by H. E. Bates
He opened the door and began to go very quietly down the wooden stairs. All he needed was a little food. He would leave a letter for Françoise on the kitchen table. Oh hell! he thought, I can’t do it. God, I can’t do it! He tried hopelessly to translate for himself the things he must say to her, and realized that there were no words, either in her language or his, for all the love and anxiety and confusion he felt. He stopped on the stairs and knew suddenly that he did not want to go, and yet that he had to go. If he couldn’t write the words, how could he say them? There were no words for the pain of separation.
He stood still on the stairs, arguing with himself. The stairs came down in two flights, with a landing breaking them at the first storey. He stood on the landing and stared at the small window in the wall, not really looking out of it but only at it, seeing only the flat squares of glass, without distance, blobbed with rain.
He stood there for about a minute before the glass lost its flatness, and he could see through it and through the grey pattern of rain to where, below, the road ran by the house in a strip of stone and mud. Even when he saw the road he could not believe, for another minute or so, that what he saw on it was real. Down in the road was a man Franklin had never seen before. He was looking at the house in the rain.
Franklin lay flat on the landing with his face against the corner of the window. The man was wearing a dark grey overcoat and a bowler hat. For some time he stood quite still. Then he turned on his heel and looked back up the road, towards the river. He was sucking a cigarette. He had a grey moustache which habitual cigarette-smoking had stained a dirty amber underneath. He took the cigarette out of his mouth, held it as if to throw it away, and then changed his mind and pinched it out with his fingers, putting it in his overcoat pocket. Then he turned and looked up the road again, as if afraid of being watched, or as if, perhaps, expecting the funeral to come back. From the window on the stairs Franklin could see the whole front of the house and the road as far down as the river. The distance between himself and the man was about forty feet. If I had the revolver and I were a good shot and I were lucky, he thought, I could shoot him. I could aim at the hat. He did not know at all why the idea of shooting occurred to him. It seemed very natural. Unfortunately I haven’t got the revolver, he thought, and I wasn’t a good shot, so what the hell. Still the idea of shooting the man seemed natural. It even seemed desirable. Then Franklin had another thought. If he comes into the mill and finds me here I’m sunk. I shall have to kill him. He accepted the thought quite calmly. The man moved across the road and peered into the window of the house. He had his hands in the pockets of his overcoat. It seems odd he comes on the day of the funeral, Franklin thought, when there’s no one here. Whoever he is I shall have to kill him. I can’t afford not to. Four people know I’m here, and five is one too many. He watched the man move along the front of the house, towards the door. At the door he stopped for a moment, looked back to the river, and then took a hand from his pocket and tried the latch of the door. The door was locked: as I might have known it would be, Franklin thought.
The man hesitated again, as if in no hurry before moving, and Franklin, tense on the stairs, one knee bent in readiness to spring up, waited to see what would happen. The funeral had been gone about half an hour. It was still raining quite fast, but the man did not move, as if he knew quite well how much time he had. Then suddenly he raised his face and looked up. He seemed, in that moment, to look straight at Franklin. Franklin did not move. All right, he thought, you bastard, come up. Whoever you are, come up. For fully a minute the man down below looked up at the window. Franklin saw the rain shining like dew on his bowler hat and driving past his upturned face. Make up your mind, he thought.
Finally, the man seemed to make up his mind. He turned slowly and walked down towards the river. Franklin watched him go down and stand on the edge of the jetty. He seemed to stand there in thought, as if fascinated by the stream going past in the rain. Then Franklin realized that he was looking not at the stream but at the boat. He looked at it with the same unhurried contemplation as when looking at the house and the window. Once or twice he looked up and down the stream. At last he squatted down on the jetty and cautiously put one hand on the edge of it and leapt down into the boat. Franklin saw the boat rock slightly with the impact, and then the short body of the man stoop down so that only the bowler hat could be seen. It remained like that for a moment or two before coming upright again. Even then there was no hurry. The man remained in the boat, quite still, in contemplation of something, for another two or three minutes, until at last he turned, put both hands on the jetty, and pulled himself up.
Franklin, as he watched him walk slowly back to the house, knew that his chance of escape had gone. But for some reason it did not seem to matter. He watched the man stand before the house again. The rain still did not trouble him. Franklin, waiting for him to move, looked at his boots. They were black and shiny, but the mud of the road had speckled them with yellow. Then he saw the man go for the second time to the kitchen window and look in. He saw him shade his eyes with one hand and then, as if he still could not see inside, rub the rainy glass with the palm of his hand. This time he remained for some minutes with his face pressed sideways against the glass. Above him, from the iron guttering of the roof, a dribble of rain became caught in the wind and ran down like a spiral of water, breaking on the bowler hat. Startled by it, the man looked sharply up and took off his hat to shake the water from the brim, and in that moment Franklin saw him full-faced, the head bald as a dome of lard and the small black eyes, unshaded by the hat, blinking with annoyance at the rain.
The man shook his hat and put it on again and stood for a minute longer. Then he took out his watch. He looked at it, put it back into his waistcoat and did up the buttons of his coat. He seemed to have made up his mind not to wait any longer. He walked slowly up the road, not hurrying at all, as if he knew quite well what time he had, and Franklin watched him go, changing his position over to the other side of the window, so that he could watch him better, keeping him in sight until he reached the path above the river. Up there he stopped again and turned and looked back. Standing on the path, he took out of his pocket the half-cigarette he had put there. He lit it in the cup of his hands, and Franklin saw the smoke caught in the wind like a vaporized puff of the grey rain. And he realized, as he saw it, and as he watched the man disappear finally beyond the river, that the rain had lost its friendliness and that there was nothing to do but wait again.
He waited at the window about an hour, but the man did not come back. The rain slackened a little and finally, when the funeral party came back, the sky was breaking up and the rain was like blown mist that settled like a grey bloom on the coach. He lay at the window and watched four people get out of the coach: the old woman, Pierre, Françoise, and the dead man’s brother. The dog was wet with rain. The brother took the arm of the old woman and led her into the house. After a few moments the coach drew away and the priest came riding down the hill on his bicycle. His hat was hung on the handlebars.
Franklin lay and waited. The door of the house was shut. Pools of rain lay in the road and were ruffled by the wind. They shone white from the reflection of the breaking sky.
After about ten minutes the door opened and Françoise came out. As soon as he saw her he went back upstairs and waited for her in the top room. She came up at once and he held her by the wall, with one hand, not speaking.
‘Were you all right?’ she said. ‘Did anything happen?’
He knew that he must tell her. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Something happened.’
Dressed in black, the collar high up to her throat, she looked calmer than ever.
‘What?’ she said. ‘What happened?’
‘Someone was here,’ he said. ‘A man.’
‘A German?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t think so.’ He began to tell her about it. She was very calm and waited for him to finish.
‘He was quite bal
d,’ he said. ‘Would you know him?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I would know him.’
‘Who was he?’
‘He was from the village.’
‘No good?’
‘He is one of those people who can never keep their mouths shut.’
‘Then he’s no good?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘he’s no good. No good to us at all.’
She stood by the wall, looking past him, thinking. He felt how much he loved her in the black dress. Her eyes seemed to swim into the distance, in long thought, and finally came suddenly back.
‘Would you be ready to do something?’
‘For you?’
‘For yourself,’ she said.
He nodded.
‘Would you be ready to go?’ she said.
‘When?’
‘To-night.’
He did not answer.
‘The man who came here is no good,’ she said. ‘He was here for no good. We know him. He has an idea of something, and if he has an idea he will talk about it. You know how ideas grow.’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Would you go?’ she said.
He knew that there was no choice, but the thought of going was very hard again, and he hated it now.
‘I will come with you,’ she said.
‘Good Christ!’ he said. ‘What?’
‘I will come with you,’ she said. She looked up at him. Her eyes were very still.
‘What are you talking about?’ he said.
‘I will come with you,’ she said. ‘I have always planned to come with you.’
‘But for Christ’s sake! ’ he said.
‘Don’t let grand’mère hear you say ‘for Christ’s sake‘. She knows I am coming.’
‘But not now,’ he said. ‘How can you? Your father’s dead. How can you? Not now.’
‘I can come. The dead are dead. Besides, you could never go alone.’
‘Why not?’
‘With the arm. They would pick you up in a minute.’
‘Then they would pick you up if you came with me. That would be two of us. That would be worse.’
‘They won’t pick you up the way I shall take you,’ she said.
‘No?’ He looked at her closely. She was utterly and imperviously calm, and he knew that she had long ago made up her mind. ‘How will you take me?’
She took his right arm and held it, putting her hand flat against the palm of his.
‘How strong are you? Could you row?’
‘Row?’
‘A little way. Sometimes.’ She said: ‘I could row most of the way, but it would help if you rowed a little. It would keep your mind occupied.’
He opened his mouth to say something, but he was too astounded to form the words. He knew now why she had so often rowed up the river.
‘It is the only way to go,’ she said.
‘How far is it to the Unoccupied zone?’ he said. It seemed better to be practical.
‘We would row for two nights. Perhaps three nights. Perhaps a week. The river goes on a long way to the south.’
‘And how far would you come?’
‘All the way,’ she said.
‘All the way?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘As far as you go. All the way.’
‘To the frontier?’
‘To the frontier. Yes,’ she said.
He thought of the hell of leaving her at the frontier. Rather than go through that he knew that he did not want her to come.
‘It will be very hard at the frontier,’ he said, ‘leaving you.’
‘You won’t leave me at the frontier,’ she said.
She stood with her hand flat against the wall, decisive and upright and very certain.
‘But you can’t come on,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I can come on. I can come to England.’
She stood by the wall, quite still, smiling at him because the surprise was so clear and abrupt in his face. He could not speak. He could only look at her standing there with sublime certainty, knowing that there was now no arguing against her. He felt that she was holding something in her hands that was very precious, like a new doll, and he knew that it would be cruel to knock it out.
He took her hand and drew it towards his face and held it there. He kissed it once or twice and waited for her to speak.
‘You see, it’s no use being silly now,’ she said.
‘Am I being silly?’
‘No,’ she said, ‘but we have waited a long while, and now the time has come.’
‘All right,’ he said. He knew that deep inside himself he was very happy that she was coming. His only doubt was about England. It was something they would have to decide later. ‘When do we go?’
‘To-night,’ she said. ‘Just before dark. The priest and my uncle will go in about an hour. It will be dark early after the rain.’
As he held her his doubts were renewed.
‘I can go alone if you think it would be better,’ he said.
She did not speak.
‘Are you sure?’ he said.
She still did not speak. Her eyes were calm and very steady, and her lips were tightly fixed in a half-smile, and he knew that nothing he could say or do could change her determination now.
CHAPTER 17
HE stood in the kitchen for the last time, holding the brown paper parcel that contained his razor, soap, and change of clothes. He atched the old woman wrap up two sticks of bread and a piece of soft white cheese in a table-napkin and finally pack it all, with a few ripe green grapes, about a dozen apples, and the two cold hind legs of a rabbit, into a black cloth bag. The girl had a brown attaché case containing her clothes and a bottle of wine wrapped in a towel.
It was almost dark outside. The time had come to say goodbye, and now Franklin did not know what to say. He felt that it would be nice to give something to the old woman, as a farewell gift, but there was nothing to give. He stood for a moment by the kitchen table, watching her pack the food, and then he held out his hand. The old woman took it in both of hers and pressed it, shaking it silently up and down. Her hands were cold and rough, and she, too, had nothing to say. She could only shake his one hand tremblingly up and down until at last he turned suddenly and went out of the house and down to the jetty, with Pierre.
He stood under the wall of the mill with Pierre and waited for the girl to finish saying good-bye. Pierre carried the attaché case. It was not raining now, but the cloud was low and the wind broke sharply across the river, in dark irregular waves.
‘You have everything?’ Pierre said.
‘I think so,’ Franklin said. His stomach was light and warm as if he were going on an operational trip. ‘I would like to thank you.’
‘Don’t thank me.’ Pierre looked up and down the road in the twilight. ‘Would you like this?’
He pulled the revolver out of his jacket pocket.
‘No,’ Franklin said.
‘I have cleaned it.’
‘I don’t want it,’ Franklin said. ‘How did you get it?’
‘I said it was mine,’ Pierre said.
That was dangerous,’ Franklin said. ’The revolver is an English make.’
‘It made no difference. Armaments are international.’
‘The French should know,’ Franklin said.
‘We know,’ Pierre said. ‘Don’t you want it? It is a very good revolver.’
‘No,’ Franklin said. ‘You keep it. As a present from me. As a little thanks for all you have done.’
Pierre put the revolver in his left hand and held out his right. ‘No thanks are necessary. It’s I should thank you. It has been an experience to know you.’
‘It has been a great experience for me, too,’ Franklin said. ‘One day I will come back and we will fish together.’
‘One day,’ Pierre said.
They shook hands and after a few moments the girl came out of the house. She was wearing a dark blue coat over the white blous
e and the green skirt. The old woman was not with her. Pierre and Franklin came out from under the wall of the mill and joined her. They walked down to the river together.
‘Get under the tarpaulin,’ the girl said.
Franklin got into the boat and Pierre came in after him, holding up the tarpaulin so that Franklin could get under it. The tarpaulin had on it small pools of rain which ran off as Pierre lifted it. Franklin lay with his knees bent in the stern of the boat. Pierre put the attaché case and the bag of food underneath the tarpaulin. He got out of the boat and did not speak again.
‘Are you all right?’ the girl said. Franklin felt the boat rocking slightly as she came into it.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘It’s not for long,’ she said. ’There are two bridges and then you can come out.’
‘I am all right,’ he said.
He heard the iron ring on the jetty ring against the stone as Pierre slid the rope through it and let it fall. It was the only sound in the twilight, except the uninterrupted roar of the mill-stream and the sound of the wind on the river, until at last he heard the girl pushing one oar against the stone and pulling the boat round with the other.