Under The Net - Iris Murdoch [98]
I am not a fetishist and I would rather hold a woman any day than her shoes. But nevertheless as my grip closed upon them I trembled. Then I walked on, holding them one in each hand, and in the sandy avenue my feet made no sound. At the moment when I had paused to pick up the shoes, Anna had turned aside into another avenue. Diagonally now through the trees I could see her white blouse like a pale flag in front of me. We were now in the thickest part of the wood. I began to make haste. That she was thinking of me now, that she was ready for me, I could not after this long pursuit any longer doubt. This was a rendezvous. My need of her drew me onward like a physical force. Our embrace would close the circle of the years and begin the golden age. As the steel to the magnet I sped forward. I caught up with her and spread out my arms. 'Alors, ch�e?' said a soft voice. The woman who turned to face me was not Anna. I reeled back like a wounded man. The white blouse had deceived me. We looked at each other for a moment and then I turned away. I leaned against a tree. Then I set off running at random down one of the avenues, looking to left and right. Anna could not be far away. But it was extremely dark in the wood. A moment later I found myself beside the steps of the Jeu de Paume. Beyond the iron grille were the blazing lights of the Concorde, where in a mingled uproar of music and voices thousands of people were dancing. The noise broke over me suddenly and I turned my head away from it as if someone had thrown pepper in my eyes, and plunged back under the trees. I ran along calling Anna's name. But now suddenly the wood seemed to be full of statues and lovers. Every tree had blossomed with a murmuring pair and every vista mocked me with a stone figure. Slim forms were flitting along the avenues and pallid oblique faces caught the small light which penetrated through the forest. The din from the Concorde echoed along the tops of the trees. I cannoned into a tree trunk and hurt my shoulder. I sped along the colonnade towards a motionless figure which confronted me with marble eyes. I looked about me and called again. But my voice was caught up in the velvet of the night like a knife-thrust caught in a cloak. It was useless. I crossed the main avenue, thinking that Anna might have gone into the other half of the wood. A man's face stared at me, and I stumbled over someone's foot. I ran to and fro for some time like a lost dog. When at last I paused in exhaustion and desperation I realized that I was still holding Anna's shoes. I turned about, and with a renewed hope I went plunging back towards the place where we had first entered the avenues of trees. The exact place was hard to identify, as each avenue so precisely resembled the next one. When I thought I had found the place, I began to search for the tree with the cavity at its root. But every tree had a cavity at its root; and yet no one of them looked quite like the one where Anna had left her shoes. I began to think that I must have mistaken our point of entry. I went back on to the grass and tried again, but with no greater certainty. I decided after a while that all I could do was to wait and hope that Anna would come back. I stood there leaning against a tree, while whispering couples passed me by in the darkness, and I called out Anna's name from time to time in tones of increasing sadness. I began to feel tired, and sat down at the foot of the tree, still clutching the shoes. An indefinite time passed; and as it did so a very sad stillness descended on me like dew. I stopped calling and waited in silence. The night was getting colder. I knew now that Anna would not come. At last I rose and chafed my stiff limbs. I left the Tuileries gardens. The streets were strewn with the discarded toys of the evening. Through a sea of coloured paper tired people were making their way home. The party was over. I joined the procession; and as I walked with them in the direction of the Seine I wondered to myself with what thoughts and down what streets, perhaps not