Malicroix

by Henri Bosco

  Suddenly, all the sounds stopped. I turned my head. Anne-Madeleine was there, standing on the threshold of the storeroom. I made a movement. With a gesture, she bid me to be silent, not to move. Then she came toward the lamp, put it out, slipped past me, went to the door, and threw it open.

  •

  They did not enter.

  • • •

  At dawn, Anne-Madeleine said, “I am worried about the ferry. They know I’m at La Redousse. Le Grelu is alone. I will go there to check.”

  She went out. She did not return until around five, pale, tired. Balandran, since morning, was breathing better.

  She said, “I did not meet anyone. The ferry is gone. It’s anchored fifty yards from shore. It’s safer that way.”

  I wanted her to sleep. She quietly obeyed. I did some household chores and looked after Balandran. Around ten o’clock, he moved and gave a sigh.

  Throughout the entire island, silence. Not a breath of wind. Peace.

  Close to eleven, a dog barked in the distance. Balandran turned over on his mattress. I lifted the bolster and he tried to say something, but his strength failed. He groaned gently, then tossed until morning, without opening his eyes. But his breathing was improving; his wrists were growing warm. Anne-Madeleine slept without waking until daybreak. I rekindled the fire, made coffee, heated bread, put the kettle on the hearth. And then, to air out the room, I opened the door.

  I found Bréquillet collapsed on the doorstep.

  •

  Bréquillet grown thinner, his hair stuck to his body, pricked by brambles, covered with patches of mud. But still Bréquillet, still alive. I took him in my arms. He hung, limp, against my chest. I laid him out in front of the fire, rubbed him, picked out the thorns, wrapped him in a wool cloth; I forced a small cup of coffee down his throat. His teeth were clenched. With his stiff legs, hard jaw and closed eyes, he looked dead. I rubbed him again, this time with eau-de-vie—his flanks, his belly. Warmth finally came. And he too sighed very faintly. His fur smelled of mud; but the eau-de-vie was beginning to steam on his body, and the scent was soothing. It woke him. He let out one of those long sighs breathed by satisfied dogs as they sleep beside the hearth. I lifted my head. A fainter sigh came from the bed. I saw then that Balandran had opened his eyes. He was looking at me.

  I said, “I think we’ll save him.”

  He kept his eyes open a few seconds longer, then fell back asleep.

  •

  A little while later, Bréquillet drank and even ate. He was already better when Anne-Madeleine arrived. When she saw him, she let out a little cry and knelt in front of his muddy muzzle, which she roughly shook twice. He growled lightly with pleasure, and then, left to himself, stretched out in front of the fire. By noon, he could stand more or less steadily on his poor paws. He was able to go to the bed. Without showing the least emotion, he lay down under it and did not move again.

  • • •

  That day, February 18, was good for Balandran. He began to live again. Still too feeble to speak, he opened his eyes wide several times and was able to follow my comings and goings with his gaze. We washed his mouth, cheeks, ears, and hands with a few drops of alcohol. He let us care for him.

  •

  Anne-Madeleine went out twice. Always worried, most likely about Le Grelu.

  “The island is deserted,” she announced.

  I remember it was night. Balandran was sleeping behind us, but we could not hear his breathing. We were sitting in front of the fire. Our two chairs were touching.

  “I’m sleepy tonight,” Anne-Madeleine breathed.

  Her head was resting on my shoulder. After a while she said, “I’ll have to go out, around one. It’s the best time.”

  I was afraid. She must have sensed it from some involuntary movement, for she added, “My friend, I will do my best to return.”

  Her voice seemed weak, but she was so close I thought I heard her speaking within me. I said nothing. I placed my hand on her arm and tightened it. Her arm stiffened, then suddenly she turned up her face, while murmuring a word I could not hear. Her mouth must have been too close to me, and I caught but the light breath of its sound, the warm vapor . . .

  Toward one o’clock she rose and left the house through the storeroom. It was a terrible night. I accompanied her to the door. She did not look back. Once outside, she vanished into the woods.

  • • •

  I closed the door and returned to the room to watch over Balandran.

  The lamp was burning well. The dog, who could be heard breathing under the bed, was not moving. Balandran’s eyes were closed, his hands calm. I resumed my vigil bravely enough, yet I was anxious. I wanted to think, but I soon realized it was impossible. An extraordinary watchfulness kept me fully awake. I was not thinking; I was listening.

  •

  Not a breath of air moved above the house; were it not for the trembling of a secret wave that most likely conveyed the river’s gliding, nothing would have troubled my vigil, so keenly alert to outside sounds. After the anguished nights I had just lived through, this peace relaxed me. Still, it also worried me; and at times I found myself longing to hear the sough of a branch, the cry of a beast. But nothing stirred. I am sure of it, nothing. For the least displacement, the tiniest vibration, would have been perceptible to me on that night when I was so watchful, so strangely awake . . .

  . . . How then did he enter? I do not know. Through a miracle, no doubt, as always. Before my eyes, his body and his shadow emerged from the void and flickered against the wall. I thought I was dreaming. The fire was low; it was hard to see. I started to rise. Body and shadow hastily withdrew toward the fire. I calmed them with my hand and said, “How the devil did you get in? What do you still want with me?”

  The phantom sighed. “Two days remain, I believe, before you’re entirely free? The nineteenth or the twentieth?”

  “Uncle Rat,” I replied, “I know I owe you my life. But tonight you’re not here out of love for me.”

  He was leaning against the wall. I was seated. His eyes shone. He did not seem well.

  “Legally, two days,” he added, with a sidelong glance. “And then the codicil.”

  In turn, I looked at him directly, and he lowered his eyes.

  After a moment of silence, he asked if he could come closer to the fire, to warm himself.

  “The night is cold, and I froze on the river,” he admitted as he drew near.

  As I was silent, he added, “The girl, too, must have been cold in this weather. I passed her a hundred yards downstream from the ferry. She was rowing hard. But, after all, rowing keeps you warm.”

  “She saw you?”

  “My God yes! She has the eyes of a cat.”

  I hesitated, and then, in the most nonchalant tone, I asked, “Who is she, Uncle Rat?”

  He pretended to think. He was tempted by deception. But some hidden feeling, stronger, prevailed over that temptation and took over. A mysterious feeling that forced him to answer differently than he might have wished, perhaps. He murmured, “Who rightly knows? Le Grelu raised her, that is all. No family. At least no known father, I believe. Yet she’s from here. The old man loves her. He is wild, the old man, even though he’s old and blind. But she has the blood.”

  He uttered this little sentence in a muted but passionate tone. It troubled me. I asked, “What blood?”

  He replied, “There is only one blood.”

  And he fixed his small gray eyes on me. My distress was great; he saw it and bowed his head. We were silent for a moment and then I heard a rat running along the beams between the ceiling and the thatched roof. At last, it moved away.

  “As for the codicil, Uncle Rat,” I said suddenly, weighing my words with deliberate slowness, “I will learn of it two days from now; but since nothing in the testament indicates that I must immediately share its contents with your master, my notaire Maître Dromiols, I plan at first to keep it for myself alone. I will let him know in good time whether or n
ot I intend to fulfill its major provision.”

  “The trial?” asked Uncle Rat, with a worried look.

  “Yes, precisely, the trial.”

  “And until then?”

  “Until then, I will live under the protection of the testament’s high intentions. The deeds are precise. You have told me, Uncle Rat, that your master has faith in their authority. And so, their authority still governs me. I have kept my word, it seems to me. The blood, Uncle Rat, the true blood always speaks.”

  He was trembling, and I had some pity for him. Still, I could not stop myself from saying, somewhat vindictively, “You seek the true master?”

  He was leaning against the wall with his two hands, and I thought he was about to collapse. But I did not move. In the end he took hold of himself and said, “The blood is not enough. He knows that. Otherwise, he would long ago have been master himself. For the true blood, the strong blood, the male blood—he has it. It counts. Still, as we know, that means nothing—to him, to me, to you, to all of us—when he lacks one thing, the one thing necessary, which he will never have and which another possesses. Death itself could not change it. It is his fate.”

  His eyes closed. Flattened against the wall, Uncle Rat was stirred, shaken, perhaps seized by terror. He stiffened against an unknown power.

  “What thing?” I asked.

  “The sacrament.”

  He spoke these two words in a rasping voice, filled with sacred horror. Then he murmured, “Oh, I have betrayed him! Perhaps—”

  The blow struck me right in the heart but did not knock me down. I took Uncle Rat by the arm and said, “You’re exhausted. You should sleep. There’s a mattress in the storeroom.”

  I led him there. He collapsed onto the mattress and fell right away into a leaden sleep.

  I returned to the room.

  •

  Balandran was awake, his eyes wide open. When he saw me, his mouth stirred, and he moved his lips. I bent toward him and I heard, “Under the cross, Mr. Martial.”

  I understood. I unhooked the cross and saw the paper of the codicil, rolled up in a crevice. I did not take it out. I rehung the cross and told him, “Two more days, Balandran.”

  He nodded his head in approval, then shut his eyes.

  After which, I kept vigil.

  A little before dawn, Bréquillet rose to drink from his bowl; then, with a worried look, he sniffed at the threshold of the closed storeroom.

  I went to look. Uncle Rat had disappeared. The room was empty: Anne-Madeleine had not returned.

  Day was dawning, low and gray, above a motionless horizon.

  I carried some wood to the hearth and arranged the ashes. Then I dozed briefly.

  The dog came by my feet and slept, like me, before the meager morning fire, which barely gave off any warmth. From time to time I shivered. But it was only fatigue. Sleeplessness makes you cold.

  • • •

  The day of the 19th was a turning point in Balandran’s health. He emerged from his torpor. A long sleep followed the lethargy that had enveloped him. He slept a great deal, but like a man who sleeps because he needs rest. Bréquillet was visibly regaining strength. This double revival would have warmed my heart, had Anne-Madeleine returned. I waited for her patiently without daring to go out. It was cold and gray. Yet the fire heated well and it crackled. We still had plenty of wood, and winter was coming to an end. But we had February’s winds to fear, along with March’s madness. For now, no wind, just a mass of icy air. It must have snowed on the Alpine slopes, for a long, melancholy current had silently flowed down onto the delta. When I moved about during the day, I resisted this cold. I had grown strong and active again. I am robust. But my heart was tormented by the thought of Anne-Madeleine. It is hard to wait when you are helpless. Still, as a precaution, I had unhooked the shotgun, for I feared the worst. But I was determined. Several times I was tempted to go to the Ranc. From there I could have seen the ferry and signaled. But to abandon the house, even for an hour, seemed dangerous. Did I know who was prowling around the island? My post was at La Redousse. I had to stay there.

  •

  When night fell, I closed the shutters and bolted the door. Nothing in the world would have made me want to see Rat again, Rat materializing as he had the night before, then disappearing without a trace. For, no matter how it may seem, I do not like souls that are too adept at leaving and then reentering their bodies. As for me—alas!—I have too great a tendency to leave my own body at the slightest dream. I know that now, I who once believed I lived only in this world, where the body defines all of life and keeps for itself almost all of the soul.

  • • •

  I was thinking she would return during the night. She did not. I went out for some air at the close of day. Bréquillet was with me, and he inspected the surroundings with great care. He seemed almost completely healthy. His improvement could be seen in the warmth of his snout as he sniffed the ground.

  The evening was long. Balandran did not speak. He would wake, open his eyes, then silently close them again. But he too was returning to life. Bréquillet stayed either under or beside the bed. Very calm. Not one sign of feeling. But a secret heart, sure of us, sure of himself, that sometimes gave itself away through the gentleness of his breath. Because of Anne-Madeleine, I did not dare yield to sleep. And yet sleep obsessed me.

  Finally, I lay down on the mattress in the storeroom. That was where, at night, Anne-Madeleine would knock. My sleep was anxious, alert to sounds, fitful.

  No one knocked.

  I rose early and took care of the house. During the morning, Balandran was able to speak a few words regarding its proper management. A few pieces of advice. More than anything, he seemed absorbed by the house. About himself, nothing. And nothing about Anne-Madeleine or Bréquillet. Bréquillet was here, like me, like Balandran. It was a sure, visible, well-ordered world. Most likely he wanted nothing more. We were together again, reassembled with strength in our assigned spot, complying with the pact that joined our blood. Neither cunning nor violence had been able to separate us. And although moribund, Balandran felt himself to be strong, lying on his hard bed. He was resting peacefully, with nothing but household concerns. My anxiety and torment did not seem to touch him. And yet he might have sensed, from the slightest sign, the unrest and tightening anxiety that hour by hour were gripping me. I was too torn not to reveal a shadow or glimmer of my pain. As for Anne-Madeleine, had she not snatched him from death? If only he had spoken her name! But about her—as about himself—he was silent.

  In this way, the day of the 20th flowed by without incident, in silence. I had not forgotten for one instant that it was the last day of my confinement. A month earlier, this fact would have overwhelmed me. It no longer aroused a single feeling. It had become a notion, a simple date, long foreseen. A new, stronger worry made it seem trivial—Anne-Madeleine’s absence. If Anne-Madeleine did not reappear, I would not be able to leave until I found her. And to find her, I was prepared to do anything.

  •

  Night fell without bringing anything new. I took the usual precautions. Balandran fell sleep. As usual, I began my vigil with great patience. Toward nine, an animal (the same one that had yelped once before in the night) came and lamented right beside the house. I could not identify it. Bréquillet growled for a long time, but without leaving the bed. A little later, in the north, toward the Ranc, the lament rose again, but the distance made it so faint that it convulsed the heart with a strange pity. Dangerously, it troubled the soul, always so responsive to the nighttime calls of animals.

  I listened. Everything in the house was at rest. Outside, the same peace. I feared it was precarious. Just a few more hours, I told myself; they have only a little time left to act against me. I was waiting for them . . . Perhaps they did indeed come, for, toward one (the hour when Anne-Madeleine would go out), someone approached the house. It is true that I was sleeping beside the fire. It is beside the fire, very often, that my dreams intensify. St
ill, I heard something like a step, and I thought Anne-Madeleine was returning. I ran to the storeroom, ready to open at the least scratch. But no one touched the door, and nothing else stirred until morning.

  • • •

  The day of February 21 unfurled without incident. Balandran gained new strength. He spoke to me about the firewood and our store of dried beans. I reassured him. At one allusion to his adventure, he shook his head and grew silent. I understood that he did not want to speak about it. I grew silent as well.

  At five in the evening—night was falling—two shots were fired, somewhere near La Regrègue.

  I waited until nine, and for Balandran to be asleep, before leaving the house.

  I slipped out of La Redousse in total silence. It was very dark. I could be neither seen nor heard. I reached the Ranc without any difficulty. But on the river the night was black—it was futile to search; I did not see the ferry. Where was it? . . . on the river or on shore? . . . Strange story, that of the ferry . . . And I began to dream about it. My back against a large tree, facing the river whose redoubtable presence could be detected through the darkness only by its murmur, I tried to visualize that ferry poised at the center of these moving waters. There sat Le Grelu, the blind ferryman; and perhaps, wrapped in a blanket and resting on the river, Anne-Madeleine’s wild body. The unseen water was flowing toward me. No one knew that I was watching here at the most dangerous tip of the island. Neither Dromiols, nor Rat, nor their men so skilled at prowling through the night. Not even Anne-Madeleine . . .

  Who was Anne-Madeleine? . . . I had seen her emerge from shadows and for a long time hold back her first thoughts within the silence then necessary to my life. She had entrusted my healing to time and sleep. When I first spoke to what had seemed, to my weak eyes, to be only her shadow, I had wanted to know her name. Question that seemed straightforward to me, and yet to which, to this day, she had never wanted to reply . . . But it was with other words that she had broken our silences, revealing that which we can perhaps only bring forth when someone seeks our hearts and stubbornly asks for our trust. Of her deep, hidden heart, I had only the little knowledge gleaned from those distant words, words bound to meanings other than those with which they are usually charged. Yet often, during the night within which we had each lived for so long, the air between us had stirred with the passage of our breath . . . Now, haunted by anxiety, I was listening attentively to hear whether some splash on the river betrayed the approach of an oar. I was awaiting the glow of a signal. The cold that was streaming over the waters gradually seeped through my thick wool clothes; as it entered me, I felt arising within me the sense of my own solitude, along with a great winter for my heart . . .