by Alexis Jenni
When I attacked the blood sausage, I was a little heavy handed with the steel and, with a sigh, a jet of black blood gushed out, splattering not only the serving dish but the tablecloth and the plates, two drops landed in a glass and immediately, imperceptibly mingled with the wine, a single drop landed on Océane’s dress, just below the curve of her left breast. She collapsed as though she had been stabbed through the heart with a fine stiletto. The others silently got to their feet, taking the time to fold their napkins, then walked over to the coat rack. They helped each other into coats and jackets without a word, their polite assents communicated only with their eyes. Lying limply on her back, Océane was breathing evenly. The table was still illuminated only by candlelight. The small shivering flames sent shadows scurrying over the dress that enveloped her magnificent body like a breath; it shimmered like an expanse of water moved by a soft swell, an evening breeze, by a zephyr at sunset, the whole surface of her body quivered; the one fixed point, the black bloodstain beneath the curve of her breast just above her heart.
With a nod, the guests said their goodbyes and left us. I picked up Océane and laid her on our bed. She immediately opened her eyes and began to cry; she gurgled, caught her breath, howled, sobbed, choking back phlegm and tears, unable to utter a word. Black tears coursed down her cheeks, ruining her dress. She wept without stopping, face buried in the pillow. The vast white pillowcase was smudged by her sobs, streaked with red, with browns, with faint metallic grey, with brackish water and this square of fabric became a painting. I stayed by her, wearing, I think, an idiotic grin. I did not try to console her or even to talk. I finally felt close to her, closer than I had ever felt. I hoped that it might last. I knew that all this would evaporate with the drying of her tears.
When she finally fell silent and dried her eyes I knew that everything was over between us. Everything that had gone before and everything that might have happened later. We fell asleep, lying side by side, not touching; she: washed, hair brushed, under the sheets; me: fully dressed, on top.
On Sunday morning she cried when she woke up, then hardened like concrete as it sets. On Sunday afternoon I left.
By Monday morning I was living a different life.
I never saw her again, or any of the friends we had in common. I moved to the other end of the country, to the dreary, northern coast where I had a modest apartment, more modest than the house I left when I abandoned my wife.
I was uninstalling myself the way you uninstall a computer programme; one by one I shut down the thoughts that sustained me, trying not to act, so that I would not be acted upon. I hoped that my last task would be the one that precedes death: to wait.
Victorien Salagnon was the person for whom, without knowing, I had planned this wait.
Novel II
Going up to the maquis in April
WHAT PLEASURE IT WAS, going up to the maquis in April! When the fighting is not bitter, when the enemy is busy elsewhere, when you are not being chased by dogs, when you have not yet fired a shot, going up to the maquis is just as it is in a dream, but more vivid.
April buds, April blooms, April takes wing; April strains towards the light, leaves jostling each other to reach the sky. What pleasure to go up to the maquis in April! You always say ‘go up’, because the only way to reach the maquis is to climb. This secret forest where they hid is at the top of the slopes; the maquis is the other half of the country, the part above the clouds.
The column of young men scrabbled through the dense scrubland. Leaves quivered as the sap rose, the little corks stoppered by winter burst in the heart of the wood. With a little effort it was possible to hear the sap, to feel the palpitation by laying a hand on a trunk.
The column of young men scrabbled through undergrowth so dense that each could see only the three comrades walking in front and, if they turned, the three behind; each could believe that there were only seven of them plunging into the forest. The slope was steep and the leader marched above the eye level of those following behind. Their military air was of its times, the gaudy uniforms of 1940 had been repurposed for the members of the Chantiers de Jeunesse. To this was added a wide beret, worn at a rakish angle, to symbolize the French spirit. Armies can be distinguished by their hats; they allow for a touch of the whimsical, adding a flash of patriotic brilliance to drab, utilitarian clothes.
They climbed on. The trees shuddered. Their feet ached in thick clodhopping boots that would never fit. Military leather does not soften, so feet are forced to mould themselves to boots, as laces close like the jaws of a trap.
Their heavy kitbags cut into their shoulders. The metal frames chafed; the weight dragged them backwards; they struggled on, as sweat trickled into their eyes, made their armpits and necks sticky; they struggled to climb in spite of their youth and all the weeks spent in the open air at the Chantiers de Jeunesse.
They had been on marches, in the time they spent at the school for unarmed soldiers. Since they could not shoot, they marched, they hauled rocks, they learned to crawl, learned to hide in foxholes, to hide behind bushes, and most of all they learned to wait. They learned to wait because, first and foremost, the art of war is to wait without moving.
Salagnon excelled at these games, he threw himself into them wholeheartedly, but he was waiting for what was to come, for the moment when blood, rather than flowing round and round these cramped bodies, would finally spill forth.
‘Sweat saves blood,’ he was told. The motto of the Chantiers de Jeunesse was painted on a banner at the entrance to the forest camp. Salagnon understood the elegant logic of the maxim, but he loathed sweat more than he did blood. He had always looked after his blood, it coursed tirelessly through his veins, and spilling blood was only a figure of speech; whereas he was all too familiar with the stickiness of sweat, the disgusting glue that soaked his boxer shorts, his shirt, his sheets when summer came, and this stickiness was something he could not escape, it followed him everywhere, choking and disgusting him like the spittle of an unwanted kiss. All he could do was wait for the temperature to drop, for time to pass, doing nothing, and that frustrated him. This choked him even more. The motto was not appropriate, nor was the uniform of a defeated army, the lack of weapons or the duplicity cloaked by every action, every word, every silence.
When he reached the Chantiers with a forged travel warrant, they were surprised by his lateness, but he presented his excuses duly written out and stamped. No one read them, they simply skimmed from the letterhead to the indecipherable signatures half-hidden by official stamps; because the reasons did not matter – everyone has reasons, all of them excellent – what matters is whether they are officially sanctioned. They filed his paperwork and allocated him a camp bed in a huge blue tent. That first night he had trouble sleeping. The others, exhausted from the fresh air, slept fitfully and restlessly. He watched for the insects grazing the canvas. The darkness made it seem colder, the smell of damp earth and grass grew stronger until he felt a pang of sadness, but most of all this first adventure made him anxious. It was not passing himself off as someone else that bothered him, but the fact that they had accepted his false papers and asked no questions. On the whole, of course, the ruse had been a success; but it was a hollow victory. The plan was working, but there was nothing to be proud of, and he needed to feel proud. His mind fixated on these details, followed them to illogical conclusions, retraced the path, looked for some other way out and, finding none, he fell asleep.
The following day he was put to work in the forest. Under the trees, the bare-chested young men swung axes, hacking at tall, sturdy beeches. With each swing they let out a muffled grunt, echoing the shock of the axe-handle throbbing in their hands, and each swing produced great hunks of pale, pristine wood, as crisp as the pages of a new exercise book. Sap gushed from the notches, spattering them; they could imagine they were felling some creature engorged with blood. After a while the tree would quiver and fall in a booming crack of timber and a rustle of twigs and leaves.
They piled the logs into neat steres along the wide dirt track. Trucks would later come to collect the timber. Salagnon was issued with a long, straight graduated rod, which served as a ruler when cutting the logs. Before he started, the boss touched his shoulder: ‘Come and have a look.’ He led him over to the steres. ‘See that?’ ‘What?’ He gripped one of the logs and slid it out a dozen centimetres, leaving a round hole in the cube of neatly stacked wood. ‘Put your hand in there.’ Inside, the stack was hollow. The chief slid the fake log back into place as though replacing a cork.
‘You see? This is all about volume, not weight. This way we can exceed our quotas without having to work so hard. You need to cut the logs carefully to make sure the steres are hollow. Check that rod of yours, it’s been marked already.’
Salagnon looked from the ruler to the boss, then looked at the stacks.
‘But when the unit comes to collect them, won’t they realize the stacks are hollow?’
‘You don’t need to worry about that. We work to volume and we make our quotas. The truckers work according to weight, but they load up their trucks with stones – usually the same ones – that way, they make their quotas, too. And the guys who make the charcoal, well, they just say that half of it has gone up in smoke. Because all this is to make charcoal for the gas generators to keep the trucks rolling. It’s all about the war effort; but not all the effort needs to be ours.’ He gave a wink that Salagnon ignored. ‘The most important thing is to say nothing to anybody.’
Salagnon shrugged and did as he was told.
He went to fetch some logs. The foremen had all disappeared from the clearing, the lads had set down their saws and several were lying asleep on the ground. Two of them were sitting at the foot of a tree, singing the sawyer’s song as they tugged at tufts of fragrant grass. Another lad had pursed his lips and was imitating the buzz of a saw as he lay on his back, arms folded behind his head. Still holding a log in each hand, Salagnon stared at them, bewildered.
‘The foremen have fucked off,’ muttered one of the lads, who looked like he was asleep. ‘You can drop the logs. We’re just setting back the war effort a little,’ he said, and opened one of his eyes, gave a wink, and closed it again.
They carried on mimicking the sounds of work. Salagnon stood awkwardly, feeling himself blush. When they suddenly burst out laughing, he was startled, only to realize that they were laughing at their little trick.
At the Chantiers de Jeunesse Salagnon did exactly as he was told. Nothing more. He did not dare ask who, in the chain of command, knew that the forestry unit was producing hollow stacks of timber. He had no idea how far the secret extended. He watched the leaders. Some only seemed to be interested in whether the workers’ boots were polished, constantly looking for signs of dust and dirt and severely punishing such infractions. They were wary of such leaders, since sticklers for detail are dangerous; they do not care which side they are on, they care only about order. Other leaders were conscientious in organizing physical activities: marches, hiking with packs, press-ups. They inspired trust, since they seemed to be preparing the young men for something they were not allowed to talk about; no one dared to ask, since it could as easily be the maquis as the Eastern Front. Then there were the officers they did not think about, those interested only in military procedures – the perfect salute, the correct form of address; they enforced regulations just to pass the time.
The young men in the Chantiers de Jeunesse referred to themselves as ‘we’, an ambiguous pronoun that offered no information about the group, its size or it aims. It was ‘we’ who waited, who went unnoticed, and meanwhile, ‘we’ supported France; a France that was young and beautiful, but utterly naked, since ‘we’ did not know how to dress her. In the meantime ‘we’ tried not to mention that France was naked; pretended that it did not matter, that no one cared. It was April.
The uncle arrived with a new column of recruits. He did not come to say hello to his nephew. The two men pretended not to know each other, although each always knew where the other was. Salagnon found his presence reassuring; it signalled that his time in the Chantiers was only temporary, and the rumours of a National Revolution was just talk; it had to be. How could anyone know? The flag offered no information. Every morning the tricolour was hoisted and the recruits lined up to salute, each man seeing in its folds the face he expected to see, each one different. But, being unsure, no one dared not speak of it, just as no one talks about an inkling or a private dream for fear of being mocked. Though in this case, it was for fear of being killed.
They ate badly. With hunks of bread, they sopped up the revolting stew of vegetables and beans that had spent too long bubbling in a cast-iron pot. The mess tins were washed in a stone trough with cold water from a diverted spring. One night Salagnon and Hennequin were assigned to washing-up duty. The thick gloop that did not stick to the stomach stuck fast to the aluminium tins. Hennequin, a tall, heavy-set activist, scrubbed with steel wool, scouring away metal with the traces of food to create a hideous green-grey sludge from the green spinach and the grey aluminium, which he rinsed away with clear water.
‘It’s not so much washing-up as sanding down,’ Hennequin chuckled. ‘Six months of this and I’ll go right through the bottom.’
And he started to whistle as he scrubbed for all he was worth, forearms red-raw from the cold water, shoulders heaving from the effort. He whistled some well-known songs, a few obscure ones, some smutty ditties, and lastly ‘God Save the King’, loudly and repeatedly. Though Salagnon did not recognize the tune, he accompanied his friend with a series of deep bass bum-bums that inspired Hennequin to whistle more loudly, more clearly, and even to sing to himself, but just the notes, not the words, because he did not know the English apart from the title. They scrubbed harder, to the rhythm of the tune, the encrusted food disappearing before their eyes, the anthem rising loud and clear above the scrape of metal, the bubbling of the spring, the splashing of the trough. An officer – one of those obsessed with trivial regulations, like parents or teachers – raced over to them.
‘We don’t sing that sort of thing around here!’ He seemed livid.
‘Lully? We’re not allowed to sing Lully? I didn’t know that, boss.’
‘What Lully? I’m talking about what you’re singing.’
‘But it’s by Lully. He’s not seditious, he’s dead.’
‘Are you taking the piss?’
‘No, boss.’
Hennequin began to whistle again. With grace notes, it sounded very seventeenth century.
‘Is that what you were humming? I thought it was something else.’
‘What’s that, boss?’
The officer muttered something and turned on his heel. As soon as he was out of earshot, Hennequin sniggered.
‘You’ve got a hell of a nerve,’ said Salagnon. ‘Is it true, that story of yours?’
‘Musically speaking, perfectly true. I could have argued my case note by note, and that boot-licker wouldn’t have been able to prove I was whistling anything illicit.’
‘We don’t need to prove anything to kill you.’
Salagnon and Hennequin flinched and spun around, scrubbing brush in one hand, a huge mess tin in the other: the uncle was standing there, looking as though he was just wandering around, strolling with his hands behind his back.
‘In certain situations, a bullet in the head is as good an argument as any.’
‘But it was Lully…’
�
��Don’t play dumb with me. In other circumstances, a flicker of hesitation, a hint of a defiance, anything other than a brisk “Yes, sir” – the slightest gesture beyond lowering your eyes – could get you shot. Put down like a wayward animal. Faced with such idiocy, any officer would be within his rights to flick the clasp on his holster, casually take out his pistol and, without even taking you aside, put a bullet in your head and leave your corpse for someone else to ship back to wherever they want, he doesn’t give a shit.’
‘You can’t just kill people just like that.’
‘In the times we live in, you can.’
‘It would be impossible to kill everyone. There’d be too many bodies! How would they get rid of them all?’
‘Bodies are insubstantial. They only seem solid while they’re alive. They take up space because they’re bloated with air, because they’re blowing hot air. Once they’re dead they can be stacked into piles. You wouldn’t believe how many bodies can be packed into a trench after they’ve stopped breathing. They dissolve, they liquefy. You can churn them into the mud, you can burn them and leave no trace behind.’
‘Why are you talking like that? You’re making this up.’
The uncle held out his wrists. They were encircled by neat scars, as though his skin had been gnawed at by rats trying to chew off his hands.
‘I’ve seen it. I’ve been a prisoner of war. I escaped. The things I’ve seen, you couldn’t begin to imagine.’
Hennequin flushed red and shifted from one foot to the other.
‘Get back to your washing-up,’ said the uncle. ‘Don’t let spinach dry out or it’ll stick. Scout’s honour.’