Liberty Bar (14 page)

Suddenly, she grabbed her head with both
hands in a convulsive gesture, pulled at her hair, stamped her feet.

‘That's right! … And I
… I …'

Maigret stayed sitting, watching her with
some surprise. Was she about to break down, pass out?

‘I … I …'

Outside the two doors there was only the
gleam of the streetlamp and the sound of the waiter across the road closing the
shutters. The trams had been silent for a while now.

‘I don't
want that, do you understand?' she yelped. ‘No! … Not that! … I
don't want that … It's not true … It's …'

‘Jaja!'

But the sound of her name did little to
calm her. She was at a pitch of frenzy, and as quickly as she had seized the bottle she
bent down, picked something up and cried:

‘Not Haguenau … It's not
true … Sylvie didn't …'

Never in his working life had Maigret
witnessed a scene as wretched as this. She had picked up a shard of glass and, as she
talked, slashed her wrist, right over the artery …

Her eyes were bulging. She seemed mad.

‘Haguenau … I … Not
Sylvie!'

Blood spurted out just as Maigret managed
to grab both her arms. It splashed on to his hand and tie.

For a few seconds Jaja, bewildered, out of
control, looked at this flow of red blood that belonged to her. Then she went limp.
Maigret held her up for a moment, then let her slide to the ground and tried to seal the
artery with his finger.

He needed a tourniquet. He looked around
frantically. There was an electric cable attached to a flat-iron. He pulled it out. All
this time, the blood was flowing freely.

He went back to Jaja, who wasn't
moving any more, wound the wire round her wrist and pulled it as tight as he could.

In the street the only light now was the
gas lamp. The bar across the street was shut.

He went out, walking unsteadily, and felt
the warm night air. He headed for the most brightly lit street, which was two hundred
metres away.

From there he could see
the floodlights of the casino, the cars, the chauffeurs in a group near the harbour. And
the masts of yachts, barely stirring.

There was a policeman stationed in the
middle of the crossroads.

‘A doctor … To the Liberty Bar
… Quickly …'

‘Isn't that the bar that
…?'

‘Yes! The bar that!' Maigret
bellowed impatiently. ‘Get a move on, for God's sake!'

The two men climbed the stairs carefully,
but the body was heavy, and the gangway was narrow, with the result that Jaja, who was
being held by the shoulders and the feet, bent in two, sometimes bumped against the
banister or the wall or scraped against the stairs.

The doctor, as he waited in turn to go
upstairs, looked around him with curiosity, while Jaja moaned softly, like an
unconscious animal. It was such a feeble moan, at such a strange pitch, that, although
it filled the house, it was hard to pinpoint its source, as if it were uttered by a
ventriloquist.

In the low room on the mezzanine Maigret
made the bed then helped the police officers to lift Jaja up, for she was heavy and
lifeless, even though she had the appearance of a large rag doll.

Was she conscious of all these
peregrinations? Did she know where she was? Every now and again she opened her eyes, but
she didn't look at anything or anyone. She continued to moan but did not screw up
her face.

‘Is she in much pain?' Maigret
asked the doctor.

He was a kindly little old man, very
meticulous, somewhat dismayed to find himself in such surroundings.

‘She shouldn't be suffering
any pain at all. She must be very delicate. Or maybe she's frightened
…'

‘Is she aware of
what's going on?'

‘By the look of her, I doubt it. Yet
…'

‘She's dead drunk!'
sighed Maigret. ‘I was just wondering whether the pain had sobered her up
…'

The two policemen awaited instructions and
they too looked around with curiosity. The curtains hadn't been closed. Maigret
could see in the window opposite the pale halo of a face in the unilluminated room. He
pulled down the blind and summoned one of the officers over from the corner.

‘Bring me the woman that I had
locked up earlier on. A certain Sylvie. But not the man.'

And to the other:

‘Wait for me downstairs.'

The doctor had done all he could. Having
applied haemostatic clips, he had stapled the artery closed. Now he was giving this fat
woman, who was still groaning, a bored look. For appearances' sake, he took her
pulse, felt her forehead and checked her hands.

‘Come over here, doctor!' said
Maigret, who was leaning his back against one corner of the room. Then, in a
whisper:

‘I'd be grateful if you would
use this opportunity to give her a general examination … The vital organs, of
course …'

‘If you wish! If you
wish!'

The little doctor was getting more and
more bewildered, and he must have been wondering whether Maigret was related to Jaja. He
selected some instruments from his case and, unhurriedly but with no great conviction,
started to take her blood pressure.

Not liking what he
found, he checked it three times in all, then bent over her chest, opened her dressing
gown and looked for a clean towel to spread out between his ear and Jaja's bosom.
There wasn't one to be had in the bedroom. He used his own handkerchief.

When he stood upright again, he looked
somewhat sour-faced.

‘I see.'

‘What do you see?'

‘She hasn't got long to go!
Her heart is worn out. On top of that it is hypertrophied, and her blood pressure is off
the scale …'

‘So how long does she have
…?'

‘That is a different question
… If she were one of my patients I'd prescribe complete rest, in the
country, with a very strict regime …'

‘No alcohol, presumably!'

‘Especially no alcohol! Complete
abstinence!'

‘And you'd be able to save
her?'

‘I didn't say that!
Let's just say it might buy her another year …'

As he spoke he cocked an ear, because they
had both noticed that it had gone very quiet. There was something missing, and that
something was Jaja's groans.

When they turned to the bed they saw her,
her head raised on one arm, her face set hard, her chest heaving.

She had heard. She had understood. And she
seemed to be holding the little doctor responsible for her state.

‘Feeling any better?' the
doctor asked, just to say something.

But with a suspicious
look she lay back down without a word and closed her eyes.

The doctor was unsure whether he was
needed any more. He set about sorting his instruments back into his case and he must
have been having a conversation with himself, for every now and again he nodded his head
in a sign of approval.

‘You can go now,' Maigret said
when he was ready. ‘I suppose there is nothing else to fear?'

‘Not immediately, at least
…'

When he had left, Maigret sat down on a
chair at the foot of the bed and filled a pipe, for the pharmaceutical smell was making
him feel sick. Likewise, he hid the basin he had used to wash the wound under the
wardrobe, not knowing where else to put it. He felt calm and heavy. He looked steadily
at Jaja's face, which seemed more swollen than usual. Perhaps that was because her
hair, which was swept back, was quite thin and revealed a domed forehead marked by a
small scar above the temple.

To the left of the bed, the divan.

Jaja was not asleep. He was sure of that.
Her breathing was quite irregular. Her closed eyelashes kept quivering.

What was she thinking about? She knew that
he was there, watching her. She knew now that her engine had broken down and that she
didn't have long to live.

What was she thinking? What images were
there behind that domed forehead?

Then suddenly she sat up, frantic, in a
single movement, looked at Maigret with her bewildered eyes and cried out:

‘Don't
leave me! … I'm afraid! … Where is he? … Where's the
little man? … I don't want to …'

He drew nearer to calm her down, and it
was in spite of himself that he said:

‘Be quiet, old lady.'

She was indeed old! A poor fat old woman
sodden with drink, with her ankles so swollen that she walked like an elephant.

And she must have covered hundreds of
kilometres, back home, next to Porte Saint-Martin, continually treading the same stretch
of pavement!

She allowed him to lay her head back on
the pillow. She can't have been drunk any more. They could hear the police officer
downstairs, who had found a bottle and had poured himself a drink, all alone in the back
room. Suddenly, craning to hear, she asked anxiously:

‘Who is it?'

But other sounds came to her: footsteps in
the street, still some way off, then a woman panting, out of breath – for she was
running – who asked:

‘Why is there no light on in the
bar? … Is it because …?'

‘Shush … Don't make so
much noise …'

Then someone knocking on the shutters. The
police officer downstairs going to the door. More sounds in the back room, and finally
someone running upstairs.

Jaja was frightened and gave Maigret an
anguished look. She almost cried out when she saw him head for the door.

‘You two can go!' Maigret said
to the police officers as he stepped back to allow Sylvie to come in.

And Sylvie came to a sudden stop in the
middle of the
room, her hand on her heart, which was beating too fast.
She had forgotten her hat. She didn't understand what was going on. Her eyes were
fixed on the bed.

‘Jaja …'

Downstairs, the first policeman must have
been serving the second policeman a drink, because there was a clink of glasses. Then
the main door opened and shut. Footsteps were heard heading off in the direction of the
harbour.

Maigret made so little noise, so little
movement, that it would have been easy to forget that he was there.

‘My poor Jaja …'

And yet Sylvie did not dash to her side.
Something held her back: the glacial look that the old woman fixed on her.

So Sylvie turned to Maigret and
stammered:

‘Did she …?'

‘Did she what?'

‘Nothing … I don't know
… What is wrong with her?'

One strange thing: despite the closed
door, despite the distance, they could still hear the tick-tock of the alarm clock, so
fast, so staccato that it sounded as if it was freewheeling and about to shatter.

Jaja was approaching a new crisis. A
perceptible shudder began to creep through her soft body, firing up her eyes, drying out
her throat. But she stiffened. She made an effort to hold herself together, while
Sylvie, distraught, not knowing what to do or where to go or even what position to
adopt, simply stood in the middle of the room with her head bowed and her hands joined
across her chest.

Maigret smoked. He
didn't feel impatient any more. He knew that he had closed the circle.

There was no more mystery, there were no
more surprises. All the characters in the tale had taken their respective places: the
two Martinis, the elder and the younger, in their villa, where they were compiling their
inventory with the help of Monsieur Petitfils; Harry Brown at the Provençal, where he
calmly awaited the outcome of the investigation while continuing to run his business via
telephone and telegraph …

Joseph locked up …

Now Jaja sat up, at the end of her
patience, at breaking point. She looked at Sylvie angrily. She pointed at her with her
good hand.

‘It's her … That
poisonous witch … That wh—!

She used the foulest word in her
vocabulary. Her eyes pricked with tears.

‘I hate her, do you hear me? …
I hate her … It's her … She fooled me for ages … And do you know
what she called me? … The
old woman
… That's right! Old
woman! … Me! The one who …'

‘Lie down, Jaja,' said
Maigret. ‘You'll make yourself ill …'

‘Oh! You …'

Then suddenly, with a fresh burst of
energy:

‘But I won't let her! …
I won't go to Haguenau … Do you hear? … Or else I'll take her
with me … I don't want to … I don't want to …'

Her throat was so dry that she
instinctively looked round for something to drink.

‘Go and get the bottle!'
Maigret told Sylvie.

‘But … she
is already …'

‘Just go …'

He walked over to the window, to check
that there was no one in the house across the street. There was no one at the window, at
least.