The Little Man From Archangel

by Georges Simenon

  As the superintendent had just told him, they had not yet questioned him about that, but it would come.

  What was it that frightened Gina?

  Was it his calm, his gentleness, his abashed tenderness when she came back from one of her escapades? One would sometimes have said that she was defying him to beat her.

  Would she then have been less afraid of him? Would she have stopped thinking of him as vicious?

  'Basquin!' called the superintendent, who had moved towards the corridor.

  In an office, Jonas saw the inspector at work in his shirtsleeves.

  'Take somebody with you and accompany Monsieur Milk.'

  'Right, Superintendent.'

  He must have known what he had to do, for he did not ask for instructions.

  'Dambois!' he called out in his turn, addressing someone out of sight in another office.

  Neither of them were in uniform but everyone, in the Old Market as in the town centre, knew them.

  'Think it over, Monsieur Milk,' Monsieur Devaux was saying again by way of good-bye.

  What he was thinking over was not what the superintendent imagined. He was no longer trying to defend himself, to reply to the more or less grotesque charges which they had levelled against him.

  It was an inner debate which occupied his mind, a debate infinitely more tragic than their tale about a woman being cut up into pieces.

  In a curious way they were right, but not in the way they imagined, and Jonas suddenly felt himself really guilty.

  He had not effected Gina's disappearance or thrown her body into the canal.

  He was not vicious either, in the sense they understood him to be, and he knew of no peculiarity in himself, no sexual abnormality.

  He hadn't yet registered the point, for the revelation had been too recent, it had just come at the moment he least expected it, in the neutral atmosphere of an official building.

  'Do you mind waiting for me a moment, Monsieur Jonas?'

  Basquin went on giving the name he was used to, but it did not even please him any longer.

  That stage was past. He had reached the office divided by a dark wooden counter where some new visitors were waiting on the bench, and he pretended, to keep up appearances, to be reading an official notice advertising the sale of some horses and oxen in the main square.

  Wasn't it to her brother, to start with, that Gina had confided that she was frightened of him? Very probably. That explained Frédo's fierce opposition to the marriage.

  Who else had she spoken to? Clémence? La Loute?

  He tried to remember the words the superintendent had repeated to him:

  ' That man will kill me one of these days . . .'

  Why? Because he did not react as she had expected when she ran after other men? Because he was too soft, too patient?

  Did she think to herself that he was acting and that one day he would give free reign to his real instincts? He had told her, when he had talked to her about marriage:

  'I can at least offer you peace and quiet'

  Those words or something like them. He had not talked to her of love, or happiness, but of peace and quiet, because he was too humble to imagine that he could give her anything else.

  She was beautiful, full of vitality, and he was sixteen years older, a dusty, lonely little bookseller whose only passion in life was collecting stamps.

  That was not entirely true. That was how it seemed, what people must think. The truth is that he lived intensely, in his inner self, a rich and varied life, the life of the entire Old Market, the entire neighbourhood, of which he knew the minutest movements.

  Behind the shelter of his thick spectacles, which seemed to isolate him and gave him an inoffensive air, was it not rather as if he had stolen the lives of the others, without their noticing it?

  Was that what Gina had discovered on entering his house? Was that why she had spoken of vice and been afraid?

  Did she hold it against him that he had bought her?

  For he had bought her, he knew it and she knew it. Angèle knew it better than anyone, for she had sold her, and Louis as well, who had not dared to say anything for fear of his wife, and Frédo, who had revolted against it.

  They had not sold her for money, but for peace and quiet. He was so well aware of it that he had been the first to use the words as a bait, a temptation.

  With him, Gina would have a front of respectability and her escapades would be covered up. Her material needs would be assured and Angèle would tremble no more at the thought of seeing her end up on the streets.

  Had the neighbours who had been at the wedding thought of it? Their smiles, their congratulations, their contentment, especially at the end of the feast, were they sincere?

  Weren't they, too, a little ashamed of the bargain which, in a sense, they had just countersigned?

  The Abbé Grimault had not openly tried to dissuade him from his designs. Doubtless he, too, preferred to see Gina married. Nevertheless even Jonas' conversion had evoked little enthusiasm in him.

  'I daren't ask you whether you have faith, since I would not wish to induce you to tell a lie.'

  So he knew that Jonas didn't believe in it. Did he also guess that it had not been simply to marry Gina that he had become a Catholic and that he had sometimes thought about it long before he met her?

  'I hope that you will be happy with her, and bring her happiness.'

  The good wish was genuine, but it could be seen that he placed little confidence in it. He did his duty as a priest in joining them together as he had done in receiving the little man from Archangel into the bosom of the Roman Catholic church.

  How was it that during the two years it had never once occurred to Jonas that Gina could be afraid of him?

  Now the scales had fallen from his eyes and details he had taken no notice of were coming back to him.

  He was realizing, at last, that he was a foreigner, a Jew, a solitary, a man from the other end of the world who had come like a parasite to embed himself in the flesh of the Old Market.

  'If you will come this way . . .'

  The two men were ready with their hats on, and with Jonas between them, half a head smaller than either, they set off for the Rue Haute in the hot, sun-soaked air.

  'Did it go off all right?' asked Basquin, who had obviously been to have a word with his chief.

  'I suppose so. I'm not sure.'

  'The superintendent is a man of remarkable intelligence, who would have had an important post in Paris a long time ago if he didn't insist on living with his daughter. He was called to the bar at the age of twenty-three and started off his career with the prefecture. It was sheer accident that he joined the police.'

  From time to time Basquin returned the greeting of a passer-by and people turned to stare at Jonas, who was walking between the two policemen.

  'During the last four days, since the day I came to see you, we have been circulating your wife's description everywhere.'

  The inspector was surprised at Jonas' lack of reaction and kept shooting him little glances out of the corner of his eye.

  'True, there are plenty of pretty dark girls in red dresses. Quite apart from the fact that she may have bought herself a new dress.'

  As he passed the restaurant, Jonas saw the top of Pepito's head above the curtains, and Pepito was looking at him. Would he be lunching there? Would they give him the chance? It was already half-past eleven. They were probably going to search the house from top to bottom and the corners were full of odd bits and pieces, for Jonas never threw anything away.

  Who could say, at this stage, that they were not going to arrest him?

  It remained for him to pass Le Bouc's, and he decided to turn his head away, not from shame, but to spare them embarrassment.

  For despite everything they must have been embarrassed. They must have egged one another on. Any one of them, on their own, with the exception of Frédo, would not have dared to turn against him so brutally.

  ' If
you'll say it, then I'll say so too . . .'

  Why not, since he had taken them in? He took the keys from his pocket and opened the door, under which he found a yellow cinema programme.

  'Come in, gentlemen.'

  The shop, which had had the sun all the morning and in which the air was stagnating, was like a furnace. Two great black flies were flying clumsily about.

  'Presumably you would rather I left the door open?'

  The smell of books was stronger than usual and, in order to create a draught, he went and opened the door into the yard, where a blackbird was hopping about. He knew it. The blackbird came every morning and was not afraid of Jonas.

  'Call me if you need me.'

  It was Basquin who took the lead.

  'I'd like to visit the bedroom first. I suppose it's this way?'

  'Go on up! I'll follow.'

  He wanted a cup of coffee, but didn't dare ask for permission to go and make himself one, still less to go and have one at Le Bouc's.

  The bedroom was tidy, the counterpane carefully spread on the bed, and the dressing-table immaculate. As he went in Jonas' eye fell immediately upon Gina's comb which was dirty, with one or two hairs caught in it. He was so used to seeing it in the same place that he had not noticed it during the past few days, nor washed it.

  'Is this the only bedroom in the house?'

  'Yes.'

  'So that this is the bed you both slept in?'

  'Yes.'

  Through the open window Jonas thought he could hear stealthy footsteps on the pavement, muffled whispers.

  'Where does this door lead to?'

  'The lavatory and bathroom.'

  'And that one?'

  He pushed it open. It had once been a bedroom looking out onto the yard, but it was so tiny that there was only just room for a bed. Jonas used it as a loft and box-room for his shop. It contained broken chairs, an old chest with the lock torn off, dating from their flight from Russia, a dress-maker's model, which he had bought for Gina and which she had never used, cracked crockery, piles of books, the ones which he had no hope of ever selling, and even a chamber pot. No one ever dusted this room. The skylight was not opened more than once a year and the air was musty, everything was covered with a layer of grey powder.

  The two policemen exchanged glances. Presumably it meant that nobody could have gone in there recently without leaving traces. They had kept their hats on and Basquin was finishing a cigarette, the stub of which he went and threw down the lavatory.

  'Are these the clothes?' he asked, pointing to the wardrobe with the looking-glass.

  Jonas opened its two doors and the inspector ran his hand over the dresses, the coats, then over Jonas' two suits and overcoat.

  'She didn't have another coat?'

  'No.'

  In the bottom of the wardrobe stood three pairs of Gina's shoes, a pair of slippers and a pair of his own shoes. That was their entire wardrobe.

  'Is that the famous strong-box?'

  He was thus admitting that the superintendent had spoken to him while Jonas was waiting in the front office.

  'Do you mind opening it?'

  He took out his keys again, put the strong-box onto the bed and raised the lid.

  'I thought it was empty!' exclaimed Basquin.

  'I never said that.'

  There were in fact still about fifty transparent packets each containing a stamp or a stamped card.

  'Well, what did she take?'

  'About a quarter of the stamps which were in here. The whole lot, with the packets, wouldn't have fitted into her bag.'

  'The rarest ones?'

  'Yes.'

  'How could she have recognized them?'

  'I had shown them to her. And also because they were on top of the others, as I had been looking at them.'

  The two men exchanged glances behind his back, and they must have been thinking he was a lunatic.

  'You don't have any weapons in the house?'

  'No.'

  'You have never possessed a revolver?'

  'Never.'

  The detective with Basquin was examining the floor, the woven carpet of blue and red flowers, the blue curtains, as if in search of traces of blood. He made an even more careful study around the dressing-table and went off to pursue his investigations in the bathroom.

  Basquin stepped onto the straw-bottomed chair to look on top of the wardrobe, then he pulled open the drawers of the chest one by one.

  The top one was Gina's drawer, and everything was in chaos, her three nightdresses, petticoats, brassieres, combinations which she scarcely ever wore, stockings, an old bag, a powder case, two boxes of aspirin and a small rubber object.

  In the bag the inspector found a handkerchief stained with lipstick, some coins, a propelling-pencil and a receipt for two hundred and twenty-seven francs for a purchase she had made at Prisunic.

  Jonas' drawer was in better order, with the shirts on one side, the pyjamas on the other, the socks, underpants, handkerchiefs and vests in the middle. There was also a brand new wallet which Gina had given him for his birthday and he never used because he considered it too smart. It still smelled of new leather and was empty.

  Lastly, the bottom drawer contained, thrown in anyhow, everything that had not found a home elsewhere, medicines, the two winter blankets, a silver-mounted hat brush given to them as a wedding present, some hairpins and two advertisement ashtrays which they didn't use.

  Basquin did not forget the drawer of the bedside table, where he found a pair of broken glasses, some gardenal, a razor and finally a photograph of Gina naked.

  It was not Jonas who had taken it, nor he who had put it there. It dated back to well before their marriage, for Gina could not have been more than twenty at the time and, if her bosom was already well- developed, her waist was narrower, her hips less powerful.

  'Look,' she had said to him one day when, by a miracle, she was tidying up her things. 'Do you recognize me?'

  The features were not very clearly defined. True, the photograph was blurred. Gina was standing at the foot of a bed, in a hotel bedroom probably, and it was obvious that she did not know what to do with her hands.

  'Don't you think I was better looking than I am now?'

  He had said no.

  'It amuses me to keep it, because I can compare myself. The day will come when people will no longer believe it's me.'

  She looked at herself in the glass, displaying her bosom, feeling her hips.

  'I didn't take that photograph,' he told Basquin hurriedly. 'She was much younger then.'

  The inspector glanced at it again, curiously.

  'So I see,' he said.

  Then, after a look at his colleague:

  'Let's take a look at the ground floor.'

  It was rather like a public sale, when the most personal furniture and objects of a family are piled up in the street for inquisitive passers-by to come and finger them.

  What did it matter now that they should turn his home inside out, after what had already been done to him?

  Not only was he no longer at home in his own house, but he was no longer at home in his own skin.

  VIII

  As they passed through the little room on their way from the bedroom to the kitchen, Jonas glanced automatically in the direction of the shop and saw some faces pressed to the window; he even caught a glimpse of one urchin who must have ventured into the house, hurriedly beating a retreat and causing a burst of laughter.

  The detectives examined everything, the cupboard where the groceries, the scales and the coffee-grinder were kept, the brooms hanging from its doors, the contents of the other cupboards, the table drawer, and they studied with particular attention the meat axe and the carving knives as if in search of tell-tale signs.

  They went into the yard as well, where Basquin pointed to the windows of the Palestris' house.

  'Isn't that Gina's home?'

  'Yes.'

  One of the windows actually belonged to the
bedroom, now Frédo's, which she occupied as a young girl.

  The little room took longer. The drawers were full of papers of all sorts, envelopes crammed with stamps, marked with signs which the inspector had to have explained, and for a long time he turned over the pages of the Russian album, with a series of sidelong glances at Jonas.

  'You haven't done the same for the other countries, have you?'

  He could only reply that he hadn't. He knew what they would deduce from that.

  'I see you have the entire Soviet series. It's the first time I've had a chance of seeing them. How did you get hold of them?'

  'You can pick them up everywhere in the trade.'

  'Ah!'

  The inquisitive eavesdroppers did not disappear until the two men set to work on the shop, where they ran their hands behind the rows of books.

  'Have you dusted here recently?'

  Was it also going to count against him that in order to keep himself occupied, he had undertaken a spring-cleaning of the shelves? It was all the same to him. He was no longer trying to defend himself.

  At a particular moment during the morning, he could not have said precisely which moment, and in any case it did not matter, something had snapped. It was as if someone had cut a wire, or better still, perhaps, as if he had suddenly become independent of the law of gravity.

  He could see the two of them, the inspector and Dambois, who were carrying out their duty conscientiously, but their comings and goings, their actions, the words they spoke, no longer had any connection with himself. A little knot of people outside continued to watch the house, and he did not even glance up to see whom it was composed of; for him they were nothing more than a patch of life in the sunlight.

  He was beyond everything. He had passed to the other side. He was waiting, patiently, for his companions to finish, and when they finally made up their minds to depart, he removed the door handle and locked the door behind them. It was no longer his own house. Furniture and objects were still in the same place. He could still have placed his hand on each thing with his eyes closed, but all real contact had ceased to exist.

  He was hungry. The idea of going to eat at Pepito's did not occur to him. In the kitchen he found the remains of some cheese from the day before and a hunk of bread, and he began to eat, standing in front of the door into the backyard.