Liberty Bar Page 12

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘An Australian who wanted to live it up a bit, so he did …’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then? … Nothing! … He went and did it, and his wife, his sons and his brother-in-law cut him off …’

  ‘That’s not terribly interesting!’

  ‘Not at all! I told you … He continued to live down there, on the Côte d’Azur …’

  ‘I’ve heard it’s lovely down there …’

  ‘Magnificent! … He rented a villa … Then, as he was on his own, he found himself a woman …’

  ‘Now I’m beginning to understand!’

  ‘That’s what you think … Pass me the sauce … Not enough onions.’

  ‘They’re Parisian onions, completely tasteless … I put a pound of them in … But go on …’

  ‘The woman moved into the villa and brought her mother with her …’

  ‘Her mother?’

  ‘Yes … However, the charm of that arrangement soon wore off, and the Australian went to look for some fun elsewhere …’

  ‘He took a mistress?’

  ‘But he already had one! And her mother. He discovered a bar and a good woman to drink with …’

  ‘She drank?’

  ‘Yes! After a few drinks, they saw the world differently … They were at the centre of it … They told each other stories …’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘The old woman thought it had finally happened to her.’

  ‘That what had happened?’

  ‘That someone loved her … That she had found a kindred soul … And all that …!’

  ‘And all what?’

  ‘Nothing … They were a couple! A couple of the same age … A couple who liked to get drunk as they …’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘There was a little protégée … Her name was Sylvie … The old man became infatuated with Sylvie …’

  Madame Maigret gave her husband a reproachful look.

  ‘Are you pulling my leg?’

  ‘It’s the truth! He became infatuated with Sylvie, and Sylvie didn’t want to, because of the old woman … Then she must have wanted to, because, after all, the Australian was the main character.’

  ‘I don’t follow you.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter … The Australian and the young woman ended up in a hotel …’

  ‘They cheated on the old woman?’

  ‘Indeed! You see, you are following! So the old woman, realizing that she didn’t matter to him at all any more, killed her lover … This cod is superb …’

  ‘I still don’t get it …’

  ‘What don’t you get?’

  ‘Why didn’t you arrest the old woman? After all, she did …’

  ‘She did nothing!’

  ‘What do you mean, “nothing”?’

  ‘Pass me the dish … They told me: Best if you avoid any dramas … Don’t make waves, in other words! Because the Australian’s son and wife and her brother-in-law are very important people … People who are able to pay top dollar for a will.’

  ‘Now what’s this will you’re on about all of a sudden?’

  ‘Let’s not make it more complicated … In short, it’s a love story … An old woman who kills her old lover because he’s cheating on her with a young woman.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘The old woman has only three or four months to live, depending on how much she drinks …’

  ‘How much she drinks?’

  ‘Yes … Because she has a drink problem …’

  ‘It’s very complicated!’

  ‘More than you know! The old woman, the killer, will die in three or four months, maybe five or six, with her legs swollen and her feet in a tub.’

  ‘In a tub?’

  ‘Yes. It’s how you die of dropsy, according to the medical dictionary …’

  ‘And the young woman?’

  ‘She is even more unfortunate … Because she loves the old woman like a mother … And then because she loves her pimp …’

  ‘Her what? I really don’t understand you … You have such an odd way of expressing yourself …’

  ‘And the pimp will blow the whole twenty thousand francs at the races!’ Maigret went on regardless, without stopping eating.

  ‘What twenty thousand francs?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter!’

  ‘I’m completely lost!’

  ‘Me too … Or rather, I understand too much … They told me: No dramas … So that’s it! … We won’t mention it again … A little love story that turned out badly …’

  Then suddenly he said:

  ‘No vegetables?’

  ‘I wanted to make cauliflower, but …’

  And Maigret paraphrased to himself:

  ‘Jaja wanted to make love, but …’

  1.

  When you watch fish through a layer of water which prevents all contact between them and you, you see that they remain absolutely still for a long time, for no reason, and then, with a twitch of their fins, they dart away so that they can do more nothing somewhere else, except more waiting.

  It was in the same state of stillness, and as if for no reason too, that the last Number 13 Bastille-Créteil tram, lit up by its yellow lights, clanked along the side of Carrières Wharf.

  It looked as if it was going to stop at a side-road, just by a streetlight, but the conductor yanked the bell pull, and the vehicle clanked off towards Charenton.

  In its wake, the wharf was left empty and stagnant, like a drowned landscape. To the right, barges rocked on the canal under the moon. A trickle of water escaped through a badly closed sluice. It was the only sound under a sky which was more tranquil and deeper than a lake.

  Two bars were still lit up. They faced each other, each one on a street corner.

  In one, five men were playing cards, slowly, not speaking. Three were wearing sailors’ or river pilots’ caps, and the landlord, who was sitting with them, was in shirtsleeves.

  In the other bar, no one was playing cards. There were just three men inside. They were sitting around a table, staring dreamily at small glasses of cheap brandy. The light was grey and smelled of sleep. From time to time, the black-moustached landlord, who was wearing a blue pullover, yawned before reaching for his glass with one hand.

  Sitting opposite him was a short man overrun by thick, flaxen hair, like dry hay. He was either brooding or befuddled, or perhaps drunk? His rheumy eyes looked as though they were swimming through troubled waters and at intervals he would nod his head as if agreeing with his inner monologue while the man next to him, also a canal man, set his gaze free to wander outside, in the dark.

  Time fled soundlessly. There was not even the tick of a clock. Next to the bar was a row of small, poky houses each with a garden round it, but all their lights were out. Then at number 8, came a detached house on six floors, already old and smoke-blackened, too narrow for its height. On the first floor, a few gleams filtered through venetian blinds. On the second, where there were no shutters, a crude blind made a rectangle of light.

  Finally, directly opposite, on the canal bank, a heap of stones, sand, a crane, a number of empty carts.

  Yet music pulsated through the air. It was coming from somewhere. It had to be found. Its source was further along than Number 8, set back from the road, a wooden shed with a sign saying: Dance Hall.

  No one was dancing. In fact the only person there was the fat woman who owned it. She was reading a newspaper and got up at intervals to feed a five-sou coin into the mechanical piano.

  Sooner or later, somebody or something was bound to make a stir. It turned out to be the very hairy bargee from the bar on the right hand side. He got to his feet unsteadily, stared at his empty glasses and did the calculation in his head while he searched through his pockets. When he had counted out the right money, he laid it on the smooth top of the wooden table, touched the peak of his cap and set a wavering course for the door.

  The
other two men looked at each other. The landlord winked. The fingers of the old man dithered uncertainly in thin air before settling on the door handle, and he swayed as he turned to shut the door behind him.

  His footsteps were as audible as if the pavement had been hollow. The sound was irregular. He took three or four paces then stopped: he was either hesitating or concentrating on staying upright.

  When he reached the canal, he collided with the metal railing which clanged, started down the stone steps and found himself on the unloading wharf.

  The outlines of boats were clearly picked out by the moon. Their names were as easy to read as in broad daylight. The nearest barge, which was separated from the quayside by a plank which served as a gangway, was called the Golden Fleece. There were other boats behind it, both to the left and right, and they were at least five rows deep, some with holds open near a crane, waiting to be unloaded, others with their prows nudging the gates of the lock through which they would pass at first light, and lastly those hulks which are always to be seen, God knows why, loitering in and around canal ports, apparently having outlived their usefulness.

  The old man, all alone in this motionless universe, hiccupped and stepped on to the plank, which bent under him. When he got to the middle, it occurred to him to turn round, perhaps for a sight of the windows of the bar. He managed the first part of the action, swayed, straightened his back and found himself in the water, hanging on to the plank with one hand.

  He had not cried out. He hadn’t even gasped. There had been only a faint splash, which was already fading, for the man was barely moving. His forehead was furrowed as if something was forcing him to think. He braced his arms to haul himself up on to the plank. He failed, tried again, eyes staring, breathing heavily.

  On the quayside, pressed close against the stone wall, two lovers listened, motionless, holding their breath. A car horn sounded in Charenton.

  All of a sudden there was a howl, an extraordinary wail, which tore through the all-enveloping calm.

  It was the old man in the water who was straining his throat in panic. He was no longer making any attempt to think. He was struggling like a madman, kicking out with his legs, making the water boil.

  Then other sounds were heard round about. There was a stir on board a barge. Elsewhere the voice of a still half-sleeping woman spoke:

  ‘Aren’t you going to see what that is?’

  Doors opened higher up, on the quayside, the doors of both bars. The couple under the wall moved apart, and the man said under his breath:

  ‘Quick! Go home!’

  He took a few steps, hesitated and then called out:

  ‘Where?’

  He heard the cry. It came again. Other voices came nearer, and people leaned over the railing.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  The young man broke into a run and answered:

  ‘I don’t know yet. It’s that way … In the water …’

  His girlfriend remained where she was, her hands clasped together, not daring to advance or retreat.

  ‘I can see him! … Come quick!’

  As the shouts grew feebler, they turned into desperate gurgles. The young man could make out hands clinging to the plank and a head sticking out of the water, but he had no idea what to do. He waited, with his face turned towards the steps that led down to the wharf and kept repeating:

  ‘Come quick!’

  A voice said tonelessly:

  ‘It’s Gassin.’

  Seven men now arrived, the five drinkers from one bar and two from the other.

  ‘Come nearer … You take one arm and I’ll get the other.’

  ‘Go careful on the plank’

  It sagged beneath their weight. From a hatch on the barge a female figure all in white, with fair hair, started to emerge.

  ‘Have you got him?’

  The old man was no longer shouting. He hadn’t passed out. He was staring straight in front of him, uncomprehendingly, making no attempt to help his rescuers.

  They hauled him up out of the water by stages. He was so limp that he had to be dragged on to the wharf.

  The figure in white walked across the gangplank. She was young, wearing a long nightdress, with nothing on her feet, and the moonlight which lit her from behind picked out the lines of her naked body under the cotton. Only she still stared down at the water, which was becoming calm again, and then it was her turn to scream as she pointed at something as hazy and pallid as a jellyfish.

  Two of the men who were tending the boatman turned to look, and when they too saw the milky patch on the black water they felt the same chill run up and down their spine.

  ‘Over there! … There’s a …’

  They all looked, forgetting the boatman, who lay flat out on the stones of the wharf, which was by criss-crossed by water runaways.

  ‘Bring us a boat-hook!’

  It was the girl who fetched one from the deck of the barge and handed it to them.

  It was no longer the same. Neither the atmosphere. Nor even the temperature of the night air! It felt suddenly colder, with pulses of warm air.

  ‘Have you got him?’

  The iron tip of the boat-hook moved through the water, prodding the shapeless mass in an attempt to hook it. One man lying flat on his stomach on the plank was stretching with one hand, trying to get hold of the clothes on the body.

  And in the night, on the barges, there was a stir. People were there, standing, waiting and not speaking.

  ‘Got him!’

  ‘Pull him in … gently now.’

  On the wharf water was draining out of the old boatman as out of a sponge, while the body of a drowned man, bigger, heavier more deeply inert, was being hauled up. From a tug some way off came a voice which asked simply:

  ‘Dead?’

  The girl in the nightdress watched while the men lay the body down on the wharf, a metre from the first one. She did not seem to understand: her lips trembled as though she were about to burst into tears.

  ‘Good God! It’s Mimile!’

  ‘Ducrau!’

  Men who were upright stood over men who were prone but none knew which way to look. They were shaken, shocked. They wanted to do something and they all looked scared.

  ‘We should … straight away …’

  ‘Yes … I’ll go …’

  One of them ran off toward the lock. They heard him knock with both hands on the lock-keeper’s door and shout:

  ‘Quick! Get your first-aid box! It’s Émile Ducrau!’

  Émile Ducrau … Émile Ducrau … Mimile? The words were spoken, repeated from barge to barge. People clambered over rudders and gangplanks while the landlord of the bar kept raising and lowering the arm of the drowned corpse.

  The old man was forgotten. No one even noticed that he had sat up, obscured by the legs which hemmed him in, and was looking around him in a daze.

  The lock-keeper arrived at a run. A man scurried down the stone steps just ahead of a policeman.

  A window opened on the second floor of the tall house and a woman leaned out, coloured pink by a rose-coloured silk lampshade.

  ‘Is he dead?’ people whispered.

  No one knew. They could not know. The lock-keeper set up his respirator. They could hear the regular action of the pump.

  In the midst of the confusion, the half-formed words, the muttered orders, the sound of soles crunching on gravel, the boatman half propped himself up on his hands, slumped and collided with a man standing next to him, who helped him to his feet.

  It was all insubstantial and blurred, muffled, distorted, as if it was all happening under water.

  The old man, who was just managing to stay upright, stared down at the other body as if he were dreaming it all. He panted, still drunk, his breath reeking more strongly of alcohol than ever.

  ‘He tried to grab me down there!’

  Seeing him standing up and, even more, hearing him speak was as strange as if he had been a ghost. He gazed at the body, the artific
ial respirator and the water, especially the water just under the gangplank.

  ‘The swine wouldn’t let go of me!’

  They listened but didn’t believe him. The girl in white tried to put a scarf around his neck, but he pushed her away and stayed rooted to the same spot, ruminating, suspicious, as if he had come up against a superhuman problem.

  ‘It came up from the bottom,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Something grabbed my legs. I gave it a good kicking, but the more I kicked the more it wrapped itself around me.’

  One of the boatmen’s wives brought a bottle of brandy, poured a glass and held it out to the old man, who spilled more than half of it, for he couldn’t take his eyes off the body and went rambling on:

  ‘What exactly happened here?’ asked the policeman.

  But the old man just shrugged his shoulders and continued his one-track monologue, more quietly, in the thickets of his beard,

  Apart from those who were working the pump, people hung around in groups on the wharf. They were waiting for the doctor.

  ‘Go back to bed,’ someone said to his wife.

  ‘Will you come and tell me if …?’

  No one had noticed the old man purloin the brandy, which had been left on a block of dressed stone. He was now sitting by himself with his back against the wall of the quay, drinking from the bottle and thinking such bitter thoughts that his face was screwed up tight.

  From where he sat, he could see the drowned man. It was at him that his grumbling was directed. For he was blaming him for something. He swore at him. He accused him of dark deeds and from time to time even challenged him to come back and square up.

  The girl in the nightdress tried to take the bottle away from him, but all he said was:

  ‘Go to bed, you!’

  He pushed her away, for she was preventing him from seeing the man who had been rescued. They were about the same height, but the other man was broader, bulkier, with an enormously thick neck and a square-shaped head covered with mass of hair.

  There was the sound of a car engine. People turned to look at the shadowy figures which emerged from it up on the quay and then came down the stone steps. There were policemen and a doctor. Even before they knew what had happened, the police were telling the onlookers to move back. The doctor put his bag down on a concrete block.