will. She knows and she holds it against me. And maybe she’s not entirely wrong. Had I loved her more, our relationship might have been different. Perhaps I would have known how to stop her from leading a life of which I disapprove. For a long while I stood there looking at the flames, repeating to myself, ‘I don’t love her enough.’
I hadn’t wanted her; it was Robert who wanted to have a child right away. I’ve always held it against Nadine that she upset my life alone with Robert. I loved Robert too much and I wasn’t interested enough in myself to be moved by the discovery of his features or mine on the face of that little intruder. Without feeling any particular affection, I took notice of her blue eyes, her hair, her nose. I scolded her as little as possible, but she was well aware of my reticence; to her, I’ve always been suspect. No little girl has ever fought more tenaciously to triumph over her rival for her father’s heart. And she’s never resigned herself to belonging to the same species as I. When I told her she would soon begin menstruating and explained the meaning of it to her, she listened attentively, but with a fierce trapped look in her eyes. Then she violently threw her favourite vase to the floor, shattering it to bits. After her first period, her anger was so powerful that she didn’t bleed again for another eighteen months.
Diego had created a new climate between us; at last she owned a treasure which belonged to her alone. She felt herself my equal, and a friendship was born between us. But afterwards, everything grew even worse. Just now, everything is worse.
‘Mother.’
Nadine was calling me. As I walked down the corridor, I thought to myself, ‘If I stay too long, she’ll say I monopolise her friends; but if I leave too soon, she’ll think I’m insulting them.’ I opened the door. In the room were Lambert, Sézenac, Vincent, and Lachaume. There were no women; Nadine had no girl friends. They were sitting around the electric heater, drinking ersatz coffee. Nadine handed me a cup of black, bitter water.
‘Chancel was killed,’ she said abruptly.
I hadn’t known Chancel very well, but ten days earlier I had seen him laughing with the others around the Christmas tree. Maybe Robert was right; the distance between the living and the dead really isn’t very great. And yet, like myself, those future corpses who were drinking their coffee in silence appeared ashamed to be so alive. Sézenac’s eyes were even more blank than usual; he looked like a Rimbaud without brains.
‘How did it happen?’ I asked.
‘Nobody knows,’ Sézenac replied. ‘His brother got a note saying he died on the field of honour.’
‘Do you think there’s any chance he did it on purpose?’
Sézenac shrugged his shoulders. ‘Maybe.’
‘And maybe no one asked him for his advice,’ Vincent said. ‘They’re far from stingy with human material, our generals. They’re great and generous lords, you know.’ In his sallow face, his bloodshot eyes looked like two gashes; his mouth was a thin scar. One failed to notice at first that his features were actually fine and regular.
Lachaume’s face, on the other hand, was at once calm and tormented, like a craggy rock. ‘It’s all a question of prestige,’ Lachaume said. ‘If we still want to play at being a great power, we must have a respectable number of dead.’
‘Besides,’ Vincent said, ‘disarming the members of the Resistance was a neat trick. But let’s face it. If they could be quietly liquidated, that’d suit the great lords even better,’ Vincent added, his scar opening into a sort of smile.
‘What are you trying to insinuate?’ Lambert asked severely, looking Vincent straight in the eyes. ‘De Gaulle ordered de Lattre to get rid of all the Communists? If that’s what you want to say, say it. At least have that much courage.’
‘No need for any order,’ Vincent replied. ‘They understand each other well enough without exchanging words.’
Lambert shrugged his shoulders. ‘You don’t believe that yourself.’
‘Maybe it’s true,’ Nadine said aggressively.
‘Don’t be silly. Of course it’s not true.’
‘What’s there to prove it isn’t?’ she asked.
‘Ah, ha! So you’ve finally picked up the technique!’ Lambert said. ‘You make up a fact out of whole cloth, and then you ask someone to prove it’s false! Obviously I can’t swear to the fact that Chancel wasn’t killed by a bullet in the back.’
Lauchaume smiled. ‘That’s not what Vincent said.’
That was the way it always went. Sézenac would hold his tongue, Vincent and Lambert would engage in a squabble, and then at the right moment Lachaume would intervene. Usually, he would chide Vincent for his leftist views and Lambert for his petit-bourgeois prejudices. Nadine would side with one camp or the other, depending upon her mood. I avoided getting entangled in their argument; it was more vehement today than usually, probably because Chancel’s death had more or less unnerved them. In any case, Vincent and Lambert weren’t made to get along with each other. Lambert had an aura of gentlemanliness about him, while Vincent, with his fur-collared jacket and his thin unhealthy face, looked rather like a hoodlum. There was a disturbing coldness in his eyes, but nevertheless I couldn’t bring myself to believe that he had killed real men with a real revolver. Every time I saw him I thought of it, but I could never actually bring myself to believe it. As for Lauchaume, he, too, may have killed, but if he did, he hadn’t told anyone and it hadn’t left any visible mark.
Lambert turned towards me. ‘You can’t even have a talk with friends any more,’ he said. ‘It’s no fun living in Paris, the way it is now. Sometimes I wonder if Chancel wasn’t right. I don’t mean getting yourself shot up, but going off and doing some fighting.’
Nadine gave him an angry look. ‘But you’re hardly ever in Paris as it is!’
‘I’m here enough to find it a lot too grim for my taste. And even when I’m at the front, believe me, I don’t feel especially proud of what I’m doing.’
‘But you did everything you could to become a war correspondent,’ she said bitterly.
‘I liked it better than staying back here, but it’s still a half measure.’
‘If you’re fed up with Paris, no one’s holding you here,’ Nadine said, her face twisted with rage. ‘Go on and play the hero.’
‘It’s no better and no worse than some other games I know of,’ Lambert grumbled, giving her a look heavy with meaning.
Nadine eyed him up and down for a moment. ‘You know, you wouldn’t look bad as a stretcher case, with bandages all over you.’ Sneringly, she added, ‘Only don’t count on me to come visiting you in the hospital. Two weeks from now I’ll be in Portugal.’
‘Portugal?’
‘Perron is taking me along as his secretary,’ she replied casually.
‘Well, well! Isn’t he the lucky one,’ Lambert said. ‘He’ll have you all to himself for a whole month!’
‘I’m not as repulsive to everyone as I am to you,’ Nadine retorted.
‘Yes, nowadays
