Mr Hire's Engagement Page 8

  'But that's nonsense!'

  He smiled again.

  'I had no reason to go out. As for killing a woman . . .'

  He looked uneasily at the young man, who was writing steadily.

  'So you had no witness to your having been at home?'

  'That's to say .. . No!'

  He was already discomfited, and exclaimed, suddenly blushing crimson:

  'I'll be absolutely frank with you. That's why I came here. I did not kill the woman. I know who committed the crime, but I can't say so. Do you understand the position? As one man to another, I wanted ...'

  'Don't let us get confused, Mr. Hire. Incidentally, your name is not Hire.'

  He drew another paper towards him.

  'Your name is Hirovitch.'

  'Hirovitch alias Hire. My father was called Hire in his time.'

  'He was Polish, I see. Born at Vilna.'

  'Russian. A Russian Jew! In those days Vilna belonged to Russia.'

  There was no more thought of boldness, of explaining things man to man. From now on he replied with the timid humility of a schoolboy being questioned.

  'Well, Mr. Hirovitch, you who were talking just now about your word of honour, I see, to begin with, that your father, who was a tailor in the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, went bankrupt. You were born in the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, weren't you? And your mother's nationality was ... let me see . . .'

  'Armenian.'

  This was perfectly true, but sounded a lie. Mr. Hire was miserable at not being able to explain.

  'The bankruptcy investigation revealed that in addition to his business as a tailor, your worthy father occasionally went in for money-lending.'

  How could he get a chance to describe the little shop in the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, smelling of cloth and tailor's chalk, the single back room where they had to live, the gas burning all day long, and old father Hire, so good, so dignified, so scrupulous in observing the rites of the Jewish religion? He might not have been French, but he wasn't Russian either. He spoke only Yiddish, and his fat Armenian wife, as yellow as a quince, had never been able to understand him properly.

  Bankruptcy? Money-lending? But not once in the course of a year did old Mr. Hire cut out a suit from new cloth. He used to turn old jackets. He would make children's clothes from old trouser-legs. And sometimes he would accept receipts from the municipal pawnbroker's by way of payment.

  During the last few years of her life, the mother had been too swollen to move, and every night young Hire and his father had been obliged to hoist her onto her bed.

  'I assure you, superintendent. . .'

  'Just a moment. You chose French nationality. So you are a Frenchman. But you were excused from military service because of a weak heart.'

  He shot him a glance which seemed to measure the breadth of his shoulders, estimate his chest-expansion, take note of his flabbiness.

  'Have you ever been ill?'

  'Not really ill, but. . '

  'What did you do after the bankruptcy, when your father died?'

  The superintendent seemed to be bored, and he was still turning over documents and reading them during the replies.

  'I was a shop assistant at a ready-made tailor's in the Rue Saint-Antoine.'

  'To be more exact, a "barker". A tout. You used to stop people as they went past on the pavement, and persuade them to come in. Will you tell me why you gave up this kind of work, which, after all, was quite honourable?'

  Mr. Hire turned pale as though forced to confess to a crime.

  'In the winter I felt the cold, and . . .'

  'Other people feel the cold, and yet remain respectable.'

  'Well, I.. .'

  'You are forgetting, Mr. Hire, that you served a six months' sentence for obscenity.'

  He said nothing. There was nothing left for him to say. It was not worth trying. But his eyes never left the superintendent's face. Indeed they were fixed on it, with the expression of a beaten animal, wondering why men are so cruel.

  'I see that six years ago you set up as publisher in the Rue Notre-Dame de Lorette. When I say publisher ... You specialized in more or less indecent books, and in what you described in trade terms as "works of flagellation". One of those books brought you to court and cost you six months. But that isn't the main point. The firm was there before you took it over. You bought up the stock for thirty thousand francs. Do you mind telling me where you got the thirty thousand francs?'

  He did not flinch, made no attempt to reply.

  'A week before, you were freezing on the pavement in the Rue Saint-Antoine, and you were hardly earning enough to eat. But you paid cash down for the business.'

  'There was someone backing me.'

  'Who?'

  'I can't tell you. Someone asked me to run the business for him. I was his manager.'

  'And it was you who went to prison. Very well! Incidentally, you were released a month before the end of your sentence, because you had behaved yourself. What did you turn to then?'

  The superintendent pulled forward another paper.

  'A dirty little legal swindle. The "hundred francs a day without leaving your job" trick and the paint-box dodge. You tempt poor people with your advertisement, and since you do send them something for their money, you can't be had up. Tell me, Mr. Hire or Hirvotch, didn't you come here to give me your word of honour?'

  'I didn't kill that woman. You must believe me when I say I didn't kill her. I am in no need of money, and . . .'

  'Gently, there! There's nothing to prove that the poor creature was murdered for her money. And lonely bachelors have been known, now and then, to indulge suddenly in . . .'

  Mr. Hire rose abruptly, breathless, as white as a sheet.

  'Sit down. I'm not arresting you yet. One more question: do you often associate with women? Can you tell me of two or three, or even of one?'

  Mr. Hire shook his head.

  'Do you understand me? For years you published smut for nasty old men. You aren't married, you have no mistress. I know what you're going to tell me. I know the house you go to now and then. But it so happens that the girls in that house find you odd and worrying. The other tenants in your building call away their little girls, and even their little boys, when they play games too close to you. Why not make a clean breast of it, Mr. Hire? Here's a piece of advice: go and see a solicitor. Tell him your little story. He will ask for a mental report, and . . .'

  Mr. Hire's mouth was open, but the words of protest would not come.

  'That's all you have to say to me to-day, isn't it? Sign your statement. You can read it first.'

  The superintendent rang his bell and asked the office boy:

  'Is there anyone else for me?'

  'No.'

  And he went out first, while the young inspector, with an air of utter indifference, offered a pen to Mr. Hire.

  'Your hat's on the chair.'

  'Thank you . . . Sorry . . .'

  In his office, the cellar in the Rue Saint-Maur, there was a piece of looking-glass, and Mr. Hire inspected himself, under the lamp fearing to discover something abnormal in his appearance. But no! He had his mother's very dark, almost blue-black, hair. His moustache was neatly curled, his mouth well-shaped and bright red. He was rather fat, but that did not stop him remaining nimble and being the star of the bowling club.

  He thought of his father, sitting in the evening in the doorway of his shop in the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, stroking his long, white beard with his delicate hands. He was as pale and lean as a prophet, always grave and slow, capable of going on talking by himself for hours, in a low, inward voice, as he sat cross-legged on his work-table.

  Dishonest—that man? If people couldn't understand that, what could they understand?

  And Mr. Hire, who felt limp, drained of all spirit, automatically wrapped up forty-two parcels, labelled them, and filled in the registration forms for the post.

  When he got home, at ten-past seven, the concierge, who was in the passage,
hurried back to her lodge without greeting him. A little boy who was going upstairs in front of Mr. Hire began to run and hammered with both fists on his parents' door.

  Mr. Hire lit his stove, wound up the alarm-clock, and went, item by item, through all his daily ritual. While the water was heating for the coffee he laid the table, swept up some crumbs that had fallen on the floor the previous evening, even took an old nail and raked out two pieces of fluff from between the floorboards.

  There were the same noises as on other days, plus the rain, which was running down a spout alongside the window. The baby upstairs must be ill, for the doctor called, there was whispering on the landing and even on the stairs, because the father took hold of the doctor's arm and accompanied him all the way down, to get at the truth.

  Mr. Hire washed up, and rubbed his two knives on an emery board. Ten times he went past his washstand. Ten times he stared at himself suspiciously in the glass, forcing himself to smile in order to discover what his smile looked like, then glaring sternly into space.

  At last he sat down, as tired as though he had been playing skittles all day. But he could not bear to go on sitting doing nothing, and he went over to his wardrobe, fetched a shoe-box, laid it on the table and tipped out the contents.

  There were old papers, old photographs, and, in a pocketbook with a red rubber band round it, some Government Bonds.

  There was a knock on the door. A woman's voice said at once:

  'It's me!'

  She had just finished tidying up her employer's flat, and her hands were still red and damp.

  'Can I come in and say good evening?'

  She had thrown a coat over her shoulders to cross the courtyard, and she let it slip off onto a chair.

  'Have they been bothering you again to-day?'

  Her manner was easy and unaffected. Coming nearer to the table she saw the photographs and picked up one of them, glanced up.

  'What's this?'

  'My class, at the council school.'

  'But which is you?'

  There were fifty boys in four rows, with potted plants at either end. They were all dressed in their Sunday best, and some held themselves very stiffly, with chins up, while others looked sullenly at the camera as if they were full of mistrust.

  'There,' said Mr. Hire, pointing.

  She laughed.

  'Is that really you?'

  With a nervous giggle, Alice could not help comparing the photograph with Mr. Hire.

  'How old were you?'

  'Eleven.'

  Eleven! And he didn't look like a kid! Nor like a man, either. One could pick him out from the rest in the photograph at a first glance.

  He was no taller than they, but he was so fat that he no longer looked in the least childish. His bare thighs were enormous, a little off the straight, his knees padded with fat. He had a double chin, and his eyes stared out fixedly and dejectedly from his pudding-face.

  He could never have played in the courtyard or on the playing-fields with the other kids, he could have had nothing to say to them, in fact, for he was already like a little old man, solemn and short-winded.

  'You know, you've got thinner.'

  It was true. As he grew older, Mr. Hire had dwindled to a normal girth, and all that remained of the photograph was his strange flabbiness, his unnaturally rounded figure, and the mouth, too clearly outlined in his indecisive face.

  'Was it an illness?'

  'No. I took after my mother.'

  He was not looking at the girl. He had stopped glancing at his own reflection. Twice, he put out his hand to take back the photo.

  'Have you any others?'

  He had, but he hid them, pushed them quickly into an envelope, left nothing on the table except the pocketbook with the rubber band round it. The auburn fluff on the back of Alice's neck was very close to his eyes as he suddenly said:

  'I've been thinking. There's only one way out: will you go away with me?'

  At this she turned her head slowly, and stared at him, speechless, in stupefaction. And he, with agitated fingers, pulled off the rubber band, opened the pocketbook, and spread the Government Bonds out on the table.

  'There are eighty thousand francs' worth here. I shall keep on earning more . . .'

  It had come out so simply, so unexpectedly, that even he felt taken aback, for this was the most extraordinary moment of his life, its culminating point. Yet everything was happening unemotionally, unimpressively. Alice was sitting down on the edge of the table and putting her hands on his shoulders.

  'My poor dear!'

  'What?'

  'Nothing! I only wish we could. It's not much fun living here. But. . .'

  'But what?'

  'Everything!'

  And she walked across the room, picked up the alarm-clock, put it down in another place.

  'To begin with, Émiie wouldn't let us get away. He'd be sure to find us in the end, and he'd make no bones about. . .'

  'I've thought of that. We needn't be afraid of him.'

  She opened her eyes wide, waited motionless for what would come next. And Mr. Hire, putting the Bonds into the pocketbook again, explained hesitatingly.

  'Suppose we began by going to Switzerland, travelling separately. As soon as we were across the frontier, we'd send a telegram.'

  'To the police?' she cried with a start.

  And he answered simply:

  'Yes. They arrest him. After the trial we come back and . ..'

  Alice kept a grip on herself. She stared fiercely at the floor, struggling to get her breathing under control. She found herself looking at Mr. Hire's slippers and the turn-ups of his trousers. She swallowed twice, and at last managed to raise her head and produce something resembling a smile.

  'I don't quite know . . .' she whispered.

  'It's the only way. I've been thinking it over. Now it's your turn to think.'

  He came a step closer and took her hand in both his, which were hot and moist.

  'Will you trust me? I think I could make you happy.'

  She could not manage to speak. Her hand lay like a dead weight, her eyes were staring.

  'We could live in the country . . .'

  His hands travelled up her bare arm as far as the elbow. Mr. Hire moved much closer.

  'Let me know to-morrow . . .'

  And he suddenly laid his cheek on the dairy-maid's shoulder. She could see him in the mirror, his eyes closed, his lips parted in a faint smile.

  'Don't say no straight away!'

  It was the warmest part of his cheek, the round rosy patch, that was touching Alice's skin.

  VIII

  WHILE she was undressing, with those few movements which custom had turned into a ritual, and which brought the lines of her body gradually into dearer evidence, until the moment when the white nightdress was pulled over it, the dairy-maid avoided turning her face towards the blank stare of the three sheets of brown paper. She could display her breasts and hips. She could press her thighs and stomach against Mr. Hire, and she would not have shrunk away if he had responded to the invitation, instead of closing his eyes in tender emotion.

  What she could not do was to let him see her face, which was merely sullen and preoccupied.

  As soon as her nightdress was on she switched off the light and, to be on the safe side, got into bed for a moment, while the light in the room opposite went out in its turn. She had been thinking so hard that her forehead felt as though barred with iron. She got up noiselessly, groped for her shoes, slipped her bare feet into them, then put on her green coat over her nightdress. She had already opened the door when she turned back and picked up off her dressing-table a bottle which had once contained hydrogen peroxide.

  When the sleepy concierge worked the mechanism of the front door, Alice was greeted by a gust of wind which dashed her with raindrops from head to foot. The road was bare and glistening. The last tram was waiting at the stop, in a halo of yellow light, on the far side of the crossroads. One of the cafés was stil
l open.

  Close to her, right in the doorway, the girl saw a shadowy figure and paused for a moment before plunging out onto the wet pavement.

  'So you're there?' she remarked calmly.

  It was the youngest of the inspectors who stood, with his coat collar turned up, huddled in the far corner of the entrance.

  'A nice job, yours! I don't feel well. I've caught cold. So I got up to fetch some rum.'

  She showed him her little bottle.

  'Would you like me to go for it?'

  'And what if he came out while you were away.'

  Her voice sounded quite natural. She walked close to the wall, head lowered, feet splashing into puddles, and the inspector watched her go into the corner bistro, where the glass-paned door set a bell ringing as it opened. Four men were still playing cards there, and the wife of one of them was waiting.

  'I want some rum please.'

  And as the proprietor poured some into a pewter measure:

  'Hasn't Émile been?'

  'He left at least an hour ago.'

  'Alone?'

  'Alone,' replied the man with a wink.

  'I'll pay to-morrow. I haven't brought my bag. When you see Emile, tell him I want to speak to him.'

  Her grey, drawn face betrayed anxiety, but her voice was calm, her manner normal. She went out, carrying her bottle, and without glancing at the empty cross-roads, from which the tram was now noisily departing, she walked back under the house walls, her shoulders getting wetter and wetter and the hair beginning to curl on her forehead because of the damp.

  The inspector was waiting for her, standing very upright now. He had straightened his hat, which, before, had been pulled right down to his ears, and as Alice put out her hand to ring, he stopped her.

  'What's the hurry?'

  Obediently, she turned towards him, and the man, bending forward to look through the opening of her coat, exclaimed:

  'But you're in your nightdress!'

  'Of course.'

  'And you've nothing on underneath?'

  He smiled, and extended a hand to touch the top of the white cotton nightdress.

  'Your fingers are frozen.'

  'Is this better?'

  His hand closed round her full breast, above the nightdress, and the inspector went on: