Henri Duchemin walked through the faubourg. There were words written in chalk on the walls. A fence concealed an empty lot. Curtainless windows glinted like mica in the light from a lantern.
A cabaret, painted in red, flooded a cul-de-sac with light. Shadows shifted on the panes still splashed with rain.
Any passerby would have hesitated to enter this dive.
Henri Duchemin, who on this night feared nothing, went in and sat down in the back like a regular.
A few other customers were standing around, chatting with the female owner. She was washing glasses, her apron damp around her waist, her feet secure and dry on a duckboard.
“What may I serve Monsieur?”
“A glass of rum.”
Henri Duchemin downed it like medicine.
Then he drank beer, wine, liqueurs, and, since this was not his habit, he was drunk in an hour. Alcohol made him overemotional, and he grew worried at the idea that he could not pay for his drinks.
Soon his thoughts became muddled. He blinked his eyes as if blinded by the sun. He no longer perceived the glistening of the counter or even the clinking of the bottles.
Just then, despite his state, he noticed a man dozing before him, his head on the table, his arms between his legs.
Henri Duchemin could not believe his eyes. Thinking he was dreaming, he reached out and with a fingertip touched the sleeping man’s hair.
The latter woke with a start. His eyelashes were sticky. He must still have been half-asleep because he searched for his handkerchief in all his pockets. Although he was unshaven and his hat had no hatband, he was wearing a detachable collar. He had enormous veins on his hands at the spot where one would kiss them.
“A drink!”
No doubt, like many people, he favored a drink when he woke up.
As soon as the proprietress had brought him a bottle of wine, he swigged two glasses in a row.
He smiled, trying to strike up a conversation.
“What awful weather!”
Henri Duchemin did not respond. He liked to chat, but distrusted strangers.
The customers, realizing their conversation was not changing the world, left the establishment.
The proprietress arranged her hair with her damp fingers. The two men observed each other.
“Listen,” said the stranger.
No word in reply encouraged him to continue.
“Listen, I said.”
“Yes?”
“Tell me your name.”
Henri Duchemin did not know how to answer.
He thought he would be weaker, exposed, if he placed himself at the mercy of this stranger by telling him his name but, taken by surprise, he did not have the presence of mind to invent a false one.
Very quietly, as if he did not want to be heard, he said:
“Henri Duchemin.”
“Do you want to be my friend? Like you, I wouldn’t mind having a lot of money.”
Indeed, Henri Duchemin did want to have a lot of money. Because he thought that this yearning could come only from a bold man, he was flattered that his tablemate had noticed. And so, even though this alliance seemed risky to him, he accepted.
“But what is your name?”
“I have no name.”
“You have no name?”
“I have one, but you don’t need to know it.”
“And what do you do?”
“Nothing. But from now on, we must act. Do you want to get rich, old pal?”
“Yes, if possible.”
When the proprietress came to serve them again, the man without a name took her by the waist.
“Do as I do, then, Duchemin.”
He would have been happy to do so if his strength had not been sapped by his timidity.
“You mustn’t blush, young man,” said the proprietress as she pulled away from the man without a name.
“Duchemin, I have important things to talk to you about. Pay attention.”
“I’m listening, pal,” responded Henri Duchemin, determined to echo the familiarity of his interlocutor.
“Would you like to be rich?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t just say ‘yes.’ Say ‘I’d love to.’”
“I’d love to.”
A customer, dozing off near the stove, gave a start. The moisture evaporating from his overcoat and shoes enveloped him in a transparent cloud. The proprietress, reading a novel, had trouble turning the pages.
“Are you listening to me, Duchemin?”
“I’m listening.”
“Between the life you’re leading and riches, which do you choose?”
“Riches.”
From a leaky faucet drops of water fell into a tub.
“You choose riches.”
“Yes.”
“Congratulations! You are saved!”
The man without a name drew close and took Henri Duchemin’s hand.
“Are you brave?”
“Yes.”
Everything was motionless in the brightly lit room.
“Good. In a little while, we’ll go into a house. A banker is to spend the night there.”
“A banker?”
“Yes. When he falls asleep, you...”
The man without a name removed his hat so that the sweat on his forehead would not dampen the leather.
“When he falls asleep, you...”
“I...”
“You’ll kill him.”
“I’ll kill him?”
“Yes...”
Henri Duchemin felt dizzy, as if he had not eaten. His vision became blurry. The ceiling lamp and the bottles fell behind the counter then moved through the room.
“You’ll enter his bedroom, the moon will light your way. You’ll just need to strike, and you’ll be rich.”
“Help! Help!” cried Duchemin.
The proprietress did not even raise her eyes.
As for the other customer, he swayed on his chair, waking and falling back to sleep by turns.
“You’ll buy clothes, Duchemin, new clothes.”
Henri Duchemin took a deep breath. The warm air dried his teeth.
“Shall we have a toast?”
“Yes.”
“Two cognacs, please!”
The woman poured their drinks with small, careful gestures so that the glasses would not overflow.
A minute later the two men headed for the exit. The trapdoor to the cellar trembled beneath their footsteps. The man without a name drew his mustache to his lips to suck up the last drops of cognac.
“Good evening.”
“Good evening, gentlemen.”
We did not pay for our drinks, and she didn’t ask us for anything, thought Henri Duchemin.
He wanted to share this thought with his companion, but he was afraid of appearing ridiculous.
* * *
It was raining again. Without exchanging a word, the two men, slipping wherever the sidewalk sloped, set out for the house about which the man without a name had spoken.
Henri Duchemin was ambivalent. It seemed to him, in this street that belonged to everyone, that the murder would be more difficult to commit. In the end he realized he should not have accepted and, because it was too late now to get out of the deal, he was determined to flee. But either because he was waiting for the right time, or because he was afraid of the man without a name, he kept postponing the moment.
Finally, at the sight of an empty lot, he ran away as fast as his legs would carry him. In order not to trip over a clod of earth or a stone, he raised his knees high, like a horse on parade. His tie floated behind him. Hollows and mounds followed one after the other beneath his feet, reminding him of the time when as a child he would jump from the top of a hillock the better to climb the next one.
A stitch in his side forced him to stop running. Henri Duchemin was sluggish by nature, prone to stitches.
Intoxicated by his freedom, his neck stiff, he wandered down a muddy path. Hedges with dead branches scratched his hands. The wind cut his breath short.