She put me in my old room: but there was nothing there that could help me recognize it as mine. My posters, the few things I’d left there, had all disappeared; they had changed the bed, the chest of drawers, the wallpaper. “Where are my things?” I asked.—“In the attic,” she replied. “I kept everything. You can go see later.” She looked at me, both hands in front of her on her dress. “And Una’s room?” I continued.—“For now, we’ve put the twins there.” She left and I went into the main bathroom to wash my face and neck. Then I went back into the room and changed again, putting my uniform away in the closet. As I came out, I hesitated for an instant in front of Una’s door, then kept going. I went out onto the terrace. The sun was shining behind the tall pines, projecting long shadows through the park, pouring a beautiful, rich saffron color on the stone walls of the house. I saw the twins go by: they ran onto the lawn, then disappeared into the trees. Once, from this terrace, angry over a trifle, I had shot an arrow (a blunt-tipped one, though) at my sister, aiming for her face; it had struck right above her eye, and just missed blinding her. Thinking about it, it seemed to me that I had then been severely punished by my father: if he was still there, the incident must have taken place in Kiel, and not here. But in Kiel there was no terrace at our house, and I thought I clearly remembered, in connection with this gesture, the large clay flowerpots scattered around the graveled area where Moreau and my mother had just welcomed me. I couldn’t make any sense of it and, frustrated by this uncertainty, I turned around and reentered the house. I walked through the hallways, breathing in the smell of furniture polish, opening doors at random. Few things, aside from my room, seemed to have changed. I reached the foot of the stairs that led to the attic; there too, I hesitated, then turned back. I went down the main entryway staircase and out through the front door. Leaving the lane swiftly, I walked again under the trees, brushing past their gray, rough trunks, the streaks of sap hardened but still thick and sticky, kicking at pinecones fallen to the ground. The sharp, heady smell of pine filled the air; I wanted to smoke but didn’t, so I could go on smelling it. There the ground was bare, without any grass, without bushes, without ferns: but it brought powerfully back to memory the forest near Kiel where I played my curious child’s games. I tried leaning against a tree, but the trunk was sticky, so I stayed standing there, my arms dangling, spinning crazily around in my thoughts.
Dinner passed in brief, constrained phrases, almost lost in the clicking of silverware and plates. Moreau complained about his business and about the Italians, and insisted pathetically on his good relations with the German economic administration in Paris. He tried to make conversation and I, on my side, politely, baited him with little aggressive jabs. “What is your rank there, on your uniform?” he asked me.—“SS-Sturmbannführer. It’s the same as a major, in your army.”—“Oh, a major, you’ve been promoted, that’s great—congratulations.” In return, I asked him where he had served, before June ’40; blind to the ridicule, he threw his arms up: “Oh, my boy! I would have liked to serve. But they didn’t take me, they said I was too old. Of course,” he hurried to add, “the Germans beat us fairly. And I completely approve of the Maréchal’s policy of collaboration.” My mother didn’t say anything; she followed this little game with alert eyes. The twins ate cheerfully; but from time to time their expression changed completely, as if a veil of gravity descended on them. “What about your Jewish friends? What’s their name? The Benahums, I think. What happened to them?” Moreau reddened. “They went away,” my mother replied curtly. “To Switzerland.”—“That must have been hard for your business,” I went on to Moreau. “You were partners, weren’t you?”—“I bought him out,” Moreau said.—“Oh, very good. At a Jewish price, or an Aryan price? I hope you didn’t let yourself be cheated.”—“That’s enough,” my mother said. “Aristide’s business has nothing to do with you. Tell us about your experiences. You were in Russia, weren’t you?”—“Yes,” I said, suddenly humiliated. “I went to fight Bolshevism.”—“Ah! Now that is praiseworthy,” Moreau remarked sententiously.—“Yes, but the Reds are advancing now,” my mother said.—“Oh, don’t worry!” Moreau exclaimed. “They won’t reach here.”—“We’ve had some setbacks,” I said. “But that’s temporary. We’re preparing new weapons. And we’ll crush them.”—“Excellent, excellent,” Moreau breathed, nodding his head. “I hope you’ll take care of the Italians, afterward.”—“The Italians have been our brothers in arms from the beginning,” I retorted. “When the new Europe is formed, they will be the first to have their share.” Moreau took this very seriously and got angry: “They’re cowards! They declared war on us when we were already beaten, so they could plunder us. But I’m sure Hitler will respect France’s integrity. They say he admires the Maréchal.” I shrugged my shoulders: “The Führer will treat France as it deserves.” Moreau grew red. “Max, that’s enough,” my mother said again. “Have some dessert.”
After dinner, my mother had me go up to her dressing room. It was a room that adjoined her bedroom, which she had decorated tastefully; no one entered it without her authorization. She didn’t beat around the bush. “What did you come here for? I warn you, if it’s just to annoy us, you shouldn’t have bothered.” Once again, I felt as if I were shrinking; before this imperious voice, these cold eyes, I was going to pieces, I was becoming a fearful child, smaller than the twins. I tried to get control of myself, but it was a lost cause. “No,” I managed to articulate, “I wanted to see you, that’s all. I was in France for my work, and I thought of you. And also, I was almost killed, you know, Mother. I might not survive this war. And we have so many things to make up.” She softened a little and touched the back of my hand, with the same gesture as my sister: gently, I removed my hand, but she didn’t seem to notice. “You’re right,” she said. “You could have written, you know; that wouldn’t have cost you anything. I know you disapprove of the choices I’ve made. But for you to disappear like that, when you’re someone’s child, that’s just not right. It’s as if you were dead. Can’t you understand that?” She thought, then went on, speaking quickly, as if she would run out of time. “I know you’re angry at me because of your father’s disappearance. But it’s him you should be angry with, not me. He abandoned me with you, he left me alone; for more than a year I didn’t sleep, your sister woke me up every night, she was crying in her nightmares. You never cried, but it was almost worse. I had to take care of you both alone, feed you, dress you, educate you. You can’t imagine how hard that was. Then, when I met Aristide, why should I have said no? He’s a good man, he helped me. What should I have done, according to you? Where was your father? Even when he was still there he was never there. I was the one who had to do everything, change your diapers, wash you, feed you. Your father came to see you fifteen minutes a day, he played with you a little, then he went back to his books or his work. But it’s me you hate.” Emotion knotted my throat: “No, Mother. I don’t hate you.”—“Yes, you hate me, I know it, I can see it. You came in that uniform to tell me how much you hate me.”—“Why did my father leave?” She took a long breath: “No one knows that except him. Maybe just out of boredom.”—“I don’t believe it! What did you do to him?”—“I didn’t do anything to him, Max. I didn’t chase him away. He left, that’s all. Maybe he was tired of me. Maybe he was tired of you.” Anguish swelled my face: “No! That’s impossible. He loved us!”—“I don’t know if he ever knew what loving means,” she replied very gently. “If he loved us, if he loved you, he would at least have written. If only to say he wouldn’t be coming back. He wouldn’t have left us in doubt, in anguish.”—“You had him declared dead.”—“I did that mostly for you both. To protect your interests. He never gave a sign of life, he never touched his bank account, he left all his affairs in the lurch, I had to settle everything, the accounts were blocked, I had a lot of problems. And I didn’t want you to be dependent on Aristide. The money you left for Germany with, where do you think that came from? It was his money, you know
that very well, and you took it and used it. He probably really is dead, somewhere.”—“It’s as if you killed him.” My words were making her suffer, I could see it, but she remained calm. “He killed himself, Max. It was his choice. You have to understand that.”
But I didn’t want to understand it. That night, I fell into sleep as into dark, thick, agitated waters, but dreamless. The twins’ laughter, rising up from the park, woke me. It was day, the sun was shining through the slits in the shutters. As I washed and got dressed, I thought about my mother’s words. One of them had struck me painfully: my departure from France, my break with my mother, all that had in fact been made possible by the inheritance from my father, the meager capital that Una and I had to share when we came of age. But I had never, at that time, made the link between my mother’s odious actions and this money that had allowed me to free myself of her. I had prepared that departure for a long time. In the months following the February 1934 riot, I had contacted Dr. Mandelbrod to ask him for help and support; and as I said earlier, he had provided them generously; by my birthday, everything was organized. My mother and Moreau came up to Paris for the formalities concerning my inheritance: at dinner, the notary’s papers in my pocket, I announced to them my decision to leave the ELSP for Germany. Moreau had swallowed his anger and remained silent while my mother tried to reason with me. In the street, Moreau had turned to my mother: “Don’t you see that your son has become a little Fascist? Let him go goosestep with them, if he wants to.” I was too happy to get angry, and I left them on the Boulevard Montparnasse. Nine years and a war had to pass before I saw them again.
Downstairs, I found Moreau sitting in a garden chair in a square of sunlight, in front of the French windows to the living room. It was rather cool out. “Hello,” he said in his sly way. “Sleep well?”—“Yes, thanks. Has my mother gotten up?”—“She’s awake, but she’s still resting. There’s some coffee and toast on the table.”—“Thanks.” I went to serve myself and then came back to him, cup of coffee in hand. I looked at the grounds. I didn’t hear the twins anymore. “Where are boys?” I asked Moreau.—“At school. They come back in the afternoon.” I drank a little coffee. “You know,” he continued, “your mother is happy you’ve come.”—“Yes, that’s possible,” I said. But he placidly went on with his thought: “You should write more often. Times are going to be hard. Everyone is going to need their family. Family is the only thing you can count on.” I didn’t say anything, just watched him absently; he was contemplating the garden. “Listen, Mother’s Day is next month. You could send her your best wishes.”—“What is this holiday?” He looked surprised: “The Maréchal instituted it, two years ago. To honor maternity. It’s in May, this year it falls on the thirtieth.” He was still looking at me: “You could send a card.”—“Yes, I’ll try.” He fell silent and turned back to the garden. “If you have time,” he said after a while, “could you go cut some wood in the shed, for the stove? I’m getting old.” I looked at him again, huddled in his chair: in fact, he had aged. “If you like,” I replied. I went back into the house, put the empty cup on the table, nibbled on a cracker, and went upstairs; this time I went straight to the attic. I closed the trapdoor behind me and walked carefully between the furniture and boxes, making the floorboards creak under my feet. My memories rose around me, tactile now with the air, the smell, the light, the dust: and I dove into these sensations as I had plunged into the Volga, with complete abandon. It seemed to me I could see the shadow of our bodies in the recesses, the brightness of our white skins. Then I shook myself and found the boxes containing my things. I dragged them into a large empty space near a pillar, crouched down, and began sorting through them. There were tin cars, report cards, and school notebooks, youth novels, photographs in thick envelopes, more envelopes, sealed, containing letters from my sister—a whole past, strange and sudden. I didn’t dare look at the photos or open the envelopes; I felt an animal terror growing in me; even the most commonplace, innocent details bore the imprint of the past, of that past, and the very fact of this past chilled me to the bone; each new but so familiar object inspired in me a mixture of repulsion and fascination, as if I were holding a live bomb in my hands. To calm down, I examined the books: it was the collection of any adolescent of my generation—Jules Verne, Paul de Kock, Victor Hugo, Eugène Sue, the Americans E. R. Burroughs and Mark Twain, the adventures of Fantômas and Rouletabille, travel books, some biographies of famous men. I was seized with the desire to reread some of them and, after reflection, I put aside the first three volumes of Burroughs’s Martian series, the ones that had so excited my fantasies in the upstairs bathroom, curious to see if they would still correspond to the intensity of my memories. Then I returned to the sealed envelopes. I weighed them in my hands, turned them over between my fingers. In the beginning, after the scandal, when we were sent to boarding school, my sister and I were still allowed to write to each other; when I received one of her letters, I had to open it in front of a priest and give it to him to read before I could myself; and she, on her side, probably had to do the same thing. Her letters, curiously written on a typewriter, were long, edifying, and solemn: My dear brother: Everything is fine here, they’re treating me nicely. I am awakening to a renewed sense of spirituality, etc. But at night, I locked myself up in the bathroom with a candle stub, trembling with anxiety and excitement, and held the letter over the flame until a second message appeared, scribbled between the lines with milk: HELP! GET ME OUT OF HERE! I BEG YOU! We had gotten that idea by reading, secretly of course, a life of Lenin, found at a bookseller’s near the mairie. These desperate messages threw me into panic, and I decided to run away and save her. But my attempt was poorly prepared, and I was soon caught. They punished me severely, I was given the cane and a week of stale bread, and the abuse of the older boys only got worse, but it was all the same to me; only, they had forbidden me from receiving any letters, and that plunged me into rage and despair. I didn’t even know if I had saved those last letters, if they too were in these envelopes; and I didn’t want to open them to check. I put everything away in the boxes, took the three books, and went back downstairs.
Compelled by a silent force, I went into Una’s old room. There was now a double bed there, a wooden one painted red and blue, and toys carefully lined up, among which I angrily recognized some of my own. All the clothes were folded and put away in drawers and in the wardrobe. I quickly searched through the room looking for clues, letters, but found nothing. The family name written on the report cards was unknown to me, and seemed Aryan. These report cards went back a few years: so they had been living here for quite some time. I heard my mother behind me: “What are you doing?”—“I’m looking,” I said without turning round.—“You’d do better to go downstairs and cut wood as Aristide asked you. I’m going to get lunch ready.” I turned around: she was standing in the doorway, severe, impassive. “Who are these children?”—“I told you: the children of a close friend. We took them in when she couldn’t look after them anymore. They didn’t have a father.”—“How long have they been here?”—“A while. You left a long time ago too, my boy.” I looked around me, then stared at her again: “They’re little Jews, aren’t they? Admit it. They’re Jews, right?” She didn’t let herself be intimidated: “Stop talking nonsense. They’re not Jews. If you don’t believe me, just look at them when they’re taking their bath. That’s how you do it, isn’t it?”—“Yes. Sometimes that’s how we do it.”—“Anyway, even if they were Jews, what difference would that make? What would you to do them?”—“I wouldn’t do anything to them.”—“What do you do, with the Jews?” she went on. “We hear all kinds of horrors. Even the Italians say it’s not acceptable, what you’re doing.” I felt suddenly old, tired: “We send them to work, in the East. They build roads, houses, they work in factories.” She stuck to her guns: “And the children? You send them away to build roads? You take the children too, don’t you?”—“The children go to special camps. They stay with the mothers
who can’t work.”—“Why do you do that?” I shrugged: “Someone had to do it. The Jews are parasites, exploiters: now they’re serving the people they used to exploit. And I should point out that the French help us a lot: in France, it’s the French police who arrest them and hand them over to us. It’s French law that decides. Someday, history will judge that we were right.”—“You are completely mad. Go cut the wood.” She turned around and headed to the side stairs. I went to put the three Burroughs books in my bag, then went out to the shed. I took off my jacket, picked up the axe, put a log on the block, and split it. It was difficult, I wasn’t used to this kind of work; I had to start over several times. As I raised the axe, I thought about my mother’s words; it wasn’t her lack of political comprehension that bothered me, it was the way she looked at me: What did she see, when she looked at me? I could feel the extent to which I labored under the weight of the past, of wounds received or imagined, of irreparable mistakes, of the unredeemability of time. Struggling against it did no good. When I got some logs finished, I loaded them up in my arms and carried them to the kitchen. My mother was peeling potatoes. I put the wood on the woodpile near the stove and went out again without a word, to split some more. I made several trips this way. As I worked, I thought: in the end, the collective problem of the Germans was the same as my own; they too were struggling to extract themselves from a painful past, to wipe the slate clean so they’d be able to begin new things. That was how they arrived at the most radical solution of them all: murder, the painful horror of murder. But was murder a solution? I thought of the many conversations I had had about this: in Germany, I wasn’t the only one to have my doubts. What if murder weren’t a definitive solution, what if on the contrary this new fact, even less reparable than the ones before it, opened in turn onto new abysses? Then, what way out was left? In the kitchen, I noticed I still had the axe with me. The room was empty: my mother must have been in the living room. I looked at the pile of wood; there seemed to be enough there. I was dripping with sweat; I put the axe in the corner next to the wood and went up to wash and change my shirt.
The Kindly Ones Page 61
