“The whip!” continued the young man’s voice. He whistled between his teeth, two short blasts, and repeated the word in a more uncertain tone—as if in a dream.
Mathias looked down at the glass of cloudy yellow alcohol in front of him. He saw his right hand lying on the edge of the counter, the nails he had neglected to cut, and their abnormal length and pointedness.
He thrust his hand into the pocket of his duffle coat, where it came in contact with the wad of cord. He remembered the suitcase at his feet, the purpose of his trip, the urgency of his work. But the proprietor was not there any longer and the girl would not be in a position to spend one hundred fifty or two hundred crowns. Two of the drinkers evidently belonged to the non-watch-buying category; as for the youngest, he was repeating some story of an unfaithful wife or fickle sweetheart from which it would be difficult to distract him.
Mathias finished his absinthe and signaled that he was ready to pay for it by jingling the coins in his pocket.
“That will be three crowns seven,” said the girl.
Surprisingly enough, she spoke quite naturally, without a trace of embarrassment. The absinthe was not expensive. He spread out on the counter the three silver coins and the seven bronze ones, then added a brand-new half-crown.
“For you.”
“Thank you, sir.” She picked up all the coins and dropped them pell-mell into the cash drawer.
“Your mistress isn’t here?” asked Mathias.
“She’s upstairs, sir,” the girl answered.
The proprietor’s silhouette appeared again in the doorway to the inner room, exactly where it had been before—not in the center, but leaning against the right side—as if he had not moved since his first appearance. His expression had not changed either: inscrutable, harsh, waxen, it could be variously interpreted as hostility, concern, or merely absent-mindedness; on the other hand, such a countenance was just as likely to harbor the most sinister intentions. The girl had bent down to stack the clean glasses under the counter. On the other side of the glass door reflections from the water flickered in the sunlight.
“Nice day!” said Mathias.
He stooped and picked up his suitcase with his left hand. He was anxious to get outside again. If no one answered him he would leave without making further efforts.
Just then came the girl’s quiet voice: “This gentleman wanted to see Madame Robin.” In the sun’s glare the water of the harbor danced with dazzling flashes of light. Mathias put his right hand over his eyes.
“What about?” asked the proprietor.
Mathias turned to face him. He was a tall, heavily built man—almost a giant. The impression of strength he produced was emphasized by an immobility that he seemed to find difficult to overcome.
“This is Monsieur Robin,” the girl explained.
Mathias nodded his head with a good-natured smile. This time the proprietor returned his greeting, though with an almost imperceptible gesture. He must have been about Mathias’ age.
“I once knew someone named Robin,” Mathias said, “about thirty years ago, when I was still just a boy…” And he began to conjure up, in a rather vague way, schoolday memories suitable to any islander’s childhood. “Robin,” he added, “a big, strong fellow.… I think he was named Jean—Jean Robin…”
“My cousin,” the man said, nodding his head. “He wasn’t so big as all that. Anyway, he’s dead.”
“No!”
“He died in thirty-six.”
“That’s incredible!” Mathias exclaimed, suddenly overcome with sadness. His friendship for this imaginary Robin was sensibly enhanced by the fact that he ran no risk of encountering him in the course of his inventions. He mentioned his own surname in passing and attempted to draw out his interlocutor, who would then take him into his confidence. “And how did the poor chap die?”
“Is that why you wanted to see my wife?” inquired the genuine Robin, whose perplexity might have been authentic.
Mathias reassured him. The purpose of his visit was quite different: he was selling wrist watches and he happened to have with him three attractive ladies’ styles which would certainly interest a woman of taste like Madame Robin.
Monsieur Robin made a little gesture with his arm—his first actual movement since his appearance—to show he was not taken in by the compliment. The salesman gave a knowing laugh which unfortunately aroused no response. At the sailors’ table the red-faced man sitting at the deceived lover’s left repeated his drawled “oh, yes”—for no apparent reason, since no one had spoken to him. Mathias hastened to explain that he also had a number of men’s models of exceptional quality, considering their price—defying all competition. He should have opened his suitcase unhesitatingly and enumerated the advantages of his merchandise while passing it around; but the counter was too high to facilitate such an operation, which required freedom of movement, and the use of one of the tables would oblige him to turn his back to the proprietor, his only likely customer. Nevertheless, he decided on this unsatisfactory solution and began his sales-talk—standing too far to one side, however, to be in a position to convince any of his hearers. After having washed, dried, and put away his empty glass, the barmaid took a rag and wiped off the counter’s zinc top at the spot where he had just been drinking. Next to him the three sailors had begun a new argument as incoherent as the last, with the same economy of words and the same deliberation, displaying neither progression nor conclusion. This time it was something about a shipment of spider-crabs (“hookers,” they called them) to be transported to the mainland; there was a disagreement about how they were to be marketed—a difference of opinion, it appeared, with their fishmonger. Or else they were in agreement but not altogether satisfied with the decision they had reached. To put an end to the discussion, the oldest—who was facing the other two—declared that it was his round next. The girl again picked up the bottle of red wine and walked around the bar, taking short steps.
Mathias, who had approached the proprietor in order to give him a better look at one of the series of watches (at two hundred fifty crowns), saw the man’s eyes shift from the cardboard strip to the table where his employee was pouring the wine. She held her head to one side, neck and shoulders bent, in order to observe more closely the rising level of the liquid in the glass. Her black dress was cut low in back. Her hair was arranged so that the nape of her neck was exposed.
Since no one was paying attention to him any more, Mathias was about to put the cardboard strip back in the suitcase. The red-faced sailor looked up and made a sudden grimace of complicity in his direction. At the same time he nudged the man next to him: “What about you, Louis, don’t you want a watch? Don’t you? (A wink.) What about a present for Jacqueline?”
As if in answer the young man whistled between his teeth, two short blasts. The girl suddenly straightened up, twisting at the waist. For an instant Mathias saw her pupils and the dark reflections in the iris of her eyes. She turned on her heels like a marionette, then took the bottle back behind the bar, resuming her slow, delicate doll’s gait which he had at first attributed to clumsiness—mistakenly, in all probability.
Mathias also turned around, offering the proprietor a series of ladies’ watches: the “fantasies.”
“And here’s something for Madame Robin; I’m sure she’d like one of these! The first one here is two hundred seventy-five crowns. This one, with the antique case, is three hundred forty-nine. A watch like this is worth at least five hundred crowns at any jeweler’s you can name. And I’ll include the band as a special gift bonus! Now this one is a real gem!”