The Notebook + The Proof + The Third Lie (16 page)

"Excuse me, Lucas. I was moved by your beauty. I must be very careful. The Party does not forgive this sort of thing."

Lucas says, "No one will know about it."

Peter says, "You can't hide such a vice all your life. I won't stay long in this post. I'm only here because I deserted, gave myself up, and returned with the victorious army of our liberators. I was still a student when I was sent off to war."

Lucas says, "You should get married, or at least have a mistress to allay suspicion. You should find it easy to attract a woman. You are handsome, masculine. And you are sad. Women like sad men. What's more, you have a good position."

Peter laughs. "I have no desire to attract a woman."

Lucas says, "Nevertheless, there are perhaps women one can love, in some way."

"You know a lot for someone your age, Lucas!"

"I don't know anything. I'm just guessing."

"If you need anything at all, come and see me."

2

It is the final day of the year. A great cold from the north has gripped the earth.

Lucas goes down to the river. He will take some fish to the priest for the New Year's Eve supper.

It is already dark. Lucas is armed with a hurricane lamp and a pickax. He starts to break the ice covering the pool. Then he hears a child crying. He points his lamp in the direction of the sound.

A woman is sitting on the little bridge that Lucas built many years ago. The woman is wrapped in a blanket. She is watching the river bearing away blocks of snow and ice. Inside the blanket a baby is crying.

Lucas approaches and asks the woman, "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

She doesn't answer. Her large, black eyes stare into the light of the lamp.

Lucas says, "Come."

He wraps his right arm around her. He guides her toward the house, lighting the way ahead. The child is still crying.

In the kitchen it is warm. The woman sits down, uncovers her breast, and suckles the baby.

Lucas turns away. He warms up the remains of some vegetable soup.

The child sleeps on his mother's knee. The mother looks at Lucas.

"I wanted to drown him. I couldn't do it."

Lucas asks, "Do you want me to do it?"

"Do you think you could do it?"

"I've drowned mice, cats, puppies."

"A baby is a different matter."

"Do you want me to drown him or not?"

"No, not anymore. It's too late."

After a silence, Lucas says, "There's a spare room here. You can sleep here with your child."

She raises her dark eyes to Lucas. "Thank you. My name is Yasmine."

Lucas opens the door of Grandmother's room.

"Lay your child on the bed. We can leave the door open to warm the room. When you've eaten you can go and sleep next to him."

Yasmine places her child on Grandmother's bed. She comes back to the kitchen.

Lucas asks, "Are you hungry?"

"I haven't eaten since yesterday evening."

Lucas pours the soup into a bowl.

"Eat, then go to sleep. We'll talk tomorrow. I have to go now."

He goes back to the pool, scoops out two fish with the net, and goes off to the priest's house.

He prepares the meal as usual. He eats with the priest and they play a game of chess. Lucas loses for the first time.

The priest is cross.

"You are distracted this evening, Lucas. You're making stupid mistakes. Let's play again, and concentrate this time."

Lucas says, "I'm tired. I have to go home."

"You're going to hang around in the bars again."

"You are well informed, Father."

The priest laughs. "I see many old women. They tell me everything that happens in town. Don't make a face! Go on, enjoy yourself. It's New Year's Eve."

"I wish you a Happy New Year, Father."

The priest gets up, too; he places his hand on Lucas's head.

"God bless you. May His peace be with you."

Lucas says, "I'll never have peace within me."

"You must pray and hope, my child."

Lucas walks down the street. He goes past the noisy bars, doesn't stop, quickens his step. When he reaches the unlit lane that leads to Grandmother's house he is running.

He opens the kitchen door. Yasmine is still sitting on the corner seat. She has opened the door of the stove; she is looking into the fire. The bowl, full of cold soup, still stands on the table.

Lucas sits down opposite Yasmine.

"You haven't eaten."

"I'm not hungry. I'm still frozen."

Lucas takes a bottle of brandy from the shelf, pours out two glasses.

"Drink. It'll warm you up inside."

He drinks, and so does Yasmine. He pours again. They drink in silence. They hear the town bells ringing in the distance.

Lucas says, "It's midnight. A new year begins."

Yasmine lowers her head onto the table. She cries.

Lucas gets up, removes the blanket which is still wrapped round Yasmine. He strokes her long, shiny black hair. He strokes her breasts, which are swollen with milk. He unfastens her blouse, bends forward, and drinks her milk.

The next day Lucas goes into the kitchen. Yasmine is sitting on the bench with the baby on her knee.

She says, "I'd like to bathe my baby. After that I'll leave."

"Where would you go?"

"I don't know. I can't stay in this town after what has happened."

Lucas asks, "What has happened? Is it the child? There are other unmarried mothers in the town. Have your parents disowned you?"

"I haven't got any parents. My mother died giving birth to me. I lived with my father and with my aunt, my mother's sister. My aunt brought me up. When my father returned from the war he married her. But he didn't love her. He only loved me."

Lucas says, "I see."

"Yes. And when my aunt found out she denounced us. My father is in prison. I worked in the hospital as a cleaner until the birth. I left the hospital this morning. I knocked at the door of our house. My aunt wouldn't open it to me. She cursed me through the door."

Lucas says, "I know your story. I've heard the gossip in the bars."

"Yes, everyone talks about it. It's a small town. I can't stay here. I was going to drown the child, then go over the border."

"You can't cross the border. You'd step on a mine."

"I don't care if I die." "How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"You're too young to die. You could rebuild your life somewhere else. In another town, later, when your child has grown up. For now you can stay here as long as you want."

She says, "What about the people in town?"

"They'll stop gossiping. They'll shut up eventually. You don't have to face them. We're not in the town here. This is my home."

"You would keep me here with my child?"

"You can live in this room, you can use the kitchen, but you must never go into my room or up into the attic. You must never ask me any questions."

"I won't ask you any questions and I won't disturb you. I won't let the child disturb you either. I'll cook and clean up. I can do everything. At home I did the housework, because my aunt works in a factory."

Lucas says, "The water is boiling. You can prepare the bath."

Yasmine puts a basin on the table. She takes off the child's clothes and diaper. Lucas warms a bath towel over the stove. Yasmine washes the child. Lucas watches her.

He says, "He is deformed around the shoulders."

"Yes. His legs, too. They told me at the hospital. It's my fault. I wore a tight corset around my stomach to hide the pregnancy. He'll be crippled. If only I'd had the courage to drown him."

Lucas takes the bundle in his arms, looks at the little crumpled face.

"You shouldn't say things like that, Yasmine."

She says, "He will be unhappy."

"You are unhappy yourself, yet you are not crippled. He may not be any more unhappy than you, or anyone else."

Yasmine takes back the child, her eyes filling with tears.

"You are kind, Lucas."

"You know my name?"

"Everyone knows you in town. They say you're an idiot, but I don't believe that."

Lucas goes out. He comes back with some planks of wood.

"I'm going to build him a cradle."

Yasmine does the washing, prepares the meal. When the cradle is finished, they lay the child inside. They rock him.

Lucas asks, "What is he called? Have you given him a name yet?"

"Yes. At the hospital they needed one for the town hall records. I called him Mathias. It's my father's name. I couldn't think of another name."

"You loved him that much?"

"He was all I had."

That evening Lucas comes home from the priest's house without stopping at a bar. The fire is still alight in the stove. Through the open door Lucas hears Yasmine singing softly. He goes into Grandmother's room. Yasmine, in her chemise, is rocking the child near the window.

Lucas asks, "Why aren't you in bed yet?"

"I was waiting for you."

"You don't have to wait up for me. Usually I come home a lot later."

Yasmine smiles. "I know. You play in the bars."

Lucas approaches her. He asks, "Is he asleep?"

"For a long time. I just enjoy rocking him." ' Lucas says, "Come to the kitchen. We don't want to wake him."

They sit opposite each other in the kitchen, drinking brandy in silence. Later, Lucas asks, "When did it start? Between your father and you?"

"Right away. As soon as he came back."

"How old were you?"

"Twelve."

"Did he rape you?"

Yasmine laughs. "Oh no! He didn't rape me. He just lay down beside me, held me against him, kissed me, stroked me, cried."

"Where was your aunt all this time?"

"Working at the factory, on shift work. When she worked the night shift my father slept with me in my bed. It was a narrow bed in a tiny room without a window. We were happy, the two of us, in that bed."

Lucas pours some brandy. He says, "Go on."

"I grew up. My father touched my breasts. He said, 'Soon you'll be a woman, you'll go off with some boy.' I said, 'No, I'll never leave.' One night, in my sleep, I took his hand and placed it between my legs. I squeezed his fingers and felt that pleasure for the first time. The following evening it was I who asked him to give me that wonderfully sweet pleasure again. He cried, he said he musn't, that it was wrong, but I insisted, I pleaded. So he leaned over my sex, he licked it, he sucked it, he kissed it, and I felt an even more intense pleasure than the first time.

"One evening he lay on top of me, he put his sex between my thighs. He said, 'Close your legs, close them tight, don't let me enter, I don't want to hurt you.'

"For years we made love this way, but one night I couldn't resist anymore. My desire for him was too strong. I spread my legs, I was completely open, he entered me."

She stops talking. She looks at Lucas, her large dark eyes shining, her fleshy lips parted. She uncovers a breast and asks, "Do you want to?"

Lucas grabs her by the hair, drags her into the bedroom, throws her onto Grandmother's bed, and bites her neck as he takes her.

During the following days Lucas goes back to the bars. He starts walking again through the empty streets of the town.

When he gets home, he goes straight to his room.

One evening, however, coming home drunk, he opens the door of Grandmother's room. It is illuminated by the light from the kitchen. Yasmine is asleep, as is the child.

Lucas undresses and climbs into Yasmine's bed. Yasmine's body is burning, Lucas's is frozen. She is facing the wall. He presses against her back, puts his sex between Yasmine's thighs.

She closes her thighs, she moans.

"Father, oh father!"

Lucas whispers in her ear, "Tighter. Grip tighter."

She struggles, she has trouble breathing. He penetrates her. She screams.

Lucas puts his hand over Yasmine's mouth, pulls the pillow over her head. "Be quiet. You'll wake the baby!"

She bites his fingers, sucks his thumb.

When it's over, they lie there for a few minutes, then Lucas gets up.

Yasmine cries.

Lucas goes into his room.

It is summer. The child is everywhere. In Grandmother's room, in the kitchen, in the garden. He crawls around on all fours.

He is hunchbacked, deformed. His legs are too thin, his arms too long, his body ill-proportioned.

He also comes into Lucas's room. He beats on the door with his little fists until Lucas opens it. He climbs onto the bed.

Lucas puts a record on the gramophone and the child rocks on the bed.

Lucas puts on another record and the child hides under the covers.

Lucas picks up a piece of paper, draws a rabbit, a chicken, a pig. The child laughs and kisses the paper.

Lucas draws a giraffe and an elephant. The child shakes his head and tears up the paper.

Lucas constructs a sandpit for the child. He buys him a spade, a watering can, and a wheelbarrow.

He makes him a swing. He builds him a car from a box and some wheels. He sits the child in the box and pulls him around. He shows him the fish. He lets him go inside the rabbit hutch. The child tries to stroke the rabbits, but the rabbits run off crazily in all directions.

The child cries.

Lucas goes into town and buys a teddy bear.

The child looks at the bear. He takes it, talks to it, shakes it, and throws it at Lucas's feet.

Yasmine picks up the bear. She strokes it. "He's a nice bear. He's a lovely little teddy bear."

The child looks at his mother and bangs his head against the floor of the kitchen. Yasmine puts the bear down and takes the child in her arms. The child starts bawling. He pummels his mother's head and kicks her in the stomach. Yasmine lets him down, and the child hides under the table until evening.

That evening, Lucas brings back a tiny kitten he has saved from Joseph's pitchfork. Standing on the kitchen floor, the little animal mews and trembles all over.

Yasmine places a bowl of milk in front of it. The cat continues mewing.