The Beast Within (33 page)

At just about the same time, Roubaud was beginning to nod off to sleep in the old leather armchair in the assistant stationmaster’s office. Twenty times every night he would have to shake himself awake, get up and stretch his legs. Up until nine o‘clock he had to supervise the arrival and departure of the night trains. He also had to see to the fish train, overseeing the shunting operations, checking the couplings and inspecting the delivery notices. Then, when the express from Paris had arrived and had been backed on to a siding, he would sit in his office at a corner of the table and eat his lonely supper - a little cold meat from their evening meal between two slices of bread. The last arrival, a stopping train from Rouen, got in at half past midnight. The deserted platforms then fell silent, only a few gas lamps were left burning, and in the chill of nightfall the whole station fell asleep. The only other staff Roubaud had to help him were two foremen and four or five workmen, who were all snoring their heads off on the mess-room floor, while he, whose job it was to wake them up the minute they were needed, had to sleep with one ear cocked. To prevent weariness from overtaking him before it grew light, he would set his alarm clock for five, when he had to be on his feet to see in the first train from Paris. Sometimes, however, especially of late, he found sleep impossible and he would spend the night tossing and turning restlessly in his armchair. When this happened he would go out and do the rounds, or walk down to the signalman in his cabin and have a chat. Eventually the stillness of the night and the great expanse of dark sky above calmed his nerves. Following a scuffle with some intruders, he had been armed with a revolver, which he kept fully loaded in his pocket. Often he would walk around until dawn, stopping to take aim the minute he thought he saw something moving in the darkness and then walking on again, feeling vaguely disappointed that he hadn’t had to shoot. It came as a relief when the sky began to grow light and the huge station emerged pale and ghostly from the shadows. Now that day was breaking as early as three o’clock, he would return to his office, sink into his armchair and sleep like a log, until his alarm clock woke him up with a start.

Jacques and Séverine continued to meet every other week on Thursdays and Saturdays. One night Séverine happened to mention that her husband carried a revolver. Although Roubaud never came out as far as the engine shed, the thought of the revolver worried them. It added a sense of danger to their nocturnal excursions and made them seem all the more romantic. There was one place they were particularly fond of, a little alleyway behind the Sauvagnats’ house which, because it ran between two rows of huge coal stacks, made it look like the main street of some strange city, lined with big, square palaces built of black marble.
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It was completely hidden from view, and at the far end there was a little tool-shed with a pile of empty sacks inside it, which would have provided them with something soft to lie on. One Saturday, a sudden shower of rain had driven them inside the shed to take shelter. Séverine remained standing, offering him only her lips, in kiss after kiss. She kissed him unashamedly, greedily, holding her lips to his, seeking to tell him that she loved him. When Jacques, inflamed with passion, attempted to take her, she drew back with tears in her eyes, uttering the same repeated plea - why did he wish to make her unhappy? Their love for each other seemed so beautiful; sex was so sordid. Although she had been defiled at the age of sixteen by a lecherous old man whose grizzly spectre still haunted her, and then, after her marriage, had been subjected to the brutal appetites of her husband, she had retained a childlike innocence and virginal purity, a charmingly naive sense of modesty. What so attracted her to Jacques was his gentleness and compliance; when his hands were tempted to stray, she simply enclosed them in hers, and he desisted. For the first time in her life she was in love. She did not give herself, for she knew that if she yielded to him now, as she had yielded to the two others, her love would be ruined. Unconsciously, she wanted this happiness to continue for ever; she longed to be young again, as she was before she had been abused, to be like a girl of fifteen, with a sweetheart she could kiss freely and in secret. Jacques for his part, except in moments when his passions were roused, was undemanding, happily savouring this voluptuous deferment of pleasure. Like her, he seemed to have rediscovered his youth and for the very first time in his life to be in love, something which until now had always filled him with horror. If he was docile, withdrawing his hands the moment she guided them away from her, it was because underlying his love for her there remained a vague fear, a nameless dread, that this love might unleash his old compulsion to kill. Séverine, who had committed murder herself, seemed the very embodiment of his worst dreams come true. But every day he grew more confident that he was cured; he had held her in his arms for hours on end, he had pressed his mouth to hers, drinking in her very soul, without awakening the savage urge to dominate and kill her. Yet he remained uncertain. It was good to wait, to allow love to unite them when the moment came, and their resistance had faded away in each other’s arms. And so these joyful encounters continued. They seized every opportunity they could to meet, and walk together in the dark between the huge, black coal stacks that loomed out of the night around them.

One night in July, in order to reach Le Havre on time at five past eleven, Jacques had had to work
La Lison
hard. The stifling heat seemed to have made her lazy. A storm had been following the train all the way from Rouen, running alongside them on their left up the Seine valley, with great, blinding flashes of lightning. Jacques kept looking anxiously over his shoulder; he had arranged to meet Séverine that night and he was worried that if the storm broke it would prevent her from leaving her apartment. Having successfully reached Le Havre ahead of the storm, he was becoming impatient with the passengers, who seemed to be taking an inordinate amount of time getting off the train.

Roubaud was on night duty and was standing on the platform.

‘You’re in a hurry to get to bed,’ he said, laughing. ‘Sleep well!’

‘Thanks!’ Jacques replied.

Jacques backed the train on to a siding, gave a blast on the whistle and moved off towards the engine shed. The huge folding doors stood open, and
La Lison
disappeared inside. The shed was a sort of covered gallery some seventy metres long with two tracks running through it, capable of housing six locomotives. Inside, it was very dark, with four gas lamps that gave hardly any light and seemed to make it darker still, by casting long, flickering shadows. From time to time great flashes of lightning could be seen through the skylights and the windows high up on both walls, revealing, as if in the light of a huge fire, the cracks in the brickwork, the beams covered in soot and the general woebegone air of neglect and disrepair. Two other locomotives were already in the shed, cold and asleep.

Pecqueux immediately began to put the fire out, raking it vigorously and sending a shower of burning cinders into the ash-pit below.

‘I’m starving,’ he said. ‘I’m going to get something to eat. Are you coming?’

Jacques made no answer. Although he was in a hurry, he didn’t want to leave
La Lison
before the fire had been dropped and the boiler drained. It was a regular routine and, being a man who took his job seriously, he never departed from it. When he had time, he didn’t leave until he had thoroughly inspected the locomotive and properly wiped it down, with the sort of care one might spend on grooming a favourite horse.

The water from the boiler gushed into the ash-pit. Only when his work was finished did Jacques answer Pecqueux.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘let’s be off!’

He was interrupted by a violent clap of thunder. The windows were so clearly silhouetted against the fiery sky that you could have counted the broken panes of glass, and there were plenty of them. Along the left-hand side of the shed stood a row of vices used for repair work. A piece of sheet metal propped up against them resounded with a mighty clang, like a bell being struck. A great crack had appeared in the framework of the old roof.

‘Bloody hell!’ was all Pecqueux could say.

Jacques raised his hands in despair. There was nothing more they could do, especially as the rain was now pouring in torrents on to the shed. The storm threatened to smash the windows in the roof. There must have been broken panes of glass up there too because rain was falling on
La Lison
in great splashes. A howling gale blew in through the open doors, and it seemed as if the shell of the old building was about to be lifted off the ground.

Pecqueux had been getting the engine ready for its next shift.

‘There we are,’ he said. ‘We’ll be able to see things better tomorrow. That’ll do for now.’ Then, remembering that he still felt hungry, he said: ‘Let’s go and eat. It’s raining too much to walk back to our rooms.’

The canteen adjoined the engine shed, whereas the house which the Company rented as a dormitory for drivers and firemen staying overnight in Le Havre was some distance away in the Rue François-Mazeline. In weather like this, they would have been soaked to the skin by the time they got there.

Jacques resigned himself to accompanying Pecqueux, who had picked up the driver’s little food box, as if trying to save him the trouble of having to carry it. In fact, he knew that the box still contained two slices of cold veal, some bread and a bottle that had hardly been started, and it was the thought of this food that was making him feel hungry. The rain was heavier than ever. Yet another clap of thunder shook the building. The two men walked through the little door on the left of the shed, which led to the canteen.
La Lison
was already cooling down. They left her on her own in the dark, with the lightning flashing all around her and great splashes of rain water running down her back. Water trickled from a nearby tap which had not been properly turned off, forming a pool that ran down between her wheels into the ash-pit.

Before going into the canteen, Jacques wanted to clean himself up. One of the rooms was always provided with hot water and hand bowls. He fished a bar of soap out of his basket and washed his hands and face, which were black after the journey. He had taken the precaution of bringing a change of clothing with him, as all drivers are advised to do, so he had something clean to wear. In fact, when he arrived at Le Havre on a night that he was going to meet Séverine, he always changed into clean clothes in order to look his best. Pecqueux was already in the canteen, having only bothered to wash the end of his nose and his fingertips.

The canteen consisted simply of a little, bare room, painted yellow, with a stove for heating food on and a table that was fixed to the floor and had a zinc top which served as a tablecloth. The only other pieces of furniture in the room were two benches. The men had to bring their own food, which they ate off a sheet of paper with the end of a knife. The room was lit by one large window.

‘What a downpour!’ exclaimed Jacques, standing at the window.

Pecqueux had sat down on one of the benches at the table.

‘Aren’t you eating, then?’ he asked.

‘You carry on,’ answered Jacques. ‘I’m not hungry. Eat the rest of the bread and meat if you want it.’

Pecqueux didn’t need to be asked twice. He attacked the veal and downed the rest of the bottle. These little windfalls often came his way because Jacques was such a small eater. Pecqueux had a dog-like devotion to his driver, and he liked him all the more for giving him his leftovers. After a pause, he spoke again, his mouth full: ‘Who cares about the rain! We got here safely! If it goes on raining, mind you, I’ll be going next door.’

He laughed. It was no secret between them. Pecqueux had had to tell Jacques about his affair with Philomène Sauvagnat so that he wouldn’t wonder where he’d got to every time he went to see her. She lived in her brother’s house on the ground floor next to the kitchen; he only had to tap on the shutters and she would open the window so that he could climb in. What could be easier! People said that all the engine men at Le Havre knew the routine. But now, it seemed, Pecqueux was all the company she needed.

‘Bloody hell!’ muttered Jacques under his breath, as, after a brief respite, the rain began to fall again more heavily than ever.

Pecqueux was brandishing the last piece of meat on the end of his knife. He laughed pleasantly.

‘Had you got something planned for tonight?’ he said. ‘I tell you what, they can’t accuse you and me of wearing the beds out in the Rue François-Mazeline, can they?’

Jacques turned quickly away from the window.

‘What makes you say that?’ he asked.

‘Well,’ said Pecqueux, ‘ever since the spring, you’ve been like me. You’re never in till two or three in the morning.’

He must know something, he thought. Perhaps he had seen them together. The dormitory had two beds in each room, so that driver and fireman could sleep next to each other. The Company liked to encourage a sense of camaraderie between men whose work inevitably brought them so close together. So it was hardly surprising that Pecqueux had noticed his driver’s sleeping habits becoming somewhat erratic, when previously they had been perfectly normal.

‘I get headaches,’ answered Jacques, saying the first thing that came to mind. ‘It does me good to go for a walk at night.’

Pecqueux was quick to reassure him.

‘I was only pulling your leg,’ he said. ‘You’re free to do as you please ... But don’t forget, if ever you’ve got a problem, don’t hesitate to say. That’s what I’m there for; any time you want.’

Without a word more he took hold of Jacques’s hand and squeezed it firmly, as a gesture of his unswerving loyalty. He screwed up the greasy piece of paper that the meat had been wrapped in, threw it away and put the empty bottle back in the food box, performing all these little chores like a dutiful manservant, trained to keep things looking neat and tidy. The rain continued to fall, although the thunder had stopped.