The Notebook + The Proof + The Third Lie (7 page)

"Do you pray sometimes?"

"No, we don't pray."

"Poor lost lambs. I shall pray for you. Can you read, at least?"

"Yes, sir. We can read."

The priest hands us a book:

"Here, read this. You will find in it beautiful stories about Jesus Christ and the lives of the saints."

"We know these stories already. We have a Bible. We have read the Old Testament and the New."

The priest raises his dark eyebrows:

"What? You have read all of the Holy Bible?" "Yes, sir. We even know several passages by heart."

"Which ones, for example?"

"Passages from Genesis, Exodus, Ecclesiastes, Revelation, and others."

The priest is silent for a while, then he says:

"So you know the Ten Commandments. Do you obey them?"

"No, sir, we do not obey them. Nobody obeys them. It is written, 'Thou shalt not kill,' and everybody kills."

The priest says:

"Alas . . . it's the war."

We say:

"We would like to read other books besides the Bible, but we don't have any. You have a lot of books. You could lend us some."

"These books are too difficult for you."

"Are they more difficult than the Bible?"

The priest looks at us. He asks:

"What kind of books would you like to read?"

"History books and geography books. Books that tell true things, not invented things."

The priest says:

"By next Saturday, I shall find some books that will be suitable for you. Leave me now. Go back to the kitchen and finish your tea."

The Housekeeper
and
the Orderly

We are picking cherries in the garden with the housekeeper. The orderly and the foreign officer arrive in the jeep. The officer walks straight past us and goes into his room. The orderly stops near us and says:

"Good morning, little friends. Good morning, pretty maiden. Cherries already ripe? I love much cherries, I love much pretty young lady."

The officer calls from the window. The orderly has to go into the house. The housekeeper says to us:

"Why didn't you tell me there were men in your house?"

'They're foreigners."

"So what? What a handsome man he is, the officer!"

We ask:

"Don't you like the orderly?"

"He's short and fat."

"But he's nice and amusing. And he speaks our language well."

She says:

"I don't care. It's the officer I like."

The officer comes and sits on the bench in front of his window. The housekeeper's basket is already full of cherries, she could go back to the priest's house, but she stays. She looks at the officer and laughs very loudly. She hangs from the branch of a tree, she swings, she jumps, she lies in the grass, and finally she throws a daisy at the officer's feet. The officer gets up and goes back to his room. Soon afterward, he comes out and goes off in his jeep.

The orderly leans out the window and shouts:

"Who come help poor man clean very dirty room?"

We say:

"We'll be glad to help you."

He says:

"Need a woman to help. Need pretty young lady."

We say to the housekeeper:

"Come on. Let's help him a bit."

All three of us go into the officer's room. The housekeeper picks up a broom and starts to sweep. The orderly sits down on the bed and says:

"I dream. A princess, I see in dream. Princess must pinch me to wake up."

The housekeeper laughs and pinches the orderly's cheek very hard.

The orderly shouts:

"I awake now. I also want pinch wicked princess."

He takes the housekeeper in his arms and pinches her bottom. The housekeeper struggles, but the orderly holds her very tight. He says to us:

"You, outside! And shut the door."

We ask the housekeeper:

"Do you want us to stay?"

She laughs:

"What for? I can take care of myself."

So we leave the room and shut the door behind us. The housekeeper comes to the window, smiles at us, draws the shutters, and closes the window. We go up to the attic and watch what is happening in the officer's room through the holes.

The orderly and the housekeeper are lying on the bed. The housekeeper is completely naked; the orderly has just his shirt and socks on. He's lying on the housekeeper, and they're both moving back and forth, right and left. The orderly grunts like Grandmother's pig, and the housekeeper screams as if in pain, but she also laughs at the same time and cries:

"Yes, yes, yes, oh, oh, oh!"

From that day on, the housekeeper comes back often and shuts herself up with the orderly. We sometimes look at them, but not always.

The orderly prefers the housekeeper to bend over or squat on all fours, and he takes her from behind.

The housekeeper prefers the orderly to lie on his back. Then she sits on the orderly's belly and moves up and down, as if she were riding a horse.

The orderly sometimes gives the housekeeper silk stockings or eau de cologne.

The Foreign Officer

We are doing our immobility exercise in the garden. It's hot. We are lying on our backs in the shade of the walnut tree. Through the leaves, we see the sky and the clouds. The leaves of the tree are motionless; the clouds also seem to be, but if we look at them for a long time, very attentively, we notice that they change shape and stretch out.

Grandmother comes out of the house. As she walks past us, she kicks sand and gravel into our faces and over our bodies. She mutters something and goes into the vineyard for her nap.

The officer is sitting, stripped to the waist, his eyes shut, on the bench in front of his room, his head leaning against the white wall, in full sunlight. Suddenly he comes toward us; he speaks to us, but we don't answer, we don't look at him. He goes back to his bench.

Later, the orderly says to us:

"The officer want you come speak to him."

We don't answer. He says again:

"You get up and come. Officer angry if you not obey."

We don't move.

The officer says something, and the orderly goes into the room. We hear him singing as he cleans up.

When the sun touches the roof of the house beside the chimney, we get up. We go over to the officer. We stop in front of him. He calls the orderly. We ask:

"What does he want?"

The officer asks some questions; the orderly translates:

"The officer ask why you not move, why not speak."

We answer:

"We were doing our immobility exercise."

The orderly translates again:

"The officer say you do many exercises. Also other kinds. He have seen you hit each other with belt."

"That was our toughening exercise."

"The officer ask why you do all that."

"To get used to pain."

"He ask you have pleasure in pain."

"No. We only want to overcome pain, heat, cold, hunger, whatever causes pain."

"The officer admiration for you. He think you extraordinary."

The officer adds a few words. The orderly says:

"Good, finished. I must go now. You too, scram, go fishing."

But the officer holds us by the arm, smiling, and makes a sign for the orderly to go. The orderly takes a few steps, then turns back:

"You leave! Quick! Go for walk in town."

The officer looks at him, and the orderly walks on to the garden gate, where he shouts to us again:

"Beat it, you two! No stay! Not understand, fools?"

He goes off. The officer smiles at us and takes us into his room. He sits down on a chair, draws us to him, picks us up, and sits us on his knees. We put our arms around his neck, we press ourselves against his hairy chest. He rocks us to and fro.

Beneath us, between the officer's legs, we feel a warm movement. We look at one another, then we look the officer in the eyes. He gently pushes us away, he ruffles our hair, he stands up. He hands us two whips and lies face down on his belly. He says only one word, which, without knowing his language, we understand.

We hit. First one, then the other.

The officer's back is scored with red lines. We hit harder and harder. The officer moans and, without changing position, pulls his trousers and shorts down to his ankles. We hit his white buttocks, his thighs, his legs, his back, his neck, his shoulders, as hard as we can, and everything gets red.

The officer's body, hair, clothes, the sheets, the rug, our hands, our arms are red. The blood even spurts into our eyes, mingles with our sweat, and we go on hitting until the man utters a final, inhuman cry and we drop, exhausted, at the foot of his bed.

The Foreign Language

The officer brings us a dictionary in which we can learn his language. We learn the words; the orderly corrects our pronunciation. A few weeks later, we speak this new language fluently. We continue to make progress. The orderly no longer has to translate. The officer is very pleased with us. He gives us a harmonica. He also gives us a key to his room so we can get in when we want to (as we were already doing with our key, but secretly). Now we no longer need to hide, and we can do whatever we like there: eat biscuits and chocolate, smoke cigarettes.

We often go into that room, because everything is clean there and it's more peaceful than the kitchen. That's where we usually do our studying.

The officer has a gramophone and records. Lying on the bed, we listen to music. Once, to please the officer, we play his country's national anthem. But he gets angry and smashes the record with his fist.

Sometimes we sleep on the bed, which is very wide. One morning, the orderly finds us there; he isn't happy:

"You very foolish! You no more do silly thing like that. What happen one time if the officer come back at night?"

"What could happen? There's enough room for him too."

The orderly says:

"You very stupid. One time you pay for stupidity. If the officer hurt you, I kill him."

"He won't hurt us. Don't worry about us."

One night, the officer comes home and finds us asleep on his bed. The light from the oil lamp wakes us. We ask:

"Do you want us to go to the kitchen?"

The officer strokes our heads and says:

"Stay there. Do stay."

He undresses and lies.down between us. He puts his arms around us, he whispers in our ears:

"Sleep. I love you. Sleep in peace."

We go back to sleep. Later, near morning, we want to get up, but the officer holds us back:

"Don't move. Keep sleeping."

"We want to urinate. We have to go."

"Don't go. Do it here."

We ask:

"Where?"

He says:

"On me. Yes. Don't be afraid. Piss! On my face."

We do it, then we go out into the garden, because the bed is all wet. The sun is already rising; we start our morning chores.

The Officer's Friend

Sometimes the officer comes back with a friend, another, younger officer. They spend the evening together, and the friend stays over. We have observed them several times through the hole in the ceiling.

It's a summer's evening. The orderly is making something on the camp stove. He puts a cloth on the table, and we arrange flowers on it. The officer and his friend are sitting at the table; they are drinking. Later, they eat. The orderly eats near the door, sitting on a stool. Then they drink again. Meanwhile, we take care of the music. We change the records and wind up the gramophone.

The officer's friend says:

"These kids annoy me. Send them out."

The officer asks:

"Jealous?"

The friend answers:

"Of them? Don't be absurd! Two little savages."

"They're handsome, don't you think?"

"Perhaps. I haven't looked at them."

"Really, you haven't looked at them. Then look at them."

The friend blushes:

"What do you mean? They annoy me with their sneaky ways. As if they were listening to us, spying on us."

"But they are listening to us. They speak our language perfectly. They understand everything."

The friend goes pale and gets up:

"This is too much! I'm leaving!"

The officer says:

"Don't be a fool. Off you go, kids."

We leave the room and go up to the attic. We look and listen.

The officer's friend says:

"You made me look ridiculous in front of those stupid kids."

The officer says:

"Those are the two most intelligent children I have ever met."

The friend says:

"You're just saying that to hurt me, to make me suffer. You'll do anything to torment and humiliate me. One day I'll kill you!"

The officer throws his revolver on the table:

"If only you would! Take it. Kill me! Go on!"

The friend picks up the revolver and points it at the officer:

"I will. You'll see, I will. The next time you mention him, the other one, I'll kill you."

The officer closes his eyes, smiles:

"He was handsome . . . young . . . strong . . . graceful . . . delicate . . . cultivated . . . tender . . . dreamy . . . brave . . . arrogant. ... I loved him. He died on the Eastern front. He was nineteen. I can't live without him."

The friend throws the revolver on the table and says:

"Swine!"

The officer opens his eyes, looks at his friend:

"What lack of courage! What lack of character!"

The friend says:

"Then do it yourself if you have so much courage, and so much grief. If you can't live without him, follow him into death. Or do you need me to help you? I'm not crazy! Die! Die alone!"

The officer picks up the revolver and puts it to his temple. We come down from the attic. The orderly is sitting in front of the open door of the room. We ask him:

"Do you think he's going to kill himself?"

The orderly laughs:

"You not fear. They always do that when drink too much. I unload two revolvers before."

We go into the room and say to the officer: