Free She Who Was No More by Pierre Boileau

That’s what Lucienne had said when they parted.
    They were bound to find it was an accident. A sudden attack of giddiness. Mireille had fallen into the stream. There was the question of her clothes, of course. That wasn’t so good. A woman doesn’t do her washing dressed for going out. But she didn’t need to be washing. There are plenty of other reasons for going into a lavoir. To bring in some clothes that had been hanging up to dry, for instance. In any case nobody was goingto probe that far. And if they preferred to regard it as suicide, he’d no objection. The two years were up. The insurance company couldn’t refuse to pay.
    Ten to seven. Time to be going. He couldn’t face the last croissant. The other two had been difficult enough. On the pavement, he hesitated. Cars and buses were streaming in all directions. Crowds of workmen and clerks from the suburbs were pouring out of the station. The shuffle of feet, the sound of tires. A nasty day, with a low, leaden sky. The desolate look of early-morning Paris.
    Come on! He’d got to go through with it.
    The car was parked near the ticket office, outside which was displayed a huge map of France, showing the railway network. It was like an open hand, with lines running radially from the center. Paris-Bordeaux, Paris-Toulouse, Paris-Nice. Life lines, fate lines. Life, fortune, destiny… But meanwhile there was a job to be done! Ravinel tore himself away, backed the car out, and drove off, mentally running through all the things that had to be seen to. He must notify the insurance company as soon as possible. He must send a telegram to Mireille’s brother, Germain. Then there’d be the funeral. No higgledy-piggledy affair—Mireille wouldn’t have liked that. He was driving like an automaton. He knew every street by heart, and there wasn’t yet much traffic about… She wasn’t what you’d call religious, Mireille, but she used to go to church all the same. To High Mass, generally, for she liked the music. Besides, people wore their best clothes, and she liked that too. And during Lent she never missed one of Father Riquet’s sermons over the radio. Even when she didn’t quite understand what he was saying, she could always enjoyhis beautiful diction. And then, he’d been in a concentration camp…
    The Porte de Clignancourt. A glow of pink in the east—the sun was trying to pierce through the clouds… Suppose there was such a thing as the soul, after all. Suppose the dead could look down on us… If Mireille did that, she’d know he hadn’t acted from malice. No, that was ridiculous! And to think that he hadn’t got a single black suit to wear! He’d have to get one dyed. Meanwhile he could get one of the neighbors to sew a crêpe band on his sleeve. So many things to think about! And there was Lucienne calmly waiting at Nantes. It wasn’t fair… Ravinel stopped thinking, as he was having trouble with an old Peugeot just ahead of him which wouldn’t let him pass. By the time he’d succeeded in getting by, he was at Epinay and he had to slow down.
    ‘Remember! You’ve just arrived from Nantes and you don’t know your wife’s dead,’ he said to himself. That was the most difficult thing of all. He didn’t know …
    Enghien. He stopped at a tobacconist’s.
    ‘Good morning, Morin.’
    ‘Good morning, Monsieur Ravinel. A bit late today, aren’t you? It’s generally earlier than this when I see you pass.’
    ‘Held up by the fog. Quite thick at Angers.’
    ‘Can’t think how you do it—driving all through the night.’
    ‘You soon get used to it… Give me a box of matches. Anything been happening here?’
    ‘Good heavens no. Nothing ever happens at Enghien.’
    Ravinel left the shop. It couldn’t be put off any longer now. If only he hadn’t been all alone! How much easier it would have been if… Hallo! There was old Goutre. That was a stroke of luck.
    ‘How are you these days, Monsieur Ravinel?’
    ‘So-so. Jogging along. But