Blood Dark

by Louis Guilloux

  A bitter doubt pierced him: that of having been enormously wronged, of having let himself be dragged, like an innocent, into an ambush at the hands of practiced crooks, of having agreed to gamble, blindfolded, everything he had in the world. And with the card they gave him, which was worse than the others, he discovered that the whole game was rigged.

  When he went home, Claire’s look would perhaps still contain only sadness, and not yet hate. But hate would come, and despite all that, they would stay together. In a devastating moment of clarity he understood that she would never leave him, he wouldn’t leave either, and they would continue to live side by side with this sorrow in common. Was it possible? Maybe not, but it was certain.

  •

  He went back to the station once again.

  Everything was silent. The courtyard seemed to have grown in the night. Gaslights trembled in the shadows around the courtyard, but the station itself had no lights burning, not even the usual light of the clock. The trees around the square came out of the night like fat torches dunked in ashes.

  He approached the square with little steps. Where was it?

  He wanted to find the exact spot where he’d pushed up close to the barricade. Understanding that the search was in vain, he shrugged and went off, shivering in the dampness of the night.

  What to do? But what could he do?

  His hand lifted mechanically to the knob of a door—the waiting room.

  He turned the knob and pushed, taking care, in passing through, to hold the door with his fingertips. He knew that door! For years he’d been coming there, in the evening, to buy his favorite newspaper, Le Temps, at the bookstore. But the door escaped from him and slammed shut in a gust of wind, groaned, shook, with a long trembling of the glass, and the echo reverberated in the empty room. It was lit by an oil lamp. In the center of the room, a stove was rumbling, stuffed to the gills. The custodian must have filled it with too much coal before he left. The whole inside of the stove was red, and the top part white. The pipe too, was white. But there was no one to benefit from this heat, not a vagabond, not one soldier. The peasant and his wife must have found a cottage nearby, or had they already gone home? Monsieur Marchandeau was frozen—he put his suitcase down and held his hands out to the fire. He stayed like that for a long moment, totally still.

  “It’s my fault . . .”

  Hadn’t he prodded Pierre with encouragements? Hadn’t he sent him to his death like you show someone the door, pushing both their shoulders? Yes, someone you hate, not a son you love. I should have . . . what? Given him money and helped him to desert? Pierre wasn’t a deserter, he was a rebel. He wouldn’t have wanted his money. What he had done, he had chosen to do. “Poor child, poor sucker!” murmured Monsieur Marchandeau, who had never taught his son anything except what was taught and whose opinion of heroism was only respect tinged with suspicion.

  He moved away from the fire. The heat was so intense that he couldn’t stand it anymore, and the suitcase had started to buckle. He picked it up, put it on a bench and sat down. “My God!”

  Too late. Finding a car? Running to Paris? It was crazy to even think of it. Where could he find gas? And the passbooks? No matter what, now he’d be too late. What was Claire doing? It had seemed to him a little while ago when he passed in front of the lycée that there was a light in her window, but he could have been wrong. He might know all the buildings by heart, but it was difficult, in total darkness, to say . . . The light could have come from a monitor’s room, bent over his Latin translations. That must have been it. He passed a hand across his forehead: an ill feeling. The heat was making him uncomfortable. He didn’t move right away, overcome by fatigue. He waited, as if in the face of his son’s death and his wife’s sorrow his own suffering had to reclaim its rights. His ears thundered and rang, as if full of water. He didn’t cry, but a low whimper came from deep in his chest, like the barbaric wail he’d once heard in criminal court from a mother listening to the verdict that condemned her son to death.

  He got up, took his suitcase and went out. The door banged behind him, creaking and trembling, multiplying the echo of its shaking panes into the night. The cold grabbed him, and he shivered for a long time, lifting the collar of his overcoat with a mechanical gesture. What to do? What could he do? He climbed on to the little bridge where Cripure had witnessed the scene of the riot and slapped Nabucet. Two lights burned, the signal lights, scattered in the night. Others, closer to the platform. The debris from broken glass, benches, helmets the men had thrown down had all been cleared, and the rain had finished the tidying. There wasn’t a sound—nothing but the tender puff of the wind over the roofs and in the treetops. He could have taken the station for an abandoned one in a dead city. He sighed, shivered, and went on.

  Streets. Everywhere, the windows closed, the iron gates pulled down as if by hateful hands, and stretching out further and further in front of him, roses poisoned by the night. The suitcase weighed like lead on his fingers wrapping the handle. What would he say to Claire? How would he say it?

  He walked.

  Dawn would break soon; they’d come upon him loitering in the streets, soaked, covered in dirt, stumbling like a drunk. He wanted to know what time it was, and took out his watch as he approached a gaslight. The yellow light wrapped his long black shadow, and he bent over the watch held out in the palm of his hand: one a.m.

  In his cell, Pierre must be pacing, if they hadn’t put him in irons. What would his thoughts be? Would Pierre have forgiven him? “It’s true, you’re right. But your mother, my little one, your mother isn’t guilty of anything. Why didn’t you write to her?” He shook his head, bit his lips, made, with his arms, a vague gesture. Behind him, an iron shade, shining like a mirror. His grotesque shadow repeated the gesture. “Why?”

  A clock sounded a quick toll. His watch hadn’t deceived him. He wavered—an idea of the hour and fate—and tearing himself from the lamppost with a shaky step, leaving the little corner of light, he went back into the shadows, moving on, scraping along the walls.

  •

  The dogs, kings of the night, wandered in little groups of threes and fours, without a cry, rummaging in the garbage bins, scratching with their paws in the piles of trash outside the doors. A bin fell loudly and the dogs fled.

  On a street corner, a gust of wind took off his hat. He ran after it. The hat rolled, bouncing. He grabbed it finally and brushed it off on his thigh. A coughing fit sized him, bending him toward the sidewalk.

  From time to time, he stopped, slowly shrugging his shoulders. The suitcase became heavier and heavier, viciously battering his calves.

  He stopped sharply, looking down at a thing—living or dead?—at his feet which he’d almost stepped on: a man’s hand, open on the stone of the sidewalk; a small hand, fairly delicate, with a wedding band on the ring finger. A hand, yes, the hand of a drunk, no doubt, who was digesting his wine there . . . the hand, in fact, came out of a sleeve, and the sleeve belonged also to something indistinct, but which could be a body, forming a black stain against the wall like a scorch mark with two points—the knees. A drunk or a . . . corpse? He bent down.

  The man was sleeping, his face hidden under a hat. A drunk.

  Monsieur Marchandeau backed away, circling the streets. Then remorse took hold, and he retraced his steps. He couldn’t leave the man lying like that without helping him, at least without offering. That would be . . . he searched for the word: inhuman. Yes, inhuman.

  His shoulders gave a little shudder as he approached the shadow stretched out on the ground.

  The man hadn’t moved. At the base of the wall, the black shadow remained. Only the open hand on the stone formed a relatively bright splotch.

  He shook the man: “Hello . . . sir?”

  The man made a small movement with his arms. “Did you hear me?” And the principal gently lifted the hat covering the sleeper’s face. “Wake up. You’ll catch your death if you sleep out here.”

  The wind picked up,
scattering a fine mist of water into the air.

  “Eh?” said the man, waking up, “what’s all this?”

  “Are you sick?”

  “Me?” He sat up.

  “Sick? No . . . I’m not sick. Why? Why did you wake me?”

  “To save you . . .”

  Monsieur Marchandeau knew a place where, if it was just for one night, a vagabond or a drunk would be better off than on a sidewalk. The fire must still be burning in the heater at the station.

  “Why don’t you go over there?”

  “Where?”

  “To the waiting room?”

  There was no response.

  “There’s a fire over there. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Ah! Can I help you with something?” The man, pressing his hands into the ground, looked like a legless cripple.

  “Thank you. No.” He brought his hands together and raised his head. Monsieur Marchandeau could finally make out his bearded face. A glimmer of madness was shining in his eyes. The man murmured, “My son!” and he lowered his head.

  Under his hand, Monsieur Marchandeau felt the heaving of his shoulders like a violent shock. The man let his hands hang down between his legs, stretched straight out on the sidewalk, the toes of his shoes in the air.

  “I asked, I had asked Monsieur Point for an evening off so I could go with Étienne to the barracks, and . . .” But sobs choked him, and his hand batted the air in front of his face. “Can’t tell you! I can’t tell you!”

  Monsieur Marchandeau knelt and put an arm around his shoulders.

  “I got drunk!” The wind blew white hair soaked with drizzle across the unhappy man’s forehead. “I couldn’t get myself to go over there. They’ve already killed one of mine. They’ll kill this one too. I drank because I couldn’t make myself go to meet him. I . . . I wouldn’t have been able to speak to him. This morning, I understood that he wanted to tell me . . . something. And me . . . I wanted to tell him . . . something. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it!” he went on, sobbing harder. And he pushed the principal away. “You must leave me . . . leave me. Leave me alone!” he cried, getting up.

  Monsieur Marchandeau stepped back. The man pressed his shoulder to the wall, continuing to groan, “I couldn’t do it . . .”

  From the depths of the night, a dull sound, like the faraway drumroll of a tambour. Monsieur Couturier stopped whimpering. He came back to the principal. “Do you hear them?”

  Steps, mixed with the clinking of weapons.

  They retreated together, hiding in a doorway.

  “A deployment!”

  The sound of steps came closer, and soon the company appeared at the end of the street. Nothing but feet and the clink of bayonets. Not a word. They moved forward in a block. One, two, one, two. Under the light of a lamp, the helmets, the weapons gleamed. Who was first—Monsieur Marchandeau or Monsieur Couturier—to take the other man’s hand? Who, when the company had passed, was the first to let go? Monsieur Marchandeau suddenly found himself alone. Monsieur Couturier was retreating, his steps dragging on the pavement.

  •

  The principal set off again. It was definitely time to go home. But he could barely go on. From time to time, he had to stop and cough. The fits were so intense that he had to put down his suitcase.

  Finally, he reached the lycée.

  Under the gaslight, the golden points of the gate shone weakly, like the moving reflections of oil lamps on calm water—or like those bayonets the group of artillerymen had silently brandished, already prepared for the task.

  Monsieur Marchandeau, planted before the gate, realized that it was closed, and went around back, as he and his wife did when they came from the theater, not wanting to disturb Noël. He went down a street even darker than the others, where a door opened on to the gardens, close to the kitchen. The vents gave off a nauseating smell of cabbages. He took a ring of keys from his pocket, finding the one he needed by touch, then opened the door.

  Silence. A heavy sleep weighed on the institution, confusing humans with stones. He crossed the garden on tiptoe, passing silently behind Noël’s lodge. He looked like a bad soldier who’d jumped over the wall, or an unfaithful husband coming back from his mistress’s house. At the bottom of the grand staircase, his finger pressed the switch mechanically, and the light that sprang up blinded him.

  He went up.

  One hand still holding his suitcase, he gripped the greasy banister with the other, climbing step by step. He stopped once again and coughed.

  I’ve caught something bad.

  The coughing fit became violent. Noël will hear . . . but no one came. His coughs woke nothing but noisy echoes from the walls. No door slammed, no steps approached. Nothing but the silence, moist and heavy, the light, the greenish staircase, the black banister.

  He wiped his brow with his handkerchief, taking the time to put it carefully back in his pocket, and picking up his suitcase at last, he kept climbing.

  And if she’s sleeping? Will I have to wake her?

  He hadn’t thought of that either.

  CLAIRE wasn’t sleeping. After her husband left, she’d thrown herself fully clothed on the bed, and since then she hadn’t moved—the world, the universe around her, had become a fragile edifice, ready to unravel at her slightest gesture. It was already too much to breathe, to feel the blood battering her temples, to know that her eyes (to see what, by God?) were open. But she didn’t dare close them. Not for fear of the dark—was it possible to be plunged into a night deeper than the one she already inhabited? But because the slightest movement, that of reaching her hand for the switch, would unshackle everything she was trying so hard to hold back—the cries, the wild gestures of grief, the folly of tears. She didn’t want any of it. The best thing was to clench her jaw for as long as she needed to . . . to reassure. But what? Who? She didn’t want to ask. The same way she’d stopped all her movements, she’d stopped that mute will of her body to leap up, mastered it like you tame a beast. This too was the way she silenced all her thoughts, breaking them up as quickly as they appeared—and they kept coming—concentrating only on her desire to wait and to be nothing while she waited. That could go on for a while, perhaps beyond her strength, until the moment a telegram arrived from “Papa.” The word “Papa” almost jeopardized everything. In thinking that word, she was on the point of surrendering and letting herself be conquered. And it took no less than all of her determination to resist. But a moment later, she could keep going.

  Her grief was almost without connection to its object. It was something automatic, which, if it came out of nowhere, wasn’t less likely to stay once it came, mysteriously oblivious of its source.

  The maid had come in. She had announced that dinner was served. That, too, had almost jeopardized everything. At the simple sight of the maid, Claire sat straight up, ready to yell, and her mouth had opened wide, round, to the amazement of the maid, who was used to a calm mistress, always even-tempered, master of herself. But Claire pulled out of the misstep once again, finding the courage to act out waking with a start, illness, a migraine, and she let the maid off work until the morning. No question of eating. The maid gone, she’d immediately fallen back into her lethargy, which she wished was more total and more real. Long hours rolled by. For a long time now, nothing and no one had come to disturb her. As if from the depths of a sickness, she heard without impatience or resignation the ordinary sounds of the school—the bell the concierge rang, the clogs of the boarders on their way to the dining hall, the fanfare of tin-glazed plates on marble tables, then the return to study hall, then again the clogs climbing back to the dormitory, then nothing, nothing but the silence, the whiplash of wind in the night, nothing but the electric light that made a gilt frame sparkle in the corner in front of her, nothing but the waiting, which tomorrow she might have to conceal. Would she be capable? Better not think of it yet. First she had to exhaust the night—her pain sufficient to each minute.

 
•

  She sat up, her eyes wide open. What could that be but a key . . .

  “You!”

  She jumped off the end of the bed with the unique and muffled sound of two heels sinking into a carpet.

  “What a state you’re in!” A murmur he barely heard. “But what’s happened?”

  “No train for civilians . . .”

  It looked like he’d rolled in every gutter in town. His mud-stained overcoat stuck to his shoulders like a towel. He didn’t let go of his suitcase, didn’t move, lowered his head, a long black silhouette against the gray-blue of the door. A hunted man, reaching his last gasp after a desperate race, who has only the strength to press his shoulder against the door his pursuers will soon be battering. This crazy idea flashed through her mind. Standing in front of the bed, as still as her husband, she jumped at a muted thud, which she took for the bang of someone stumbling on the staircase. But it was the suitcase he finally dropped, letting go of the handle with his swollen fingers. It fell and opened, all its contents rolling on the floor—the nightshirt, the toiletries, the papers. He didn’t even move his head, but his red hand, still marked with white traces where the handle had been, climbed tremblingly to his mouth, as if blasted by harsh and successive shocks. And well before it reached that height, Monsieur Marchandeau was torn from the door in the grip of another coughing fit. He took a few steps, bent in half, and collapsed onto a chair.

  Claire rushed over to him as if to stop him from falling, and once the fit had passed, she wrapped an arm around his shoulders and bent down so as to better understand what he was trying to say. He couldn’t breathe. She understood all the same that he was talking about a stove heated until it was white.