‘Isn’t it possible to get a chap like that arrested?’ I said.
‘By whom and for what?’ Ortiguez said. ‘My dear lady, you make it sound all too easy.’
Ortiguez began to laugh, very softly, and then he went quiet. For some time we sat there leaning on the table, all three of us, dumb, immobile.
‘Who’s Grozzi?’ I said.
‘For God’s sake, Leah!’ Jasminot said.
I was overcome with the heat again, just as I had been earlier in front of the silent factory: it was as if the sun was pouring on to my skin and coating it.
‘We might as well go back,’ Jasminot said. ‘Let’s go back to the village, I’ve got work to do.’
‘I’ll come back up this evening with Carrol and Leslie,’ Ortiguez said.
As we were leaving the café Jasminot said, ‘Are you coming back with me?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m going to walk for a bit. I’ll see you again this evening.’
I shook Jasminot’s hand and walked down the road. I walked without knowing where I was going, among a great mass of walls and burning paving-stones, a display of blues, yellows and tortured reds, like a burst of blood in the heat. In my anguish at this flashing and fusion of colour and heat, which seemed to spread all over the town, I walked as if I was wounded: at the heart of my anguish lay a single question, which seemed almost to be dictated by the colours and the heat themselves. Its rhythmical formula nagged at me continually: ‘Who’s Grozzi?’
I walked through the horror of that hot, bright town, a fanfare of sunlight in which peeping insects with tiny feet and lemon-coloured wings settled between the paving-stones and on the burning walls. These insects were brittle, dry, bright and noisy. They had long red and yellow bodies with long thin feet and wings, and the bulging eyes of daytime voyeurs. At night the only thing that distinguished them from the faded dark was the glossy black of their beautiful gleaming shells.
I went on walking, still wounded by all the luminous blues and yellows, but all of a sudden the nagging question stopped, leaving nothing for my aching eyes to gaze on but the hideous heat and colours, now silent, as if in deliberate response to the new quietness around them. In a strange calm, as if there was nothing left of my repulsion but a kind of fatigue, I sat down on a low wall surrounding a square. Yes, I said to myself, there were people who crossed frontiers by underground passages, risking their lives as they wormed their way through mud and rubble, their clothes always covered with clay, their faces darkened by all the shadows of the earth; and there were people who crossed frontiers under an open sky, their clothes always clean and, as the saying goes, spick and span.
I’d been talking to myself, in an undertone. A child stopped in front of me, a loaf of bread under his arm, and looked at me curiously. I stopped talking to myself and smiled at him, just like a normal person. He went off, disappointed, then came back for a moment, with the look on his face of a child who’s been swindled.
That’s how Carrol would be looking now, I thought, as he leaned over his machine. I thought back over the events of yesterday and of this morning, I thought about all the things that had brought me to this torrid town. They were little things, really, they didn’t mean very much if you took them at face value. But if you looked beyond that… ‘The number and the time,’ Jasminot had said. That was all very well, but when there was only one of you, and you were worn down by the slow impatience of time…
I looked round me again, at the wounding colours and the silent heat. Everything was quiet, and I was still calm. I walked a little further around the town and made my way to the station and the bus terminal. Once on the bus I picked a seat near an open window, but it didn’t take the bus long to get out of the hot streets; I could soon glimpse sea beyond the tree-covered slopes. But then the bus took a route inland, away from the coast. We were going to drive up to the hills, and then to the mountains. By then I was no longer concerned about the passing of time, I had stopped looking out of the window. A cool breeze wafted over my still sweaty face and I felt almost cold. I lowered my eyelids and entered into the presence of darkness.
I got off the bus at the edge of the village and instead of walking into the centre, I headed off towards a vast clump of bamboo, where I’d left my bike yesterday before the storm. I’d wanted to follow the long path that winds up the mountain to where the view stretches all the way to the sea, but as soon as I had reached the top the first drops of rain began to fall, and I’d walked back down via a short cut which led to the heart of the village.
My bike was just where I’d left it the day before. I pulled it out from among the branches and rode off at full speed, so as to put as much distance as possible between me and the village. Before long the steepness of the hill meant that I had to slow down, or get off and push. When the road finally ceased to climb, I was a good five kilometres from the village, and it completely vanished behind me as I began to go downhill. I could already see a second hill ahead, which would mean another climb. Just before embarking on it I stopped in the valley for a moment, a false, blind valley where nothing grew but dried-up plants among yellow rocks. Behind me rose the silent hill. From this side there was nothing to give any indication that there was a village clinging to the other slope.
In front of me, at the very top of the next hill, I could see the brownish mass of the old fort. On the slope leading to it, much closer, stood the house. In the midst of all that aridity, the few standing vines and the surrounding olive trees made it seem like an oasis.
Looking around me, I took in the whole amphitheatre of dry hills. There was no fresh air here at all, and at this time of day the heat was still strong; my whole body was again soaked with sweat. On the ground the dry-skinned insects were making a deafening racket. It was sunset: the sun was no longer visible on the restricted horizon, but it had left its bloody trails in the sky. I formed such a clear impression in my mind of the lie of the land in front of me that I could have found my way around it blindfolded. But now I had to leave to start on my return journey. I climbed the silent side of the hill, and then as I made my way down the winding road the village slowly began to reappear before my eyes.
When I reached the clump of bamboo, I put my bike back under the branches.
I dropped in very briefly at my own place and, hurrying now, I made for the heart of the village.
Yes, I was in a hurry now. I was in a hurry to move on, and to have my say.
Jasminot, Carrol, Leslie and Ortiguez were all in the small café, standing by the bar with a group of people. As I shook hands with them, I saw Carrol’s eyes linger tenderly on the little jacket I’d thrown over my shoulders at home. It’s true, it was a smart jacket and one I didn’t often wear, but I hadn’t put it on because of that.
Carrol came up to me and lightly touched my wrist in a sad caress. ‘Leah, my love,’ he said. I drank the wine that my comrades gave me; but when I held out my hand to take the glass, and raised it to Carrol’s, it was as if it had really remained inert on the bar, as if it was waiting for something. The curve traced by my hand as it rose with the glass reminded me of the dots that children have to join up into a line with a black pen in drawing books. The raised hand signified nothing at all; no movement counted, the only truth was that my hand had really remained inert on the bar, waiting for something, so that it was the invisible hand that drew the firm black outlines.
Jasminot was talking to me, everyone was talking to me, but I didn’t hear them. I answered them but I didn’t hear my answers. At that moment their words had absolutely no importance for me. All I was waiting for was nightfall, for the day to be well and truly over, as the shouting of a crowd dies away.
As I slipped on my jacket Carrol started playing with my belt, laying it flat on the bar, wrapping it round his wrist. ‘Give it here,’ I said. I tied the belt firmly round my waist and bade the men farewell.
It was already good and dark outside, though errant patches of light still penetrated the blackness from
time to time. I walked slowly towards the clump of bamboo, as if I were out for a stroll, and, just like before, I soon found my bike under the branches, then made my way up and down the same slopes. Beyond the hills, in the depths of the night, some rosy tints still lingered, looking as if they were about to fade into nothing. I don’t know whether my journey lasted two hours or a few minutes – I had absolutely no sense of the weight of time.
I crossed the narrow, blind rocky valley, now completely dark, feeling the dried-up plants beneath my feet, and lay my bike down under the first olive tree I reached. A dim light came from each of the windows to the left and right of the door. I made no noise – I had on the cord espadrilles worn by all the people round here and I was able to walk softly up to the house. Pressing my face against the window, I looked through the canvas curtains into the room and saw a man lying fully dressed on a narrow bed. He had a thin face and black hair, and there was something rather appealing about his features. ‘Some people said he was a big black Spaniard, others said he was Italian…’ There was neither ugliness nor evil in his face – more a profane obliviousness.
A half-full suitcase lay open on the table and there was an alarm clock by the side of the bed, as if the man was resting before a dawn start. I closed my eyes for a moment. What if I continued my journey, I thought, what if I went on climbing the hills beyond? The time would surely come when I would rest by the side of the road and this man would pass me. He’d be at the start of a journey, with a fresh early-morning taste on his lips, and the first rays of the sun would shine on my forehead and impregnate my heart.
I was standing right next to the door – if I tried the latch in the hope that it would yield, it might make a noise. I looked into the house again and saw a half-open door in the partition at the far end of the room, very near the bed. I went round the house, sticking close to the walls, feeling my way along them with my hands. The back room was completely dark apart from a crack of light from the half-open door that connected it to the front room, and one of the windows was open. Pushing gently against the unlit pane I climbed through and walked silently into the room. I stopped for a moment in front of the half-open door, on the threshold of the front room, and I took from my jacket pocket the little Corsican knife that you gave me. I walked into the light.
I shouted, ‘Grozzi!’ He opened his eyes and saw me through the mist of a too sudden awakening. He half sat up to grab my arm but before he could do so, I had my arm around his shoulders as if to embrace him; my hand was against his back, and I struck him. He started and fell back on my arm, crushing it. I tried to pull it out from beneath his back. He grabbed me by the shoulders to push me away but the sharp pain in his back prevented him from straightening up, from pushing me away. For a moment we stayed like this, him lying flat with his arms outstretched, his hands pushing against my shoulders, and me resisting this pressure with all the strength in my body.
At last I freed my arm. I thrust it towards him and struck him again and again right in the middle of his torso, I don’t know how many times, until blood began to stain the linen and my hands, until the arms which were grasping my shoulders fell back across my body, and his head moved slowly from side to side, several times. Three or four times, at long intervals, I was assailed by deep breaths from his big open mouth. Finally he was still, and I was confronted by its abyss. As I closed his jaw with my hands there rose in me an overwhelming grief, heavy with poisonous dregs. I sat there for a long time, my hands pressed against his face, while my heart slowed down and my hands became accustomed to the stillness and coldness of death. That is how it all happened; and it happened yesterday, in the night.
I left the house for a moment. Darkness surrounded me, and I felt very calm, but I would have liked it to have been raining. I searched all the corners and sheds in the garden and found a wide shovel with a long handle which I propped up on my bike, tying it to the handlebars and the saddle. Then I went back in and stood close to him. His face was already calm and beautiful. I folded the blanket he’d slept on around him twice, and covered his body with all the bitter passion I still felt for the colour of blood. I brought my bike in and by leaning it against the bed I managed to slide the body on to the iron part of the shovel, securing it firmly to the saddle with my belt. This is how I managed to take the body through the scrub and undergrowth of the region to a wood of holly oaks, where the perpetual shade offered by the trees made the ground softer. It must have been after, but not much after, midnight; it could have been either the first or the last hour of the day.
I dug deep, for hours on end. Although the ground was less dry here, the effort was more than a woman’s arms could manage. I did it, though, and then I laid him at the bottom of my pit. Before throwing the heaped up earth back on to him, I put one of my own handkerchiefs on his face, on the face of the man who for me had no name.
Then I left the oak wood and came back through the scrub, to the heart of endless solitude. The lights were still on in the house. I tidied up the room and, finding linen and various other things inside a wardrobe, threw them in the suitcases – except for two items of identification, which I held on to: some kind of pass written in Spanish, in the name of Ferralle, and an alien’s identity card, issued in France, in the name of Luiggi. He must have kept the papers that were in the name of Grozzi in a wallet in the clothes that he’d been wearing. I slipped the suitcase under the wardrobe and put the shovel back in the shed where I’d found it. At last I set off along the merciless road. Before broaching the last climb, I threw the identity cards into a heap on the wayside and set fire to them. I watched the flames spread to the plants nearby.
I didn’t stop again before reaching the bamboo where I left my bike and returned to the village at an easy pace. I saw the top of the hill glowing red: some bushes must have caught for it to have reached that far. There was nothing unusual about a fire in this part of the world. For me, this fire at the edge of the night was all that my eyes could bear; already today’s dawn was rising on the village, whilst all that was spreading over me was the death of my cruel day and my pity for his blood.
Carrol turned up this evening. ‘How cold your hands are,’ he said. They were white and bloodless. I tried to raise them to touch his black hair but they fell back at my side, inert. After I had led Carrol back across Germinie’s dark kitchen, I began to write all this down.
I’ve only wanted to retrace my movements, not really my thoughts: I haven’t spoken of my own grief. I’ve only spoken of the colours that wounded my eyes, of the tiredness of my arms and the pallor of my hands. Do you need any more to understand what I did?
Here is the dawn again. There’s no doubt that we are in for a season of storms: yet another one has hit the village. The water will wash away any trace of blood that might have marked the stones and the earth up on the hills. But I’m writing this under cover: I won’t let any water dilute the ink with which I’m recording my story for you. My killing, my rupture, will live on inside me for ever.
Let it rain, dear God, let it rain again on my cold country… Let a torrential rain wash away all colour and all life. When will that time come when we shall be once more at each other’s side, on the threshold of the shadowy gate where all daylight’s games are shattered for ever?
CLARA
HER HAIR was arranged in two criss-crossing plaits on top of her bent head, and her hands, lying in the lap of her dress, were very pale; she had become altogether lighter, transparent almost. She was so fair, so slender and so light, and now she had been released from the weight of the world. In silence. When a tram or heavy lorry passed in the street her body knew of it only by the slightest of contacts, by a subtle shuddering of the floor beneath her feet. Silence. Her lowered eyelids insulated her from colours and from shapes: she had already slipped into a world that had no limits. She was almost in a state of bliss.
That is how my Lennie’s image comes back to me, and it’s at that point in the past that I recall the glow of her words – af
ter those two days of paralysis that were merely a pontoon bridge between life and death. I wish our eyes could meet again as they used to. I wish our silent words could bind us together on that slippery ice that is the purity of her death.
‘We’re not going any further – what about you, Clara, are you coming back with us?’
‘No, I’ll go all the way.’
I wanted no more of their whispered voices. I wanted the dark drapes to be torn off and thrown away: I wanted her to be covered with all those flowers and to be freed from all the heaviness, all the tears. I wanted her to be given back her piece of the sky and of the earth.
Slowly my steps caught up with the others following her. Yes, that was my Lennie, sitting down, hair in criss-crossed plaits on her bent head, pale hands in the lap of her dress, halfway to slipping into a universe without limits. Almost in a state of bliss.
It was the second time. She had tried to reject her life once before, but the blood that flowed from her open wrists had been staunched, and washed out of her dress. The poisoned spring had never been purged. How quickly the sight of blood frightens people! Did they think that to see her life restored would stop her thinking of death? This time Lennie made sure she would succeed. Instead of calling out to death or letting it creep gently into her, susceptible to time or help, she threw herself right into the very heart of it, like a bird that wants to take flight, swooping into the sky from the top storey of a building, or like a flower thrown from a window at a passing conqueror.
A woman had come into the bedroom and Lennie had seen her lips move. The woman spoke but Lennie didn’t answer. Bending over her, she projected sounds and words into Lennie’s ear. These noises and words hurt me so much, Lennie thought, why do people distress me like this? ‘No,’ she said. Smiling, the woman asked her whether she was cold, whether she’d like something to eat or drink. Lennie said what was needed and the woman left. Lennie looked round the room, now freed from anyone’s presence, and fixed her eyes on the high, difficult window. It was the only thing that mattered to her.
A Nail, a Rose Page 8