Henri Duchemin and His Shadows Page 3

  “In here.”

  They entered a room with walls covered in flowered fabric.

  “Sit down, Duchemin.”

  “Fine.”

  “Take off your shoes.”

  Henri Duchemin obeyed. It seemed to him that it was not his own shoes he was removing.

  “Listen to me, Duchemin.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The bed is on the right, the window is open, the moon will light your way.”

  “But there is no moon.”

  “I’m telling you, the moon will light your way. You’ll strike as if you wanted to split a tree trunk, and then you’ll be rich.”

  Tiny sounds came through the wall.

  “Take this hammer. The banker is in bed.”

  “What if he’s not sleeping?”

  “Go. It’s for your own happiness.”

  Henri Duchemin rose. His damp socks left the imprint of his feet on the wood floor.

  He stopped a few feet from the door.

  “I’m frightened.”

  “Go. Afterwards, you’ll be rich.”

  “I’ll be rich?”

  “Yes.”

  Still, he hesitated.

  “Go on, I tell you. You’ll be rich.”

  Henri Duchemin entered the banker’s bedroom. He had held the doorknob tightly in his hands for so long that his fingers smelled of copper.

  Exactly as the man without a name had said, moonlight illuminated the room. It was the light of insomnia, a light for sick eyes.

  The banker’s body was hidden by blankets and his head, resting on the pillow, seemed to lack a torso. There was also something ridiculous about this older man’s head perched on its exposed neck.

  Henri Duchemin knew that if he did not want his courage to flag, he must not think at all. And, understanding that what he was doing was not right, he headed straight for the bed so that he would not be able to stop himself.

  His knees knocked against the bed.

  He raised the hammer as high as he could. He closed his eyes. When he opened them, he saw blood on the sheets and the hammer in the eiderdown.

  A wallet lay on the night table. He took it without thinking he would not have needed to kill the man to do so.

  Then he went back to the room where the man without a name had led him.

  It was empty. The lamp’s forlorn light lit only motionless objects.

  Henri Duchemin called out, opened the wardrobes, touched the furniture without taking his eyes off the switch for fear someone would shut off the light.

  There was no one. It was impossible. He was going crazy. He fell to the ground. For a long time he remained crouching, his forehead pressed against the wood floor, for he thought no one could find fault with him in that position.

  When he stood up, he felt better. He put on his shoes, looked around to make sure he wasn’t forgetting anything, walked through the dining room, slipped on his overcoat, and went out.

  * * *

  The rain had stopped. A few clouds floated among the stars. Henri Duchemin wanted to run but in order not to attract attention, he walked rapidly instead. He held his hand in his inside pocket, which the fat wallet had unstitched.

  He drew himself up. To look at him, who would have guessed he was carrying a fortune over his heart? Who would have believed that this poorly dressed man was now a person of independent means?

  The gas lamps drew two dotted lines at the level of a second story. They appeared brighter in the crisp air.

  Lulled by the rhythm of his footsteps, Henri Duchemin imagined women sitting on bank notes, and all the while he took detour after detour so that the police would lose all trace of him.

  As he passed in front of a café, he heard the exquisite music of a player piano, half tin, half crystal. Women were laughing, probably over nothing. He attempted to look above the curtain at what was going on inside, but he was too short.

  So he went in, sat down quickly, and waited until the attention he had attracted died down.

  Three women were sitting on a velvet bench.

  Henri Duchemin gazed at them lustfully, wondering which one of them attracted him the most. And although he was determined to be a different man now, he still did not dare invite them to his table.

  Nevertheless, without his having to make a single gesture, one of them came to sit next to him. Her necklace of small pearls was too tight. She had the white, unattractive skin of women who never blush.

  Henri Duchemin rested a hand on the young woman’s lap and felt her garter button beneath his fingers.

  He wanted to sing, laugh, shout, but did not dare.

  Little by little, however, he began to feel at ease. No one was making fun of him. The customers went so far as to get on well with him for, one by one, glasses in hand, they came to his table.

  “Music! Music!” he cried.

  Although he realized he had raised his voice, it did not bother him.

  The barmaid slipped two coins into the piano slot.

  “How about a game of poker?” asked a young man who was entertaining himself shuffling a deck of cards.

  “Good idea!” cried Henri Duchemin.

  The young man spread out a small red carpet. The center of a slate was wiped clean. The deck was cut and the game began.

  It did not last long.

  Even though Henri Duchemin did not know how to play, he kept on winning. The other players, at the ends of their resources, had to give up. They were not happy and conversed softly.

  Their bad mood annoyed Henri Duchemin. He could not explain to himself how he had won; he never had any luck. And so, for fear of alienating his friends, he suddenly gave them back all the money he had won.

  Stunned, they stopped speaking. Then, having recovered, they thanked him with exaggerated warmth. In their entire existence, they had never known such a generous man. He was a true friend, no doubt about it! And might the whole world follow his example!

  Henri Duchemin rejoiced at the thought of having so many friends.

  “Let us be brothers,” he said with eyes raised.

  He was not crying, but tears were streaming down his cheeks. He glanced at the woman next to him.

  “I am so happy! Life is so wonderful! What is your name, my child?”

  Not receiving a response, he continued:

  “Allow me to kiss you. Oh! If you were to accept, we’d get married. I have money. I’d buy you everything you wanted. I’d rescue you from this dive. You are too pure to live here. We would love one another.”

  He stopped talking when he realized he could no longer be heard over the laughter.

  “Please! Be quiet, let him speak,” said a customer, winking in case anyone took his words seriously.

  “My friends, if you’d like, we’ll never leave each other. Love will unite us until death. I have money. Why should I have any and not you? Let us share, share.”

  This time, all hell broke loose. Everyone cheered him, except the woman next to him who pinched him under the table.

  “Why should we despise one another? Let us love each other, let us show the way, we who are brothers.”

  He rose amid the cheering. For a second he thought about throwing his wallet to his admirers, but something held him back. He simply threw down a handful of bills.

  “Take it, my friends. My true friends. It’s for you. Are we not brothers? And you, my darling, be happy like the others. I love you, life is beautiful.”

  “Let’s go,” she said.

  “Where?”

  “To my place.”

  The room filled with boos.

  “No!”

  “Leave him with us.”

  “He amuses us!”

  “She wants the money.”

  Everyone was speaking at the same time, and Henri Duchemin began to sense that they did not like him. The ugliness of life appeared to him. Until then, as long as they had been listening to him, he had lived in a dream.

  Now, everything was finished.


  Head in hands, he walked to the door. They begged him to stay, but it was useless.

  Standing on the sidewalk he tried to hear through the door what was being said about him, but only a murmur reached his ears.

  He wiped his lips so the cold would not chap them. He now knew that all men were ingrates. And let them stay that way! Henri Duchemin had no need to worry about them. He could do without the entire world because he was rich.

  He had been walking for an hour when the idea came to him to return to the new house where he’d killed the banker. No matter how he tried to convince himself that there was no point in doing so, the temptation was too great.

  Hoping to lose his way, he wandered aimlessly, his hands scraped by the walls; yet in spite of himself, each step brought him closer to the house.

  Suddenly he saw shapes moving behind the lit windows of a building. He drew closer. He recognized the new house. Two police officers, whose shadows stretched to the middle of the road, were chatting in the entranceway.

  The crime had been discovered.

  Henri Duchemin thought about turning himself in. But, changing his mind, he fled. His unbuttoned overcoat floated behind him. A gust of wind carried off his hat. He was getting ready to chase after it when he had the feeling time was running out.

  Bareheaded, he took off at a run. Arc lamps lit a boulevard from above. The stores’ metal shutters were drawn down to the sidewalk. Against the darkened café storefronts, cane chairs were stacked one atop the other.

  Upset by the loss of his hat, Henri Duchemin did not dare look at the few pedestrians he encountered.

  For the second time, he thought of turning himself in, but the law terrified him. He was familiar with it because he had already ventured into criminal court with Monsieur Leleu. With a flushed face, he had pushed open the heavy padded doors. They had seen lawyers whose feet seemed huge beneath their robes. He had found not peaceful city policemen, but municipal guards dressed in the same sky blue as soldiers.

  No, he would not turn himself in. It was better to remain free, for these heartless people would never understand the reasons behind his crime. Indeed, no one would understand them. He would have been happier among madmen in whose company he would have skipped, laughed, and sung.

  Henri Duchemin heard the rumbling of a carriage. In the silence of the night, the noise terrified him. He imagined a prison van was following him and that the little slanted shutters were hiding policemen.

  But the noise faded and he relaxed.

  Not daring to return home or to take a room in a hotel because they might have his description, he went into a train station.

  There was no one in the main hall, which was cheerless like all places abandoned by the crowd. In the distance locomotives sat idle. A lantern swayed to the rhythm of footsteps.

  Henri Duchemin entered a waiting room and walked over to a sheet-metal stove that blew little puffs of warm air through the openwork toward his face. From time to time his gaze would meet the staring eyes of a traveler who was awake.

  Sleepiness was making Henri Duchemin’s eyelids heavy and, like a horse, he dozed standing. His head fell forward.

  Suddenly shouts rang out.

  His teeth chattered. He shivered. He looked at the room. Newspaper photographs shading a lamp formed dark squares. People were getting up.

  “Passengers for Dijon, Mâcon, Lyon, and prison, all aboard,” shouted an employee.

  He had been found out.

  Terrified, he stepped over packages and, running, opened a door that slammed when he was already far away.

  Soon he stopped. The street was deserted.

  I’m so foolish! he thought.

  He wanted to retrace his steps, but though he was sure he had been tricked by his imagination, he did not dare.

  * * *

  Henri Duchemin was overcome by such an enormous desire to sleep that he closed his eyes as he walked—but not for long, because he was afraid of veering off course.

  A lantern, like a common star, was twinkling in the distance. He had no reason to be anxious; people had every right to light lanterns. Still, he did not take his eyes off it because it seemed to him that on this night everything that was lit was lit because of him.

  As he approached this lantern, he could read, etched in its blue paint: “Police Station.” So, without turning around or paying attention to the streets he ran down, he fled.

  When he was out of breath he stopped and began to think. Wasn’t it ridiculous to be afraid like this when he possessed a fortune? In the morning, everything would be better.

  He was wandering aimlessly in the streets when exhaustion forced him to sit on a bench. The air was bitterly cold. He shoved his hands in his pockets and did not move. He knew that cold could kill. And so he tried hard to stay awake. To help, he thought of every joy his fortune could bring him.

  His legs grew heavy. He stood up.

  The streets were becoming narrower and narrower. Not a single light shone in the windows. From time to time he would cross a street, then cross back to the sidewalk he had just left. Sometimes he would stop, turn around as if someone had called to him, then take off again.

  As he walked along the barred windows of a night shelter, he read: “Post No Bills.” And, to show that they weren’t fooling, “Law of 29 July 1881.”

  The shelter seemed abandoned. He went in, making sure to leave the door open so he could flee if necessary. The silence was bottomless. A disagreeable odor floated in the air. The black pipe from a stove led straight up to the ceiling. The bunks, in rows along the whitewashed walls, were all occupied. The beggars must have been tormented by bad dreams for their clothes hung down to the floor or lay scattered among the beds. In a glass booth, the watchman, partly lit by a lamp with a shade, was reading a book whose pages curled at the corners.

  Henri Duchemin lay down on the floor. He felt safe. For a few minutes the rays from the lamp shone between his eyelashes. Then everything grew dim. Despite the hard stone bruising his hips and elbows, despite the cold tugging at his face, he had fallen asleep.

  Who was it who was stubbornly striking him on the shoulder? One of his enemies, no doubt. Or a policeman. Henri Duchemin did not move a muscle. He knew that there was nothing easier to do than to pretend to be asleep. But what he did not know was that one never tires of trying to wake somebody.

  And, indeed, the irksome person did not tire.

  So Henri Duchemin imagined that a prison guard, who naturally held a lamp in his hand, was offering him a final cigarette. In order to know what was going to happen, he took it while he was asleep and, for the first time in his life, swallowed smoke. Then he got up and followed the guard. A guillotine appeared on a square. He saw its steel blade.

  He was about to die when he was bullied awake.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “You have to leave. No one’s allowed in after 9:30 at night.”

  Henri Duchemin obeyed. As he left, he saw the watchman’s empty booth, the book resting on the table, and the lamp lighting the chair.

  Henri Duchemin tried to forget everything that had just happened by walking hurriedly, which also warmed him. As he was crossing a street, the fact of not having to watch out for cars seemed odd to him. His shoes struck dry asphalt. Sometimes, he searched the sky in the hope of seeing the dawn, but the stars, still in the same place, remained clear and bright.

  He saw a small park where mothers strolled with their children during the day. The hope of finding a bench and the fact that the fence was not high prompted him to enter. The guard was asleep, so he climbed over the roll bars and paced the frost-covered lawn with a pleasure that was all the greater since he knew only the gardeners had the right to step there. Then he looked through the panes of the guard’s kiosk. He imagined a multitude of objects filling the booth, but all he saw were a few chestnuts on a table of black wood.

  Disappointed, he sat down on a bench. Across the way,
between the bare trees, he saw a building, pale in the moonlight, whose shutterless windows and balcony railings reminded him of a city hall in a toy construction set. Not a breath of wind. The motionless cold of an icebox.

  Eyes wide, his eyelids not once closing over them, even for a moment, Henri Duchemin was thinking. He was thinking that now he would be respected. And this respect would have been even greater had he not given half his fortune to those people who, rather than being grateful, had made fun of him. But since Henri Duchemin did not like regrets, he filed that memory away.

  The loss of his hat annoyed him as well, especially since he would have had the time to pick it up. But what’s done is done, one’s thoughts must not linger on the past. What good would it do him to go back in time? Tomorrow, he would buy a brand new hat and a vest. He liked vests. Aren’t they a bit like the face of one’s body and don’t they wear a satisfied expression when the jacket is unbuttoned?

  And at dawn, he’d go abroad. He pictured himself on a train. He even felt slight bumps as he passed imaginary switching points. He saw the countryside and a very red sun rising over the frozen plowed fields. A peasant opened a barn door. He was just starting his day’s work whereas he, Henri Duchemin, was escaping into the unknown.

  Henri Duchemin got up and began to walk quickly to give himself the feeling he was traveling.

  He soon found himself on a crowded street where, despite the late hour, people were enjoying themselves. The crowd, the illuminated shops, the rosy poultry gave the impression of a celebration. The copperware glistened in the light, so much so that it looked like liquid. The scent of tangerines was in the air. Everyone was laughing, having a good time. The pavement was dry. Along the sidewalk frozen puddles riddled with trapped bubbles gleamed in the gold of the lights.

  “I want to be happy,” Henri Duchemin whispered as he stared at the women passing by.

  One of them took him by the arm.

  “I love you,” she said.

  She was tottering slightly, but you could hardly tell because the unsteadiness of women’s legs is hidden by their dresses.

  “Let’s go eat.”

  “All right.”

  They went into a local restaurant. The heat coming from the food, the lights, and people’s breath warmed the room. It was disagreeable, like any heat that doesn’t come from a fire.