Pedigree (24 page)

About ten o'clock, Élise came in with the child, and saw Désiré sitting in a corner, with his chair tilted back slightly and his long legs stretched out. Seeing him here, she had the impression that he looked bigger than usual, and she scarcely dared to speak to him.

‘Happy New Year, Papa. Happy New Year, Arthur. Happy New Year, Cécile.'

She wondered if Désiré had already told them that they would not be coming in the afternoon. She waited a little while. The child started walking around.

‘Mind the fire, Roger. And what about you, Cécile? When is it due?'

For Cécile was expecting a baby.

‘I have to go to watch my dinner. Don't come home too late, Désiré.'

And Désiré, at a quarter to twelve, announced as he stood up:

‘We shan't be able to come this afternoon. We have to go to see one of my wife's sisters.'

It was done. Never, during his mother's lifetime, as long as her grey, somewhat monastic silhouette had inhabited the kitchen in the Rue Puits-en-Sock, would he have dared to say anything like that.

He avoided looking at his father who no longer felt really at home now that he was living with Cécile and a son-in-law.

‘Good-bye, all!'

The roast, the chips and the sugared peas were waiting for him. Roger was dressed in feverish haste.

‘Aren't we taking the pram?'

People, today, were not in their usual places, and they noticed inexplicable exoduses in certain streets, empty spaces in others.

‘I'll carry him, Désiré.'

She knew that he would not let her. She wanted to be nice to him, to make him forget what had happened the day before, to thank him for coming to Schroefs'.

She trotted along, a little behind him as usual. At the corner of the Rue des Carmes, which was empty, she felt a quiver of excitement. The house with the closed shutters impressed her, and she looked up at the loggia before ringing the bell.

‘Good afternoon, Léontine. Happy New Year. Is my sister better?'

‘Madame is very well, Madame Élise.'

Had they to go upstairs all the same? After all, they had only been invited because of Marthe's novena.

Hubert was standing on the stairs. He shook hands with Désiré then with the child, whom he did not kiss.

‘Come upstairs. Nobody's arrived yet.'

The table had been cleared in the dining-room. The children, in their playroom, were waiting for some little friends who were due to have coffee with them.

‘Where's Marthe?' Élise asked timidly.

‘She's in her room. She's getting dressed.'

‘May I go and see her?'

Désiré was offered a chair by the gas fire which Hubert bent down to regulate.

‘A cigar?'

They did not know how to start the conversation. They did not even know if they ought to use the familiar
tu
with each other. It was Hubert who made the first effort, with a certain awkwardness, sitting up in his armchair and relighting his cigar-stub:

‘Did Élise tell you? It's always the same! This morning, she was better.'

Élise had knocked on the door.

‘Is that you? Come in! How's the boy? You've brought him along, I hope.'

There was not the slightest trace left of what had happened the day before. The maid had cleaned the room and polished the furniture and the floor, and you would never have thought that for three nights Hubert had had to sleep on a camp-bed installed in the dining-room. The house was warm and comfortable. Marthe was putting the final touches to her appearance. Her dark hair was carefully arranged, she was wearing a black silk dress, trimmed with lace, which emphasized her proud bosom, and you could only just sense that she was a little absent-minded, a little vague, talking in an affected way with a hint of weariness.

‘Why don't you come and do your shopping here, like Poldine? We let her have everything at cost price. She drops in once a month and gets all her groceries.'

‘That's sweet of you. Thank you, Marthe!'

‘When Hubert isn't there, I shove masses of things into her bag. It's nothing really. You must come too. With what Désiré earns …'

‘Thank you, Marthe.'

It was just the same as it was with Félicie, entirely good or entirely bad, according to the day. Marthe too, if her sister were to come to the shop the next day with her bag, would be quite capable of calling her a beggar.

‘When I think that I haven't seen your son yet. Go and fetch him, Élise.'

She kissed him, looked all around her, rushed into the kitchen, and returned with a huge bar of chocolate.

‘Not now, Marthe. He's just had his dinner.'

‘What does that matter? Eat it, darling. Don't bother about what your mother says, or her disapproving looks. It's good chocolate!'

They were all daughters of the same mother and father. You could recognize them by a particular way they had of bending their heads and smiling, that humble, resigned smile which was peculiar to the Peters girls.

Élise felt overwhelmed by the huge bedroom with its impressive furniture, and by her sister's dress.

‘Look, Marthe, you're expecting some people and we'll only be in the way. Don't you think it would be better if we left you?'

She felt ill at ease, and would really have preferred to go down into the street, under the loggia, and off towards the duck-pond.

‘Are you mad? If you only knew how often we've talked about you! I kept wondering what was the matter with you, your husband and you. I hope Désiré's keeping well?'

It wasn't her fault. Marthe had forgotten. She had forgotten everything she had said against Désiré when Élise had announced that she was getting married. She had forgotten that she had not even given her sister a present. There had not been a proper wedding, it was true, because Élise had still been in mourning. Nobody had been invited. But the Schroefs could have sent something, however small.

Marthe had forgotten. Perhaps she had also forgotten the scene the day before. If not, she pretended to have forgotten it.

‘Roger! Roger! Mind the lovely bedspread.'

‘Oh, let him be. Go on playing, darling. Don't listen to your mother.'

What did it matter? When it was torn, they would buy another. And with a conspiratorial wink she added:

‘He can afford it.'

Poor Marthe, she was so kind. She would give you all that she had. She would even give you her nightdress if you asked for it. But later on she would throw it back in your teeth with hard words, words that hurt!

The worst of it all was that you never knew whether it was when she had had a few drinks that she was her real self or when she was sober.

Seeing that they would have to come again, now that they were no longer on bad terms, Élise decided to tell Roger:

‘Whatever you do, don't accept anything from Aunt Marthe.'

But Aunt Marthe insisted on filling his pockets, just as she filled the shopping-bag of Poldine, the wife of their brother Franz, who was an inspector at the Herstal armaments factory.

The two women and the two men came together in the dining-room, which was already full of smoke. Hubert was drawing contentedly on his cigar. Peace had been restored to his house.

However there were certain details which only Élise noticed. For instance, when she had passed the drawing-room door, she had caught sight of a table laden with cakes, biscuits and bottles. The guests had not arrived. The Mamelins were not real guests and they were being kept in the dining-room until the others came.

Désiré was talking insurance. Hubert had started questioning him, for he never wasted an opportunity, and Désiré didn't understand, he thought Hubert was talking to him as he would to anyone else, and he felt proud at being asked for advice.

Élise could scarcely bear it. Now and then she longed to whisper to him:

‘Let's go, Désiré. You don't understand that we're out of place here.'

They were in the way! They weren't wanted any more. The guests, the real ones, were expected, and they were taking their time. They had plenty. Three o'clock. Nobody knew what to do any more. Hubert had gone downstairs to the glazed office to get a briefcase containing his fire-insurance policies, and Désiré went through them, giving his opinion, while the women stayed with the children in the playroom. The little friends, the daughter and sons of Roskam, the big dressmaker, had not arrived either.

‘It would be better if we left you, Marthe.'

Dusk was falling when they heard a ring at the bell.

‘I tell you, Marthe …' Élise repeated anxiously.

‘That really would be the limit! You're my sister, aren't you?'

The lamps were lit in the drawing-room. Greetings were exchanged on the landing. The Mamelins heard the childish voice of a tiny little bald man, who was an important cheese-merchant and had the same accent as Schroefs. They both came from the same village in Limbourg. His wife's fat pink arms reminded you of their old dairy-shop, a little shop all in white marble. They had no children.

‘Do sit down. A biscuit? A glass of port?'

Élise, after all the trouble she had taken to persuade Désiré to come, did not know how to tell him that they ought to go and made signs to him which he failed to understand.

After Monsieur Van Camp, the cheese-merchant, Monsieur Magis, who ran a restaurant in the Rue Saint-Paul and who, like old Marette, had cancer of the stomach, arrived.

‘A cigar? With pleasure!'

Legs were stretched. Désiré thought that this was his day, that he was the great man of the gathering, because people were questioning him all the time about insurance problems, and because on that subject he knew more than anybody else. He juggled with figures, answered queries, and offered advice which would save all three of them, Schroefs and Magis and Van Camp, thousands of francs.

‘Your health, Monsieur Mamelin. You were saying that in the case of a fire covered by a Class
B
policy …'

Everybody in the insurance world knew that Désiré Mamelin had never made a mistake, that he had never needed to consult a ready-reckoner or the terms of a policy. He was like a conjuror who had never bungled a trick.

‘You would lose twenty per cent because article eight stipulates that an extra premium is necessary for …'

He was the great man, that was certain! These business men who were so sure of themselves were little children compared with him and humbly asked his advice, looking knowingly at each other.

It got to the point where Hubert Schroefs, irritated by all the noise coming from the playroom, called out for the door to be shut.

‘And what if the risk had increased in the meantime without an additional clause being inserted in the policy?'

The Mamelins were gathered together in the Rue Puits-en-Sock, and for the first time Désiré was absent, for the first time Chrétien Mamelin, not waiting for the traditional tea and home-made cakes, had gone for a walk with his friend Kreutz.

Élise was happy and worried at the same time. She could feel things. She wished that Désiré could feel things too. He was given a third glass of port.

‘Désiré!' she said imploringly.

He did not hear her. And a little later, when they were going home through the dark streets, it would be Désiré, with the boy perched on his shoulders, who would congratulate himself on his day.

‘They understood what I was telling them! Their policies are as badly drawn up as they could be!'

She did not dare to say anything. What was the use? Those were things the Peters could understand, but not he.

The fire had gone out. She lit it again. They had brought home some liver pudding from Tonglet's.

‘I thought your sister Marthe did everything she could to be nice.'

She could not explain to him. And what would be the point of making him share the bitterness of that empty afternoon in which they had only played walking-on parts?

‘Help yourself, Désiré. I've already taken two slices. I assure you I'm not hungry any more.'

The Schroefs had not asked them to stay to dinner. Just as they were leaving—she did not dare tell Désiré—Marthe had slipped two tins of sardines into her bag, all that she had been able to pick up as they were going through the dark shop.

‘Take them! You need to keep your strength up. Don't tell Hubert.'

She had felt embarrassed all the way home by those two icy tins which she did not know how to hide, and once she was in the flat, she had slipped them under the child's mattress.

É
LISE
and Julie Pain had installed themselves with the children on a bench in the Place du Congrès, just opposite the Rue Pasteur, so that by looking round every now and then they could make sure that nobody was ringing their door-bells.

It was a bright March day, the sun was shining, silvery clouds were sailing across the sky, and a clear, sharp light accentuated the details of the scene.

The children, Roger and Armand, were squatting on the ground, playing with the gravel and the fine dust as if it were sand.

The two women chatted together in low voices, speaking in little whispered phrases. Élise knitted. Julie Pain did not know how to do anything with her hands.

‘If you only knew how it irritates me, Désiré, to see those two motionless hands!'

They often shook their heads, with a smile tinged with melancholy, and yet they were not sad, indeed they may have been happy, for this was what they were like—they had become friends straight away—and they waited until the children came out of the Friars' school in the Rue de l'Enseignement before going to make up their fires, drink a cup of coffee and eat a slice of bread and butter.

‘Don't hit Armand with your spade, Roger!'

There had been many afternoons, and there would doubtless be many more, similar to this one, more or less sunny, but just as quiet, for it was only at rare intervals that a tram crossed the Place du Congrès, and you could count the passers-by in the six streets radiating from it. Now and then, for a few moments, the pavements were deserted, and you had the feeling that the first person to venture out on them was ashamed of the noise his footsteps made.