Y O U R E Y E S S A W M EAn exerpt from chapter 11
"Marie-Sophie had the impression that she had nodded off for a moment when she came to herself under the quilt on the mattress on the floor by the invalid’s bed. From outside in the square the rattling of cart wheels and the sluggish step of the dray horse could be heard.
The girl started to her feet. She had to dress quickly and get the restaurant ready before the regulars arrived for their morning coffee. No, what nonsense was this? She was supposed to stay here in the priest’s hole with the invalid until he left - if he left.
- I’ll die of old age here . . .
She reached for her clothes, which lay neatly folded on the chair by the desk, and blushed. What was this? She didn’t remember folding them. Had the invalid, the stranger, undressed her and put her to bed? And the book was open as if she had been reading it - or as if he had read to her like a child. Had the night turned the world on end, and made patient into nurse, nurse into patient? She didn’t know what to think, but it was embarrassing.
- I won’t put up with this any more . . .
Marie-Sophie peeped over the end of the invalid’s bed: he slept, and his wretched face gave no hint of the events of the night. The girl wrapped her quilt around her, got to her feet, grabbed her clothes from the chair, went behind the screen and dressed. The chamber pot stank. She had not had time to empty it the night before.
- I’ll go mad . . .She took the pot out of the priest’s hole, holding it at arm’s length, and placed it by the door to number twenty-three. The raw Monday light squeezed between the curtains and glittered on the specks of dust in the air, waiting for someone to come and inhale them.
Marie-Sophie pulled back the curtains, opened the window and breathed in the new day. On the other side of the square, between the draper’s and the butcher’s, a young man stood by a lamp post. He was trying to light a cigarette between his lips but it appeared to have a life of its own, neatly evading the burning match he held to it.
The girl smiled at the man’s difficulties.
- Look at him, always so clumsy . . .
It was Karl.
Marie-Sophie reached her arm out of the window and waved to him. Karl made one last attempt on his rebellious cigarette, but the cigarette won. He looked over to the guesthouse. She saw that he saw her, and beckoned to him to cross the square so that they could talk. He shrugged, pushed his hat onto the back of his head, took the cigarette out of his mouth and threw it into the street, ground it underfoot, turned on his heel and walked away, without returning the greetings of the girl at the window.
- What have they done to me?
She huffed with rage. Never mind the day off she missed yesterday, never mind having to change nappies on an adult man who had nothing to do with her; she was not going to allow the owner to take her boyfriend away.
Marie-Sophie had had enough of being a good girl.
She heard the front door of the guesthouse open, and stepped up into the windowsill and looked out: the owner stood outside, taking a drink. The busboy came out carrying a small table.
- No-one will be sitting out here on the pavement today. It’s going to rain cats and dogs, that’s obvious.
The boy put the table down and gazed up at the sky.
- I don’t give a damn about your weather predictions, the wife says we run an open-air café and that’s what we’ll do. I don’t care if the idiots who sit here and take part in her charade are struck by lightning. And here’s one for you.
The owner slapped the boy around the head.
- And hurry up with the chairs, you weather-idiot!
Marie-Sophie clenched her fists in fury: She was sick and tired of the blows the owner rained on the busboy every morning, hoping to work off his hangover.
- I’ll make sure the boy’s weather forecast comes true - and he’s not the one who will get wet, but that dog of an owner.
The girl jumped down from the chair, caught up the chamber pot, and positioned herself so that she could observe what went on down on the pavement, and pour out the contents of the pot without being seen.
She waited her chance.
The busboy arranged the chairs around the table, while the owner hung around him making remarks about the placing of the chairs too far from the table, and which way they faced. He was supersensitive to proportions and distance when hung over."
"I know all about it! I once woke up at the home of a composer, probably on a Monday morning. And when I walked into the living room, there sat the musician naked at the grand piano, putting together a sonata."
"You know artists? I don’t know any . . ."
"I’m sorry to hear it, they are usually great fun, heavy drinkers and full of self-pity..."
"My father used to spend time with them, but he never brought them home..."
"Now, where was I? Yes, there was the composer bollock-naked, his big head hanging over the keyboard. The sun glowed in his curly hair, the composer’s left hand scampered over the keyboard like a spider weaving marvellous phrases, while the nicotine-yellow fingers of his right hand held a fountain pen, and captured the sounds in the net of the manuscript sheet, where the black notes quivered on the lines like flies."
"Now who’s telling stories within the story?"
"I..."
"And who hates digression?"
"I..."
"And what do you say?"
"Sorry?"
"Yes!"
"Marie-Sophie nursed her wrath, holding the pot in her strong hand and taking care not to spill any of the contents. The busboy and the owner were so preoccupied with the problem of proportions they were working out below that they did not notice the pot floating above their heads like a golden raincloud.
- Isn’t that better?
The busboy took a chair and pushed it under the table with a loud screech, the owner ground his teeth.
- Or like this?
The boy pulled the chair towards him.
- A bit closer?
The chair scratched against the pavement, the owner lifted his arm to strike.
Marie-Sophie let the yellow liquid flood from the pot.
The owner gasped as the cold urine splashed over him, flowed down his neck and between shirt and skin. The busboy looked up at the guesthouse with a smile. The girl winked at him, withdrew from the window with her vessel, and descended in one bound from the windowsill, into the priest’s hole."
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