“Monsieur?”

It’s the old woman who runs the place. False teeth, white as buttons. Belonged to her husband probably. I can hear them clattering in her mouth.

“Monsieur?” she insists.

Later on, about nine, there’s the hotel where there’s music in the bar and somebody at least, a few couples, sitting around. The three or four gilded youths of the town, too, slouched on the divans. I know them by sight. One is an angel, at least for betrayal. Beautiful face. Soft, dark hair. A mouth like spoiled fruit. Nothing amuses them—they don’t talk until somebody leaves, and then they begin little, laughing cuts, sometimes calling over to the barman. The rest of the time they sit in boredom, polishing the gestures of contempt. The angel is taller than the rest. He has an expensive suit and a tie knotted loosely at the neck. Sometimes a sweater. Soft cuffs. I’ve seen him on the street. He’s about seventeen, and he seems less dangerous in the daylight, merely a bad student or a boy already notorious for his vices. He’s ready to start seductions. Perhaps he even says it’s easy, and that women are simple to get. To believe is to make real, they say. A chill passes through me. I recognize in him a clear strain of assurance which has nothing to imitate, which springs forth intact. It feeds on its own reflection. He looks carefully at himself in the mirror, combing his hair. He inspects his teeth. The maid has let him undress her. She hates him, but she cannot make him go. I try to think of what he’s said. He has an instinct for it. He is here to hunt them down, to discover the weaklings. I don’t know what he feels—the assassin’s joy.

I am modeling myself after him, just for the evening. As I walk home I see my image floating on the glass of darkened shopfronts. I stop and look at clothes. It’s like coming out of a movie. I have discarded my identity. I am still at large, free of my old self until the first encounters, and now I imagine, very clearly, meeting Claude Picquet. For a moment I have the sure premonition I am about to, that I am really going to see her at the next corner and, made confident by the cognacs, begin quite naturally to talk. We walk along together. I watch her closely as she speaks. I can tell she is interested in me, I am circling her like a shark. Suddenly I realize: it will be her. Yes, I’m sure of it. I’m going to meet her. Of course, I’m a little drunk, a little reckless, and in an amiable condition that lets me see myself destined as her lover, cutting into her life with perfect ease. I’ve noticed you passing in the street many times, I tell her. Yes? She pretends that surprises her. Do you know the Wheatlands, I ask. The Wheatlands? Monsieur and Madame Wheatland, I say. Ah, oui. Well, I tell her, I’m staying in their house. What comes next? I don’t know—it will be easy once I am actually talking to her. I want her to come and see it, of course. I want to hear the door close behind her. She stands over by the window. She’s not afraid to turn her back to me, to let me move close. I am going to just touch her lightly on the arm… Claude… She looks at me and smiles.

Mornings with clouds. Windy mornings. Mornings with black wind rushing like water. The trees quiver, the windows are creaking like a ship. It’s going to rain. After a while the first silent drops appear on the glass. Slowly they increase, cover it, begin to run. All of Autun beneath the cool, morning rain, the sculptures on the Roman gates streaking and then turning dark, the slate roofs gleaming now, the cemetery, the bridges across the Arroux. Every once in a while the wind returns, the rain moves sideways, beats against the windows like sand. Rain falling everywhere, on all the avenues and enterprises, the ancient glories of the town. Rain on the plate glass of the Librairie Lucotte, rain on les Arcades, on au Cygne de Montjeu. A long, even rain that makes me quite content.

[5]

HE ARRIVES IN THE late afternoon. It’s the first week of October and the weather has been mild—pulled up before the gate in a splendid old car which yields nothing to popular taste is Phillip Dean. Of course, it’s a complete surprise, perhaps I show it.

“Listen, I hope I’m not disturbing you,” he says, almost shyly.

“No, not at all.”

“I just thought I’d drive down.”

“Well, I’m glad you did.” After a moment I add, rather foolishly, “Is this your car?”

Yes, he insists I admire it, a convertible standing low and journey-dark in the dusk. We walk around to the front. There’s an enameled nameplate with letters of blue: Delage.

“Oh, this is a famous make. I thought they’d gone out of business.”

“They have,” he says. “This is a 1952.”

We circle it slowly.

“I fell in love with it right away,” he says.

It is a marvelous looking machine. Dean trails behind me, pointing out details. The headlights are like washbasins.

“I’ve only had it four days.”

It belongs to a friend of his who isn’t able to drive it enough. Dean is just using it.

“Do you want to take a ride?” he asks. “Come on. You have to get in the other side.”

Cool, October evening. The seats are chilled and smell of leather. The doors shut with a heavy, unequivocal sound. He inserts the key and starts it up. All the needles leap.

“It’s a dream to drive,” he says. “It goes like the wind.”

“I can imagine.”

“No, really, it does.”

“How fast?”

“I don’t know yet,” he says. “I’m creeping up on it.”

We drive along the curving, mysterious streets. The shutters are already closed throughout town. People are coming home from work, some on bicycles, most of them walking. I can see the pale of their faces as they turn to look at the car. It has Paris plates. They have no idea whose it is, of course.

We cross the square and go down the long, open street that runs to the station, bicycles swimming beside us, their faint headlights quivering on the road. The line of dark trees continues the entire length and then, turning, leads to the open space in front of the station, the hotels across the way, the bus terminal to one side with its lighted booth that takes four photos for a franc. There are two taxis waiting. The drivers—one is a fat woman with glasses—are in the hotel bar, wrapped in the congenial odor of tobacco and wine. They have nothing to do until the train arrives.

We stop for a moment and look back up towards town. Sitting in the car makes it all very privileged. The air is melancholy and dark. People walk by bent on their errands. Behind us the river flows.

It’s getting cold in the car. As we drive back, I ask if there’s any heat.

“It doesn’t work,” he says, “but I think I can fix it.”

We park at the Foy and he lifts the hood.

“Look at that,” he announces.

It’s a distillery of ducts and hoses.

“I used to work on motorcycles,” he says. “Of course, this…”

“…is a little more challenging.”

“We must think of it as three motorcycles,” he says. “Everything becomes simple.”

He touches the hoses, searching for the one which leads to the heater.

“Can you find it?”

“Oh, eventually,” he says, rising up.

We go into the café. There are booths on each side and a row of tables in the middle. A small bar. A small dance floor. Towards the back they’re playing cards. The place is almost empty, though. They all come later and sit in white silence before the television. We take a booth near the front. Dean’s already decided to stay over. I told him there was the whole house.

“I’m going to drive all around tomorrow,” he says. “I’d like to explore the countryside.”

Through the doorway I can see people looking at the Delage.

“Your car’s creating a sensation.”

“In Paris,” he says, “they figured I was at least a duke. At the hotels, you know, the doormen would open the door. Salute. Bonjour, monsieur. I’d give them a little nod.”

“You didn’t speak.”

“A few words of Spanish,” he says modestly. “Can you eat here?”

“Are you hungry?”

“A little. I can wait.”

“We’ll have dinner at the hotel.”

After a pause, he says,

“Uh, I don’t have much money with me…”

“Don’t worry.”

“I’m supposed to get a check,” he says. “I should have had it two days ago.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I reassure him.

“Do you know many people in town?” he asks.

“Oh, a few,” I say. “It’s pretty quiet.”

“Quiet,” he says. The idea seems to settle in. “Well, I mean, how quiet?”

“It’s quiet,” I tell him. “Shall we have one more?”

We arrive at the hotel about eight. The dining room is well lit, it seems even brighter than usual. Perhaps it’s my mood. After all, it is an event, I’ve been eating alone. We open the menus. Our heads lower a bit to consider things. Around us are the soft, reassuring sounds of dining. In the center of the room a table gleams with fruit. Beside it is a tray of cheeses: bleu de Bresse, heavy and rich, pungent as a woman’s armpits; roquefort, veined like marble; the small, wrapped chèvres; gruyère… And now I notice for the first time, near the entrance, a party that includes Mme. Picquet and her little girl. They’re all talking agreeably. I don’t know who the others are. They’re much older. They could be relatives. Anyway, I’ve found out a little about her. She’s been divorced. Her husband fell in love with another woman. Claude was too abundant for him, perhaps, too sumptuous. She’s always carefully made up, her hair arranged and laid across her brow. Bracelets on each wrist. Big rings, one of them on her left index finger. She even wears it when she types. She might be twenty-eight, Claude, or twenty-nine. When she walks, she leaves me weak. A hobbled, feminine step. Full hips. Small waist. Her legs are a little thin. I see her in the Hôtel de Ville, where she works. She leans over the typewriter, erasing. There’s a glint of white slip where her sweater parts slightly at the bosom. My eyes keep going there in quick, helpless glances.