The Widow (9 page)

He went through the kitchen to go and wash in the yard, which he did with care. The water was cool. He let it run over the back of his neck as he whetted his wiry hair; the soap stung his eyes and he sluiced himself down, soaping his chest, his back, his thighs.

From time to time he heard a touching trumpet call: on the toy canal a toy barge announcing that it was nearing the lock, and the wooden-legged man would stump along to open the gates.

He knew how to set about making his approach. He had a plan. And if the insurance man did come, it would be just too bad!

He crossed the bridge over the canal, then the one over the Cher. He penetrated into the brush of the sloping embankment and, clutching at the brambles, followed the bed of the river. When he caught sight of the pink daub of color made by the brickyard he forded the river on stepping-stones, his only fear being that he might make a sound.

After which he lay down in the long grass and began to crawl.

He was annoyed with himself for being late, for Félicie was already there. He could hear her voice. He was longing to see her and crawled more quickly, a blade of grass between his lips.

“The wolf … the wolf … the great big wolf! … Hooooo! …”

This was perhaps twenty yards from the low house, above which a trickle of smoke rose straight into the air, for there was not a breath of wind.

“Look out! … I'm the great big wolf…. Hoooooo!”

Still wearing her blue smock, with next to nothing beneath it except perhaps a slip, she crawled, then made a sudden jump.

“I'll eat you … I'll eat you … I'll eat you…. ”

And the baby, sitting on the grass, gave a cry of mingled pleasure and fear, then burst into a laugh which went on so long it brought tears to his eyes. She rolled him over on the ground, nibbling at his knees, his calves, and his thighs, and his plump little bottom was naked to the sun.

“Again?”

She got up and Jean could see her standing there, her nostrils quivering, her eyes powdered with gold dust. She swept back her hair. In one deep breath she seemed to fill her lungs with all the joy of summer, and she took a few steps, crouched, put her hands on the ground.

“Look out! … The wolf … the wolf … the great big wolf! … Hoooooo! …”

The child, in rapt suspense, ceased to breathe. He was waiting for the moment when she would jump. He foresaw it almost to a second and gave his cry of pleasure and fear.

“I'll eat you … I'll eat you … I'll eat you…. ”

Their laughter mingled together The child rolled in the grass. His little fingers clung to his mother's tawny hair, then, scarcely calmed down, he tried to utter syllables which meant, “Again …”

And Félicie began all over again. Time didn't count. There was the sound of the murmuring Cher and now and then the squeaking of a crank—the one that worked the lock gates—and the stumping of the lock-keeper's wooden leg. Françoise, behind her house, a sack pinned in front of her by way of apron, her bare feet thrust into sabots, was plunging her arms into a tub of soapy water and washing clothes, throwing them out onto the grass where they made a great soft heap.

“The wolf … the great big wolf … the—”

She froze, her pupils suddenly fixed, suddenly cold. She had just spied Jean's face in the long grass behind her son.

He thought she was going to snatch up the baby and rush off to the house. And the thought that he frightened her was not all that disagreeable. Wasn't everyone in the district frightened of him, because he had been in Fontevrault and was forbidden by law to live outside a given distance?

They didn't know him. They had no means of learning. One day, when she was tamed, he would explain to her, very gently …

She was looking him in the eyes. Surely she was not afraid, since she did not think of protecting the baby lying between them?

All of a sudden, just when he least expected it, she stuck out her tongue at him.

He smiled. All he had to do was to get up, move toward her, speak to her. But she had got to her feet first, she had bent over the child and hoisted it onto her arm, and it was in that pose that she looked her youngest and most fragile.

He got up also. Before he was fully on his feet, she passed close by him, spat on the ground, and uttered, “Dirty dog!”

Then, without hurrying, without looking around, she made her way to where her mother was doing her washing.

As arranged, he waited for the bus at the side of the main road. He helped Tati get down and carried the greater bulk of the parcels. She had frowned on seeing him, and as soon as they were on the sunken path, she asked, “What's the matter with you?”

“Nothing.”

“Did somebody come?”

“No.”

How had she guessed that there was something wrong, when it was so intangible? What was there, in fact? Félicie was not frightened of him! It was not because he was fresh from prison that she made off as soon as she saw him!

She had spat on the ground. She had let fall, “Dirty dog!”

That was quite different. That was meant for the man who lived at Tati's, the man who was Tati's lover.

Tati, panting because he was walking too fast, still questioned with a searching, suspicious gaze: “Félicie didn't come?”

He could say no without lying. He was not curious to know what there was in the packages. His day had been spoiled, and perhaps far more than his day; his sky had been smirched; he did not feel like whistling any more; he was not hungry; he did not sniff, as on other days, at the already familiar smell of the kitchen.

“I've ordered a second incubator!” Tati announced as she took off her hat.

In her, too, there was something different, and he had the feeling that suddenly there was between them a certain distance which she hesitated to span.

“Aren't you going to ask me what I bought for you? Come, Jean! Let me see your face in the light. You remember what you told me the other day and what I answered?”

“What did I say?”

Instead of answering, she announced, “Just a while ago, a little before the end of market, a car stopped opposite the Hôtel de France. You do know the Hôtel de France, don't you?”

“Yes, I know it.”

“It was a big open car, the sort there aren't many of in these parts. Inside there was a man and a woman. The woman was very pretty and very young and wearing an almost white suit. As the man got out, he murmured, ‘I've only got five minutes, darling.'

“You know who it was?”

He frowned. He had a vague inkling, but he wasn't paying attention to the conversation.

“Let me look at you. His hair grew low on the forehead, like yours, but
his
hair was silvery. And his eyebrows met over the bridge of his nose, like yours. Why did you let it go when I said you weren't the son of Monsieur Passerat-Monnoyeur?”

“I said I was his son.”

“And I told you it wasn't true.”

“It doesn't matter.”

She thought it better to open the parcels.

“Look! I've brought you back a razor, a shaving brush and some shaving soap. You take a sixteen collar, don't you? Here are three shirts. You'd better try one on, because I can take them back if they don't fit.”

Some canvas shoes. Two packages of cigarettes. A belt with a metal buckle and a pair of blue denim trousers.

“Pleased?”

A kind of void was growing between them, now that she had mentioned the distiller.

“Where's Couderc?”

“He must be with the cows.”

“Help me lay the table. I'll take my things off later.”

And then, as she moved her saucepans about: “I know now who it is they call their lawyer. It's Bocquillon: a one-time law clerk who married a hunchback and set up a real-estate business. I've been to see him. I told him I'd pay him better than they would and he told me the whole story. If they can find a doctor to certify the old man is insane…. ”

She looked at him in surprise. “What's the matter with you?

You're not the same as usual. I noticed it as I got off the bus. It's not because of your father?”

He did his best to laugh.

“Anyone would say you were depressed, or coming down with something. What did you do this morning?”

“Nothing.”

“Did you stake the peas?”

“Yes.”

“Did you feed the rabbits?”

“Yes.”

“The insurance man didn't come?”

“No.”

That was that! She put off till later the trouble of trying to understand. Old Couderc had come in noiselessly and sat down in his place. She unpacked some sausage, which she brought back from town every Saturday.

“The women all think the incubator won't work, or the chickens will die as soon as they're hatched. I got some hints from someone who rears chickens wholesale. All we've got to do is set up a brooder in the laundry. I've ordered one, the kind that burns charcoal…. ”

She could tell that he was not listening, that he was eating perfunctorily. She must go on waiting. After the meal the old man would go off. She would pour the coffee into her glass. She would let the sugar dissolve, push back her chair….

She had unhooked her black silk blouse, revealing a flannel slip and a bit of white flesh.

“Well, I've told you everything. I don't know yet how it will go with Bocquillon, but if things don't work out I'll get somebody else. I'll fight to the finish, even if it means setting fire to the house. What did you say?”

“I didn't say anything.”

“If I get him to sign a paper now, Bocquillon says it would be worthless. A will can always be fought, especially when it's made by a man like Couderc. What do
you
think of him?”

“I don't know.”

Her look reproached him for his inertia, for this absent-mindedness, as it were, which created a void in the kitchen.

“Well, I'll tell you my honest opinion. Couderc is not such a fool, or so far gone as he looks. I don't claim he can hear properly, but he guesses what people are saying from the way their lips move. He's a clever old devil. He doesn't want to make life difficult for himself. He has his vices. That's all he thinks of. He knows that so long as he keeps acting stupid no one can get at him. You saw him the other day with his two daughters….

“If he lived with them, he'd be kept under watch. I bet it wouldn't be long before they put him in the asylum and the old monkey knows it, too….

“Do you understand?

“With me, he can have his fun from time to time. He isn't ashamed.

“And those bitches would like to throw me out of the house! Let him have an accident tomorrow and they'll put the house up for sale. They have a right to, Bocquillon warned me. And I, the one who's done everything here, working like a horse all my life and putting up with the old man, I get exactly one third, one third of what, by rights, belongs to me, because if they had had the house, the sheriff would have been here long since to take the lot….

“What are you thinking about?”

“I'm not thinking.”

It was true. He simply had an uneasy feeling, like somebody coming down with the flu. He was not digesting his lunch. He felt hot.

“It bothers me a little that you're the son of Monsieur Passerat-Monnoyeur. To think that my sister was in service there! You must have known her.”

“How long ago?”

“Ten years.”

“Her name wasn't Adéle?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Nothing. I remember. She used to loathe my sister. Now I think my sister is married to a doctor at Orléans.”

“He's a surgeon. Dr. Dorman.”

Silence. The time had come when they ought to have been getting up from the table. There was no coffee left in the coffeepot, nor in the glasses.

“Will you get the brandy from the cupboard? … You don't mind me ordering you about and talking to you so familiarly…. ?”

“Why should I?”

“I don't know. Don't pour out so much for me … that's enough! You can help yourself to a big glass. How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight.”

Her hands folded across her stomach, her eyes staring at the sparkling windowpanes and the dusty road beyond, she murmured:

“So that would make you twenty-three when…. Just René's age now. When René did what he did, he was only nineteen. Tell me, Jean …”

“What?”

“Was it a man you killed?”

“A man, yes.”

“Old?”

“I think he was in his fifties.”

“Did you do it with a revolver?”

He shook his head and looked at his hands.

“Does it bother you that I talk about it?”

No! It didn't annoy him. He knew he would have to put up with it sometime or another. But it was all so far away! And so different from what people might imagine.

“You don't want to tell me?
I
tell you everything.”

So he said, like someone reciting a lesson, “It began in the Boulevard St. Michel, in a beerhouse called the Mandarin. I don't know if it's still there.”

“You were a student?”

Of course! And his father, since his wife's death … But what was the use of telling her all that?

“You had a mistress?”

Poor Tati, feeling jealous of Zézette! A mistress, yes, that being the customary name! She was kept by an engineer from the Creusot armament works. Was Tati any the wiser now?

“You were in love with her?”

He did not know now whether he had been in love with her, but he had certainly been jealous.

“‘
Swear you'll never see your engineer again
…. '

“‘
You're silly, Jean!
”'

It was her word. She was younger than he was, yet she felt she had to assume a protective tone, to kiss him on the eyes, and to say over and over again:

“‘
You're silly!
”'