The Beast Within (38 page)

‘I shall write to the minister!’ he shouted. ‘This is disgraceful!’

Carriage windows were being lowered angrily, and from inside the train came the sounds of women crying and men losing their temper. The two little English girls were the only ones who seemed to be enjoying themselves, peering through the window and smiling serenely. As the principal guard attempted to calm everyone down, the younger of the two girls, speaking in French with a slight English accent, asked him, ‘Is this the end of the journey, monsieur?’

Several men had got down from the train, despite the deep snow which came up to their waists. The American once more found himself next to the young man from Le Havre, both of them having walked up to the engine to see what was happening. They stood there, shaking their heads.

‘It’s going to take four or five hours to dig her out of that lot.’

‘Four or five hours at least! And it’ll need about twenty men!’

Jacques had persuaded the principal guard to send the rear guard on to Barentin to ask for help. Neither he nor Pecqueux could leave the locomotive.

The guard set off and was soon out of sight at the far end of the cutting. He had a walk of four kilometres in front of him and probably wouldn’t be back for another two hours. In despair, Jacques jumped down from the footplate and ran towards the first carriage, where he had seen Séverine lowering her window.

‘Don’t be frightened,’ he said quietly. ‘You’ve nothing to fear.’

‘I’m not afraid,’ she replied. ‘But I was worried about you.’

Like him, she didn’t raise her voice, lest anyone should hear her. But it was such a joy to speak together that they both felt heartened and smiled at each other. As Jacques turned to go back to the engine, who should he see coming along the top of the cutting but Flore and Misard, followed by two other men whom he didn’t at first recognize. They had heard his distress signal, and Misard, who was off duty at the time, had come to help, accompanied by his two friends, with whom he happened to be having a glass of white wine, the quarryman Cabuche, who was prevented from working by the snow, and the signalman Ozil, who had walked through the tunnel from Malaunay to pay his respects to Flore. Despite her show of indifference towards him, he still had his heart set on her. Flore, being the big strapping girl she was, with the strength and courage of any man, had come along too, out of curiosity. For both her and her father this was quite an event; it wasn’t every day that a train stopped outside their front door. They had been living there for five years and had watched the trains go thundering by, in fair weather and in foul, every hour of the day and night. They seemed to rush past them like a gush of wind; not one of them had even slowed down. They watched them fly into the distance and disappear without knowing a thing about them. The whole world passed in front of their house, a crowd of living souls whisked by at high speed, and all they ever saw of them were faces, glimpsed in a flash; sometimes faces they would never see again, sometimes faces they might recognize because they always appeared on a particular day, but all faces without names. And here, in the snow, was a train unloading its passengers at their very door! The natural order had been turned upside down. They looked at all these unknown people who found themselves stranded on the railway line, gazing at them open-eyed, like savages gathering on some far-flung shore to witness a group of shipwrecked Europeans. Through the open doors they could see women wrapped in furs, and there were men walking beside the train in heavy overcoats. The sight of such wealth and luxury, cast adrift on this sea of ice, made them stand and stare in amazement.

Flore did, however, recognize Séverine. She always looked out for Jacques’s train whenever it went by and for some weeks she had noticed the presence of this woman on the Friday-morning express, particularly because she looked out of the window as she approached the level-crossing, to catch a glimpse of her property at La Croix-de-Maufras. Flore’s eyes darkened as she saw her and Jacques whispering to each other.

‘Why! Madame Roubaud!’ exclaimed Misard, also recognizing her and immediately assuming his obsequious manner. ‘What a terrible thing to happen! You can’t stay out here. You must come down to our house.’

Jacques shook hands with the crossing-keeper and advised Séverine to accept his invitation.

‘He’s right,’ he said. ‘We might be here for hours. You could die of cold.’

But Séverine appeared reluctant. She was well wrapped up, she said. And she didn’t like the idea of walking three hundred metres through the snow. Flore came up to her, looked her straight in the face and said, ‘Come on, madame, I’ll carry you.’

And even before she had time to say yes, Séverine found herself being lifted off her feet by two strong, muscular arms and carried away like a child. Flore put her down on the other side of the track, where the snow had been trodden underfoot and she wouldn’t sink in. Some of the passengers began to laugh in amazement. What a girl! If we had a dozen like her, we’d clear the snow in a couple of hours.

Meanwhile, the offer of shelter in the gatekeeper’s cottage, where there would be a fire and perhaps some bread and wine, had passed along the train. Once people realized they were in no immediate danger, the panic began to subside. Even so, the situation was decidedly unpleasant. The foot-warmers were getting cold, it was nine o’clock, and unless help arrived soon, people would be getting hungry and thirsty. They could be stuck there for ages; they might even have to spend the night there. The passengers were divided about what to do. There were those who simply abandoned hope and wouldn’t leave the train, shutting themselves inside, wrapping themselves in their rugs and stretching out on the seats as if they were waiting to die. Others preferred to risk a trek through the snow in the hope of finding somewhere better, determined at all costs to avoid the awful prospect of freezing to death in a broken-down train. These latter constituted quite a sizeable group: the elderly businessman and his young wife, the Englishwoman with her two daughters, the young man from Le Havre, the American and a dozen others, all of them ready to set off into the snow.

Jacques tried to persuade Séverine to go with Flore, assuring her that he would come and tell her how things were progressing, the minute he could get away. Flore was eyeing them disapprovingly. Jacques made an effort to be polite and friendly towards her.

‘Flore,’ he said, ‘would you take these ladies and gentlemen with you? Misard and the others can stay with me. We’ll make a start and do what we can until help arrives.’

Cabuche, Ozil and Misard had in fact immediately taken shovels and had gone to join Pecqueux and the principal guard, who were already digging away the snow. The little team worked hard to free the engine, removing the snow from under the wheels and flinging it on to the bank. They worked in silence; all that could be heard was the determined sound of shovelling amidst the eerie silence of this world of snow. As the little group of passengers walked away, they took one last look at the train, standing there all forlorn, a thin black line beneath the heavy layer of snow that pressed down upon it. All the doors had been closed and the windows pulled up. The snow still fell; silently, inexorably, the train was slowly but surely being buried.

Flore had again offered to carry Séverine in her arms, but she had declined the offer, determined to go on foot like the others. The three-hundred-metre walk to the cottage was not easy, especially in the cutting, where they sank in up to their waists. On two occasions they had to go and rescue the fat Englishwoman, who had become half buried. Her two daughters continued to find the whole thing hilarious; they were thoroughly enjoying themselves. The young wife of the elderly gentleman slipped and was helped up by the young man from Le Havre, while her husband ranted on to the American about the dreadful state of things in France. Once they were through the cutting the going became easier. But they were now walking along an embankment. They advanced in single file, battered by the wind and taking care not to fall over the edge; with all the snow that had fallen, they couldn’t tell where it was, which made progress very dangerous. But eventually they arrived at the cottage. Flore took the passengers into the kitchen. She couldn’t provide chairs for everybody because there were at least twenty people crammed into the room. Fortunately, the room was fairly large. Her solution was to go and fetch some planks and set up a couple of benches, using the chairs she had. She threw some wood on to the fire and shrugged her shoulders, as if to say she couldn’t be expected to do anything more. All this time, she hadn’t spoken a word. She now stood looking round at everyone, with her big green eyes and her blonde hair, like some wild, Nordic savage. There were only two faces she recognized, having noticed them frequently through the carriage windows over the last few months: the American and the young man from Le Havre. She studied them carefully, as one might examine a flying insect when settled, which could not be examined on the wing. They seemed strange; having seen nothing of them but their faces, she hadn’t imagined them to be quite like this. As for everyone else, they seemed to be of a different race, people from another planet who had dropped out of the sky, walking into her kitchen and bringing with them styles of dress, ways of behaviour and topics of conversation that she would never have expected to find there. The Englishwoman was telling the businessman’s young wife that she was on her way to join her eldest son in India, where he had an important position in the civil service, while the young wife joked about her bad luck on the very first occasion she had chosen to accompany her husband to London, where he went twice a year. They all dreaded the prospect of being cut off in such an out-of-the-way place; they would have to eat and sleep here. How on earth would they manage? Flore stood listening to them, without moving. She caught Séverine’s eye as she sat on a chair in front of the fire and motioned her towards the adjoining room.

‘Mother,’ she said as she went in, ‘here’s Madame Roubaud. Would you like to speak to her?’

Phasie lay on her bed; her face was a sickly yellow, and her legs were badly swollen. She was so ill that she hadn’t left her bed for a fortnight. She spent all day long in this dingy room, nearly suffocated by the heat from an iron stove, dwelling continually on the fear that obsessed her, and with nothing to distract her but the shaking of the house every time a train thundered past.

‘Ah, Madame Roubaud,’ she murmured. ‘Yes, of course.’

Flore told her about the accident, and all the people she had brought to the house, who were through there in the kitchen. But Phasie showed no interest.

‘Good! Good!’ she kept repeating, in the same weary voice.

Then she suddenly remembered something and raised her head for a moment.

‘Flore,’ she said, ‘if Madame would like to go and look at her house, you know that the keys are hanging next to the cupboard.’

Séverine shook her head. The thought of going back to La Croix-de-Maufras in all this snow and in such gloomy weather made her shudder. No, there was nothing she especially wanted to see. She would rather stay here and wait in the warm.

‘Do sit down, madame,’ said Flore. ‘It’s much better here than in the kitchen. We shall never have enough bread for all these people. But if you’re hungry, I’m sure I’ll be able to find some for you.’

She had brought up a chair and was doing her best to be pleasant, making an obvious effort to curb her usual rough manner of dealing with people. But she couldn’t take her eyes off Séverine, as if she were trying to read her mind and resolve a question that had been puzzling her for some time. This show of politeness was dictated by a need to get close to her, to stare at her and touch her in order to discover an answer.

Séverine thanked her and sat by the stove, preferring to be left there alone with a sick woman and hoping that Jacques would soon come to find her. Two hours went by. Eventually the heat from the stove made her fall asleep. Suddenly, Flore, who had had to keep answering demands from the kitchen, opened the door and called out gruffly, ‘Come through; she’s in here.’

It was Jacques. He had come with good news. The man who had been sent to Barentin had just returned with a team of helpers - thirty soldiers who had been stationed at likely trouble spots in case of emergency. They were all hard at work with picks and shovels. But it was going to take a long time. They probably wouldn’t be leaving before nightfall.

‘You’ll be all right here,’ he said. ‘Just be patient! You won’t let Madame Roubaud starve, will you, Aunt Phasie?’

On seeing her big boy, as she called him, Phasie had, with great difficulty, sat up in her bed. She looked at him and listened to his voice, suddenly brought back to life and happy again. Jacques came up to her bed.

‘Of course I won’t,’ she declared. ‘Oh, my boy! My big boy! You’re here! It was you who was stuck in the snow! And that silly girl never told me!’

She turned towards her daughter and spoke to her sternly: ‘At least try and be polite. Go and see to those ladies and gentlemen. Look after them. Make sure they don’t all go complaining to the management that we’re a lot of peasants.’

Flore had stood watching Jacques and Séverine. For a moment she hesitated, wondering whether to disobey her mother and stay where she was. But she decided she would discover nothing by remaining; they wouldn’t give themselves away in her mother’s presence. She went out saying nothing, without taking her eyes off them.

‘What’s the matter, Aunt Phasie?’ said Jacques, clearly worried. ‘Aren’t you able to get out of bed? Do you feel really ill?’

She pulled him towards her and made him sit on the edge of the bed. She appeared to have forgotten all about Séverine, who had tactfully moved further away. Speaking in almost a whisper, she told him all her worries.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s serious. It’s a miracle I’m still alive. I almost died, but I’m a bit better now. I think I’ll pull through again this time.’