The Widow by Georges Simenon Page A

closet, there always stood two buckets of water drawn from the well, a big mug beside them, and never, not even at a spring deep in the woods, had Jean had so strong an impression of limpidity, so keen a desire to feel the cold water run down his throat.
    The door from the yard was kept shut, because of the flies, and also to stop the poultry from invading the kitchen. But underneath there was still a broad gap, a band of molten gold in which the chicken’s feet could be seen in restless movement.
    His last mouthful swallowed, Couderc would wipe his knife on the table, which was deeply notched at the place where he sat. Then, like a beast placing itself between the shafts, he would unwind his long, thin body and lumber off to some corner of the yard, where he was soon to be heard shifting boxes or barrels around.
    He would putter about, mending fences, trimming gate-posts, splitting logs for the fire, or again sorting out pea sticks or props for tomatoes, his eye glassy, a drop on the end of his nose always, winter or summer.
    Then, with a shove of her stomach against the still-uncleared table, Tati would push back her chair, its straw bottom groaning as she did so. A sigh would issue from her vast bosom, and her breasts at this hour always seemed to nestle cozily on her swollen belly; her skin was shiny, her eye moist.
    Jean had already fallen into the habit of getting the coffee from the fire, and the blue coffeepot had its place right in a sunbeam falling from the window.
    Tati would contemplate her glass—she always had her coffee in a glass. The two lumps of sugar would dissolve. She would watch them almost sentimentally, then sip a drop or two of the brown liquid.
    It was as though, for miles around, life hung suspended. The bargees on the canal were napping, while the donkeys or mules rested in a patch of shade. There was not a sound to be heard except the cooing of the pigeons, drowned now and then by the crowing of a cock or the banging of the old man’s hammer.
    â€œTo think that, when I first came to this house, at fourteen, I came as a servant girl.”
    Tati’s gaze caressed the walls: they had not changed, they had just had a fresh coat of whitewash each year. The combined calendar and newspaper holder, with its oleograph picture of reapers, must be the one that had been there all that time ago. On either side of the ancient kneading trough, used now for keeping odds and ends, two portraits in oval frames had not changed either.
    â€œThat’s Couderc as he was then.”
    The same elongated head, with its wiry hair cropped short. A pointed mustache slashing the face. The hard look of someone well aware of his own importance.
    â€œHe was thirty-five then! He owned the brickyard, inherited it from his father. He was born in this house. The land reached as far as the village, and there were ten cows in the cowshed.”
    She stirred the spoon around in her glass, and lapped another sip of coffee, with all the luxurious greed of a cat.
    â€œHis wife had just died, and he was left alone with three children. When I came, they had just buried her, and the house still smelled of candles and chrysanthemums.”
    The other portrait, which made a pair with Couderc’s, had faded more quickly, as if realizing it was no more than the shade of a dead woman. The features were hazy, indistinct. A sad smile. A high chignon. A cameo, the one Tati wore on Sundays.
    â€œI don’t know how my mother had heard they were looking for someone to care for the children. We lived far from here, near Bourges. A neighbor drove me over in his gig. For fear they might think I was too young, my mother had put my hair up and made me wear a long dress.”
    Sometimes there were harsh notes in her voice, like pebbles.
    â€œThe boy was eleven and nearly as tall as I was. The two sisters were called Françoise and Amélie. They were stupid and dirty, especially Françoise. You’ve seen her.