The Lover Read Online Free PDF Page B

in Sadec, the awfulness of the family in Sadec, its inspired silence.
    He talked. Said he missed Paris, the marvelous girls there, the riotous living, the binges, ooh là là, the Coupole, the Rotonde, personally I prefer the Rotonde, the nightclubs, the “wonderful” life he’d led for two years. She listened, watching out for anything to do with his wealth, for indications as to how many millions he had. He went on. His own mother was dead, he was an only child. All he had left was his father, the one who owned the money. But you know how it is, for the last ten years he’s been sitting staring at the river, glued tohis opium pipe, he manages his money from his little iron cot. She says she sees.
    He won’t let his son marry the little white whore from Sadec.
    The image starts long before he’s come up to the white child by the rails, it starts when he got out of the black car, when he began to approach her, and when she knew, knew he was afraid.
    From the first moment she knows more or less, knows he’s at her mercy. And therefore that others besides him may be at her mercy too if the occasion arises. She knows something else too, that the time has now probably come when she can no longer escape certain duties toward herself. And that her mother will know nothing of this, nor her brothers. She knows this now too. As soon as she got into the black car she knew: she’s excluded from the family for the first time and forever. From now on they will no longer know what becomes of her. Whether she’s taken away from them, carried off, wounded, spoiled, they will no longer know. Neither her mother nor her brothers. That is their fate henceforth. It’s already enough to make you weep, here in the black limousine.
    Now the child will have to reckon only with this man, the first, the one who introduced himself on the ferry.
    •  •  •
    It happened very quickly that day, a Thursday. He’d come every day to pick her up at the high school and drive her back to the boarding school. Then one Thursday afternoon, the weekly half-holiday, he came to the boarding school and drove off with her in the black car.
    It’s in Cholon. Opposite the boulevards linking the Chinese part of the city to the center of Saigon, the great American-style streets full of streetcars, rickshaws, and buses. It’s early in the afternoon. She’s got out of the compulsory outing with the other girls.
    It’s a native housing estate to the south of the city. His place is modern, hastily furnished from the look of it, with furniture supposed to be ultra-modern. He says, I didn’t choose the furniture. It’s dark in the studio, but she doesn’t ask him to open the shutters. She doesn’t feel anything in particular, no hate, no repugnance either, so probably it’s already desire. But she doesn’t know it. She agreed to come as soon as he asked her the previous evening. She’s where she has to be, placed here. She feels a tinge of fear. It’s as if this must be not only what she expects, but also what had to happen especially to her. She pays close attention to externals, to the light, to the noise of the city in which the room is immersed. He’s trembling. At first he looks at her as though he expects her to speak, but she doesn’t. So hedoesn’t do anything either, doesn’t undress her, says he loves her madly, says it very softly. Then is silent. She doesn’t answer. She could say she doesn’t love him. She says nothing. Suddenly, all at once, she knows, knows that he doesn’t understand her, that he never will, that he lacks the power to understand such perverseness. And that he can never move fast enough to catch her. It’s up to her to know. And she does. Because of his ignorance she suddenly knows: she was attracted to him already on the ferry. She was attracted to him. It depended on her alone.
    She says, I’d rather you didn’t love me. But if you do, I’d like you to do as you usually do with women. He looks at her in