The web she weaves, p.12
The Web She Weaves, page 12
“Oh, my God!” cried Jean-Pierre again, and rushed to the kitchen.
There was nothing there with which to clean a clogged waterpipe. Everything that was long enough was much too thick. One tine of a fork would go in, but was probably not long enough. Nevertheless, he would try.
He ran back to the window and prodded the tube with a tine of the fork. Then he straightened up and waited, breathless. The water did not come. He rushed again to the kitchen, and scratched about among the cooking utensils. Was there no piece of wire anywhere in the world? A pipe cleaner! That was it! He searched feverishly through all his pockets, but he knew all the time that he had none. It occurred to him that if Margot were there, she would have a hairpin, which could be straightened out, and he cursed her savagely that she had gone.
Suddenly his eye fell on the broom, which was standing in a corner. He went over to it and tore forth a handful of splints, with which he rushed back to the tank.
“Wait, wait, Philippe!” he called as he approached.
“Don’t die! Wait just a very little minute!” And he thrust a splint down into the tube. It broke, and he had difficulty in extracting it. Sweat came out on his forehead. He put two splints together, and inserted them with care.
“Don’t die! don’t die!” he moaned, but softly, lest the splints should break.
Suddenly, incredibly, the water came, and dust and particles of food began to travel slowly toward the outlet. Jean-Pierre thrust his hands in up to the wrists, and shooed the stale water down the tank.
The next morning Philippe was quite himself again. Fearfully, Jean-Pierre crept into the room and approached the window.
“Comment ça va ce matin?” he questioned in a timid voice, and put a finger into the pool.
The eel aroused, and wriggled sullenly to the other end of the glass.
Jean-Pierre giggled sharply with delight, and all that morning he went about with a grin on his face, singing, “Madame, voilà du bon fromage!”
Jean-Pierre hated the room in which he slept. It seemed to have become, since Margot left, every day dirtier and more untidy. For one thing, of course, he never made the bed. When he crawled into it at night it was just as he had crawled out of it in the morning. The thin blanket dragged always to the floor on one side, the counterpane on the other. The sheets grew grayer and grayer, and the bolster flatter. And he seemed always to have fallen asleep on the button side of the square pillow.
Infrequently he drew off the soiled sheets and put on clean ones. But at such times he became more than usually unhappy; he missed Margot more. She had been used to exclaim always over the fresh bed that it smelled sweet, and to pass her hand with pleasure over the smooth old linen. Often she would say with pride: “I tell you frankly, my little cabbage, in many of the big hotels today, rich hotels, full of Americans, they make up the beds with cotton. I don’t see how the clients sleep. I could not.”
Every morning on awaking, Jean-Pierre groaned once and turned heavily. Then he rubbed the back of his wrist across his eyes, and stared out at the daylight. He saw on the shelf above the narrow fireplace a pale photograph of himself and his brother when they were children. They were seated in an imitation rowboat. Into his hand had been thrust an imitation oar, which it supported without interest; from the hand of his brother dangled listlessly a handsome string of imitation fish.
He saw also the swathed and ghostly bulk of what he knew to be a clock—a clock so elegant and fine, so ornamented with whorls of shiny brass, that his wife had kept it lovingly wrapped in a towel. To be sure, the face of the clock could not be seen; but what will you? One cannot have everything. Between the clock and the photograph was a marvelous object—a large melon growing serenely in a small-necked bottle. A great trick, that. But Jean-Pierre was very tired of the melon.
He was tired of everything in the room, everything in his life, but particularly of the things on the mantelpiece. And most of all was he tired of the candlestick that stood between the clock and the wreath of wax gardenias—a candlestick which had never known a candle, a flat lily pad with a green frog squatting on it. Jean-Pierre did not know that it was a green frog squatting on a lily pad. It had been there so long that when he looked at it he no longer saw it. It was only one of the things on the mantelpiece.
One morning, however, as he awoke and groaned and turned and looked out with dull eyes on still another yesterday, it so happened that he stared for some moments at the candlestick. And presently he said, “Tiens! tiens!” and laid his forefinger alongside his nose.
That morning he dressed hurriedly, with a little smile going and coming at his lips. And when he was dressed he thrust the candlestick into his pocket and ran downstairs.
“Bonjour, Philippe/” he called as he entered the restaurant. “Regard, species of wild man, I bring you a little friend!”
Happily, and with excessive care, he installed the green frog at the bottom of the tank. The eel moved away from it in beautiful curves.
“There is somebody for you to talk to, Philippe,” said Jean-Pierre, “as you are for me.”
He went to the door and opened it. The morning air came freshly in from the trees and fountains of the Luxembourg.
The days went by and went by, and nothing happened in them. One afternoon Jean-Pierre stood for a long time outside the window of a shop which had the sign up, Fleurs Naturelles. It was unfortunate for Margot, he told you frankly, that she had left him, because otherwise on this day she would be receiving a bouquet of flowers, pois de senteur, purple, pink, and mauve, and big white pivoines. It was the anniversary of their wedding. There were water lilies in the window, too.
Suddenly Jean-Pierre burst into the flower shop with the face of a boy in love, and after much shrugging and gesticulation and interchange of commonplace insults, he parted from the shopkeeper, and went home to Philippe, bearing a long-stemmed lily.
At twenty minutes to one of an afternoon a week later a man might have been seen to walk along the quai of the Seine to the Place St. Michel, and then up the Boulevard St. Michel to the rue de Médicis. On the corner of the rue de Médicis he hesitated and looked both ways. Just then a very little girl came up the boulevard and held out to him a basket of pinks and roses. He shook his head.
It happened that for that moment these two were the only people on that corner. The little girl stood for a moment beside him, hesitating, looking both ways. Then she tucked her basket under her arm and started up the rue de Médicis. And because she had turned that way, the man turned that way, too, letting her decision take the place of his own.
He walked slowly, glancing as he passed at the many people taking their luncheon under the awnings in front of the cafes. He was looking for a place to eat, and it happened that he wished to be alone.
Before the Restaurant du Chatqui Pêche there were six oblong, iron-legged tables, on each of which stood a warted blue-glass vase containing a sprig of faded sweet william and the wilted stamens of a rose from which the petals had dropped. The place was deserted. There was no sign of life anywhere about, saving only that in one of the windows there was a glass tank filled with slightly quivering water, on the surface of which floated a lily, and on the bottom of which, beside an artificial bright-green frog, dozed a large and sluggish eel.
The man seated himself at one of the tables and tapped upon the table with the vase. There was no response. He tapped again.
“Voilà!” called Jean-Pierre from the back of the restaurant, and came eagerly out, holding in his hand the carte du jour.
“The rabbit is very good,” he suggested, “also the gigot. And what will you have, sir, in the way of wine?”
“White wine,” said the man, “a half-bottle. A salad of tomatoes, an onion soup, and an anguille. ”
“Oui, monsieur,” said Jean-Pierre. “And after the andouilles, what?” Andouilles are a kind of sausage.
“Not andouilles,” replied the man, with some impatience, “anguille.”
“Oui, monsieur,” said Jean-Pierre, trembling. He passed his damp cloth over the table and went back into the restaurant. He sat down upon a chair, and his head dropped to one side, his eyes bulging. “O-o, là là!” said Jean-Pierre.
Several moments passed. The man on the terrace outside rapped sharply on the table.
“Voilà!” called Jean-Pierre, leaping to his feet. Hurriedly he gathered up a folded napkin, a thick white plate, a knife, fork, and spoon, two round bits of bread, and an unlabeled bottle of white wine. With these he issued forth.
When the table was fairly set, he curved one hand behind his ear and leaned down to listen.
“Will monsieur kindly repeat his order?” he requested in a half-whisper.
The gentleman did so, with annoyance, glanced up into the face bending over him, frowned, and reached for the wine.
Jean-Pierre went away and returned with the tomato salad. It was very pretty. There were green bits of chopped onion scattered over it. Presently he brought the onion soup. This was not very good. It was composed chiefly of soaked bits of bread, and it was not hot, but with grated cheese it could be made to do.
When the soup was finished, Jean-Pierre appeared again and cleared away the dishes.
“And for the rest, sir,” said he, fixing the eyes of his client with his own, which glittered meaningly, “it will be necessary to wait a few moments, you understand.”
“Yes, yes,” said the man, and shrugged. He wished vaguely he had gone elsewhere for his food.
“Because he is living,” Jean-Pierre pursued in a clear voice of unaccountable pride, “and it will be necessary first to kill him. See, he lives!” And pulling the man by the sleeve, he pointed with his thumb to the brass-bound tank in the window.
The man glanced askance at the window, and twitched his sleeve free.
“Encore une demi-bouteille de vin blanc,” he replied.
Jean-Pierre stood for a moment looking down into the water. The eel was stretched along the bottom of the tank, dozing in the sunshine. Once he idly flipped his thick tail, then lay still again. His dark back shone with a somber iridescence.
“Philippe,” whispered Jean-Pierre, thrusting his face close to the surface of the pool—“Philippe, mon petit, adieu!”
At this, tears rushed from his eyes, and his neck and chest tried horridly to sob, working out and in like the shoulders of a cat that is sick.
“O Holy Virgin!” he moaned, and wound the clean white napkin firmly about his hand.
The eel came writhing out into the air. It was muscular and strong. It struck backward with its heavy body. It wound itself about Jean-Pierre’s wrist. It was difficult to hold. It was difficult to shift from one hand to the other while one rushed to the kitchen.
Jean-Pierre held the eel to the table and reached for the knife. The knife was gone. Sweat rolled from his forehead, down his cheeks, and into his beard.
He ran wildly from one end of the kitchen to the other, the eel all the time plunging and twisting in his hand. He could not think what it was he was looking for.
The broom! But, no, it was not that. At length he saw the handle of the knife, Margot’s knife, with which she used to kill the bread. It was peering at him from under a clutter of red and white onion skins. It had been watching him all this time.
He walked slowly past it, then turned sharply, and snatched it with his hand. He held Philippe firmly down upon the table, turned away his face, and struck with closed eyes. When he looked again, the knife was wedged in the table; Philippe had not been touched. He eased the knife free; the eel struck it with his lashing tail, and it fell to the floor. He stooped to pick it up; the eel reared in his grasp and smote him across the face.
“Ah-h-h!” cried Jean-Pierre, “you would, would you!” Smarting and furious from the blow, he clutched the knife and rose.
“You would, would you!” he said again, between his teeth. His throat thickened. Flames danced before his eyes. “Eh bien, on verra! Name of a name! We shall see, my little pigeon!” The flames roared and crackled. His eyes smarted, and his lungs were full of smoke. His heart swelled, burst, and the stored resentment and pain of his long isolation raced through his body, poisoning his blood.
“Take that for your lying face!” he cried. “Spaniard! Take that for your ankles! That for your red mustaches! Take that! Take that!”
Kneeling on the floor, he beat in the head of Philippe with the handle of the knife.
All the time that the stranger was eating, Jean-Pierre watched him slyly from the door. Twice a small giggle arose to his lips, but he caught at his beard and pulled it down. He was happy for the first time in many months. He had killed the taxi driver with the red mustaches, he had fried him in six pieces that leaped, and the stranger was eating him.
When the stranger had gone, Jean-Pierre gathered up the dishes and bore them to the kitchen, chuckling as he did so. He saw the head of the eel in the corner whither he had kicked it, and he spat upon it. But when he came back for the wine bottles and the salt and pepper and vinegar and oil, his eyes fell on the tank in the window, with its bright-green frog and its floating lily and its quiet emptiness. Then he remembered that it was Margot that he had killed.
He put his hand to his throat and stared. Margot! Now, how had that happened? He was sure that he had never intended to kill Margot. What a terrible mistake! But, no, it was not true that he had killed Margot. It was an ugly and tiresome dream. There was sun on the trees in the Gardens of the Luxembourg. Was not that proof enough that Margot was not dead, if one had needed proof?
Still, come to think of it, it was a long time since she had been about the house. It was fully a year, if you pressed the point, since he had heard her voice. There was something very dead about her, come to think of it.
But certainly he had killed Margot! How silly of him! He remembered the circumstances now perfectly. They had been out together in a rowboat on a river whose banks were brass. In Margot’s hand was an oar, in his a handsome string of fish. At one end of the river was a dam covered by a dome of netted wire. At the other end water bubbled up continuously from a hidden spring.
He looked at Margot. As he looked, the oar slipped softly from her hand into the water; on the other side of the boat the string of fish slipped softly from his hand into the water. Then he noted with disquiet that the water in the river was steadily receding. He looked at the banks; they were like high walls of brass. He looked at them again; they were like tall cliffs of brass. He looked at the river; it was as shallow as a plate of soup.
It occurred to him that if he wanted to drown Margot, he would best be quick about it, as soon there would be no water in which to drown her. “But I do not wish to drown Margot!” he protested. But the man kept rapping on the table with a sprig of sweet william. And even as he said it, he stepped from the boat, seized her by the waist with both hands, and plunged her beneath the surface.
Her lithe body doubled powerfully in his grasp. He was astonished at the litheness of her body. Her feet, in elegant shoes of patent leather with six straps, appeared above the water, the ankles crossed. The top of her head was not even wet. Yet, for all that, the life came out of her. It rose to the surface in a great colored bubble, and floated off into the sunshine.
Jean-Pierre gazed across at the Luxembourg. A child in a white dress passed through a gate into the garden, holding in its hand by a string a blue balloon. Jean-Pierre smiled, and watched the balloon float off.
Over there, under a tree whose blossoms of white and mauve wire drifted like lilies on the air, wearing a white dress and a pink hat with roses piled beneath the brim, forever and ever sat Margot. Over her head, tethered to her wrist by its string, floated forever and ever the blue balloon.
She was very near to him. It was a matter of a moment only to go across to her and lift the hat and say, “Mademoiselle, may I accompany you?”
Save that between them, flowing level with its brassy banks past the curb before his door, forever and ever ran the sunny river, full of rolling motor buses and rocking red taxicabs, too broad, too broad to swim. People went paddling past the window, this way and that way. A priest sailed by in a flapping gown, square boats upon his feet. A little girl went drifting by in a basket; her eyes were closed; her hands were full of brown carnations. Two gendarmes passed, their short capes winging in thick folds.
At the sight of the gendarmes Jean-Pierre started violently and stepped back from the window. There was something he must be about, and that without more delay, but he could not think what it was. Memories of Margot flew at his mind with sharp beaks. He waved his arms about his head to scare them off. There was something he must be about, and that at once.
Something touched him lightly on the shoulder. He uttered an indrawn scream, and swung on his heel. It was only the wall. He had backed into the wall. Yet even as he said to himself, “It is only the wall,” and wiped his sleeve across his forehead, he saw them beside him, the two gendarmes, one on the left of him and one on the right. The one on the right of him said to the other:
“This is he, the man who drowned his wife in a plate of soup.”
But the other answered: “Not at all. He beat in her head with a knife. Do you not see the onion skins?”
Then for the first time Jean-Pierre saw that both had red mustaches, and he knew that he was lost.
“Come, my man,” they said, and stepped back, and he was left standing alone.
Suddenly that part of the floor on which he was standing slipped backward like a jerked rug under his feet, and he was thrown forward on his face. There came a rush of cold wind on the nape of his neck.
“No, you don’t!” he shrieked, and, rolling over violently, leaped into the kitchen and bolted the door.
He knelt behind the door, and addressed them craftily through the keyhole.
