“She’s gone to Bourges” is the little white
lie Jonas Milk tells when someone comments on his wife’s absence one morning.
It’s more comfortable than the truth, which is that he has no idea where she
is, having departed the previous evening, ostensibly to babysit for a friend,
and not returned by morning; he suspects she’s with another man (again!).
It’s a small community in rural France and
as word gets round and questions arise he has to furnish the lie with more and
more detail, none of which can be corroborated, and as the weakly explained
absence grows into days Jonas finds himself increasingly the subject of
suspicious minds.
Eventually the police come knocking, and then
even the truth is disbelieved. Worse, he finds out truths he’d rather not
believe about his marriage and his standing in the community.
It is a good story of the “if only I hadn’t”
variety where one false step begins a doom-destined path so hard to get off. As
the plot moves forward, Milk’s background, from child refugee from Russia to
unlikely marriage to a girl 16 years his junior is revealed, giving a fuller
picture of the little man from Archangel, who is discovering how fragile his
apparent acceptance into his adopted home actually is.
Simenon is a great writer, better known for
his Maigret stories, but I think his other novels, such as this, give him
greater freedom to express his range. Here, as ever, the story is unfolded with
skill, the setting is atmospheric, the (translated) prose is succinct and the
psychology of the protagonist is convincing and insightful.
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