A Noble Profession

by Pierre Boulle

  The subjective slant Arvers gave to the events was at the same time so natural and so intoxicating that he began to believe in it himself. In the course of his description he produced a revised, improved version of reality, one corresponding so closely to his secret ambition that his mind was unable to question it. Molding, manipulating the raw material of the facts in such a way as to make it yield a satisfactory meaning—that was what he had done all his life. The profession in which he was a past master was now revealed in all its glorious majesty. The exultant sense of his own virtue almost brought tears of enthusiasm to his eyes as he gave the finishing touches to his personality by means of the skillful magic of words.

  “He was alone, I knew. He didn't suspect a thing—he thought I had been completely taken in. I couldn’t wait any longer; the opportunity was too good to miss. I came and knocked at the door and told him you had just arrived and wanted to see him. He went back to get his coat. I followed him inside and then I strangled him with this wire. He didn’t utter a sound.’’

  His voice had the very ring of truth, and the proof of what he asserted was there in the passage. Austin was under his spell; once again he began to suspect that Claire was out of her mind or had invented the whole story to bring about Arvers’ downfall. She would never be convinced of his good will, Arvers realized. But what did Claire matter, after all? He had thwarted her; her whole demeanor showed she was conscious of her defeat. There she stood in front of him, fuming with rage, to be sure, but powerless. Even though she still held in her trembling hands the case he had not had time to destroy, she knew she could not use it against him. Why, she had not even thought it worth mentioning! What was this insignificant object compared to the massive corpse stretched out at their feet?

  Austin was brought back to reality by the first rays of dawn. It suddenly occurred to him that he had heavy responsibilities and that this was no time to indulge—as he had been doing for the last few minutes—in theoretical inquiries into the various symptoms of insanity. There were more urgent things to attend to than forming a diagnosis. They would have to move away from here; the area had become too dangerous. As soon as the murder of Gleicher was discovered, the

  Abwehr would institute brutal reprisals. Unable to decide which of his colleagues could be trusted, he gave his instructions to both of them, in a cold, authoritative voice.

  “The first thing is to get rid of the body; that will give us a breathing space. It’s too late to move it outside. Is there anywhere in the villa we could hide it?”

  The cellar, which was half filled with stacked-up logs, seemed to be the most suitable place.

  “You take him down there and stow him away,” he told Arvers. “Claire will give you a hand. I’ll go and warn her mother to dispose of all traces of you and then clear out herself. I’ll also have to tip off various other people. I’ll come back and get you in the car, which I’ve left outside the village. I think we’d better make for Paris.”

  Arvers made no comment; he took off his coat and set to work. He felt lighthearted, almost jubilant. Claire opened her mouth as though to protest, but Austin silenced her with a commanding gesture. She looked abashed, appeared to acquiesce, and went off to help Arvers. Austin cast a final puzzled glance in her direction, then shrugged his shoulders, left the house, and hurried off toward the village.

  They worked down in the cellar for a long time, watching each other furtively but without saying a word. He dislodged the heavier logs while she helped to shift them.

  “That ought to do it,” he said finally. “The hole’s big enough. Let’s go and get the body.”

  She followed him up to the ground floor. Exhausted by their efforts, panting for breath, they went and sat down in the living room for a moment, keeping away from the fireplace in which embers still glowed. Outside, the sun was beginning to light up the garden.

  “Come on,” he said after a moment. “We haven’t much time. Austin will be back soon and we have to have everything ready by then.”

  To his intense delight, he had once again assumed the tone of a determined leader. She stood up and they went into the corridor.

  “You take the feet,” he told her.

  She obeyed without protest. He bent down, slipped his arms under those of the corpse, and started lifting it off the floor. His back was turned to the front door. Claire, who had taken hold of Gleicher’s legs, suddenly let them drop. He looked up in surprise. She had her eyes fixed on a point directly behind him. Her mother was standing there on the threshold. She had come in without a sound, and in her hand she held one of the big revolvers they had left with her for safekeeping.

  33

  “It was when I went back to her mother’s place that I began to feel slightly uneasy, sir,” said Austin. “I’d already looked in there to warn her of the danger and ask her to assemble all the equipment hidden in the house so that I could take it away. She had listened to my brief account of what had happened without showing the slightest surprise and without making a single remark. I went off to make some telephone calls and collect my car. When I got back I found the house empty.

  “Yet I had told her to be sure to wait for me. I went through into the back parlor. She hadn’t done a thing I had asked. She must have gone out immediately after I left. It was then I felt there was something strange afoot.

  “I wanted to dash back to the villa at once, but I had some trouble with the car. Those damn charcoal-gas engines . .

  Austin was telling Dr. Fog about the end of his mission. His departure from France having been delayed because of bad weather, some time had elapsed since the events he was describing had occurred; but from the vehemence in his voice it was clear they had left a vivid impression on him and he was not likely to forget them for some time to come. Dr. Fog listened in silence. In the course of an unusually varied career he had come across any number of weird characters and strange situations. Eccentricity was his specialty, and, as he sometimes went so far as to admit, he felt a secret admiration for it. He was interested in the final episode of the Arvers affair but saw no reason for getting unduly worked up about it. His lack of emotion, which seemed almost tantamount to incomprehension, irritated Austin, whose feelings were roused all over again as he described each stage of the drama. He was stumbling over himself to evoke the atmosphere of that morning for the benefit of his chief, and from time to time digressed into trivial details that, at the time, had seemed of vital importance.

  “The engine had conked out! Those damn contraptions they use in France these days, sir! And like a fool I wasted at least a quarter of an hour trying to get started again. Otherwise I might have reached there in time. It was only when I realized I could do nothing about it that I thought of setting off on foot. You understand, sir?”

  “I understand,” Dr. Fog replied in an encouraging tone. “So you set off on foot?”

  “It wasn’t very far. Twenty minutes’ walk—not even that in my case, as I started to run as soon as I was outside the village. I was getting more and more apprehensive. . . . A sort of intuition, as I said, and the feeling grew stronger as I went along. It was the old woman’s attitude I could not get out of my mind: that placidity of hers, that indifference, that apparent lack of all emotion . . . Yet anything to do with him must have concerned her at least as deeply as it did her daughter.”

  “Some people have a special gift for hiding their feelings,” Dr. Fog observed sententiously.

  “Generally speaking, it’s a sign of character.”

  “As soon as the villa came in sight above the trees, there was something about it that alarmed me—yes, that’s the only word for it: alarmed me—something incongruous. A mere detail, insignificant in itself, but why did it have such an effect on me? I can’t explain, but I was all on edge. It was the thick smoke rising from the chimney. The fire must have been rekindled, otherwise it would have gone out. There were dozens of reasons to account for this. They might have been burning some papers or other incriminating documen
ts; and yet at the sight of it I was filled with foreboding. I had slackened my pace because I was out of breath; now I broke into a run again. What for, I wonder?”

  “As you say, what for?” Dr. Fog said softly.

  “I burst into the garden. The two women were there, Claire and her mother, sitting on the doorstep, their heads propped on their hands. Claire moved slightly as I approached. I was going to question her but I found I couldn’t; the sight of her face chilled me to the bone. Unrecognizable, impossible to describe, sir. Never have I seen such an expression of horror engraved on a human

  face.

  “I stopped dead in my tracks, unable to move, then took a step toward her. It was then I noticed the smell and was paralyzed all over again. I forgot to tell you that the front door and the door of the living room were both wide open. That’s where the smell was coming from. There was no wind, not the slightest puff. Sir, if hell really exists, it couldn’t give off a more poisonous stench than the one I smelled when I reached that house.”

  When he saw the girl’s mother standing before him, Arvers realized his triumph was not complete and that he would have to face one last ordeal. This did not surprise him. He had known for a long time that he would have to contend with the old woman someday. Her appearance at the scene seemed strangely familiar to him. Her menacing attitude did not impress him in the least—this was just how he had imagined it would be.

  “Put your hands behind your back,” she said.

  He obeyed quietly, but not because of fear. He questioned himself objectively on this score and discovered with delight that this emotion had become alien to him.

  He did not move when Claire tied his wrists together. He only had to bide his time and wait for the proper moment to play his part in the scenario that the two women had evidently worked out in detail long before, in case all other means of attaining their aim should fail. They did not exchange a word, yet Claire needed no prompting. Her mother had thrown her a length of rope. She had thought of every detail, but she hadn’t. . . He inwardly

  rejoiced at the thought that she hadn’t, that she couldn’t have, foreseen everything.

  When his hands were firmly bound, the old woman at last broke the silence.

  “Make him lie down on the sofa/’ she said to her daughter.

  Arvers started to carry out this order even before Claire had time to act on it. As he approached the sofa she gave him a shove that knocked him off his feet and then began tying up his ankles, his legs, and the rest of his body. Stretched out on his back, his head resting on a cushion, he fixed his eyes on the old woman, who was now crouching by the fireplace.

  “Untie one of his hands.”

  She directed the whole scene like an experienced producer, not forgetting the major role she had selected for herself. She was busy stoking up the fire. She piled the logs together, threw on some new ones, and fanned the embers into life. In a short while the flames began licking up the chimney. Meanwhile Claire had unbound Arvers’ wrists. Then she carefully tied his left arm to the

  frame of the sofa, leaving the other one free.

  He let her deal with him like a child, without taking his eyes off the old woman. One would have thought she was performing some household duty, but he had no illusions as to her intentions.

  “Take his shoes off.”

  He did not even shudder. He knew the ordeal that awaited him. He had spent night after night contemplating it in his dreams, preparing for it, analyzing each of its successive stages, patiently eliminating any unforeseen aspect of it. Fortified by this extensive research, his mind had performed the miracle of transforming it into a compulsory formality and depriving it of all its horror.

  The old woman gave the fire a final push; then, leaving the poker embedded in the embers, she turned and came toward him.

  “Let’s not waste any time,” she said. “Read it to him.”

  Claire took a sheet of paper from her pocket and started reading. It was a lengthy document referring to the Lachaume farm affair, based on the tape recording and the scraps of conversation she had overheard. It was also a complete confession, in which Cousin acknowledged his treachery and underlined Morvan’s heroic conduct.

  “That’s what really happened, wasn’t it?” her mother asked when Claire had finished.

  Then Arvers spoke for the first time since the old woman’s arrival. His voice was extraordinarily calm.

  “Not at all,” he said. “It was Morvan, your son, who talked.”

  “You liar!” Claire yelled. “You filthy coward! I heard your voice, I heard you begging for mercy, I remember what you said word for word!”

  His only reply was a haughty smile. She rushed toward him, spat in his face, and would have struck him, but her mother, who had retained all her self-possession, held her back.

  “Let’s not waste any time,” she repeated. “So you refuse to sign, do you?”

  “Absolutely. It was your son who talked, not I. I can’t do anything about it.”

  “We’ll soon see about that,” the old woman said. She walked over to the fireplace and withdrew the poker.

  “Mother!”

  “Let me alone.”

  In the short time the mother’s back was turned, while Claire was watching her with horror, he furtively accomplished the first part of the act for which he had been preparing for months. He had been looking for a favorable opportunity ever since Claire had untied his wrists, and the uncertainty of being successful had preyed on his mind—the only chink in his armor that fear had been able to find. With his free hand he seized the little capsule of poison tucked away in a secret pocket under the lapel of his coat and slipped it into his mouth. It took him no more than a second. The success of this maneuver dispelled the last anxiety he had in this world.

  34

  The old woman turned around and came toward him with the poker in her hand. He kept his eyes wide open and assessed the quality of his own determination from the fact that he was able to grasp with incredible precision every detail of the instrument of torture. The tip gave off a white glow over a length of two or three inches. The rest of the shaft was various shades of red, fading lower down into a dark gray and culminating in the yellow of the brass handle, almost as luminous as the opposite end. He felt a childish pleasure in seeing it was not merely a piece of twisted iron, like the one at the Lachaume farm, but a properly finished article constructed and embellished by a fine craftsman to hold pride of place in a well-to-do home. It was almost a luxury poker, and he was deeply grateful for this, as though the choice of such an instrument was Providence’s way of recognizing his personal qualities.

  “Are you going to sign?”

  He shook his head with an expression that looked very much like irritation. She was boring him with these questions. Of course he would surmount the ordeal, but for that he had to muster all his physical resources and protect himself against distractions. The contact of the capsule against his tongue was enough to dispel his vexation and restore the composure essential for great feats. His sense of relief expressed itself in a smile.

  The smile froze on his lips, and his features became contorted. Every fiber of his body was convulsed. For a moment the pain precluded all thought. The old woman had applied the iron to his right foot. She withdrew it almost at once and with an angry gesture restrained her daughter, who had taken a step toward her with a gasp of horror, as though to stop her.

  “Are you going to sign?”

  Several seconds elapsed before he was able to shake his head—just long enough for his mind, which for a moment had wandered, to recover its supremacy, to demonstrate that this pain was an essential part of his apotheosis, and to desensitize his flesh with the intoxication of revenge.

  He curled his tongue around the capsule. He had only to make a tiny gesture to render that revenge striking and decisive. He would do so in his own good time. He was master of the situation. He had won. He would never yield to brutality, not he—he was made of sterner st
uff than that Morvan! The mother, his most redoubtable foe, was vanquished. Claire had already given up the struggle, and she held her head buried in her arms. As he gave another contemptuous smile, he felt sorry that she could not see him.

  He was again taken unawares by the second application of the torture. Fortified in the course of endless sessions of theoretical training, his mind was taken off guard by the unforeseen: he had been expecting the burn on the same foot, and it was his left foot that received it. The spasm made him writhe in every muscle, in spite of his bonds. The mother left the iron on the flesh for a full second. Even before she had withdrawn it, his mind was in control again.

  “You’re the one who talked. Will you admit it?’’

  He shook his head in the same slow, disinterested manner. He was sorry now that he was unable to speak. He would have liked to hear the sound of his own voice, but he was frightened of letting the capsule slip out of his mouth.

  The third stage of the treatment had the same result. The old woman muttered an oath through clenched teeth and went off to plunge the poker into the embers again. During this respite he applied himself to sharpening his mental faculties still further and gathering them together for a supreme effort of will. He had to triumph over his last enemy—Morvan. How many times

  had Morvan endured the torture? Six, he recalled—he had carefully counted each piercing scream.

  Each piercing scream . . . The comparison that was brought to mind at this recollection was invaluable in helping him accomplish the last steps to his glorious Calvary. He didn’t scream, not he!—he calculated. This revelation of his intellectual superiority overwhelmed him with happiness, and while the old woman, losing her self-possession, repeated the punishment over and over again, disjointed passages of literature seemed to unfurl in the mist that was beginning to form before his eyes.