Kelmar and I had long since stopped talking. Each of us was coping as best he could with the shocks and aftershocks in his brain. We were both trying to reconcile, if possible, our past history and our present state. The car stank of enervated flesh, of excrement and sour humors, and when the train slowed down, it was assailed by countless flies, which abandoned the peaceful countryside, the green grass, and the rested soil to penetrate between the planks and fall upon us, rubbing their wings together as a commentary on our agony.
I believe we saw what we saw at the same instant. Then we turned our heads toward each other with the same movement, and that exchange of looks contained everything. The young woman had dozed off once again, but unlike the previous times, her weakened arms had loosened their grip on her child and her big glass bottle. The baby, who weighed very little, remained attached to his mother’s body, but the demijohn had rolled onto the floor near my left leg. Kelmar and I understood each other without saying a word. I don’t know if we gave the matter any thought. I don’t know if there was anything to think about, and I especially don’t know if we were still capable of thinking. I don’t know what it was, deep down inside of us, that made the decision. Our hands grasped the demijohn at the same time. There was no hesitation. Kelmar and I exchanged one last look, and then we drank in turn, he and I, we drank the warm water from its glass container, we drank it to the last drop, closing our eyes, swallowing greedily, drinking as we’d never drunk water before, in the certainty that what was flowing down our throats was life, yes, life, and the taste of that life was putrid and sublime, bright and insipid, happy and sorrowful, a taste I believe I shall remember with horror until my dying day.
After screaming for a long time, the young woman died. Her child, the baby with the pale, wrinkled little body, the worried brow, and the swollen eyelids, survived her by a few hours. Before she died, she called the people around her thieves and murderers and struck out at everyone within her reach. Her fists were so small and weak that I felt her blows as caresses. I pretended to be asleep. So did Kelmar. The little water we’d drunk had given us back much of our strength and cleared our heads as well — cleared them enough for us to regret what we’d done, to find it abominable, and to keep our eyes shut, not daring to open them and look at her and look at ourselves. The young woman and her baby would doubtless have died in any case, but this thought, however logical it may have been, did not suffice to erase the ignominy of the crime we’d committed. That crime was our tormentors’ great triumph, and we knew it. Kelmar even more than I, perhaps, at that moment, since shortly afterward he chose not to go on. He chose to die quickly. He chose to punish himself.
As for me, I chose to live, and my punishment is my life. That’s the way I see things. My punishment is all the suffering I’ve endured since. It’s Brodeck the Dog. It’s Amelia’s silence, which I sometimes interpret as the greatest of reproaches. It’s my constantly recurring nightmares. And more than anything else, it’s this perpetual feeling of inhabiting a body I stole in a freight car with the help of a few drops of water.
XXXVIII
—
hen I left the shed yesterday evening, I was drenched with sweat in spite of the cold, the mist, and the Graufrozt—the light frost, not white but gray, that occurs only around here — covering the roofs of all the houses. I had only about ten meters or so to cover before I’d find Fedorine in her kitchen, Poupchette in her little bed, and Amelia in ours, but the distance seemed vast to me. There was a light burning in Göbbler’s house. Was he by any chance watching me? Had he been outside the shed, listening to the sporadic clacking of my typewriter? I couldn’t possibly have cared less. I’d traveled my road again. I’d returned to the freight car. I’d written it all down.
In our bedroom, I wrapped my pages in the linen pouch, as I do every evening, and then I slipped into the warm bed; and this morning, as I do every morning, I tied my linen-wrapped confession around Amelia’s waist. That’s been my procedure for weeks and weeks. Amelia never puts up any resistance or pays any attention to what I’m doing, but this morning, just as I was about to remove my hands from her stomach, I felt her put one of her hands on one of mine and squeeze it a little. Not for long, nor did I see it, because it was still dark in the room. But I wasn’t dreaming. I’m sure it happened. Was it an involuntary movement, or could it have been something like a caress, like the beginning or the renewal of a caress?
It’s now a little after twelve o’clock, in the middle of a colorless day. Night has yet to depart completely. The day’s too lazy to hold on to its light, and the frost is still covering the roofs and the treetops. Poupchette’s pulling the skin of Fedorine’s face into grotesque shapes, and Fedorine smiles and lets her do it. Amelia’s in her place at the window, looking out. She’s humming.
I’ve just finished the Report. In a few hours, I’m going to submit it to Orschwir and the thing will be over and done with, or at least so I hope. I’ve kept it simple. I’ve tried to tell the story faithfully. I haven’t made anything up. I haven’t put anything right. I’ve followed the trail as closely as possible. The only gaps I’ve had to fill in occurred on the Anderer’s last day, the one that preceded the Ereigniës. Nobody wanted to talk to me about it. Nobody wanted to tell me anything.
In any case, on the notorious morning when the drowned carcasses of the donkey and the horse were found, I accompanied the Anderer back to the inn. Schloss opened the door for us. We looked at each other without exchanging a word, Schloss and I. The Anderer went up to his room and stayed there the entire day. He didn’t touch anything on the tray Schloss brought up and placed outside his door.
People resumed their usual activities again. The diminished heat made it possible for the men to go back to the fields and the forests. The animals, too, raised their heads a little. A pyre was constructed on the riverbank, and there the carcasses of Mister Socrates and Miss Julie were burned. Some of the village kids watched the spectacle the entire day, occasionally casting branches into the fire, and returned home with their hair and clothing reeking of cooked flesh and burned wood. And then night fell.
The cries started about two hours after sunset. A slightly high-pitched voice, filled with distress but perfectly clear, was shouting before the door of every house, “Murderers! Murderers!” It was the Anderer’s voice. Like some strange night watchman, he was crying out in the street, reminding the villagers of what they had done or what they hadn’t prevented. No one saw him, but everyone heard him. No one opened a door. No one opened a shutter. People stopped their ears. People burrowed into their beds.
The following day, in the shops, in the cafés, at the inn, on the street corners, and in the fields, the cries in the night were the subject of some conversation. Some, but not much; people quickly passed on to other subjects. The Anderer remained out of sight, shut up in his room. It was as though he’d vanished into thin air. But again that second evening, a couple of hours after sunset, the same mournful refrain echoed in every street, before every door: “Murderers! Murderers!”
I prayed he would stop. I knew how it was all going to end. The horse and donkey would be just the prelude. Killing his animals would suffice to cool the hotheads for a time, but if he got on their nerves again, they’d get some new ideas, and those ideas would be conclusive. I tried to tell him so. I went to the inn and knocked at the door of his room. There was no response. I applied my ear to the wood and heard nothing. I tried the handle, but the door was locked. Then Schloss found me.