The First Man Page 18

  a. say which? and develop? 1. An illegible word.

  day was over, the children felt their separateness at the very door to the lycée, or only a bit farther, at the place du Gouvernement, when, leaving the merry group of their schoolmates, they headed toward the red trolleys that went to the poorest neighborhoods. And it was just their separateness they felt, not inferiority. They were from somewhere else, that was all.

  During the school day, on the other hand, there was no such difference. Their smocks might be more or less elegant, they all looked alike. The only rivalries were those of intelligence in class and physical agility in sports. In these two sorts of competitions, the two children were far from being the last. The solid instruction they had received in the neighborhood school had given them an advantage that, from the first year, put them in the top group of the class. Their sure spelling, their reliable arithmetic, their trained memory, and most of all the respect[ ]1 inculcated in them for all kinds of knowledge were major assets, at least at the beginning of their studies. If Jacques had not been so rambunctious, which repeatedly kept him off the honor roll, and if Pierre had taken more to Latin, their success would have been complete. At any rate, they were encouraged by their teachers and they were respected. As for sports, it was above all soccer, and from the first recesses Jacques found what would be his love for so many years. Their matches were played during the recess after lunch at the dining hall and the one-hour recess that, for boarders

  1. An illegible word.

  and half-boarders and day students in detention, came before the last class at four o'clock. An hour recess at that time gave the children the opportunity to eat their snack and relax before the two-hour study hall, when they could do their homework for the following day.a For Jacques a snack was out of the question. Obsessed with soccer, he would dash out to the cement courtyard, which was surrounded on its four sides by arcades supported by thick pillars (under which the studious and well-behaved boys strolled and chatted), with four or five green benches at its sides, and big ficus trees protected by an iron railing. Two teams took their sides of the yard, the goalies assumed their positions between the pillars at each end, and a big foam-rubber ball was placed at the center. No referee, and at the first kick the shouting and sprinting began. It was on this field that Jacques, who already could meet the best students in the class on equal terms, made himself respected and liked also by the worst, some of whom fate had endowed, for want of a strong mind, with sturdy legs and inexhaustible lungs. This was where for the first time he parted company with Pierre, who did not play, though he was naturally well coordinated; he had become more frail, growing faster than Jacques, and becoming more blond, as if being transplanted had not worked as well with him.b Jacques's growth was delayed, which earned him the delightful nicknames "shrimp" and "short-ass," but

  a. the yard less crowded because the day students were gone.

  b. to develop.

  he paid no attention, and running madly, dribbling the ball between his feet, dodging first a tree and then an opponent, he felt himself king of the field and king of the world. When the drum sounded the end of recess and the beginning of study hall, he really fell from the sky, stopped short on the cement, panting and sweating, furious that the hours were so short; then bit by bit he returned to the present, hurried to line up with the others, mopped the sweat off his face with both his sleeves—and suddenly took fright at the thought of the wear on the studs in the soles of his shoes, which he anxiously examined at the beginning of study hall, trying to evaluate the difference in their shininess from the previous day, and was reassured by the very difficulty he had in discerning how worn they were. Except when some irreparable damage—a detached sole, or torn upper, or twisted heel—left no doubt as to how he would be received when he went home, and then he would swallow his saliva, his stomach queasy, during the two hours of the study hall, trying to redeem his sin by devoting himself more strenuously to his work, from which however, and despite his best efforts, he was inevitably distracted by the fear of being beaten. This last study hall was also the one that seemed the longest. To begin with, it lasted two hours. And besides it took place at night or when night was falling. The high windows looked out on the Marengo gardens. The students around Jacques and Pierre, sitting side by side, were quieter than usual, tired from work and play, absorbed in their last assignments. Especially at the end of the year, night would fall on the big trees, the flower beds,

  and the clusters of banana trees in the park. The sky became greener and greener; it seemed to swell as the sounds of the city grew fainter and more distant. When it was very hot and one of the windows was half open, they heard the cries of the last swallows over the little garden, and the scent of seringas and of the big magnolias came in to drown the more acid and bitter smells of ink and ruler. Jacques would daydream, his heart strangely heavy, until he was called to order by the young monitor, who was himself doing his assignments for the University. They had to wait for the last drum.

  aAt seven o'clock came the rush out of the lycée; they ran in noisy groups the length of the rue Bab-Azoun, where all the stores were lit up and the sidewalk under the arcades was so crowded that sometimes they had to run in the street itself, between the rails, until a trolley came in sight and they had to dash back under the arcades; then at last the place du Gouverne-ment opened up before them, its periphery illuminated by the stalls and stands of the Arab peddlers lit by acetylene lamps giving off a smell the children inhaled with delight. The red trolleys were waiting, already jammed—whereas in the morning there were fewer passengers—and sometimes they had to stand on the running board of a trailer car, which was both forbidden and tolerated, until some passengers got off at a stop, and then the two boys would press into the human mass, separated, unable in any case to talk to each other, and

  a. the homosexual's assault.

  could only work their way slowly with elbows and bodies to get to one of the railings where they could see the dark port with its big steamers outlined by lights that seemed, in the night of the sea and the sky, like skeletons of burned-out buildings where the fire had left its embers. The big brightly lit trolleys rode with a great racket over the water, then forged a bit inland and passed between poorer and poorer houses to the Bel-court district, where the children had to part company and Jacques climbed the never lighted stairs toward the circle of the kerosene lamp that lit the oilcloth table cover and the chairs around the table, leaving in the shadow the rest of the room, where Catherine Cormery was occupied at the buffet preparing to set the table, while his grandmother was in the kitchen reheating the stew from lunch and his older brother was at the corner of the table reading an adventure novel. Sometimes he had to go to the Mzabite grocer for the salt or quarter-pound of butter needed at the last minute, or go get Uncle Ernest, who was holding forth at Gaby's cafe. Dinner was at eight, in silence unless Uncle Ernest recounted an incomprehensible adventure that sent him into gales of laughter, but in any event there was no mention of the lycée, except if his grandmother would ask if he had gotten good grades, and he said yes and no one said any more about it, and his mother asked him nothing, shaking her head and gazing at him with her gentle eyes when he confessed to good grades, but always silent and a bit distracted; "Sit still," she would say to her mother, "I'll get the cheese," then nothing till the meal was over, when she stood up to clear the table.

  "Help your mother," his grandmother would say, because he had picked up Pardaillan and was avidly reading it. He helped out and came back to the lamp, putting the big volume that told of duels and courage on the slick bare surface of the oilcloth, while his mother, pulling a chair away from the lamplight, would seat herself by the window in winter, or in summer on the balcony, and watch the traffic of trolleys, cars, and passersby as it gradually diminished.a It was, again, his grandmother who told Jacques he had to go to bed because he would get up at five-thirty the next morning, and he kissed her first, then his uncle, and last his mother,
who gave him a tender, absentminded kiss, then assumed once more her motionless position, in the shadowy half-light, her gaze lost in the street and the current of life that flowed endlessly below the riverbank where she sat, endlessly, while her son, endlessly, watched her in the shadows with a lump in his throat, staring at her thin bent back, filled with an obscure anxiety in the presence of adversity he could not understand.

  a. Lucien—14 EPS—16 Insurance.

  The Chicken Coop and Cutting the Hen's Throat

  That dread of death and the unknown, which he always felt when coming home from the lycée, was already taking hold of him at the end of the day, as fast as the darkness that rapidly devoured the light and the earth, and would not cease until his grandmother lit the suspension lamp, setting the glass chimney down on the oilcloth, her [stance] up a bit on the balls of her feet, her thighs pressed against the edge of the table, her body leaning forward, her head twisted so she could better see the burner of the lamp under the shade, one hand holding the copper key that regulated the wick under the lamp, the other scraping the wick with a lit match until it stopped smoldering and gave a beautiful clear light; and then the grandmother would replace the chimney, which would squeak a little against the chiseled tabs of the copper gallery into which she pressed it, and, again standing erect at the table, one arm raised, she adjusted the wick until the hot yellow light was cast evenly on the table in a large and perfect circle, and, as if reflected by the oilcloth, it lit with a gentler glow the faces of the

  woman and the child who was watching the ritual from the other side of the table—and his heart gradually grew easy as the light grew brighter.

  It was the same dread he tried sometimes to overcome out of pride or vanity when his grandmother would on certain occasions order him to go get a hen from the yard. It was always in the evening, before a major holiday—Easter or Christmas—or else before a visit from better-off relatives whom they wished as much to honor as to deceive, for the sake of propriety, about the family's actual circumstances. In one of his first years at the lycée, the grandmother had asked Uncle Josephin to bring her some Arab hens from his Sunday trading expeditions, and had drafted Uncle Ernest to build her a crude chicken coop on the sticky damp earth at the far end of the yard, where she kept five or six fowls that gave her their eggs and at times their lives. The family was at dinner the first time the grandmother decided to conduct an execution, and she asked the older of the boys to go get her the victim. But Louis1 said he couldn't; he said point-blank that he was afraid. The grandmother sneered, and railed against these children of the rich, not like those in her time— out in the depths of the bush, they were afraid of nothing. "Jacques is braver than that, I'm sure of it. Go ahead, you." To tell the truth, Jacques did not feel at all braver. But once it had been said, he could not back down, and so he went to it on that first evening. He had

  1. Jacques's brother is sometimes called Henri, sometimes Louis.

  to feel his way in the dark down the stairs, turn left in the hall that was always dark, and find the door to the yard and open it. The night outside was less dark than the hall. You could make out the four slippery greenish steps down to the yard. To the right, a weak light trickled through the blinds of the small building occupied by the barber and the Arab family. Across the yard he could see the whitisha splotches of the animals asleep on the ground or on their manure-splattered perches. Once he had reached the coop, as soon as he touched the unsteady coop, squatting with his fingers above his head in the big mesh of the cage, a soft cackling began to rise with the warm nauseating smell of the droppings. He opened the little lattice door at ground level, bent over to reach his hand and arm in, was disgusted at the touch of the earth or of a dirty stick, and hastily withdrew his hand, gripped with fear as the coop exploded in a turmoil of wings and feet, the birds fluttering and running all over the place. Yet he had to make up his mind to it, since he had been designated as the more courageous one. But he was horrified by this commotion among the animals in the dark, in this dim and filthy place—it turned his stomach. He waited, gazing up at the immaculate night above him, the :y full of calm clean stars; then he threw himself forward, grabbed the first claw within reach, dragged the crying terrified animal to the little door, took hold of the second foot with his other hand and roughly yanked the hen out of the coop, al-

  a. distorted.

  ready tearing off some of its feathers against the door-jamb, while the whole coop burst into piercing panic-stricken cackling, and the old Arab, vigilant, appeared framed in a sudden rectangle of light. "It's me, M. Tahar," the child said in a toneless voice. "I'm getting a hen for my grandmother."

  "Oh, it's you. All right, I thought it was robbers," and he went back inside, leaving the yard dark again. Now Jacques ran, while the hen struggled desperately and he bumped it against the wall of the hallway or the rungs of the stairs, sick with fear and disgust at the feel of its cold, thick, scaly claws in his hand, ran still faster on the landing and in the hall of the building, and victoriously entered the dining room. The victor stood framed in the doorway, hair mussed, knees green from the moss in the yard, holding the hen as far as possible from his body, his face white with fear. "You see," the grandmother said to the older boy. "He's younger than you are, but he puts you to shame." Jacques waited to preen with justified pride until the grandmother had taken a firm grip on the feet of the hen, which suddenly grew quiet as if understanding that from now on it was in the hands of the inexorable. His brother ate his dessert without looking at him, except to make a scornful face that made Jacques even more satisfied with himself. However, that satisfaction was brief. Glad to have found she had a manly grandson, his grandmother invited him to the kitchen to take part in cutting the hen's throat. She was already wearing a big blue apron and, still holding the hen's feet in one hand, she put a deep

  earthenware dish on the floor, with the long kitchen knife that Uncle Ernest sharpened periodically on a long black stone, so that the blade, worn till it was very thin and narrow, was no more than a shining edge. "You go over there." Jacques went to the designated place, across the kitchen, while the grandmother placed herself in the doorway, blocking the exit to the hen as well as to the child. His back to the sink, his [left] shoulder against the wall, he watched in horror the sure movements of the sacrificer. The grandmother pushed the plate just into the light shed by the little kerosene lamp set on a wooden table, to the left of the doorway. She laid the animal on the floor, and, putting her knee to the ground, trapped the hen's feet, pressed it flat with her hands to keep it from struggling, then seized the head with her left hand and pulled it back over the plate. With the razor-sharp knife she slowly cut its throat at the place where a man has his Adam's apple, opening the wound by twisting the head while the knife cut with a dreadful sound more deeply into the cartilage, holding still the animal that was shaking all over with terrible twitches while the blood ran bright red into the white dish; and Jacques watched, his legs trembling, as if it were his own blood he felt draining away. "Take the dish," the grandmother said after an interminable time. The animal was no longer bleeding. Jacques carefully placed the dish on the table, with the blood already turning dark. The grandmother tossed the hen down next to the dish; its plumage was already dim, and the round creased lid was closing over its glassy eye. Jacques

  stared at the motionless body, the toes of its feet drawn together and hanging limp, the crest faded and flaccid— death, in short—then he went out to the dining room.a

  "Me, I can't watch that," his brother said with suppressed anger that first night. "It's disgusting."

  "No, it's not," Jacques said uncertainly. Louis was looking at him with an expression that was both hostile and inquisitorial. And Jacques straightened up. He subdued his fear, the panic that took hold of him in the face of night and that appalling death, and he found in pride, only in pride, a will to courage that finally served as courage itself. "You're scared, that's all," he said at last.

  "Ye
s," said the grandmother, coming back in the room. "It's Jacques who'll go to the chicken coop in the future."

  "Good, good," said Uncle Ernest, beaming, "he got courage."

  Jacques, rooted to the spot, looked at his mother, who was sitting a bit apart from the others, darning socks stretched over a wooden egg. His mother gazed at him. "Yes," she said, "that's good, you're brave." And she turned back to the street, and Jacques, seeing nothing but her, felt unhappiness swelling once more in his heavy heart.

  "Go to bed," said the grandmother. Jacques, without lighting the small kerosene lamp, undressed in the bedroom by the light from the dining room. He lay down on the side of the double bed, to avoid having to touch

  a. The next day, the smell of raw chicken on the fire.

  his brother, or disturb him. He went right to sleep, worn out with fatigue and emotion, awakened at times by his brother, who climbed over him to sleep by the wall because he got up later than Jacques, or by his mother, who sometimes bumped into the wardrobe while undressing in the dark, and who climbed softly into her bed and slept so lightly you could think she was lying awake, and Jacques did sometimes think so; he felt like calling her but he told himself she would not hear him anyway, then forced himself to stay awake as long as she did, just as quietly, motionless, and making no sound, until sleep overcame him as it had already overcome his mother after a hard day of laundry or housework.