They’ve laid him out on the bed and bound his jaw with a white scarf.
“Gritte, close the shutters. Light a taper. We men will keep vigil over him. You women, go on to bed.”
•
Gondran digs around in one of the dresser drawers. He’s looking for a pipe.
“D’you have any tobacco left?” he asks Arbaud.
Night has fallen, dense and sombre. Down below, toward Manosque, the blaze is still burning a little. A cricket is singing on the terrace.
Gondran, straddling a chair, his eyes shut, is pulling gently on his pipe.
And Janet continues to gaze at the post-office calendar.
•
They remained there like that, saying nothing, smoking away, until almost eleven o’clock at night. Then, just as the last stroke sounded from the mantel clock, Jaume raised his hand and said: “Listen.”
Outside, from the depths of the shadows, a sound.
They’ve asked themselves: The wind? The rain maybe? Whatever it is, it’s brought a cold sweat to their brows.
They’ve gone to open the door. They’ve cocked their ears…. And they’ve all had the same idea: “Get the lantern.”
They’ve gone out. There wasn’t anymore doubt about it, but they wanted to make sure by seeing it and touching it.
The fountain is running.
Maurras looks over toward the doorway of Les Monges, from which the yellowish light of the funerary candles is seeping. He touches Jaume’s arm:
“Hey,” he says, “that was just in the nick of time.”
•
They’ve waited the obligatory twenty-four hours, and this evening they’ve buried Janet, at the edge of the land that was left unscathed by the inferno.
It’s Maurras who’s made the casket, and it’s Babette who’s read a passage from her missal, over the grave.
On the way back to the Bastides, Gondran has said to Jaume:
“You should go to Manosque tomorrow to do the formalities. Monsieur Vincent will make out the certificate for you, and then you’ll have to go to the town hall.”
•
“I’ll go, but not till tomorrow afternoon. I’ll walk down as far as Les Plaines, and I’ll take the Banon post. What do you have to say about it, Ulalie?”
They’ve gone back to their place. Something mysterious is worrying Ulalie. She’s pacing around the table, gazing at the window, which is full of night and stars.
“Do as you like.”
Even so, he’s gotten up at six o’clock this morning. It’s no small deal to go to Manosque. You have to bring out your good clothes, unfold them, sweep off the mothballs, find a neckerchief, brush your hat, polish your shoes, shave…
While he’s lathering up his soap with crystal-clear water from the fountain, he thinks about that morning, not long ago, when Gondran shaved with wine. Now there are six good feet of earth piled up over Janet, and the spring has come back to life. Just in the nick of time, like Maurras said. Jaume has had enough, he’s weary. He’s lost weight. He thinks about flowers, about hayfields in flower, and how the women call out to each other while they’re forking over the hay.
“Hey, Jaume!” shouts Arbaud from below.
Jaume hasn’t really snapped out of it yet — he jumped up right away, but then, while he was opening the window he saw — there behind the oak — the low mound of freshly dug earth the length of a man…
“Later…”
“I’ve come from Bournes vale. Somebody’s dead over there. It must be Gagou.”
Ah, yes, nobody had thought about Gagou for the past two days.
“He’s all shriveled up like a baby cicada. I’m certain it’s him. I took a quick look at his face. The rats have eaten off his nose. I recognized him from his buck tooth. I’m going to tell Gondran.”
Gagou! So, it’s not over after all! There’s still this thing lingering in Jaume’s brain, those words of Janet’s. They haven’t died out yet, those words.
But, ah, since we’re already having to deal with things that hurt, we might as well get this one over with too, right away. Suffer a little, and then be sadder but wiser.
He turns his attention back to his shaving.
Ulalie comes in, carrying the water jug.
And, as he continues to lather the soap across his face:
“You know what, Ulalie, Arbaud’s just seen Gagou. He’s dead. Completely burned up. Down below, at Bournes. The rats have eaten off his nose.”
“I know, I heard.”
She leaves the jug under the sink.
He looks at her in the mirror as he goes on stroking the brush over his days-old beard.
“Where is it you say he’s at?” she asks.
“At Bournes.”
She goes into the corner where the tools are kept. She digs into the pile of implements and pulls out the new spade.
In the mirror, he follows all her movements.
She touches the tip of the spade, then goes to the door. Jaume turns around. He tries to turn slowly. He tries to speak clearly. But it’s only a muted whisper that makes it through the foam: “Where are you off to?”
“Where it is you say he’s at,” says Ulalie, repeating her words.
They look at each other eye to eye, face to face. And, imperceptibly, Ulalie loses control of her facial expression. A crease deepens next to her mouth, fills out again. Her eyelids tremble…. She pulls gently on the door and heads downhill.
•
So, it is really true?
Janet’s six feet under and there’s already rot inside his mouth, but the words he sowed go on multiplying like weeds.
“Ah, you should have a last, good laugh, you dirty bastard. You’ve had me again all the same. For the rest of my life I get to chew on this bitter herb, over and over again.”
Suddenly, an enticing desire to abandon himself to the winds of fate takes hold of Jaume, as though a whirlwind were grabbing him by the waist and bearing him away.
A little rest! Rest, with warm doorways where you can soak up the sunshine and smoke a pipe!
•
Ulalie has come back.
Jaume is set. He’s clean-shaven, and a cotton neckerchief, loosely knotted, lets his rosy, pointed Adam’s apple show through. His corduroy jacket is still creased from the armoire. On the chair beside him lie his light-colored, wide-brimmed felt hat and his walking stick.
She’s come back. It’s around half past twelve.
Before returning to the house, she carefully scraped her spade with a bit of flat stone, to make the dirt fall off.
Her father is sitting at the table, alone, before a plate of ham and a pitcher of wine.
She goes over to the corner of the shed where the tools are kept, replaces the spade, wipes her hands on her apron, and turns around.
She wears her usual expression. Except that her upper lip is hanging over her lower lip. In such a way that the narrow opening of her mouth is completely covered up.
“There’s no soup?” says Jaume.
“No, I didn’t have time.”
She sits down near the table, her hands on her knees, and says nothing.
“You aren’t eating?”
“I’m not hungry.”
She’s painfully gulping back a thick layer of saliva. Heavy thoughts are weighing down her head.
And all at once, after a long silence, she says in a weak, plaintive voice, as if she were talking to herself:
“And me, what am I going to do now?”
He looks at her: his daughter! The Lili who used to run around under the apple trees in her white bonnet. She is truly homely, but behind her reddened lids, her eyes gleam like shattered coal.
What she said is true, though. Will she always have to labor, without ever knowing the joys of womanhood?
It’s time to go. Jaume gets up.
“Ulalie,” he says, “listen: We could take on a lad from the public assistance. Sixteen years old. They’re already full-grown men, and you can get them to do whatever you like, you know?”