“Yes, Claude, that’s our name, grandfather’s and mine.” He gestured to the old man, who took him in his arms as he rose.
“Let’s go in the garden,” he begged.
“No, not today.”
“But I love to be in the garden with you when you tell me stories and give me things to read. Besides, it’s high time to pick the fruit or else they’ll rot.”
“I know, but today we won’t go to the garden. We’re going to sit here and listen to the church bells. Since it so happens that my story is all about bells.”
The child was normal down to his thighs. At the end of his scrawny legs were two atrophied feet whose angled shape reminded one of lobster claws. He was usually dressed in long shirts that concealed his handicap; but on the day of his eighth birthday, he demanded pants and socks which, according to his mother, was something the grandfather had suggested. For the latter, she was still persona non grata. She would always be little more than the daughter of a mulatto drunk who died prematurely from delirium tremens. He had objected to this union from the beginning. On the eve of the wedding, he had made a terrible scene before his son, shouting: “They’re a bunch of defectives, you’ll regret this.” And the invalid was born to prove him right. It was strange then, at least according to the others, that he preferred that little mulatto, born late, ungainly and in fragile health, but whose character resembled his more than his own son’s did. He was pleased to see him tear his hair out or bite his fist at the slightest frustration. “Except for the color of his skin, he’s my spitting image,” he beamed ecstatically, paying homage to the capricious laws of heredity, for he retained a sort of admiration, sustained by the memory of his fearsome father, for the black men of substance and courage from a bygone age.
“Have you warned your mother and your sister, Paul?” the father asked abruptly. “Did you warn them that under no circumstances should they venture beyond the stakes?”
“No,” the son answered tersely.
“Stakes? What stakes?” the mother asked, looking at her husband.
Rose rushed to the door.
“Who put these stakes up on grandfather’s land?” she cried. “What’s happened?”
“Hush!” the father said quietly, “watch the little one. He’ll be so heartbroken when he learns we won’t be able to take him for walks under the trees.”
“When did this happen?” Rose mumbled.
“My God!” the mother moaned.
She got up and went to look outside. When she saw the pieces of wood encircling the house, she closed her eyes, feeling as though a huge crowd was pressing against her, pushing her down an airless hole. She put her hand on her heart and opened her mouth, gasping for breath. Her still-young face became hollow, heavy, suddenly torn apart.
“My God!” she repeated, her eyes searching for the grandfather.
He was standing in a corner, the child in his arms, and she could see his beard trembling. The little invalid, tense and pale, lowered his head.
“What are they talking about, Grandfather?” he asked, as if refusing to understand.
“You heard very well,” Paul answered mercilessly. “They have seized our land.”
“They? They, who?” said the child in an insistently cheerful tone.
“No one knows,” Paul answered. “They wear black uniforms and carry arms. And they have helped themselves to our land. That’s all we know.”
“Is it true, Grandfather?”
“It’s true.”
“I want to see them! I want to see them!”
The grandfather carried the invalid to the door.
And seeing them:
“If I had legs,” he cried, “I would pull up all these stakes.”
“And what if the men in black shot at you,” Paul asked, “what would you do? Huh? What would you do?”
“I would kill them, kill them all.”
He burst into convulsive sobs, tore his shirt with his teeth, tore his hair, while his deformed feet dangled like two broken toys.
“Take him away, Grandfather,” the mother begged.
She leaned her head on the door and could smell the hot sap rising from the coarse trunks and the lighter fragrance of their fruit. The lemon flowers, blown by a sudden breeze, covered the grave of the ancestor under a white blanket, leaving it sheltered in the privacy of this immaculate shroud.
“They will desecrate his grave,” she whispered. “They will dig up his bones.”
She went back to her room and put some order there absentmindedly as if her actions escaped her control. After listening for a moment, she turned the key in the lock; then, throwing herself on the bed, she burst into nervous, jerky laughter that sounded like painful grunts.
CHAPTER TWO
“Teach me to walk,” the child said to the grandfather.
“All right,” said the grandfather.
And he bent down to put him gently on the ground, on his stomach.
“Do you remember the story of the Indian chief who wanted to chase the white man out of his country?”
“Yes,” the child answered.
“How did he approach the enemy without making noise?”
“He crawled.”
“Well then, do as he did.”
And he began to crawl on his chest and elbows across the floor of his room.
“Look, I’m going faster and faster, look, Grandfather.”
“In a few days, you will crawl as well as that Indian chief.”
The old man leaned down and took the child in his arms again. He stood before the window, facing the almond tree whose leaves touched the roof.
“There they are!” the child cried out, and his eyes became so feverish that they fogged up with tears.
Thirty meters away, several men in black uniforms stood guard with fixed bayonets. A golden-feathered bird streaked across the sky like lightning and lit on an oak branch, trilling its sweet song. One of the men reached for his weapon and shot it. The grandfather felt the child shaking.
“Swear to me that you won’t let them stay on our land, Grandfather, swear it.”
“It will be difficult, you know.”
“Swear it.”
“They’ll kill us.”
“Swear it, Grandfather, swear it.”
“I swear to you.”
The sound of their voices was rising with the wind that feebly shook the leaves of the almond tree.
It was eight in the morning and it was time to come down for breakfast. They had already heard the father’s footsteps, the mother’s weary tread, and the galloping of the young people. When they came into the dining room, they found the family sitting at the table and Melie circling around them. She rushed forward and wanted to take the invalid in her arms but he curtly refused.
“Did you sleep well?” his mother asked him.
“Yes. And I always sleep very well. Don’t I, Grandfather?”
“Dr. Valois thinks you’re big enough that a wheelchair would be useful to you,” his mother added.
“What’s a wheelchair like?”
“It’s like a little car. You steer it and it takes you where you want to go.”
“I think it will be fun.”
