Mr Hire's Engagement Read online

  The concierge was clenching her hands as though the fingers would snap. The inspector was horrified at the sight of the sharp, fresh razor- gash.

  'Oh, excuse me . . . I . . .'

  He looked round for the tap, for a handkerchief, anything that would stop the bleeding and get the thing over. Mr. Hire's eyes were round, with dark pupils. He gazed from one to the other of the occupants of the lodge, and he too was at a loss how to staunch all this blood, big drops of which had by this time fallen on the concrete floor.

  The little boy was still in his seat, in front of his exercise-book, his pen in mid-air. His sister was rolling on the ground.

  'It was ... it was clumsy of me ... if you will allow me to arrange it for you ...'

  Mr. Hire looked unlike himself, with blood covering his cheek and still trickling over his chin as though his lip had been split. And he was upset. The round, rosy spots had faded from his cheeks. 'Thank you . .'

  He actually seemed to be apologizing, like someone who has unintentionally spilt something in a house to which he has been invited. He bumped into the doorpost. 'You stay here ... I'll go and . .

  The inspector had found a dishcloth and held it out to him. 'Thank you . . . thank you . . . I'm sorry .. .' He was already out in the cold, dark passage, and they heard him mount the stairs with a heavy, hesitant tread; they seemed to see the drops of blood falling on the steps.

  'Oh, stop that!' the concierge suddenly yelled, slapping her daughter. Her hair was coming down, her expression vacant. She shook the little boy.

  'And you, sitting there without a word!'

  The inspectors did not know where to look.

  'Please don't worry. To-morrow morning the superintendent. ..'

  'Do you really think I'm going to spend the night all alone here? Do you really think that?'

  She was clearly on the verge of hysteria. It was only a question of seconds. She started, as she accidentally put her hand on a drop of blood which had splashed onto the table. 'We'll stay . . . That is, one of us . . .'

  She could not decide whether to calm down. She looked at them and they tried to assume an air of decision. 'You go along and report.'

  The water had been boiling for the last quarter of an hour. The glass panes were misted over. 'But mind you come back!'

  The concierge took the kettle off the stove and stirred up the red-hot coals with a poker.

  'I've not been able to sleep for the last two weeks,' she concluded. 'You've seen him. I'm not crazy . . .'

  II

  When the blood at last stopped flowing, Mr. Hire was obliged to move with caution, holding his head very straight, so as not to reopen the wound. One end of his moustache was drooping, and blood-stained water had spread a pink colour-wash over his face.

  Mr. Hire first emptied the washbasin and wiped it out with a duster. Then his eye lighted on the iron stove, which was out. Except for his motionless head, which he carried on his shoulders like a foreign body, he was exactly as he had been in the tram, in the Métro and in the cellar in the Rue Saint-Maur, all his movements calm and measured, as though decreed by the successive rites of some ceremony.

  He took a newspaper from his overcoat pocket, crumpled it up, and pushed it down into the stove. On the black marble mantelpiece was a bundle of kindling-wood, which he arranged on top of the paper. He was surrounded by silence and cold. The only sounds were those he made by knocking against the poker or the coal-scuttle. He knelt down, still with head held up, his neck rigid, to push a match under the grid and set light to the paper. He groped. He struck three matches before he was successful, and the smoke came oozing out of every chink in the stove.

  It was colder in the room than outside. While waiting for the stove to warm up, Mr. Hire put on his overcoat again, a heavy coat of black cloth with a velvet collar, and he opened the cupboard that served him as a kitchen, lit a gas ring, poured water into a saucepan. His hand found what he wanted, without his looking for the things. He put a bowl, a knife and a plate on the table; then, after a moment's thought, put the plate back on its shelf, doubtless remembering that the incident in the concierge's lodge had prevented him from doing his shopping.

  He still had some bread and some butter. He took some ready- ground coffee out of a biscuit tin, wrinkled his brows, looked at the stove, which had stopped smoking and was no longer roaring as before. The wood had burnt up and the coal had not caught. There was no more wood on the mantelpiece. Mr. Hire frowned; then he poured the boiling water from the saucepan onto the coffee and warmed his hands over that.

  On the right of the room there was a bed, a washbasin and a bedside table; on the left, the cupboard containing the gas-ring, and a table covered with an oilcloth.

  Mr. Hire sat down at this table and began to eat bread and butter and drink coffee, sedately, gazing straight in front of him. When he had finished he sat motionless for an instant, as though stuck fast in time and space. Noises began to be heard, slight and unidentifiable at first, creakings, steps, hangings, and before long the whole world surrounding the room was astir with furtive sound.

  In the next-door flat plates were rattling and people were talking. The queer thing was that the sound of the plates was not distorted in the least It seemed to come from within this same room, whereas the voices were fused in a deep-toned, mechanical-sounding murmur.

  Downstairs, as usual in the evening, a little boy was playing the violin, the same exercises being practised over and over again. There, too, a rumbling voice was heard at times to make him try once more.

  Then there was the road, the gradual sucking noise of a car rushing forward from afar, the sharp sound as it passed-the house, drawn rapidly on into space on the far horizon. Only the heavy lorries moved slowly, crashing by so that you held your breath as the whole house shook.

  But all this activity seethed outside the walls. Within the room itself was a compact body of silence, firmly welded, unimpaired, and Mr. Hire sitting over his empty cup, was probably awaiting the end of the comfortable sensation the hot coffee had given him.

  At last he got up, buttoned his overcoat, wound a scarf round his neck. He took the bowl from which he had been drinking and washed it under the tap, wiped it with a dish-cloth that hung from a nail, and put it away in the cupboard. He swept the breadcrumbs onto a piece of cardboard, greasy from this habitual usage, threw them into the stove, went over to the bed and turned it down.

  What else was there to be done? Wind the alarm-clock, which made a splash of white on the mantelpiece and now marked half-past eight.

  Was that all? He took off his shoes and polished them, sitting on the edge of the bed, his neck still held stiffly, his left cheek tinned upwards.

  Yes, that was all. The little boy began his exercise over again, and the bow scraped on a second string. The man next door must be reading the newspaper aloud, for his murmuring voice ran on, as monotonously as a running tap.

  Mr. Hire left his uncomfortable perch on the bed, settled down in the arm-chair, facing the dead stove and the face of the alarm-clock, and made no further movement except to thrust his hands, which had been freezing on the arms of the chair, into his pockets.

  Ten minutes to nine... Nine o'clock... Five past nine ... He never once closed his eyes. He wasn't looking at anything. It was as though he were in a train which would take him nowhere. He didn't even sigh. A little warmth was at last accumulating inside his overcoat, and he hugged it closely to him, while his toes, in the bedroom slippers were stiff with cold.

  Twenty past nine . . . twenty-five past. . . twenty-six past. . .

  A door banged from time to time. People went downstairs, so noisily that they seemed to be stumbling on every step. Gradually things became so quiet that the policeman's whistle could be heard from the crossroads.

  Nine twenty-seven . . . Mr. Hire rose, turned off the electric light, and, in the dark, found his way back to his arm-chair, whence he could now see nothing but the vaguely luminous hands of the alarm-clock.

>   Not until ten o'clock did he become impatient, and then only to the extent that his fingers moved inside his pockets. The next-door tenants were asleep, but somewhere else a baby was crying, and its mother was crooning to soothe it:

  'La ... la ... la ... la .. .'

  Mr. Hire got up and walked to the window, outside which all was dark. Shortly afterwards a light was switched on, scarcely three yards away, a window lit up a bedroom whose smallest details were thus revealed.

  The woman closed the door behind her with a kick that must have produced a thunderous bang, but the noise did not carry across the courtyard. She was in a hurry, in a bad temper perhaps, for it was with an abrupt movement that she lifted up the bedclothes to slip in a hot-water bottle she had been carrying under her arm.

  Mr. Hire did not move. His own room was in darkness. He was standing up, his forehead pressed against the icy window-pane, and only his eyes moved to and fro, watching his neighbour's every gesture.

  When she had tucked in the bedclothes again, she proceeded to unpin her hair, which fell to her shoulders, not very long, but thick, auburn-coloured and silky. And she rubbed the back of her neck and her ears, stretching herself with a kind of sensual satisfaction.

  There was a mirror in front of her, above a wooden dressing-table. It was into this that she was looking, into this that she continued to gaze as she pulled her black wool dress up by the hem, to draw it over her head. Then, dressed in her slip, she sat down on the edge of the bed to take off her stockings.

  Even from Mr. Hire's room it was evident that she had goose-flesh, and having removed everything except her panties, she spent quite a time rubbing back some warmth into her nipples, which had shrivelled up with the cold.

  She was young and vigorous. She picked up a long white nightdress which she put on before removing her panties, looked at herself again in the glass, took some cigarettes from the drawer in the bedside table.

  She had never glanced towards the window. She did not do so now. She was already in bed, one elbow propped on the pillow, and before beginning to read the novel that lay beside her, she slowly lit a cigarette.

  She was facing the courtyard, facing Mr. Hire, behind whom the alarm-clock was rigorously ticking away the seconds in vain and turning its phosphorescent hands.

  Upon the bed there was a red eiderdown. Her head was slightly bent, and that emphasized the outline of her full lips, fore-shortened her rather low forehead, gave greater weight to the sensual mass of red hair, filled out her neck, created the impression that the woman was formed throughout of some rich pulp, full of sap.

  Her hand, outside the nightdress, went on automatically caressing the nipple whose outline could be seen whenever she left it to remove the cigarette from her lips.

  The alarm-clock gave a slight click at half-past ten, another at eleven o'clock. The only sounds now were the wails of the baby, whose feed had perhaps been forgotten, and the occasional aggressive whizz of a car hurtling along the high road.

  The girl turned the pages, blew on the cigarette ash that sprinkled the eiderdown, to scatter it, and lit fresh cigarettes.

  Mr. Hire never stirred, except to scratch away the mist of his breath as it formed on the window-pane and froze.

  Above the courtyard, through the invisible sky, a limitless silence gradually spread.

  The novel was finished at a quarter-past twelve, and the woman got up to put out the light.

  That night the concierge got out of bed three times, and each time she lifted the curtain to make sure that the inspector was still pacing to and fro on the pavement blanched by the icy winds.

  The frost-covered windows looked like ground glass. Twice, Mr. Hire's blue hands dropped the clothes-brush he was using on his overcoat; he knelt to tie up a bootlace, gave a glance round the room and shut the door of the cupboard, which was half open.

  All that remained was to pick up his briefcase and put his hat on. His key in his pocket, he started off down the stairs, which creaked, for this was a new house, and jerry-built. Gloomy, too, for they had chosen to use iron-grey or dark brown paint. The pitch-pine steps refused to darken. In the middle they were dirty, nearly black, but at the sides, where nobody trod, they were still a shoddy white. The walls, instead of darkening, were shedding their plaster in patches.

  There were rows of doors, a pitch-pine hand-rail, milk bottles on the landings. Everything echoed. Behind all these walls people were moving about, and some of the din suggested the struggles of giants. But it was merely the tenants getting dressed.

  A draught of chillier air gave warning that the ground-floor was close by, and Mr. Hire went down the last steps, turned left, made an imperceptible pause.

  The auburn-haired girl was there, leaning in the doorway of the lodge. Her cheeks looked all the rosier from having been out of doors since six o'clock that morning, and also in contrast to her white apron. She was still holding half a dozen empty milk-bottles, all their iron rings hooked on one finger.

  Her head was half turned away. Hearing steps, she turned it completely, and went on talking to the concierge, who was inside the lodge.

  Mr. Hire went by without a glance. When he had gone three yards there was a sudden silence behind him, and the concierge rushed feverishly into the passage.

  Mr. Hire went on walking. In the cold air life seemed to have increased its pace, whites became whiter, greys lighter, blacks blacker.

  He bought his newspaper at the stall and dived into the mass of humanity crowded on the pavement round the barrows.

  'Sorry . .'

  It was not spoken aloud. In fact, nothing could be heard, not even by himself. But it was a habit, a movement of his lips as he passed between two women, as he jostled someone, or knocked into the shaft of a barrow.

  'Sorry. . '

  The tram was there, waiting, and Mr. Hire moved faster, his chest thrust forward, his briefcase pressed close to his side; in the end he ran, as he always did for the last ten yards.

  'Sorry . . '

  He was not seeing people one by one. He was not noticing them individually. He went into the crowd, drove his way through it, advancing through a swarm of people with occasional unexpected gaps, empty patches of pavement where he could walk more quickly.

  He was seated in his usual place in the tram, briefcase on his knees. He was just going to open his paper. His eyes travelled for a moment over the occupants of the tram, without pausing; yet Mr. Hire was frowning, shifting about, suddenly uncomfortable, ill at ease, awkward at unfolding the paper.

  He could hardly restrain himself from passing a hand over his left cheek, so clearly did his present sensation evoke another, that of having his sticking-plaster torn off the previous evening, in the lodge: the man facing him at the other end of the car was one of the concierge's two companions.

  Nevertheless, all the way to the Porte d'Italie he turned the pages of his paper. As usual, he followed the crowd that plunged down into the Métro. And once on the platform, he went back to his reading.

  An increasing clatter announced the arrival of a train. A carriage stopped in front of him. Doors crashed open. People jostled him.

  'Sorry . . .'

  He took one step forward, one step back. He still held his newspaper in front of him. He was on the platform. The doors closed again, the train glided forward. And in one of the coaches that slid past Mr. Hire's nose, a man was trying in vain to open a door and jump out.

  The man in the tram, the man in the lodge, the man who pulled off the sticking-plaster!

  Over the top of his paper, Mr. Hire watched the train disappear into the darkness; then he turned about, went up to the surface and crossed the square, entered a small café where he sat down near the window and ordered a cup of chocolate, very hot. His legs were shaky, as though he had been running for a long time. He gave a faint smile of thanks to the waiter who served him.

  At noon he was still there, in the warmth, watching the streams of people go by, thousands of people walking, runnin
g, stopping, catching one another up, passing each other, shouting, whispering, while the waiters in the little bar seemed to be purposely clattering saucers together.

  III

  At five o'clock Mr. Hire went into his fourth bistro, without having left the Avenue d'Italie. From the first little bar he had gone to a prix-fixe restaurant, three doors further along. He had hesitated for a moment outside a cinema, but had settled instead in a café-tabac at the corner of the first side-street.

  He had gone less than two hundred yards in all. Now he had taken his seat in a big, flashy establishment in the Place d'Italie, just as an orchestra was moving onto its platform. 'A café crème' he ordered.

  He had not taken off his overcoat since the morning. He did not settle down comfortably. He perched on the edge of the seat as though he would only be staying a few minutes, and spent hours, just as he was, with no sign of impatience or boredom. But he must have been thinking, ceaselessly, furiously. Sometimes his hazel eyes would stare fixedly at some point in space and his brow would quiver, his lips move imperceptibly, his hands clench in his pockets or on the marble top of the table.

  He had thought so hard since the morning that by this time his mind was a blank. There were still people going past, noises, snatches of conversation. On his table he found a newspaper, folded in two, and read, upside-down: 'Villejuif Mystery.'

  The waiter brought his café crème and Mr. Hire smiled at him, drunk half the glass before allowing himself to look at the paper again. Then he got up and went to the cloakroom, merely so that he could turn the paper over, as though accidentally, as he went past. He took the opportunity of pressing the sticking-plaster more firmly on his cheek and giving a twist to his little moustache.

  Back in his seat, he let five minutes go by before venturing a glance at the paper, which carried a long article.