The Tenth Man Page 10

  "And she's letting you stay?" Charlot asked, keeping his distance.

  "She hasn't any choice, my dear. She hadn't heard of the Decree of the 17th—nor you either? You don't see the papers here, of course. The decree which makes illegal all change of property that took place during the German occupation if denounced by one party? Do you really mean to say you never thought of that? But there, I only thought of it myself this morning."

  Charlot stared back at him with horror. The fleshy and porky figure of the actor momentarily was transformed into its own ideal—the carnal and the proud, leaning negligently there on the axis of the globe offering him all the kingdoms of the world in the form of six freehold acres and a house. He could have everything—or his three hundred francs miraculously renewed. It was as if all that morning he had moved close to the supernatural: an old woman was dying and the supernatural closed in. God came into the house in an attache case, and when God came the Enemy was always present. He was God's shadow: he was the bitter proof of God. The actors silly laugh tinkled again, but he heard the ideal laughter swinging behind, a proud and comradely sound, welcoming him to the company of the Devil.

  "I bet you Chavel thought of it when he signed the transfer. Oh, what a cunning devil," Carosse giggled with relish. "It's the nineteenth today. I bet he won't be far behind the decree."

  The actual trivial words made no impression on Charlot's mind. Behind them he heard the Enemy greeting him like a company commander with approval—"Well done, Chavel"—and he felt a wave of happiness: this was home and he owned it. He said, "What's the good of your pretending to be Chavel any longer, Carosse? It's as you say. Chavel will be on his way home."

  Carosse said, "I like you, old man. You do remind me of good old Pidot. I'll tell you what—if I pull this thing off you need never want for a few thousand francs."

  The grass was his and he looked at it with love. He must have it scythed before winter, and next year he would take the garden properly in hand... The indentation of footmarks ran up from the river: he could recognize his own narrow shoe marks and the wide heavy galoshes of the priest. By this route God had moved into the house, where it was suddenly as if the visible world healed and misted and came back into focus, and he saw Carosse quite clearly again, porky and triumphant, and he knew exactly what he had to do. The Decree of the 17th—even the gifts of the Enemy were gifts also of God. The Enemy was unable to offer any gift without God simultaneously offering the great chance of rejection. He asked again, "But what's the good, Carosse?"

  "Why," Carosse said, "even a day's shelter, you know, is a gain to a man like me. People will come to their senses soon, and the right ones will get on top. One just has to keep on hiding." But he couldn't resist a boast. "But that's not all, my dear man. What a triumph if I married her before Chavel came. I could do it. I'm Carosse, aren't I? You know your 'Richard III'. 'Was ever woman in this humour wooed?' and the answer of course is Yes. Yes, Charlot, yes."

  It is always necessary to know one's enemy through and through. Charlot asked a third time, "Why? What's the good?"

  "I need money, my dear. Chavel can't refuse a split. That would be too abominable after swindling the brother of his life."

  "And you think I won't interfere? You said last night that I loved the girl.

  "Oh, that!" Carosse breathed the objection away. "You don't love her enough, my dear man, to injure your own chances. You and I are too old for that kind of love. After all, if Chavel comes back you get nothing, but if I win, well, you know I'm generous." It was quite true: he was generous. His generosity was an integral part of his vulgarity. "And anyway," he added, "what can I do? You've told her I'm Chavel."

  "You forget I know who you are: Carosse the collaborationist—and murderer."

  The right hand shifted in the pocket: a finger moved where the safety catch should be. "You think I'm that dangerous?"

  "Yes." Charlot watched the hand. "And there's another thing—I know where Chavel is."

  "Where?"

  "He's nearly here. And there's another thing. Look down there across the fields. You see the church?"

  "Of course."

  "You see the hill behind, a little to the right, divided into fields?"

  "Yes."

  "In the top right-hand corner there's a man working."

  "What about it?"

  "You can't tell who he is from this distance, but I know him. He's a farmer called Roche, and he's the Resistance leader in St. Jean."

  "Well?"

  "Suppose I went down there now and up the hill and told him he'd find Carosse at the big house—not only Carosse but the murderer of a man called Toupard." For a moment he thought Carosse was going to fire: an act of recklessness and despair in this exposed place. The sound would carry right across the valley.

  But instead he smiled. "My friend," he said, "we seem to be inextricably tied together."

  "You have no objection then if I return with you to the house." Charlot approached slowly as one would approach a chained dog.

  "Ah, but the lady may."

  "The lady, I feel sure, will take your advice."

  The right hand came suddenly and cheerfully out of the pocket and beat twice on Charlot's back. "Bravo, bravo," Carosse said. "I made a mistake. We'll work together. You're a man after my own heart. Why, with a little skill we'll both have a nibble at the girl as well as at the money." He passed his arm through Charlot's and urged him gently homeward.

  Once Charlot looked back at the tiny figure of Roche on the hillside: he remembered the period when they had not been enemies, before sickness had tipped Roche's tongue with venom... The little figure turned his back and marched up the field behind the plow.

  Carosse squeezed his right arm. "If this Chavel," he said, "is really on his way, we'll make a stand against him—you and I. And if the worst comes to the worst, you know I've got my gun." He squeezed his arm again. "You won't forget that, will you?"

  "No."

  "You'll have to apologize for the lies you've told her. She feels badly about those."

  "The lies?"

  "That her brother died in the morning."

  The sun flashed at him from a window of the house. Charlot lowered his dazzled eyes and thought, What am I to do? What am I trying to do?

  17

  THAT NIGHT MADAME MANGEOT DIED. THE PRIEST HAO again been summoned, and from his room on the top floor Charlot heard the sounds of death going on—the footsteps to and fro, the clink of a glass, a tap running, two voices whispering. His door opened and Carosse looked in. He had moved into what he called his own bedroom, but now he was keeping out of the way of strangers.

  He whispered, "Thank God, that's nearly over. It gives me the creeps."

  Death is not private: the breath doesn't simply stop in the body and that's the end—whisper, clink, the creak of a board, the gush of water into a sink. Death was like an operation performed urgently without the proper attendants—or like a childbirth. One expected at any moment to hear the wail of the newborn, but what one heard at last was simply silence. The tap was stopped, the glass was quiet, the boards ceased to creak.

  Carosse gave a contented sigh. "It's happened." They listened together like conspirators. He whispered, "This brings it to a head. She'll be wondering what to do. She can't stay here alone."

  "I must go and see the priest home," Charlot said.

  The priest was pulling on his galoshes in the hall. On the way back through the fields he asked curtly, "You'll be leaving now?"

  "Perhaps."

  "Either you will have to go, or Mademoiselle Mangeot will have to find a companion from the village."

  Charlot was irritated by the man's assumption that human actions were governed incontestably by morality—not even by morality, but by the avoidance of scandal. He said, "It's for Mademoiselle Mangeot to decide."

  They stopped at the outskirts of the village. The priest said, "Mademoiselle Mangeot is a young woman very easily swayed. She is very ignorant of life,
very simple." He stood like a black exclamation mark against the gray early-morning sky: he had an appearance of enormous arrogance and certainty.

  "I wouldn't have said that. She has seen a good deal of life in Paris. She is not a country girl," he added maliciously.

  "You don't see more of life," the priest said, "in one place than another. One man in a desert is enough life if you are trained to observe or have a bent for observation. She has no bent."

  "She seemed to me to have a great deal of 'gamin' wisdom."

  "You didn't bother, I imagine," the priest said, "to notice whether it was really wisdom?"

  "No."

  "Shrewdness often sounds like wisdom, and ignorance often sounds like shrewdness."

  "What do you want to say—or do?"

  "You are a man of education, monsieur, and you won't retort that this is none of my business. You know that it is my business. But you think because I say you must go or Mademoiselle Mangeot must find a companion that I'm prudish. It is not prudery, monsieur, but a knowledge of human nature which it is difficult to avoid if you sit like we do day after day, listening to men and women telling you what they have done and why. Mademoiselle Mangeot is in a condition now when any woman may do a foolish action. All the emotions have something in common. People are quite aware of the sorrow there always is in lust, but they are not so aware of the lust there is in sorrow. You don't want to take advantage of that, monsieur."

  The clock in the ugly church struck. It was half past six: the hour when in prison he had made his only attempt to go back on his bargain; the hour when it had first become possible to make out Janvier's unsleeping eyes. He said, "Trust me, Father. I want nothing but good for Mademoiselle Mangeot," and turned and strode rapidly back toward the house. It was the hour when one saw clearly...

  The lower rooms were in darkness, but there was a light on the landing, and when he entered the hall, he entered so quietly that neither person heard him. They were poised like players before a camera waiting for the director's word to start. So much sorrow in lust and so much lust in sorrow, the priest had said—it was as if they were bent on exhibiting one half of the truth. He wondered what had just been said or done to slice the line of dissatisfaction on the man's cheek and make the girl lean forward with hunger and tears.

  "Why don't you leave me alone?" she implored Carosse.

  "Mademoiselle," he cried, "you are alone now—so alone. But you need never be alone again. You've hated me, but that's all over. You needn't worry any more over this and that." He knew the game so well, Charlot thought: the restless playboy knew how to offer what most people wanted more than love—peace. The words flowed like water—the water of Lethe.

  "I'm so tired."

  "Therese," he said, "you can rest now."

  He advanced a hand along the banister and laid it on hers: she let it lie. She said, "If I could trust anybody at all. I thought I could trust Charlot, but he lied to me about Michel."

  "You can trust me," Carosse said, "because I've told you the worst. I've told you who I am."

  "Yes." She said. "I suppose so." He moved toward her beside the banister. It seemed incredible to Charlot that his falsity was not as obvious as a smell of sulphur, but she made no effort to avoid him. When he took her in his arms she let herself go with closed eyes like a suicide. Over her shoulder Carosse became suddenly aware of Charlot standing below. He smiled with triumph and winked a secret message.

  "Mademoiselle Mangeot," Charlot said. The girl detached herself and looked down at him with confusion and shame. He realized then how young she was, and how old they both were. He no longer felt the desire at all: only an immeasurable tenderness. The light on the landing was dimming as daylight advanced and she looked in the gray tide like a plain child who had been kept from bed by a party that has gone on too long.

  "I didn't know you were here," she said. "How long...?"

  Carosse watched him carefully; his right hand shifted from the girl's arm to his pocket. He called cheerily down, "Well, Charlot, my dear fellow, did you see the priest safe home?"

  "My name," Charlot said, standing in the hall and addressing his words to Therese Mangeot, "is not Charlot. I am Jean-Louis Chavel."

  18

  CAROSSE CALLED HARSHLY DOWN, "YOU'RE MAD," BUT Chavel went on speaking quietly to the girl. "That man is an actor called Carosse. You've probably heard of him. He's wanted by the police as a collaborationist and the murderer of a man called Toupard."

  "You're crazy."

  "I don't understand," the girl said. She wiped a damp strand of hair from her forehead. She said, "So many lies. I don't know who's lying. Why did you say you recognized him?"

  "Yes, tell us that," Carosse called triumphantly.

  "I was afraid to tell you who I was because I knew how much you hated me. When he came I thought here was a chance of losing myself forever. He could have all the hatred."

  "What a liar you are," Carosse mocked him over the banister. They stood side by side above him and it occurred to Chavel with horror that perhaps he was too late: perhaps this was not simply the lust of grief that the priest had spoken of, but genuine love which would be as ready to accept Carosse that cheat as it had Chavel the coward. He no longer cared about anything in the world but building an indestructible barrier between them—at whatever risk, he thought, at whatever risk.

  Carosse said, "You'd better pick up your bed and walk. You're not wanted here any more."

  "This house is Mademoiselle Mangeot's. Let her speak."

  "What a cheat you are." Carosse put his hand on the girl's arm and said, "He came to me yesterday and told me that this house was really mine: that some decree or other, I don't know what, had made changes during the occupation illegal. As if I'd take advantage of a quibble like that."

  Chavel said, "When I was a boy in this house I had a game I used to play with a friend across the valley."

  "What on earth are you talking about now?"

  "Be patient. You'll find the story interesting. I used to take a torch like this or a candle, or if it was a sunny day a mirror—and I used to flash a message like this through the door here. Sometimes it would be just 'Nothing doing.'"

  Carosse said, with a note of anxiety, "What are you doing now?"

  "This message always meant: 'Help, the Redskins are here.'"

  "Oh," the girl said, "I can't understand all this talk."

  "The friend still lives over the valley—even though he's not a friend any more. This is the time he'll be going out to the cows. He'll see this light on and off and he'll know Chavel's back. The Redskins are here, he'll read. No one else would know that message." He saw Carosse's hand tighten in the pocket: it was not enough to prove the man a liar. He could turn even a lie to romantic purposes. There must be the indestructible barrier.

  Therese said, "You mean that if he comes it will prove you are Chavel?"

  "Yes."

  "He won't come," Carosse said uneasily.

  "If he doesn't come, there are other ways of proving it."

  "Who is your friend?" Therese said, and he noticed that she said "your friend" as if she were already half convinced.

  "The farmer Roche: the head of the Resistance here."

  The girl said, "But he's seen you already—on the road to Brinac."

  "He didn't look very closely. I am much changed, mademoiselle," He took the torch again and stood in the doorway. He said, "He can't help seeing this. He'll be in the yard now—or the fields."

  "Put that torch down," Carosse shrieked at him. It was Chavel's moment of triumph. The pretense was over. The actor was like a man under third degree: the sweat, even in the cold early air, stood on his forehead.

  Chavel, watching the pocket, shook his head and his body stiffened against the coming pain.

  "Put it down."

  "Why?"

  "Mademoiselle," Carosse implored, "a man has the right to fight for his life. Tell him to put down the torch or I'll shoot."

  "You 'are' a murd
erer then?"

  "Mademoiselle," he said with absurd sincerity, "there's a war on." He backed along the banister away from her and taking the revolver from the pocket swiveled it between them: they were joined by the punctuation of the muzzle. "Put the torch down."

  In the village a clock began to strike seven. Chavel, with the torch depressed, counted the hour: it was the hour of the cinder track and the blank wall and the other man's death. It seemed to him that he had taken a lot of trouble to delay a recurring occasion. Carosse mistook his hesitation: he became masterful. "Now drop your torch and stand away from the door." But Chavel raised it and flashed it again off and on and off and on again.

  Carosse fired in quick succession. In his agitation the first bullet went wide, splitting the glass of a picture; at the second the torch fell and lay on the hall floor making a little bright path to the door. Chavel's face creased with pain. He was driven back as though by the buffet of a fist against the wall and then the acuteness of the pain passed: he had had far worse pain from an appendix. When he looked up Carosse was gone and the girl was in front of him.

  "Are you hurt?"

  "No," he said. "Look at the picture. He missed." The two shots had been too rapid for her to distinguish them. He wanted to get her out of the way before anything ugly happened. He moved a few feet gingerly toward a chair and sat down. In a few moments the stain would soak through. He said, "That's over. He'll never dare come back."

  She said, "And you really are Chavel?"

  "Yes."

  "But that was another lie about the message, wasn't it? You never flashed the same way twice."

  "Another lie. Yes," he said. "I wanted him to shoot. He can't come back now. He thinks he's killed me like... like..." He couldn't remember the other man's name. The heat in the hall seemed to him extraordinary at that early hour; sweat ran like mercury beads across his forehead. He said, "He'll have gone the opposite way from St. Jean. Go down there quickly and get the priest to help you. Roche will be useful. Remember he's the actor Carosse."