1914 (3 page)

The captain, named Vayssière, was a puny young man with a monocle, a curiously ruddy complexion, and a limp voice: Anthime had never seen him before, and his morphology gave no hint as to why or how he could ever have desired and pursued a combative
vocation. You will all return home, Captain Vayssière promised in particular, raising his voice to the limit of its power. Yes, we will all go home to the Vendée. One vital point, however. If a few men do die while at war, it's for lack of hygiene. Because it isn't bullets that kill, it is uncleanliness that is fatal and which you must combat first of all. So wash, shave, comb your hair, and you will have nothing to fear.

After that pep talk, as the men were breaking ranks, Anthime happened to find himself next to Charles, near the field kitchen just being set up. Charles did not seem any more inclined than usual or than in the train to chat about the war or the factory, but regarding the latter, well, he clearly couldn't slip off down one of his hallways claiming urgent correspondence to attend to as he'd always done before, so he was forced to deal with Anthime's concerns. And they were both dressed alike now, which always helps communication. About the factory, Anthime asked anxiously, what are we going to do? I have Mme. Prochasson to take care of everything, explained Charles, she has the files in hand. It's the same for you, you have Françoise in the accounts department, you'll find everything in order when you get back. But
when's that, wondered Anthime. It won't take long, Charles insisted, we'll be back for the September orders. Hmm, said Anthime, we'll see about that.

The men drifted around the camp a bit, long enough to inquire about the resources available in the area. Some fellows were already complaining that they'd found nothing to eat, no beer or even matches, and the price of wine, sold by locals who'd quickly discovered how to profit from the situation, was now exorbitant. Trains could be heard going by in the distance. As for the field kitchen, nothing to be hoped for there until it was completely operational. Since their travel provisions were all gone, after sharing some cold monkey meat and murky water they went to bed.

5

L
EAVING BEHIND THE SERRIED
ranks of buildings, the squares with their old houses huddled together, Blanche went farther and farther away from the center of town along thoroughfares that were more open and airy, with somewhat unusual, almost eccentric, and certainly less regimented architecture: these houses in a greater variety or even absence of styles breathed more freely, set back from the street, and all had some form or other of garden around them. Continuing along her way, Blanche passed in front of Charles's residence and then Anthime's, now equally deserted.

Charles's house: beyond an ornate front gate concealing a garden one felt was flourishing, with well-tended flowers and lawns, a path led to a flagstone terrace set off by pillars flanking a double front door of
polychrome stained glass, enthroned atop three steps. From the street, one could just make out at some distance the yellow and blue granite facade: tall, narrow, and, like its owner, tightly shut up. Three stories, with a balcony on the second floor.

Anthime's: this was a single-story house set closer to the street, with a roughcast facade, lower and more compact, as if a residence, like a dog, absolutely had to be homothetic to its master. Less well hidden by a front gate—ajar—made of ill-joined planks covered with flaking white paint, the property was a smaller and poorly defined zone of weeds bordered by some attempts at vegetable gardening. To enter Anthime's home one had next to cross a cracked slab of concrete ornamented solely by some very distinct and canine paw prints—from an animal therefore probably none too light on its feet—left in the fresh cement on the distant day it was poured. The only memorial to the defunct animal remained these impressions, at the bottom of which had accumulated an earthy grit, an organic residue in which other weeds, of a smaller format, were struggling to grow.

Blanche had given these two domiciles only a
passing glance as she walked on toward the factory, a continent-sized heap of dark brick as ponderous as a fortress, isolated from the neighborhood by timid little streets running all around it, as a moat encircles a château. Ordinarily gaping, the enormous main entrance, a maw that periodically engulfed fresh masses of laborers only to regurgitate them utterly exhausted, was on this Sunday closed as tightly as a savings bank. On the circular pediment atop this entrance moved the hands of a gigantic clock, with
BORNE-SÈZE
spelled out by huge letters in high relief. Below, on the gate, hung a sign bearing two words:
NOW HIRING.
This factory made footwear.

All kinds of footwear: shoes for men, women, and children, boots, bootees, and ankle boots, Gibsons and Oxfords, sandals and moccasins, boxing shoes, slippers, mules, orthopedic and safety shoes, even the recently invented snow boot, and not forgetting the
godillot
, that military boot named after its creator, the discoverer of—among other marvels—the difference between the left foot and the right. Everything for the feet at Borne-Sèze: from galoshes to pumps, from buskins to high heels.

Pivoting on hers, Blanche walked around the factory toward an isolated structure of the same dark brick, apparently one of the plant's outbuildings.
DR. MONTEIL,
announced a copper plate beneath the door knocker, and hardly had she knocked when this practitioner appeared: rather tall, stooped, with a florid complexion, dressed in gray, looking fiftyish enough—just above the age limit for territorial soldiers—to have narrowly escaped the mobilization. The Bornes had been his patients for a long time when Eugène had asked Monteil to become the factory's physician—participating in the selection and orientation of new hires, offering consultations and emergency care, giving the odd lecture on industrial hygiene—and although Monteil had immediately cut back on his private practice, he had remained the family doctor for the Bornes and three other local dynasties, while retaining as well his seat on the municipal council. Dr. Monteil knew quite a few people and had connections just about everywhere, even in Paris. He had taken care of Blanche ever since her infancy, so she had come to consult him in his capacity as both doctor and public official.

To the official she spoke of Charles, gone with the
others toward the northeastern border, no one knew exactly where. When she spoke of a possible intervention, with the hope of an assignment other than the infantry, Monteil asked what she might have in mind. Well, suggested Blanche, aside from the factory, which takes up all his time, Charles is very interested in aviation and photography. Perhaps there might be something to be done along those lines, replied Monteil. The Air Service, I believe they call it now. Let me think about this, I might have someone in mind at the ministry, I'll keep you informed.

To the general practitioner she explained her situation, showing him her figure under her clothing, and the exam did not take long. Palpation, two questions, diagnosis: definitely, declared Monteil, you are. And when will it be, asked Blanche. The beginning of next year, he figured, and I'd say toward the end of January. Blanche said nothing, looked at the window—where nothing was going on or past, not the slightest bird or anything—and then at her hands as she placed them on her belly. And you plan to keep it, of course, remarked Monteil to break the silence. I don't know yet, said Blanche. Otherwise, he said more softly, there would
always be a way. I know, said Blanche, there's Ruffier. Yes, said Monteil, although, not since the other day, he went off like everyone else but we're talking about two weeks, it will all be over quickly. Or else his wife could always be of service. Silence again and then no, said Blanche, I think I will keep it.

6

S
O
, C
HARLES HAD FIGURED,
in that August sunshine three months ago: it will all be over in two weeks. Which Monteil had said in turn, because many had believed this back then. Except that two weeks later, four weeks later, after more and still more weeks, once it had begun to rain and the days had grown ever shorter and colder, events did not turn out as expected.

Still, on the day after their arrival in the Ardennes, things hadn't looked that dire. One couldn't complain about the weather, a trifle cooler than in the Vendée; the air was pure, crisp, and the men felt good, on the whole. Of course they'd been treated to drilling that morning with packs and gear, but this is fairly normal in the army, it's practically like playing a game. Charles was still keeping some distance between himself and
Anthime—and increasingly vice versa—but they had smiled together at Bossis and his jokes, then laughed unkindly when a mean lieutenant made fun of Padioleau's way of presenting arms during the drill. Afterward, everyone except those who didn't know how had written a few postcards made more festive by a magical find, an aperitif: Byrrh
⁷
with a dribble of lemon syrup but not seltzer, unfortunately, only plain water, followed by a lunch that wasn't so terrible and which they'd even managed to cap with a little nap before going off late that afternoon to buy some plums at a local garden.

It was the day after that when things came into clearer focus: three weeks of almost constant marching. Along roads that grew dusty as the dew dried, the men set out almost every morning at four o'clock, sometimes cutting across fields, never stopping for even a moment. After four or five days, when the weather turned hot and muggy, they were allowed a small respite every half hour from the midpoint of the march on, but men soon began collapsing all the time, especially among the reservists, with Padioleau dropping more often than the others. When they halted for the night, with everybody
worn-out, no one wanted to cook so they'd open cans of bully beef without much to wash it down.

For it had dawned on them only too quickly how impossible it was to get wine there, or indeed any beverage except a bit of raw alcohol, on occasion, at a price now increased fivefold by the distillers in the villages through which they passed, where the locals profited greedily from the golden opportunity presented by thirsty troops. This situation would soon change, when headquarters grasped the advantage presented by men properly supplied with drink, since inebriation damped down fear, but things had not yet come to that. Meanwhile and increasingly frequently they still saw a few airplanes passing overhead, it was a distraction, and then the heat began to abate.

Aside from the merchants, however, who also had tobacco, hard sausages, and jams on offer, in the villages but also at the edges of fields along their route small groups of country people gathered to cheer the troops on and surprisingly often, from simple generosity, to give them flowers, fruit, bread, and whatever wine they still had. Sometimes the people of these backwaters had
seen the enemy arrive out of nowhere, and sometimes they'd been forced to pay a great deal of money to keep from being bombarded. Trudging along, the soldiers would examine the women gathered by the roadside, noticing some young and pretty ones on occasion. Over toward the town of Écordal, one of them, neither young nor pretty, tossed them some religious medals.

More and more, the men were also passing through certain villages abandoned by their inhabitants or even in ruins, destroyed or burned, perhaps, for not having paid any tribute. The cellars of empty houses had often been looted of everything but the occasional few bottles of Vichy water. The deserted streets were littered with divers damaged articles, and for the most part the troop left them lying there: unused cartridges discarded by a passing company, scattered clothing and linens, pots without handles, empty bottles, a birth certificate, a sick dog, a ten of clubs, a broken shovel.

What also happened was that the situation came into yet clearer focus when rumors began circulating, especially about spying: a traitorous teacher had been surprised, it seemed, in this or that sector, preparing to blow up a bridge. It was even possible, supposedly, that
these spies had turned up near Saint-Quentin: two of them had been seen tied to a tree, convicted of having spent the entire night passing information to the enemy via lantern signals, and then as the troop drew closer, they saw the colonel kill them point-blank with his revolver. One evening, as it happened, after they'd been on the march for two weeks, they received orders to blacken their mess tins to reduce their visibility. Unsure how to proceed, Anthime looked at what the others were doing, each in his own way, then coped with a little paste of dirt and boot polish. Yes, it was all definitely becoming clear.

Two weeks after the expedition had set out was also when Anthime suddenly realized that he never saw Charles anymore. Risking a razzing, he spent two days going up and down the company's ranks as they tramped along, hoping at least to catch a glimpse of him but succeeding only in exhausting himself even further. Then he started asking around, questioning tight-lipped and supercilious noncoms at first, until a more cooperative sergeant told him one evening that Charles had been transferred, no one knew where, a military secret. Anthime hardly reacted at all, he was so dead on his feet.

In the evenings, moreover, it was often quite a challenge to find a place to sleep where the troop had halted. Since there wasn't much room for the men in the villages, half the company was usually obliged to try sleeping outdoors; when a village was deserted, the luckiest men camped in abandoned houses, where there might still be a bit of furniture and even sometimes beds, but no bedding. Most of the time, though, they'd fix up sleeping spots in the gardens or out in the fields of beets or oats or in the woods, beneath shelters they constructed from branches or in a providential haystack, and once in an abandoned sugar factory. Wherever they wound up, they never found comfort yet fell asleep fast.