India Song Page #4

- 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 attach 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.

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