The Mahé Circle

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First published in French as
Le Cercle des Mahé
by Gallimard 1946
This translation first published 2014

Copyright 1946 by Georges Simenon Limited
Translation © Siân Reynolds, 2014
GEORGES SIMENON ® Simenon.tm
MAIGRET ® Georges Simenon Limited

Cover photograph © Henri Cartier-Bresson/Magnum Photos.

All rights reserved

The moral rights of the author and translator have been asserted

ISBN: 978-0-698-15753-8

Version_1

Title Page

Copyright

About the Author

1. The Doctor Versus the Péquois

2. The Legionnaire's Return

3. The Garden Gate

4. Elisabeth's Fall

5. Péchade's Letter

6. The Burial at Saint-Hilaire

7. The Visit to the Ramparts

8. Victory to the Péquois

 

Georges Simenon was born on 12 February 1903 in Liège, Belgium, and died in Lausanne, Switzerland, where he had lived for the latter part of his life.

The Mahé Circle
, completed in Spring 1944 and previously unpublished in English, is set on the island of Porquerolles, where Simenon had spent considerable time in the preceding years.

For Tigy, in remembrance of Saint-Mesmin

PENGUIN CLASSICS

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‘One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century … Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories'

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He was frowning. Perhaps, like a schoolboy, he was poking out the tip of his tongue? Lips set, a sulky expression on his face, he was snatching glimpses at Gène, trying to imitate his movements as closely as possible.

But it was no good: something was wrong, because the result wasn't the same. He was honest enough to recognize this, and obstinate enough to contain his impatience. His hand was trailing outside the boat, like Gène's, no more or less,
quite relaxed; he had immediately understood that it was essential to relax. Only his index finger was slightly raised, supporting the hempen fishing line that the locals called a
boulantin
.

The quality of the line wasn't in question. His and Gène's were identical. Just now, Gène, who always guessed what he was thinking without ever looking at him, had suggested:

‘Come over here. Take my place, hold my line. Could be you'll have more luck then.'

The sea, calm as a millpond, without a ripple, was breathing slowly but deeply. And this imperceptible movement troubled the doctor more than the turbulent pounding of waves might have. At every shift of the liquid surface, he could feel the lead
weight on his line lifting from the bottom. So he leaned over the side. He could see about ten metres down, perhaps more, a scene to which
he found it hard to accustom himself, rocks separating deep purple clefts, a plateau covered with seaweed, and most
of all the fish, quite big fish, silver or rusty-red, coming and going peaceably, in silence, hesitating sometimes for an instant in front of his bait. In spite of his efforts, his hand trembled, a slight moisture broke out on his upper lip, he was ready to give a tug on his line. Why had
that fish turned away?

He raised his head and sighed. He found it impossible to stay long peering deep into the water. His heart was palpitating. He had a pain at the back of his eyes and a headache. It was becoming a nightmare. Every time he looked at the Mèdes rock,
he had the sensation that the little boat, with its two pointed ends, was getting nearer to it. They didn't even have an anchor. Gène had simply dropped a large stone into the water on the end of a rope. Was he watching out for the rock? You could see quite clearly how the sea rose and
fell, uncovering a large strip of viscous moss and shellfish. Without any breakers, the water was nevertheless covered with white foam, and some of the enormous bubbles washed up against the hull of the boat.

Gène sat on one of the thwarts, an old cap on his head, as motionless as a statue of Buddha, his gaze apparently ranging with indifference far into the dazzling horizon.

Of this, the doctor could only see a blaze that irritated his retina, whereas Gène, who could see everything, announced expressionlessly:

‘Here comes the
Cormoran
, she's back from La Tour-Fondue … There's Joseph setting his nets by the lighthouse.'

As he spoke, he was pulling in his line, unhurriedly, as if checking that the hooks were still baited, but there was always a fish on the end.

‘A
péquois.
'

And he slipped it into a container full of fresh algae, picked up a hermit crab (they called them
piades
here), smashed its shell and threaded it on to the hook.

Rattled, the doctor hauled in his own line. It was jerking, alive. Every time it did this, he sensed he had a big catch, that a miracle was happening and that he was going to amaze the fisherman. And every time, it was one of those nasty fish
covered with spines, not even a scorpion-fish, but what Gène called a
diable
, which had to be taken off the hook – first wrapping one's hand in a cloth – and thrown back into the water.

Why could he only catch these
diables
, or at best tiny
sérans
? They were fishing in the same place, no more than a metre apart. You could see quite clearly down in the water the pink tips of the hermit-crab shells moving across
the sea floor; twice their lines had become entangled. You could see the fish too. The doctor was certain he was making the same movements as Gène. He wasn't a novice. Back in Saint-Hilaire, he was the only angler capable of light fly-fishing on the Sèvre, a more delicate skill than
sea-fishing.