11. 224 p.m. Halt Dreux
2:24 p.m. HALT DREUX
Those who kiss too much will miss the train.
FRENCH PROVERB
On the footplate, the two rollers pull their goggles off to rub some blood back into the circles of compressed flesh. Guillaume’s eyes are ringed with soot, as they always are towards the end of a long day; Victor knows his own are too. “Eight minutes late, and no prospect of making up any of those minutes here,” Guillaume says hoarsely.
Victor nods, scanning the passengers milling about like cockroaches. The bread and sausage at Surdon have worn off, and he’s hungry again, but his need to empty his bowels is more pressing.
He can’t risk nipping to the porters’ room; rollers mustn’t stir from the footplate during the journey, and Mariette would write him up for deserting his post . So he brushes past Guillaume to get to the far side and lets himself drop to the gravelled track. He unbuttons his trousers and squats, leaning one hand on a gigantic wheel. Hardly safe, but if he goes farther off, a passenger might see him out the window, and anyway, the clock’s a-ticking. Sudden autumnal sunlight dazzles him.
Nothing. Constipation, Victor’s old complaint. Come on, man!
Above him on the footplate, the scratch of the shovel; is his restless mate tidying up a few fallen cinders?
“On my way!” Victor holds his breath and strains. Halfway out, what feels like a lump of stone. Heaves again. The familiar burn of his hole.
“Seventy-eight kilometres to go,” Guillaume says from overhead, “which usually takes us an hour and forty, but you know what? I bet we could shave eight minutes off that.”
Victor mulls that over, shaking his arse to throw off the hard turd.
“It’s a straight run, no twisty bits or big hills to slow us…”
He squeezes himself shut and steps well away, pulling up his drawers. He’s surprised Guillaume wants to risk his impeccable record by breaking the rule against speeding.
But there’s such a thing as a careful dash—as opposed to a rash dash—and if the best driver in the Company thinks it’s safe to go a touch over, who’s his stoker to doubt him? It might even be safer, for the sake of catching up , Victor tells himself as he fumbles with his buttons, because the closer that trains keep to their posted schedules, the less likely it is that a signalling error will cause one of them to run into another. Besides, if the bosses really didn’t condone speeding, they wouldn’t offer an extra month of pay in December for keeping to the schedule; the only logical explanation is that the Company, like some hypocritical father, would rather have it done tacitly.
So Victor climbs back onto the footplate and says, “All right, I’m with you. Let’s go full throttle.”
Guillaume nods, grinning.
“We won’t let the buggers rob us of our Christmas money.”
“No, we won’t.” Sun haloing the man’s handsome face. “Are we masters of the rails?”
“We are!”
A bang on the side wall of Rear Baggage. Jean takes a last suck on his pipe. He throws open the door, and golden afternoon light pokes him in the eyes. “Surdon already?”
“Dreux,” Léon Mariette corrects him.
“Slip of the tongue.”
Accusatory: “You’ve been napping?”
“No, just having a smoke.” Jean counts the day-trippers lining up to squeeze onto the train for their return to Paris. Dreux has a station buffet, so passengers who haven’t eaten since Granville are dashing to buy a plate of late lunch. He grabs an armful of parcels from Mariette to stack in his van.
“Careful! And I told you before, you mustn’t smoke in here—the post will smell of it.”
“Everything that goes by rail reeks of coal anyway.”
The lines around the senior guard’s mouth deepen. “Have you checked everyone’s tickets?”
“Ah… I believe so.” The truth is, Jean doesn’t bother with the people in First Class if they’re dressed well; he bets that if they can afford the clothes, they can afford the tickets. “I see a passenger who needs me, if you don’t mind?”
He canters down to Front Third, where that crookbacked Russian’s beckoning from the open brown door. “What’s the matter, madame?”
“Help us.” Her voice comes out small and tight. “Here, in our carriage, there’s a woman in distress. But first, I must tell you—”
He shoves past her, clumsy with haste, because the Express is behind already.
This big-bellied, scarlet-cheeked blonde squirming on the bench, Madame Langlois, is a stubborn creature. In between groans, she argues and won’t hear of getting off the train: “I don’t know a soul in Dreux.”
“But you need a doctor,” Jean insists.
“Haven’t you sent for one?” a man in a bowler hat barks at him.
“The minute she’ll kindly disembark, I’ll put her in the care of the stationmaster and he’ll call for medical attention.” Jean can’t go haring off to do that himself because it would cause further delay.
“Paris,” Madame Langlois says between pants, “I must get to Paris.”
There’s a ring cutting into her fat finger, but Jean’s not fooled. The capital is where her kind go for its public assistance and free medical care and anonymity. (He’s heard of a hospital just west of Montparnasse at Denfert-Rochereau with a turntable in the outer wall where you can place a newborn; you put it in a box there, spin the wheel, ring the bell, and walk away before the nun comes.)
The collar-and-tie girl turns a steely gaze on him and says, “Get her off this train.”
The Russian throws her a startled glance.
Jean bristles at the order; who does the creature think she is?
The woman in labour grips the planks of the bench and grimaces at him. “Don’t you dare manhandle me.”
“Do it,” the Russian urges, “but gently.”
“Hurry up!” That’s collar-and-tie.
Jean spells it out to the group. “I’m not permitted to lay a hand on anyone. The Company could be fined, and I could be had up in court for assault.”
Collar-and-tie girl is gripping her lunch bucket as if she’d like to club him with it.
“I’m afraid she’s just going to have to sit tight.”
He’s already out on the steps when the Russian’s cry arrests him. “Please!” Framed in the doorway with her skewed spine, her face piteous.
“Madame, what do you expect me to—”
She cuts him off. “Listen, monsieur, you must clear this carriage.” Throws a glance over her shoulder. “I very much suspect—I’ve reason to believe—”
The short-haired girl is right beside her. “What are you saying, Blonska?”
Not another word from the Russian. Their stares lock.
Jean never ceases to marvel at how feuds about such petty matters as smells or windows can build up over the course of a long journey.
“Spit it out,” the girl says. She does something odd then—she holds up her lunch bucket as if offering it to the older woman.
Is that what this bad blood’s about, Jean wonders—food? Does the younger one have something tasty in there she won’t share?
Still no answer from the Russian.
Collar-and-tie sways back a little and nods at the platform. “Get down yourself if you like. I won’t stop you.”
The Russian doesn’t move. Jean’s losing patience with this pair.
From the blonde behind them, a guttural sound of pain. Both women turn their heads.
And Jean takes the opportunity to jump down and head towards a barrow of parcels he’s just spotted.
Marcelle de Heredia has climbed out of Rear Second for a little air, as the afternoon’s turned so lovely. Also to find the ladies’ water closet (always hidden away at the back of the station, if there’s one at all) and to throw away the sodden, scarlet handkerchief that now seems to be composed less of cotton than of Henry Tanner’s blood. These days every public building has three rubbish bins—one for the reclaiming of paper and cloth; the next for glass, ceramics, and oyster shells; and the last for perishables, which is where she drops the handkerchief.
“Mademoiselle de Heredia?”
She flinches, recognising the voice. It’s the racing-car driver’s wife, heading from the water closet straight to Marcelle, smoothing down her vivid green skirts.
She’s frozen like a rabbit. “Madame Levassor—Sarazin-Levassor, I mean—”
“As we came into Dreux,” the lady remarks airily, “I spotted one of our models.”
Marcelle blinks, unnerved. “Oh, one of your firm’s?” Can this woman really have hurried down the platform just to chat about automobiles?
Two hectic spots on the handsome face; she has the same lovely features as her sickly daughter, just more set, with those hieratic hummingbird masks dangling. She stands very close to Marcelle, eyes on a hotel across the street. “Yes, our make is called Panhard and Levassor.”
“Gracious.” Marcelle’s mind is spinning. “I’d have thought a motorcar of any kind is a rare sight this far from Paris.”
“Indeed, though Benzes are getting more common. When my husband and I are driving in the country, the yokels sometimes turn in disgust and shout, Get a horse! ”
Marcelle manages a laugh. “I thought I saw a steam-powered tricycle back at Surdon.” She’s attempting to keep the conversation on safe ground. But then she understands that Louise Sarazin-Levassor is trying to work up to something, the way a runner jogs on the spot before a sprint. So Marcelle broaches the subject: “Madame, truly, I apologize again for what I said earlier—”
“No, no, it’s I who must beg your pardon, mademoiselle. I’m sure your intentions were kind.” She gazes up into a tree whose yellow leaves are blackening at the edges. “I called you stupid, which was cruel of me—”
“No, no—”
“Cruel and inaccurate, because I can tell you do know what you’re talking about.”
“How?” Marcelle sputters.
“I’m acquainted with quite a few scientists, and you have the unmistakable air of one.”
She’s silenced, and quite miserable.
“So. The special test you suggested, the one for milkiness .” Louise Sarazin-Levassor forces out the syllables.
Shrinking from the word, Marcelle nods.
“It’s been stuck in my head all day. How can blood be milky?”
Marcelle feels her gorge rise. Is it too late to lie and claim she didn’t mean anything at all and even if she did, she was probably wrong?
She tries to answer as plainly as she would in the laboratory if her tutor were testing her. “Under the microscope… they’d look for whiteness, by which they mean a preponderance of colourless cells.”
“And whatever does it—what might it mean if they were to find this quality in Jeanne’s blood?” The mother’s voice trips over the girl’s name.
“Well. For instance, there’s an abnormality known as leukaemia.” This is Greek to a layperson. “Or some nickname it white blood . I would have expected your daughter’s doctor to…” What, you’re daring to criticize a physician now? “He might like to recommend the test, just to rule it out.”
The lady nods, and so does Marcelle, as if both of them believe the test will definitely rule that out. “I’ve never heard of it,” Louise Sarazin-Levassor says, “so it must be rather rare.”
Marcelle keeps nodding as if she agrees.
“And if… in the event that a person did have that, this white blood —what a curious name, when blood’s so very red, the reddest thing there is—what I mean is, I suppose what I’m asking is, what might the course of treatment be?”
This is the question Marcelle’s been dreading. If she’s not willing to be brutally blunt and say, There is none , why did she ever let the conversation reach this cliff edge? “My area of study is physiology. I really know nothing about medicine.”
“You know more than me, mademoiselle. You’ve heard of this white blood , at least.”
Every time the other woman pronounces the term, it sounds more bizarre to Marcelle. As if it’s possible for a human body to run on pure, colourless liquid, like milk or sap or light. She squirms. “There are ways of easing each symptom. I’ve heard of doctors using quinine for the fever that often accompanies the, ah, complaint.” A euphemism for disease . “Morphine can be useful in case of bowel troubles… I believe a solution of arsenic can help,” she adds weakly. Help for a while , she doesn’t add, for a few months of remission . This isn’t an illness with which one lives long.
Louise Sarazin-Levassor’s face is quite flat.
“All I’m suggesting is that you speak to the doctor.”
She nods, her eyes on a passing cyclist. “Well, we’d better not miss our train. Enjoy the rest of the journey, mademoiselle.”
“You too,” Marcelle manages hoarsely.
So they smile as they part in the way that ladies are trained to do, no matter the circumstances.
And Marcelle frantically wonders whether the mother will speak to the doctor, and whether the doctor will order the test, and what the test will reveal, and what will happen to Jeanne Sarazin-Levassor. Marcelle’s unlikely ever to learn the end of the story. They’re like ships that pass in the night , as the old poem puts it, but people could just as easily say Like strangers on a train .
Not wanting to use the pot in front of Anna or his grandson, Albert Christophle has had to hold his water till Dreux, but he’s hurrying along the side of the station now. (Passing a prostitute and a man going at it with efficient vigour against the wall, both their stylish fedoras bobbing.)
When Albert reaches the urinal, there’s a dark green steel screen around it and a railwayman leaning in a shaft of sun, having a smoke. A porter, perhaps, or a ticket collector? Not particularly young, not particularly good-looking; bushy dark hair from cheeks to throat.
The moment the men’s glances meet, Christophle goes from slightly hard to rather hard. His bladder is still full, but all at once it’s no longer urgent because the pressing matter is his excitement. He’s at half-mast already.
He’s never yet waded into real danger; with each stranger, he possesses the knack of knowing whether it’ll be a yes or a no, a flirtatious ?a va, monsieur or a threatening Casse-toi! This one feels safe enough, so Albert rummages around in his waistcoat pocket. He can still tell all the coins apart by feel, though it’s been forty years since anything but high-denomination banknotes mattered to him. He plucks out five francs in silver (bearing the draped personifications of liberty, equality, and fraternity). Some think it vulgar to show cash up front, and there’s always the risk of having it snatched, but that’s insignificant beside the risk of being seen by a gendarme. Also, the truth is, a little bit of danger is what’s making Albert get so stiff.
Everything about these encounters is so entirely unlike performing what doctors term marital relations in his wife’s bedroom—not that there’s been any call for that in more than a year given her health, nor any prospect that he will need to resume those duties. No, this place, the urinous tang as he steps into the other man’s moving shadow, the quiver of fear, the grin exchanged at the same moment as the coin… this is why Albert’s getting harder and harder as he unbuttons his suspenders and drops his trousers, his old cock protruding from his billowing starched shirt. He reaches for the railwayman, who’s one great mass of black fuzz, and they’re sword-fighting already, the man’s long, slightly skewed weapon frotting and nuzzling Albert’s like enemies and friends at once, and— Oh, nom de Dieu —there’s so little time to savour this, no time for more than one hard kiss of that furry face pungent with tobacco, because the Express is about to leave. So he finds the cleft underneath and shoves himself through the damp track between the man’s hairy thighs.
Without a word, the fellow clamps his legs around Albert like a vise. There’s barely room for Albert’s cock between the fellow’s muscular legs, the squeezing, friction, but he keeps jamming through that tight alley as if dynamiting a mountain. He pulls the railwayman’s crooked member against his own pale belly—the heat of it!—and pumps it like a sailor trying not to drown.
No sound but their frantic breathing, then in the distance, the guard’s piping whistle—the first or the final warning? There can’t possibly be enough time for a man of Albert’s age to finish now, so he should probably give up on the attempt, wrench himself away, and run. There’s a risk that he’ll be caught here at the back of the station by whoever’s been sent off to fetch this very important passenger, in which case the Christophle name will crash down like a chandelier. So how can it possibly be worth the candle for Albert to stay locked to this spot, this still point in a whirling world, rocking and jarring and gasping, doing this and nothing but this, willing to throw his whole life on the bonfire for this raw bliss—
The other man blows first, and that hot splatter on Albert’s belly is what does it, pushing him over the edge of sensation and lighting up his skull like fireworks with an almighty Yes .
An interrogative call from the driver’s steam whistle. In response, the station agent’s handbell gives permission to leave.
Albert hauls up his trousers and braces as he runs off without a glance behind, stuffs in his shirt, buttons his coat. The final whistle from the guard in the front van, and as Albert rounds the building, the glinting train is pulling out, but he’s still got it, sixty-five be damned. Albert grabs the door handle with his right hand and yanks himself up and in, shaking, laughing.
“Grandpapa!” André, not so much relieved to see him as thrilled by the daring.
Albert’s right arm burns. He’s ready with his story (the toilets were occupied—no, locked, that’s better), but his wife, lying flat behind her drapes with eyes half shut, shows no sign of having noticed his absence. Clearly Anna didn’t send anyone to fetch him. Would she have thought to complain only when they got to Montparnasse and he wasn’t there to help her disembark? Really, doesn’t Albert matter to her at all?
Right now he doesn’t care. His need to empty his bladder has come back rather painfully, but he doesn’t give a fig about that either.
The hamper’s open, Albert sees, the contents disarrayed. “Shall we have a bite of lunch?”
Anna waves that away with revulsion.
“I ate things while you were gone,” André admits to his grandfather. “I couldn’t wait.”
Albert knows that children should be taught to defer gratification, but he murmurs, “Quite right.” He takes a plate and puts a confit duck leg on it, and some rabbit with morels, and a generous helping of creamed leeks.
Almost sweeter than the coupling itself, this aftermath. Like a clear blue sky inside his head. The train gathers speed, and Albert lurches. He drops into a chair, steadying his plate, and feels the stickiness of a nameless man’s spend gluing his shirt to his middle, a secret so thrilling it half rouses him again.