Mr Hire's Engagement (4 page)

'All right! I'll be back in five minutes.'

Only then did he begin to undress, slowly. There were mirrors on two of the walls so he was presented with three or four reflections of his body, which gradually appeared, very white, plump, as smooth, as softly rounded as a woman's. But he lowered his eyes and hurried into the water, where he stretched out with a sigh.

Outside, people were walking or running, bells were constantly ringing, and women's names being called from one end of the corridor to the other. But the dominant notes were the sound of running water, the smell of soap and of eau de Cologne, the moisture from the baths.

It was like a sweating-room. The mirrors became entirely blurred within a minute. Sometimes a jet of steam from some unknown source made the atmosphere opaque, and one was groping in a cloud. The place reminded one of a laundry. It had the same cheerful vulgarity about it.

And yet, beneath all these noises, this tumult, ran a subtle, shamefaced, stifled undercurrent of whispers, sighs, strange, too damp kisses.

Standing up in the bath, Mr. Hire was soaping himself all over, when the door was thrust open. A woman came in, saying abruptly: 'Oh, it's you? How are you . . .'

And at once, almost before the door had closed behind her, she took off her wrap, and stood naked, more naked in this bathroom atmosphere than she could have been anywhere else.

She was plump, pink, washed and scrubbed like everything else, permeated with steam, soap and scent. She was a picture of health and strength. She pushed the handle of the shower, and Mr. Hire saw the soapy water trickling all down his body, covering the surface of the bath with grey froth. 'Come along.'

She held out an unfolded bath-wrap. She rubbed him down. Her breasts jumped at every movement, and touched his shoulder-blades. 'Been fighting?'

She was referring to the sticking-plaster, as she went on rubbing, and then wiped her own chest, which had got wet. 'I did it shaving . . .' he said humbly.

He was crimson, because of the rubbing and the heat. His legs were trembling from it, and now she was lying flat on her back on the settee with her knees drawn up. 'Come along.'

He was about to obey, but his courage seemed to fail him, and he sat down on the edge of the settee. 'Not that. . .'

'As you like.'

She sat up and settled beside him, and first ran her hands over his chest muscles, which were well padded. As she did this she stared straight ahead of her, and inquired: 'You'll leave me the eau de Cologne?'

He stuttered a feeble 'Yes', drooping his head and letting it slide over the woman's breast. He shut his eyes. In the corners of his mouth, right at the tips, there lurked the ghost of a smile and a hint of suffering.

 'Like that?'

She wriggled a little because he was crushing her breast, and Mr. Hire's head followed her movement, like the head of a baby. After a time the woman got up, while he straightened himself with difficulty, shading his eyes.

'Hurry up and get dressed.'

She rolled up her wrap, twisted it round her hips like a loincloth, and went out in that guise, the pink nipples projecting aggressively from her naked breasts. Mr. Hire slowly put on his pants and trousers. Already there came a knock on the door.

'Can I begin?'

It was the servant girl with her dusters, a bucket and a brush. While he was dressing she washed the bath, wiped the tiles and changed the sheet on the cane-seated sofa.

'Enjoyed yourself?'

He made no reply, pulled out some small coins, and with his briefcase under his arm, went out by the way he had come, passing a Negro who was following another attendant.

Out in the street he felt cold, unhealthily cold, because of the dampness that had penetrated his whole body. Shadows were still prowling along by the fence; maybe men hesitating to go in, maybe police from the vice squad?

In the last street before the lights, scarcely fifty yards from the shops, a couple were leaning against a door, so closely entwined, with the milk-white patch of their indistinguishable faces, that one could almost taste the kiss they were exchanging. The girl wore a white overall. She must have come from a butcher's shop or a dairy.

It was eight o'clock. Mr. Hire arrived once more at the Porte d'Italie and was on the point of making for the waiting tram. An accordéon was playing in a bar. Three lads with red paper flowers in their buttonholes jostled him.

He walked to a restaurant and had dinner, at a table by himself, choosing sweet and sugary dishes. All the same, he ate hardly anything. At half-past nine he was outside again, and, down a side street, he stopped in front of a small hotel.

He was still pondering, and all this thought had given him an uneasy expression, and a tendency to jump in alarm when anyone suddenly went by, when a car hooted, or a girl brushed past him.

He returned to the Avenue d'Italie. Most of the shops were shut, but there was as much light as ever, and right at the far end, in the Place, the lamps of a roundabout could be seen revolving against a background of sky.

Once, as a passer-by knocked into him, Mr. Hire dropped his briefcase and had to stoop down and pick it up. He straightened himself again with a sigh of weariness and thereupon made for the tram; saw that his usual seat was occupied, and remained standing on the platform.

He got off at the Villejuif terminus at a quarter-past ten. The crossroads was deserted. There was nobody to be seen except in the two cafés, and the cars ran by along the shiny surface without stopping.

The door of the house was shut. He rang. The concierge worked the release for the door and turned on the light. He went past the lodge without exactly looking in, but for all that he noticed there was a man in there, perhaps two, sitting astride a chair near the stove. He knew it was the man who had torn off the sticking-plaster and who had followed him that morning.

He went heavily upstairs, and the light went out, leaving him with one flight still to climb. But he was used to that. He found the lock, slipped his key into it, and the cold breath of his room blew into his face. When, after shutting the door, he switched on the light, he was frowning, with an air of anxiety. His eyes wandered round the room, searching for something.

Mr. Hire did not smoke, and yet the room was smelling vaguely of stale tobacco.

He went straight to a drawer containing dirty linen, and wearily closed it, flung his leather briefcase onto the bed and hung his hat on the coatstand.

The bloodstained dishcloth had disappeared.

He had put the light out and was standing at the window, in his overcoat, with his hands in his pockets. The girl from the dairy had gone to bed before he got home, but she was not asleep, She was reading another novel, her bare arms lying outside the sheets, a cigarette between her lips.

There was not a sound in the house now, except that of a coffee-mill grinding, just above Mr. Hire's head. Probably somebody ill, for coffee to be prepared at such an hour.

The girl had not let her hair down before getting into bed. It even looked as though she had powdered her face and put on a touch of rouge. Sometimes she raised her head. Her eyes left the printed page glanced across the bed, and looked at the window, with its transparent muslin curtains.

What was she looking at? The dark wall on the far side of the courtyard? She moved her head slightly, as though discreetly beckoning to someone. But wasn't it only because her neck was stiff?

Mr. Hire stood motionless. He could clearly see the girl's full lips parting in a smile. But for whom? Why? She pushed back the sheets a little and stretched herself, so that her white nightdress drew tighter across the curve of her breasts. And she went on smiling, with an air of utter sensual bliss.

Perhaps it was because she was warm in bed? Perhaps her smile was meant for the hero of her book.

She pulled her knees up under the blankets, and Mr. Hire pressed his forehead harder against the cold window-pane. She was summoning him! There could be no doubt about it! She was moving her head again, as before! She was smiling straight at his window! He did not move, and she got out of bed, uncovered her pink thighs for a moment. When she stood up, with the lamp behind her, he could see the outline of her body through the transparent nightdress.

She was making signs to him to come! She was pointing to her door! She drew back the bolt and got back into bed with a voluptuous, enticing movement, stretched out again, this time holding her breasts with both hands.

Mr. Hire drew back. He could still see her, but from further away. He knocked into the table, fumbled in a drawer, without switching the light on, to find something white, no matter what, and came upon a handkerchief.

The girl was no longer watching the window. She doubtless supposed he was on his way down, and she was tidying her hair with the help of a pocket mirror, rubbing lipstick over her mouth.

Mr. Hire made no noise. Above his head a wire mattress creaked and a voice murmured plaintively. He propped the handkerchief against the window with a broomstick, at the spot where his face had been before, and he went to open the door, listened.

In spite of his felt slippers, some of the stairs creaked. A voice from inside one door called out:

'Is that you?'

He went by without answering. That flat belonged to a couple with three children. The concierge's lodge was in darkness, and Mr. Hire went past the door, nearly sent the dustbins clattering, and reached the courtyard.

It was nine feet long, six feet wide, and from top to bottom there were windows, only three of which were lit up, including one right at the top, where the coffee was being made. His own window was the one just below that. He saw it in perspective, quite dark. Against this dark background he sought for the white patch of the handkerchief, found it, ghostly but visible, as his face too, every night was visible.

Facing him was a door, that of B staircase, which led up to the girl's room. Mr. Hire stared at it, hesitating, and fled back to his own staircase, breathing hard.

There had been time for a change to take place in the ground-floor passage. It was lit up. Someone had pressed the button. Yet the doorbell had not rung. No footsteps had been heard.

Mr. Hire walked on tiptoe, his body leaning forward. He had reached the glass-panelled door of the lodge, when he stopped short.

In the shadows on the other side of the pane, a man was standing, watching him placidly, smoking a pipe. His face did not bear a tragic, nor threatening nor ironical expression. No expression at all! He was smoking his pipe as though it were perfectly natural to be smoking at this hour, standing in the concierge's lodge, in complete darkness except for the glow of the lamps in the passage.

He showed no surprise at sight of Mr. Hire, who was staring at him with round eyes. He moved. He raised his hand, took the pipe from his mouth, and puffed out a cloud of smoke which, hovering against the glass pane, hid his face for a moment as though it had been rubbed out.

Mr. Hire stretched his hand towards the door-handle, let it fall again, and, tearing himself from the spot, made rapidly for the stairs and went up, holding closely to the banisters.

Back in his room, he sat down, but he could see the window opposite, the girl bolting her door again, letting down her hair with a furious gesture, crushing out her cigarette on the enamel surface of her washbasin.

Finally, turning towards the courtyard, towards his window, she put out her tongue and switched off the light.

IV

I
T
was from the wireless, at five minutes to eight, that Mr. Hire discovered this was Sunday, for every Sunday morning it played, talked and whistled in some unlocated corner of the house. Looking out of his window he saw that the girl's room had not been tidied, and this, too, was a feature of Sundays. At one o'clock the girl would come rushing in, pull up the sheets and blankets just anyhow, and change her dress with frantic speed.

There was still no wood in his room. The water in the jug was covered with a thin layer of ice, and Mr. Hire, collarless and in bedroom slippers, set off down the staircase.

Out of doors it seemed colder than the previous day, but that might be because there were not so many people about. The wide road was almost empty. One could see from the attitude of the tram that it had no intention of leaving for at least a quarter of an hour. The people walking along in the pale, sharp air, were mostly dressed in mourning, bending forwards, with flowers in their hands, on their way to the new cemetery. This was their time of day.

As he went past the concierge's lodge, Mr. Hire saw only the little girl, dressed in her white knickers, washing herself. But from the front door he noticed the inspector, at the cross-roads, stamping his feet as he chatted with the policeman on point duty. The inspector saw him too, made no move, and Mr. Hire turned left, into the grocer's shop.

Though he was only wearing his overcoat, with upturned collar, over his nightshirt, he still looked over-dressed for the time of day, almost ceremonious. He waited patiently, with dignity, for his turn, then pointed to the things he wanted.

'A dozen . . . Half a pound . . . How much is that?'

The people in the place had known him for a long time, and yet they looked at him with embarrassment and curiosity. He wanted kindling for his fire, cheese, butter and cooked vegetables. At the delicatessen shop he bought a cold cutlet and some pickled gherkins. His arms were full of little white packages and he had to stick out his stomach to hold them up.

In the middle of the cross-roads the inspector, standing beside the uniformed policeman, watched his comings and goings in the way a schoolmaster, in the playground, might keep an eye on his charges while chatting with the headmaster.

Not more than a couple of hundred yards away, a group of people had collected in front of a hoarding from which glared a red and yellow poster advertising polish. This was in the street across the way, a street that began with houses, like any other, but trailed off, after a short distance, into building-lots and patches of waste ground.