Mettez-vous
dans l’ambiance
oubliez
vos soucis. .
She unbuttoned her blouse, broke into a jazz step. The others followed suit. Codébo, Danos, and Robert le Pâle entered the living room. They elbowed a path through the dancers, reached Monsieur Philibert, and whispered a few words in his ear. I was staring out of the window. A car with its headlights off was parked in front of No. 3 bis. Vital-Léca was holding a flashlight, Reocreux opened the car door. A man, in handcuffs. Gouari brutally pushed him toward the steps up to the house. I thought of the Lieutenant, the boys in Vaugirard. One night I would see them all in chains like this man. Breton would give them the shock treatment. What then. . Will I be able to live with the guilt? Pernety and his black leather shoes. Picpus and his fiancée’s letters. The periwinkle-blue eyes of Saint-Georges. Their dreams, all their wonderful fantasies would come to an end on the blood-spattered walls of the cellar at No. 3
bis. And it will be all my fault. That said, don’t think I casually use the terms ‘shock treatment’, ‘blackout’, ‘informant’, ‘hired killer’. I am reporting what I’ve seen, what I’ve lived. With no embellishments. I have invented nothing. All the people I have mentioned really existed. I have gone so far as to use their real names. As for my own tastes, they tend towards hollyhocks, a garden in the moonlight and the tango of happier days. The heart of a star-struck girl. . I’ve been unlucky. You could hear their groans rising from the basement, stifled at last by the music. Johnny Hess: