Mr Hire's Engagement Read online

  'One would never think there was so much of it!' . Alice was waiting, still holding her bottle, and she leant back against the door, while the man came nearer, standing in the rain, cutting off her view of the road, talking to her from so near that she could feel his breath on her face.

  'To think that you're going back to a nice warm bed, while I have to spend the night out here!'

  His hand was still squeezing her breast, which had not even quivered, and he put his face close to the girl's neck, sniffing at it, now and then pressing his lips against it, at the roots of her hair.

  'You're tickling! So you haven't finished your inquiry yet?' Big drops of cold water were falling from the brim of his hat onto Alice's hand.

  'It won't be long now, unfortunately. And then I shan't be able to enjoy these pretty things any more . . .'

  She smiled non-committally. 'Are they going to arrest him?'

  'It won't need much. One more little clue. He's feeling hunted. As soon as that happens, they never fail to make blunders.'

  'You're hurting,' she protested, as he crushed her breast. 'You don't like that?'

  'Yes,' she said, without conviction. He smiled, his mouth an inch away from hers.

  "This sex-maniac business thrills you, doesn't it now? Of course it does! I've noticed it! Women are all the same . ..'

  Her legs were frozen, her feet soaking in her shoes, and the man's fingers still clutching the same breast had begun to feel as though they were scorching her.

  'Do you suppose you'll arrest him to-morrow?'

  'If it depended on me, I'd never arrest him, so as to . . .' And leaning forward, he pressed his mouth against hers, and straightened up, delighted.

  'But we might meet somewhere else . . .'

  'We might,' she rejoined, taking advantage of this respite to pull the bell.

  'You'll dream about me?'

  'Perhaps.'

  As the door opened he put his foot against it, went in after Alice, took her in his arms in the dark passage. She could see the lighter patch of the sky through the opening into the yard, could smell the breath of the cold, rainy night, and the cigarette smell from her companion's mouth. Without taking his lips from hers, he was kneading her with both hands, from the thighs to the shoulders, and his knees were beginning to shake.

  'Careful! . . .' she murmured.

  And she fled towards the courtyard while he, satisfied, shut the door and went back to his corner, turning up his collar again and gazing with a smile at the shiny cross-roads and the corner café, where the shutters were being closed as the last customers said good-bye on the threshold and went their way down the different streets.

  Alice sat on her bed, gradually warming her feet in her hands.

  Mr. Hire, his hat already on his head, lifted up a corner of the brown paper and looked with cosy regret, through the curtain of rain, at the empty room opposite, the unmade bed in a hollow of which lay a hairpin.

  But just as he was going out, his briefcase under his arm, he came back, took the cardboard box out of the wardrobe, and removed the pocketbook with the elastic band. When he finally opened the door, the Government Bonds were in his briefcase, and moreover he had torn up his school photograph.

  This was the hour when the house was full of a myriad noises, children leaving for school, men dressing and hunting in vain for the things they needed, and the coalman coming upstairs, filling the whole width of the staircase with the sack on his back.

  Mr. Hire was going down with his usual dignity, when he saw a door open on the second floor and found himself face to face with the inspector, coming out of someone's flat.

  He said nothing. Neither did the inspector. But their eyes met for a second, and Mr. Hire felt almost ill as a result, as though his breakfast lay like a lump in his stomach.

  He went on down the stairs. A woman's hand emerged from a room to hold back a child who was just leaving, and in the passage, where rainwater was trickling in from outside, five or six tenants were clustered round the concierge, in front of the lodge.

  As he went past they all stopped talking. Out of habit, Mr. Hire touched his bowler hat, puffed out his chest and went on, his step more jerky than usual.

  The wet, heavy wind caught hold of him as it had caught hold of Alice during the night. In front of the dairy, nothing had been left outside except pumpkins and milk-cans. Mr. Hire scarcely turned his head, but he caught a glimpse of Alice's rosy face, her white overall and bare arms, behind the counter. She watched him as far as the tram-stop.

  He looked the other way. There was only one house opposite his own; it was a removal business, and four men were standing at the door, with the little bearded inspector, observing him from a distance.

  He began to walk faster. He had forgotten to put up his umbrella. Just as he reached the cross-roads, he wheeled round and saw that quite a large group was standing at his own house-door. The little bearded inspector had dashed forward. They got to the tram almost at the same moment, and there the policeman was met by a colleague.

  So there were at least three of them at Villejuif. Mr. Hire half-heard the words:

  'What did the chief say?'

  He held his breath in vain; he couldn't hear what came after that. The tram started off. The two men remained standing on the platform, and as they talked, one of them turned from time to time towards Mr. Hire.

  Only one followed him into the Métro, but that made it all the more disturbing. In the Rue Saint-Maur the fire would not light, and Mr. Hire spent more than a quarter of an hour kneeling in front of the stove, blowing to make it draw.

  He had no need to go to the window and look for the inspector. The man had now discovered the little bistro next door and was sitting just inside its glass front, chatting with the waitress as she polished the bar-top and the coffee machine.

  But he might come out at any moment. And at the stage things had reached, he probably would not hesitate to squat down and stare in at the barred window.

  Mr. Hire set to work to collect hundreds of paintboxes which were stacked at the far end of the cellar, and build them into a kind of wall in the middle of the room. He was not hurried. He was working slowly but steadily, at his usual pace.

  When he found he could sit down without his hands being seen from outside, he fetched his overcoat, a pair of scissors, and a tin box which he took from a filing-cabinet.

  He spent two hours in unpicking and sewing up again the striped sateen lining of the sleeves, which was thicker than the rest of the lining. He wore a thimble, like a tailor, and bit his lower lip as he worked. At last the Government Bonds were safely sewn in, and with the same slow persistence, Mr. Hire demolished his rampart of paintboxes.

  The fire had gone out. There was no more wood left. He put on his overcoat and set out to buy some at the coalman's. Passing the bistro next door, he noticed the inspector, sitting happily with a glass of hot toddy in front of him, holding forth for the edification of the waitress and the proprietor. Catching sight of him, the policeman started in alarm and hurried to the door, but had no need to leave his shelter, for Mr. Hire was already going into the coal merchant's shop.

  When Mr. Hire came back, with a dozen bundles of kindling, the little bistro looked just the same. The three people inside were as still as statues. But hardly had he gone past the window, when the proprietor and the waitress ran to the door, even came out onto the pavement to get a better view of him.

  All this did not stop his doing twenty-three parcels, with the labels, the registration slips and all. The stove was roasting his back now, the lamp on his table was lit, the window to his right had become a grey rectangle, crossed by feet and legs and sometimes by the spindly wheels of a perambulator.

  By the time the last label was addressed he had also managed to write two letters, so cautiously inspector would have known nothing about it even if he had been watching him closely. The first was to Victor, the café waiter who served the bowling club.

  'My dear Victor, 'Yo
u are the only person to whom I can turn for the following service.

  When you get this note, please jump into a taxi and go to the Villejuif cross-roads. On the right there is a dairy; go in there and buy something.

  You will certainly see the assistant, a red-haired girl, and be able to get the enclosed letter into her hands without being noticed.

  'I rely on you. I will explain another time. Meanwhile, thank you.'

  He selected a brand new hundred-franc note and re-read the second letter, which was for Alice.

  'I will be waiting for you at the Gare de Lyon at 5.40 tomorrow morning.

  Take every possible precaution. No need to bring any luggage. I love you.'

  The whole thing went into a thin yellow envelope like the ones he used for his customers. Mr. Hire sat for a long time staring at it, as exhausted as though after several hours' physical effort.

  At last he put on his coat and hat, picked up his heap of little parcels, and set out through the rain to the post office. The bearded inspector was following him without enthusiasm. As usual Mr. Hire spent a good five minutes at the counter, and when he left, his note to Victor was already speeding to its destination by express post.

  The post office was practically empty, and resembled a railway station, with the dog-eared posters on the walls, the government-model clock, the trickles of water on its paved floor. Mr. Hire did not go away. He had no reason, now, to be in one place rather than another. He had hours ahead of him. The office in the Rue Saint-Maur had ceased to be his office. His room at Villejuif was no longer his room. His home, now, was the black velvet-collared overcoat, its sleeves and shoulders padded with stiff paper.

  The inspector was getting bored with waiting for him, and Mr. Hire deliberately read all the posters, one by one.

  It was an extraordinary afternoon. The rain came down harder and harder. People hesitated before stepping off a pavement, as though the roads had been torrents. Taxis drove slowly, for fear of skidding. The newspapers on the stands were being gradually reduced to pulp.

  And now, while everyone else in Paris was crouching under the rain, and all faces were scowling, doorways holding groups of ten people, customers fidgeting in the little bars, waiting for a pause in the downpour, Mr. Hire was transfigured by gaiety.

  Holding his umbrella very straight, he was going to and fro as the fancy took him, with no fear of getting mud-splashed or of being late. He would stop in front of shop-windows. He bought some chocolates at a sweet-shop, put the bag in his pocket and pulled one out now and then, to suck it slowly.

  It was as though the doors of time and space had been thrown open before him. He had nothing to do. He did not have to be anywhere in particular.

  And the most wonderful thing was that this holiday was limited. At five o'clock next morning, at five-forty to be exact, it would be over. He would take his seat in a railway carriage, opposite a woman. He would lean forward to speak to her. When the man from the dining-car came to offer tickets, he would say: 'Two!'

  Two! He skipped. He got his umbrella hooked up on other people's. He was roaming along streets where it had never occurred to him to set foot in the days when a lifetime lay ahead of him with all the days and hours it contained.

  Now he had only eleven hours, only ten! The lights of Paris were being turned on, and he stopped at a jeweller's shop in the grands boulevards. Thousands of rings lay there, crudely lit, but Mr. Hire remembered the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois, where jewellery is less expensive because most of it comes from the pawnbroker's.

  He did not take a bus or a tram. It was more enjoyable to walk in the dazzling light from the shop windows, then along the darker streets where the only gleam came from the wet, cobble-stoned pavements.

  It was not a tailor's now in the house where he had been born, but a gramophone shop. Yet the windows on the first floor—where the ceiling was so low that one could hardly stand upright—were still exactly the same; it looked as though they even had the same curtains. And why not? Who would be likely to change them?

  The inspector was floundering along behind in a kind of nightmare, and Mr. Hire was going into a jeweller's shop, spending a quarter of an hour looking at rings and fingering them. He bought one with a turquoise, which they let him have cheap because there was a slight scratch on the stone. From the brightly-lit interior of the shop, he could see the pathetic nose and beard of the inspector, flattened against the window.

  The jeweller, a thin, spry man, was staring hard at him, but waited until Mr. Hire had paid before asking: 'Aren't you young Hirovitch?'

  'Yes!' he replied eagerly.

  But the jeweller, closing the drawer of his till, merely said: 'Ah!'

  And that 'ah' continued to ring in Mr. Hire's ears as he went along the street. That 'ah' made him feel uncomfortable, it weighed on him.

  Why had the man said 'ah'?

  Looking round, he once more caught sight of the inspector panting in his rear, and was no longer amused. On the contrary, he began to loathe the man, and he kept very close to the edge of the pavement, watching for the sound of the buses as they came up behind him.

  He brought it off in the Place de la République. The traffic had piled up as far as the eye could see. The policeman was blowing his whistle. Taxis were hooting. At the very moment when, as though by a miracle, the mass began to break up, Mr. Hire jumped on the platform of a bus, while the inspector, surrounded by taxis, had no chance of running after it.

  Mr. Hire got off at the Porte Saint-Martin, took another bus to the Gare du Nord, and walked down again from there along the Rue La Fayette to the Opéra.

  Dark figures were streaming through the brightly-lit streets. He was carried with them in spite of himself.

  Still nine hours to go!

  But why had the Jew in the Rue des Francs-Bourgeois said 'ah'?

  Weariness came over Mr. Hire all at once, and he went into a cinema, guided through the darkness by the attendant with her little torch.

  Someone was seated to his left, someone to his right, and everywhere there were rows of faces, half-revealed by the glow from the screen. It was hot. A woman's voice was uttering long sentences, amplified, more than human, and sometimes one heard her breathing in between the words, as though her breath were brushing past the thousands of spectators, while the lips moved in her gigantic face.

  Mr. Hire sighed, settled down in his seat, stretched his short legs.

  Wasn't it incredible, miraculous that he should be here, when the police were looking for him, when the people of Villejuif were accusing him of having murdered a prostitute?

  And he was only filling in time! Hardly eight hours from now, he would be strolling up and down a platform at the Gare de Lyon, outside a compartment in which he would have kept seats. Two seats! Alice would come running at the last moment, because women were always late. He would beckon to her to hurry. He would hoist her up the steps.

  Then they would sit gazing at each other while the wheels began to turn beneath their feet, running through the outskirts of Paris, past the tall suburban houses, the little tree-shaded villas, out into the open country.

  He started, without knowing why, looked to the left and saw a surprised face turned towards him. To the right an old woman was staring at him in the same way, drawing back a little.

  Perhaps because he was panting? But now he was calming down. He looked at the screen. He even made an effort to follow the film.

  All the same, he heaved another sigh, a deep sigh that was both contented and impatient, for there are moments when such waiting is positively painful, when one's fingers stiffen as though with cramp, one's knees quiver, and one feels like laughing and groaning at the same time.

  IX

  THAT same day, at about ten in the morning, the concierge was astonished by the arrival of a neighbour with whom she was not even on speaking terms, bringing her little girl back from the nursery school. The child's neck was held stiffly and made to look longer by the bandage her mother had put
round it that morning, because she had a sore throat. Her eyes were shining, her face pinched.

  'They asked me to bring her home and to give you this.'

  It was a note from the teacher: 'Your little girl has white spots in her throat and should be put to bed at once. I strongly advise you to send for the doctor.'

  The concierge picked her daughter up, lifted her across the bucket and floor-cloth that lay in the doorway, and wondered where to put her, finally deposited her on a chair and drew it up close to the stove.

  'Stay there!'

  Never had there been so much rain. It tired one's eyes to watch it falling, splashing, trickling along the ground and making its way in everywhere, dirtying and soaking everything. In the courtyard the drain was choked up, and a pool was rapidly forming. The concierge finished wiping over her doorstep so that she could shut the door, and she could hear two men approaching from behind.

  They were the police superintendent who had arrived in a taxi a quarter of an hour ago, and the inspector with whom he had been conferring. She had offered them the shelter of her lodge, but they had refused. They were pacing up and down the passage between the street and the courtyard, the collars of their overcoats turned up, hands in pockets, and their conversation was broken by long pauses. Finally the superintendent crossed the pavement, and departed again in his taxi. A few seconds later, the inspector came into the lodge to warm his hands at the stove.

  'He'll be back presently, with the examining magistrate and a search-warrant. '

  And the concierge, kneeling on her wet threshold, looked up as she swabbed it with the floorcloth.

  'Will you stay where I put you!' she cried shrilly to the little girl, who had slid off the chair.

  The policeman on point duty at the cross-roads had put on his oilcloth cape with its pointed hood. Lorries were driving past him, their tarpaulins glistening, and pedestrians were hesitating to cross the road. Some of the market-women, standing beside their barrows, had put empty sacks over their heads and shoulders.