She Who Was No More (8 page)

‘What did she say, exactly?’ he asked suddenly.

Germain was telling of a brush he’d had with one of the Stalag orderlies. He broke off, a little hurt.

‘What did she say?… I really couldn’t tell you. For that matter it was I who did most of the talking, since she’d come to inquire about the X-ray.’

‘Did she stay long?’

‘Only a few minutes.’

‘I don’t see why she couldn’t have waited for me,’ complained Marthe.

But that was just the point! If Marthe had been in the flat, Mireille wouldn’t have been visible. There was a certain logic even in supernatural things.

‘You didn’t think of looking out of the window to see which way she went?’

‘No. Why should I?’

Quite so. But it was a pity all the same. If he’d looked out of the window he would no doubt have discovered that Mireille never left the building at all. And that would have been an absolute proof.

‘You really mustn’t get worked up about it,’ said Germain. ‘Look here, old man. If you want my advice—go back home. You’ll very likely find her waiting for you. She may be in a bit of a state about it, but now that you’ve heard everything you’ll know how to handle her.’

He tried to laugh genially. Marthe gave him a reproving glance.

‘As a child did she ever walk in her sleep?’

‘Not Mireille. I did… I didn’t climb up on the roof or anything of that sort, but I used to talk a lot in my sleep and gesticulate, and several times I woke up to find myself in the passage or in another room altogether. A nasty feeling, I can tell you. I used to be so scared I couldn’t go back to sleep again.’

‘I don’t know that there’s any need to go into that,’ put in Marthe a little sharply, ‘though by the look on Fernand’s face he seems to be enjoying it.’

‘Does it ever happen to you now?’ went on Ravinel, ignoring her.

‘Come on. Let’s drop the subject. What about something to drink before you go? I’m afraid we can’t ask you to stay for lunch. You see, I’m on a diet.’

‘In any case you ought to go home,’ said Marthe decisively. ‘You can’t leave Mireille all alone.’

Germain got out some liqueur glasses, including one for himself.

‘You know what the doctor says about drinking,’ Marthe objected.

‘Oh. Just a thimbleful.’

Ravinel plucked up all his courage.

‘And suppose Mireille isn’t there? Suppose she doesn’t come back tonight? What do you advise me to do?’

‘Nothing. The best thing is to wait. Don’t you think so, Marthe? After all, you’re not obliged to go back to Nantes tomorrow. A day won’t make any difference. And a lot depends on it, you know. If she comes back and finds the house empty, there’s no knowing what will happen. Take a few days off and see how things turn out. Meanwhile you can make a few discreet inquiries. If she’s on one of her escapades, she’s almost certain to be hiding in Paris. As a child, when she went off, it was always in the direction of Paris. As though she was fascinated by it.’

It was no good. In the end Ravinel no longer knew whether his wife was living or dead. They drank each other’s health. They drank Mireille’s and her speedy return.

The liqueur burned Ravinel’s throat. He passed his hand across his eyes. No. He wasn’t dreaming. He was still on this side
of the frontier. The clock struck eleven. That was something real. So was all the rest. Those firedogs, for instance, each of which weighed several kilos. Forged steel. Not the stuff that dreams are made of!

‘And when you see her give her my love.’

Marthe was showing him out. He was at the front door without being conscious of having left his chair.

‘Mine too,’ called out Germain.

‘Yes.’

He wanted to round on them and scream in their faces:

‘She’s dead. Dead as a doornail. I ought to know since it was I who killed her.’

Something held him back, however: the thought that Marthe would be only too pleased.

‘Good bye, Marthe. Don’t come down. I know the way.’

She leaned over the banisters watching him go down. At the last moment she called out:

‘Keep us posted, won’t you, Fernand?’

Ravinel dived into the first bistro and drank two brandies. The time was getting on. Never mind. With a taxi, he’d make it all right. For the moment, what mattered was to get things straightened out.

‘Here I am,’ he told himself, ‘standing at a bar. I’m in possession of my faculties. I reason coldly. I’m not frightened. I was yesterday, admittedly. I was scared stiff, and my mind was in a turmoil, but that’s all over now. Right! Then let’s look calmly at the facts…

‘Mireille’s dead. I’m sure of that, just as I’m sure of being
Ravinel. There isn’t a single gap in my memory. I touched the body, and it was just as real as this brandy I’m drinking now…

‘On the other hand, she’s alive. I can be sure of that too, because I know her handwriting and received a letter in it posted yesterday afternoon. And because Germain saw her this morning. It was impossible to doubt his evidence…

‘But a person can’t be living and dead at the same time. So she must be half alive and half dead. But does that make any better sense?… Call her a ghost, if you like. There’s some logic in that; in fact, as far as I’m concerned, it’s an adequate explanation, for I
know
such things are possible. But there’s Lucienne to be considered. It’ll never go down with her mental processes… In that case, what shall we have to say to each other?’

He had a third glass of brandy, as he still had a chilly feeling inside. On account of Lucienne. If it hadn’t been for her…

He paid, went out, and hailed the first taxi. He mustn’t fail to meet the train.

‘Gare Montparnasse. As fast as you can.’

He lay back on the seat and returned to his thoughts. He’d analyzed the situation, hadn’t he? Perhaps not. Already he began to wonder whether he hadn’t been raving. Things looked different now. He was in a blind alley, and the more he thought of it the more hopeless it seemed. A hunted man—that’s what he’d be. A tired man—that he was already. Yesterday he’d been longing to see Mireille and it had seemed quite possible. Now he dreaded her. He foresaw that she was going to torment him. For how could she forget what he’d done to her? Why shouldn’t dead people remember?

There he was again! Back in the same groove. Fortunately he was at his destination. He got out of the taxi and dashed
off without waiting for his change, bumping into people right and left. The platforms. An electric train slowly coming to rest. A crowd of people poured out of the cars. Ravinel went up to the ticket collector.

‘Is that the Nantes train?’

‘Yes.’

A strange impatience took hold of him. He stood on tiptoe near the barrier, craning his neck, and at last he caught sight of her, austerely dressed with a beret on her head. She looked quite calm.

‘Lucienne!’

They shook hands. It was wiser.

‘You’ve got a face that would frighten the devil, my poor Fernand.’

He smiled ruefully.

‘The thing is: I’m frightened myself.’

They were huddled against the balustrade by the Métro, to avoid being swept along by the crowd.

‘I didn’t have time to reserve a room for you, but we’ll have no difficulty in finding a hotel.’

‘A room? But I’m not staying. I’ve got to catch the six five this evening. No help for it. I’m on duty tonight.’

‘No! You’re not going to—’

‘Not going to what? To abandon you to your fate? That’s what you mean, isn’t it? You think you’re in danger… But we can’t discuss things here. Isn’t there a café somewhere near where we can sit quietly and have a talk? That’s all I’ve come for, you know—to talk things over. And to make sure you weren’t making yourself ill.’

She immediately set about the latter business. Removing her glove, she felt his pulse, quite unconcerned about its being in public. She prodded his cheeks.

‘You’ve certainly lost weight. Your skin’s a nasty yellow color and your eyes are dull.’

That was Lucienne’s strength: not to bother about other people or what they were thinking, least of all what they might be thinking about her. In the midst of yelling newspaper boys, she was quite capable of counting his pulse, examining his tongue, or feeling the glands of his neck. And Ravinel immediately felt safe. Lucienne—she was difficult to describe. She
was the complete opposite of all that was woolly and vague. She was decisive, trenchant, almost aggressive. Her voice was clear. She never wobbled. There were times when he would have loved to have been her. Others when—and for the selfsame qualities—he hated her. At those moments she reminded him of a surgical instrument, hard, bright, and utterly inhuman. Logic—that was her strong suit. Well, she was going to have it tested today, anyhow…

‘Let’s go down the Rue de Rennes. We’re sure to find some little place that’s practically deserted.’

As they crossed the Place de Rennes, it was she who held his arm, as though to lead him or hold him up.

‘I couldn’t make head or tail of your two telephone calls. For one thing, the line was bad. And then you gabbled so. So let’s begin at the beginning. When you went back home yesterday morning, the body was gone—is that it?’

‘Exactly.’

He watched her narrowly, wondering what sort of a fist she’d make of tackling the problem, she who was always apt to say:

‘It’s nothing to get rattled about. With a little common sense…’

They were too intent on their subject to heed their surroundings. They hardly saw the long stretch of the Rue de Rennes in front of them; it turned gradually bluer, like a distant valley, as it reached Saint-Germain des Prés. Ravinel’s heart was infinitely lighter. It was Lucienne’s turn to bear the burden now.

‘Couldn’t the stream have carried away the body?’

He actually smiled.

‘Impossible. There isn’t any stream—at least none to speak of. You know that yourself. Even if there had been, the body
would have stuck at the dam. Only a torrent could have swept it over that. No. It must have been taken away or I’d have found it at once. You don’t imagine I didn’t look everywhere before telephoning, do you?’

‘I suppose you must have.’

She was frowning now, and in spite of the seriousness of the situation, he couldn’t help being delighted at seeing her baffled.

‘Someone might have stolen the body in order to blackmail you,’ she suggested halfheartedly.

‘Once again—impossible.’

He spoke didactically, almost condescendingly, as though to humble her.

‘Impossible. I thought so myself at first, but it wouldn’t wash. I even went and questioned the postman’s daughter, who brings her goat every morning to the field just behind—’

‘You did that? You didn’t make her suspicious, I hope?’

‘I was careful what I said. I didn’t give anything away. Besides, she’s a bit simple—nobody’d listen to her… In any case, why should anybody want to steal the body? If he knew anything, he could blackmail me without that. No. Blackmail’s out. There are other reasons too. Wait till you’ve heard the rest… But here’s a little café—just what we’re looking for.’

A couple of spindly trees in tubs flanked the entrance. A tiny bar. Three tables clustered round a stove. The proprietor sat reading the day’s sports news.

‘No. We don’t serve lunches… But if sandwiches would do… Fine… And two glasses of beer.’

He disappeared into a poky little hole in back. Ravinel pulled out a table to allow Lucienne to get round to the other side. Buses stopped outside, their brakes screeching, dropped
a passenger or two, and started off again. Lucienne took off her beret and leaned forward with her elbows on the table.

‘Now. What’s this story of a special delivery?’

She held out her hand for it, but he shook his head.

‘It’s in the house. I haven’t been back for it. But I know it by heart.
I’ve got to go away for two or three days. It’s nothing serious, so don’t be alarmed. I’ll explain it all later. Meanwhile you’ll find plenty to eat in the cellar. Finish up the old pot of jam before—
’

‘What? Jam?’

‘Jam, yes. That’s what she said word for word.
Finish up the old pot of jam before opening a fresh one, and remember to turn off the gas when you’ve finished with the oven. You so easily forget…
’

Lucienne gave him a keen, piercing look. After a moment’s silence she added:

‘You recognized the writing, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘Writing’s easily copied.’

‘I know. But there’s the style too. It’s Mireille all over. I’m positive she wrote it.’

‘And the postmark—couldn’t that have been faked?’

Ravinel shrugged his shoulders.

‘And perhaps the postman isn’t a real postman either!’

‘In that case there’s only one explanation: Mireille wrote the letter before leaving for Nantes.’

‘You’re forgetting the postmark has a date. She’d have had to get someone else to post it for her.’

The man came back with a plate piled with sandwiches and the two glasses of beer, after which he buried himself in his paper again. Ravinel lowered his voice.

‘And what would have been the point in her writing like that before coming to see me? If she’d feared anything she wouldn’t have written to me at all but to somebody else. And it wouldn’t have been about pots of jam!’

‘As a matter of fact she wouldn’t have come to Nantes at all… No. It couldn’t have been written… before.’

Lucienne started in on a sandwich. Ravinel drank half his beer. The absurdity of their situation was suddenly borne in upon him. He could see that his words were having an effect. She put down her sandwich and pushed away the plate.

‘I’m not hungry any more. What you tell me is all so—so unexpected… For if the letter wasn’t written before, it certainly couldn’t have been after… And she doesn’t even refer to—to anything. Like a person who’s lost her memory.’

‘Exactly. Now you’re getting somewhere.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Never mind. Go on.’

‘The thing is… I really can’t see how… Unless…’

They looked hard at each other, then Lucienne turned her head away as she added in a slightly embarrassed voice:

‘Unless Mireille has a double…’

That meant that Lucienne acknowledged herself beaten. So they’d drowned Mireille’s double, had they?

But Lucienne dismissed the idea at once.

‘No. It’s quite absurd. A girl might be astonishingly like Mireille, but not to the point of taking you in. Nor me either. And why should a double come and walk into our trap?’

He still had something up his sleeve, but he was in no hurry. He wanted each point to sink in. The buses still drew
up at the curb, then dashed off again with their load of swaying passengers standing on the rear platform. Now and again someone came into the café for a quick one at the bar, throwing no more than a glance at this couple who sat motionless with the gravity of chess players.

‘I haven’t told you all,’ said Ravinel at last. ‘Mireille went to see her brother this morning.’

A look of stupor and alarm came into Lucienne’s eyes. Poor Lucienne! So proud, so competent, never taken aback—she didn’t cut much of a figure now.

‘She went up to his flat and chatted with him for quite a few minutes.’

‘Perhaps that was the double, not the one that came to Nantes… But that doesn’t make sense either. Germain couldn’t have been taken in any more than we could. It isn’t as if it was only the face: she’d have to have the same voice, the same walk, the same gestures. No, we can rule out doubles. They’re all very well in fiction, not in real life.’

‘There’s another possibility,’ said Ravinel. ‘What about catalepsy? Mireille seemed dead. She was dead to all intents and purposes—temporarily. Then she came to. As right as rain…’

And, as Lucienne stared at him blankly:

‘It exists, you know—catalepsy. I’m not inventing it. I’ve read cases—’

‘After forty-eight hours under water?’

She was becoming incensed and he made her a sign not to talk too loudly.

‘Look here! If this is a case of catalepsy, I’ll give up medicine and become a washerwoman. For it would mean that all I’ve learned is just so much rubbish.’

She seemed to have been touched on the raw. Her lip quivered.

‘We doctors do know something about death and we don’t sign death certificates blindly. If that was catalepsy we’d better start digging up our cemeteries. They must be crammed full of bodies that are only waiting for an opportunity to get up and walk home!’

‘Hush! No need to get worked up about it.’

They were silent for a while. Lucienne’s eyes glowed with anger. She was proud of the medical profession and of her own position in it. She knew her stuff. She expected admiration, and not least from Ravinel. And here he was talking of catalepsy and trying to teach her her business! She looked at him as though waiting for an apology. When she spoke at last it was in her hospital voice.

‘There’s nothing more to be said about it. Mireille’s dead. You can explain the rest as you like.’

‘Mireille’s dead. And yet she’s alive.’

‘Come on! I’m serious.’

‘So am I. The thing is…’

Should he tell her what was in his mind? He had never disclosed his secret thoughts to her, but she knew him through and through, knew him as no one else did. In a slightly bookish way perhaps, but none the less pretty shrewdly. He took the plunge.

‘Mireille’s a ghost.’

‘What?’

‘I said a ghost. She appears when and where she likes, to whom she likes…’

Lucienne’s reaction to that was to grasp his wrist again. He reddened.

‘I wouldn’t say a thing like that to anybody. What I’m telling you is something that’s been germinating, so to speak, deep down inside me… I don’t think it’s impossible.’

‘I’ll have to give you a really good checkup,’ muttered Lucienne. ‘I’m beginning to think there’s something seriously the matter with you. Didn’t you once tell me that your father…’

She broke off as another idea struck her. Her features hardened and she gripped his wrist till it hurt.

‘Fernand!… Look me in the eye… You wouldn’t play me false, would you?’

She laughed nervously and leaned over towards him across the table. At a distance anyone might have taken her for a lover holding her mouth out to be kissed.

‘Don’t take me for a fool. It’s time you stopped fencing. Mireille’s dead: I know she is. And you want me to believe, first that her body’s been stolen, then that it got up of its own accord and is now wandering about Paris. And I, because—yes, because I love you—allowed myself to be put on the rack.’

‘Gently, Lucienne! Gently!’

‘Now I’m beginning to understand. You can tell me any story you like. I wasn’t there. All the same there are limits. So, if you don’t mind, drop your little game and come clean.’

‘I swear I’m telling you the truth.’

‘Really? Then we’ll say no more about it. Only, please don’t take me for a person who can be told black’s white or that a dead person is still alive.’

The proprietor was deep in his newspaper, quite unconcerned with his customers. He’d seen too many couples to be interested in this one. But this silent presence behind Ravinel’s back made him uneasy and he took out his wallet.

‘The bill, please.’

He felt like apologizing for all the sandwiches left untouched. Lucienne was powdering her face, holding up her bag to look in the mirror. She got up first and walked out without looking round to see if he was following. He ran after her.

‘Listen, Lucienne. It’s the gospel truth. On my oath it is.’

She walked on, looking into the shop windows, ignoring him. He didn’t like to raise his voice because of all the people about.

‘Listen, Lucienne…’

It was really too stupid, this quarrel, which he had been quite unprepared for. And they had no time to lose. Soon she’d be taking the train again, leaving him to deal with the situation alone. In desperation he seized her arm.

‘Lucienne! You know very well I’ve nothing to gain by—’

‘Nothing? What about the insurance money?’

‘What are you getting at now?’

‘It’s quite simple. No body, no compensation. You’ve only to tell me the body’s gone and you haven’t been able to claim the money.’

A man looked hard at them. Had he heard Lucienne’s last remark? Ravinel was aghast. Really, to bawl out a remark like that in the street! Things were going from bad to worse.

‘Lucienne, I implore you… If you only knew what I’ve been through already. Here, let’s sit down over there.’

They had reached Saint-Germain des Prés. There were some seats in the square adjoining the church.

No body, no compensation. Ravinel had never for a moment considered that aspect of the problem. The seat was wet, but he sat down on one end of it. It looked as though everything was over between them, for Lucienne remained standing. With
the toe of her shoe she played with some dead leaves. The whistling of traffic policemen, the whirr of the traffic, the muffled sound of the organ in the church, all seemed to come from another world, a world he had already left… If only he had!

‘Are you leaving me, Lucienne?’

‘Seems to me it’s the other way round.’