The Beast Within (44 page)

When he came to, Jacques found himself back in his little room in the Rue Cardinet, slumped across his bed, fully dressed. He had found his way there by instinct, like an exhausted dog dragging itself back to its kennel. He could not remember climbing the stairs or going to sleep. When he woke up, it came as a shock to suddenly find himself in possession of his senses again, as if emerging from a coma. Had he slept for three hours or three days? Then it all came back to him; he had spent the night with Séverine, she had told him about the murder, and he had rushed out like a beast of prey in search of blood. He had taken leave of his senses but was now beginning to come back to himself. He was horrified to think of the things he had done and to know that he had been powerless to prevent them. He suddenly remembered that Séverine was still waiting for him. He leaped to his feet and looked at his watch; it was already four o‘clock. His mind felt empty, and he was now perfectly calm, as if his blood had been drained from him. He hurried back to the Impasse d’Amsterdam.

Séverine had slept soundly until midday. When she woke up she was surprised to find that Jacques was no longer there. She relit the stove, finally got dressed and at about two o’clock, dying of starvation, decided to go down and have something to eat in a nearby restaurant. When Jacques arrived she had just got back from doing some shopping.

‘Darling,’ she said, ‘I was so worried!’

She flung her arms round his neck and looked him in the eyes.

‘Where on earth have you been?’

He was exhausted and felt cold to the touch. He calmly reassured her that there was nothing wrong.

‘I had to do some work on the engine,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t get out of it. Sometimes they expect you to work all the hours God sends!’

She spoke quietly; there was a pleading, apologetic note in her voice.

‘Do you know what I thought?’ she said. ‘It was awful! I couldn’t bear it! ... I thought that, after what I told you, perhaps you didn’t want me any more ... And I thought that you’d left me and that you’d never come back ... ever!’

She could no longer hold back her tears. She clung to him desperately, weeping on his shoulder.

‘Oh my darling!’ she said. ‘If only you knew how much I need someone to love me! Love me! Be kind to me! Only your love can make me forget! Now that I’ve told you all my troubles, promise you will never leave me! I beg you!’

Jacques was overcome by this heartfelt plea. He felt himself gradually beginning to soften.

‘No,’ he murmured, ‘I won’t leave you. I love you. Never fear!’

It was too much for him, and he wept. He thought of the evil thing that once more possessed him; it was inescapable, he would never be cured. All that lay ahead of him was an endless night of shame and despair.

‘Love me too!’ he said. ‘Be kind to me! Love me with all your heart! I need your love as much as you need mine.’

She started. What did he mean?

‘Darling,’ she said, ‘if you have troubles, you must tell me about them.’

‘No,’ he said, ‘not troubles. They’re things that don’t exist. I get depressed, and it makes me feel very unhappy. I can’t talk about it.’

They drowned their sadness in an embrace. There would be no end to their suffering; what had happened could be neither forgotten nor forgiven. They wept in each other’s arms; they were victims of the blind forces of life - unending strife and death.

‘Come on,’ said Jacques as he released her, ‘it’s time we thought of leaving ... Tonight you’ll be in Le Havre.’

A dark look came into Séverine’s eyes. She gazed into the distance, saying nothing.

‘If only I were free!’ she murmured. ‘If only I didn’t have my husband! It would be so much easier to forget!’

Jacques raised his hands in a gesture of frustration and, as if thinking aloud, said, ‘But we can’t kill him, can we!’

Séverine stared at him. Jacques gave a start, amazed at what he had just said; the thought had never entered his head until that moment. But if he wished to kill someone, why not kill Roubaud, the man who stood in their way? As he was leaving her to go back to the engine sheds, she once more took him in her arms and covered him with kisses.

‘Oh, my darling!’ she said. ‘Love me for ever! I’ll love you more and more ... We shall be happy, you’ll see!’

For the next few days back in Le Havre, Jacques and Séverine were extremely careful. They were worried. If Roubaud knew what was going on between them, he would probably be keeping an eye on them, looking for an opportunity to catch them out, so that he could wreak some terrible revenge. They remembered the jealous rages he had before and the sheer brutality of this man who had worked in the shunting yards and who let fly with his fists at the least suspicion. He had become taciturn and lethargic and he had a permanently worried look in his eyes. They were convinced he was planning some nasty trick, setting a trap so that he could discover their secret. So for the next month they were constantly on the alert and only ever saw each other when they had made absolutely sure it was safe.

But Roubaud was spending less and less time at home. Perhaps he only went away in order to come back unexpectedly and catch them in each other’s arms. But this never happened. On the contrary, he stayed away longer and longer, to the point that he was hardly ever there, disappearing the minute he was free and returning just in time to begin his shift. When he was on duty during the day, he would come back at ten o‘clock, eat his breakfast in five minutes and then not reappear until half past eleven. When his colleague came down to take over at five o’clock, he would rush off straight away and sometimes be out all night. It was as much as he did to come back for a few hours’ sleep. When he was working at night, it was the same. He finished work at five in the morning, but must have gone somewhere else to eat and sleep, because he didn’t come back home till five in the evening. Despite this chaotic regime, he had continued to turn up punctually for work, like a model employee, always on time, even though he was sometimes so exhausted he could hardly stand on his feet. None the less, he had gone about his business and performed his duties conscientiously. Recently, however, there had been a few lapses. Twice already, the other assistant stationmaster, Moulin, had had to wait an hour for him to arrive, and one morning, decent fellow that he was, hearing that he hadn’t reappeared after breakfast, he had even come down and stood in for him, so that he wouldn’t get into trouble. Roubaud’s job was beginning to suffer the effects of the dissipated life he was leading. During the day, he was no longer the energetic man he used to be, personally inspecting every train that arrived or departed, noting everything down in his report to the stationmaster, making sure everyone was working hard and working hard himself. At night he just fell fast asleep in his armchair in his office. Even when he was awake he appeared to be half asleep, wandering up and down the platform with his hands behind his back, giving orders in a monotone and totally unconcerned whether anyone carried them out or not. If he managed to get things done, it was by sheer force of habit, although on one occasion his negligence led to a collision, when a passenger train was accidentally run into a siding. His colleagues merely joked about it, saying he shouldn’t spend so much time womanizing!

The truth was that Roubaud was now virtually living in the little back room upstairs at the Café du Commerce. It had gradually become a veritable gambling den. People said there were women there every night; in fact there was only ever one woman there, the mistress of a retired sea captain, who was at least forty years old, an incurable gambler herself, and totally sexless. The only appetite Roubaud satisfied when he visited the Café du Commerce was his melancholy passion for cards. It had started shortly after the murder, through a chance game of piquet; since then it had grown into an irresistible habit, providing release from all his cares and complete oblivion. It had taken such a hold on him that his desire for women, which had previously been insatiable, was now totally dead. It held him completely in its grip, providing the only distraction that afforded him any pleasure. His need to forget came not from any feelings of remorse over the murder, but from the break-up of his marriage; his life had been ruined, and this was his one consolation, a form of happy self-indulgence which numbed his senses and which he could enjoy alone. His passion had now taken over his whole life and it was destroying him. Alcohol could not have provided him with such pleasure and freedom from care or made the time go by more swiftly. He had even stopped caring about life itself, yet he had the impression he was living life to the full. It was as though he were somewhere else, cut off; none of the things that used to irritate him so intensely now seemed to affect him at all. Apart from feeling tired as a result of his late nights, he was really quite well; he was even putting on weight, growing rather fat and flabby in fact. His eyes had lost their sparkle and seemed always to be half asleep. When he did come home, he just lounged around and showed absolutely no interest in anything.

On the night that Roubaud had come back to take the three one-hundred-franc coins from under the floor, it was in order to pay Monsieur Cauche, the safety officer, after a succession of losses. Monsieur Cauche was an experienced card player and he knew how to keep his head, which made him a formidable opponent. He said he only played for the fun of it; he was a retired soldier, and his position as magistrate required him to keep up a respectable appearance. He had never married and spent most of his time at the café as a regular customer, which didn’t prevent him from frequently playing cards all evening and pocketing everybody else’s money. People said he was so lackadaisical about his job that he had been told he might be asked to resign. But nothing had come of it, and there was so little work for him to do that it seemed pointless to ask him to work harder. So he simply put in an appearance on the platform for a few minutes, where everyone said hello to him.

Three weeks later, Roubaud owed Monsieur Cauche almost four hundred francs more. He had told him that his wife’s legacy had left them very well off, adding jokingly that it was his wife, however, who held the purse-strings, which was why he was a bit slow in paying off his debts. One morning, when he was at home on his own, having been harassed by Monsieur Cauche, he once again lifted the floorboard and removed a thousand-franc note from its hiding place. He was shaking all over; he hadn’t felt like that when he removed the gold coins. He had probably thought then that he was merely borrowing a bit of loose change. With the thousand-franc note, however, he knew it was theft. A shiver ran through him at the thought of this tainted money that he had sworn he would never touch. He used to say that he would rather die of starvation; and here he was, helping himself. How had it happened? The murder had slowly eaten away at his conscience, day by day, little by little, until he no longer had the will to resist. As he put his hand down into the hole, he thought he felt something wet, something soft and disgusting. It made him feel sick. He quickly replaced the floorboard, telling himself that he would cut his hand off rather than take it up again. His wife hadn’t seen him; he breathed a sigh of relief and drank a large glass of water to steady his nerves. His heart was beating with excitement; he could pay off his debt and he had all this money to wager!
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But when it came to changing the note, Roubaud’s anxiety quickly returned. Before, he had been prepared to brave things out; he might even have given himself up had he not foolishly involved his wife in the murder. Now, however, the mere thought of the police brought him out into a cold sweat. He knew that the police didn’t have the numbers of the missing banknotes and that, in any case, the inquiry had been shelved and filed away indefinitely, yet the minute he went anywhere intending to ask for change, he was overcome with panic. For five days he kept the note on him, moving it from one pocket to another, feeling to see that it was still there and even taking it to bed with him. He devised various complicated strategies, each of which ran into some unforeseen difficulty. At first he had thought of the station; perhaps someone in the accounts department could change it for him. He decided it was too risky. He then thought of going to buy something on the other side of town, not wearing his stationmaster’s cap. But they would think there was something odd about using such a large note to pay for something worth next to nothing. In the end he decided the simplest thing would be to use the note at the tobacconist’s on the Cours Napoléon; he went there every day, they knew he had inherited some money, and it would come as no surprise to the woman behind the counter. He went up to the door, but his nerve failed him. He walked down towards the Vauban dock trying to screw up his courage. Half an hour later he came back, still undecided. That evening at the Café du Commerce, Monsieur Cauche was there. On a sudden impulse, Roubaud took the note from his pocket and asked the proprietress if she could change it for him. She didn’t have enough change and sent one of the waiters with it to the tobacconist’s. They joked about it, saying it seemed brand new, even though it was ten years old! The safety officer took it, turned it over in his hand and pronounced that it must have been kept hidden away somewhere, which launched the retired sea captain’s mistress into an interminable tale of some vast fortune that had been hidden and eventually found again under the top of a chest of drawers!

The weeks went by. With so much money at his disposal, Roubaud’s passion for gambling knew no bounds. It wasn’t that he wagered large sums of money, but he was constantly dogged by the worst luck imaginable. Little losses every day soon added up to large amounts. By the end of the month he had nothing left and was once again heavily in debt. He didn’t dare carry on playing, which made him feel quite ill. He tried hard to overcome the temptation but he almost ended up having to take to his bed. The knowledge that there were another nine banknotes lying beneath the dining-room floor went round and round in his head all day long; he could see them through the floorboards and felt them burning the soles of his feet. To think that, if he had wanted to, he could have taken another one! But he had vowed not to; he would sooner put his hand into the fire than go feeling under the floor again! Then, one evening when Séverine had gone to sleep early, he lifted the floorboard, furious with himself for giving in and feeling so miserable that his eyes filled with tears. Why resist? Why suffer? It was pointless; he now knew that he would take the banknotes, one by one, until there were none left.