First Gray, Then White, Then Blue

by De Moor, Margriet

• ISBN13: 9781585673964
• ISBN10: 158567396X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-05-27
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams

Summary

MARGRIET DE MOOR'S prizewinning first novel, "First Gray, Then White, Then Blue, is at once a powerful mystery about why a husband would murder his wife, and a penetrating investigation of the overwhelming force of obsessive love. Told in various points of view, moving from past to present to future, "First Gray, Then White, Then Blue is a story of perception, love, and mortality--told with a bewitching power.

Excerpts

Chapter One

PART ONE

He gets up at six-thirty every day. A few minutes earlier, unprompted by any mechanical violence, he opens his eyes and comes to his senses. Without moving a muscle he recognizes the smell, the gentle warmth and especially the position of the bed he is lying in relative to the windows, the door and the walls of the bedroom. Next he recalls a detail, recalls the two beautiful Irokezu erotic prints, on the left above his head.

    Once he remembers where he is, a familiar vague restlessness overcomes him, forcing him to use his brain. He rejects the notion of asking himself what he is doing with his life. Once there were my childhood dreams. I want to know what has become of them. Nonsense. His hopes had never been that high. He was a lad who got excellent marks and every winter had three weeks off school with severe bouts of angina. So it is another question that is weighing on him.

    Above the curtains there is a strip of light. It is still quiet outside. What will the day be like? It slowly comes back to him: not unpleasant: two routine operations are scheduled for this morning, starting at eight o'clock. Straightforward cases of cataracts in octogenarians, perfectly healthy people who have decided to have their eyes fixed. When I enter the operating theatre in a little while one of them will be lying ready on the table.

    While my assistant inserts the drip into the arm, I am helped into my apron and gloves. Then I sit at the head of the operating table and pass two strong needles through the upper and lower eyelids. I position a clamp to keep the eye wide open and then run a thread through the top of the conjunctiva so that the eye, now staring at me like that of a great dead fish, can still be manipulated a little by tugging gently on the cord. I slide the stand with its two microscopes -- one for me and one for the theatre sister on my right -- over the patient's head. I am handed a pair of scissors. I begin. Completely cut off from my hands by the technology, I steal a look at my work, and see that I make a perfect incision. I immediately cauterize the tiny blood vessels that start bleeding ...

    He has had an aversion to blood ever since childhood. On Easter Saturday morning his mother holds the largest and plumpest Leghorn chicken firmly between her knees. She is swift and decisive and has sharpened the knife in advance on the brick ledge of the kitchen window. One of his little sisters picks up the head from the tiled floor out of curiosity and he, walking off with a proud expression, sees, with the greatest possible clarity, that the stream of blood spurting into the bucket dries up only when the creature's futile struggles subside. `Do you want some more?' asks his father the next day. He nods, and dips his young fingers into lukewarm water with flower petals floating in it. For as long as he can remember he has wanted to be a doctor.

    Night fades. Beside him Nellie is asleep with her fist against her cheek. Not only now in the dim light of the summer morning, but also in the pitch dark of December, he knows there is a contented expression playing around her mouth. Her dreams are still in full flow. She claims that she never dreams of anything but the previous day's chores.

    `I was on my knees unpacking an order in the shop,' she says. `I carefully unwrapped the tissue paper and found myself holding an expensive Delftware plate. It was cracked.'

    She suspects she is one of the least enigmatic creatures on earth. He resurfaces with a yawn. That's enough for one night, you've had your fun, the dream is over, it's time you rejoined your real self. This house: they managed to get the quaint little villa very cheaply at the time, with coat collars turned up they strode round the place. A sea breeze was blowing. They looked proprietorially at the bedroom windows nestling in the dun-coloured thatch. A house for the family you are going to start. Old cupboards. A cellar. A hearth that draws beautifully. You won't be alone.

    Now that their son is approaching twenty, Nellie has started a job. Four days a week she sells jewellery and porcelain and in the summer season especially money pours into her nonchalant hands. On his way back from his surgery he drives slowly down the Duinweg. The illuminated shop window is at the foot of the slope, and just as he has to stop for the junction she opens the back panel. She does not see him of course. She leans forward and picks up a crystal bowl.

    `Are you sure it's not too much trouble?' the customer asks.

    `Not at all.'

    `Is it really the only one you have?'

    `Definitely. This firm takes ages to deliver. I was surprised to find the bowl in with the last consignment.'

    Still talking, she comes from behind the counter. As she opens the dark red partition daylight pours into the shop from the street. She bends forward.

    She rolls over against him in her sleep, makes funny snoring sounds and wraps an arm round his shoulder. He knows that despite her dreaming she is acutely aware of the time. She quite likes him having to free himself from her embrace in the mornings. What is the built-in mechanism that controls me? From the very first I tended to follow her imperturbable lead. Now she is in charge, furnishes the house, does her own painting and paperhanging. `How does a holiday in the Dordogne strike you?' she asks by candlelight. He presses his unshaven cheeks against her face and gives way indolently to her self-assurance. For years they have been on the most intimate terms. He does not know his sock size. Whenever he leaves the house, he clearly enjoys telling her, his first love, what time he expects to be home without her asking.

    This house. This son. His wife has been trying for twenty years to turn this dune top into a garden. She levels the earth and covers it with dark manure, and with a grim expression plants hedges and double roses, but nothing survives longer than a season here. How come she of all people is able to persuade him that their son is doing fine? If you want to see flowers on these windswept heights, Nellie, you must bend very low, believe me, I've always lived in the village, once your nose is virtually touching the ground, there they are, the pitiful little star-shaped flowers of the celandine.

    Six-thirty. He must get out of this bed at once.

Excerpted from First Gray, Then White, Then Blue by Margriet de Moor. Copyright © 1991 by Margriet de Moor.
Translation copyright © 1994 Paul Vincent. Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.