The Closed Harbour (15 page)

"Yes it is, isn't it," replied Marius. "Have you the time?"

"It is just past one o'clock, Monsieur will perhaps lunch?"

Something in the very tone of the man's voice made Marius turn and look at him.

"And I'm not wrong," he said to himself, "only a person with a voice like that could have the gentlest of expressions."

"I will. I'll take that table in the far comer," pointing, "there."

And Marius went to it and sat down and enjoyed a hearty lunch.

"What's the damn use of calling anywhere any more," he thought, and hurried out of the restaurant so quickly that he did not hear the old waiter's emphatic thanks, his "come again, sir."

It was two o'clock. He dropped into the first cinema and sat down.

He saw nothing, though he heard all too clearly the rampant, strident music screeching round the auditorium. He deliberately shut his eyes, his head had begun to throb. Anyhow it was much cooler here.

At half past two an attendant woke him up, didn't like the look of him, nor did the people behind him who had complained of his loud snoring, and within a minute Marius was in the Place de Lenche again.

"I'll tire myself out to-day, and then perhaps I'll have a good night. Life to-day was made up of walking, and moving from one place to another for the simple reason that you kept on walking. There was something interminable about it," the Place de Lenche was growing longer and yet longer, and Marius began to wonder if he would ever get within view of Port Vieux again.

"At least that Labiche hasn't got this far," he thought, "I wish I knew what the hell he wanted of me. All the same I'm going back, down, far down, and then that bloody climb again into the Rue des Fleurs.

"If only that Follet would have seen me once, just the once, twenty years ago he knew my father, I could have explained, he might have helped. Or must I really dive to the bottom, get half pissed one night and be shanghaied somewhere."

He hailed a passing tram, whose toothy conductress failed to notice him, ran after it, clung desperately to the rail, swung himself aboard, and the tram rattled on, and he gave his body willingly to its wild lurches, and let the shrieking horn penetrate his ears.

He had no ticket. Where did he want to go?

"Anywhere at all?" he said.

The toothy conductress smiled.

This tram was not stopping again until it reached the Place des Treize Coins, and then it turned sharply and stopped by the cemetery gates. Perhaps Monsieur wished to go to the cemetery.

Marius was holding out a filthy note, and she took it and gave him his ticket.

She was leaning over him. "Where d'you want to get to?"

"I told you. Anywhere you like."

She grinned. "As Monsieur wishes then."

The tram, as it careered its way down the Place seemed to shake the very foundations of Marseilles, but it eventually came to a stop, and one or two people got up from their seats, Marius among them. The conductress looked him over as he got off the platform and said as she turned away, "perhaps Monsieur is on his way to a wedding after all."

At that moment a funeral procession had reached the gates.

Marius went across and stood by the railings, noting the shade under the plane trees, the little white church with its belfry, its tiny tower and sturdy black clock, which at that moment began to strike. Marius moved along slowly until he stood just by the gate.

The procession had formed up, the hearse had drawn away past the gate. He turned round, and something made him suddenly bear up, he stood stiffly, his hands hanging at his sides. A girl passed him, glanced shyly at him, went on, a man passed, paused, looked at Marius.

Without hesitating a moment, without realizing why, Marius, turned and followed the man through the gate, he had become a part of the procession. He walked by the tall, heavily built man.

"A sad day, Monsieur," the gentleman said, head forward, hat held tightly in his hand, great beads of sweat standing out on the big florid face.

"Yes," Marius replied, and kept pace with him. There were only three people here, the girl, the man, Marius. They were suddenly at the graveside.

"Your son?" asked Marius.

"Hers."

"Your daughter?"

The big man shook his head. No, he was only the undertaker. She was the only one. He looked sympathetically at Marius, laid a hand on his arm, the lightest touch, "so good of Monsieur, it helps to make it look a little proper."

Marius hardly heard. He was standing staring at the girl. The moment she noticed him she lowered her eyes. The tiny coffin went down. The undertaker offered Marius the plate, he took some, soil from it and flung it down.

The bearers had gone, but in the background stood the one whom nobody could fail to recognise, the digger.

Marius suddenly saw the priest shake hands with her and walk away. She turned round and faced the bearded man who had been standing mute behind her. Marius watched her take out a worn purse, extract from it what looked like a single franc note, saw her hand it to the gravedigger.

"Be kind to him," the girl said, and turned and moved away, came over to Marius.

"Thank you, Monsieur."

Marius was unable to speak. The undertaker had touched his arm.

"I can take Monsieur to his destination?"

Marius shook his head. "No no, thank you, no no."

His hand had caught that of the girl, he had gripped it, looked at her. Neither spoke.

He stood watching her go, remained standing long after the sound of the wheels had died away, and he found he was still staring at the grave.

"It's like a dream," thought Marius, "the whole thing, its like a dream."

He gave one last glance at the still silent, still motionless gravedigger and walked out of the cemetery.

He was in the middle of the sea again and a storm had begun. Buildings everywhere were disgorging people, the pavements became more crowded, the cars roared louder, the bicycles whizzed past him, shop doors were banged and locked, he heard rattlings of chains, ringing of bells, wild toots of horns, and over it all the air, smell laden, burdensome, the grind and sweat and energy of the day had borne upwards as a cloud bears upwards, to hang like a pall over the sun drenched roads.

Marius seemed to grind his way through the throngs, slowly, ruthlessly, and twice he had endeavoured to cross to the other side, but half way over had taken sudden fright and hurried back again. The city frightened him, he longed for the descent to be over, to apprehend the smells, the feel, the very rhythm, and sight of the toiling Vieux Port. Never had he longed so much for the sight of a ship. It was as though he had crossed an endless and arid desert, been lost in a strange and un-navigable country, gripped in the centre of thousands of people whom he had never seen before, would never see again, who had no meaning for him.

"One is safe in the muck heap."

"I'll never venture down there again, God, the whole thing scared me," remembering the waiter at Ferroni's, the cancer face of the apple seller, the shy, beautiful, yet terrified features of the girl who was burying her child, the Americans who took him for a bagman, the woman's hand that gripped like iron and flung him down those steps, the child with the broken wheel, the walrus-like teeth of the tram conductress, they were passing to and fro across Marius's vision as he walked quickly, and yet more quickly down the long, relentless hill.

At the first Bistro he almost burst through the door.

"Black coffee," he called.

He sat stirring it for nearly five minutes before deciding to drink it.

"What a fool I was to think that that shrimp of a man could ever be Brunet. God I I'd give my eyes to be upright again, walking up a gangplank, full of authority, taking her out past the Chateau d'If."

There was a grinding of brakes outside, sudden shouts, then a party of six people, all young men swept in and past Marius like a wave. Shouting and laughing and gesticulating they went far up the room. After much creaking of chairs there was silence.

"Another coffee," Marius said.

"To-morrow morning promptly, at nine o'clock I'll go down to the
Clarté
, I'll go aboard her, I'll beard Manos in his cabin, I'll sink my bloody pride."

He stirred and stirred the coffee but never drank it.

"I'll find Follet's private address, why the hell didn't I think of it, of course, I'll go to his house to-morrow evening—"

"Lucy said she'd take me to a man named Jacquette, what a name, sounds like a girl-man to me, hangs out at THE TOMB, there's a waiter there named Varinet, knows everybody, she told me—yes, I'll do that—even a Greek cockleshell is better than nothing after all."

All the time the spoon was moving round and round and round in his cup, but he had quite forgotten it, he was uplifted by a wave of resolutions, but these reached momentum and fell heavily, vanished like trickles of water in the desert.

He got up and left the un-drunk coffee and went out.

"I'm scared, that's what I am. Scared. If they hadn't followed me here. They know, of course they know, they only followed to drag it out of me."

"Can't you mind where you're walking?"

"In the end I'll tell her, I'll tell her to-morrow—be done with it."

"Look out man."

Marius, unheeding pushed on. He was glad to see a sight of the fountain, he felt safe now, and moved in under the trees. The whole of humanity seemed gathered here and at last he felt he was alone. He sat on the corner of a bench on which two old men were chatting.

"I'm a little drunk," he thought.

He huddled up, never looked in the old men's direction, stared down at the ground.

"I could climb up Accoules this moment, disappear into the warrens and never come out again. Christ, what's the good of that. I must find my clothes. Yes, I must find my clothes. I don't believe she burnt them at all, hidden them, wanted to humiliate me. And she calls herself a Christian—" he felt in his pockets, turned quickly.

"Have you a match?"

A beardless face, hammered by age, turned towards him. Marius could not see the eyes, which were almost lost beneath the bushy brows. He leaned towards the old man. The eyes seemed colourless, lay far back in the head, half buried by years.

"Have you a smoke?"

Marius felt furiously in all pockets.

He shook his head, he was sorry, he hadn't a cigarette either. He took some loose coins from his pocket, handed them to the old man, got up and walked away.

"The people I'm meeting to-day."

A church clock was striking the half hour. He went on, he was making for the Quai de Belge.

"It may be that Follet doesn't even know I've called, asked for him, day after day, that swine Philippe, he's got under my skin, blast him and his correctness, his colossal opinion of himself, happy in his little cage, thinks of nobody but himself, hasn't even good manners, I might have been a pig."

The moment he heard the rattle of the winches his spirit lightened, already he could feel a light breeze, the petrol stink seemed far away now, and there were no mad, thrusting crowds. There was the
Bergerac
, still there, would she ever sail, her decks deserted, her derricks neatly laid home, a quietness settled over her as though she had resolved never again to turn her head seawards.

"A lovely thing," thought Marius, "now if I could take her out—"

The great quay had about it the calmness of a lake, only a single winch went on rattling, and as he walked slowly on, he watched the day's debris blow about his feet, old newspapers, cigarette packets, ends, bits of string, yarn, a matted bundle of old lading bills. Ahead were some timbers.

Marius sat down. He did not look at the sea, but watched attentively at the bits and ends of litter as it went by. A half sheet of old newspaper came his way, anchored at his heels and he bent down and picked it up, began to read. All the ships of the world, all the ports and docks and quays seemed centred on this soiled sheet as he slowly read. Names of ships and their movements. He cried in his mind the names of
Hercules
,
Avenger
,
Orleans
,
Triumph
.

"If" said Marius, "if", but there were so many of them, and he dropped the paper and watched it slowly blow away. He felt that if a gust of wind strong enough had come along, he would have been blown after it.

"What's the use."

An exhaustion was pressing upon him, his head began to nod, his body sagged, fell heavily back upon the timbers.

"I feel filthy," he said.

The heat of the long day, the grind, the traffic roars, the voices, the smells in the air, all seemed harboured in his person. He heard the winch stop suddenly, raised himself and looked towards the
Bergerac.
Beyond it he saw a single man move away down the for'ard deck. She was a small ship and her bow was facing him, but he could not make out her name. "If somebody came along this moment and said 'are you ready' I'd get up at once and I'd say, 'I'm always ready' and I'd go off with him, I'd ascend that gangway and the moment I touched her deck I'd grow, I'd rise up, I'd climb out of all this," and his hands moved slowly down the length of his body.

"Pull yourself together," he said.

"Go home."

But he did not stir.

He fell asleep.

VIII

"D
AYS
CRAWL
over me like bugs."

In the hot, sweltering night he lay naked on his back, the iron bed drawn up beneath the high, narrow window. For half an hour he had been looking out, and through it had come the dull, monotonous roar of distant breakers, it made him think of some kind of animal prowling upon night and air. The darkened room was slowly unburdening itself, the piled up heat of the day rising from corners, out of the cupboard, from underneath the bedclothes, falling away from his own flesh, rising and vanishing through the window. He imagined that if he put out his hand he would be able to feel the darkness itself, like a skin, and to Marius, even this seemed to sweat. But always, over the dull roar, clamant and as remindful as struck blows, the steady tick of the watch by his pillow.