On the fourth floor, he found the key in the door. It was always left there, but Ravinel never took any notice of it. He knocked. It was Germain who came to let him in.
‘Why, Fernand! How are you?’
‘All right, thanks. And you?’
‘Not too good… Excuse the mess: I’ve only just got up. Now you’re here, you’ll have a cup of coffee. Yes, yes. Of course you will.’
He led Ravinel into the dining room, pulled out a chair for him, and swept away a dressing gown that was lying there.
‘And Marthe?’
‘She’s gone to church, but she’ll soon be back. Sit down, old boy… You’re in fine form, Mireille’s been telling me. Wish I could say the same of myself… By the way, you haven’t seen my latest X-rays. Here, help yourself to some coffee, while I go and fetch them.’
There was a medicinal smell lingering in the air. Eucalyptus mixed with something else. And near the coffeepot was a little saucepan with a hypodermic syringe in it and some needles. What a bore! He wished he hadn’t come. Germain was pottering about in the bedroom, occasionally shouting out something to his brother-in-law.
‘You’ll see. They’re beauties. As the doctor says, with proper treatment…’
When you marry you think you’re marrying a wife, but you’re really marrying a family. That at any rate was what it seemed like to Ravinel. He’d married Germain’s germs, Germain’s private worries, Germain’s experiences as a prisoner of war. What a cheat life is. When you’re young it makes such wonderful promises, and then…
Germain returned with several large yellow envelopes, which made him look like one of those messengers in ministries who wander about with armfuls of dockets.
‘Go on. Take some coffee… It’s true, you’ve very likely had breakfast already. He’s the deuce of a fellow, that Dr. Gleize. The way he explains these photos to you. All you can see is a lot of smudges, but he reads them like a book.’
Germain held one of them up to the light.
‘You see that mark there over the heart? Yes, that white part in the heart—I’m becoming quite an expert myself, you see!… No. That faint line there. But you can’t see it from that distance. Come close…’
This was what Ravinel hated. He didn’t want to know how his inside was made. Nor Germain’s either! The spectacle of those bits of skeleton which the X-ray revealed produced in him a strange discomfort. Nature had had the good taste to hide certain things and they had much better remain hidden. The eagerness which Germain displayed to turn himself inside out for anybody’s inspection had always disgusted him.
‘You can see here where it’s cicatrized. It’s healing splendidly. Of course I’ve still got to take care, but the signs are encouraging. With the sputum too. I can show you the latest analysis. Where is it now? I suppose Marthe’s shoved it away somewhere—she loses everything… Still it doesn’t matter: Mireille can tell you…’
‘Yes, yes. Of course…’
Lovingly Germain put the photograph back in its envelope, but it was only to take out another, which he gazed at with his head on one side.
‘They cost three thousand francs apiece, you know. Fortunately they’re going to raise my pension. In any case I wouldn’t grudge the money. When a job’s done as well as that… He takes ever so much trouble, Dr. Gleize. But then, you see, he’s interested. Says I’m quite a case.’
The key had turned in the front door. Good! That was Marthe back from church.
‘Bonjour, Fernand. Nice of you to have come. We don’t see a lot of you.’
Was that a reproach? She was always a little bit tart beneath her sweetness. She took off her hat and carefully folded up her veil. She was always in mourning for someone or other. To tell the truth, she liked black. It was distinguished, dignified.
‘Business good?’ she asked with a hint of suspicion in her voice.
‘Pretty fair. I can’t complain.’
She had already slipped on an apron and was clearing the table. Her movements were swift and competent.
‘How’s Mireille?’
It was Germain who answered.
‘She was here just now. Came a few minutes after you’d left for church. I was still in bed.’
‘She gets up early in the morning, these days!’ commented Marthe.
Ravinel was making a desperate effort to understand.
‘What did you say, Germain? Mireille was… here? When?’
Germain was counting out some drops. Ten, eleven, twelve… He frowned slightly. He wasn’t going to be interrupted. Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.
‘When?’ he said casually. ‘Oh, I suppose it was about an hour ago. Perhaps more…’
‘Mireille!’
Germain put the dropper away, wrapped it first in absorbent cotton, then tissue paper. Then he looked up.
‘Mireille, yes. What’s funny about that?… Good heavens, man, what’s the matter with you? Have I said something wrong?’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Ravinel in a hoarse whisper. ‘Are you telling me that Mireille’s been here… this morning… that you actually saw her?’
‘Of course I saw her. She walked in, just as usual, and kissed me on both cheeks.’
‘You’re quite sure about that? That she kissed you, I mean…’
‘Really, Fernand. I don’t see what you’re getting at.’
Marthe, who had gone into the next room, came back and stood in the doorway, studying the two men. To cover his confusion Ravinel took a cigarette out of his case.
‘I’m afraid you can’t smoke,’ said Germain. ‘Doctor’s orders, you know. If you don’t mind…’
‘Of course not. I’m sorry.’
Ravinel crushed the cigarette between his fingers nervously.
‘It’s very odd,’ he managed to say. ‘She didn’t say anything to me about it.’
‘She wanted to hear about my X-ray.’
‘Did she seem… normal?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘And when she kissed you… Her skin… Did it seem just the same…’
‘Look here, Fernand. What is the matter? Did you hear that, Marthe? He doesn’t seem to believe me.’
Marthe came into the room and Ravinel sensed at once that she knew something. He went cold, like an accused person before his judge.
‘When did you get back from Nantes, Fernand?’
‘Yesterday. Yesterday morning.’
‘And you didn’t find her there, did you?’
Her eyes were shining, and her lips seemed thinner than ever.
‘No. Mireille wasn’t there.’
Marthe nodded.
‘Do you think it’s that?’ muttered Germain.
‘I’m sure of it.’
Ravinel could hold himself no longer.
‘For the love of God, tell me. What do you know about it? Were you there yesterday morning?’
Germain was nettled.
‘You forget I’m ill.’
‘You’d better tell him,’ said Marthe and she glided noiselessly into the bedroom.
‘Tell me what?’ asked Ravinel aggressively. ‘One might think you’d been hatching some plot.’
‘Gently, now,’ said Germain. ‘Marthe’s right. You’d better know. As a matter of fact I ought to have told you when you got engaged to Mireille. But I thought marriage would put everything to rights. The doctor said—’
‘Never mind about the doctor, Germain. Get on with the story.’
‘I don’t like distressing you, Fernand, but the thing is: Mireille was always liable to go off…’
‘Off her head?’
‘Oh dear no. It was only a quirk. She’d go off, break out.’
Ravinel knew that Marthe was watching him through the doorway. He was stunned.
‘What do you mean—break out?’
‘She used to run away. Not often. It began when she was about fourteen.’
‘You mean she went off with men?’
‘No, Fernand, no. Nothing of that sort.
You mustn’t get it wrong. She just ran away, left home, disappeared. They said it was just a queer streak in her make-up. Seems it happens pretty often round about puberty. Sometimes she took a train. Sometimes she simply walked on till she dropped. We always had to call the police in.’
‘What did the neighbors think?’ put in Marthe, who was shaking a pillow.
Germain shrugged his shoulders.
‘There’s something queer in every family, if you only knew. Even in the best… She was terribly upset about it afterwards, poor kid. But she couldn’t do anything about it. When the urge came, off she had to go.’
‘What’s it got to do with?…’
‘Can’t you see, Fernand? It’s the same thing this time. She’s got one of her attacks. But there’s no need to make it worse than it is. She’ll be back in a day or two.’
‘It’s nonsense,’ Ravinel burst out. ‘The thing is—’
Germain sighed.
‘That’s what I expected. You don’t believe it. You see, Marthe, he can’t take it in.’
She raised her hand as though taking oath.
‘It’s true, all the same. And, if I’d had any say in it, you’d have known about it from the first. When a person’s not quite normal, you never know what may be wrong. Fortunately you’ve no children. You might have had one with a harelip.’
‘Marthe! Really!’
‘I know what I’m saying. I’ve talked to the doctor about it.’ The doctor again! Always the doctor!
‘But I can understand your feelings,’ went on Marthe. ‘To be told a thing like that all of a sudden… And don’t think I enjoy talking about Mireille like this. Poor child. It’s not her fault. But there it is, she’s—’
Ravinel took his head in his hands.
‘Stop,’ he groaned. ‘I’ll go out of my mind.’
But she was not to be silenced.
‘The moment I came in, I could tell something was amiss. I’m not like Germain: he never notices anything. And, if I’d seen Mireille, I’d have known at once she was not her usual self.’
Ravinel had torn his cigarette to shreds and it now lay in a little heap on the table. He would have liked to seize these two and bang their heads together. He couldn’t bear the sympathetic looks they gave him. Mireille make off! As if she was in a condition to run away after lying two days in a tub full of water! Of course it was nonsense. It was a plot. They were up to something and had concocted this story beforehand… No, that wouldn’t wash either. Germain was too stupid. He’d have given himself away in a minute.
‘How was she dressed?’
Germain thought for a moment.
‘I didn’t pay any attention to that, and she was standing against the light. But let me see… Yes. I think she had on her gray fur-trimmed coat. And a little hat. I remember thinking that she had rather wintry clothes on for this weather.’
‘Perhaps she was going to catch a train,’ suggested Marthe.
‘Oh no. At least, she didn’t give me that impression. But what puzzles me, now I come to think of it, is that she didn’t seem in the least excited. Formerly, when she had her attacks, she was always nervy and overwrought, ready to burst into tears at the least thing. While this morning she was as calm as could be.’
And, as Ravinel clenched his fists, he added:
‘You know, Fernand, she’s a good girl at heart.’
It was twenty past ten by the clock on the mantelpiece, a preposterous gilt affair supported by two nymphs with naked breasts. Lucienne’s train would have already passed Le Mans. Marthe pottered about in the room.
‘I know what you’re thinking,’ said Germain.
Ravinel started.
‘You think she deceives you, don’t you?’
The fool! No, he certainly wasn’t pretending.
‘But you’re making a great mistake if you harbor any suspicions of that sort. I know Mireille. I don’t say she’s always easy to understand, but there’s one thing: she’s straight as a die.’
‘My poor Germain!’ sighed Marthe.
It was obvious what she meant.
‘My poor Germain! A lot you know about women!’
Germain bristled.
‘Mireille? Go on! She’s much too wrapped up in her home. Why, you’ve only to see her there…’
‘She’s too much alone,’ said Marthe quietly. ‘Not that that’s any reflection on you, Fernand. You’ve got your job and you have to travel. That doesn’t alter the fact that it’s not much fun for a young woman when her husband’s hardly ever there…’
‘Now, when I was a prisoner of war,’ began Germain.
There! The very subject Ravinel always tried to avoid. The mischief was done, however. Once on his favorite topic, there was no stopping Germain, though he’d told every one of his stories at least twenty times before. Ravinel didn’t listen. Nor did he think—not really. He simply let himself drift on the tide of a somewhat mournful reverie. In spirit, he was back at Enghien, wandering through the empty house, and if anyone had visited it at that moment he would no doubt have been conscious of a disconsolate shadow in the likeness of Fernand Ravinel.
Germain swore he’d seen her, but weren’t there thousands of people to swear they’d seen a ghost? That’s what it was. Mireille, dead, had chosen to appear to her brother. She had caught him at a moment when he was still half asleep and not capable of analyzing his own perceptions. He thought he saw her. A typical case. He had read of others in the Revue Métapsychique which he used to take before his marriage. Besides, what he had just learned about Mireille proved she was psychic. People like that always were. And a psychic person would obviously be just the person to make a ghost.
‘What did she say, exactly?’ he asked suddenly.
Germain was telling of a brush he’d had with one of the Stalag orderlies. He broke off, a little hurt.
‘What did she say?… I really couldn’t tell you. For that matter it was I who did most of the talking, since she’d come to inquire about the X-ray.’
‘Did she stay long?’
‘Only a few minutes.’
‘I don’t see why she couldn’t have waited for me,’ complained Marthe.
But that was just the point! If Marthe had been in the flat, Mireille wouldn’t have been visible. There was a certain logic even in supernatural things.
‘You didn’t think of looking out of the window to see which way she went?’
‘No. Why should I?’
Quite so. But it was a pity all the same. If he’d looked out of the window he would no doubt have discovered that Mireille never left the building at all. And that would have been an absolute proof.
‘You really mustn’t get worked up about it,’ said Germain. ‘Look here, old man. If you want my advice—go back home. You’ll very likely find her waiting for you. She may be in a bit of a state about it, but now that you’ve heard everything you’ll know how to handle her.’
He tried to laugh genially. Marthe gave him a reproving glance.
‘As a child did she ever walk in her sleep?’
‘Not Mireille. I did… I didn’t climb up on the roof or anything of that sort, but I used to talk a lot in my sleep and gesticulate, and several times I woke up to find myself in the passage or in another room altogether. A nasty feeling, I can tell you. I used to be so scared I couldn’t go back to sleep again.’
‘I don’t know that there’s any need to go into that,’ put in Marthe a little sharply, ‘though by the look on Fernand’s face he seems to be enjoying it.’
‘Does it ever happen to you now?’ went on Ravinel, ignoring her.
‘Come on. Let’s drop the subject. What about something to drink before you go? I’m afraid we can’t ask you to stay for lunch. You see, I’m on a diet.’
‘In any case you ought to go home,’ said Marthe decisively. ‘You can’t leave Mireille all alone.’
Germain got out some liqueur glasses, including one for himself.
‘You know what the doctor says a
bout drinking,’ Marthe objected.
‘Oh. Just a thimbleful.’
Ravinel plucked up all his courage.
‘And suppose Mireille isn’t there? Suppose she doesn’t come back tonight? What do you advise me to do?’
‘Nothing. The best thing is to wait. Don’t you think so, Marthe? After all, you’re not obliged to go back to Nantes tomorrow. A day won’t make any difference. And a lot depends on it, you know. If she comes back and finds the house empty, there’s no knowing what will happen. Take a few days off and see how things turn out. Meanwhile you can make a few discreet inquiries. If she’s on one of her escapades, she’s almost certain to be hiding in Paris. As a child, when she went off, it was always in the direction of Paris. As though she was fascinated by it.’
It was no good. In the end Ravinel no longer knew whether his wife was living or dead. They drank each other’s health. They drank Mireille’s and her speedy return.
The liqueur burned Ravinel’s throat. He passed his hand across his eyes. No. He wasn’t dreaming. He was still on this side of the frontier. The clock struck eleven. That was something real. So was all the rest. Those firedogs, for instance, each of which weighed several kilos. Forged steel. Not the stuff that dreams are made of!
‘And when you see her give her my love.’
Marthe was showing him out. He was at the front door without being conscious of having left his chair.
‘Mine too,’ called out Germain.
‘Yes.’
He wanted to round on them and scream in their faces:
‘She’s dead. Dead as a doornail. I ought to know since it was I who killed her.’
Something held him back, however: the thought that Marthe would be only too pleased.
‘Good bye, Marthe. Don’t come down. I know the way.’
She leaned over the banisters watching him go down. At the last moment she called out:
‘Keep us posted, won’t you, Fernand?’
Ravinel dived into the first bistro and drank two brandies. The time was getting on. Never mind. With a taxi, he’d make it all right. For the moment, what mattered was to get things straightened out.
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