Blood Dark

by Louis Guilloux

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Do you want to come over to my place?”

  “Is it far?”

  “It’s very close by.”

  “I’d like to.”

  “He won’t be jealous?”

  “Why would he be? I don’t love you.”

  “Ah? And you love him?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “And if he were to love someone else?”

  “Doesn’t matter to me.”

  “Hey! Wow! You must be some kind of angel.”

  “Why are you so mean?” she said.

  He changed tactics. “And do your parents know about him?”

  “They really want to marry me off. It would give me a living. They have no more to spend on me.”

  “But didn’t you tell me they were rich?”

  “Mama has fifteen houses.”

  “Mama? Not Papa?”

  “Mama’s the one in charge.”

  “And what would you do if you were rich?”

  “Me? I’ll never be rich, oh no!”

  “And if you don’t get married?”

  “I’ll go straight to a convent.”

  “Would you do the dishes?”

  “I’m used to it.”

  He suddenly didn’t want to walk with her anymore, and he removed his arm. “See you around.”

  “You’re leaving?”

  “Yes. I forgot an errand. We’ll go to my place some other time.”

  “Yes.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “I don’t know. Go to church.”

  He abandoned her at the corner.

  Henriette did in fact start out for the church. As she approached, she caught sight of Moka. He was pulling like crazy on the poor dog’s leash.

  The dog hobbled after him. I know I’m going to do something stupid . . . I feel it growing! Moka thought. He could very well promise to punish himself if he did something dumb, to deprive himself of lunch tomorrow, for example, but he knew he wouldn’t keep his promise. He shivered, and gave the poor dog’s leash a big tug. Lord forgive me!

  It was true that once he had done something silly in church. Why? He wasn’t angry, that day, he wasn’t desperate, nothing out of the ordinary had come up, no one had made a mean comment. It was a day he hadn’t thought about misbehaving. But he never thought about it! He did it without thinking.

  He went into the church, knelt down, and hiding his face in his hands, he murmured, “God, if you exist, make my hat fly all the way up to the vault and make the chairs trot like little rabbits.”

  He looked for something more difficult.

  God still didn’t appear, so he went on: “God, if you exist, make the whole church collapse on me.”

  Dying was ok with him, if he died with proof that God was real.

  Alas! Nothing came of it. Not a single grain of dust fell from the height of the vault.

  Moka got up and walked around the church.

  “If I started to sing some little song? To shout!”

  He wanted to flee. He started toward the door. A little light filtered through the crack underneath and he looked at it with a racing heart. Suddenly he turned: “Arooo! Arooo! Arooo!” he cried at the top of his lungs, and the vaulted ceiling echoed and amplified his cries. Moka, standing still, listened and smiled. Nothing. Nothing came of that attempt either.

  He shivered all of a sudden. A hand took hold of his.

  “Henriette!”

  “That’s not very nice, what you just did,” she said, leading him outside.

  WITH A sure, almost silent movement, the prefectural limousine stopped at the gates of the Veterans’ Hospital. Answering the horn, a door opened, and an office boy ran out. Recognizing the car, he hurried. Léo followed him out of the corner of his eye, an imperceptible smile hovering around his mouth—it was nice to see a viscount come running when he called.

  The viscount, who had gotten himself the safest post he could, was elegant, even in uniform.

  “Hello, Léo.”

  “Hello, Viscount.”

  Léo pretended not to see the viscount hold out a hand.

  “Go tell the chief I’m waiting for him.”

  “Fine.”

  The viscount turned on his heel. Léo let him get as far as the door. When the viscount was about to vanish, he called him back:

  “Viscount!”

  The viscount hesitated a moment, then go a hold of himself and came back over to the car—this time at a walk. Léo held out a cigarette: “For your trouble.”

  The viscount’s hand trembled so much that he almost dropped the cigarette. But once again, he controlled himself. He stuck the cigarette in his mouth, popped a match, and raised two calm eyes to Léo. “Need a light?”

  Léo also had a fresh cigarette in his mouth. He shrugged, stuck his head through the window, and took a light.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.”

  “Run along now.”

  The viscount left. Once again, Léo shrugged. He liked these low ways to get even, but today it wasn’t fun.

  The office boy had a standing order never to make Léo wait. He knocked on the chief’s door.

  “Come in!”

  “The prefect’s car is here, Monsieur Surgeon General.” “Again!” Disgruntled, Bacchiochi threw his pencil down on the table.

  “It’s urgent.”

  “Fine, fine, I’m going.”

  A secretary stood up: “Any orders, Surgeon General, sir?”

  “I’ll call.”

  “Very well, Surgeon General, sir.”

  The secretary fell back into the chair.

  Bacchiochi went into the vestibule to get his cloak. Fat Bertaud was there, a two-striper who was looking at himself in the mirror. Bacchiochi looked around for his cloak. He didn’t see it. Fat Bertaud turned red as a peony.

  “My cloak?”

  “Oh! Pardon me, pardon me, Monsieur Surgeon General. Pardon . . .” “You’ve got it on, haven’t you?”

  “Pardon, pardon . . .”

  And tangling himself in the felt sleeves, sick with shame, he did his best to get the unfortunate cloak off. How long had he been there in front of the mirror, admiring the effect of those handsome, sought-after stripes on his body?

  “Paardon . . .paardon . . .”

  “Disgusting!”

  “Pardon me, Surgeon General, sir!”

  “I’m waiting, Monsieur!”

  Fat Bertaud finally handed the cloak back to Bacchiochi, who ripped it out of his hands. In the same instant, without even being able to say how it happened, fat Bertaud disappeared.

  Bacchiochi smiled then, running as fast as he could to the car. Bah! I did the same when I was younger.

  •

  They drove for a while without saying anything, Bacchiochi in the backseat of the limousine.

  “Everything went well, Léo?”

  “Smooth as velvet.”

  “The girls?”

  “They’re over there. We’ll pick up Kaminsky first. Then to the camp.”

  “He wants to bring his little Italian?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not a good idea.”

  “He really wants to.”

  “Well then, there’s nothing for it . . .”

  Kaminsky was waiting out on the sidewalk in front of the boardinghouse. The car barely stopped. He got in and sat down next to Bacchiochi.

  “A world of trouble to disentangle myself from Madame de Villaplane. She gets more and more prickly. We’re going to the camp, right?”

  “Straight there.”

  “Perfect.”

  Then, they would go to their cottage, the cottage Madame de Villaplane imagined was the site of so many orgies. It would be the last time for a while. Since Kaminsky was leaving, the cottage would be rented . . .

  Kaminsky burst out laughing: “The provinces are really a funny sort of place. You know what we seem like? Like conspirators. And what’s this really about? To go get
our mistresses in peace. It takes a devil’s worth of trouble, and so much cleverness, and the patience of Russian terrorists who want to blow up a cabinet minister’s carriage.”

  “Speaking of bombs . . .” said Léo.

  “Yes, yes, I know it. We’re nothing but comedians, my dear Léo. I remember one time, in Poland, I put on a great comedy for them. My father was rich and well regarded. He entertained a lot. Fat bourgeois husbands and their wives. Dinners, etc. Hilarious! They weren’t worth any more than they are here, you know. One time, my father was traveling, so I was the one to host them.”

  “Why do you always say ‘them,’ ” asked Léo, “since you are one?”

  “It always comforts me a little.”

  Léo didn’t say anything more. He drove slowly through the town, listening with one ear to what Kaminsky was saying, entertaining himself with a game: when people out strolling stepped into the road, he’d get as close to them as possible, almost without a sound. Then, he’d violently lean on the horn for the pleasure of seeing them jump as if they’d been shocked in the ass with a wire. Kaminsky continued:

  “My guests were all gentlemen and ladies in their fifties, very respectable people—bankers, lawyers, magistrates. A few military types in dress uniform. I’d cooked them up one of those Russian dinner parties, you know, something to die for.”

  An able storyteller, he paused and waited for Bacchiochi to ask, “And so?”

  “I rented, for a small fortune, the twenty most titillating prostitutes I could find. Gorgeous girls. The oldest one wasn’t even nineteen. They ate separately, in the adjoining room. When the bourgeoisie had eaten, the double doors opened, and my young ladies appeared—totally naked.”

  “You did that?”

  “Don’t you think that’s great? The old bourgeois wives went crazy with anger. What yells! What a scramble! They wanted to kill me, I think. As for the gentlemen, well, you would have thought they were the naked ones. They didn’t know where to hide. They didn’t dare look at each other, or at the girls, and certainly not at their wives. What a stampede to the cloakroom, the old women leading their husbands by the hand! Not a single one dared to stay. They all jumped ship. Extraordinary, no?”

  “You’ve got guts, I’ll say that.”

  “No, no, this isn’t about guts. I simply wanted to know if a single one would stay. One who was comfortable with what he thought about love and women. But at the risk of shocking you, Léo, old friend, I have to say that over there, they aren’t any more comfortable with themselves.”

  “You’re exaggerating, my friend,” said Bacchiochi. “All that’s just stories . . .you don’t know how to take life simply, the right side up.”

  “You’re joking,” said Kaminsky.

  “No. You’re a funny one, my dear friend. You’re always splitting hairs. Oh, la, la! Do you know what I’m going to do?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I’m going to settle down here. Yes, these three years I’ve lived here, I’ve loved it. I’m going to sell my house in Toulouse and buy one here. And then we’ll see . . .”

  “Politics?”

  “Why not?” said Bacchiochi, surprised he guessed so well. “Don’t you think there’s work to be done in that quarter? After the war, they’ll need new leaders. Well then, there’s nothing stopping me, it seems, from running for office. Everyone knows me here. I’ve done favors for piles of people . . .”

  Léo, hunched over the wheel, swerved abruptly, throwing the passengers against each other. The car skidded left, for about twenty yards. Léo finally got it back under control.

  “Name of God!”

  “Are you trying to kill us?” Kaminsky asked, smiling.

  “Almost wiped out Cripure,” Léo grumbled.

  In the back of the car, the two men turned. Cripure, in the middle of the street, waved his arms, open-mouthed, his pince-nez lost once again.

  “In plain sight,” said Bacchiochi.

  “Not around a bend. Of course, he would be on the wrong side.”

  “Not harmed?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “Fine then,” said Bacchiochi, “step on it!”

  “Monsieur Surgeon General is in a hurry to get some love tonight,” said Kaminsky. And he let himself fall limply into the backseat, adding, “as for me, I don’t know . . .”

  IN THE middle of the road: Cripure, the wind knocked out of him, his face turned to the sky, the goatskin covered all the way up to the collar with a huge splash of mud, seemed to be asking God to look out for him, begging to end his martyrdom, that he’d be struck down where he stood, or else find the strength for revenge.

  His cane had gotten away from him and lay in the gutter—not only his cane, but also, alas!—the groceries he was carrying in his net bag. In spite of everything he’d managed to get the shopping done, taking his to-do list from the pocket of his vest at each stop, and deciphering it like a sheet of hieroglyphics, not trusting himself to read it right. And so of course the bag, full to bursting and beyond, had rolled on the ground, into the mud, all the contents ruined—the lovely round potatoes, the artichokes, the parsnips, the macaroni, everything, including the quart of grated cheese and the half measure of butter. Only the bottle of nice wine had escaped the disaster, since he hadn’t been able to fit it in the bag, and so he’d stuck it in the pocket of his goatskin, the seal sticking out, looking, with its gold-foiled top, like the gold cap on a dress uniform sword. Ah! If only it were a real sword, not a fake one, but the real thing, a handsome and righteous sword, thin and well tempered and sharp!

  Those who had witnessed the scene, the ones who had helped him back onto the sidewalk, helped him find his pince-nez, who found the scattered groceries, washed them in the fountain and put them back in the bag, who picked up his cane, dried it, and gave it back to him, would say later on that they’d never heard from the mouth of a man such a stream of oaths and profanity. So many crazy things, phrases that were absolutely incomprehensible to them, and, they would say: exaggerated. They weren’t expecting him to be thrilled, of course, at having nearly gone under the wheels of a car, but really, it was something that happened to lots of people, and in the end, it hadn’t happened! Enough fear. Besides that, what was the good of working yourself up into such a state of accusations, blaming the universe? Because it was the whole universe he blamed, not just the risky or clumsy driver, another proof of his bad faith, since the driver hadn’t been clumsy, on the contrary it was he, Cripure, who had been in the wrong, in the middle of the road, against all traffic laws and what was simply good sense.

  But he didn’t want to see it that way! It wasn’t worth discussing it in such absurd details that were certain to create only the wrong story. A light went on, an illumination. The shortsighted silliness of believing in a simple accident, finding the responsible parties, and punishing them, he’d leave to others! Would it have been simple too if he’d fallen off his bicycle and cracked his skull on the pavement? The filthy dunces had planned something. The driver, he hadn’t premeditated anything, but ultimately, there was only one way to look at it: they, all of them, were nothing but instruments towards an absolute necessity—to see that he vanished from the universe. Twice today, he’d been given notice. Twice, he’d miraculously escaped death. How much longer could he count on this reprieve?

  Standing on the sidewalk, he looked at his feet, waiting perhaps to see the earth open up so he could throw himself in . . . or was he looking, out of the corner of his eye, to see if everything really had been picked up and put back in the bag? They could have believed it . . . the bystanders were so convinced that they hurried to reassure him. But at the sound of their voices, he came out of his shock and started furiously insulting them.

  In his angry delirium, he went after the witnesses of the scene and those obliging people who had lent him a hand. He wore a horrible scowl, sending them a look filled with hate. “Nothing but a bunch of assassins! Did you think to have my hide? Did you think I couldn’
t defend myself? Get your paws off me!”

  He raised his cane, ready to bring it down on the first person who moved.

  It was a shocking moment for everyone. Of course, there was no one who was truly intimidated by this threat, but all the same, everyone was seized with a mysterious unease.

  “Let me through . . .”

  They parted. And Cripure made his way through the little group, getting back on the road, resolved this time to stick up for himself and not let things go.

  “Cowards!”

  The unease gave way to disgust, and he went on his way through a volley of insults. He turned back around. He was going to see the principal.

  “Poor man,” said an older one who’d see the whole thing without saying a word. “He’s off his rocker.”

  Someone answered that it wasn’t the first time Cripure had thrown a tantrum like that.

  “Yes,” said the old man. “He thinks they’ve got it out for him. For a long time now he’s been practicing with his pistol on the strand when he goes to his cottage.”

  “What! His pistol? Why?”

  “Dunno. He likes it. And besides, yeah, he thinks he’d in danger since it started to go poorly for him. He thinks the revolution will come and he’ll be killed first.”

  “By whom?”

  “He said the workers will kill him. No one knows why. He has ideas like that. He thinks people see him as an . . . intellectual. And plus, there’s a story about little dogs in there, go figure. Yes, the neighbors scolded him for feeding the little dogs but having no mercy for men. Something like that. And since then . . .”

  “Since then he’s been doing target practice?”

  “Well,” said the old man, “it’s not so simple.”

  Cripure’s shadow disappeared around the corner. The little group disbanded.

  Since the day long ago when he’d run to the telegraph office to insult the judges who had rejected his thesis, he’d never known such fury. He went back through the streets as if in a dream, opened the school gates without seeing them, and scaled, as if in a huge hurry, the same too-large, too-loud staircase in between the oozing walls that he’d climbed down not long ago, with the haste of a hunted man. In black on a plaque of white enamel: Principal’s Office.