"A beggar woman." " Mad?" " Yes." "Ah yes." "I remember." "She follows the rivers." "Comes from Burma." "Not Indian." "She comes from Savannakhet." "Born there." "Walking..." "For ten years." "And one day, in front of her, the Ganges." " Yes." " She stays." "That's right." "12 children dead while she walked towards Bengal?" "Yes." "She leaves them." "Sells them, forgets them." "On the way to Bengal, she goes barren" " Savannakhet, Laos?" " Yes." "At seventeen." "Pregnant... seventeen thrown out by her mother, goes away asks the way to get lost." "No one knows." "In Calcutta they were together." " She and the white woman?" " Yes." "During the same years..." " He had followed her to India." " Yes." "For her, he left everything." "Overnight." " The night of the ball?" " yes." "Michael Richardson was engaged to a girl from S. Thala," "Lola Valerie Stein." "They were to marry in the autumn." "Then, the ball," "The ball at S. Thala." "She arrived late in the middle of the night in black." "That ball, such love... such desire." "That light?" "The monsoon." "That dust?" "Central Calcutta." "What is that scent of flowers?" "Leprosy." "Where are we?" "The French Embassy, in India." " That murmur?" " The Ganges." "When she died, he left India?" "Yes." "Her grave is in the English cemetery?" "Yes." " She died out there?" " On the islands." "Found dead one night." "A black Lancia speeds along the road to Chandernagore." "It was there that she first tried?" "Yes." "What are you afraid of ?" "Anne-Marie Stretter." "They would dance in the evening" "They're dancing." "What are you crying about?" "I love you to the point of not seeing not hearing dying." "Lepers burst like sacks of dust, you know." " Don't suffer?" " No, feel nothing." "She's there by the Ganges, under the trees." "She has forgotten." " The French Vice-Consul from Lahore." " Yes." "Sent to Calcutta in disgrace." "He's come back to the grounds?" "Yes." "He comes every night." "The tennis court, deserted." "Anne-Marie Stretter's red bicycle." "Where is the one in black?" "Out driving." "She comes back with the night." "The black Lancia has just entered the grounds." "She hunts at night in the depths of the Ganges." "For food." "Dead on the islands" " Her eyes pierced with light, dead." " Yes." "Beneath that stone." "Around her, a bend in the Ganges..." "Four o'clock." "Darkest night." " No one's asleep?" " No one." "What heat!" "Impossible." "Terrible." "Another storm..." "From the estuaries, inexhaustible..." " What's that sound?" " Her, crying." " She isn't suffering, is she?" " No." "Leprosy." "Leprosy of the heart." " Can't bear it?" " No, can't bear it." "India, can't bear it." "She's sleeping." "He loved her more than anything in the world." "More than that." "Michael Richardson set up a marine insurance business in Bengal, to stay with her in India." "Listen..." "The Ganges fishermen." "What a night!" "What heat!" "All-embracing..." "Deathly..." "From behind the plants in the bar she watches them." "Only at dawn when the lovers went toward the door of the ballroom did Lola Valérie Stein utter a cry." "Didn't hear anything else." "Didn't see anything else." "This crime in her past." "Yes." "Rain." "Yes." "Cool." "Her music, that was Venice." "A promising artist." " Never gave up playing?" " Never." "Ana Maria Guardi." "Yes." "The first marriage?" " The first post?" " Savannakhet, Laos." "To a French colonial civil servant." "She's 18." "Oh yes, a river already she's sitting by a river, and she's looking." "The Mekong." " She's silent?" "Crying?" " Yes." "They say:" ""She won't get used to it"." ""She'll have to be sent back to Europe."" " She couldn't bear it, already?" " Already." "Caught behind gates." "The government house grounds" " Those sentries?" " The guard." " Already couldn't bear it." " No." "One day, a government launch stops Monsieur Stretter is inspecting the Mekong posts." " Takes her away to Savannakhet?" " Yes, takes her with him." "For 17 years, through the capitals of Asia." "You find her in Peking, again in Mandalay." "In Bangkok..." "you find her in Bangkok." "In Rangoon..." "In Sydney." "You find her in Lahore... 17 years." "She's in Calcutta..." "Calcutta..." "She dies." " Who's the other man?" " A friend passing through." "A friend of Stretter." "Whoever wants her, has her." "He gives her." " Love." " Yes." "Splendor." ""Anne-Marie Stretter" written on the grave?" ""Ana Maria Guardi", but worn away." "Every night looks at her." " Has never spoken to her?" " Never." "Never approached any woman." " The male virgin of Lahore." " Yes." " Those gleams over there?" " The burning ghats." "Burning those who died of hunger?" "Yes." "It's dawn." "He had fired a gun in Lahore." "One night, from his balcony, he fired on the lepers of the Shalimar Gardens." " Couldn't bear it?" " No." " India, couldn't bear it?" " No." "What about India?" "The idea." "There was a reception at the French embassy?" "Yes." "The park stretches down to the Ganges." "The offices are on this side." "You see?" "Those grey buildings." "Farther away, the tennis courts, deserted during the monsoon." "Almost no one is dancing?" "In this heat, how could you?" "The only remedy, immobility." "Slowness..." "Slow down the blood." "The smell of mud." "Insipid." "The Ganges, low tide." "The new Austrian attaché." "Been here a month." " He can't get used to India." " His first time here?" "Yes." "He'll come again." " He'll go to the islands." " How can you tell?" "The anguish in his eyes." "She can't bear people who get used to India." "The Ambassador asks people to the islands for his wife." "She goes alone to the islands." "The Ambassador goes hunting in Nepal." "They say her lovers are English, don't mix with the embassies, and that the Ambassador knows." "A friend of the Stretters'." "Unknown in Calcutta." "With this humidity the pianos are detuned." "The French Vice-Consul has just entered the park." "At the last minute she sent him a card: "Come"." "Just what did he do?" "The worst... killed." " In Lahore." " The official version?" "Nerves gave way." "Often happens." " Easy to say." " Yes." "His face... as if grafted." "Very pale." "She could have spared us his presence." "An outcast in Lahore too?" "There too." "He just escaped being dismissed." "The ambassador intervened." "Closed circles in India make me think of leprosy." " Perhaps he drank?" " No." "Drunkenness is the same for us all here." "We talk about going home." "No, he didn't drink." "The Ambassador asked the young attaché to have a word with him." "He tries." "He turns away." "Can't bear it." "Any of it." "He laughs." "As if he were suddenly mad with joy." "Look..." "Perhaps he's just seen Madame Stretter... perhaps." " You mean..." " I wonder... perhaps." "Did he talk about Lahore?" "Only to her." "Near dawn." "He fired at night, on the Shalimar Gardens on lepers, dogs." "But they found bullets in the mirrors in his house in Lahore, too." "Shooting at himself..." "Roses arrived every day from Nepal." "She gave them out at the end of the ball." "After lunch, people sink..." "Heavy sleep." "Yet everyone waits for something like that." "Storms are expected." "Just a hole in the sky." "It fills in straight away." "How white she is!" "How white they are, the women of Calcutta!" "For six months, out only in the evening" "Fleeing the sun." "Seems imprisoned in a kind of suffering." "No one really knows what goes on behind these walls." "What she does." "Cycling very early in the morning, in the grounds." "Playing tennis, She reads, they say." "Parcels of books come from Venice for her." "She goes to the islands." "Appearances..." "Only one person sees him." "The director of the European club." "A drunkard." "All he said to the director was repeated to the Ambassador." " It's horrid!" " You don't understand." "He knew it would be repeated." "That's why he spoke to the director." "A way to reach her, this woman." "He said he was entitled to Madame Stretter's attentions, to her love, as much as the others..." "Her lovers from Calcutta..." "At night, near the tennis courts this bicycle..." "He says:" ""A thing she had touched"." "No that can't be repeated." "Of this passion, she said nothing." "Nothing." "He said he regretted not making a convincing report of Lahore." "Convincing?" "I remember the word." " What's known of his background?" " Lived in Neuilly." "Father worked in a bank." "Mother left the father, then died." "Expelled from various schools..." "At 15, a disciplinary school." "An aunt writes sometimes." "Look at his eyes." "He's crying." "He seems unaware of it." "He seems to be in a state..." "of tears." "What do you want?" "To talk to you." "What about?" "Your next post." "The voice is toneless, as if he was trying not to shout." "You can't get used to it either?" "No. the heat, of course but also the monotony." "The light no colour." "But you..." "before Lahore would you have preferred something else?" "No." "Lahore was what I wanted." "Come to the bar." "What are you afraid of?" "They say you'd like Bombay." "I wish to stay in Calcutta." "I don't think that's possible." "Then leave it to the Consular Service." "They can send me where they like." "Bombay is less crowded." "The climate is better." "The nearness of the sea is an advantage." "I haven't asked to see my file." "What does it say?" "That Lahore what you did in Lahore..." "People can't understand." "No matter how hard they try." "No one." "No one?" "What are you doing?" "Come along." "I'm listening to "India Song"." "I came to India because of "India Song"." "That tune makes me want to love." "I have never loved." "I had never loved anyone." "He saw himself photographed, in a rocking chair by the Gulf of Oman." "Then, one morning on the way to his office, he saw her in the park by the tennis courts in white." "What a story!" "What passion!" "He left everything for her." "Some close friends stayed after the reception." "The passion sometimes..." "Those European suicides that increase with the hunger that they never suffer..." "In its internal law, that culpability of the West..." "It is absurd, clear." "Shanghai..." "Did you see the photos of the bombing?" "The first attempt in Savannakhet because of a dead body, abandoned by its mother, a beggar from the north, in the government house grounds outside her room..." "No woman in Lahore knew him enough to shed any light on..." " No woman." " How terrible!" "No one has ever visited him in Lahore." "That's how he wanted to be, a virgin alone, waiting for love." "Death all around you, never quite reaching you." "What are you talking about?" "The Vice-Consul who is looking for Madame Stretter." "She has been leaving receptions more and more often." "It was bound to happen." "Look..." "He is going over to Madame Stretter." "Did you see?" "How subtle!" "How cleverly he saved his wife..." " Where are they going?" " Into the second drawing room." "Sooner or later the Ambassador had to talk with him." "So you see..." "He's asked for champagne." "If I've got it right, you'd like Bombay?" "But in Bombay you couldn't have the same job as Lahore." "It's still too soon." "If you stay here for a while, people will forget." "Or I can keep you in Calcutta." "Yes." "A strange thing, a career." "If you forget Lahore, so will others." "I won't forget Lahore." "There are remedies for this sort of nervousness," "as it is called." " You know." " No!" "At the beginning, everyone, myself included we feel the same." "It's a question of finding, inventing a way of looking at things." "I haven't." "I see nothing." "Go back to Paris." "No..." "It's impossible." "The Mekong, at Savannakhet, flowing yellow between forest and rice fields." "In those days the launches were slow." "It took days..." "At sunset, the mosquitoes..." "We couldn't see a thing." "Black clusters on the netting." "The Ambassador wrote poetry." " It's said she discouraged it." " The banks can't be seen when it rains." "The sky is low." "The water, muddy." "When he met her, she was so young, and he, already..." "They're great friends." "He took her away from Savannakhet?" "No one knows." "She courted death in Savannakhet." "So young." "You must come with us to the islands." "The Embassy villa was built a long time ago." "It's worth seeing." "And also the islands of the delta." "I'd be pleased to come." "Perhaps what she did was music behind those walls." "Prisoner of that suffering, so old." "Painless." "A leprosy of the heart." "Yet sometimes, in the grounds, those tears..." "The light of the monsoon so harsh and her eyes so clear that tears..." "Tell me about her." "Irreproachable." "Here that means nothing that you can see." "After Venice, she gave no more concerts?" "No, never." "Have they met?" "They must have seen each other in the grounds." "What is he looking at?" "Madame Stretter, dancing with the young attaché." "Listen carefully, to her voice, the accent." "Perhaps that's what makes her seem distant." " That origin." " Yes, maybe that too..." "I wish I were you arriving here for the first time, with the rains." "You aren't bored?" "What do you do in the evenings?" "On Sundays?" "I read, sleep." "I don't really know." "Boredom, of course, is so personal." "It's hard to give advice." "I don't think I'm bored." "Then again, it may not be as serious as they say." "Thank you for sending the parcels of books up so promptly." "A pleasure." "You know, one could say almost nothing is possible in India." "What do you mean?" "Nothing." "That this general despondency..." "It's neither painful nor pleasant to live in India." "Neither easy nor difficult." "It's nothing." "You see?" "Nothing." "You mean it's impossible?" "Well... perhaps, yes." "But then, you know it's probably an over-simplification." "The Vice-Consul is looking at you." "He's been doing so all evening." "You didn't notice?" "Where is he hoping to be posted?" "Here in Calcutta." "Really?" "I thought you knew already." "They say you're Venetian." "My father was French." "My mother was from Venice." "I kept her name." "At first, I would have said English." "That happens." "Are there any who never get used to it?" "Almost everyone does." "Did my husband mention the islands?" "I'd be pleased to come." "You write, I believe?" "I once thought I could." "Did someone tell you?" "Yes." "But I would have guessed." "Your way of being silent." "I gave it up." "Monsieur Stretter used to write?" "He used to, yes." "He too, and then..." "And you?" "I never tried." "You think it's not worth it, don't you?" "Well..." "Yes, if you like." "You play music?" "Sometimes." "Less, in the last few years." "Why?" "Hard to put into words." "Tell me." "A sort of pain is linked to music for some time now, for me." "In Venice, already, very young, 18 years old, music, to the point of madness." "Until a sort of suicide, already." "She says she no longer knows how to play." "What's happening?" "The Vice-Consul is dancing with the Spanish ambassador's wife." "He's talking of leprosy." "Will you have to dance with him?" "I don't have to do anything, but..." "He was here last night near the tennis courts." "He sleeps badly." " She broke away from him..." " What happened?" "Something he said, must have frightened her." "What do people fear?" "Repulsion is a feeling you know nothing about." "I don't understand." "What do you mean?" "Horror..." "Come to the bar." "I'm an old friend of Madame Stretter." "We've not met." "George Crown." "Help yourselves." "There's no one at the bar." " His words are a diversion." " Ready to flee." "And yet..." "He's still looking at you." "Seems she doesn't dare go out in the park." "What is he talking about with that man from the club?" "Childhood." "And her, the French Ambassador's wife." "Why is he waiting to leave?" "To be thrown out, probably." " The mad beggar woman." " The one who laughs." "It is said she's from Laos" "It doesn't seem possible..." " A beggar woman is in the grounds." " I Know." "The one who sings." "Don't you know her?" "But no, you're new to Calcutta." "She sings, I believe, a song from Savannakhet." "In Laos." "She intrigues us." "I keep thinking it can't be possible." "We're thousands of miles from Indochina." "How could she?" "I've heard her in the avenue, early in the morning." "It's a happy song." "Children sing it over there." "She must have come down the river valleys." "But how did she manage to cross the Cardamoms?" "She's completely mad." "Yes." "But she's alive" "She comes to the islands sometimes." "How?" "No one knows." "Perhaps she follows you." "Follows the whites." "That happens." "For food." " Where is he?" " By the bar." "Drinks too much." "It'll end badly." "We could see him at night through the window of his room." "Pacing..." "Pacing, day and night." "Day and night." "He'd call down death on Lahore." "And fire." "He shouted too." "Disconnected words." "And laughed." "Isn't there in each of us a chance, just one of being like him in Lahore?" "But one knows about leprosy before coming." "One knows." "Perhaps he thought the gardens were empty." "In that light that fog..." "Look at the sky... sick." "That thickness... that dirt, throughout the night." "He said he wanted leprosy." "He is anger itself." "Against whom?" "Against what?" "Doesn't need a reason." "They're dancing." "Look." "She's always loved dancing." "Some months ago, in Chandernagore, they were found in a cheap hotel." "Trying to die together." "Hard to believe." "An ambulance back to Calcutta." "The truth came out in the end." "For no reason, they say." ""Indifference to life"." "Or the opposite." "People confuse things." "No." "There's a definite equivalence." "The same appearances." "People always talked about her a great deal." "About that love." "And the islands." "The delta islands." "That's all they'll miss of India." "What would they have done without them?" "About heat." "About fear." "Leprosy, and hunger." "About the Vice-Consul from Lahore those dead..." "About that sweetness..." "We wondered:" "All those books those sleepless nights in the delta." "Those tears?" "India Song..." "On his way to the office, he whistled India Song." "He said to the club director:" ""At home in Neuilly, in the drawing room, there's a black piano."" ""India Song is on the music-rest."" ""My mother played it."" ""The score has been there since she died."" "Day already." "No one speaks." "They seem to be waiting." "The tennis courts were deserted." "A bicycle was there." "I noticed they were deserted, after she'd gone." "The air was torn apart." "Her skirt, against the trees." "She looked at me." "I didn't know you existed." "Calcutta has become a form of hope for me." "I love Michael Richardson." "I'm not free of that love." "I know." "I love you like that, in that love." "It doesn't matter." "I sound odd." "Do you hear my voice?" "It frightens them." "Yes." "Who is she?" "I shot myself in Laos, but didn't die." "The others separate me from Lahore." "I don't." "Lahore is me." "You understand too?" "Yes." "Don't shout." "Yes." "You are with me, with Lahore." "I know it." "You are in me." "I'll take you away inside me." "We shall fire on the Shalimar lepers." "You can't avoid it." "I didn't need to dance with you to know you." "And you know it." "I know it." "There's no need for us to go on." "We have nothing to say to each other." "We are the same." "I believe that." "Have love affairs with others." "We don't need that." "I wanted to know the smell of your hair." "That explains why I..." "After the reception, your friends will stay on." "I wish I could stay with you once." "There's no chance." "They'd throw me out." "Yes." "You are someone they have to forget." "Like Lahore." "Yes." "What will become of me?" "You'll be posted far from Calcutta." "That's what you want?" "Yes." "Very well." "When will it end?" "With your death, I believe." "What's this pain?" "My pain?" "Intelligence." "About you?" "I'll ask them to let me stay tonight." "Do what you like." "To make something happen between you and me." "A public incident." "All I know how to do is shout." "Let them know love can be shouted." "They'll be uncomfortable." "Then start talking again." "I even know you'll tell no one you agreed." "Let me stay!" "I'm going to stay here tonight!" "With her!" "Just once, with her!" "Do you hear?" " What is it?" " Better do something." "How terrible." "Bound to happen." "I'm staying!" "I'm going to stay in the French Embassy!" "I'm going to the islands with her!" "I beg you!" "I beg you!" "Let me stay!" " Dreadful!" " It's terrible." "And she just stands still." "Once!" "Just once!" "I've never loved anyone but her!" "Do go home." "You've had too much to drink." "He did it deliberately." "No sense of..." "What happened?" "How strange." "Indecent." "Impossible to understand." "It's terrible." "How dreadful!" "They've got him." "He's not resisting." "He's outside." "Locked out." "Laughing and crying." "Did you see?" "He's forcing the gate." "The beggars are afraid." "He's gone." " Now all is clear." " What?" "Lahore." "He's still shouting." "Where is she?" " In the drawing room." " With him." "In a way, everyone should cry." " Don't you think?" " But..." "It's a manner of speaking." "Is that the Vice-Consul of France shouting?" "Yes." "Still shouting." "After the trip to the islands, he drops out of sight." "He tenders his resignation." "The file ends with his resignation." "Soon after?" "A few days." "What's he saying?" "Her Venetian name in deserted Calcutta." "The whole night he shouted that name." "That sound of wings, of birds?" "Day." "Sunrise, here." "There... and beyond." "The air smells of mud." "And leprosy." "And fire." " Not a breath of air?" " No." "Only very small movements very slow wafts of odour." "The sun." "What light!" "Awful!" "Yes." "Exile." "She's listless." "Yes." "Deeply absent." "The heat is rust-coloured." "Above, smoke." "The factories." "This continent, suspended?" "The monsoon." "Below, Bengal." "Further." "Lower." "Beneath the sky." "Look..." "In a bend of the Ganges." "That whiteness." "Over there." "The English cemetery." "A car is speeding along the straight roads, by the Ganges." "They've left for the islands." " Those junks?" " Rice." "On the slopes, those dark patches?" "People." "The highest density in the world." " Those dark mirrors, thousands of them?" " The rice fields of India." "The black Lancia has stopped." "The rain." "The roads are flooded." "They took shelter in a sala." "There, the young attaché said:" ""I saw the Vice-Consul before I left"." "He was still shouting in the streets." "He asked if I was going to the islands." "I said I was going to Nepal with the Ambassador." "Did she approve of the lie?" "She hardly ever mentioned the man from Lahore." "That green colour." "It's growing larger." "The ocean." "The islands." "Which one is it?" "The largest." "The central island." "They've arrived." "That white palace?" "The Prince of Wales, an international hotel." "The sea is rough." "There's been a storm." "In front, the piers." "Those ships sail the South Pacific." "Behind, berths for yachts." "Through the trees, the same flat horizon." "The islands are alluvial." "The mud of the Ganges." "Where's the French Embassy villa?" "Beyond the hotel, facing the ocean." "She wanted to swim when she arrived?" "Yes." "It was late, The sea rough." "It was impossible to swim," "Just let the warm waves break over her." "She bathed with him." "Those nets everywhere in the sea?" "Against the delta sharks." "Where is she?" "She'll come." "She's coming." " That evening, was she the same?" " Smiling." "Dressed in white." "Who comes to the hotel?" "White India." "I can't quite remember." "Didn't she go to the Embassy villa?" "She only slept there." "She dined at the Prince of Wales, when she went to the islands." "She had the villa's servants sent back to Calcutta." " How long ago?" " A few weeks." " India Song." " Yes." " There's dancing in the lounge." " Tourists from Ceylon." "These birds?" "Prisoners of the island, because of the storm." "They're in the mango trees." "They strip them." "They'll fly at dawn." "This sudden smell of death?" "Incense." "He had come on the last boat?" "Yes, the 7 o'clock boat." "He hadn't been home all day." "He never went back to Calcutta." "When the mist came, the wind dropped." "She had the blinds raised." "She wants to see the ocean, the sky above the estuaries." "They are very tired, after last night." "She is looking outside." "I remember a wall of mist comes in toward the islands." "Yes." "She says something about Venice." "Venice in the winter." "Yes, that's right." " Venice?" " Yes." "Perhaps certain winter evenings, in Venice, the same mist." "She's saying the name of a colour." "Violet." "The colour of the delta mist." "It was a September evening during the summer monsoon on the islands in 1937." "In China, the war went on." "Shanghai had just been bombed." "The Japanese were still advancing." "In Spain, they were still fighting." "The Republic is strangled." "In Russia, the Revolution is betrayed." "The Congress of Nuremberg had just taken place." "Already, the beggar woman was hunting in the warm waters of the delta." "Michael Richardson and the young guest had gone across the beach to the villa." "The other two had gone sailing." "She had wanted to go back alone, along the inland paths." "Behind her, the Vice-Consul of Lahore." "He followed her to the park." "Michael Richardson and the young guest had arrived after her." "She had gone to meet them in the park." "They move toward one another." "They meet." "They seem to be talking." "They go toward the villa." "Once they had tried tried to die together." "Without succeeding." "In a brothel, in Chandernagore." "They'd been discovered." "At one point in the night, she brings them champagne." "Glasses." "She serves them." "It's still night when Michael Richardson takes away the young guest." "Tears himself away from that place." "Leaves her there." "Later, music was heard around the Embassy villa." "The lovers of the Ganges had promised to let each other be free, if ever either of them decided to die." "The young guest came back to the villa during the night." "Yes." "He saw her." "She was lying in the park, leaning on one elbow." "He said:" ""She stretched out her arm and put her head on it."" ""The Vice-Consul of Lahore was ten yards away."" "They didn't speak to each other."" "She must have stayed there a long time." "Till daylight." "Then she must have taken the path." "On the beach they found the dressing gown." "And the heat was once more the heat of Calcutta." "She must have crossed Loas, Cambodia, Siam, and Burma" "Started going South from there, through the valley, Mandalay, Bassen" "It musn't be a single walk, but a hundred, a thousand of walks" "Each of them being the last one." "The hunger, that pushes you further away, always further away" "She must follow the roads, the rails, the boats" "Across the forest." "What?" "What is she following?" "These clearings, these breachings." "The roads of the tea, of wars, of migration" "Strange, she always walks toward the sunset." "Red suns." "At nightfall certainly, in the cooler air." "She is bald." "Starvation probably, fever, fear." "What remains of her in Calcutta:" "the song of Savannakhet, the language." "When she gets to Calcutta it's already too late." "The head is empty, the heart is dead." "That's where she gets lost, maybe." "She always tried to get lost, since the beginning of her life."