“Get out, for the love of God! Get out!”
Didn’t anyone see that he was on the other side, that he had nothing in common with them anymore?
2
IN THE garden belonging to Madame Porse, his wet-nurse, there was only one tree, a big linden. One day, just as it was beginning to get dark and a low sky seemed to weigh down on the earth, absorbing everything into itself, little by little, like blotting paper, the dog started to bark, and they discovered a stray cat in the tree.
It was winter. The barrel of rainwater under the gutter was frozen. From the back of the house you could see the windows in the village lighting up one after another.
The cat crouched on the first branch, about ten or fifteen feet from the ground, staring fixedly down at the earth. It was black-and-white and didn’t belong to anyone in the area. Madame Porse, the wet-nurse, knew all the local cats.
When the dog started to bark, they had just filled a tub with hot water for Frank’s bath and placed it on the tile floor of the kitchen. It wasn’t a real tub, in fact, but half of a barrel that had been sawed in two. The windows were covered with steam. From the garden came the voice of Monsieur Porse, who was the road repairer, saying with the same conviction he brought to bear upon everything, especially when he had had a glass or two, which was most of the time, “I’ll get him with my rifle.”
Frank was struck by the word “rifle.” The shotgun was hanging on the white wall over the hearth. Already half undressed, Frank put on his coat and pants again.
“First try to catch him. He may not be badly hurt.”
It was still light enough to make out flecks of red on the cat’s white fur, and one of its eyes was hanging out of its socket.
Frank couldn’t recall just how it all happened. Very soon there were five people, ten, their noses in the air, not counting the children. Then someone came with a lantern.
They tried to lure the cat down by putting a saucer of warm milk in plain sight under the tree. Naturally, they had first chained the dog to its kennel. Everybody had shifted a little distance away and tried not to make any sudden movements. But the cat didn’t budge. From time to time it would meow plaintively.
“You see! It’s calling.”
“It may be calling, but not to us!”
The proof was that as soon as someone stood on a chair and tried to take hold of it, the cat would leap to a higher branch.
This went on for some time, at least an hour. More and more neighbors kept arriving. They could be recognized by their voices. A young man climbed up the tree, but every time he stretched out his hand the cat climbed even higher. At last, nothing could be seen but a dark ball.
“To the left, Helmut … At the tip of the big branch …”
The most surprising thing was that as soon as they gave up the chase, the cat started meowing louder than ever. It seemed to resent being abandoned.
Then they went to get ladders. Everybody helped, and there was a lot of excitement. The road repairer kept talking about getting out his rifle, until they made him stop.
They didn’t catch the black-and-white cat that night. Everyone went home. They left some milk and scraps of meat for it on the ground.
“Since he knew how to get up, he’ll know how to get down.”
The next day the cat was still in the linden tree, almost at the top, and it meowed all day long. They tried again to catch it. They kept Frank from going to look at it because of the eye hanging out of its head. Even Madame Porse was almost sick.
He never learned how the story turned out. On the third day they told him that the cat had gone away. Was that true? Had they said it so he wouldn’t be upset?
It was almost exactly what had happened now, except that this time, instead of a cat, it was Sissy.
Frank at last went into the back room, alone, carefully closing the doors behind him with a kind of solemnity, as though he were going into a room where a dead person had been laid out.
Carefully avoiding glancing at the sheets, he pulled up the cover. Perhaps he intended to lie down on the bed. Then he noticed something on the bedside table.
A few minutes before, he had held Sissy’s stockings in his hand. Black wool stockings with the toes neatly darned, the way young girls were taught in convents.
It wasn’t out of curiosity that he had picked up the bag on the bedside table. He just wanted to touch it. He could do that, since he was alone. And then the thought occurred to him. He remembered how Lotte, who almost always rang the bell when she came home, would excuse herself and say, “I must have forgotten my key in my other bag.”
Sissy, too, must have had a key, the key to the apartment across the hall. And where would she have put that key but in her handbag? She hadn’t remembered it when she fled. At that moment she had no thought of going home. She hadn’t even seen Monsieur Wimmer when he tried to stop her as she flew by.
So the key must be here, in her bag, with a handkerchief and ration cards, a few banknotes, some small change, and a pencil.
“Where are you going, Monsieur Frank?”
It wasn’t even six o’clock yet. He saw distinctly the black hands on the face of the alarm clock in the kitchen. Minna hadn’t gone back to bed. She was sitting beside the stove. She was calling him “Monsieur Frank” again and she followed his movements with an expression of fear in her eyes.
He didn’t realize he was holding the little black bag, which was made of oilcloth, that he was without hat or overcoat, and that he was going outside like that.
“At least put on your overcoat, if you’re going out.” A sick person no longer feels sick when there’s someone even worse off to look after. Minna no longer felt the pains in her stomach. If she hadn’t been so certain of a refusal, she would have offered to go with him.
“You’ll come back right away, won’t you? You’re not well.”
The door opposite was closed, without the strip of rosy light showing underneath. Frank went down the stairs with an air of determination. You would have thought he knew where to find her.
At the foot of the rue Verte there was a street to the right, Timo’s street, with the Old Basin beyond. By following that street you reached the one leading over the bridge, and that was practically the center of town, with lights, shops, people.
If, instead, you turned left, as he had done once with Sissy, there was nothing to see but vacant lots and the backs of houses. Some parts of the Old Basin had embankments, others did not. They had begun to build a high school, but the war had kept them from finishing it; it was nothing but an immense roofless skeleton with steel beams and exposed walls. Two rows of trees, small and spindly and protected by iron grills, marked what would one day be a boulevard, but it was cut by deep gullies and ended abruptly in a sandpit.
Night had fallen. In that whole corner of the universe there was only one single streetlight. On the other side of the water, where the streetcars passed in front of the houses, the lights formed an almost continuous garland.
He knew he’d find her, but he didn’t want to frighten her. He didn’t intend to speak to her. Just to give back her key. Because Holst wouldn’t return until midnight, because she couldn’t stay outside, her feet bare in her shoes, her legs bare, with no money.
He passed close to someone, a man standing on the corner of the street, and he was certain it was Monsieur Wimmer. He hesitated for a moment, afraid that if the man took it into his head to strike him he wouldn’t defend himself.
Monsieur Wimmer must have been looking for Sissy, too. Had he been following her, then lost track of her in the vacant lots?
For the space of a second the two men almost touched each other. That particular spot was dimly illuminated. The moon couldn’t be seen behind its bank of clouds, but the outlines of objects were visible.
Had Monsieur Wimmer seen the bag Frank was still holding in his hand? Had he also thought about the key? Did he realize what the young man was doing?
Whatever the case, he let Frank pa
ss. Frank began quickly walking among the vacant lots, stumbling over piles of hardened snow, then suddenly stopping to listen and look around.
He was tempted to call out Sissy’s name, but that would probably be the surest way to scare her off, making her plunge deeper into the darkness of the vacant lots, or hole up somewhere, like the black-and-white cat in the village.
Sometimes something could be heard moving. He’d rush toward the sound and find nothing, then, hearing footsteps, he’d run in the opposite direction and realize it was Monsieur Wimmer, tracing a route parallel to his own.
Several times his feet had broken through the hard icy crust, and his legs had sunk in up to his knees.
There she was. He had seen her. He recognized her silhouette and he didn’t dare rush toward her, to speak or shout. He had simply held out the bag at arm’s length, the way they had showed the saucer of milk to the cat.
She was gone again. She had disappeared into the darkness and only then, ashamed of the sound of his own voice in that desert of silence, did he risk shouting, “The key!”
He caught sight of her again as she crossed a patch of whiteness, ran toward her, stumbled, repeated, “The key!”
He wouldn’t utter her name for fear of frightening her. He should have given the bag to Monsieur Wimmer, who had a better chance of catching her than he did. He hadn’t thought of that. Nor had Monsieur Wimmer. Did the old neighbor really have a better chance than he did? Frank could no longer either see or hear him. He was too old to be bumbling about on this broken ground. She wasn’t far away, a hundred yards at most. But the tree climber in Madame Porse’s garden had several times had his hand within a few inches of the cat. Everybody had thought it would let itself be taken. Perhaps the cat hesitated between alternatives, but at the last moment it always leaped to a higher branch.
The river was frozen, but the sewer wasn’t far off, and the water there stayed free of ice.
He tried again, once, twice. He was so discouraged he was almost in tears.
It became an obsession: the key. This little shiny black bag, worn, with a handkerchief, ration cards, a little money, and a key.
Then, since she wasn’t far away, since she must be able to see him, he chose the best-lit spot he could find and stopped there, stood motionless, very straight, the bag held out at arm’s length, and shouted once more, as loud as he could, not caring if he sounded ridiculous, “The key!”
He waved the bag around. He wanted to be sure she saw him and understood. Then, as conspicuously as he could, he placed the bag on the snow, in plain sight, repeating, “The key! I’m leaving it here!”
For her sake, he had to leave. She would be wary as long as he stuck around. Disgusted, he floundered back. He literally tore himself out of the vacant lot, forced himself back onto the track, onto the black path between the banks of snow that now constituted the sidewalk of his street.
He didn’t go to Timo’s, which was just around the corner. He passed by the dark alley of the tannery without noticing it. When he entered his building, the concierge, who must have known by then, watched him from behind the curtain. Tonight, tomorrow, the whole place would know.
He went upstairs. There was no light in Monsieur Wimmer’s apartment, so he hadn’t returned.
All this had begun to merge into a gray, incoherent, monotonous chaos. Hours piled on hours. They were certainly the longest hours he had ever lived. Sometimes it got to the point where he wanted to scream, looking at the alarm clock and seeing the hands still in the same place.
Out of all those hours nothing would be left—just a few charred sticks poking out of the ashes in the fireplace.
His mother came home and her perfume immediately took possession of the room. She glanced at him once, quickly. She turned to Minna next; she gestured for Minna to follow her into the big bedroom. Did they think he couldn’t hear them whispering? Let Minna tell her everything! Of course, she hadn’t waited for his permission. She must have thought it was her duty, for his own good. From now on they would all be protecting him!
That didn’t matter.
“I wish you’d eat, Frank, just a bite.”
Lotte expected him to say no. Yet he had eaten. He didn’t know what, but he had. His mother went to make up the bed in the back room. Minna hadn’t returned to bed. She had assumed an air of innocence. She was sitting in one of the armchairs in the salon, as near to the door as possible, waiting.
Was it Holst they were afraid of? The police? Old Wimmer?
He smiled scornfully.
“You can go to bed, Frank. Your room is ready. Unless you’d rather sleep in the big bedroom tonight?”
He didn’t go to bed. He would have been incapable of saying what he did, what he thought. At times—and it was the only thing he remembered—objects came to life before his eyes as they had when he was a child: for instance, a copper ashtray with reflections like rays of light, a fabric-covered footstool placed in front of the stove on which his mother always put her feet when, rarely, she was sewing.
He had the feeling the hours would never pass, and yet they did after all. They made him drink something alcoholic with lemon in it. They changed his socks for him and he let them put on his slippers. They talked about Bertha, who wouldn’t return until the following morning and who would try to bring some pork and sausages back from the country.
Monsieur Wimmer returned, alone, around eight o’clock. Other tenants on the different floors came home, and the concierge must have told them, one by one, as they came in.
Maybe Sissy was already dead.
The road repairer had kept saying it would be better to finish the cat off with one good blast from his rifle. Some people in the building might think the same thing about Sissy. Others, if they dared, would shoot Frank with pleasure.
He didn’t care.
“Why don’t you go to bed?”
And, since they both knew what he was waiting for, Lotte added, “We’ll be listening. I promise to wake you if there’s any news.”
Had he burst out laughing? In any case, he had wanted to. It had to end one way or another, and for the cat it had lasted at least two days. Had the black-and-white beast really gone away by itself, its eye dangling?
It was more likely that the road repairer had finally used the rifle while Frank was at school, and they had found it better to lie to him.
There were endless minutes just before midnight, even longer than those just before five o’clock. Those were already so far away they belonged to another world.
The two women were the first to start when footsteps sounded on the stairs, but they pretended to press on, Lotte with her work, Minna with her Zola, although she certainly couldn’t have remembered much of what she was reading.
The door downstairs slammed. It was him. It must be, and the concierge would waylay him with the news. How was it that footsteps could be heard so soon on the stairs? They were still far off. Up to the first landing the sound was hardly perceptible. After the second landing, Frank recognized the soft sound of the felt boots, and, at the same time, the rhythm of another step.
He held his breath. Minna was on the point of rising and going to the door to look out, but Lotte made a little sign for her not to move. All three of them listened. The other step was that of a woman; the sound of her high heels could be heard, then a key turning in the lock. And Holst’s voice saying simply and gently, “Go on in.”
Frank would learn only much later that she had been waiting for her father at the corner of the blind alley, where he himself had stood one night with his back flat against the wall. He would learn, too, that she had been on the point of letting Holst go by, that he was already out of sight of the corner where she was crouching when, with the last of her strength, she had called, “Father!”
They had gone in. The door had closed.
“You go to bed now, Frank. Be sensible.”
He understood. His mother was afraid that as soon as his daughter was in bed, Holst would com
e and knock on their door. She would much rather receive him herself. If she dared—but Frank’s stony expression intimidated her—she would have advised Frank to go to the country for a few days, or to a friend’s.
But God knows it was all simple enough. Old Wimmer hadn’t stirred from his lair. He must still have been up, too. He could hear everything through the transom.
Did Holst go to bed that night? There were noises in the apartment for a long time. They must have had a little coal or wood left, since he lit the fire. There was the sound of the poker, and then of water being put on to boil.
The light was still on. Twice Frank had looked out, the first time at one-thirty in the morning, the second time a little after three, and there was still the rosy line under the door across the hall.
He didn’t sleep, either. He remained in the salon, where the women had insisted on setting up his bed. They had tried to knock him out with hot grog, but didn’t succeed. He drank everything they gave him and his head remained clear. He had never been so lucid in his life. It almost frightened him, as though there were something supernatural about it.
They undressed. His mother tended to Minna. He could hear their whole technical conversation, all about the female organs, and Otto’s name was mentioned again.
They must have thought he was asleep. When Lotte came in to turn off the light, she was astonished to hear her son’s wide-awake voice saying categorically, “No.”
“All right. But try to get some rest.”
It was about five o’clock when Holst opened his door and went to knock on Monsieur Wimmer’s. He had to knock several times. They whispered together in the hall, then Monsieur Wimmer probably went in to get dressed. After a while he, in turn, knocked on Holst’s door and was admitted immediately.
Holst left. It wasn’t difficult for Frank to understand what was happening. He had gone for a doctor. It wasn’t yet the hour when people were permitted to be out on the streets, but Holst didn’t care. He could have telephoned from downstairs. But Frank would have done just what he had done. Doctors hated to be disturbed, especially by phone.
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