drama even in this state, said, “Simone, you must understand this morphine is a god. And like the Old Testament Yahweh, this god is a jealous god. When we are before his altar, he demands that all other gods—Priapus, especially, his rival in joy—must be banished.”
After a minute, Jacques said: “I had just bent down to tie the lace of my boot—” and Joë said the words along with him.
“We have had this conversation many times, your friend Jacques and I. Sometimes many times in one evening. Jacques speaks to me of his wound. Under the influence, one’s tongue can be loosed. Loosed or unloosed?” He stuck out his tongue like a naughty child, and then took it between his thumb and forefinger. “What a strange appendage—the tongue,” he mumbled, before letting go of it.
One’s tongue unloosed? Simone wished that it were possible to insert the now-empty hypodermic back into her arm, draw out the drug—at the same time realizing that such a notion was evidence that it was already beginning to have an effect on her. What words of love for Jacques might pour unstinted from her?
“Free tongue…” Joë was saying, and said it again, and then for a third time.
Jacques turned to Simone, took her hand. “He told you we were going some place where words could not go. But they’re like a dog, a dog that doesn’t want to get left behind, words trot after you, looking up at you: Take me with you! And then begin to howl and whine.”
“Your Jacques and I take this drug, and our words cease to be original, we chant a Gregorian chant, over and over he says, ‘I had just bent down to fix the lace of my boot.’ That is why his wound was a minor wound, a blessing, it got him out of the trenches and…” Joë’s voice trailed off, then: “What were we talking about?”
“War wounds,” Simone said.
“Ah, yes…” A smile flitted across his face.
The gravity in the room increased. Perhaps they were on a distant planet or in an underwater realm. Great force was required to move their limbs. Time slowed down to a crawl. Lifting one’s head—my head, thought Simone, this head I am lifting is mine, it belongs to me, it is me, but at the same time it is a head and I can regard it as a concrete object in the world—it was all quite clear and terribly confusing at the same time, and when she got to the end of a thought so much time had elapsed it was impossible for her to remember where the train of thought had begun.
She heard herself say the word, “Saturn.”
“Ah, this girl of yours is a poet. She’s just spoken the perfect poem, a single word: ‘Saturn.’ It’s exquisite. Simone, you must never debase your oeuvre by declaiming another word. Rimbaud knew when to stop: otherwise, he would have been one of those poets who showed great promise as a young man…In fact, I think it would be best if you ceased speaking altogether—fell into mystical silence, like Nietzsche.”
The shelves of books. The drawings thumbtacked to the wall. The honey-colored light from the kerosene lamps. Gravity. Her ankle. The bell on the bedside table. An incongruous lamp with a fluted linen shade, embroidered with forget-me-nots—her mother would have exclaimed over it. An even more out-of-place vase, porcelain nymphs and satyrs, Pan’s flute becoming the opening to hold the flowers—although the vase was empty.
“When,” Jacques said. “When,” he said again, “when I was in Madagascar. In the cities—well, the cities are cities, but in the countryside…perhaps you are back in time, or perhaps this modernity of ours is but a…I just had a very profound thought. But now I’ve lost it.”
Decades later, Simone too will be granted this balm as a medically sanctioned release from pain. The faithful Marie-Claire will dispense it, having become not only maid and dogsbody, but also nurse.
The sight of the little glass vials of morphine lined up on the shelf will give Simone a feeling of security.
One of the poets will come to visit and deride her drug, saying “Simone, morphine as compared to opium—well, it’s like the difference between sugar and sugar cane, the insipid essence as opposed to the complexities of nature, the interpretation of the dream as opposed to the dream itself.
“Picasso used to say to me: ‘Opium’s smell is the least stupid smell in the world. It’s like the stink of a circus or a sea port.’”
Although he will feel the object of his affection far superior to hers, Marie-Claire will nonetheless notice a few vials missing after his departure. In the future, she will take the precaution of hiding them prior to his calls. And then the poet’s visits will cease. Once men had been drawn to Simone by a glimpse of her finely turned ankle. Once men had been drawn to her by her willing ways. Once men had been drawn to her out of a desire for connection with or revenge upon her husband. Then men were drawn to her by a desire to make off with her morphine.
She had no memory of that first evening with Joë ending, of making her way with Jacques to their room, only knew that the next morning she was down in the depths of the ocean, trapped by the water’s enormous weight as a series of sharp raps was being delivered to their bedroom door. She rose up up up up up but still did not get to the surface. Her brain was waterlogged. She wanted to take it in both her hands and wring it out.
And now sunlight was pouring through the windows, the woman who had been knock-knock-knocking on the door had entered the room, flung open the drapes, and Jacques was moaning, “Oh, for the love of God. Let us sleep.”
“The young master said I was to get you up. It’s long since gone noon.”
“Jesus,” he moaned. “Some coffee, at least bring us some coffee.”
“There’s no need to be rude.” The woman slammed the door as she departed, returning a quarter of an hour later with a tray with a pot of coffee, bread, and cheese, still muttering, “…decent Christians…the young master said…run off my feet,” keeping up her chant as she went out again, again allowing the door to slam behind her.
In the meantime, Jacques had redrawn the drapes, although a shaft of afternoon light, pouring through a gap, illuminated motes of dust filling the air.
Simone had fallen asleep in her clothes. She was shocked by how musty they smelt, how the waistband, digging into her flesh, had left a red and itchy mark, her stockings rumpled. Overnight, she had become a slattern. She’d have a wash—although she dreaded ringing for the sullen girl, asking her for hot water and a clothes brush.
Jacques downed the coffee as a Russian downs a shot of vodka. Simone stirred warmed milk and sugar into hers, sipped from the porcelain cup. He was naked. His clothes lay in a heap on the floor.
“I can’t believe I slept in my clothes. And this is my only outfit.”
“Ah, dear Simone, I fear I have debauched you.”
He did not speak with the playfulness of the night before. His concern was shadowed by guilt.
She saw that his remorse was causing him pain. Although she did not want to make him suffer, she knew it would be futile to lie to him.
When her parents had left the peasantry behind, they had bid farewell to filth. In the hamlets and thorps surrounding Juan-les-Pins, Simone had passels of aunts and cousins and second-cousins-once-removed
