Brodeck Read online

  After screaming for a long time, the young woman died. Her child, the baby with the pale, wrinkled little body, the worried brow, and the swollen eyelids, survived her by a few hours. Before she died, she called the people around her thieves and murderers and struck out at everyone within her reach. Her fists were so small and weak that I felt her blows as caresses. I pretended to be asleep. So did Kelmar. The little water we’d drunk had given us back much of our strength and cleared our heads as well—cleared them enough for us to regret what we’d done, to find it abominable, and to keep our eyes shut, not daring to open them and look at her and look at ourselves. The young woman and her baby would doubtless have died in any case, but this thought, however logical it may have been, did not suffice to erase the ignominy of the crime we’d committed. That crime was our tormentors’ great triumph, and we knew it. Kelmar even more than I, perhaps, at that moment, since shortly afterward he chose not to go on. He chose to die quickly. He chose to punish himself.

  As for me, I chose to live, and my punishment is my life. That’s the way I see things. My punishment is all the suffering I’ve endured since. It’s Brodeck the Dog. It’s Amelia’s silence, which I sometimes interpret as the greatest of reproaches. It’s my constantly recurring nightmares. And more than anything else, it’s this perpetual feeling of inhabiting a body I stole in a freight car with the help of a few drops of water.

  XXXVIII

  ————

  hen I left the shed yesterday evening, I was drenched with sweat in spite of the cold, the mist, and the Graufrozt—the light frost, not white but gray, that occurs only around here—covering the roofs of all the houses. I had only about ten meters or so to cover before I’d find Fedorine in her kitchen, Poupchette in her little bed, and Amelia in ours, but the distance seemed vast to me. There was a light burning in Göbbler’s house. Was he by any chance watching me? Had he been outside the shed, listening to the sporadic clacking of my typewriter? I couldn’t possibly have cared less. I’d traveled my road again. I’d returned to the freight car. I’d written it all down.

  In our bedroom, I wrapped my pages in the linen pouch, as I do every evening, and then I slipped into the warm bed; and this morning, as I do every morning, I tied my linen-wrapped confession around Amelia’s waist. That’s been my procedure for weeks and weeks. Amelia never puts up any resistance or pays any attention to what I’m doing, but this morning, just as I was about to remove my hands from her stomach, I felt her put one of her hands on one of mine and squeeze it a little. Not for long, nor did I see it, because it was still dark in the room. But I wasn’t dreaming. I’m sure it happened. Was it an involuntary movement, or could it have been something like a caress, like the beginning or the renewal of a caress?

  It’s now a little after twelve o’clock, in the middle of a colorless day. Night has yet to depart completely. The day’s too lazy to hold on to its light, and the frost is still covering the roofs and the treetops. Poupchette’s pulling the skin of Fedorine’s face into grotesque shapes, and Fedorine smiles and lets her do it. Amelia’s in her place at the window, looking out. She’s humming.

  I’ve just finished the Report. In a few hours, I’m going to submit it to Orschwir and the thing will be over and done with, or at least so I hope. I’ve kept it simple. I’ve tried to tell the story faithfully. I haven’t made anything up. I haven’t put anything right. I’ve followed the trail as closely as possible. The only gaps I’ve had to fill in occurred on the Anderer’s last day, the one that preceded the Ereigniës. Nobody wanted to talk to me about it. Nobody wanted to tell me anything.

  In any case, on the notorious morning when the drowned carcasses of the donkey and the horse were found, I accompanied the Anderer back to the inn. Schloss opened the door for us. We looked at each other without exchanging a word, Schloss and I. The Anderer went up to his room and stayed there the entire day. He didn’t touch anything on the tray Schloss brought up and placed outside his door.

  People resumed their usual activities again. The diminished heat made it possible for the men to go back to the fields and the forests. The animals, too, raised their heads a little. A pyre was constructed on the riverbank, and there the carcasses of Mister Socrates and Miss Julie were burned. Some of the village kids watched the spectacle the entire day, occasionally casting branches into the fire, and returned home with their hair and clothing reeking of cooked flesh and burned wood. And then night fell.

  The cries started about two hours after sunset. A slightly high-pitched voice, filled with distress but perfectly clear, was shouting before the door of every house, “Murderers! Murderers!” It was the Anderer’s voice. Like some strange night watchman, he was crying out in the street, reminding the villagers of what they had done or what they hadn’t prevented. No one saw him, but everyone heard him. No one opened a door. No one opened a shutter. People stopped their ears. People burrowed into their beds.

  The following day, in the shops, in the cafés, at the inn, on the street corners, and in the fields, the cries in the night were the subject of some conversation. Some, but not much; people quickly passed on to other subjects. The Anderer remained out of sight, shut up in his room. It was as though he’d vanished into thin air. But again that second evening, a couple of hours after sunset, the same mournful refrain echoed in every street, before every door: “Murderers! Murderers!”

  I prayed he would stop. I knew how it was all going to end. The horse and donkey would be just the prelude. Killing his animals would suffice to cool the hotheads for a time, but if he got on their nerves again, they’d get some new ideas, and those ideas would be conclusive. I tried to tell him so. I went to the inn and knocked at the door of his room. There was no response. I applied my ear to the wood and heard nothing. I tried the handle, but the door was locked. Then Schloss found me.

  “What are you up to, Brodeck? I didn’t see you come in!”

  “Where is he?”

  “Where’s who?”

  “The Anderer!”

  “Stop, Brodeck. Please stop …”

  Those were the only words Schloss spoke to me that day. Then he turned around and left.

  That evening, at the same time as the two previous evenings, the Anderer made his rounds again, crying out as before. And this time, shutters were banged open, and stones and insults flew through the air. But nothing discouraged the Anderer from continuing on his way or stopped him from shouting into the darkness, “Murderers! Murderers!” I had trouble falling asleep. On nights like that, I’ve learned that the dead never abandon the living. They find one another even if they’re strangers. They gather. They come and sit on the edge of our bed, on the edge of our night. They gaze upon us and haunt us. Sometimes they caress our foreheads; sometimes they stroke our cheeks with their fleshless hands. They try to open our eyelids, but even when they succeed, we don’t always see them.

  I spent the following day brooding. I didn’t move much. I thought about History, capitalized, and about my history, our history. Do those who write the first know anything about the second? Why do some people retain in their memory what others have forgotten or never seen? Which is right: he who can’t reconcile himself to leaving the past in obscurity, or he who thrusts into darkness everything that doesn’t suit him? To live, to go on living—can that be a matter of deciding that the real isn’t completely so? A matter of choosing another reality when the one we’ve known becomes too heavy to bear? After all, isn’t that what I did in the camp? Didn’t I choose to live in my memory of Amelia, to make her my present, to cast my daily existence into the unreality of nightmare? Could History be a greater truth made up of millions of individual lies, sewn together like the old quilts Fedorine used to make so she could buy food for us when I was a child? They looked new and splendid with their rainbow of colors, and yet they were sewn together from fabric scraps of differing shapes, uncertain quality, and unknown origins.

  After the sun went down, I remained in my chair. And in the dark: Fedorine hadn�
�t lit a candle. The four of us were there, surrounded by darkness and silence. I was waiting. I was waiting for the Anderer’s cries, his lugubrious recriminations, to ring out in the night again, but no sound came. The night was silent. And then I became afraid. I felt fear come upon me and pass into my stomach, under my skin, inside my whole being, in a way that hadn’t happened in a long time. Poupchette was singing softly. She had a bit of fever. Fedorine’s syrups and herbal teas weren’t bringing it down, so she tried to calm the child by telling her stories. She’d just gotten started on “Bilissi and the Poor Tailor” when she interrupted herself and asked me to fetch her some butter from Schloss’s inn so that she could make little shortbreads for Poupchette to dunk in her milk at breakfast. I didn’t react for a few seconds. I had no desire to leave the house, but Fedorine insisted. In the end, I got up from my chair, grabbed my coat, and headed for the door as the old woman was starting the story again, and my Poupchette, all pink and glowing with fever, stretched out her little hands to me and said, “Daddy, come back! Daddy, come back!”

  It’s an odd tale, the tale of Bilissi. It’s the one that fascinated me the most when I was little and Fedorine would tell me stories; as I listened to it, I had the feeling that the earth was slipping away under my feet, that there was nothing for me to hold on to, and that maybe what I saw before my eyes didn’t completely exist.

  “Bilissi was a very poor tailor who lived with his mother, his wife, and his little daughter in a crumbling shack situated in the imaginary town of Pitopoï. One day, three knights paid him a visit. The first knight came forward and ordered a suit of red velvet from Bilissi for his master the King. Bilissi accepted the order and produced the most beautiful suit he had ever made. When the knight picked up the suit, he said to Bilissi, ‘The King will be happy. In two days, you shall receive your reward.’ Two days later, Bilissi saw his mother die before his eyes. ‘Is this my reward?’ Bilissi thought, and he was filled with sadness.

  “The next week, the knights returned. The second knight came forward and knocked on Bilissi’s door. He ordered a suit of blue silk from Bilissi for his master the King. Bilissi accepted the order and produced the most beautiful suit he had ever made, much more beautiful than the suit of red velvet. When the knight came to pick up the suit, he said to Bilissi, ‘The King will be happy. In two days, you shall receive your reward.’ Two days later, Bilissi saw his wife die before his eyes. ‘Is this my reward?’ Bilissi thought, and he was filled with sadness.

  “The next week, the knights returned. The third knight came forward and knocked on Bilissi’s door. He ordered a suit from Bilissi for his master the King, a suit of green brocade. Bilissi hesitated, tried to refuse, said that he had too much work, but the knight had already drawn his sword from its sheath. In the end, Bilissi accepted the order. He produced the most beautiful suit he had ever made, much more beautiful than the suit of red velvet, and much more beautiful even than the suit of blue silk. When the knight returned to pick up the suit, he said to Bilissi, ‘The King will be happy. In two days, you shall receive your reward.’ But Bilissi replied, ‘Let the King keep the suit, but I want none of his reward. I’m very happy as I am.’

  “The knight looked at Bilissi in surprise. ‘You are wrong, Bilissi. The King has the powers of life and death. He wished to make you a father by giving you the little daughter you have always desired.’

  “‘But I already have a little daughter,’ Bilissi replied, ‘and she’s the joy of my life.’

  “The knight looked at the tailor and said, ‘My poor Bilissi, the King took from you what you had, your mother and your wife, and you did not grieve overmuch, but he wished to give you what you do not have, a daughter, for the little girl whose father you believe yourself to be is naught but an illusion, and you are all bereft. Do you really think that dreams are more precious than life?’

  “The knight did not wait for Bilissi’s reply, nor did the tailor make any. He told himself that the knight had sought to deceive him. He went back into his house, took his child in his arms, sang her a song, gave her some nourishment, and ended by kissing her, without realizing that his lips touched only air and that he had never, ever, had a child.”

  I won’t go back over events I’ve already described in the beginning of this long account: my arrival at Schloss’s inn, the mute gathering of all the men in the village, their faces, my fright, my terror when I understood what they’d done, and then, the ring of their bodies closing in upon me, their request, and my promise to write the Report on my old typewriter.

  The Report is finished, as I’ve said. I have therefore performed the task they assigned to me. Nothing remains to be done, apart from delivering the Report to the mayor. Let him do with it what he will; it’s no longer my problem.

  XXXIX

  ————

  esterday—but was it really yesterday?—I delivered the Report to Orschwir. I tucked the pages under my arm and went to his house without letting him know I was coming. I walked across the village. It was very early and I saw nobody except for Zungfrost: “Not too huh … huh … hot, Brodeck!”

  I gave him a little greeting and continued on my way.

  I entered Orschwir’s farm. I passed his farmhands and I passed his pigs. Nobody paid any attention to me. Neither the men nor the animals looked at me.

  I found Orschwir seated at his big table, where he’d been sitting when I came to see him the morning after the Ereigniës. But yesterday morning, he wasn’t busy with his breakfast. He was simply sitting there. His hands were joined on the table in front of him, and he seemed to be lost in thought. When he heard me, he raised his head, looked at me, and smiled a little. “Well, here you are, Brodeck,” he said. “How are you doing? You may not believe it, but I’ve been waiting for you. I knew you’d come this morning.”

  On another occasion, maybe I would have asked him how he could possibly have known such a thing, but oddly enough, I found that I was indifferent to or, rather, detached from a great many questions and their answers. Orschwir and the others had played with me enough. The mouse had learned to pay no more attention to the cats, so to speak, and if they needed entertainment, they had only to scratch one another with their sharp claws. They could stop counting on me to amuse them. They’d given me a mission, and I had accomplished it. I’d told the story.

  I placed before the mayor all the pages containing my presentation of the events in question. “Here’s the Report you and the others asked for.”

  Orschwir picked up the sheets absentmindedly I’d never seen him so distant, so thoughtful. Even his face was missing the brutal features it ordinarily presented to the world. A kind of sadness had erased a little of his ugliness.

  “The Report…,” he said, scattering the pages.

  “I want you to read it right away, right here in front of me, and tell me what you think. I’ve got time. I’ll wait.”

  Orschwir smiled at me and said simply, “If you wish, Bro-deck, if you wish … I’ve got time, too …”

  Then the mayor started reading from the beginning, from the first word. My chair was comfortable, and I settled myself in it, prepared to wait a long time. I tried to tell what Orschwir might be feeling by scrutinizing his facial expressions, but he read without betraying the smallest reaction. Nevertheless, from time to time he passed one big hand over his forehead, rubbed his eyes, or pinched his lips, harder than he seemed to realize.

  From outside came the sounds of the big farm waking up. Footsteps, cries, squeals, bucketfuls of water striking the ground, voices, the shriek of axles—all the noises of a way of life resuming its course, beginning a day which would be, all in all, like the other days, during which some people would be born and others would die, everywhere in the world, in a kind of perpetual motion.

  The reading took a few hours—I couldn’t say exactly how many. My mind seemed to be at rest. I let it roam as after a great effort, free to relax a little, to loaf, to go where it would.

  The clock struck
. Orschwir had finished his reading. He cleared his throat—three times—gathered up the pages, jogged them into an orderly stack, and brought his big, heavy eyes to bear on me.

  “Well?” I asked.

  He waited awhile before answering me. He rose to his feet without a word and started walking slowly around the big table, rolling up the papers until they formed a kind of little scepter. Then he spoke: “Brodeck, I’m the mayor, as you know. But I don’t think you know what that fact means to me. You write well, Brodeck—we were right to choose you—and you love images, maybe a little too much, but still… I’m going to talk to you in images. You know our shepherds well—you’ve often observed them in the stubble fields and the meadows. Whether or not they love the animals entrusted to them, I have no idea. Besides, how they feel about them is none of my business, and I don’t think it’s any of theirs, either. The animals are placed in the shepherd’s care. He must find them grass in abundance, pure water, and sheep-folds sheltered from the wind. He must protect his flock from all danger and keep it away from excessively steep slopes, from rocks where the animals could slip and break their backs, from certain plants which would cause them to swell up and die, from various pests and predators which might attack the weakest of them, and of course from the wolves that come prowling near the flock. A good shepherd knows and does all that, whether he loves his animals or not. And what about the animals, you may ask. Do they love their shepherd? I put the question to you.”