiter had even begun to reheat the legs over the burner. At a nearby table, a woman was shelling some fresh nuts.
“Let’s hope they’re not planning to offer us any of those!” sighed Pierre as he stole an apple from the passing trolley, which he ate without peeling it.
Fortunately, the soufflé did not take long and the Boisrosé girls did not take coffee, which put a smile back on the face of their host.
“We only drink what we make ourselves; away from home they only ever have Costa Rican. The family coffee comes from Anse à Banane.”
“Anse à Banane! What is this wonderful place?”
“It’s the Boisrosés’ house, in the West Indies,” said Fromentine. “I’ve never been there, nor to the Trou Dauphin, the sugar cane plantation that belongs to us through our mother’s side.”
“If you don’t accept a glass of rum after that, mademoiselle!”
“When I was little, my nanny used to give me baths in rum. It’s put me off rum for good,” said Hedwige.
“I’m sorry,” said Pierre. “They only have glasses here. I hadn’t anticipated baths.”
Hedwige’s voice had a strong accent when she pronounced the word rum: the initial r was slightly suppressed, in the Creole way, followed by a low nasal sound that made the whole of her palate tremble like an echoing chamber and then fade away behind her teeth as the final m died on her sealed lips.
“I’ve heard it said that the smell of molasses hovers over the Antilles just as the scent of the maquis does over Corsica,” said Pierre.
“Molasses, do you think that’s a nice smell? It stinks of old leather!” cried Fromentine, bursting out laughing.
“Used you to take tafia baths or just rum?” asked Pierre, who was trying desperately to make Hedwige pronounce the r again that had enchanted him.
Pierre had forgotten it was time to leave, but all of a sudden he stood up, remembering that it was past ten o’clock.
“You gave me a fright,” said Hedwige.
“A fright?”
“The Boisrosé family are carefree and wonderfully indolent and are not used to being aroused with a start,” said Fromentine. “Where we come from, the Negresses wake you up by pressing their hands on the soles of your feet. It’s the place that’s farthest from the heart. You don’t feel any shock.”
They rose from the table. Pierre threw his overcoat over his shoulders, while the Boisrosé girls disappeared behind that mysterious cloakroom door where all women go never to be seen again, a ceremony that normally made him despair, but which he endured this evening without hopping from one foot to another too much.
They crossed over the Champs-Elysées. The cinema was showing an absurd film, full of well-known stars, all prominently displayed, with faces exposing teeth as large as flagstones and black lips in which every crevice could be seen, with twenty-year-old skins revealing to the audience wrinkles deeper and closer than the Colorado Grand Canyon seen through a telescope. Not a single eyelash or hair was spared. Pierre was right: what passivity of feeling, what lacklustre incidents! One would never have thought that this story had been commissioned by an intelligent human being.
“It’s unbearable,” Pierre said. “Suppose we went somewhere else?”
“But where can we go at this time?”
“To the Excelsior. They show very good documentaries.”
Scarcely had he uttered these words than he dashed off. They tore after him, but he had gone ahead to find his car and drive it out of its parking space. He was back a moment later. Hedwige and Fromentine had scarcely closed their doors before Pierre sped off and pulled up on the Rond-Point, outside the Excelsior. There, he drummed his fingers fruitlessly at the kiosk window, for it was late and the woman at the cash desk had already closed her till, and leapt back into the driver’s seat brandishing a box ticket.
When they got to their seats the interval was coming to an end and the bell was already ringing. Pierre settled himself in between these two perfect bodies. He felt totally happy now. He had had his outburst. The evening was going in the right direction. The moment of difficulty had passed. He shared his smile between his two companions. They arranged a future meeting.
“We do need to see each other again to talk business,” said Pierre.
“You must come to dinner in Saint-Germain. Mother would be glad to meet you,” said Hedwige.
“There’ll just be one course, and we promise that you won’t have to wait,” added Fromentine.
The lights were dimmed. Pierre was hoping that a healthy dose of current affairs would fill them with a surge of impulsive vitality, what with the shouts of the crowd, the sporting activities and the cavalry charges — in short, the whole ebb and flow of contemporary beauty in action.
“Now we’ll have fun!” he said playfully, rubbing his hands together.
The glare of the advertisements disappeared. After the orchestra had dragged its way through a Johann Strauss waltz, the screen, alas, announced a slow-motion documentary:
THE DIGESTION OF THE BOA
“There are days when nothing succeeds,” sighed Pierre.
“Have you had enough?” asked Hedwige sympathetically.
“Well, I mean… Saint-Germain’s a long way. I suggest we go back.”
After Pierre had dropped them home, Fromentine undressed in her bedroom and then came and sat on her sister’s bed.
“He’s a weird fellow, your friend.”
“Anyway, he’s not boring,” Hedwige replied. “Do you think he had fun?”
“To begin with, yes, but he seemed to be in a great hurry, in a hurry to leave us. He must have had another rendezvous,” she insinuated.
“Not necessarily.”
“Of course he did,” Fromentine went on, teasing her.
“I think he probably wanted to be on his own,” said Hedwige. “He’s an eccentric.”