The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By

by Georges Simenon

  Goin must be right about that too. It was Jeanne who had persuaded Louis to take care of him. But why? Because he had impressed her? Because he hadn’t behaved towards her as an ordinary client would? Or was it because, once she knew what he had done, her curiosity was aroused?

  As for the idea that she had taken pity on him, Popinga rejected it, not only because he had no need of pity, but also because Jeanne Rozier was not the kind of woman to take pity on anyone.

  ‘One more hour to go!’ he noted impatiently.

  As the time drew near, he thought more about her and tried to predict what would happen. From then on, whereas he had been drinking only mineral water, he started to order glasses of cognac which quickly went to his head.

  And at half past two, looking at his reflection in a café mirror on Rue des Batignolles, he told himself:

  ‘To think that no one knows yet what’s going to happen! Not even me. Not even Jeanne, who’s waiting for it to be time to go home. Louis is in Marseille . . . Goin and his sister are fast asleep in their bedroom and fondly imagine I’m the other side of the door. Nobody knows . . .’

  He asked for a newspaper and had to turn to page 5 before finding a small paragraph about himself. He felt annoyed, especially since it was just the same as before:

  Chief Inspector Lucas is continuing investigations into the murder in Amsterdam, and believes it will not be long before Popinga is under arrest.

  That was another one who thought he was clever, Chief Inspector Lucas, who really knew nothing at all!

  Perhaps, of course, he was getting the newspapers to print this, in order to put the wind up Kees!

  And he, Kees, would soon see if the chief inspector was as smart as he wished to appear. He asked the way to Rue Fromentin, again from a policeman, then walked up and down it three times, checking all the alleyways and corners, and felt certain no officer was stationed near number 13.

  Therefore, nobody had predicted that he would be visiting Jeanne Rozier that night! Therefore, Lucas had understood nothing! So Popinga was still ahead of them all!

  And what would the chief inspector’s face look like in the morning if something happened tonight? And what would all the reporters say, after obediently parroting his reassuring statements?

  In short, the more action he took, the more his pursuers would lose their chance to catch him, since every one of his actions would correspond to a new hypothesis, all contradicting each other, leading the investigation into a maze!

  What was there to stop him committing some act of violence? What would have prevented him earlier from attacking the two women in the train, pulling the communication cord and jumping down on the track while people came rushing through the corridors?

  He easily found Picratt’s, the club where he had spent his first hours in Paris, and walked about outside, waiting for it to close. When he had arrived, it was now clear, he hadn’t known anything. He hadn’t had time to think. And now he felt almost sorry for the man who had got off the train at Gare du Nord and been in a hurry to order champagne and brag to a prostitute.

  Two women came out of the club, hostesses like Jeanne, but she was not one of them.

  That forced him to contemplate with annoyance the possibility that she might be accompanied by a client, in which case everything would have to be postponed until later, the next day perhaps.

  But no! She was coming out! She was wearing her squirrel coat, with a posy of violets on the lapel, and he could hear her high heels clicking on the pavement. She looked cold. She was walking quickly, keeping close to the houses, not looking left or right, like someone who takes the same route every day. Kees followed her on the other side of the street, sure now that she wouldn’t get away.

  But he had a brief scare, when she went into one of the bars still open, then he was astonished to see through the window that she had ordered a café-crème and was dipping a croissant in it.

  So, nobody had invited her to have supper with them! She was eating with that distracted expression that he had noticed on other people in that kind of bar. She felt in her handbag, paid, and left without wasting time.

  He waited for her to buzz at the street door of her building, and at the moment the door clicked open, he approached her without a word, which made her jump. She didn’t open her mouth or say anything, but there was a hint of fear in her green eyes, he was sure, before she shrugged and stood aside to let him in.

  The lift was so cramped that they were touching each other. Jeanne operated it, sent it back, fumbled in her bag for her door key, then at last stammered:

  ‘B-but what are you going to tell Louis?’

  He merely smiled while looking at her and she was taken aback, since she realized that he had guessed her ruse. Only as they entered the flat, did Kees murmur:

  ‘Louis’s in Marseille.’

  ‘Did Goin tell you that?’

  ‘No.’

  She had closed the door and switched on the light in the hall. Her lodgings consisted of three rooms plus a bathroom, all old-fashioned and cluttered, with rugs everywhere and too many cheap knickknacks, evening shoes scattered around, a sandwich on the sitting-room table alongside a half-full bottle of wine.

  ‘What have you come here for?’

  First he checked that her eyes were actually green, as he remembered, and it seemed to him that her fear made them look even greener.

  ‘I could have called the concierge . . .’

  ‘What for?’

  As if he was at home, he took off his coat, drank a gulp of wine straight from the bottle, and opened a door that led into the bedroom.

  He noticed that on the bedside table was a telephone and resolved to keep an eye on it, but Jeanne Rozier had already caught his glance and read his thoughts.

  It was fun to toy with her, because she had fast reflexes and because she was keeping cool, only letting her emotions appear in tiny, almost imperceptible signs.

  ‘Aren’t you going to get undressed?’ he asked, as he removed his collar and tie.

  She had not yet taken off her coat, which she let fall from her shoulders with a little gesture of resignation.

  ‘When I heard Louis was going to Marseille, I thought at once that I could take advantage of that. Who’s that picture of, over the bed?’

  ‘My father.’

  ‘Fine-looking man. He has a remarkable moustache.’

  And he sat down on a little Louis XVI chair to take off his shoes. Jeanne Rozier, by contrast, did not proceed further with undressing. After having taken a few steps into the bedroom, she stood in the middle, facing him and said:

  ‘You’re not proposing to come and lodge here, are you?’

  ‘Well, till tomorrow at any rate, yes.’

  ‘I’m sorry that’s not possible.’

  She had guts. Despite herself, her eyes darted now and then to the phone. Especially when instead of replying he laughed and took off his other shoe.

  ‘You heard me?’

  ‘Yes, I heard you, but it doesn’t matter, does it? You’re forgetting that we’ve already spent one night together in the same bed. Well, I was very tired that night. And anyway I didn’t really know you. So since then, I’ve been regretting . . .’

  He was still sitting down, very pleased with himself, and feeling slightly feverish, which made his voice sound hoarse.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I didn’t want to make a big fuss downstairs, and get the concierge and other tenants woken up . . . I know the risk you’re running. But now, you’re going to get dressed at once. And leave. I can’t believe you’re crazy enough to imagine that I’d agree to this, now that—’

  ‘Now that what?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Now that you know? Come on, admit it! Now that you know what happened to Pamela. Come on, answer me. I promise you this really tickles me. For three days, I’ve been wondering what you were thinking . . .’

  ‘Don’t trouble yourself!’

  ‘Three days I’ve been telli
ng myself: “This girl isn’t as stupid as the others . . .”’

  ‘Maybe so, but all the same, you’d better be on your way now.’

  ‘And if I’m not?’

  He was standing in his stockinged feet, his shirt button pressing on his Adam’s apple.

  ‘It’ll be the worse for you.’

  She had snatched from inside a small cupboard a revolver with a pearl handle, and was holding it, not aimed at him, but in a way that was equally worrying.

  ‘You’d fire that gun at me?’

  ‘I don’t know. I might.’

  ‘Why? Yes, I’m asking you a question: why don’t you want to, tonight? The first time, it was me that didn’t want to.’

  ‘And I’m asking you to get out now!’

  She had managed to move closer to the telephone. Her movements were clumsy, betraying a fear she did not want to show. Perhaps it was her fear that caused it all, that drove Kees towards the crisis. But he still did not lose his talent for acting.

  ‘Look, Jeanne,’ he said, pretending to have a catch in his throat, and dropping his gaze, ‘you’re being mean to me, when you’re the only person that understands me and—’

  ‘Don’t come near me.’

  ‘No, all right. I won’t, but I beg you to listen and give me an answer. I know Goin and his sister wanted to turn me in to the police.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ she retorted, energetically.

  ‘I overheard them talking. And I know Louis wanted to get me to pay him a lot of money—’

  ‘That’s not true!’

  ‘Yes it is! He may not have told you that, but he did tell Goin, who repeated it to his sister. I was listening to their conversation. So I climbed out of the window and here I am . . .’

  She must have been unsettled by this, since she was less on the defensive and was thinking, looking down at the carpet. He, not missing any of her changes of expression, carried on:

  ‘You must have known something too, and you’re going to give me away as well, or why would you grab a gun?’

  ‘It wasn’t for that.’

  She had raised her head sharply, with an air of sincerity.

  ‘Why then?’

  ‘You don’t understand?’

  ‘You mean I scare you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, then . . .’

  ‘Nothing.’

  He had managed to move three steps nearer. Another two and he would be up close to her. And now the die was cast. He had not thought about what he was going to do, but he knew that from now on, things were going to take their course.

  ‘It affected you, did it, knowing that—’

  ‘Be quiet!’

  ‘If only she hadn’t been so stupid—’

  ‘Can’t you just stop talking . . .’

  In her impatience, she waved her arm in a way that made the revolver less threatening for a moment. Kees took advantage of it with amazing speed of reaction. He leaped upon her, pushed her over backwards on to the bed and seized the gun. At the same time, to stop her crying out, he put the pillow across her face and leaned on it with all his weight.

  ‘Swear that you won’t call the—’

  She was struggling. She was strong. The pillow slipped, and then he hit her on the head with the butt of the revolver, once, twice, three times, because he was concerned only with getting her to lie still.

  When he put his shoes back on, after washing his hands, since he had noticed blood on them, he felt as calm as after Pamela, but it was a heavier kind of calm, with a trace of sadness perhaps? As was proved when, once he was ready to go, he went to stand by the bed, patted Jeanne’s red hair, and muttered:

  ‘That wasn’t very clever of you, was it . . .’

  Only on the stairs did he shrug his shoulders, and express the consoling thought:

  ‘Well now, it’s well and truly over.’

  He knew he was the only person who would understand the workings of his mind. What exactly was over, he couldn’t explain. Just everything, anything that would connect him to other people. From now on he was alone, completely alone, alone against the whole world.

  For a moment, he panicked. On reaching the ground floor, he tried in vain to open the door. He did not know the way door mechanisms worked in Paris, with a wall switch, and lost patience, anguished sweat pouring from his brow.

  He even briefly considered going up to the first floor and waiting till morning, when the other tenants would be going out. But by chance someone pressed the outside buzzer, and the door opened. He saw a couple come in and turn their heads in astonishment as the shadowy figure disappeared.

  More people who would tell the police about him tomorrow!

  Montmartre was calm. The illuminated signs were all out. A few taxis were still driving slowly past, offering their services.

  But what was the point of taking a taxi, since he had no idea where he was going?

  Nevertheless something was troubling him, the image of Jeanne Rozier, who might not be regaining consciousness yet and who . . .

  Too bad! He stopped the next taxi and had some difficulty explaining what he wanted.

  ‘Look, what I need you to do is go to 13, Rue Fromentin. And there you should go up to the third floor, to Mademoiselle Rozier. She’s waiting for a taxi to come right away and take her to the station. Here’s twenty francs on account.’

  The driver looked suspicious.

  ‘Are you sure this lady . . .’

  ‘Yes, I tell you she wants a taxi!’

  The man shrugged and started his engine, while Popinga went striding off down towards the city centre. What did it matter to him whether the police began searching for him sooner rather than later, since he was certain he would escape them?

  He was enjoying wondering whether Jeanne Rozier would give a detailed description of him, and whether she would help the police. Something – flying in the face of common sense – told him that she would not.

  He was tired. He wanted to go to sleep for twelve hours, twenty-four even, as he had done recently.

  If he went into a hotel unaccompanied, they would ask him to fill out a card and ask for his papers. But had Jeanne not shown him how it was done?

  He kept going, taking long steps, until he met a streetwalker still out despite the late hour. He signalled to her then fell in behind her. Once in the bedroom, he did nevertheless take the precaution of putting his money under the pillow.

  ‘Are you foreign?’

  ‘Never you mind, I’m sleepy. Here’s a hundred francs. Now just leave me alone.’

  Whereupon he dropped off to sleep at once, and started dreaming he was Kees Popinga again, that Mama was dressing quietly, and looking in the mirror to squeeze a pimple, while downstairs the maid was clattering utensils in the kitchen. Only now the servant was Rose. And later, she said to him, when he went down and crept up behind her:

  ‘I’ll come back to the kitchen when you’ve gone.’

  Whose voice was it that whispered: ‘Watch out, the tin marked salt really contains sugar. Not at all nice in oxtail soup . . .’

  He struggled to recognize this voice, and suddenly light dawned: it was Jeanne Rozier’s and he was standing in his stockinged feet, with his collar off, in the middle of the kitchen, while the house was full of guests. She was laughing and ordering him with mocking affection:

  ‘Come on, get dressed quickly. Don’t you realize that you’ll be recognized?’

  7.

  How Kees Popinga created his home on the move, and how he deemed it his duty to lend a hand to the French police investigation

  You start with a little detail, sometimes very trivial, and you end, without meaning to, by discovering some general principles.

  And that morning, as he looked in the mirror – something he had always done with great seriousness – Popinga realized he had not shaved since he had left Holland, with the result that, although his beard was neither heavy nor fast-growing, his appearance was unprepossessing.

&
nbsp; He turned to the bed, where a woman whom he did not know was putting on her stockings.

  ‘When you’re ready, you can go out and buy me a safety razor, some shaving soap, a shaving brush and a toothbrush.’

  Since he had already given her the money in advance, she might well not have come back, but she was an honest woman, and on her return insisted on giving him an exact account of what she had spent. Then, not knowing whether she should stay or go, and not daring to ask, she sat back down on the bed and watched Popinga shaving.

  It was one of those streets looking on to Faubourg Montmartre, a hotel of much lower standing than the one in Rue Victor-Massé. In fact, it stood in exactly the same relation to the other hotel as the woman sitting on the bed did compared to Jeanne Rozier, that is three or four categories lower.

  On the other hand, this woman, whose name Kees did not even know, was genuinely trying to please him, working hard to find out what he preferred, as she proved by saying with a sigh:

  ‘You’re the sad type, aren’t you? An unhappy affair of the heart, that’s what I’d say.’

  She said this with the firm yet tentative voice of someone reading it in the cards.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ he asked, soaping one cheek.

  ‘Because I’m beginning to know what men are like. How old do you think I am? Well, as you see me now, I’m thirty-eight, my dear! I know I don’t look it. I’ve seen them come and go, men like you, they take me to a hotel and then don’t do anything. And most of them, you know, sooner or later they start to talk, and talk, they tell me their whole life stories. We’re useful for that, aren’t we? We listen to it all, and it doesn’t go any further.’

  It was almost a domestic scene with Kees, the paterfamilias, bare-chested, his braces hanging down to his calves: the woman chatting amiably to him while she waited for him to get ready. The funniest thing was that while he did gather that she thought he looked ‘the sad type’ – another new personality which was being foisted on to him, and which he mustn’t forget to note down – in the end he had stopped listening to her.