If somebody had asked me in 1952: What place makes you think of men most? I wouldn’t have said the factory, I wouldn’t have said the café opposite the church when there was a funeral, I wouldn’t have said the autumn cattle market, I’d have said: the edge of a wood! Take all the edges of all the forests and copses in the valley and put them end to end like a screen, and there’d be a frieze of men! Some with guns, some with dogs, others with chain saws, a few with girls. I heard their voices from the road below. I looked at them, the slimness of the young ones, the way their checkered shirts hung loose, their boots, the way they wore their trousers, the bulges just below where their belts were fastened. I didn’t notice their faces, I didn’t bother to name them. If one of them noticed me, I’d be off. I didn’t want to say a word and I didn’t want to approach them. Watching was quite enough, and watching them, I knew how the world was made.
Take this loaf to Régis, said Mother. When it’s freezing so hard the cold penetrates to your very bones and a man needs his food in such weather.
She handed me the bread. I ran as fast as I could towards the factory; there was ice everywhere and I had to pick my way. All was frozen — railway points, locks, window frames, ruts, the cliff face behind the factory was hung with icicles, only the river still moved. At the entrance I called to the first man I could see, he had bloodshot eyes and spoke with a strong Spanish accent.
Régis! Big man of honour! he shouted and jerked his thumb upwards. I waited there on the threshold for several minutes, stamping my feet to keep them warm. When Régis arrived he was with Michel. They were of the same class: ’51. They had done their military service together.
You know Michel? asked Régis.
I knew Michel. Michel Labourier, nephew of the Marmot.
For God’s sake come in and get warm, hissed Régis between his teeth as I handed him the loaf.
Father—
It’s not the same if you’re with me. Give me your hand. Jesus! you’re cold! We’ve just tapped her.
They led me away from the big furnaces and the massive cranes overhead, which moved on rails in heaven, to another much smaller workshop.
You’re going to school at Cluses? Michel asked me.
I nodded.
Do you like it?
I miss being at home.
At least you’ll learn something there.
It’s another world, I said.
Nonsense! It’s the same bloody world. The difference is the kids who go to Cluses don’t stay poor and dumb.
We’re not dumb, I said.
He looked at me hard. Here, he said, take this to keep your brains warm. He gave me his woolen cap, red and black. I protested and he pulled the cap down on my head, laughing.
He’s a communist, said Régis later.
At that time I didn’t know what the word meant. We sat against a wall on a pile of sand. I let a handful of it run through my frozen fingers. I could feel its warmth through my stockings, touching my calves. Régis rummaged in a tin, took out his knife, and began cutting a sausage. There were some other men at the end of the shop.
So here’s your sister come to see us! shouted one of them.
Odile’s her name.
There’s a Saint Odile, did you know that?
Yes, I shouted, her fête is the thirteenth of December.
She was born blind in Alsace, the man shouted back. He was at least fifty and thin as a goat’s leg.
Was she?
She saw with her eyes for the first time when she was grown up. Then she founded a monastery.
The thin old man, who wasn’t from the valley and who knew all about Saint Odile, was pulling on the chains of a pulley which worked a machine for grasping and lifting massive weights.
Now he’s going to take the hat off the bread, said Régis.
I’ve just given you the bread, I said, understanding nothing.
See over there what’s sizzling?
In the sand?
That’s the bread with its hat on. Now watch!
Several men began to prod at the bread with long bars. To every blow the thing responded by spitting out fire. I was eating sausage. The old man’s machine came down and lifted the top off the bread as if it were a cap. Under the cap everything was incandescent. I could feel the onrush of heat, although I was at the other end of the shop. The edges of the white-hot underneath were dribbling like a ripe cheese. When a dribble fell off and hit the ground it made a brittle noise like glass and turned black. All the men were holding up shields in front of their faces.
Each bread weighs a ton, said Régis. He drank from a bottle of wine and some of the wine ran down his neck. A ton, he continued, and ferromolybdenum is worth six thousand a kilo — work it out for yourself, you’re still in school — one bread is sold for how much?
Six million.
Correct.
The bread, one and a half metres in diameter, was now phosphorescent in the sand. Régis wasn’t looking any longer. I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
Do you know the story of the Two Hunters? Régis asked.
Which story?
The story of the Two Hunters in the Forest.
The bread was changing colour. Its whiteness was turning violet. The violet of a child with croup.
I don’t think I know the story of the Two Hunters.
Once there were two hunters in the forest up at Penieclass="underline" Jean-Paul and Jean-Marc.
Water from a pipe in the roof, with hundreds of holes in it, was falling like rain onto the bread. It was scarlet now.
Jean-Paul stops and says: Look over there, Jean-Marc! I can’t see anything, replies Jean-Marc. Jean-Paul, still pointing, says: You must be blind, over there by the spruce, the one that’s been uprooted. I can see the root and the earth and the stones, Jean-Paul, I can’t see more.
The rain falling on the bread was making steam and it was hissing like a cricket.
The two hunters go deeper into the forest. Can you see her now? shouts Jean-Paul. Where? By the snow under the roots, Jean-Marc. In God’s name, yes! screams Jean-Marc. Both men stop in their tracks, then they start making their way towards the tree. The snow is up to their waists. After a while they stop to get their breath back.
The bread was getting darker and darker in colour and I could scarcely see it anymore because of the clouds of steam coming off it.
Alive? asks Jean-Marc. Jean-Paul pushes his way forward. I can feel it from here! he cries. Be careful, Jean-Paul! Careful, Jean-Paul! Jean-Paul disappears. After a moment Jean-Marc hears his friend laughing, then his laugh changes into a sigh. The happiest sigh in the world, my friend. Jean-Marc knows what is happening so he looks at the tree tops. Whilst he looks at the tree tops, he counts. When he’s counted to five thousand, he looks down, towards the spruce. No sign of Jean-Paul. Now it’s Jean-Marc’s turn.
The rain on the bread had stopped.
Jean-Marc too can feel it. He can hear the dripping. Like Jean-Paul, he falls forward onto his face and starts to laugh. His laugh too becomes a sigh.
The bread was black now, with colours in it like oil.
Do you know what they were doing, Jean-Paul and Jean-Marc?
I shook my head.
You don’t know, Odile, what the two hunters were doing?
No.
They were doing the lying-down waltz!
I looked at Régis and I thought: My kid brother — he was nine years older than I — you’re drinking too much.
The sheet sail and everything hanging from it is turning south, towards the sun in a sky of the deepest winter blue, like the blue we had to wash clothes with.
On the day when Christ ascended to heaven, the Brass Band went from hamlet to hamlet in the village playing music. Their uniforms were newly pressed, their instruments were glittering in the sun, and the leaves of the beech trees were fresh as lettuces. They played so loud they made the windows rattle and tiles fall off the roof. And after each concert in each hamlet the public offered them gnôle and cakes, so that by the end of the afternoon on Ascension Day, after a number of little concerts, the first and second saxophones were drunk as well as several trombones and a drum or two. On Ascension night, Father came home with his trumpet a little bit the worse for wear. With Father, though, nobody could tell till the evening. He never let it influence his fingers when playing.