by Hubert Aquin
Ever since I got up this morning I’ve been fighting a constantly renewed emotion. It’s Sunday. A beautiful day. And on highway 8 between Pointe-au-Chêne and Montebello, I see a beige car travelling without me. There’s something thrilling about the countryside as you leave Pointe-au-Chêne to go up the Ottawa River towards Montebello and arrive at Papineauville. I like that winding road, the lazy twists and turns of the Ottawa, the elegant hillsides along our border – secret undulations stamped with intimacy and a thousand memories of happiness. I also like this extreme landscape where there is still room for me. When all this is over, I’ll settle there in a house set back from the road, not on the shore of the Ottawa but in the hinterland with its lakes and forests on the road between Papineauville and La Nation. That’s where I’ll buy a house, close to La Nation, near the entrance to the big estate on Lac Simon where you can portage all the way to Lac des Mauves and La Minerve. And I’ll cry because it’s taken me so long to find the house between Portage-de-la-Nation and La Nation or between La Nation and Ripon or on the Chénéville road between La Nation and Lac Simon. I’m terribly afraid I’ll die hanging from the bars in a penitentiary cell with no time to return to La Nation, lacking the freedom to go there and stretch out in the warm summer grass, to run along the edge of the great forests filled with deer, to gaze at the enormous sky above the house where one day I’ll live a sweet life without tears. Where is the country that resembles you, my true and secret native land, the country where I want to love you, where I want to die? This morning, a Sunday flooded with childlike tears, I cry like you, my child, because I’ve not yet arrived at the sunny fields of the countryside around La Nation that spreads out in the warm light of the country we’ve come back to. The next hours will break me. A few more hours would give me time to get on highway 8 at Saint-Eustache, where our brothers died, then go up the Ottawa through Oka, Saint-Placide, Carillon, Calumet and Pointe-au-Chêne, and from Pointe-au-Chêne to Montebello and on to Papineauville, where I’ll head for La Nation by way of Portage-de-la-Nation and Saint-André-Avelin. A few hours would bring me to La Nation, near a house set back from history which I’ll buy one day. Will I be there a few years from now? Let me go back to that summer Sunday deep in the countryside I love. Let me lie down again on the warm earth of the country, my love, and in the vulnerable bed that awaits us. The sun lights up a house that I don’t know, that I won’t be able to get to before night, not tomorrow or the day after or any other day before my appearance at the courthouse before the Court of Queen’s Bench, where I’ll have to answer for the gloom that postponed my journey to La Nation, to that house of sun and sweetness where we’ll live one day. Before the judge, I’ll have to answer for the night and exonerate myself of the suicidal eclipse of an entire people; I’ll have to answer for my brothers who took their own lives after the defeat at Saint-Eustache and for those who imitate them, while a screen of melancholy prevents them from seeing the sun that’s lighting up La Nation at this very moment. I can’t break the hoops that are tightening around me and go on to the house that awaits us on the winding road from Papineauville to La Nation, to make my way towards you, my love, and towards the few days of love I still dream of living. But how am I to get out of this situation? It’s impossible.
And how can I get rid of H. de Heutz? The lid of the trunk springs open a crack. I jump back. My passenger, who’s curled up inside, is well and truly alive. He looks all around him, then unfolds himself suspiciously. He’s obviously numb. Now he’s standing here outside the trunk.
“Don’t move or I’ll shoot.”
Now he is looking at me. He’s as solemn as a Buddha minus the smile. I could shatter that image as I grip the 45 firmly in my right hand.
“And now, toss me your papers.”
He complies. I bend down to pick up his Florentine leather wallet. Three blue-on-blue hundred-Swiss-franc notes. A business card: Charles-André Junker, Imefbank, rue Petitot 6, Geneva. Telephone: 26 12 70. That’s a banker I’ll soon be consulting about the appreciation of our revolutionary investments in Switzerland. Mechanically I pocket the engraved card and the 100 FS notes. Quickly I empty the compartment of his papers. There’s a driver’s licence in the name of François-Marc de Saugy, boulevard des Philosophes 16, Liège. Profession: procurator.
“Procurator of Carl von Ryndt and H. de Heutz I assume?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know those names …”
“It’s pointless to waste my time, Monsieur … de Saudy …”
“De Saugy …”
“… Monsieur de Saugy. Your ID is in order: you have an expert supplier, I can see that. But I’m not interested in the forger’s art … I know who you are – de Heutz or von Ryndt, I don’t care! – and I know that you’re working against us. I may as well tell you, we’ve dismantled your clever organization and we’re well aware of your close ties with your counterparts in Montreal and Ottawa. To put it bluntly, you’ve had it. Now that we’re face to face again, you’ll understand my dilemma: it’s you or me. It’s the logic of battle. And since I’m the one who is holding you, my dear banker, your time is up. You can say your prayers, as long as they’re brief …”
I see him decompose before my eyes. No doubt he’s trying to get out of this and reverse the situation. This time, though, I’m the one holding the weapon and I’m very comfortable in this position. If I feel relaxed, it’s simply because I’ve got the upper hand. In a way I’m savouring my advantage.
“Look … Please. Let me explain …”
“… explain how you collaborate with the RCMP and its big sister the CIA; and how you regularly contravene article 47b of the Swiss federal constitution to gain access to the bank accounts of certain anonymous investors. Sure, go ahead and explain. I’m all ears.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Monsieur. Believe me, the truth is sadder and certainly less mysterious. At the chateau this morning I put on a show for you. I played my part … I repeat: the truth is rather depressing. What can I tell you? I’m seriously ill. For weeks now I’ve been living like a fugitive …”
“Don’t tire yourself. I know you’re going to talk nonsense to try to gain some time. But it’s not working.”
“I’m not making this up, I swear. It’s the truth. I swear, on the heads of my children!… Yes, I have two children, two little boys. And I haven’t seen them for weeks. They’re in Belgium. I abandoned them. I ran away. Couldn’t face up to my problems any more. It was the bankruptcy: I didn’t know what to do. And I panicked. One night I wrote a letter to my wife, confessing everything, then I took off without seeing her again, like a coward. My wife didn’t have enough to live on for a week. I boarded the express train to Basel. And I thought that once I was there, where no one knows me, I could steal some money and send it to my wife …”
Listening to his story I feel giddy. H. de Heutz seems so overwhelmed and genuinely moved that I let down my guard. Yet it’s obvious that he’s having a joke at my expense. This entire cock-and-bull story bears a strange resemblance to the one I told him this morning at the Château d’Echandens when I was unilaterally disarming him. Right now H. de Heutz is spinning exactly the same convoluted yarn. It’s plagiarism. Does he really think I’ll swallow it?
“I’m not lying. I went to Basel first. I thought that with my Mauser, I’d work miracles and become a high-class thief overnight: impeccable, polite with cashiers, unpunished to the end. I thought all I’d need was this weapon and my despair, and in a few days I’d make my fortune and send money orders to my wife. I lived in that state for a few days but I never stole anything, never sent a penny to my wife. Every day I’d think: ‘Today’s the day. Today, I’ll succeed.’ And I’d tell myself that soon, when I was rich, I’d bring my wife and children to Switzerland. We could settle here happily, rent a villa in the mountains in the Val d’Hérens near Evolène. I know a wonderful spot around there. I want to live there with my wife and children. You can’t imagine how I long to see those
boys. I don’t even know if my wife’s been able to get her hands on any money. When I left Liège I had debts, a mass of debts she didn’t know about. Could she have grown discouraged and killed herself, after strangling the children? I’m afraid. I don’t know what to do. I wonder if I’ll ever see my two little boys again. They probably expect me to turn up at dinner-time every evening. When I was in Liège, I always came home from the office at the same time. They must be asking their mother when I’ll be back, and she must be telling them that I’ve gone away for my work or that I’m dead. It would be good, actually, if she told them I’d died in the war and that I would never come back to play with them …”
“Do you think I’m an idiot, Monsieur de Heutz? Do you think you can distract me with that fairy tale? And on top of everything else you’ve got the gall to serve me up the same story I told you this morning … Really, you’re piling it on a little too thick for my liking, to say nothing of the fact that you’ve got absolutely no imagination!”
As I say that, he bursts out sobbing with such sincerity that it’s unsettling. H. de Heutz really is crying like a sorrowing father, like a man who’s overwhelmed by pain and doesn’t have the strength to face up to life. But I keep reminding myself that this pathetic individual is recounting a soap opera for the sole purpose of escaping (but how?) from the trap where I’m holding him. My job is to stay alert in this preposterous competition and to remember that only one design underlies his performance: to divert my attention, dull my reflexes, instill just enough doubt in me to make me relax my vigilance for as little as a fraction of a second, and to take advantage of it. I constantly have to refute my distress at the sight of him so despondent, his face distraught with emotion and bathed in tears. The man is an impostor: F.M. de Saugy, von Ryndt, H. de Heutz: they’re one and the same person. H. de Heutz is an enemy I’ve brought here for just one reason: to shoot him in cold blood. Nothing in the world must divert me from my plan. Nothing! Particularly not this parade of emotions being put on by our Africanist. In all sincerity, I acknowledge that H. de Heutz is a consummate artist. He has a diabolical gift for falsifying what is plausible; if I weren’t on guard, he’d have roped me in, maybe even convinced me that he’s my brother, that we were destined to meet and understand each other. Really, I’m dealing with the devil.
“All right. This performance has gone on long enough. Don’t wear yourself out over nothing. I don’t believe one word you’ve told me …”
“I have no reason to make anything up. I know that it’s over for me and that in a few seconds – at the time you’ve chosen – you’ll kill me like a dog. I don’t want to live in any case, I haven’t got the strength …”
And with that he starts to cry again desperately. Though I consider him to be the last of the liars, a contemptible tool of the counter-revolution, I have to acknowledge that he really is crying; I can see it.
“I’ll never see my children again; I don’t want to, I don’t deserve to … The last time I was with them, I cried. That’s the image they have of their father. I was distraught. I’d lost my job but I hadn’t told anyone yet. I couldn’t even tell my wife. I’d already started hanging around the banks, waiting for I don’t know what – a miracle maybe. And I’d begun to follow people in the street, imagining that at some point the opportunity would present itself to strike them down and grab their wallets stuffed with money. I thought about nothing else, but when the time came to act, I was numb. Kill me! It’s the best thing that could happen to me. I beg you. Shoot me. For pity’s sake …”
My finger is on the trigger: I just have to press it and I’ll grant his wish. Yet I hesitate. The story he persists in telling presents me with a dilemma. Why has he chosen to tell me exactly the same unlikely tale I served up to him this morning when he had me in his sights in the grand salon of the Château d’Echandens? His very boldness fascinates me and, who knows, makes him nearly likeable. When he started his spiel, he already knew that I wouldn’t fall into such a crude trap. He must have foreseen that I wouldn’t be taken in by this invention of his. If that’s so, if he has embellished the scheme that I myself worked out this morning, it’s not by accident or through a chance combination due to the simple laws of probability. H. de Heutz was following a precise plan. He had something in mind when he dragged me into this heap of improbability and irony. What was it? Maybe he wanted to pass on a coded message. But no, that’s nonsense, because between H. de Heutz and me there could be no cipher, no code, no reason whatsoever to exchange any message. There is only a relentless break and the impossibility of communicating in any other way than with gunfire. If I’m probing his deepest intentions, maybe I’m about to fall into the trap he’s set for me and I’m reacting exactly as he wanted. My very fascination, as well as its corollary, methodical doubt and hesitation, is something he knowingly provoked. But why?
“Don’t move or I’ll shoot …”
He’s still crying. This is getting on my nerves. I don’t know what to do. It’s hard to look at him and listen to him. It turns me inside out. What’s most puzzling is his incredible autobiography, which he’s invented not in order to fool me but for some more perverse reason: to captivate me, cause me to doubt the reason of state that’s confronting us here in this confined space, conditioning me to see this man who’s speaking in bad faith as an enemy to kill. Who is he anyway, this weeping individual? Is he Carl von Ryndt, with a cover as a banker but mainly an enemy agent; or is he H. de Heutz, Walloon specialist in Scipio Africanus and in counter-revolution; or could he be the third man, François-Marc de Saugy by name, who’s in the grip of a nervous breakdown and an acute attack of dissociation? When all’s said and done, I’m probably losing my way in the impenetrable trap of this dark trinity as I equivocate over the genuine presence of a threefold enemy and over the highly pathological etiology of a man standing a few steps from me, plunged in a depiction of pain that’s no more genuine than the very name he uses. To tell the truth, H. de Heutz’s power captivates me even more than it terrifies me. Who am I actually dealing with? The transmigrated shadow of Ferragus? This unknown man attracts me at the very moment when I’m preparing to kill him. The mystery about him confounds my meditation and I stand before him gasping, unable to direct my thoughts at another object or to combat the morbid attraction he exerts over me.
Everything slows down. My very heartbeats seem more widely spaced. The supersonic agility of my mind collapses suddenly under the malevolent charm of H. de Heutz. I stand motionless, transformed into a pillar of salt, and I can’t help seeing myself as thunderstruck. A sovereign event is occurring right now as I occupy a tiny space in a charming woods that looks down on Coppet, while the time that separates me from my appointment with K on the terrace of the Hôtel d’Angleterre keeps shrinking. In the presence of this man who’s impossible to identify, I seem to be still seeking the pure reason that’s made me pursue him so desperately, that should incline me to pull the trigger of the Mauser and fire at him to break the troubling relationship that has sprung up between us. I keep looking at him, I hear his sobs, and a kind of mystery fills me with sacred indecision. An event I’ve stopped controlling is unfurling solemnly within me, sending me into a deep trance.
LESS VERBAL now, my sorrow is running secretly in my veins. The haunting music of “Desafinado” drives away the sun. I watch it go down, flaming, in the middle of Lac Léman, its posthumous light setting fire to the clay strata of the Pre-Alps. A city seven times buried, its written memory is no longer touched by the generative flame of revolution. Delinquent inspiration is drowned in the cuttlefish ink that causes the lake to shudder in front of Coppet.
Nothing is free here: neither my compulsion, nor the greasy traction of ink on the realm of fancy, nor the movements sensed by H. de Heutz, nor the freedom that has devolved upon me to kill him when the time is right. Nothing is free here, nothing: not even this impetuous escape that I’m manipulating with my fingertips and think I’m controlling, when in fact it is obliterating me.
Nothing! Not even the plot, nor the order in which my memories light up, nor the entombment of my nights of love, nor the Galilean swaying of my women. Something tells me that an earlier model is transforming my improvisation into some atavistic form, that an ancient alluvium is embracing the instant river that escapes me. I’m not writing, I am written. The future act has long since known me. The uncreated novel is dictated to me word by word and I appropriate it as I go, following the Geneva convention on literary copyright. I am creating something that outdistances me, that sets down before me the mark of my unpredictable footprints. The imagination is a scar. I live my own invention and what I kill is already dead. The images I imprint on my retina were already there. I do not invent. What awaits H. de Heutz in the romantic woods surrounding the Château de Coppet will be communicated to me soon, when my hand, busy speeding up history, is launched into action by some words that will come before me. Everything is waiting for me. Everything precedes me with a precision that I unveil even as I move to get closer to it. Though I’m running now, it’s as if my anterior past has laid down my approach and uttered the words I think I’m imagining.
For a long time I dreamed of devising my own movement and rhythm, of laying down with my own fervent strides the road to follow. Yes, during all those years I dreamed of a triumphant rush I would produce second by second. But I can lay down nothing but words, struck in advance in the image of the absolute woman I encountered somewhere between Acton Vale and Tingwick, which is now called Chénier, between a certain June 24 and my eternal motile night. Every fragment of this unfinished novel reminds me of that fragment of road in the Eastern Townships, of a fragment of night torn from a fête nationale. This hybrid novel is merely a disorderly variation on other books by unknown writers. Mired in a bed of clay, I follow the course, I never invent. That holds true for everything I write: here I am, deep in an impasse where I no longer want to move forward. That depressing observation ought to let me break free of it and find a counter-truth to make up for it. But I can find nothing beyond my evidence, especially because I resist transposing it into a rigid system. I reject any systematization that would plunge me deeper still into the agony of something not yet created. The pseudo-creative novelist merely draws his characters’ gestures and relationships directly from an old repertoire. If I denounce as futile any attempt at originality, perhaps I must continue within that pitiful darkness and burrow within this darkened labyrinth. No negotiable depravity can shield me from the sharp despair I experience at the thought of all the variables that can enter into the composition of an original work. But why am I so concerned about this question of absolute originality? I don’t know. But ever since my mind has stopped trying to solve this riddle, I’ve been afflicted with a progressive slowdown, struck by a growing paralysis. My hand no longer moves forward. I’m reluctant to do anything more; suddenly I don’t even know how to behave. I have a powerful sense that the next turn will be dangerous and that I risk everything when I admit why I’m hesitating. It’s no longer the operative originality of literature I render harmless, it’s the individual’s existence that suddenly bursts and disenchants me! But if this shock that’s annihilating my ambition to write something in an original way is so devastating, if I’m suddenly deprived of my reason for writing because I perceive my forthcoming book as predicted and marked in advance, according to the Dewey system, with an infinitesimal coefficient of individuation, and because at the same time I still want to write, it means that writing doesn’t become pointless simply because I am stripping it of its need to be original, or because this genetic function doesn’t define it. At least an urge to be original isn’t the only thing that improves the image of the literary endeavour. One can undertake to write a spy novel that’s set anomalously on the shores of Lac Léman with some other motive than creating a unique work! Originality at all costs is a chivalrous ideal, an aesthetic Holy Grail that falsifies any expedition. Jerusalem the second, that overdone singularity, is nothing but a crusader’s obsession, a mythical retransposition of a stroke of fortune that is the basis on which powerful capitalism has been erected.