"Grandmother, don't forget that one of us is blind and the other deaf."
A few days later, a man turns up at our house. He says:
"I am the inspector of primary schools. You have in your house two children of compulsory school age. You have already received two warnings about this matter."
Grandmother says:
"You mean letters? I can't read. The children can't either."
One of us asks:
"Who is it? What's he saying?"
"He's asking if we can read. What's he like?"
"He's tall and looks mean."
We both shout:
"Go away! Don't hurt us! Don't kill us! Help!"
We hide under the table. The inspector asks Grandmother:
"What's the matter with them? What are they doing?"
Grandmother says:
"Oh! The poor things are afraid of everybody! They've lived through such terrible things in the Big Town. What's more, one of them is deaf and the other blind. The deaf one has to explain to the blind one what he sees, and the blind one has to explain to the deaf one what he hears. Otherwise, they don't understand anything."
Under the table, we yell:
"Help, help! It's blowing up! It's making too much noise! It's blinding my eyes!"
Grandmother explains:
"When someone frightens them, they hear things and see things that aren't there."
The inspector says:
"They have hallucinations. They should be treated in a hospital."
We yell even louder.
Grandmother says:
"Nothing could be worse! It was in a hospital that the misfortune happened. They were visiting their mother, who worked there. When the bombs fell on the hospital, they were there, they saw the wounded and the dead; they themselves were in a coma for several days."
The inspector says:
"Poor kids. Where are their parents?"
"Dead or missing. Who knows?"
"They must be a very heavy burden for you."
"What can you do? I'm all they have in the world."
Before leaving, the inspector shakes Grandmother's hand:
"You're a very brave woman."
We receive a third letter that says we are exempted from attending school because of our infirmity and our psychic trauma.
Grandmother Sells Her Vineyard
An officer comes to Grandmother's to ask her to sell her vineyard. The army wants to put up a building on her land for the frontier guards. Grandmother asks:
"And what will you pay me with? Money is worth nothmg.
The officer says:
"In exchange for your land, we'll install running water and electricity in your house." Grandmother says:
"I don't need your electricity or your running water. I've always lived without." The officer says:
"We could also take your vineyard without giving you anything in exchange. And that's what we're going to do if you don't accept our offer. The army needs your land. It is your patriotic duty to give it to us."
Grandmother opens her mouth to speak, but we intervene:
"Grandmother, you are old and tired. The vineyard gives you a lot of work and hardly brings anything in. On the other hand, the value of your house will increase a great deal with water and electricity."
The officer says:
"Your grandsons are more intelligent than you, Grandmother."
Grandmother says:
"You can say that again! So talk it over with them. Let them decide."
The officer says:
"But I need your signature."
"I'll sign whatever you like. Anyway, I can't write."
Grandmother starts to cry, gets up, and says to us:
"I'll leave it to you."
She goes off to her vineyard.
The officer says:
"Ah, she's very fond of her vineyard, the poor old woman. Well, is it a deal?"
We say:
"As you yourself have observed, that land has great sentimental value to her, and the army would certainly not want to usurp the hard-earned property of a poor old woman who, moreover, is a native of the country of our heroic Liberators."
The officer says:
"Ah, yes? She's a native . . ."
"Yes. She speaks their language perfectly. And we do too. And if you have any intention of committing an abuse . . ."
The officer says very quickly:
"No, no! What do you want?"
"In addition to the water and electricity, we want a bathroom."
"You don't say! And just where do you want this bathroom?"
We take him into our room and show him where we want our bathroom.
"Here, giving onto our room. Seven to eight square meters. Built-in bathtub, washbasin, shower, water heater, toilet."
He looks at us for a long time, then says:
"It can be done."
We say:
"We would also like a wireless set. We don't have one, and it's impossible to buy one."
He asks:
"And is that all?"
"Yes, that is all."
He bursts out laughing:
"You'll have your bathroom and your wireless. But I'd have been better off talking to your grandmother."
Grandmother's Illness
One morning, Grandmother doesn't come out of her room. We knock on her door, we call her, but she doesn't answer.
We go to the back of the house and break a pane of glass in her window so we can get into her room.
Grandmother is lying on her bed. She isn't moving. But she is breathing, and her heart is beating. One of us stays with her, the other fetches a doctor.
The doctor examines Grandmother. He says:
"Your Grandmother has had an attack of apoplexy, a cerebral hemorrhage."
"Is she going to die?"
"You can't tell. She's old, but her heart is sound. Give her these medicines three times a day. And she'll need someone to look after her."
We say:
"We'll look after her. What has to be done?"
"Feed her, wash her. She'll probably be permanently paralyzed."
The doctor leaves. We make a purée of vegetables and feed Grandmother with a small spoon. By evening, it smells very bad in her room. We lift her blankets: her straw mattress is full of excrement.
We get some straw from a peasant and buy babies' rubber pants and diapers.
We undress Grandmother, wash her in our bathtub, and make her a clean bed. She is so thin that the babies' pants fit her very well. We change her diapers several times a day.
A week later, Grandmother begins to move her hands. One morning, she greets us with a volley of insults:
"Sons of a bitch! Go roast a chicken! How do you expect me to get my strength back with your plant life and your purées? I want some goat's milk too! I hope you haven't neglected anything while I've been ill!"
"No, Grandmother, we haven't neglected anything."
"Help me get up, you good-for-nothings!"
"Grandmother, you must stay in bed, the doctor said so."
"The doctor, the doctor! That imbecile! Permanently paralyzed, indeed! I'll show him how paralyzed I am!"
We help her get up, accompany her to the kitchen, and sit her down on the seat. When the chicken is cooked, she eats it all herself. After the meal, she says:
"What are you waiting for? Make me a good stout stick, hurry up, you lazybones, I want to go see if everything is in order."
We run off to the forest, we find a suitable branch, and while she watches, we cut the stick to Grandmother's size. She promptly grabs it and threatens us:
"You'll be sorry if everything isn't in order!" She goes out into the garden. We follow her at a distance. She goes into the privy, and we hear her muttering: "Diapers! What an idea! They're completely mad!" When she goes back to the house, we take a look in the privy. She has thrown the rubber pants and diapers down the hole.
Grandmother's Treasure
&nbs
p; One evening, Grandmother says:
"Shut all the doors and windows tight. I want to talk to you, and I don't want anyone to hear us."
"Nobody ever comes this way, Grandmother."
"You know the frontier guards are always prowling around. And they're quite capable of listening at people's doors. And bring me a sheet of paper and a pencil."
We ask:
"You want to write something, Grandmother?"
She shouts:
"Do as you're told! Don't ask questions!"
We shut the windows and doors, we bring the paper and pencil. Sitting at the other end of the table, Grandmother draws something on the sheet of paper. She says in a whisper:
"This is where my treasure is hidden."
She hands us the sheet of paper. On it she has drawn a
rectangle, a cross, and under the cross, a circle. Grandmother asks:
"Do you understand?"
"Yes, Grandmother, we understand. But we knew already."
"What! What did you know already?"
We reply in a whisper:
"That your treasure is hidden under the cross on Grandfather's grave."
Grandmother is silent for a moment, then she says:
"I might have suspected as much. Have you known for a long time?"
"For a very long time, Grandmother. Ever since we saw you tending Grandfather's grave."
Grandmother breathes very heavily:
"There's no point in getting excited. Anyway, it's all yours. You're clever enough now to know what to do with it."
We say:
"For the moment, there's not much we can do with it."
Grandmother says:
"No. You're right. You must wait. Will you be able to wait?"
"Yes, Grandmother."
All three of us are silent for a moment, then Grandmother says:
"That isn't all. The next time I have an attack, I don't want any part of your bath, your rubber pants, or your diapers."
She gets up and rummages around on the shelf among her bottles. She comes back with a small blue flask:
"Instead of all your filthy medicines, you'll pour the contents of this flask into my first cup of milk."
We say nothing. She shouts:
"Do you understand, sons of a bitch?"
We say nothing. She says:
"Maybe you're afraid of the autopsy, you little brats? There won't be any autopsy. Nobody's going to make a fuss when an old woman dies after a second attack."
. We say:
"We aren't afraid of the autopsy, Grandmother. We just think that you may recover a second time."
"No. I won't recover. I know it. So we must put an end to it as soon as possible."
We say nothing, Grandmother starts to cry:
"You don't know what it's like to be paralyzed. To see everything, hear everything, and not be able to move. If you aren't even capable of doing this simple little thing for me, then you're ingrates, vipers I have nursed in my bosom."
We say:
"Don't cry, Grandmother. We'll do it; if you really want us to, we'll do it."
Our Father
When our Father arrives, the three of us are working in the kitchen because it's raining outside.
Father stops in front of the door, arms folded, legs apart. He asks:
"Where's my wife?" Grandmother sniggers:
"Well, well! So she really did have a husband." Father says:
"Yes, I'm your daughter's husband. And these are my sons."
He looks at us and adds:
"You really have grown up. But you haven't changed." Grandmother says:
"My daughter, your wife, entrusted the children to me." Father says:
"She'd have done better to entrust them to someone else. Where is she? I've been told she went abroad. Is that true?"
Grandmother says:
"That's old news, all that. Where have you been all this time?"
Father says:
"I've been a prisoner of war. And now I want to find my wife again. Don't try to hide anything from me, you old witch."
Grandmother says:
"I really appreciate your way of thanking me for what I've done for your children."
Father shouts:
"I don't give a damn! Where's my wife?"
Grandmother says:
"You don't give a damn? About your children and me? All right, I'll show you where your wife is!"
Grandmother goes out into the garden, and we follow her. With her stick, she points to the flower bed that we have planted over Mother's grave:
"There! That's where your wife is. In the ground."
Father asks:
"Dead? From what? When?"
Grandmother says:
"Dead. From a shell. A few days before the end of the war."
Father says:
"It's forbidden to bury people just anywhere."
Grandmother says:
"We buried her where she died. And that isn't just anywhere. It's my garden. It was also her garden when she was a little girl."
Father looks at the wet flowers and says:
"I want to see her."
Grandmother says:
"You shouldn't. The dead must not be disturbed."
Father says:
"In any case, she'll have to be buried in a cemetery. It's the law. Get me a spade."
Grandmother shrugs her shoulders:
"Get him a spade."
In the rain, we watch Father demolish our little flower garden, we watch him dig. He gets to the blankets, he pulls them away. A big skeleton is lying there, with a tiny skeleton pressed to its breast.
Father asks:
"What's that, that thing on her?"
We say:
"It's a baby. Our little sister."
Grandmother says:
"I did tell you to leave the dead in peace. Come and wash your hands in the kitchen."
Father doesn't answer. He stares at the skeletons. His face is wet with sweat, tears, and rain. He climbs laboriously out of the hole and walks off without turning around, his hands and clothes all muddy.
We ask Grandmother:
"What shall we do?"
She says:
"Fill the hole in again. What else can we do?"
We say:
"You go back into the warm, Grandmother. We'll take care of all this."
She goes in.
We carry the skeletons up to the attic in a blanket and spread the bones out on straw to dry. Then we go down and fill in the hole where nobody is lying anymore.
Later, we spend months smoothing and polishing the skull and bones of our Mother and the baby, then we carefully reassemble the skeletons by attaching each bone to thin pieces of wire. When our work is done, we hang Mother's skeleton from one of the attic beams with the baby's skeleton clinging to her neck.
Our Father Comes Back
We don't see our Father again until several years later.
In the meantime, Grandmother has had a new attack, and we have helped her die as she asked us to do. She is now buried in the same grave as Grandfather. Before they opened the grave, we recovered the treasure and hid it under the bench in front of our window, where the rifle, the cartridges, and the grenades still are.
Father arrives one evening and asks:
"Where's your Grandmother?"
"She's dead."
"You live alone? How do you manage?"
"Very well, Father."
He says:
"I've come here in hiding. You must help me."
We say: "We haven't heard from you in years."
He shows us his hands. He no longer has any fingernails. They have been torn out at the roots:
"I've just come out of prison. They tortured me."
"Why?"
"I don't know. For no particular reason. I'm a politically suspect person. I'm not allowed to practice my profession. I'm under constant surveillance. My apartment is searched regularly. It's impossible for me to live much lo
nger in this country."
We say:
"You want to cross the frontier."
He says:
"Yes. You live here, you must know . .
"Yes, we know. The frontier is impassable."
Father lowers his head, looks at his hands for a moment, then says:
"There must be a weak spot somewhere. There must be a way of getting through."
"At the risk of your life, yes."
"I'd rather die than stay here."
"You must make up your own mind when you know all the facts, Father."
He says:
"I'm listening."
We explain:
"The first problem is to get as far as the first barbed wire without meeting a patrol or being seen from one of the watch- towers. It can be done. We know the times of the patrols and the positions of the watchtowers. The fence is one and a half meters high and a meter wide. You need two boards. One to climb onto the fence, the other to put on top so that you can stand up on it. If you lose your balance, you fall into the wire and you can't get out."
Father says:
"I won't lose my balance."
We go on:
"You have to retrieve the two boards and do the same thing at the next fence, seven meters further on."
Father laughs:
"It's child's play."
"Yes, but the space between the two fences is mined."
Father goes pale:
"Then it's impossible."
"No. It's a matter of luck. The mines are arranged in a zig-zag, in a W. If you follow a straight line, you only risk walking on one mine. And if you take big steps, you have almost a one in seven chance of avoiding it."
Father thinks for a moment, then says: "I'll risk it."
We say:
"In that case, we are quite willing to help you. We'll go with you to the first fence."
Father says:
"Okay. Thanks. You wouldn't have something to eat, by any chance?"
We give him some bread and goat cheese. We also offer him some wine from Grandmother's old vineyard. We pour into his glass a few drops of the sleeping potion that Grandmother was so good at making out of plants.
We take Father into our room and say: "Good night, Father. Sleep well. We'll wake you tomorrow."
We go to bed on the corner seat in the kitchen.
The Separation
Next morning, we get up very early. We make sure that Father is sleeping soundly.
The Notebook + The Proof + The Third Lie Page 10