She Who Was No More (7 page)

Fly
.

A fly. Yes it was a fly, a fly crawling across the ceiling. And this dark splodge on his right was the cupboard. Bit by bit everything was starting again. In cold and silence… I feel round me. A tiled floor. I’m cold. I’m lying down. I’m Fernand Ravinel… And there’s a letter on the table…

Better not go into that. Don’t ask questions, don’t try to find out. Hold on to oblivion. So long as you do, you won’t care. That’s the important thing: not to care. But it’s hard, it’s exhausting… Don’t think about it. Just try your limbs to see if they work.

They did. The muscles obeyed him. His arm moved, his hand was capable of grasping. His eyes fell on things and knew
them. His brain found words to call them by. He could stand… But on the table—That bit of paper and that envelope—he mustn’t see them, he mustn’t find words for them. They were too dangerous, much too dangerous.

He must turn his back on them. He lurched to the front door, went out, and slammed it behind him. There! That was better. He locked the door. Better still. No one could say now what was behind it. He mustn’t know. He mustn’t ever see that letter again, or anything might happen. The words might leave the page and form themselves into fantastic threatening shapes.

Ravinel was almost at the end of the street before he looked back. The house seemed inhabited, as he’d left the lights on. Often, when he came home of an evening, he would see Mireille’s shadow as she crossed behind one of the slatted shutters. But he was too far off now. Even if she passed, he wouldn’t be able to see her. He walked to the station. He was bareheaded. In the refreshment room he drank two glasses of beer. Victor, the waiter, was busy at the bar; otherwise he’d have been only too ready for a chat. As it was, he merely gave Ravinel an occasional wink or a smile.

How could cold beer burn your throat like spirits? Ought he to take to flight? What would be the use? Another mauve envelope might come, this one addressed to the police inspector, reporting the crime. Yes, Mireille might lodge a complaint for having been killed! Come on! None of that! Those thoughts were forbidden.

Quite a crowd of people on the station platform. The colored lights were painful. The red signal light was too red, the green one sickeningly sweet. The bookstall smelt of fresh ink. In the
train, the people exuded an odor of game and the carriages smelt like those of the underground.

It had to finish like this. Sooner or later he had been bound to discover what was concealed from other beings—that there was no real distinction between the living and the dead. It’s only because of the coarseness of our perception that we imagine the dead elsewhere, in some other world. There isn’t any other world. Not a bit of it. The dead are with us here, mixed up in our lives and meddling with them.
Remember to turn the gas off when you’ve finished with the oven
… They speak to us with shadowy mouths; they write with hands of smoke. Ordinary people, of course, don’t notice. They’re too preoccupied with their own affairs. To perceive these things you’ve got to have been incompletely born and thus only half involved in this noisy, colorful, flamboyant world…

Yes, he was beginning to understand. That letter was the first step in a process of initiation. Why should he be so frightened about it?

‘Tickets, please!’

The ticket collector was a stout, florid man with two rolls of fat at the back of his neck. Many of the passengers were standing, and he brushed past them impatiently. Little did he know that he was at the same time pushing his way through a host of shadows. It wouldn’t be long, no doubt, before Mireille was among them. Her letter had been written to prepare him. Thoughtful of her.
It’s nothing serious, so don’t he alarmed
. Of course not. Nothing serious about death. A change of weight and consistency, that was all. She wasn’t unhappy, Mireille. She would explain it all. She said so. Not that there was a great deal to explain. For the most part, he already understood…

Yes, he understood a lot of things all of a sudden. His childhood, for instance. The others, his father, his mother, his friends, had all tried to get him entangled, rooted. School, university, exams, jobs—so many snares to get him caught. Even Lucienne was no different. Money. That was all she thought about: money. As though money wasn’t just another load to carry on your shoulders! And the heaviest of all!

For a practice at Antibes, she might answer. But that didn’t make any difference: she was out for money all the time. What was the practice for if not to bring in money? They weren’t going to Antibes merely to enjoy the sunshine.

Talking of sunshine, that would of course change everything. It would prevent Mireille from appearing. Didn’t the sun obliterate the stars? Yet they were there just the same. Antibes! Yes, that really would kill Mireille. It was the only way of killing her. At least, it would wipe her from the scene. Had Lucienne thought of that? Was that why she had picked on Antibes? She generally knew what she was about, that girl…

But now that he had understood, he had no longer the slightest desire to escape to the bright, scintillating south. Of course, if he stayed here, he’d have to overcome his fears. For they were still there, lying doggo for the moment, but only waiting for the right moment to spring at him. It wouldn’t be easy. He’d have to face certain memories without flinching—that bathroom at Nantes. Mireille stiff and cold, with her hair plastered down on her forehead.

The train swayed from side to side. The journey seemed endless, but at last he found himself on the platform, jostled by passengers and porters. Outside, it was raining. He went to the nearest post office.

‘Give me Nantes, will you?’

The partitions were covered with scribblings—telephone numbers, obscenities.

‘Hello! Is that the hospital at Nantes?… I want to speak to Dr. Lucienne Mogard…’

In the telephone booth he could hear no more than a vague murmur of the busy world all round him.

‘Hello? Lucienne?… She’s written to me. She’ll be back in a few days… Who? Mireille of course! Yes, Mireille. She sent me a special delivery… But I tell you she did… No. I’m not out of my mind. And I’m not trying to play on your nerves. I just thought you ought to know… Yes. I realize that. But I’ve been thinking. And a lot of things—but it would take too long to explain… What am I going to do? How should I know?… All right. See you tomorrow.’

Poor Lucienne! Always wanting to reason things out. All right! Let her try! She’d see for herself. She’d read the letter.

Or could she? Would it be visible to her?… Of course it would. The postman had seen it, hadn’t he? He’d spoken about it himself. Obviously it must be a real one. It was only its meaning that was not obvious to every Tom, Dick, and Harry. For you had to be able to think in two worlds at the same time.

Boulevard de Denain
. Slanting arrows of luminous rain. The stream of glistening motor cars. Appearances: he knew that now. It was all rather like a café with mirrors all round the walls, till you hardly knew whether you were looking at the real thing or its reflection.

Night flowed down the boulevard like an eddying flood sweeping everything with it, lights, smells, and human beings. Be frank with yourself, Fernand Ravinel: how many times have
you not dreamed that you were drowned in this very flood? And if you accepted what was done at Nantes, was it not precisely because it was done
with water
? Have you not always been fascinated by water, beneath whose smooth and brilliant surface is another world that it makes you giddy to think of? Much the same as the fog game, wasn’t it? And you wanted Mireille to play it too. Now you are tempted in turn. You envy her, don’t you?

Ravinel wandered for a long, long time, not caring where his legs carried him. Coming to the Seine, he trudged along by the side of the stone parapet, which came nearly up to his shoulder. In front of him was a bridge, a far-flung arch beneath which the lights were reflected in oily swirls. The town seemed abandoned. The thin wind smelt of locks and waterways. And Mireille was somewhere, mixed up with the night. They couldn’t meet, for they lived on different planes, in different elements. He hadn’t yet done the crossing. But they could signal to each other like ships that pass on the trade routes.

‘Mireille!’

He spoke the word softly. He couldn’t wait any longer. He was in a hurry to cross the frontier too, to smash the mirror.

When he woke up, Ravinel recognized the hotel bedroom. He remembered walking for hours on end. Then he recalled the image of Mireille and heaved a sigh. It took him several minutes, however, to decide that it was probably Sunday. It was indeed certain, because Lucienne was arriving by the twelve-something train. She must already be in the train. What was he to do to fill in the time? What could one do on a Sunday? A dead day, a day on which you could only mark time. And he was in a hurry to forge ahead.

Nine o’clock.

He got up and dressed, then drew back the threadbare curtain that concealed the window. A gray sky. Roofs. A few skylights, some of them still painted blue, a relic of the blackout. Certainly not an inspiring view. Downstairs he paid his bill to an old woman in curlers. It wasn’t till he was on the pavement that he realized he was in the neighborhood of the central market, within a stone’s throw of where Germain lived.

Why shouldn’t he fill in the time there?

Mireille’s brother lived in a flat on the fourth floor. A dark staircase. The lights didn’t work, and Ravinel had to grope his way up as best he could. Sunday smells. Sunday noises. Behind their doors, people hummed a tune or switched on the wireless, thinking of the afternoon’s football game or the movie they’d go to in the evening. On one landing he could
hear the hiss of milk boiling over, on another some howling brats. A man with an overcoat slipped on over his pajamas came downstairs leading a dog. It was all very intimate and Ravinel had the feeling of being out of it.

On the fourth floor, he found the key in the door. It was always left there, but Ravinel never took any notice of it. He knocked. It was Germain who came to let him in.

‘Why, Fernand! How are you?’

‘All right, thanks. And you?’

‘Not too good… Excuse the mess: I’ve only just got up. Now you’re here, you’ll have a cup of coffee. Yes, yes. Of course you will.’

He led Ravinel into the dining room, pulled out a chair for him, and swept away a dressing gown that was lying there.

‘And Marthe?’

‘She’s gone to church, but she’ll soon be back. Sit down, old boy… You’re in fine form, Mireille’s been telling me. Wish I could say the same of myself… By the way, you haven’t seen my latest X-rays. Here, help yourself to some coffee, while I go and fetch them.’

There was a medicinal smell lingering in the air. Eucalyptus mixed with something else. And near the coffeepot was a little saucepan with a hypodermic syringe in it and some needles. What a bore! He wished he hadn’t come. Germain was pottering about in the bedroom, occasionally shouting out something to his brother-in-law.

‘You’ll see. They’re beauties. As the doctor says, with proper treatment…’

When you marry you think you’re marrying a wife, but you’re really marrying a family. That at any rate was what it seemed
like to Ravinel. He’d married Germain’s germs, Germain’s private worries, Germain’s experiences as a prisoner of war. What a cheat life is. When you’re young it makes such wonderful promises, and then…

Germain returned with several large yellow envelopes, which made him look like one of those messengers in ministries who wander about with armfuls of dockets.

‘Go on. Take some coffee… It’s true, you’ve very likely had breakfast already. He’s the deuce of a fellow, that Dr. Gleize. The way he explains these photos to you. All you can see is a lot of smudges, but he reads them like a book.’

Germain held one of them up to the light.

‘You see that mark there over the heart? Yes, that white part in the heart—I’m becoming quite an expert myself, you see!… No. That faint line there. But you can’t see it from that distance. Come close…’

This was what Ravinel hated. He didn’t want to know how his inside was made. Nor Germain’s either! The spectacle of those bits of skeleton which the X-ray revealed produced in him a strange discomfort. Nature had had the good taste to hide certain things and they had much better remain hidden. The eagerness which Germain displayed to turn himself inside out for anybody’s inspection had always disgusted him.

‘You can see here where it’s cicatrized. It’s healing splendidly. Of course I’ve still got to take care, but the signs are encouraging. With the sputum too. I can show you the latest analysis. Where is it now? I suppose Marthe’s shoved it away somewhere—she loses everything… Still it doesn’t matter: Mireille can tell you…’

‘Yes, yes. Of course…’

Lovingly Germain put the photograph back in its envelope, but it was only to take out another, which he gazed at with his head on one side.

‘They cost three thousand francs apiece, you know. Fortunately they’re going to raise my pension. In any case I wouldn’t grudge the money. When a job’s done as well as that… He takes ever so much trouble, Dr. Gleize. But then, you see, he’s interested. Says I’m quite a case.’

The key had turned in the front door. Good! That was Marthe back from church.

‘
Bonjour
, Fernand. Nice of you to have come. We don’t see a lot of you.’

Was that a reproach? She was always a little bit tart beneath her sweetness. She took off her hat and carefully folded up her veil. She was always in mourning for someone or other. To tell the truth, she liked black. It was distinguished, dignified.

‘Business good?’ she asked with a hint of suspicion in her voice.

‘Pretty fair. I can’t complain.’

She had already slipped on an apron and was clearing the table. Her movements were swift and competent.

‘How’s Mireille?’

It was Germain who answered.

‘She was here just now. Came a few minutes after you’d left for church. I was still in bed.’

‘She gets up early in the morning, these days!’ commented Marthe.

Ravinel was making a desperate effort to understand.

‘What did you say, Germain? Mireille was… here? When?’

Germain was counting out some drops. Ten, eleven, twelve…
He frowned slightly. He wasn’t going to be interrupted. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.

‘When?’ he said casually. ‘Oh, I suppose it was about an hour ago. Perhaps more…’

‘Mireille!’

Germain put the dropper away, wrapped it first in absorbent cotton, then tissue paper. Then he looked up.

‘Mireille, yes. What’s funny about that?… Good heavens, man, what’s the matter with you? Have I said something wrong?’

‘Wait a minute,’ said Ravinel in a hoarse whisper. ‘Are you telling me that Mireille’s been here… this morning… that you actually saw her?’

‘Of course I saw her. She walked in, just as usual, and kissed me on both cheeks.’

‘You’re quite sure about that? That she kissed you, I mean…’

‘Really, Fernand. I don’t see what you’re getting at.’

Marthe, who had gone into the next room, came back and stood in the doorway, studying the two men. To cover his confusion Ravinel took a cigarette out of his case.

‘I’m afraid you can’t smoke,’ said Germain. ‘Doctor’s orders, you know. If you don’t mind…’

‘Of course not. I’m sorry.’

Ravinel crushed the cigarette between his fingers nervously.

‘It’s very odd,’ he managed to say. ‘She didn’t say anything to me about it.’

‘She wanted to hear about my X-ray.’

‘Did she seem… normal?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘And when she kissed you… Her skin… Did it seem just the same…’

‘Look here, Fernand. What is the matter? Did you hear that, Marthe? He doesn’t seem to believe me.’

Marthe came into the room and Ravinel sensed at once that she knew something. He went cold, like an accused person before his judge.

‘When did you get back from Nantes, Fernand?’

‘Yesterday. Yesterday morning.’

‘And you didn’t find her there, did you?’

Her eyes were shining, and her lips seemed thinner than ever.

‘No. Mireille wasn’t there.’

Marthe nodded.

‘Do you think it’s that?’ muttered Germain.

‘I’m sure of it.’

Ravinel could hold himself no longer.

‘For the love of God, tell me. What do you know about it? Were you there yesterday morning?’

Germain was nettled.

‘You forget I’m ill.’

‘You’d better tell him,’ said Marthe and she glided noiselessly into the bedroom.

‘Tell me what?’ asked Ravinel aggressively. ‘One might think you’d been hatching some plot.’

‘Gently, now,’ said Germain. ‘Marthe’s right. You’d better know. As a matter of fact I ought to have told you when you got engaged to Mireille. But I thought marriage would put everything to rights. The doctor said—’

‘Never mind about the doctor, Germain. Get on with the story.’

‘I don’t like distressing you, Fernand, but the thing is: Mireille was always liable to go off…’

‘Off her head?’

‘Oh dear no. It was only a quirk. She’d go off, break out.’

Ravinel knew that Marthe was watching him through the doorway. He was stunned.

‘What do you mean—break out?’

‘She used to run away. Not often. It began when she was about fourteen.’

‘You mean she went off with men?’

‘No, Fernand, no. Nothing of that sort. You mustn’t get it wrong. She just ran away, left home, disappeared. They said it was just a queer streak in her make-up. Seems it happens pretty often round about puberty. Sometimes she took a train. Sometimes she simply walked on till she dropped. We always had to call the police in.’

‘What did the neighbors think?’ put in Marthe, who was shaking a pillow.

Germain shrugged his shoulders.

‘There’s something queer in every family, if you only knew. Even in the best… She was terribly upset about it afterwards, poor kid. But she couldn’t do anything about it. When the urge came, off she had to go.’

‘What’s it got to do with?…’

‘Can’t you see, Fernand? It’s the same thing this time. She’s got one of her attacks. But there’s no need to make it worse than it is. She’ll be back in a day or two.’

‘It’s nonsense,’ Ravinel burst out. ‘The thing is—’

Germain sighed.

‘That’s what I expected. You don’t believe it. You see, Marthe, he can’t take it in.’

She raised her hand as though taking oath.

‘It’s true, all the same. And, if I’d had any say in it, you’d have known about it from the first. When a person’s not quite normal, you never know what may be wrong. Fortunately you’ve no children. You might have had one with a harelip.’

‘Marthe! Really!’

‘I know what I’m saying. I’ve talked to the doctor about it.’ The doctor again! Always the doctor!

‘But I can understand your feelings,’ went on Marthe. ‘To be told a thing like that all of a sudden… And don’t think I enjoy talking about Mireille like this. Poor child. It’s not her fault. But there it is, she’s—’

Ravinel took his head in his hands.

‘Stop,’ he groaned. ‘I’ll go out of my mind.’

But she was not to be silenced.

‘The moment I came in, I could tell something was amiss. I’m not like Germain: he never notices anything. And, if I’d seen Mireille, I’d have known at once she was not her usual self.’

Ravinel had torn his cigarette to shreds and it now lay in a little heap on the table. He would have liked to seize these two and bang their heads together. He couldn’t bear the sympathetic looks they gave him. Mireille make off! As if she was in a condition to run away after lying two days in a tub full of water! Of course it was nonsense. It was a plot. They were up to something and had concocted this story beforehand… No, that wouldn’t wash either. Germain was too stupid. He’d have given himself away in a minute.

‘How was she dressed?’

Germain thought for a moment.

‘I didn’t pay any attention to that, and she was standing against the light. But let me see… Yes. I think she had on her
gray fur-trimmed coat. And a little hat. I remember thinking that she had rather wintry clothes on for this weather.’

‘Perhaps she was going to catch a train,’ suggested Marthe.

‘Oh no. At least, she didn’t give me that impression. But what puzzles me, now I come to think of it, is that she didn’t seem in the least excited. Formerly, when she had her attacks, she was always nervy and overwrought, ready to burst into tears at the least thing. While this morning she was as calm as could be.’

And, as Ravinel clenched his fists, he added:

‘You know, Fernand, she’s a good girl at heart.’

It was twenty past ten by the clock on the mantelpiece, a preposterous gilt affair supported by two nymphs with naked breasts. Lucienne’s train would have already passed Le Mans. Marthe pottered about in the room.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Germain.

Ravinel started.

‘You think she deceives you, don’t you?’

The fool! No, he certainly wasn’t pretending.

‘But you’re making a great mistake if you harbor any suspicions of that sort. I know Mireille. I don’t say she’s always easy to understand, but there’s one thing: she’s straight as a die.’

‘My poor Germain!’ sighed Marthe.

It was obvious what she meant.

‘My poor Germain! A lot you know about women!’

Germain bristled.

‘Mireille? Go on! She’s much too wrapped up in her home. Why, you’ve only to see her there…’

‘She’s too much alone,’ said Marthe quietly. ‘Not that that’s any reflection on you, Fernand. You’ve got your job and you have to travel. That doesn’t alter the fact that it’s
not much fun for a young woman when her husband’s hardly ever there…’

‘Now, when I was a prisoner of war,’ began Germain.

There! The very subject Ravinel always tried to avoid. The mischief was done, however. Once on his favorite topic, there was no stopping Germain, though he’d told every one of his stories at least twenty times before. Ravinel didn’t listen. Nor did he think—not really. He simply let himself drift on the tide of a somewhat mournful reverie. In spirit, he was back at Enghien, wandering through the empty house, and if anyone had visited it at that moment he would no doubt have been conscious of a disconsolate shadow in the likeness of Fernand Ravinel.

Germain swore he’d seen her, but weren’t there thousands of people to swear they’d seen a ghost? That’s what it was. Mireille, dead, had chosen to appear to her brother. She had caught him at a moment when he was still half asleep and not capable of analyzing his own perceptions. He
thought
he saw her. A typical case. He had read of others in the
Revue Métapsychique
which he used to take before his marriage. Besides, what he had just learned about Mireille proved she was psychic. People like that always were. And a psychic person would obviously be just the person to make a ghost.