XII

 

 

So the next to last Sunday came (because the last one didn’t count).

That day Bolomey had been fishing all morning, even if it was illegal to fish on Sundays, but the fish warden was a friend of his. In the afternoon, he put on his big plastic boots that go all the way up to mid-thigh; he put on his khaki vest with its metal buttons in the shape of boars’ heads. He went up the Bourdonnette. He went as far as the train viaduct with its great stone arches that traverse the entire width of the valley, and the river passes between two of the pillars. Bolomey stopped beneath the viaduct. He leans against the stone. He looks up, straight out toward the stone, a flat line like he’d held out a yardstick, his glance rises up, tracing the blue stones stacked one atop the other in their cement frame; then straight up against the construction which goes a little backward and behind up the hill, so straight that finally one’s glance shifts just to be in the air; and Bolomey was looking at the empty sky, because there wasn’t even the slightest cloud. And just then a train passed, but we couldn’t see it, neither could Bolomey; the train only made its noise, an unsituated noise, an elsewhere kind of noise that is everywhere and nowhere, that filled the sky without us being able to say from where it came, nor where it’s going: like the start of a storm, like an approaching hailstorm: then suddenly the noise stopped… It was Décosterd who had promised. Décosterd would take care of Rouge. While the rest of us would take care of her… Bolomey stopped staring at the pillar, because he’d only studied it to work out its height: maybe thirty meters. He didn’t even have his fishing rod; he’s here instead to see what’s happening, because they told me, “Keep a watch near the quarry and along the Bourdonnette.” Okay. He wet his boots in the deep water. He walks down with the current. We could hear that it was a Sunday. The train’s little storm had quieted for a moment already; Bolomey was walking back down the river beneath the pine tree forest. And we could hear yelling up above; there are voices shouting up above, or singing; a Sunday with Sunday strollers, while there are those out hunting mushrooms in their secret spots, looking for bolets (which is what we call them) or chanterelles.

He arrived below his house. There we see him walk back up the hill. He went inside his house. He takes the key to the front door from his pocket, he opens the door.

Sunday, a beautiful August Sunday, the second Sunday of August; the goings-on of Sunday were going along their peaceful way, with a bit of the world and something unexpected from time to time. And so, up there, the voices continued, women’s voices, children’s voices, men’s voices, all in a great peacefulness; nevertheless, Bolomey goes into his house and when he came back out, we see that his rifle is on his shoulder. We’re in with the game warden, and we can go out with our rifle four or five weeks before the season opens without having any trouble; anyway, we’ll tell him what it’s all about. We’ll tell him: “You, you’ve got your revolver… it’s still this Savoyard. Go take a look, if you want, near the quarry; me, I’ll go toward Rouge’s house…” Bolomey, his rifle on his shoulder, climbs up the moss and the black earth. He heads over toward the cliff beneath the pine trees. He climbs the hill, having avoided the most commonly-used areas; he arrives beneath the pine trees to the outcroppings from where we see Rouge’s house and its tri-colored roof. Just there, the water comes to meet you in its reflections along the length of the tree trunks and its white fires above you in the branches, like the glint of a raised pickaxe, the glint of the downward thrust, the glint going up, the glint going down. We would like to see a little what’s happening near Rouge’s house and there is no better place than here, as little Maurice knew very well, when he came to this exact spot and lay down in the bushes. Bolomey comes here as well; the light off the water hits him square in the face. The light hits you, walking across you like opening and closing a window in the sun. Bolomey puts his hand across his eyes; he watches between his fingers, at the same time he slips into the thorny bushes and into the ones that make little purple husk-shaped seeds that dry-out quickly; he can now take his hand off his eyes, and we see the house come into view (it’s more of a shed) with its tri-colored roof and set right into the worn stones, and there is still no one before the door. Further along the shoreline, two older girls are holding hands with a small child who is learning to walk:—but all the same we see that there is an entire preparation happening on this next-to-last Sunday (because the last one will not count) out on the water. On the water, in the air, across the entire sky, and also over there opposite you, from the peak to the base of the mountain; it’s shining, it’s clean, all is remade new: all these rocks, these pastures, these forests, these grasslands, these fields, seen like beneath a glass. The water, even the water has been polished; the water, even more care was put into the water for this next-to-last Sunday, so much so that the other shore can be seen twice, the entire mountain exists on two planes; and we steer around the upturned peak of the Dent d’Oche, in the boat we are suspended halfway up the upturned rocks of the Meillerie; we are in a boat and at the same time in a mountain gondola, one of those buckets that slide along a cable above a gorge. Bolomey understands: everything has been made beautiful one last time for her, and it’s to tell her goodbye. All the villages are shown in double; it’s for her. And we see in double the red or brown spots made by the villages and the straw-colored squares where the harvest has just finished. Bolomey has understood; so he looks around a little again at what’s happening, but nothing worrying is going on, which is why he hides his rifle beneath a ridge of sandstone to keep it dry until he comes back for it; after which, he went back down the hill. He entered the path between the reeds.

It was this next-to-last Sunday; neither Rouge nor Décosterd nor the girl had been fishing any of the preceding days. For all this time, the same net had been left out to dry between the drying poles, and it was all sun bleached, all “cindered” as Décosterd called it. It had become white as ash, even if when these same nets are used they are blue like the sky, light green like young grass, they are golden like honey.

The nets were no longer being used and hadn’t been used for quite some time, something which Bolomey quickly noticed. It was just as he arrived in front of Rouge’s house. Rouge was sitting on the bench and Juliette was talking to him. Décosterd, he was cleaning up the dishes in the kitchen. Bolomey sees that Juliette was talking to Rouge, and Rouge didn’t look happy; he was nodding his head, he was saying, “But is it safe, Juliette?”

Just then he sees that Bolomey is there; so he turned toward him, he starts, “What do you think, Bolomey? She’d like to take a little tour with the boat…”

“Why not?” said Bolomey.

“You know exactly what’s going on.”

“Nothing at all is going on,” said Bolomey, “no need to worry, I came here from my rounds.”

But Rouge continues to nod his head. He wasn’t wearing his nice suit. He was wearing old leather slippers without a heel; on his feet were pink cotton socks. He shakes his head. He puts his elbows on his knees.

And nevertheless, over there, everything kept on calling to you; two villages instead of one were calling you and it’s the same village. Two mountain peaks and no longer one, two walls of rock shining like sheets of white iron, because she is not yet there. The wind had completely fallen; the heat was growing stronger and stronger on the sand, on the soft stones, and on the bench even if it was made of wood: on the water which was beginning to steam with white. We were hearing singing from up on the cliff where the families must have been settled in front of the beautiful view, and now everyone’s curiosity was brought to the other side of the shore, while out in the middle of the lake, and coming toward you, there was a great black boat beneath two high crossed sails. And the girl, in the end, she couldn’t ignore it, even when Rouge kept saying “no” from the bench; we saw her stand up. Bolomey kept himself seated next to Rouge on the bench. Rouge was no longer talking. His arms crossed over his knees, he puffed on his extinguished pipe.

It’s this next-to-last Sunday; the weather had never been so fine. Over there, we see them running on the boat, bringing the base of the sails back in; the one at the rudder pushes against the bar with all the strength in his back. They were leaning the whole time to the side, going sometimes from east to west, sometimes west to east, parallel to the shoreline so they could study it and examine it carefully each time. It was after they had played cards and before they’d started playing cards again; but now they were seated along the edge of the boat. The great black shell twisted below them like a snake cut in half, a snake that was thicker than a thigh, and the sails were like puddles of white starch. Facing the shore, they could see the whole beautiful scene; it was offered up to them from its start to its finish, with each stage. They saw quickly that it grew more lively very fast.

Big Alexis had gone to get his horse from the stable after removing his vest and his collar; Maurice was positioned again on the cliff. We see big Alexis come down the path that followed the Bourdonette, seated on his great red horse, his dragon horse riddled with nerves and veins beneath the skin, and whose well-brushed coat shines like a roof washed with rain. All the beautiful things of the earth are there, and, the men, they were all there too: Bolomey, Maurice whom we cannot see, Alexis on his big horse, Chauvy with his little cane, all while the mountain gave its salute. And now Alexis, keeping his horse with one hand, removes his shoes in the reeds, meaning that he’d passed his right arm through the bridle and calmed his horse with his voice. The preacher’s harmonium had finished two or three canticles this morning, up toward the high vault of the trees, in front of God’s handiwork;—here, he gets barefoot while the animal shows the brand at his throat made by the military authorities. All the frogs jumped into the water. Madeleine, Marie and Hortense had gone into the forest to see where they might find the most beautiful moss when it comes time to make their garlands, and it won’t be long now. Now Alexis hides his shoes in the reeds, then removes his white shirt, and the hair on his forehead was curly and the hair on his chest was curly. “Hold on! Hold on! Artagnan, a little patience… what are you doing? Softly now…” The animal with its great milky blue eyes abruptly reared back, goes forward, turns its twitching rump sideways and the skin riddles like water beaten with wind: “Steady! Steady! Softly now, Artagnan…”

From where they were seated on the hot sand, they could see the entire boat. And when she appeared, they saw her, too; they were the first to see her when she showed herself in the reeds. Everything was waiting for her and finally there she was; she comes, she comes forth a last time; and at first she pushes her boat out toward the middle of the lake. Everything was waiting for her, she goes forward. Rouge had not raised his head, having only slid his glance toward her from beneath his big eyebrows; at the most he made a movement with his hands and we saw an aluminum ring slip onto his little finger. But she was still going forward, going forward with a great rhythmic movement of her entire body on the rippled water; then she drops the oars…

Rouge was the only one who wasn’t watching, because now everything watches her. Up the lake, big Alexis had climbed back atop his horse: the hooves hit the sand, hit the mud, hit the water; with great thrusts of his heels, he pushes his horse forward to see better (or is it to be better seen?) We are watching from up on the cliff, we are watching from the boat, we are watching from the shoreline, we are watching from our seat on the bench. And, the girl, the girl stood up slowly, she has turned toward us, she has waved to us. Bolomey answered her. Rouge didn’t answer her. Rouge has not moved and his head is still hung forward. She turned toward us, then she turned again toward the mountain, while we see her raise her arms; we see her arms move up against the lovely blue hillside, up until they have touched the rocks. And a great lovely movement raced up her body, like a wave rising up and pushing against another wave; along her legs, along her sides, over her back, atop her shoulders;—after which everything vanished, everything disappeared, everything was extinguished.

The great black kite, who, in search of food, has left his high-altitude journey on the plateau has had enough time to descend in a series of circles. He touched the water with the tip of his wing, trying to take a dead fish from the surface of the water with his claw; he rose up in a diagonal line; his claw is empty: he missed his fish. Everything is empty; this is when she was no longer there. This is while they were steering toward us again in their great black boat with an eye forward, while Alexis pressed into his horse with his naked heels trying to make it go into the deep water; everything was empty, everything was extinguished; and then everything is set alight again.

She reappeared; she was coming out of the water. Everything is set alight and comes alive, while the animal farther up the shore recoils and while the water, in a great upheaval, breaks into a million pieces around her.

The sun lights up his curly-haired chest as it heaves, rising up then falling back, and along his sides are two shadows…

She reappeared, she rises up little by little, she was born again before us. Slowly, once again, she raised her body, she gave it form and substance in the air: it was like her body gave meaning to everything. It seems that everything was suddenly crowned, and that this crowning gave an explanation for everything, and suddenly everything expresses itself, then, having been expressed, everything will quiet again; everything will quiet again, alas! Forever. The girl, she laughed again in our direction—then, in fact, because nothing lasts on the earth, because nowhere does beauty have its place for very long…

It was the men on the boat. They had their dinghy they used to go to the shore when they had thrown anchor in the deep. One of them had started to run toward the back of the boat. He brought the dinghy to him using the rope by which it was attached like a pony to its mother. He jumps in the dinghy; the others are already laughing.

And everything is ruined further still or in another way, because then we saw Rouge, who had not yet moved, stand up abruptly.

He goes into his house, he came out quickly; something was shining in his hands. Then: bang!... bang!...

The two shots had followed each other so quickly that the air hadn’t had enough time to settle between the first and the second; a first upheaval in the air that heaves again in the middle of its upheaval; then, three times each, the two shots smacked against the cliff, against the forest, into the ravine and resounded against one another.

 

Later in the evening, we saw two policemen go by in their full uniforms.

There was no longer anyone on the shoreline. Rouge’s house was shuttered.

The noises from the villages were further on. Even the waves were keeping quiet here, all the water and all the air. It was after Juliette had rowed quickly back to shore, while Rouge’s shotgun was still smoking between the two barrels; the young man in his dinghy had stopped rowing. The girl, she had jumped onto the shore; Décosterd had just enough time to pull the boat toward him before it was pulled back out toward the middle of the lake.

He’d rowed it back to its buoy without a word; when he got back to the house, Bolomey was gone.

And he would have liked to stay, but Rouge said, “Oh, we’ll be fine on our own; I know what I’ve got to do now. You see, it isn’t difficult… if anyone comes back to bother me…”

He shows Décosterd the shotgun.

Then he looked at Décosterd sideways, in a way he’d never done before. “We don’t need you, go on… you understand?”

He repeated, “You understand?” looking at Décosterd sideways, with anger and impatience; so Décosterd had thought it best not to cross him that night, because he could always keep an eye on things from afar…

For now everything is deeply silent. Even the waves keep quiet here and all the water is silent and the air, while the sky is all yellow, then it became all pink. Rouge had coughed a little in the kitchen, the policemen were long gone. The water was yellow, then the water was green and pink, then only pink; he coughs once, he placed his hand in front of his mouth. He looks at his worn old leather slippers, his ribbed cotton socks. He goes to knock on Juliette’s door. No answer. “Oh, well,” he said, “it’s like that.” He lights the oil lamp that he’d set on the pinewood table covered with an oil cloth depicting the Battle of Bourget (and everywhere there is war, but we won’t let ourselves be pushed around).

What an ungrateful girl.

He’d hung up the shotgun on a nail in his room; he goes to get it, grabs it by both barrels, and comes back with the gun, settling it before him beneath the lamp. The Battle of Bourget, battle everywhere. With the little pot of oil, the stick, the cloths to put around the stick, and it’s true isn’t it? Haven’t we done everything we could for her?

The Bavarians had raupen helmets, the naval riflemen had berets with pompoms. It was the naval riflemen who were attacking, commanded by an officer wearing an admiral’s uniform with insignia. Rouge grabbed his gun again, set it down across his knees; the cross at the top of the cloth shows the officer raising his sword, while the Bavarians are leaving by the postern, on top of which were dogs, because this was an old shotgun with a hammer in the shape of a dog’s head.  Higher up, in the glacis, the explosion of a mortar made a white circle which was surrounded with a crown of smoke. Rouge, putting his weapon across his knees… and its true, because she has everything or she could have everything; his weapon across his knees on the cloth of his trousers: a room for her, furniture for her, linens for her, a boat for her, a part of the house for her, the entire house if she wanted it… we refused her nothing, we would refuse her nothing. It’s true, or isn’t it? He looks in front of him, but, over to the right the events are interrupted by the light from the lamp hanging from its brass chain, the print erased and the plaster fallen in this spot… So? So, it’s like we’ve done nothing… We hadn’t used this table cloth in a long time; Décosterd found it folded up at the bottom of the cupboard, and he’d said, “It’s still good…” which meant that the officer was now raising his arm again and the raupen helmet of the Bavarian who was being bayoneted in his stomach had started to fall again. He’d been falling all this time since the battle, meaning from the battle of 1870, this war before the big war, but just below his helmet there was a hole… Just when everything was coming together so nicely… All she had to do was want it too, when all seemed to have been arranged just for her and she wouldn’t have been more at home anywhere else (exactly because we needed women, we’ve always needed more women…) the repairs, the construction, making everything new, the painting… He had pushed the stick into the barrel, having placed his weapon upright between his legs, having rolled the cloths around the stick, having covered them first with oil.

It’s for the others if they want to come, but they saw how we’ll welcome them… For the others, just in case they’re tempted to come back, those who come on their feet in groups of two, and me, I’m just one and I’m alone, but we’ll count for two at least… this battle at Bourget was bothering him. The Bavarian’s helmet just wouldn’t fall. He pumped the stick up and down while seated astride the bench; into one barrel and then the other, then he says, to sum it all up “Anyway, I’m sixty-two-years old. I could be her grandfather. And yet here, we have our freedom. And anyway she would have been made for this life, since she already knows how to fish or mostly… Oh, if only she wanted…” He listens, turned to the side, and listens with all the power of his ear toward the door that has still not opened, that isn’t even ajar, behind which still nothing happens; so his anger moved from his head into his shoulder, coursing along his arms which were still pumping up and down, because after all it isn’t his fault; and the Bourget still hasn’t been taken, but it’s because of… and well, they’ll get what’s coming to them! The barrels, then the hammer, and everything must be carefully cleaned and polished, then two shotgun shells, then we make a hole in the shutters or we’ll stand behind the planks in the shed; we’ve still got about ten days to ourselves and then we’ll see them coming; and then… his hands fall. He lets the end of the stick drop to the floor. We hear nothing from where we’re listening into; it’s like we’re beyond this world. He sets the gun on the table. He’s going to see if the front door to the house is closed. He came back, he sat back down. He struggles to sort all these things in his mind. Today, Milliquet, the judge, the clerk, the bailiff, the policemen, an inquiry, then a verdict; and they are the world, they are outside; us, here, we’re beyond the world. It will be a week, a week and three or four days. So he thought some more, he struggles to think between his eyebrows drawn together with the effort of his thinking; and then she hears him calling her name, in the evening of this next-to-last Sunday (the last did not count); she had thrown herself fully dressed across her bed, she hadn’t lit her lamp; and he, picking up his weapon, goes to hang it on its nail.

She hears him say, “You sleeping, Juliette?”

“No.”

“Oh, good. Because I’ve got to speak to you.” He says, “I’ve a proposition… maybe you’ll agree.”

He had gone to the door and held his hand toward the doorknob, but he brings it back to him abruptly, and he even takes a step backward.

He sees the table then; he sees the lovely quiet of the light of the table lamp beneath its white porcelain shade with its brass ring; he walks a bit further, he pulls the bench toward him; and she hears him speaking:

“Because we’re going to have to decide…”

She had brought the covers up over her body. The stars shone through the curtains, making it possible to see in the room or at least to see what was white, a strip of wall, the bed, the furniture. The girl, we couldn’t have seen her right away. The girl, she existed only in the background because she still wasn’t moving; only her voice marked her presence, while this other voice came through the door. The girl, she had said, “No,” and outside, he had said, “Well, good…”

Then he says, “Because we’re going to have to decide… do you want to go back to Milliquet’s?”

“Ah, so you don’t?”

“Only, if you don’t go back to his house… the state is going to take care of you… they’ll send you somewhere. They’ll send policemen to get you… you didn’t see the ones who came earlier.” She hadn’t seen them. “So, you didn’t see them, well, I certainly saw them…”

He starts again, “Does that mean anything to you?”

And then he said, “Juliette, come here please.”

Overcome with a need to stand up, he holds himself with both hands on the table—to keep himself from getting up:

“I would like to speak with you seriously, it’s the last chance, you know… I’ve a proposition. Juliette, Juliette, if only you wanted… we’ve got money… Juliette!”

He listens and nothing comes, nothing moves.

“Juliette, are you there?”

“Yes…”

He gets up again, he goes toward the door. Suddenly, he stops, his hands hang from his body, he raised a hand, his hand falls again; he puts it into his pocket, he puts the other hand into his other pocket.

And he stood there for another instant, then begins to turn in a circle.

He says, “Money and a boat, that’s enough.”

She answers yes, then no, then yes; then no; that’s all. He told her to come, she didn’t come; but we’ve got money, Juliette, we’ve got the boat… the boat named after you…

“Listen, next Sunday there’ll be the Fleur-de-Lys party. And they’ll leave us alone until then… the verdict won’t come in until three days after that, at the earliest. And, next Sunday, everyone will be at the party. We’ll just have to wait until nighttime; no one will see us leave. Décosterd will even be at the party, and surely the hunchback, too.”

He was turning in a circle, he was turning around the table; he stopped, then started again:

“So you pack up your things and we’ll take your boat, Juliette. We’ll get out of here, no one will notice a thing, no one will know where we are… we’ll cross the water… we’ll cross the water and over there it’s another country and they can’t do anything to us… we’ll stay there until… until you’re of age, yes, and it’s only a few months anyway. So you decide. Because I’ll adopt you. If you’d like… you’ll be my daughter, anyway I had no child, I had no wife, nor a child… And over there, in the Savoy, we could always continue working while we wait; I’ll write a word to Décosterd so he’ll take care of the house. It’s only three hours crossing. So are we understood or what?”

Because she was no longer saying a thing, but he must have thought she had no need to say anything else; he continued:

“Nothing easier than that. So, okay, you pack up your things. We’ll cross the water, it will be better… here, I would have done something terrible…”

He was standing, his hands in his pockets:

“Yes, I would have done something terrible and we’re not the strongest… but don’t say anything to anyone… now you should sleep.”

Then he said one more thing:

“Good night.”