After the War

by Hervé Le Corre

  Jean concentrates on the gun—on the single dark eye staring at him—in order not to look in Darlac’s eyes. Between the firing pin and the cartridge primer, there remain ten to fifteen millimeters of space, in which is trapped everything he has been through, all his sufferings and hopes. He made every mistake possible. He even brought Daniel into this, and now his son is lying in the line of fire of this vile, crazy prick. Darlac is going to shoot, no matter what. He’s going to kill him. He didn’t think it would happen like this. So quickly. At the hands of this bastard. He’d have preferred to do it himself. Jump under the wheels of a train. He’s thought about it often during the three days he’s spent here, hearing the horns of the locomotives blaring from the station. He would probably have fucked that up too. Sliding at the last moment onto the ballast, or throwing himself off the wrong bridge, or onto the roof of a carriage. It’s farcical, the way he can fuck everything up.

  Daniel listens to the cop’s sarcastic voice, discharging its venom. He thinks about getting up, creating a diversion, but Darlac is holding two guns and covering every possible angle. He would still have a hand free to shoot, even if he was thrown to the ground. And that type of man is never easily intimidated; that type of man always recovers, with some unsuspected back-up plan ready at a moment’s notice, a secret weapon stashed up his sleeve. Daniel wonders if perhaps he isn’t simply scared. Maybe because he looked into the cop’s eyes and it was like staring into dead water, a toxic swamp waiting for you to move closer so it can suck you in. In Algeria, if he’d looked into the enemy’s eyes, he would probably have thrown down his weapon instead of fighting, as he ended up doing.

  A scraping noise of wood on wood, and then the sound of the overturned chair hitting the floor. Sudden yelling. Daniel gets to his feet and sees the two men rolling on the floorboards, Darlac’s hands, a gun still in each, beating the air. A gunshot sends him to ground again and deafens him, leaving a painful buzzing in his ears. Next to the wall at the other end of the room, the two tangled bodies continue fighting. He gets up again amid the stink of gunpowder and charges, but suddenly Darlac frees himself and hits Jean in the face with the butt of a gun, then pulls backwards and aims at both of them. With the Colt, he fires twice in Jean’s chest. Jean does not cry out. His body falls back against the skirting board. Then Daniel sees the cop raise his other huge fist, with the pistol pointing like a child’s toy, and he feels a hammer blow to his shoulder that sends him flying. He falls to the floor, and when he tries to break his fall he feels as if he no longer has an arm and he rolls onto his side.

  Darlac places the .30 in Jean’s right hand, slides his index finger onto the trigger and squeezes. The bullet lodges in the wall above Daniel and a cloud of white dust puffs into the air. The cop stands for a moment in the middle of the room, staring at the two prone bodies, then goes over to Daniel as shouts echo in the street below, along with car doors banging. So he goes down the stairs leading to the garage, pushes open the creaking door, half-blocked by shelves covered in spare parts, and sees two figures waving torches and yelling, “Police! Don’t move!” He tells them his name and rank, calls them cocksuckers and approaches them.

  “Things turned ugly up there. I got here too late. He’d shot his son. I had to defend myself.”

  The two men grope around for a light switch, find one and silently stare at the cars gleaming under the 100-watt bulbs.

  The street is packed with cops jumping out of vans and Peugeot 403s parked any which way across the sidewalk in the amber flashes of the rotating lights on their roofs. Commissaire Divisionnaire Laborde bursts into view, flanked by two detectives whom he immediately sends off to find out what’s happening.

  “So have you got what you wanted?” he asks Darlac. “Everyone dead?”

  “I had to kill him. He threatened me with his gun. Anyway, it was two bullets or the guillotine. I prefer the first solution: it’s neater, and it’s cheaper for the taxpayer.”

  “That’s not the only thing that costs the taxpayer.”

  Other cars arrive. The prefect. A bigwig from the mayor’s office. Darlac has met them before at office meetings.

  “So?” they ask, slapping Laborde on the back. “You got him?”

  “He’s dead, along with his son. Commissaire Darlac led the operation single-handed.”

  Laborde stresses the word “single-handed” and the prefect raises an eyebrow. All the same, he walks over to Darlac looking grave and solemn and shakes his hand.

  “I don’t know if it was done by the rules, but at least it’s done. This city will be peaceful again. The police is honored to have officers such as you in its ranks. Go ahead . . . go home to your wife. You’ve earned a few hours of rest. Don’t you think, commissaire divisionnaire?”

  Laborde nods. Darlac takes his leave of these good people, then walks over to his car amid congratulations, compliments and salutes. He shakes hands, gets his back slapped. “Jesus, say what you like, but . . . what a cop!” he hears someone say behind him. It has been a long time since he felt so at peace. In the warmth of the night, he breathes in with a feeling of perfect fulfillment. He daydreams about the cognac he will pour himself when he gets home. About the sweet sleepy feeling that will soon overcome him.

  He drives with the windows down, smoking a cigarette. He feels the best he’s felt in so long that he finds himself humming a popular song, one of those inane tunes that madame sings to herself in her kitchen as she cooks.

  *

  He is woken by the pain. Daniel is floating at first, then feels the weight of his body again. He is lying in an awkward position, his right cheek against the floorboards, his arm trapped under his ribcage, one knee bent. Just as he decides to move, a hand grabs his wounded shoulder, making him groan with pain. He turns over and lies on his back. The room is swarming with people. He tries to see where his father fell, but there is a forest of legs planted in front of the slumped body, which he can hardly make out at all. Above him, a bald, square-faced man stares dumbstruck.

  “This one’s alive!”

  Pandemonium. Voices shouting. Four or five faces turn towards him, incredulous.

  “He’s been shot in the shoulder,” says the cop crouched down next to him. “Call an ambulance. Tell Commissaire Divisionnaire Laborde.”

  He feels like he’s nailed to the floor by his own weight, a bit like on those giant spin-dryers you see in funfairs where you’re stuck to the wall by the speed at which the thing is revolving. He looks up at the dark ceiling, examining the random shapes of the yellowish halos cast by the lamp and tries to think about something. But the pain drives everything from his mind, leaving him feeling stupid, like so many pounds of lifeless meat. Through the open window he can see flashing lights, hear engines rumbling.

  He comes to again when they put him on a stretcher. He asks the policemen who lift him up to wait and he turns sideways, leaning on his good arm, and stares at his father’s body. There is no-one around it now, and he is able to see the face at rest, the marks of time seemingly faded, the mouth half-open as if he were about to say something in his sleep, and he remembers the man whose hand he held when they walked in the street, the man who smiled as he talked to him.

  Later still, in the hospital lobby, his shoulder immobilized by bandages, he shivers with fever, feeling thirsty and desperately lonely. He wishes Maurice and Roselyne were there, to reassure him. He wishes Irène could give him something to drink and hold his hand. The feel of her cool fingers in his palm. Her lips near his.

  A few words. He closes his eyes, lulled by these sweet thoughts.

  Then the cop who’s sitting by the foot of the bed looks up at him over his newspaper and asks if he’s alright.

  *

  Commissaire Albert Darlac feels another wave of happiness as he closes the door of the house behind him. The air is cool. Through the open French window, a breeze blows in from the garden, bringing the scen
t of the jasmine that grows on the pergola. Madame is sitting in an armchair and reading by lamplight as a moth flutters around the bulb. What a charming sight. She is wearing a pair of Capri pants that show off her ankles and cling tightly to her legs, and a pale blue blouse with an open neckline. He contemplates the roundness of her breasts, feels the urge to see her naked. He wants her. It is sudden and brutal. Back in the good times—when were the good times? His memory is shot—he would have moved closed to her and slid his hand under the fabric, his fingers caressing her nipple as he buried his other hand between her parted thighs. She would lie back, moaning softly, and hold his hand firmly inside her secret warmth . . .

  He pulls himself together, takes off his jacket, tosses his waistcoat onto the sofa as he walks over to the bar. Cognac. He pours a generous measure into a heavy glass that he holds in the palm of his hand. He sniffs it, takes a sip, then sits down. Sigh of pleasure. Silence and darkness.

  “Elise not here?”

  Madame shakes her head. He wasn’t looking at her though, so he waits for her response, is about to repeat his question then decides not to bother: why should he care about his whore of a daughter, good only for turning him on with her cuddles or her distant attitude, depending on her mood. Soon all that will be over. He is going to put his life in order. During the last few months, he has done a good job of tidying up his mess: he got rid of a lot, it’s true. But you can’t go on living amid an accumulation of old stuff; you can’t keep walking forever through the same old shit without it starting to stick to the soles of your shoes and to stink, making people turn as you pass.

  Soon he will be a free man. He will file for divorce, because that slut went on seeing her Kraut for years without his knowledge—that’s what he will say, and they’ll believe him, and they’ll look at that unworthy beauty caught up with the devil like some demonic creature, and she’ll be like those women who are branded with red-hot pokers, their heads shaved while the good people jeer and spit at them. He is sure of his ground. He will request a transfer to Paris. Or no, maybe Marseille, because he likes the sensations and the strong smells. They owe him that, at least, after he rid Bordeaux of the worst killer the city has known since the war officially ended. So they can fuck off, his wife and daughter. Madame can start training as a shorthand typist again and she’ll get a job as a secretary in some office to make ends meet. She’ll be fine: he can see her now, dispensing her favors to her boss. With a body like hers, she’ll probably end up getting promoted and marrying some ambitious bureaucrat or being kept by an adulterous executive.

  So here he is now, planning out his life. He who has always lived so determinedly in the present, forbidding himself to look backwards, mistrusting tomorrow, here he is now going soft over his prospects, thinking about his future. He puts that down to the alcohol that is starting to lure him into a sleepy bliss, punctuated with pornographic scenes: madame in every possible position, using and abusing her charms in the most diverse places, to the point where he wonders if—touching his rock-hard erection through the fabric of his trousers—he couldn’t have her now: turn her over as he usually does so he won’t have to see her face and smash into her without a word. Why not enjoy this little comfort, this right granted to him by marriage?

  He hears her moving about in the kitchen and wonders what she could be doing in there. He is surprised that he didn’t see her get up. He looks around as if he’s just waking up from a dream and is reassured by the firm grip of his hand on the glass of cognac. He takes another sip.

  She comes back into the living room. He sees her tall figure walking towards him, backlit by the light from the kitchen, and he is seized by the desire to touch her, to bend her over—here on the sofa, for instance—and take her. The thought makes him shiver.

  He is surprised to see her standing firmly in front of him, arms dangling. He stares at the triangle at the top of her thighs emphasized by those skintight trousers, and thinks only of what is hiding behind that thin fabric.

  He is surprised to hear the sound of her voice. “Why did you kill Willy? Why couldn’t you leave him for me? I never asked you for anything.”

  He looks up and sees that she’s crying. This surprises him too, because she spoke in a firm, strong voice.

  He is surprised when she falls on him. He holds out his arms—he is afraid of spilling his drink. He is about to yell at her, shit, what are you . . . then he feels a sharp pain in his chest and realizes that his shirt is wet with blood, that it is soaking the top of his trousers, so he drops his glass in order to push his wife away but his arms have no strength and they fall back on her as if he was trying to hug her.

  She lies on top of him, thrusting the knife in with all herstrength. Her face is only centimeters from his. She looks as though she’s about to kiss him or tear off his face with her teeth. She whispers, her jaw tensed, the words barely articulated.

  “Look at me, you bastard. Look at me as you’ve never seen me before.”

  Albert Darlac does as she tells him and he has trouble recognizing his wife, Annette, in the frozen mask that leans over him. And that impassive perfection scares him, really scares him, because it seems to him that she is not human and that he cannot control her, he who has always so shrewdly manipulated the mediocrities who surrounded him to his own advantage. He tries to speak, but the only sound that emerges from his open mouth is a groan of pain.

  It is at this moment that she stands up and he sees that she is covered in blood: her hair tied back, impeccable as always, but her forearms red and glistening, her impassive face flooded with tears, mascara trickling down her cheeks. He tries to pull out the knife that is plunged in him up to its hilt, but he can’t find it because suddenly it is dark, and his vision is scattered with dazzling lights, and his arms no longer obey him.

  She sits on the chair across from him, leaning slightly forward, and stares at the wooden knife handle as it rises up and down in time with his breathing. In a whisper, she counts. One, two, three . . . For the eighth time, the knife handle rises then falls slowly and does not move again. And the woman wipes away her tears.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Hervé Le Corre was born in Paris and currently teaches in the suburbs of Bordeaux, France. He is the author of several crime fiction novels, including Talking to Ghosts (2014). He also writes for the literary magazine Le Passant Ordinaire.