The Notebook + The Proof + The Third Lie

by Agota Kristof

  The next day Lucas goes into the kitchen. Yasmine is sitting on the bench with the baby on her knee.

  She says, "I'd like to bathe my baby. After that I'll leave."

  "Where would you go?"

  "I don't know. I can't stay in this town after what has happened."

  Lucas asks, "What has happened? Is it the child? There are other unmarried mothers in the town. Have your parents disowned you?"

  "I haven't got any parents. My mother died giving birth to me. I lived with my father and with my aunt, my mother's sister. My aunt brought me up. When my father returned from the war he married her. But he didn't love her. He only loved me."

  Lucas says, "I see."

  "Yes. And when my aunt found out she denounced us. My father is in prison. I worked in the hospital as a cleaner until the birth. I left the hospital this morning. I knocked at the door of our house. My aunt wouldn't open it to me. She cursed me through the door."

  Lucas says, "I know your story. I've heard the gossip in the bars."

  "Yes, everyone talks about it. It's a small town. I can't stay here. I was going to drown the child, then go over the border."

  "You can't cross the border. You'd step on a mine."

  "I don't care if I die." "How old are you?"

  "Eighteen."

  "You're too young to die. You could rebuild your life somewhere else. In another town, later, when your child has grown up. For now you can stay here as long as you want."

  She says, "What about the people in town?"

  "They'll stop gossiping. They'll shut up eventually. You don't have to face them. We're not in the town here. This is my home."

  "You would keep me here with my child?"

  "You can live in this room, you can use the kitchen, but you must never go into my room or up into the attic. You must never ask me any questions."

  "I won't ask you any questions and I won't disturb you. I won't let the child disturb you either. I'll cook and clean up. I can do everything. At home I did the housework, because my aunt works in a factory."

  Lucas says, "The water is boiling. You can prepare the bath."

  Yasmine puts a basin on the table. She takes off the child's clothes and diaper. Lucas warms a bath towel over the stove. Yasmine washes the child. Lucas watches her.

  He says, "He is deformed around the shoulders."

  "Yes. His legs, too. They told me at the hospital. It's my fault. I wore a tight corset around my stomach to hide the pregnancy. He'll be crippled. If only I'd had the courage to drown him."

  Lucas takes the bundle in his arms, looks at the little crumpled face.

  "You shouldn't say things like that, Yasmine."

  She says, "He will be unhappy."

  "You are unhappy yourself, yet you are not crippled. He may not be any more unhappy than you, or anyone else."

  Yasmine takes back the child, her eyes filling with tears.

  "You are kind, Lucas."

  "You know my name?"

  "Everyone knows you in town. They say you're an idiot, but I don't believe that."

  Lucas goes out. He comes back with some planks of wood.

  "I'm going to build him a cradle."

  Yasmine does the washing, prepares the meal. When the cradle is finished, they lay the child inside. They rock him.

  Lucas asks, "What is he called? Have you given him a name yet?"

  "Yes. At the hospital they needed one for the town hall records. I called him Mathias. It's my father's name. I couldn't think of another name."

  "You loved him that much?"

  "He was all I had."

  That evening Lucas comes home from the priest's house without stopping at a bar. The fire is still alight in the stove. Through the open door Lucas hears Yasmine singing softly. He goes into Grandmother's room. Yasmine, in her chemise, is rocking the child near the window.

  Lucas asks, "Why aren't you in bed yet?"

  "I was waiting for you."

  "You don't have to wait up for me. Usually I come home a lot later."

  Yasmine smiles. "I know. You play in the bars."

  Lucas approaches her. He asks, "Is he asleep?"

  "For a long time. I just enjoy rocking him." ' Lucas says, "Come to the kitchen. We don't want to wake him."

  They sit opposite each other in the kitchen, drinking brandy in silence. Later, Lucas asks, "When did it start? Between your father and you?"

  "Right away. As soon as he came back."

  "How old were you?"

  "Twelve."

  "Did he rape you?"

  Yasmine laughs. "Oh no! He didn't rape me. He just lay down beside me, held me against him, kissed me, stroked me, cried."

  "Where was your aunt all this time?"

  "Working at the factory, on shift work. When she worked the night shift my father slept with me in my bed. It was a narrow bed in a tiny room without a window. We were happy, the two of us, in that bed."

  Lucas pours some brandy. He says, "Go on."

  "I grew up. My father touched my breasts. He said, 'Soon you'll be a woman, you'll go off with some boy.' I said, 'No, I'll never leave.' One night, in my sleep, I took his hand and placed it between my legs. I squeezed his fingers and felt that pleasure for the first time. The following evening it was I who asked him to give me that wonderfully sweet pleasure again. He cried, he said he musn't, that it was wrong, but I insisted, I pleaded. So he leaned over my sex, he licked it, he sucked it, he kissed it, and I felt an even more intense pleasure than the first time.

  "One evening he lay on top of me, he put his sex between my thighs. He said, 'Close your legs, close them tight, don't let me enter, I don't want to hurt you.'

  "For years we made love this way, but one night I couldn't resist anymore. My desire for him was too strong. I spread my legs, I was completely open, he entered me."

  She stops talking. She looks at Lucas, her large dark eyes shining, her fleshy lips parted. She uncovers a breast and asks, "Do you want to?"

  Lucas grabs her by the hair, drags her into the bedroom, throws her onto Grandmother's bed, and bites her neck as he takes her.

  During the following days Lucas goes back to the bars. He starts walking again through the empty streets of the town.

  When he gets home, he goes straight to his room.

  One evening, however, coming home drunk, he opens the door of Grandmother's room. It is illuminated by the light from the kitchen. Yasmine is asleep, as is the child.

  Lucas undresses and climbs into Yasmine's bed. Yasmine's body is burning, Lucas's is frozen. She is facing the wall. He presses against her back, puts his sex between Yasmine's thighs.

  She closes her thighs, she moans.

  "Father, oh father!"

  Lucas whispers in her ear, "Tighter. Grip tighter."

  She struggles, she has trouble breathing. He penetrates her. She screams.

  Lucas puts his hand over Yasmine's mouth, pulls the pillow over her head. "Be quiet. You'll wake the baby!"

  She bites his fingers, sucks his thumb.

  When it's over, they lie there for a few minutes, then Lucas gets up.

  Yasmine cries.

  Lucas goes into his room.

  It is summer. The child is everywhere. In Grandmother's room, in the kitchen, in the garden. He crawls around on all fours.

  He is hunchbacked, deformed. His legs are too thin, his arms too long, his body ill-proportioned.

  He also comes into Lucas's room. He beats on the door with his little fists until Lucas opens it. He climbs onto the bed.

  Lucas puts a record on the gramophone and the child rocks on the bed.

  Lucas puts on another record and the child hides under the covers.

  Lucas picks up a piece of paper, draws a rabbit, a chicken, a pig. The child laughs and kisses the paper.

  Lucas draws a giraffe and an elephant. The child shakes his head and tears up the paper.

  Lucas constructs a sandpit for the child. He buys him a spade, a watering can, and a wheelbarr
ow.

  He makes him a swing. He builds him a car from a box and some wheels. He sits the child in the box and pulls him around. He shows him the fish. He lets him go inside the rabbit hutch. The child tries to stroke the rabbits, but the rabbits run off crazily in all directions.

  The child cries.

  Lucas goes into town and buys a teddy bear.

  The child looks at the bear. He takes it, talks to it, shakes it, and throws it at Lucas's feet.

  Yasmine picks up the bear. She strokes it. "He's a nice bear. He's a lovely little teddy bear."

  The child looks at his mother and bangs his head against the floor of the kitchen. Yasmine puts the bear down and takes the child in her arms. The child starts bawling. He pummels his mother's head and kicks her in the stomach. Yasmine lets him down, and the child hides under the table until evening.

  That evening, Lucas brings back a tiny kitten he has saved from Joseph's pitchfork. Standing on the kitchen floor, the little animal mews and trembles all over.

  Yasmine places a bowl of milk in front of it. The cat continues mewing.

  Yasmine places the cat in the child's cradle.

  The child climbs into his cradle, lies down next to the little cat, cuddles up to it. The cat struggles and claws the child on the face and hands.

  A few days later, the cat eats everything it is given and sleeps in the cradle at the child's feet.

  Lucas asks Joseph to get him a little dog.

  One day, Joseph turns up with a black puppy with long curly hair. Yasmine is hanging out the washing in the garden; the child is having a nap. Yasmine knocks on Lucas's door. She shouts, "Someone to see you!"

  She hides in Grandmother's room.

  Lucas goes out to meet Joseph. Joseph says, "Here's the dog I promised you. It's a sheepdog from the plains. It'll be a good guard dog."

  Lucas says, "Thank you, Joseph. Come in and have a glass of wine."

  They go into the kitchen; they drink some wine. Joseph asks, "Won't you introduce me to your wife?"

  Lucas says, "Yasmine is not my wife. She had nowhere to go, so I took her in."

  Joseph says, "The whole town knows her story. She's a fine- looking girl. The puppy is for her child, I presume."

  "Yes, for Yasmine's child."

  Before leaving, Joseph says, "You're very young to be taking care of a woman and a child, Lucas. It's a big responsibility."

  Lucas says, "That's my business."

  Once Joseph has gone, Yasmine comes out. Lucas is holding the little dog in his arms.

  "Look what Joseph brought for Mathias."

  Yasmine says, "He saw me. Did he say anything?"

  "Yes. He thinks you're very beautiful. You're wrong to worry about what people might think about us, Yasmine. You should come with me into town one day to buy yourself some clothes. You've been wearing the same dress since you got here."

  "One dress is enough. I don't need another one. I won't go into town."

  Lucas says, "Come on, let's show Mathias the dog."

  The child is underneath the kitchen table with the cat.

  Yasmine says, "Mathi, it's for you. It's a present."

  Lucas sits on the corner seat with the dog. The child climbs onto his knees. He looks at the dog, pulls back the hair covering its muzzle. The dog licks the child's face. The cat hisses at the dog and runs away into the garden.

  It is getting progressively colder. Lucas says to Yasmine, "Mathias needs warm clothes. So do you."

  Yasmine says, "I can knit. I'll need some wool and some needles."

  Lucas buys a basket of balls of wool and several pairs of needles for knitting different thicknesses. Yasmine knits pullovers, socks, scarves, gloves, hats. With the leftover wool she makes up patchwork blankets. Lucas praises her.

  Yasmine says, "I can also sew. At home I had my mother's old sewing machine."

  "Do you want me to go and fetch it?" "You'd be brave enough to go to my aunt's house?"

  Lucas sets off with the wheelbarrow. He knocks at the door of Yasmine's aunt. A youthful-looking woman comes to the door.

  "What do you want?"

  "I've come to collect Yasmine's sewing machine."

  She says, "Come in."

  Lucas goes into a very clean kitchen. Yasmine's aunt stares at him.

  "So you're the one. Poor boy. You're only a child."

  Lucas says, "I'm seventeen."

  "And she will soon be nineteen. How is she?"

  "Well."

  "And the child?"

  "Also very well."

  After a silence she says, "I heard that the child was born deformed. It is God's punishment."

  Lucas asks, "Where is the sewing machine?"

  The aunt opens a door to a narrow room without a window.

  "Everything that belongs to her is here. Take it."

  There is a sewing machine and a wicker basket. Lucas asks, "There was nothing else here?"

  "Her bed. I burned it."

  Lucas carries the sewing machine and the basket to the wheelbarrow. He says, "Thank you, madame."

  "You're welcome. Good riddance."

  It rains a lot. Yasmine sews and knits. The child has to play indoors. He spends the day under the table with the dog and the cat.

  The child can already say a few words, but he can't walk yet. When Lucas tries to stand him upright, he struggles free, crawls away on all fours, and escapes under the table.

  Lucas goes to the bookseller's. He picks out some large sheets of white paper, some colored pencils, and some picture books.

  Victor asks, "You have a child?"

  "Yes. But he's not mine."

  Victor says, "There are so many orphans. Peter was asking after you. You should go and see him."

  Lucas says, "I'm very busy."

  "I understand. With a child. At your age."

  Lucas goes home. The child is asleep on a rug under the kitchen table. In Grandmother's room Yasmine is sewing. Lucas puts the packet down next to the child. He goes into the bedroom and kisses Yasmine on the neck, and Yasmine stops sewing.

  The child draws. He draws the dog and the cat. He also draws other animals. He draws trees, flowers, the house. He also draws his mother.

  Lucas asks him, "Why don't you ever draw me?"

  The child shakes his head and hides under the table with his books.

  On Christmas Eve, Lucas chops down a Christmas tree in the forest. He buys some colored glass balls and some candles. In Grandmother's room he decorates the tree with Yasmine's help. The presents go under the tree: material and a pair of warm boots for Yasmine, a thick sweater for Lucas, books and a rocking horse for Mathias.

  Yasmine roasts a duck in the oven. She cooks potatoes, cabbage, beans. The biscuits were made some days ago.

  When the first star appears in the sky, Lucas lights the candles on the tree. Yasmine comes into the room with Mathias in her arms.

  Lucas says, "Go and get your presents, Mathias. The books and the horse are for you."

  The child says, "I want the horse. He's nice, the horse."

  He tries unsuccessfully to climb on the horse's back. He cries.

  "The horse is too big. Lucas did it. He's a nasty Lucas. He made the horse too big for Mathi."

  The child cries and bangs his head against the floor of the bedroom. Lucas picks him up; he shakes him.

  "The horse isn't too big. It's Mathias who is too small because he won't stand up. Always on all fours like an animal! You're not an animal!"

  He is holding the child's chin to force him to look into his eyes. He says firmly, "If you don't walk now you will never walk. Never, do you understand?"

  The child starts bawling. Yasmine grabs him from Lucas.

  "Leave him alone! He'll walk soon enough."

  She sits the child on the horse's back. She holds him upright.

  Lucas says, "I have to go. Put the child to bed and wait for me. I won't be long."

  He goes into the kitchen. He cuts the roast duck in two, puts half on a
warm plate, surrounds it with vegetables and potatoes, and wraps the plate in a cloth. The meal is still warm when he arrives at the priest's house.

  After they have eaten, Lucas says, "I'm sorry, Father, I have to go home. I'm expected."

  The priest says, "I know, my son. To be honest, I'm surprised you came this evening. I know that you live in sin with a sinful woman, and with the fruit of her immoral love. That child isn't even baptized, although he bears the name of one of our saints."

  Lucas is silent.

  The priest says, "Come to mass, both of you, if only for this evening."

  Lucas says, "We can't leave the child alone."

  "Then come yourself."

  Lucas says, "You're talking down to me, Father."

  "Forgive me, Lucas. I was carried away by my anger. But it's because I think of you as my own son, and I fear for your immortal soul."

  Lucas says, "Treat me as your son, Father. It pleases me. But you know very well I never go to church."

  Lucas goes home. All the lights in Grandmother's house are out. The cat and the dog are asleep in the kitchen. The other half of the roast duck stands uneaten on the table.

  Lucas tries to go into the bedroom. The door is locked. He knocks. Yasmine doesn't answer.

  Lucas goes into town. Candles burn in the windows. The bars are closed. Lucas wanders through the streets for a long time, then he goes into the church. The big church is cold, almost empty. Lucas leans against the wall next to the door. Far off, at the other end of the church, the priest conducts mass at the altar.

  Lucas feels a hand on his shoulder. Peter says, "Come on, Lucas. Let's go."

  Outside he asks, "What were you doing there?" "What about you, Peter?"

  "I followed you. I saw you as I was leaving Victor's."

  Lucas says, "I feel lost in this town when the bars are closed."

  "I feel lost here all the time. Come back to my place to warm yourself up before you go home."

  Peter lives in a beautiful house in the main square. There are deep armchairs, bookcases covering the walls; it is warm. Peter brings out the brandy.

  "I have no friends in this town apart from Victor, who is kind and cultured, but rather boring. He never stops complaining."

  Lucas goes to sleep. At daybreak, when he wakes up, Peter is still there, sitting opposite, watching him.