The Closed Harbour Read online

  There was the house. He stood for a moment by the door, looked right and left, then went inside.

  The whispers sounded to him like prayers, but the moment he had pushed open the door they ceased, they had seen him come, and there was silence again, and they were so still they might have been seated thus for a hundred years. Neither of the women looked at him when he came in.

  They were sat side by side in the window as they always were. Often the evening hours were spent in this way, it was an elected silence. They would look out to the broad sea, and the restless breakers./ Their very pose, locked in this silence, gave them the appearance of conspirators, eternal watchers, an alertness against the world.

  For a moment Marius looked at them, then removed his coat which he hung upon a hook inside the door. He went into the kitchen and brought back bread, wine, and an onion. He sat down and began to eat. They could hear the grind of the onion in his teeth. A hungry man. A miserable man.

  The young woman rose from her chair and went out. Marius heard her climbing the stairs, and later her slow, almost ponderous movements to and fro in the bedroom. A person uncertain of something, a person tired of waiting, a person always listening.

  The old woman, seated in her high-backed wooden chair, had turned round, but not to speak, only to stare. And he did not speak to her, and he did not look her way, but calmly went on eating, making coarse noises as he did so.

  She was aged, pinned to the chair by weight of years, by the horrible silence. He could feel her eye upon him, as a pressure; it upset him.

  The fierce light of the sun was all about them, the glass of wine caught in it seemed shimmering, forever moving, and as though Marius had sensed this he put his hand, flat upon the glass top and pressed. Watching her, he saw the day's end, her repose. The labours of it slept peacefully under her bones.

  As he looked at her he saw how quickly she averted her glance, as if only now she had realised she had been staring at her son.

  This house is of four rooms only, its walls a shattering white in the evening sun. As Marius ate he looked about him, it broke the stare, lightened the silence. Around them the simple furniture, but here and there an object that sharpened his memory. He looked at everything, sipped at his wine. The bones of home, of their life, of what it had been. For a few moments it served to screen off a certain blackness in Marius's mind. He heard the slow, tumbril-like tick of the old clock. Above it on the mantelpiece yet another picture of a naval man. A handsome man, his own father, whose first fruit came out of the sea.

  "I, too, was born in the sea," he thought.

  Looking at the picture he was conscious of a certain secret pride, then suddenly his mother, too, was there, she had climbed into the frame beside her husband, and she was young then, and innocent and charming, nothing in the severe black of her dress could hide it, she beside his father, the bright Captain.

  Now he was looking at his mother again, thinking of her long life, her honourable life, it was impossible not to look at the statue-like figure.

  Though she now returned his gaze there was nothing in it save a vast, stony indifference.

  Marius leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette, sent smoke clouds madly climbing. He could still hear the restless to and fro movement from the bedroom above, a human pendulum, ticking out a kind of time that was not his time and never could be.

  "I shall go out," thought Marius.

  And he went out, leaving the old woman staring at the remains of his meal. He climbed stairs to his room, and met his sister coming down. As he passed her he was aware of her quick movement away from him, she cringed against the wall.

  "I am what I am," he thought.

  When she heard his door close, she steadied herself, then went down.

  She cleared away the things from the table, then laid upon it a large dark-green cloth. She resumed her seat by the window with her mother.

  "He is back again."

  "So I see."

  The old woman's mouth was as drawn and tight as a shut purse, she said quickly, "and I'll bet he has been cringing to the Heros again. Imagine it! A gang of ruffians calling themselves shipowners."

  "But nothing happened?"

  The old woman laughed. "He may yet drown in the sea," she said.

  "Listen to him," Madeleine said.

  "Aren't I always listening? He's back again in his cage. He'll be happy when he finds somebody as miserable as himself. I wish he would go. That is a hard thing to say of a son, but I say it, and every time I see him I think of how he saved himself. Your father could not have done that."

  "Please, mother."

  "All right, I will say no more."

  "I am glad of that," said Madeleine, she took her mother's large, fleshy hand and placed it on her knee, and stroked it, and smiled warmly to her.

  "Is Father Nollet coming this evening?"

  "Father Nollet is coming, you seem to doubt," Madame Marius said.

  "I am not."

  "And I am glad you are not. Do you know I begin to feel the gutter climbing into my bones, think of it. Your father, God have mercy on him, would have cried from shame. Your brother slinking about, crawling for a ship, hands and knees to the job, no dignity, no pride, nothing. Think of that. A Marius. In and out of shipping offices. It is not so much that he lost a ship, many ships have been lost, no, it is something else about him, like a whine in the Marius flesh, I don't understand it. He belongs to the gutter. It is very strange."

  She put her hands on her daughter's shoulders, looked earnestly at her.

  "Mighty Jesus! That it should have happened to us."

  "But it has happened," Madeleine said, "it has happened, it has—"

  Madame Marius could already feel the tension rising in her daughter, she pressed downwards with her terrible strength, pressed hard on the shoulders.

  "Enough," she said, "enough."

  "This is not our home," Madeleine said.

  "I am well aware of that. He is yet the son of his mother."

  "If I were not here, I wonder if you would embrace him."

  The old woman raised her hand and struck her daughter across the mouth.

  "The last time I struck at Marius flesh was that time your brother uttered a filthy remark about his uncle, and I did it because it saved your father's hand. Your father at least was French, and lies in an ocean that will never drag down his son's bones."

  "I'm sorry, mother."

  "And you have the right to be sorry." She looked at the clock. "I will go up," she said.

  "The house where no one speaks is hateful," Madame Marius said, she rose heavily from her chair, and suddenly her daughter's hand was behind her.

  "Come."

  Madame Marius pushed away the hand. They slowly left the room.

  At the stairfoot Madeleine paused, listening. But there was not a sound from her brother's room. She often thought about him, hours behind the closed door, what did he do. Did he perhaps just sit there and think? And of what?

  She allowed the old woman to precede her, and as she watched the slow, tortuous climb she seemed to feel age crying aloud to her. She put her hand behind her mother's back.

  "Don't do that," her mother said. "Ah, it will be nice to be cooler."

  "Yes."

  "Perhaps Father Nollet will not come after all, it is gone seven."

  "But if he does?"

  "Well, naturally he will come up to my room," the old woman had turned and was looking at her daughter, "or is it perhaps that you are glad he is not?"

  She turned and went on, the daughter following.

  "How long have we been here?"

  "Four months."

  "It seems four years. Often I think of my lovely house at Nantes and I weep for it."

  "You did not have to follow him here," Madeleine said.

  "Don't speak to me, I'm too tired to listen" ... and after a momentary silence, "I shall go on myself, I am not that helpless, leave me."

  Madeleine stood still. T
he aged bones dragged upwards.

  "But I had better follow," she thought.

  She helped to undress her mother, put her to bed, crossed to the window, shut out the sun, then went away and left her. As she stood on the landing she heard her brother moving in his room.

  "He is going out as usual," she thought, "it is always the same, out all day, out all night, it's a wearing out, that's what it is, a wearing out."

  Behind the door Marius's hand was upon the latch. He had heard the voices, the tread upon the stairs, they had gone up.

  "Now if I were to hear a sudden knock, then I would go down, and at the front door I would find one from the Heros office.

  "Manos fell down the hatch this evening and was killed. They are looking for a skipper.

  "Perhaps," thought Marius, "I am truly finished."

  He lifted the latch, then dropped it, he had heard the feet moving downstairs.

  "Soon she, too, will go to bed."

  Madeleine returned to the small sitting-room, took her chair by the window and sat down. Looking out she realised that everything tired her, the sight of the sea, the yet merciless sun, the hard light, the restless tormenting breakers, the ships, that, from this window looked so much like toys. She sat stiff, tense, and remained so for some time. Later she heard Marius go out. She saw his tall figure pass the window.

  "Poor Eugene, I am yet sorry for him, and yet I hate him."

  She laid her hands flat upon the table and looked at them.

  "I am not like the others," she told herself, "I never was. But I know what I am."

  Rising from the chair she crossed to the mirror on the wall and stared into it. She pointed a finger at the reflection and said slowly, "this is you. I wonder which one of us will wear out the other."

  She walked about the room, undecided, aimless, she looked at the clock again and again. No, it was too late for the priest now, something must have kept him back.

  "And when he comes I will say yes, because it is best for both of us," her mind leaping back days, to a simpler time, a happier time, "there was never any other place but Nantes.

  "I am tired too, I am even tired of being tired, perhaps I will go to bed also. Yet it is so early. Still..."

  She shut the door silently behind her.

  "I am closest to her, we are closest to each other. It will be like that until the end. He will always look another way, he is not of us."

  She found her mother lying awake, staring at the low ceiling. She crossed to the bed, knelt, she said her prayers aloud. Then she undressed and climbed in beside her. She put an arm round the old woman.

  Madame Marius felt the head heavy upon her breast, felt the body heave, listened to the sobs. She neither spoke nor moved. This was not new, this lying together, clutched and clutching, this silence and this weeping, it was a year of age. After a while she spoke. "He has gone?"

  The daughter's head moved a little, this meant yes. Later, as the light began to fall, they fell asleep, bound to each other, easily, casually, as children do.

  II

  "THERE IS something I have to do today, yet I cannot for the life of me think what it is," and Monsieur Follet went round and round in his swivel chair, head high, thinking hard. It was a certain method of reviving the memory. Suddenly he stopped, "Ah, of course. That rise for Labiche."

  "Labiche," called Follet. "Labiche."

  He might have been calling his dog. Nevertheless it was a man who came, four foot six in height, large-headed, extraordinarily broad in the shoulder. A dwarf-like creature in the fifties. Aristide Labiche was of curious shape. At the Heros he was referred to as the "pregnant man," and sometimes "the little bull." His bulbous nose was a standing joke amongst the staff. He had a heavy, sensual chin. Monsieur Follet had some regard for him. He worked hard, he was loyal, it was rare to discover that Labiche was not at his high desk, his head lost in a mass of documents. He liked Labiche's eyes, which were large and of a soft brown; he thought they looked exactly like those of his retriever, and sometimes that they should have lain in a woman's head.

  "Ah Labiche! Please sit down."

  "Yes sir."

  "What are you working on at present?"

  "The Orlando's time-sheets, sir."

  He glanced up questioningly at the other, it was not often that he was asked to come into the director's office.

  "Of course, that overhauling job, yes. Healthy, Labiche, or unhealthy?"

  Labiche only smiled, giving Follet a wonderful view of his single gold tooth. There were the inevitable jokes, Labiche expected them, they came.

  "Still working hard for the salvation of France?" he asked, his fingers tapping on the blotting pad.

  Follet's slow, somewhat greasy smile was not returned.

  "Have I any important appointments today, Labiche, you have such an excellent memory."

  "Manos at three o'clock, sir," replied the other.

  "That brings me to the point," said Follet, "it links up at once with an efficiency, a loyalty that I wish to reward. As from Friday, Labiche, your salary goes up by one hundred francs a month."

  Labiche got out of his chair, stood erect, looked at the director.

  "I am grateful, sir," he said.

  Follet was struck by the dignified, though somewhat ridiculous pose.

  "That's all right," he said. "But do not give it all away, Labiche, you are a far too generous man—"

  "No sir."

  "There was an altercation outside my office, Labiche," said Follet, "you are in the next office to Philippe, you can see everything that happens."

  "It was that Captain again, they say he's a Captain, looking for a berth. He is always asking for you, Monsieur Follet."

  "So I gather."

  Follet stuck his thumbs into his vest and sighed, his voice sounded tired.

  "Sometimes, Labiche, I'm sick of the very sight of sailors, that's why I've delegated Philippe to do all the interviewing, given him the requisite authority. This city, it stinks with them. But you, living where you do, there's no need for me to enlarge on it," and he saw the little clerk smile. "Yes, far too many, and not-enough ships, Labiche. Come to think of it, it's cruel. What we owners lost in tonnage in two wars, is nobody's business, I suppose. Consider Heros. We've seventeen ships and once we had something like seventy, think of it, and every berth occupied, packed tight, securely locked, not another berth, not a single one, and a waiting list today of over two hundred.

  "An odd thing, Labiche. I'm struck by the number of men seeking to get to the Orient, something starting there perhaps, but my broker is silent," he gave the clerk a quick pat on the back, it made the dust fly.

  He got up, "this rise, Labiche, it is purely between ourselves."

  Labiche stared. It gave the episode a conspiratorial air, yet to him nothing seemed more simple, one more clerk getting a rise in salary.

  He was moving towards the door, Follet following, who now picked up his hat and gave Labiche a final instruction.

  "Tell Marcelle that Manos will be at my office at three o'clock prompt, and that he's to make the usual arrangements."

  "Very good, sir," and Labiche went out.

  Follet called after him, "tell Philippe I'm ready, it's a quarter to one."

  "Yes sir."

  "If Labiche ever dies," he thought, "the Saint Vincent de Paul Society will collapse, little Labiche is the rock that holds it up."

  Philippe came in.

  "Ready?"

  "Ready," Philippe replied.

  They both went out.

  Labiche, after this unexpected call to Follet's office, and his more unexpected rise in the estimation of the Heros concern, had returned to his own cubicle, sat down at his desk. He was soon buried deeply in the Orlando's affairs. He was a very careful man, conscientious, scrupulous. He not only dotted down the last minute and the last sou for the ultimate benefit of the Heros Company, but would often, in imagination, go aboard the ship upon whose time-sheets he happened to be working. He was gene
rally escorted to the best cabin, then sailed away in her, the Captain's special guest for the remainder of the voyage.

  In the twelve years in which he had worked in the redbrick building behind the Rue Lens, he had sailed many voyages, travelled to many countries. He had, indeed, been round the world six times. This apart, he had never at any time travelled further than the Place de Lenche or the Cannabiere except on a single occasion when he had gone to Lyons with a party of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, of which he was the local secretary.

  And every evening, promptly at five o'clock, he ran down the iron stairs and out of the building, to mount his bright green and redoubtable bicycle, on which he pedalled furiously until he reached the bottom of the hill. Thenceforth he climbed, laboriously, up and up, what Monsieur Follet had once described as climbing into hell. And it was somewhere on its second floor that Aristide Labiche lived with his wife and two children.

  Heros liked Labiche, he was so faithful, punctual, he gave a good day's work for what might not be a good day's pay. Monsieur Follet had not forgotten that this year he had promised him a rise. Now, Labiche toiled away with the time-sheets, all the time enjoying a feeling of happiness, like a long, secret, un-ending smile, that shone inwards like the sun.

  That their best clerk was able to split himself into two persons was a matter upon which the Heros concern was entirely indifferent. So long as the clerical side functioned well, all was well. What Labiche did after five o'clock was his own business. The Heros would never interfere. All knew how his spare time was spent; they admired him in a distant, cynical sort of way, but they never commented upon it.

  Philippe, a home-loving person if ever there was one, could never understand why Labiche's wife put up with it all, for the man was hardly home from his work and enjoying his supper, than his mind was made up to be out again. Madame Labiche was totally resigned to his mission, and the green hat and the umbrella, the parting smile as he reached the door was only a signal to her that another creature had fallen.

  Labiche loved creatures. A man of serious purpose, with a mission in life, a clerk who sat in the dingiest of the Heros offices, but who in the evening wandered off into the dark places. One was not a member of the Saint Vincent de Paul for nothing.