The Interrogation Page 11

  At every step he faced some new peril: that a beetle would fly into his open mouth and block his windpipe; that a wheel would come hurtling off a passing lorry and decapitate him, or that the sun would be extinguished; or that he himself would be gripped all at once by a suicidal impulse.

  He suddenly felt tired; tired of living, perhaps, tired of constantly having to defend himself against all these dangers. It wasn’t his actual end that mattered, so much as the moment when he would decide he was ready to die. He had a horror of that bizarre transformation, which would certainly take place one day or another and prevent him from thinking about anything any more.

  Adam sat down on the back of a bench; he had got beyond the docks some time ago, to where the promenade ran round the rocky inlets. A man came past on a bicycle; he wore oilskins and seaman’s boots. In his right hand he was carrying a dismantled fishing-rod, its sections held together by three sock-garters. The saddle-bags on his bicycle seemed to be full – of rags, or fish, or a wool jersey; as he pedalled along the road, his tyres making a sticky noise on the tarmac, he turned his head to look at Adam. Then he pointed over his shoulder and called out, sounding as though he had a cold:

  ‘Hey! There’s a drowned man back there!’

  Adam followed him with his eyes. Thinking he had not understood, the man – a long way off already – looked round and shouted again:

  ‘A drowned man!’

  Adam said to himself that the man was right; as everyone knows, a drowned body is the choicest possible entertainment for anyone who is wandering aimlessly along the sea-front, soaked to the skin and sometimes sitting on the back of a bench. As he got to his feet he reflected that all over the place there must be one such case of drowning every day. To show others how to set about it, summoning them, likewise, to meet their end.

  Adam walked on again, faster; the road was bending round a sort of cape, and one could see nothing. The drowning must have occurred on the other side; perhaps at the Roc-plage, or along by the German blockhouse, opposite the Seminary. He was ready to bet that in spite of the rain there would be a lot of people staring down at the sea, a lot of people, all enjoying themselves, despite the faint contraction of their nostrils and hearts, where shamelessness would pause for an instant, just long enough to become tinged with embarrassment, before hurtling ahead, mingled with the thick breath of meals and wines, towards this, towards the object. And indeed, as soon as Adam got round the corner, he saw a gathering of people, still some distance along the road. It was a group of men, mostly fishermen in oilskins. There was a firemen’s van as well, with its back doors open. As he drew nearer, Adam noticed another car, but this was a private one, and foreign, Dutch or German or some such. A couple of tourists had emerged from it and were standing on tiptoe, trying to see.

  The closer Adam came, the more activity he seemed to perceive. He leant over the parapet and saw down below, on the beach, a yellow plastic inflatable raft and two frogmen taking off their diving gear.

  It couldn’t have been long since they fished the body out, for on the short flight of steps leading up to the road there were still some puddles of sea-water, not yet washed away by the rain. One of them had shreds of seaweed in it. When Adam arrived they let him through to the front row without comment, perhaps because after being out in the rain so long he looked like a drowned man himself.

  And Adam saw that in the middle of the ring of bystanders, laid flat on the gravel like a heap of rags, there was that insubstantial, ridiculous thing which had nothing terrestrial about it any more, and nothing aquatic either. This amphibious monster was a man of no particular age, just a man like any other. His only peculiarity – and it made you want to laugh, a deep, throaty laugh – was the quantity of water he represented, what with his flesh and his clothes, in the middle of this wet scene; it was the fact of being a drowned man out in the rain. The sea had already ravaged his body. A few hours more and he would have looked like a fish, one felt. His hands were blue and swollen and on his feet – one bare, the other shod – there were tufts of weed. From the depths of his clothes, which were twisted round him, soaked and saturated with brine, his head and neck hung out limply. His face, though dead, was curiously mobile, crawling with a kind of movement quite alien to life, because of the water that puffed out his cheeks, eyes and nostrils, and rippled beneath the skin with every drop that fell from the sky. Within a few hours this man of about forty, honest and hard-working, had become a liquid man. Everything had melted, in the sea. His bones must be jelly now, his hair seaweed, his teeth tiny stones, his mouth an anemone; and his eyes, which were wide open, staring straight up to where the rain came from, were veiled by a kind of glaze. Air mingled with vapour must be bubbling invisibly between his gill-shaped ribs. The bare foot, screwed into the trouser-leg like an artificial limb, had emerged from the depths of the sea with the skin greasy or grey and a suggestion of embryonic webbing between the toes. He was a giant tadpole, floated down accidentally from the mountains, where lonely pools of water lay in the hollows of the peaty ground and shivered beneath the wind.

  When one of the firemen turned the man’s head over, the mouth opened and vomited. ‘Oh!’ said one of the lookers-on.

  The idlers had lost their excitement and now stood rooted to the spot like stone images, while the rain poured down on their heads. Only the firemen were still active, slapping the corpse with the flat of their hands, talking together in undertones, manipulating little bottles of spirits.

  But the drowned man lay alone, huddled on the ground, muddy-eyed, ready for some imaginary reflex action, perhaps for a leap that would carry him back towards the element in which resurrection must find him. And the heavy rain was still falling on his blue flesh, splashing louder than ever, as though hitting the surface of a pond.

  Then things began to happen very quickly; a white stretcher was brought; the firemen pushed back the ring of spectators; there was a brief glimpse of a strange, grey, confused body retreating towards the ambulance. The doors banged. There was a noise, the crowd took a step forward; and the ambulance drove off townwards with its dripping burden. In the middle of the road, where just for a few hours people would still avoid treading, a strong smell of seawater now hovered, despite the rain. The wheel-shaped pool was slowly absorbed by the gravel, and everyone’s heart shrank at the strange passing – for now the dead man’s body was quietly shedding its ludicrous memory. It was flowing down at the back of their minds, they were no longer even trying to hold it, to imagine it tossed from mortuary to pauper’s grave. He had become a queer archangel, white or clad in armour. He was at last the victor, single and eternal. His blue-gloved hand pointed imperiously, showing us the sea where he had been born. And the sea’s edge, the fringe of waves washed up with refuse, invited us to approach. Sirens disguised as empty hair-oil bottles, headless sardines, jerrycans and half-peeled leeks, chanted their hoarse-voiced summons; we were to go down the steps, still puddled with salt water, and without undressing, entrust our bodies to the waves. We should cross the edge, with its floating orange-peel, corks and patches of oil, and go straight to the bottom. In a little mud, stabbed with pangs of osmosis, tiny fish swimming into our mouths, we should be motionless and gentle.

  Until a group of men dressed like monsters came to look for us, thrust hooks into the back of our necks, dragged us to the surface and drove us away in ambulances towards the mortuary and paradise.

  L. When you’ve seen a drowned body, only just taken from the water, still lying on the road, you don’t find much to say. Especially when you have understood why some people drown themselves, one day or another. The rest doesn’t matter. Whether it’s raining or fine, whether it’s a child or a man, or a naked woman with a diamond necklace, etc., makes no difference. Those are the particular settings of an unchanging tragedy.

  But when people haven’t understood, well.… When they allow their attention to be distracted by the details that seem to justify the event, give it a certain reality, but which
in fact are merely stage effects; then there is a great deal to say. They pull up, get out of their cars, and join in the game. Instead of seeing, they compose. They lament. They take sides. They cerebrate and write poems.

  He asks whence comes this subterranean dust

  to take its place on things. Reigning gently.

  all amidst the cogwheels granite in crumbs.

  it petrifies the level surfaces, he says.

  he wishes for yet more tedium and taste: ashes.

  he listens, then one must leave him thus

  await his pleasure, the high priest.

  he looks to every form to remind him

  of a forgotten wish: one would think he waits for war.

  true, he may be mistaken

  War may Be no longer the Giver of Courage

  but the Breaker of Stones

  It may Be War that Grinds the Granite to crumbs

  It may Be War that Fabricates the Hardest Dust

  The millimetric Abrasions

  He asks

  He wishes He waits

  He counts on his fingers

  and gathers himself to leap

  he – yes – LOVES

  the hard dust

  that is why he does not know

  that there is the sand,

  what is called sand

  what is called ashes

  and the yellow leaves and the bird-droppings

  and the rainy soil

  the lavas and other seeds

  yes, all that.

  which is called gentle dust.

  And of course (since he who writes is shaping a destiny for himself) they little by little become one with those who drowned the chap.

  One of them, his name’s Christberg, says:

  ‘But what happened?’

  ‘There was an accident’ says his wife, Julia.

  ‘You saw how swollen he was? He must have been a hell of a time in the water. It seems it was two days…’ says a fisherman called Simonin.

  ‘Do they know who he is?’ Christberg inquires.

  They all stayed where they were, though. In a circle round the patch of sea-water with bits floating in it. As though the-man-just-now, the drowned man, had begun to shrink until he was only a tiny insect, almost invisible, still swimming in the middle of the pool.

  ‘Was it a man or a woman?’ asked Julia.

  ‘I saw one like that last year. At much the same place. A bit further along, though. Beyond the restaurant over there. I was on the beach and there was a woman going up to people and asking, “You haven’t seen Guillaume?” Asking everybody, like that. They all said no. She – she went on doing that for quite a time. Afterwards something was seen floating a little way out, not so very far from the shore. There was a fellow who was a good swimmer and he went in after him. It was Guillaume. It was the – He was just a kid, about, about twelve, I remember. When the chap brought him to land he wasn’t a pretty sight, I can tell you. They, they laid him down on the shingle and he was all purple. They wanted to prevent his mother seeing him, but they couldn’t, it was too late, she got through all the same. She saw him and she began turning him over and over on the shingle, crying, and calling out, like this:

  “Guillaume, oh, Guillaume”

  Well, she turned him over so often that you know, everything came out of his mouth. Bile, and milky stuff, the lot. And gallons of sea-water. But a funny thing, eh, he was dead all the same,’ said the narrator, whose name was Guéraud.

  ‘But what exactly happened?’ Christberg asked again.

  ‘It seemed he was drowned,’ his wife whispered.

  ‘D’you suppose he’s dead?’ asked Bosio.

  ‘After two days I don’t see how he could still be alive,’ said Joseph Jacquineau.

  ‘They always vomit when they’re turned over. They’ve swallowed such a lot of water, you understand, the least jerk makes them throw it up. Not a pretty thing, death,’ said Hozniacks.

  ‘Even with all the things, the injections they give them in the heart, and everything? They say they can be saved even when they’ve been dead for days,’ said Bosio.

  ‘Do you believe all that stuff?’ asked Simone Frère.

  ‘Dunno,’ said Bosio.

  ‘How can one tell,’ said Hozniacks. ‘I…’

  ‘I saw a fellow once, but it wasn’t the same thing. He was a fellow who’d been knocked down by a car. Without exaggeration, the two lots of wheels had run right over him, one across his neck and the other across his legs. Funny thing, that kind of car leaves the marks of the tyres on the skin. Well, I tell you for sure, they could have given that chap all the injections they wanted to. It wouldn’t have brought him round. There was blood everywhere, even in the gutters. And both eyes had popped out of his head. Like a squashed cat, exactly like a squashed cat,’ explained a man leaning on a walking-stick, who was known as M. Antonin.

  ‘It took them three hours to find him,’ said Véran. ‘They looked everywhere along the coast. And here, they hunted for three hours. Three whole hours, they hunted. I saw them right from the start, because I was walking along the sea-front. I just happened to see them.’

  ‘So they knew he was missing?’ said Guéraud.

  ‘Must have,’ replied Véran.

  ‘Perhaps he committed suicide. Left a letter at home and they found it,’ said Hozniacks.

  Some people were going away already, walking beside the parapet. They were getting into cars and slamming the doors, and groups of idlers were calling to one another:

  ‘Hey, Jeannot! You coming?’

  ‘Yes, wait for me!’

  ‘Hurry up!’

  ‘Paul! Paul!’

  ‘Hey, Jeannot! Well, then?’

  ‘It’s all over, there’s no point in staying here, come along!’

  The rain drove them away, one by one; a few new arrivals slowed down, in cars or on foot, but went on again at once, slightly bothered by not discovering what had happened; those who remained had broken up the circle. Now they had turned away from the last traces of the puddle of salt water and were looking out to sea. The horizon was veiled, uncertain, because of the grey mist. There were few gulls flying, and the earth looked as though it were round.

  ‘Was he in a boat?’ asked Hozniacks.

  ‘Unless he was fishing from a rock and fell in,’ said Olivain.

  ‘No, no, it must have been a boat that capsized, he was too far from the shore,’ said Véran.

  ‘Perhaps he fainted? It does happen,’ said the spectacled woman, Simone Frère.

  ‘Yes, but two days ago the sea was very rough,’ said Bosio.

  ‘And in two – in two days, he may have drifted a long way. There are strong currents round here,’ said Olivain.

  ‘That’s true – must be why they’ve been looking all over for him,’ said Hozniacks.

  ‘I saw one drowned man last summer. Young chap. He’d dived in, fully dressed, from one of those cycles on floats. Showing off, probably. And he’d gone down like a stone. They fished him out and tried everything, artificial respiration, massage, injections, the works. But he never came round,’ said Jacquineau.

  ‘Yes, I remember seeing about it in the papers,’ said Véran.

  ‘But this one wasn’t a young man, was he?’ said Hozniacks.

  ‘A lot of people get drowned along this coast,’ said Simone Frère.

  The rain was trickling down their chins and plastering their hats to their heads; if they’d only known, or seen, how they were getting to look more and more drowned. There was only one group left now, with five people, viz:

  Hozniacks — —

  fisherman

  Bosio — — —

  fisherman

  Joseph Jacquineau —

  pensioner

  Simone Frère — —

  wife and mother

  Vèran — — —

  no occupation

  They couldn’t tear themselves away. The last memory of the man who had lain dead before their eyes a
nd who still haunted the spot a little, was keeping them together, exposed to the rain. It was their human memory that gave them a fellow-feeling even without love, and made them dread the long, lonely journey over the abyss even more than death or pain. This would go on until the day when – in a month, a week, or less – one of them would refer to the incident for the very last time.

  Let’s say it would be Hozniacks. In the café, on his way home, he’d tell the story just once more:

  ‘The other evening I was walking along by the sea, coming in from fishing because it was raining. I saw a drowned man. He was all swollen with water, quite blue, and no one could bring him round. There was something in the paper about it next day.

  Tired of Life

  M. Jean-François Gourre, 54, travelling salesman. for a toilet-soap firm, was found drowned yesterday. Accident seems to be ruled out, and a verdict of suicide was returned at the inquest. The unfortunate man is believed to have taken his life by throwing himself from a hired boat. When the body was found it had been in the water for three days. M. Gourre, who was much esteemed in the trade, seems to have given way to a fit of depression. We offer our sincerest sympathy to his family and friends.