But four months later, after a thousand attempts at persuasion and at a point where every other patient, without exception, had agreed to put their trust in the surgeons to mitigate the damage, Soldat Larivière still stubbornly refused: I am staying like this.
And his eyes as he said it were fixed, glassy, obdurate.
They called in the psychiatrists again.
That said, from your drawings I think I have a sense of what’s happening. The room you’re in now seems bigger and more spacious than the one before, am I right? Are those trees I can see in the courtyard? Obviously I’m not foolish enough to think that you’re happy there, it’s just that I don’t know what I can do to help, being so far away. I feel completely helpless.
Thank you for the sketch of Sister Marie-Camille.
Before now, you always managed to draw her from behind or in profile and now I understand why you wanted to keep her to yourself, you old rogue, because she is very pretty. In fact, I have to say that if I didn’t already have my Cécile . . .
In fact, there were no female nuns in the hospital, only civilians, kindly women of great compassion. But he had to find something to say to Albert, who sent letters twice a week. Édouard’s first sketches were clumsy; his hand shook convulsively and he could hardly see. To say nothing of the fact that after every operation he was in terrible pain. It was Albert who saw a “young nun” in the barely sketched face in profile. Let’s say she’s a nun, Édouard thought, what difference does it make? He called her Marie-Camille. From his letters, Édouard had formed a certain sense of Albert, and he tried to give his imaginary nun the sort of face he thought Albert would probably like.
Though united by a shared experience in which each had taken his life in his hands, the two men did not know each other, and their relationship was complicated by a murky combination of guilt, solidarity, resentment, diffidence, and comradeship. Édouard nursed a little grudge against Albert, but it was tempered by the fact that his comrade had found him a new identity so he did not have to return home. He had not the first idea what he would do with himself now that he was no longer Édouard Péricourt, but he welcomed any life in which his father did not have to see him in this state.
Speaking of Cécile, I had a letter from her. Like me, she thinks the end of the war is taking too long. We talk about the good times we’ll have when I get back, but from her tone I can tell that she is tired of the whole thing. In the beginning, she used to visit my mother a lot, but she doesn’t really go much now. I can hardly blame her. I told you about my mother, she’s a real character, that woman.
Thank you so much for the horse’s head. I know I went on and on about it . . . I think it’s perfect now, very expressive, the way you’ve drawn the bulging eyes, the half-open mouth. It’s stupid, you know, but I often wonder what that horse was called. It’s as though I need to give him a name.
How many horse’s heads had he drawn for Albert? They were always too scrawny, the head should be turned to the side . . . no, actually, the other side, and the eyes should be more . . . I don’t know how to describe it . . . No, they were never quite right. Anyone but Édouard would have chucked the whole thing up, but he could sense how important it was for his comrade to dredge up, to remember the head of the old nag that had probably saved his life. Albert’s request masked a deeper, more troubling issue that concerned Édouard, one that he could not put into words. Édouard set to work, dashing off dozens of sketches, trying to follow the ham-fisted instructions Albert—between profuse apologies and gratitude—offered in each new letter. Édouard was just about to give up when he remembered a sketch da Vinci had done of a horse’s head for a statue—a red chalk drawing if he remembered rightly—and he used this as a model. When he got the picture, Albert had literally jumped for joy.
Reading those words, Édouard finally understood what Albert was going on about.
Now that he had given his comrade his horse’s head, he set down his pencil.
He would never draw again.
Time drags here. Do you realize, the armistice was signed last November, it’s February already and there’s still no sign of us being demobilized? Weeks we’ve been sitting around doing nothing . . . They’ve given us all sorts of different reasons to explain the situation, but there’s no way of knowing what’s true and what isn’t. It’s just like the trenches here, rumors travel faster than news. Apparently, Parisians will soon be going on sightseeing trips with Le Petit Journal to visit the battlefields near Reims while we’re still moldering here in conditions that—like us—are going from bad to worse. Sometimes, I swear, we wonder if we weren’t better off being shot at—at least we felt useful, at least we thought we were winning the war. I feel ashamed to be complaining about my petty gripes to you, my poor Eugène, here I am whining on and you’re probably thinking I don’t know how lucky I am. And you’re right, it’s amazing how self-centered people are.
Sorry if this letter is a bit rambling (I never could stick to a subject, it was the same at school), maybe I’d be better off taking up drawing . . .
Édouard wrote to Docteur Maudret saying that he refused any cosmetic treatment whatever and requesting to be returned to civilian life as quickly as possible.
“With a face like that?”
The doctor was livid. He was clutching the letter in his right hand while his left gripped Édouard’s shoulder, forcing him to look in the mirror.
For a long time Édouard stared at this swollen magma of flesh in which he could just make out faint vestiges of the face he had known. The folds of flesh formed pale, milky pads. In the middle, the hole, partially scarred over where the skin had been strained and stretched, formed a sort of crater that seemed more remote than it had previously, though it was still as crimson. It looked like the face of a circus contortionist who could suck in his cheeks and swallow his lower jaw, but could not reverse the process.
“Yes,” Édouard nodded, “with a face like this.”
8
It is pandemonium. Thousands of soldiers coming and going, hanging around, piling in, all crammed together in unimaginable chaos. The Center for Demobilization is crammed to the gills; the men are supposed to be demobilized in waves of hundreds at a time, but no one knows what to do. Orders are given only to be countermanded; the entire setup keeps changing. Exhausted and frustrated, soldiers clutch at any straw of information, and within minutes, the rumor swells, a roar goes up, almost a threat. Beleaguered noncommissioned officers stride through the crowd, snarling irritably to no one in particular: “What do you want me to say? I don’t know any more than you do!” Suddenly whistle blasts sound. Everyone turns to look, the focus of frustration shifts, there is a guy at the far end yelling, all anyone can hear is “Papers? What fucking papers?” and another voice, “What do you mean my military record?” Instinctively, the soldiers all pat their breast pockets or their back pockets, look at each other quizzically. “Four fucking hours we’ve been waiting here!,” “Think yourself lucky, me, I’ve been here three days.” Someone else says, “Where did you say I should go for the boots?” But apparently they only have larger sizes. “So what am I supposed to do?” The guy is overwrought. He is a lowly soldat de première classe, yet he is addressing a capitaine as if he were a servant. He is fuming. “So, what the hell am I supposed to do?” he says again. The officer stares down at his list, ticking off names. The première classe turns on his heel and stomps off, muttering something that is inaudible but for the word bastards . . . The capitaine pretends not to hear. His face is flushed, his hands are shaking, but the place is so packed that that the insult is carried away on the crowd like a fleck of sea foam. Elsewhere, two men are arguing, punching each other on the shoulder. “I told you, it’s my damn jacket,” yells the first man. “Fuck,” says the other man, “that’s all I need.” But he lets go of the jacket and walks away; he tried his best; he can try again. There are so many thefts here every day that they need to open a special office to deal with them. Can you imagine
setting up counters for every type of complaint . . . it would be impossible! So say the men lining up for soup. Lukewarm. It has always been like that. It makes no sense: the coffee is scalding; the soup is stone cold. Ever since they’ve been here. When they are not lining up for something or other, they try to get whatever information they can. (“But the train for Mâcon is listed there on the board!” one man says. “Yeah, sure, it’s listed, but it’s not here, so what the hell do you expect me to do?”)
Yesterday, finally, a train left for Paris, forty-seven carriages, room enough for fifteen hundred men, but more than two thousand soldiers piled inside, packed tight as sardines but happy. Carriage windows were broken, noncommissioned officers showed up and muttered darkly about “criminal damage.” Everyone had to get off, and the train—already ten hours late by then—was delayed another hour. When eventually it shuddered and moved off, there were shouts from everywhere, from those leaving and those left behind. And when all that could be seen was a plume of smoke over the flat countryside, those who were left behind shuffled forward, searching for a familiar face in the hope of picking up some crumb of information, asking the same questions: which units were being demobilized, in what order . . . surely there must be someone in charge here, for Christ’s sake. But in charge of what? No one seems to know anything. They wait. Half the soldiers have been sleeping on the floor in their greatcoats; they had more room in the trenches. Granted, it’s not the same, but if there are no rats here, there are lice aplenty, because the little creatures travel with you. “Can’t even write home to say when we’ll get there,” one soldier moans, an old man with craggy features and vacant eyes; despite his grumbling, he is resigned. There were rumors that an extra train was being dispatched, and amazingly it actually arrived, but rather than taking the three hundred and twenty waiting men, it brought two hundred new arrivals, and there is nowhere to put them.
The chaplain tries to weave his way through the lines of soldiers stretched out on the floor; he is jostled, half his coffee spills, a little guy winks at him—“You’d think the Good Lord would take care of his own!”—and laughs. The chaplain grits his teeth and tries to find space on a bench; apparently they are sending more benches, but when, no one knows. In the meantime, anyone who has a seat is under constant siege. The chaplain only finds a space because the men bunch up; if it were an officer, he could go to hell, but a priest . . .
Being in such a crowd was not good for Albert’s anxiety. He was permanently on edge. It was impossible to find a place to sit without being jostled or elbowed by someone. And the noise, the incessant shouting upset him, boring into his head, at the slightest thing he found himself flinching and turning this way and that. Sometimes, as though a trapdoor had been closed, the roar of the crowd would suddenly fade to be replaced by faint echoes like the muffled blast of shells heard by a man buried underground.
Such moments had been recurring more frequently since he spotted Lieutenant Pradelle at the far end of the hall. Standing feet apart—his favorite position—and hands clasped behind his back, he observed this pitiful spectacle with the solemnity of a man dismayed but unscathed by the mediocrity of others. As he thought about Pradelle, Albert glanced at the soldiers around him and felt a sudden surge of panic. He did not want to talk to Édouard about Lieutenant Pradelle, but it seemed to Albert that he was everywhere, like an evil spirit, constantly hovering close by ready to swoop.
And you’re right, it’s amazing how selfish people are. Sorry if this letter is a bit rambling . . .
“Albert!”
It’s just that, well, the thing is we’re all a little crazy. When you have . . .
“Albert, for Christ’s sake!”
The angry caporal-chef grabbed his shoulder, shook him hard, and pointed to the sign. Albert quickly gathered up the scattered pages and rushed off, scrambling as best he could to organize his things, clutching his papers as he pushed through the line of waiting soldiers.
“You don’t look much like your photo.”
The gendarme was a man of about forty, self-satisfied (potbellied, practically obese . . . it made you wonder where he had managed to find so much food these past four years) and suspicious. The sort of man who has a sense of duty. There was a seasonal fluctuation in this sense of duty. Since the armistice, for example, there seemed to be a surfeit. Besides, Albert was an easy target. Not much of a fighter. Desperate to get home. Desperate to get some sleep.
“Albert Maillard . . . ,” the gendarme said, studying the military record.
He was tempted to hold it up to the light. His suspicions were confirmed as he studied Albert’s face: “does not resemble photograph.” On the other hand, the photograph was four years old, dog eared, washed out . . . For a dog-eared, washed-out guy like me, it’s perfect, thought Albert. But the official was unlikely to see things in the same light. There were so many cheats, con artists, and swindlers these days. He nodded his head, looking from Albert to the picture and back again.
“It’s a photo from before,” Albert said.
Though the gendarme was a skeptic and a petty bureaucrat, the notion of “before” was one he understood. For everyone, the meaning of “before” was clear as day. All the same.
“Fair enough,” he said, “I’m happy to go with ‘Albert Maillard.’ Trouble is now I’ve got two Maillards.”
“You have two Albert Maillards?”
“No, two ‘A. Maillards,’ and A could easily stand for Albert.”
The gendarme seemed proud of this deduction, which he felt confirmed his sophistication.
“Yes,” Albert agreed, “or it could stand for Alfred. Or for André. Or for Alcide.”
The gendarme eyed him warily, then screwed his eyes up like a big cat.
“And why would it not stand for Albert?”
Of course. Albert had nothing with which to counter this indisputable hypothesis.
“So where is he, this other man named Maillard?” he said.
“Well, that’s the problem: he left the day before yesterday.”
“You let him leave without asking his first name?”
The gendarme closed his eyes; it was painful to have to explain such simple procedures.
“We had his first name, but we don’t have it anymore, the files were transferred to Paris yesterday. Once they’ve left, all I have is this list here.” (He prodded a peremptory finger at the list of surnames.)
“See, ‘A. Maillard.’”
“So if you can’t track down the paperwork, I have to carry on fighting the war on my own?”
“If it was down to me, I’d let you through,” the gendarme said, “but I’ve got my orders . . . If someone gets demobilized and turns out to be the wrong guy, who gets it in the neck? Me, that’s who. You wouldn’t believe the number of line cutters we get. Not to mention how many of you seem to lose your papers. If you knew all the guys who’ve lost their pay book so they can claim the allowance twice . . .”
“And it’s really that serious?” Albert said.
The gendarme frowned as though suddenly realizing he was dealing with a Bolshevik.
“Since that picture was taken, I’ve been wounded at the Somme,” Albert explained to calm things down. “Maybe that explains it . . .”
The gendarme, delighted to have to use his expertise, scrutinized the photograph and the face in turn, looking from one to the other faster and faster, and eventually announced, “It’s possible.” And yet it still seemed as though there was something missing. Behind Albert, the other soldiers were beginning to get impatient. The commotion was muted still, but before long there would likely be a full-scale riot . . .
“Is there a problem?”
Albert was pole axed at the sound of this voice: like a breath of poison, it seemed to exude evil. From the corner of his eye, at first all he noticed was an officer’s belt and a capitaine’s stripes. He could feel himself beginning to shake. Don’t piss yourself.
“See, the thing is . . .” The gendarme
handed over the papers. Albert finally forced himself to look up and, like a knife wound, felt the cold caustic stare of Capitaine d’Aulnay-Pradelle. Still tanned and hirsute, with a swaggering self-confidence. Never taking his eyes off Albert, Pradelle reached out and took the papers.
“. . . Thing is, I’ve got two guys named ‘A. Maillard.’ And, well, looking at the photo, I had my doubts . . .”
Pradelle still did not look at the document. Albert bowed his head and stared at his shoes. He simply could not hold the capitaine’s gaze. Another five minutes, and a bead of sweat would be dangling from his nose.
“I know this man . . . ,” Pradelle said casually. “Know him well, actually.”
“Really?” the gendarme said.
“This is Albert Maillard . . .”
Pradelle spoke with infinite slowness, as though putting his whole weight behind each syllable.
“. . . No doubt about it.”
At the capitaine’s arrival, the commotion had instantly ceased. The soldiers lining up behind Albert fell silent as though surprised by an eclipse. There was something about him that chilled the blood, something reminiscent of the vile Inspector Javert in Les Misérables. With a face like that, he clearly had guardian angels in hell.
I wasn’t sure whether to say anything about it, but I’ve decided I should all the same; I’ve had news about A.P. You’ll never guess: he’s been promoted to capitaine! So you see, in war it’s better to be a shit than a soldier. And he’s here, he’s running some section of the demob. center. I can’t tell you what it was like, seeing him again . . . You wouldn’t believe the nightmares I’ve had since I ran into him.
“We do know each other, don’t we, Soldat Maillard?”
Albert eventually looked up.
“Yes, Lieut . . . yes, Capitaine. We know each other.”
The Great Swindle Page 9