"Grandmother, there's hardly any wood left."
"Then we'll have to go easy on it."
We don't go out anymore. We do all kinds of exercises, we carve various objects out of wood, like spoons and breadboards, and we study late into the night. Grandmother stays in bed almost all the time. She seldom goes into the kitchen. We are left in peace.
We eat badly, there are no more vegetables and fruit, the hens aren't laying anymore. Every day Grandmother brings some dried beans and a few potatoes up from the cellar- which is full of smoked meats and jars of jam.
The postman comes sometimes. He rings his bicycle bell until Grandmother comes out of the house. He then moistens his pencil, writes something on a bit of paper, and hands the pencil and paper to Grandmother, who puts a cross at the bottom. The postman gives her some money, a package, or a letter and goes off toward town whistling.
Grandmother locks herself in her room with the package or the money. If there's a letter, she throws it into the fire.
We ask:
"Grandmother, why do you throw the letter away without reading it?"
She answers:
"I can't read. I never went to school, I've never done anything but work. I wasn't spoiled like you."
"We could read you the letters you get."
"Nobody must read the letters I get."
We ask:
"Who sends the money? Who sends the packages? Who sends the letters?"
She doesn't answer.
Next day, while she is in the cellar, we scour her room. Under the bed we find an open package. In it there are pullovers, scarves, hats, and gloves. We say nothing to Grandmother, because if we did she would realize that we have a key to her room.
After the evening meal, we wait. Grandmother drinks her brandy, then staggers over to open her bedroom door with the key that hangs from her belt. We follow her and push her from behind. She falls on her bed. We pretend to search and find the package.
We say:
"That's not very nice, Grandmother. We're cold, we have no warm clothes, we can't go out anymore, and you want to sell everything Mother has knitted and sent for us."
Grandmother says nothing, she cries.
We say again:
"It's Mother who sends the money, Mother who writes you letters."
Grandmother says:
"It isn't me she writes. She knows very well I can't read. She never used to write me. Now that you're here, she writes. But I don't need her letters! I don't need anything that comes from her!"
The Postman
From now on we wait for the postman in front of the garden gate. He's an old man with a cap. He has a bicycle with two leather pouches attached to the carrier.
When he arrives, we don't give him time to ring: very quickly we unscrew his bell.
He says:
"Where's your grandmother?"
We say:
"Don't worry about her. Give us what you've brought."
He says:
"There's nothing."
He tries to get away, but we give him a push. He falls in the snow. His bicycle falls on top of him. He swears.
We search his pouches and find a letter and a money order. We take the letter and say:
"Give us the money!"
He says:
"No. It's addressed to your grandmother."
We say:
"But it's intended for us. It's been sent to us by our Mother. If you don't hand it over, we'll keep you from getting up until you freeze to death."
He says:
"All right, all right. Help me get up, one of my legs is crushed under the bike."
We pick up the bicycle and help the postman get up. He is very thin, very light.
He takes the money out of one of his pockets and gives it to us.
We ask:
"Do you want a signature or a cross?"
He says:
"A cross will do. One cross is as good as another."
He adds:
"You're right to stand up for yourselves. Everybody knows what your grandmother's like. There's nobody stingier than her. So it's your mother who sends you all that? She's very nice. I knew her when she was a little girl. She did well to leave. She would never have been able to marry here. With all the gossip…"
We ask:
"What gossip?"
"Like how she was supposed to have poisoned her husband. I mean, your grandmother poisoned your grandfather. It's an old story. That's why they call her the Witch."
We say:
"We don't want anyone to speak ill of Grandmother."
The postman turns his bicycle around:
"All right, all right, but you ought to be informed."
We say:
"We were already informed. From now on you will give the mail to us. Otherwise we'll kill you. Understand?"
The postman says:
"You'd be quite capable of it, you've got the makings of murderers. You'll have your mail, it's all the same to me. I couldn't care less about the Witch."
He leaves, pushing his bicycle. He drags his leg to show that we hurt him.
Next day, warmly dressed, we go off to town to buy rubber boots with the money Mother has sent us. We take turns carrying her letter under our shirts.
The Cobbler
The cobbler lives and works in the basement of a house near the station. The room is enormous. In one corner is his bed, in another his kitchen. His workshop faces the window, which is at ground level. The cobbler is sitting on a low stool surrounded by shoes and tools. He looks at us over his spectacles; he looks at our cracked patent-leather shoes.
We say:
"Good morning, sir. We would like warm, waterproof rubber boots. Do you sell them? We have money."
He says:
"Yes, I sell them. But the lined ones, the warm ones, are very expensive."
We say:
"We absolutely need them. Our feet are cold."
We put what money we have on the low table.
The cobbler says:
"It's just enough for one pair. But one pair should do you. You're the same size. You can take turns going out."
"That isn't possible. One of us never goes out without the other. We go everywhere together."
"Ask your parents for more money, then."
"We have no parents. We live with our Grandmother, whom they call the Witch. She won't give us any money."
The cobbler says:
"The Witch is your grandmother? Poor kids! And you've come from her house all the way here in those shoes!"
"Yes, we have. We can't get through the winter without boots. We have to go into the forest to find wood; we have to clear the snow. We absolutely need…"
"Two pairs of warm, waterproof boots."
The cobbler laughs and hands us two pairs of boots:
"Try them on."
We try them on; they fit us very well.
We say:
"We'll keep them. We'll pay you for the second pair in the spring when we'll be selling fish and eggs. Or if you prefer, we'll bring you wood."
The cobbler hands us back our money:
"Here, take it. I don't want your money. Buy yourselves some good socks with it. I'll give you the boots because you absolutely need them."
We say:
"We don't like to accept presents."
"And why not?"
"Because we don't like to say thank you."
"Nobody's making you say anything. Be off with you. No.
Wait a moment! Take these slippers and these sandals for the summer and these shoes too. They're very strong. Take whatever you like."
"But why are you giving us all this?"
"I don't need them anymore. I'll be going away soon."
We ask:
"Where are you going?"
"Who knows? They'll take me away and kill me."
We ask:
"Who wants to kill you, and why?"
He says:
"Don't ask questions. Leave n
ow."
We pick up the shoes, the slippers, and the sandals. We have the boots on our feet. We stop at the door and say:
"We hope they won't take you away. Or if they do take you away, we hope they won't kill you. Goodbye, sir, and thank you, thank you very much."
When we get back, Grandmother asks:
"Where did you steal all that, you punks?"
"We didn't steal anything. It's a present. Not everybody is as stingy as you, Grandmother."
The Theft
With our boots and our warm clothes, we can go out again. We slide on the frozen stream, we go look for wood in the forest.
We take an axe and a saw with us. We can no longer collect the dead wood lying on the ground; the layer of snow is too thick. We climb trees, saw off the dead branches, and chop them up with the axe. During this work, we aren't cold. We even sweat. So we can take off our gloves and put them in our pockets so that they won't wear out too quickly.
One day, coming back with our two bundles of firewood, we make a detour to go see Harelip.
The snow in front of the shack has not been cleared, and there are no footprints leading to it. The chimney is not smoking.
We knock on the door, no one answers. We go in. At first we see nothing, it is so dark, but our eyes soon adjust to the gloom.
It's a room that serves as kitchen and bedroom. In the darkest corner, there's a bed. We approach. We call out. Someone moves under the blankets and old clothes; Harelip's head emerges.
We ask:
"Is your mother there?"
She says:
"Yes."
"Is she dead?"
"I don't know."
We put down our wood and light a fire in the stove, because it's as cold in the room as outside. Then we go back to Grandmother's and get some potatoes and dried beans from the cellar. We milk one of the goats and come back to our neighbor's. We heat the milk. We melt some snow in a saucepan and cook the beans in it. We bake the potatoes in the oven.
Harelip gets up and totters over to a chair by the fire.
Our neighbor isn't dead. We pour some goat's milk into her mouth. We say to Harelip:
"When all this is ready, eat and give some to your mother. We'll be back."
With the money the cobbler gave back to us, we have bought a few pairs of socks, but we haven't spent it all. We go into a grocer's to buy some flour, and take some salt and sugar without paying for them. We also go to the butchers's; we buy a small slab of bacon and take a big sausage without paying for it. We return to Harelip's. She and her mother have already eaten everything. The mother is still in bed, Harelip is washing up.
We say to her:
"We'll bring you a bundle of firewood every day. Some beans and potatoes too. But for the rest, you need money. We don't have any more. Without money, you can't go into a shop. You have to buy something if you're going to steal something else."
She says:
"You really are smart. You're right. They don't even let me into the shops. I'd never have thought you were capable of stealing."
We say:
"Why not? It will be our exercise in cunning. But we need a little money. Absolutely."
She thinks about it and says:
"Go ask the parish priest. He used to give me money sometimes when I let him see my slit."
"He asked you to do that?"
"Yes. And sometimes he put his finger in. And afterward he gave me money not to tell anybody. Tell him Harelip and her mother need money."
Blackmail
We go see the parish priest. He lives next to the church in a big house.
We pull on the bellpull. An old woman opens the door:
"What do you want?"
"We want to see the parish priest."
"Why?"
"It's for someone who is going to die."
The old woman takes us into a waiting room. She knocks on a door:
"Father," she shouts, "it's for an extreme unction."
A voice answers from behind the door:
"I'm coming. Tell them to wait."
We wait a few minutes. A tall, thin man with a severe face comes out of the room. He is wearing a sort of white and gold cloak over his dark clothes. He asks us:
"Where is it? Who sent you?"
"Harelip and her mother."
He says:
"What is the precise name of these people?"
"We don't know their precise name. The mother is blind and deaf. She lives in the last house in town. They are dying of hunger and cold."
The priest says:
"Although I know absolutely nothing about these people, I am willing to give them extreme unction. Let's go. Lead the way."
We say:
"They don't need extreme unction yet. They need a little money. We've brought them wood, a few potatoes, and some dried beans, but we can't do any more. Harelip has sent us here. You used to give her a little money sometimes."
The priest says:
"It's quite possible. I give money to a lot of poor people. I can't remember all of them. Here!"
He fumbles in his pockets under his cloak and gives us a few coins. We take them and say:
"That's not very much. It's too little. It isn't even enough to buy a loaf of bread."
He says:
"I'm sorry. There are a lot of poor people. And the faithful have almost stopped giving offerings. Everybody is in difficulties at the moment. Off with you now, and God bless you!"
We say:
"We can accept this sum for today, but we will have to come back tomorrow."
"What? What is that supposed to mean? Tomorrow? I shan't let you in. Get out of here immediately."
"Tomorrow we will ring the bell until you let us in. We will knock at the windows, we will kick at your door and tell everybody what you did to Harelip."
"I never did anything to Harelip. I don't even know who she is. She must be making these things up. The stories of a mentally deficient child will not be taken seriously. No one will believe you. Everything she says is untrue!"
We say:
"It hardly matters whether it's true or false. The point is the slander. People love scandal."
The priest sits down on a chair and mops his face with a handkerchief.
"It's monstrous. Have you any idea what you're doing?"
"Yes, sir. Blackmail."
"At your age… It's deplorable."
"Yes, it's deplorable that we've been forced to this. But Harelip and her mother absolutely need money."
The priest gets up, takes off his cloak, and says:
"It is a trial sent from God. How much do you want? I'm not rich, you know."
"Ten times what you have already given us. Once a week. We aren't asking you for the impossible."
He takes the money out of his pocket and gives it to us:
"Come every Saturday. But don't imagine for a moment that I'm doing this because I'm giving in to your blackmail. I'm doing it out of charity."
We say:
"That's exactly what we expected of you, Father."
Accusations
One afternoon the orderly comes into the kitchen. We haven't seen him for a long time. He says:
"You come help unload jeep?"
We put on our boots and follow him out to the jeep, which is parked on the road in front of the garden gate. The orderly hands us crates and cardboard boxes, which we carry into the officer's room.
We ask:
"Is the officer coming this evening? We still haven't ever seen him."
The orderly says:
"Officer no come winter here. Perhaps come never. He unhappy in love. Perhaps find another later. Forget. Stories like that not for you. You bring wood to heat room."
We bring wood and make a fire in the small metal stove. The orderly opens the crates and boxes and puts on the table bottles of wine, brandy, beer, and lots of things to eat: sausages, cans of meat and vegetables, rice, biscuits, chocolate, sugar, and coffee.
The or
derly opens a bottle, starts to drink, and says:
"I heat food in mess kit on camp stove. Tonight eat, drink, sing with friends. Celebrate victory against the enemy. We soon win war with new wonder weapon."
We ask:
"So the war will be over soon?"
He says:
"Yes, very soon. Why you look like that at food on the table? If you hungry, eat chocolate, biscuits, sausage."
We say:
"There are people dying of hunger."
"So what? No think of that. Many people die of hunger or other things. We no think. We eat and not die."
He laughs. We say:
"We know a blind, deaf woman who lives near here with her daughter. They won't survive this winter."
"Is not my fault."
"Yes, it is your fault. Yours and your country's. You brought us the war."
"Before the war, how they do to eat, the blind woman and daughter?"
"Before the war, they lived on charity. People gave them old clothes and shoes. They brought them food. Now nobody gives anything anymore. People are all poor or are afraid of becoming so. The war has made them stingy and selfish."
The orderly shouts:
"I no care all that! Enough! Silence!"
"Yes, you don't care, and you eat our food."
"Not your food. I take that in barracks stores."
"Everything on that table comes from our country: the drinks, the canned food, the biscuits, the sugar. Our country feeds your army."
The orderly goes red in the face. He sits down on the bed and holds his head in his hands:
"You think I want war and come to your filthy country? I much better at home, quiet, make chairs and tables. Drink wine of my country, have fun with nice girls at home. Here everybody unkind, you too, little children. You say all my fault. What I can do? If I say I no go to war, no come in your country, I shot. You take all, go take all on table. Celebration finished. I sad, you too mean with me."
We say:
"We don't want to take everything, just a few cans and a little chocolate. But from time to time, at least during the winter, you could bring us some powdered milk, flour, or anything else to eat."
He says:
"Good. That I can. You come with me tomorrow to blind woman's house. But you nice with me after. Yes?"
The Book of Lies Page 4