Dirty Snow by Georges Simenon Read Free Book Online Page B

Because it cost too much, of course. And thinking of money suddenly troubled him. He would have liked, for example, to take her to a pastry shop. There were still a few where, if they knew you, you could get anything you wanted. He even knew two places where you could dance, and Sissy would no doubt have liked that.
    She had probably never danced. She was too young. Before it all began, she had been just a little girl. She had never tasted liqueur or an aperitif.
    He was embarrassed. In the Upper Town he took her to the Lido, where the electric lights were already on, like fake daylight.
    â€œTwo box seats.”
    And it shocked him to say it. Because he came here often. His friends did the same. When you were with a girl, you took a box at the Lido, everybody did. They were very dark, with sides high enough to make it safe to do almost anything you liked. There were several times when he’d procured girls for Lotte that way:
    â€œDo you have a job?”
    â€œThe workshop closed last week.”
    â€œWould you like to make a little money?”
    Sissy followed him like the others, thrilled to be in the warm theater, to be shown to a box by an usher in uniform wearing a little red cap with the word “Lido” on it in gold letters.
    That was going to ruin his mood: she was like all the others. She was acting exactly like all the others. In the dark she turned toward him, smiling because she was happy to be there and because she was grateful, and she said nothing, she hardly even trembled when he put his arm around the back of her chair.
    In a bit, that arm would be around her shoulders. She had skinny shoulders. She was waiting for him to kiss her: he knew it, and he did it almost regretfully. She didn’t know how to kiss. She kept her mouth half open, and it was all wet, a little sour. At the same time she grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard, and then held on to it as if it belonged to her.
    They were all alike. She believed in the picture. She shushed him when he whispered in her ear, because she was trying to understand the movie, having missed the first part, and at certain moments her fingers tightened around his because of what was happening on the screen.
    â€œSissy …”
    â€œYes …”
    â€œLook …”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIn my hand …”
    It was the automatic, shining faintly in the half darkness. She shuddered and glanced around. “Be careful!”
    It had produced an effect, but she didn’t seem that surprised.
    â€œIs it loaded?”
    â€œI think so.”
    â€œHave you used it?”
    He hesitated. He told the truth.
    â€œNot yet.”
    Then he seized the occasion to put his hand on her knee, to lift her skirt a little.
    Again she didn’t object, just like the others. And then suddenly he was gripped by dumb anger—with her, with himself, with Holst. Yes, with Holst, too, though it would have been difficult for him to say why.
    â€œFrank!”
    She had said his name. So she knew it. She said it again, on purpose, when she tried to push his hand away.
    Now he felt nothing. No, he was furious. Images were dancing before his eyes, enormous faces appeared on the screen and disappeared, black and white, voices, music. What he wanted to know, what he had to find out no matter what she did, was whether she was a virgin, because there was still that to cling to.
    That forced him to kiss her, and each time he kissed her she let herself go, she softened, and he gained ground on her bare thigh, where a hand feebly pushed at his, which was groping along the rough groove of her stocking.
    He had to find out. Because if she wasn’t a virgin, Holst would lose all meaning, all value in Frank’s eyes. He would be ridiculous. Frank, too. Whatever had possessed him to have anything to do with either of them?
    Her skin must be very white, like Minna’s. Chicken skin, as Lotte said. Chicken thighs. Was Minna, at this moment, stark