14
AFTERWARD, in their gaudy bathgowns, they walked up and up a flinty path, half-smothered in broom and ulex. Yonder a small villa, whose rent was enormous, gleamed white as sugar between the black cypresses. Great, beautiful crickets skidded across the gravel. Margot tried to catch them. She crouched down and cautiously stretched out finger and thumb, but the cricket’s sharp-elbowed limbs jerked suddenly, the fan-shaped blue wings shot out and it flew three yards on to vanish as soon as it fell.
In the cool room with the red-tiled floor, where the light through the slits of the shutters danced in one’s eyes and lay in bright lines at one’s feet, Margot, snake-like, shuffled off her black skin, and, with nothing on but high-heeled slippers, clicked up and down the room, eating a sibilant peach; and stripes of sunshine crossed and re-crossed her body.
In the evenings, there was dancing at the casino. The sea looked paler than the flushed sky, and the lights of a passing steamer glowed festively. A clumsy moth flapped round a rose-shaded lamp; and Albinus danced with Margot. Her smoothly brushed head barely reached his shoulder.
Very soon after their arrival they made several acquaintances. He was conscious of a gnawing degrading jealousy when he saw how closely Margot pressed to her partner as she danced, especially as he knew that she had nothing on beneath her flimsy frock: her legs had browned so prettily that she wore no stockings. Sometimes Albinus lost sight of her. Then he got up and walked about restlessly, tapping a cigarette against his case. He would wander into a room where people were playing cards, and onto a terrace, and then back again with the sickening conviction that she was deceiving him. Suddenly she would appear from nowhere and sit down by his side in her beautiful, shimmering dress and take a long draught of wine. He did not betray his fears, but nervously stroked beneath the table her bare knees which knocked against one another as she leaned back in her chair and laughed—a little hysterically, he thought—at something—not overfunny—that her latest partner was saying.
To Margot’s credit it must be admitted that she did try her utmost to remain quite faithful to him. But no matter how tender and thoughtful he was in his love-making, she knew, all along, that for her it would always be love minus something, whereas the least touch of her first lover had always been a sample of everything. Unfortunately a young Austrian who was the best dancer in Solfi, and a crack ping-pong player to boot, somehow resembled the man Miller; there was something about his strong knuckles, his keen sardonic eyes, which kept reminding her of things she would have preferred to forget.
One hot night between two dances she happened to stray with him into a dark corner of the casino garden. The dull sweetish smell of a fig tree weighted the air and there was that banal blend of moonlight and distant music which is apt to affect simple souls.
“No, no,” muttered Margot when she felt his lips on her neck and cheek, while his clever hands groped their way up her legs.
“You shouldn’t,” she whispered, and threw back her head and greedily returned his kiss. He caressed her so thoroughly that she felt the little strength she still had ebbing away; but in time she slipped free and ran to the brightly lit terrace.
This scene was never repeated. Margot had so fallen in love with the life that Albinus could offer her—a life full of the glamour of a first-class film with rocking palm trees and shuddering roses (for it is always windy in filmland)—and she was so afraid of seeing it all snap that she dared not take any risks; indeed, she even lost for a time her ruling characteristic—self-confidence. She recovered it, however, as soon as they returned to Berlin in the autumn.
“Very nice, to be sure,” she said drily as she surveyed the good hotel room where they had put up, “but I hope you understand, Albert, that we can’t go on like this forever.”
Albinus, who was dressing for dinner, hastened to assure her that he was already taking steps to rent a new flat.
“Does he really think me a fool?” she wondered with fierce resentment.
“Albert,” she said aloud, “I see you don’t understand.” She sighed deeply and covered her face with her hands. “You’re ashamed of me,” she said, watching him through her fingers.
Gaily he tried to embrace her.
“Don’t touch me,” she screamed, giving him a smart shove with her elbow. “I know perfectly well you’re afraid to be seen with me in the street. If you’re ashamed of me, you can leave me and go back to your Lizzy. You’re quite free.”
“Don’t, darling,” he pleaded helplessly.
She flung herself on the sofa and managed to burst into sobs.
Albinus pulled up the knees of his trousers, knelt down, and tried carefully to touch her shoulder, which jerked every time his fingers approached it.
“What is it you want?” he asked softly. “What is it you want, Margot?”
“I want to live with you quite openly,” she blubbered. “In your own home. And to see people …”
“Very well,” he said, rising to his feet and brushing his knees.
(“And in a year’s time you’ll marry me,” thought Margot as she went on sobbing nicely, “you’ll marry me unless by that time I’m already in Hollywood—in which case you may go to the devil.”)
“If you don’t stop crying,” said Albinus, “I shall begin to cry myself.”
Margot sat up and smiled plaintively. Tears only added to her beauty. Her face was aflame, the iris of her eyes was dazzling, and a large tear trembled on the side of her nose: he had never before seen tears of that size and brilliance.