The wound, p.16
The Wound, page 16
When she points to another record jacket, he doesn’t answer, he walks ahead, he says anyway, for him, music . . . But Mireille then says she likes music enough for the two of them, she plays the piano a little but Chopin’s really boring, but what can you do, it’s my father. She’d rather play modern stuff, things you can dance to.
And speaking of dancing they’ll go to Mirailles’ across from the bakery, and at the bar they’ll eat kémias and listen to the jukebox turned up to the max.
That’s what they do. Mireille takes off her big green sunglasses that she leaves next to her like a little pet. The music covers up the conversations—Philibert invites Bernard to go snorkeling with him. He tells him he owns a little cabin out there on the beach; between Cape Falcon and Saint-Roch, when you leave the mountain there’s a beach and the cabins are right up against the rocks, and Philibert says he spends lots of time there with his pals Lopez and Segura when they’re not at work, and pointing to Mireille with a wink, he says to Bernard, it’s a great spot to take a girl.
Later in the afternoon, Mireille has to go home. Guests are coming over, her parents insist that she get back early. Gisèle and Jacqueline are there to chaperone her, but they agree not to walk back with her and let Bernard take her to her door alone. He doesn’t see the city, he would probably be unable to go back the way he came, and in fact he does get lost on the way back and if he hadn’t bumped into Philibert, he might not have found his way back to the hotel.
It’s because Mireille’s voice is echoing in his head, like all promises made softly, calmly, as if you were just talking about the fine weather and cooing away to make yourself lovable and charming. But no, that’s already done, they’re already beyond that. With Mireille you talk about going to live in Paris, and even, without exactly saying it, getting married. Because even if the word is never said, you talk about the future and say: after the army. You say: what we’ll do after the army, and not what he, Bernard, will do. But that we is dropped casually, in passing, and they both pretend not to notice it, as if the two of them were already married. And the parents don’t matter. For him it’s easy, he says he doesn’t want to go back home.
He says: I’d like to open a garage.
That sentence dropping just like that. It’s as if now he was suddenly so bold, as if with Mireille nothing was impossible. He will leave home, he will change his life, that’s for sure, this time he knows it, there was a miracle and the miracle is her, right here, who came to him, he wonders what she can possibly see in him that’s so . . . so . . . well, so, he doesn’t get it, he can’t see it, but okay, great, that’s great.
He knows that sometimes the question becomes a source of worry, and the worry becomes pure anxiety. He’s afraid that suddenly the miracle will stop just as it began, and he’ll get a letter like so many buddies have already, a letter, a few words: I don’t love you anymore.
He sleeps poorly, and the next morning he feels slightly nauseous. Février knocks on his door, they’re going to spend the day together because tonight, already, they’re going back. They have to be in the Oran barracks at five-thirty to be at the base early in the evening. They would rather have gone back the next morning, but that won’t be possible. Nothing you can do about it, they know everybody has to converge on the barracks (and they all have to resign themselves, at least in spirit, almost despite themselves, whether they’re in the city or further out on a beach, everyone already on his way in his mind, presenting himself at the barracks, telling the buddies two or three not so good jokes; and then, immediately, without thinking, making sure you’re ready, joining the others, preparing the convoy, hitting the road and going back to the old routine).
The idea of going back to the base is terrible; Février and Bernard are struck with such fatigue that they don’t even need to talk about it, because that’s all they see, as each is a reflection of the other.
So: they’ll talk only about the last three days.
Talk of what they’ll have done. What it was like to find yourself for the first time without your buddies, alone at last, for once, a moment when you even felt somewhat abandoned at first, in a vacuum, instead of the pleasure you were expecting. And simply taking it easy, going to the movies, having a Pernod or a beer or an anisette and looking at the shop windows. Wasting time at the sidewalk cafés watching people on the street going about their business. And also, the buddies you ran into by chance and you spent the afternoon with them, and the evening, and then the next day too, and finally your whole time.
One part of the afternoon is spent at the Météore—the bar as you come in, the dance floor on the side. Everybody’s breath has a little scent of anisette and couscous, and, for the women, the slightly heavy, flowery fragrance of lipstick and makeup.
Février and Bernard are excited, and at the same time tense; they watch the girls dance with other soldiers or men in civilian clothes, all in suits, with neatly combed hair.
They stand there for a moment without moving, they listen to songs, and despite themselves, they almost feel like dancing. Especially Février. And he doesn’t hold back for long—why should he anyway, that’s why we’re here, to have fun, we’ve still got a few hours ahead of us and very soon he finds girls eager for a hand to invite them. They’re sitting there looking around the room for a dance partner. Some of them are alone, and the idea that no one came with them goes to Février’s head, and he doesn’t wait for long to make up his mind.
Bernard is surprised not to see Mireille, nor even Gisèle, Jacqueline, or Philibert and his friends Lopez and Segura.
They’d made a date to meet here. And suddenly he gets worried. What if nobody came? If he had to go back to the barracks without having seen Mireille again? The idea seems unthinkable to him. So he stays like that, standing there. He hesitates to go back to the bar then says to himself the bar, yeah, why not, maybe, from there he’d see who comes in, rather than waiting here doing nothing and watching the others have fun. So he lights up a cigarette and, a bit reluctantly, looks around again one last time to see if he can’t find the face of a friend in the crowd, aside from Février.
A friend, no. But a face he knows, yes, very quickly. Because as he walks over to the bar, among the soldiers he recognizes Rabut in the entrance, who hesitates for a moment then comes over and waves when he sees him.
I didn’t recognize you, he says to Bernard.
And that’s about it. They don’t talk much. They stay next to each other, they tell each other that anyway they’ll leave together for the barracks, yes, what time, five, if we want to be there at half past. They don’t tell each other they could leave on their own, they don’t like each other much and at the same time they stick together as soon as they see each other, that’s the way it’s always been, and it’s even more true here, something from home that connects people without their really knowing why, through what old habit, so old they don’t even think of questioning it.
Rabut orders a beer. He asks Bernard if he wants one and he shakes his head. He looks at the door, the people coming in, still nobody, none of the faces of the people he’s waiting for.
And disappointment settles in.
The two cousins hesitate to go into the part of the club where people are dancing. Rabut glances in and Bernard doesn’t say anything when he sees that look, he thinks maybe Rabut is waiting for Mireille, too.
Of course not.
He tells himself he’s making up stories, it’s not because Rabut and Mireille danced together once or twice that you necessarily have to imagine that they.
Then he wants to reassure himself by repeating that in love, trust is important, trust is everything, he has to trust Mireille, that’s what Solange would explain to him, and Solange always gives good advice.
Trust her, yes.
Even if, of course, it’s mostly Rabut he doesn’t trust.
Finally, they go back to where people are dancing, they do it without talking to one another, just a nod, it’s better than standing there glued to the bar. But Bernard looks at the entrance to the bar one last time and unfortunately no one’s coming—that idea that nobody will come, he looks at his watch, will no one really come? He wonders if he’d have the time to go all the way to Mireille’s house, it’s not so far to walk, he thinks he could find the way again, even if he’s not too sure.
He imagines himself ringing and knocking at the door. He imagines the face of the Arab woman opening up for him, letting him into the corridor; but perhaps they wouldn’t open or from the entrance he’d be surprised to see a whole company of people at the dinner table in the living room or the dining room—or sitting in armchairs, uncles, aunts, all in fine, dark, strict suits and women in gowns in unfamiliar shapes and colors, and he’d be standing there under their half-amused, half-scornful eyes, with his cap in his hands and his thick smile, his thick face, the way he looks with his pleated pants, he tells himself that with his silly soldier’s pride he’d just look ridiculous and grotesque.
So no, he won’t move. They said the date was here. I’m not going to budge. If she ever arrived at the moment he was leaving for her house, it would really be too dumb. For him to get to her house and they’d tell him,
You must have passed her on the way, she left a good half hour ago with her friend Gisèle.
He’s not going to budge. He’s going to wait.
And so they don’t talk, they just look at Février who’s dancing and changing partners every time, trying his luck, sweet-talking into ears with earrings sparkling under the lights of the nightclub.
Then Bernard walks back to the bar and sits down. He has a beer and turns around as soon as people come in and he hears voices and women laughing. He remains alone for a moment, meets guys from his platoon who come in and go out very quickly saying see you later. He answers halfheartedly and suddenly surprises himself counting the bubbles in his beer as they rise and disappear, like the voices behind him. And then he tries to smoke again, he still has some cigarettes, a few, the soft pack in his pocket, and matches, then his hands shaking a little and suddenly he straightens up, is he going to wait like that? Is it possible to wait and tell yourself that you’re going to stay alone at the bar when you’ve already been waiting for an hour and ten minutes, soon an hour and fifteen?
Rabut and Février join him at the bar, they joke around, laugh, they’re talking loudly. Their laughter suddenly irritates Bernard, but he moves over so they can sit down at the bar with him.
They order two more beers.
Soon the pack of cigarettes is completely empty. Bernard crushes it slowly, very seriously, very, very slowly and carefully, until it turns into a compact ball, very tight, as concentrated perhaps as the ball of rage and anger he feels rising up inside him with great force—something of that furor he absolutely doesn’t want today, a black knot forming now and he wonders what’s happening, if he didn’t make a mistake about where to meet, if he understood the time and place correctly, or something may have happened to Mireille and Gisèle, or to someone else, and then in that case why, why didn’t any of the others come and warn him, tell him there’s no point waiting for Mireille and hoping to see her today?
But nothing. No one comes. The music is unbearable. The perfume of the girls and the smell of beer. The men in suits, all of them dressed up, ugly, like everything is suddenly ugly, hurtful, loud colors, screaming music; and the air is suddenly as gray and full of smoke as his thoughts growing somber and dark, and he can feel the irritation and the perfume smelling too strong and making him dizzy.
He closes his eyes before ordering another beer; he tells himself he drank too much. He never drinks, or very little, and now his head is spinning. And yet he didn’t drink much. But there’s the sun, too, that heat he can’t really get used to. The frustration. The tension. The fatigue from his bad night. That sudden fear, so strong, of telling himself that Mireille won’t come back to him. That it’s over. That she doesn’t want to see him anymore. She’s realized he’s a simple peasant, a peasant’s son, she realized that the other day, because of the shop window with the records and now she must think he’s a moron and an ignoramus, she’s laughing at him with the others, in another bar, and maybe she’s even dancing with other men and his name is already like the name of a song that was a hit last summer and then,
Ciao, bello.
But no, that’s stupid, it can’t possibly be like that. He blames himself for always imagining things the same way, situations where he’s always humiliated, brought down lower than the ground, as if he always had to end up that way, like a wimp, like a nothing, a less than nothing; and this time he doesn’t want to. In fact, no, he never wanted to.
And he won’t let them push him around.
He looks at the time. It’s not time to go yet. But it’s getting later, the clock is ticking, it’s ticking so fast that soon he’ll have to make up his mind and give up waiting here; he twists his neck around as soon as he hears new voices, bursts of laughter; he would recognize Mireille’s laugh anywhere any time, so the idea of telling himself he’ll have to leave before hearing her again, and seeing her—that idea seems almost terrifying all of a sudden, it’s as if he felt himself losing his footing. Without being able to be more rational. Without knowing why, inside of him, the feeling is so oppressive, so disturbing.
And so he says yes without thinking, without knowing what they’re saying to him.
Someone suggests another drink and he says yes without thinking or listening, even though now he has a stomachache and the smoke and the mix of odors are making him nauseous. And the other two with him insist on laughing and telling jokes, their voices so loud and their laughs so heavy, he hears that, picks up his glass and looks at the entrance one last time. He says he’s going to leave. He’s not staying here. The heavy laughs and the jokes Rabut and Février have told a thousand times are becoming unbearable, especially because he sees the jokes only as a way of provoking him, that’s right, they’re just taunting him, they’ve been teasing him for the last ten minutes at least, a sneaky way of looking for a fight, of annoying him still more, of laughing at him—and besides he thought he saw a gesture, for sure he saw it, Rabut nudging Février with his elbow.
He doesn’t want to lose his temper.
He runs his fingers over his lips; they’re dry, his mouth feels all furry. So, he swallows what’s in his glass in two big gulps, very fast, and when he puts it back down with a sharp, brusque gesture, stronger than what he was expecting, the noise on the counter surprises him and he stares at Rabut and Février: in a curt, biting voice, not looking at Février but only at Rabut he throws out,
Hey, what’s the matter, what does he want from me, the graduate’s got a problem?
And a few hours later, some can say they saw Bernard and Février, and Rabut too, in a nightclub. Can say,
We saw them we said hi and we said see you later.
Very quickly, the word goes round in the barracks: some soldiers, draftees. Hey guys, some draftees are missing.
It’s not quite what they think, not quite yet what the soldiers think but what they already fear when they contact the base back there—assassination, kidnapping, anything’s possible, they know that, they don’t trust this place, they pretend they’re not thinking about it but they’re always afraid something like that might happen, anytime and anyplace, so they reassure themselves by saying,
Nothing’s for sure, maybe they only went to sober up someplace and that’ll be it, they wouldn’t be the first.
The two jeeps and the half-track are waiting under the sun in plain sight, in the yard. From the base, the corporal wanted to talk to one of his men: it was Nivelle. He ordered him to go look for Février and Bernard, and not come back without them.
Take Idir, he knows the city, and find those two assholes for me.
That’s what he says before hanging up with a bang, very angry. And an hour later, Nivelle and Idir and two other men come back at the double, alone.
They say they didn’t find anyone.
They say,
Yes, people saw them, some people saw them, a whole bunch of people saw them and when things went bad they disappeared and then nobody.
And in the barracks the men who know them are surprised and try to picture Rabut and Bernard under the sun, those two country boys, more country than ever, with Février around them doing his best to calm them down and failing, and they wonder how something between the two cousins exploded because Rabut must have drunk too much, too fast, that’s what they’ll be saying,
Rabut likes to raise his elbow in the rec hall but they know that the other guy, the cousin, no, he’s kind of religious, a beer from time to time that’s all, and he likes to play cards and maybe have a smoke with his buddies and kid around, but he’s not the talkative type, quiet guy, a little gloomy, a worrier, and often his missal in his hands and prayers on his lips, that’s what they know about him.
What they think they know, and nothing more.
You really wonder what could have happened and then very soon you don’t even try to find out why, at the bar, Rabut suddenly looked at his cousin with that serious expression just because the guy had said something silly, not really mean. And yet Rabut had that cold, hard way of looking at him before answering, leaving his glass on the bar and straightening up just a little, giving him a kind of—how to say it, what can you call that—a shifty look and also that smirk, that determination not to pay attention to what the other guy had said,
What does he want from me, the graduate’s got a problem?
Rabut not really flinching and holding himself back, and even ignoring (pretending to ignore) what he’d heard, as if he were just distracted by the bar, by the people too, and the music, nothing, a little mocking smile, not even a nasty look, for hardly a second and yet he couldn’t let that go.
