Mr Hire's Engagement (14 page)

'Either this chap is damn clever, or else he's an imbecile,' he grunted, putting the bag away again.

And he filled a pipe, gazing out at the sky, where grey and white clouds were racing across a moon-lit expanse.

Mr. Hire was seated in front of a bottle of champagne, obstinately repeating:

'No, I assure you. You're wasting your time!'

His neighbour, not yet daunted, sat smoking a cigarette and leaning on the man's shoulder, one of her breasts pressed against him.

'You're flesh and blood like anyone else, aren't you?'

'I'm engaged to be married!'

It was the first time he had put it into words. It impressed him so much that he could not understand the woman's persistence. 'What difference does that make?'

'No!'

In the end she stood up, weary and scornful. 'You can bet she does the dirty on you, your girl-friend!' But she did not even wince. The nightclub was practically empty. Mr. Hire was sitting right in a corner, and the musicians gazed gloomily at him, wondering when he would take himself off.

'Waiter!'

For a moment they felt hopeful. 'I want to write a letter.'

'I don't know if we've got. . .' the man growled, as he departed. He went and spoke to the manager, looking at Mr. Hire from a distance. The two women who had stayed on until now, put their coats and hats on, shook hands with the musicians, and left. At last the waiter returned with a little bottle of purple ink, a cheap penholder, a sheet of squared paper and an envelope.

'We're closing in five minutes,' he announced. The saxophonist threw a questioning glance at the manager, and the latter shook his head. Not worth playing anymore! The musicians could put their instruments away and go.

The pen spluttered, jabbing into the rough paper.

'To the Public Prosecutor.

'I have the honour to inform you that the Villejuif murder was committed by a young man from that district who works, I believe, in a garage and whose Christian name is Émile. I do not know his surname or his address, but I may add that he goes to the Colombes football-ground every Sunday. He is of medium height and usually wears a pinkish-brown felt hat.

'I remain, sir, your very obedient servant.'

Without adding his signature, he addressed the envelope and then called for a stamp. When the letter reached its destination he and Alice would already be a long way away.

'A hundred and fifty francs!' rapped out the waiter, whose patience was exhausted.

The cobbles were already beginning to dry off in places, and above the level of the streets the wind could be heard whistling among the tiled roofs. Now and then a cart went rattling slowly on its way, and the footsteps of a passer-by echoed right through the whole district.

There were ten or a dozen people huddled outside the gates at the Gare de Lyon. Some of them had put down their luggage and were sitting on it, dozing. Behind them in the closed, empty station, an engine whistled from time to time.

It was very cold. Just down the road, lights were turned on in a little bar. A man with a lantern was making the round of the waiting-rooms, opening doors, shutting others, pushing things that clanged.

Mr. Hire was so tired that he felt giddy, but that would pass; it was the hardest moment of all, the transition from night to day. He closed his eyes for a minute or two, and that was sheer luxury, for his lids were burning. He smiled vaguely at his own thoughts.

From inside the station, steps approached the gate. A key squeaked. Iron bars were drawn back, and the dishevelled slumberers rose and advanced into the dark hall which yawned ahead of them. Only one booking-office was lit up. Mr. Hire was the first to notice it, and had to wait while the clerk changed his coat and filled his fountain-pen.

'Two second-class tickets for Geneva.'

'Return?'

'No, single.'

All of a sudden he was shivering. His fingers trembled as he searched in his pocket-book.

'The train is at five-forty-four, isn't it?'

'Forty-three.'

And the clerk was staring at him gravely, staring at his moustache, his hands, his pocket-book. He even bent forward to watch as Mr. Hire went skipping away and into the refreshment-room. The station was beginning to fill up. A waiter was arranging
croissants
in little baskets, while another sprinkled semi-circles of sawdust on the floor.

At ten minutes past five two men had sat down in a corner of the refreshment-room, and one of them re-reading a slip of paper he was holding, was whispering:

"That's him.'

Mr. Hire looked at the clock, then at the door, then back at the clock, and then at his watch.

'How much?'

His voice was sharp and decided.

'The Geneva train is in now, I suppose?'

'Platform three.'

But first of all he went and looked out into the street. It was not yet light. It was not even beginning to get light, and yet the sky looked paler, perhaps because of the moon; and the first trams, the taxis converging on the station, the lights burning in the bars, showed that night was already at an end.

In the other railway stations too, men with Mr. Hire's description in their pockets were staring at the travellers.

The train was a long one. It stretched out beyond the glass-roofed interior to the end of the platform, where it was colder. Mr. Hire had chosen his compartment and his two seats. And now he was standing on the platform, overcome by the solemnity of the moment.

The minute-hand on the huge clock jerked forward every sixty seconds, a whirr of mechanism accompanying each jerk. The platform was filling up. Train attendants were hurrying about, and so were a newsvendor and a man pushing a trolley with chocolate and lemonade.

At five-forty, when the train shook itself as though trying its strength before the departure, Mr. Hire felt his knees begin to tremble, and rose on tiptoe to look over the heads of the crowd. All of a sudden he rushed forward, panting, muttering to himself in his joy, for he had caught sight of a green hat. But when he came within ten yards of it he saw it belonged to a plump little woman with a baby in her arms, who was being helped up into a third-class carriage.

The two inspectors were on the alert to prevent him from leaving. Like Mr. Hire they were craning their necks to look along the platform, wondering who was to arrive.

No one arrived. The engine whistled. A porter ran past, slamming the doors. Mr. Hire had not given up hope. He was so tense that he ached all over. Wasn't this how he had imagined the departure? He had always expected that Alice would come tearing up at the last moment and that he would have to help her to jump on the step while the train was moving. His foot was tapping the ground. He was grimacing and smiling all at once, with tears of impatience in his eyes.

And suddenly he had the impression that the platform had begun to move. It was not the platform. It was the train that was starting, gradually gathering speed. Doors glided past, with faces looking out, handkerchiefs waving.

Hands in pockets, he swung his shoulders as he walked, to work off his despair.

'Ticket please!'

Mr. Hire proffered his, and was called back.

'This isn't a platform ticket. It's . . .'

'I know, I know!'

And the ticket-collector stared inquisitively at the back of the black overcoat, the velvet collar, the shaky little legs that were moving away.

Mr. Hire felt very much like crying. He stood on the steps at the main entrance, looking down into the square, where the stones were gradually whitening.

He did not know what was the matter with him. It was a complex sensation. He was cold, subtly, queerly cold, as though icy needles were pricking into him, though his skin was damp. He was frightened. He thought of the letter he had posted, of Émile, of the policemen who would begin walking behind him again, of the superintendent who would say things that hurt like blows. He was hungry. Hungry or thirsty, he didn't know which. And hot too. He didn't feel steady on his feet, but he hadn't the courage to go and sit down again in the refreshment-room.

Perhaps Alice was late? Perhaps Émile had prevented her from leaving? Perhaps she would turn up any moment now?

He looked at everyone who got out of the taxis that kept drawing up within a few yards of him. And people looked at him, for he really had the air of a policeman on the watch.

Six o'clock. The sky was growing steadily paler. Buses were hurtling along the streets, and he could not summon up courage to leave. He paced about a little, went down a few steps, then came up again.

'Perhaps she couldn't find a taxi!'

And he began to calculate the time it would take to come in from Villejuif by tram.

His impatience worked its way down from his chest to his stomach and then to his bladder, and he had to withdraw; after which he made a tour of the station, for Alice might have arrived while he had been away.

At half-past six all the street lamps in Paris went out. It was daylight. The wind sent scraps of paper fluttering along the empty pavements, where the rain lay in puddles here and there.

Mr. Hire left the station and went into a bar. He chose the smallest and shabbiest he could see, one with tiled walls. One elbow propped on the counter, he drank some coffee and tried to eat a
croissant
, but pushed it away almost untouched. When he went out into the street again, he noticed two men standing at the edge of the pavement. He walked on for a hundred yards or so, turned on his heel, and saw the two men behind him.

He began to walk so fast, without knowing why, that people turned to stare after him. He seemed dizzy, panic-stricken. He rushed down the steps of the first Métro station, and the two men followed him onto the platform.

The letter had gone. It would reach its destination at noon. Alice, since she had not come to the station, must be doing her milk-round. She wore clogs in the morning, but left them at the foot of the stairs in each house and went up in her green list slippers, so as not to make a noise. She hadn't washed yet. She went upstairs to wash and tidy herself about eight o'clock, after getting her employer's breakfast. But in the daytime she could hardly be seen because the courtyard was so dark and the window-panes so dirty.

The Métro kept stopping and starting again. Mr. Hire forgot to look at the names of the stations. However, when they reached Italie he got out, from sheer force of habit.

While he was underground, Paris had had time to come back to life. Endless files of lorries and cars were following one another into the city, and trains were disgorging packed loads of workmen and office employees, chiefly workmen, for the offices open later.

What was he going to do? Alice hadn't come! He did not even ask himself whether she loved him or not. He had never asked himself that. He had only wondered whether he was to have her, for himself. And he had shown her the eighty thousand francs.

It was not from cynicism, but from humility. Yet she hadn't come, in spite of the Government Bonds, and now he didn't understand anything, he was out of his depth; he remembered, without knowing why the little girl in the red-and-blue striped jersey who had stared at him suspiciously, and then with a kind of anger. Why?

He stood waiting for a Villejuif tram, and could still see his two sleuths. He felt sad again now, no longer impatient, but sad, with a sadness that was as warm and secret as tears. This was the time of day when, in the Rue Saint-Antoine, he used to begin hanging the reach-me-downs on their rods and stopping the passers-by. In the prison, where one got up early, this was the hour of the walk round the yard, one behind the other, in silence, ears straining to catch the sounds of Paris awakening on the far side of the walls.

His overcoat was soaked right through at the shoulders, and felt icy cold. A tram drew up. It was empty, as all trams bound for the suburbs are empty in the early morning. The conductor recognized Mr. Hire, and then glanced at the two men who sat down a little further along.

The scenery went past, always the same, the wholesale chemist's on the left, then the huge soap advertisement, then the gentle rise where road-repairs were always going on.

Mr. Hire could feel that he was pale. His eyelids were prickling but he was afraid to lower them, as though he would be in danger of falling asleep. And though he had eaten nothing, he felt rather sick.

He saw the street that led to the big house with the tiled walls, where the corridors were misty from the steam of the baths. He thought of it without the slightest attraction. He even felt a kind of revulsion.

'Ticket, please?'

He always had a book of tram tickets in his pocket, and a book of Métro tickets as well. He knew the price of each trip.

'Thank you.'

He had a feeling that something was missing. He looked down at his knees and realized that it was his black leather briefcase. This flabbergasted him. Chiefly because he, with his prodigious memory, could not think where he had left it.

It didn't matter. There was nothing important in it. But he turned his mind in that direction, straining all his faculties that way.

Where had he left it? Why wasn't it lying flat on his lap, as usual?

To begin with he had to make an effort to think about it, but soon he was in a frenzy. He was determined to remember! He wrinkled his forehead! He frowned! He pressed his lips together and stared ferociously into space!

Alice got down first and helped the proprietress to pour the contents of the three milk-cans into the bottles and cover them with a round of blue paper. The dairy was not open yet, the shutters were still up, and the floor was half flooded with rainwater. 'Hurry up and get the place clean by seven o'clock.' There were two men on the watch outside, and the corner
bistro
,
the one on the right, was already lit up. From a distance Alice recognized Émile, who must have been up all night; he had a small glass of rum next to his coffee.

Her dress was still wet from the day before, and hung stiffly to her shins. Lorries were coming back empty from the central market. On the country side of the house everything was wetter than in the direction of Paris, because fields take longer to dry than cobblestones, and trees go on dripping for hours.