The moon lit up the road. It was empty. He waited patiently for half an hour, then became overwhelmed with anxiety. Hiding his bicycle in the ditch, he walked towards the village hoping to meet René, but there was no sign of him. Back under the cherry tree, he waited some more, examining the contents of his other pocket: some crumpled-up cigarettes, a bit of money. He smoked a cigarette without pleasure. He still wasn't used to the taste of tobacco. His hands were shaking nervously. He pulled flowers out of the ground and flicked them away. It was past one o'clock. Was it possible that René…? No, no… you don't break a promise like that… He'd been prevented from coming, locked in by his aunts perhaps, but he, Hubert, hadn't let his mother's precautions prevent him from getting away. Mother. She would soon wake up and then what would she do? They would look everywhere for him. He couldn't stay here, so close to the village But what if René came?… He would wait for him until daybreak, then leave.
The first rays of sun were beginning to light up the road when Hubert finally set off. Pushing his bicycle, he cautiously climbed the hill to the Sainte woods, preparing what he would say to the soldiers. He heard voices, laughter, a horse neighing. Someone shouted. Hubert stopped, out of breath: they were speaking German. He jumped behind a tree, saw a greenish uniform a few feet away and, abandoning his bicycle, shot off like a hare. At the bottom of the hill he took the wrong path, kept on running and reached the village, but didn't recognise it. Then he went down to the main road and ended up in the middle of all the refugees' cars. They were driving insanely fast, insanely. He saw one (a big grey open touring car) that had just knocked a small van into the ditch and driven off without slowing down even for a moment. The further he walked, the faster the flood of cars was moving, like in some mad film, he thought. He saw a truck full of soldiers. He waved at them desperately. Without stopping, someone stretched out his hand and hoisted him up amid the camouflaged guns and boxes of tarpaulins.
"I wanted to warn you," said Hubert, panting. "I saw Germans in the woods nearby."
"They're everywhere, my boy," the soldier replied.
"Can I go with you?" Hubert asked shyly. "I want…" (his voice breaking with emotion), "I want to fight."
The soldier looked at him and remained silent. Nothing these men heard or saw seemed to be able to surprise or move them any more. Hubert learned that they had picked up a pregnant woman along the way, as well as a child wounded in the bombing who'd been either abandoned or lost and a dog with a broken leg. He also learned they intended to hold the enemy back and prevent them, if possible, from crossing the bridge.
"I'm with them," Hubert thought. "That's it, I'm in it now."
The surging wave of refugees surrounded the truck, preventing them from moving forward. Sometimes it was impossible for the soldiers to move at all. They would fold their arms and wait until someone let them pass. Hubert was sitting at the back of the truck, his legs dangling outside. He was filled with an extraordinary sense of turmoil, a confusion of ideas and emotions, but what he felt most was utter scorn for humanity as a whole. The feeling was almost physical. A few months earlier, his friends had given him some drink for the first time in his life. He thought of the taste now: the horrible taste of bitter ashes that bad wine leaves in your mouth. He had been such a good little boy. He had seen the world as simple and beautiful, men as worthy of respect. Men… a herd of cowardly wild animals. That René who had urged him to run off, and then stayed tucked up under his quilt, while France was dying… Those people who refused to give the refugees a bed, a glass of water, who charged a fortune for an egg, who stuffed their cars full of luggage, packages, food, even furniture, but who told a woman dying of exhaustion, children who had walked from Paris, "You can't come with us… you can see very well there's no room…" Leather suitcases and painted women in a truck full of officers: such egotism, cowardice, such vicious, useless cruelty made him sick.
And the most horrible thing was that he couldn't ignore the sacrifices, the heroism, the kindness of some. Philippe, for example, was a saint; these soldiers who'd had nothing to eat or drink (the supply officer had left that morning but hadn't returned in time) going to do battle for a hopeless cause, they were heroes. There was courage, self-sacrifice, love among these men, but that was frightening too: even goodness was predestined, according to Philippe. Whenever Philippe spoke, he seemed both enlightened and passionate at the same time, as if lit up by a very pure flame. But Hubert had serious doubts about religion and Philippe was far away. The outside world was incoherent and hideous, painted in the colours of hell, a hell Jesus never could enter, Hubert thought, "because they would tear him to pieces."
Machine-guns fired on the convoy. Death was gliding across the sky and suddenly plunged down from the heavens, wings outstretched, steel beak firing on this long line of trembling black insects crawling along the road. Everyone threw themselves to the ground; women lay on top of their children to protect them. When the firing stopped, deep furrows were left in the crowd, like wheat after a storm when the fallen stems form close, deep trenches. Only when it had been quiet for a few moments could you hear the cries and moans: people calling to one another, moans that went ignored, cries shouted out in vain…
The refugees got back into the cars they'd left beside the road and started off again, but some of the cars remained abandoned, their doors open, baggage still tied to the roof, a wheel in the ditch where the driver had rushed to take shelter. He would never return. In the cars, amid the abandoned packages, there was sometimes a dog howling, pulling on his lead, or a cat miaowing frantically, locked in its basket.
17
The instincts of a former age were still at work in Gabriel Corte: when someone hurt him, rather than defend himself, his first reaction was to complain. Dragging Florence behind him, he strode impatiently through Paray-le-Monial looking for the mayor, the police, a councillor, a deputy, any government official at all who could get him back his dinner. But it was extraordinary… the streets were empty, the houses silent. At a crossroads he came across a small group of women who seemed to be wandering about aimlessly.
"We have no idea, we don't come from here," they replied to his questions. "We're refugees, like you," one of them added.
They could smell smoke, very faintly, carried by the soft June wind.
After a while he began to wonder where their car was. Florence thought they'd left it near the railway station. Gabriel remembered seeing a bridge they could look for; the moon, magnificent and peaceful, lit their way, but all the streets in this small old town looked the same. Everywhere there were gables, ancient stone walls, lopsided balconies, dark cul-de-sacs.
"Like a bad opera set," Corte groaned.
It even smelled of backstage: sad and dusty, with the faint lingering odour of urine. Sweat was running down his face in the heat. He could hear Florence calling from behind, "Wait for me! Will you stop a minute, you coward, you bastard! Where are you, Gabriel? Where are you? Gabriel, I can't see you. You pig!" Her cries of rage rebounded off the old walls and their echo struck him like bullets: "Pig, you old bastard, coward!"
She finally caught up with him near the railway station. She leapt at him, hitting, scratching, spitting in his face while he shrieked and tried to fight her off. No one could ever have imagined that the low, weary voice of Gabriel Corte concealed such resonant, shrill sounds, so feminine and wild. They were both being driven mad by hunger, fear and exhaustion.
As soon as they saw that the Avenue de la Gare was deserted, they realised the order had been given to evacuate the town. Everyone else was far away, on the moonlit bridge. Only a few exhausted soldiers remained, sitting on the pavement in small groups. One of them, a very young pale boy with thick glasses, hauled himself up to separate Florence and Corte.
"Come on, Monsieur… Now, now, Madame, you should be ashamed of yourselves!"
"But where are the cars?" Corte shouted.
"Gone. They were ordered to leave."
"But, but… by whom? Why? What about our luggage? My manuscripts! I am Gabriel Corte!"
"Good God, you'll find your manuscripts. And I can tell you that other people have lost a lot more."
"Philistine!"
"Of course, Monsieur, but…"
"Who gave this stupid order?"
"Well, Monsieur… there have been a lot of orders which were just as stupid, I'll admit. Don't worry, you'll find your car and your papers. But in the meantime, you can't stay here. The Germans will be here any minute. We've been ordered to blow up the station."
"Where will we go?" Florence groaned.
"Go back to the town."
"But where can we stay?"
"There are plenty of rooms. Everyone's run off," said one of the soldiers who had come up to them and was standing a few steps away from Corte.
The moon gave off a soft blue light. The man had a harsh, heavy face; two vertical lines cut down his thick cheeks. He put his hand on Gabriel's shoulder and effortlessly spun him round. "Off you go. We've had enough of you, got it?"
For a second Gabriel thought he might jump at the soldier, but the pressure of that hard hand on his shoulder made him flinch and take two steps backwards. "We've been on the road since Monday… and we're hungry…"