Nausea (15 page)

The waiter came in suddenly, breathless.

"Out, Monsieur!" he shouted.

Imbecile! He advanced towards me.

"That's two francs."

"I heard a noise up there," I told him.

"It's about time!"

"Yes, but I think something's wrong: it sounded like choking, and then there was a thud."

It sounded quite natural in the dark cafe with the fog behind the windows. I shall never forget his eyes.

"You ought to go up and see," I added slyly.

"Oh, no!" he said; then: "I'm afraid he'd give me hell. What time is it?" Ten.

"If he isn't down here by ten-thirty I'll go up."

I took a step towards the door.

"You're going? You aren't going to stay?"

"No."

"Did it sound like a death rattle?"

"I don't know," I told him as I walked out, "maybe just because I was thinking about it."

The fog had lifted a little. I hurried towards the Rue Tourne-bride: I longed for its lights. It was a disappointment: there was light, certainly, dripping down the store windows. But it wasn't a gay light: it was all white because of the fog and rained down on your shoulders.

A lot of people about, especially women, maids, charwomen, ladies as well, the kind who say, "I do my own buying, it's safer." They sniffed at the window displays and finally went in.

I stopped in front of Julien's pork-butcher shop. Through the glass, from time to time, I could see a hand designing the truffled pigs' feet and the sausages. Then a fat blonde girl bent over, her bosom showing, and picked up a piece of dead flesh between her fingers. In his room five minutes from there, M. Fas-quelle was dead.

I looked around me for support, a refuge from my thoughts. There was none: little by little the fog lifted, but some disquieting thing stayed behind in the streets. Perhaps not a real menace: it was pale, transparent. But it was that which finally frightened me. I leaned my forehead against the window. I noticed a dark

red drop on the mayonnaise of a stuffed egg: it was blood. This red on the yellow made me sick at my stomach.

Suddenly I had a vision: someone had fallen face down and was bleeding in the dishes. The egg had rolled in blood; the slice of tomato which crowned it had come off and fallen flat, red on red. The mayonnaise had run a little: a pool of yellow cream which divided the trickle of blood into two arms.

"This is really too silly, I must pull myself together. I'm going to work in the library."

Work? I knew perfectly well I shouldn't write a line. Another day wasted. Crossing the park, I saw a great blue cape, motionless on the bench where I usually sit. There's someone at least who isn't cold.

When I entered the reading-room, the Self-Taught Man was just coming out. He threw himself on me:

"I have to thank you, Monsieur. Your photographs have allowed me to spend many unforgettable hours."

I had a ray of hope when I saw him; it might be easier to get through this day together. But, with the Self-Taught Man, you only appear to be two.

He rapped on an in-quarto volume. It was a History of Religion.

"Monsieur, no one was better qualified than Nou^apie to attempt this vast synthesis. Isn't that true?"

He seemed weary and his hands were trembling.

"You look ill," I said.

"Ah, Monsieur, I should think so! Something abominable has happened to me."

The guardian came towards us: a peevish little Corsican with moustaches like a drum major. He walks for whole hours among the tables, clacking his heels. In winter he spits in his handkerchiefs then dries them on the stove.

The Self-Taught Man came close enough to breathe in my face.

"I won't tell you anything in front of this man," he said in confidence. "If you would, Monsieur . . ."

"Would what?"

He blushed and his lips swayed gracefully.

"Monsieur, ah, Monsieur: all right, I'll lay my cards on the table. Will you do me the honour of lunching with me on Wednesday?"

"With pleasure."I had as much desire to eat with him as I had to hang myself.

"I'm so glad," the Self-Taught Man said. He added rapidly, "I'll pick you up at your hotel, if you like," then disappeared, afraid, undoubtedly, that I would change my mind if he gave me time.

It was eleven-thirty. I worked until quarter of two. Poor work: I had a book in my hands but my thoughts returned incessantly to the Cafe Mably. Had M. Fasquelle come down by now? At heart, I didn't believe he was dead and this was precisely what irritated me: it was a floating idea which I could neither persuade myself to believe or disbelieve. The Corsican's shoes creaked on the floor. Several times he came and stood in front of me as though he wanted to talk to me. But he changed his mind and went away.

The last readers left around one o'clock. I wasn't hungry; above all I didn't want to leave. I worked a moment more then started up; I felt shrouded in silence.

I raised my head: I was alone. The Corsican must have gone down to his wife who is the concierge of the library; I wanted to hear the sound of his footsteps. Just then I heard a piece of coal fall in the stove. Fog had filled the room: not the real fog, that had gone a long time agoùbut the other, the one the streets were still full of, which came out of the walls and pavements. The inconsistency of inanimate objects! The books were still there, arranged in alphabetical order on the shelves with their brown and black backs and their labels up If 7.996 (For Public UseùFrench Literatureù) or up sn (For Public UseùNatural Science). But . . . how can I explain it? Usually, powerful and squat, along with the stove, the green lamps, the w;de windows, the ladders, they dam up the future. As long as you stay between these walls, whatever happens must happen on the right or the left of the stove. Saint Denis himself could come in carrying his head in his hands and he would still have to enter on the right, walk between the shelves devoted to French Literature and the table reserved for women readers. And if he doesn't touch the ground, if he floats ten inches above the floor, his bleeding neck will be just at the level of the third shelf of books. Thus these objects serve at least to fix the limits of probability.

Today they fixed nothing at all: it seemed that their very existence was subject to doubt, that they had the greatest difficulty in passing from one instant to the next. I held the book I

was reading tightly in my hands: but the most violent sensations went dead. Nothing seemed true; I felt surrounded by cardboard scenery which could quickly be removed. The world was waiting, holding its breath, making itself smallùit was waiting for its convulsion, its Nausea, just like M. Achille the other day.

I got up. I could no longer keep my place in the midst of these unnatural objects. I went to the window and glanced out at the skull of Impetraz. I murmured: Anything can happen, anything. But evidently, it would be nothing horrible, such as humans might invent. Impetraz was not going to start dancing on his pedestal: it would be something else entirely.

Frightened, I looked at these unstable beings which, in an hour, in a minute, were perhaps going to crumble: yes, I was there, living in the midst of these books full of knowledge describing the immutable forms of the animal species, explaining that the right quantity of energy is kept integral in the universe; I was there, standing in front of a window whose panes had a definite refraction index. But what feeble barriers! I suppose it is out of laziness that the world is the same day after day. Today it seemed to want to change. And then, anything, anything could happen.

I had no time to lose: the Cafe Mably affair was at the root of this uneasiness. I must go back there, see M. Fasquelle alive, touch his beard or his hands if need be. Then, perhaps, I would be free.

I seized my overcoat and threw it round my shoulders; I fled. Crossing the Public Gardens I saw once more the man in the blue cape. He had the same ghastly white face with two scarlet ears sticking out on either side.

The Cafe Mably sparkled in the distance: this time the twelve lights must have been lit. I hurried: I had to get it over. First I glanced in through the big window, the place was deserted. The cashier was not there, nor the waiterùnor M. Fasquelle.

I had to make a great effort to go in; I did not sit down. I shouted "Waiter!" No one answered. An empty cup on a table. A lump of sugar on the saucer. "Anyone here?"

An overcoat hung from a peg. Magazines were piled up in black cardboard boxes on a low table. I was on the alert for the slightest sound, holding my breath. The private stairway creakedslightly. I heard a foghorn outside. I walked out backwards, my eyes never leaving the stairway.

I know: customers are rare at two in the afternoon. M. Fasquelle had influenza; he must have sent the waiter out on an errandùmaybe to get a doctor. Yes, but I needed to see M. Fasquelle. At the Rue Tournebride I turned back, I studied the garish, deserted cafe with disgust. The blinds on the second floor were drawn.

A real panic took hold of me. I didn't know where I was going. I ran along the docks, turned into the deserted streets in the Beauvoisis district; the houses watched my flight with their mournful eyes. I repeated with anguish: Where shall I go? where shall I go? Anything can happen. Sometimes, my heart pounding, I made a sudden right-about-turn: what was happening behind my back? Maybe it would start behind me and when I would turn around, suddenly, it would be too late. As long as I could stare at things nothing would happen: I looked at them as much as I could, pavements, houses, gaslights; my eyes went rapidly from one to the other, to catch them unawares, stop them in the midst of their metamorphosis. They didn't look too natural, but I told myself forcibly: this is a gaslight, this is a drinking fountain, and I tried to reduce them to their everyday aspect by the power of my gaze. Several times I came across barriers in my path: the Cafe des Bretons, the Bar de la Marine. I stopped, hesitated in front of their pink net curtains: perhaps these snug places had been spared, perhaps they still held a bit of yesterday's world, isolated, forgotten. But I would have to push the door open and enter. I didn't dare; I went on. Doors of houses frightened me especially. I was afraid they would open of themselves. I ended by walking in the middle of the street.

I suddenly came out on the Quai des Bassins du Nord. Fishing smacks and small yachts. I put my foot on a ring set in the stone. Here, far from houses, far from doors, I would have a moment of respite. A cork was floating on the calm, black-speckled water.

"And under the water? You haven't thought what could be under the water."

A monster? A giant carapace? sunk in the mud? A dozen pairs of claws or fins labouring slowly in the slime. The monster rises. At the bottom of the water. I went nearer, watching every eddy and undulation. The cork stayed immobile among the black spots.

Then I heard voices. It was time. I turned and began my race again.

I caught up with two men who were talking in the Rue Castiglione. At the sound of footsteps they started violently and both turned round. I saw their worried eyes upon me, then behind me to see if something else was coming. Were they like me? were they, too, afraid? We looked at each other in passing: a little more and we would have spoken. But the looks suddenly expressed defiance: on a day like this you don't speak to just anyone.

I found myself breathless on the Rue Boulibet. The die was cast: I was going back to the library, take a novel and try to read. Going along the park railing I noticed the man in the cape. He was still there in the deserted park; his nose had grown as red as his ears.

I was going to push open the gate but the expression on his face stopped me: he wrinkled his eyes and half-grinned, stupidly and affectedly. But at the same time he stared straight ahead at something I could not see with a look so hard and with such intensity that I suddenly turned back.

Opposite to him, one foot raised, her mouth half-opened, a little girl of about ten, fascinated, was watching him, pulling nervously at her scarf, her pointed face thrusting forward.

The man was smiling to himself, like someone about to play a good joke. Suddenly he stood up, his hands in the pockets of his cloak which fell to his feet. He took two steps forward, his eyes rolling. I thought he was going to fall. But he kept on smiling sleepily.

I suddenly understood: the cloak! I wanted to stop it. It would have been enough to cough or open the gate. But in my turn I was fascinated by the little girl's face. Her features were drawn with fear and her heart must have been beating horribly: yet I could also read something powerful and wicked on that rat-like face. It was not curiosity but rather a sort of assured expectation. I felt impotent: I was outside, on the edge of the park, on the edge of their little drama: but they were riveted one to the other by the obscure power of their desires, they made a pair together. I held my breath, I wanted to see what expression would come on that elfish face when the man, behind my back, would spread out the folds of his cloak.

But suddenly freed, the little girl shook her head and began to run. The man in the cloak had seen me: that was what stopped him. For a second he stayed motionless in the middle of the path,then went off, his back hunched. The cloak flapped against his calves.

I pushed open the gate and was next to him in one bound.