Carrying a candle, she had started down the stairs. He was surprised to see a line of light under the door to the kitchen but did not realize what it was. He was far, far away, on another planet. Invisible currents were wafting him here and there, like wrecked boats floating on the sea. He was being blown one way then the other. A wave brought him briefly to Félicie. He seized hold of her and clung to her.
Already he could feel currents flowing in the opposite direction.
‘Jean, what are you up to?’
Tati sighed with relief on finding him alone.
‘I thought you might have gone away. The very idea, you see? It would be even more terrible than if René …’ But she did not continue with what seemed to her to be blasphemy.
‘You’re not coming inside?’
‘Yes.’
‘Help me. I’m not as strong as I thought I was.’
At night-time, she gave off an aroma of bed, sick flesh and medicine.
It had been so miraculous when he had got off the bus on that sunlit morning! And when he had discovered the house, with all the little tasks it required, tasks that took up his whole day.
‘Silly of me, I thought you weren’t on your own. I don’t know what I’d have done … I …’
Now the wave took him back into the kitchen, then into the narrow staircase, and he had to manhandle Tati up into the bedroom, before drawing the blinds.
In the end, he was obliged to go back to his attic, where he knew he would not sleep, where he would be prey to his terrors, while Félicie would be lying at peace and fulfilled.
She probably let one arm hang down as she slept, her breast uncovered by the bedclothes, and he imagined that a smile sometimes passed over her face like a ripple on water, while her lips moved silently.
10
Tati said the summer was a dead loss. Every two days, three at most, a storm would threaten far away, without even bringing refreshing rain. You could smell it on the air, over towards the Morvan. The atmosphere was sultry. The rays of the sun, appearing suddenly, seemed as if painted garishly in oils. Then thunderclaps would resound from all four corners of the horizon, the surface of the canal would be troubled, the chestnut leaves would tremble, the skirts of the girls riding their bikes would blow about, a few drops of rain would fall, as if reluctantly, followed by hours of grey skies, gusts of wind and drizzle.
It was the Sunday when this had happened for the first time, and Jean had laughed almost with relief.
The morning had still been sunny, rather hot though, and he had spent it, after feeding the animals, in Tati’s bedroom. Recent events now appeared to him with all the charm of memory, as if he knew they would never happen again. For instance, that first Sunday, when after lunch they had sat outdoors on the threshold, by the path, Tati knitting in the wicker armchair, himself astride a kitchen chair. He had been smoking Couderc’s pipe after cleaning it with alcohol.
‘I’ve been in bed a whole week now,’ she said, gazing across at the dark gap of the doorway to Françoise’s whitewashed house.
He looked across too. He had noticed that in the countryside the houses always had their front door open.
‘If they didn’t,’ he thought, ‘there wouldn’t be enough light. The windows are too small.’
At this time of day, Félicie would be dressing to go to Mass. He was sure she would be washing in the kitchen and would put a basin of soapy water on the floor to rinse her feet. The baby would be on the floor too, grubby as usual. Eugène, on Sundays and only on Sundays, as if he had far too much work to do during the week, would be in his small garden. As for the grandfather, he would be waiting his turn to wash and dress in black, with his white muffler and his elastic-sided shoes.
Was it for him, Jean, that Félicie had bought, or made for herself, a new dress? This one was apple green. As she came out of the house, she looked straight up at the open window. She must have been able to see Tati’s face framed there. Could she make out Jean in the shadows behind?
She set off along the towpath. Tati looked at Jean, who was pretending to think of something else, and gave a sigh.
The passers-by, who did not know that a storm was on the way, were preparing to spend their Sunday as usual. Some of them sat down along the banks of the canal, others, with rucksacks on their backs, were setting out on long cycle rides.
‘You could have killed a chicken,’ Tati said suddenly. ‘It hasn’t been much fun for you, this week.’
They never ate their own chickens, preferring to sell them. Tati was thinking about that.
‘If you talk to people about me, they’ll say I’m stingy. That’s because they’ve no idea what it’s like to be someone’s servant all your life. If I’d bought myself a dress like that hussy, I’d have no money put by now, and chances would be that …’
But Félicie had disappeared. The green dress had long since been absorbed in the twin lines of vegetation that merged together in the distance. But Tati was following her in thought. And in Jean’s thoughts too?
Then they heard voices on the path.
‘Ah, the bus must have just passed,’ she said.
Then she pricked up her ears.
‘I think … yes, that’s Amélie’s voice.’
Before long they saw the whole family on the bridge, the father with his Panama hat and pince-nez, the little boy in a sailor suit, and Amélie carrying a precious box from the cake shop. The child turned to glance back. Without stopping, still staring straight ahead, his mother shook him, forbidding him no doubt to look at that house.
They were on their way to Françoise’s. The old man was ready, washed and brushed; they had put a pipe in his mouth and settled – or was it nailed? – him down out of doors in a beam of sunlight. Françoise herself was the only one still not spruced up. She shaded her eyes with a hand, saw the family arriving and must have cried:
‘Oh my, eleven already!’
After which she dashed inside and started clearing things from the front room.
‘They never used to see each other at all!’ Tati commented. ‘Désiré thinks he’s an intellectual. He looks down on Eugène and his wife. But when it comes to plotting against me …’
They brought the table outside. Désiré, who had taken off his jacket and whose shirt-sleeves dazzled with whiteness, helped Françoise, but the table was wide and it was difficult to get it through the doorway.
Félicie came back from Mass and glanced across at the window. She was wearing a red flower on her green dress.
