Dimanche and Other Stories by Irène Némirovsky Read Free Book Online Page B

she’ll be happy.”
    “There, there, calm down, Laure,” Mme. Vallier said, her thoughts turning to the gift she would have tobuy. “Laure can’t expect me to go mad. Now’s not the time for it, not with what Georges and Jacqueline cost me!”
    Meanwhile, Christiane was telephoning her friends. “Tonight I’m going to celebrate the end of my single life. The official engagement party will be next week, but this evening I’m inviting a few friends around: Chantal, Dominique, Marie-Solange, Jérôme, Marie-Pierre, Jean-Luc. We’ll go dancing.”
    Happiness and pride shone in her face; yet it had a harsh, sardonic expression only partly disguised by her smooth skin and youth. Her cold, mocking eyes, her stiffly held head, the slightly contemptuous pursing of her thin lips, all hinted at the woman she would become in the 1940s, the woman who would say, “The president has sounded out my husband, but I believe …” and “It all depends on England,” and “Now is the time to forget one’s personal preoccupations and think only of the party!” and “Gérard, you must talk to the minister …”
    It was late, almost midnight, when a group of young women in ball gowns, holding party streamers, arrived at the little bar on the Rue du Mont Thabor. One of them was waving a stick decorated with ribbons and tiny bells, laughing as she said in her shrill and childish voice, “So this is where you’ve been meeting for the last two years, Cri-Cri and Jerry, and no one knew about it? Where did you find such a wonderful place? You’re amazing, you know. Listen, I’m going to take it over, Ishall inherit it!” Some young men came in, Gérard among them.
    Ginette was sitting in her usual place. The morning’s lightheartedness had long since gone, and her face and shoulders sagged. Nobody looked at her. Nobody said a word to her. The bar had the sordid, grimy look of the morning after; the little flags decorating the bottles of whiskey drooped sadly, and some of the mistletoe berries had fallen on the floor, where they were crushed under people’s heels. The bartender had taken Ginette to one side. He was a kind if weak man, but he believed the first of January to be an important date in the calendar for its potential moral uplift. It was the day when you could write off the previous year’s mistakes, get rid of bad payers, reclaim what was owed to you, and feel the stronger and better for it. He had therefore made it clear to Ginette that she would need to settle her debts. As he thought about his wife and children, who could end up on the streets because of his generosity, he steeled himself with an interior monologue of self-evident truth: “It’s all well and good, but I mustn’t be an easy touch; if I fall ill tomorrow I’d like to know who’d give me credit?” Aloud he said, “And another thing, after tonight it’s over, my girl, okay? You’ll have to find somewhere else. The customers feel the same way as I do; they’ve had enough of being cadged off.”
    Ginette did not move but went on waiting, hoping fervently that Christiane would arrive.
    When she saw her come in, she stood up with a smile. Christiane frowned. “Oh no, I do hope she’s not going to come and annoy us!”
    Just for a second, however, she hesitated, wondering if it might not be rather good fun and very “modern” to introduce her friends to the woman and invite her to join them for a drink.
    “No, I don’t think so. She’s too obvious, she’s not amusing, and those stories about her and her Maurice are a bore …” she thought.
    At the age of fifteen, when she had found out how much she would be worth, she had learned how to look at people she did not want to acknowledge, how to look straight through them as if they were made of glass, with a cold, fixed stare as if she were looking for something just behind them; how to raise her eyebrows and allow a small, thin, icy smile to play on her lips.
    She looked intently at an