After the War

by Hervé Le Corre

  “Can you hear anything?” Ferrier asks.

  Daniel shrugs. “What do you expect to hear?”

  What they hear is water trickling and spurting onto the ground from the truck, which has been hit by bullets in several places. They go over there to wash their hands and faces and to fill their mouths and spit it out, and end up drinking it, shoving their heads under the jets and shaking themselves like dogs.

  The three men who were sent up the slope return, almost at a run, out of breath, and they say, gesturing vaguely at the hillside, that there’s a stiff up there, practically cut in two, it’s so disgusting that Peyrou puked up all his beers and the other two nearly did the same. They console themselves by saying that it avenges the lieutenant—two fells for the price of one—and they should go back into town and drive around with him tied to the radiator grill of the half-track to show the locals that they’d had a good hunt. They force themselves to laugh, their faces pale and twisted, and they pull up their belts and wave their guns around, full of bravado, and then they do what the others are doing with the water, splashing it all over themselves, and soon their camouflage jackets are sticking to their skin and they bare their chests before seeing the lieutenant’s body and suddenly falling silent.

  At the moment when the caporal goes back to the jeep to call for help on the radio, they hear Baltard, still sitting behind his machine gun, yell, “Shit, guys! Quick!” Daniel rushes over.

  Giovanni.

  In spite of his wound, Daniel climbs onto the back of the halftrack and finds his friend curled up in a ball, hands pressed to his stomach, with blood pooling beneath him.

  “Hey, comrade! How are you?”

  He forces a smile, puts a hand on his shoulder. Giovanni turns towards him, his face calm but streaming with sweat and tears.

  “It hurts,” he whispers. “The bastards.”

  Daniel tries to catch his gaze, which drifts vaguely between blinks. He squeezes his shoulder more firmly and shakes him gently as if he’s trying to wake him.

  “We’re going to get you out of here. You’ll see. The caporal’s calling for help. We just need to wait a bit.”

  Peyrou brings over a flask. Daniel trickles some water over Giovanni’s face, and Giovanni opens his mouth and catches some on his tongue.

  “Stomach wound,” says Meyran. “He shouldn’t drink.”

  The two of them lift Giovanni up and remove his shirt, then roll the rags up under his head to make him more comfortable. There are two holes above his navel, and blackish blood is slowly leaking from them. Sometimes he moans and they can see waves of pain trembling under his skin. Péret carries over a box marked with a red cross.

  “I don’t know what’s in it,” he says. “I found it under the seat, in the truck.”

  Meyran unpacks bandages, rolls of sticking plaster, a tourniquet. He opens a packet of compresses and soaks a few in alcohol.

  “Watch out, this is going to burn. Hold tight.”

  He presses the compress onto the wound and Giovanni cries out and kicks, his boots thudding against the metal platform. With Daniel, they make a bandage to cover the wound. They are kneeling in the blood, which is starting to congeal in a brownish paste. They’re still wearing their helmets, so sweat pours down their faces as they lean over their friend and trickles from their chins as if someone has just tipped a bowl full of water over their heads.

  After that, Daniel cleans the wound in his shoulder, a deep cut that is pissing blood, and Meyran helps him bandage it tightly to staunch the flow.

  “Does it hurt?”

  He shakes his head, glancing down at Giovanni whose eyes are staring hazily into space.

  “Where did you find the fell?”

  “I’ll come with you,” says Péret, strapping his sub-machine gun to his shoulder. “It’s up there, under the tree. I’ll warn you though, it’s not a pretty sight.”

  They climb up the hill, about a hundred meters. Tiny lizards scurry away from their footsteps, swishing the dry grass. Daniel turns back to look at the halted convoy. From there, it resembles a line of toys abandoned by some forgetful kid. The men come and go around the vehicles, like action figures in a game.

  “Look. There he is, the son of a bitch.”

  At first all Daniel can see is a pair of feet in rubber boots, a trouser leg hitched up to reveal dark skin with black hairs. Then the body appears, with a line of red pulp across the belly, with grey patches on the surface. He moves closer to get a better view and tries to understand these shreds that lie in the hollow of an impossible crater in the man’s abdomen. The hairs on Daniel’s head stand up, so he takes off his helmet and rubs his hand over his skull, feeling a shiver of static under his fingers that starts running over his entire body.

  “It was the .50 that got him,” says Péret. “Fucking brutal, isn’t it?”

  Daniel crouches down and tries to search the corpse. He shoves his hands in trouser pockets damp with blood, finds a pack of tobacco and throws it away.

  “What are you looking for? Can’t you smell the shit? Come on, we don’t want to hang about next to this thing.”

  Nothing in the other pockets. Daniel stands up again and searches the lines on the dead man’s face—eyes half closed, lips curled back—for a hint of the life he once lived: the trace of a smile or a sparkle in his eye. And he wonders how old this man was. Eighteen? Twenty? But the dead man’s face is just a pale, twisted mask; he is nothing now but an assemblage of meat and guts already starting to rot, brother or close cousin to the few corpses he has already seen in Algeria, petrified and grimacing. All dead men look alike in war. Not like in the films, where they often appear wellrested, with just a spot or two of blood on their shirt or at the corner of their lips when it was really tough or cruel, so that you were almost relieved for them. And there’s always some idiot there to say that kind of thing or to tear straight into the jungle to avenge his comrade’s death against the elusive Japs or the Krauts solidly entrenched behind concrete walls or armored cars. It has been a long time since he looked at the world through his foldable frame. These days, he is far more likely to stare through the scope of his rifle at the iridescent reflections cast by moving foliage, at targets, jam jars, the face of the fell behind his machine gun, concentrating on his own line of sight during the final seconds of his life.

  Since Daniel doesn’t move, Péret becomes impatient. He starts kicking stones, raising little clouds of dust.

  “Shit, come on, let’s go. Are you praying for him or what?”

  Daniel wishes he could feel something. Hatred or disgust. Horror or contempt for this disembowelled fellagha who, just ten minutes earlier, had been trying to kill them. Down there in the valley, there’s a dead lieutenant whose two kids will never see him again. And Charlin with a shard of steel in his head, a calm, silent, shy man who lived alone with his parents on their farm. And there’s Giovanni, with two bullets in his belly, who would tear out his own guts if he could to be rid of the pain that is slowly killing him. He looks at this devastated body and sees nothing human in it. Only a carcass that is no longer even an enemy, that is no longer anything at all. Like roadkill.

  They go back down and rejoin the others, who are paddling in the water that continues to pour from the truck. Daniel climbs in the half-track and kneels down next to Giovanni, who looks like he’s asleep, mouth open and panting. His face is slick with sweat. The bandage is already saturated with blood and all around the wound the skin is marbled with evil-looking bruises. He whispers to him: it’ll be alright. The chopper will be here soon.

  The caporal is there, slumped on the metal bench. He keeps his eyes closed, head thrown back.

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “The stiff. Was it pretty?”

  Daniel shrugs. “One less to worry about.”

  They can hear the others chatting further off. A d
oor bangs shut. The caporal takes out a packet of Gitanes and hands it to Daniel. They smoke for a moment without saying anything.

  “I can stay, if you like,” says Daniel.

  “Nah, it’s alright. I should be there.”

  Daniel grabs a filthy rag and soaks it with water, pouring the contents of his flask over it. But it’s warm, and it stinks of engine oil.

  “It pisses me off, after how I insulted him earlier. I can’t just leave him!”

  Meyran is the first to hear it. He starts yelling, “Chopper’s here!” and the men, who were all sitting in their vehicles, stunned by the silence whistling in their deafened eardrums, jump to the ground and scan the horizon. As soon as they see the Banana start to curve over the ridge, they begin waving their arms and shouting, until their voices are drowned out by the din of the rotors and the rising dust forces them to close their mouths and to squint, and to crouch down, instinctively, as if the blades might take their heads off.

  Daniel stands up and waves too, then he bends over Giovanni to tell him, “Hear that? Straight to the hospital, then you’re going home! They’ll take that thing out of your belly in no time—it’s just like an appendectomy!”

  His friend smiles sadly and grips his hand. He tries to say something but the words get stuck in his mouth as his face is creased with pain. He squeezes Daniel’s hand even tighter, then manages to stammer, “I’ve got nearly two red holes in the right side!” He closes his eyes, and Daniel frowns at him: “What did you say?”

  Men in civvies emerge from the helicopter carrying doctor’s bags. Daniel calls them over. “Quick!” he shouts.

  Giovanni tries to lie on his side so he can curl up in pain. He moans, and Daniel jumps off the half-track to try and drag the stretcher-bearers over. But they are already running, and they yell through the noise and the dust, “Calm down, for fuck’s sake, we’re coming! It’ll be O.K.”

  25

  Three knocks at the door. Hard, fast, imperative. The police, André thinks. That’s how cops knock, impatiently, and he imagines them out there on the landing, guns at the ready, listening for his footsteps. He goes to the window and sees nothing in the street: no vans or suspicious cars, no lookouts. Just in case, he asks who it is, and hears the voice of his landlord: “It’s just me, Monsieur Ferrand.”

  The man enters as soon as he opens the door, without greeting him, without meeting his eye. He hands him the newspaper.

  “This is about you, I think.”

  He taps a short news story on the front page with his index finger.

  CRIMINAL ON A MOTORBIKE

  André Vaillant, real name Jean Delbos, suspected of six murders committed in Bordeaux and the surrounding region, including those of Inspecteur Eugène Mazeau and his wife, drives a motorcycle, probably a Norton. The police, who are actively searching for this armed and dangerous individual, made this information public yesterday, in the hope that it will lead them to the suspect. Jean Delbos is about forty years old, and 180 cm tall, with a slim build. Anyone able to provide the police with useful information can call the central station or dial 17.34

  André looks up at Ferrand, who is watching him, hands in his pockets. He folds the newspaper and hands it back to him.

  “So?”

  “So I thought you should know.”

  The man turns away, takes a few steps. Then he throws his newspaper on the table, near a notebook filled with small sloping handwriting.

  “What are you writing?”

  “Nothing . . . A detective novel.”

  The man laughs silently.

  “You should have plenty of material . . . Can I read it? I love that, those noir thrillers. Especially written by a murderer.”

  André comes over to close the notebook and put it away in a drawer.

  “Why did you kill those people?”

  “I didn’t kill the cop or his wife. The others, I . . .”

  André falls silent. He stares at the man, who is motionless, impassive, hesitating over what he should do, strangely attracted, perhaps, by this killer who is front-page news. André knows he could take the pistol from under his pillow, get rid of the landlord to give himself time to flee. He could throw a sucker punch, knock him out. But this man just stands there, doing nothing, apparently waiting, and looking almost embarrassed, or maybe sad.

  “It would take too long to explain, about the others.”

  “You were in the camps, is that right? They mentioned it in the paper before. Where were you?”

  “In Poland. Auschwitz.”

  “That was for Jews, wasn’t it? They sent the Jews to Poland. They sent my son to Mauthausen. He was in the Resistance. He was eighteen.”

  “Did he—?”

  “No,” Ferrand answers hastily, as if trying to prevent the word being spoken. “Almost. When he came back he weighed only eighty-four pounds. And he wasn’t short. And he’d put some weight back on by then. He was sick. No-one seemed to know what was wrong with him. Even the doctor was afraid to come. Me and his mother, we just watched over him, hoping he wouldn’t die. There wasn’t much else we could do. He’s a fitter at Moto-Bloch now. What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “Did you lose someone?”

  “My wife and my son.”

  The man stares at him, shakes his head and sighs. He is about to say something, but André speaks first.

  “There’s nothing to say. I’m going to leave.”

  “I wouldn’t inform on you. I’m not like that. You must have had your reasons, for killing those people. You’re not one of those murderers who kill people for fun or to rob them. Not like all those Nazis and militiamen. You’re not like them. I know that, cos I’m not scared of you. I can look you in the eyes, like that, no worries. And I can tell you one thing: someone informed on my son and his friends, in late ’43. I’ve got his name and address, and if it were just down to what I wanted, I would . . .”

  He stops talking and walks to the window. There is sunlight in the street now, shining on the façades on the other side of the road, and he stares at this light with surprise.”

  “If it wasn’t for Arlette . . . I’m bringing her up on my own, now my wife is dead.”

  He turns to André and speaks in a firmer voice.

  “You can stay here, you know. I’ve told you I won’t go to the cops.”

  André examines the man’s face, trying to decipher the lines for signs of falsehood, to tear away his smile to reveal a wolf’s leer. Impossible to know. He feels plagued by contradictory signals.

  “It’ll cause you trouble, if I stay. It’s better if I go. Thanks for everything. For your silence.”

  “I guess you don’t trust anyone anymore?”

  “I don’t know. It’s nothing against you . . .”

  Ferrand sighs, picks up his newspaper and walks to the door.

  “I’ll leave you to pack. Just put the key on the table. I’ll come and get it later.”

  He closes the door softly behind him and André listens to the sound of his footsteps fade as he walks downstairs. And then that crushing silence again. There are noises outside—the distant rumble of trucks on the docks, the cooing of a pigeon—but here, in this room, the silence deepens and devours him. Like a bomb crater. Or a ditch. He remembers the ditch where he died. Remembers the corpse on top of him, heavy and cold.

  With his large bag on his back, he drives the motorbike over to the docks and abandons it near a bar that opens early in the afternoon and closes late at night, a bar frequented by sailors and women he can see perched on bar stools, wearing too much makeup, sometimes turning to stare at passers-by through the window, with expressions of sadness or contempt. He hopes the bike will be stolen within a few hours and that this will make the police’s work a bit more complicated.

  He walks along the docks for a long time, squ
inting in the slanting spring sunlight, then he takes a bus and walks a bit further, thinking about Darlac who is searching for him, who will tear the city apart in order to find him. André wonders if he still has the strength and the willpower to destroy this man, wonders if the mixture of hatred and grief that has fuelled his acts up to now might be slowly thickening into a glue that will paralyze him.

  He has to knock twice before the door is opened. A woman’s face appears in the narrow gap. Short salt-and-pepper hair. Large dark eyes, elongated by eyeliner. André says hello, but she doesn’t reply, just stares at him in surprise or curiosity.

  “Is Abel there?”

  “Jean?”

  The woman’s face comes to life, with a sad smile. “Abel told me you came round. I’m glad to see you.”

  Violette. André doesn’t know what to say. He tries to return her smile, to find some appropriate words, but nothing comes to his mind.

  “Come in. Don’t stay out there.”

  In the darkness of the hallway, she smiles at him again.

  “How are you?”

  She whispers, and her voice is immediately absorbed by the silence.

  “O.K., I guess. I didn’t recognize you.”

  “Have I aged that much?”

  “No . . . Maybe it’s the short hair. But it’s definitely you.”

  “Well, that’s a relief.”

  She spots the large sailor bag on his back.

  “Put that down. You’re not leaving straight away, are you?”

  After he has balanced the bag against the wall, the two of them stand there looking at each other in embarrassed silence for a few seconds.

  “Abel’s not doing too well, you know. The doctor’s given him two months at the most. He’s resting, in there. He has an afternoon nap now. Come on, let’s have a coffee.”

  Violette enters the dim kitchen and pours coffee into a saucepan, which she puts on the stovetop.