A Nail, a Rose Read online

  Not only for Clara is silence potentially both fatal and ideal. In ‘A Nail, A Rose’, the only story apart from Sous le pont Mirabeau to be based on Madeleine Bourdouxhe’s own experience, Irene wanders alone in the snow and ice above the darkness of an occupied town thinking about her former lover. That they had no need of words, she realises, had become a cruel paradox, a mockery of silent communion, since all he could not tell her was that he had to leave her. (For another woman, or to work in the Resistance? She must not ask.) So when Irene is physically attacked from behind, the event is a brutal irrelevance, a momentary interruption of her continuing pain. Again, sexual differences are expressed in contrasting images: hard/soft, strong/weak, black/white. Irene cannot despise her attacker: he’s too eager to please, like a child – out of work, maybe, or too young to fight – and they make friends; the Occupation seems to bind victim and attacker more than his violence separates them. She even feels compassion for him; nothing matters except the loss of her previous love. ‘You mustn’t take my little pleasures away from me,’ she begs, when he tries to compensate for his brutality by offering to chop her wood.

  Romantic love is all too easily dismissed, even by feminist critics, as the stuff of ‘women’s fiction’. Sometimes, as in the stories of Madeleine Bourdouxhe, it is gloriously that. The love that pours out here is of many kinds; not just sexual love but maternal love, parental love, men’s love of women, women’s love of men, women’s love of women, love of animals, love of inanimate objects, spiritual love, the love you feel for a stranger (or a soldier). Love can be confining or it can be liberating – or it can be both. When a love affair ends or someone dies, the solitude can be wracking, as it is for Irene, or it can be the most desirable condition of all. In ‘Blanche’, described by its author as the ‘lightest’ of the stories, Blanche is driven almost to insanity by her crass, uncomprehending husband, finding more satisfaction in her relationship with the pots and pans in her kitchen than she could ever find with him; but escaping from home with her little son she finds solace in the stillness of the night forest and a fantasy lover – one of many in these stories – with whom no vows need be exchanged. Often in the work of Madeleine Bourdouxhe nightmares darken the light of day; here, ecstasy illuminates darkness.

  Fantasy might save you from madness but it can also play up cruel contrasts. In the background of ‘Leah’, the long central story in A Nail, A Rose, there’s an unnamed, absent traveller with whom Leah shares an obsessive longing for death: both are consumed by the ‘slow impatience of time’. Leah’s present reality, however, is the protective love she feels for an idealistic young factory worker, Carrol, who has fought in Spain; her environment is the shabby interior of the local café where men meet to banter and discuss revolt. But for all his talk, Carrol is afraid of the dark, so Leah must draw on her womanly strength and confront the forces of evil on his behalf; she must deal with the trouble-shooter who has caused his humiliation. Her task complete, she works like a professional, covering up her tracks, setting light to incriminating evidence. As she watches the hillside turning red, the biblical images of fire and blood that recur so frequently in these stories unite. Earlier, she felt ‘a sorrowful love for the colour of blood’; now, ‘the colour at the edge of the night was the only one [her] eyes could bear’. Her own hands are ‘white and bloodless’. She might even have loved her lover’s enemy in another life.

  Finally, what happens when the fantasy world of A Nail, A Rose is inhabited not by a woman but by a man – in the case of ‘René’, a country boy who finds a vision of perfection in the lavender-scented hair of a marvellous stranger? Like the other men in the stories René drives himself to violence in his fury with the opposite sex, and the marvellous stranger only aggravates his mood by the passivity with which she receives his physical assault. Retreating to the small, domestic world from which all Madeleine Bourdouxhe’s female protagonists have dreamed such powerful dreams, René remembers his victim as he left her: immobile, intact, eternal. She’s a woman crucified alive. ‘Did you notice that all my stories are about women – except for one?’ Madeleine Bourdouxhe asked me with a penetrating look. She didn’t elaborate. But it’s just possible that this final image, in which gender is transcended and subverted at the same time, is the one with which she would like us to rest.

  It is thirty years since this edition was first published. By the time of Madeleine Bourdouxhe’s death in 1996 her work was becoming available in many languages, and had achieved bestseller status in Germany. More recently a further revival has taken place. All three of the English translations have been reissued: La Femme De Gilles (2014), Marie (2016) and this one. New American, German and Italian editions are also underway.

  In 2009 an international conference was held in Paris to celebrate her life and work. The book of the proceedings is a comprehensive tribute to the writer: Relire Madeleine Bourdouxhe: regards croisés sur son ouevre littéraire, eds Cécile Kovacshazy and Christiane Solte-Gresser (Brussels, Peter Lang, 2011).

  FAITH EVANS

  February 2019

  * See Bibliographical Note.

  † Carnets, Paris, 1952. For a useful biographical sketch of Serge see Richard Greeman’s introduction to the most recent edition of Midnight in the Century, Writers & Readers, London, 1982.

  ‡ Les Temps Modernes, February–June 1947.

  § See Whitney Chadwick, Women Painters and the Surrealist Movement, Thames & Hudson, London, 1975.

  ¶ The Second Sex, trans. H. M. Parshley, Penguin, Middlesex, 1972, pp. 417–18.

  A NAIL, A ROSE

  WALKING THROUGH the streets, Irene could see no light. She passed other people on the pavements and in the streets, but couldn’t see them either. All she could see was the image of Danny, picking up his glass in both hands and twisting it so that the beer swirled around in the bottom. He wasn’t saying anything. Irene was talking and going slowly mad.

  ‘There is something,’ she had said, ‘there is something you’re not telling me… it might be something that you think is true but isn’t at all… Tell me,’ she said. ‘Explain to me, speak, just speak to me…’

  He hadn’t answered; but then they weren’t in the habit of explaining things to each other. That was how it was between them, they had no need of words. Then she’d said to herself that all she had to do was to walk out, all she had to do was to leave behind her, just as it was, this thing that she would never understand.

  She could no longer remember whether she had said goodbye. She thought she hadn’t; she thought she had just got up, walked across the room and opened the door. He didn’t move or follow her. They were in the café where they often used to meet – the sign outside had the name of a flower on it, something like lily of the valley, or wallflower. It wasn’t that she’d forgotten, but she always tried not to think of it. She walked into the street, but he didn’t come after her, he didn’t shout: ‘Irene!’

  She was walking in the dark roads. It hadn’t happened that day, nor even the day before: it was a long time ago now. But ever since, whenever she walked through the streets, she always saw the same image, of Danny picking up his glass in both hands, swirling the beer at the bottom of it and saying nothing, whilst she talked and went slowly mad.

  She was tired and the road was steep, so she waited at a tram stop. Sitting in the carriage, she closed her eyes, but images continued to assault her: his face, his hair, the hands she loved so much. Tears began to rise up through her body. She didn’t like crying in the tram; it was much better to talk to yourself instead. Whatever it was, she would never understand it now…

  Danny and Irene: that she did understand, she understood it perfectly, and she thought it meant she could understand the rest of the world as well: Danny and Irene, and the whole world. But she would never now understand the line that ran between them, like an arrow with a sharp point at either end. And the whole world was now this line.

  Whenever they had met again after a parting, they had come together li
ke two hands joining. They were like two hands of one being, finger against finger of the same length, palm against palm. And two hands of the same being are clasped together because of the same joy or the same agony. He didn’t say, ‘I love you,’ and nor did she. Plenty of people say ‘I love you,’ but what existed between them wasn’t the same as what exists between those people. Instead of saying ‘I love you,’ he said: ‘Irene’. And she said ‘Danny’.

  Sometimes they were at the heart of love, like a bee in a closed flower. But only sometimes, because that wasn’t the sole aim of their encounters. Two hands can join together in joy, in torment, in emotion, in prayer, or in revolt; but their love-making was a whole in which they touched on hope and despair. Because their love-making was savage and it was pure. They made love in heather, in orchards, in fields of cut corn; in bedrooms, too, and in other people’s beds: that was their right.

  When they made love the only words they spoke were ‘Danny’ and ‘Irene’. Danny never gave her lilies of the valley, nor perfume, scarves or rings; his presents would be an ear of corn, a nail or a leaf. He sometimes gave her fruit; but not the sort of fruit that changes and turns putrid – the fruit that he gave her had hard, dry outlines and a fixed shape, like kernels.

  She had got off the tram and was walking again, towards her house, in the slippery, deserted streets of the outskirts. A recent fall of snow, now half-melted, had been hardened by frost, and there were sheets of ice all over the place: she had to walk slowly. She could hear footsteps behind her, but they were some way away, and she paid no attention to them. A leaf, a nail, a kernel. How she had loved his hands, and his fair hair… in heather, in orchards, in fields of cut corn…

  By now night had fallen, and the verges and the waste ground seemed to be etched in black and white: the only branches she could see were those on which snow was still lying. She was living through a present without a future, she was carrying inside her a love with no tomorrow. The world was empty, and she was walking along a road of hardened mud and snow.

  It was a black night. In this year 1944 the darkness was total, the few houses that she passed black and dead. The road was deserted apart from those footsteps behind her; they were getting closer but still she paid them no attention. In heather, in orchards, in fields of cut corn… Now the man’s footsteps were right behind her, he was close up to her, almost at her back, and he was hitting her on the head. Irene felt the blow while still lost in the memory of love. She turned round and saw a man wearing a cap, with a hammer in his raised hand.

  ‘Take everything I have,’ she said, ‘just don’t hit me any more.’

  Her voice was choked. Could he hear what she was saying? She held out her handbag and case, but he didn’t take them. His right hand was still raised, and with his left he grabbed the belt of her coat and held her close to him. She looked him full in the face – hoping to dissipate the feeling of vertigo brought on by his blows, and to banish the flame of pain that was dancing before her eyes. In the darkness she couldn’t see the man’s face clearly, but she felt that she could smell his body: she was soaking in his body smell.

  ‘You’re out of luck,’ she said, ‘you’ve wasted your time, attacking a woman with no furs or jewels… also, you’re a lousy assailant – you’re a fool, because if I’d started to cry out when you struck me so feebly, people would have come out of these black houses and run after you. There you are, have a look in there, take what interests you and leave me the rest.’

  Still holding the hammer in his right hand, he let go of her coat and with his free hand took possession of the handbag and case.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said, ‘you’re not going off with the whole lot. What I said was that you could have a look at it all and that we’d divide it up. I didn’t say you could take everything.’

  ‘What are you going on about?’

  ‘Don’t shout so loud, someone might hear us.’

  ‘That’s true…’

  ‘Let’s sit down over there, on that bank. Have you got an electric torch?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Put that hammer in your pocket, I don’t like looking at it.’

  ‘Are you frightened?’

  ‘No, but I’ve been hurt. You hurt me.’

  ‘Do you still feel bad?’

  ‘I don’t know… I don’t care.’

  ‘I’m going to tell you everything. Because you were moving, the hammer slipped, that’s why I didn’t hit you properly. What I really meant to do was to hit you bang on, on the top of the head.’

  ‘Ping! with your metal hammer. That’s a likely story!’

  ‘Are you still afraid of my hammer?’

  ‘No. Let’s have a look at it.’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘It’s really heavy… I had a narrow escape.’

  ‘But tell me, what on earth were you up to, all alone in the dark?’

  ‘I was just walking, walking and thinking.’

  ‘What were you thinking about?’

  ‘About my love life.’

  ‘Do you mind if I look at you with the torch?… Yes, you’re a lovely girl.’

  ‘Present without future, a love with no tomorrow, an empty world. We can touch neither perfection nor eternity.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing, I was talking to myself. So, are we going to divide up my fortune?’

  ‘If you like. Let’s have a look. A packet of cigarettes…

  ‘That’s for you.’

  ‘Thanks. A lipstick… You can keep that.’

  ‘Money – you take it,’ she said. ‘There must be about a hundred francs there. And there’s another fifty francs in an envelope; here you are.’

  ‘Thanks. A nail…’

  ‘Yes, a nail.’

  ‘A nail from a horse’s hoof?’

  ‘Yes, from a horse’s hoof.’

  ‘It’s quite new, it’s never been used.’

  ‘No, it’s never been used.’

  ‘It’s for you,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, it’s for me.’

  ‘Here you are.’

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Listen, you own the cigarettes now – what would you say if we had a smoke?’

  ‘Sure.’

  All around them, the earth was black and white. A beautiful winter night-smell rose up from the black and white earth. A vast night meadow, the colour of the earth, flowed out before and beneath her, stretched to infinity, because the mass of the darkened town beyond it, sunk in the apathy of a town under Occupation, could not be clearly distinguished. From the heart of the town she expected there to rise the alarm of the sirens, she expected an anguish to be born that would rise up in sea-swells from the darkened town and unfurl over the fields, the countryside, the world. And she expected there to rise up at the same time a wave of mould that would swell and spread all over the world, and into her heart. The world is empty, and so is the sky, we can touch neither perfection nor eternity. But how beautiful the earth is, black with mud, white with frost. How beautiful it is, under its winter night-smell that rises from the earth, the trees, the air.

  ‘Well then,’ she said, ‘shall we divide up my food coupons?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’d be interested in those all right. Hey, you’ve got milk coupons – you have a kid?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’re married?’

  ‘Nothing to do with you.’

  ‘But the kid…?’

  ‘Given to me by the man I love. Will that do?’

  ‘You’ve been lucky, then. Not everyone gets to have a kid by the man they love.’

  ‘No, not everyone.’

  ‘Kiss me.’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘No, not like that. Kiss me properly.’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘Come on, let me hold you close, in my arms.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I only want to hold you close, in my arms. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to. I promise.’

  ‘What
would be the point? Why do you want to hold me close?’

  ‘Because I didn’t kill you.’

  She got up and he held her against him for a moment, pressing his hands against her back. She could smell and feel his body, long and straight and smooth apart from two bumps in the middle – one inert (the head of the hammer which he had slipped into his pocket), the other very much alive. ‘I’m going to faint,’ she said. ‘I’m surely going to faint… Please, let me get my breath. I’m not feeling too good.’

  ‘What’s the matter? Is your head hurting?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not that. My heart’s racing.’

  ‘Did I hold you too tight? Have I done something to annoy you?’

  ‘What an idea! Listen, try and take it in: you’re walking along the street, you’re seeing all sorts of things inside your head as you walk along, and someone comes up on you from behind and hits you on the head, suddenly, just like that. Wham! A shot in the back, from behind – it’s revolting.’

  She ran her hand over her face, her forehead, her whole head.

  ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘Let’s have your torch.’

  She held out her hand in the narrow beam of light. It was covered with blood.

  He inspected her thoroughly with his torch: there was blood all over her hair and it was running on to her shoulders and coat.

  ‘I didn’t realise,’ she said. ‘Why didn’t I feel it trickling down my neck?’

  ‘Because your hair acted like a gutter.’

  ‘You’ve done a great job, haven’t you? You really are a swine.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  He got out his handkerchief and tried to clean her hair, to staunch the wound. She was standing up, her heart racing. A man was wiping blood from her hair – and although he was doing it gently, she was in pain. He was holding the torch on a level with their faces, and she could see his pale greyish skin and the lock of brown hair that fell on to his forehead. He’d pushed his cap back and his face looked young and very thin. It was the face of an archangel or a fool: that look could belong to either one or the other. Beyond the slope, the night fields stretched out, rejoined the horizon, rose up and reappeared in a dome above them, black from top to bottom. The earth was less black than the sky, with patches of ice criss-crossing it. The sky was empty; and she was in pain. At the corner of the road there rose up, like a miracle, a tree covered with hoar frost.