XXVII
About four o’clock that afternoon Louis Blanc came down the stairs of the stone house, crossed the street, and walked into the kitchen of the Café de la Victoire. Manon was still working in the garden, and Bibi strolled about the room with the air of a man in possession, his hands in his pockets, his eyes looking at everything with cynical amusement. These two people were preparing to make themselves comfortable; they had their furniture, their pots and pans, plenty of food to eat and wood to burn. The red and blue tiles of the floor had been scrubbed until they had regained some of their pre-war polish. The table by the window had a cretonne cover, blue pansies on a green ground. The crockery on the dresser reflected the pleasant pride of the housewife.
Bibi threw his cap on the table, pulled the arm-chair up to the stove and sat down. The blue coffee-pot was standing on the stove, but the fire had gone out, and it was no business of Bibi’s to light it.
“I will have my coffee when she comes in,” he said to himself; “it is her business to serve her clients.”
The position of the arm-chair did not satisfy him, for there was no warmth in the stove, and the chair did not occupy the strategic point necessary to Bibi’s plan. He moved it back against the opposite wall and close to the door, so that anybody entering by the door would not see the chair or its occupant until they were well inside the room. Bibi splurged in it, legs spread, in an attitude of comfortable arrogance. He was always a man of attitudes, especially when there was a woman in the game.
He had been sitting there for half an hour before he heard Manon’s footsteps on the stones of the raised path. She suspected nothing, but had suddenly remembered that she had left the revolver on the table by the window; also it was time to light the fire. Bibi had shut the kitchen door, nor did Manon remember that she had left it open. Louis Blanc had drawn in his feet, and was sitting upright in the chair, his left arm extended and laid across the door like a spring compressed to close it at the psychological moment.
Manon lifted the latch and walked in. Her eyes were turned towards the table by the window and the pistol that should have been there; the door hid Bibi. She went towards the table. The door closed behind her like the lid of a trap.
“Good evening, madame.”
Manon turned. She saw Bibi sitting there with an unpleasant smile on his face. He had edged his chair a foot to the left so that it was impossible for her to open the door. He held her caged. And Manon understood in that moment of fear that Louis Blanc had her pistol.
“It is you, monsieur.”
She spoke quite calmly, for after the first leap of the heart her courage came back to her. It was necessary to be calm and cool with a man like Bibi; she knew that by instinct. It was her business to try and hold all horror and fear at arm’s length, to refuse to believe in Bibi’s beastliness, to find out what the danger was and how to meet it.
“You are always a man of surprises, monsieur. Meanwhile I must light the fire.”
Bibi kept looking at her and smiling and saying nothing. He reminded Manon of Marius, the village idiot, who was always smiling and pulling the hair on his chin; but Marius had never attacked a woman. Manon walked to the stove, and, standing so that she could watch Bibi, lifted the round top, and dropped in some paper and wood from the fuel box.
“I will have coffee,” said Louis Blanc.
“Bien, monsieur.”
“And an omelette.”
“So the café is to be christened, is it? I shall have to charge three francs for an omelette; provisions are difficult here.”
“Don’t worry yourself; I owe a bill already.”
She went to the cupboard and collected what she wanted, eggs, butter, a frying-pan, bread, coffee and a tin of milk. Bibi watched her. She was so deliberate, so unflurried, holding him at a distance, treating the affair as a casual incident. Her composure piqued him. He had a sudden desire to see Manon inflamed, struggling while he held her down and buried his mouth deep in her warm throat.
He put his hand into his coat pocket and drew out the butt of the revolver. He glanced quickly at Manon. She had seen what he had wished her to see, and he let the pistol slip back into his pocket.
“You would like some herbs with your omelette, monsieur?”
Her eyes were black and steady.
“Yes, some herbs.”
“Perhaps you would like to come nearer the stove. It will be warmer.”
“This place suits me. And hurry up. I’m hungry.” Manon went on with her cooking, opening the iron door from time to time and pushing a handful of wood into the stove. She was wondering when Paul would return, and what would happen when he returned. Bibi was thinking of what might happen before Brent came back. He no longer desired Manon because she was Paul’s; he desired her because of her white throat and plump arms, and that body that would struggle.
Manon did not hurry. She wished the cooking of that omelette would last for ever; it seemed a sort of queer barrier between Bibi and herself, a postponement of the beastly purpose that looked out at her from the man’s eyes. She knew what she felt, what she feared, what she shrank from.
“So you are all alone here?”
“My partner will be back—very soon.”
The omelette was ready. She turned it out upon a plate, and Bibi stood up, pushing the arm-chair against the door with one foot, while he caught hold of another chair and turned it towards the table. He sat down. Manon pushed the plate, the bread, and a knife and fork across the table, and poured out a cup of coffee.
Bibi ate. He had an unclean way of eating, and an ugly trick of pushing out his lower lip like a ledge and shovelling the food over it. He tore the bread with his fingers. Manon had helped herself to a cup of coffee, and all the while she was listening.
“Sit down, madame.”
“I prefer to stand.”
Bibi looked at her curiously, as though she were part of the food on the table.
“This fellow of yours works hard.”
“He is a very good partner, monsieur.”
“He works too hard,” and then he made a coarse jest at Paul’s expense.
Manon stared at Bibi as though she did not understand him.
“Do not pretend to be so innocent. A woman only pulls up her petticoat when she pretends to look innocent.”
“Yes, that was always your idea of a woman, Monsieur Blanc.”
Bibi finished his second cup of coffee, and wiped his mouth on his hand.
“So you think this fellow Brent is a better man than I am.”
“I have never thought about it. There was no necessity.”
“You are mistaken. I shall have to put the matter right. I don’t like to think of a pretty woman believing what isn’t true.”
He got up from the table and went and sat in the arm-chair by the door and, feeling in the breast pocket of his coat, brought out a little black cigar.
“A match.”
Manon took a box from the shelf and threw it to him. He caught the box, and flourished it with an air of gaiety, the cigar stuck aggressively between his lips. Manon watched him light the cigar and puff blue smoke, making a sucking noise with his lips. She had always hated Bibi, but her hatred of him became more like a foul taste in her mouth.
“Something to eat, something to smoke, and a woman to talk to. Come and sit on my knee, coquette.”
Manon began to clear the plates from the table.
“That is not on the bill of fare, monsieur.”
He was smiling.
“I’ll include it. I am owed a good deal. Come here—at once.”
Manon set the plate and cup on the dresser, and loitered a moment, fighting the horror of Bibi’s gradual attack. She felt herself helpless, shut up in a cage with a beast who sat there and gloated. She knew that it was useless to appeal to the decent man in Louis Blanc, and that evasions would only amuse him. She wondered how long it would be before he grew violent, how long she would be able to hold him off. And if Paul returned, it might only add to the horror.
“Come here.”
She made herself face Bibi, but kept the table between them.
“The joke has gone far enough, monsieur; it does not please me.”
“So you think it is a joke?”
“Of course.”
He was lying back in the chair with his legs spread out.
“No, it is not a joke. Regardez!”
He took the revolver out of his pocket.
“Come here, or I shoot.”
“You are very brave to threaten a woman with a pistol.”
“Is it the pistol you object to?”
“Of course.”
He stood up, and, posing himself, threw the revolver through the unglazed window. It fell somewhere in the ruins across the road, breaking the great silence with one ringing and discordant note. The gesture pleased Bibi. He turned to Manon, smiled, and sat down again in his chair.
“Voilà! Your man will have to fight with his fists. And if he does not fight after I have emptied his glass for him, well, he will smell like a goat, hey?”
Manon felt stiff, frozen, unable to move, yet her heart was beating hard and fast, and she knew that her knees were trembling. She began to grow angry, angry with the fierceness of a wild thing trapped and played with and tormented beyond her patience. There was a knife on the table. She was ready to snatch at that knife and fight.
“Are you coming here,” said Bibi, “or shall I fetch you?”
“You beast!” she said.
Manon had expected his violence and it came like the leap of a dog. Bibi pushed the table against her with a thrust of one big boot, so that she was thrown against the stove. She had made a grab at the knife, but before she could strike at him, Bibi’s long body was leaning over the table, and he had her by the wrist.
“Drop it!”
Her brown eyes blazed into his.
“You beast.”
“C’est ça.”
He took the cigar from his mouth and held the red end against her forearm. Manon flinched, twisted, cried out.
“Drop it.”
Her fingers relaxed, the knife fell on the floor.
Bibi tossed the cigar into a corner, and suddenly, with a straightening of his long back he pulled Manon over the table, catching the other wrist, and turning her over so that her face was under his.
“Now then——”
Someone was coming along the path. Manon heard a man whistling, and the sound of his footsteps. She cried out in anguish:
“Paul! Paul!”