The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By

by Georges Simenon

  A real quarrel. With Rose eating at one corner of the table, keeping an eye on the cooking stove like a good housewife, and Kiki, who had his lunch sitting on the doorstep with a plate on his knee.

  Popinga kept his thoughts to himself. He seemed to be listening to all this, so Goin carried on.

  ‘In three days at most, the boss’ll be here again. He’s got to go to Marseille tonight, but once he’s back . . .’

  Popinga had already decided on his course of action. He finished his plateful, wiped his mouth with his handkerchief and announced:

  ‘I’m going up to my room. Good evening.’

  No one replied, and they watched as he started up the stairs, but he hadn’t reached the landing when he heard Goin call, as if regretting his harsh words:

  ‘If you need anything, just stamp your foot three times on the floor. The kitchen’s underneath and Rose will hear you.’

  Kees had no desire to sleep. He went over to the dormer window, and let his gaze wander over the extraordinary landscape, with snow-covered fields in the distance, railway tracks, buildings, iron girders, all the confusing clutter of a huge goods yard, carriages without engines shunting along, huge locomotives marking time furiously with whistles and screeches, and a few trees which had escaped destruction making a desolate black tangle of branches against the cold sky.

  From everything that had been said, Kees retained one thing: Louis was leaving for Marseille.

  At about four o’clock, sitting on the bed, he re-read the paper by the light of the unshaded electric bulb:

  The inspector interviewed a certain Jeanne R—, 13, Rue Fromentin, who . . .

  It was cold. Kees had wrapped himself in the cotton coverlet. He had pulled his bed over towards the metal pipe running up from the kitchen stove through his room and into the roof. The trains went on whistling threateningly. The sounds from outside made an orchestral clamour with deep growls and high-pitched screams, the puffing of the locomotives, and occasionally the sound of a car passing rapidly on the main road.

  Louis was off to Marseille. And this Rose woman, with her pale face, hadn’t even read the paper to find out who he was. And Louis must now be cursing him. Unless, that is, he’d already planned to turn him in.

  Well, that didn’t matter, did it? He could shrug his shoulders, and contemplate with scorn the bulky pullover and dungarees which had momentarily transformed the real Popinga.

  He was cleverer than all of them, including Louis, including Jeanne Rozier. Their whole gang was shackled to this garage, the same way Mama was shackled to her household, Claes to his patients and Éléonore, and Copenghem shackled to the chess club, where he had ambitions to become the chairman . . .

  He, Popinga, was shackled to nothing, to nobody, to no idea, to absolutely nothing at all, as was proved by . . .

  6.

  The indiscretions of the stovepipe and the second attack carried out by Kees Popinga

  He might perhaps have nodded off in the warmth coming from the stovepipe, almost feeling the flames, if he had not clearly heard a door open into the kitchen, steps approaching the stove, and then a huge din that drowned out any other noise, as coal was shovelled into it. The racket had scarcely finished before he heard Goin asking:

  ‘Did you listen outside his door? What’s he up to?’

  And Rose replying, sulkily:

  ‘No idea. Can’t even hear him walking about.’

  ‘Can you make me a cup of coffee?’

  ‘All right. What are you doing?’

  ‘As you can see, I’m trying to fix this alarm-clock that’s bust.’

  Kees smiled. He could just imagine the two of them: Goin in his slippers, an extinguished cigarette in the corner of his mouth, frowning as he tried to take apart the alarm-clock on the kitchen table, while his sister, by the sound of it, was washing the dishes.

  ‘So what do you think of this character upstairs?’

  Their voices reached him, but faintly, since they were speaking only in a desultory way, without any emotion, just chatting, leaving long silences between their utterances. Sometimes a train loudly interrupted the conversation, so that only scraps of it could be heard.

  Kees, eyes closed, listened to it all, enjoying the heat from the stovepipe.

  ‘I think he’s an odd kind of bird. I wouldn’t trust him. What’s his job?’

  ‘I only found out about him today. He strangled a girl, a dancer in Amsterdam, and maybe, before that, he’d bumped off some old geezer.’

  Kees Popinga, despite his drowsiness, could not help reaching out for his notebook to write down the words: ‘bumped off’.

  Downstairs, the water was boiling and Rose was grinding coffee beans, putting a cup and the sugar bowl on the table.

  ‘If only I could work out where this wheel goes . . .’

  ‘You saw Louis, then?’

  ‘Yes. I wanted to know what we should do with our friend upstairs.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘You know how he is. He wants people to think he’s got a reason for everything and there’s a plan. But what I’ve always thought is he just muddles along. He tried to persuade me he’s got something on this Dutchman, so he can make him shell out as much he wants. But at the same time, as I pointed out to him, the Dutchman’s got something on us . . .’

  ‘Drink your coffee while it’s hot. There’s a screw on the floor.’

  ‘And if you talk back like that to Louis, he gets angry and starts yelling that he has to carry all the responsibility, and we should leave everything to him. All right, I said, fine as far as the cars go. But I certainly don’t like having someone like this Dutchman living in our place. What if he’s a maniac, and he tries to attack you . . .?’

  ‘He don’t frighten me.’

  ‘Not to mention we could be looking at five years for this. What I think is, it was Jeanne got Louis saddled with this character. And Louis didn’t dare say no, so he said yes, without looking further than his nose. Right, finished. Let’s see if it works.’

  The sound came so clearly that you could almost see Goin winding up the clock.

  ‘Fixed it, have you?’

  But the only reply was a crash, as Goin had flung the clock in a rage across the kitchen.

  ‘Never mind, you can buy another one for me tomorrow. Have they brought the paper?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘I gave Louis a piece of advice. What I said was, look, you get a chance like this, why not use it to get a bit of quid pro quo? We turn this sex maniac in to the police, well obviously they’re not going to be too fussy, are they, poking their noses into our business?’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘Nothing. He’ll see when he gets back from Marseille.’

  ‘Do they have the guillotine in Holland?’

  ‘Dunno. Why do you ask?’

  ‘No reason.’

  Silence. Then Goin said, rather awkwardly:

  ‘If he was normal, like us, I wouldn’t be going on like this. But you know what I mean. You’ve seen yourself, the way he acts. I’m going out for the paper.’

  Kees Popinga had not budged an inch. Through the window he could see a few lights in the sky and now he heard below him Rose coming and going, shuffling in her felt slippers, opening cupboards, putting away pots and pans, then with a sudden noise stoking up the stove.

  It was a long wait. For Goin, the paper was merely a pretext to go to the bar and no doubt to have a game of belote, since he did not return till two hours later, when the table was already laid for supper.

  ‘Nobody’s been?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And him upstairs?’

  ‘Must be asleep, I haven’t heard him walking about.’

  ‘Know what I thought on the way back? That these loners, like him, they’re more of a menace to society than we are. There was this one time Louis used his gun, on Boulevard Rochechouart, because he was cornered. At least, something like that happens, you know where you a
re. But this bird! Can you work out what he’s thinking?’

  ‘Nothing good,’ sighed Rose.

  ‘Well, what do you expect? I’ll tell you again, and I’ve said it before, I don’t like having this character in the house . . . What, rabbit again? Have you bought a job lot or something?’

  ‘It’s yesterday’s leftovers.’

  ‘Better take some up to him.’

  ‘I’ll take it up in a bit.’

  And indeed, a little later Rose knocked at the bedroom door.

  ‘Open up,’ she said, ‘here’s your supper.’

  Popinga had stood up. Once the door was open, and Rose was encumbered with the tray she was carrying, he had deliberately placed himself between her and the door and was looking at her with his shifty little eyes.

  ‘You’re nice though, you are,’ he said.

  Perhaps he did not yet know whether he merely wanted to frighten her, or whether it was worse than that.

  ‘You’re going to stay up here with me for a bit, aren’t you?’

  She turned round without showing the least sign of emotion, and stared him up and down.

  ‘Well, look at you!’ she said in a vulgar voice.

  And her eyes rested on those of the man before her, on his fixed smile and his trembling hands.

  ‘Don’t go thinking I’m a dancer! You’d better just eat your food and get to bed.’

  And without making any fuss, she managed by sheer force of attitude to go past him. She stopped in the doorway and looked back:

  ‘And when you’ve finished, put the tray on the floor outside the door.’

  The next moment, Popinga had his ear almost pressed to the stovepipe and he soon heard the glazed door into the kitchen open and close. A chair scraped, Rose was sitting down. Silence, the chink of a glass against a bottle.

  ‘Was he asleep?’

  ‘Had been, I think.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘What could he say?’

  ‘I thought I heard voices.’

  ‘I told him to eat his food and leave the tray outside.’

  ‘Don’t you think I’m right, and Louis’s taking a big risk? If Lucas got Jeanne down to headquarters, he must suspect something. They must be watching Jeanne . . . and Louis too, come to that. I’m wondering now if the police found out I met him today. What if they followed me?’

  ‘Do you want to turn him in?’

  ‘Well, if it wasn’t for Louis . . .’

  He must have gone back to reading the paper, since there was a long silence with no voices. Finally he sighed:

  ‘Let’s go to bed. Nothing’s going to happen tonight. I’ll go and close up the garage.’

  Popinga had done as Rose asked and put the tray outside the door, which he then carefully closed. Next, he removed the clothes Goin had given him and put on his grey suit, into the pockets of which he slipped what was left of his money and the red leather notebook.

  He showed no impatience. Stretched out on the bed with the coverlet over him, he waited, while the brother and sister quietly undressed, exchanged a few words, moved a few objects around, then settled down for the night, having been accustomed since their childhood in some poor country village to sleep five or six in the same room.

  ‘. . . G’night, Rose!’

  ‘. . . G’night!’

  ‘I’m not a fortune teller. I know you don’t agree with me. But you’ll see, I’m right!’

  ‘We’ll see, won’t we?’ she replied, resignedly, or perhaps already dropping off to sleep.

  Popinga waited for a quarter of an hour, half an hour, got up silently, and went over to the window. It was snowing. For a moment, he feared that opening the window would let in all the noise from the goods yard and wake the brother and sister. But he knew it would be very brief. Just under his window was an old truck, its tarpaulin than two metres from the window-sill. He hung by his hands, then let himself drop, and next moment he was on a patch of waste ground behind the garage, where his footsteps marked the thin layer of snow.

  Wanting to know the time, he realized that he no longer had his watch, Goin must have taken it. After looking round to get his bearings, he headed for Juvisy: as he passed the café where he had played the fruit machine, he almost went inside, to show them how he normally looked, in his grey suit and overcoat, with a starched collar and a tie.

  He saw the time on the station clock: 10.40. He walked into the booking office and politely asked the clerk when the next train would leave for Paris.

  ‘Twelve minutes,’ he was told.

  Standing on the platform, he felt an immense sensation of relief. Not that he had had a moment’s fear in the garage. Fear was something he had not experienced since leaving Groningen.

  But it seemed to him that by coming to Juvisy, he had suddenly forfeited all the benefit of his escape.

  It was as if he had been somehow held in custody, as if his wife and Julius de Coster had been replaced by Louis, Goin and his sister Rose.

  But these people had understood him no better than the people in Groningen. What was that strange expression Goin had used? He opened the notebook, just to find it again.

  ‘“Bumped off!”’

  That was it. He had bumped off Julius de Coster, and they thought he was up the pole!

  Even worse, during the few hours he had spent lying on the camp bed, eavesdropping on the conversation in the kitchen, Kees had almost thought himself briefly back in his house in Groningen, when, for instance, he could hear from the bedroom his wife chatting to the maid. They had the same habit of letting fall sentences unhurriedly, and giving their opinions of other people, as if the whole world were subject to their judgement.

  As for Louis, Goin must be right: he was just a kid playing at being a gang boss, but didn’t really know what he wanted . . .

  Popinga had never felt so powerful as on this station platform, as he paced up and down, looking at the tourist posters and smoking a cigar. He was soaring thousands of wingbeats above men like Louis, Goin, Julius de Coster, all those loudmouthed braggarts.

  He was certain that if he bought any newspaper on the stalls, he would find some report concerning him. Would they publish his photograph again? The police were after him! People were shuddering at the idea that the Amsterdam sex maniac might be among them.

  And meanwhile he had casually left his hiding-place, bought a second-class ticket, was now waiting for a train and would shortly alight in Paris, where Chief Inspector Lucas was in charge of the investigation.

  Was this not proof that he, Kees Popinga, was stronger and more intelligent than the lot of them? And he’d do better than that: he would go to Jeanne Rozier’s place, precisely because that was risky and the one thing he shouldn’t do!

  In any case, he needed to see her. There was unfinished business between them.

  The train drew in. By chance, he found a seat in a compartment where two country women in dark clothes were gossiping about events in their village, the neighbours’ illnesses and the people who had died that year.

  Sitting meekly in his corner, he looked at them with an insane desire to declare to them suddenly:

  ‘Allow me to introduce myself. Kees Popinga, the Amsterdam sex maniac!’

  No, he didn’t do it, of course. But he thought about it several times. He gave himself the secret pleasure of imagining the scene that would follow. But in spite of everything, he was the one who lifted down his travelling companions’ suitcases from the luggage rack and could not suppress an ironic smile, as he murmured politely:

  ‘You’re welcome, madame.’

  But at heart, this was what he had wanted: to be completely alone, alone in knowing what he knew, alone in knowing who Kees Popinga was; to wander through the crowds, coming and going between people who brushed past him without realizing, and who had all kinds of ridiculous opinions about him.

  For these two women, for instance, he was an old-fashioned gentleman, the kind you don’t meet many of nowadays. For Ro
se . . . In fact, she had never made it clear what she thought of him, but he supposed she despised him, out of lack of imagination.

  He was glad to be back in Paris, with its buses, taxis and people going in all directions, pursuing heaven only knew what pointless goals. He had all the time in the world. Picratt’s never closed before three or four in the morning, and supposing that Jeanne Rozier was out alone, she wouldn’t be home before a quarter to three at the earliest.

  How strange of him not to have taken advantage of her when she was available, lying alongside him in bed. Now, on the other hand, the very thought of her . . .

  But now it was different. Now that she knew his story, he felt the need to dominate her, to frighten her, since she was too intelligent to reject him as stupidly as Rose.

  While he was waiting, having nothing else to do, he went up to a policeman and asked him the way to the Police Judiciaire. He had a perfect right to know, didn’t he? In all the newspaper reports about him, there had been mentions of the Police Judiciaire and Chief Inspector Lucas. He was pleased to find himself on Quai des Orfèvres and to read over a dimly lit door: ‘Police Judiciaire’. He would have liked even better to catch sight of the chief inspector himself, but that was difficult.

  He contented himself with sitting for a good while on a parapet overlooking the Seine and looking up at the three lighted windows on the first floor. In the courtyard, through the monumental arch, two police buses and a van for transporting suspects were waiting.

  He walked away with reluctance. He would have liked to be able to see it from closer to. On Place Saint-Michel, he turned round again and asked a policeman, yes, another policeman, for directions to Montmartre. He had asked the way without any need to, simply for the pleasure of talking to an officer of the law. It allowed him to think:

  ‘If only he knew . . .’

  He could not walk the streets until three in the morning, so he punctuated his stroll by going into one bar after another where, standing at the horseshoe-shaped counter, he found himself alongside other human beings whose lives were as if suspended in the moment. Some people looked preoccupied as they sipped their coffee. Others, leaning on the bar after finishing their drinks, had such vacant expressions that you wondered when and by what miracle they would suddenly come to their senses. A little girl carrying a basket of violets reminded him of Christmas Eve and the two visits that Jeanne Rozier had paid him at the tobacconist’s in Rue de Douai.