Malevil, Page 24

  “I must be off,” she said finally. “While you unload I must get a meal for you.”

  And she was already off, trotting in the direction of the house, a blacker spot against the blackness, tiny and swift, the circle of her flashlight dancing ahead of her, and her minute figure even tinier than ever by the time she reached the drawbridge and the foot of the inner rampart.

  I shouted after her, “Menou! Food for nine! There are two more visitors on the cart!”

  With the eight of us, it took no more than half an hour to unload, at least temporarily. We stowed everything away for the time being in the Maternity Ward, except for the mattresses, which we needed up at the house for the three newcomers. Everything went off smoothly, apart from a few fits of restlessness from Malabar that forced Jacquet to stand in front of him and hold his head on both sides, and apart also from the necessity of yelling at Momo occasionally when, instead of holding up his torch so that we could see, he began using it to peer between Malabar’s back legs.

  “For God’s sake, Momo! What the hell are you at?”

  The only answer was a series of grunted cries, obviously expressing wonder and admiration.

  “Momo, the torch, or you’ll have my boot up your arse!”

  The excited cries redoubled, and standing upright, he flourished his free arm to convey the vast proportions that had so delighted and amazed him. It was odd that Peyssou didn’t add his penny’s worth. It must have been Miette’s presence that restrained him.

  Once the animals had been attended to and shut up for the night—Malabar where I used to keep my own stallion before the day it happened, in a stall with a specially strengthened door so that he couldn’t kick it down and get out to join the mares—we made our way through into the inner enclosure, carried the bedding to the upper floor of the house, then came down again to the ground floor, where we found the fire blazing in the great hall, the meal laid, and in the middle of the long refectory table a great surprise, the last word in luxury and domestic illumination it seemed to us all, an old oil lamp of my uncle’s that Colin had raked out and mended during our absence.

  La Menou, however, was not exactly glowing with welcome. As I walked down the room at the head of our little troop she turned to look at me, black and thin, eyes like daggers, lips pinched into a thin line, teeth grinding with wrath. The group behind me slowed to a stop. The newcomers reduced to terror, the old hands discreetly amused as they awaited her outburst.

  “Ah, so where are they, the two others?” she asked in a furious voice. “These people from L’Étang, these foreigners of yours! As if we haven’t more than enough mouths to feed already!”

  I reassured her. I reeled off a list of all the riches I was bringing back for her, not to mention the wheat with which we could now make our own bread, and clothes for Peyssou, since Wahrwoorde had been just about his size. And hands to help with the work too. At that point I led Jacquet forward and displayed him for her inspection.

  He made a good impression. La Menou has a weakness for good-looking young men, and for the stronger sex generally. (“A man, nine times out of ten, you can count on it, Emmanuel, he’s made of the right stuff.”) And after all, a pair of shoulders and arms like Jacquet’s! She didn’t offer her hand, any more than she had to Miette, or even give him the time of day (“A foreigner from L’Étang! What an idea! A sow’s ear doesn’t turn into a silk purse overnight!”) But she did allow him one very slight, very distant nod of her head. When it came to class distinctions, La Menou could have given lessons to a duchess.

  “And this...”

  But I wasn’t given time to introduce La Falvine, or even utter her name. La Menou had noticed her, and before I could do a thing to stop her she burst out into a stream of patois, convinced that this “foreign woman” couldn’t understand her.

  “In the name of heaven, Emmanuel, what is that behind you? What have you brought back now? What have you lumbered me with, I ask you! An old hag! She must be seventy! [La Menou herself, if my memory served me right, was seventy-seven.] The young one, I don’t say anything about her! I can see how useful she’s going to be to you! But that old sow, she’s so fat it’s a wonder she can get that bottom off the floor. Good for nothing but getting under my feet in my own kitchen. What use will she be except to fill her great belly with everyone else’s share! And old,” she reiterated with disgust, “so old it makes my stomach turn just looking at her! With all those wrinkles! And so fat she looks like a crock of lard emptied onto a plate!”

  La Falvine was scarlet. She was having difficulty drawing breath, and those huge round tears, already too familiar, were cascading down her jowls and dewlaps. A pitiful sight, but one that completely escaped La Menou, since she was affecting not to acknowledge the foreigner’s presence and addressing herself exclusively to me.

  “And not even from here, what’s more, your old lard tub. She’s a foreigner, isn’t she? A savage just like that son of hers! A man who went with his own daughter! And how do we know he didn’t go with his mother too, even!”

  This gratuitous accusation was so far beyond the bounds that it gave La Falvine the strength to protest at last. “But the Wahrwoorde was no son of mine! He was my son-in-law!” she cried in patois.

  Silence. La Menou, dumbfounded, turned toward the newcomer and looked at her for the first time as though she were a human being.

  “You can speak our patois then,” she said, somewhat embarrassed needless to say.

  There was an exchange of looks and muffled laughs from the other residents.

  “And is that surprising?” La Falvine said, “when I was born in La Roque! Perhaps you know Le Falvine there. He has his workship just next to the château. I’m his sister.”

  “Not Falvine the cobbler?”

  “Yes, Falvine the cobbler!”

  “And if he isn’t my second cousin!” La Menou cried.

  General amazement. What remained to be explained, obviously enough, was how La Menou could not have known La Falvine, and indeed had never seen her before. But we would come to that, no doubt, little by little. I knew them both well enough for that.

  “I hope,” La Menou went on, “that you won’t take any offense at what I said just now, since it wasn’t said to you.”

  “Oh, no offense, I’m sure. None at all,” La Falvine said.

  “What I said about you being fat, that especially,” La Menou added. “For one thing, it’s no fault of yours. And it doesn’t mean that you eat more than anyone else necessarily either.” A remark that could be construed, according to taste, as either a piece of politeness or a shot across the bows.

  “No offense, no offense,” La Falvine murmured again, gentle as a lamb.

  Thank goodness. Our two old hens were going to settle down together after all. On a sound hierarchical basis of course. And I didn’t need to wonder for a moment who was going to rule the roost, or which of the two was going to do the pecking.

  I cried gaily, “Come on, let’s eat! Let’s eat!”

  I took my usual chair in the center and beckoned Miette to the one opposite me. A moment of slight hesitation. Then Thomas took his usual place on my right and Meyssonnier the chair on my left. Momo made as if to sit on Miette’s left, but this initiative was nipped in the bud by La Menou, who curtly summoned him over and made him sit on her right. Peyssou was looking at me.

  “Come on then,” I said. “What are you waiting for, you great booby?”

  At which he brought himself, in some confusion, to amble over and take the chair on Miette’s right. Colin, seemingly much more at ease, took the place on her left. Since Jacquet was still standing, unsure of what to do, I pointed to the chair next to Meyssonnier, which was certain to please him, since from there he could see Miette without having to lean forward. There was now only one place left, next to Peyssou, and I gestured to La Falvine to take it. Although not premeditated, it was a good arrangement. Peyssou, always polite, was sure to talk to her from time to time.

  I a
te like an ogre, though I drank, as usual, with sobriety, particularly since the day was far from over. There were decisions to be taken, and there would have to be a council after the meal. I noted with satisfaction that the color was back in Peyssou’s cheeks again. Because Jacquet was there, already paralyzed with shame as it was and not even daring to look at his victim, I refrained from asking how the wound was. Presumably he had waited for me to remove the dressing, but I decided it would be better to leave it on until the morning, for fear he might start bleeding again if he rubbed his head on his pillow during the night. La Falvine, nose to her plate, didn’t say a word, which represented quite an effort on her part, I imagined, and she pecked at her ham like a sparrow in order to make a good impression on La Menou. It was wasted effort, however, since La Menou didn’t lift her face from her plate either all through the meal.

  The only one of us who seemed perfectly natural and at ease was Miette. Though it’s true that she was the center on which the entire attention and warmth of the table was constantly focused. Nor did that embarrass her at all. And I would swear that it didn’t even occur to her that it was anything to be vain about either. She just looked at us whenever we spoke, perfectly at ease, her eyes filled with childlike gravity. Every now and then she smiled. She smiled at all of us in turn, without forgetting Momo, whom I was amazed to find so clean, quite forgetting that it was only that morning we had put him to soak in the bathtub.

  Although merry enough, the meal was at the same time a little constrained, because I didn’t want to recount all the events of the day at L’Étang in front of the newcomers. Silent and modest as their behavior was, they nevertheless made us feel slightly uneasy. There was a feeling that all the things that we might ordinarily come out with, without even thinking, would ring false in front of them. And also we were all aware of a whole tradition of life they had brought with them, a tradition different from ours. For instance, as they took their places at the table they had all crossed themselves. I don’t know where the habit originated. Not with Wahrwoorde, that was for certain! It made a good impression on La Menou, who was still prepared to look upon these “foreigners” as heathen savages imported from the pre-Christian era.

  Meyssonnier, on my left, had given me a nudge with his elbow, and Thomas had shot me a look expressing extreme annoyance.

  They clearly felt themselves suddenly even more in the minority, since they were the only two thoroughgoing atheists among us, the only ones for whom atheism was a second religion. Although Colin and Peyssou had rarely accompanied their wives to Mass before the day it happened—a habit that would have seemed to them somewhat unmanly—both went to communion at Easter. As for myself, neither a Catholic nor a Protestant, brought up between two stools as it were, I was a hybrid product of two different educational systems. And they had rather canceled each other out. Vast areas of the beliefs once instilled in me had long since crumbled, and I told myself that someday or other I must make an inventory to decide once and for all what still remained.

  I doubt if I shall ever do it now. But at all events, it was a sphere in which I was very much on my guard, and not just where priests were concerned. For example, I have always had a very keen antipathy for all those people who boast of having done away with God the Father, those who treat religion as something quaint and old-fashioned, then promptly replace it with a set of philosophic fetishes that are just as arbitrary. Never having got down to that inventory I mentioned, I would say that what I feel is an emotional attraction to the religious customs of my forebears. In short, all the threads have not been broken. But on the other hand, I’m well aware that sympathy isn’t the same thing as support.

  I made no response to Meyssonnier’s nudge and ignored Thomas’s glance. Did this mean that on top of the possible struggle for possession of Miette we were also on the verge of a religious war in Malevil? Because it clearly had not escaped our two atheists that the three newcomers were going to strengthen the clerical party there. And they were disturbed, naturally, because in that sphere they weren’t even sure of my support.

  The meal over, I sent Jacquet up to light the fire on the upper floor of the house, and as soon as he came down again I stood up and said to the three newcomers, “For tonight, you will all have to sleep upstairs on your mattresses. Tomorrow we’ll work out something better.”

  La Falvine stood up, clearly rather embarrassed, not really knowing how to take her leave, and La Menou made not the slightest effort to come to her rescue, indeed refused to give her even so much as a glance. Miette seemed much more at ease, perhaps because there was no question of her having to speak, but somewhat surprised all the same, and I knew why.

  “Come on then,” I said, making a herding gesture with my arms. “I’ll show you the way.”

  To get it over with I almost drove them before me toward the door, and as they disappeared through the doorway no one, either among the newcomers or the established residents, so much as murmured a good night. Upstairs, in order to justify my presence, I made a show of checking that the windows were properly closed and the mattresses not too near to the fire. “Well, sleep well,” I said at last, raising my arms again in a sort of shrug, distressed at having to leave Miette in that impersonal, distant way, even avoiding her eyes, which I had the impression were fixed on me with a puzzled, questioning look.

  I left them. But that didn’t mean Miette had left me. She was still there in my thoughts as I walked back down the staircase tower and into the great hall, where La Menou had by now cleared away and the rest, having pulled their chairs over to the fire, with mine empty in the middle, were waiting. I sat down and was immediately aware, just looking around at them, that Miette’s presence was filling every cubic inch of space in the room, that they were unable to think of anything else.

  The first to mention her, as I knew he would, was Peyssou. “She’s a fine-looking girl,” he said in a flattish voice. “But not very talkative.”

  “She’s dumb.”

  “You can’t mean it!” Peyssou said.

  “He’s nhumb!” Momo cried, distressed for her, yet at the same time aware that he no longer occupied the lowest rung of linguistic skill at Malevil.

  A short silence. We were all thinking tenderly of poor Miette.

  “Maman! He’s nhumb!” Momo cried again, straightening his back with a certain pride against the back of his bench.

  La Menou was knitting in her usual place opposite him. What would she do when she had used all her wool? Unravel it all, like Penelope, and start again? “There’s no need to shout your head off,” she said without raising her eyes. “I heard. I’m not deaf at any rate.”

  With a slight curtness in my voice, I said, “Miette isn’t deaf. Only dumb.”

  “Well, it’s an ill wind, they say,” La Menou answered sharply. “At least there’ll be no arguments.”

  Revolted though we all were by the cynicism of this remark, we were anxious not to put weapons into La Menou’s hand. We remained silent. And since the silence continued unbroken, I embarked on an account of our day at L’Étang.

  I passed as quickly as possible over our military exploits. Nor did I spend more time than necessary on the family life and relationships of the Wahrwoorde clan. I still felt the same concern not to provide La Menou with ammunition. So my main subject was Jacquet, his attack on Peyssou, his passive complicity, and the terror that his father had inspired in him. I concluded by saying that I felt we ought to punish him in some way, by depriving him of his liberty, I thought, just for principle’s sake, in order to make it quite clear to him that he had done wrong and so deter him from doing anything like it again.

  “But what exactly do you mean by depriving him of his liberty?” Meyssonnier asked.

  I shrugged. “Well, naturally I don’t mean we ought to put him in irons. Just a sort of house arrest. He won’t be allowed to leave Malevil or the immediate vicinity of Malevil. But otherwise he’ll be treated just like all the rest of us.”

  �
€œWell now, I must say!” La Menou broke in indignantly. “If you ask my opinion—”

  “I haven’t asked it,” I cut in very sharply.

  I was pleased at having put her in her place. I hadn’t at all liked the way she had let La Falvine leave without so much as a good night. After all, La Falvine was her second cousin. What did she mean by snubbing her like that? And in her attitude to me as well, I felt she was beginning to be too free and easy. The fact that she looked upon me as an employer imbued with some sort of divine right didn’t stop her, as it hadn’t with my uncle, from constantly pecking at me. Even when she prayed, I didn’t doubt it was more than she could do not to nag at God Himself.

  “I agree with what you suggest,” Meyssonnier said.

  They all expressed agreement. And from their eyes I could tell that they were endorsing my rebuff to La Menou as well.

  We then discussed how long Jacquet’s sentence should run. The range of suggestions was wide. The longest, because he’d been so afraid for me, came from Thomas: ten years. The most indulgent from Peyssou: one year.

  “You don’t seem to rate your own skull very highly,” Colin said with his old smile. Then he proposed five years and the confiscation of all the attacker’s possessions. We voted, and his proposal was carried. It was to be my task next day to announce the verdict to Jacquet.

  I then went on to raise the matter of security. We couldn’t be sure that there weren’t other groups of survivors wandering around the countryside with aggressive designs on us similar to those of Wahrwoorde. From now on we had to look to our safety. By day, no one must leave the castle unarmed. At night, there must be two men always in the gate tower as well as La Menou and Momo. And luckily there was in fact an unoccupied room on the upper floor of the tower, with a fireplace. I proposed a rotation system in twos. My companions all accepted this idea in principle, but argued with some animation over the frequency of the rotation and the composition of the watches. After twenty minutes a consensus was arrived at that Colin and Peyssou should keep watch in the gate tower on even dates and Meyssonnier and Thomas on odd dates. Colin proposed, and the others all agreed, that I should remain permanently in the keep so that I could organize the defense of the inner enclosure in the event of the outer one being occupied by a surprise attack.