The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By

by Georges Simenon

  The carriages gave a jolt at that minute, and moved forward, then back, and Kees could never remember how he got back home, or how he had seen for one last time the shadows on a curtain in the ‘house’ – on the second floor this time – or how, finally, he had undressed and slipped into bed without Mama noticing anything odd.

  Five minutes later, the bed took off at alarming speed and Kees could only cling on to the sheets, with the desperate feeling that at any moment he was going to be tipped out into the Wilhelmine Canal, from which the crew of the Ocean III would make no effort to rescue him.

  2.

  In which Kees Popinga, despite having slept on the wrong side, wakes up feeling cheerful and how he hesitates between Éléonore and Pamela

  When by chance he had been lying on his left side, Kees usually slept badly. Feeling oppressed, his breath would become uneven, and he would toss and groan, waking Mrs Popinga, who pushed him firmly into a better position.

  But today, although he had been sleeping on his left side, he had no memory of a single bad dream. Better: he, who normally took some time to come to in the morning, suddenly found himself wide awake.

  What had woken him, though he had not bothered to open his eyes, was the slight sound of the bedsprings, indicating that Mrs Popinga was getting up. On other mornings, Kees would go back to sleep, thinking that he had a good half-hour in front of him.

  Not this time! Once his wife was up, he even cautiously opened his eyes to watch her standing in front of the mirror and pulling pins out of her hair.

  She did not know she was being observed, and her movements were careful to avoid waking her husband. She went into the bathroom and put on the light, so Kees could still see her all the time through the doorway.

  In the street, the lamplighter had not yet passed to put out the gas lamps, but there was a regular crunching sound of spades shovelling snow. Downstairs, their maidservant, who had never been known to move about quietly, seemed to be battling with her stove and saucepans.

  Mama, looking sleepy, had put on some long johns, with elastic round the knees to keep her warm. Then she walked about, thus dressed, brushing her teeth and spitting into the basin, pulling a face, and carrying out a multitude of small actions, without suspecting that she was being watched.

  The alarm-clock trilled in their son’s bedroom, and sounds began to come from that direction too, while Kees, lying comfortably on his back, decided coolly not to get up.

  There! The first big decision of the day. He saw no reason to get up, since the firm of Julius de Coster had failed. He savoured in advance his wife’s shock when he told her of his determination to stay in bed.

  Too bad! She hadn’t seen anything yet, poor Mama!

  In fact, thinking of Mama, Kees had one memory that sprang immediately to mind. One day, five years earlier, he had bought a skiff, made of mahogany, which he had called Zeedeufel, Sea Demon, and which, though he said so himself, was a little gem, varnished, shining, with its brass fittings and elegant lines, more a display piece than a real boat.

  Since it had cost him a great deal of money, Kees had felt a certain intoxication, and that evening he had complacently calculated everything they owned: house, furniture, cupboards full of linen, silver cutlery.

  In short, that night, the Popingas were so certain of their wealth that, as a joke, the two of them had envisaged the prospect of sudden ruin.

  ‘I have sometimes thought about it,’ Mama had declared with her usual imperturbable calm. ‘First of all, we would have to sell everything and place the children in a good boarding school, one that’s not too expensive. You, Kees, would surely be able to pick up a professional job on board a ship. And I would go to Java and look for a post as housekeeper in a big hotel. Remember Aunt Maria, who lost her husband? Well, that’s what she did, and apparently she is well respected.’

  He almost burst out laughing, as he said to himself:

  ‘So now it’s happened! We’re ruined! Time to go and count the sheets and towels in a big hotel in Java . . .!’

  Which only goes to show that when you try to imagine things in advance, you come up with something completely ridiculous. Because, in the first place, the villa would be repossessed, and everything they had would be sold. And it wasn’t the moment, during a world-wide depression, to look for a job in the merchant navy.

  In any case, Popinga had no wish at all to do that. And if he had had to say off the cuff what he did want, he would have been obliged to say: Éléonore de Coster or Pamela!

  For the moment, that was what surfaced in his mind from the events of the night before: Éléonore in her silk peignoir, with her long cigarette-holder and her dark hair curling on the nape of her neck. Then the idea that Dr Claes, who was a friend, with whom he played chess . . .

  And Pamela, in Amsterdam, who invited her young girlfriends round entirely for the pleasure of Julius de Coster, in his guise as a pasha.

  The windows were growing light, glazed with frost. Their son had gone downstairs and would be eating breakfast, because his school started at eight. More slowly, and more methodically, like her mother, Frida would be tidying her room.

  ‘Kees, it’s half past seven!’ His wife was standing in the doorway and Popinga made her repeat her call twice, before stretching and declaring:

  ‘I’m not getting up this morning.’

  ‘Are you ill?’

  ‘No, I’m not ill, but I’m not getting up.’

  He felt like playing tricks. He was aware of the enormity of his decision and through half-closed eyes he was watching the reactions of Mrs Popinga, who now came towards the bed, her features frozen with astonishment.

  ‘What’s the matter, Kees? Aren’t you going to the office today?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you told Mr Julius de Coster?’

  ‘No.’

  The strangest thing was that he realized that his attitude was not forced upon him, but corresponded to his true nature. Yes! This was how he should always have lived!

  ‘Listen, Kees . . . You’re not properly awake. If you feel ill, tell me honestly, but don’t frighten me for nothing.’

  ‘I’m not ill, and I’m staying in bed. Could you send me up some tea, please?’

  And this, De Coster himself would not have believed. He thought he had crushed Popinga with his confession, but Kees was not in the least crushed.

  Simply amazed that another man, especially his boss, had had the same ideas as him, the same dreams rather, since in Kees’s case they had remained at the level of dreaming.

  Take trains, for instance. He was no longer a child, and it wasn’t anything mechanical about them that attracted him. If he had a preference for night trains, it was because he sensed in them something strange, almost wicked . . . He had the impression that people who catch the night train are leaving for ever, especially when he had seen poor families crowding into third-class compartments with their bundles.

  Like the Italians last night.

  So Kees had dreamed of being someone other than Kees Popinga. And that was exactly why he had always been so very much Popinga, too much himself indeed, exaggeratedly so, because he knew that if he slipped up on one little detail, nothing would stop him.

  Evenings . . . Yes, evenings, when Frida was sitting down to her homework and his wife was sticking pictures in her album. When he fiddled with the wireless, smoking a cigar and feeling too hot. He could have stood up and said straight out:

  ‘How boring it is, family life!’

  It had been to stop himself saying it, or even thinking it, that he had looked at the stove, repeating to himself that it was the best stove in Holland, that he had looked at Mama and persuaded himself that she was beautiful, and decided his daughter had dreamy eyes.

  And it was the same when he went past the famous ‘house’. Probably if he had once gone inside, that would have been the end of everything . . . He would have carried on in that direction, and kept women like Pamela. He would perhaps have done
forbidden things, since he had more imagination than De Coster the Younger.

  The street door opened and shut, and he heard a bicycle bell, which meant Carl was off to school on his bike. In a quarter of an hour, it would be Frida’s turn.

  ‘Here’s your tea. It’s very hot. Are you sure you’re not ill, Kees?’

  ‘Absolutely sure.’

  Which was an exaggeration, he now realized. As long as he had remained under the sheets, he had thought his body was perfectly at ease, but now, sitting up to drink his tea, he winced with a sharp pain at the back of his neck and felt suddenly dizzy.

  ‘You look very pale. You haven’t had any trouble over the Ocean III, have you?’

  ‘Me? No, not at all.’

  ‘And you won’t tell me what the matter is?’

  ‘Yes, I will tell you. The matter is that I want a bit of bloody peace and quiet!’

  This was as shocking as meeting Julius de Coster in the Petit Saint-Georges. Never had such words been pronounced in their house, which must be shaking on its foundations. And the oddest thing was that he said it without any trace of anger, as coldly as if he were asking for more tea or sugar.

  ‘You’ll do me a favour, Mama, and not ask me any more questions. I’m forty years old, and I may just start taking control of my own life . . .’

  She hesitated to leave the room, and could not resist plumping up the pillows behind his head, stopping halfway out of the room to look at him in distress, before she finally closed the door quietly.

  Bet she’s going to start crying now, he thought as he heard her stop on the landing.

  It was rather disconcerting to be there in his bed, at this time in the morning, on a weekday, without being ill. Frida went out in turn, and after that he lived through hours in his own house that he had never lived before: hearing the milk being delivered, then the women cleaning the downstairs rooms, things that he knew about only in theory.

  The more desirable of the two women was Éléonore, without a doubt! On the other hand, he did not feel that he was on an equal footing with her. Certainly he was as good a man as Dr Claes, who was the same age as Kees and whom he regularly beat at chess. What was more, Claes smoked a pipe and most women do not like that.

  Pamela would be easier. Especially now that he knew!

  Fancy that, she had lived in Groningen for two years and he had never dared!

  An idea struck him and he stood up and walked barefoot across the linoleum, feeling more than ever bewilderingly dizzy.

  He wanted to be sure that his wife had not taken his suit to brush it, because if so, she would have felt in the pockets and found the five hundred florins.

  His jacket was on a chair. He took the money and slipped it under his pillow, then almost fell asleep again, back in the warmth of the bed.

  Yes, Pamela would be the better choice. Why had De Coster passed that remark about his daughter Frida, saying that she was dark-haired and did not look like him?

  It was true. Still, it was difficult to imagine a woman like Mama deceiving him in the first year of their marriage!

  Since the Spanish occupation, there had been plenty of dark-haired people in Holland. And recessive genes could jump generations, couldn’t they?

  But in any case, it didn’t bother him. That was something that would have astonished Julius de Coster, who had thought he was the one doing the surprising. It didn’t bother him. The moment he was no longer right-hand man in the firm and his villa no longer belonged to him, the moment a single detail had changed, the rest could collapse around him.

  He was ready to start smoking a pipe like Claes, eating poor-quality cheese, and going into all the vergüning cafés in town to order a genever without a trace of shame in his voice.

  A ray of sunshine was appearing, striking obliquely into the bedroom through the net curtain with its polka dots, then trembling in the mirror on the wardrobe. Downstairs, the two women were busy with buckets and cloths, and from time to time his wife would be cocking an ear and wondering what he was up to.

  The doorbell rang. He heard muffled voices in the corridor, then Mrs Popinga came upstairs and into the bedroom, and with an apologetic air said reproachfully:

  ‘Someone has come for the key.’

  The key to the De Coster office, of course! The staff must all be clustered outside the building, inventing wild surmises.

  ‘Right-hand pocket of my jacket.’

  ‘You haven’t any message for them?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘You don’t want to send a word to Mr de Coster?’

  ‘No.’

  It was literally unheard of. Never would he have dared think of such a thing. Take, for example, the way they had talked about what it would be like to be ruined, as a way of giving themselves the illusion of being rich: they had only been able to come up with stupid suggestions, like working in a hotel in Java or as second officer on some ship.

  Not on your life! Not that or anything else! Since it was over, it was over, once and for all, and he had to seize the opportunity.

  He even regretted now that he had not had the presence of mind, the evening before, to say this to De Coster. He had merely let the man speak to him. And his employer had taken him for a fool, or at least a timid fellow, incapable of making a decision, whereas his decision had almost been taken.

  He should simply have said to him:

  ‘Do you know what I propose to do for a start? I’m going to Amsterdam to find Pamela.’

  Yes, that was an old score he had to settle. Perhaps it was not very serious; but it was the most pressing, since what humiliated Kees most was never having had the courage, when he walked every week past a certain house, blushing like a guilty schoolboy, to . . .

  So, that was decided: Pamela first. And then . . .

  Then, he’d see. Kees might not know what he would do, but he was perfectly clear about what he would not do, and that too had gone through his mind the night before, although he had not had the confidence to speak.

  Had De Coster not referred to Arthur Merkemans? And had Claes not also mentioned him, seeming to say:

  ‘Your brother-in-law came round to scrounge some money again. What a sad case!’

  So Kees would never become a second Merkemans. He knew how things were in Groningen better than anyone. Hardly a week went by than people who had better qualifications than his own came applying for a job. And the worst ones were precisely those who had elegant, if well-worn clothes, and who sighed:

  ‘I was the director of such-and-such a firm. But I’d accept anything, I have a wife and children to support.’

  They went from company to company, briefcase in hand. Some of them tried to sell vacuum cleaners or life insurance.

  ‘No!’ Kees said out loud, looking at his reflection in the distant mirror.

  He wouldn’t wait for his suits to be worn out, his shoes in holes, or for his friends at the chess club to feel so sorry for him that they waived his membership fee, as had happened for one member, after a vote by the committee in a spirit of universal generosity.

  At any rate, there was no question of anything like that. It was true that he would never have been able to initiate what had happened.

  But since it had happened all the same, best to take full advantage . . .

  ‘What is it now?’ he cried.

  ‘Mrs de Coster has sent to ask if you know anything about her husband. Apparently he didn’t come home last night, and . . .’

  ‘Well, what am I supposed to do about that?’

  ‘Shall I tell her you don’t know?’

  ‘Tell her she can go to the devil, and her fancy man too!’

  If Mrs Popinga did not know how things stood now . . .

  ‘And shut the door, for goodness’ sake. And tell the maid not to make all that din with her bucket . . .’

  He had a headache, and called his wife back to ask for an orange, since he had a sour taste in his mouth and his tongue felt furred.

  T
he ray of sunshine was wider. It was evident that outside the weather was dry, cold and sharp, and sounds travelled to him from the port, the fog horns of boats reaching the first bridge on the Wilhelmine Canal calling to be let through. Was the Ocean III still alongside? Probably. The captain must have had to buy his fuel oil from a competitor, Wrichten, no doubt, who would be wondering what that could mean.

  In the office, the clerks would be at a complete loss and waiting for Kees to arrive.

  So – he liked recapitulating, savouring the pleasure in advance – first Pamela. Julius de Coster had told him she lived in a suite of rooms in the Carlton Hotel.

  After which, with his five hundred florins, he too would take a train, a night train, The North Star, for example.

  Would it be long before Julius de Coster’s clothes were found? There was a shop selling fishing tackle near the place they had been left. The black hat would stand out against the snow on the bank.

  ‘Listen, Mama, if you disturb me again—’

  ‘Kees! Something terrible has happened! Incredible! Your boss has drowned himself. He—’

  ‘Well, what’s that got to do with me?’

  As he spoke, he was looking at himself in the mirror, for reassurance that his face was remaining strictly expressionless. It amused him! He had always looked at himself in mirrors, even when he was a small boy. He would strike one attitude, then another. He would correct details.

  Perhaps, deep down, he had always been an actor, and for fifteen years he had decided to project a worthy and untroubled image, that of a stolid Dutchman, sure of himself, of his honourability, his virtue, and of the high quality of everything he possessed.

  ‘How can you talk like that, Kees? Didn’t you understand what I said? Julius de Coster has committed suicide by throwing himself into the canal—’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘You’ll have me thinking you knew something about this.’

  ‘Why on earth should I be concerned, because a man has committed suicide?’

  ‘But, he was . . . It was your boss who . . .’