“Not me, thanks, I’m really tired, I’m going to bed.”
She looked away, not to have to read the disappointment Lionel’s eyes. She was afraid, more than anything, that she might find them full of hatred. Fortunately, Alex got to his feet and took his companion with him.
“We may as well go now. That way we won’t be back too late. There’s a curfew at 22:00 hours.”
Maud sat on alone at the table. She put her head in her hands, to dim the clatter of plates and the shouts of diners reverberating against the tiles. It was all too much for her. She had never imagined she would find herself in a situation like this. For her, humanitarian work meant Albert Schweitzer, Saint Vincent de Paul, Raoul Follereau, imploring victims and the brave, disinterested people who came to their assistance. But what did she know, in the end. Just that those great forerunners were head and shoulders above their descendants. But there must be something somewhere of their good sides, or so she had thought.
Instead, she had found petty, spineless people who were walled up in their hatred. And this war: a tangled network of criminals who were all alike. Here she was, a woman trying to get away from machismo, and now she felt she had landed in a country where its proponents reigned as absolute masters. If her companions had at least agreed to see her as one of them . . . Instead, it was the old game of attraction and repulsion, and this obligation to handle Lionel tactfully because she didn’t fancy him, but he just didn’t get it. And he was bound to make her pay for his unrequited love.
Why had she always felt so alone in life? Ever since childhood; for as long as she could remember. What painful experience had left her so demanding, so lucid or perhaps simply so blind and crazy? Her parents were close, so to speak. Her mother had stayed at home—although she’d been a promising jurist, she’d given up her profession in order to raise her children. Her father had taken over an old notarial practice and made it the most prosperous one in town, and now, at the age of fifty, he was bald and potbellied. Her older brother had gotten married the previous year and was already expecting his first child. Why had she always thought so poorly of them? Why did she never have any friends? Why was it so difficult to be a woman—why did she wish she weren’t one?
She stared into space, forgetting the noise and the ambient ugliness around her. She was overwhelmed by melancholy.
Tonight she could not banish these painful thoughts, even though she had always stuck to her rule not to think about any of this, but to fight, and to keep busy. But where had all her struggles, rebelliousness, and choices left her?
She lost all sense of time, sitting there transfixed by her dark thoughts. At one point she thought she saw Vauthier at the far end of the huge lobby. He was with some uniformed men. But he had his back to her and she immediately lost interest. Later, the group of people at the next table got up, and she realized the noise level had dropped significantly. Only a few stragglers eating on their own were left in the refectory.
Suddenly, far-off, framed in the double doors of the entrance to the refectory, she saw Marc. He was looking into the room, probably searching for their group. She waved to him to come over. While he was walking toward her, she discreetly wiped her eyes. The bandage Marc was wearing on the right side of his face was very white against his olive skin.
Why, all of a sudden, did she feel so light?
4
When the dining room closed, Maud and Marc found themselves out in the corridor with their beer bottles in their hands. A few soldiers in gym clothes were still pumping iron, but most had left for their dorms. The long neon-lit corridor smelled of sweat and supermarket aftershave.
Neither Marc nor Maud felt like sleeping. She followed him past the exercise benches to a door that gave onto the outside. He’d had time to explore the building and visibly knew where he was going. They came out onto a metal fire escape that climbed the entire height of the building’s rear façade. From there they looked out on the countryside on the Serbian side of the enclave, and there was no need to fear any snipers along this axis. The moon had risen above the hills. Against the bluish background of sky stood a fringed crest of forest.
The stairway was the refuge of insomniacs, smoking on their own or talking in small clusters, seated on the stairs. Marc and Maud climbed all the way to the top where there was no one and sat down on the last landing. Marc did not smoke very often, but he had an old pack of cigarettes in his pocket. He offered Maud one.
“It wasn’t too unpleasant, getting the stitches?” she asked.
“It was okay.”
“Oh, I saw Vauthier. I think he was with some soldiers.”
“He must have found some other secret agents, to go hang around town.”
“Maybe we can leave him behind here?”
“I don’t think he’d like that.”
“Aren’t you afraid he’ll cause trouble for you?”
“It’s not in his interest. If he’s on a mission, the way I think he is, he has to keep a low profile and finish the job.”
In the gloom she could see only the white patch of bandage on Marc’s face. It made him more human, more vulnerable: as if by puncturing his armor, the wound had laid the man bare. Maud felt less intimidated.
“Why did you decide to become a soldier?”
She could just as easily have said, why did you leave the army? The two things were equally puzzling to her.
“I didn’t choose. It’s just the way things happened.”
There was no reticence in his tone of voice; she figured she could ask him some more questions.
“Well, nobody forced you, did they?
“When I was in uniform, there was this little insignia on it, a little round pin, which meant that others knew immediately what to expect. But it’s true I don’t wear it anymore. And in any case, it would mean nothing to civilians.”
“So what was this insignia?”
“It was the sign that I was a child reared by the army. I’ve been a soldier since I was five years old.”
A little cloud of smoke rose from his mouth into the dark blue moonlit sky. Maud got the impression he was laughing quietly to himself.
“My father was a legionnaire. He was from somewhere around here apparently. I think he was a Hungarian from Vojvodina. That’s a province in northern Serbia. He came to France at the age of twenty and joined up.”
“And your mother?”
“He met her in Lebanon, when he was serving in the UNFIL.”
“Is she Lebanese?”
“Palestinian. She was born in a refugee camp. She was the third of five daughters, and her father was very strict with them. One day, my mother had left the camp, for a man, I suppose, and the family didn’t want anything more to do with her.”
“Did you know her?”
“Not really. It was a strange story. I never found out exactly what she was doing when she met my father. But he must not have been the only one, if you see what I mean. In any case, by the time I was born he had already left with his unit.”
“Were you born in Beirut?”
“In Tyre. But I only stayed there four years.”
“So your father came back later to get you?”
“No, he died. In Chad, during an operation.”
“So how come the army raised you?”
“It was my mother, you see. She was a very simple woman, but resourceful, the way you have to be when you have nothing and no one to protect you. As soon as she got out of the maternity ward she went to see the UNIFL commander, with me in her arms, and she gave them my father’s name. But then when she didn’t get an answer, she started showing up at headquarters every day. She threatened to talk to journalists, and to write to the Secretary General of the UN if the father did not recognize his child.”
The soldiers who’d been talking on the landing below stood up to go to bed. Now Maud and Marc were a
lone on the stairs, and the countryside beyond was silent. Dogs were barking to each other in the distance.
“One day, they told her that my father had died. She didn’t give up for all that. She said that in that case, it was France that had to recognize me.”
“And did she get her way?”
“Apparently she found the right thing to say, and the military were afraid of a scandal. I’ve also been told she was very close to a French officer at that time. Perhaps he helped her. Whatever the case might be, I was taken on as a war orphan and sent to a military school in the north of France.”
As he spoke, Marc stared into space, toward the darkening hilltops. Suddenly he broke off and turned to look at Maud.
“Why’d you get me talking about all this? What do you care?”
“I just like to know, that’s all.”
She felt embarrassed, as if he’d caught her out, and she choked briefly on her cigarette smoke.
Above all, as she didn’t want him to question her in turn. Her normal little family, and the rebelliousness she’d felt during her awkward teenage years: they seemed more ridiculous than ever. But he said nothing, and the silence settled over them.
There was something about Marc that commanded respect, a sort of gravity, and now Maud understood better where it had come from. She thought about the makeshift tank they had seen that morning as they drove down the avenue. Marc was like that: as if he had sheets of metal fastened to him, all around. But all around what? He knew how to fight like a wild animal in the mud, yet at the same time she recalled how distraught he had looked when the bearded doctor took him off to stitch up his cheek.
“Why are you going back there?”
“Back where? Kakanj?”
“Yes.”
He thought for a long time. She got the impression he was hesitating.
“To go with Alex,” he said at last.
It didn’t ring true but she didn’t dare come out and say so. She decided to take a more roundabout approach.
“Did you leave the army after you got back, or during the mission?”
“In Kakanj. I resigned.”
“Can you tell me why, or would you rather not?”
“It’s kind of a long story. We’ll talk about it some other time. We’ve got to get up real early tomorrow morning. You know what they say about soldiers: they’re always up at dawn, even if they have nothing to do.”
He got slowly to his feet, shaking out the stiffness in his legs. He waited for her to get up too before heading down the stairs. The metal frame of the stairway vibrated to their footsteps. She was slightly above him, so their heads were at the same level. With any other man, she would have kept further away, for fear of some misplaced gesture. But with him, she felt trusting. At one point they started heading into the wrong door and in a moment of confusion bumped into each other. He apologized and didn’t try to take advantage. She was grateful to him for that.
And yet when she closed the door behind her and looked around the empty room, she felt terribly lonely.
The next morning, a steady drizzle was falling over the town. A leaden light struggled to pierce the black clouds. The bad weather dampened the snipers’ enthusiasm, and all you could hear in the streets was the trickling of the broken gutters. The soldiers who left headquarters were wearing tight-fitting brown raincoats that went down to their ankles. Their huge blue helmets made their heads seem enormous, and they were a comic sight, like some sort of poisonous mushroom.
The convoy was lined up in the street. While they were warming up the engines, Alex and Marc, poorly protected by old hoodless windbreakers, their hair dripping, checked that the rain-slick tarps were properly fastened. Everyone was ready except Vauthier, whom they hadn’t seen since the night before.
“Let’s leave him, never mind,” said Alex.
He had placed his wet hands on the half open window and was talking to Lionel, who was leaning with his arms crossed on the steering wheel.
“If he’s decided to stay, let him stay. But we can’t leave without letting him know.”
“I can’t go looking everywhere for him just to plead with him!”
“Not to plead with him. But if you can find him and ask him what he intends to do, that would save time.”
Alex let out an oath and headed toward the sandbags at the entrance. At the same moment Vauthier came rushing out and they almost bumped into each other in front of the sentry.
“What were you doing? Everyone is waiting for you.”
Vauthier was wearing a fur-lined jacket none of them had ever seen. He was shaven, and his lips looked even thinner than usual. His fight with Marc had left a large bruise on his temple but he’d smeared it with cream and you could hardly see it. When he got in the cab there was a strong smell of menthol. Lionel made a face.
“Any longer and we would have gone off without you,” he said.
Alex was wriggling out of his dripping clothes.
“It’s not my fault. I only got back an hour ago,” said Vauthier calmly, as soon as he was once again installed in his seat at the back.
Lionel waved his hand out the door to motion to Marc, who was at the wheel of the second truck. Then he shifted noisily into first gear.
“Still getting in touch with the locals?” he said mockingly, glancing at Vauthier in the rearview mirror.
“I was with two whores.”
He snickered, and seeing that his younger companions were taken aback, he continued in the same tone.
“Frankly, you should try it sometime. Two gorgeous, frisky, and very young women. I’d go so far as to say they were famished!”
“Shut up,” grumbled Alex.
“Believe me, it’s way more relaxing than any of your virginal stuff.”
“Shut the fuck up!”
This time it was Lionel who had shouted, and he seemed so outraged that Vauthier fell silent and withdrew to the back of his bunk.
In a few words, he had destroyed the mood and the conversation. They drove through the town in silence, and before long they could hear hoarse snoring from the backseat.
The river marked the border between the Serbian and Muslim zones. There used to be two bridges across it, but the one in the center of town had been destroyed the previous year. The only one left was located in one of the suburbs to the east. It was a modern bridge with a steel structure and two concrete piers. Checkpoints had been set up at either end. The bridge itself was in no-man’s-land, in permanent danger of machine-gun fire. Only UN and humanitarian convoys were allowed to cross the bridge.
It was still raining and the water was trickling down the Serbian soldiers’ side caps and soaking their uniforms, which made them even jumpier. They checked the documents sullenly, then motioned to the trucks to move forward between the security gates, just before the entrance to the bridge itself. Passengers were obliged to cross on foot; only the actual driver could remain in the truck.
During this relatively easy, almost official leg of the journey, they had forgotten to some degree what they were transporting. But now that they were lined up behind the barrier, in the silence of a checkpoint where they had been told there were frequent incidents, among soldiers who were mute, tense, and on the alert, they were all once again fully aware of the danger. The barrier went up with a groan. Lionel and Marc switched on the ignition. The other three, on foot, were instructed to walk ahead, so that the vehicles could never go faster than walking pace. They were not allowed to wear a hat or anything that hid their faces. The rain came steadily down, even colder on this bridge exposed to the icy wind sweeping along the river. Upon the signal, they moved slowly forward.
Maud felt her hair sticking to her brow. There were raindrops on her eyelashes. Alex pulled his collar tighter and shivered. Only Vauthier with his warm jacket and his shining bald pate, where the rain seemed to bounce off,
gave an ironic smile, as if to show he didn’t mind the weather at all.
The sidewalks on either side had been stripped of their surface, undoubtedly to get at the thick metal sheets that covered them and which could be used for armor. The pavement was cluttered with debris of all kinds from the fighting. They recognized a dented helmet and some scraps of uniform. Seen from the riverbank the bridge didn’t look very long, yet walking across it was interminable.
They could see the gray huddle of the Bosnian checkpoint on the other side more clearly now. They couldn’t make out any heads or figures. The defenders must be concealed, observing them.
They had only just reached the middle of the bridge when the first truck stalled. It was too much for its tired gearbox to drive that slowly. They stopped, careful not to turn around. Lionel nervously tried the key in the ignition but the hot engine did not want to start again. The waiting got longer. They thought they could see shadows moving behind the roadblock.
The engine wouldn’t start. Alex and Maud looked at each other, worried. At one point, the truck shuddered and seemed to catch, then jerked forward with a splutter, startling them. The fender grazed their legs. They both turned around at the same time. Behind them, from the end of the bridge, they heard the click of a weapon.
Maud had a moment of panic. Her initial reflex was to run, to shout. Alex touched her hand and she regained her self-control. If she wanted to run away, she’d have to do it in a daydream. She focused her gaze on a twisted streetlamp that was hanging in the void above the river, and a memory came to her. She wasn’t even six years old when, one summer day in the mountains, during a picnic, she climbed up the side of a cliff. One step, then two, then fifty. She found herself very high up, with no way to get back down. She was terrified by the void. She could see her parents, far below, shouting. She wanted to run to them, to rush into their arms. They’d had to send for help. All night long, despite the fact that she usually never wanted anyone to touch her, she had slept snuggled up against her mother. And now, there was something similar to the diving board. She’d never realized it before. She suddenly wondered if this might be the explanation: danger was the only way she could overcome the obstacles that kept her from love.
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