I didn’t insist on taking the metro anymore, but accompanied Thomas to the Univermag, to wait for the end. The Russian offensive, west of the Kessel, had completely smashed through our lines. A few days later, Pitomnik was evacuated in an indescribable chaos that left thousands of wounded scattered throughout the frozen steppe; troops and HQ flowed toward the city; even the AOK, in Gumrak, was preparing its retreat, and the Wehrmacht expelled us from the bunker of the Univermag, to rehouse us temporarily in the former premises of the NKVD, which had once been a handsome building, with a large glass cupola now shattered and a polished granite floor, but whose basements were already occupied by a medical unit, which left us only the demolished offices on the first floor, over which we still had to fight with Seydlitz’s staff (as in a hotel with a sea view, everyone wanted to be on one side, not the other). But all these frenetic events left me indifferent, I barely noted the latest changes, since I had made a wonderful discovery, an edition of Sophocles. The book was torn in half, someone must have wanted to share it, and it was alas only in translation, but
Electra was still there, my favorite. Forgetting the shivers of fever that shook my body, the pus that was oozing from my bandage, I lost myself blissfully in the verses. At the boarding school where my mother had had me locked up, to flee the surrounding brutality, I had taken refuge in my studies, and I especially liked Greek, thanks to our professor, the young priest I’ve already mentioned. I wasn’t yet fifteen but I spent all my free time at the library, deciphering the Iliad line by line, with passion and limitless patience. At the end of the school year, our class organized a performance of a tragedy, Electra, in fact, in the school gym, rigged out for the occasion; and I was chosen for the title role. I wore a long white dress, sandals, and a wig whose black curls danced on my shoulders: when I looked at myself in the mirror, I thought I saw Una, and I almost fainted. We had been separated from each other for almost a year. When I walked onto the stage I was so possessed by hatred and love and the sensation of my young virgin’s body that I saw nothing, heard nothing; and when I moaned Oh my Orestes, your death is killing me, tears streamed from my eyes. When Orestes reappeared, I screeched, possessed by the Erinyes, vociferated my injunctions in that beautiful, sovereign language, Go on, then, one more blow, if you still feel the strength, I cried, encouraging him, urging him to murder, Kill him quickly, then expose his body: let his gravediggers be whatever creatures find him. And when it was over, I didn’t hear the applause, didn’t hear the words of Father Labourie who was congratulating me, I was sobbing, and the butchery in the House of Atreus was the blood in my own house.