The Widow (14 page)

He wondered whether Félicie was not behind the curtains, watching him carry on, perhaps making fun of him. When he got back to the house, mallet in hand, the doctor was knocking in vain at the door—a skinny little man in spectacles.

“No one at home?” he shot out irritably.

“There's Tati. I'd gone to take the cows to the meadow.”

The doctor did not seem to find the homely smell of the kitchen to his liking and he set down his case on the table.

“Have you any boiled water?”

He soaped his hands slowly, carefully, and, when he wiped them, it took a desperately long time.

Not one superfluous word. Disapproving glances at all that was within reach, at the creaking staircase, at Tati's room, at Tati herself, who watched his approach with terror.

“Can't we have more light?”

“I can light an oil lamp or a candle,” said Jean. “There's no electricity.”

“Open the window.”

Then, as Jean remained standing at the foot of the bed: “What are you waiting for?”

Perhaps this was the doctor with whom Billie's husband had spent the Sunday morning?

Jean took the opportunity to go and look after the chickens and the rabbits. He had to go to the end of the garden to cut grass, and he thought he heard moans.

When he returned, he heard nothing more. Upstairs, the window was still open. Finally, he wondered at the silence, and then he caught the purr of a departing car.

“Are you there, Jean?”

And then, as he entered the room: “My poor Jean. I wonder how you're going to manage. It seems I've got to stay in bed for at least a week.”

“What's your illness?”

“He didn't say. He left a prescription on the table. He wanted to know how it happened. I told him I'd fallen going down to the cellar and hit my head on a bottle. Have you given the hens their mash? When you went to the village just now, you didn't see Couderc?”

“He was sitting outside the door.”

“They're keeping an eye on him,” she said with satisfaction. “They know that if they let him out of their sight for a moment he'll come back here. He'll come back anyway! I know him! Now, about the prescription. Listen. Go up to the main road. When the bus comes by, give the prescription and some money to the driver. Take a hundred francs out of the soup tureen. If you went to St. Amand yourself, I wouldn't feel right, all alone in the house…. ”

She was less frightened by her swollen head, now that the doctor had been to see her.

“Look, Jean! They're sure to have seen the doctor leave. They must be wondering what I told him. If I'd wanted, I could have had them put in jail. But I'll get them some other way. Go and see.”

“See what?”

“What they're doing. No need to talk to them. On the contrary! They've got to sweat with fear. Pretend to tether the cows farther off.”

He waited at the drawbridge for a barge to pass and it slid by very close to him, right at his level, with a young woman at the tiller knitting, a sack over her head because of the rain.

From then on, everything had the same fullness, soft, delectable, and warm. It seemed as though the minutes, like the imperceptible raindrops, were settling cautiously on creatures and things.

Félicie was standing near her grandfather. She saw Jean and he observed that she followed him with her eyes. He had forgotten the mallet. He had to go back to the house for it. He led his cows a little farther away, with the thought that by the end of the day they would be close to the brickyard.

As for Eugène, he had posted himself near the lock, beside the lock-keeper, and they too were looking his way.

Eugène did next to nothing all day long. His job of watchman was a fiction. But he took himself seriously. In the village bar he talked loudly, banging the table with his fist, his bulging eyes staring everyone down as if to say: “Who dares to argue? … Who dares contradict me, Eugène Tordeux? Eh?”

From early morning, the white wine lit up his eyes. He treated his women, as he called them—Françoise and Félicie—roughly. From his chair, he'd lash out, “I want my pipe.”

Like a man who has achieved so much, who bows under such a burden of responsibilities, that the whole world is duty bound to help him and spare him any extra effort. He'd spit far and wide. And utter occasionally, without anyone knowing what it referred to, “A fine mess!”

And from time to time, when he got out of bed on the right side, he'd deign to dig a little of the garden. Even so, he would at once start calling out, “Françoise! … Félicie! … Somebody! … Bring me the wheelbarrow. Go and get me the rake, you loafer! …”

Tati was right: they were afraid. Françoise heaved great sighs as she moved about her kitchen, and the baby had been put in a corner of the floor, on a blanket.

“What's he doing, Félicie?”

“He's moved the cows. Now he's going back to the house.”

“Is he looking this way?”

“I think so.”

“What's his manner like?”

“Nothing special.”

“Your father should not have done it. He says nothing for years on end, and then, when he does lift a hand, he—Félicie! Suppose you went for a little walk that way?”

“D'you want me to speak to him?”

“I don't know. I don't feel right about it. Seeing how she's called in the doctor.”

Jean could guess all that. He did not think much; just bits of ideas now and then, not necessarily related to one another.

If he wanted to eat potatoes, he had to peel them. Why not? He settled himself near the open door, as Tati would have done, as all women do in the country except in winter, when you sit close to the fire. The brass pendulum swung to and fro with a muted sound. It was already eleven o'clock. He must put more water in the incubator. Then, at midday, he had to watch for the bus to get the medicines.

No one passed by on the path. The soil, normally white in the sunshine, took on the warm hue of overbaked bread and red slugs traced their furrows on it. Now and then a leaf, in the hedge opposite, tilted over and let fall a great drop of water.

He had already peeled three potatoes. He dropped them into a bucket of clean water, as he had seen others do.

Feeling that someone was in front of him, he looked up and saw Félicie, who could barely keep from smiling, despite her worry. Was she going to speak to him? He too wanted to smile. It was just about the first time he saw her without her baby in her arms and she seemed not to know what to do with her hands.

“My aunt's no worse?” she asked at length, putting on a grave air.

“She's not too well.”

“The doctor's called, hasn't he? What did he say?”

“He wrote a prescription.”

He realized that she was glancing into the kitchen and that she was surprised to see it tidy. She had nothing more to say. She did not know how to leave.

“Jean! Jean!”

A call from upstairs. Tati had heard voices. He got up, and two potatoes rolled onto the floor.

“Who was it, Jean? It was her, I swear.”

“Félicie, yes.”

“It was her mother sent her. They're scared stiff. You didn't tell her it's not serious, I hope?”

“I told her things were worse.”

“Why did you speak to her?”

Poor Tati! She was so ugly in this state! She knew it. She was unhappy. And yet she could not help herself from darting at him a glance charged with jealousy.

“You didn't tell her anything else?”

“No. You called and I came up at once.”

“What were you doing?”

“Peeling potatoes.”

She was touched. Then suddenly a thought made her sad.

“You'll get fed up, won't you?”

“With what?”

“You know what I mean. You shouldn't be doing this. And to think I'm the one who…. ”

She wanted to cry. She was sweating in her untidy bed, amid flannels and bandages.

“I've thought of something else. I've been thinking about it ever since this morning. When your father knows you're here…. And he will know! Your sister did, and she lives at Orléans. He'll come to get you. He's too proud to accept his son being…. ”

Suddenly she put a question she had doubtless long had on the tip of her tongue:

“Why did you do it, Jean?”

“Do what?”

“You know what I mean. You got out of the bus and you helped me carry the incubator. Then you stayed. And now … And I go on being familiar, I don't know why…. ”

“You're being silly, Tati!” he shot out, to hide his embarrassment. “You'd better rest a while.”

“I'd like to ask you one more thing. Promise you won't refuse.”

“Is it so difficult?”

“No! Promise! You can't know how unhappy I am, all alone, up here in bed. Try as I can to listen, there are times when I don't hear a sound…. You promise?”

“I promise!”

“Not to refuse? Well, I want you to promise that, whatever happens, you won't leave without coming to tell me first.”

This time, she swallowed a sob and turned away her huge head.

“I won't try to hold you back. What I don't want, you see, is to wait, to feel the door open downstairs, and to say to myself…. You promise, Jean?”

“Yes. Anyway, I've no wish to leave.”

“You swear by your mother's head?”

“Yes.”

He was a little more sad, all of a sudden.

“You're not disgusted at having to do all you're doing?”

“It's fun.”

“And when it isn't fun any more? … Go, now. You must be hungry. What are you going to eat?”

“An omelet. Then some potatoes with a slice of ham.”

“You can bring me up a little bit of omelet. Tomorrow I'll try to get up. The doctor told me not to move if I wanted to get better.”

She called him back when he was already on the stairs.

“Jean! … There's something else I wanted to say to you. You're getting sick of me, aren't you? If Félicie starts hanging around you…. ”

“Don't you worry! She doesn't want to hang around me! She loathes me!”

And he went and put his potatoes on to boil.

He did not always wait for her to call. He would climb the stairs, casually, and open the door gently in case she had dozed off, but every time he was met by her wide-awake eyes.

“I've finished. What shall I do now?”

“Is it still raining?”

“It's more of a mist.”

“You want to be doing something? The trouble is, I can't even show you where things are. Do you know, Jean, that nobody else would ever have done what you're doing for me? Not even my own mother, whose only thought was of finding me a job and having one mouth less to feed! And she didn't even take the trouble to find out what sort of a house I'd landed in. Have you ever seen a sulfur duster?”

He shook his head.

“There's one in the shed. A pair of bellows with a long nozzle. There must be some sulfur left in it. If not, there's a box on the shelf. A biscuit box. It's a yellow powder. Don't make a mistake. You fill the container that's against the bellows.”

“I've got it. What am I to dust?”

“The vines along the hedge.”

He spent part of the afternoon at this. Before now, going through the countryside, he had seen men and women working behind a hedge. He remembered their serenity. He had not known what they were doing. He could only see the upper part of a body, a shapeless hat, and sometimes a pipe which had clearly gone out.

Now it was his turn to be the man working behind the hedge and he knew that Félicie was watching him, that now and then Françoise came to have a look.

The old man, innocently, had gone to prowl around his cows. He had even bent down to shift a stake and straighten a tangled chain.

“Papa!” Françoise had cried.

She'd forgotten he could not hear.

“Félicie! Go and fetch your grandfather. He'd have only the bridge to cross and …”

When he had dusted all the vine stems, Jean went into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of wine which he drank standing by the table.

“Is that you?” Tati called.

“
Every person condemned to
…”

It came back to him, for no reason. And all at once, it weighed on him.

“Hasn't the postman come yet? He usually goes by at three o'clock.”

“I haven't seen him.”

“I thought I heard him. Isn't there a letter on the table? It's more than two weeks now since I had anything from René. He'd just been in trouble again. Give me a glass of water, Jean. You smell of sulfur. I hope you didn't get any in your eyes? It would smart all night and in the morning your eyes would be red.”

“Do you remember what I told you the other day?”

“What did you tell me?”

“When you asked for my story. Well, there was one point, anyway, that wasn't true.”

She looked at him apprehensively. Why did he blurt this out, just when she least expected it?

“It's about Zézette. I told you it was on account of a woman. There were even moments when I believed so. But it's not true. I never loved Zézette. Without her, it might not have happened in the same way. You understand? But I would have done something else.”

No, she did not understand! What she failed above all to understand was his reason for raking over his memories. The weather was mild. He had been working all day, quietly, as people do in the country, pausing every now and then to rest or just to stare in front of him.

“Yes, I think I would have done something else. Anything! I'd felt for a long time that it had to come to an end. I'd reached the stage of wanting it to come as quickly as possible. Have you taken your medicine?”

“Not yet. I didn't have any water.”

“Sorry. I'll go and draw some.”

Alone at the well, he repeated, “ … something else …”