: A few years before the Second World War, a repressed German surgeon, a convinced anti-militarist, escapes from a Nazi concentration camp and ends up in Paris, where he falls in love, loses his beloved and takes revenge on the enemy.
Ravik met her on a late November evening on the Alma Bridge. It seemed to him that the woman was going to commit suicide - before that her face was pale. Ravik was very tired after a working day, but could not leave the woman. He took her to a small cellar near the Arc de Triomphe, treated him with calvados (apple brandy) and waited for the woman to calm down. Her appearance did not appeal to Ravik. The woman had an extinguished, pale face and full, but colorless lips. Ravik liked only the hair of a natural golden color.
After drinking calvados, they left the cafe. Ravik was bored, but again he could not let the unfortunate one out in the rain and fog. They crossed Etoile Square in front of the Arc de Triomphe, turned into an alley and went to the Hotel Internacional, where Ravik lived. There was no free room in the hotel, and he had to shelter a woman at his place. He never had time to go to bed - he was urgently summoned to work.
Ravik was a talented surgeon. A few years ago, he managed to escape from the Nazi concentration camp to Paris. Since then, he illegally operated on Dr. Weber's clinic. That evening, the patient - a girl after an unsuccessful abortion - died on the operating table. Ravik was very upset by such setbacks. He came home tired and frustrated, hoping that the woman had already left, but apparently she had nowhere to go. On the way, Ravik drank, and for him, "suddenly everything became simple - morning, woman." He called her to bed, and she agreed.
After he fell asleep, and waking up, he found that the woman was still nearby. She said that she lives nearby, at the Verdun Hotel. The man she came to Paris with suddenly died and panic seized the woman. Ravik took her to a hotel, called Dr. Weber, who helped arrange all the formalities with the police, and freed her things from the greedy clutches of the innkeeper. He then helped her to rent a room at the Milan Hotel. There, she wrote on a piece of notebook her name - Joan Madou. He tore it as soon as he left the hotel.
Time has passed. Ravik still operated in the clinic and lived in the Internacional, whose hostess did not require documents from refugees. He could not rent an apartment - for this you need a passport, which Ravik did not have. Once in the police for the first time, he could go to prison for several weeks, the second time - for six months. He went through this vicious circle more than once and learned a lot. He did not want to have something and to become attached to something. Ravik needed only work. The "leading" surgeon of the clinic was the old and mediocre professor Duran. He plunged the patient into sleep, and then Ravik came and did the operation, which the professor could not handle. Durant made a name for himself by paying Ravik a tiny fraction of his royalties. Ravik did not mind - he could not operate. In addition to “assisting” the professor, Ravik had to examine the girls from the Osiris brothel every Thursday, whose services he often used.
Ravik's only friend was the Russian emigrant Boris Morozov, who works as a doorman in the Russian nightclub Scheherazade. They often met in the dining room of the Internacional, which the guests called the "catacomb." The room was in the basement of the hotel and had access to the courtyard, which was used during police raids. Ravik and Boris were sitting in the corner of the “catacomb” under a stunted palm in a tub and playing chess when the doctor was brought a bag from an unknown lady, in which was a small wooden Madonna.Ravik recalled that he had seen such a figure in Joan Madou’s room. Morozov considered the figurine a "cry for help," because the woman was left completely alone in a foreign city. He persuaded Ravik to come to her.
Ravik found Joan in a severe depression. He spent the evening with her, still not showing interest in a woman. Joan turned out to be an actress, and Ravik gave her the address of Morozov - he could arrange for her to work in Scheherazade. Having done this, Ravik experienced relief - “the weak sense of responsibility that he still felt disappeared.” The woman did not want to be alone, and Ravik spent the night in her room on a narrow and rickety deck chair.
Ravik noticed this man a few days later, when he was sitting in a bistro on the street Boissier. The man flickered behind the glass flooded with rain, and Ravik rushed after him, but did not catch up. He remembered Berlin in 1934, a windowless window in the Gestapo, the pain of torture, the "despairing face of Sibylla" held by the executioners, and the other face - well-fed, smiling. Ravik remembered the voice of this man explaining to Sibylla what would happen to her. The girl hanged herself in a concentration camp three days later. The man’s name was Haake, and it was him who Ravik saw behind the wet glass. After talking with Morozov, Ravik decided that he had confessed.
The next evening, Ravik came to Scheherazade with Kat Hegström, an American of Swedish descent, his first Parisian patient - two years ago he cut out her appendicitis. Since then, Ravik’s affairs have been going well, and he considered Kat his talisman. She returned to Paris to have an abortion, and asked Ravik to entertain her a little.
In "Scheherazade" Joan sang. In it "there is no trace of a colorless, erased expression familiar to Ravik." Now the woman’s face “was illuminated by some exciting, destructive beauty.” Ravik spent the evening listening to Kat making plans for the future. Now she could not give birth due to bleeding, but she wanted children. The next day, while undergoing surgery, Ravik discovered inoperable cancer in Kat.
Trying to come to terms with this, Ravik recalled “one of the greatest lessons of his life”, which he received at the front of the First World War near Iprom. Then, during a sudden artillery raid, three of his friends died, and Ravik himself miraculously remained intact and learned: help while you can, but if you can’t do anything, forget and live on. This is the only way to survive.
In the evening he went to the Scheherazade and met with Joan. Now Ravika admired her "bright, mysterious face." Their romance began under the silver-casting bulk of the Arc de Triomphe.
Joan plunged into her love with her head, "she completely surrendered to what she was doing at the moment." Ravik kept himself aloof - he was afraid of becoming attached to someone, his life was very unstable. But the further their relationship went, the more he fell in love with Joan and felt that he was losing his independence. He was fifteen years older than her and felt that sooner or later she would leave him. Morozov did not like Joan, considering her a bitch, and she felt it.
Soon, sitting with Morozov at a table in front of the Fuke restaurant, Ravik again saw a man who looked like Haake, and again lost him in the crowd in Etoile Square. Morozov tried to calm Ravik. He advised a friend to draw up a plan of revenge and strictly follow it. So did Morozov himself, who dreamed of meeting people who destroyed his family during the Russian revolution. Ravik sat for a long time in front of the restaurant, looking out for Haake and recalling Sybil. She was "a spoiled, beautiful creature, accustomed to a diffused, easy life." They were caught when they tried to leave Germany and were tortured for three days. Haake demanded that Ravik confess, but there was nothing to admit. After the Gestapo, he was sent to a concentration camp, then he went to the hospital, from where he fled. Now his dreams were full of "horror of the fascist dungeons, the frozen faces of tortured friends."Having never seen Haake, Ravik decided not to rummage around “in the slag of the dead years that came to life thanks to the ridiculous, damned resemblance”, and not to sacrifice the love of Joan as a random illusion.
After a while, she spoke to him about her own house. Joan did not know that Ravik was illegal. He informed Joan that he could be arrested at any moment. To calm the frightened woman, Ravik invited her to go on a short vacation to the south of France, to the Mediterranean Sea. Ravik obtained two thousand francs for the vacation from Professor Duran, threatening to leave the clinic when the patient was already lying on the operating table. The patient was “a certain Leval, who was in charge of the affairs of emigrants,” a man indifferent to the fate of refugees. In the operation, Ravik thought he was holding the life of Laval in his hands, like that of the lives of thousands of illegal immigrants. Before leaving, Ravik met with Kat. She was leaving for Italy, not knowing that she was terminally ill - the doctor was never able to tell her about it.
They had been living in Antibes for eight days, and it seemed to Ravik that he had spent only eight hours in this sunlit world. To extend the rest, Ravik sometimes won a small amount in a casino. Joan liked such a life, and Ravik felt that sooner or later she would find a man who could provide her with her. Not wanting to be abandoned, Ravik decided to be the first to break with Joan upon arrival in Paris.
He did not have time to do this. About a week after returning, heading to the clinic, Ravik saw how the forests collapsed near the building under construction. Some woman was seriously injured, and the doctor could not stay away. When Ravik assisted, the police arrived. It quickly became clear that the doctor did not have any documents. That caught, Ravik managed to inform Dr. Weber, Morozov and Joan. Weber tried to help Ravik through Professor Duran, to whom Laval was very grateful for the successful operation. Durant, however, could not forgive two thousand francs, and only worsened the position of Ravik. He served two weeks in prison, and then was expelled from France.
He returned to Paris three months later. During this time, Germany occupied Czechoslovakia, and he himself suffered pneumonia and was caught by the police twice. He left himself the name Ravik - he liked her more than others. The Internacional did not know about his troubles: Morozov told everyone that the doctor had left for Rouen. He told Ravik that Joan no longer works in Scheherazade. She stopped asking about Ravik about five weeks ago. Out of the blue, Morozov heard that Joan was filming a movie.
Tormented all evening, Ravik went to the Milan Hotel, but Joan no longer lived there. He realized that it was all over and called Weber - he needed a favorite job to calm down and forget. Ravik met Joan two weeks later at the restaurant "Cloche d Or." She was with two unfamiliar men, and her shoulders managed to become covered with a southern tan. They quarreled. Joan accused Ravik that he did not even think of looking for her, and he looked at her southern tan. She came to him at night, and he did not have the strength to drive her out. Joan fell asleep, clinging to Ravik.
In the morning, Joanne left and did not appear for several days, and Ravik was waiting longingly for her call. He continued to work in the clinic, operated, and this made his life easier. Ravik continued to inspect the girls from Osiris, where, despite the “dead” season, there was excitement.
Joan called the clinic and invited Ravik to her. Now she did not live in a cheap hotel. Joana’s new friend, the actor, rented a tastelessly furnished apartment for her. Finally, Ravik realized that Joan assigned him the role of an incoming lover. This did not suit him, Ravik, a pleasant man with a narrow face and penetrating, deep-set eyes, was already over forty, and he wanted either everything or nothing. After a long and hard conversation, he left. After spending another night with her, Ravik realized that he would disappear if he did it again.
Soon Kat Hagstrom returned from Italy. She already knew that she was dying, and was about to "take everything that was possible from life." Ravik offered her help.He tried to be distracted by work or long walks, but he could not forget Joan - she was in his blood. Once his feet brought him to his beloved's house. He looked at her windows for a long time, feeling unbearable, sharp pain, as if someone was breaking his heart. Suddenly a downpour began. Standing in the rain, Ravik suddenly felt the beating of life. It was as if the shell burst, fettering his soul, and a life “desired and blessed” broke through. Without looking back, he went away.
Some time later, while sitting in the Fuke restaurant, Ravik saw Haake again. This time, the doctor was not going to miss him, but he did not have to rush in pursuit - Haake himself approached him, mistaking him for a fellow countryman. Miraculously retaining the restraint, Ravik called himself von Horn and volunteered to show Haake the evil places of Paris. Unfortunately Ravik, his enemy was in a hurry to train to Berlin. However, he promised to contact von Horn two weeks later when he returned to France.
These two weeks, Ravik was preparing for revenge. He was not up to Joan, but she still did not leave him alone, came to his house, arranged scenes of jealousy. Ravik did not give up, realizing that having won, Joan would leave him as an unnecessary thing. One night, she called him and called for help. Deciding that Joan was in trouble, Ravik packed up his doctor's case and went to her, but the alarm turned out to be false. Another lover-actor made a scandal, threatened to kill her, she got scared and called Ravik. Joan admitted that she is in a hurry to live, changes her lovers, friends and cannot stop. Ravik realized that he had lost her forever, and his soul felt easy: now no one will stop him from taking revenge.
In the morning, he moved to the Prince of Wales Hotel, which he called Haake. Ravik understood that his enemy, "a small official in the administration of fear, in itself means little, and yet it was infinitely important to kill him." It seemed to Ravik that Haake might call during the operation. This thought made him so nervous that he had to give up work for a while.
With the help of Morozov, Ravik hired a car and made a plan, but Haake did not call. In the end, Ravik despaired: the Nazi could not come or forget the address. He saw the enemy one evening, accidentally wrapped in Osiris, and kept him at the entrance — no one should have seen that they had left together. Haake was delighted to meet. He did not call because he had mixed up the name of the hotel. Ravik promised Haake a walk through the cheap but chic brothels, took him to the Bois de Boulogne, stunned him with a blow to the head and strangled him. He buried his body and clothes in different places of the Saint-Germain forest, and burned the documents. Haake didn’t even understand why he was killed, and this tormented Ravik for a while, but then he calmed down and was greatly relieved. "A wedged, tightly locked, covered with gore-clad door to his past suddenly opened, lightly and silently, and behind it again a blossoming garden spread, and not the Gestapo's dungeon." Something was melting in Ravik, filling him with life.
Morozov persuaded Ravik to leave Paris, but he refused - he had nowhere to go. He knew that after the declaration of war he would be put in a French concentration camp and was ready for this. He soon escorted Cat Hagstrom to Cherbourg: she sailed on a huge white ship in the US to die. Returning to Paris, Ravik discovered that the city was darkened. Only Etoile Square with the Arc de Triomphe and the Champs Elysees behind it were illuminated.
That same night, Ravik called Joan again and asked to come. This time he did not believe her and stayed at the Internacional. Soon, the frightened lover Joan knocked on him. He shot her, seriously wounded, and now did not know how to save. Ravik hurried to her and drove to Weber’s clinic. Starting the operation, he saw that the bullet was stuck in the cervical spine, and it is impossible to save Joan. With impotent pain, Ravik watched the paralysis cover the body that he loved so much. When Joan began to suffocate, he introduced a medicine that made her death easier - she herself asked him about it, when she could still talk.
At the time of Joan's death, World War II began. When Ravik returned to the Internacional, he was already waiting for the police to denounce one of the clinic’s nurses. This time he called his real name - Ludwig Fresenburg. He left Paris in pitch darkness, even the Arc de Triomphe was not visible.
