‘She wouldn’t serve me.’
‘What? She refused to serve you?’
‘Listen …’
No, he wouldn’t listen! He knew she was going to talk about money and he didn’t want that. He turned to the others.
‘Did you hear that? They’re refusing to serve people now!’
Just then, Hans was at his window, so he could see the scene from a distance, but he attached no importance to it. It was the kind of scene you saw every day beside the canal: men in clogs, women on the boats, children playing like puppies near a pile of bricks, with the green of the trees all around them and the yellow tram ringing its bell in the foreground.
What surprised Hans more was seeing Monsieur Schoof and Marguerite coming along the street. He had forgotten that it was Thursday, their day. He hadn’t realized that it was after six: on Thursdays, the Schoofs closed their shop at six to visit their friends the Krulls.
Anna was surprised, too. When the shop bell rang out and she glanced through the curtain, she said:
‘Oh! It’s already ten past six, and I haven’t put my vegetables on yet!’
Soon afterwards, she called up the stairs:
‘Joseph! Joseph! Marguerite’s here!’
And from over there, from the canal bank, three angry-looking men, including Louise’s husband, were starting in the direction of the Krull house.
At first, Louise hadn’t admitted that the reason she had been refused service was because she owed more than three months’ money. Nor had she said that the flour, the beans and the split peas had been weighed for her.
It was a bad day. The bargees were already in a foul mood because of the canal being shut down, which threatened to immobilize them for weeks. What had happened at the Tilly lock made it even worse, being something they had all been predicting for a long time.
Last but not least, they all owed larger or smaller sums of money to the Krulls, and each had his name in purple pencil in the notebook with the elastic band.
‘She has no right to refuse to serve people …’
They were egging one another on, which helped to pass the time. The three men crossed the central reservation, beneath the trees, as Louise’s husband had done by himself that morning, with the satisfaction of feeling everyone’s eyes on them.
The policeman standing guard some thirty metres away saw them coming and moved closer, just in case. He was a pale young officer, face crushed beneath a cap that was too big for him.
He and the three men arrived in front of the shop at the same time. One of the men hailed the policeman:
‘Hey, what do you think? Can shopkeepers refuse to serve a customer?’
Instead of replying, the policeman said:
‘Just move on! We don’t want any trouble.’
‘I beg your pardon? You could answer me politely, for a start! The street belongs to everyone and, if I ask you for information, you’re here to give it to me!’
‘Don’t shout so loud. Move on.’
Hadn’t he been ordered to avoid a crowd forming in front of the house?
‘We’ll move on later. Right now we need provisions and, if they refuse to serve us, we want you to force them to—’
‘Please, just move on.’
Passers-by stopped for a moment, thinking the men were drunks, which wasn’t so far from the truth, as it happened. The other bargees, who had been following the scene from a distance, were approaching imperceptibly. Potut, dressed in the heavy overcoat he wore summer and winter, was lying asleep on a bench, his head on his folded arm.
‘What’s going on?’ Monsieur Schoof asked in the kitchen, hearing noise.
‘I don’t know … More men who’ve been drinking …’
Hans was leaning out of his window.
‘You still can’t stop me from going into the shop!’ Louise’s husband declared. ‘A shop is no different from the street. Provided you buy, everyone has a right to go in!’
And he tried to pass.
The policeman now made matters worse. He raised his whistle to his mouth and blew it to alert his colleague standing guard at the next crossroads.
At the shrill sound, which everyone recognized as a police whistle, onlookers appeared at the windows, and passers-by stopped to look.
The colleague, as regulations prescribed, set off at a run. And, seeing a uniformed officer running, people might well have assumed it was a serious event, a murder, a robbery or an arrest.
‘Please just move on! If you don’t, I warn you I’ll take you to the station.’
‘I’d like to see you try!’
‘Well, you won’t have long to wait.’
The other policeman arrived, out of breath.
‘Can you take over here for a while, I’m taking this person to the station.’
‘Who are you calling “this person”?’
‘Just follow me or I’ll fine you.’
The neighbour, Madame Guérin, was in her doorway. Louise was again crossing the central reservation, her child on her arm, two others still clinging to her skirts.
‘Come with me, Désiré!’ her husband said, as boastful as ever, to one of his companions. ‘I’ll tell that inspector …’
The new policeman didn’t know anything and, as the three men moved away, he could only repeat without conviction:
‘Move on, everyone! There’s nothing to see.’
Anna had just laid the table and called out in the corridor:
‘Dinner is served!’
And what surprised Monsieur Schoof the most, at that moment, was seeing Hans come down and sit with the others. The little man writhed on his chair. He looked at each of them in turn, as if in search of an explanation. But Maria Krull was looking outside. Cornelius, in his wicker armchair, murmured:
‘I think we should shut the shop.’
There was still nothing specific. They could see, from the back, the policeman’s uniform. They were aware of groups of passers-by who had stopped to look. Most didn’t even know what was happening. They asked:
‘What’s going on?’
And were told:
‘I don’t know …’
Or else:
‘They refused to serve one of the bargees …’
Aunt Maria said with an anxious expression:
‘Do you think we should lower the shutters?’
That struck her as a mistake. She couldn’t explain why. In spite of herself she turned to Hans as if to ask his advice.
Then Cornelius, unusually for him, repeated without raising his voice, like a lament:
‘I think we should shut the shop.’
She stood up, tightening her apron again. Hans stood up more quickly than her and said hurriedly:
‘I’ll do it, aunt.’
‘But—’
He was already in the shop. The shutter over the window had to be closed from inside, by turning a handle. They heard its characteristic sound.
Monsieur Schoof took the opportunity to whisper in Maria Krull’s ear:
‘What are you going to do with him?’
He was talking about Hans. He couldn’t understand why this young man who had lied and cheated him out of 5,000 francs was still there, sitting at the table with the others. It was even harder for him to understand Aunt Maria’s reply:
‘What can we do with him?’
He wasn’t in the house from morning to night. He didn’t know. He continued to feel ill at ease, looking at each of them in the hope of an explanation.
The noise of the shutter coming down at an unaccustomed time had somewhat the same effect as the policeman’s whistle, causing the gathering outside to assume a more dramatic aspect. Nobody knew what it was all about, but it was obvious now that something was happening, and ten houses further on people were leaving their doorways to come and see.
They hadn’t thought, in pulling down the shutter, that the word ‘Kill!’ could still be seen even though it had been painted over.
The glass door
could be closed with the help of an outside shutter, but that had to be manoeuvred with a hook. Just as Hans was getting ready to do this, Maria Krull had a sudden reflex, perhaps an intuition, and called out:
‘Hans!’
At that very moment, there was a crashing sound. A stone, thrown from the middle of the street, had hit the window bang in the middle of the advertisement for Reckitt’s Laundry Blue.
Joseph leaped to his feet, very pale, stood there for a few seconds, his hands shaking, then sat down again, but nobody had even noticed. Cornelius, still bent over his plate, did not react. Monsieur Schoof stammered:
‘What’s got into them?’
A little boy’s voice outside yelled:
‘Thieves!’
The most extraordinary thing was that none of them left the table. It wasn’t exactly deliberate, it was simply because nobody gave any signal to the contrary.
A second stone entered the shop and hit the door to the kitchen. Hans, meanwhile, got the shutter all the way down and hurriedly closed the door, so that all they could hear now was an indistinct murmur.
A tram passed with its usual clatter. In the kitchen, it was suddenly as dark as if it were dusk. Anna mechanically collected the plates.
It was then that Maria Krull was struck by Cornelius’ attitude. He still hadn’t moved. He was looking down at the tablecloth, and no emotion could be seen in his eyes. But he seemed older, all at once. There he was, silent, motionless, and nobody knew what he was thinking.
‘Where are you going, Hans?’
‘Upstairs. To have a look.’
They let him. When he was on the stairs, they were quite surprised to hear Cornelius say:
‘I told him to leave.’
Joseph was deathly pale. His clammy hands were shaking. He was looking at all of them around the table with growing horror. He might have been the only one to know what the noises outside really meant.
‘What’s that?’ Maria Krull said, giving a sudden start.
‘The lounge …’ Liesbeth stammered.
They hadn’t thought about the two windows in the lounge, whose shutters were not closed. One of the windowpanes had just shattered. When Aunt Maria opened the door, she saw a half-brick on the table.
‘Anna! Come and help me!’
It might have been expected that Joseph, as a man, would get up and help his mother. He had thought about it. He was making an effort and yet he stayed there, sweating, his Adam’s apple going up and down.
‘I’m coming, Mother.’
In the time it took them to bring down the two shutters, they saw almost nothing: figures, faces beyond the curtains, the policeman starting to lose his composure as he waited impatiently for his colleague to get back.
He didn’t dare telephone for reinforcements. He was standing right up against the door, jammed against it, repeating stubbornly:
‘Move on, there’s nothing to see!’
How many people were there outside the house? Perhaps as many as thirty! The others, the neighbours, were keeping their distance further along the street.
Most of the crowd consisted of bargees, and some were no more aware of what was going on than the passers-by.
It was the hour when the workers came out of the Rideau boatyard. Passing on their bicycles, they stopped and asked bluntly:
‘What are they doing to them?’
They lingered there, looking at the house front, their bicycles cluttering the roadway. Children ran between their legs. It was already impossible to say who had thrown the stones.
‘I’d prefer it if the Schoofs left,’ Maria Krull admitted to Anna while they were still in the lounge.
‘We’ll have to tell them …’
There were still five people at the table: Cornelius, Joseph, Monsieur Schoof, his daughter and Liesbeth. It was as if they didn’t dare get up, as if they were afraid of what would happen when they abandoned their fixed poses.
Anna came back in. They didn’t see Aunt Maria, who had gone upstairs. Hans was in Joseph’s room on the first floor, standing at the window, behind the curtain.
She joined him and looked out, saw nothing but scattered groups who seemed to be waiting for something.
‘What did Cornelius tell you?’ she asked in a low voice.
‘He said I should leave.’
Still looking outside but following her own thoughts, she said:
‘You’ve done us so much harm!’
She turned abruptly.
‘What are you doing here, Liesbeth?’
‘But, Mother—’
‘Go downstairs. Stay with your father.’
There were too many people in the house. Anna was right. They ought at least to get rid of the Schoofs, who had unwittingly wandered into something they didn’t understand.
Monsieur Schoof was even saying to Cornelius:
‘I always thought you were wrong to take that young man in.’
Cornelius didn’t reply, of course, didn’t even react. Marguerite was looking at Joseph with big eyes full of surprise and supplication.
And Aunt Maria said in a low voice to Hans, her hand shaking the curtain:
‘I wonder what’s going to happen …’
The people in the street had no idea about anything. Some were laughing. Others, having stayed a while, shrugged and left.
Nothing might have happened at all if someone hadn’t gone to fetch Pipi from the bistro in Rue Saint-Léonard, where she had been drinking profusely.
They saw her coming from a distance, all worked up, her blouse open at the top. She knew she was the main protagonist and she elbowed her way into the middle of the crowd, where she planted herself, hands on her hips, raised her fist and cried:
‘So, is it true they’re going to be arrested? The thieves! The murderers!’
A well-dressed gentleman in a bowler hat, who took her for just any old drunk, must have told her to be quiet because he was the one she took it out on. She needed a sparring partner and she had found him. She screamed:
‘What did you say? Don’t make a scene? You’re one to talk! Did these people kill your daughter? No? Then shut up!’
There was again some laughter, a few smiles, but not as many as before. People came closer to get a better look, to hear what was being said.
‘There! It was there, just opposite their house! They should never have let these Germans into the country … And that Joseph of theirs, the big lout who followed all the local girls … When I think that his mother offered me money to keep me quiet!’
And, looking around her defiantly:
‘That’s right! She offered me money. Ask her if you don’t believe me! I even went and told the inspector …’
Hans looked at his aunt. She was pale. She didn’t protest.
It was true that she had begged Pipi to stop accusing them. She had reminded her of the baby clothes she had given her, the credit she had extended to her, the New Year gifts …
In the end she had stammered:
‘You know I’m good, you know I’ll never leave you in the lurch.’
Which was precisely what Pipi was now saying, out there in the street:
‘She told me how good she was, how she would never leave me in the lurch.’
The policeman, trapped near the door, didn’t dare intervene but kept looking along the street, waiting for his colleague to return. Even when he at last saw him coming with a sergeant, he merely ventured:
‘Move on! Come on now, move on!’
Nobody was paying any attention to him. A mother said to her little girl, because of Pipi’s crude language:
‘Go and play! This is no place for children.’
Determined to assert his authority as soon as he arrived, the sergeant tore into the crowd.
‘Have you people quite finished? … Pipi, if you don’t shut up, I’ll take you to the cells … Come on now! I don’t want to see anybody out in the street from now on.’
The crowd visibly retreated, but only for
a few seconds, because immediately afterwards they pushed forwards again, voices raised in protest, especially after the sergeant grabbed Pipi’s arm.
‘Let go of me!’ she yelled. ‘You’re hurting me! Let go of me, you filthy brute!’
‘Leave her alone!’ cried a bargee who was half a head taller than everybody else.
‘Shut up, you!’
‘What? Did you just tell me to shut up? Want to repeat that?’
‘I don’t know what they’ve got over the police!’ Pipi cried. ‘It’s obvious they’re protecting them! I guess you have to be German!’
Upstairs, Hans asked:
‘Where’s Joseph?’
‘In the kitchen.’
‘What’s he saying?’
‘Nothing …’
It was true. He had now taken refuge in the lounge, and Marguerite, tactless and stubborn, had followed him.
‘What do they want?’ she asked him. ‘I don’t understand what’s got into them.’
He was in such a panic that he couldn’t answer. He would have liked to react. Earlier, he had made up his mind that he, not Hans, would close the shutters, but he had been unable to move.
He was scared! It was physical. The whole of his big body had broken out in a cold sweat, and at times he was on the verge of throwing up, there and then, even though Marguerite was present.
Liesbeth wasn’t in the kitchen. Nobody knew where she was. Only the two old men were left, Cornelius still motionless, Monsieur Schoof anxious. Anna, perhaps unthinkingly, served them coffee, just as she did every Thursday.
‘Would you like the light on?’ she asked.
Her father didn’t reply. Monsieur Schoof said:
‘There’s no need.’
The sergeant was no longer as cocksure as before, and regretted that he hadn’t brought other men with him. He whispered to one of the two officers:
‘Go and phone the inspector.’
‘Is he at the station?’
‘No, he’s at home! Tell him … Tell him he has to come …’
He had a sense that something bad was going to happen, even though there was as yet nothing specific. It was like a sky that turns leaden, the sun too heavy and too hot, until eventually the storm clouds gather.
The trams were still passing. Neighbours in the doorways were chatting without suspecting that things might take a tragic turn, and there was still laughter, people calling to each other.
The Krull House Page 16
