“What do you think of my washing machine?” said another woman, cutting off the story.
What made this room unlike a kitchen in a city? The smell, said Jérôme, though he could not have defined it. The crumbling house behind this must have been where the family had once lived — for hundreds of years, perhaps.
The owner of the new washing machine was named Pierrette. Her skin was pink, her eyes were blue, and although she spoke to Nadine, it was Jérôme’s admiration she wanted. “We used to launder in the public wash-house, in spring water, and dry the sheets on the grass,” she said. “God, that spring water was cold! We boiled the sheets with wood ash and rinsed them — it was like melted ice. Your grandmother gave all her linen to my mother to wash,” she said to Nadine. “She used to send her sheets from Paris in winter.”
“I think I remember,” said Nadine. “The fresh scent of the sheets at my grandmother’s house. Now everybody has a washing machine and the bedclothes smell of detergents.” Nadine looked at the new machine as if expecting Pierrette to say she was sorry she owned it. “You probably laughed at your work,” said Nadine severely. “A collective action is…well…collective. But the machine is lonely. Think of it, Jérôme,” she said, suddenly turning to him. “Marcelle alone with her machine. Pierrette alone here.”
“Our hands used to be chapped and covered with blood,” said the woman with the felt hat. “We had to leave off rinsing so as not to bloody the clothes. And I was allergic to wood ash, although we didn’t know the word for allergy then.”
“And the cold,” said Pierrette. “My mother crossing her arms, trying to bring life back to her cold hands.”
“It is true that we laughed,” said another woman, so that the male guest would not feel uneasy among women’s disagreements. “But we couldn’t use the public wash-house now even if we still wanted to, because it is full of rubbish thrown there by Parisians after their picnics.” As this was not a criticism, but something she would herself have done had she been a picnicking Parisian, she gave Jérôme a gap-toothed and reassuring smile.
“Why not laugh?” said Pierrette, whose new machine had come out of this conversation second-best. “Certain categories of people seem to be expected to laugh at their work.”
“I know,” said Nadine, but vaguely, for this conversation kept twisting and doubling back.
“Oh, you know, do you?” said Pierrette.
And now it was Nadine who was undervalued — not just the machine. Nadine had painted a slogan in favor of these people only a few houses away. She took out her change purse and paid for ducks, strawberries, and asparagus — standing very straight, granddaughter of Madame Arrieu and of a national hero for whom streets had been named.
On their way home, Nadine said to Jérôme, “Tell me — what do you think of me?” She wore a leather skirt, leather sandals, there were leather buttons on her blouse. The blouse was transparent. She had not dared to leave off her brassiere, in case Marcelle were to notice and inform her grandmother.
Jérôme said, “Whatever happened, I always liked women.”
“All?”
“In a way, yes. Even that farmer’s wife — what was her name? Pierrette? If she had said something to me…”
“Something friendly?” said Nadine, without sarcasm. She was considering this as a possibility, a way of looking at people.
“Well, friendly too. I could have found her charming. It could work. It could work with almost anyone.”
“Then why do you stay with your wife?” said Nadine.
“Because she is my wife,” said Jérôme.
There was a finality about this, a warning almost, that closed the subject. All the same, she was sure he had told her something Lucie would never know. She understood that he had no use for her, Nadine, because he had no use for any one person. She wanted to dash ahead and throw pebbles or kick at stone doorsteps. But she walked along quietly thinking, I hope I won’t grow old too suddenly. She stopped and said, laughing, “Well, kiss me,” for that was all she knew about rites.
Lucie sat alone at the Scrabble board putting together highscoring words in the best places. She jumped up when she heard the two, wishing this was her house and that she could welcome strangers to it. The minute Nadine saw Lucie, she seemed reminded of an obligation, or a promise. She hung her head and muttered, “I have to fetch my grandmother at the station.”
“I know,” said Lucie. “They told me in the kitchen. Her train is after one.”
“I am sorry to leave you here,” said Nadine, as though Lucie had not been alone for much of the morning.
“Oh, but I’d love to come!” said Lucie. “Just to see — a French railway station.”
“It is twenty-six kilometers from here, on a boring road. I have something to do in the town,” said Nadine. Please don’t come, but at the same time please don’t think I don’t want you, she was also saying.
Lucie wondered if Nadine and Jérôme had quarrelled, if their tense teasing at breakfast had gone straight through to hatred.
“Is it a town with a wall and two towers?” said Jérôme.
“You don’t see the towers from the road,” said Nadine. “Not the road I take. The old ramparts are there,” drawing a half-moon from card table to window with her sandal, “but we drive this way, to the station, which is outside the walls, in the new town.” That road ran along the edge of the carpet.
“I know the town,” said Jérôme. “I might want to buy a house there. I’m thinking of coming back to France to live. Also,” turning to Lucie, “I think we should get back to Paris. Go and pack. We can take a train from the station.”
“Oh,” said Nadine, flushed, staring from one to the other. She stated the most important objection first: “There is lunch, and the two ducks. And also…my grandmother…she will think I haven’t been nice to you.”
“We leave tomorrow afternoon, Jérôme, when Gilles stops by to fetch us,” said Lucie. Sometimes everyone around her seemed half the size people ought to be. No one could handle Jérôme the way Lucie could — doctors had praised her for it. And it was all instinct on her part, or so she had been told. The more mysterious Jérôme seemed to those other half-sized people, the more Lucie seemed to grow tall.
He seemed under a strain just now; perhaps it had to do with Nadine’s lowering of interest. He didn’t take a sleeping pill last night, Lucie remembered. He walked round the room. She tidied the Scrabble letters; put the lid on the box; was supreme in her confidence.
Nadine now looked like a girl who might go in for spells of weeping. She muttered that she would get the car out. It was a car they used here in the country, just for running to the station. Not the best environment for Lucie’s white dress. Also, the Girards would have to wait and be bored while Nadine did her errands.
“My husband is never bored,” said Lucie, saying something she believed profoundly.
4
The car, of a make Lucie did not recognize, and whose shape she associated with the automobiles of her earliest childhood, was fit for a junk-heap. She appraised the worn seat covers, the torn rubber matting on the floor.
“Did anyone hear the thunder last night?” said Nadine.
There was no reply. Lucie, who had not had enough to eat for breakfast, was deep in a vision concerning the physical symptoms of hunger. She saw a stomach contracting and digestive juices pouring forth. Think about something else, she commanded, but all that she could see was home and her own table spread.