Jealousy and in the Labyrinth (31 page)

"Why are you staying there like that?" he says. "Are you sick?"

The soldier makes an effort to answer:

"I'll be all right."

"Did you lose your barracks again?"

"No ... I'm going back now."

"Why don't you wear a cap? All the soldiers wear caps ... or helmets."

After a pause, the child continues, his voice still lower: "My father has a helmet."

"Where is your father?"

"I don't know." Then loudly, carefully articulating each word: "It's not true that he deserted."

The soldier looks up at the boy again: "Who says he did?"

In answer, the child takes a few steps with a limping gait, his legs stiff, one arm stretched alongside his body, grasping a crutch. He is now only a yard away from the door. He continues:

"But it's not true. And he said you're a spy. You're not a real soldier: you're a spy. There's a bomb in your package."

"Well, that's not true either," the soldier says.

Now they have heard the distant sound of the motorcycle. The boy has cocked his head first; he has opened his mouth a little wider and his head has gradually pivoted from street light to street light toward the gray end of the street, already vague in the twilight. Now he has looked at the soldier and then at the end of the street again, while the noise was growing rapidly louder. It was the sputtering of a two-cylinder motor. The child has drawn back toward the doorway.

But the noise has begun to diminish, soon becoming almost inaudible.

"I have to go back," the child says.

He has looked at the soldier and repeated: "I have to go back home."

He has approached the soldier, he has held out his hand. Hesitating at first, the soldier has grasped his hand and has managed to stand up, leaning one shoulder against the door.

The same sputtering of a motor has begun again in the silence, swelling in volume, this time much more distinctly. The man and the child have stepped back together into the doorway. The noise has soon come so close that they have stepped up onto the stoop and are flattened against the wood of the door beside each other. The staccato racket echoing in all directions against the housefronts unmistakably came from the adjacent street, the one forming the crossroads some ten yards from their hiding place. They have flattened themselves even more against the door. The motorcycle has appeared at the edge of the vertical wall, at the corner of the house. It was a side car with two helmeted soldiers in it; it was advancing slowly down the middle of the street, in the fresh snow.

The two men appear in profile. The driver's face, situated slightly forward, is above his companion's. They seem to have the same features: regular, drawn, perhaps shrunken by fatigue. Their eyes are hollow, their lips tight, their skin grayish. The color and shape of their jackets are like those of the familiar uniform, but the helmet is larger, heavier, protecting the ears and the back of the neck. The motorcycle itself is dirty and half covered with dry mud; it seems to be a rather old model. The man driving it sits stiffly on his seat, his gloved hands grasping the handle bars. The other man looks alternately right and left, but only ahead of the motorcycle, almost without moving his head. On his knees he holds a black machine gun whose barrel sticks out of the iron-plated car.

They have passed without turning back and have continued straight ahead past the crossroad. After about twenty yards, they have disappeared behind the corner of the apartment house forming the opposite corner.

A few seconds later the sound has suddenly stopped. Apparently the motor was turned off. Complete silence followed the racket. There remained only the two parallel lines left in the snow by the three wheels of the vehicle, drawn straight across the field of vision between the two planes of vertical stone.

Since this was taking too long, the child has lost patience and has left his hiding place. The soldier has not noticed this immediately, for previously the child had been huddled behind him; the soldier has just seen him in the middle of the sidewalk and has gestured to him to come back. But the child has taken another three steps forward, so that he is now standing against the street light, which is supposed to conceal him.

The silence persisted. The boy, who quickly grew bolder as time passed, has advanced several yards towards the crossroads. For fear of attracting the attention of the invisible motorcyclists, the soldier has not dared call him to keep him from going farther. The child has continued to the point from which he can see the entire cross street; sticking his head out, he has glanced in the direction the side car had vanished. A man's voice, some distance away, in this area, has shouted a short command. With a start, the child has turned around and begun running; he has passed the soldier again, his cape fluttering over his shoulders. Before realizing what he was doing, the soldier was already following him when the two-cylinder motor started up again, suddenly filling the air with its sputtering. The soldier too has begun running, laboriously, while the child has turned the corner of the next street.

Behind him, the racket has quickly become deafening. Then came a long grating sound: the motorcycle taking too sharp a turn and skidding on the snow. At the same time the motor stopped. The harsh voice shouted: "Halt!" twice, without the slightest trace of an accent. The soldier almost reached the corner of the street where the child himself had turned a few seconds before. The motorcycle has started up again, drowning out the powerful voice which was repeating "Halt!" for the third time. And immediately afterwards, the soldier recognized the dry staccato crackling of the machine gun which mingled with the uproar.

He has felt a violent shock on the heel of his right boot. He has kept on running. Bullets have struck the stone wall near him. Just as he was turning the corner, there was a new burst of firing. A sharp pain has pierced his left side. Then everything stopped.

He was out of reach, protected by the wall. The crackling of the machine gun had stopped. The motor had probably stopped a few seconds before. The soldier no longer felt his body, he was still running along the stone wall. The apartment house door was not closed, it opened easily when the soldier pushed it. He has gone in. He has closed it behind him gently; the bolt, as it falls back into place, has made a slight click.

Afterward he lay down on the floor in the darkness, curling up with the box in the hollow of his stomach. He has felt the back of his boot: there was a deep diagonal rent along the back and side of the heel. His foot was not touched. Heavy steps and noisy voices have echoed in the street.

The steps drew closer. A muffled blow has resounded against the wood of the door, then the voices again, rough, rather jovial, speaking an incomprehensible language with drawling intonations. The noise of one man's steps has faded away. The two voices, one quite near, the other somewhat farther away, have exchanged three or four short sentences. Someone has knocked on something, probably another door, and on this one again, with a fist, several times, but apparently without conviction. The more distant voice has shouted foreign words again and the nearer voice has begun laughing loudly. Then the other voice burst into laughter too.

And the two heavy treads have faded away together, accompanied by bursts of laughter. In the ensuing silence the sound of the motorcycle has begun again, then gradually diminished until it is no longer audible.

The soldier has wanted to change position. A sharp pain has pierced his side. A very violent but not unbearable pain. Most of all he was tired. And he felt like vomiting.

Then he heard the boy's low voice quite near him in the darkness, but he did not understand what it was saying. He felt he was losing consciousness.

A considerable crowd has gathered in the room: men, mostly in civilian clothes, talking in small groups and making many gestures. The soldier tries to make his way through them. He finally reaches a less crowded area where the people sitting at tables are drinking wine and arguing, still with many gestures and exclamations. The tables are very close together and circulation between the benches, chairs, and human backs is still difficult; but it is easier to see where one is going. Unfortunately all the chairs seem to be occupied. The tables—round, square, or rectangular —are set facing in every direction, without discernible order. Some have no more than three or four drinkers around them; the larger ones, which are long and have benches, can serve fifteen. Beyond is the bar behind which the bartender is standing, a tall, heavy-set man, made even more noticeable by his slightly raised position. Between the bar and the last tables, a very narrow space is obstructed in the center by a group of standing drinkers who are more luxuriously dressed in short overcoats or fur-collared cloaks, and whose glasses, set down within arm's reach in front of the bartender, are partially visible in the openings left here and there between the bodies and the arms in their demonstrative attitudes. One of these men, to the right and a little to the rear, instead of participating in his friends' conversation, is leaning back against the edge of the bar in order to look at the room, the seated drinkers, the soldier.

The latter finally glimpses, not far away, a small, relatively accessible table at which only two other soldiers are sitting: an infantry corporal and a cavalry corporal. Motionless and silent, both men's reserved appearance contrasts with that of the men around them. There is an unoccupied chair between them.

Having succeeded in reaching it without too much difficulty, the soldier rests one hand on its back and asks if he may sit down. It is the infantry corporal who replies: they were with a friend, but the latter, who has gone away for a minute, doesn't seem to be coming back; he has probably met someone he knows somewhere else. Why not take his place until he comes back. This is what the soldier does, pleased to find a seat free.

The two others say nothing. They are not drinking; they do not even have glasses in front of them. The racket of the room around them does not seem to affect them; they keep their eyes fixed straight ahead, as though they were sleeping without lowering their lids. If not, they are certainly not both looking so fixedly at the same thing, for the man on the right is facing the left wall, which is quite bare at this point, since the white bulletins are posted farther forward, and the man on the opposite side is facing the bar.

Halfway from the bar, over which the bartender's thickset body is leaning between his widespread arms, a young waitress is passing among the tables with her loaded tray. At least she is looking around to find a place where she is needed: having stopped for a moment, she pivots in order to glance in all directions; she moves neither her feet, her legs, nor the lower part of her body beneath the full-pleated skirt, but only her head (with its black hair in a heavy bun) and the upper part of her body; her two outstretched arms, which are holding the tray at eye level, leave the latter in virtually the same place when she turns in the other direction, remaining twisted in this way for some time.

Judging from the direction of her gaze, the soldier supposes she has noticed his presence and will therefore approach this newcomer's table to take his order, or even that she will serve him at once, for on her tray she is carrying a bottle of red wine which, moreover, she is tilting dangerously, at the risk of letting it fall off the tray, which she is not keeping horizontal. But below, in the trajectory of an imminent fall, the old, bald worker apparently suspects nothing, continuing to address the man at his right, or appealing to him, or calling him to witness, while brandishing in his right hand his still full glass, whose contents are on the point of spilling.

The soldier then remembers that there is not one glass on his own table. Yet the tray holds only the one bottle and nothing which might satisfy a new customer in the way of a glass. The waitress, moreover, has not discovered anything to attract her attention in this area, and her glance now completes its circuit of the room, having passed the soldier and his two companions, now sweeping over the other tables along the wall where the small white bulletins are attached by four tacks, then the window with its pleated curtain at eye level and its three enamel balls outside the glass, then the door, also partially curtained and with the word "Café" showing in reverse, then the bar in front of it with the five or six men in middle-class clothes, and at the far right the last of these men who is still looking toward the soldier's table.

The latter continues staring straight ahead. The cavalry corporal now fixes his eyes on the collar of the soldier's coat where the two diamonds of green felt showing the serial number are sewn.

"So you were at Reichenfels?" And at the same time his chin points forward with a short, quick movement.

The soldier replies: "Yes, I was in the area."

"You were there," the cavalry corporal corrects, repeating his gesture as though to prove the fact by indicating the regiment's distinctive insignia.

"The other one was too," the infantry corporal says. "The man who was sitting here just now."

"But he did some fighting," the cavalry corporal snaps.

Then, since he receives no answer: "I hear there were some who weren't up to it."

He turns toward the cavalry corporal who makes a vague gesture of ignorance or agreement.

"No one was up to it," the soldier says.

But the cavalry corporal protests: "Yes, some were! Ask the little guy who was sitting here before."

"Maybe you're right," the soldier admits, "it all depends what you mean by 'up to it.' "

"I mean what it means. There were some who fought and some who didn't."

"They all got out of it eventually."