“I’m going out,” he would say. So, out of devotion, out of caution too, so as not to leave such an impetuous husband on his own, Hedwige declared that she was quite capable of accompanying him. She was uncomfortable, however, in the tiny convertible; and if they went on foot, she became breathless trying to keep up with Pierre, in spite of his touching attempts to slow down; he was always a hundred metres ahead, which made conversation difficult. Aware that he was wearing her out, like a horse, he did his best to seek forgiveness by uttering kind words and putting on the almost feminine smile that was his great attraction.
“You follow me like my shadow, my sun.”
“Anyone would think you were running away from me,” panted an exhausted Hedwige.
And she tried hard to keep pace with Pierre, but whereas he ran, she trotted. Their rhythm was broken immediately. She was always leading with her left foot, and he with his right. He gained ground with his huge strides and would be three, and then five, chestnut trees ahead of her. She swayed in the air that he displaced; she could hear the muffled thud of his rubber heels; the breeze clung to her legs, ruffled her skirt, blew her hat off. She had to stop at the end of the pavement to let the traffic go by; he had woven his way through! He moved easily among the delivery men and scooters unloading, the children’s prams; he avoided the absent-minded man who was reading his newspaper as he walked, he steered an admirable course between the man on crutches wearing his Basque beret, the chattering nurses and the lady tugging on her constipated dog’s leash.
Hedwige could see Pierre’s back disappearing into the distance. How well she knew that back! How familiar those striding shoulders were, those conductor’s arms! Now, he was no larger than a hare. A second later, he looked like a fleeting bacillus. Hobbling among the taxis, the buses, the cyclists, along a twisting, rolling, collapsing road, she followed the tracks of the man in a hurry who had vanished. Then, all at once, worn out and having arrived at the house where she was expected, she bumped into nimble Pierre, who was on his way back.
“Have we arrived?” she asked.
“Not only have we arrived, but we’re setting off again. I’ve fixed everything, we’re going somewhere else.”
“How can one tell if one has arrived,” Hedwige said one day, “if one never stops?”
The more he rushed, the more emaciated Pierre became; he grew thinner as Hedwige filled out.
Every day, she became more resistant to anything that was not to do with her gestation, more deaf to the outside world. She enjoyed her condition intimately; she relished her physical life as a pregnant woman, she descended into that silo where her harvest was stored, with a short-sighted squint she tried to decipher something in the depths of her womb and she was already listening for the first jolts. As day followed day, she was beginning to stoop under her own weight.
She was now spending entire days in bed, not saying anything, not doing anything. A colossal and welcome weariness overcame her. Faced with so much turmoil and insufficiency, she displayed joyful resignation. Although she was languishing, she knew that beneath her indolence some very intense labour was going on; simultaneously motionless and breathtakingly active, not moving a little finger, but secretly a thousand times more impetuous than the lethargic Pierre, she was collaborating with nature with all her strength, building herself up inwardly, massaging, palpating or articulating her ribs, she was applying the pointing to this tiny living machine who would subsequently only have to distend all his limbs to become a six-foot man. A surge of dazzled amazement consumed her, which her husband failed to understand. She was adoring a sort of cryptic idol, a sacred frog in her private pond, to which she paid an obscure form of worship which Pierre was excluded from; excluded, frustrated, sent back to his manly tasks. Yet he could not help returning to her and wearying her with his demands.
One morning, she saw him coming in laden with flowers, looking affectionate.
“Darling, I have a great favour to ask you.”
“If it’s reasonable…” said Hedwige wearily.
“I’d so much like to know what’s going on inside there… to be able to pay closer attention to both of you.”
“But come on, Pierre, that’s not possible. Don’t be absurd all the time.”
“It’s not in the least absurd and, on the contrary, totally normal. I’d like an X-ray, that’s all.”
“X-rays are not made for the enjoyment of mere amateurs,” said Hedwige with a laugh. “Let me sleep now, you’re tiring me. I was kept awake all night by cramp. I don’t know how I can stretch out my poor swollen legs any more.”
Pierre kissed her and felt sorry for her, but returned to the offensive.
“Please understand me, I want to know how things are going on inside you.”
“No, no,” Hedwige replied, embarrassed and jealous of her secret.
“I want to see my child.”
“What a strange idea! How childish you are! What do you expect to see? A beam of light under a door?”
“I want to see this little creature and without further ado. Promise me,” he said in a rage.
She gave in grudgingly because these quarrels exhausted her.
The day Pierre received the large photograph stuck to a piece of card, he leapt in the air and could not contain himself.
“I can hardly see anything. The image…”
In a mist of greyness, the bottom of the ribcage could be made out, the murky shadow of the mother’s pelvis and the skeleton of the well-developed child, head low down, knees next to the chin, making a motionless somersault, with the ringed backbone filling out, and looking like a shrivelled-up Peruvian mummy, as in the most ancient human tombs, as in Neolithic earthenware jars.
“How ugly it is!” said a disappointed Pierre.
“It’s beautiful,” said an enthusiastic Hedwige.
A few days later, it was something else. This time, Pierre wanted to listen to the heart of the embryo beating on the stethoscope. He bent over this large inhabited cavern that was Hedwige’s body, pressed his forehead to hers, plugged in the two earpieces, listening carefully for the whirr, for the delicate throbbing that was his child’s heart.
“If you continue to harass me like this, he’ll have convulsions,” cried Hedwige in exasperation.
CHAPTER XXI
HEDWIGE WENT INTO her husband’s bedroom, having made sure that he had gone out.
High-ceilinged, bright, with its fine natural lime-wood panelling, sparsely, yet nicely furnished, it was the most attractive room in the house. At the time they moved in, Hedwige had insisted that Pierre should have this room; seeing what his boisterousness had done to it, she must have regretted doing so. But Hedwige, out of loyalty, did not allow herself any regrets. She made up for this by taking advantage of Pierre’s absences to slip into his bedroom and impose her order on the disorder. Left to Pierre, the clutter sprang up with the spontaneity of a virgin forest. It was enough for him to breathe and bedlam ensued. He had an astonishing gift for disorganization and truly brilliant inconsistency; he created chaos in less time than it took the Demiurge to put an end to it.