"The postmaster-1 think he was the postmaster, but he may have been the mayorfollowed them home, and he borrowed a ladder from the baker and he climbed through Corinne's window, but, you see, she had gone into the next room with Francois, but he did not hear Mme. Bompierre coming and she came in and saw him at the top of the ladder and thought . . ."
"Who was Mme. Bompierre?" I asked, turning my head to see the wash basin, where sometimes she propped reminders* among the lotions.
"I told you. She was Corinne's mother and she was looking for a husband because she was a widow . . ."
She sat on the bed and put her hand inside my shirt. "It was very funny," she said.
"Kiss me, Phuong." She had no coquetry. She did at once what I asked and she went on with the story of the film. Just so she would have made love if I had asked her to, straight away, peeling off her trousers without question, and afterwards have taken up the thread of Mme. Bompier-re's story and the postmaster's predicament. "Has a call* come for me?" "Yes."
"Why didn't you give it me?"
"It is too soon for you to work. You must lie down and rest." "This may not be work." She gave it me and I saw that it had been opened. It read: "Four hundred words background wanted effect de Lattre's departure on military and political situation."
"Yes," I said. "It is work. How did you know? Why did you open it?"
"I thought it was from. your wife. I hoped that it was good news." "Who translated it for you?"
"I took it to my sister."
"If it had been bad news would you have left me; Phliong?"
She rubbed her hand across my chest to reassure me, not realising that it was words this time I required, however untrue. "Would you lifee a pipe? There is a letter for you. I think perhaps it is from her." "Did you open that too?"
"I don't open your letters. Telegrams are public. The clerks read them." This envelope was among tihe scarves. She took it gingerly out and laid it on the bed. I recognised the handwriting. "If this is bad news what will you...?" I knew well that it could be nothing else but bad. A telegram might have meant a sudden act of generosity: a letter could only mean explanation, justification . . . so I broke off my question, for there was no honesty in asking for the kind of promise no one can keep.
"What are you afraid of?" Phuong asked, and I thought, Tm afraid of the loneliness, of the Press Club and the bed-sitting-room,* I'm afraid of Pyle.'
"Make me a brandy and soda," I said. I looked at the beginning of the letter, "Dear Thomas," and the end, "Affectionately, Helen," and waited for the brandy. "Jt is from Acr?"
"Yes." Before I read it I began to wonder whether at the end J should lie or tell the truth to Phuong.
"Dear Thomas,
"I was not surprised to get your letter and to know that you were not alone. You are not a man, are you? to remain alone for very long. You pick up women like your coat picks up dust. Perhaps I would feel more sympathy with your case if I didn't feel that you would find consolation very easily when you return to London. I don't suppose you'll believe me, but what gives me pause and prevents me cabling you a simple No is the thought of the poor girl. We are apt to be more involved than you are."
I had a drink of brandy. I hadn't realised how open the sexual wounds remain over the years. I had carelessly-not choosing my words with skill-set hers bleeding again. Who could blame her for seeking my own scars in return? When we are unhappy we hurt. "Is it bad?" Phuong asked. "A bit hard," I said. "But she has the right . . ." I read on.
"I always believed you loved Anne more than the rest of us until you packed up and went. Now you seem to be planning to leave another woman because I can tell from you letter that you don't really expect a 'favourable' reply. 'I'll have done my best'-aren't you thinking that? What would you do if I cabled 'Yes'? Would you actually marry her? (I have to write 'her*-you don't tell me her name.) Perhaps you would. I suppose like the rest of us you are getting old and don't like living alone. I feel very lonely myself sometimes. I gather Anne has found another companion. But you left her in time." She had found the dried scab accurately. I drank again. An issue of blood-the phrase came into my mind. "Let me make you a pipe," Phuong said. "Anything," I said,
"anything."
"That is one reason why I ought to say No. (We don't need to talk about the religious reason, because
you've never understood or believed in that.) Marriage doesn't prevent you leaving a woman, does it? It only delays the process, and it would be all the more unfair to the girl in this case if you lived with her as long as you lived with me. You would bring her back to England where she would be lost and a stranger, and when you left her, how terribly abandoned she would feel. I don't suppose she even uses a knife and fork, does she? I'm being harsh because I'm thinking of her good more than I am of yours. But, Thomas dear, I do think of yours too."
I felt physically sick. It was a long time since I had received a letter from my wife. I had forced her to write it and I could feel her pain in every line. Her pain struck at my pain: we were back at the old routine of hurting each other. If only it were possible to love without injury-fidelity isn't enough: I had been faithful to Anne and yet I had injured her. The hurt is in the act of possession: we are too small in mind and body to possess another person without pride or to be possessed without humiliation. In a way I was glad that my wife had struck out at me again-1 had forgotten her pain for too long, and this was the only kind of recompense I could give her. Unfortunately the innocent are always involved in any conflict. Always, everywhere, there is some voice crying from a tower. Phuong lit the opium lamp. "Will she let you marry me?" "I don't know yet." "Doesn't she say?" "If she does, she says it very slowly." I thought, 'How much you pride yourself on being degage* the reporter, not the leader-writer, and what a mess you make behind the scenes. The other kind of war is more innocent than this. One does less damage with a mortar.'
"If I go against my deepest conviction and say 'Yes', would it even be good for yoJii You say you are being recalled to England and I can realise how you will hate that and do anything to make it easier. I can see you marrying after a drink too many. The first time we really tried-you as well as me-and we failed. One doesn't try so hard the second time. You say it will be the end of life to lose this girl. Once you used exactly that phrase to me-1 could show you the letter, I have it still-and I suppose you wrote in the same way to Anne. You say that we've always tried to tell the truth to each other, but, Thomas, your truth is always so temporary. What's the good of arguing with you, or trying to make you see reason? Ifs easier to act as my faith tells me to act-as you think unreasonably-and simply to write: I don't believe in divorce: my religion forbids it, and so the answer, Thomas, is no-no."
There was another half page, which I didn't read, before "Affectionately, Helen". I think it contained news of the weather and an old aunt of mine I loved.
I had no cause for complaint, and I had expected this reply. There was a lot of truth in it. I only wished that she had not thought aloud at quite such length, when the thoughts hurt her as well as me. "She says 'No'?"
I said with hardly any hesitation, "She hasn't made up her mind. There's still hope." Phuong laughed. "You say 'hope" with such a long face." She lay at my feet like a dog on a crusader's tomb, preparing the opium, and I wondered what I should say to Pyle. When I had smoked four pipes I felt more ready for the future and I told her the hope was a good one-my wife was con-suiting a lawyer. Any day now I would get the telegram of release.
"It would not matter so much. You could make a settlement)"* she said, and I could hear her sister's voice speaking through her mouth.
"I have no savings," I said. "I can't outbid Pyle." "Don't worry. Something may happen. There are always ways," she said. "My sister says you could take out a life-insurance,"*