The Mahé Circle by Georges Simenon; Translated by Siân Reynolds Page A

used to it. Don’t drive so fast … You know I’m scared of having an accident.’
    They took two rooms at the hotel. She refused absolutely to eat in the restaurant, because she had brought her own provisions.
    â€˜Go and have dinner, go on. Don’t worry about me.’
    He could hardly recognize her in the ordinary hotel room, where she looked around at the dust in despair. She seemed smaller, older, more fragile. He was seeing her at last as other people might see her, not as one sees one’s own
mother.
    â€˜I’ll go and get something to eat, and I’ll be right back,’ he said, feeling ashamed.
    He really needed to get outside, to see people coming and going. Fatigue and emotions had set his nerves on edge. He drank some wine, half a bottle perhaps, and felt it going to his head.
    When he went to bid her goodnight, he found she had brought a set of sheets both for herself and for him, since she didn’t trust the doubtful linen of a hotel bedroom. She had also brought her kitchen alarm clock, whose ticking he
recognized.
    â€˜Don’t go getting up too early. Charbonneau is only expecting us at eight.’
    She had brought with her her best underwear, which she hadn’t worn for the best part of twenty years.
    â€˜Don’t worry about me, go to sleep.’
    She woke him in the morning, bringing him his coffee. She was up and ready. She was wearing the black dress she had had made some years earlier for a wedding, and he noticed that she was wearing her jewellery. He was so touched by this that he
cut himself shaving and it took a long time to stop the bleeding.
    â€˜Right, let’s go.’
    â€˜You will let me see him on my own, won’t you? Promise! Otherwise, I won’t go …’
    â€˜Of course, mother.’
    They were ushered into a sitting room, where the furniture had been covered in dustsheets. In the hall, luggage was piled up, including golf clubs, and people could be heard moving about noisily upstairs.
    They sat silently, facing each other, perhaps equally impressed. Charbonneau came in. He was a very large man, with thinning hair and a grey goatee. His whole demeanour conveyed reassuring calm.
    â€˜Forgive me for asking you to come so early, but we’re catching a train to the Pyrenees, where we go every year …’
    He pushed open the padded door to his consulting room.
    â€˜If you would be so good as to come in here.’
    He was expecting his colleague to come in as well, but Mahé remained standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. The professor understood, and closed the door, and after that Mahé only heard distant whispers, the kind you hear coming from a
confessional. A few footsteps from time to time. Then the metallic sound of medical instruments being handled.
    A boy of about fifteen rushed into the room, stopped short and went out again stammering apologies when he saw someone there. A car drew up at the front door and people started loading luggage.
    Mahé was damp with sweat, and yet he didn’t feel warm. His palms were moist. He concentrated on the bronze bust of Charbonneau on the mantelpiece, and on a large oil painting of a young woman in evening dress on the opposite wall.
    And still the voices from the next room. Sometimes long silences. Finally, the padded door opened. His mother’s face gave nothing away. But her cheeks were a little pinker than usual – embarrassment, no doubt, at having had to undress.
    Mahé’s eyes searched for Charbonneau’s. There was no need for words to be exchanged. In any case, he already knew. The miracle hadn’t happened. A simple movement of the other man’s
eyelids, a blink which signified:
    â€˜Yes, of course, that’s what it is.’
    But the professor said out loud:
    â€˜As I’ve just told your mother, I’ll need to see her again to make a categorical diagnosis. I’ll be back in three weeks.