Pedigree (3 page)

Élise, her eyes open now, was still far away, nowhere in particular; only those fantastic lights from outside came through the window and passed through the lace curtains with the white flowers whose arabesques they projected on to the walls and on to the objects in the room.

The familiar purring of the stove was the first thing to reappear, together with the little reddish disc of the opening through which tiny burning coals could sometimes be seen falling; the water began singing in the white enamel kettle which had been dented near the spout; the alarm-clock, on the black mantelpiece, resumed its gentle tick-tock.

Only then did Élise feel a vague movement in her belly, and come to, and realize that she had fallen asleep, balanced unsteadily on a chair, still holding the dishcloth in her hand. She knew where she was, on the second floor of Cession's, right in the middle of a thriving town, not far from the Pont des Arches which separated the town from the suburbs; and she was frightened. She stood up, trembling, holding her breath, and then, to reassure herself with an everyday gesture, she put some coal on the fire.

‘Dear God,' she muttered.

Désiré was far away, on the other side of the town, in his office in the Rue des Guillemins, and now perhaps she was going to give birth, all by herself, while hundreds and thousands of passers-by went by, bumping their umbrellas against one another in the glistening streets.

Her hand went out to pick up the matchbox next to the alarm-clock, but she had not the patience to remove the milky globe of the oil-lamp and the glass, and then to raise the wick; she was too frightened. She lacked the courage to put away in the cupboard the odd plates that were lying around, and without looking in the mirror she put on her black crape hat, the one she had worn in mourning for her mother. Then she put on her black cheviot coat which was also a mourning coat and no longer buttoned up, so that she had to hold it folded across her swollen belly.

She was thirsty. She was hungry. There was something missing within her, an empty feeling, but she did not know what to do about it and rushed out of the room, putting the key in her handbag.

It was 12 February 1903. A bat's-wing burner hissed and spat out its incandescent gas on the staircase, for there was gas laid on in the house, though not on the second floor.

On the first floor, Élise saw some light under a door; she did not dare to knock; the idea did not even occur to her. Some people of independent means lived there, the Delobels, people who speculated on the Stock Exchange, a selfish couple who coddled themselves and spent several months every year at Ostend or Nice.

There was a draught in the narrow corridor, which passed between two shops. In the windows of Cession's, there were dozens of dark hats, and inside, people looking hesitantly at themselves in mirrors and not daring to say whether they were pleased with their reflections, and Madame Cession, Élise's landlady, in black silk, with a black tucker, a cameo, and a watch on a chain round her neck.

Trams went by every minute or so, green ones going to Trooz, Chênée and Fléron, red and yellow ones going unendingly round the town.

Hawkers were calling out the winning numbers of the latest lottery, and others were shouting:

‘The Baronne de Vaughan, ten centimes! Ask for the picture of the Baronne de Vaughan!'

She was Léopold II's mistress. There was supposed to be an underground passage connecting her house with the Château de Laeken.

‘Ask for the Baronne de Vaughan …'

All her life, as far back as she could remember, Élise had had the same feeling of smallness; yes, she was terribly small, weak and defenceless, in a big, indifferent world, and all she could do was mutter:

‘Dear God …'

She had forgotten her umbrella. She had not the heart to go back for it, and tiny drops of rain settled on her round little Nordic face, on her fair, curly Flemish hair.

Everybody struck her as impressive, even the man in a frock-coat, stiff as a ramrod, with waxed moustaches and a collar as broad as a cuff, who was tramping up and down under the lamp outside a dress-shop. He was dying of cold in the feet, cold in the nose, cold in the fingers. In the crowd moving along the pavement, he was on the look-out for mothers dragging children along by the hand. His pockets were full of little colour-prints, illustrated puzzles such as: ‘Find the Bulgarian'.

It was cold. It was raining. It was slushy.

She caught a whiff of hot chocolate as she passed the latticed basement windows of Hosay's from which good smells were always escaping. She walked quickly. She was not in pain, and yet she was sure that her labour had begun and that she had not much time left. Her suspender had come undone and her stocking started slipping down. Just before the Place Saint-Lambert there was a narrow passage between two shops where it was always dark, and she darted into it and put her foot on a stone.

Was she talking to herself? Her lips were moving.

‘Dear God, please give me enough time!'

But then, just as she was lifting up her skirts to reach the suspender, she froze: there were two men in the shadows into which a little light from the Rue Léopold penetrated. Two men whose conversation she must have interrupted. Were they hiding? She could not say for certain, but she had a vague feeling that there was something suspicious about their tête-à-tête. No doubt they were waiting in silence for the departure of this scatter-brained woman who had rushed headlong to within a few feet of them to adjust her stocking.

She scarcely looked at them; already she was beating a retreat, and yet a name sprang to her lips:

‘Léopold …'

She must have muttered this name in a whisper. She was sure, or almost sure, that she had recognized one of her brothers, Léopold, whom she had not seen for years: a back already bent at the age of forty-five, a dark beard, and eyes shining beneath thick brows. His companion was very young, a beardless child, freezing, this February evening, in the draught blowing down the passage. He was not wearing an overcoat. His face was tense, as if he were holding back his tears….

Élise plunged once more into the crowd without daring to look back. Her suspender was still undone and this gave her the impression of walking sideways.

‘Dear God, please… And what is my brother Léopold …?'

In the Place Saint-Lambert there were more lamps and brighter ones: the lamps of the Grand Bazaar, which was constantly growing and had already eaten up two blocks of houses. The splendid shop windows, the brass doors which opened silently and that special hot breath of air which reached you right out on the pavement.

‘Ask for the winning numbers of the Brussels lottery.'

Finally she caught sight of some shop windows of a more discreet luxury, those of L'Innovation, full of silks and woollen goods. She went in. It seemed to her that she ought to hurry. She smiled, for she always smiled when she returned to L'Innovation, and, as in a dream, scarcely able to distinguish one from the other, she greeted the shop assistants in black standing behind the counters.

‘Valérie!'

Valérie was there, behind the needlework counter, serving an elderly customer and trying to match some silk, and Valérie's eyes, as they fell upon Élise's frightened face, said in their turn:

‘Dear God!'

For both women were of the same sort, the sort who are afraid of everything and who always feel too small. Valérie did not dare hurry her customer. She had understood. Already she was looking in the direction of the central cash-desk, trying to catch sight of the boss, Monsieur Wilhems, with his squeaky patent-leather shoes and his carefully manicured hands.

Three or four counters further on, in the layette department, Maria Debeurre was looking at Élise and wishing she could talk to her, while the latter, standing stiff and erect in her mourning dress, was gripping the counter with the tips of her fingers. The moist heat of the shop was stifling her. The insipid smell of the linens, madapollams and serges, the subtler smell of all these reels and bobbins, and these silky rolls in pale colours, made her feel sick, as did the oppressive silence in the alley-ways.

She felt as if hollows were forming in the sides of her nose, as if her legs were giving way, but a sad smile remained fixed to her lips and she managed to nod discreetly to some shop-girls who were very far away and of whom all she could see through a luminous fog was their black dresses and lacquered belts.

For three years she had lived behind one of these counters. When she had applied for the job…

But you had to go further back than that. Her life as a frightened, unhappy little mouse had begun when she was five, when her father had died and the family had left the huge house by the canal at Herstal, where timber from the north filled sheds as big as churches.

She did not understand. She scarcely knew that father of hers with the long inky moustaches who had made a mess of his affairs, signed some accommodation bills, and died as a result.

Her brothers and sisters were married or had already left home, for Élise was the thirteenth child, born when nobody expected any more.

Two little rooms, in an old house near the Rue Féronstrée. She lived alone with her mother, a dignified woman, always trim and dapper, who used to put empty saucepans on the stove when somebody came, to give the impression that they were short of nothing.

One day the tousle-headed little girl went into a shop, pointed to something on display, opened her mouth, but could not find the right words.

‘Some…some…'

Her father was German, her mother Dutch. Élise did not know yet that she did not speak the same language as other people. She was determined to express herself, and, in front of the amused shopkeeper, she blurted out at random:

‘Some…fricadelles…'

Why fricadelles? It was a word which had sprung to her lips because she had heard it at home and which, here, provoked roars of laughter. It was the first humiliation of her life. She had run home without buying anything, and she had burst into tears.

At fifteen, to make life at home a little less wretched, she had put her hair up, let her dress down, and presented herself to the polite and well-groomed Monsieur Wilhems.

‘How old are you?'

‘Nineteen.'

It was almost her real family that she had come to see today: Valérie Smet, Maria Debeurre, and the others who were looking at her from a distance and even from the galleries, the furniture, linoleum and toy departments.

She put a brave face on it. She smiled. She looked at little Valérie who was weighed down under an enormous mass of brown hair and whose patent-leather belt cut her figure in two like a diabolo.

‘Cash-desk!'

The old lady had been served. Valérie came running up.

‘You think it's due today?'

They whispered as if they were in the confessional, darting anxious glances at the central cash-desk and the inspectors in their tail-coats.

‘Désiré?'

‘He's at the office…I didn't dare send word to him…'

‘Wait a minute…I'll ask Monsieur Wilhems…'

It seemed to Élise that this was taking an eternity, and yet she was not in pain; she felt nothing but a vague discomfort all over her body. Two years earlier, when they used to leave the shop arm-in-arm, she and Valérie, they invariably ran into a big, shy lad with a pointed beard and severe-looking clothes.

Valérie was always the more excited of the two.

‘I'm sure it's you he comes for.'

He was very tall, about six foot, and they were each as little as the other. How had Valérie found out who he was?

‘His name is Désiré … Désiré Mamelin … He's a clerk in Monsieur Monnoyeur's insurance office in the Rue des Guillemins…'

Now Valérie was explaining, explaining; Monsieur Wilhems glanced at his sometime shop-assistant and nodded.

‘Wait for me a minute … I'm just going for my hat and coat.'

A noise outside, as if two trams had collided …

‘Dear God,' sighed Élise.

Three times in two months there had been tram accidents under her windows in the Rue Léopold. Only a few customers near the doors rushed out to see what had happened. The shop-assistants stayed in their places. A few shrill cries could be heard, then a dull murmur. Monsieur Wilhems had not so much as moved one elbow on the polished oak of the main cash-desk, and one finger was stroking his silvery moustache.

People were running past outside, in front of the screen formed by the shop windows. Valérie reappeared.

‘Did you hear?'

‘An accident…'

‘Can you walk?'

‘Yes, of course, Valérie…I'm sorry to have bothered you. What did he say?'

‘He' was the omnipotent Monsieur Wilhems.

‘Come along…lean on my arm …'

‘I assure you I'm still capable of walking by myself…'

The doors opened noiselessly and they went out into the damp cold where they heard a sort of stampeding noise and saw hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people making for the nearby Grand Bazaar. Already there were lines of trams immobilized one behind another.

‘Come along, Élise. We'll go along the Rue Gérardrie.'

But Élise was pushing up behind the crowd and lifting herself up on tiptoe.

‘Look…'

‘Yes…'

In front of the Grand Bazaar in the Place Saint-Lambert there was a monumental glass canopy covering the whole pavement. Now, over a distance of ten yards or more, the panes were broken, the ironwork was twisted, the lamps were out.

‘What is it, Monsieur?' Élise asked the nearest man, in a humble voice.

‘How should I know? … I know as much as you do…'

‘Come along, Élise …'

Some policemen came running up and tried to push their way through the crowd. Behind them could be heard, first a fire-engine, then an ambulance.

‘Move along!…Move along, now!'