72
ANTHONY BURGESS
he said he would give one hundred and sixty new francs for four
cases of white wine, a case of rotgut cognac and some Japanese
whisky (a slit-eyed man in a kilt on the label). Jean-Baptiste said,
"Done." And they shook hands. Corbiere said:
"Cash on delivery. You'll have to be careful."
"Cash on collection," said Jean-Baptiste.
"It
will have to be
tonight. Say, midnight. When the old one's in bed."
"How about the man of letters above?"
"He types all the time. He wouldn't know what was happening.
Nor would he care."
"I could, of course, borrow Richepin's van. That would be the
best thing to do. On the stroke of midnight?"
"On the stroke."
The evening was a quiet one. The old man, refreshed by his
siesta, sat with his moneybag by the open door. When he wished to
micturate, he stumped slowly round the corner to the public pisseoir,
moneybag in hand. He called for dinner at eight, and J ean-Baptiste
brought it from the restaurant opposite.
It
was always the same, every
evening: soup, bifstek and frites, a bit of bread and Camembert, half
a bottle of red Bordeaux. Jean-Baptiste was allowed the same, less, for
some reason, the bit of Camembert. At ten o'clock the old man
stumped off to bed. Jean-Baptiste could hear the banging of the
safe door above, then the long session in the toilet, then the squeal of
bedsprings. At eleven o'clock, there being no more custom, Jean–
Baptiste shut the cafe and put out the lights, then noisily made a
show of going to bed. But nobody responded to the noise: the old man
snored, the typewriter clacked, indifferent.
At ten minutes to twelve Jean-Baptiste came quietly downstairs.
Snores and clacking. He took the cases, panting, from behind the
bar counter and placed them near the locked front door of the cafe.
Then he went quietly down to the cellar to bring up the other cases.
As he came staggering up with the first, he heard something strange.
He heard, from upstairs, silence. His father was not snoring; the
typewriter had ceased clacking. And then a voice rang out from the
typewriter room. It called:
"It is finished! It is finished! Listen!" Jean-Baptiste, open–
mouthed, heavy case gripped in his hands, stood at the top of the
cellar steps, listening. "And so," cried the voice, "it was finally decreed
