This apparition of the cat has brought them together again, in fear.
Since the row broke out between Jaume and Maurras, all four of them have lived completely cut off from each other. Maurras would go and get water for himself, the others would go and get water for themselves, separately. Each of them would set off alone on the mountain trails, and then the water barrow would be brought back to only one house. And when the barrow was empty, you wouldn’t ask for any water from your neighbor; you’d set off on your own again, along the mountain trails.
But this selfishness, while separating them from each other, has restored their concern for earth and put some distance between themselves and the overwhelming fear. They’ve been at the point of coming back to life.
Arbaud has been to look at the neglected grain fields. The overripe ears have buckled the stems, and thistles have erupted through the yellow mat. Patiently, with his sickle, he’s cut a sheaf, happy to be alive and out in the open air, far from Babette’s groaning and Marie’s frightening body. Gondran, far removed from Janet, has picked a basket of grapes in his vineyard. There, too, it’s nothing more than a vast republic of wasps, field mice, pillaging birds. On the village forge, Jaume has straightened out his ploughshare. The flailing of his arms and the rhythm of his hammer blows have, little by little, laid his anxiety to rest. Maurras, far removed from Jaume, has eaten fresh figs. “Tomorrow,” he’s been thinking, “I’ll say to him: Let’s make peace. I have a quick temper, but it’s over. I’ll go get water for everybody.”
They were at the point of coming back to life, I tell you. It wouldn’t have taken much. And then, the cat came. It came out from the mulberry bush, it strode out into the sunlight, it jumped onto Janet’s windowsill. It didn’t take more than five minutes altogether to get from the one place to the other, but at the same time, just like that, both earth and sky took on an ugly cast.
•
The cat reappears. From the windowsill it jumps onto the fig tree. The fig tree takes it up to the roof. It walks across the tiles. It heads toward Maurras’s house. Fear has abruptly reunited Maurras with the rest of them. He’s touched Jaume’s arm.
“What do you say I bring it down?” And at once he’s slipped the bandolier off his shoulder.
“No, leave it alone. Anything but that.”
Maurras has obeyed.
•
From now on they’re bound together, right to the bitter end. One by one the grains of wheat will sift through the matted stems, down to earth and the ants. Magpies will devour the grapes and the figs, and the coulter blade will rust in the autumn rains.
Now they’re nothing more than one big, fearful body.
•
The cat has come back two or three times. It always comes out from under the mulberry bush. It walks on the tips of its claws, paws rigid, head held high. It passes by without seeing the men.
And then, another time, it shows up writhing, and its whiskers test the air, and its tapered ears seek out sound within the silence.
Or yet again, when you’re securely locked inside your house, you suddenly see it appear on a windowsill.
This is what happened to Madelon Maurras. She’d gone to get some potatoes from the loft. She was picking them out from the pile and putting them into her apron. She wasn’t moving too fast. When you’re as old as she is…
You know what it’s like, an attic? It’s full of things that are as good as dead — old, broken-down armoires, worn-out shoes, blouses that have seen better days. All in all, things you’ve left there to die a quiet death. When you see them again, it’s as though they’re reproaching you. It’s always a little sad.
On top of that, on this particular day the weather was gloomy.
•
She heard some plaster crack. She lifted her head: The cat was curled up in the frame of the skylight. It was licking its paws and cleaning one of its ears.
Ma Maurras dropped her potatoes and, quick as her old legs would carry her, she ran, lickety-split, downstairs to the kitchen. She swallowed a big draught of water to calm herself down.
•
Gagou’s the only one who doesn’t look scared. When the cat goes by, he laughs and bares his horsey teeth. Lips drooping, he lifts his wrinkled nose toward the creature. Sweetly he says to it “Ga gou, ga gou,” sweetly and tenderly, with so much attention and tenderness that the strands of silken saliva ripple under his chin.
At the same time, something’s bothering him, too. But what?
As soon as it’s dark he comes out to prowl between the barricaded houses. For the first time, he alters his usual call. A muted whimpering leaks out of his mouth, like the moans of a lost dog.
He watches the windows of the bedrooms, where the shadows of women in their nightgowns, their hair loosened, pass by.
The lamps go out.
Gagou waits, motionless, in the dark.
•
This evening, just after nightfall, before people’s eyes were used to the dark, Marie went into convulsions.
This happened all at once. Her mother heard her grinding her teeth. She touched her, and she could feel she was cold, rocked by big waves that made her bones creak.
Babette lets out a howl. Arbaud gropes in the shadows, looking for the lamp. At last he has it. But the glass globe rolls across the tablecloth and stops just short of the edge. He looks for his matches. No matches. Yes — here they are, at last. He strikes them so hard they don’t light but merely score the darkness with a blue streak.
You can hear Marie’s bones cracking. Babette moans, “Her head, Aphrodis, oh my, my, her head.”
Finally, the lamp.
The little one is in her mother’s arms. Within the space of a moment, between the last glimpse of daylight and the lighting of the lamps, both of them have become unrecognizable. Babette is nothing but two round, crazed eyes and a blackened mouth, like the mouth of a spring, ceaselessly moaning. Marie… Is this really Marie she holds in her arms? Or is it a gigantic heather root, full of knots, twisting and turning tortuously in a blaze? Two tiny, stiff hands claw at the shadows.
You can’t hear anything but Arbaud’s heavy breathing and the song-like modulations of the smoking lamp, as Babette fiercely kisses the heather root with her mouth wide open.
•
They’ve laid the girl down on her parents’ double bed.
“Pull her legs apart, gently.”
“Rub her with vinegar.”
“Where is it — that vinegar?”
“There, on the mantelpiece.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Ah, right, I’ve got it.”
They fuss around the bed, run into each other, pull apart, hang on, stretch their hands out toward Marie, and moan.
They undress her. Papa tries to unbutton her little nightgown. The tiny, mother-of-pearl button slips out of his fingers, resists, pops back, dances, plays; then, in one swoop, he rips the gown open from top to bottom.
Her poor little body is exposed. And then it’s like a storm breaks inside Babette:
Her Marie!
Pink like a rose she was, and plump, and now look what she’s become!
Has she turned into this motionless thing you poke at, thrown down on her parents’ bedspread?
The lamp sings.
They rub her sad, yellow flesh with lavender- and hyssop-scented vinegar. Her body relaxes. Her head rolls around on a softened neck. Her mouth opens, and you can see her teeth unclenching. One after another her delicate fingers stretch out, spread apart, and bend back to their usual position of a hand at rest. Now it’s their Marie again, their flesh and blood, their two faces blended, their daughter restored.
“Lay her in her own bed,” says Arbaud, “and put a warm stone at her feet. It’s over.”