Pedigree (34 page)

In his pocket he was crumpling a dirty piece of paper, a letter bearing a Paris postmark, and he followed the train of his ideas, mulling over his thoughts, picturing a drama which had kept him gloomy and absent-minded for two hours in Élise's kitchen.

Had he any money? Had he ever had any? Before Eugénie had left for Ostend, where she had a job in a boarding-house, hadn't they spent the odd francs she had put on one side during the last few months? For a long time now he had not had a watch, and his wife didn't possess a single jewel, not even a little gold chain.

Two or three times, scowling ferociously, he had gone up to one of the big windows of the Grüber. The first time, Louis of Tongres, whom people called the rich Peters, had been eating all by himself in front of a dazzling tablecloth, his gaze wandering over the respectful crowd, or answering a doffed hat with an imperceptible flicker of his eyelids.

Louis had tiny little eyes, or rather he had a habit of creasing his eyelids so that in the narrow slit between them you could only just distinguish the bright pupils, which were disconcertingly sharp. It had become a mannerism with him. To say yes, to express approval, to show satisfaction, he shut his eyes completely, very quickly; you had to be extremely alert to notice this sign of acquiescence, for it was as quick as the click of a camera. On other occasions, he would open his eyes a little way, and the lens remained fixed for a while, revealing a pair of cold, motionless pupils; this meant no, a no which nobody in the whole world had ever made Louis of Tongres retract.

The second time that Léopold's helot figure had approached the bay window of the Grüber, his brother had finished his meal and was slowly picking his teeth while, on a chair in front of him, a man with a servile smile was taking documents out of a leather briefcase.

The third time, Léopold had been almost afraid that Louis, who had just lit a cigar with a wide band, was going to turn towards him and recognize him. Haloed in smoke, hunting in his waistcoat for his amber cigar-holder, listening to his companion without looking at him and answering only with his eyelids, he sat there as if he were in a shop-window, as relaxed as if he had been in his own home.

He was the king of the Limbourg forests and the fertilizer business. Little by little, he had become interested in everything that was bought and sold in his fief. Hadn't he married the only daughter of the governor of the province, a nobleman?

Other men, facing the velvet-covered bench on which he sat motionless, had come to open their briefcases and hold out papers, to beg for a signature, an endorsement, an order; and still others were waiting, standing a little further off, when Louis Peters' gaze slid over the bluish surface of the window against which a poor man's bearded face was pressed.

The eyes of the two brothers met. Léopold did not move, and nobody around him had any idea of the courage the drunkard had to summon up to stay in his place while Louis stood up, knocked the ash off his cigar and, without taking his hat or picking up his papers, went towards the door.

All the Peters were short and stocky; Louis, who was more wiry than the others, looked wellnigh thin, on account of his dried-up face, his pointed nose, and the liveliness of his movements when he suddenly emerged from his immobility.

He crossed the tavern and shot like an arrow through the revolving doors; on the pavement he stopped short and nothing in him moved except his eyelids.

He waited; it was Léopold, the eldest brother with the hunched shoulders, who came forward with his oblique gait. There were groups of people around them, a thousand voices mingling together, and yet they were able to talk without anybody listening to them …

Léopold spoke, shaking slightly, his breath stinking; he said only a few words, quoted a figure: five hundred francs.

On the terrace, on the pavement, in the café, men were buying and selling boatloads of timber, trainloads of phosphates, farms complete with their flocks, whole harvests.

Léopold asked for only five hundred francs. His nose was running; he took a big red handkerchief out of his pocket and half-covered his face with it while his brother asked him two or three incisive questions.

What did he reply? That the money was not for him? That he had never needed any money? No! He did not bother to reply. He had seen the icy, wide-open eyes, and he had understood. Turning round, he plunged into the crowd, rolling from side to side.

Félix Marette could ask only Léopold for the five hundred francs, and Léopold could ask only Louis of Tongres.

Léopold bumped into passers-by without apologizing, his instinct leading him quickly to a narrow street where he found familiar smells again, to a little café where there were men leaning on the bar with the same empty, staring eyes as his.

What did the letter matter now? He would answer it later, in three days, in a week, some time or other, when his wanderings had brought him back to his ladder and the trapdoor leading to his rooms.

They were waiting and hoping in Paris. Marette had written, in a handwriting which had changed in a few months and become more deliberate: ‘We
must
find a solution …'

He had underlined
must
with a thick stroke of the pen.

He would not be able to manage otherwise. A month before, Doms had staged one of his periodical disappearing acts. Was he really in Russia, Rumania or Barcelona, as he would pretend when he returned, as threadbare, as quiet, as silently menacing as ever?

Doms was a nobody! The truth of the matter was that Doms had no money, no friends, no means, and belonged to no group or party. He was a contemptible individual whom Marette despised, even though he was forced to put him up in his attic and to buy him a meal in his little restaurant every time he asked.

Marette had discovered that truth a long time ago, by accident, one morning when he had been lying on the floor and the other man had been asleep in his bed. Félix Marette had had his eyes open a fraction of an inch, rather like Louis Peters, and Doms, thinking that he was asleep, had been himself, in the grey atmosphere of that winter morning, with the bleak daylight falling from the skylight on to the grubby sheets and the brown blanket: a Doms without spectacles, looking fatter than usual, shining with the sweat of the night, a hulking mass of pale flesh with stupid, vulgar gestures and such miserable, empty eyes that they had given Marette a shock.

For several minutes the self-styled anarchist had scratched his dirty feet, then he had put on his threadbare socks, pulled on his trousers, and stayed there limply, not knowing what to do with himself. He had taken a few sous out of his pocket and counted them, ending up by furtively plunging his hands into his friend's pockets and extracting a few coins.

That was all. A little later, when he had put on his thick spectacles, he had become the Doms of the Café de la Bourse once more, but Marette could no longer be taken in.

He had to endure him, with impatience and disgust, and what made it worse was the knowledge that the man was nothing but a contemptible little crook, perfectly capable of denouncing a friend to the police.

Hadn't he gone so far as to follow Marette in the street, so that now he knew everything?

His smile had been enough to tarnish the only really beautiful moment Marette had experienced till then.

It was about Christmastime. One evening when Félix had been in his attic, feverishly writing the story of his life, it had started raining so hard that water had begun pouring through the roof and he had had to move his bed.

The next morning, although it was his fate that was involved, Marette had nearly failed to notice the open umbrella which was dripping in a corner of the shop, after the rain had stopped.

It was Isabelle Vétu's umbrella. He had recognized it later, and then the light had dawned; he had realized that she had gone out, probably by herself, the previous evening.

He had never thought of this simple eventuality. He had watched outside for two whole evenings. Finally he had seen a light in the shop, and Isabelle had come out on to the pavement, walking quickly in the direction of the Conservatoire where there was a concert.

While she was entering the warmth of the concert-hall, full of the smell of wet wool, he had rushed up to his room like a madman, stuffed his manuscript into his pocket, and come back to station himself between a couple of gas-lamps. A little music filtered out to him. The rain kept falling intermittently, and in between two showers the silvery light of the moon fell on him.

When the audience started coming out, he let people bump into him, trembling, afraid of missing her, standing on tip-toe. At last he caught sight of her, walking quickly; and he ran after her, finally stopping, out of breath, under a gas-lamp, in a street whose name he did not know.

‘Mademoiselle …'

A white face before him, that face which he was now capable of drawing in three or four lines. He hunted in his pocket for his papers.

‘I wanted to …'

And suddenly, as if a piece of flesh were being torn from him:

‘I love you, Isabelle … I can't stand it any longer … I'm too unhappy … I love you, do you understand?'

He was crying, and felt ridiculous. He dropped his notebook and she bent down to pick it up at the same time as he did; unable to see anything, he went mad, clasped her in his arms, pressed her face against his wet cheek, brushed his lips against her mouth.

Then … then the most unexpected thing happened. Her mouth remained stuck to his, and looking again, he saw her face motionless against his, whiter than ever, and her open eyes close to his eyes.

‘Isabelle …'

It was too much. He had not hoped for this. Frightened by the happiness which filled him, he let go of her suddenly with an abrupt movement and ran away, bumping into a fat, fleshy figure a few yards further on.

Not a word. A cackle of sneering laughter. A hand falling heavily on his shoulder.

It was Doms. Marette, without knowing what he was doing, had followed him, and they had spent two hours drinking beer in a café he would have been incapable of finding again.

Since then, the winter had gone by. Doms, one fine day, had vanished without a word.

Night had fallen. At one end of the Rue Montmartre, the arc-lamps had been lit between the buildings in the Central Market and, at the other end, the noisy life of the Grands Boulevards was flowing by.

Marette waited, tense and expectant, his nerves on edge. Some light filtered at last between the shutters of the Vétu shop. A silhouette brushed against the walls. After the first turning, he walked faster, passing his arm round a waist which showed no surprise.

‘Well, my love?'

His eyes looked at her in a pathetic inquiry, Isabelle's eyes smiled, and their lips met, heedless of the passers-by who were merely shadows.

‘Have you had a reply?'

They were walking along, crossing the Central Market as they had done nearly every evening for three months now, and soon they would come to the deserted embankment, to the Seine surging noisily past the stone walls.

‘No. It must come, mustn't it? It just has to.'

‘Calm yourself, my dear.'

‘And your mother?'

‘No. You can't see anything yet.'

He felt an urge to take some violent action, to gesticulate frantically, but then he suddenly repented and calmed down, putting his arms protectively around Isabelle as if she had become fragile.

‘And to think that all we need is to find five hundred francs; to think that that horrible woman refuses to accept my word and give us credit! You know, Isabelle, there are times when … there are times …'

All that energy, all that despair, all that need, all that determination to be happy, meeting the tranquil emptiness of a fine night!

‘Calm yourself, my dear. You know very well that when you're like that you frighten me. It doesn't do any good.'

And they walked on in silence, pressed against one another, gazing at the grey paving-stones in front of them.

‘W
HERE
are you going, Roger?'

‘To play with Albert, Mother.'

‘You've put your pinafore on?'

‘Yes.'

‘Mind the tram.'

She leant over the banisters while Roger took his straw hat from the hallstand, snapped the elastic round his neck, and stood motionless in the hall for a moment, like a grown-up wondering if he hasn't forgotten something. Finally he opened the letter-box and took out his marbles.

‘Make sure that I can see you all the time.'

He did not reply, but went out, leaving the door ajar. The Rue de la Loi was hot and empty. A solemn silence hung over the school yard, for the holidays had started the day before, and the friars could be seen going out at unusual times, in threes, with the edges of their hats turned up like wings, their black cloaks floating behind them, and one of their white bands always sticking up in the air. Brother Médard himself had come out of the green gate a little earlier, not to plant himself in the middle of the pavement as he did the other mornings to watch the boys coming in and out, but to go off towards the town. Was he taking a holiday too? In any case, he had looked to see if he could catch sight of that neat, hard-working young mother who took in lodgers.

For a long time now, Élise and Brother Médard had known each other without having exchanged a single word, separated as they had always been by the width of the street. Brother Médard looked like nobody else and defied all classification. He was extremely fat. His shiny cassock was stretched over a belly as round as a barrel. A huge head, with close-cropped hair and plump, shiny cheeks, was stuck solidly on top of this cylindrical mass; the whole massive ensemble rolled from left to right at every step, on account of the wooden leg which had to be lifted off the ground; Brother Médard sweated profusely, mopping his face with a red handkerchief like Léopold's, and you could hear his stick on the pavement long before he appeared in the frame of the green gate; yet in spite of all that, he imposed respect and confidence, and it was to him that, if Élise needed advice, she would go to ask.