Right in front of us, a thin arm emerges from the crowd, a dirty hand stretches out, a voice asks:
"Bread."
The housekeeper smiles and pretends to offer the rest of her bread; she holds it close to the outstretched hand, then, with a great laugh, brings the piece of bread back to her mouth, takes a bite, and says:
"I'm hungry too."
A soldier who has seen all this gives the housekeeper a slap on the behind; he pinches her cheek, and she waves to him with her handkerchief until all we can see is a cloud of dust against the setting sun.
We go back into the house. From the kitchen we can see the priest kneeling in front of the big crucifix in his room.
The housekeeper says:
"Finish your bread and butter."
We say:
"We aren't hungry anymore."
We go into the room. The priest turns around:
"Do you want to pray with me, my children?"
"We never pray, as you know very well. We want to understand."
"You cannot understand. You are too young."
"You are not too young. That's why we are asking you. Who are those people? Where are they being taken? Why?"
The priest gets up and comes toward us. Closing his eyes, he says:
"The Ways of the Lord are unfathomable." He opens his eyes and places his hands on our heads: "It is unfortunate that you were forced to witness such a spectacle. You are trembling all over." "So are you, Father." "Yes, I am old, I tremble."
"As for us, we're cold. We came here stripped to the waist. We're going to put on the shirts your housekeeper has washed."
We go into the kitchen. The housekeeper hands us our parcel of clean clothes. We each take a shirt. The housekeeper says:
"You're too sensitive. The best thing you can do is to forget what you've seen."
"We never forget anything." She pushes us to the door:
"Off you go, and don't worry! None of that has anything to do with you. It'll never happen to you. Those people are only animals."
Grandmother's Apples
We run from the priest's house to the cobbler's house. His windowpanes are broken; his door is smashed in. Inside, everything has been ransacked. Filthy words are written on the walls.
An old woman is sitting on a bench in front of the house next door. We ask her:
"Has the cobbler gone away?"
"A long time ago, the poor man."
"He wasn't among those who went through town today?"
"No, the ones who went today came from somewhere else. In cattle trucks. Him, he was killed here, in his workshop, with his own tools. Don't worry. God sees everything. He will recognize His Own."
When we get home, we find Grandmother lying on her back in front of the garden gate, her legs apart, apples scattered all around her.
Grandmother doesn't move. Her forehead is bleeding.
We run to the kitchen, wet a cloth, and take the brandy down from the shelf. We put the wet cloth on Grandmother's forehead and pour brandy into her mouth. After a while she opens her eyes and says:
"More!"
We pour more brandy into her mouth.
She raises herself up on her elbows and starts shouting:
"Pick up the apples! What are you waiting for, sons of a bitch?"
We pick the apples up from the dusty road. We put them in her apron.
The cloth has fallen from Grandmother's forehead. Blood is trickling into her eyes. She wipes it away with a corner of her shawl.
We ask:
"Are you hurt, Grandmother?"
She sniggers:
"It'll take more than a blow from a rifle butt to kill me off."
"What happened, Grandmother?"
"Nothing. I was picking apples. I came to the gate to watch the procession. My apron slipped; the apples fell and rolled into the road. In the middle of the procession. That's no reason to hit someone."
"Who hit you, Grandmother?"
"Who do you think? You're not fools! They hit them too. They hit people in the crowd. But all the same there were some who were able to eat my apples!"
We help Grandmother get up. We take her into the house. She starts peeling the apples to make a compote, but she falls down, and we carry her to her bed. We take off her shoes. Her shawl slips off; a completely bald skull appears. We put her shawl back on. We stay by her bedside for a long time, holding her hands and watching her breathe.
The Policeman
We are having our breakfast with Grandmother. A man comes into the kitchen without knocking. He shows his police card.
Immediately, Grandmother starts shouting:
"I don't want the police in my house! I've done nothing!"
The policeman says:
"No, nothing, never. Just a few little poisonings here and there."
Grandmother says:
"Nothing was ever proved. You can't do anything to me."
The policeman says:
"Take it easy, Grandmother. We're not going to dig up the dead. We've got enough to do burying them."
"Then what do you want?"
The policeman looks at us and says:
"The acorn doesn't fall far from the oak."
Grandmother looks at us too:
"I should hope not. What have you been doing now, sons of a bitch?"
The policeman asks:
"Where were you yesterday evening?"
We answer:
"Here."
"You weren't hanging around the cafés as usual?"
"No. We stayed here because Grandmother had an accident."
Grandmother says very quickly:
"I fell going down to the cellar. The steps are all mossy, and I slipped. I banged my head. The kids brought me back up and looked after me. They stayed by my bedside all night."
The policeman says:
"You've got a bad bump there, I can see. You must be careful at your age. Very well. We're going to search the house. Come with me, all three of you. We'll start with the cellar."
Grandmother opens the cellar door, and we go down. The policeman moves everything, the sacks, the cans, the baskets, and the pile of potatoes.
Grandmother asks us in a whisper:
"What's he looking for?"
We shrug our shoulders.
After the cellar, the policeman searches the kitchen. Then Grandmother has to unlock her room. The policeman strips her bed. There is nothing in the bed or in the straw mattress, just a bit of cash under the pillow.
At the door of the officer's room, the policeman asks:
"What's in here?"
Grandmother says:
"It's a room I rent to a foreign officer. I don't have the key."
The policeman looks at the door to the attic:
"You don't have a ladder?"
Grandmother says:
"It's broken."
"How do you get up there?"
"I don't. Only the kids go up there."
The policeman says:
"Well, let's go, kids."
We climb up to the attic by the rope. The policeman opens the chest where we keep the things we need for our studies: Bible, dictionary, paper, pencils, and the Notebook in which everything is written. But the policeman hasn't come to read. He rummages through a pile of old clothes and blankets one more time, and we go down again. Back downstairs, the policeman looks around him and says:
"I obviously can't dig up the whole garden. Right. Come with me."
He takes us into the forest, to the edge of the big hole where we found the corpse. The corpse isn't there anymore. The policeman asks:
"Have you ever been here before?"
"No. Never. We would have been afraid to go so far."
"You've never seen this hole or a dead soldier?"
"No, never."
"When they found that dead soldier, his rifle, his cartridges, and his grenades were missing."
We say:
"He must have been very absentminded and careless, that so
ldier, to have lost all those things so indispensable to a soldier."
The policeman says:
"He didn't lose them. They were stolen from him after he died. You often come into the forest, don't you have any ideas on the matter?"
"No. No ideas at all."
"Yet someone certainly took that rifle, those cartridges, and those grenades."
We say:
"Who would dare to touch such dangerous things?"
The Interrogation
We are in the policeman's office. He is sitting at a table, we are standing in front of him. He gets paper and pencil. He is smoking. He asks us questions:
"How long have you known the priest's housekeeper?"
"Since the spring."
"Where did you meet her?"
"At Grandmother's. She came for potatoes."
"You deliver wood to the priest's house. How much are you paid for that?"
"Nothing. We take wood to the priest's house to thank the housekeeper for doing our washing."
"Is she nice to you?"
"Very nice. She makes bread and butter for us, cuts our nails and hair, and lets us have baths there."
"Like a mother, in fact. And the parish priest, is he nice to you?"
"Very nice. He lends us books and teaches us a lot of things."
"When did you last take wood to the priest's house?"
"Five days ago. On Tuesday morning."
The policeman walks up and down the room. He closes the curtains and turns on his desk lamp. He draws up two chairs and tells us to sit down. He shines the lamp in our faces:
"You're very fond of the housekeeper?"
"Yes, very."
"Do you know what's happened to her?"
"Has something happened to her?"
"Yes. Something horrible. This morning, as usual, she was lighting the fire, and the kitchen stove blew up. It hit her full in the face. She's in the hospital."
The policeman stops talking; we say nothing. He says:
"You have nothing to say?"
We say:
"If something blows up in your face, you're bound to end up in the hospital, or even in the morgue. She's lucky she isn't dead."
"She's disfigured for life!"
We are silent. The policeman too. He looks at us. We look at him. He says:
"You don't look particularly sad about it."
"We're glad she's alive. After such an accident!"
"It wasn't an accident. Someone hid an explosive in the firewood. A cartridge from an army rifle. We've found the case."
We ask:
"Why would anyone do that?"
"To kill her. Her or the priest."
We say:
"People are cruel. They like to kill. It's the war that has taught them that. And there are explosives lying around everywhere."
The policeman starts to shout:
"Stop trying to be clever! You're the ones who deliver wood to the priest's house! You're the ones who hang around all day in the forest! You're the ones who strip the corpses! You're capable of anything! You have it in your blood! Your Grandmother has a murder on her conscience too. She poisoned her husband. With her it's poison, with you it's explosives! Admit it, you little bastards! Admit it! It was you!"
We say:
"We aren't the only ones who deliver wood to the priest's house."
He says:
"That's true. There's also the old man. I've already questioned him."
We say:
"Anyone can hide a cartridge in a pile of wood."
"Yes, but not anyone can have cartridges. I'm not interested in your housekeeper! What I want to know is where the cartridges are. And the grenades? And the rifle? The old man has admitted everything. I've questioned him so well that he's admitted everything. But he couldn't show me where the cartridges, the grenades, and the rifle are. He's not the guilty one. It's you! You know where the cartridges, the grenades, and the rifle are. You know, and you're going to tell me!"
We don't respond. The policeman hits us. With both hands. Right and left. We are bleeding from the nose and mouth.
"Admit it!"
We say nothing. He goes white, he hits us over and over again. We fall off our chairs. He kicks us in the ribs, in the kidneys, in the stomach.
"Admit it! Admit it! It was you! Admit it!"
We can no longer open our eyes. We can no longer hear. Our bodies are covered with sweat, blood, urine, and excrement. We lose consciousness.
In Prison
We are lying on the hard dirt floor of a cell. Through a tiny barred window, a little light is coming in. But we don't know what time it is, or even if it is morning or afternoon.
We hurt all over. The slightest movement makes us fall back into semiconsciousness. Our vision is fuzzy, our ears are ringing, our heads are pounding. We are terribly thirsty. Our mouths are dry.
Hours go by this way. We don't speak. Later, the policeman comes in and asks us:
"Do you need anything?"
We say:
"Something to drink."
"Talk. Confess. And you'll have as much as you want to eat and drink."
We don't answer. He asks:
"Grandfather, do you want something to eat?"
Nobody answers. He goes out.
We realize we aren't alone in the cell. Carefully we raise our heads a little and see an old man lying huddled in a corner. Slowly we crawl over to him and touch him. He is stiff and cold. We crawl back to our place near the door.
It is already night when the policeman comes back with a flashlight. He shines it at the old man and says:
"Sleep well. Tomorrow morning you can go home."
He shines it at us too, straight in our faces, one after the other:
"Still nothing to say? It's all the same to me. I can wait. You'll either talk or die here."
Later that night the door opens again. The policeman, the orderly, and the foreign officer come in. The officer bends down and looks at us. He says to the orderly:
"Telephone the base for an ambulance!"
The orderly goes out. The officer examines the old man. He says:
"He's beaten him to death!"
He turns to the policeman:
"You'll pay dearly for this, you vermin! If you only knew how you'll pay for all this!"
The policeman asks us:
"What did he say?"
"He said that the old man is dead and that you'll pay dearly for it, you vermin!"
The officer strokes our foreheads:
"My poor little boys. How dare he hurt you, that filthy pig!"
The policeman says:
"What's he going to do to me? Tell him I've got children… I didn't know… Is he your father or something?"
We say:
"He's our uncle."
"You should have told me. How could I have known? Please forgive me. What can I do to…"
We say:
"Pray to God."
The orderly arrives with other soldiers. They put us on stretchers and carry us out to the ambulance. The officer sits beside us. The policeman, flanked by several soldiers, is taken off in a jeep driven by the orderly.
At the army base, a doctor examines us immediately in a big white room. He disinfects our wounds, gives us shots for pain and tetanus. He also takes X-rays. We haven't broken anything except a few teeth, but they're only baby teeth.
The orderly takes us back to Grandmother's. He puts us in the officer's big bed and lies down on a blanket beside the bed. In the morning, he goes to fetch Grandmother, who brings us warm milk in bed.
When the orderly has left, Grandmother asks us:
"Did you confess?"
"No, Grandmother. We had nothing to confess."
"That's what I thought. And what happened to the policeman?"
"We don't know. But he certainly won't come back anymore."
Grandmother sniggers:
"Deported or shot, eh? The pig! We'll celebrate that. I'll go heat up the chicken I
cooked yesterday. I haven't eaten any of it either."
At midday, we get up and go to the kitchen to eat. During the meal, Grandmother says: "I wonder why you wanted to kill her. You had your reasons, I suppose."
The Old Gentleman
Just after the evening meal, an old gentleman arrives with a girl who is bigger than us.
Grandmother asks him:
"What do you want?"
The old gentleman speaks a name, and Grandmother says to us:
"Go out. Go for a walk in the garden."
We go out. We circle the house and crouch down under the kitchen window. We listen. The old gentleman says:
"Have pity."
Grandmother replies:
"How can you ask me such a thing?"
The old gentleman says:
"You knew her parents. They entrusted her to me before they were deported. They gave me your address in case she was no longer safe with me."
Grandmother asks:
"You know what I'd be risking?" "Yes, I know, but it's a matter of life and death." "There's a foreign officer in the house." "Precisely. No one will look for her here. All you'll have to say is that she's your granddaughter, the cousin of those two boys."
"Everyone knows I have no other grandchildren but those two."
"You can say she's from your son-in-law's family." Grandmother sniggers: "I've never even seen my son-in-law!" After a long pause, the old gentleman goes on: "I'm only asking you to feed the little girl for a few months. Till the end of the war."
"The war may go on for years." "No, it won't last much longer now." Grandmother starts to snivel:
"I'm just a poor old woman killing herself with work. How can I feed so many mouths?" The old gentleman says:
"Here's all the money her parents had. And the family jewels. It's all yours if you'll save her." A little later, Grandmother calls us in: "This is your cousin." We say:
"Yes, Grandmother." The old gentleman says:
"You'll play together, the three of you, won't you?" We say:
"We never play." He asks:
"What do you do, then?"
"We work, we study, we do exercises."
He says:
"I understand. You're serious men. You don't have time to play. You'll look after your cousin, won't you?" "Yes, sir. We'll look after her." "Thank you." Our cousin says: "I'm bigger than you." We answer:
The Book of Lies Page 7
