Read Online The Little Man From Archangel by Georges Simenon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Georges Simenon
Ads: Link
town with Natalie's jewels.
'It may be a little hard for an Oudonov,' he had said with his enigmatic smile, 'but she'll jolly well have to get down to it.'
From his door Jonas could see the shop 'A La Marée', with its two white marble counters and its big copper scales. He had lived for years on the first floor, in the room with the sky-light now occupied by Chenu's daughter.
Until the time he went to school he had spoken hardly anything but Russian and then had almost completely forgotten it.
Russia was for him a mysterious and bloody country where his five sisters, including Doussia, had very probably been massacred with Aunt Zina, like the Imperial family.
His father, like the Oudonovs whom he used to taunt, had also been a man of sudden decisions, or at any rate, if they matured slowly he never mentioned them to anyone.
In 1930, when Jonas was fourteen years old and going to the local lycée, Constantin Milk had announced that he was leaving for Moscow. As Natalie insisted that they should all go together, he had looked at his son and declared:
'Better make sure that at least one of us is left!'
Nobody knew what fate was in store for him out there. He had promised to send news somehow or other, but at the end of a year they had still heard nothing.
The Shepilovs had set up house in Paris where they had opened a bookshop in the Rue Jacob, and Natalie had written to ask them whether they would look after Jonas, whom she had sent to a lycée in Paris, while she in her turn would undertake the journey to Russia.
That was how he came to enter Condorcet.
In the meantime another war had broken out, in which his eyesight had prevented him from taking part, whole populations had been disturbed once more, there had been new exoduses, new waves of refugees.
Jonas had applied to all the authorities imaginable, Russian as well as French, without obtaining any news of his family.
Could he hope that his father, at eighty-two years old, and his mother at seventy-six, were still alive?
What had happened to Aunt Zina, in whose house people lost themselves, and his sisters, whose faces were unknown to him?
Did Doussia even know that she had a brother somewhere in the world?
All around him the walls were covered with old books. In his little room was a large stove which he kept roaring hot in winter as a luxury, and today he would have sworn that the smell of herrings still hung in the air in the kitchen.
The huge roof of the market was streaked with sunlight opposite his window and all around there were shops hardly larger than his own, except on the side of the Rue de Bourges where St. Cecilia's Church stood.
He could put a name to every face, recognize everyone's voice and, when people saw him in his doorway or when he went into Le Bouc's, they used to call out:
'Hullo, Monsieur Jonas!'
It was a world in which he had shut himself up, and Gina had walked in one fine day with a sway of her hips, bringing a warm smell of armpits with her into this world of his.
She had just walked out again, and he was overcome with a fit of giddiness.
IV
It was not that day that the complications were to begin, but he still had the feeling of a person who is incubating an illness.
In the afternoon, fortunately, the customers were fairly numerous in the shop and he received, among others, a visit from Monsieur Legendre, a retired railway guard, who used to read a book a day, sometimes two, changed them by the half-dozen and always sat down in a chair for a chat. He used to smoke a meerschaum pipe which made a spluttering noise each time he sucked at it, and as he had a habit of pressing down the burning tobacco, the entire top joint of his index finger was a golden brown colour.
He was not a widower nor a bachelor. His wife, small and thin, used to shop at the market, a black hat on her head, three times a week, and stop in front of all the stalls, disputing the price before buying a bunch of leeks.
Monsieur Legendre
'It may be a little hard for an Oudonov,' he had said with his enigmatic smile, 'but she'll jolly well have to get down to it.'
From his door Jonas could see the shop 'A La Marée', with its two white marble counters and its big copper scales. He had lived for years on the first floor, in the room with the sky-light now occupied by Chenu's daughter.
Until the time he went to school he had spoken hardly anything but Russian and then had almost completely forgotten it.
Russia was for him a mysterious and bloody country where his five sisters, including Doussia, had very probably been massacred with Aunt Zina, like the Imperial family.
His father, like the Oudonovs whom he used to taunt, had also been a man of sudden decisions, or at any rate, if they matured slowly he never mentioned them to anyone.
In 1930, when Jonas was fourteen years old and going to the local lycée, Constantin Milk had announced that he was leaving for Moscow. As Natalie insisted that they should all go together, he had looked at his son and declared:
'Better make sure that at least one of us is left!'
Nobody knew what fate was in store for him out there. He had promised to send news somehow or other, but at the end of a year they had still heard nothing.
The Shepilovs had set up house in Paris where they had opened a bookshop in the Rue Jacob, and Natalie had written to ask them whether they would look after Jonas, whom she had sent to a lycée in Paris, while she in her turn would undertake the journey to Russia.
That was how he came to enter Condorcet.
In the meantime another war had broken out, in which his eyesight had prevented him from taking part, whole populations had been disturbed once more, there had been new exoduses, new waves of refugees.
Jonas had applied to all the authorities imaginable, Russian as well as French, without obtaining any news of his family.
Could he hope that his father, at eighty-two years old, and his mother at seventy-six, were still alive?
What had happened to Aunt Zina, in whose house people lost themselves, and his sisters, whose faces were unknown to him?
Did Doussia even know that she had a brother somewhere in the world?
All around him the walls were covered with old books. In his little room was a large stove which he kept roaring hot in winter as a luxury, and today he would have sworn that the smell of herrings still hung in the air in the kitchen.
The huge roof of the market was streaked with sunlight opposite his window and all around there were shops hardly larger than his own, except on the side of the Rue de Bourges where St. Cecilia's Church stood.
He could put a name to every face, recognize everyone's voice and, when people saw him in his doorway or when he went into Le Bouc's, they used to call out:
'Hullo, Monsieur Jonas!'
It was a world in which he had shut himself up, and Gina had walked in one fine day with a sway of her hips, bringing a warm smell of armpits with her into this world of his.
She had just walked out again, and he was overcome with a fit of giddiness.
IV
It was not that day that the complications were to begin, but he still had the feeling of a person who is incubating an illness.
In the afternoon, fortunately, the customers were fairly numerous in the shop and he received, among others, a visit from Monsieur Legendre, a retired railway guard, who used to read a book a day, sometimes two, changed them by the half-dozen and always sat down in a chair for a chat. He used to smoke a meerschaum pipe which made a spluttering noise each time he sucked at it, and as he had a habit of pressing down the burning tobacco, the entire top joint of his index finger was a golden brown colour.
He was not a widower nor a bachelor. His wife, small and thin, used to shop at the market, a black hat on her head, three times a week, and stop in front of all the stalls, disputing the price before buying a bunch of leeks.
Monsieur Legendre
Similar Books
