The Stranger (5 page)

Around three o’clock there was a knock on my door and Raymond came in. I didn’t get up. He sat down on the edge of my bed. He didn’t say anything for a minute and I asked him how it had all gone. He told me that he’d done what he wanted to do but that she’d slapped him and so he’d beaten her up. I’d seen the rest. I told him it seemed to me that she’d gotten her punishment now and he ought to be happy. He thought so too, and he pointed out that the cop could do anything he wanted, it wouldn’t change the fact that she’d gotten her beating. He added that he knew all about cops and how to handle them. Then he asked me if I’d expected him to hit the cop back. I said I wasn’t expecting anything, and besides I didn’t like cops. Raymond seemed pretty happy. He asked me if I wanted to go for a walk with him. I got up and started combing my hair. He told me that I’d have to act as a witness for him. It didn’t matter to me, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to say. According to Raymond, all I had to do was to state that the girl had cheated on him. I agreed to act as a witness for him.

We went out and Raymond bought me a brandy.
Then he wanted to shoot a game of pool, and I just barely lost. Afterwards he wanted to go to a whorehouse, but I said no, because I don’t like that. So we took our time getting back, him telling me how glad he was that he’d been able to give the woman what she deserved. I found him very friendly with me and I thought it was a nice moment.

From a distance I noticed old Salamano standing on the doorstep. He looked flustered. When we got closer, I saw that he didn’t have his dog. He was looking all over the place, turning around, peering into the darkness of the entryway, muttering incoherently, and then he started searching the street again with his little red eyes. When Raymond asked him what was wrong, he didn’t answer right away. I barely heard him mumble “Stinking bastard,” and he went on fidgeting around. I asked him where his dog was. He snapped at me and said he was gone. And then all of a sudden the words came pouring out: “I took him to the Parade Ground, like always. There were lots of people around the booths at the fair. I stopped to watch ‘The King of the Escape Artists.’ And when I was ready to go, he wasn’t there. Sure, I’ve been meaning to get him a smaller collar for a long time. But I never thought the bastard would take off like that.”

Then Raymond pointed out to him that the dog might have gotten lost and that he would come back. He gave examples of dogs that had walked dozens of kilometers to get back to their masters. Nevertheless, the
old man looked even more flustered. “But they’ll take him away from me, don’t you see? If only somebody would take him in. But that’s impossible—everybody’s disgusted by his scabs. The police’ll get him for sure.” So I told him he should go to the pound and they’d give the dog back to him after he paid a fee. He asked me if it was a big fee. I didn’t know. Then he got mad: “Pay money for that bastard—ha! He can damn well die!” And he started cursing the dog. Raymond laughed and went inside. I followed him and we parted upstairs on the landing. A minute later I heard the old man’s footsteps and he knocked on my door. When I opened it, he stood in the doorway for a minute and said, “Excuse me, excuse me.” I asked him to come in, but he refused. He was looking down at the tips of his shoes and his scabby hands were trembling. Without looking up at me he asked, “They’re not going to take him away from me, are they, Monsieur Meursault? They’ll give him back to me. Otherwise, what’s going to happen to me?” I told him that the pound kept dogs for three days so that their owners could come and claim them and that after that they did with them as they saw fit. He looked at me in silence. Then he said, “Good night.” He shut his door and I heard him pacing back and forth. His bed creaked. And from the peculiar little noise coming through the partition, I realized he was crying. For some reason I thought of Maman. But I had to get up early the next morning. I wasn’t hungry, and I went to bed without any dinner.

Raymond called me at the office. He told me that a friend of his (he’d spoken to him about me) had invited me to spend the day Sunday at his little beach house, near Algiers. I said I’d really like to, but I’d promised to spend the day with a girlfriend. Raymond immediately told me that she was invited too. His friend’s wife would be very glad not to be alone with a bunch of men.

I wanted to hang up right away because I know the boss doesn’t like people calling us from town. But Raymond asked me to hang on and told me he could have passed on the invitation that evening, but he had something else to tell me. He’d been followed all day by a group of Arabs, one of whom was the brother of his former mistress. “If you see him hanging around the building when you get home this evening, let me know.” I said I would.

A little later my boss sent for me, and for a second I was annoyed, because I thought he was going to tell me to do less talking on the phone and more work. But that wasn’t it at all. He told me he wanted to talk to me about a plan of his that was still pretty vague. He just wanted
to have my opinion on the matter. He was planning to open an office in Paris which would handle his business directly with the big companies, on the spot, and he wanted to know how I felt about going there. I’d be able to live in Paris and to travel around for part of the year as well. “You’re young, and it seems to me it’s the kind of life that would appeal to you.” I said yes but that really it was all the same to me. Then he asked me if I wasn’t interested in a change of life. I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I wasn’t dissatisfied with mine here at all. He looked upset and told me that I never gave him a straight answer, that I had no ambition, and that that was disastrous in business. So I went back to work. I would rather not have upset him, but I couldn’t see any reason to change my life. Looking back on it, I wasn’t unhappy. When I was a student, I had lots of ambitions like that. But when I had to give up my studies I learned very quickly that none of it really mattered.

That evening Marie came by to see me and asked me if I wanted to marry her. I said it didn’t make any difference to me and that we could if she wanted to. Then she wanted to know if I loved her. I answered the same way I had the last time, that it didn’t mean anything but that I probably didn’t love her. “So why marry me, then?” she said. I explained to her that it didn’t really matter and that if she wanted to, we could get married. Besides, she was the one who was doing the asking and all I was
saying was yes. Then she pointed out that marriage was a serious thing. I said, “No.” She stopped talking for a minute and looked at me without saying anything. Then she spoke. She just wanted to know if I would have accepted the same proposal from another woman, with whom I was involved in the same way. I said, “Sure.” Then she said she wondered if she loved me, and there was no way I could know about that. After another moment’s silence, she mumbled that I was peculiar, that that was probably why she loved me but that one day I might hate her for the same reason. I didn’t say anything, because I didn’t have anything to add, so she took my arm with a smile and said she wanted to marry me. I said we could do it whenever she wanted. Then I told her about my boss’s proposition and she said she’d love to see Paris. I told her that I’d lived there once and she asked me what it was like. I said, “It’s dirty. Lots of pigeons and dark courtyards. Everybody’s pale.”

Then we went for a walk through the main streets to the other end of town. The women were beautiful and I asked Marie if she’d noticed. She said yes and that she understood what I meant. For a while neither of us said anything. But I wanted her to stay with me, and I told her we could have dinner together at Céleste’s. She would have liked to but she had something to do. We were near my place and I said goodbye to her. She looked at me. “Don’t you want to know what I have to do?” I did, but I hadn’t thought to ask, and she seemed to be scolding me. Then, seeing me so confused, she
laughed again and she moved toward me with her whole body to offer me her lips.

I had dinner at Céleste’s. I’d already started eating when a strange little woman came in and asked me if she could sit at my table. Of course she could. Her gestures were jerky and she had bright eyes in a little face like an apple. She took off her jacket, sat down, and studied the menu feverishly. She called Céleste over and ordered her whole meal all at once, in a voice that was clear and very fast at the same time. While she was waiting for her first course, she opened her bag, took out a slip of paper and a pencil, added up the bill in advance, then took the exact amount, plus tip, out of a vest pocket and set it down on the table in front of her. At that point the waiter brought her first course and she gulped it down. While waiting for the next course, she again took out of her bag a blue pencil and a magazine that listed the radio programs for the week. One by one, and with great care, she checked off almost every program. Since the magazine was about a dozen pages long, she meticulously continued this task throughout the meal. I had already finished and she was still checking away with the same zeal. Then she stood up, put her jacket back on with the same robotlike movements, and left. I didn’t have anything to do, so I left too and followed her for a while. She had positioned herself right next to the curb and was making her way with incredible speed and assurance, never once swerving or looking around. I eventually lost sight of her and turned
back. I thought about how peculiar she was but forgot about her a few minutes later.

I found old Salamano waiting outside my door. I asked him in and he told me that his dog was lost, because it wasn’t at the pound. The people who worked there had told him that maybe it had been run over. He asked if he could find out at the police station. They told him that they didn’t keep track of things like that because they happened every day. I told old Salamano that he could get another dog, but he was right to point out to me that he was used to this one.

I was sitting cross-legged on my bed and Salamano had sat down on a chair in front of the table. He was facing me and he had both hands on his knees. He had kept his old felt hat on. He was mumbling bits and pieces of sentences through his yellowing moustache. He was getting on my nerves a little, but I didn’t have anything to do and I didn’t feel sleepy. Just for something to say, I asked him about his dog. He told me he’d gotten it after his wife died. He had married fairly late. When he was young he’d wanted to go into the theater: in the army he used to act in military vaudevilles. But he had ended up working on the railroads, and he didn’t regret it, because now he had a small pension. He hadn’t been happy with his wife, but he’d pretty much gotten used to her. When she died he had been very lonely. So he asked a shop buddy for a dog and he’d gotten this one very young. He’d had to feed it from a bottle. But since a dog doesn’t live as long as a man, they’d ended up
being old together. “He was bad-tempered,” Salamano said. “We’d have a run-in every now and then. But he was a good dog just the same.” I said he was well bred and Salamano looked pleased. “And,” he added, “you didn’t know him before he got sick. His coat was the best thing about him.” Every night and every morning after the dog had gotten that skin disease, Salamano rubbed him with ointment. But according to him, the dog’s real sickness was old age, and there’s no cure for old age.

At that point I yawned, and the old man said he’d be going. I told him that he could stay and that I was sorry about what had happened to his dog. He thanked me. He told me that Maman was very fond of his dog. He called her “your poor mother.” He said he supposed I must be very sad since Maman died, and I didn’t say anything. Then he said, very quickly and with an embarrassed look, that he realized that some people in the neighborhood thought badly of me for having sent Maman to the home, but he knew me and he knew I loved her very much. I still don’t know why, but I said that until then I hadn’t realized that people thought badly of me for doing it, but that the home had seemed like the natural thing since I didn’t have enough money to have Maman cared for. “Anyway,” I added, “it had been a long time since she’d had anything to say to me, and she was bored all by herself.” “Yes,” he said, “and at least in a home you can make a few friends.” Then he said good night. He wanted to sleep. His life had changed
now and he wasn’t too sure what he was going to do. For the first time since I’d known him, and with a furtive gesture, he offered me his hand, and I felt the scales on his skin. He gave a little smile, and before he left he said, “I hope the dogs don’t bark tonight. I always think it’s mine.”

I had a hard time waking up on Sunday, and Marie had to call me and shake me. We didn’t eat anything, because we wanted to get to the beach early. I felt completely drained and I had a slight headache. My cigarette tasted bitter. Marie made fun of me because, she said, I had on a “funeral face.” She had put on a white linen dress and let her hair down. I told her she was beautiful and she laughed with delight.

On our way downstairs we knocked on Raymond’s door. He told us he’d be right down. Once out in the street, because I was so tired and also because we hadn’t opened the blinds, the day, already bright with sun, hit me like a slap in the face. Marie was jumping with joy and kept on saying what a beautiful day it was. I felt a little better and I noticed that I was hungry. I told Marie, who pointed to her oilcloth bag where she’d put our bathing suits and a towel. I just had to wait and then we heard Raymond shutting his door. He had on blue trousers and a white short-sleeved shirt. But he’d put on a straw hat, which made Marie laugh, and his forearms were all white under the black hairs. I found it a little
repulsive. He was whistling as he came down the stairs and he seemed very cheerful. He said “Good morning, old man” to me and called Marie “mademoiselle.”

The day before, we’d gone to the police station and I’d testified that the girl had cheated on Raymond. He’d gotten off with a warning. They didn’t check out my statement. Outside the front door we talked about it with Raymond, and then we decided to take the bus. The beach wasn’t very far, but we’d get there sooner that way. Raymond thought his friend would be glad to see us get there early. We were just about to leave when all of a sudden Raymond motioned to me to look across the street. I saw a group of Arabs leaning against the front of the tobacconist’s shop. They were staring at us in silence, but in that way of theirs, as if we were nothing but stones or dead trees. Raymond told me that the second one from the left was his man, and he seemed worried. But, he added, it was all settled now. Marie didn’t really understand and asked us what was wrong. I told her that they were Arabs who had it in for Raymond. She wanted to get going right away. Raymond drew himself up and laughed, saying we’d better step on it.