Their curiosity aroused, those on the bank – the lock-keeper, an angler, some waiting bargees – moved closer. The man pushed the white thing towards the bank with his hook, and it was only now that everyone could see it was a body, stark naked and deathly pale, whose head couldn’t yet be seen because, being heavier, it was still underwater.
Before anything else, the boat had to get through the lock. From the bank, the angler tried to bring the body in with the thick end of his rod, but the bamboo was too light, and each time, instead of coming closer, the white thing retreated.
Four or five people stood watching, but then more came from the moored boats: a little boy, a woman breastfeeding a child, a gas company employee in his cap …
One of the bargees went back on board, jumped into his skiff and rowed it towards the body. Just then, someone asked Hans:
‘What is it?’
He shrugged. Nobody had noticed that it had stopped raining and a slight mist was beginning to rise from the canal.
At first the man in the skiff tried to pull the body out with his hook – a somewhat sickening sight, with the iron hook jabbing into the flesh – but each time the body came loose.
He hesitated, not disgusted but a little embarrassed all the same. He glanced at the onlookers, as if to say:
‘Oh, well, there’s only one thing to do …’
He bent double, took the thing in his arms and lifted it, held it for a few moments out of the water like a strange dummy, then finally let it drop, streaming with water, into his skiff.
There had been time enough to see that it was a woman, or rather, a young girl. And now, on the bank, people were walking slowly, following the skiff, which would moor a little further on, where it was easier.
The body had been laid on the grass embankment and a piece of tarpaulin thrown over it. A policeman was standing beside it, listening to the onlookers’ comments.
When Hans made up his mind to walk back across the road to the house, everyone instinctively watched him go, perhaps because he had discovered the thing, perhaps because he was in his pyjamas and spoke a foreign language.
Aunt Maria, who had just come down, was looking out through the shop window. Hans announced:
‘They’ve fished up a body.’
‘Bodies are brought up out of the water every month,’ she replied. ‘They always end up opposite our house. Anyone would think they do it deliberately.’
Hans’ pyjamas were wet, and he felt a little cold; he went upstairs to his room to put on a jacket, but kept on his pyjama bottoms.
On his way back downstairs, he met his cousin Joseph, who, when he hadn’t washed, had a face like blotting paper.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked. ‘Fished up another drowned man, have they?’
‘A drowned girl!’ Hans said.
‘Oh!’
‘I think it’s Sidonie.’
There could be no doubt: Joseph’s fingers were shaking. And at the same time, his Adam’s apple almost leaped up in his thin neck.
‘Who says that?’
‘Nobody. Just me. By the way, cousin …’
‘What?’
‘Nothing!’ Hans said, continuing on his way.
It was more practical. And besides, he had already wasted enough time and wanted to see what was going to happen next.
By the time he reached the bank, there was a crowd of at least fifty, and if you turned, you could see more people in the doorways and at the windows. A man who was still half asleep, without a false collar or a tie, arrived panting, led by a barefoot little boy.
He was the doctor. He looked at the onlookers reproachfully, gestured for them to move aside, bent and lifted a corner of the tarpaulin.
Of course, he didn’t need to touch the body, which was as dead as could be, but he turned to the policeman and said in a low voice:
‘It’s Sidonie Pipi.’
He had treated her on several occasions. In fact, as she was tubercular, he had even tried to get her into a sanatorium. But her mother, who didn’t believe in doctors or illness, hadn’t wanted her to go, especially as Sidonie, who worked as an assistant in a shoe shop, brought in a little money.
‘Is the inspector coming?’
Again, he looked ill-humouredly at these people, who were all standing there gazing down at a tarpaulin. He would have to wait. The sky was no longer pale blue as it had been at first, but pink, with just a little blue in the distance. Opposite, the shooting was starting, each shot shaking the air. A boat’s siren summoned the lock-keeper, who reluctantly moved away.
Hans was the only person who found it natural to be there in his pyjama bottoms, his torso naked under a greenish jacket. He didn’t notice people looking at him and exchanging comments about him. He was waiting for Joseph, who finally crossed the road in the company of his sister Liesbeth.
Liesbeth looked at the little heap under the tarpaulin and asked:
‘Is that it?’
She shuddered, drew her shawl across her chest and stammered as she walked away:
‘I’d rather go …’
They were looking at Joseph, too, even though there was nothing unusual or preposterous in the way he was dressed. They were looking at him because he was the son of Cornelius Krull, and the Krulls were a clan apart.
He didn’t say anything. He had merely nodded at the doctor. He was standing next to Hans and from time to time wiped the sweat off his upper lip with his finger.
The inspector arrived at last, on his bicycle. He didn’t even bother to lift the tarpaulin but took the doctor aside, and they both walked up and down for a while, talking in low voices and gesticulating. After which, the inspector sent one of his men on an errand.
He himself, filling and lighting his pipe, walked along the bank in the direction of the boat-builder’s yard, but went right past it. It became obvious that he was going to see Pipi.
Almost everyone followed, at a distance, of course. The first trams were running. Sirens and whistles announced that work was resuming in the factories and workshops.
Hans, who was walking with the crowd, wasn’t surprised to see that Joseph was still by his side.
‘She’s probably drunk!’ he said.
Pipi’s barge wasn’t a real barge of thirty-something metres, but a broken-down little Dutch boat, more than half of which rested on silt. To get on it, you had to cross an unsteady plank that made the inspector think twice.
Once on deck, he bent down and knocked at the hatch, waited, then bent down again and called.
At last Pipi’s face appeared, swollen and distorted as it usually was in the morning, with big, expressionless eyes. They couldn’t hear what the inspector said to her, and she disappeared for a few seconds, emerged again, first her upper body, then her legs, and rushed to the plank serving as a gangway, growling at the crowd:
‘It’s a terrible thing!’
But it wasn’t clear what exactly was terrible: seeing people waste their time watching a spectacle like this or suddenly hearing that her daughter was dead.
Hans was struck by a small detail. As she walked, Pipi, who was breathing heavily, came very close to Joseph and paused for a moment, as if on the point of yelling at him. But her momentum took her past young Krull, and she continued on her way, talking to herself, while the crowd, including the inspector, kept following her at a distance.
Hans spotted his aunt and Anna in the doorway of the grocery but didn’t see his uncle, or the assistant, or his cousin Liesbeth, who must have been in an awful state.
‘Go on, show her to me!’ Pipi screamed, as if challenging the crowd and the authorities.
What her face expressed when she glimpsed her daughter’s face under the tarpaulin wasn’t so much grief as hatred.
‘It’s a terrible thing!’
Her mouth twisted as if she was about to cry, but she didn’t. She would have liked to do something. She felt it was necessary. She couldn’t think what and she suddenly turned to the onlookers, rais
ed her fist and cried:
‘Aren’t you ashamed to be watching this, you bunch of idlers? Think you’re at the theatre, do you?’
The van from the morgue stopped just outside the Krull grocery. Two men crossed the road with a stretcher, and for a moment there was another glimpse of the pale body, on which the leaves of the plane trees cast dancing shadows.
Stunned, Pipi asked the inspector:
‘Where are they going to take my poor girl now?’
She stank of alcohol. She was dirty. People stepped aside as she passed, afraid as much of fleas as of a torrent of abuse.
‘Bring her to me!’ the inspector said to one of the police officers.
He preferred to leave on his bicycle. The officer walked down the street with Pipi, seeming to lead her, and some people followed them all the way to the police station.
The doctor was off to one side, speaking to a local bigwig, and Hans caught the words:
‘… post-mortem …’
He went back to the house and had breakfast mechanically, all alone in the kitchen. When he went upstairs to dress, Liesbeth’s door was open. It was clearly deliberate. She was pretending to work, but her face was haggard, her eyes beseeching.
‘It’s horrible, Hans!’ she moaned.
And her tears welled up and brimmed over, swelling her eyelids just as her lips swelled with sobs.
‘Hans!’
It wasn’t just Sidonie. It was everything. Her nerves, too … Didn’t he realize that she needed to be reassured, to be clasped to his chest, to hear words, no matter which?
‘True, it wasn’t a pretty sight!’ he admitted.
He wasn’t moved by his cousin’s tears, and reassuring her was a chore he was determined to avoid.
He went to his own room, closed the door, took off his jacket and filled his washbowl with water.
He was aware of her next door, still in a state. He sensed the sobs, the waving of the handkerchief, the grimaces and no doubt, despite everything, the occasional little glance in the mirror to see herself crying.
Then the swaying of a dress in the corridor, a silence, stillness, a rustle, a scratching at the door.
His shaving brush in his hand, he lathered his cheeks and his eyes sparkled with mischief.
‘Hans …’
It was only a sigh. Nobody downstairs must hear.
‘I’m very unhappy, Hans …’
Too bad! He had no desire to open the door and he almost went so far as to lock it.
It was Sidonie who had died, and yet it was Liesbeth who was unhappy!
The local newspaper only came out in the morning, so that it was necessary to wait until the next day to get the official news.
But well before that, everyone understood that something serious was going on. First, at eleven, a car stopped so close to the grocery that Aunt Maria gave a start, thinking that it was for her.
It was four dark-clad men from the prosecutor’s office, who crossed the road to the canal bank, where the inspector was waiting for them.
The life of the harbour had long since got back to normal. There was the sound of shots from the firing range, the carpenters’ hammers from the Rideau boatyard, the din of the lock every time it filled or emptied.
Yet within a few moments, a group had formed, more hesitant, more timid than in the morning, thanks to the prestige of these men.
Hans crossed the road, his hands in his pockets. Turning his head, he saw his cousin in his room, in shirtsleeves, bent over his exercise books.
‘Who was the first to notice the body?’ the examining magistrate asked. To which the inspector replied:
‘The bargee from the Belle Hélène. I gave him permission to go on his way. I thought that would be all right, given that I took down his statement.’
Hans now stepped forwards. ‘I’m the one who saw the body,’ he asserted.
His accent and his bad French provoked frowns. They looked at each other as if to say:
‘Where did this one spring from?’
‘I was getting some fresh air. I live opposite, with my uncle, Cornelius Krull. I saw something near the barge’s propeller.’
‘Would you mind questioning him, inspector?’
‘I’ll summon him later.’
Hans kept standing there. They didn’t know how to get rid of him.
‘Thank you,’ the examining magistrate said.
Hans moved away slightly but continued to eavesdrop.
‘What does her mother say?’
‘First, when she was in a real state, she claimed it was Potut.’
‘Who’s Potut?’
‘The man she lives with, more or less as his wife. If you like, we can visit the barge later. Mind you, it’s full of fleas and vermin. Just setting foot on deck, you’re covered in them.’
‘You were telling me about Potut.’
‘He was respectable once, even had an education. I think he used to be a croupier. Now he’s drunk all day long, just like her. In the mornings, he hangs around the vegetable market, looking to do the odd bit of work. Actually, she’s the one who supports him.’
‘Where is this Potut?’
‘We don’t know, but it won’t take us long to find him. Sometimes he’s away for two or three days, sleeping it off somewhere. He didn’t come home last night. Then again, the fair is on in Sainte-Marguerite. He always manages to pick up the odd bit of work …’
The examining magistrate threw a stern look at Hans, who was all too obviously eavesdropping, but the young man didn’t seem to notice and nonchalantly lit a cigarette.
‘And the girl?’
‘You have to realize, with the three of them living on top of each other … Apparently, Potut did try once. The barge only has one liveable room, if you can call it that …’
‘Are we sure she was strangled?’ the deputy prosecutor asked.
‘Strangled and raped. Right here, probably, given the traces of grass they found on her. We need to find her clothes. Most likely, they’re in the canal.’
‘What about her shoes?’ the examining magistrate asked.
‘No, her shoes and stockings were left on.’
From time to time, Hans looked across the road and caught the rectangle of a window, shirtsleeves dazzling white in the semi-darkness, close-cropped hair above a thick exercise book.
‘I’ll get some men to drag the canal.’
‘What have you done with Pipi?’
‘Released her. She’s probably getting drunk in some bistro or other. When she’d as good as accused Potut and I read her back her statement, she looked at me in astonishment, denied everything, swore she’d never said it and that Potut was incapable of hurting her daughter. You see what we’re up against! When she’s got a few drinks inside her, she’ll probably come out with a whole other story …’
The examining magistrate was taking notes with a gold propelling pencil in a notebook as tiny and immaculate as a dance card.
He made up his mind. ‘Let’s take a look at the barge anyway.’
He turned towards Hans, blinked and said curtly:
‘As for you, you’ll be summoned to the police station for questioning if need be.’
That didn’t stop Hans from joining a few others and following the men as they walked alongside the canal and hesitated when they saw the rickety plank leading to the barge.
‘Couldn’t we get hold of another gangway?’ the deputy prosecutor suggested.
The inspector took it upon himself to negotiate with Rideau, the boat-builder. The men from the prosecutor’s office were in no hurry. They smoked and looked at their surroundings.
‘The curious thing,’ the examining magistrate remarked, cutting off the end of a cigar with his teeth, ‘is that, according to the pathologist, this Sidonie was still a virgin before last night.’
And with this word, an ambiguous smile hovered over his lips.
‘Really curious!’ he repeated, striking a match. ‘Don’t you think?’
&n
bsp; ‘What I find curious, if it happened on the canal bank, is that nobody heard anything. There were barges nearby. There are houses.’
‘But if he immediately put his hands round her throat …’
‘Do you think she knew her attacker?’
‘Quite likely! She was probably walking with him.’
Near Hans, a young boy was listening intently. Less than five metres away, two even younger boys were rolling in the grass like puppies. A woman on one of the barges was doing her washing, which reminded Hans of Remy Starch and Reckitt’s Laundry Blue.
To get in through the hatch, the men from the prosecutor’s office rolled up their trouser legs and trod carefully, emitting little cries like young ladies afraid of dirtying themselves.
At that very moment, Pipi entered the Krull shop, her pupils already dilated, as usually only happened towards evening. She threw a harsh look at Aunt Maria, who was her sworn enemy, and said by way of greeting:
‘Dirty old bitch!’
She went straight to the zinc area at the end of the counter and grunted:
‘So, are you going to serve me?’
Aunt Maria sighed and grabbed a bottle of rum with a kind of tin spout that opened as soon as the bottle was tilted.
‘My poor Pipi …’
‘I don’t need anyone to feel sorry for me.’
‘Now you see where it all leads …’
Perhaps Pipi was as necessary to Aunt Maria as Aunt Maria was to Pipi. One of them could come there regularly to unload her bitterness, finding in the Krull shop a place where, while drinking, she was at liberty to focus all her hates and resentments.
Aunt Maria, for her part, was able, from a position of great virtue, to sigh over a perfect specimen of human degeneration.
‘You should be ashamed of yourself, drinking on a day like today!’
To which Pipi, already drunk, retorted:
‘When should I drink, then? If your daughter had been raped and murdered …’
And all at once she burst into tears.
The Krull House Page 3
