Félicie (9 page)

He leaves the room, locking the door behind him.
It is also clear that this unusual burglar didn't look anywhere
other
than on the top of the wardrobe. He did not open drawers or search in dark corners. So he must
have known …

In the kitchen, Félicie glances at her
reflection in the mirror.

‘You said just now that you were with
Jacques last night …'

He takes a good, long look at her. She is shaken,
of that there is no question. She waits, visibly distressed. Then, in a lighter tone, he
says:

‘You told me yesterday that he wasn't
your lover, that he was just a boy …'

She does not respond.

‘He had an accident last night. Someone
took a shot at him in the middle of a street …'

She exclaims:

‘Is he dead? Tell me! Is Jacques
dead?'

He is tempted. Does she ever think twice about
lying? Aren't the police entitled to use any means available to track down criminals? He
is sorely tempted to say yes. Who knows how she would react? Who knows if …

But he can't bring himself to do it. He
sees her there, far too distressed, and instead he looks away and mutters:

‘No, you can set your mind at rest.
He's not dead. Just wounded.'

She sobs. Holding her head in both hands,
wild-eyed, she cries desperately:

‘Jacques! Jacques! My own
Jacques!'

Then an explosion of fury. She turns to the
placid man who avoids her eye:

‘And you were there,
weren't you? And you let it happen! I hate you, do you hear, I hate you! It's your
fault, it's all your fault that …'

She collapses on to a chair and continues crying,
bent double, with her head on the kitchen table next to the coffee-grinder.

From time to time the same words are
repeated:

‘… Jacques! … My own Jacques!
…'

Is it because he has a hard heart that Maigret,
standing in the doorway, not knowing where to look, steps out into the deserted garden,
hesitates, stares at his shadow on the ground and eventually opens the door to the wine store,
goes in and draws himself a glass of rosé?

That morning, Maigret was possessed of a rich
fund of patience. But there were limits … He had not been able to prevent Félicie
putting on her full mourning outfit, with that absurd pancake hat and the crepe veil which she
wore as though it were some ancient drapery. And what had she plastered over her face? Was it to
hide the bruises? It made you wonder, given that she had such a distinct sense of the occasion.
Whatever the reason, she was whey-faced, as palely made up as a clown with cold cream and flour.
In the train taking them to Paris, she sat completely still, priestess-like, her eyes painfully
distant, giving out the impression that she wanted all around her to think:

‘Poor thing! How she must be suffering! And
what self-control! She is the very image of grief, the living embodiment of the
mater
dolorosa
.'

Not once does Maigret smile. When, in Rue
Saint-Honoré, she was about to go into a shop selling early-season fruit and vegetables, he
muttered quietly in her ear:

‘Félicie, I don't think
he's in a fit state to eat anything!'

Didn't he understand? Of course he
understood, and when she persisted he let her get on with it. She wanted to buy the finest
Spanish grapes, oranges, a bottle of champagne. She insisted on loading herself up with flowers,
an
immense bouquet of white lilacs, and she carried it all herself, without
losing a shred of her tragic, aloof manner.

Maigret resigned himself and followed her like a
kindly, indulgent father. He was relieved to learn that it was not visiting time at Beaujon
Hospital because, looking the way she did, she would have caused a sensation. He did, however,
persuade the duty doctor to allow her to look into the room where Jacques Pétillon was
isolated. It was at the end of a long corridor with painted walls, full of stale smells, with
open doors through which they saw beds, cheerless faces and whiteness, far too much whiteness
which in those surroundings became the colour of sickness.

They were made to wait for some time.
Félicie remained standing with her cargo throughout. A nurse came eventually, and he gave a
start.

‘Give me all that. It will come in useful
for some child … Sh! Mind, no talking. Don't make a noise …'

She opened the door no more than a crack, allowed
Félicie only a quick glance into the cubicle shrouded in semi-darkness, where Pétillon
lay stretched out like a corpse.

When the door closed, Félicie felt obliged
to say:

‘You will save him, won't you?
Please, please. Do everything you can to save him …'

‘But mademoiselle …'

‘Don't think of the expense …
Here …'

Maigret did not laugh, he did not even smile when
he saw her open her bag and take out a thousand-franc note folded up small and give it to the
nurse.

‘If it's a matter of money, no matter
how much …'

From that point on, Maigret
stopped making fun of her, and yet she had never been as ridiculous. There was more. As they
walked back along the corridor with Félicie's black veil billowing opulently, a child
stepped into her path. She leaned down, intending to hug the sick toddler and sighed:

‘Poor darling!'

Are we not more aware of the sufferings of others
when we are suffering ourselves? A few feet away stood a young, platinum-haired nurse
outrageously squeezed into a uniform which showed every curve. The nurse looked up, almost burst
out laughing and called one of her colleagues who was in one of the side wards so that she could
see the spectacle too.

‘You, mademoiselle, are a birdbrain!'
snapped Maigret.

And he continued to escort Félicie as
solemnly as if he had been one of the family. She had heard the put-down and was grateful. On
the pavement outside, in the sunshine that filled the street, she seemed to be less tense. She
found being with him very natural, and he used the moment to murmur:

‘You know the whole story, don't
you?'

She did not deny it. She looked elsewhere. Her
way of admitting it.

‘Come on …'

It was now a little before noon. Maigret decided
to turn right towards the luminous, noisy bustle of Place des Ternes, and she followed,
tottering along on heels which were too high.

‘But I'm not going to tell you
anything,' she breathed after they had gone a few steps.

‘I know
…'

He knew a great deal now. He did not yet know who
had killed old Lapie. He did not know the name of the man who shot at the saxophone player the
night before, but it would all come to him in its own good time.

Above all, he knew that Félicie … How
could he put it? In the train, for example, the few passengers who had seen her enfolded in
theatrical mourning had thought she was ridiculous; in the hospital, that much too curvaceous
nurse had not been able to conceal her amusement; the owner of the dance-hall at Poissy had
called her the Parakeet … others called her the Princess, Lapie had come up with the label
Cockatoo, and for some time now even Maigret's back had been put up by her childish antics
…

Even now people turned and stared at the odd
couple they formed, and when Maigret opened the door of a small neighbourhood restaurant, which
was still empty at this time of day, he caught the waiter winking at the proprietress, who was
sitting at the till.

The truth is that Maigret had located the simple
human heartbeat that lies beneath the most wildly flamboyant exteriors.

‘We're going to have a nice lunch
together now, all right?'

She felt obliged to repeat:

‘But I'm still not going to tell you
anything.'

‘I've got the message. You
won't tell me anything. Now, what do you want to eat?'

The inside of the restaurant is old-fashioned
and friendly. The walls are creamy-white, and there are large, patchily
clouded mirrors, nickel-plated holders into which the waiter tucks the cloth he uses for
wiping his tables, a varnished and grained rack of pigeon-holes, where the regulars keep their
serviettes. The dish of the day is written on a board: mutton stew with spring vegetables. On
the menu extra charges are marked next to nearly all the dishes.

Maigret has ordered. Félicie has arranged
her veil so that it falls behind her, and the weight of it pulls her hair back.

‘Were you very unhappy at
Fécamp?'

He knows what he is doing. He waits for the
quiver of her lips, the defiant expression she is able instinctively to put on her face.

‘Why should I have been unhappy?'

True. Why? He knows Fécamp, the small,
pinched-looking houses crouching in a line under the east cliffs, the narrow alleyways running
with sewage, the children playing in a stomach-turning stench of fish …

‘How many brothers and sisters do you
have?'

‘Seven.'

The father a drunk. A mother who washes clothes
all day long. He pictures her, a little girl who is too tall, legs like matchsticks, no shoes.
She is put to work as a servant at Arsène's, a small restaurant on the docks, and she
sleeps in an attic. She is dismissed for stealing a few sous from the till and she does
housework on odd days for Ernest Lapie, the Lapie who is a ship's carpenter …

She is now eating daintily, almost to the point
of holding her little finger in the air, and Maigret does not feel like laughing at her.

‘I could have married the son of a
ship-owner …'

‘Of course,
Félicie. But you didn't fancy him, did you?'

‘I don't like men with red hair. Not
to mention the fact that his father had designs on me. Men are such pigs …'

It's odd. When you see her a certain way,
you forget that she's twenty-four, you just see that restless face, like a little
girl's, and you wonder how anyone could ever have taken her seriously.

‘Tell me, Félicie … Did your
… I mean, was Pegleg jealous?'

He is pleased with himself. He has anticipated
that sharp thrust of the chin, the look which is both surprised and uncertain, the flash of
anger in those eyes.

‘There was never anything between
us.'

‘Yes, I know. But that doesn't mean
he couldn't be jealous, does it? I'd bet that he forbade you to go dancing at Poissy
on Sundays, and you were forced to sneak out …'

She does not answer him. No doubt, she is
wondering how he has managed to find out about the old man's weird jealousy. He would wait
for her every Sunday evening, even coming as far as the top of the slope to watch out for her,
and made terrible scenes.

‘You let him think you had boyfriends
…'

‘What's stopping me have
boyfriends?'

‘Nothing! But you told him about them! He
called you all sorts of names. I wonder if it ever happened that he hit you?'

‘I wouldn't have let him lay a finger
on me!'

She's lying! Maigret pictures both of them
so clearly!
They were as isolated in that new house, in the middle of the
new village of Jeanneville, as castaways on a desert island. There is nothing to connect them to
anything. They rub each other up the wrong way from morning to night, they watch each other,
argue and need each other: the pair of them form a world of their own.

Pegleg only emerges from that world at set times,
when he goes off to play cards in the Anneau d'Or. But Félicie seeks out more
rollicking forms of escape.

She would have to be locked up and a guard posted
under her windows to stop her running off and going down to the dance hall at Poissy, where she
puts on airs like a princess in disguise. As soon as she has a free moment, she scoots off to
see Léontine and launches into a frenzy of confidences with her.

The explanation is not so hard to find! The
office clerks who crowd into the restaurant and begin eating their lunch as they read their
newspapers stare bewilderedly at the exotic creature who has invaded their habitat. There
isn't a single one of them who doesn't steal a glance at Félicie from time to
time, not one who is not ready to smile or wink at the waiter.

Yet she's only a woman. A child-woman. This
is what Maigret has understood and this is why, from now on, he talks to her with affectionate
gentleness and indulgence.

Around her he reconstructs life as it was lived
at Cape Horn. If old Lapie were still alive, Maigret is sure that he would shock him to the core
by telling him point-blank: ‘You're jealous of your maid.'

Jealous? Him? He wasn't even in love with
the girl, he
had never been in love with anyone in his life! But jealous, oh
yes, because she was part of his world, a world so narrow that if the smallest part of it went
missing …

Did he ever sell the surplus vegetables he grew?
Did he sell the fruit from his orchard? Did he ever give them away? No! They were his property.
Félicie was also his property. He never allowed just anybody into his house! Only he drank
the wine in his store.

‘What sort of welcome did he give his
nephew?'

‘He'd meet him in Paris. When his
sister died, he almost took him in at Cape Horn, but Jacques decided he didn't want to. He
has his pride.'

‘And once, when Lapie went to Paris to
collect his quarterly pension, he met his nephew, who was in a pitiful state, wasn't
he?'

‘What do you mean
“pitiful”?'

‘Pétillon used to work in Les Halles,
unloading vegetables.'

‘There's no shame in that!'

‘Of course not. No shame at all. On the
contrary … So he brought him back. He gave him his own bedroom because …'

She is furious.

‘It wasn't how you think
…'

‘But that didn't stop him keeping a
very close eye on the pair of you. What did he find out?'

‘Nothing.'

‘Did you sleep with
Pétillon?'

She bends her head over her plate without saying
either yes or no.

‘The fact remains that
life became impossible, and Jacques Pétillon left.'

‘He didn't get on with his
uncle.'

‘That's what I meant.'

Maigret is pleased. He will cherish a special
memory of this simple lunch in the quiet, unremarkable setting of a neighbourhood restaurant. A
slanting bar of sunlight on the tablecloth and the jug of red wine. The intimacy between him and
Félicie has acquired a softer, almost cordial edge. He is fully aware that if he told her
as much, she would deny it and revert to her disdainful posturing, but she is as content to be
there as he is, happy to break out of her loneliness, which she always fills instinctively with
chaotic thoughts.

‘It will work out all right, you'll
see …'

She is almost prepared to believe him. But then
her suspicions regain control. She is constantly afraid of falling into God only knows what
traps. There are times – unfortunately of short duration – when she seems to be on
the verge of turning into a young woman just like any other. It wouldn't take much for her
face to relax completely, for her to look straight at Maigret so that her eyes do not express
thoughts which she is not thinking. Tears start to well up, and her features are softened by her
weariness …