The Dancer at the Gai-Moulin

 

THE DANCER AT THE GAI-MOULIN
Translated by Siân
Reynolds

Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin
Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London
WC2R 0RL,
England
Penguin Group
(USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group
(Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4P
2Y3
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Ireland, 25
St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)
Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)
Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11
Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110 017, India
Penguin Group
(NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson
New Zealand Ltd)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, Block D, Rosebank
Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North, Gauteng 2193, South Africa

Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80
Strand, London
WC2R 0RL,
England

www.penguin.com

First published in French as
La
Danseuse du
Gai
-
Moulin
by Fayard 1931
This translation first published in
Penguin Books 2014

Copyright 1931 by Georges Simenon
Limited
Translation copyright © Siân Reynolds, 2014
GEORGES SIMENON ®
Simenon.tm
MAIGRET ® Georges Simenon Limited

Cover photograph (detail) © Harry Gruyaert /Magnum Photos
Front cover design by Alceu Chiesorin Nunes

All rights reserved

The moral rights of the author and
translator have been asserted

ISBN: 978-0-698-18303-2

Version_1

Title Page

Copyright

About the Author

1. Adèle and Her Friends

2. Petty Cash

3. The Man with Broad Shoulders

4. The Pipe-Smokers

5. The Confrontation

6. The Fugitive

7. The Unusual Journey

8. Chez Jeanne

9. The Informer

10. Two Men in the Dark

11. The New Recruit

EXTRA: Chapter 1 from
The Two-Penny Bar

Georges Simenon was born on 12 February
1903 in Liège, Belgium, and died in 1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had
lived for the latter part of his life. Between 1931 and 1972 he published
seventy-five novels and twenty-eight short stories featuring Inspector Maigret.

Simenon always resisted identifying
himself with his famous literary character, but acknowledged that they shared an
important characteristic:

My motto, to the extent that I have
one, has been noted often enough, and I've always conformed to it.
It's the one I've given to old Maigret, who resembles me in certain
points … ‘understand and judge not'.

Penguin is publishing the entire series
of Maigret novels.

PENGUIN CLASSICS

‘I love reading Simenon. He makes me think
of Chekhov'

— William Faulkner

‘A truly wonderful
writer … marvellously readable – lucid, simple, absolutely in tune with
the world he creates'

— Muriel Spark

‘Few writers have ever conveyed with such
a sure touch, the bleakness of human life'

— A. N. Wilson

‘One of the greatest writers of the
twentieth century … Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside,
though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his
stories'

—
Guardian

‘A novelist who entered his fictional
world as if he were part of it'

— Peter Ackroyd

‘The greatest of all, the most genuine
novelist we have had in literature'

— André Gide

‘Superb … The most addictive of
writers … A unique teller of tales'

—
Observer

‘The mysteries of the human personality
are revealed in all their disconcerting complexity'

— Anita Brookner

‘A writer who, more than any other crime
novelist, combined a high literary reputation with popular appeal'

— P. D. James

‘A supreme
writer … Unforgettable vividness'

—
Independent

‘Compelling, remorseless,
brilliant'

— John Gray

‘Extraordinary masterpieces of the
twentieth century'

— John Banville

‘Who's that?'

‘No idea! It's the first
time he's been in here,' said Adèle, exhaling the smoke from her
cigarette.

And she lazily uncrossed her legs,
patted down a lock of hair on her temple, and looked carefully into one of the
mirrors round the room, to check her makeup.

She was sitting on a banquette
upholstered in crimson plush, in front of a table holding three glasses of port. One
young man sat on her left, another on her right.

‘Do you mind, boys?'

She gave them a kindly, confidential
smile, stood up, and swinging her hips, walked across the room towards the
newcomer's table.

At a nod from the club owner, the four
musicians hired for the evening started crooning along to their instruments. Only
one couple was dancing: a woman in pink and the professional dance-partner.

And as almost every night, it felt
empty. The room was too large. The mirrors round the walls magnified even further
its receding perspectives, punctuated only by the crimson seats and ghostly marble
tabletops.

The two young men, now that Adèle no
longer sat between them, moved closer together.

‘Charming, isn't she!'
sighed Jean Chabot, the younger
of the two,
gazing affectedly towards the dance-floor with half-closed eyes.

‘Plenty of zip, as well,'
said his friend Delfosse enthusiastically, leaning on a cane with a gold top.

Chabot was perhaps sixteen and a half,
and Delfosse, thinner, more sickly looking, with irregular features, no more than
eighteen. But they would have protested indignantly if anyone had suggested that
they were not blasé connoisseurs of all the pleasures of life.

‘I say, Victor!'

Chabot spoke familiarly to the waiter
who was passing nearby.

‘Do you know the man who just came
in?'

‘No, but he's ordered
champagne.'

And Victor winked.

‘Adèle's looking after
him.'

He moved off with his tray. The music
stopped for a moment, then started up an American-style boston. The owner, standing
at the table of the promising customer, was opening the champagne bottle himself,
tucking a napkin round its neck.

‘Do you think they'll stay
open late?' whispered Chabot.

‘Two, half past … as
usual.'

‘Shall we have another
drink?'

They were on edge. The younger one
particularly, who was looking at each person in turn with a fixed stare.

‘How much do you think there
is?'

But Delfosse simply shrugged and said
impatiently:

‘Shut up, can't
you!'

They could see Adèle, almost opposite
them, sitting
beside the unknown customer,
who had ordered champagne. He was a man of about forty, with jet-black hair and a
dark complexion, Romanian, or Turkish perhaps, in appearance. He wore a pink silk
shirt and a jewelled tie-pin.

He seemed untroubled by the dancer, who
was laughing and chatting to him while leaning against his shoulder. When she asked
for a smoke, he held out a gold cigarette-case, still looking straight ahead.

Delfosse and Chabot had stopped talking.
They pretended to be looking with scorn at the newcomer. But they really admired him
intensely! They missed not a detail, studying the way his tie was knotted, the cut
of his suit, and even his casual way with a glass of champagne.

Chabot wore a cheap off-the-peg suit and
shoes that had been mended more than once. His friend's clothes, although of
better fabric, were ill-matched. Delfosse had the narrow shoulders, hollow chest and
fragile silhouette of an adolescent who had clearly shot up too fast.

‘Here comes someone
else!'

The velvet curtain inside the door had
been moved aside. A man was handing his bowler hat to the doorman, then standing
still for a moment, surveying the room. He was tall, broad-shouldered and heavily
built. He wore a placid expression, and did not even listen to the waiter who wanted
to escort him to a table. He sat down at random.

‘Got any beer?'

‘We only have English beer –
stout, pale ale?'

The man shrugged, indicating that he had
no preference. The place was no busier than any other night. One couple on the
dance-floor. The jazz music carried on,
becoming a background noise one hardly noticed. At the
bar, a well-dressed customer was playing poker dice with the owner. Adèle sat
alongside her companion, who was still taking no notice of her. A typical scene in a
small-town nightclub. At one point, three men, all slightly drunk, pushed aside the
curtain over the door. The owner hurried across. The musicians played frantically.
But the men left, and sounds of laughter came from outside.

As time passed, Chabot and Delfosse
began to look more serious. It was as if fatigue had sharpened their features,
darkened their skin to a sallow complexion, and drawn circles under their eyes.

‘OK now?' asked Chabot, in
such a low voice that his companion guessed rather than heard what he said.