Wolfnight, p.25
Wolfnight, page 25
“Your wife—she’s so astonishingly tranquil.” Vera dropped his arm, went over and dragged across another of the limp old wicker chairs.
“When he was late, coming home, at the beginning … he was a young inspector then, just starting in the PJ. Naturally, he got given dirty jobs. There are always plenty. I was a silly young girl. I used to feel very much alone. I used to wait frightened for the telephone to ring, and I was frightened of what it might say. Nights forcing myself to face it, and say it. And if he is not coming home? And if he never will come home, again? It’s what they call facing reality, I suppose.
“And then bit by bit, especially after—I fell, you see, and hurt myself, and that’s why this leg …—I realised that what they call real isn’t, in the least. It’s the men’s world you know, the one they’ve made and excluded women from. The women could keep their mouths shut. Fall over backwards and open their legs, when that was what they wanted. Make soup or bandages, nursing the wounded hero, when that was required. I used to think of all those young girls, in 1914. Teaching the blind to move, helping strap on the new tin leg and giving a shoulder while they learned again to walk, being there for Our Boys. Poor silly girls, thinking oh yes, I was well brought up but of course he can pull my knickers down if that’s what he needs, and maybe I’ll bear a boy who will grow up and go gallantly off—just the same—fight and die for the fatherland.
“And I thought, not me I won’t. If I ever have one, because then I couldn’t, you see, it won’t be for giving away into more centuries of slaughter; the useless violence going on and on. That’s not real, that’s not what life is about.
“I want to make something new, to change all that. A fine thing, isn’t it, ten centuries of so-called Christianity and all it’s taught us is to slaughter one another and try to get rich at the expense of the weaker. That’s the system he’s there to support, and protect.
“I knew then that the only thing that is real is the man and the woman, together. Nothing else counts. We are always together. And now, you see, I don’t know what fear is. Because I no longer have anything to be frightened of, ever. There’s nothing they can take away.” Castang had turned and stood silent at the far end of the cellar. The light slanting down caught and sharpened Alberthe’s fine classical profile, the huge beautiful eyes, resting on Vera’s face that he could not see.
Has she still vengeance to take, upon me? Will she tell a tale as that piffling little Kranitz suggested she should? Mean-minded little bugger, but he saw that her being my prisoner, my hostage, call it what you like, had led us helplessly into a relationship that was sexual even if I did not actually touch her. Who would believe that? She’s only got to say that we were there for a whole night together in a weekend screw-shop, and she had been for a bath and was naked wrapped in a towel, and I put out my big dirty macho paw and pulled the towel off and she stood there waiting to be taken, perfectly ready.
She won’t, though, because Alberthe is several different sorts of highly powered bitch, but she has her own sense of honour.
Nor did she.
“I do understand, I think.” She has never had a real relation with a man. It happens, with these extremely beautiful women. They have been too much desired. Though that is only part of it. “It’s these stupid nerves. I’ve the wind up.” She leaned forward and whispered to Vera, “I’m dying to pee.”
“They were perfectly fair and correct, to me. There in the corner, that camping thing. Henri,” raising her voice, “go look out of the window.”
He did. The light was changing. Vera knew a poem that began with ‘Now comes still evening on’ and he couldn’t recall the rest and wasn’t going to ask because he was remembering.
The moment it began. The moment at which he had been snatched from the real world and plunged into this pretence, the war-game world of politicians, the world in which they play their ridiculous abstract moves towards power as though the world itself would stop and hold its breath in admiration of that entire barbarian tribe. The world of the light between dog and wolf. Dog-day so far, far back he could scarcely recall anything of it, sharpening into focus with the memory of poor Orthez crouching and slinking like a wolf through the parking lot.
I am being unfair to wolves. Wolves are noble animals. The Nixons or the Viberts, they are barely jackals. As for their admirers, the voters, the supporters—not even sheep. And what is a Joinel, who thinks himself cleverer than all of them put together? And who is, by the world’s standards. Nobody will ever accuse or inculpate him for anything. Untouchable. That’s right, untouchable. In all senses of the word. In the real world we empty our own shit-bucket, and you’re not even needed for that, thanks. Tape-worm.
The wolf time. It is Vera who is the wolf, though they will never know that.
The light was changing subtly, imperceptibly, in the winter evening of the sky in the foothills of the central massif of France. Wolf country.
Steps rang, small and unimportant, running across the terrace they could not see, clear but distanced by the thick small panes of heavy old glass, the boots ringing on the pavement but in another world. And much further off a small sound that carried with peculiar clarity, as a church bell sometimes will, very far off and unseen, across a hill and the valley beyond. A small, dry snap, crisp in the hill air, of a dry stick broken across to feed the camp fire. A sound Castang knew and had waited for expectantly.
The two women, catching his tense expression, came towards him, crowding idiotically the three of them by his far window. As though there were something to see. The Pope’s aeroplane is in sight, lads. Snap, snap. There again, two. And this time, answering, the far-off crackle of thorns under a pot.
“What is it?” asked the two women together.
“Rifle fire. And an automatic weapon.”
“It’s here,” said Alberthe.
“Yes. The wolfpack has arrived. Circling round the camp fire.” She paid no attention to his nonsense, listening urgently, anxiously.
“Unwind,” he said, touching her shoulder. “That’s not an attack. They make a series of feints and little phony manifestations to sound out, a bit; feeling the terrain, flush any snipers—and focus any panic or confusion that may be floating about in the air.” He got a look from Vera to pay him for his war-game. Very slightly scornful, a little pitying, just a bit indulgent. Men, obliged to defend their conception of honour. Combat, boys. Get the wagons into a circle, here’s the Zulu Impi.
Another set of feet ran, across the terrace; a command was shouted, urgent but indistinct; Kranitz and his boys standing to. Pull in your sentries and get this perimeter manned. Ach, stop being whimsical. Another automatic weapon, sounding heavier—maybe just closer—sputtered off its whole magazine. Keep your distance chaps, we’ve got fire power too. They’d probably got a lot of ammunition cached here. The point at the beginning had been—presumably—Alberthe’s letting them use this nice cosy estate as a training-ground for all sorts of guerilla-goings-on.
Going blue out there, and beautiful. The light will fade quickly now, vision quickly become uncertain. Did the mobile brigade have infra-red scopes? Very likely they did. Did they have surprise packets suitable for a night assault upon—well, you’d call it a fortified position? He was uncertain, because they were reticent about what they did have.
“Perfectly safe. Even if something hit that glass the trajectory would be well above our heads.”
“Is Richard out there?” asked Vera.
“Since we’re here, yes.” The Prefect’s motley forces! lacking only the village fanfare and the majorettes to make it a Carnival occasion. The PJ’s violent-crime-squad was in fact little suited to a combined operation (not so long ago there had been a lamentable show down in the Midi, with two sets of plain-clothes cops on two sides of the street and both under the impression that the others were gangsters). They would be thirsting for a rescue operation, but any gendarmerie officer would have said loudly that he didn’t want those ruffians under his feet, and Richard would have them tactfully out of sight.
It seemed to have died down—a matter of taking up position. Whoever drove the engine out there was unshakable; not going to risk men against terror-squads, which existed in great numbers and under an amazing diversity of labels; but they all had one thing in common; indiscriminate letting-off of large weapons. The days of cowboy armament were long past: they might have rockets, grenade-throwers, even mobile missiles: the riot-squad equipment would look pretty trivial.
Somebody had been reading his mind.
The unmistakable thrash and roar of a powerful helicopter coincided with a great glare of light that enveloped the whole terrace and brought a lurid son-et-lumière even into the cellar. There was a series of extremely loud shocking bangs.
“Get as close as you can against this near wall.” He knew that these things were not supposed to kill one, but people had been gravely injured before now by simple tear-gas canisters. He covered the two women as best he could and wished his back did not feel so cold.
“Oh, my poor house,” said Alberthe. Castang had leisure to think that this remark showed the typical bourgeois priority: property before skin.
The helicopter stayed where it was, sounding six inches away. Must in reality be rooftop level. There was some petty firing from automatic weapons, but sounding ragged and cowed. A lot of confused shouting broke out. The feet sounding on the terrace were now of a different sort. Bounding about with a muffled sound, as though the physical training instructor were putting teams through appallingly jolly games with a bouncy ball. He could make nothing of this, except for a ferocious ‘Up-against-the-wall-there-You’, saying clearly that the assault upon the terrace had succeeded—but what about the house? He was answered by a tinkling crash of windowglass and Alberthe’s body shuddering: his wrist was up against her neck.
Suddenly borne in upon him. Jump-boots. Paratroops—Jesus, they had really hit the place properly. Somebody in Paris must have tipped them off that Kranitz thought himself a miniature Marine Corps. And rather cunningly forgotten to tell the Prefect. Ha-ha.
Something else got borne in too, which wasn’t at all ha-ha. Unless Kranitz had been caught out in the open he was now cornered, and would get a sell-it-dearly notion of using his hostages. Steps were coming racing along the cellar passage, and they didn’t sound like a waiter come to tell dinner’s ready.
He staggered away from the wall, oblivious even to the deafening racket of the helicopter now making its landing upon the terrace, resistance being plainly at an end. His legs felt wobbly.
He didn’t have time to get behind the door. He might have, if there had been a fumble with keys and locks, but the cellar door was an old-fashioned affair of oak boards secured by a massive bolt, and Alberthe’s antique Flintwinch, a great potterer in cellars, kept it nicely oiled. The door swung open while he was still tottering about. Slow, far too slow.
Kranitz stood there, his face blackened by effort and fear but forcing himself to stay relaxed. He had an extremely businesslike gun, loose in his hand, sling drooping and barrel pointed at the ground; Castang was not armed and was ten steps away. Knew it was ten, having paced it a hundred times.
“Out,” he said. “The lot.”
Castang went to pick up Vera, whose leg had gone numb. Alberthe stood firmly poised, her feet apart. Very odd—she was reaching into her handbag—she’d never let go of that damn handbag—as though insisting upon fresh lipstick.
Castang stood paralysed midway between them. The doctor would tell him reassuringly that it was a combination of anxiety and fatigue that blocked every reaction and he would nod dully while telling himself that it was sheer surprise.
Kranitz, surely, also. Nobody would ever know. Too late for any earnest technician to moisten electrodes with a salt solution and attach them to his forehead because he hadn’t any forehead.
He didn’t point his gun. He just stood there with his mouth open.
From her handbag she drew a largish nickel-plated revolver. She gripped it with both hands, dropping the handbag on the floor. She stood planted, square to her target. She took her time, pointing the gun carefully, like a child, with her tongue out at the corner of her mouth. She fired it three times, slowly and deliberately. She said nothing.
The second and third shots went out of the door, probably, for with the first she blew his face off and the power of the impact knocked him off his feet and what was left of the back of his head came up with a thud against the door.
She bent and picked up her bag, and put the gun back into it. Tidy, careful housewife.
“Traitor,” she said: no other explanation was needed. The voice was very calm, like that of the President of the Assize Court reading a verdict: ‘In answer to the question concerning attenuating circumstances, the vote of the jury, by a majority of eight votes or more, is no.’
It was not Castang’s first sight of a violent death. It was, for Vera. He noticed that his hand, upon hers, was trembling the more.
Alberthe looked at them and said nothing. There was blood trickling down her chin. She had bitten her lip or her tongue. Castang had sometimes had to put handkerchiefs in the mouths of epileptics.
Another set of steps, these young and lithe, came running down the passage. Handsome young oaf in overalls. His gun was on its shoulder sling, gripped firmly, and pointing at them.
“Shots in here,” he said. He stared at the three immobile figures and the bag of clothes on the floor. “Who’re you?” he asked.
“I’m the owner of this house,” said Alberthe in quite a social voice, as though explaining to tourist sightseers that sorry, these were private quarters.
“Castang, PJ,” said Çastang automatically. “This is my wife.”
Light dawned.
“Ah. Hostages. We were looking for you,” superfluously. “Who’s this?”
“That is the chief of the band,” in a stilted tone that must sound laughable. “You were looking for him, too.”
“Is?” said the soldier, poking with his foot. “Was, you mean. Somebody a pretty good shot,” looking enquiringly at Castang; ol’ John Wayne there had a spare gun up his trouser leg.
“I shot him,” said Alberthe.
“Oh,” sounding inadequate. “Well. Uh—good riddance, no? Pretty good shot,” again; admiringly. He jerked his thumb back up the passage. “Uh—they’ll be expecting to see you, upstairs.” Finding himself in excess of requirement he scratched, turned, and went.
Was indeed a pretty good shot. Fatality, no? An experienced person always shoots at the body. It’s a bigger target, and anything above a popgun jumps as it fires. Holding a gun as Alberthe had held it, stiff and rigid, and aim at a man’s head, you’ll make a hole in the ceiling. She’d hit him square in the teeth first crack. Fatality.
Processionally, they moved upstairs, the lady of the house leading the way, as was right.
The hall was like that of the Gare Saint-Lazare. The French have a beautiful and descriptive name for this sort of space where humanity eddies aimlessly about. Salle des Pas Perdus they call it. There seemed to be no damage, except that a flower vase, a pretty one and valuable, in blue Vincennes porcelain, that had held pink carnations on an occasional table, had been knocked over and, alas, broken. A skilful restorer would fix it so that the damage would be unnoticed save by an expert. Alberthe advanced to the centre of the hall where a little group stood. Regally she introduced herself to the paratroop commandant, in overalls since he had jumped with his men, the section-leader, a couple of footmen, runner or ordonnance, whatever they’re called in paratroop jargon.
“Baroness de Rubempré. I wish to welcome you to my house, and to thank you for freeing us.” She still had blood upon her chin, and her handbag clutched in one hand. “I know that you have been as careful as you possibly could. But there were dreadfully loud bangs, outside. I do hope you haven’t had to cause too much damage.” The commandant, without any clue at all how to cope with this amazing vision, fingered his chin and endeavoured to gain a countenance. Castang thought of the negro bystander in the Chester Himes book, who said with the greatest simplicity ‘Lady, your ass is out’.
The officer was saved from further embarrassment by the door opening to admit the reception committee, headed by the Chief Stationmaster in full regalia: stars on his hat, flags, lanterns and whistles.
“Ah,” said the Prefect, in a voice so fruity that the cottonwool beard wagged, and ‘Are you all being good boys and girls?’ was surfacing behind it.
The Prefect stopped dead. Everybody froze without knowing why. There was a strange horrible silence.
Richard, looking English, deliberately insignificant in a grey tweed jacket and flannel trousers, a thoroughly commonplace maroon tie, had come in just behind the Prefect. Alberthe saw him and all her fur rose stiff, as the mongoose that sees the snake.
“Torturer,” she said in a small, stiff voice, reaching for her handbag.
If she were quicker this time so at last was Castang. He took four steps in a patter and put his arms round her shoulders as the shiny, nickelled gun came up. He held her wrists as gently as he could, his face in her hair.
“No, dearest girl, no.”
She held herself stiffly, throwing her strength against his, a tall, strong woman, but she did not have the muscle in her forearms. When she realised it was futile she did not struggle, and let him hold her hand. Then she turned calmly to look at him. Then she spat straight in his face.
The commandant’s military training came to the rescue.
