The First Man Page 6

  Cormery's face was dead set. "Maybe. But they're wrong. A man doesn't do that."

  Levesque said that according to the other side, there were certain circumstances in which a man was supposed to do anything and [destroy everything].

  But Cormery had shouted as if crazed with anger: "No, a man doesn't let himself do that kind of thing! That's what makes a man, or otherwise . . ." Then he calmed down. "As for me," he said in a low voice, "I'm poor, I came from an orphanage, they put me in this uniform, they dragged me into the war, but I wouldn't let myself do that."

  "There are Frenchmen who do do it," [said] Levesque.

  a. Croak with it or without it, you're still dead, the sergeant said.

  "Then they too, they aren't men." And suddenly he cried out: "A filthy race! What a race! All of them, all of them . . ." And, white as a sheet, he went into his tent.

  When he thought about it, Jacques realized that the most he had learned about his father was from this old teacher, of whom he had now lost track. But it was no more, except in the details, than what he had been able to surmise from his mother's silences. A hard man and a bitter one, who had worked all his life, had killed on command, had submitted to everything that could not be avoided, but had preserved some part of himself where he allowed no one to trespass. A poor man, after all. For poverty is not a choice one makes, but a poor person can protect himself. And Jacques tried, with the little he knew from his mother, to picture the same man nine years later, married, father of two, who had achieved a somewhat better position in life and then was summoned back to Algiers to be mobilized,a the long journey by night with the patient wife and the unbearable children, the parting at the station and then, three days later, at the little apartment in Belcourt, his sudden appearance in the Zouave regiment's handsome red-and-blue uniform with its baggy pantaloons, sweating under the thick wool in the July* heat, a straw hat in his hand because he had neither tarboosh nor helmet, after he had sneaked out of the depot under the arches of the docks and run to kiss his wife and children

  a. 1814 newspapers in Algiers. [Sic—Ed.] * August.

  before shipping out that night for the France he had never seen,a on the sea that had never before carried him; and he embraced them, strongly and quickly, and he left at the same pace, and the woman on the little balcony waved to him and he responded on the run, turning to wave the straw hat, before once more racing down the street that was gray with dust and heat, and then he disappeared in front of the movie theatre, farther on, into the radiant light of the morning from which he would never return. Jacques would have to imagine the rest. Not through what could be told to him by his mother, who had no idea what history and geography might be, who knew only that she lived on land near the sea, that France was on the other side of that sea which she too had never traveled, France in any case being an obscure place lost in a dim night which one reached through a port named Marseilles, which she pictured like the port of Algiers, where there was a shining city they said was very beautiful and that was called Paris, where there was also a region named Alsace that her husband's family came from—it was a long time ago, they were fleeing enemies called Germans to settle in Algeria, and now that same region had to be taken back from those same enemies who were always evil and cruel, especially with the French, and for no reason at all. The French were always obliged to defend themselves against these quarrelsome, implacable men. It was there, along with Spain, which she could

  a. He had never seen France. He saw it and was killed.

  not locate but in any case it was not far away, from where her own family, natives of Mahon, had emigrated as long ago as her husband's family to come to Algeria, because they were dying of hunger in Mahon, and she did not even know that it was on an island, not knowing anyway what an island was, for she had never seen one. About other countries, she might sometimes be struck by the names without always being able to pronounce them correctly. And in any case she had never heard of Austria-Hungary nor of Serbia, Russia—like England—was a difficult name, she did not know what an archduke was, and she could never have articulated the four syllables of Sarajevo. The war was there, like an evil cloud thick with dark menace, but you could not keep it from invading the sky, no more than you could stop the locusts or the devastating storms that would swoop down on the high plains of Algeria. The Germans were forcing France into war once again, and we were going to suffer—there were no causes for it, she did not know the history of France, nor what history was. She knew a little of her own history, barely knew the history of those she loved, and those she loved had to suffer as she did. Into the night of the world she could not imagine, and the history she did not know, a still darker night had just come; mysterious orders had arrived, brought out into the bush by a sweating, weary constable, and they had to leave the farm where they were just getting ready to harvest the grapes—the parish priest was at the station in Bone for the draftees' departure: "We must pray," he said to

  her, and she had answered, "Yes, Monsieur Cure," but actually she had not heard him, for he had not spoken loudly enough, and besides the idea of praying would never have entered her mind, she never wanted to bother anyone—and now her husband was gone away in his handsome multicolored outfit; he would come back soon, that was what everyone was saying, the Germans would be punished, but in the meantime she had to find work. Luckily, a neighbor had told the grandmother that they needed women in the cartridge factory at the armory and that they would give preference to the wives of men in service, especially if they had family responsibilities, and she would have the good fortune to work ten hours a day arranging little cardboard tubes according to their thickness and color; she would be able to bring money home to the grandmother, the children would have enough to eat until the Germans were punished and Henri came home. Of course, she did not know there was a Russian front, nor what a front was, nor that the war could spread to the Balkans, to the Middle East, to the planet; everything was going on in France, where the Germans had entered without giving warning and were attacking children. Actually everything over there was happening with the troops from Africa, among them H. Cormery, transported as quickly as possible, led as they were to a mysterious region people were talking about, the Marne, and there was no time to find them helmets; the sun was not strong enough to erase colors as it did in Algeria, so that waves of Arab and French Algerians,

  dressed in smart shining colors, straw hats on their heads, red-and-blue targets you could see for hundreds of meters, went over the top in droves into the fire, were destroyed in droves, and began to fertilize a narrow stretch of land where for four years men who came from all over the world, crouching in muddy lairs, would struggle for each meter under a sky bristling with flares, with shells screaming while great artillery barrages proclaimed their futile assaults.a But for the moment there were no dugouts, only the African troops who melted away under fire like multicolored wax dolls, and each day hundreds of new orphans, Arab and French, awakened in every corner of Algeria, sons and daughters without fathers who would now have to learn to live without guidance and without heritage. A few weeks passed and then on a Sunday morning, on the small indoor landing of the only upper floor, between the stairs and the two unlit toilets— black holes dug Turkish-style through the masonry, constantly being cleaned with cresyl and always stinking—Lucie Cormery and her mother were sitting on two low chairs picking over lentils by the light of the window at the top of the stairs, and the baby in a small laundry basket was sucking a carrot covered with his drool, when a grave and well-dressed gentleman appeared on the stairs with a sort of envelope. The two surprised women put down the dishes they were sort-

  a. to develop

  ing lentils into, from a pot set between them, and were wiping off their hands when the gentleman, who had stopped on the next to last step, bade them not to disturb themselves, and asked for Mme. Cormery. "There she is," the grandmother said, "I'm her mother," and the gentleman said he was the district mayor, that he was bearing p
ainful news, that her husband had died on the field of honor, and that France mourned him and at the same time was proud of him. Lucie Cormery had not heard him, but got to her feet and very respectfully offered him her hand; the grandmother stiffened, hand over her mouth, and was saying "My God" in Spanish again and again. The gentleman held Lucie's hand in his, then squeezed it between both his hands, and murmured his words of condolence; then he handed her his envelope, turned, and descended the stairs at a heavy gait.

  "What did he say?" Lucie asked.

  "Henri is dead. He was killed."

  Lucie had stared at the envelope without opening it, neither she nor her mother could read; she turned it over, without a word, without a tear, unable to imagine this death, so far away in the depths of a mysterious night. And then she put the envelope in the pocket of her apron, passed by the baby without looking at him, went into the bedroom she shared with her two children, closed the door and the shutters of the window that looked out on the yard, and stretched out on her bed, where she remained for many hours silent and without tears, squeezing the envelope in her pocket

  and staring into the dark at the misfortune she did not understand.a

  "Maman," said Jacques.

  She was still gazing at the street, in her same manner, and she did not hear him. He touched her thin wrinkled arm, and she turned smiling to him.

  "Papa's cards, you know, the ones from the hospital."

  "Yes."

  "You received them after the mayor came?"

  "Yes."

  A shell fragment had split open his skull and he had been transported in one of those ambulance trains dripping blood, scattered with straw and bandages, that shuttled between the slaughterhouse and the evacuation hospitals at Saint-Brieuc. There he was able to scrawl two cards, by guesswork since he could no longer see: "I'm wounded. It's nothing. Your husband." Then after a few days he died. The nurse wrote: "It was better this way. He would have been left blind or insane. He was very brave." And then she received the shell fragment.

  A patrol of three armed parachutists was passing by in single file on the street, looking in all directions. One of them was black; he was tall and supple and he

  a. she thinks shells explode by their own volition.

  looked like a splendid animal in the spotted skin of his camouflage.

  "It's for the bandits," she said. "And I'm glad you went to his grave. As for me, I'm too old and besides it's far. Is it beautiful?"

  "What, the grave?"

  "Yes."

  "It's beautiful. There are flowers."

  "Yes. The French are good people."

  She said it and she believed it, but without giving any further thought to her husband, forgotten now, along with the misfortune of long ago. And nothing was left, neither in her nor in this house, of that man who was consumed in a cosmic fire and of whom there remained only a memory as imperceptible as the ashes of a butterfly wing incinerated in a forest fire.

  "The stew is going to burn, wait a minute."

  aShe had gotten up to go to the kitchen and he had taken her place, gazing down in his turn at the street, unchanged after so many years, with the same stores, their colors faded and flaked by the sun. Only the tobacconist across the street had put up long strips of multicolored plastic in place of the curtain of little hollow reeds that made a special sound—which today Jacques could still hear—when he used to go through it to penetrate into the exquisite odor of newsprint and tobacco and to buy L 'Intrepide where he would thrill to tales of

  a. changes in the apartment

  honor and courage. Now the street was experiencing the liveliness of a Sunday morning. Workingmen in freshly washed and ironed white shirts were chatting on their way to the three or four cafes, which smelled of cool shade and anise. Some Arabs were passing by, poor also but decently dressed, their wives still veiled but wearing Louis XV shoes. Now and then entire Arab families went by in their Sunday best. One of these families had three children in tow, one of them dressed up as a parachutist. And just then the patrol of parachutists came back along the street, relaxed and seemingly indifferent. The explosion resounded at the very moment Lucie Cormery came back to the room.

  It sounded very close, enormous, as if it would never stop reverberating. It seemed that they had long since stopped hearing it, but the bulb in the dining-room light was still shaking behind its glass shell. His mother had recoiled to the back of the room, pale, her dark eyes full of a fear she could not control, and she was unsteady on her feet.

  "It's here. It's here," she was saying.

  "No," Jacques said, and he ran to the window. People were fleeing in the street, he did not know where to; an Arab family had gone into the notions store across the street, hurrying their children inside, and the shopkeeper let them in, closed the door and removed the door handle, then stood behind the window watching the street. At that moment the parachute patrol came back, running at top speed in the opposite direction. Cars pulled up hastily on the sidewalk and stopped. The street had emptied in a few seconds. But by leaning for-

  ward, Jacques could see a big crowd in motion farther away, between the Musset movie theatre and the trolley stop. "I'm going to go see," he said.

  At the corner of the rue Prevost-Paradol,a 1a group of men were shouting.

  "That filthy race," a short worker in an undershirt said, looking in the direction of an Arab standing as if glued in a gateway near the cafe.

  "I didn't do anything," the Arab said.

  "You're all in it together, all you fucking sons of bitches," and he started toward him. The other men held him back. Jacques said to the Arab: "Come with me," and he took him into the cafe, which was now run by Jean, his childhood friend, the son of the barber. Jean was there, still the same, but wrinkled, short and thin, his face sly and alert.

  "He didn't do anything," said Jacques. "Take him into your home."

  Jean looked the Arab over while he wiped off the counter. "Come," he said, and they disappeared out the back.

  Jacques went outside, and the worker scowled at him.

  "He hasn't done anything," Jacques said.

  "We should kill them all."

  a. —He saw it before coming to see his mother?

  —Rework the Kessous bombing in the third part, and in that case only mention it here.

  —Farther along.

  1. This entire section up to "you could not tell which" is circled with a question mark.

  "That's what you say when you're angry. Think it over."

  The worker shrugged. "Go over there and see what you say after you've seen the mess."

  Ambulance sirens were rising, rapid, urgent. Jacques ran to the trolley stop. The bomb had exploded by the line pole close to the stop. A lot of people, all in their Sunday dress, had been waiting for the trolley. The little cafe nearby was full of cries of anger or suffering, you could not tell which.

  He went back to his mother. She was standing erect now and very pale. "Sit down," and he led her to the chair close to the table. He sat by her and took her hands.

  "Twice this week," she said. "I'm afraid to go out." "It's nothing," Jacques said. "It'll stop." "Yes," she said. She looked at him with an odd air of indecision, as if she were divided between her faith in her son's intelligence and her conviction that life in its entirety was a misfortune you could not struggle against but could only endure.

  "You see," she said, "I'm old. I can't run anymore." Now the blood was returning to her cheeks. In the distance could be heard the sirens of the ambulances, urgent, rapid. But she did not hear them. She breathed deeply, calmed herself a little more, and smiled at her son with her beautiful brave smile. Like all her people, she had grown up with danger, and danger might wring her heart but she would endure it as she did everything else. It was he who could not bear that

  pinched look of a dying person he had suddenly seen on her face.

  "Come with me to France," he said to her, but she shook her head with resolute sorrow: "Oh no, i
t's cold over there. I'm too old now. I want to stay home."

  6 : The Family

  "Ah!" his mother said to him, "I'm glad when you're here.a But come in the evening, I'll be less bored. It's the evenings especially, in winter it gets dark early. If only I knew how to read. I can't knit either in this light, my eyes hurt. So when Etienne's not here, I lie down and wait till it's time to eat. It's a long time, two hours like that. If I had the little girls with me, I'd talk with them. But they come and they go away. I'm too old. Maybe I smell bad. So it's like that, and all alone . . ."

  She spoke all at once, in short simple sentences that followed each other as if she were emptying herself of thoughts that till then had been silent. And then, her thoughts run dry, she was again silent, her lips tight, her look gentle and dejected, gazing through the closed dining-room shutters at the suffocating light coming up from the street, still at her same place on the same un-

  a. She never used a subjunctive.

  comfortable chair and her son going around the table in the middle of the room as he used to do.a

  She watched him as once more he circled the table.b

  "Solferino, it's pretty?"

  "Yes, it's spotless. But it must have changed since the last time you saw it."

  "Yes, things change."

  "The doctor sends you his greetings. You remember him?"

  "No. It was long ago."

  "No one remembers Papa."

  "We didn't stay long. And besides, he didn't say much."

  "Maman?" She looked at him, unsmiling, with a mild and vacant expression. "I thought you and Papa never lived together in Algiers." No, no.

  "Did you understand me?" She had not understood; he could guess as much from her slightly frightened manner, as if she were apologizing, and he articulated the words as he repeated the question: "You never lived together in Algiers?"