Brodeck Read online

  A forester named Hobel happened to be passing not far away, and it was he, alerted by our cries, who pulled the boy out of the river some minutes later with the help of a long pole. The kid’s face was as white as cream. Even his lips had turned white. His eyes were closed, and he was smiling. Some of us thought he was dead for sure. Nevertheless, he was put under blankets and his skin rubbed with alcohol, and several hours later he came to. Life returned to his veins and blood ran into his cheeks. The first thing he asked for was his afternoon snack, but in the asking, he stumbled over every word, as if the cold, flowing river had frozen his mouth and his tongue had remained enclosed and half dead under a caparison of ice. He received his nickname that day, and thereafter no one ever called him anything other than Zungfrost.

  When I reached the landing, I could hear voices coming from the council room. My heart started beating a bit faster. I took a deep breath, uncovered my head, and knocked at the door before entering.

  The council room is huge. I’d even say it’s too big for the little that goes on in it. It’s something out of another era, from a time when a community’s riches were measured in proportion to its public buildings. The ceiling’s improbably high. The walls, which have been simply whitewashed, are covered with ancient maps, framed parchments whereon texts written in sloping, complex scripts record laws, leases, and duties dating back to the time when the village was dependent upon the lords of Molensheim, before the Emperor, by a charter of 1756, accorded it its freedom and declared it released from all servitude. On all these documents, wax seals hang from shriveled ribbons.

  Ordinarily the members of the village council sit on either side of the mayor at a large table, facing several rows of benches set out to accommodate the citizens who come to hear the council’s deliberations. That evening the table was there, but the benches had been shoved into a corner of the room and piled atop one another in monumental disorder. The only objects in front of the big table were a single chair and a tiny desk.

  “Come on in, Brodeck, we’re not going to eat you …” That was Orschwir, addressing me from his central place at the table. His words elicited from the others a bit of muffled laughter, apparently an expression of their self-assurance and complicity. There were two of them. On the mayor’s left, Lawyer Knopf stuffed tobacco into his pipe while looking at me over the smudged lenses of his spectacles. The chair on Orschwir’s right was empty, but Göbbler occupied the next seat over. He leaned toward me and turned his head; because his eyes betrayed him more and more with each passing day, he’d apparently decided to try to see people and things with his ears instead. My blood ran cold at the sight of him.

  “Are you going to sit down or not?” Orschwir said. The warmth in his voice sounded forced. “You’re among friends, Bro-deck. Make yourself at home. You have nothing to fear.”

  I was on the point of asking the mayor the reason for my neighbor’s presence, and for Lawyer Knopf’s as well; Knopf may have been one of the village notables, but he wasn’t even a member of the council. Why were he and Göbbler there and nobody else? Why precisely those two? What offices did they hold? What were their functions? What qualified them to sit behind the big table?

  My brain was boiling with all these questions when I heard the door open behind me. A broad smile lit up Orschwir’s face. “Come in, please,” he said respectfully, addressing the newcomer, whom I couldn’t yet see. “You haven’t missed anything. We were just about to get started.”

  Halting steps, punctuated by the taps of a cane, resounded in the room. The new arrival was approaching, but I still couldn’t see him. The sounds at my back came closer. I didn’t want to turn around. He paused a few paces from me, and then I heard him say, “Hello, Brodeck.” I’d heard that voice tell me hello hundreds and hundreds of times. My heart stopped beating; I closed my eyes; my hands felt damp. A bitter taste flooded my mouth. The steps behind me began again, elegantly slow. Then there was the sound of a chair scraping the floor, followed by silence. I opened my eyes again. Ernst-Peter Limmat, my old schoolmaster, was sitting in the chair on Orschwir’s right, looking at me.

  “Have you lost your tongue, Brodeck? Come on! We’re all here! Read us what you’ve written so far.”

  As he spoke these words, Orschwir rubbed his hands together, the way he rubbed them after concluding a shrewd business deal. It wasn’t my tongue that had gone missing. That wasn’t what I’d lost all of a sudden. It was something else: another portion, perhaps, of faith and hope.

  My dear old teacher Limmat, what were you doing there, sitting behind that table like a judge in a tribunal? So you knew, too, didn’t you?

  XVIII

  ————

  he faces. Their faces. Was this another of those agonizing dreams, like the ones that used to seize me at night in the camp and fling me into a world where nothing was familiar? Where am I? Will this all come to an end some day? Is this Hell? What wrong have I done? Tell me, Amelia. Why is this happening? Because I left you? Yes, it’s true: I left you. I wasn’t there. My darling, forgive me, please forgive me. You know they took me away. You know there was nothing I could do. Speak to me. Tell me what I am. Tell me you love me. Stop that humming, I beg you, stop it. Stop droning that tune. It breaks my head and my heart. Open your lips and let words come out. I can hear everything now. I can understand everything. I’m so tired. I’m so insignificant, and there’s no light in my life without you. I’m dust, and I know it. I’m futile.

  I’ve drunk a little too much this evening. It’s the middle of the night. I’m not afraid of anything anymore. I must write everything down. They could be coming. I’m waiting for them. Yes, I’m waiting for them.

  In the council room, I read the few pages—ten at the most—on which I’d recorded witnesses’ statements and reconstructed events. I kept my eyes on the lines, never looking up at my audience of four, who sat there and listened. I kept slipping off the chair, whose seat was tilted forward, and the desk was so small that my legs barely fit under it. My position was distinctly uncomfortable, but that’s what they wanted: they wanted me to be ill at ease in that vast room, in that trial-like setting.

  I read in a lifeless, absent voice. I hadn’t yet recovered from the surprise—and the bitter disappointment—of encountering my former schoolmaster there. My eyes and mouth read, but my thoughts were elsewhere. Many memories of him came to my mind, some of them very old: my first day of school, when I stepped inside the door and saw his eyes turn toward me, big eyes of a glacial blue, the blue of deep crevasses; and the times—how I’d loved them!—when he had me stay after school and helped me progress in my studies, helped me make up for the time I’d lost, coaching me with patience and kindness. His voice grew less solemn during those sessions. We were alone together, and he spoke to me gently, corrected my mistakes without anger, encouraged me. I remember back then, when I was still a little boy and I’d lie awake at night trying to evoke my father’s face, I would often catch myself giving him the schoolmaster’s features, and I also remember that the image was pleasant and comforting.

  A short while ago, when I came back home, I pulled down the mushrooms, the trumpets of death that Limmat had given me the other day when I visited him to talk about the foxes, and threw the garlands into the fire.

  Fedorine opened one eye and noticed what I was doing. “Are you crazy?” she asked. “What’s wrong with them?”

  “With them? Nothing. But the hands that strung them together aren’t exactly clean.”

  There was a ball of coarse wool and some knitting needles in her lap. She said, “You’re speaking Tibershoï, Brodeck.”

  Tibershoï is the magic language of the country of Tibipoï, the setting of so many of Fedorine’s tales. Elves, gnomes, and trolls speak Tibershoï, but humans can never understand it.

  I didn’t reply to her. I grabbed the brandy bottle and a glass and went out to the shed. It took me several long minutes to free the door from all the snow piled up against it. And snow was still falli
ng; the night was full of it. The wind had stopped, and the snowflakes, abandoned to their own caprice, came down in unpredictable, graceful swirls.

  There was a long silence in the council room when I finished reading what I’d written. It was a question of who would speak first. I raised my eyes to them, which I hadn’t done since I’d started to read. Lawyer Knopf was sucking his pipe as though the fate of the world depended on it. He couldn’t produce more than a wisp of smoke, and this seemed to irritate him. Göbbler was apparently asleep, and Orschwir was making a note on a piece of paper. Limmat alone was looking at me and smiling. The mayor raised his head. “Good,” he said. “Very good, Brodeck. It’s very interesting and well written. Keep on going, you’re on the right path.”

  He turned toward the others on either side of him, seeking their assent or authorizing them to state their opinions. Göbbler dived in first. “I was expecting more, Brodeck. I hear your typewriter so much. It seems to me you really write a lot, and yet the Report is far from being finished …”

  I tried to hide my anger. I tried to reply calmly, without showing surprise at anything, without challenging Göbbler’s observation or even his presence. I surely would have liked to tell him that he’d do better to direct his attention to the fire burning in his wife’s ass than to my compositions. I replied that writing this sort of Report did not come naturally to me, that I had difficulty finding the right tone and the right words, that collating the statements of the people I’d interviewed, putting together an accurate account, seizing the truth of what had gone on during the last few months constituted an arduous task. Yes, I was constantly at my typewriter, but I labored, I revised, I crossed out, I tore up, I started over, and that was the reason why I wasn’t going farther or faster.

  “I didn’t mean to upset you, Brodeck. What I said was just a passing comment. I apologize,” Göbbler said, miming embarrassment.

  Orschwir seemed satisfied with my justifications. He turned once more to his colleagues on either hand. Siegfried Knopf looked happy because his pipe was working again. He gazed upon it with benevolent eyes and stroked its bowl with both hands, without paying the least heed to the people around him.

  “Schoolmaster Limmat, perhaps you have a question?” the mayor asked respectfully, turning toward the old teacher. I felt the sweat spring to my forehead, as it had done when he quizzed me in front of the whole class. Limmat smiled, allowed some time to pass, and rubbed his long hands together.

  “No, not a question, Mr. Mayor, but rather a remark, a simple remark … I know Brodeck very well. I’ve known him a long time. I know he’ll conscientiously perform the task we’ve entrusted to him, but… how shall I say it… he’s a dreamer, and I use that word in no bad sense because I think dreaming is a great and positive thing, but in this particular case, he mustn’t make a muddle of everything, he mustn’t mix up dreams and reality or confuse what exists with what never took place. I exhort him to pay attention. I exhort him to stay on the straight road and not to let his imagination govern his thoughts and his sentences.”

  For hours after the meeting, I kept going over Limmat’s words in my mind. What were they supposed to mean? I had no idea.

  “We won’t keep you any longer, Brodeck. I imagine you’re in a hurry to get back home.” Having said these words, Orschwir rose to his feet, and I immediately followed suit. I bade farewell to the others with a little movement of my head and began walking rapidly toward the door. This was the moment that Lawyer Knopf chose to arouse himself from his reverie. His old nanny-goat’s voice caught up with me: “That’s a handsome cap you’ve got there, Brodeck. It must be really warm. I’ve never seen anything like it… Where’d you get it?”

  I turned around. Lawyer Knopf was approaching me, hopping a little on his crooked legs. His eyes were fixed on the Anderer’s cap, which I had just placed on my head. Knopf was now quite close to me, and he reached for the cap with one clawlike hand. I felt his fingers running over the fur. “Very original, and what fine work! Beautiful! Just the thing for the weather that’s on the way. I envy you, Brodeck.”

  Knopf trembled a little as he stroked the cap. I could smell his tobacco-laden breath, and I saw a delirious light dancing in his eyes. Suddenly I wondered whether he hadn’t gone mad. Göbbler came over to us and said, “You didn’t answer Lawyer Knopf’s question, Brodeck. He wants to know who made your cap for you.”

  I hesitated. I hesitated between silence and a few words I could fling at them like knives. Göbbler was waiting. Limmat joined us, clutching the lapels of his velvet jacket around his skinny neck.

  In the end, I summoned up a confident tone and said, “Göbbler, you’ll never believe me, but be that as it may, I’m going to tell you the absolute truth. Remember, however, that it’s a secret, and please don’t repeat it to anyone. You see this cap? Just imagine, the Virgin Mary made it for me and the Holy Ghost delivered it!”

  Ernst-Peter Limmat burst out laughing. Knopf laughed, too. Göbbler was the only one scowling. His nearly dead eyes searched for mine, as if he wanted to gouge them out. I left the lot of them standing there and went out the door.

  Outside the snow hadn’t stopped falling, and the path Zungfrost had cleared an hour previously had already vanished. The village streets were deserted. Halos quivered around the lanterns hanging from the gables. The wind had come up again, but very lightly, and it made the snowflakes flutter in every direction. Suddenly I felt a presence against me. It was Ohnmeist, who was trying to bury his cold muzzle in my pants. Such familiarity surprised me. I began to wonder whether the dog wasn’t mistaking me for someone else, for the Anderer, the only other person with whom it had taken such liberties.

  We trudged along side by side, the dog and I, surrounded by the smells of the snowy cold and the pinewood smoke that came down from the chimneys in gusts. I no longer remember exactly what I thought about in the course of that strange promenade, but I know that suddenly I found myself very far from those streets, very far from the village, very far from familiar, barbaric faces. I was walking with Amelia. We were holding on to each other, arm in arm. She was wearing a coat of blue cloth with embroidered sleeves and a border of gray rabbit fur around the collar. Her hair, her most beautiful hair, was coiled up under a little red hat. It was very cold. We were very cold. It was our second meeting. I gazed hungrily at her face, at her every gesture, her small hands, her laughter, her eyes.

  “So you’re a student, you say?”

  She had a delicious accent, which slid over her words and gave them all, the pretty ones as well as the ugly ones, a discreet highlight. We were circling the lake for the third time, walking along the Elsi Promenade. We weren’t alone. There were other couples like us, groups of two people looking at each other a great deal, speaking little, laughing for no reason, and falling silent again. With the three pennies I’d borrowed off Ulli Rätte, I bought a sizzling hot crêpe from the vendor whose stall was next to the skating rink. He poured a generous extra spoonful of honey over the crêpe and held it out to us, saying, “For the lovers!” We smiled, but we didn’t dare look at each other. I offered the crêpe to Amelia. She seized it as though it were a treasure, cut it in half, and handed me my portion. Night was falling, and with it the icy air that turned Amelia’s cheeks even rosier and made her hazel eyes shine all the more brightly. We ate the crêpe. We looked at each other. We were at the very beginning of our life.

  With a long, drawn-out whine, Ohnmeist brought me back to the village. He rubbed his head against me one more time and then went away, taking little steps and wagging his tail as if waving good-bye. I followed him with my eyes until he disappeared behind the woodshed that stands beside the workroom in Gott’s smithy. He’d probably found some shelter there for the winter.

  I hadn’t noticed how much distance the dog and I had covered. We’d gone all the way to the end of the village, close to the church and the cemetery. The snow was coming down as thickly as before. The edge of the forest was invisible, even though
it began barely thirty meters away. When the church came into sight, I thought about Father Peiper, and the light in his kitchen window made me decide to knock on his door.

  XIX

  ————

  spoke and Peiper listened, steadily refilling his glass. I spilled my guts. I went on at length. I didn’t talk about the pages I’m writing alongside the Report, but I discussed everything else. I revealed all my doubts and fears. I told him how odd it felt to have fallen into a trap and to be unable to understand who had woven it, who was holding the cords, why I had been pushed into it, and especially how I might manage to get out of it. When I finally stopped, Peiper let a little while pass in silence. Talking had done me good.

  “Who are you confiding in, Brodeck? The man, or what’s left of the priest?”

  I hesitated to reply, simply because I had no idea what my reply should be. Peiper sensed my confusion and said, “I’m asking the question because the two aren’t the same. You know they aren’t, even though you no longer believe in God. I’m going to help you a bit, and I’ll start by telling you something in confidence: I hardly believe in God anymore, either. I spoke to Him for a long time, for years and years, and throughout those years, He really seemed to listen to me and to respond as well, with little signs, with the thoughts that came to me, with the things He inspired me to do. And then, that all stopped. I know now that He doesn’t exist or He’s gone away forever, which comes to the same thing. So there it is: we’re alone. Nevertheless, I go on with the show. I play my part badly, no doubt, but the theater’s still standing. It causes no one any harm, and there are some elderly souls in the audience who would be still more alone and still more abandoned if I closed the place down. You see, every performance gives them a little strength, the strength to go on. And there’s another principle I haven’t repudiated: the seal of confession. It’s my cross, and I bear it. I shall bear it to the end.”