Monsieur Monde Vanishes by Georges Simenon

Author:Georges Simenon [Simenon, Georges]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery, Classics
ISBN: 9780241913413
Publisher: H Hamilton
Published: 1967-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

It was not until the third day that they made love. A confused three days. Their room, which overlooked a narrow courtyard, was furnished only with drab old things, a grayish threadbare carpet on the floor, a tapestry-covered armchair, wallpaper that was more brown than yellow, and in one corner a screen hiding the washbasin and bidet.

The first night Julie had undressed behind the screen, emerging in blue-striped pajamas. But finding the trousers uncomfortable, she had discarded them during the night.

He slept badly, in the next bed, separated from hers by a bedside table and a narrow mat. His supper was giving him indigestion. Several times, hearing sounds from the brasserie below, he had been tempted to go downstairs to ask for bicarbonate of soda.

He got up at eight, dressed noiselessly, without awakening his companion, who had flung back her bedclothes, for the radiator was boiling hot, the room overheated and airless. Perhaps that was why he had felt so uncomfortable during the night.

He went downstairs, leaving his suitcase clearly visible lest Julie think he had gone for good. The coffee room was empty. There was nobody to serve him and he went to have breakfast in a bar full of workmen and clerks, then walked along the seashore without thinking of that other sea by the edge of which he had dreamed of lying weeping.

Perhaps he needed to get used to things? The sky was a very pale, babyish blue, the sea too, like the sea in a schoolchild’s watercolor, the gulls were chasing one another, white in the sunshine, and water carts were tracing wet patterns on the paving.

When he got back, at about eleven, he felt compelled to knock at the door.

“Come in.…”

She could not have known it was he. She was wearing only her panties and her brassière. She had plugged an electric iron into the socket of the lamp and was pressing her black silk dress.

She asked him: “Did you sleep all right?”

Her breakfast tray was on the bedside table.

“I’ll be ready in half an hour.… What time is it? Eleven? Would you wait for me downstairs?

He waited, reading a local paper. He was growing used to waiting. They lunched alone together again. Then they went out, and they had scarcely reached the Promenade des Anglais, up near the Casino de la Jetée, when she asked him to wait yet again and disappeared into the Casino.

Next she dragged him down a street in the town center. “Wait for me.…”

On an enamel plate there was a Greek name, followed by the word “Impresario.”

She came back in a fury.

“He’s a pig!” she announced, without further explanation. “If you’d rather go off and walk by yourself …”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve got two more addresses.…”

Grim and tight-lipped, she strode along the unfamiliar city streets, questioned policemen, climbed flights of stairs, and kept pulling scraps of paper with new addresses out of her bag.

“I know the place we must go to for an apéritif.…”

This was the Cintra, the fashionable bar. She renewed her make-up before going in.

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