The Notebook + The Proof + The Third Lie (2 page)

When she gets back from the market, she makes a soup with the vegetables she hasn't sold, and jams with the fruit. She eats, she goes and has a nap in her vineyard, she sleeps for an hour, then she works in the vineyard, or if there is nothing to do there, she returns to the house, she cuts wood, she feeds the animals again, she brings back the goats, she milks them, she goes out into the forest, comes back with mushrooms and kindling, she makes cheeses, she dries mushrooms and beans, she bottles other vegetables, waters the garden again, puts things away in the cellar, and so on until nightfall.

On the sixth morning, when she leaves the house, we have already watered the garden. We take heavy buckets full of pigfeed from her, we take the goats to the bank of the stream, we help her load the wheelbarrow. When she comes back from the market, we are cutting wood.

At the meal, Grandmother says:

"Now you understand. You have to earn food and shelter."

We say:

"It's not that. The work is hard, but to watch someone working and not do anything is even harder, especially if it's someone old."

Grandmother sniggers:

"Sons of a bitch! You mean you felt sorry for me?"

"No, Grandmother. We just felt ashamed."

In the afternoon, we go and gather wood in the forest.

From now on we do all the chores we can.

The Forest and
the
Stream

The forest is very big, the stream is very small. To get to the forest, we have to cross the stream. When there isn't much water, we can cross it by jumping from one stone to another. But sometimes, when it has rained a lot, the water comes up to our waists, and this water is cold and muddy. We decide to build a bridge with bricks and planks that we find around bombed houses.

Our bridge is strong. We show it to Grandmother. She tries it and says:

"Very good. But don't go too far into the forest. The frontier is nearby, the soldiers will shoot at you. And above all, don't get lost. I won't come looking for you."

When we were building the bridge, we saw fish. They hide under big stones or in the shadow of bushes and trees whose branches meet in places over the stream. We choose the biggest fish, we catch them, and we put them in a sprinkling can filled with water. In the evening, when we take them back to the house, Grandmother says:

"Sons of a bitch! How did you catch them?"

"With our hands. It's easy. You just have to stay still and wait."

"Then catch a lot. As many as you can."

Next day, Grandmother puts the sprinkling can on her wheelbarrow and sells our fish at market.

We often go into the forest, we never get lost, we know where the frontier is. Soon the guards get to know us. They never shoot at us. Grandmother teaches us to tell the difference between edible mushrooms and poisonous ones.

From the forest we bring firewood on our backs, and mushrooms and chestnuts in baskets. We stack the wood neatly against the walls of the house under the porch roof, and we roast chestnuts on the stove if Grandmother isn't there.

Once, deep in the forest, beside a big hole made by a bomb, we find a dead soldier. He is still in one piece, only his eyes missing because of the crows. We take his rifle, his cartridges, and his grenades: we hide the rifle inside a bundle of firewood, the cartridges and grenades in our baskets, under the mushrooms.

When we get back to Grandmother's, we carefully wrap these objects in straw and potato sacks, and bury them under the bench in front of the officer's window.

Dirt

At home, in the Big Town, Mother used to wash us often. In the shower or in the bath. She put clean clothes on us and cut our nails. She went with us to the barber to have our hair cut. We used to brush our teeth after every meal.

At Grandmother's it is impossible to wash. There's no bathroom, there isn't even any running water. We have to go pump water from the well in the yard and carry it back in a bucket. There's no soap in the house, no toothpaste, no washing powder.

Everything in the kitchen is dirty. The red, irregular tiles stick to our feet, the big table sticks to our hands and elbows. The stove is completely black with grease, and the walls all around are black with soot. Although Grandmother washes the dishes, the plates, spoons, and knives are never quite clean and the saucepans are covered with a thick layer of grime. The dishcloths are grayish and have a nasty smell.

At first we didn't even want to eat, especially when we saw how Grandmother cooked the meals, wiping her nose on her sleeve and never washing her hands. Now we take no notice.

When it's warm, we go and bathe in the stream, we wash our faces and clean our teeth in the well. When it's cold, it's impossible to wash properly. There is no receptacle big enough in the house. Our sheets, our blankets, and our towels have disappeared. We have never seen the big cardboard box Mother brought them in again.

Grandmother has sold everything.

We're getting dirtier and dirtier, our clothes too. We take clean clothes out of our suitcases under the seat, but soon there are no clean clothes left. The ones we wear keep getting torn, and our shoes have holes in them. When possible, we go barefoot and wear only underpants or trousers. The soles of our feet are getting hard, we no longer feel thorns or stones. Our skin is getting brown, our legs and arms are covered with scratches, cuts, scabs, and insect bites. Our nails, which are never cut, break, and our hair, which is almost white from the sun, reaches down to our shoulders.

The privy is at the bottom of the garden. There's never any paper. We wipe ourselves with the biggest leaves from certain plants.

We smell of a mixture of manure, fish, grass, mushrooms, smoke, milk, cheese, mud, clay, earth, sweat, urine, and mold.

We smell bad, like Grandmother.

Exercise
to Toughen the Body

Grandmother often hits us with her bony hands, a broom, or a damp cloth. She pulls our ears and grabs us by the hair.

Other people also slap and kick us, we don't even know why.

The blows hurt and make us cry.

Falls, scratches, cuts, work, cold, and heat cause pain as well.

We decide to toughen our bodies so we can bear pain without crying.

We start by slapping and then punching one another. Seeing our swollen faces, Grandmother asks:

"Who did that to you?"

"We did, Grandmother."

"You had a fight? Why?"

"For nothing, Grandmother. Don't worry, it's only an exercise."

"An exercise? You're crazy! Oh, well, if that's your idea of fun . . ."

We are naked. We hit one another with a belt. At each blow we say:

"It doesn't hurt."

We hit harder, harder and harder.

We put our hands over a flame. We cut our thighs, our arms, our chests with a knife and pour alcohol on our wounds. Each time we say:

"It doesn't hurt."

After a while, we really don't feel anything anymore. It's someone else who gets hurt, someone else who gets burned, who gets cut, who feels pain.

We don't cry anymore.

When Grandmother is angry and shouts at us, we say:

"Stop shouting, Grandmother, hit us instead."

When she hits us, we say:

"More, Grandmother! Look, we are turning the other cheek, as it is written in the Bible. Strike the other cheek too, Grandmother."

She answers:

"May the devil take you with your Bible and your cheeks!"

The Orderly

We are lying on the corner seat in the kitchen. Our heads are touching. We aren't asleep yet, but our eyes are shut. Someone pushes at the door. We open our eyes. We are blinded by the beam of a flashlight. We ask:

"Who's there?"

A man's voice answers:

"No fear. You no fear. Two you are, or I too much drink?"

He laughs, lights the oil lamp on the table, and turns off his flashlight. We can see him properly now. He's a foreign soldier, a private. He says:

"I orderly of captain. You do what there?"

We say:

"We live here. It's Grandmother's house."

"You grandchildren of Witch? I never before see you. You be here since when?"

"For two weeks."

"Ah! I go on leave my home, in my village. Laugh much."

We ask:

"How is it you can speak our language?"

He says:

"My mother born here, in your country. Come to work in our country, waitress in café. Meet my father, marry with. When I small, my mother speak me your language. Your country and my country be friends. Fight the enemy together. You two come from where?"

"From the Big Town."

"Big Town, much danger. Bang! Bang!"

"Yes, and nothing left to eat."

"Here good to eat. Apples, pigs, chickens, everything. You stay long time? Or only holidays?"

"We'll stay until the end of the war."

"War soon end. You sleep there? Seat bare, hard, cold. Witch no want take you in room?"

"We don't want to sleep in Grandmother's room. She snores and smells. We had blankets and sheets, but she sold them."

The orderly takes some hot water from the cauldron on the stove and says:

"I must clean room. Captain also return leave tonight or tomorrow morning."

He goes out. A few minutes later, he comes back. He brings us two gray army blankets.

"No sell that, old Witch. If she too mean, you tell me. I bang-bang, I kill."

He laughs again. He covers us up, turns out the lamp, and leaves.

During the day we hide the blankets in the attic.

Exercise
to Toughen the Mind

Grandmother says to us:

"Sons of a bitch!"

People say to us:

"Sons of a Witch! Sons of a whore!"

Others say:

"Idiots! Hoodlums! Snot-nosed kids! Asses! Slobs! Pigs! Devils! Bastards! Little shits! Punks! Murderers-to-be!"

When we hear these words, our faces get red, our ears buzz, our eyes sting, our knees tremble.

We don't want to blush or tremble anymore, we want to get used to abuse, to hurtful words.

We sit down at the kitchen table face to face, and looking each other in the eyes, we say more and more terrible words.

One of us says:

"Turd! Asshole!"

The other one says:

"Faggot! Prick!"

We go on like that until the words no longer reach our brains, no longer even reach our ears.

We exercise this way for about half an hour a day, then we go out walking in the streets.

We contrive to have people insult us, and we observe that we have now reached the stage where we don't care anymore.

But there are also the old words.

Mother used to say to us:

"My darlings! My loves! My joy! My adorable little babies!"

When we remember these words, our eyes fill with tears.

We must forget these words because nobody says such words to us now and because our memory of them is too heavy a burden to bear.

So we begin our exercise again, in a different way.

We say:

"My darlings! My loves! I love you. ... I shall never leave you. ... I shall never love anyone but you. . . . Forever. . . . You are my whole life ..."

By force of repetition, these words gradually lose their meaning, and the pain they carry in them is assuaged.

School

This happened three years ago.

It's evening. Our parents think we are asleep. They're talking about us in the other room.

Mother says:

"They won't bear being separated."

Father says:

"They'll only be separated during school hours."

Mother says:

"They won't bear it."

"They'll have to. It's necessary for them. Everybody says so. The teachers, the psychologists, everybody. It will be difficult at first, but they'll get used to it."

Mother says:

"No, never. I know it. I know them. They are one and the same person."

Father raises his voice:

"Precisely, it isn't normal. They think together, they act together. They live in a different world. In a world of their own. It isn't very healthy. It's even rather worrying. Yes, they worry me. They're odd. You never know what they might be thinking. They're too advanced for their age. They know too much."

Mother laughs:

"You're not going to reproach them with their intelligence, I hope?"

"It isn't funny. Why are you laughing?"

Mother replies:

"Twins are always a problem. It isn't the end of the world. Everything will sort itself out."

Father says:

"Yes, everything will sort itself out if we separate them. Every individual must have his own life."

A few days later, we start school. We're in different classes. We both sit in the front row.

We are separated from one another by the whole length of the building. This distance between us seems monstrous, the pain is unbearable. It is as if they had taken half our bodies away. We can't keep our balance, we feel dizzy, we fall, we lose consciousness.

We wake up in the ambulance that is taking us to the hospital.

Mother comes to fetch us. She smiles and says:

"You'll be in the same class from tomorrow on."

At home, Father just says to us:

"Fakers!"

Soon he leaves for the front. He's a journalist, a war correspondent.

We go to school for two and a half years. The teachers also leave for the front; they are replaced by women teachers. Later, the school closes because there are too many air raids. We have learned reading, writing, and arithmetic. At Grandmother's we decide to continue our studies without a teacher, by ourselves.

Purchase of Paper, Notebook
,
and Pencils

At Grandmother's there is no paper, there are no pencils. We go looking for some at a shop called Booksellers and Stationers. We choose a packet of graph paper, two pencils, and a big thick notebook. We place all that on the counter in front of the fat gentleman standing on the other side. We say to him: