The Tenth Man Page 11

  She said, "You must be hurt."

  "Oh, no. I got a ricochet from the wall. That's all. It's shocked me a bit. Get me a pencil and paper. I'll be writing a report of this while you fetch the police." She brought him what he wanted and stood puzzled and ill at ease before him. He was afraid he'd faint before she'd gone. He said gently, "You're all right now, aren't you? All the hatred's gone?"

  "Yes."

  "That's good," he said, "good." There was nothing left of his love—desire had no importance: he felt simply a certain pity, gentleness, and the tenderness one can feel for a stranger's misfortune. "You'll be all right now," he told her. "Just run along," he said with slight impatience, as to a child.

  "You're all right?" she asked anxiously.

  "Yes. Yes."

  Immediately after she had gone he began to write: he wanted to tie everything up. His lawyer's instinct wanted to make a neat end. He wished he knew the exact wording of the decree, but it was unlikely to affect the original transfer without a denunciation by one party. This note he was writing now—"I leave everything of which I die possessed..."—was merely contributing evidence to prove that he had no intention of denouncing; it had no legal force in itself—he had no witness. The blood from his stomach was running now down his leg. It was as well that the girl was out of the way. The touch of blood cooled his fever like water. He took a quick look round: through the open door the light returned now across the fields; it was oddly satisfactory to die in his own home alone. It was as if one possessed at death only what the eyes took in. Poor Janvier, he thought—the cinder track. He began to sign his name, but before he had quite finished he felt the water of his wound flowing immeasurably: a river, a torrent, a tide of peace.

  The paper lay on the floor beside him, scrawled over with almost illegible writing. He never knew that his signature read only Jean-Louis Ch... which stood of course as plainly for Charlot, as for Chavel. A crowning justice saw to it that he was not troubled. Even a lawyer's meticulous conscience was allowed to rest in peace.

  Published in 1985