5
Mr Hire froze. The girl could still see his eye and she forced herself to smile. She made sure there was nobody else in the stairway before stammering, ‘It’s me …’
Mr Hire’s eye disappeared; something was covering the keyhole – probably the shadow of the man, who was standing again – but not a sound, no movement. The girl shuffled impatiently on her feet, and when the light reappeared behind the keyhole she bent down to look.
He was already halfway across the room, his back to the table and his eyes riveted on the door. He had the tortured look of a sick person holding his breath in order to steel himself against another pang of pain. Did he see the eye behind the keyhole?
The girl had to leave because someone was coming down the stairs. By the time she got to the concierge’s she had put on an indifferent smile, but the sensual turn of her lips was not to be disguised. ‘That you, Alice?’
The concierge turned her back, busy undressing her daughter. The detective, who was seated next to the stove with a coffee grinder between his knees, threw her a questioning look.
‘You saw him?’
She shrugged her shoulders and sat down on the edge of the table, revealing a swathe of thigh above her rolled stockings.
‘He’s crazy,’ she said.
And the concierge, without turning around, a nappy pin between her teeth: ‘Crazy like a fox! … You, go to bed,’ she added, pushing her daughter towards the back of the apartment.
She was tired. She took the grinder from the detective’s hands.
‘Thank you. You’re very kind.’
They had become used to each other. The policeman, who for two weeks had been keeping watch in the neighbourhood, had adopted this kitchen as a refuge. There was always hot coffee on a corner of the stove. Sometimes he would even bring a litre of wine or some pastries.
Alice was violently swinging one of her legs and glaring at the ground. She was in a bad mood.
‘Is my boss back?’
‘An hour ago, with her sister-in-law from Conflans.’
And the concierge, sitting back down, returned to the conversation that she had been having with the detective. She had put her glasses back on and was looking thoughtful.
‘You understand, I could swear it, but as for being sure that I’m not mistaken … ? That Saturday, he had returned at the usual time. He only comes home late on the first Monday of the month. I didn’t see him come down, but that night I pulled the cord for him.’
‘That’s just it! No, to come in!’
The act of reasoning made her seem more intelligent than usual. Alice was still swinging her leg, which the detective followed mechanically with his eyes. It was hot. The coffee dripped slowly from the filter. It smelled like Sunday evening, the sort of fatigue that owes nothing to work, a listless calm when the minutes elapse more slowly than on other days.
The girl’s back ached and her feet hurt inside her too-tight shoes. Other tenants were passing by the concierge’s and conversing lazily in the stairwell. A woman opened the door.
‘Did my mother-in-law come by?’
‘At three. She said she would meet you at the cemetery.’
Alice was watching the detective with an unlit cigarette between her lips: ‘Aren’t you going to arrest him?’ she asked.
The concierge levelled her small eyes on her.
‘Aren’t you a little devil,’ she declared.
And she wasn’t joking. She was suspicious of the girl’s full figure, her bare arms, the dimple in her chin.
‘We don’t know yet,’ sighed the policeman, holding out a match. ‘We would need proof.’
The concierge furrowed her brow as if these words had been addressed to her alone, as if she had been assigned the task of discovering the proof in question.
‘If we let him go, he’ll start again. You can feel it. I wouldn’t touch him for all the gold in the world. I don’t even dare touch the laundry that he tosses down every Wednesday for me to take to the cleaners.’
The detective threw his cigarette into the coal bucket. He was tired too, tired of doing nothing, of waiting, of spending his days between the concierge’s kitchen and the main intersection of Villejuif.
‘Show this to him,’ he said, pulling an envelope from his pocket.
‘What is it?’
‘A summons to see the detective chief inspector on Wednesday. Maybe it will make him try something.’
‘You want me to go up there?’
She was afraid, but now with the letter in hand, she seemed dangerous.
‘All right, I’ll do it!’
The girl came down off the table and headed for the door. The detective fastened his eyes on her and, with a gesture toward the departing concierge, reached out to give her a caress. He wanted to be alone with her, but she pretended not to understand. She crossed the courtyard with hurried steps. It was colder than ever, and though it was night the square of sky overhead shone silvery grey.
Back in the darkness of her bedroom, kneeling on her bed for a better view, Alice couldn’t hear the concierge knocking on the door across the courtyard, but she saw Mr Hire shudder at the sound. There were large, grey sheets of paper spread out on the table, which he was busy cutting with a pair of scissors. He had taken off his collar and shoes.
Scissors in hand, he turned towards the door and recoiled. Then, hurriedly, he tiptoed over to the keyhole and glued his eye on it.
On the landing, the concierge must have got impatient and said something. In any case, Mr Hire stood up, buttoned his jacket, opened the door a crack – just a centimetre or so – and stuck his hand out without showing himself. The sound of the violin came up from the third floor, along with the radio, which people on the fifth liked to turn on the minute they got home.
His door closed, Mr Hire looked at the envelope, inspecting it on all sides before opening it; then he went to get a knife from the cupboard and carefully slit the edge, unfolding the letter.
There was no sign of reaction. His features didn’t change. He simply sat next to the table, his eyes glued to the grey paper which he’d been cutting. He didn’t hear the cars in the street, or the violin, or the radio. He was enveloped by a vague hum, a sort of buzzing that could have been the stove or his own pulse.
Alice had tiptoed back out into the hall. Mr Hire suddenly lifted his head and, from the other side of the courtyard, stared into the girl’s bedroom, where the light had just come on. He had never seen every detail so clearly. The girl entered, slammed the door behind her, and without missing a beat threw herself fully dressed on to her bed, her head in her arms.
Mr Hire still didn’t budge. She was on her stomach. Her whole body was shaking, her hips pulsing erotically against the bed. But it was above all her shoulders which shivered convulsively, while her feet beat furiously against the pink eiderdown.
She cried. She sobbed. Mr Hire, troubled as if by an incongruity, took one of the sheets of grey paper from the table and, with the aid of four drawing pins, hung it up over one of the three panes. But he could still see her through the other two. He worked slowly. His lips parted as if he were about to talk to himself.
Alice pulled herself together, flopped over, and leaped to her feet, then angrily tore off the bodice of her dress, revealing a white blouse which could barely contain her breasts.
Her hair was dishevelled. She paced. She went from the bed to the dressing table and grabbed a comb, which she sent flying across the room, and twice she looked in Mr Hire’s direction.
He had picked up the second sheet of grey paper and four more drawing pins. Two of them had already been stuck in. Alice rifled around feverishly in her purse, afraid to lose even a second, and pulled out a pencil, then tore a large piece off a doily with which she’d lined a shelf.
Mr Hire backed up as far as the table, but still he couldn’t see a thing. As soon as he got there, he stepped forwards again, tilting his head in order to see through the third pane, the only one that remained uncovered.
She had already finished writing; kneeling on her bed, she glued the paper to her window, keeping an anxious eye on the window across.
She saw him trying to hide. She snapped her fingers like an impatient child.
It didn’t occur to her that Mr Hire couldn’t read what she had written because the light was behind the paper, that all he could see was a square of shadow.
Even more agitated now, she knocked repeatedly against the window, and he advanced another step forward, mistrustful, then paused for a good while. At last, he made a sign for no with his hand, took his grey paper, backed up, and hung it next to his own light.
She didn’t understand. She pointed to her piece of paper, and Mr Hire indicated his light with a short, quick and still-hesitant gesture. As she was wiping her eyes with her free hand, he went all the way up to his own window, held his paper as she had hers, stepped aside and lifted it up to the light.
She understood. She jumped on to the bottom edge of the bed, holding her paper in both hands.
Mr Hire had beads of sweat on his forehead, especially above the upper lip, under his moustache. He contracted his fat brown eyebrows, squinting in order to read: ‘I absolutely must speak to you.’
She was still brandishing the paper in the air, a position that lifted her breasts, making them appear even fuller, as it revealed the red hairs of her armpits.
As Mr Hire stepped back, she rushed forward again, entreating, nodding repeatedly.
‘Yes … yes … yes …’
It was almost as if he had disappeared, because when he was at the back of his room she could no longer see him. He came forwards again, then retreated, looking very serious. He pointed to the room across the courtyard.
She shook her head: ‘no’.
And she pointed to Mr Hire’s room, not waiting for a response. Leaping from her bed, she reached for the bodice of her dress, which she put on while heading for the door. But then she returned to look at herself in the mirror, and, after wiping her face with a towel, she put some powder on, pouting her lips to make sure their colour hadn’t faded.
Mr Hire, stiff with terror, pierced the third sheet of paper with two drawing pins, ran to the bathroom, emptied the basin, closed the cupboard, hurried towards the bed, and pulled up the quilt. There was no sound yet in the stairwell. He stopped in front of his mirror, ran the comb through his hair, patted his wound and rearranged his moustache. He was about to put on his collar and tie when he heard footsteps on the landing.
He was breathing so hard that the stiff hairs of his moustache were vibrating. He summoned all the strength in the world to say: ‘Come in!’
This time he could smell her from up close – a stronger version of the smell that the breeze had carried in the stands at Bois-Colombes. It was a warm smell, insipid like rice powder, but combined with a sharp stab of perfume; above all it was her smell, the smell of her skin, her breath, her sweat.
She was breathing hard too. She sniffled, looked around the apartment, and finally found Mr Hire next to the door, which he was just closing.
She didn’t know what to say. At first, she tried to smile, even thought of offering her hand, but it was impossible to offer your hand to a man so immobile, so distant.
‘It’s warm here.’
And she looked at the window, obstructed now by the pieces of grey paper. She came closer, lifted one of them, saw her room, most of all her bed, which seemed close enough to touch. When she turned around, she finally met Mr Hire’s eyes. She blushed violently as he turned away.
Moments ago she had pretended to cry, but now her eyelids burned for real, her eyes tearing up. He wasn’t any help, letting her struggle alone in the emptiness of the room, where the slightest noise was amplified as nowhere else. He even walked towards the stove and bent down to grab the poker.
It couldn’t wait any longer. Alice wept and, as the bed was right next to her, she sat on the edge of it, then let herself fall forwards on to the pillow.
‘I’m so ashamed!’ she stammered. ‘If you only knew!’
Leaning forwards with the poker in his hand, he watched her, and the last trace of colour drained from his cheeks. She was still crying, but her face was hidden from him. Between sobs, she blubbered.
‘You saw, didn’t you? It’s horrible! I didn’t know anything. I was fast asleep.’
Between two fingers, she saw him set down the poker and lift himself up, still uncertain. She was bathed in perspiration. The sweat soaked the silk of her dress under the arms.
‘You can see everything! And there I was, every day, undressing and …’
She cried more beautifully, letting him see her puffy face and the grimace on her mouth as she struggled to form words.
‘I wouldn’t care! You can watch me if you want. But that horrible thing …’
Slowly, so slowly that the progression was imperceptible, Mr Hire’s waxen face began to come alive, became human, anxious, compassionate.
‘Why don’t you come closer! I think it would be easier …’
But he remained still as a mannequin next to the bed. He couldn’t pull his hand back in time, and she took it.
‘What could you have thought? You knew better than anyone that it was the first time he’d come, didn’t you?’
She had no handkerchief and wiped her nose on the quilt. Her full, heavy body gave off an intense warmth. It sprawled, in the midst of Mr Hire’s apartment, in Mr Hire’s bed, like a blazing fire. Mr Hire looked at the ceiling. It seemed like the whole building must be hearing everything, sensing the girl’s palpitations. Upstairs someone was pacing back and forth, obstinately, baby in arms, probably trying to get it to sleep.
‘Sit down next to me.’
It was too soon. He still resisted, forced himself to escape the hold of this body that kept expanding and contracting, then swelled into sobs as if racked by a spasm.
Calmer, she said in a choppy voice: ‘He was just a friend, somebody to go out with on Sundays …’
Mr Hire knew it well. He had followed them – to the football match or the velodrome when the weather was nice, to the cinema at the Place d’Italie when it rained. He would watch them meet up at 1.30, at the same bus stop. Alice would slip her arm through her companion’s. Later, when it was dark, they would stop from time to time under an awning, and the pale outlines of their faces would flow together.
‘Now, I hate him!’ she cried.
Mr Hire looked at his dressing table, at the alarm clock on the mantel, the little stove, all the things that he alone touched every day, as if to appeal for their help. He was melting. He couldn’t stop himself from slipping down this slope, and yet he had strong reservations. He retained the capacity for self-awareness. He did not like the Mr Hire that he saw.
Alice studied him too, surreptitiously, with one eye, which all of a sudden – in the space of a second – turned cold and clear.
‘Swear that you were here!’
The window, covered with the grey paper, had a sinister air. The light was still on in the room across the way, but from behind the paper all that could be distinguished was a feeble halo.
‘I often fall asleep without remembering to lock the door and to turn off …’
Now that he was no longer being asked to, Mr Hire sat down right at the edge of the bed, while Alice kept his hand in hers. It was true, this past Saturday, she had fallen asleep and her book had slid on to the floor. Mr Hire hadn’t been sleepy. The window was cold against his forehead.
Then, the man had entered, not well dressed like on Sunday, but wearing a dirty cap and a scarf around his neck in place of a collar. Alice had propped herself up on her elbows. He had held his fingers up to his lips and spoken to her in a low voice, in sharp, clipped sentences, all the while washing his hands in the basin, then examining himself from head to toe, slowly, as if willing the evidence to disappear.
He was feverish. His gestures were abrupt. When he approached the bed, he took a woman’s purse out of his pocket and slipped it under the mattress. It was impossible to hear what he was saying. Alice was afraid, but she hadn’t cried out, hadn’t made a gesture, when all of a sudden, with a mocking smile, her companion tore back the covers, revealing, moist and naked, her legs and thighs.
‘It was horrible!’ she was saying. ‘And you watched! You saw everything, everything!’
Yes, everything! The cruel embrace of a man testing the limits of how far he could go.
Mr Hire stared at the flowers on the wallpaper. The small red spots had reappeared on his cheeks. Alice felt his hand tremble in hers, and it had the irresolute softness of a sick person’s hand.
‘I thought about it right away,’ she added. ‘Yes, during! At the time! But I didn’t dare move. I didn’t dare say a word. I just turned my head and saw you. He announced that he would kill me if I talked. He would kill you, too. It’s the reason I still see him.’
Her voice was less vulnerable now.
‘I don’t know why he did it. He works in a garage. He makes a good living. His friends must have dragged him into it. Now, he won’t even touch the 2,000 francs because he’s afraid they know the numbers on the bills.’
Mr Hire tried to stand up, but she held him back.
‘Listen, do you believe me when I say it was the first time and that I didn’t even enjoy it?’
She had one hip pressing against him. She was trembling. Her entire being trembled, everything was vibrant and warm after the tears: her face had more colour, her lips were deep red, her eyes moist. Upstairs, the baby was crying. To lull it, someone was tapping rhythmically on the floor. Mr Hire, for the first time, didn’t hear the brisk ticking of his alarm clock.
‘Do you hate me?’
She was getting worried. She was afraid of making the one gesture, saying the one word that would be enough to break the spell.
‘Come closer … closer …’
She drew him towards her. Mr Hire’s elbow pressed into her breast.
‘I’m all alone!’ she managed to sob.
And he looked at her, from up close, frowning. He was nearly on top of her, and he felt her breath against his face. She kept moving around as if she meant to drown him within her.
‘I know that Émile would do what he said!’
She was losing heart; it was all she could do not to reveal her impatience, which was quickly turning to rage.
‘Don’t you want to help me?’
She grabbed him by the shoulders. It was her last resort. She put her arm around his neck, brought her burning cheek to his.
‘Say something … say something …’
She was trembling for real, but from nerves. And then he spoke in a low voice, into her ear, ‘I’ve been so unhappy!’
He didn’t take advantage of the closeness of their bodies, seemed not to notice this other stomach crushing against his own, or the leg knotted around his. He closed his eyes, breathing her in.
‘Don’t move!’ he begged.
For a moment her features relapsed into an expression of boredom and fatigue. He opened his eyes. ‘It’s nice at your place,’ she murmured with a smile.
In fact it was dreary, maybe because of the shade on the electric light. The lines were harsh. The colours sliced into each other. The oilcloth turned the table into a rectangle as hard and cold as a tombstone.
‘Are you always alone?’
He wanted to get up, but she held him back, pressed herself against him.
‘No. Stay. I am so happy! It feels like …’
And, suddenly mischievous, ‘Will you allow me to come and do your housekeeping from time to time?’
She would have liked something more. She was determined to create another link between them, but he didn’t seem to understand, and she was afraid that going into detail would only scare him off.
‘You will save me, won’t you?’ She kept shifting around as opportunity suggested, and these words, for example, became the pretext for her to offer him her moist lips. He barely grazed them. He caressed her head with his hand, his gaze elsewhere.
‘You are a bachelor? A widower?’
‘Yes.’
She didn’t know if the word yes referred to the word widower or to the word bachelor. And she had to speak. Too long a silence and their situation would appear absurd, two strangers lying in a room together beneath a window dressed with sheets of grey paper.
‘You work in an office?’
‘Yes.’
She was so afraid he would get up and grow remote once again that she held him even more tightly, with a gesture calculated to seem involuntary.
He said nothing, and that encouraged her. Her entire body shook, as if it wanted to take possession of him, while she clamped her mouth to his, beneath his stiff moustache.
Mr Hire’s eyelids fluttered. Gently, he disengaged himself. And gently, he put his cheek against Alice’s cheek, so that the two faces were turned towards the ceiling.
He pleaded with her under his breath, squeezing her hand and breathing in abrupt jolts. His lips trembled, and he stood up at the moment his eyes were about to fill.
‘I won’t say anything,’ he stammered.
His jacket was still hiked up around his fat hips. He walked over to the stove while Alice sat on the edge of the bed, unfazed by his disarray.
‘They can’t do anything to you, anyway! And it buys some time.’
She spoke calmly, her chin in her hands, her elbows on her knees.
‘I bet you don’t care at all that you’re the one they suspect.’
Mr Hire reset the alarm clock.
‘When the whole mess is over, he’ll leave town and we’ll be alone.’
Mr Hire heard only the hum of her voice. He was spent, both physically and emotionally. She didn’t realize it right away, and she kept talking, standing now, all the while surveying the room. When she noticed that he had regained his waxy composure, she held out her hand, smiling.
‘Good night. I should be going.’
He put a formless hand in hers.
‘You really do love me a little?’
Mr Hire responded by opening the door, which he then closed and locked behind her.
Alice bounded down the stairs, crossed the cold, gusty courtyard and, full of energy, burst into her room. She immediately saw the three sheets of grey paper which would hide Mr Hire from her from now on; she allowed herself the hint of a satisfied smile and once again took off her bodice and skirt, stretched, and finally tore off her blouse. She stood before the mirror, ogling herself. She imagined a tiny hole in the grey paper, and Mr Hire’s eye, lying in wait as it had behind the keyhole.
She lingered, even thought of washing herself from head to toe, only to loiter longer in the nude, in the light of her bedroom. From time to time, though, she turned cold and mean. She would groan threateningly, ‘The imbecile!’
But the imbecile was not behind the grey paper. He had remained standing, hand on the key, leaning against the door; what he was looking at was his own room, the white alarm clock on the black mantel, the stove three feet away, the cupboard, the oilcloth and the cafetière, finally his bed, in which there was an aberrant dent.
His hand finally released the key. His arm fell and he sighed. That was all for tonight.