The Widow (11 page)

Whose fault was it? His father's: he was too elegant and the English master kept seeing him drive around in his car and seldom without some pretty girl next to him.

He took no interest in his son. If Jean happened to get up late, he had only to go to the office.

That year, Jean had made himself ill so as not to have to take his examinations. He had spent the whole month of July in the garden of the house, up on the hill, and in the end he was dragging himself around like a really sick person and moving with the caution of an invalid.

The following year he had been kept back in the fourth form. He did no work. He knew that from now on it was useless. He had given up.

He was taller and thinner than his schoolmates, more elegant, and since he always had pocketfuls of money, he used to stand them ice cream.

When his wallet happened to be empty, he would take a few odd notes from the petty cash, and there was no one but the old bookkeeper to notice it.

He had given up trying to do anything. Twice he had failed to get his degree, and he had only gotten it in the end by influence.

That was how it had come about. He loved to stroll idly about the streets with friends, to eat ice cream, and, later on, to drink beer at sidewalk cafés.

Sometimes anguish would seize him by the throat: what would become of him if? …

Nothing! Nothing would become of him. He had given up. It was too late!

He got up and remained standing barefoot in the middle of the loft, trying to cool off.

“
Every person condemned to death shall
…”

It was throbbing, painful, unexpected. Living through the tragedy, the trial, and prison, he had scarcely realized that it was himself it was happening to. He listened to the presiding judge putting questions to the witnesses.

“Raise your right hand. Swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. You are neither a relative of the prisoner nor …”

The feeling that all this array was so utterly out of scale with himself! How could so much fuss be made over nothing at all?

They argued over his case as if he had been a man, a man responsible for his actions, and on his bench, between his two gendarmes, he felt himself to be still at school!

His father had not come. Nor his sister. True, at that time she was not yet twenty.

“Raise your right hand. Swear…. ”

At the adjournment, they went out to smoke cigarettes in the corridors or drink a glass of beer in the bar! In the evening, they went home!

“
Every person condemned to death shall
…”

He bit his lip. He was aching all over. The agony took him at some undefined point and spread to his whole being, right down to the ends of his fingers, of his toes, which went rigid as if seized by cramp.

Why had Tati looked at him like that? At times it was as though she understood, at others as though she were still trying to understand.

No one had pitied the fate of the contractor from Le Mans, although he had two children. Jean had felt no pity either. He had never had any remorse. He scarcely remembered him: rather he remembered a mass, bulky because of a heavy woolen overcoat.

“It must not be forgotten, gentlemen of the jury, that when my client made his unfortunate gesture, he was in an advanced state of intoxication, and …”

That was not true either. He had been drinking, but he was clearheaded. He was even more clearheaded than usual.

Better still! Coming out of the Mandarin behind the contractor, he had made a distinct pause, and had said to himself, “You're going to do something stupid.”

He could have gone away. And, if he had not done so, was it not precisely because he wanted to be done with it all? Was it not because he was sick at heart, because he had had enough?

He wanted something definite and final, something that offered no prospect of retreat.

Indeed, in the very instant of striking out with the brass knuckles, it was the face of his English master he thought he saw before him.

He had made off, very calm, almost relieved. He was on the far side of the bridge when he turned and saw the dark mass lying on the stones.

Once again, he had hesitated. Would it not be simpler to throw the man into the water? That would avoid complications in the morning. He'd be left alone.

He had walked back almost nonchalantly. He had bent down.

Why not?

“
Every person condemned to death shall
…”

And it was now, so many years afterwards, now when nothing was at stake anymore, that he knew fright, a retrospective, poignant consuming fright. He walked as far as the door. He wanted to go downstairs, to go into Tati's room, to sit down on the foot of her bed. She would understand that he needed company.

What had become of Maître Fagonet? He had always appeared cordial toward Jean, who had, unwittingly, brought him his first case. At the end, they were on the best of terms and the lawyer would tell him tales about his love affairs.

He lifted the glass of the skylight. Air came through. He heard the calls of birds, night birds no doubt. He knew nothing about birds.

He felt suddenly cold, and threw himself down on his bed.

Why had he been so happy only the night before, and why, all of a sudden … ?

He had a headache, and, having dropped off to sleep only toward morning, he found it difficult to wake. Tati realized it at first glance. “Not feeling so good? Go and drink a cup of coffee before you feed the hens.”

She was perhaps the first creature on earth to understand him. From that first Saturday on the bus, when she had no idea who he was or what he had done, she had spoken to him familiarly. In reality, she had never taken him for a grown-up.

“Do this! Do that! Go and wash! Go and shave! Drink a cup of coffee.”

And she watched him come and go, keeping her thoughts to herself. If he should fall sick, she might very well lift him in her arms like a child, put him to bed, turn him this way and that, undress him, poultice him.

“Lie still. This must be done.”

Indeed that was exactly what he had always wanted—to be ill in that fashion. At home they would have sent one of the maids to him, or the doctor, or even a full-fledged nurse.

“It's my fault, eh?” she said suddenly as he stooped over the incubator to trim the lamp.

“What is?”

“I shouldn't have talked to you about it.”

He bluffed: “It's all one to me…. ”

He measured out the bran and the grits, poured in the warm water, mixed the mash.

Tati contrived not to leave him alone that morning.

“Saturday, you will come to market with me. It'll make a change for you. Besides, it's time you went to the barber's. Your hair is already so long it makes a roll at the back of your neck.”

He would have liked to cross the canal, to lie down in the long grass and watch Félicie. He had to be content with the distant view of the pink roof and its trickle of smoke.

Once, when he was only twelve, he had had a spot on the lung. The doctor was worried and had him X-rayed to make sure there were no tubercular lesions. A schoolmate of his was in a sanatorium at Leysin.

And he had longed, so ardently, to be attacked by lesions. He too would go up there in the mountains. He would have nothing to do. He would lie in a deck chair—that was his picture of sanatorium life—facing the mountains, and everything would be taken care of for him, food would be dropped into his mouth as though he were a puppy or a nestling, everyone would be kind, attentive to his slightest need, while he would be able to dream from morning till night.

“Nothing whatever, young fellow. Your lungs are absolutely sound.”

Tati looked at the time regretfully. “I must go to church.”

It was Sunday once again. He had not noticed the anglers along the canal, or the increased number of bicycles.

“
Every person condemned to death
…”

He ought to have been condemned to death. He knew that. Article 314.

“
Murder shall entail the death penalty when it precedes, accompanies or follows another crime
.”

That was his case. The theft of the wallet. In any case, Article 304 provided precisely for the situation:

“
Murder shall equally entail the death penalty when it has for its object either the preparation, facilitation or execution of an offense, or assisting the flight or insuring the impunity of those who have committed the said offense or of their accomplices
.”

In other words, if he had not lied, if he had not sworn that the contractor had struck the first blow and in the struggle fallen into the river …

“Tati!” he called.

He had gone up as far as the door of her bedroom, while she dressed for church.

“What's the matter?”

“Nothing.”

He had nearly confessed: “I'm afraid.”

Never had he felt such a longing to be ill. Why not go to church with her? That would perhaps give him a chance to think of something else?

“You'll keep an eye on the fire, won't you? Don't put the potatoes on till half-past eleven. Here, hook up my dress! Try not to pinch the skin.”

He was left all alone. He did not know where the old man was. He pushed open the dining-room door, but not to steal the money in the tureen. It was for the sole pleasure of opening up this room where never foot was set. The door, as it opened, made a noise somewhat like a cork coming out of a bottle. The air, which was never disturbed, was suddenly displaced, thicker than elsewhere, and it could be felt moving across one's cheek. The very things in the room, like the tureen, set fast in the silence and their own immobility, seemed to quiver.

Whose wedding present, long ago, had been the paper-thin white metal bowl standing in the middle of the table runner?

He had paid no attention to the throbbing of an engine. He had heard it, but he hadn't thought that it could have anything whatever to do with him. Now he gave a start on hearing foot-steps on the tiled floor of the kitchen, and a woman's voice calling, “Anybody in?”

The blind was always down in the dining room—museum. That was why Jean had to blink when he left the half darkness to go into the kitchen, where the door was open to the sunlight.

He was wearing his blue denim trousers, a white shirt open across his chest, and canvas shoes. As Tati had observed, his hair made a thick roll on the nape of his neck.

He saw a young woman standing there, wearing a light dress and a colored hat, and carrying a small handbag. He was about to ask a question, any question, when he recognized her, at the very moment when she lifted her handkerchief to her eyes.

“Billie!”

She was shaking her head, to convey that she could not speak. She was sniffling. He brought a straw-bottomed chair for her, and she sat down on it mechanically, with that reserved dignity people assume in deep grief.

He was not moved. He noticed things he would never have expected to notice on seeing his sister again after so many years: for instance, he admired her shoes, very beautiful custom-made shoes she must have ordered from a leading shoemaker. Her stockings were sheer, the seams neat and straight. His sister Billie had always been well dressed and well groomed.

Still sniffling a little, she shook her head once more, ventured a quick look.

“I can't explain how it makes me feel …”

She was telling herself that perhaps it would be proper to kiss him, but at the same time she was thinking that he was a murderer. And that changed everything. He was no longer, in fact, an ordinary man. He impressed her. He had grown in stature.

“Even though I was prepared … I had had a letter…. But seeing you here, all of a sudden, in this kitchen …”

“The last time we met …”

Evidently she remembered, for she blushed.

“It was in your bedroom.”

A lovely room, a real rich girl's room, blue and white, complete with fur rugs.

“You didn't want to be seen because you had a pimple on your nose. I had come to ask you for a little money.”

She had been only seventeen then, and her father gave her as much money as she wanted. It was less trouble than giving other things. The loveliest dresses. The loveliest hats. Holidays at the loveliest seaside resorts, in the best hotels. Their house was the loveliest in Montluçon.

“Why do you remind me of that, Jean? I was so far from suspecting—”

“That I really needed it. You've changed, you know. You used to be plump, with a big bosom that was your despair. Now, you're slender.”

“I have two children.”

“Ah!”

She was going to put her bag on the table, hesitated.

“It's quite clean,” he said. “Wait a second …”

He got a cloth out of the cupboard and wiped the scrubbed wooden table top.

“Won't you have something to drink? A cup of coffee? A glass of brandy?”

“Jean!”

“What?”

“I don't know…. I don't know how to speak to you.”

She was eyeing the coarse cloth of his trousers, the canvas shoes, the long hair through which he would run his fingers when a lock fell down over his forehead. He looked so utterly at ease, so utterly at home in this kitchen!

“You're married, aren't you?”

She smiled nervously.

“Since I have two children…. ”

“That doesn't signify! Your husband is not with you?”

He went and leaned out of the door and saw a handsome car parked a hundred yards from the house, in the shade of the hazels.

“He's taken the opportunity to call on one of his colleagues at St. Amand.”

She fiddled nervously with her handkerchief.

“I'm to pick up Philippe on my way back.”

“Of course!”