Sunday (17 page)

He had already found the solution. It didn't frighten him. If he had accepted it once, there was no reason why he should not accept it a second time.

It simply postponed the moment of his liberation. He would have to wait years, two or three perhaps, at all events many long months.

He knew by heart the sentence he had read in Dr. Chouard's consulting-room, and the words came back to his memory:

'
The difficulty of making a precise diagnosis explains the frequency of successive
acts of poisoning by the same individual, who can trust that he will not be
brought to account until the day when the recurrence and similarity of the episodes
provide a clue for the diagnosis.'

He must not worry about it at this moment. The other business would be dealt with in its own good time. At all events, since he possessed the solution, he would take both time and all the necessary precautions.

Ada was coming in and going out, bringing in empty plates, carrying others away. From time to time, through the door of the kitchen, the shutters of which had been opened wider since the sun had moved round, he went to glance out onto the terrace to see what point the customers had reached.

He saw Berthe sitting in her place, the new waiter, Eugène, going over to her, being waylaid before he got there by a customer asking for a little more of the sauce of the
bouillabaisse.
Thus it was Ada who had to take his wife's order.

It was of no importance. Eugène would have done it just as well, since it was only a question of carrying a dish.

Before Ada came back, he took advantage of the fact that Marie was looking the other way and Madame Lavaud was in the scullery to pour the powder on to the plate of
risotto
and to burn the paper. It was done as quickly, as smoothly as a conjuring trick.

He was almost certain that Berthe had not ordered any hors d'oeuvre. She seldom had it on Sundays, both so as to save time, for she had to be finished before the customers in order to make up their bills, and because she liked lots of the calamaries.

They did not take her a dish, but, to simplify matters, just her helping on a heated plate.

'Risotto?' he asked Ada, who seemed all of a sudden to have turned a more lifeless colour.

She nodded.

'For Madame?'

He had avoided saying 'my wife' ever since the word had lost its meaning.

What was passing through his head at that precise moment was not exactly what could be called a thought. It did not reflect a decision, nor even a desire. It was more like the snatches of a foreign language one picks up at random when one turns the tuning-knob of the wireless, coming from a distant station which one cannot find again afterwards.

Why shouldn't there be images in the air, too, ideas, or scraps of ideas which come from God knows where and which we pick up for the space of a second without knowing what they refer to?

While Ada was turning round, plate in hand, to go back to the terrace, he had just seen her as she would be at thirty-five or forty years old, perhaps fifty, a sort of dark-skinned witch who would frighten children away.

'. . . the frequency of successive acts of poisoning . . .'

He had said nothing, had thought of nothing. Scarcely an image, springing from nowhere for an instant, which he had straight away-dismissed. He had other matters on his mind. He was not living in the future, but in the present.

It was no longer merely the day or the hour. It was the minute. He arranged a dish of
bouillabaisse
fish for three, added, as an afterthought, a little hog-fish, handed the dish to Eugène who was waiting.

He wondered whether it had been a mistake, a few minutes earlier, to go on to the terrace to see what Berthe was doing. Had she noticed it?

He mopped his brow, not with the cloth, but with his white apron. Ada would be back with another order. A minute. A few seconds.

She did not come back. It was Eugène who had had time to return.

'Two risottos.'

'Who for?'

'The Belgian women.'

He served them, and immediately afterwards felt an urge to light a cigarette. His hand was barely trembling, but it was trembling. The servant with the squint was coming and going as if nothing were happening. Madame Lavaud was sitting in the shade, with some peas in her lap.

He had to go and see. Maubi passed behind his back, with a load of bottles. As soon as he had seen, Emile would pour himself out a drink, as his throat was dry.

He had only four steps to take, he counted them, then raised his head. Berthe's table was the last on the left, by the bay window of the dining-room where there was nobody else, for in summer all the customers preferred the terrace.

He had his cap on his head, his cloth in his hand.

Suddenly, despite the sun, the colours, the movement, the commotion, the gesticulations of different people amongst themselves, the laughs and the raised voices, it was Berthe's eyes on his that he found.

The gaze was fixed on him, calm and hard, devoid for once of irony, and one might have thought his wife knew Emile was about to appear, and at what precise point, that she had prepared that look in advance to receive him.

He did not know what had happened, nor what was happening, but he was already sure that it was Berthe who had won. Doubt became impossible when, opposite her, at the same table, with her back to the kitchen, he recognised the head of Ada, her shoulders, Ada who was at this moment eating the poisoned risotto.

'Two lamb cutlets! Two!'

He preferred to see only her back, not to be obliged to look at her face. He imagined Berthe's voice.

'Sit down.'

Ada, standing, not knowing what to do, not daring to protest.

The plate pushed towards her across the table.

'Eat!'

She was eating. The plate was already almost empty. Emile went back into the kitchen to put the cutlets on the grill. The flames, which had burned the paper packet a little while before, made the meat sizzle, and brought pearls of blood to its surface.

'. . . the symptoms develop an hour or two after ingestion of the poison . . .'

'. . . painful vomiting, at first alimentary, then consisting of bile and blood, is followed by colic; abundant serous diarrhoea, in rice-water particles; violent thirst; constriction of. . .'

At all events, it was too late. Berthe had just told him so, without having to move her lips, with nothing but a look.

He was not allowed to intervene. That would have meant . . .

'Three meringues glacées! Three!'

He took the ice from the refrigerator, remained for a moment with his face exposed to the cold air.

'Two coffees!' said a voice behind him, which riveted him to the spot.

It was Ada. She was waiting for the two coffees. She was looking at him as the big yellowish dog must have looked at its master.

Did she expect something from him? He could do nothing for her. She belonged to the past.

He avoided her eyes, went on with his work, filled the dishes and put them on their trays.

He heard Eugène's voice in the dining-room.

'The bill for number 12.'

That meant that Berthe had taken her place beside the window and had begun totting up the figures.

'. . . the symptoms develop an hour or two after ingestion of the poison . . .'

It was better not to be there. Even if he took his siesta in the Cabin, there would be somebody to call him. He was not sure of being able to keep his head. Already he was no longer capable of looking Ada in the eye, as she came and went silently, her face devoid of expression.

He sought for a plausible reason to leave as soon as all the customers had been served. He could find none. He lacked lucidity.

Then, there was Berthe standing in the doorway. There were three witnesses: Madame Lavaud, Marie and Maubi, who was pouring himself out a drink.

'You haven't forgotten the football match?' Berthe was saying, in a natural voice.

He stammered:

'Just a moment . . .'

Madame Lavaud and Marie were capable of pouring out the coffees and putting the meringues on the plates.

Berthe was right. It was high time to leave for Cannes and to mingle with the crowd attending the football match.

She would see to everything. It was better that way. When he came back, it would all be over.

There wouldn't be so very much changed, either, since they had never stopped sleeping in the same bedroom.

He went up there to put on a white shirt, a pair of light trousers, and to run a wet comb through his hair.

He left by the back way, to avoid Ada, started the van up with such haste that he was already half-way down the hill before he noticed that he had not released the hand-brake.

Noland,  3 July, 1958