An Uncertain Place Read Online Free PDF Page A

‘if there’s a special word for cutting off feet. We say decapitate for heads, eviscerate for innards, emasculate for testicles, but there isn’t a special word for feet, or is there?’
    ‘No, there isn’t,’ said Danglard. ‘The word doesn’t exist because the act doesn’t exist. Well, not until now. But one individual has just created it, on the dark continent.’
    ‘Like the wardrobe-eater – there isn’t a proper word for that either.’
    ‘A thekophagist?’ suggested Danglard.

IV
     
    W HEN THE TRAIN ENTERED THE C HANNEL T UNNEL , D ANGLARD took a deep breath and clenched his teeth. The journey out had not relieved his apprehensions and this passage under water still seemed to him to be unacceptable, and his fellow travellers strangely insouciant. He distinctly pictured himself speeding through this conduit covered by tons of seawater overhead.
    ‘You can feel the weight of it,’ he said, his eyes fixed to the roof of the carriage.
    ‘There isn’t any weight,’ said Adamsberg. ‘We’re not under water, we’re under rock.’
    Estalère asked how it was possible for the weight of the sea not to press down on the rock so hard that the tunnel collapsed. Adamsberg patiently and determinedly drew a diagram for him on a paper napkin: the water, the rock, the shorelines, the tunnel, the train. Then he did the same diagram without either the tunnel or the train, to show that their existence did not modify anything.
    ‘All the same,’ said Estalère, ‘the weight of the seawater must be pressing down on something.’
    ‘Yes, on the rock.’
    ‘But then the rock must be weighing on the tunnel.’
    ‘No,’ said Adamsberg, starting another diagram.
    Danglard made a gesture of irritation.
    ‘It’s just that you imagine the weight. A monstrous mass of water over our heads. The idea of being swallowed up. Sending a train under the sea is a demented idea.’
    ‘No more than eating a wardrobe,’ said Adamsberg, perfecting his diagram.
    ‘What the heck has the wardrobe-eater done to get under your skin? You’ve done nothing but talk about him since yesterday.’
    ‘I’m just trying to imagine his thought processes, Danglard. I’m trying to see how they think, the wardrobe-eater, the foot-amputator, or that man whose uncle was eaten by a bear. The thoughts of mankind are like drills opening up tunnels under the sea that you never expected to come into existence.’
    ‘Who was eaten by a bear?’ asked Estalère, suddenly waking up.
    ‘This guy’s uncle was on an ice floe,’ Adamsberg told him. ‘About a hundred years ago. All that was left of him were his glasses and his shoelaces. And this nephew was fond of his uncle. So he flipped. He killed the bear.’
    ‘Well, you would, wouldn’t you?’ commented Estalère.
    ‘Yes, but then he brought the bearskin back to Geneva, and gave it to his aunt, the widow. Who put it in her sitting room. Danglard, your colleague Stock gave you an envelope at the station. His preliminary report, was it?’
    ‘Radstock, yes,’ said Danglard gloomily, still looking up at the ceiling of the carriage and watching out for the weight of the sea.
    ‘Interesting?’
    ‘What does it matter? They’re his feet, he can keep them.’
    Estalère was twisting a paper napkin in his fingers and concentrating hard, looking down at his knees.
    ‘So I suppose this nephew wanted to bring some relic of his uncle back to the widow?’ he asked.
    Adamsberg nodded and turned back to Danglard.
    ‘Tell me all the same, what does the report say?’
    ‘When will we get out of the tunnel?’
    ‘Another sixteen minutes. What did Stock find, Danglard?’
    ‘But logically,’ Estalère said hesitantly, ‘if the uncle was inside the bear … and the nephew …’
    He stopped and looked down again, puzzled and scratching his blond head. Danglard sighed, whether for the sixteen minutes, or the ghastly feet, which he would rather leave far behind, forgetting all about the cemetery gate