Manfred poured himself more wine. The man with the paper got up and left, bidding a cursory goodbye to the proprietor. Manfred was surprised that he did not feel more self-conscious. Normally in such a situation he craved some reading material in which to bury his head and avoid eye contact. A newspaper made one invisible. He thought about his grandfather’s nickname, how as a teenager he had skulked around the shadows of the house, sometimes taking off his shoes to avoid disturbing his grandparents. He had always felt like an imposter in their home and sought to avoid reminding them of his presence. And hadn’t he even now, in this bar, taken an inconspicuous table by the wall? When he arrived at work it took a supreme effort for him to walk in boldly, in a manner befitting his status as ‘the boss’ and greet his staff in an audible voice. Every morning he breathed a minor sigh of relief as he slipped onto the leather chair behind his desk.
Yet, Manfred reflected, he felt a rare sense of comfort in this slightly rancid smelling bar where no one knew him. He felt like a man, entitled to stop where he wanted and drink a carafe of wine, alone, at four o’clock on a weekday afternoon. The proprietor cleared the glass and water jug from the nearby table, then unhurriedly wiped it down. He did not so much as glance in Manfred’s direction.
Manfred finished his wine, but he did not feel like leaving. He felt like he was abroad. He raised his hand to the proprietor and ordered a second carafe. To hell with the Restaurant de la Cloche. Pasteur would have to do without his money tonight. And the rest of them? Let them gossip all they liked. If they had nothing better to talk about, that was their problem.
The second carafe arrived and Manfred got stuck in. Things had to change. He was in a rut, but now was time to get out of it. For years he had told himself that there was nothing he could do about his situation, that circumstances, his temperament, dictated how he behaved. But he had been deceiving himself. There was nothing to prevent him doing anything he wanted. He could easily apply to the bank for a transfer to another city, to a place where he could live unencumbered by the weight of his past, a place where nobody called him ‘Swiss’. But why stop there? He recalled how, as a teenager, he had burned with the desire to write, how he had sat up through the night scribbling in notebooks. Why not take up writing now? Perhaps he had talent. He only had to rediscover the fire-in-the-belly of his youth. It was not even impractical. For years he had earned a good salary and spent no more than he needed. His savings were substantial, more than enough to fund himself as a writer for years. Manfred became oblivious to his surroundings. In his reverie he saw himself sitting in front of a typewriter at the open window of an atelier in Paris, strolling along a cobbled street in Montmartre in bohemian clothes, notebook in hand, casually greeting the whores and tradesmen of the district. Was there really anything to stop him? He was brought back to earth by a familiar voice. Lemerre was standing by his table.
‘Slumming it a little, aren’t you, Swiss?’ he said with characteristic hostility.
Manfred felt disorientated, as if he had been abruptly woken from a deep sleep. Before he had time to tell himself that he had no need to excuse his presence in the bar to Lemerre, he began to feel his way towards an explanation.
‘I… I sometimes pop in here for a quick one after work.’ He regretted the lie as soon as he had said it.
Lemerre weighed this up with theatrical bewilderment. He looked at the two carafes on Manfred’s table. Manfred remembered that his barber’s shop was not five minutes’ walk away.
‘Strange that I’ve never seen you in here.’ He turned to the proprietor. ‘You seen our Swiss in here before, Yves?’
The proprietor gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, as if reluctant to provide Lemerre with the confirmation he desired.
Lemerre massaged his jowly chin and shook his head slowly, as if stumped by the puzzle and went over to the bar, where the proprietor had already placed his drink. Manfred cringed. Lemerre engaged in some coarse banter with the men at the bar. Then he lowered his voice and the men turned in unison to look at Manfred, before he muttered something else and they all burst into laughter. Manfred felt the colour rise in his cheeks. He wanted to jump up and run out into the street, but he hadn’t paid for his drinks and doing so would entail either going over to the counter or summoning the proprietor, both of which were out of the question.
Lemerre downed his drink swiftly and left without another word to Manfred.
Manfred suddenly felt the gloomy effect of the wine. His head swam. The bar had fallen silent. The regulars had suddenly run out of topics of conversation, or perhaps felt self-conscious on account of the previously unnoticed stranger in their midst. The place was tainted now. He was no longer a nobody, but somebody who had been observed and whose behaviour was being noted. His carafe was two-thirds full. He would look ridiculous if, having ordered it only minutes before, he got up and left. He refilled his glass and forced himself to drink. He tried to return to his daydream about escaping Saint-Louis, but the idea that he had even for a moment entertained the thought of running off and becoming a writer was ludicrous. And all the more so with Gorski sniffing around. Manfred drained his glass as if making a private toast to the death of his dream.
There were more pressing issues with which to occupy his thoughts. Gorski had already questioned Lemerre and his cohorts and might well do so again. Already Manfred had broken his golden rule and failed to follow his routine. And now that Lemerre had caught him red-handed, it was bound to come to Gorski’s attention. The detective would be sure to ask why he had come to this out-of-the-way dive where one could not be seen from the street. Who was he hiding from? Why, since the disappearance of Adèle, had he been behaving in this out-of-character manner? Manfred would have no plausible explanation. Regardless of having been caught by Lemerre, it had been a mistake to come here, but he must not compound one mistake with another. He must revert to his routine and go to the Restaurant de la Cloche as usual. Manfred struggled to drink the rest of his carafe. The workmen at the counter left and for a few minutes Manfred and the proprietor were the only people in the bar. Unlike Pasteur, who could always find some task with which to occupy himself, this man – Manfred had heard Lemerre call him Yves – stood staring blankly into the space above the tables. He was stocky and unattractive, with narrow beady eyes. The fawn sports shirt he was wearing was stained with grease or mustard. He did not appear to be watching him, but Manfred felt that every movement he made was being noted. The effect of the wine was no longer pleasant. If called upon to speak, he felt that he would slur or stumble over his words. Neither man spoke. Manfred glanced at his watch as if to suggest that he had some appointment to keep. His bladder pressed against the waistband of his trousers. The WC was on the opposite side of the bar. Under the scrutiny of the barman Manfred felt it was beyond him to get up from the banquette and walk across the room. He wondered what Alice would make of the sight of him, sitting getting sozzled in this dive, incapable of walking to the WC to relieve himself. Yves unfolded his arms and exhaled loudly. Manfred wondered whether he was about to speak.
Thankfully, the door opened and two men in their twenties entered. They were talking loudly in derogatory terms about their boss. The proprietor greeted them with a single word, ‘Messieurs,’ and an upward motion of his head. The young men ordered large beers and stood at the bar. Manfred took the opportunity to leave his seat and make his way to the WC. When he returned, the two young men were crudely discussing the attributes of various females colleagues. They paid no attention to Yves and had not so much as glanced around the bar. Manfred simultaneously despised them and envied their lack of self-consciousness. Still, they formed a kind of barrier between him and the proprietor. He was no longer the centre of attention. When another older man came in and sat at a table beneath the high windows, he barely seemed to notice Manfred, before taking out his newspaper and carefully opening it on the table in front of him.
Manfred finished his carafe and paid. Outside the sun was low
over the buildings and the air had taken on a chill. His stomach was rumbling, but there was no time to go home and eat. Of course, he could eat at the Restaurant de la Cloche, but he would not do so. He never took his evening meal there and if he were to do so, it would certainly be commented upon. In any case, he would not have time to eat before the infernal card game began.
Manfred entered the restaurant at more or less the usual time. Lemerre and Cloutier were already there. Neither of them acknowledged Manfred as he passed. Lemerre absentmindedly shuffled the cards and spoke to Cloutier in an unusually low voice. Under normal circumstances, the Restaurant de la Cloche was the one place where Manfred felt at ease. His routine was so well-established that he did not feel, as he did elsewhere, that he had to act naturally. People generally paid him little heed. He approached the bar. Pasteur would have thought it presumptuous to set out his drink before he ordered. As he did every night, he greeted Manfred with a nod and the words, ‘The usual?’ and Manfred replied, ‘The usual, yes.’
Tonight, however, those familiar nods and greetings, the very walk to the counter were challenging, as if he was walking into a bar in a foreign country where he did not speak the language or understand the customs. He felt as if he was reading a sentence from a phrasebook. Pasteur, for his part, merely nodded curtly, poured his drink and placed it on the counter before returning his attention to polishing the glasses beneath the gantry. Manfred attributed this aloofness to the fact that he was drunk. Lemerre would already have informed Pasteur of their encounter in Le Pot. Of course, it was none of Pasteur’s business if Manfred once in a while took a glass in another bar, but the chilly atmosphere suggested that his nose was out of joint.
Dominique squeezed past Manfred at the hatch and carried two steak frites to a couple in the corner. Manfred watched her reset two tables in the mirror above the bar. She could not have been more different from Adèle. She was skinny and flat-chested. Manfred could still perceive the outline of her slim buttocks beneath her skirt. After she had placed the plates in front of the customers she remained at the table fidgeting until the couple satisfied her that they did not require anything else. As she passed through the hatch on her way back to the kitchen, she almost flattened herself against the counter in order, it seemed, to place the maximum distance between herself and Manfred.
‘How’s the new girl getting on?’ he asked Pasteur.
Pasteur glanced up as if he had forgotten that Manfred was there.
‘Fine,’ he said.
‘Your niece, I understand?’ said Manfred. He didn’t know why he was trying to continue the conversation. Was it a perverse response to the curt answer Pasteur had just given or was it the effect of the alcohol he had already drunk? He felt himself slur a little on the word ‘niece’.
‘That’s right,’ Pasteur replied without looking in Manfred’s direction.
Petit arrived and took his seat. He poured himself a glass from the carafe on the table. Manfred awaited the summons that signified the commencement of the dreadful ritual. But, instead, the three men engaged in a huddled conversation over the table. Then Pasteur carefully folded his dishtowel and without a word, walked across the restaurant and took the remaining seat at the table. Manfred was astonished. He watched the vignette unfold in the mirror above the bar. Pasteur took his place as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Lemerre placed the pack in the centre of the table and the four men cut the cards as if it was a custom they had been performing for years. None of them looked in Manfred’s direction. His cheeks burned. The whole thing must have been arranged with Pasteur in advance. Even the niece, who now took his place behind the bar, the proprietor’s place, which Pasteur never gave up for anyone, must have been in on it. Not to mention Marie, who must be holed up, mortified, in the kitchen. They could not have humiliated him more if they had blatantly accused him of murdering Adèle. Of course, he should march right over to the table and demand to know what was going on. Was he supposed to just stand there for the entire evening drinking his wine as if nothing untoward had taken place?
Manfred’s heart pounded in his chest. Of course, they would like nothing more than for him to make a scene, to demand to know what was going on, to start protesting his innocence. Manfred could imagine what the other customers in the restaurant would make of such a spectacle. How amusing it would be. And the four men would just sit there, cards in hand, expressions of mock innocence on their faces. Lemerre’s victory would be complete. Manfred determined not to give them the satisfaction. He was under no obligation to assert his innocence to Lemerre, Pasteur or anybody else. So what if he was excluded from the infernal game! They were welcome to it. And they were welcome to their petty conspiracies. Manfred finished his glass and calmly ordered another from the girl. She poured it out and placed it in front of him. Manfred thanked her and took a sip.
It was a long, long evening. At regular intervals Dominique took a fresh carafe to the table by the door. Slowly the restaurant emptied of diners until the only customers were Manfred and the card players. The clatter of dishes and cutlery from the kitchen died away. The only remaining sound was of the players’ bids. There was none of the usual banter between hands. Even Lemerre refrained from his usual provocations. By the time Manfred neared the end of his bottle, he was aware that he was swaying slightly. His back had become painful from the effort of standing rigidly at the bar. He finished his bottle and asked for the bill. The waitress placed it on the counter and Manfred paid, leaving, for once, a generous tip in the pewter salver. He did not blame her for her part in his humiliation. Probably she had little idea of the significance of the plot in which she had been an accomplice. She accepted the tip with a barely audible thank-you and gave Manfred what he interpreted to be an apologetic smile.
Manfred took his raincoat from the hanger and clumsily put it on. Then he turned and walked unsteadily towards the exit. The men kept their eyes conspicuously on their cards as he passed.
Sixteen
MANFRED WOKE WITH A HEADACHE. His mouth was dry and he reached for the tumbler of water he kept on the bedside table. It was not long before the events of the previous evening returned to him. He felt a kind of numbness. He lingered in bed a few minutes longer than normal, listening to the sounds from behind the apartment building, the clunk of car doors closing and engines being started, the faint murmur of birdsong. It was quite normal, but Manfred experienced it as if his head was submerged in water. Everything was muffled.
He sat up and drank the remains of the glass of water. His clothes lay on a crumpled heap on the floor rather on the chair where he normally left them neatly folded. A horizontal slat of sunlight crept in at the foot of the window where the blind did not quite reach the sill. A paperback lay on its spine on the floor, its pages fanned out. He must have knocked it off the bedside table. Manfred felt a sudden sensation that he was not in his room, but instead standing outside looking on, as if he was a detective leafing through photographs of a crime scene. Then quite suddenly, he saw himself in the room, bare-chested, propped up against two pillows and he had a strong sense of being watched. Manfred shook his head and dismissed the idea. The feeling must merely be the effect of having drunk, the previous evening, three times as much as he normally did. Nevertheless, when he got out of bed, contrary to habit, he put on a robe to walk the few steps along the passage to the shower room. He felt like an actor playing the role of himself. The headache did not worry him. It was dull and throbbing, quite unlike the migraines which felt as if shards of glass had become lodged in his skull. He found some aspirin in the bathroom cabinet and swallowed three tablets, before splashing cold water on his face.
He turned on the shower and stepped into the cabinet before the water reached a comfortable temperature. He imagined a surveillance team making derogatory remarks about the size of his penis. The drumming of the water on the floor of the cabinet was comforting and he was glad when the glass began to steam up. He turned his face to the water and held it there,
close to the showerhead. He must put these silly thoughts from his mind. Of course, the technology existed to place people under surveillance in their homes, and no doubt such technology was at the police’s disposal, but the idea that Gorski would have gone to the trouble of breaking into his apartment and fitting concealed cameras was ridiculous. Sketchy as Manfred’s knowledge of the law was, such an operation would surely entail the consent of a magistrate, not to mention the manpower required to install the equipment and monitor the footage. Surely, even if the law permitted it, Gorski would not go to such lengths. On the other hand, perhaps it was precisely this operation which had necessitated his removal to the police station the previous day. Gorski would have had to be certain that Manfred would not suddenly arrive home during the installation of the equipment.
Manfred concentrated on the business of his shower. He shampooed his hair and used a rough loofah on his back before taking the showerhead from its bracket and washing away the lather from the crevices of his body. He stepped out of the cabinet and dried himself. He resisted the temptation to put his robe back on, instead wrapping a clean towel around his waist. He wiped the steam from the mirror above the wash-hand basin. His skin was grey and his eyes were bloodshot. He had inherited his father’s rapid growth of stubble and he enjoyed the ritual of transforming his face each morning. This morning, however, his skin felt loose and his hands were shaking slightly so that he had to take great care not to cut himself. He patted his face dry and walked back along the passage to the kitchen, still with the towel around his waist. He set a pot of coffee on the hob and looked out of the kitchen window over the children’s play park. Perhaps Gorski’s men had taken an apartment in the building opposite and were photographing him through an oversized telephoto lens. The thought caused Manfred a wry smile. The only rooms that overlooked the play park were the kitchen and the bedroom, and he rarely bothered to raise the blind in the bedroom.
The Disappearance of Adèle Bedeau Page 16