The Solitude of Compassion (9 page)

“At first there was no pain. I only felt something going out of me, leaving a great cold in its place. The suffering came during the afternoon.

“Coming into the house, I went straight to the bedroom and I opened the drawer of the bureau. The box of sugared plums was there. On the cover was the name of a grocer in Gap, and, in the box, my wife had set her little Sunday kerchiefs and a washing pin…

“But under the kerchiefs was a white rose drying, and I knew in all the land that there was only one white rose bush: in the villa of Oze, by the yard of Djouanin.”

 

“Oh! I had become very sensitive. One of my grandfathers, blind, still pruned his vines. By nothing but touch, he distinguished the budding leaf from the budding fruit.”

 

“In the afternoon, I got the idea that the box had come from Gap, and the bottles, and the bone rattle. How could he have known that that was the very evening we were going to celebrate Guitte's birthday? And, above all, several days before? For there is a good stretch of road between Saint-Auban and Gap.

“Then the forty cents for the shawl? And all of the other things which one cannot mention but which a husband knows well.”

 

“On Sunday my wife sat before the door with the neighbors. Beside them I sharpened my scythe or wove baskets. Djouanin played boules.”

 

“‘The prefect!'

“He had defied the best players, and the cries, and the ‘porca madona!' but he won. When the game was in its last round he threw the ball near in order to draw close to us.”

 

“He was always on the side where the shades were raised.”

 

“I still had Guitte to myself. With us it is said that girls are made with the blood of the father. I needed smiles. The poor girl gave them to me.”

 

“I will make it quick because I am not yet cured of that suffering. He knew how to find the games and the ticklings that were necessary. The little girl stretched out her arms towards him and cried when I wanted to keep her in my arms. I do not hold it against her, it was such a small thing.”

 

“I often thought of that moment where from my shadow I saw him, him alone, in full sunlight, in my own house.”

 

“The first cold spells arrived, I went alone out to the land. Alone the entire day long, you understand?”

 

“One evening at the moment of crossing the threshold, I heard them talking. One would have said that the voices laughed by themselves. I knew! Upon entering you will find them calm; she will be cooking, he will be on a chair, because it is the time when you are supposed to arrive.

“I gently withdrew my foot from on top of the stone, set down my spade, and took the road to Gap.”

 

“I walked for a long time at a good clip, and all that I recall was the sound that the dead leaves made around me.”

 

“At dawn, I waited on the side of the road for the mail couch. At eight o'clock I was in Gap. I entered the ‘Credit.' There were five hundred francs under my name: I took two hundred and said to the cashier: ‘My wife will come and get the rest.' He had me sign an authorization. I asked if they could write to her that the money was there for her. He promised to do what was necessary. That calmed
me. The harvest, you know, is hard to sell, and, if one does not have a little money for the winter…

“A train was leaving at eleven o'clock; I was at the ticket window in the station behind a business traveler, a comical man who asked for a ticket for Aix: 14 francs 55 cents. I got a ticket for Aix as well. It was easier, I knew the price, didn't I?”

 

“I assure you that during the entire trip I did not think of a thing. I looked out through the doorway, I listened to the names of the stations, the funny names that you have around here: Oraison, Villeneuve, Volx. After Volx you pass through a barrier of hills. At a certain place where the narrow entrance to a black valley of pines opens out I had the desire to go to sleep there, alone.”

 

“I got off at the next station. But I did not know how to find that valley that I had seen from the train. I climbed up into the hills and I came here.”

 

He displayed the immobile waves of the undergrowth, on the other side of his own land; and above all I saw the great scaly tentacle that the brambles had cast. It seemed to have crept a little more across the turf.

 

Another day he said to me:

“Give me a little tobacco.”

The big brambles were extended all the way across the onion patch. A hardy clematis pointed a green arrow towards the pear tree which the wind caused to tremble.

I left him the entire packet.

And when I came back a week later, the door was closed. The
underbrush blew gently, like an enormous beast shaking. His violets on the threshold were dying. Two or three irises, of the kind which are well adapted to life in the wild, were blossoming despite the mute hostility of the woods.

One morning, by the post office, I was waiting for the country postman, the one who served his section of town.

“I recall,” he responded, “three weeks ago (which was about the time that the man had begun confiding in me) he gave me a letter addressed to Italy, even though I did not know the precise tariff. After that, he came every day to meet me awaiting a response. He had promised to give me the stamps, my little daughter collects them. The response did not come. I have not seen him since.

 

His land, now, disappears under the trickle of woods: a disorder of thistles and wild vines. The pear tree is no longer anything but a dead trunk which supports a heavy, ruffled clematis.

Did he return alive to all of that pain with his soul filled with thorns? Or did he go to sleep, very comfortably, under the savage foliation, and allow his humid body to bring forth this large, creamy, and bitter milk-wort.

“Let him through: ‘Giono to the captain.'”

 

Night. Rain. The entire company splashing, climbing towards reserve positions on the other side of the canal.

 

“Let him through: ‘Giono to the captain.'”

With difficulty I draw myself from the rank and file where mechanical effort is less painful. In the passage I hear Maroi whining.

“Once again funny face is going to have the best trigger over there.”

At the head of the column someone mutters in the shadows before me. It is the cyclist. He's on foot.

“The captain?”

“Down there.”

He indicates the rain, the night.

“It was you who made the connection with the English in the Zouavian woods?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Good, you will go to Fort Pompelle with the Russians for the signaling.”

“I do not know Russian, Captain.”

“What the hell?… They will tell you at the canal.”

(I wonder if he means the right path to follow or a method for learning Russian in five minutes.”

“Fine, Captain.”

“Every eight days Gunz will relieve you.”

 

The communication trench, they told me, ascended straight ahead. It was still raining. No shells. No sound. Calm sector.

A little pine woods without branches. A shell had eviscerated the trench. I hurry. My sack weighs me down, my rifle clings to me. I might have a long way to go like this.

At last the fort, the dirt stairs, then the pit. I inhale deeply. I walk through the grass swollen with water. A thin ray of light reveals the door. I did not see any sentinels, fortunately. What would I have said?

But when the leaf of the door was pushed there was one. Long, hooded coat, helmet: he is unarmed—it works—he makes a sign for me to stop.

“Comrade Rousky, Franzous” (which is all the Russian that I know.)

The man turns towards the back of the corridor lit by a storm lantern and mutters gibberish. There is a stairway which would not sully the manor of Lady Macbeth. There are footsteps above us. I make a gesture to unbuckle my sack; I have chafed shoulders. The extended arm of the sentinel stops me.

“Me, here, stay, signaling.”

He does not understand (this is going to be laughable). We go down the stairs.

The one who arrives is a fat little young man. Pink-faced like a
woman, well-traced lips. He has on a grey shirt correctly arranged, and a belt buckled around his waist.

“What is it?” he says.

(Ah, a friend, he speaks French.)

But the sentinel rectifies the situation, salutes and speaks. It must be an officer.

Finally:

“What have you come here to do?”

“6th company of the 140th for the optical signaling…(just who is this officer, he does not have any braids.)

“Ah! The French liaison from the reserve, very good, very good, I have been forewarned. I was the one who asked for you. You know Morse code?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

(It came out suddenly without reflection.)

And he does not laugh; it seems natural to him.

“Follow me. Leave your sack, they will carry it for you.”

The sentinel disappears. We ascend the Macbeth staircase. A black and narrow corridor. I follow. There is a steel door, that opens with a heavy scraping, then there is a gust of stifling air. Here things are lit with electricity. In the basement the electrogenerator unit beats like a heart. After two detours—(I should have brought my sack, they are going to steal my razor)—the groaning of an accordion greets us. The man-woman opens a casemate. At first tobacco smoke and the accordion—from the ceiling hangs a rudimentary oil lamp—then, silence and in the middle of a blue cloud a little silhouette rises along with an enormous one, broad and tall.

“Enter,” says my guide.

He introduces me.

“Your two comrades: Vassili Borrissenko”—(the musician: emaciated;
Chinese mustache with cat's skin), then a finger extended towards the tall shadow—“Ivan Ivanovitch Kossiakoff.”

 

Wristwatch, three o'clock in the morning: I arrived at the fort at eleven o'clock. Ten times the thin man began the same refrain again and again on his accordion. His head hanging, he sings: “Vagonitika, soldati, garanochispiat.” Is he going to let me sleep?

“There is your bed,” says the man-woman.

He should have warned Vassili that I do not sleep to music.

“The rafters, Vaseline, have had enough.”

He looks at me, and he continues. Vassili, he is not pretty.

I doze. Music. The flash of a dream: the cat's mustache. I walk in an immense accordion. A green light: Vassili's eye. Pain on my right side: the iron of the bed. I turn over. Music. A drop of sleep. A blade of dream: “It is again the funny face who will have the best trigger.” The sentinel must have stolen my razor. Bawling of the accordion: Vagonitika…

Ah! The dreadful night.

Then peace—it is a very soft morning in the trenches. The almond trees are blossoming and my feet are caught in a root of couch grass. I pull. It resists. I pull. The sky blackens. I pull. My head hums…

The casemate, the candle end, but no more music. Vassili is asleep and the colossus pulls my leg to wake me.

“Ay yah! What is it?”

Wristwatch. It is seven o'clock in the morning. Already.

Kossiakoff indicates my signal lantern then the door and he speaks.

“I do not understand, old chap. Yes, the connection. I am going.”

I get up.

Kossiakoff seems to be a good guy. They carved his features like scythe stokes on an old elm tree. But he has a wide smile which illuminates his entire face. He speaks, he speaks.

(How do you say I do not understand in Russian? The man-woman told me last night; let's try.)

“
Ne po ni maïo?
”

That's it. The wash of words stops, and Kossiakoff is astonished.

“Yes old chap, there is nothing to be done.”

He makes a gesture to indicate that he does not understand either, then a great silent laugh: “It means nothing.” We leave.

The signal post is a little narrow hut with squared portholes. Kossiakoff sits down. The skylight which he lets me occupy frames a piece of dirty fog; in the back, barely sketched, the phantoms of trees, the canal. I do not know where to hang my lantern. With his finger Kossiakoff indicates a tree branch stuck in the ground before me.

“The marking.”

By chance I send a long ray of light in that direction… Miracle. They respond. A little red glow under the trees. A silent dialogue begins:

“Artillery?”

“Yes. Connection at seven o'clock in the morning; in the evening, ordinary code.”

“Understood… Nothing to signal.”

“Understood… End of the transmission.”

And look. It works. I am very proud. Kossiakoff laughs.