She Who Was No More (12 page)

Mechanically, he rummaged among some more papers, bringing some photographs to light. Mireille taken with the Kodak he had given her. That must have been only a few days
before she fell ill with typhoid. There was also a snapshot of Lucienne taken about the same time. He compared the two. How graceful she was, Mireille! Slim as a boy and appealing, with those large candid eyes, which were focused on the camera but which saw farther, infinitely farther, right through the camera and right through him, as though he was standing between her and her future, between her and something she had long been waiting for.

In the other, Lucienne was just as she always was, impersonal, almost stern, her shoulders square, her chin a bit heavy. Not that she wasn’t good-looking. She was. But hers was a cold and dangerous beauty.

There wasn’t a single snapshot of him. It didn’t seem to have occurred to Mireille to take one of him. Nor to Lucienne either. The only photograph he could find of himself was an old one that had been taken for an identity card or driving license. What age was he then? Twenty-one, perhaps, or twenty-two. He hadn’t begun to get bald. The print was already fading with age, but it was still possible to make out a thin face that was at the same time eager and disappointed.

More photographs. And one after the other he gazed at them dreamily, recalling incidents that no one would ever know. It was getting late. Ten perhaps or half past. The damp from outside seeped slowly into the flimsily built house. He was cold and numb and could no longer control the train of his thoughts. Was he going to fall asleep there in his chair? Was Mireille going after all to creep upon him unawares?

With an effort he opened his eyes and got up, groaning. Yes, he had dozed off for a second. He mustn’t let that happen again. Not on any account. Dragging his feet, he went
downstairs once more and into the kitchen. It wasn’t so late as he’d thought—only ten to ten—but he was desperately tired. It seemed ages since he’d had a good night’s rest. His hands were shaking all the time, like an alcoholic’s. He was parched and thirsty and felt all shriveled up inside. A cup of coffee was what he needed, but he hadn’t the energy to make any.

He put on an overcoat and turned the collar up. With that and his slippers and his unshaven face, he looked a pretty sight. He felt like a person in a dream wandering through a house that had somehow ceased to be his home. They had changed places now, he and Mireille. He was the ghost while she was still in the land of the living. It only needed her to come in and he would be pushed back into the shades.

He lumbered round the table, his movements becoming slower and slower. He had no hat on, but it felt as though his head was encircled by an iron ring. Finally, utterly exhausted, he turned off all the lights on the ground floor and climbed laboriously up to the first floor again. There he turned the lights out too, except the one in the study where he took refuge, shutting the door behind him. He had made up his mind: he couldn’t go down again. He couldn’t face it. After all, he would still be able to hear.

The minutes passed, how many he had no idea, for he gradually sank into a semistupor, incoherent memories racing through his brain. His eyes were shut, but he wasn’t really asleep. With what consciousness was left him he listened, listened to the vast silence around him that sometimes turned into a roar like that of the sea heard in a shell. Like the sea, yes. The silence was like a sea all round him and he was drowning in it. Soon he would go under…

A sound, as though someone had moved. Painfully he dragged himself out of his somnolence with the feeling he was re-entering a frame he had already left. What was it he had heard? It had seemed to come from the garden.

A whistle in the distance. The trains were running again.

The fog must be clearing.

This time he heard it quite distinctly. The front door had shut. Next, a click as the hall light was switched on.

He was panting faintly like a dying man, and the air seemed to rend his throat.

The kitchen door was opened. So far there had been no steps, but suddenly they rang out clearly. High heels on the tiled floor, the stride curtailed by a narrow skirt. It was Mireille all right. Another click. That would be the kitchen light. Ravinel screwed up his features as though dazzled by it. Silence. She must be taking off her hat. It was all just as usual, just as
before
… Her steps again. She was going into the dining room.

He groaned. He was suffocating. He made a great effort to rise from his chair.

She was poking the fire now. A clatter of plates: she was clearing the table. Then one after the other her shoes fell to the floor: she was changing into her slippers.

Huddled in his chair, he sat with tears running down his cheeks. She mustn’t find him like that, but he was incapable of getting to the door to lock it. He knew he was alive. He knew he was guilty. He knew he was going to die.

They were slippered feet this time that were coming up the stairs. They came closer. He must do something. He must break through this brittle frontier which contains our life. His hands groped feverishly.

The landing light went on and shone under the study door. And she was there just behind it.

No. She couldn’t be. It was impossible. She was dead.

Are you really so sure, Fernand Ravinel? On which side of that door is the living, on which side the dead?

Then slowly the handle of the door turned. It was a relief. All his life long he had been waiting for this minute. He was now going to cross over to the other side and become a shadow.

Being a man was too difficult.

He closed his mouth on the barrel of his revolver as though he was literally to drink death. In order to forget.

Suddenly with a jerk he pressed the trigger.

‘Have we much farther to go?’ she asked. ‘We’ll be at Antibes in five minutes,’ answered the ticket collector. Through the rain-splashed window it was impossible to see anything except the lights that drifted by and now and again the trembling reflection of the lit-up coaches as the express went through a cutting. It was difficult to keep a sense of direction, to know whether the sea was on the right or the left, whether they were heading for Marseille or the Italian frontier.

‘Hail,’ said one of the passengers as a sudden patter rose above the rumble of the train. ‘Yes, that’s hail all right. Not exactly the weather to attract tourists to the South.’

Was there some hidden meaning in that remark? Mireille opened her eyes and looked at the man sitting opposite her who had made it. He was looking hard at her. She thrust her hands deeper into her overcoat pockets, but that didn’t stop their trembling. Would he notice? Perhaps it didn’t matter if he did. Couldn’t anybody see that she was feverish?

Yes, she was ill. She had known all along that she’d fall ill. How could she expect to have the strength to see a thing like that right through to the end? And that man… He had been sitting in front of her for ages… Since Lyon. No, since Dijon. Perhaps even all the way from Paris. It was impossible to say. It was impossible to focus her thoughts on anything for long.

But one thing stood out clearly: when you cough and shiver like that, it means you’ve caught something, if not your death of cold, and if you’ve caught cold that could only be because you’ve been
wet
. Wasn’t that obvious? Even to the man opposite! And if he got that far why shouldn’t he guess the whole story right down to the drive through the night rolled up in a canvas?

All the same there ought to have been some way of preventing her falling ill. It was stupid, that. Still more, it was unjust. Dangerous too, as this was something more than an ordinary common cold that had been neglected.

She coughed again and her back hurt. She remembered a friend of hers who had been an invalid for years just because she’d caught cold leaving a dance. T.B. And everybody said:

‘Poor thing! And how dreadful for her husband! A woman who spends all her life in bed!’

The train jolted. The man opposite got up. He winked. At least, that’s what it looked like, but it might well be that he’d merely blinked to keep a smut from getting into his eye.

‘Antibes,’ he murmured.

The train slid alongside the platform. What should she do? Sit there and wait?… A
woman who spends all her life in bed
. The words were becoming an obsession, indeed they already were. She stood up, gripping the rack to keep herself from falling. With a desperate effort, she picked up her suitcase and clambered down onto the platform.

She had to fight against giddiness and an intense desire to sleep. Ah, sleep! If only she could sleep. The man had disappeared. The platform seemed endless. Someone was standing on it motionless, not so much as lifting a hand.

How much farther had she to go to reach her? Ten yards? But ten yards seemed more like a mile.

‘Mireille!… But what’s the matter? You’re ill! And are you crying?’

She was, yes, from weakness. But that no longer mattered. Lucienne was strong. One only had to lean on her, to leave everything to her. She always knew what had to be done and was always capable of doing it. Only, it was difficult to hear what she said, because of the wind.

‘Are you listening?’ asked Mireille. ‘I said: is he following us?’

Everything was becoming confused, but she was clearly conscious of Lucienne’s firm hand holding her up, and she heard her say:

‘Give me a hand, will you? This lady’s ill.’

After which there was nothing but blackness traversed by occasional wisps of consciousness—consciousness of being in a taxi, of going up in an elevator, of the wind that prevented her grasping what Lucienne said. Lucienne couldn’t understand that all was lost. She must. She must be made to see that…

‘Keep still, Mireille.’

Mireille kept still. But she had to speak. She had to explain to Lucienne something that was of the utmost importance. That man… the one who had sat opposite her… who had…

‘Nonsense. Nobody’s been following you. Nobody’s taken any notice of you at all.’

The wind had died down, or at any rate it was incapable of intruding into this peaceful room lit only by a bedside lamp. Was that a syringe in Lucienne’s hand? Mireille didn’t want an injection. Hadn’t she swallowed enough drugs already?

Lucienne pulled down the bedclothes. The needle went in, but the prick was gone in a second. The bedclothes were pulled up again. The sheets were cool. They made her think of a cold bath, of the one she had been put into fully dressed when Fernand thought her unconscious, and got into a second time when Fernand thought her drowned, dead for two whole days. The details suddenly came back to her. It was as though she were going through it all again, and she kept rigidly still for fear of giving away the fact that she was still alive.

It was Lucienne who’d really done everything. What had Fernand seen? Practically nothing. She had been dragged out of the bathtub and instantly rolled up in the canvas. The awful thing had been that drive. How she had ever stuck the cold?… And cramp too… And then to finish with another ducking in the lavoir, with Lucienne making as much noise as possible in case she spluttered.

When Fernand had gone she ought to have followed Lucienne’s instructions straight away, instead of putting off… But she wouldn’t do it again: she’d do just what she was told. And with that resolution she was immediately invaded by a sense of well-being and security. And her forehead was not so hot… If only she had always taken Lucienne’s advice…

For wasn’t she always right? Hadn’t she all along foretold exactly how Fernand would react? He
couldn’t
lend a hand in the drowning; he
couldn’t
look fairly and squarely at the body of the woman he had helped to murder, he
couldn’t
unravel the mystery, think as he might. In fact the more he thought the farther he’d get from the solution… Yes, Lucienne had been splendid, and though she had had to
go back to Nantes, she had kept her finger on the pulse, ready to intervene in a moment if anything went wrong… And supposing he had found out—they weren’t risking anything. Attempted murder: that was still crime enough to keep Fernand’s mouth shut.

And now Lucienne was there, bending over the bed. Mireille shut her eyes. She felt good now, now that she could ask her friend’s forgiveness for having disobeyed her, for having nearly ruined the whole show by that silly visit to her brother’s, for having sometimes doubted… For Lucienne was so hard that it was impossible at moments not to suspect her of acting from self-interest.

‘Stop worrying,’ murmured Lucienne.

There you are! You see! She could hear everything, even your most secret thoughts. Or had Mireille spoken out loud in her semidelirious condition? She opened her eyes. Lucienne’s face was close to hers, but it was difficult to see her features clearly. Mireille made a great effort to pull herself together. For she knew she had forgotten something, something important. She hadn’t yet completed her task. Clutching the bedclothes she raised herself up a little.

‘Lucienne… I put everything straight at home… in the dining room… in the kitchen… Nobody could possibly suspect that…’

‘What about the notes you’d written to him?’

‘I found them… in his pockets…’

Of course Lucienne would never realize what that had cost her. To go through Fernand’s pockets… with blood everywhere… Poor Fernand…

Lucienne put her hand on her patient’s forehead.

‘You must go to sleep now. Don’t think any more about him. He was a condemned man anyhow. Some day or other, he’d have found that way out. It was the only way for him.’

How sure she was of herself. But Mireille was uneasy. There was still something on her mind, though it was difficult to take hold of. She was falling asleep, but with the last shreds of consciousness she was able to think:

‘Since he never suspected anything… Since he never gave another thought to the insurance policy—the one he had taken out on his own life to induce me to take out the one on mine…’

Then sleep came and her breathing deepened. Kind sleep! She was never even to know that she had been on the verge of remorse.

The sun was shining. Life was beginning again after hours and hours of unconsciousness. Mireille turned her head, first to the right, then to the left. She was fearfully tired; she was nevertheless able to smile at the sight of a palm tree in a garden, a tall palm tree with a funny hairy trunk. As it moved in the breeze its leaves waved a fanlike shadow across the curtains. It gave an impression of… Mireille groped for a word… of luxury: that was it. The anxieties of the previous day were banished. She had a lot of money. Or rather they had. Two million francs. The insurance company couldn’t raise any objection. The stipulated two years were up, weren’t they? Everything was strictly in order. She had only to get well.

A phrase suddenly echoed in her memory.
A woman who spends all her life in bed
. A faint flush came to her cheeks. It certainly was a dreadful fate. But it wasn’t going to happen to
her. Of course not. Lucienne was looking after her. Lucienne would know how to treat her. She was a doctor and a good one too.

In spite of herself, Mireille’s mind went back to the house on the Quai de la Fosse and Fernand filling her glass from a carafe.
A woman who spends all her life in bed
… There was a carafe here too, on the bedside table, a cut glass one that split the light up into delicate colors. She stared into it like a crystal-gazer. She didn’t know how to read the future in a crystal, but she nevertheless started when the door opened and hastily looked elsewhere, as though she had been caught doing something wrong.

‘Good morning, Mireille. How do you feel?’

Lucienne was dressed in black. She smiled as she walked up to the bed with her man’s stride. She felt Mireille’s pulse.

‘What’s the matter with me?’

Lucienne looked at her steadily, as though weighing her chances of pulling through. She said nothing.

‘Is it serious?’

A pause. Then:

‘It’ll be a long business.’

‘Tell me what it is.’

‘Not now.’

Lucienne took the carafe away to refill it. Mireille raised herself on one elbow and with her large eyes peered through the half-open door. From the sounds, she could follow everything Lucienne did. She could hear the water pouring into the carafe, the note rising rapidly as the level rose to the neck. But did it really take so long to fill a carafe? With a forced laugh which ended in a fit of coughing, she called out:

‘All the same! I had to trust you, didn’t I? Right up to the last moment you could have tossed up to decide which of us it was to be!’

Having turned off the tap, Lucienne carefully wiped and polished the outside of the carafe. With her teeth set, she muttered under her breath:

‘What makes you think I didn’t?’