A Fable

and convulsive effort, whether to speak or not to speak was still not clear even when he said, like a sort of gesture, a valedictory not to defeat nor despair nor even desperation, but as though to abnegation itself:

‘Remember that bird.’

‘So he did send you here,’ the corporal said.

‘Yes,’ the priest said. ‘He sent for me. To render unto caesar—’ He said: ‘But he came back.’

‘Came back?’ the corporal said. ‘He?’

‘The one who denied you,’ the priest said. ‘That turned his back on you. Freed himself of you. But he came back. And now there are eleven of them again.’ He moved until he was facing the corporal. ‘Save me too,’ he said. Then he was on his knees before the corporal, his hands clasped fist into fist at his breast. ‘Save me,’ he said.

‘Get up, Father,’ the corporal said.

‘No,’ the priest said. He fumbled a moment inside the breast of his coat and produced his prayer-book, dog- eared and stained too from the front lines; it seemed to open automatically on the narrow purple ribbon of its marker as the priest reversed it and extended it upward. ‘Read it to me then,’ he said. The corporal took the book.

‘What?’ he said.

‘The office for the dying,’ the priest said. ‘But you cant read, can you?’ he said. He took the book back and now clasped it closed between his hands at his breast, his head bowed still. ‘Save me then,’ he said.

‘Get up,’ the corporal said, reaching down to grasp the priest’s arm, though the priest had already begun to rise, standing now, fumbling a little clumsily as he put the book back inside his coat; as he turned, stiffly and clumsily still, he seemed to stumble slightly and was apparently about to fall even, though again he had recovered himself before the corporal touched him, going toward the door now, one hand already lifted toward it or toward the wall or perhaps just lifted, as though he were blind too, the corporal watching him, until the corporal said: ‘You’ve forgotten your gear.’

The priest stopped, though he didn’t turn yet. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘So I did.’ Then he said, ‘So I have.’ Then he turned and went back to the desk and gathered the articles up—basin ewer stole and crucifix—and huddled them clumsily into or onto one arm and extended his hand toward the candles and then stopped again, the corporal watching him.

‘You can send back for them,’ the corporal said.

‘Yes,’ the priest said. ‘I can send back for them,’ and turned and went again to the door and stopped again and after a moment began to raise his hand toward it, though the corporal now had already passed him, to strike two or three rapping blows with his knuckles on the wood, which a moment later swung open and back, revealing the sergeant, the priest standing again for a second or two clasping to his breast the huddled symbols of his mystery. Then he roused. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I can send back for them,’ and passed through the door; and this time he didn’t pause even when the sergeant overtook him and said:

‘Shall I take them to the chapel, Father?’

‘Thank you,’ the priest said, relinquishing them: and now he was free, walking on; and now he was even safe: outside, out of doors with only the spring darkness, the spring night soft and myriad above the blank and lightless walls and between them too, filling the empty topless passage, alley, at the end of which he could see a section of the distant wire fence and the catwalk spaced by the rigid down-glare of the lights, these spaced in their turn by the red eyes of the Senegalese sentries’ cigarettes; and beyond that the dark plain, and beyond the plain in turn the faint unsleeping glow of the sleepless city; and now he could remember when he had seen them first, finally seen them, overtook them at last, two winters ago up near the Chemin des Dames—behind Combles, Souchez, he couldn’t remember—the cobbled Place in the mild evening (no: mild evening, it was only autumn yet, a little while still before there would begin at Verdun that final winter of the doomed and accursed race of man) already empty again because again he had just missed them by minutes, the arms the hands pointing to show him, the helpful and contradictory voices giving him directions, too many of them in fact, too many helpful voices and too many directions, until at last one man walked with him to the edge of the village to show him the exact route and even point out to him the distant huddle of the farm itself—a walled yard enclosing house byre and all, twilight now and he saw them, eight of them at first standing quietly about the kitchen stoop until he saw two more of them, the corporal and another, sitting on the stoop in baize or oilcloth aprons, the corporal cleaning a fowl, a chicken, the other peeling potatoes into a bowl while beside, above them stood the farmwife with a pitcher and a child, a girl of ten or so, with both hands full of mugs and tumblers; then while he watched, the other three came out of the byre with the farmer himself and crossed the yard carrying the pails of milk.

Nor did he approach nor even make his presence known: just watching while the woman and the child exchanged the pitcher and the drinking vessels for the fowl and bowl and the pails of milk and carried the food on into the house and the farmer filled from the pitcher the mugs and tumblers which the corporal held and passed in turn and then they drank in ritual salutation—to peaceful work, to the peaceful end of day, to anticipation of the peaceful lamplit meal, whatever it was—and then it was dark, night, night indeed because the second time was at Verdun which was the freezing night of France and of man too since France was the cradle of the liberty of the human spirit, in the actual ruins of Verdun itself, within actual hearing range of the anguish of Gaud and Valaumont; not approaching this time either but only to stand from a distance watching, walled by the filth- and anguish-stained backs from where the thirteen would be standing in the circle’s center, talking or not, haranguing or not, he would never know, dared not know; thinking Yes, even then I durst not; even if they did not need to talk or harangue since simply to believe was enough; thinking, Yes, there were thirteen then and even now there are still twelve; thinking, Even if there were only one, only he, would be enough, more than enough, thinking Just that one to stand between me and safety, me and security, between me and peace; and although he knew the compound and its environs well, for a moment he was dis-oriented as sometimes happens when you enter a strange building in darkness or by one door and then emerge from it in light or by another even though this was not the case here, thinking in a sort of quiet unamazement Yes, I probably knew from the moment he sent for me what door I should have to emerge from, the only exit left for me. So it only lasted for a moment or two or possibly even less than that: one infinitesimal vertiginous lurch and wall stone and brick resumed once more its ordered and forever repudiated place; one corner, one turn, and the sentry was where he had remembered he would be, not even pacing his beat but just standing at ease with his grounded rifle beside the small iron gate.

‘Good evening, my son,’ the priest said.

‘Good evening, Father,’ the man said.

‘I wonder if I might borrow your bayonet?’ the priest said.

‘My what?’ the man said.