Villa Triste Read Online Free PDF Page B

leaves?
    Her skin had taken on an opalescent tint. A leaf’s shadow drew a tattoo on her shoulder. Sometimes it fell on her face, and you would have thought she was masked. The shadow shifted lower and gagged her mouth. I could have wished the sun would never rise so that I could stay with her there, huddled together in the depths of that silence, in that aquarium light. A little before dawn, I heard a door slam, hurried footsteps above us, and the crash of an overturned piece of furniture. And then some bursts of laughter. Yvonne had gone to sleep. The big dog lay dreaming. At regular intervals, he gave out a muffled groan. I half opened the door. There was nobody in the salon. The night-light was still on, but the glow it cast seemed dimmer, no longer pink but a very delicate green. I headed for the veranda to get some fresh air. Nobody there either, under the still-glowing Chinese lantern. It swung in the wind, and sorrowful shapes, some of them human in appearance, scurried across the walls. Down below, the garden. I tried to identifythe fragrance that emanated from that vegetation and rose to the terrace. But yes — I hesitate to say it, because the setting was Haute-Savoie — but yes: I was inhaling the scent of jasmine.
    I crossed the salon again. The night-light diffused its pale green illumination in slow waves. I thought of the sea, and of the iced mint-and-lemonade drink popular on hot days: diabolo menthe. I could still hear bursts of laughter, and I was struck by their purity. They came from very far away and then suddenly got closer. I couldn’t manage to locate their source. The laughter became more and more crystalline and volatile. She was asleep, her cheek resting on her outstretched right arm. The bluish bar of moonlight that lay across the room lit up the corners of her mouth, her neck, her left buttock, and one heel. On her back, the light was like a long, narrow scarf. I held my breath.
    I can still see the leaves swaying outside the window and that body cut in two by a moonbeam. Why is it that a vanished city, prewar Berlin, is superimposed in my memory on the Haute-Savoie countryside that surrounded us? Maybe because she was “acting” in a “film” by “Rolf Madeja.” I made some inquiries about him later, and I learned that he’d started out as a very young man in the UFA studios in Berlin. In February ’45 he began work on his first film,
Confettis für zwei
, a very vapid and very gay Viennese operetta whose scenes he shot between Allied air raids. The film remained unfinished. For my part, when I call that night to mind, I’m walking past the massive town houses of Berlin as it once was, I go along quays and boulevards that nolonger exist. I walk straight on from Alexanderplatz, cross the Lustgarten and the Spree. Night is falling on the four rows of linden and chestnut trees and on the passing trams. They’re empty. The lights tremble. And you, you’re waiting for me in that green cage shining at the end of the avenue, the winter garden of the Adlon Hotel.

4.
    Meinthe stared attentively at the raincoated man who’d been putting away glasses. The man eventually lowered his eyes and returned to his work. But Meinthe remained in front of him, standing rigid, a mock soldier. Then he turned to the two others, who were watching him with nasty smiles on their faces, their chins propped on their broom handles. Their physical resemblance was striking: the same crew-cut blond hair, the same little mustache, the same protruding blue eyes. One was leaning over to the right and the other to the left, their poses so symmetrical you might have thought they were the same person, reflected in a mirror. That illusion must have occurred to Meinthe, because he walked over to the two men, slowly, frowning. When he got to within a few centimeters, he moved around to examine them from the back, in three-quarter profile, and from the side. The two men didn’t move, but you could tell they were on the