“My dear chap, you’ve got no proof and it’s simply for the pleasure of torturing yourself that you’re letting your imagination run away with you. When you get back to her, all your doubts will seem ridiculous.”
“How can you be sure . . .”
“My wife wouldn’t have anything to do with a fellow-officer’s wife who didn’t behave correctly.”
“Thank you.”
He had recovered his spirits.
“By the way, you’ll have a good laugh tomorrow. We’re putting on a really splendid knockabout-Marxist turn. A first-class show.”
• • •
When Jeanine Marindelle entered the drawing-room of the Glatignys’ house in the Avenue de Saxe, that little museum dedicated to a whole race of soldiers with its standards, its flags and its arms, Claude had clutched her husband’s arm.
“How dare she come here!”
Glatigny could not bear rivalry between women and thought it was an absurd and childish game in which a man was well advised not to meddle. He merely said:
“Oh, well . . .”
He started towards Jeanine, for she had that provocative child-wife beauty that had always attracted him. But Claude held him back:
“Her husband . . . Perhaps you knew him, Lieutenant Marindelle . . . He’s a prisoner of the Vietminh . . . She hasn’t been faithful to him.”
“How long has he been a prisoner?”
“Three years.”
“And she’s twenty-one at the most.”
“I know, Jacques. I wouldn’t do it myself, but I’m not so stupid . . . or unfeeling . . . that I don’t understand certain . . . shortcomings. But she’s living openly with another man, in his house, and he’s a contemptible creature . . . a journalist called Pasfeuro.”
“That’s her business.”
“I don’t agree. We women derive our strength, our fidelity, largely from our cohesion. We’re a clan on our own with its own unwritten but nevertheless strict laws. We try and help one another . . . we criticize one another too, and Jeanine Marindelle is my cousin.”
Glatigny looked at his wife with her pale shapely face, her large doe eyes which now revealed no tenderness, her set jaw, her nostrils quivering with anger.
He gently freed his arm and went across and kissed Jeanine Marindelle’s hand. She said to him:
“Claude isn’t very fond of me, Captain.”
“I don’t know what she’s got against you.”
“Yes, you do, you know perfectly well.”
She had the astonished voice of a hurt child; she played this up perhaps.
“Claude thinks it’s a scandal that I’m not making a mystery of it but living quite openly with Pierre Pasfeuro. If we met now and then in some sordid hotel bedroom or between five and seven in his chambers, no one would say a word and I would then be in a position to criticize the other officers’ wives.”
“You don’t love your husband any more?”
“How extraordinary you are, you men! Of course I love him. We were brought up together, we played games together and as children we even shared the same bed. He was the first boy I ever kissed. We married like a brother and sister, so as to go on playing our games. We lived in our own little world with its legends and its taboos. Only a few people were admitted: Judith the old maid, Uncle Joseph who is deaf, and my cousin Pierre Pasfeuro who used to bring us gramophone records.
“When I knew there was very little chance of my ever seeing Yves again, I left his family, whom I didn’t like and who were prepared to have me locked up, to kill me like a widow in India. I went and stayed with Pierre. In him I found the man, the stranger in my life. I could hurt him, I’m jealous—which would never even occur to me with Yves. Do you see what I mean, Captain?”
“I think so.”
“Then why are they all against me? I used to be very fond of Claude. She can’t understand me, she didn’t marry her own brother and then afterwards meet the only man in her life.”
“What did she say in her defence?” Claude subsequently asked her husband.
“But she has no defence at all. You don’t know how defenceless she is; she’s just a poor young girl into whom you’re trying to get your cattish old claws. I’d be grateful if you asked her here as often as possible.”
A few days later Glatigny had flown out to Saigon.
The instruction and self-examination period took place next day after the afternoon rest. All the officer prisoners were assembled near the river in a large open space that had been cleared on the edge of the forest and was shaded by the big mango trees. In front of them stood a bamboo platform surmounted by the photograph of Ho-Chi-Minh with his straggly beard and the red flag adorned with a yellow star. Some rudimentary benches had been made by the prisoners out of bamboo poles and creepers.
The veterans of Cao-Bang met their comrades from Dien-Bien-Phu again for the first time and some of them recognized one another. They thumped one another on the shoulder, uttered loud exclamations of surprise and delight, but in the end had nothing to say. They belonged to two separate worlds which so far had nothing in common. They stuck to their own respective groups. Marindelle, Orsini and Leroy were about the only ones who sat with the newcomers.
The old hands appeared to look forward to the spectacle with a certain interest and even pleasure. The star performer that day was Lieutenant Millet and they admired his qualities as an actor, his subtle and at the same direct manner, the brutal frankness which enabled him to put over his wopping great lies.
The programme also included the first performance of a newcomer, a certain Boisfeuras whom none of the veterans knew, who was kept isolated in a canh-na guarded by three sentries just outside the village. So he could not yet have learnt the rules of the game: an amateur, in other words, but whose story might be interesting all the same.
The appearance of the Voice caused a stir among the prisoners. The show was about to begin. The curtain went up on the big lie of “democracy based on the peace of the masses and reciprocal understanding.”
The Voice started off, as usual, by giving a summary of the news, which everyone looked forward to. They knew it was out of date, partly falsified, distorted for the sake of propaganda, and incomplete; but it was the only source of news they had. One day perhaps he would at last announce that the armistice had been signed at Geneva.
But in sorrowful tones the Voice informed them that the Geneva negotiations were dragging on interminably in spite of the good will and efforts of the Vietnamese delegation. After raising everyone’s hopes, Mendès-France was revealing his true face, the face of a colonialist more crafty than the others. If he was intent on bringing the war in Indo-China to an end, it was only to repatriate the expeditionary force and send it out again to defend the vast estates that his wife owned in Tunisia.
“I’m beginning to like this Mendès,” said Pinières, “only I hope he won’t leave us in the lurch.”
“His wife’s estates are in Egypt,” said Esclavier.
The Voice went on:
“Your role later on, as fighters for peace, will be to keep a close watch on those false liberals in the service of the banks, who, while appearing to defend peace, will in fact ally themselves to the warmongers, since they are only prompted by their selfish class interests. Your comrade Millet has prepared a little lecture on the colonial movement in what you used to call Indo-China. It’s your duty to listen to him with the utmost attention, for it’s a thoroughly objective study.”
Lieutenant Millet appeared on the platform. He was all skin and bone, with long cowboy legs. A bullet in the knee made him limp. In his hand he held a piece of paper, bamboo paper of such poor quality that one could only write on it in pencil. His expression was solemn and self-important.
He began by stating some grotesque perversions of the truth, which made no impression on the old hands but dumbfoun
ded the new arrivals.
“Statistics show that the government of Indo-China made a point of lowering the birth-rate . . . Certain districts of North Viet-Nam were systematically starved so that the population might be transported as labourers to swell the slave-camps of the big plantations in Cochin-China. Wives were separated from their husbands to increase their output. In order to restrict the transport of rice to the North, thousands of women, children and old people were exterminated. The coolies were never known to come back from the plantations . . .”
The clan of old hands was well organized—in the first row, the two officers who were Communists or who thought they were; then the progressive group leaders, listening attentively, nodding assent, taking notes; behind them, the “mob” chatting together under their breath, applauding every so often and endlessly discussing what they were going to do with their four years’ back-pay which was automatically piling up in their bank accounts. For all these tattered officers were millionaires and kept dreaming, though without much hope, of the cars they would buy and the gargantuan meals they would eat in the big three-star restaurants.
Captain Verdier leaned over towards his neighbour:
“A newcomer told me that Lapérouse is not what it was, that the Tour d’Argent now leads the field. I was planning to take my wife there. Most annoying.”
“And what about the Vedette, the new Vedette?” his comrade replied. “Pretty cheesy, it seems, and eats up gas.”
“I’ll treat myself to wine,” said Pestagas in his Bordeaux accent, “nothing but wine seeing as how I haven’t had any for four years. I’ll have a barrel hung over my bed with a pipe attached to it, and when I can’t take any more through my mouth, I’ll stuff it up my nostrils and after that damned if I don’t take it like an enema!”
There was complete silence as Lieutenant Millet embarked on the interesting part: his own self-examination.
“Comrades,” he declared, “the best illustration of the horrors of colonialism in Indo-China is myself. During my first tour of duty, from 1947 to 1949, I held the Minh-Thanh post in the Mekong delta. With my platoon of mercenaries, who hated the workers and the people, for they all came from the wealthy districts of Boulogne-Billancourt and La Villette, we led a life of idleness and, since idleness breeds vice, we were all vicious.”
“But Boulogne isn’t a wealthy district!” Pinières protested.
“Pipe down,” Marindelle replied, giving him a nudge. “The Voice is now convinced that Neuilly and the Seizième are the slums where the workers wallow in misery and that La Villette is next door to the Champs-Élysées.”
“Yes, comrades, we oppressed the Vietnamese people and forced them to satisfy our gluttony with ducks, chickens and the young buffaloes they badly needed to cultivate their paddy-fields. We went even further in our misdeeds. To offend the susceptibilities of the Vietnamese people, we bathed stark naked in the middle of the village, while our concubines, whom we scornfully referred to as ‘congais,’ virtuous young women snatched by force from their families, were made to pour the water over us.”
“He’s doing well,” Orsini exclaimed in admiration.
“Tch . . . tch . . .” Leroy shook his head. “Février was much better.”
“One night,” Millet went on, “a unit of the People’s Army of Viet-Nam, anxious to avenge the oppressed population of Minh-Tanh, attacked our post which would have fallen but for the air support provided by the American imperialists. It was horrible: the bombs wiped out those valiant patriots and fire swept through the hutments.
“I was so misguided that I wanted to avenge the assistance which the patriotic population had given to the People’s Army. A parachute battalion came to clear up the district and I myself told them which men to execute. They behaved with their customary brutality and I would rather not tell you all the atrocities they committed.
“It has taken four years of re-education, four years of this policy of leniency which is the Republic of Viet-Nam’s reply to our imperialist barbarism, to open my eyes and fill my soul with remorse.
“I ask the Vietnamese people and the soldiers of the People’s Army for forgiveness, and I declare that the rest of my life will be devoted to fighting for peace and the brotherhood of the masses.”
There was a round of applause. The newcomers were completely at sea.
“The damned swine,” Pinières muttered, “I’ll break his jaw for him . . .”
“Go on, clap,” Marindelle told him, “clap hard. At that date Millet was in Germany, and anyway he has never set foot in southern Viet-Nam.”
“The bastard,” Pinières raged.
Lieutenant Millet left the platform, wearing an expression of triumph and remorse. He had high hopes of winning the chicken his comrades had promised for the best self-examination of the month.
After congratulating the lieutenant on his frankness, the Voice remarked that a full assessment of his crimes was an indispensable condition for a prisoner’s moral recovery.
He then announced Boisfeuras, one of the most dangerous war criminals captured at Dien-Bien-Phu, who had himself requested this opportunity to explain himself to his comrades.
The sun was shining straight into Boisfeuras’s face and he shut his eyes like a nocturnal bird which had suddenly been taken from its lair. He was filthy dirty and caked in dry mud. His voice was more grating than ever:
“Gentlemen,” he said, “my misdeeds are infinitely greater than those of my comrade Millet, for they are political. I was born in this part of the world, for over a century my family has exploited the impoverished masses. I learnt the language and customs of Viet-Nam so as to be able to exploit the people all the more. I was one of those who benefited from the war. North of Phon-Tho, among the mountain people, I tried to create a movement of separatism from the people of Viet-Nam. I took advantage of those peasants’ credulity; I corrupted them with money; I furnished them with arms. I made them fight against their brothers. But those primitive men, enlightened by an envoy of the Democratic Republic, recovered their patriotism and class consciousness; they kicked me out.
“I refused to see the Truth, and my mercenary’s pride impelled me to make for Dien-Bien-Phu in order to continue the fight against the people and defend the selfish interests of my family.
“Today I am beginning to see the light. I repent, and all I ask is to atone for my faults by exemplary conduct in future. I do not deserve the leniency”—he laid his swollen, paralysed hands on the little bamboo lectern in front of him—“which the soldiers of the People’s Army have shown towards me.”
He climbed down from the platform and the Voice declared that Boisfeuras could go and join his comrades now that he had recognized the error of his ways.
“A serious rival to Millet,” Orsini said in admiration.
As a reward for this particularly successful session, the camp commandant, the bandy-legged man who looked like a Japanese and who bore the title of general supervisor as in a college, increased the rations. In addition to their usual ball of rice, the prisoners were given two spoonfuls of molasses—which contributed to the atmosphere of euphoria. Many of them saw in this issue of molasses the hope of a speedy release.
• • •
Darkness fell in a few minutes. A fire, which was never allowed to go out, glowed on a patch of bare earth in the centre of the hut. Every so often a hand would rekindle it with a few slivers of dry bamboo. Then it would burst into flame and in the shadows could be seen the faces of Esclavier and Glatigny. Merle was reminded of a scout camp he had once attended in the mountains of Auvergne, Pinières of the long nights he had spent in a farm in Corrèze during the Resistance. Mahmoudi pondered on the affable girls from the Ouled-Nail mountains with their heavy silver jewelry.
Lacombe lay fast asleep on the bare floor under his mosquito net. Mosquito nets had been issued with great ceremony, one for every two prisoners. Since then h
e never stopped sleeping and from time to time he whimpered in his sleep.
Boisfeuras was sitting next to the fire engaged in an endless conversation with the owner of the house, an old Tho with a wrinkled weather-beaten face. The Tho was optimistic about the future, for his son was head of the village militia which consisted of three men armed with a single shot-gun. He drew the tou-bi’s attention to his feet, pitted and deformed by “Hong-Kong foot” or “buffalo’s disease,” of which he seemed almost proud.
The river babbled gently outside, mingling its noise with the distant echoes of a storm. The air, saturated with heat and humidity, felt as heavy as wool; it seemed to contain no oxygen at all and everyone was suffocating.
Above the grunting of the black pigs that lived under the piles, they heard the sound of voices, then the noise of water dripping on to a flat stone.
Below the hut, at the foot of the ladder, stood a jar of water with a ladle: a wooden ke-bat; this water was used to wash the mud off one’s feet before coming into the house.
Orsini and Leroy appeared on the threshold. They had come from the veterans’ camp and had brought with them a roll of tobacco, tied up like a sausage—a product of their plantation or the result of some mysterious bartering with the Mans of the neighbouring foothills.
They squatted down among the other prisoners, took some home-made pipes out of their pockets and some letters from home which they used as cigarette paper.
Marindelle came and sat down next to Boisfeuras and put a hand on his shoulder.
“They’ve come to congratulate you. You’ve got away with it this time. We were rather worried about you. We learnt from one of the bo-dois that some chaps who were doing the same job as you—two warrant officers of the Colibri guerrilla gang, a lieutenant of the Tabac gang and Captain Hillarin—had been tried by a people’s tribunal and executed a few days after their capture.”
“They chopped off Hillarin’s head with a hatchet,” said Orsini. “He was my instructor at Saint Cyr.”
The Centurions Page 15