9

Around ten o’clock that same morning, the concierge received a shock when her daughter was brought home early from nursery school by a neighbour she barely knew. The girl had woken up in the morning complaining of a sore throat, and her mother had wrapped a bandage around her neck. Now it was stiff and looked somehow elongated. The girl’s eyes were shining, her face pained.

‘They asked me to bring her to you, and to give you this.’

It was a note from the teacher. ‘Your child has white spots in her throat and should be put to bed immediately. I urge you to call the doctor.’

The concierge hoisted her daughter up over the bucket and rag that she’d left on the doorstep and wondered where to put her, finally setting her down on a chair, which she pushed closer to the stove.

‘Stay there!’

It had never rained so hard. The concierge’s eyes grew tired from watching the drops of water hitting the ground and splattering everywhere, making everything soaked and filthy. The drain in the courtyard had clogged and backed up; there was a pool that grew larger by the minute. She was trying to finish washing down the doorstep so that she could close her door; behind her, she could hear the footsteps of two men.

A police inspector had arrived in a taxi and had been conferring with the detective for the last quarter of an hour. She had invited them into her apartment, but they had refused to come. They surveyed the porch – from the street to the courtyard and back – the collars of their overcoats turned up, hands in their pockets. There were long silences between their sentences. At last, the inspector crossed the pavement and got back into his taxi. A few seconds later, the detective entered the concierge’s apartment to warm his hands over the stove.

‘He’ll be right back with the examining magistrate and a search warrant.’

And the concierge, who had kneeled down in front of her wet doorstep, raised her head, still wielding the rag in her hand.

‘Would you please sit still!’ she cried in a sharp voice to her daughter, who was sliding off her chair.

The policeman working the intersection had put on his raincoat with its pointy hood. All around him lorries were moving, their tarpaulins gleaming. Pedestrians thought twice before crossing the road. Several market traders stood by their carts with plastic bags draped over their heads and shoulders.

The dairy was one step below street level, and since morning they had been trying in vain to mop up the water flowing in off the pavement. The owner had put on wooden clogs, as had Alice, and they were both completely fed up. Customers would come to the doorstep, see the water and turn around.

‘Wait!’ the owner would cry out. ‘We’re cleaning it up! Alice! Alice! …’

The more time passed, the angrier her outbursts became.

‘You have never been as slow as today,’ she barked. ‘You really know how to pick the right time …’

The owner of the shop was short and round, cold and hard – like an apple. She hovered close to the door.

‘Don’t be afraid! I can serve you from here!’

Alice really was sluggish, or at least distracted – with a heavy, vacant look that was unusual for her. At any given moment she could be caught staring absently at the grey beyond the window, where the passers-by looked blurred, as if reflected in a cheap mirror.

‘Alice!’

She started, then dragged her clogs across the floor and went to weigh out some butter or some cheese.

‘Twenty-nine sous.’

By 10.30 the detective, who had warmed up in the concierge’s kitchen and buttoned his gaberdine coat to the neck, was once again pacing up and down the pavement. Each time he neared the dairy he cast a long look Alice’s way. The rain was streaming down his face, but he was enjoying it; it seemed to get his blood going.

At 10.50 the girl left suddenly by the back door, which opened into the courtyard.

‘Alice! Where are you going now?’

‘To the little girl’s room!’ she yelled.

And when she returned ten minutes later, she was short of breath.

‘Couldn’t you have chosen a better moment? Come on! Help Madame Rorive.’

A bicyclist had been run over by a lorry a few metres away from the policeman. They carried him into the corner café, abandoning the bicycle in the middle of the road. Alice stood between two customers and watched. Soon enough, the cyclist emerged, hobbling and looking dazed, his clothes splashed with mud. Like a drunkard, he stumbled over to his bicycle, picked it up, and, pushing it in front of him, disappeared.

Émile was at the entrance to the café.

‘Shall I go and get the meat?’ Alice asked.

‘Are you crazy? When there are six people waiting?’

And time passed, the rain fell, cars followed other cars down the road. Émile had gone back inside the bistro, and from time to time he would wipe the condensation from the window to make sure that Alice hadn’t left.

‘Now? Shall I get three chops?’

She didn’t wait for an answer but threw her green coat over her shoulders and ran out, lunging into the detective, who was waiting at the end of the street.

‘Not here!’ she said.

He turned the corner with her.

‘Will I see you tonight? This may be my last day.’

‘Yes,’ she whispered impatiently, looking towards the café on the corner.

‘When?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll tell you in a minute.’

And she ran off down the pavement of the narrow street, went into the butcher’s and waited for her lamb chops, turning towards the street. When she left, Émile was there, but she could see the detective on the corner of the boulevard.

‘Careful!’

She stopped in front of a stationer’s window and, without looking at him, spoke very quickly. ‘I laid it on thick at his house. He wanted to go away with me, and to turn you in.’

She distanced herself right away because she had the feeling that the detective was watching. She smiled when she passed him and returned to the dairy, putting the change in the drawer.

‘How much?’ asked her boss.

‘Seven francs twenty-five.’

The little girl was finally asleep in a corner of the concierge’s apartment, and now that she was in bed, her face was crimson, her eyes feverish, her breath wheezing.

After lunch, her brother had not returned to school.

‘You! Try to entertain your sister!’

The concierge was exasperated. Nothing was going right. People had to cross the courtyard on planks laid on top of boxes, and the plumber wasn’t anywhere to be seen. As if on purpose, the bill collectors always showed up right after the people from the gas or electric companies.

It was barely three o’clock when a car pulled up outside the building. The inspector from that morning got out, accompanied by a gentleman with a remarkably high starched collar. The detective hurried towards them, and they talked on the porch. The discussion was seemingly endless. Finally, the inspector opened the glass-paned door to the concierge’s: ‘Do you have a key?’

‘No. Mr Hire always takes it with him.’

The inspector closed the door, and an instant later the detective pulled up the collar of his gaberdine and went out into the street.

The two men who stayed behind didn’t know what to do, or where to be. They would take a few steps, stop, take a few more steps. Occasionally they’d exchange words, or glance curiously towards the concierge’s, then at the flooded courtyard and building in the back. Now the thin one with the high collar opened the door for a second time.

‘Pardon me, madam’, but you are sure, aren’t you, that on the night of the crime you let Mr Hire in twice? Try to remember – it’s very important.’

She had just applied a hot compress to her daughter’s neck.

‘I think I’m sure.’

‘What you think is not the point.’

‘Well, what I am sure of is that somebody called out Mr Hire’s name twice.’

The commissioner did not look well. He was in a bad mood. It may have been the weather, because everybody was fed up that day. They could hear noises near the door. It was the detective, who had returned with a locksmith; the four men stood in the hallway talking.

‘Leave me alone!’ cried the concierge, slapping her son as he opened his mouth to speak.

She heard something unusual outside the apartment. She went out and saw four or five people watching the door, as if they were waiting for something.

‘What do you want?’

But she couldn’t close the door. The owner of the dairy arrived and casually asked, ‘Is it true that that’s the examining magistrate and that they’re going to arrest him?’

‘I don’t know!’ barked the concierge, feeling the urge to cry. ‘You would think that somebody would have told me something! Jojo! Don’t let your sister out of bed!’

They were up there for a long time, and two old women who lived on the third floor had come down, anxious to find out what was happening. It felt both urgent and interminable, the way it does when a doctor shuts himself up with an invalid, and people can hear him moving back and forth without knowing what he’s doing.

Alice didn’t show up. She was minding the shop. The driver watched it all contemptuously from his seat.

The detective finally came down, but this was no longer the nice guy who liked to help the concierge make coffee. He was busy; he looked at no one.

‘Where’s a telephone?’

‘At the bar on the corner. That’s the closest one.’

And he took off, bursting with importance, leaving a trail of mystery behind. He walked right by Émile on his way to the phone booth and ordered without breaking stride: ‘A rum! On the double!’

It was impossible for them to hear what he was saying. The inspector and the examining magistrate were still upstairs; the locksmith left carrying his tool case on his back.

The gas lights had just been lit. The cars had their headlights on, but a little daylight still lingered. The concierge let only her tenants come inside: three women, standing around the stove in the shadowy light.

Nothing happened. It kept raining. The lights cast long zigzag reflections that darted around like live creatures on the wet ground. That was the moment that the plumber chose to arrive. He had to be ushered into the courtyard, pointed towards the drainpipe, and brought a chair, plus another set of pliers and a light. He was incapable of doing anything on his own. The concierge had barely made it back to her apartment when he called her again.

At five o’clock another car stopped in front of the door, and four men got out, headed for the concierge’s.

The inspector was emerging from the stairwell. He led the four of them outside, without saying a word.

It was the time of evening when the tenants began to return. Their wives were all out in the corridor or at the concierge’s, so they stopped too, before going back out to the street to take a look.

The commissioner put his men in position: two at the tram stop, because that was how Mr Hire usually came home; one just beyond the building; and another on the corner. He parked the official cars at a distance, out of sight, so as not to attract attention.

‘May I ask you,’ he said when he returned to the porch, ‘not to gather in a group. I want the building to have its usual appearance.’

He didn’t look at anyone. He climbed upstairs with slow heavy steps. At the bar on the corner, Émile downed rum after rum and from time to time went over to the window, which he would wipe with his hand before leaning his forehead against it.

Everyone was waiting for the same thing. Despite the rain, a group of curious onlookers had assembled on the pavement. People went closer to get a good look at the inspector undercover detectives, who furiously turned their backs. Even the traffic policeman came up, tipping his hat and winking: ‘Have we got him? It’s the short fat man with the curly moustache? You know, he never comes home before seven o’clock.’

The trams, which before had been almost empty, were now jam-packed, and the two detectives divided the passengers between them, scouring their faces. At seven o’clock, the commissioner himself came downstairs to tour the intersection. He dispersed a group of onlookers, though they only congregated again ten metres away. Five, six trams arrived. The people getting off dashed out into the rain. It was 7.15, 7.20, 7.25.

Shamefaced and miserable, the little bearded detective turned up at the Police Judiciarie.

‘Your boss here?’ he demanded of the office clerk.

‘He’s in Villejuif for the arrest.’

At eight o’clock the trams were almost empty, but there were still people watching as the detective got off and looked fearfully at his colleagues.

‘The inspector?’

‘He just went back up.’

He didn’t walk. He ran, tiring himself out, moving his lips as if he were trying to speak. He crossed in front of the people clustered like grapes around the concierge’s door, tripped on the first stair, picked himself back up and ran even faster. Doors were cracked open; small as he was, he created quite a racket. Finally, he knocked on the door of the room. The inspector himself opened it.

They were sitting there peacefully in the apartment, without a fire, still wearing their overcoats. The examining magistrate was seated in the only armchair, his feet next to the extinguished stove. The other detective, leaning on the edge of the table, was cleaning his nails.

‘Well?’

‘I lost him. He’s had a hell of a day! First, he showed up at his office, but after going to the post office just like every other day, he …’

In the dairy, Alice was bending down and mopping up the water with a rag. Her head was turned towards the open door; her blouse hung open, exposing her shadowy cleavage.

She stood up suddenly. Someone was looking at her. A man was standing there, in a black overcoat with a white shirt front and a small black bowtie visible beneath it.

‘I’ll take …’

He pointed to a cheese while she wiped her hands on her apron.

‘How much?’

He reached out his hand to pay, slipped Alice the envelope along with the coins, and left immediately. Outside, he hung around for a little, looked at the building next door, tried to listen in on what all the people were talking about; but the tram was about to leave, and he ran off, catching it just in time.

The inspector and the examining magistrate were crossing the pavement when their car pulled up. The magistrate got in alone, and the inspector rushed off into the bistro, shutting himself up inside the telephone booth. One of the tenants of the building had just been there calling the doctor; the little girl’s breath was coming so loud you could hardly hear anything over it.

‘You can close up!’ Alice’s boss shouted from the doorway.

Alice pulled down the grille and went to the back of the shop to get the iron bars.

People decided to go in for dinner, but they came back out as soon as they were done. The road was almost empty, and the cars were reflected in its shining surface. From a hundred yards off, the bell from the cinema could be heard ringing. Several people who had no idea what was happening passed by without stopping.

As soon as she returned to the building, Alice ran into the detective, who said to her, very quickly and very softly, ‘I’ll try to come up later. Don’t lock the door.’

And he gave her a sweet smile.

Mr Hire wasn’t sleepy. And anyway, he couldn’t have summoned the patience to enter a bedroom, take off his clothes and crawl into bed. He left the cinema with the overheated crowd and was lost in it, followed the crowd wherever it led, walking in the bright lights and the noise, stopping with the others at the corner and breaking into hurried steps just as they did.

But little by little the tide lost strength, the crowd thinned and then opened up as people slipped away down shadowy streets or into the mouth of the Métro. Then the illuminated shops were few and far between. Mr Hire walked faster, in a hurry for it to be morning, to be at the station. He was almost running, his short arms swinging at his sides.

He wasn’t hungry, wasn’t thirsty. He just wanted to hold on to his anticipation, not to let this heat, this gust that was propelling him die down. He entered a courtyard full of blasting music and pushed open the padded door to a nightclub.

His nostrils flared with joy – with sensual pleasure, with a sense of triumph. The light dazzled. Everywhere there was red – on the walls, on the ceiling and in the booths. Everywhere there were naked bodies painted in brilliant colours.

It was noisy – unbelievably loud. There was a constant rumbling like the crashing of waves, and through it all the jubilant screams of a brass band.

He sat down smiling, winded and spent, like a girl who has danced too many waltzes. He needed to catch his breath. He looked distractedly around him and saw women, mostly young, salesgirls, factory workers, typists, all of them as wildly excited as he was, talking feverishly, getting up, sitting down, dancing, running.

‘A … a kummel!’ he said to the waiter.

He felt full of tenderness. He was deeply moved by this seemingly boundless goodness. He didn’t even realize he was staring at a slip of a girl, a cute kid, who was sitting with a friend a way away. She was skinny, pointy-faced, with thin lips, green eyes and flaxen hair. She wore a sweater with blue and red stripes, beneath which he could easily distinguish her small, pointy, widely separated breasts, like two unripe pears …

The girl had a special talent for guessing who wanted to dance with her – she could tell even from all the way across the room. She would immediately stand up and walk over to meet the man, raising her arms in the air while her legs, as thin as matchsticks, started to move with the rhythm. And whenever the dance brought her face to face with her friend she stuck out her tongue behind the man’s back.

Mr Hire was smiling to himself, a smile that blossomed out from his lips to cover his whole face. He smiled as he watched her, and when she sat back down she glared back, scowling and elbowing her friend in the ribs.

They weren’t laughing. Well after he had looked away, he could sense their harsh, suspicious stares. He hadn’t done anything. He hadn’t said anything. All he’d done was be happy among so much pleasure.

The girl was dancing again. She pointed Mr Hire out to her dancing partner, who gave him a suspicious look.

Mr Hire no longer knew where to turn. He hadn’t touched his kummel. He signalled to the waiter, who came over without a word.

‘How much?’

He stuck out his chest. He tried to look important, pulling his wallet from his pocket. While waiting for his change he groomed his moustache, then stood up and threw back the rest of his drink, not without experiencing a sudden wave of nausea.

The pavement was deserted. The lights of Montmartre could be seen in the near distance. Mr Hire shook himself, not to get the rain off his shoulders but to dispel the strange malaise he was feeling, like a bad taste in his mouth. He could still see the face of the girl from the club. What had he done to her? Why could she laugh along with everyone else, but not with him?

A doorman in full regalia, with a red umbrella in his hand, stopped Mr Hire in order to entice him into a cabaret.

‘Step right in for the best time in Montmartre! No drink minimum!’

Mr Hire was afraid to enter and afraid to refuse. They were already taking his overcoat when he remembered the Treasury bonds. He grabbed his coat out of the doorman’s hands. ‘I’ll hold on to it,’ he declared.

‘It’s very warm inside. Of course, if monsieur prefers …’

It was still only one o’clock in the morning. The inspector was asleep, fully clothed, on Mr Hire’s bed, while the detective stood at the window, making signals to Alice that meant, ‘Later!’

She didn’t understand.

Standing in the middle of her room, she shrugged her shoulders, demonstrating her confusion, then, tired of all this monkey business, she lifted her dress off over her head, peeled off her wet stockings, and rubbed her bare feet with a towel to warm them up.