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'I have to leave soon, you know,' I said.
'Not right away. Don't go. Don't leave me!' He grabbed me by the shoulders. I was a life preserver. But in what shipwreck?
'Thirty-nine years!' I said aloud. Before the war I was too young for the years to have weighed upon me. And then for five years, I forgot myself completely. And now I've found myself again, only to learn that I'm condemned. Old age is awaiting me; there's no escaping it. Even now I can see its beginnings in the depths of the mirror. Oh, I'm still a woman, I still bleed every month. Nothing's really changed, except that now. I know. I ran my fingers through my hair. Those white streaks are no longer a curiosity, a sign; they're the beginning. In a few years, my head will be the colour of my bones. My face still seems smooth and firm, but overnight the mask will melt, laying bare the rheumy eyes of an old woman. Each year the seasons repeat themselves; wounds are healed. But there's no way in the world to halt the infirmities of age. 'There isn't even any time left to worry about it,' I thought, turning away from my reflection. 'It's even too late for regrets. There's nothing left to do but to keep going.'
They exchanged a soft, lingering look. A few hours later he was holding her naked body in his arms and saying, 'You're too beautiful, much too beautiful.' No, he really couldn't blame himself. How could he have helped but be captivated by Paula's beauty, by her voice, by the mystery of her words, by the distant wisdom in her smile? She was slightly older than he, knew many things of which he was ignorant and which seemed at that time much more important to him than the bigger things. What he admired in her above all was her complete disdain for worldly goods; she soared in some supernatural region, and he despaired of ever joining her there. He was amazed that she permitted herself to become flesh in his arms. 'Naturally, it went to my head a little,' he admitted to himself. And she, for her part, had believed in his declarations of eternal love and in the miracle of being herself. Therein no doubt was where he had been guilty -- by first exalting Paula immoderately and then too lucidly taking her true measure. Yes, they had both made mistakes. But that wasn't the question; the question now was to break it off. He turned over words in his mind. Did she have any suspicion of what was about to come? Generally, when he remained silent for any length of time, she was quick to question him.
'Don't let it upset you. I'm not one to be jealous of a child, especially Nadine!' She walked over to Henri and sat down on the arm of his chair. 'On Christmas Eve I told you a man like you isn't subject to the same laws as other men. I still believe that. There's a commonplace form of faithfulness that I'll never demand of you. Have a good time with Nadine, and anyone else you like.' She ruffled Henri's hair. 'You see how much I respect your freedom!'
girllll
She looked at him imploringly, hopefully waiting for him to say, 'I hold no grudge against you.' She could wait a long time for him to say it. She sighed. 'You love me,' she said, 'but you're never willing to sacrifice anything for our love. It always has to be me who gives everything.'
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'She could at least be a little more agreeable!' he said to himself angrily the next morning as the train made its way towards the border. When they had changed trains at Hendaye, where a light breeze and the warm sun played against their skins, Nadine hadn't so much as smiled; instead, she yawned unrestrainedly while their passports were being checked. Now she was walking in front of him with her long boyish strides as he struggled with their two heavy suitcases, growing hotter by the minute under the unaccustomed sun. He looked with distaste at her strong, rather hairy legs; her socks underlined their ungracious bareness. Behind them, a barrier closed; for the first time in six years he was walking on soil that wasn't French. Another barrier rose before them and he heard Nadine cry out unbelievingly: 'Oh!' It was an impassioned sound, a sound he had tried in vain to wring from her with his caresses.
brutal
In Marseilles, Naples, Piraeus, in Chinatowns of many cities, he had spent hours wandering through these same squalid streets. Of course, then as now, he wished that all this misery could be done away with. But the wish remained an abstract thing. He had never felt like running away, and the overpowering human odour of these streets went to his head. From the top of the hill to the bottom, the same swarming multitudes, the same blue sky burning above the roof tops. It seemed to Henri that from one moment to the next he would rediscover his old joy in all its intensity. That was what he sought from street to street. But it wouldn't come back. Barefooted women — everyone here went barefooted — were squatting before their doors frying sardines over charcoal fires, and the stench of stale fish mingled in the air with the smell of hot oil. In cellar apartments opening on to the street, not a bed, not a piece of furniture, not a picture; nothing but straw mats, children covered with rashes, and from time to time a goat. Outside, no happy voices, no laughter; only sombre dead eyes. Was misery more hopeless here than in the other cities? Or instead of becoming hardened to misfortune, does one grow more sensitive to it? The blue of the sky seemed cruel above the unhealthy shadows; he began to share Nadine's silent dismay. They passed a haggard-looking woman dressed in black rags who was scurrying through the street with a child clinging to her bare breast, and Henri said abruptly, 'You're right; let's get out.'
It was impossible to get out of it. Henri spent the following morning visiting a series of wretched hovels. At the end of the afternoon, the former cabinet minister gathered his friends for the sole purpose of having them meet him. It was impossible to refuse. All of them were wearing dark suits, stiff collars, and bowlers; they spoke ceremoniously but every now and then a look of hatred crossed their sensitive faces. They were mostly former cabinet members, former journalists, former professors who had been crushed because of their obstinate refusal to rally to the new regime. All of them were poor and trapped, many had relatives in France who had been deported. Those who stubbornly continued to take what action they could knew that the Island of Hell awaited them. A doctor who treated poverty-stricken people without remuneration, who tried to open a clinic or introduce a little hygiene into the hospitals, was immediately suspect. Whosoever dared organize an evening course, whosoever made a generous gesture, or simply a charitable one, was branded enemy of both Church and State. And yet they doggedly persisted. They wanted to believe that the destruction of Nazism would somehow bring to an end this hypocritical fascism, and they dreamed constantly of overthrowing Salazar and creating a National Front like the one which had been formed in France. But they knew they were alone: the English capitalists had large interests in Portugal and the Americans were negotiating with the government for the purchase of air bases in the Azores. 'France is our only hope,' they repeated over and over. 'Tell the people of France the truth,' they begged. 'They do not know; if they knew they would come to our rescue.'
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'And there could still be more,' she said, the cold blue of her eyes growing warmer. 'Why don't you just forget those old dreamers? They're not what we came here for. Let's keep on the move; let's enjoy ourselves while we can, while we still have flesh on our bones.'
He shrugged his shoulders. 'It's not so easy to enjoy oneself.'
'Well, let's try, anyhow. Let's drive through the mountains! Wouldn't that be wonderful? You like driving so much. But those meetings and investigations, all they ever do is bore you.'
'Yes, that's true.'
'Well, why do you always have to be doing things that bore you? That's no way to live.'
'Try to understand. Can I tell those poor old men that no one's interested in their misfortunes, that Portugal is too small, that no one gives a damn what happens to her?' Henri leaned over Nadine and smiled gently. 'Can I?'
'She's going to bend over backwards to prove to me I'm free,' he thought unhappily as he got into the little black car. 'But it won't last. I won't stay there indefinitely,' he said to himself bitterly. ‘I’ll start taking care of that little matter tomorrow.' But for the moment, he no longer wanted to think about Paula; all he wanted was to luxuriate in his happiness at being back in Paris. The streets were grey and the people had been cold and hungry that winter; but here, at least, everyone wore shoes. And then, you could speak to them, speak for them. In Portugal, the thing that was so depressing was the feeling of being a completely impotent witness to a totally foreign disaster.