BELA
When I was down below the bank to the safe, Marie-Noel asked if she could go back with Julie. "Oh,
all right." I said. But now I wondered what Marie-Noel had arranged about mending the broken china.
So I found my way there and saw the shop which she meant, but the door was shut. I saw a man
watching me from the other side of the street. He said, "Are you looking for Madame? She can't hear
the bell when the door is shut. It would be better to go to the garden entrance."
There was a smile on his face: he seemed amused at something.
A narrow bridge led from the road into the garden. As I stood there someone came to an upper window
to feed the brids. It was the woman who had spoken to me in the market.
I said, "I tried the shop-door, but it was locked. Did my daughter visit you this morning?"
To my great surprise, she laughed. "Silly man!" she said. "I thought that you'd gone home. What were
you doing waiting about in the street. Come on in." I went in and up the stairs.
"That is lovely child of yours, but it was very foolish of you to send her here. And why did you
pack up those pieces of broken china in paper with a card addressed to me?" She took out the card
from her pocket: on it was written, "For my beautiful Bela, from Jean."
"What are you doing in Villars in the middle of the day? Where is the child?"
"She has gone back."
"Oh! Then you can stay and have a meal with me. I have got cold meat, fruit and coffee."
I supposed that when Renee got tired of waiting for me she would drive back to the chateau.
I sat in one of the large comfortable chairs with a glass of wine. "Bela," I thought. "That's a
Hungarian name, and this is another woman in Jean de Gue's life."
"You can imagine how I felt when my man, Vincent, came and told me that your small daughter was in
the shop and wanted something mended. I thought that your wife had found out that I had done the
picture in the locket. Did she like it?"
"Yes," I said: "it was a great success."
"I can't mend that cat and dog, but I'll get other ones from Paris just like them. Come on. Let's
eat. Where did you go in Villars."
"To the bank, to look at the papers in my safe. My visit ti Paris was not successful, but I told my
brother and the workmen that it was successful. And I told Carvalet in Paris that I would agree to
the lower prices. I went to the bank to see if I could bear the loss."
"But you told me before you went to Paris that if they would not agree to the old prices you would
close the factory."
"I don't want to close it. It wouldn't be fair to the workmen."
"Is your sudden feeling for the glass factory because you may be going to have a son?"
"No. My feeling comes from having looked at it with new eyes. I watched the men working there. They
had a pride in their work and a feeling for it owner. If the factory closes down they will have been
deceived in him, besides being without work."
She brought me the basket of fruit and poured out another glass of wine. "You made a mistake in
leaving so much of the work at the factory to your brother. I sometimes think that you don't want
to think about it too much because it makes you remember what happened to Maurice Duval."
I remembered the photograph of Maurice Duval standing at the side of Jean de Gue, and someone in the
factory had spoken about him.
"Perhaps," I said. "But go on talking about him."
"It was fifteen years after the war. Yet people still remember what a fine man he was, and how he
died. That is not a pleasant thing for anyone to remember."
She cleared away the plates and brought coffee and cigarettes. She looked at me thoughtfully.
"What's troubling you? Not just money, nor your wife and your family.What really happened to you
when you were away?"
"Ive been thinking about me, about myself; the old self which I know has failed. Another sort of
self must take charge of things."
"The other Jean de Gue, who has been hidden so long under the gay and careless outside which you
have shown all this time. I have often wondered if he existed. You aren't the only person with two
selves."
"No. I suppose not. Sometimes I see Jean de Gue as a man without any feeling at all, and sometimes
with too much."
She came and sat on the arm of my chair. She laid a gentle hand on my head. I put out my hands and
felt her face. "I don't want to think," I said.
She laughed and kissed my closed eyes. "That's why you come here, isn't it?"