I’ll come back one day!

I left the paper on the table and went back to bed. I was exhausted. My eyes remained open like two electrical bulbs. I had my cigarettes. One after another, they passed from my lips. Bitterness gnawed at me. I was supposed to have 4,000 Francs for 9 months of study! What if Liesel did not come? What would happen to me?

Around four o'clock in the morning, I opened my room door and stuck my head out like a hunted fox. My eyes circled the hotel, which looked dead silent. I went out with the suitcase in my hand. All was calm and dark. Not a rustling. Not a cry, not a breath. I took one last look at the hotel full of resentment. I'll come back one day!

I walked along the Nationale. The Morvaners, who had the only shop in the village, did not sleep. Father Morvaners, behind the damp windows of his oven, was preparing his baguettes. A red-yellowish light inside the shop was the only living colour in that sombre night. I went past the Hotel des Grognards, then the post office. Opposite the train station entrance, I hid like a thief behind the trunk of a large tree. I put my suitcase on the grass and waited for a good Samaritan in the dawning morning.

Every five minutes or so, I heard an engine purring. When I saw the luminous extension of its headlights, I descended from my hideaway and stretched out my hand. The first few cars did not stop. In despair, I gazed at the mountains surrounding me. They were dark and sinister. A few dark, menacing, motionless clouds accentuated my anguish. Who would pick up someone hitchhiking at night and in a deserted place? The first light of dawn added to my despair. I was supposed to leave St Jérôme before the villagers started going to work.

Finally, it was between five-thirty and six when a car stopped. There was a man in it.

"Hurry up!" he told me.

I rushed for my suitcase, stumbled, and fell to the ground. I got up, brought it, put it in the back seat and settled down in the front seat. I caught my breath when he drove away.

"On holiday?"

"No, I worked in a hotel here."

"Were you done at the hotel?"

"No!" I said without weighing my words.

"Are you going to Grenoble?" I asked him.

"I'm going to Lyon. I must be there before 8 am. But I could drop you in Grenoble."

As he stared at me, the words went unconsciously out of my mouth:

"I've been waiting for well over one hour."

He hesitated a second, then asked me:

"Why did you want to travel so early?"

For a moment, I did not know what to say; then I said stupidly and again without thinking:

"I had to take the train, but I missed it."

Seeing the oblique look he gave me, I knew he had realized I lied, and I felt embarrassed. I slid slightly into my seat and looked right through the door window. He was driving at full speed. My weary eyes strained to view the rich landscapes we crossed. I was worried: I escaped. Liesel! What will she do? And I sighed.

"Tired?" He remarked with a half-frowning look.

"You do not seem to have slept? What happened in this hotel? Nothing serious?"

"No! Not at all!"

"You know, here we do not clown around with the police!"

The gentleman seemed to doubt me and my story. Anybody would. I wondered whether it would be better to tell him the truth.

"I don't understand why you waited at the edge of the village and hid your suitcase! Then you tell me you waited for over an hour and missed the train! Don't you think that all this doesn't add up?"

His reflections ended my hesitation. He was almost scared of me. I told him the key events that led to my mess and fleeing the village. He interrupted me:

"This woman will not come! I know these people! And then, the promises of the night are quickly forgotten in the morning!"

"She will come! I assure you! I swear she'll come!"

"She will not!"