"I don't want your money. And I won't give the boys back."
Mother asks the officer to take us by force. We quickly climb up to the attic by the rope. The officer tries to catch us, but we kick him in the face. The officer swears. We pull the rope up.
Grandmother sniggers:
"You see, they don't want to go with you."
Mother shouts at us:
"I order you to come down immediately!"
Grandmother says:
"They never obey orders."
Mother starts to cry:
"Come, my darlings. I can't leave without you."
Grandmother says:
"Your foreign bastard isn't enough?"
We say:
"We're fine here, Mother. Go, and don't worry. We're really fine at Grandmother's."
We hear cannons and machine-gun fire. The officer takes Mother by the shoulders and leads her toward the car. But Mother pulls free:
"They're my sons, I want them! I love them!"
Grandmother says:
"I need them. I'm old. You can still have others-as we can see!"
Mother says:
"I beg you, don't keep them."
Grandmother says:
"I'm not keeping them. Hey, you boys, come down at once and go with your mother."
We say:
"We don't want to go. We want to stay with you, Grandmother."
The officer takes Mother in his arms, but she pushes him away. The officer goes and sits in the jeep and starts the engine. At precisely that moment, there is an explosion in the garden. Immediately afterward, we see Mother on the ground. The officer runs toward her. Grandmother tries to hold us back. She says:
"Don't look! Go back in the house!"
The officer swears, runs to his jeep, and drives off at top speed.
We look at Mother. Her guts are coming out of her belly. She is red all over. So is the baby. Mother's head is hanging in the hole made by the shell. Her eyes are open and still wet with tears.
Grandmother says:
"Go get the spade!"
We put a blanket at the bottom of the hole, we lay Mother on it. The baby is still pressed to her breast. We cover them with another blanket, then fill in the hole.
When our cousin comes back from town, she asks: "Did something happen?" We say:
"Yes, a shell made a hole in the garden."
The Departure of Our Cousin
All night we hear gunfire and explosions. At dawn, everything is suddenly quiet. We are sleeping in the officer's big bed. His bed has become our bed, and his room our room.
In the morning we go to the kitchen for breakfast. Grandmother is standing in front of the stove. Our cousin is folding her blankets.
She says:
"I really slept badly."
We say:
"You'll sleep in the garden. There's no more noise, and it's warm."
She asks:
"Weren't you afraid last night?"
We shrug our shoulders and say nothing.
There's a knock at the door. A man in civilian clothes enters, followed by two soldiers. The soldiers have machine guns and are wearing a uniform we have never seen before.
Grandmother says something in the language she speaks when she's drinking her brandy. The soldiers answer. Grandmother flings her arms around their necks and kisses them one after the other as she goes on talking to them.
The civilian says:
"You speak their language, madam?"
Grandmother replies:
"It's my mother tongue, sir."
Our cousin asks:
"Are they here? When did they arrive? We wanted to welcome them in the Town Square with bouquets of flowers."
The civilian asks:
"Who's 'we'?"
"My friends and I."
The civilian smiles:
"Well, it's too late. They arrived last night. And I came just after them. I'm looking for a girl."
He speaks a name; our cousin says:
"Yes, that's me. Where are my parents?"
The civilian says:
"I don't know. My job is just to find the children on my list. First we'll go to a reception center in the Big Town. Then we'll try to find your parents."
Our cousin says:
"I have a friend here. Is he on your list too?"
She says the name of her lover. The civilian consults his list:
"Yes. He's already at army headquarters. You'll travel together. Get your things ready."
Our cousin joyfully packs her dresses and gathers all her toiletries together in her bath towel.
The civilian turns to us: "And what about you? What are your names?"
Grandmother says:
"They're my grandsons. They'll stay with me."
We say:
"Yes, we'll stay with Grandmother."
The civilian says:
"I'd like to have your names all the same."
We tell him. He looks at his papers.
"You're not on my list. You can keep them, madam."
Grandmother says:
"What do you mean I can keep them? Of course I can keep them!"
Our cousin says:
"I'm ready. Let's go."
The civilian says:
"You're certainly in a hurry. You might at least thank this lady and say goodbye to these little boys."
Our cousin says:
"Little boys? Little bastards, you mean."
She gives us a big hug.
"I won't kiss you, I know you don't like that. Don't screw around too much. Take care."
She gives us an even bigger hug and starts crying. The civilian takes her by the arm and says to Grandmother:
"I thank you, madam, for everything you have done for this child."
We all go out together. In front of the garden gate is a jeep. The two soldiers sit in front, the civilian and our cousin in back. Grandmother shouts something. The soldiers laugh. The jeep moves off. Our cousin doesn't look back.
The Arrival of the New Foreigners
After our cousin has left, we go into town to see what's happening.
There is a tank at every street corner. On the Town Square, there are trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, sidecars, and everywhere lots of soldiers. In the Market Square, which is not paved, they are pitching tents and setting up open-air kitchens.
When we go by, they smile at us, they talk to us, but we can't understand what they're saying.
Apart from the soldiers, there is nobody in the streets. The doors of the houses are closed, the shutters drawn, the shop blinds lowered.
We go home and say to Grandmother:
"Everything is quiet in town."
She sniggers:
"They're resting for the moment, but this afternoon, you'll see!"
"What's going to happen, Grandmother?"
"They'll carry out searches. They'll go into everybody's house and ransack it. And they'll take whatever they like. I've lived through one war already, I know what happens. But we don't have anything to be afraid of: there's nothing to take here, and I know how to talk to them."
"But what are they looking for, Grandmother?"
"Spies, weapons, ammunition, watches, gold, women."
Sure enough, in the afternoon, the soldiers begin systematically searching the houses. If there is no answer, they fire a shot in the air, then batter down the door.
A lot of houses are empty. The residents have left for good or are hiding in the forest. These uninhabited houses are searched just like the others, along with all the stores and shops.
After the soldiers have gone, thieves invade the abandoned shops and houses. The thieves are mainly children and old men, and a few women too, those who are fearless or those who are poor.
We meet Harelip. Her arms are full of clothes and shoes. She says to us:
"Hurry up while there's still something left. This is the third time I've done my shopping."
We go into the Booksellers and Stationers, whos
e door is smashed in. There are only a few children inside, younger than us. They are taking pencils and colored chalk, erasers, pencil sharpeners, and schoolbags.
We take our time choosing what we need: a complete encyclopedia in several volumes, pencils, and paper.
In the street, an old man and an old woman are fighting over a smoked ham. They are surrounded by people laughing and urging them on. The woman scratches the old man's face, and in the end she goes off with the ham.
The thieves are guzzling stolen alcohol, picking fights with each another, smashing the windows of the houses and shops they've looted, breaking crockery, flinging to the floor whatever they don't need or can't carry off with them.
The soldiers are also drinking and returning to the houses, but this time to find women.
Everywhere we hear gunshots and the cries of women being raped.
On the Town Square, a soldier plays the accordion. Other soldiers dance and sing.
The Fire
For several days now, we haven't seen our neighbor in her garden. Nor have we met Harelip. We go and investigate.
The door of the shack is open. We enter. The windows are small. It is dark in the room, even though the sun is shining outside.
When our eyes get used to the darkness, we can make out our neighbor lying on the kitchen table. Her legs are dangling, her arms are covering her face. She doesn't move.
Harelip is lying on the bed. She is naked. Between her spread legs there is a dried pool of blood and sperm. Her eyelashes are stuck together forever, her lips are curled up over her black teeth in an eternal smile; Harelip is dead.
Our neighbor says:
"Go away."
We approach her and ask:
"You aren't deaf?"
"No. And I'm not blind either. Go away."
We say:
"We want to help you."
She says:
"I don't need help. I don't need anything. Go away."
We ask:
"What happened here?"
"You can see for yourself. She's dead, isn't she?"
"Yes. It was the new foreigners?"
"Yes. She called them. She went out on the road and waved at them to come in. There were twelve or fifteen of them. And as they took her, she kept shouting: 'Oh, I'm so happy, I'm so happy! Come, all of you, come on, another one, again, another one!' She died happy, fucked to death. But I'm not dead! I've been lying here without eating or drinking for I don't know how long. And death hasn't come. It never does come when you call it. It enjoys torturing us. I've been calling it for years and it pays no attention."
We ask:
"Do you really want to die?"
"What else could I want? If you'd like to do something for me, set fire to the house. I don't want anyone to find us like this."
We say:
"But you'll suffer terribly."
"Don't worry about that. Just set the fire, if you're capable of it."
"Yes, madam, we are capable of it. You can depend on us."
We slit her throat with a stroke of the razor, then we go and siphon some gasoline from an army vehicle. We pour the gasoline over both bodies and on the walls of the shack. We set fire to it and go home.
In the morning, Grandmother says: "The neighbor's house burned down. They were both inside, her daughter and her. The girl must have left something on the fire, ninny that she is."
We go back to get the hens and the rabbits, but other neighbors have already taken them during the night.
The End of the War
For weeks now, we have seen them marching past Grandmother's house, the victorious army of the new foreigners, which we now call the army of the Liberators.
Tanks, cannons, armored cars, and trucks cross the frontier day and night. The front is moving further and further into the neighboring country.
In the opposite direction comes another procession: the prisoners of war, the conquered. Among them are many men from our own country. They are still wearing their uniforms, but they have been stripped of weapons and rank. They march, heads down, to the station, where they are sent off in trains. Where and for how long, nobody knows.
Grandmother says they are being taken very far away, to a cold, uninhabited country where they will be forced to work so hard that none of them will come back. They will all die of cold, exhaustion, hunger, and all kinds of diseases.
A month after our country has been liberated, the war is over everywhere, and the Liberators move into our country, for good, people say. So we ask Grandmother to teach us their language. She says:
"How can I teach it to you? I'm not a teacher."
We say:
"It's simple, Grandmother. All you have to do is talk to us in that language all day, and in the end we'll understand."
Soon we know enough to act as interpreters between the local inhabitants and the Liberators. We take advantage of the fact to trade in articles that the army has plenty of, like cigarettes, tobacco, and chocolate, which we exchange for what the civilians have: wine, brandy, and fruit.
Money has no value anymore; everyone barters.
Girls sleep with soldiers in exchange for silk stockings, jewelry, perfume, watches, and other articles that the soldiers have stolen in the towns along their way.
Grandmother doesn't go to market with her wheelbarrow anymore. Instead well-dressed ladies come to Grandmother's and beg her to trade a chicken or a sausage for a ring or a pair of earrings.
Ration coupons are distributed. People start lining up in front of the butcher's and baker's as early as four in the morning. The other shops stay closed because they have nothing to sell.
Everybody is short of everything.
As for Grandmother and us, we have everything we need.
Later, we have our own army and government again, but our army and our government are controlled by our Liberators. Their flag flies over all the public buildings. Their leader's picture is displayed everywhere. They teach us their songs and their dances, they show us their films in our cinemas. In the schools, the language of our Liberators is compulsory, other foreign languages are forbidden.
It is strictly forbidden to criticize or make jokes about our Liberators or our new government. On the strength of a mere denunciation, anyone at all can be thrown into prison without trial, without sentence. Men and women disappear without anyone knowing why, and their families will never hear from them again.
The frontier has been rebuilt. It is now impassable.
Our country is surrounded by barbed wire; we are completely cut off from the rest of the world.
School Reopens
In the autumn, all the children go back to school, except us.
We say to Grandmother:
"Grandmother, we never want to go to school again." She says:
"I should hope not. I need you here. And what more could you learn at school anyway?"
"Nothing, Grandmother, absolutely nothing." Soon we receive a letter. Grandmother asks: "What does it say?"
"It says that you are responsible for us and that we must report to the school." Grandmother says:
"Burn the letter. I can't read, and you can't either. No one ever read that letter."
We burn the letter. Soon we get a second. It says that if we don't go to school, Grandmother will be punished by law. We burn that letter too. We say to Grandmother:
"Grandmother, don't forget that one of us is blind and the other deaf."
A few days later, a man turns up at our house. He says:
"I am the inspector of primary schools. You have in your house two children of compulsory school age. You have already received two warnings about this matter."
Grandmother says:
"You mean letters? I can't read. The children can't either."
One of us asks:
"Who is it? What's he saying?"
"He's asking if we can read. What's he like?"
"He's tall and looks mean."
We both shout:
"Go
away! Don't hurt us! Don't kill us! Help!"
We hide under the table. The inspector asks Grandmother:
"What's the matter with them? What are they doing?"
Grandmother says:
"Oh! The poor things are afraid of everybody! They've lived through such terrible things in the Big Town. What's more, one of them is deaf and the other blind. The deaf one has to explain to the blind one what he sees, and the blind one has to explain to the deaf one what he hears. Otherwise, they don't understand anything."
Under the table, we yell:
"Help, help! It's blowing up! It's making too much noise! It's blinding my eyes!"
Grandmother explains:
"When someone frightens them, they hear things and see things that aren't there."
The inspector says:
"They have hallucinations. They should be treated in a hospital."
We yell even louder.
Grandmother says:
"Nothing could be worse! It was in a hospital that the misfortune happened. They were visiting their mother, who worked there. When the bombs fell on the hospital, they were there, they saw the wounded and the dead; they themselves were in a coma for several days."
The inspector says:
"Poor kids. Where are their parents?"
"Dead or missing. Who knows?"
"They must be a very heavy burden for you."
"What can you do? I'm all they have in the world."
Before leaving, the inspector shakes Grandmother's hand:
"You're a very brave woman."
We receive a third letter that says we are exempted from attending school because of our infirmity and our psychic trauma.
Grandmother Sells Her Vineyard
An officer comes to Grandmother's to ask her to sell her vineyard. The army wants to put up a building on her land for the frontier guards. Grandmother asks:
"And what will you pay me with? Money is worth nothmg.
The officer says:
"In exchange for your land, we'll install running water and electricity in your house." Grandmother says:
"I don't need your electricity or your running water. I've always lived without." The officer says:
The Book of Lies Page 9
