The Tale of the Rose Read online

  “Oh!” he exclaimed in surprise. “You have stars in your head, do you?”

  “I have yet to meet a man who has seen my true stars,” I confessed with a touch of melancholy. “But we’re talking nonsense. I told you I don’t like to fly. Even walking too fast makes my head spin.”

  The dark-haired man had not released my arm and was crouching next to my armchair, examining me as if I were some indefinable object. I felt embarrassed and ridiculous, as if I were some kind of doll that could make a noise that resembled speech, or as if the words I spoke were losing their meaning. His hand pressed heavily on my arm, and in spite of myself I felt I was his prey, caged in the velvet armchair, unable to flee. He went on asking me questions and forcing me to answer. I wanted no further communication with him and felt utterly stupid, but something inside me made it impossible to leave. I began to rage against the female nature. I made one more attempt, like a firefly giving off its final burst of light, spirit, strength.

  “I’m going,” I said gently, struggling to extricate myself from the armchair.

  His long arms blocked my way.

  “But you know very well that you’re coming with me in my plane to see the Rio de la Plata from beyond the clouds. It’s fantastically beautiful, you’ll see a sunset like no other in the world!”

  Crémieux read the fear on my face, the fear of a bird caught in a trap. Wanting to come to my rescue, he declared firmly, “She has to go, Saint-Ex. A group of friends is waiting for her, and I must leave you as well. I have my guests to attend to.”

  But the dark-haired man was still blocking my way. He spoke in a serious voice now. “I’m sending my chauffeur to pick up your friends so that they can come with us and watch the sunset.”

  “That’s impossible,” I said. “There are twelve of them.”

  “So what? I have all the airplanes you could want. In this country I’m . . . well, let’s say I’m the aviation boss. I’m in charge of the airmail service.”

  Resistance was futile. He was in command. He made a phone call to my friends; we were all in his hands.

  The joy in Crémieux’s expression helped me resign myself to my fate. I asked the dark-haired man to sit down and let me catch my breath. I pointed out that everyone was staring at us and that he was keeping me from breathing; I could barely speak.

  He laughed wholeheartedly. Then, passing his hand over his cheeks, he swore loudly and said, “I haven’t shaved! I’m just back from a flight that lasted two days and two nights.”

  He disappeared into the hotel barbershop and came back ten minutes later, smooth-cheeked and merry as a child. “Crémieux,” he shouted, “next time you invite a pretty woman you must let me know in advance!”

  “Oh really, no one let you know?” Crémieux asked pointedly.

  “Let’s have a drink, you and I, I’m thirsty,” he said to me. “And forgive me if I talk too much, I haven’t seen a soul for almost a week. I’ll tell you stories about Patagonia, about birds and monkeys smaller than my fist.”

  He took my hands in his. “How small they are!” he exclaimed. “You know, I can read palms.”

  He kept my hands for quite a while. I tried to pull away, but he didn’t want to let go. “No, I’m studying them. The lines in your palm are parallel. You’ll have a double life. I don’t know how to explain it, but they’re all parallel. No, I don’t believe your character is entirely secret. But something has marked you. It was probably your country, the fact that you were transplanted from Central America to Europe.”

  Suddenly I was thrilled by his attention, but still I tried to resist. “I really don’t like flying in planes,” I said. “I don’t like speed. I prefer to sit quietly in a corner. It must be because of my country. El Salvador is a land of earthquakes; between one minute and the next you can find yourself with the place Vendôme on your doorstep.”

  “Well, then,” he said, laughing, “I’ll go very slowly in my plane. I’m having a bus pick up your friends. They’re staying at the Hotel Occidental; we’re bringing them here for you. Look, the ones who agreed to join us are already here!”

  EVERYTHING WAS ARRANGED, and twenty minutes later we were all jammed in a car en route to the airfield and the promised sunset. It took a good hour to drive from Buenos Aires to Pacheco, and in the crush of the car I listened to this dark-haired man tell me the story of his life, of his night flights. “You know, what you’re telling me is so beautiful,” I said to him, “you should write it down.”

  “Very well, I’ll write, for you. I’ve already written a book, did you know? A memoir of my first airmail flights. I wrote it five years ago, when I was young.”

  “But five years is nothing!” I said.

  “Five years is a long time. I was very young, in the Sahara Desert. . . . The book is called Southern Mail.* We’ll pass by my place on the way back, and I’ll give you a copy. It was a complete flop. I sold three copies, one to my aunt, another to my sister, and another to a friend of my sister’s. Three . . . People laughed at me, but if you say my stories are good, I’ll write them down. I’ll do it for you alone, a very long letter . . .”

  I was the only woman in the car. Madame E., who was supposed to come with us, had begged off, claiming that the road out to the airfield was too dusty. Saint-Exupéry talked and talked with tremendous enthusiasm. His images had extraordinary charm, and there was a wild note of truth to even his most fantastical stories. Crémieux asked him questions, and he had an inexhaustible supply of answers. He said again that he hadn’t spoken for a week and deluged us with a thousand tales of aviation.

  We finally reached the airfield. A beautiful, silvery airplane was waiting for us. I wanted to ride in the passengers’ cabin, but he insisted that I sit next to him in the copilot’s seat. The cockpit was separated from the cabin by heavy curtains. I don’t know how men could fly in those airplanes. He closed the curtains. I stole a glance at his hands: beautiful, intelligent, wiry hands, both delicate and strong; they were like the hands painted by Raphael, and his character was revealed in them. I was afraid, but I trusted him with my life.

  When we took off, the muscles in his face relaxed. We were flying over plains and water. My stomach was queasy. I felt myself go pale and gave a deep sigh. The altitude plugged up my ears, and I wanted to yawn. Suddenly he cut off the throttle. “Have you flown many times before?”

  “No. This is the first time,” I said shyly.

  “Do you like it?” he asked, looking at me in amusement.

  “No, it’s strange. Just strange.”

  He pulled the joystick down in order to speak into my ear. Then he pulled it back up again, then down again to talk to me some more. He teased and frightened us by doing loop-the-loops. I smiled.

  He rested his hand on my knee and, leaning his cheek toward me, said, “Will you kiss me?”

  “But Monsieur de Saint-Exupéry, you know that in my country we kiss people we love, and only when we know them very well. I’m a widow, a very recent widow. How can you ask me to kiss you?”

  He nibbled at his lip to hold back a smile.

  “Kiss me or I’ll drown you,” he said, making as if to plunge the plane into the ocean.

  I bit my handkerchief in anger. Why did I have to kiss a man I’d only just met? The joke struck me as being in very bad taste.

  “Is this how you persuade women to kiss you?” I asked. “It won’t work with me. I’ve had enough of this flight. Land the plane, please; I’ll be very glad when you do. I have just lost my husband, and I am sad.”

  “Oh no, we’re falling!”

  “I don’t much care.”

  Then he gazed at me, cut off the power, and said, “I know what it is. You won’t kiss me because I’m ugly.”

  I saw tears like pearls rolling from his eyes down onto his necktie, and my heart melted with tenderness. I leaned over as best I could and kissed him. He kissed me back violently, and we stayed like that for two or three minutes while the plane rose and fell as he cut the po
wer off and revved it back up again. All the passengers were sick. We could hear them complaining and moaning behind us.

  “No, you’re not ugly,” I said, “but you’re too strong for me. You’re hurting me. You don’t kiss me; you bite me, you eat me. I want to land now.”

  “Forgive me,” he said. “I don’t know much about women. I love you because you’re a child and you’re scared.”

  “You’re going to hurt me in the end. You’re quite mad.”

  “I only seem to be. I always do whatever I want, even when it’s bad for me.”

  “Listen, I can’t shout like this any longer. Let’s go back down to earth. I don’t feel well, and I don’t want to faint.”

  “That’s not possible,” he said. “Look, down there, the Rio de la Plata.”

  “Right, that’s the Rio de la Plata, but I want to see the city.”

  “I hope you’re not airsick . . .”

  “A little.”

  “Here, take this pill. Stick out your tongue.”

  He put the pill in my mouth and squeezed my hands nervously. “What tiny hands! A child’s hands. Give them to me forever!”

  “But I don’t want to have stumps at the end of my arms.”

  “What a silly fool you are! I’m asking you to marry me. I love your hands. I want to keep them all to myself.”

  “But you’ve known me only a few hours.”

  “You’ll see,” he said. “You will marry me.”

  We landed at last; all of our friends were sick. Crémieux had vomited all over his shirt, and Viñes felt completely unable to give his concert.

  Saint-Exupéry carried me to the car. We were all three driven to his house. All my life I will remember that drive. We passed the windows of jewelers’ shops, sparkling with precious stones—emeralds, immense diamonds, bracelets—and boutiques with feathers and tiny stuffed birds. It really was a Paris in miniature. . . . It reminded me of the rue de Rivoli.

  We arrived and took an elevator up to Saint-Exupéry’s bachelor quarters, where we had some coffee and then lay down wherever we could—Viñes and Crémieux on the same sofa, I in Saint-Exupéry’s bed. My head was spinning, and my stomach was still upset. I no longer knew where I was. I curled up tight, and he read me a passage from Southern Mail. I could barely take in a word of it and finally blurted, “Please, would you leave me alone for a moment? I’m hot, I’d like to take a shower.”

  He went into the other room. I took a shower, and he gave me a bathrobe. I lay back down. He came and lay beside me, saying, “Don’t be afraid, I won’t rape you.” Then he added, “I like to be liked. I don’t like to steal things. I like to be given them.”

  I smiled. “Listen,” I said. “I’ll soon be back in Paris, and in spite of everything our flight will be a nice memory. It’s just that right now my friends are all sick and I am too, a bit.”

  “Here,” he said. “Have another pill.”

  I took the pill and fell asleep. I woke up during the night, and he gave me some hot broth. Then he had me watch a film he had made. “This is what I watch after my flights,” he told me. The images were accompanied by a strange music, Indian songs. I was utterly worn out. This man was too overwhelming; his inner world was too rich. In some vague way I informed him that Viñes was giving a concert that evening and would have to be taken to the theater. He assured me that Viñes was fast asleep, that it was three o’clock in the morning, and that I should be a good girl and go back to sleep, too.

  When I awoke, I was in his arms.

  3

  MEANWHILE, my friends had disappeared. When I saw them again several days later, they swore to me that they would never ride in an airplane again. Poor Crémieux! Just the word “airplane” made him feel queasy. “There are some kinds of nausea,” he said, “that you never forget.” The day of the revolution was approaching, so I proposed to Crémieux that we leave on the next boat, the following day.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “Let’s give it another day. Why don’t you come and have lunch with me at my hotel instead? Are you free?”

  “Of course, darling. I’ll see you tomorrow, then!”

  I went back to my hotel, where everything was in a state of bubbling agitation. The chambermaids were coming and going and whispering endlessly behind the doors, but I was perfectly happy: the next day, I would have lunch with Crémieux, and then we would leave for Paris.

  That evening, I had dinner with Minister G. at the hotel. He was an intelligent man, endowed with a singular liveliness of spirit and great tenderness. He had insisted on inviting me to dinner in memory of Gómez Carrillo. The atmosphere of the hotel contrasted with my state of mind, for I wanted to look lovely in his honor. I wore a white dress and sang as I walked through the corridors, with a veil of black lace over my hair.

  I was aware of the political difficulties of the moment and found it very kind of the minister, under the circumstances, to devote his evening to me. He begged my pardon for choosing a table in a side room, as a precautionary measure.

  “I’ve invited some friends of Gómez Carrillo,” he said. “Their wives are lovely, and they’re all eager to meet you. They want to see the woman who replaced ‘La Violettera,’ Raquel Meller, in the Master’s heart!”

  Gómez Carrillo’s divorce and our subsequent marriage had fired their imagination. I didn’t want to say another word about it and changed the subject to the president.

  “But tell me about Don El Peludo. I think he’s very nice. I spent an hour with him, and he talked to me about his hens. ‘I’m getting old, I like fresh eggs,’ he kept saying. I think he’s grown tired of his responsibilities. He signs papers without looking at them.”

  Minister G. was a true friend of the president, but even he knew that the revolutionaries were preparing to throw him out of the Casa Rosada.

  As we were being served a variety of wonderful dishes and Argentine wines, an urgent letter was delivered to our table, a letter from my pilot, who had just spent a day and a night in the sky. Still in the grip of the flight’s emotions, he wrote about the storms he’d traveled through, the emergency landings. He spoke of flowers, squalls, dreams, and solid ground. He said he had returned to the land of men only in order to see me, to touch me, to take my hand. He begged me to wait for him quietly, like a good girl.

  I laughed and read the letter aloud to the table. It began, “Madame, or darling, if you will allow me,” and ended, “Your fiancé, if you will have me.” We all thought the letter was marvelous and inspired.

  That night I dreamed of his hands, which were signaling to me. The sky was an inferno. It was a night flight without hope, and I alone had the power to bring back the sun and set him on the right course once more. I awoke so agitated that I phoned Crémieux, good-hearted Crémieux, and woke him up. He reached the conclusion that I should accept Saint-Exupéry’s proposal of marriage. After that dream, he said, I could not leave him on his own. “He has great talent as a writer; if you love him, he will write his book, and it will be magnificent.” And Crémieux was right: Night Flight was born from that first love letter.

  The next day, Crémieux, Viñes, Saint-Exupéry, and I were all sitting at a table in the Brasserie Munich together, laughing and talking merrily. “You’ll write that great book of yours,” Crémieux told Saint-Ex. “You’ll see.”

  “If she is holding my hand,” he answered. “If she will agree to be my wife.”

  AT LAST I ACCEPTED HIM—I think I had run out of arguments. Mad with joy, he wanted to buy me the biggest diamond in all of Buenos Aires. Then he was called to the phone. “I have to go at once,” he said. “Let’s drive out to the airfield together; we’ll celebrate our engagement there since that’s where you first kissed me.”

  Crémieux did not want to accompany us on another expedition, so only Viñes came along, telling Saint-Exupéry, “Hurry up, or I’ll start thinking I’m the one who’s the fiancé of ‘la niña del Massilia’! There’s no piano here at your airfield,” he complained once w
e were there. “You’ll have to have one brought in.”

  “For you, I’ll have one brought all the way from Paris,” I laughed.

  Tonio came over to us, his face serious. “I have to leave you,” he said.

  “But you can’t leave me! We’re supposed to be celebrating our engagement tonight.” I was still laughing. I didn’t understand the situation at all, but I was very happy.

  “See that pilot over there, the one who’s leaving? He’s afraid. He already turned back once, out of fear. He claims he won’t be able to get through.”

  “Get through what?” I asked.

  “The night.” Tonio snorted. “The weather forecast isn’t very good. But it’s always good enough for me. Daurat used to say, ‘They must be saved from their own fear.’ If he won’t do it, I’m going to take his place. The mail has to go out this evening.”

  In the meantime, we ate oysters and drank white wine. I was beginning to feel afraid myself, afraid of the night. The telephones were all ringing at once; the telegraph, a couple of yards away, rasped out messages in Morse code. The other pilots were asking for their orders. The halo of light over the radio operator gave him a sinister look.

  After some time, we heard the loud roar of an engine. The space in front of my eyes was enveloped in a radiant, milky haze. Tonio rang a bell. An Argentine (the dresser, just like in the theater) arrived, and, quicker than words can say, slipped Tonio’s boots on, wrapped him in a leather coat, and gave him his gloves. Outside, the other pilot clambered down from the plane. He’d turned back.

  “Have him go to my office!” Tonio shouted as he gulped down the rest of the oysters, took a huge bite from the loaf of bread, and drank straight from the wine bottle. “I beg your pardon,” he said to me, “I have to rush.”

  The frightened pilot came in, accompanied by a secretary. He stood there, ashamed, breathing heavily, no pride left in him. He took off his helmet.

  Tonio dictated to the secretary: “Boulevard Haussmann, Paris. Pilot Albert has been dismissed; please send word to all the other aviation companies.”