Trio (12 page)

While she went back to the kitchen where her niece who had lunched with her was waiting for her, and told her how her father had met her mother in the cemetery, your mother was putting flowers on her parents’ grave like every first of November, she was trying to meditate but a man not far away was looking at her, captivated, he went up to her and asked her the first thing he could think of, where was the vault of this or that family, she replied by pointing in its direction, but the pot of chrysanthemums she had just put down was blown over by the wind and he set it straight, a conversation started up about the dead, you can imagine the sort of thing, is that any place to do your courting, you must admit, all the same he carried on with it, they walked home together and they got engaged two months later, if I’d been your mother I’d have been afraid of the evil eye, cemetery lovers, just imagine, but they were very happy as you know.

She went on chatting, after she’d washed the dishes, complaining about her master who was losing his marbles, gets confused in what he says, and when I say says, on account of staying alone all day in his study, his papers, he needs something to take his mind off them, God knows what goes on in his head instead of, I don’t know, getting some fresh air, going out with the child a bit.

For instance a walk to the cemetery, why not.

But Théo has no such expectations, he likes it with his Uncle Dodo, as he calls him.

Your box of treasures.

Because the maid, who has always played the innocent, probably knows much more than she lets on about the occupations and projects of her master, it seems she ferrets through his papers, his letters, his dossiers, she knows enough to realize that a word let fall by the old man here or there, though it has no connection with the present moment, has one with his work, his reading, his researches, but what people are saying, is it true, is it all so important, the maid is a woman like all the rest, a bit of curiosity is better than none at all, it shows what an interest she takes in her master, he should be grateful to her.

On her way back she stopped at the cemetery, she meditated at her late husband’s grave, set to rights the pot of chrysanthemums blown over by the wind, the grave is next to that of her daughter and son-in- law and their youngest and her mother and father, the whole tribe.

Old formulas, old papers, old filth, old chimeras, everything is disintegrating.

And there’s something abnormal about that kid, a disguised adult curiosity, always prying, always by himself reading, how can you expect him to be his age, did we read like that, you remember, it was the devil’s own job to get us to stick our noses in a book, he’s got into bad ways, and anyway the maid tells anyone prepared to listen to her that he has ridiculous ideas, his imagination is in a ferment, he believes he’s living the adventures in his novels, he’s going to make life difficult for them.

A body without a soul.

His imagination is in a ferment.

Then went back up to his room and started work again, a kind of essay, memoir, or God knows what.

Entries deleted then effaced.

All the June flowers, cornflower, poppy, pheasant’s eye, betony, cow- wheat, love-in-a-mist, white campion, centaury, hemp-nettle, coronilla, bugle, St. John’s wort, Venus’s navelwort, sweet clover, hemlock, honeysuckle, speedwell, broom, water iris, yellow rattle, self-heal, meadow sage, butter-and-eggs, marjoram, delphinium, a fearful avalanche, the voice begins to falter, who will take account of this passionate innocence, the innocence that causes the resurgence of the old myths, cockchafers of despair.

The lilies of the big sleep.

Oasis of the night.

The meeting in the cemetery, that suitcase full of treasures.

Guffaws.

A pause.

All regrets stifled, task accepted, to recompose as a defense against anguish, no matter where it may come from, that unforgotten dream, then finally leave it far behind, an old ceiling cluttered with birds and flowers in the taste of a bygone age, and progress toward the inaccessible without landmarks, without erasures, without notes of any kind, unattainable but present, which must be believed in for fear of never dying.

Make the journey again from one grave to the next, alley number three hundred and thirty-three, side-alley number seven hundred and seventy-seven, find Théodore, chilled to the bone, take him in your arms, warm him up, once again say some kind words to him, his papers, his treasures, say yes to him again, once again make the journey, that calvary, no other way out.

Fiery hues of the chrysanthemums, last blaze before the winter months.

White morning frost, little November sun.

Doesn’t time fly, I’d left my topcoat in my hole, Théodore put his over my shoulders, we have, you may remember, many things to look at together, and opened his suitcase again.

Without landmarks, without erasures.

Multiplying the number of the irresponsible.

We shall get the benefit of them gradually with the passing days.

As for the old invalid, he hears a noise in the kitchen, he says who’s there, no answer, he begins to worry, can’t get up, peace reigned once more when suddenly the man bursts into the room, takes a key from the bedside table and empties the safe of all its gold, then effaces all trace of his visit, puts the key back where it belongs and goes off to make merry in the Antipodes.

Or actually murdered, throat cut with a kitchen knife, they discover him three days later, terrible stink, disorder, everything upside down, the murderer, it’s clear, was looking for the key to the safe which is now wide open, the bedside table had been knocked over, he must have had to tug hard to open the drawer which had disgorged its contents into the chamber pot where toothpicks and matches are floating.

What are you saying, his nephew, such a distinguished gentleman.

Tittle-tattle, a different version each time.

The jabbering Parca.

The list of the deceased is getting longer, and the news items, preferably scabrous, like that business of the murder ten years ago which is the spitting image of the one last week, and when I say last, you remember, that old man found dead at the bottom of his bed, his nose in his chamber pot, a butcher’s knife planted in his back, the murderer was a so-called nephew who escaped to the Antipodes with the loot, but the maid, who knew plenty about her master’s goings-on, when she was tidying up the papers in the study, in spite of having been told not to, is supposed to have seen, apart from the newspapers, some dossiers, like all men of law have, a whole heap of horrible photos of people who’d been strangled or hanged or had their throats cut, enough to give you the willies, the old man really must have been losing his marbles to be interested in that stuff at his age, as if there weren’t enough misfortunes and wars in the world, when he doesn’t want for anything, him so well served, so well housed.

Was it by poison, or firearms, or strangulation, or drowning, he was absentmindedly pulling the petals off a chrysanthemum.

Low sky, slight drizzle, night was falling, the cemetery is two kilometers away, he was wearing a raincoat, walking fairly slowly so as not to arouse anyone’s suspicions as he passed in front of Magnin’s, then in front of Thiéroux’s, and Dubard’s, and Chenu’s, might have been going to see his uncle in spite of the late hour, alibi, Madame Dubard saw him, she was at her window, distinctly, just about to close the shutters, was the old man ill.

For to come back to the conversation the master had with Louis, it could only have been about that old man’s murder, since the master had claimed he hadn’t been there when Louis was talking about it to the maid, unless he had been feinting and actually had heard it but, annoyed by what he was learning had feigned ignorance, yes, with a bit of cross-checking we’ll get there, the kid had heard the maid talking about it either to Louis or to her niece so during lunch he comes out with his remark about uncles who have millions, which upsets the old man but doesn’t surprise him in the least, he peeled a pear for his godson and said go and eat it in the garden.

Certainly everyone was preoccupied by this business, and with good reason, you say a distant relation, he only saw him once a year, stinking in his hole and as stingy as they come, all his life he had complained about the indifference of his family and friends, expressing surprise that they didn’t visit him, that they didn’t spoil him, didn’t come billing and cooing around him, the old crackpot with all his millions, no one ever saw the color of them, you must admit that puts people off, some of his relations hated him, you know what adults’ conversations are like, to harbor grudges against someone for years and years, not surprising that the children take a leaf out of their book and when the day comes avenge the family at one stroke.

What a lot of dead people around us.

The other one saying no you’ve got it all wrong, that business goes back to the time when Théo was a child, it could only have been another nephew, the mother didn’t only have one son, as for the papers discovered in his papers, there’s not the shadow of a doubt that they were concerned with murders of old men, or that according to his maid he used to study old dossiers dealing with penal matters that a nephew passed on to him, with plans of apartments, witnesses’ statements, interrogations of the accused, borrowed from the office of the Clerk of the Court where his father is a judge, hence the master’s brother-in-law, she knew him well, or knew them well, you lost the thread in all that din.

A lady who knew a lady who had seen the fellow in question with her own eyes at three in the morning, or was it Madame Buvard, she was young at the time, was coming home from a dance with her intended, the man had branched off at the corner near the mailbox and started running in the direction of the crossroads, you mean the cemetery, she thought right away that it was fishy, her fiancé went to see in the apartment block, the automatic light was still on, he went up to the fifth floor and that’s where he saw
 
…
 

An invisible manitou.

The landing door was ajar, he went down again and said we’d better go and tell the police, there’s an old man living on the fifth floor, he’s sure to have been burgled, at this hour the night watchman was asleep, we woke him up, he asked us our names and addresses and professions, he almost didn’t let us go, my fiancé said it’s a fat lot of use being public-spirited with these dimwits, if they come and question you you aren’t to say anything if I’m not there.

They did come, Jean-Pierre was still at work, I said I was expecting him, there were two of them, after ten minutes he arrived, we told them everything all over again, they asked us could you recognize the murderer, but at that distance, impossible, even so they summoned us to appear before the judge, my God, when those chaps arrived there was only one thing I was afraid of, that I’d get into trouble on account of my age, I was only seventeen and I was living with Jean-Pierre, I’d given his address at the police station, my parents said they’d tell the police but the gendarmes didn’t say anything to me.

She hadn’t finished her story, the other lady was in a hurry as she had to go shopping in town, the whole business gave us a shock, he was ninety-five years old, as fit as a fiddle, he still used to go out on Thursdays with his great-great-nephew, such a distinguished young man, no, he wasn’t liked, but some people still went to visit him, hoping for a present, he never gave anyone anything, when they read the will they’d all been had, it had been deposited with the notary for forty years and they found an almost identical affair in the papers, with a photo of the murdered man flat on his stomach on his bedside mat, his shirt tucked up so you could see his backside, and the picture of the murderer both full face and in profile, it must be said they all look alike in that blinding light, same boorish, imbecile air, unless all men look like that after a while, same as all wives and all fiancées though with slight differences in their dress, look at those fusty old postcards, would you be able to tell one fashionable woman from another, they all have the same old-fashioned air that our wives will have in the family album, and the cover-girls in the archives of illustrated magazines, and in any case cover-girls aren’t exactly distinguished by their tits, don’t you think it’s disgusting.

Went back up to his room and reimmersed himself in his notes and papers.

Menacing distress.

Say everything again, for fear of having said nothing.

Dossiers dealing with penal matters, with plans of apartments, witnesses’ statements, interrogations of the accused.

At such and such a page he turns right, opposite the mailbox, it’s the main street, first there’s the café, shut at this hour, the street light illuminates the jukebox and the clock which says three o’clock, then the doorway of a second block which he goes into, he uses his cigarette lighter and starts going up, he’s wearing espadrilles, when he’s arrived at the fifth floor he takes a key out of his pocket and inserts it into the lock, the door opens silently, he goes into the apartment, his lighter is burning his fingers, he puts it out, he waits a few seconds, then slips into the corridor, he gets to the far end of the apartment, he listens, he gently turns the handle of a door, it opens.

Who’s there.

I heard something, beating heart, I switch the light on.

There’s a pink light in the bedroom, a little lamp alight on the bedside table, he sees the old man asleep, he’s pale, his breathing makes a little noise, the air he breathes out makes his cheeks swell a little, he goes over to the bed, there’s an armchair, and there’s a little table with a jug of herb tea and a cup on it, the dressing gown on the armchair was trailing on the ground, he caught his foot in it, lost his balance and knocked the table over.

Who’s there.

The old man gives a little cry, the other man jumps on him and gags him with a scarf, then ties him up in his bed.

His name whispered, he screams, he wakes up sweating in that bedroom where everything is starting all over again.

He brings a big kitchen knife out of his pocket then goes over to the door, he can hear a noise in the corridor.