The Beast Within (50 page)

It was nine o’clock. The express from Paris would be there in a few minutes. She walked steadily on towards the junction for Dieppe two hundred metres ahead, looking carefully along the track for something that might serve her purpose. It so happened that the line to Dieppe was being repaired. Her friend Ozil had just changed the points for a ballast train
³
to run on to the branch line, and it was waiting there. In a sudden flash of inspiration, she hit upon an idea. All she had to do was prevent the signalman from changing the points back to the Le Havre line, so that the express would crash into the ballast train. Ever since Ozil had tried to take Flore by force and she had nearly cracked his skull open with a stick, she had remained quite fond of him and liked to turn up on him unexpectedly, scampering through the tunnel like a goat running down from its mountain. Ozil was an ex-soldier, very thin and rather taciturn; he was completely dedicated to his job and so far had an impeccable record, keeping watch day and night. But there was something about Flore that attracted him. Her ways were strange, she had the strength of a man and had once given him a thrashing; yet she only had to lift her little finger and he would come running. Even though he was fourteen years older than her, he still desired her and had sworn he would have her; since force had not succeeded, he had decided he would bide his time and be nice to her. When she came up to his cabin in the dark and called to him to come outside, he left what he was doing and joined her straight away. She led him off towards the fields, trying to distract him with a long, involved account of how her mother was very ill and how she would leave La Croix-de-Maufras if she died. All the time, she was listening to the sound of the express in the distance, as it left Malaunay and sped towards them. When she thought the train had reached the junction, she turned to watch. What she had not taken into account was the new interlocking warning system. As the express ran on to the Dieppe branch line, it automatically set the signal at red,
⁴
and the driver had been able to bring it to a halt a few metres short of the ballast train. Ozil let out a cry as if he had woken up to find his house falling down on top of him and ran back to his cabin. Flore stood in the dark, stiff and motionless, watching as the express was reversed back on to the main line. Two days later, the signalman had called to say goodbye to her. He was being transferred. He still had no idea that Flore had planned a train crash. He asked her to come and see him again once her mother had died. Ah well, she thought, her plan hadn’t worked. She would have to think of something else.

Suddenly, as she recalled this incident, the dreamy mist that floated before her eyes lifted and there in front of her, in the yellow light of the candle flame, she once again saw the dead woman. Her mother was no more. Should she leave and marry Ozil? He wanted her and might make her happy. But her whole being rejected the idea. If she was such a coward that she allowed Jacques and Séverine to go on living, and went on living herself, she would sooner become a tramp or hire herself out as a servant than belong to a man she didn’t love. She heard a strange noise and turned to listen. It was Misard breaking up the earthen floor of the kitchen with a mattock. He was so desperate to get his hands on the hidden treasure that he would have torn the whole house apart. Flore had no desire to continue living with Misard either. What was she to do? There was a sudden rush of wind, the walls of the house shook, and the glow from the firebox of a passing train moved across the dead woman’s white face, making her staring eyes and the sneering grin on her lips turn blood-red. It was the last stopping train from Paris, making its slow, laborious progress towards Le Havre.

Flore turned to gaze at the stars twinkling in the stillness of the spring night.

‘Ten minutes past three! In another five hours it will be their train going past.’

The thought pained her. She must do something to stop them. Seeing them every week on their way to make love was more than she could bear. She couldn’t stand it. Now that she knew she would never have Jacques to herself, she would rather he no longer existed; she would rather that nothing existed any more. This gloomy bedroom, where she sat watching over her mother, filled her with a sense of loss, and a growing longing that everything might be swept clean away. As there was no longer anyone in the world who loved her, everyone else might as well end their days along with her mother. More people were going to die — many more. They would all be taken in one fell swoop. But what was she to do? Her sister was dead, her mother was dead, and her love was at an end. She was alone. Whether she stayed or left, she would always be alone, whereas they would have each other. No! She would put an end to everything. Even now, sitting in that dismal room, she was in the presence of death. Death would lie in wait beside the railway line, ready for the moment of retribution!

Having finally taken her decision, she began to consider how she could put her plan into action. She came back to the idea of removing a section of the track. It seemed the most practical solution; it was certain to work and would be easy to do. She simply needed to knock the keys out of the rail-chairs with a hammer and pull the rail off the sleepers. She had the tools, and in such a deserted spot no one would see her. The best place would be at the far end of the cutting, towards Barentin, where the line was on a curve and crossed a valley on an embankment, seven or eight metres high. The train would come off the rails and crash down the side of the embankment. But the timing was crucial and would not be easy. The express from Le Havre came past on the up line at sixteen minutes past eight. The only train before that was a stopping train at seven fifty-five. This gave her twenty minutes to do what she had to, which was ample. Between the trains that were timetabled, however, they often sent out an unscheduled goods train, especially when the goods depot was busy. If that happened, her efforts would all have been in vain. How could she make sure that it was the express that crashed? For a long time she sat weighing up the possibilities. Outside it was still dark. She had not trimmed the candle; the wick had become charred and burned with a long, sooty flame.

Misard returned just as a goods train from Rouen was approaching. He had been searching through the woodpile, and his hands were filthy. He was out of breath, and furious at having found nothing. In his impotent frenzy he once more started looking under the furniture, in the chimney, everywhere. The goods train came slowly clanking past; it seemed as if it would never end. The wheels let out a series of heavy thuds as the train rolled by, each one sending a jolt through the house that shook the dead woman as she lay on her bed. As Misard stretched out his arm to take a little picture from the wall, he once again met the staring eyes, watching him. The grinning lips moved.

He went pale and shivered with a mixture of fear and anger.

‘I know what you’re saying!’ he muttered. “‘Keep looking!” You’ll see! I’ll find it, damn you! Even if I have to take the house apart stone by stone and dig up the whole neighbourhood!’

The goods train had finally gone past and was rumbling slowly away into the night. The dead woman had stopped moving but continued to look at her husband; a look of such scorn and triumph that he once again walked from the room, without closing the door behind him.

Misard had interrupted Flore in the middle of her reflections. She stood up and closed the door. She didn’t want him coming back again and disturbing her mother. Suddenly, to her own amazement, she heard herself saying: ‘Ten minutes before will be enough.’

It would only take ten minutes to lift the rail. If no other train had been signalled ten minutes before the express was due, she could go ahead. Once she had taken her decision and knew what she was going to do, her anxiety left her and she became quite calm.

Day dawned at about five o’clock, fresh and perfectly clear. Although it was still quite chilly, she pulled the window wide open. The sweet morning air streamed into the gloomy bedroom, blowing away the candle smoke and the sickly smell of death. The sun was still below the horizon, behind a clump of trees on top of a hill. Suddenly it rose into the sky, in a splash of crimson, spilling down the hillside and flooding the sunken lanes and by-ways, as the earth rejoiced at the yearly return of spring. She had known it the night before; it was going to be a fine morning, a morning bursting with youth and radiant health, a morning that makes one feel glad to be alive. How good it would be to be out there, free to go where she wished, walking along untrodden pathways, wandering over hill and dale. She turned from the window and came back to the middle of the room. She noticed with surprise that the candle was almost out, flickering in the broad light of day, like a pale tear. The dead woman now seemed to be looking out at the railway line as the trains went by, without noticing the pallid glow from the candle beside her.

Flore only worked during daylight hours, so she didn’t leave the bedroom until twelve minutes past six, for the stopping train to Paris. At six o’clock Misard had also gone to relieve his colleague, who had been on night duty. When Flore heard him sound his horn, she came and took up her position in front of the gate, holding her flag. She watched the train as it went by.

‘Another two hours!’ she said to herself.

Her mother had no further need of anyone, and the thought of going back into the bedroom sickened her. It was all over; she had kissed her mother goodbye and could now dispose of her own life and of everyone else’s. Usually between trains she would wander off on her own, but this morning something seemed to be holding her back. She remained at her position near the gate, sitting on a bench, a simple plank beside the line. The sun was rising over the distant horizon, shedding its golden warmth into the pure air like a shower of rain. She did not move, content to sit there, bathed in the sun’s gentle radiance, with the open countryside all around her, quivering with the approach of spring. For a while she watched Misard in his wooden hut on the other side of the line; he was visibly agitated, and quite unlike his usual sleepy self. He kept darting in and out of his hut, fiddling with the controls on his receiver and continually looking towards the house as if his mind were still there, looking for the money. But she soon forgot about him, and after a while she was no longer aware that he was there. She was waiting for something, concentrating, silent and tense, her eyes fixed on the railway line in the distance, towards Barentin. Out of that shimmering haze of sunlight would appear the vision that her wild eyes so eagerly anticipated.

The minutes went by. Flore did not move. Eventually, at seven fifty-five, when Misard sounded two blasts on his horn for the stopping train from Le Havre on the up line, she got to her feet, closed the gate and stood in front of it, holding her flag. The train went by, shaking the ground beneath it, and quickly vanished into the distance; she heard it plunge into the tunnel, and the noise suddenly stopped. She didn’t return to her bench but remained standing where she was, once more starting to count the minutes. If, in ten minutes’ time, no goods train had been signalled, she would run down through the cutting and take up a rail. She remained very calm, feeling only a certain tightness in her chest, as if the enormity of what she was about to do bore down upon her. But the thought that Jacques and Séverine were coming nearer and nearer and that, unless she stopped them, they would once again rush past her towards their lovers’ tryst strengthened her resolve as the moment approached. Her mind was made up; there would be no turning back. The decision was beyond recall. Like the wolf lashing out with its claws, she was blind and deaf to persuasion. All she saw, in her selfish desire for revenge, were two mutilated bodies. The other passengers didn’t enter her head — the nameless crowd of travellers that had been passing her window every day for years. She didn’t know them. There would be deaths and there would be bloodshed. Perhaps the sun would hide its face in shame. Its warmth and brightness had begun to irritate her.

Two minutes more, one minute more, and she would be on her way. As she turned to go, she heard the sound of a wagon trundling down the road from Brécourt. It’s someone from the quarry, she thought. They’ll want to get across. I’ll have to open the gate and stop for a chat. I’ll be stuck here. I’ll miss my chance. Without giving it a further thought, she turned and ran, leaving her post unattended. The driver and his wagon would have to fend for themselves. But she heard the crack of a whip in the still morning air and a voice cheerfully calling her name. It was Cabuche. She stopped in her tracks, in front of the gate.

‘What’s up?’ said Cabuche. ‘Having a nap in the sunshine were you? Hurry up! I want to get across before the express comes!’

Flore felt everything collapsing around her. Her plan was ruined. Jacques and Séverine would be in each other’s arms again. She could do nothing to stop them. She slowly opened the gate. It was old and falling apart and squeaked on its rusty iron hinges. She was desperately trying to think of something, some object that she could throw across the rails. She would have lain across the line herself, had she thought her bones were hard enough to make the engine jump the track. Suddenly she caught sight of the wagon, a heavy, low-slung cart laden with two blocks of stone, attached to five strong horses that were having considerable difficulty in pulling it. The stones were just what she needed — two massive lumps of rock, big enough to block the whole line. Her eyes lit up; she had a sudden, mad desire to seize hold of them and place them on the crossing. The gate was wide open and the five horses stood blowing clouds of steam from their nostrils, waiting to move forward.

‘What’s the matter with you this morning?’ called Cabuche. ‘You’re in a funny mood.’

‘My mother died last night,’ she told him, when at last she could bring herself to speak.

Cabuche felt really sorry for her.