‘Because she was a great believer in family life.
‘“No, Jean,” she said, “don’t you start to play. What will you do? You’re drinking too much, and you’ll be ill again. It’ll be no fun for me to have to look after you, like last Tuesday.”’
‘And you lost?’ Tati asked, as she fiddled with her empty glass.
Her tone was more distant.
‘Well, first of all, he won my three thousand francs off me. I kept ordering more drinks. I wanted to play by giving my word. I signed some chits. I lost over ten thousand francs in less than an hour, and the man laughed his head off:
‘“Ha ha! I’m getting my cash back now. And this lad’s papa will pay, old Passerat-Monnoyeur. I’ve drunk enough of his hooch in the past.”
‘By the time the game was over, Zézette had gone home. A fine rain was falling. It must have been about two in the morning and the last cafés were closing.
‘The man left the bar. I followed him at a distance. I didn’t know what I was going to do. He went through the Île de la Cité and along the quayside. Then he crossed a bridge at the end of the Île Saint-Louis, and I walked up to him, fast.
‘“Listen,” I said to him, “you’ve just got to give me something back, if not my three thousand francs, at least those chits I signed.”
‘He started to laugh again. I must have been white in the face, my nerves on edge, because his laughing got less natural and I knew from his expression that he was afraid, and looking round for help. In those days, like a lot of students, I had an American-type knuckleduster in my pocket, just for show really.
‘The man was still laughing when I punched him in the face, and he went straight down, like a log.’
‘Was he dead?’ Tati asked, her chest heaving.
He shrugged.
‘I took his wallet and put it in my pocket. I walked off quickly. Then …’
‘He wasn’t dead?’
Jean cried out:
‘No, dammit! He wasn’t dead! Or rather … I didn’t know. I was about a hundred metres away, two hundred maybe. And I suddenly thought, what if he comes round, what if the police find him on their beat and he tells them my name? I went back. That was when I really felt afraid. I leaned over him, and he groaned.
‘I pulled him to his feet as fast I as I could, I don’t know how I managed, he was a dead weight, and I heaved him over the parapet.
‘There were fourteen thousand francs in the wallet and a photo of two children, twin boys, close together.’
‘And they caught you right away?’
He bowed his head.
‘Four months later. The body didn’t turn up for five weeks, they found it at a dam. The police investigated, but my name didn’t come up.’
‘What about Zézette?’
‘I’m sure she suspected the truth. I spent the fourteen thousand francs on her. One morning, my concierge told me in a mysterious voice that the cops had been asking questions about me.
‘So I disappeared. I slept at a friend’s place; he lived with his uncle. The uncle wasn’t supposed to know I was there. I didn’t dare leave the house. In the daytime, I hid under the bed. My friend brought me scraps from the table, hard-boiled eggs and cold meat.
‘I wrote to my father asking him to send me money so that I could go abroad. He just sent a message back saying: “Get lost!”
‘And one morning, when I was starting to cough, I went to give myself up at police headquarters on Quai des Orfèvres. They had no idea who I was and they kept me waiting two hours in an antechamber.
‘They gave me a duty lawyer. He advised me to say that the man had overbalanced at the edge of the parapet when I punched him, so that’s what I said. They didn’t believe me, but because there was an element of doubt, I only got five years.’
Then Tati’s voice came:
‘And it didn’t affect you?’
‘What?’
‘Killing him.’
‘I don’t know now. I don’t think so,’ he said, looking out of the window.
The truth, the real truth, was that he had not been thinking about the businessman from Le Mans, when his face had clouded over, but about his spoiled day, about the way Félicie had spat at him, about something that had existed and that he would never find again.
‘Don’t drink any more,’ said Tati quietly, taking the bottle away.
He passed his hand across his face and sighed.
‘I’m so tired.’
‘Go and lie down.’
‘Yes, I think …’
He walked heavily upstairs, let himself drop on to the mattress that smelled of hay and damp. Cool air came in through the open skylight above his head, along with the clucking of the hens and the sound of a rake somewhere, Couderc in the garden perhaps, or the roadmender on the towpath.
