The Man Who Watched the Trains Go By

by Georges Simenon

  His watch had stopped again. It was a useless watch, but that didn’t matter any more.

  And to think he still didn’t really know the meaning of the word ‘paranoiac’.

  It was cold now. Yet another stroke of fate! And he was obliged to get rid of his shoes, since they carried the name of a maker in Groningen, and the same went for his socks, which his wife would have recognized. He took them off on a bank where some thorny shrubs were growing. Then he took off his jacket, his waistcoat and his trousers, and shivered.

  The only thing he could have kept on, because he had bought it in Paris, was the shirt, but he thought that was ridiculous, so he removed it.

  After that, he put his overcoat back on and stayed motionless for a long moment, looking at the water flowing past a few metres away.

  It was really cold. Especially since his bare feet were in a puddle. Better to move fast because it had to be done, like it or not, and with clumsy movements he went closer to the river and threw all the clothes in.

  Then he went back up the bank, lips trembling, and when he reached the railway track, not far from a green light, whose meaning he did not understand, something extraordinary happened.

  Whereas, up until then, he had been driven by a kind of inner fever, he now suddenly became perfectly calm, calm in a way he had never experienced before.

  At the same time, he looked all around and wondered what he was doing there, naked under his overcoat, balancing on the sleepers so as not to hurt his feet on the ballast.

  His hair was dripping wet, his face was wet, he was shivering and he stared wildly at the river carrying away his clothes, good-quality clothes that belonged to him, Kees Popinga.

  To a man who also owned a house in Groningen, a stove of the very best make, cigars on the mantelpiece and an excellent wireless set, worth almost four thousand francs!

  If it had not been so far away he would perhaps have tried to go home, quietly, climbing in through the kitchen window, and the next morning he would have whispered:

  ‘It was nothing, was it?’

  What had he done in the end? He had wanted to . . .

  No, stop thinking! He must not, whatever he did, think about things like that, because the letter had been sent.

  That was that. It was over! He had already let a train go past on one set of tracks and he mustn’t miss the next, not to mention that a railwayman might spot him, since he had noticed that company employees walked along the tracks with lanterns.

  Still, it was very stupid. But he couldn’t help that. It was stupid, but he lay down across the right-hand track, resting his cheek on the rail.

  The metal rail was freezing cold, and Popinga began to weep quietly, peering into the darkness, to the very end of the darkness, where he would soon see a pinpoint of light approaching.

  Afterwards, there would be no more Popinga. Nobody would ever know, because he wouldn’t have a head! And everyone would think, because of what he had written, that . . .

  His reflexes almost made him sit up, because he could hear the locomotive and he was so cold; he sensed a train about to appear round the bend.

  He had told himself he would close his eyes. But as the train approached, he kept them open, curling up, and staring, wide-eyed and breathless, although his mouth was open.

  The light and the thunderous sound approached, and suddenly the sound got much louder, to the degree that he thought he must be dead.

  Yet next thing, he heard voices, then it went quiet, and only at that point did he realize that a train had stopped on the other track, that two men were jumping down from the engine, and windows were being lowered.

  He stood up. He had no idea how. Neither did he know how he managed to run, but he clearly heard one of the engine drivers shouting:

  ‘Look out, he’s running away!’

  It was not true. He could not walk another step. He had thrown himself down behind a bush, but people were all round him and someone suddenly pounced on him, as if he were a wild animal they were frightened of, and grabbed both his wrists.

  ‘Watch it, train on the down line!’

  For him it was all over. He was not aware of the express train finally thundering along the track he had chosen, nor that he was being taken away in a second-class compartment, with a man, a woman, and the train’s guard.

  It was their problem now. Nothing to do with him any more.

  12.

  Which shows that it is not at all the same thing to drop a black chess piece into a cup of tea as into a glass of beer

  Yes, it was their problem now! Kees himself did not flinch and, wrapped in his overcoat, he walked the length of the platform at Gare de l’Est, between two lines of curious onlookers, jostling each other and joking.

  He was very dignified, indifferent to this vulgar curiosity, and in the stationmaster’s office, he remained completely calm, not deigning to answer any of the questions put to him, and merely stared at his interlocutors as if they were rather unexpected objects.

  Since it was glaringly obvious, once and for all, that they would never understand.

  He had to sleep on a sort of hard, narrow couch. Then they woke him up and made him put on an inspector’s uniform, too tight for him, so he could not button the jacket, which was a matter of supreme indifference to him.

  It was almost broad daylight when they brought him a pair of carpet slippers with leather soles, since they could find no shoes in his size.

  And it was still the other people who were looking impressed. They watched him with a kind of fearful respect, as if he had acquired the power of casting a spell on them.

  ‘And you still don’t want to tell us who you are?’

  No! What was the point? He simply shrugged his shoulders.

  They put him into a taxi, and he recognized the Palais de Justice, as they turned into one of its courtyards. Then he was in a cell, quite well lit, with a bed. Later on, when he had slept again, a fussy little man with a grey goatee beard poked him all over, asking him questions.

  Popinga did not reply. Although he didn’t know yet. It was only after someone called out in the corridor:

  ‘Professor Abram! You’re wanted on the phone!’

  And this was the inventor of the paranoiac label, who now answered the call and went out, carefully shutting the door.

  What did it matter to Popinga if he found himself in the special infirmary attached to the police cells, or anywhere else? All he wanted was a bit of peace and quiet, since he felt he would be capable of sleeping two, three or even four days running, sleeping anywhere, on a bench, on the ground.

  Since it was all over . . .

  He now had no watch or anything else. They had brought him some hot milk to drink. Waiting for the professor to return, he lay down, and it may have been some time, since he went off to sleep again, then when they woke him, it wasn’t Abram but someone else, a plainclothes officer, who put handcuffs on him and dragged him through a labyrinth of corridors and staircases, to an office that smelled of pipe tobacco.

  ‘You can leave us.’

  Through the window, you could see the Seine, with its yellowish water. An ordinary-looking man, rather stocky and slightly bald, was seated, and indicated to Popinga that he should sit down too.

  Docilely, Popinga obeyed, and allowed himself to be looked at and poked without showing the least sign of impatience.

  ‘Yes,’ his interlocutor muttered gruffly, after looking at him first from a distance, then from closer up, and finally right in the eye.

  Then suddenly, he asked:

  ‘So what did you think you were up to, Monsieur Popinga?’

  He did not move a muscle. It mattered little to him to know whether this was the famous Chief Inspector Lucas. Or that the door opened and a woman wearing a squirrel fur coat came in, stopped short, and then said in a breathless voice:

  ‘Oh, yes, it’s him all right . . . But how he’s changed!’

  So what? Who would appear next?

  T
he other two shamelessly enacted their short exchange in front of him. Lucas wrote out a statement, which Jeanne Rozier signed, shooting anxious glances at Popinga.

  Whatever next? Would Louis, Goin and the others, Rose even, parade in one after another?

  If only they would let him sleep! What difference would it make to them, since they could come and look at him or even poke him with their fingers, any time they wanted to?

  He was left alone, then more people came in, then he was left alone again, and finally he was taken back to his cell, where at last he could lie down.

  As if he was going to be stupid enough now to tell them that he was not insane!

  Now that the cards had fallen the way they had.

  Could they perhaps have avoided making him march twice or three times a day through the corridors and stairs of the Palais de Justice, to Chief Inspector Lucas’s office, where there would be different people every time, standing in the shadows, and being asked:

  ‘Do you recognize him?’

  ‘No, that’s not him, he was smaller.’

  He was also confronted with his letters.

  ‘Do you recognize that this is your handwriting?’

  He preferred to mutter:

  ‘I don’t know.’

  And they could have bought him a suit that fitted and some socks, since he still had no socks! And those people in that strange room right up under the roof, who took his fingerprints and photographs of him, need not have left him without a stitch on in some sort of antechamber.

  But apart from that . . .

  Popinga was getting so accustomed to the routine that he showed no reaction even on the day of the lecture. And yet he had not been expecting it. He hadn’t been warned. He had been taken into a small room, where two or three men, obviously insane, were waiting. Now and then, someone came to fetch one of them, about every quarter of an hour, and then that man did not reappear. You had to wait your turn!

  Popinga was the last one left. Finally, they came for him, and he found himself on a platform in front of a blackboard, where tiny Professor Abram was holding forth. Below the platform, in a room which was dimly lit, about thirty people were sitting taking notes, some of them students, others too old to be students.

  ‘Come forward, my friend. Don’t be afraid. I simply want you to answer the few questions I am going to ask you.’

  Kees had firmly made up his mind not to reply. He was not listening. He heard Professor Abram talking about him, using much more complicated terms than paranoiac, while the other people scribbled furiously. A few of them came forward to take a closer look at him and one of them, holding some kind of apparatus, took the measurements of his skull.

  So what? They were the idiots here . . .

  They also on one occasion took him to the visiting room, and suddenly brought him face to face with Mama, who had thought it necessary to dress all in black, as if she were a widow.

  ‘Kees!’ she exclaimed, clasping her hands together, ‘Kees! Don’t you know me?’

  Because he stared at her calmly, no doubt, she gave a cry and fainted.

  What else would they come up with? Would there be stories in the newspapers? Not that it mattered, since Popinga didn’t read them.

  Other people, who must have been mental health experts, came to see him and he eventually learned to recognize them, because they always asked the same questions.

  He had found a way of dealing with them. He would look them straight in the eye, seeming to wonder what they were so worked up about, and they did not insist for very long.

  Sleep! And then eat something, then sleep some more, dreaming about things that were rather vague but often pleasant.

  One day, they brought him a new suit of clothes, and Mama must have been consulted, since it almost fitted him. Next day, he was put into a police wagon which drove him to a railway station. Finally, accompanied by two men in plain clothes, he got into a train.

  The two men with him appeared to be on edge, whereas Kees by contrast found the change of scene entertaining. They had closed the curtains, but through the cracks he could see people going up and down in the corridor, evidently hoping to catch a glimpse of him.

  ‘Think we’ll get back tonight?’

  ‘Don’t know, depends who comes to take delivery.’

  His two companions ended up playing cards and offered him cigarettes, which they placed in his mouth casually, as if he were incapable of doing so himself.

  Everyone except him must have known through the newspapers what was happening, but he was quite indifferent.

  He even gave a smile when they went through first the Belgian, then the Dutch customs, because it took only a quick word from the two men to the customs officials for them not to visit their compartment.

  After the customs post on the border with Holland, a Dutch police officer did join them, in fact, but since he did not speak French, he was content to read newspapers in a corner.

  Then there was a lot of coming and going, with even a crowd of photographers on the station platform and in the corridors of the Amsterdam Law Courts. Popinga remained quite calm, merely smiling or sometimes answering questions simply with:

  ‘I don’t know.’

  There was a Dutch version of Abram, much younger than the man in Paris, who took a blood sample from him, X-rayed him, and examined him for over an hour, talking to himself, so that Popinga had to work hard not to laugh.

  After all that, it seemed to be over. The people outside knew this, though he did not. They must have decided that he was definitely insane, because they did not give him a lawyer, and nobody mentioned standing trial.

  On the contrary. He was settled into a large brick-built house on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Through the barred windows, he could see a football pitch where a game was played every Thursday and Sunday.

  The food was good. They let him sleep as much as he wanted to. Then they made him do exercises and he did them as best he could.

  He was alone in a little room with white walls and hardly any furniture, and the most annoying thing was that he had to eat everything with a spoon since he was not allowed either knife or fork.

  But what did that matter? Indeed, it was quite amusing. They all believed he was a madman.

  What was more sinister, on the other hand, was that at night you could hear screams coming from the nearby rooms, followed by confused sounds. He never cried out at all. Not so stupid.

  The doctor was about his own age, and he also wore grey suits and had gold-rimmed spectacles. He came along once a day, beaming and jovial.

  ‘So, my friend, have you had a good night? Still down in the dumps? You’ll see, you’ll get used to it. Your physical health is perfect and you’ll soon recover from this. Let me take your pulse.’

  And Popinga would stretch his wrist out obediently.

  ‘Excellent, excellent. Still a bit of resistance there, I see, but it’ll pass. I’ve had many cases like yours through my hands.’

  Finally, in the visiting room, he was taken to see Mrs Popinga, in the company of a male nurse. In Paris, she had been unable to say anything because she had burst into tears and fainted. But here she seemed to have summoned up all her strength.

  She was wearing a dress that she used to put on when she went out to a mother-and-baby charity she supported, a simple dark dress, with a high neck.

  ‘Can you hear me Kees? Can I talk to you?’

  He nodded, out of pity for her rather than anything else.

  ‘I’m only allowed to see you the first Tuesday of the month. Tell me first, is there anything you need?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘You’re very unhappy, aren’t you? But so are we. I don’t know whether you understand or if you can imagine everything that has happened. I came on ahead to Amsterdam. And I found work at the De Jonghe Biscuit Factory. I don’t earn much, but I’m well thought of.’

  He managed not to smile, since he was thinking that the De Jonghe biscuit makers also dist
ributed stickers to place in albums. Which was what his wife liked best.

  ‘I’ve taken Frida out of her school, and she didn’t even cry. Now she’s doing a course in shorthand typing and, as soon as she gets her diploma, De Jonghe’s will take her on. Kees, you’re not saying anything!’

  ‘I think that’s very good!’

  Hearing his voice set her off crying, in short sobs, as she patted her pink nose with her handkerchief.

  ‘I don’t know what I ought to do about Carl. He wants to go to the naval college at Delfzijl. I might be able to get him a scholarship.’

  And that was how they got into a routine. She came along on the first Tuesday of every month. She never referred to the past. She told him:

  ‘Carl has got his scholarship, thanks to your old friend De Greef. He has been very kind.’

  Or else:

  ‘We’ve moved house, because the other one was too dear. We’re lodging now with a very nice lady; she’s an officer’s widow with a spare room.’

  Perfect, wasn’t it? He slept a great deal. He did his exercises and walked in the courtyard. The doctor, whose name he did not know, took an interest in him.

  ‘Is there anything that would cheer you up?’ he asked him one day.

  And since it was still too soon, Popinga replied: an exercise book and a pencil.

  Yes, it was too soon, as was proved when he wrote at the front of the book, in deliberately ceremonial writing:

  The Truth about the Kees Popinga Case

  He had plenty of ideas about this. He vowed to fill up this book and ask for others, so as to leave a complete and accurate study of his case.

  He had had time to think about it. The first day, he just did some curlicues under the title to decorate it, as in old books from the Romantic period. Then he slipped the exercise book under his mattress and, the day after that, took a long look at it and put it back.

  He could reckon the passage of time only by the first Tuesday of the month, since there was no calendar in his room.

  ‘What do you think, Kees? Frida has been offered a job working for a journalist. I wonder whether . . .’