Love, Anger, Madness

as graves. It seemed as if their terrified inhabitants had run for cover.

I will attend the Gorilla’s funeral tomorrow, the father told himself. I will play my part to the very end, until the children leave. After that, whatever happens, happens!

The sun was setting as he left the room. He ran into Rose at the door to the living room.

“Where are you going?” the father asked, obstructing her path.

“How can you ask that, Papa? I’m going out, that’s all.”

“Come, I need to talk to you.”

“Tomorrow, Papa, I have to go.”

“I have to talk to you,” he bellowed with such authority that she was dumbstruck and turned around.

“I’ll come to your room, go,” he added more softly.

She looked at him in fear, saw the time on her watch, then ran past him and made for the street.

“Rose!” he yelled.

He saw light in Paul’s room and went up. He opened the door quietly. The young man was sitting with his eyes on the ground, his arms on his chest, somber and stern.

“Get out of here, Papa, get out,” he said quietly.

“I have to talk to you.”

“We have nothing to say to each other.”

“Here is your passport and Rose’s and the money for your studies. More than you’ll need, a lot more because you’ll have to attend to your sister’s health. I have reserved seats on a plane for tomorrow. That’s what I had to say to you, my son.”

He hesitated for a moment, then walked slowly to the door.

“Papa!”

“Yes, son,” he replied without turning around.

He felt two shivering, ice-cold hands grasping him from behind, moving up over his face.

“Papa, Papa!” he heard again.

And the hands wandered madly over his face, seeking the embrace that would halt them. So he held these hands in his and stood there without moving, his son’s icy hands in his. Against his own weakened body, he felt the twitching of his son’s, robust and powerful.

“Calm down,” he advised, “you have to stay calm.”

He freed himself and led Paul to the bed, where he made him lie down. Lifting his son’s feet onto the bed, he looked at him pensively, then abruptly left the room. Tears were streaming down his cheeks, which he wiped with the back of his hand. Walking by the grandfather’s closed door, he heard the invalid whispering. He went to his room, got undressed and lay in bed next to his wife.

“Rose went out?” she asked him.

“Yes,” the father said.

“I’m going to use this time to pack her bags.”

He held her back by grabbing her hand.

“Wait until I’ve spoken to her, Laura. Wait until she comes back,” he said.

He kept his anguish to himself, counting the minutes until he suddenly sank into a deep sleep, his wife’s hand in his.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Paul stayed up waiting for Rose to return. Eyes fixed on his watch as it marked ten o’clock, he was startled when he heard the stairs creak. There she is! he told himself and held his breath. Fifteen minutes went by and he didn’t move. Finally he got up, left his room and put his ear to Rose’s door. He heard nothing. He knocked and no one answered. “Hell and damnation!” he whispered, “but I really did hear steps on the stairs!” He steadied his nerves and broke down the door with a firm right shoulder. Two bullets sounded not too far from the house, then two more.

“They’re shooting!” the mother screamed from her room.

The father appeared, haggard, supporting the mother who was about to faint. She pointed at the grandfather’s room.

“See if they’re here,” she said, her face deathly pale. “Make sure they’re not both outside.”

Paul opened the door, saw there was no one there, and rushed downstairs.

“No, not you, not you!” the mother screamed.

And she fell to her knees, arms folded on her chest screaming: “My God! Have mercy on us!”

Paul had already reached the yard, followed by the father, who was nervously pulling up his oversized pajamas.

Two bodies lay against the wall where they had probably been thrown, the child’s head resting at the grandfather’s feet, facing the house.

Paul bent over the bodies, looked across the property and hollered:

“Murderers! Murderers!”

Teeth clenched, he waited, but nothing stirred. So he put the invalid’s body in his father’s arms and lifted the grandfather onto his back.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Rose walked into the bright living room without a sound. Around the sofa, she could make out her father, her mother and her brother looking at two bodies lying beside each other. No one looked up when she came in and she didn’t say a word. The church bell tolled twelve times as she counted patiently, heels together, motionless, as if struck dead. In vain she waited for somebody to make a move, to know what to do, to know whether to speak, cry or scream, whether to clutch at the bodies and call out to them. Her legs were wobbly and she took a few steps back, moving with difficulty, like an automaton, as she slowly made her way upstairs. She recognized Paul’s footsteps behind her and went into her room, leaving the door open. He closed it behind them. They looked at each other in silence. Then Rose lifted her hand and stroked his face. He felt as if she were fighting off some sort of terrible exhaustion and that at any moment she would collapse before him, flimsy and disjointed like a puppet.

He watched her stagger.

For a brief instant, he could see the student who had fallen asleep beside him on the bench in the public square. He thought: Worn out, they’ve worn her out as well. He rushed and caught her on his shoulder. Then he put her in bed and sat by her side to wait for her to wake up. Dawn came and only then did he learn that Rose was dead.

MADNESS

There is no better role to play in the presence of the great than that of the fool. For a long time there was an official jester to the king, but there has never been an official wise man to the king. Me, I’m the fool of Bertin and many others, perhaps yours at this moment, or perhaps you are mine; a man who would be wise would have no fool, so anyone who has a fool is not wise; if he’s not wise he’s a fool, and perhaps, though he be king, his fool’s fool.