Pedigree by Georges Simenon Read Free Book Online Page A

water ran between your feet, he came to the Rue Puits-en-Sock, the shopping street in which every house displayed a sign: a huge pair of cutler’s scissors, a pale clock, a monumental civet, and finally, over the Mamelins’ hat-shop, a top-hat painted bright red.
    Désiré, who had recovered his rifle, went down the narrow, perpetually damp passage leading into the Mamelin house and crossed the yard. The kitchen was at the far side, with a whole wall of glass which had been made opaque with fake stained glass. He knew that a tiny patch of this colouring had been scratched away, that his mother was looking through this hole, and that she was announcing:
    â€˜It’s Désiré.’
    It was his hour. He recognized the smell of the stewed beef and that of the oilcloth covering the long table at which thirteen children had sat in their time.
    â€˜Good morning, Mother.’
    â€˜Good morning, son.’
    â€˜Good morning, Lucien. Good morning, Marcel.’
    Steam. His mother always standing, always dressed in slate-grey, with a grey complexion and steel-grey hair.
    He sat down. He let the warmth seep into him, and the smells too, without feeling the need to say anything.
    â€˜Is Élise all right?’
    â€˜She’s all right.’
    â€˜And the child?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Tell your wife that I’ll be coming to see her soon.’
    All the Mamelins came like this to sit for a moment in the kitchen in the Rue Puits-en-Sock. In an armchair at the far end of the room, Old Papa, their mother’s father, sat motionless. In the half-light one could just make out a monstrous carcass, a real bear’s carcass, whose arms seemed to reach right down to the floor, and a beardless face with a stone-grey complexion, empty eyes and disproportionately large ears.
    He recognized each visitor by his footsteps. Each one implanted a light kiss on a cheek as rough as sandpaper. He never spoke. At Mass time he told his beads in silence. His skin, the skin of a sometime miner, was spangled with blue dots, like encrusted fragments of coal.
    Four-pound loaves, baked the day before, stood waiting for the whole family, for all the married offspring. Each one, every Sunday, came to collect his share.
    â€˜Is Juliette keeping well?’
    â€˜She was here just now.’
    â€˜And Françoise?’
    Here the rain, falling on a zinc platform which covered the kitchen, made a noise which was so to speak a Mamelin noise. The smells were different from those in other places. The steam went on forming dirty drops which trickled down the oil-painted walls.
    When it was ten to twelve, Désiré stood up, picked up his loaves and his rifle, and went off.
    He did not feel embarrassed at carrying loaves of bread when he was in uniform, with a rifle slung over his shoulder. Any more than at putting a check apron over his suit to do the housework. He walked as in an apotheosis along the narrow pavements of the Rue Puits-en-Sock with the trams passing dangerously close. Each shop exhaled its special breath at him: the chip-shop, the tobacconist’s, the cake-shop, the dairy-shop … Heavens, he had nearly forgotten! It was Sunday! He went into Bonmersonne’s to buy two tarts, an apple tart—Élise liked nothing but fruit tarts—and a rice tart for himself, since he loved sweet things.
    He crossed the Pont des Arches. The Rue Léopold was dead. It came to life only during the week, like all the streets in the centre, but you could never recognize anybody, because the people you saw came from far away, from anywhere and everywhere, and only passed through, whereas the Rue Puits-en-Sock, for instance, was the vital centre of a district.
    He walked carefully past the door on the first floor. The Delobels were always complaining about the noise and went to see the Cessions at the slightest excuse.
    â€˜Is dinner ready?’
    He sniffed, smiled, clambered on to the rickety chair to put