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"When the war is over, I wish a monument to be built to honour the dead for which I bequeath the sum of three thousand francs to be taken from my estate and to be erected on the town square in Bléoville. At the top, in large gold letters, the names of my two oldest sons, then a space, then…" he closed his eyes, exhausted, "… then all the other names in small letters…"
He was silent for such a long time that the notary looked anxiously at the Sisters. Was he…? Was it all over already? But Sister Marie of the Chérubins calmly shook her head. He wasn't dead yet. He was thinking. In his motionless body, his memory was travelling through immense spans of time and space: "Almost all of my fortune is tied up in American stocks and bonds, which I was advised would be a good investment. I don't believe it any more." He shook his beard mournfully. "I don't believe it any more. I wish my son to convert them immediately into French francs. There is also some gold, but it's not worth keeping. It should be sold. A copy of my portrait should also be placed in the château in Bléoville in the downstairs ballroom. I bequeath to my faithful valet an a
"Is that everything?" Maître Charboeuf asked.
He bowed his long beard, indicating yes, that was everything. For a few moments that seemed brief to the notary, the witnesses and the Sisters, but to him were as long as a century, as long as delirium, as long as a dream, Monsieur Péricand-Maltête moved back in time to recall the life he had been given on this earth: the family di
Then he was certain he could feel death approaching. He made a startled little gesture (as if he was trying to get through a door that was too narrow for him, saying, "No, please, after you") and a look of surprise appeared on his face. "Is this what it is?" he seemed to say. "So this is death, then?" The surprise on his face faded and he looked stern, solemn.
Maître Charboeuf wrote very quickly, "… When the Testator was handed the pen to affix his signature to this Last Will and Testament, he tried to lift his head, but could not, and immediately breathed his last, in the presence of the notary and the witnesses, who nevertheless, after reading the document, signed their names to render the document legal."
24
Jean-Marie, meanwhile, was starting to come round. He had drifted in and out of sleep for four days, semi-conscious and feverish. It was only today he felt a bit stronger. A doctor had been able to come the night before to change the dressing; his temperature had dropped. From where he was lying on the bed, he could see a large, dark kitchen, the white hat on an old woman who was sitting in the corner, beautifully shiny pots on the wall and a calendar depicting a chubby-cheeked French soldier hugging two young women from Alsace, a souvenir of the previous war. It was strange to see how the memories of the last war were still so alive in this house. Four pictures of men in uniform had pride of place: a small tricolour ribbon and a crêpe rosetta were pi
He kept overhearing the same phrases in the conversations around him: " Verdun, Charleroi, the Marne…," "During the other war…," "When I was part of the occupying forces in Mulhouse…" They hardly spoke about the present war, their defeat. It was something they couldn't quite believe yet. Something that would only become a living, horrible reality a few months later, perhaps a few years later, perhaps not until these little boys with dirty faces that Jean-Marie could see peering over the wooden gate in front of the door grew into men. Wearing torn straw hats, their cheeks rosy or dark-ski
From the young women he learned what had happened that week. As they spoke about it, in their slightly harsh accent, all those terribly serious events lost their tragic element. "It's really sad," they would say and, "It's not very nice to see things like that"… "Oh, Monsieur! It's really upsetting!" He wondered if all the people here spoke like them, or whether it was something much deeper, rooted in the very souls of these girls, in their youth, some instinct that told them that wars end and invaders leave, that even when distorted, even when mutilated, life goes on. His own mother, knitting while the soup was cooking, would sigh and say, "Nineteen-fourteen? That's the year your father and I got married. We were miserable by the end of it, but very happy at the begi
In the same way, he thought, the summer of 1940 would remain in the memories of these young women as the summer they were twenty, in spite of everything. He didn't want to think; thinking was worse than physical pain, but everything flooded back, everything went round and round in his head endlessly: being called back from leave on 15 May, those four days in Angers, no trains ru