The Voyeur Read online

  Again Mathias found himself out in the road that had no sidewalk. Of course he had not sold a single wrist watch. In the hardware shopwindow could be seen various objects that were ordinarily sold in dry-goods stores as well, ranging from big balls of thread for mending fishnets to black silk braids and pincushions.

  Once past the butcher shop, Mathias disappeared into the next doorway.

  He made his way down the same dark narrow corridor the arrangement of which he now recognized. Without, however, achieving any greater success. At the first door he knocked on, there was no answer. At the second, a very old woman, pleasant enough although stone deaf, obliged him to abandon all attempts at salesmanship: since she understood nothing of what he wanted, he retreated with many smiles and an expression indicating he was entirely satisfied with his visit; somewhat startled, the old woman decided to smile back and even to thank him warmly. With many reciprocal little bows, they parted after an affectionate handshake; in another moment she would have kissed him. He climbed the uncomfortable staircase to the first floor; there a woman shut the door in his face without giving him time to speak a word; a baby was screaming somewhere. On the second floor he found only some dirty, frightened children—perhaps they were sick, since they were home from school on a Tuesday.

  On the quay again, he turned back to try to interest the butcher, who was waiting on two customers; no one paid enough attention to what he was saying to justify even opening the suitcase. He did not insist, repelled by the cold smell of the meat.

  The next shop was the café “A l'Espérance.” He walked in. The first thing to do in a café is to buy a drink. He went to the bar, set his suitcase on the floor between his feet, and asked for an absinthe.

  The girl working behind the bar had a timorous face and the ill-assured manner of a dog that had been whipped. When she ventured to raise her eyelids her large eyes could be seen—dark and lovely—but only for an instant; she lowered them immediately, leaving only her long doll's lashes to be admired. Their delicate outlines emphasized her vulnerable expression.

  Three men—three sailors—whom Mathias had passed as they were arguing in front of the door walked in and sat down at a table, They ordered red wine. The barmaid walked around the bar, awkwardly carrying the bottle and three glasses stacked one inside the other. Without a word she set down the glasses in front of the customers. To fill them exactly she leaned forward from the waist, her head to one side. Under her apron she was wearing a black dress cut low over the delicate skin of her back. Her hair was arranged so that the nape of her neck was completely exposed.

  One of the sailors had turned toward the bar. Mathias, without having had time to realize what made him turn away, suddenly wheeled back to his glass of absinthe and drank a swallow of it. In front of him was someone new, standing against the door frame of the inner room, near the cash drawer. Mathias made a vague gesture of greeting.

  The man did not seem to notice it. He kept his eyes fastened on the girl who was still pouring the wine.

  She was not used to the job. She poured too slowly, constantly watching the level of the liquid in the glass, determined not to waste a drop. When the third one was filled to the brim she raised the bottle and, holding it in both hands, returned to her place with lowered eyes. At the other end of the bar the man watched her severely as she approached him, walking with short steps. She must have become aware of her master's presence—in a flicker of her lashes—for she stopped short, hypnotized by the floorboards at the tips of her shoes.

  The others were already quite motionless. Once the girl's change of position—too uncertain to last under such conditions—had been reabsorbed in its turn, the entire scene crystallized.

  No one said anything.

  The barmaid looked at the floor in front of her feet. The proprietor looked at the barmaid. Mathias watched the proprietor looking at her. The three sailors looked at their glasses. Nothing revealed the pulsation of the blood through the veins—not a quiver.

  It would be pointless to try to estimate the time this lasted.

  Four syllables rang out. But instead of breaking the silence, they were completely assimilated by it: “Are you asleep?”

  The voice was heavy, deep, slightly singsong. Although spoken without anger, almost softly, the words concealed beneath their pretended gentleness an unspecified threat. Or it might have been in this very appearance of intimidation, on the other hand, that the pretense was to be found.

  After a considerable delay—as if the command had taken a long time to reach her across a stretch of sand and stagnant water—the girl continued to advance timorously without lifting her head toward the man who had just spoken. (Had anyone seen his lips move?) Having reached a point near him—less than a step away—within reach of his hand—she leaned over to put the bottle back in place—presenting the nape of her neck from which, where it was exposed by her dress, protruded the tip of a vertebra. Then, straightening up, she busied herself drying the newly-washed glasses. Outside, behind the glass door, beyond the paving-stones and the mud, the water of the harbor sparkled in dancing flashes: undulating lozenges of flame forming transverse gothic arches, lines which suddenly contracted to produce a jagged flash of light—which as suddenly flattened, extending horizontally until it formed a line that broke once more into a brilliant zigzag—a jig-saw puzzle, a seamless series of incessant dislocations.

  At the sailors’ table, air whistled between clenched teeth—preceding the imminent return of speech.

  Passionately, though in an undertone, syllables picked out by one: “. . . would deserve . . .” began the youngest, who was continuing some long-drawn-out argument begun elsewhere. “She deserves . . .” A silence. . . . A little whistle. . . . Squinting from the effort of choosing his words, he was looking into a dark corner where the pin-ball machine stood. “I don't know what she deserves.”

  “Oh, yes!” said one of the two others—the one next to him—in a more sonorous tone, exaggeratedly drawling the initial interjection.

  The third sailor, sitting opposite, drank off the wine left in the bottom of his glass and said calmly, already bored by the subject: “A good smack. . . . And you too.”

  They stopped talking. The proprietor had disappeared from the doorway to the inner room. Mathias noticed the girl's large dark eyes—in a flicker of her lashes. He drank a swallow of absinthe. The glasses were all dried now; to give herself something to do the girl put her hands behind her back on the pretext of retying her apron strings.

  “The whip!” continued the young man's voice. He whistled between his teeth, two short blasts, and repeated the word in a more uncertain tone—as if in a dream.

  Mathias looked down at the glass of cloudy yellow alcohol in front of him. He saw his right hand lying on the edge of the counter, the nails he had neglected to cut, and their abnormal length and pointedness.

  He thrust his hand into the pocket of his duffle coat, where it came in contact with the wad of cord. He remembered the suitcase at his feet, the purpose of his trip, the urgency of his work. But the proprietor was not there any longer and the girl would not be in a position to spend one hundred fifty or two hundred crowns. Two of the drinkers evidently belonged to the non-watch-buying category; as for the youngest, he was repeating some story of an unfaithful wife or fickle sweetheart from which it would be difficult to distract him.

  Mathias finished his absinthe and signaled that he was ready to pay for it by jingling the coins in his pocket.

  “That will be three crowns seven,” said the girl.

  Surprisingly enough, she spoke quite naturally, without a trace of embarrassment. The absinthe was not expensive. He spread out on the counter the three silver coins and the seven bronze ones, then added a brand-new half-crown.

  “For you.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She picked up all the coins and dropped them pell-mell into the cash drawer.

  “Your mistress isn't here?” asked Mathias.

  “She's upstairs,
sir,” the girl answered.

  The proprietor's silhouette appeared again in the doorway to the inner room, exactly where it had been before—not in the center, but leaning against the right side—as if he had not moved since his first appearance. His expression had not changed either: inscrutable, harsh, waxen, it could be variously interpreted as hostility, concern, or merely absent-mindedness; on the other hand, such a countenance was just as likely to harbor the most sinister intentions. The girl had bent down to stack the clean glasses under the counter. On the other side of the glass door reflections from the water flickered in the sunlight.

  “Nice day!” said Mathias.

  He stooped and picked up his suitcase with his left hand. He was anxious to get outside again. If no one answered him he would leave without making further efforts.

  Just then came the girl's quiet voice: “This gentleman wanted to see Madame Robin.” In the sun's glare the water of the harbor danced with dazzling flashes of light. Mathias put his right hand over his eyes.

  “What about?” asked the proprietor.

  Mathias turned to face him. He was a tall, heavily built man—almost a giant. The impression of strength he produced was emphasized by an immobility that he seemed to find difficult to overcome.

  “This is Monsieur Robin,” the girl explained.

  Mathias nodded his head with a good-natured smile. This time the proprietor returned his greeting, though with an almost imperceptible gesture. He must have been about Mathias’ age.

  “I once knew someone named Robin,” Mathias said, “about thirty years ago, when I was still just a boy . . .” And he began to conjure up, in a rather vague way, schoolday memories suitable to any islander's childhood. “Robin,” he added, “a big, strong fellow. . . . I think he was named Jean—Jean Robin . . .”

  “My cousin,” the man said, nodding his head. “He wasn't so big as all that. Anyway, he's dead.”

  “No!”

  “He died in thirty-six.”

  “That's incredible!” Mathias exclaimed, suddenly overcome with sadness. His friendship for this imaginary Robin was sensibly enhanced by the fact that he ran no risk of encountering him in the course of his inventions. He mentioned his own surname in passing and attempted to draw out his interlocutor, who would then take him into his confidence. “And how did the poor chap die?”

  “Is that why you wanted to see my wife?” inquired the genuine Robin, whose perplexity might have been authentic.

  Mathias reassured him. The purpose of his visit was quite different: he was selling wrist watches and he happened to have with him three attractive ladies’ styles which would certainly interest a woman of taste like Madame Robin.

  Monsieur Robin made a little gesture with his arm—his first actual movement since his appearance—to show he was not taken in by the compliment. The salesman gave a knowing laugh which unfortunately aroused no response. At the sailors’ table the red-faced man sitting at the deceived lover's left repeated his drawled “oh, yes"—for no apparent reason, since no one had spoken to him. Mathias hastened to explain that he also had a number of men's models of exceptional quality, considering their price—defying all competition. He should have opened his suitcase unhesitatingly and enumerated the advantages of his merchandise while passing it around; but the counter was too high to facilitate such an operation, which required freedom of movement, and the use of one of the tables would oblige him to turn his back to the proprietor, his only likely customer. Nevertheless, he decided on this unsatisfactory solution and began his sales-talk—standing too far to one side, however, to be in a position to convince any of his hearers. After having washed, dried, and put away his empty glass, the barmaid took a rag and wiped off the counter's zinc top at the spot where he had just been drinking. Next to him the three sailors had begun a new argument as incoherent as the last, with the same economy of words and the same deliberation, displaying neither progression nor conclusion. This time it was something about a shipment of spider-crabs ("hookers,” they called them) to be transported to the mainland; there was a disagreement about how they were to be marketed—a difference of opinion, it appeared, with their fishmonger. Or else they were in agreement but not altogether satisfied with the decision they had reached. To put an end to the discussion, the oldest—who was facing the other two—declared that it was his round next. The girl again picked up the bottle of red wine and walked around the bar, taking short steps.

  Mathias, who had approached the proprietor in order to give him a better look at one of the series of watches (at two hundred fifty crowns), saw the man's eyes shift from the cardboard strip to the table where his employee was pouring the wine. She held her head to one side, neck and shoulders bent, in order to observe more closely the rising level of the liquid in the glass. Her black dress was cut low in back. Her hair was arranged so that the nape of her neck was exposed.

  Since no one was paying attention to him any more, Mathias was about to put the cardboard strip back in the suitcase. The red-faced sailor looked up and made a sudden grimace of complicity in his direction. At the same time he nudged the man next to him: “What about you, Louis, don't you want a watch? Don't you? (A wink.) What about a present for Jacqueline?”

  As if in answer the young man whistled between his teeth, two short blasts. The girl suddenly straightened up, twisting at the waist. For an instant Mathias saw her pupils and the dark reflections in the iris of her eyes. She turned on her heels like a marionette, then took the bottle back behind the bar, resuming her slow, delicate doll's gait which he had at first attributed to clumsiness—mistakenly, in all probability.

  Mathias also turned around, offering the proprietor a series of ladies’ watches: the "fantasies.”

  “And here's something for Madame Robin; I'm sure she'd like one of these! The first one here is two hundred seventy-five crowns. This one, with the antique case, is three hundred forty-nine. A watch like this is worth at least five hundred crowns at any jeweler's you can name. And I'll include the band as a special gift bonus! Now this one is a real gem!”

  His enthusiasm went for nothing. Hardly aroused, his assumed good humor faded of its own accord. The atmosphere was too unfavorable. There was no use persisting under these conditions. No one was listening to him.

  Yet on the other hand, no one had explicitly refused him. Perhaps they counted on letting him continue until nightfall, glancing inattentively at his watches and answering with a word or two now and then to keep him from leaving. It would be better to go right away: after all, a ceremony of refusal was not indispensable.

  “If you want to,” the proprietor said at last, “you can go upstairs. She won't buy anything, but it will give her something to do.”

  Thinking the husband would accompany him, Mathias was already casting about for an excuse to leave when he realized that the man had no such intention: the proprietor was, in fact, giving him directions for finding his wife, who was occupied, he said, either in the kitchen or with the housework, which made the notion that she needed something to do a rather strange one. In any case, Mathias decided to make a final attempt, hoping to revive his means of persuasion once out of this impassive giant's hearing. Until now he had had the constant sense of talking in a void—a hostile void that devoured his words as soon as he had uttered them.

  He closed his suitcase and headed toward the back of the room. Instead of leaving by the door behind the bar, he had been directed to another exit, a doorway in the corner where the pin-ball machine stood.

  When the door closed behind him, he was standing in a rather dirty vestibule dimly lighted by a little glass door opening on an interior court, itself deep and dark. The walls around him, once painted a uniform yellow-ochre, were filthy, scaling, scored, even split in places. The wood of the floors and stairs, although evidently as worn by frequent washing as by the passage of feet, was black with encrusted grime. Various objects were piled in the corners: cases of empty bottles, large boxes of corrugated cardboard, a wash
ing-machine, fragments of cast-off furniture. It was apparent they had been stored with a certain system, and had not accumulated merely in successive rejections. Furthermore, nothing was actually dirty; everything seemed quite ordinary: it was obvious that the floorboards simply had not been waxed (which, after all, was not surprising) and that the walls needed repainting. As for the dead silence, that was much less depressing—and more justified—than the virtually mute tension that filled the café from one moment to the next.

  A narrow hallway turned off to the right, doubtless leading to the room behind the bar and, farther on, to the quay itself. There were also two stairways, one as narrow as the other—it was difficult to account for both, since they did not appear to lead to different wings of the building.

  Mathias was to take the one directly in front of him as he came out of the café; to a certain degree either stairway might have fit this description, although neither of them satisfied it altogether. He hesitated a few seconds and ended by choosing the one farthest from him because the other was distinctly recessed in the wall. He walked up one flight. Here he was confronted by two doors—as he had been told—one with no knob.

  The second was not closed, but merely resting against the jamb. He knocked without pressing too heavily, lest the door open completely, for he could feel that it would turn on its hinges at the slightest pressure.

  He waited. There was not enough light on the landing for him to tell whether the door was painted to imitate the texture of wood, or else spectacles, eyes, rings, or a whorl of thread rolled into a figure eight.

  He knocked again, this time with his ring. As he feared, the door opened by itself. Then he realized that it led only to another vestibule. After waiting again he stepped forward, no longer certain where to knock. There were now three doors in front of him.

  The one in the middle was wide open. What it presented to view was not the kitchen described by the proprietor, but a spacious bedroom that surprised Mathias by its resemblance to something he could not later identify. The entire center of the room had been cleared so that the black and white tile flooring was immediately noticeable: white octagons the size of plates, adjacent on four of their sides and thus providing for an equal number of smaller black squares between them. Mathias then recalled that it was an old island custom to lay tiles rather than floor-boards in the finest rooms of the house—but more often in the dining room or the living room than in a bedroom. Yet this room left no doubt about its function: a large, low bed filled one of its corners, its long side against the wall facing the door. Against the wall at the right, perpendicular to the head of the bed, a night table supported a bed lamp. Next came a closed door, then the dressing table over which hung an oval mirror. A bedside rug made of lambskin completed the furnishings of this corner. To see farther along the wall at the right he would have had to put his head all the way into the room. Similarly, the whole left side of the room remained concealed by the door to the vestibule where Mathias was standing.