Thomas Godfrey (Ed) (43 page)

The small separate ward
in which Miss D’Mello lay in a broad bed all alone was no different. Except
that the girl was isolated, she seemed to be treated in just the same way as
the other new mothers in the big maternity ward that Ghote had been led through
on his way in. In the face of such matter-of-factness he felt hollowly cheated.

Suddenly, too, to his own
utter surprise he found, looking down at the big calm-after-storm eyes of the
Goan girl, that he wanted the story she was about to tell him to be true. Part
of him knew that, if it were so, or if it was widely believed to be so,
appalling disorders could result from the feverish religious excitement that
was bound to mount day by day. But another part of him now simply wanted a
miracle to have happened.

He began, quietly and
almost diffidently, to put his questions. Miss D’Mello would hardly answer at
all, but such syllables as she did whisper were of blank inability to name
anyone as the father of her child. After a while Ghote brought himself, with a
distinct effort of will, to change his tactics. He banged out the hard line.
Miss D’Mello went quietly and totally mute.

Then Ghote slipped in,
with adroit suddenness, the name of Charlie Lobo. He got only a small puzzled
frown.

Then, in an effort to make
sure that her silence was not a silence of fear, he presented, with equal
suddenness, the name of Kuldip Singh. If the care-for-nothing young Sikh had
forced this timid creature, this might be the way to get an admission. But
instead there came something approaching a laugh.

“That Kuldip is a funny
fellow,” the girl said, with an out-of-place and unexpected offhandedness.

Ghote almost gave up. But
at that moment a nun nurse appeared carrying in her arms a small, long,
white-wrapped, minutely crying bundle— the baby.

While she handed the
hungry scrap to its mother Ghote stood and watched. Perhaps holding the child
she would—?

He looked down at the
scene on the broad bed, awaiting his moment again. The girl fiercely held the
tiny agitated thing to her breast and in a moment or two quiet came, the tiny
head applied to the life-giving nipple. How human the child looked already,
Ghote thought. How much a man at two days old. The round skull, almost bald, as
it might become again toward the end of its span. The frown on the forehead
that would last a lifetime, the tiny, perfectly formed, plainly asymmetrical
ears—

And then Ghote knew that
there had not been any miracle. It was as he surmised, but with different
circumstances. Miss D’Mello was indeed too frightened to talk. No wonder, when
the local bully, Head Constable Mudholkar with his slewed head and its one ear
so characteristically longer than the other, was the man who had forced himself
on her.

A deep smothering of
disappointment floated down on Ghote. So it had been nothing miraculous after
all. Just a sad case, to be cleared up painfully. He stared down at the bed.

The tiny boy suckled
energetically. And with a topsy-turvy welling up of rose-pink pleasure, Ghote
saw that there had after all been a miracle. The daily, hourly, every-minute
miracle of a new life, of a new flicker of hope in the tired world.

“That’s enough—you don’t
have to carry the ball any further!”

Translated by Lawrence G.
Blochman

Perhaps the greatest of Georges Simenon’s considerable
achievements has been his mastery of a literary form that had become almost the
exclusive province of English-speaking writers. When one considers that
Simenon’s art has constantly been at the mercy of translators, it becomes
apparent that his stories in their original French must be durable stuff
indeed.

This Belgian born writer
now has over 200 novels to his credit in a career that spans over sixty years.
By far the most popular of these works are the Inspector Maigret adventures
which constitute a hefty percentage of his production.

Maigret’s success gives
cause for consideration, too. He is neither flamboyant nor eccentric, just an
average middle class government worker earning a living, and getting by, in a
simple, honest fashion.

Simenon’s style is
likewise clean and “sec,” in a way that is agreeably Gallic. Like the great
wines of France, the Maigret stories are an acquired taste. But also, like
those wines, a taste well worth the acquisition.

The translator of this
version of “Maigret’s Christmas” was himself a notable mystery writer, known
best for his series about Dr. Daniel Coffee, a forensic pathologist. Blochman’s
translation captures both the meaning of the words and the spirit of the story
most admirably.

The routine never varied.
When Maigret went to bed he must have muttered his usual, “Tomorrow morning I
shall sleep late.” And Mme. Maigret, who over the years should have learned to
pay no attention to such casual phrases, had taken him at his word this
Christmas day.

It was not quite daylight
when he heard her stirring cautiously. He forced himself to breathe regularly
and deeply as though he were still asleep. It was like a game. She inched
toward the edge of the bed with animal stealth, pausing after each movement to
make sure she had not awakened him. He waited anxiously for the inevitable
finale, the movement when the bedspring, relieved of her weight, would spring
back into place with a faint sigh.

She picked up her
clothing from the chair and turned the knob of the bathroom door so slowly that
it seemed to take an eternity. It was not until she had reached the distant
fastness of the kitchen that she resumed her normal movements.

Maigret had fallen asleep
again. Not deeply, nor for long. Long enough, however, for a confused and
disturbing dream. Waking, he could not remember what it was, but he knew it was
disturbing because he still felt vaguely uneasy.

The crack between the
window drapes which never quite closed became a strip of pale, hard daylight.
He waited a while longer, lying on his back with his eyes open, savoring the
fragrance of fresh coffee. Then he heard the apartment door open and close, and
he knew that Mme. Maigret was hurrying downstairs to buy him hot
croissants
from the bakery at the corner of
the Rue Amelot.

He never ate in the
morning. His breakfast consisted of black coffee. But his wife clung to her
ritual: on Sundays and holidays he was supposed to lie in bed until mid-morning
while she went out for
croissants.

He got up, stepped into
his slippers, put on his dressing gown, and drew the curtains. He knew he was
doing wrong. His wife would be heartbroken. But while he was willing to make
almost any sacrifice to please her, he simply could not stay in bed longer than
he felt like it.

It was not snowing. It
was nonsense, of course, for a man past 50 to be disappointed because there was
no snow on Christmas morning; but then middle-aged people never have as much
sense as young folks sometimes imagine.

A dirty, turbid sky hung
low over the rooftops. The Boulevard Richard-Lenoir was completely deserted.
The words
Fils et Cie., Bonded Warehouses
on
the sign above the porte-cochére across the street stood out as black as
mourning crêpe. The
F,
for some strange reason, seemed particularly dismal.

He heard his wife moving
about in the kitchen again. She came into the dining room on tiptoe, as though
he were still asleep instead of looking out the window. He glanced at his watch
on the night table. It was only ten past
8.

The night before the
Maigrets had gone to the theatre. They would have loved dropping in for a snack
at some restaurant, like everyone else on Christmas Eve, but all tables were
reserved for
Réveillon
supper. So they had walked home arm in arm, getting in a few minutes before
midnight. Thus they hadn’t long to wait before exchanging presents.

He got a pipe, as usual.
Her present was an electric coffee pot, the latest model that she had wanted so
much, and, not to break with tradition, a dozen finely embroidered
handkerchiefs.

Still looking out the
window, Maigret absently filled his new pipe. The shutters were still closed on
some of the windows across the boulevard. Not many people were up. Here and
there a light burned in a window, probably left by children who had leaped out
of bed at the crack of dawn to rush for their presents under the Christmas
tree.

In the quiet Maigret
apartment the morning promised to be a lazy one for just the two of them.
Maigret would loiter in his dressing gown until quite late. He would not even
shave. He would dawdle in the kitchen, talking to his wife while she put the
lunch on the stove. Just the two of them.

He wasn’t sad exactly,
but his dream—which he couldn’t remember— had left him jumpy. Or perhaps it
wasn’t his dream. Perhaps it was Christmas. He had to be extra-careful on
Christmas Day, careful of his words, the way Mme. Maigret had been careful of
her movements in getting out of bed. Her nerves, too, were especially sensitive
on Christmas.

Oh, well, why think of
all that? He would just be careful to say nothing untoward. He would be careful
not to look out the window when the neighborhood children began to appear on
the sidewalks with their Christmas toys.

All the houses in the
street had children. Or almost all. The street would soon echo to the shrill
blast of toy horns, the roll of toy drums, and the crack of toy pistols. The
little girls were probably already cradling their new dolls.

A few years ago he had
proposed more or less at random: “Why don’t we take a little trip for
Christmas?”

“Where?” she had replied
with her infallible common sense.

Where, indeed? Whom would
they visit? They had no relatives except her sister who lived too far away. And
why spend Christmas in some second-rate country inn, or at a hotel in some
strange town?

Oh, well, he’d feel
better after he had his coffee. He was never at his best until he’d drunk his
first cup of coffee and lit his first pipe.

Just as he was reaching
for the knob, the door opened noiselessly and Mme. Maigret appeared carrying a
tray. She looked at the empty bed, then turned her disappointed eyes upon her
husband. She was on the verge of tears.

“You got up!” She looked
as though she had been up for hours herself, every hair in place, a picture of
neatness in her crisp clean apron. “And I was so happy about serving your
breakfast in bed.

He had tried a hundred
times, as subtly as he could, to make her understand that he didn’t like eating
breakfast in bed. It made him uncomfortable. It made him feel like an invalid
or a senile old gaffer. But for Mme. Maigret breakfast in bed was the symbol of
leisure and luxury, the ideal way to start Sunday or a holiday.