The Voyeur (8 page)

Emerging from a last shop, one so dark he had been able to see nothing at all—and perhaps hear nothing as well—he realized that he had reached the end of the quay at the point where the long pier began, leading almost perpendicularly from the quay in a cluster of parallel lines to the beacon light where they appeared to converge: two horizontal planes in sunlight alternating with two vertical planes in shadow.

This was where the town ended as well. Mathias had not sold a single watch, and it would be the same story in the three or four alleys behind the quay. He forced himself to take comfort in the fact that his specialty was really the country; the town, no matter how small, doubtless required other qualities than those he possessed. The jetty on top of the pier was deserted. He was about to walk down it when he noticed in front of him an opening in the massive parapet extending right from the end of the quay to an old, half-demolished wall, apparently the remains of the ancient royal city.

Beyond this wall, with little or no transition, stretched a low, rocky coast—large, gently inclined banks of gray stone sloping into the water without showing any sand, even at low tide.

Mathias walked down the several granite steps that led to the flat rocks. On his left he now noticed the exterior side of the pier—vertical, but in sunlight—a single plane, the parapet joining its base without a discernible seam. As long as his progress was more or less unimpeded he continued to advance toward the sea; but he soon had to stop, not daring to jump over a fault in the rock, though not a large one, encumbered as he was with his heavy shoes, his duffle coat, and his precious suitcase.

He therefore sat down on the rock, facing into the sun, and set down his suitcase near him, wedged between the stones to prevent it from slipping. In spite of the breeze that blew more strongly here, he unbuckled his duffle coat and spread it wide on either side. Mechanically he felt for his wallet in the inside left pocket of his jacket. The sun, dazzlingly reflected from the surface of the water, forced him to keep his eyes more than half-closed. He recalled the little girl on the deck of the ship who kept her eyes wide open and her head raised—her hands behind her back. She looked as if she were bound to the iron pillar. He thrust his hand again into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out the wallet to see if it still contained the newspaper article clipped the day before from the "Western Lighthouse," one of the local dailies. After all, there was no reason why the clipping should not be there. Mathias put the wallet back where it had been.

A little wave broke against the rocks at the foot of the slope and moistened the stone at a level where it had previously been quite dry. The tide was coming in. One gull, two gulls, then a third, passed one after another, coasting slowly on the wind—motionless. Again he saw the iron rings in the embankment, alternately revealed and submerged by the water that rose and fell in the sheltered angle of the landing slip. The last bird, suddenly interrupting its horizontal trajectory, fell like a stone, broke the surface of the water, and disappeared. A little wave broke against the rock with a slapping sound. Again he was standing in the narrow vestibule before the door that opened into the room with the black and white tiles.

The girl with the timorous expression was sitting on the edge of the unmade bed, her bare feet resting on the lambskin. On the night table the little lamp was turned on. Mathias thrust his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out the wallet. He removed the newspaper clipping, put the wallet back, and once again read the text attentively from beginning to end.

The article did not have much of importance to say. It was no longer than a minor news item. In fact a good half of it merely traced the secondary circumstances of the discovery of the body; since the entire conclusion of the article was devoted to commentaries on the direction the police expected their investigations to take, very little space remained for the description of the body itself and none at all for any discussion of the kind of violence to which the victim had been subjected. Adjectives such as "horrible," "unspeakable," and "odious" were of no use in these matters. Vague laments over the girl's tragic fate were scarcely more helpful. As for the veiled formulas used to describe the manner of her death, all belonged to the conventional language of the press for this category of news and referred, at best, to generalities. It was evident that the copy writers used the same terms on each similar occasion, without attempting to furnish the slightest piece of real information in a particular case, concerning which they were probably in complete ignorance themselves. The scene would have to be re-invented from beginning to end, starting with two or three elementary details, like the age of the victim or the color of her hair.

A little wave broke against the rock at the foot of the slope, a few yards away from Mathias. His eyes were beginning to hurt. He turned away from the water and walked up the rocks to where a narrow customs road followed the coast southward. The sunlight here had the same blinding intensity. He closed his eyes tight. On the other side, behind the parapet, the flat housefronts extended along the quay as far as the triangular square and its monument encircled with an iron fence. On this side was the succession of shop¬windows: the hardware store, the butcher shop, the café "A l'Espérance." That was where he had drunk his absinthe, at the bar, for three crowns seven.

He is on the first floor, standing in the narrow vestibule before the door opening into the room with the black and white tiles. The girl is sitting on the edge of the unmade bed, her bare feet deep in the fleece of the lambskin. Near her the red bedspread is trailing along the floor.

It is night. Only the little lamp on the night table is turned on. For a long moment the scene remains motionless and silent. Then once again the words: "Are you asleep?" are spoken by the heavy, deep, slightly singsong voice which seems to conceal an unspecified threat. Mathias then notices, framed in the oval mirror above the dressing table, the man standing on the left side of the room. His eyes are fixed on something, but the presence of the mirror between him and the observer prevents any accurate surmise as to the direction of his gaze. Her eyes still lowered, the girl stands up and begins to walk timorously toward the man who has just spoken. She leaves the visible part of the room to appear, several seconds later, in the oval mirror. Having reached a point near her master—less than a step away—within reach of his hand—she stops.

The giant's hand approaches slowly and comes to rest on the fragile nape of her neck. It shapes itself around the neck and presses down, without apparent effort but with so persuasive a force that it obliges the entire delicate body to give way little by little. Bending her knees, the girl puts down first one foot, then the other, until she is kneeling on the tiled floor—white octagons the size of plates, adjacent on four of their sides and thus providing for an equal number of smaller black squares between them.

The man, who has loosened his hold, is still murmuring five or six syllables in the same low voice—but muffled, almost hoarse this time: unintelligible. After a considerable delay—as if the command had taken a long time to reach her across a stretch of sand and stagnant water—she gently begins to move her arms; her small, compliant hands rise along her thighs, pass behind her hips and finally stop at the small of her back a little below her waist—her wrists crossed as if bound. Then the voice can be heard saying "You are beautiful . . ." with a kind of restrained violence; and again the giant's fingers fall upon his prey who now lies at his feet—so small as to seem almost deformed.

His fingertips trail over the naked skin of her neck, along the nape that is completely exposed by the arrangement of the hair; then his hand slides under her ear to stroke her mouth and face in the same way, finally forcing her to lift her head and expose the large dark eyes between their long doll's lashes.

A stronger wave broke against the rock with a slapping sound; a few drops from the cone of spray landed quite near Mathias, carried by the wind. The salesman glanced anxiously at his suitcase, but the drops had not reached it. He looked at his watch and immediately jumped up. It was five minutes after eleven; the forty-five minutes the garageman had stipulated were already past, the bicycle must be waiting for him. He climbed up the flat rocks, crossed the parapet by means of the little granite stairway, and hastened toward the square along the uneven cobbles of the quay, retracing his steps in the very direction he had taken when he had disembarked an hour before. The gumdrop-seller gave him a nod of recognition from the door of her shop as he passed.

As soon as he had turned the corner around the hardware store, he saw a shiny chromium-plated bicycle leaning against the movie bulletin-board behind the monument. The innumerable pieces of polished metal reflected the sunlight in every direction. As he approached Mathias could see what a fine model it was, furnished with every desirable accessory as well as with several others he did not recognize and therefore judged to be superfluous.

Walking around the bulletin-board, he entered the café-tobacco shop to pay for the use of the bicycle. No one was there, but a piece of paper was prominently displayed in the middle of the counter, hung on the lever of the soda-water siphon. He read: "Take the bicycle in front of the door and leave two hundred crowns deposit here. Thank you."

Even as he took the bills out of his wallet, Mathias was astonished by this way of doing things: since he was being trusted enough not to require someone to take his deposit from him, why should he have to leave one at all? It was an unnecessary test of his honesty. If he obeyed and then a thief happened along before the garageman, how could he prove he had ever left the money? On the other hand, it would be easy enough not to leave the money and claim that a thief
had
happened along. Doubtless there was no malefactor on the island, no one to be mistrusted. He slipped the two bills required under the siphon and went out again.

He was arranging the elastic around the bottoms of his trousers when he recognized the jovial voice: "Good-looking bicycle, isn't it?"

"That one, yes! Good enough . . ." approved Mathias.

His eyes swept down the movie advertisement. In view of the herculean build of the man in Renaissance costume, he would scarcely have much difficulty drawing toward him the upper part of the girl's body; he must have preferred keeping her in that position, bent backward—perhaps so that he could look into her face more easily. On the ground, at their feet, lying across the black and white tiles . ..

"That's last Sunday's program," interposed the garageman. "I'm expecting the new poster in this morning's mail, with the reels."

Wanting to buy a pack of cigarettes, Mathias returned to the café for a minute with his interlocutor, who seemed quite surprised to discover the money for the deposit under the soda-water siphon; he protested that this formality was unnecessary, returned the two bills to Mathias, and crumpled into a ball the paper hanging from the siphon.

On the doorstep they exchanged a few insignificant words. The tobacconist again pointed out his bicycle's features: tires, brakes, gears, etc. Finally he wished the salesman good luck as the latter climbed onto the seat.

Mathias thanked him. "I'll be back by four," he said as he rode off. He held the handlebars in his right hand and in his left the little suitcase which he did not wish to attach to the luggage rack in order not to lose any more time than necessary at each stop. The suitcase was not very heavy and would not get in his way, for he did not expect to travel either acrobatically or at great speeds.

He headed across the uneven cobbles toward the plot of ground surrounding the town hall. Then he took the road to the left, toward the big lighthouse. As soon as he had left the square, he traveled without the slightest difficulty, quite satisfied with his vehicle.

The cottages on each side of the road already had the typical look of those in the country: a single story with a low door between two square windows. He would visit them on the way back, if he had time; he had delayed far too long—and to no purpose—in this town. He made a quick calculation of how much time remained until the boat left: barely five hours, from which he would have to subtract the time taken by the intervals on the bicycle: one hour at the most was enough to allow for a distance totaling no more than ten miles (unless he was mistaken). Thus he had about four hours at his disposal for sales (and refusals); that is, two hundred forty minutes. He would not waste time insisting at great length to recalcitrant customers: as soon as he perceived their intention not to buy, he would pack up and move on; in this way he would get through most refusals in a few seconds. As for sales, he would have to count on an average of ten minutes for each one, which would reasonably include brief expeditions on foot in the villages. On this basis his two hundred forty minutes represented the sale of twenty-four watches—perhaps not the most expensive ones, but, for instance, the series at one hundred fifty or one hundred seventy crowns, on an average, with a profit . . .

At the very moment he passed the town limits he remembered the sailor, his sister, and his three nieces. He happened to be just in front of the last house; which was on the right-hand side a little apart from the rest—so that without flagrantly cheating he could consider it as the first house outside town. He stopped his bicycle, leaned it against the wall, and knocked against the wooden panel of the door.

He looked at his nails. A long streak of grease, still wet, lined the inside of his fingers. Yet he had not touched the chain. He looked at the handlebars, passed his hand under the right-hand grip and over the brake lever; new spots appeared at the ends of his index and middle fingers. Probably the garageman had just greased the brake coupling and afterward had forgotten to wipe off the lever. Mathias was looking around for something to wipe his hands on when the door opened. He quickly concealed his hand in his pocket where it encountered the unopened pack of cigarettes, the bag of gumdrops, and last of all the wad of cord against which he rubbed the inside of his fingers as carefully as was possible in such haste, without the assistance of his other hand, and at the bottom of a full pocket.