Malevil

  He came down the terrace steps to meet me, Gazel and Fabrelâtre in his wake, the cavernous and imperious eyes fixed not upon me but upon the townspeople, who a second before had been pressing around me and acclaiming me, but who had now fallen silent and moved apart at his approach. He proffered chilly congratulations, but still without looking at me, eyes too occupied darting here and there among his flock, herding them back into the straight and narrow. Loathsome though I found him, I must confess that I admired his calm, his natural power of ascendancy. He escorted me in silence as far as the château gate, but no farther. It was as though he was repelled by the idea, if he went beyond, of finding himself alone among his parishioners once I was gone.

  No trace of his former unction remained in his farewells. There was no lavishing of compliments, and no invitation to renew my visit. Once the last of the townspeople was out again, and the horses led through by Colin, the green gates swung shut, leaving Fulbert, Gazel, Fabrelâtre, and Armand inside. From which I deduced that a parish council was about to be held posthaste, with a view to getting the parishioners under control again forthwith.

  Jacquet had gone on ahead and was waiting for us with Malabar and the cart outside the town. He had been apprehensive of the stallion becoming difficult in the presence of the two mares, especially in those narrow streets and surrounded by a crowd. We left by the south gate. Against the wall of one of the two little round towers on either side of it I suddenly noticed a post office mailbox. It had lost its fine yellow paint, and indeed was now no color at all, all scaly and black, its raised letters quite erased.

  “Do you see?” Marcel commented, for he was walking beside me. “The key is still there in the lock. The poor postman was burned to nothing just as he was about to collect the mail inside. As for the box itself, the metal must have got red hot, but it seems to have stood up to it. Look.” And he turned the key in the lock. The little door still opened and closed perfectly. I took Marcel by the arm and led him a little way along the Malejac road.

  “Take the key with you and keep it. If I have a message for you I’ll have it left in the box.”

  He nodded, and I looked with a feeling of friendship at those intelligent dark eyes, the wart quivering at the end of his nose, and his enormous shoulders, so powerless to protect him from the sadness I could see seeping into him. I talked to him for a few more minutes. I knew how lonely he was going to feel when he got home again, without Catie, without Evelyne, with the not very pleasant prospect of facing Fulbert’s anger and the consequent diminution of his rations during the days ahead. But I couldn’t wholly concentrate on what I was saying. My thoughts were too much on Malevil. I was in too much of a hurry to be back there again. Without the walls of Malevil around me, I felt as vulnerable as a hermit crab without his shell.

  As we talked, my eyes wandered over the people around us, all the survivors of La Roque without exception, including the two babies, carried down to the gate by their mothers, Agnès Pimont and Marie Lanouaille, the young butcher’s wife. Miette was in an absolute ecstasy, rushing from one to the other and back again, while Falvine, exhausted by a marathon of gossip all over the town, was already seated in the cart with Jacquet, the latter working very hard to keep a restless and whinnying Malabar in check.

  In that bright noon sun the townspeople looked happy at being released for a few short minutes from their suffocating walls. Though I noticed that even in Fabrelâtre’s absence they were not permitting themselves to voice any comments, either about their pastor, the distribution of their rations, or Armand’s recent discomfiture. I suspected that by adroit use of a few little perfidies and calculated indiscretions Fulbert had succeeded in creating a climate of mistrust and insecurity among them, a constant fear of betrayal. I noticed that none of them dared so much as go near Judith, Marcel, or Pimont, as though the power of the Church had already laid the trio under its interdict. I myself, as though the coldness Fulbert had displayed to me on parting had been sufficient to render proximity to me dangerous, was no longer surrounded as I had been on the esplanade. And a few moments later, when I finally came to throw them a collective “See you again soon!”—the very phrase that Fulbert had so studiously omitted to say to me—they were to reply with their eyes, but from afar, without daring to venture a single gesture, a single word.

  It was clear that the job of bringing the parishioners under control again was already half accomplished. They were well aware that Fulbert was going to make them pay dearly for that equitable distribution of our gifts. And with my bread and my butter scarcely digested inside them, they were not far, I felt, from already holding those gifts against me.

  Their attitude saddened me, but I didn’t altogether blame them. There is a terrible logic in slavery. I went on listening to Marcel, who had stayed on there solely to defend them, and to whom no one in La Roque dared address a word, apart from Pimont and Judith. And Judith was a gift from heaven! The Egeria of the Revolution! Our Joan of Arc!—except that she was no maid, as she had gone out of her way to stress. She must have noticed Marcel’s sadness, because she suddenly appeared at his side and promptly took a firm grip on his biceps, which he abandoned to her grasp, it seemed to me, with considerable pleasure, his dark eyes wandering gratefully over his Amazonian ally’s vast proportions.

  Pimont seemed to me the least ostracized. I could see him in conversation with two men who looked to me to be farmers. I looked around for Agnès. There she was. Colin, who had entrusted Morgane to a mute and nervous Thomas, was only just succeeding in restraining Mélusine but nevertheless managing to carry on a very animated conversation with Agnès at the same time. We had been rivals for her once. He had stood aside of his own accord, and then, as Racine put it, “carried his heart elsewhere.” So poor Agnès, when I drifted away from her too, had ended up with no suitors at all, after having had two. Enough to make any girl bitter, except that Agnès was incapable of bitterness. I noted that she was being charming to our Colin while at the same time keeping a very wary eye on Mélusine, even though Miette had by now taken advantage of her preoccupation and succeeded in getting the baby out of her arms and into her own. Oddly enough I felt no twinge of jealousy seeing Colin and Agnès together like that. The emotion I had felt on meeting her again had already faded.

  I left Marcel, went over to Thomas, and said in a quiet voice, “You will ride Morgane.”

  He looked at me, then at Morgane, appalled at the idea. “You’re mad! Not after what I saw up there!”

  “That was just a circus act. Morgane is as good as gold.”

  I explained to him very briefly the signals he must not give, and since Malabar was by now almost out of control, I took Mélusine from Colin, mounted her, and rode ahead a little, followed immediately by Thomas. As soon as we reached the first bend I dropped to a walk again, for fear that Malabar would start going too fast if he lost sight of the mares. Immediately Thomas drew level with me and turned to look at me, without saying anything but with a face that certainly had nothing impassive about it now.

  “Thomas?”

  “Yes,” he said with barely controlled excitement.

  “At the next bend put Morgane into a trot and go on ahead. Three miles from here there’s an intersection with a stone cross. Wait for me there.”

  “More mysteries,” he replied irritably, but he gave Morgane a little touch with his heels, and she was off and away immediately at her beautifully smooth trot.

  After a second’s thought I caught up with him again. “Thomas?”

  “Yes.” Again irritably and without looking at me.

  “If you see something that surprises you, remember you’re on Morgane and don’t raise your right arm. You’ll only end up on the road.”

  He looked at me in puzzlement, then he understood. Immediately his face lit up, and forgetting all his anxieties about Morgane, he set off down the road at a full gallop. The madman! On that metaled road! If only he’d thought to ride on the shoulder!

  I held M
élusine back. Malabar, fifty yards behind me, was just starting down a slight hill and this was no moment to make him trot too fast. I was quite pleased to be alone at last, so I could think back over our little visit to La Roque. Barely nine miles away from Malevil. Another world. A whole different social organization. The whole of the lower town that was not protected by the cliff, or not protected enough, completely destroyed. Three quarters of the population annihilated. Not the slightest hint of a community life, as Marcel had so clearly seen. Hunger, idleness, tyranny. And also insecurity. A fortified town, but badly defended despite its ramparts. Plenty of weapons, but fear preventing them being used. The richest land in the district, but whatever it eventually produced doomed to be unjustly distributed. An unhappy, hungry, disunited little town, with very poor chances of survival.

  I was no longer afraid of the people of La Roque. I knew now that Fulbert would never send them into battle against me. But I was afraid for them. I pitied them. And in that moment, rising to the rhythm of Mélusine’s trot, I made the decision to help them in every way within my power during the weeks and months ahead.

  As my glance fell onto the reins, I was surprised for an instant at not seeing my signet ring on my finger. The scene in the stables came back to me. What an idiot, that Armand! I might just as well have given him a pebble! As if gold, two months after the day it happened, had any value! Those days were over, or if you prefer, they were still a long way ahead. We had regressed to a stage far more primitive than that of precious metals: the age of barter. The age of jewels and metal money was still far, far distant in the future. Our grandsons might see it perhaps. But not us.

  Mélusine pricked up her ears, then shied slightly. At the next bend, a few yards ahead, a tiny silhouette stood in the middle of the road, hair lighted up from behind by the sun. I reined the mare to a halt.

  “I thought I’d meet you,” Evelyne said, walking forward without the slightest fear and looking even more tiny and frail beside the powerful mare. “I left those two to it. They’re kissing all the time. You ought to see them! As if I just didn’t exist!”

  I laughed and dismounted. “Come on, we’ll go back to them.”

  I hoisted her up onto the front of the saddle, where she really took up very little room. “Hold on with both hands to the pommel.”

  I got back up behind her and arranged the reins on either side of her little body. The top of her head came no higher than my chin. “Lean back against my chest.”

  We set off again at a trot, and I could feel Evelyne trembling. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m a bit frightened.”

  “Lean back harder. Don’t stiffen up like that. Let yourself relax!”

  “It bounces a lot.”

  “You can’t fall off, you’ve got my arms for railings!”

  I altered my hold so that I could grip her more tightly, then rode on for another two or three hundred yards in silence. “Better now?”

  “Oh, yes,” she said in a quite different voice, vibrant with excitement. “It’s wonderful! I’m the great lord’s fiancée and he’s taking me back to his castle.”

  Presumably she’d thought that one up to help her get over her fright. When she spoke she turned her head around toward me, and I could feel her breath on my neck. After a moment she went on: “You ought to conquer La Roque and Courcejac.”

  “How do you mean, conquer?”

  “By force of arms.” The phrase must have been a memory from her last history lesson. Her last for always.

  “And if I did, what difference would it make?” I said.

  “You could put Armand and the curé to the sword, and you’d be king of all the country.”

  I laughed. “Now there’s a plan that suits me down to the ground. Especially that ‘putting to the sword’ part.”

  “Shall we do it then?” Evelyne asked, turning around and gazing up at me with solemn eyes.

  “I’ll think it over.”

  Mélusine began to neigh. Malabar, trotting staunchly on thirty or forty yards behind us, answered her, and in front of us, revealed suddenly as we came around a bend, stood Morgane, chin propped unconcernedly on top of Thomas’s head as he held Catie in a passionate embrace.

  “Oh, look how funny they are, the three of them!” Evelyne cried.

  “Emmanuel,” Thomas said, gazing up at me with slightly vague eyes, “may I take Catie up on Morgane behind me?”

  “No, you may not.”

  “You’ve got Evelyne on Mélusine.”

  “There is no comparison. Either between the weights, the sizes, or...” I was about to add “the riders,” but I stopped myself because of Catie.

  At that point Malabar arrived in a state of great excitement, and because Jacquet up on the cart couldn’t hold him alone, Colin had to get down and hold his head while Catie clambered up beside her grandmother. All three ex-troglodytes expressed great joy at seeing her, but no surprise. Miette had discovered the hidden suitcases as they were leaving La Roque and had recognized her sister’s things inside them.

  “Come on, Thomas,” I said, “let’s ride on ahead. Malabar is going to become unmanageable if we stay too close.”

  As soon as I felt we were far enough ahead I dropped down to a walk again.

  “Emmanuel,” Thomas said in a breathless voice, as though he had been running, “Emmanuel, Catie would like you to marry us tomorrow.”

  I looked over at him. He had never been so handsome. The Greek statue inside which he had lived imprisoned until now had come to life. The fire of life was glowing at last from his eyes, from his nostrils, from his half-open lips. Incredulous, I echoed, “Catie would like me to marry you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you?”

  He gazed at me in bewilderment. “And I would too, naturally.”

  “I can’t see that it’s as natural as all that. After all, you’re an atheist.”

  “Well, if you’re going to take that attitude,” he said in an acid tone, “you’re not really a priest.”

  “There you are wrong,” I answered immediately. “Fulbert is not a real priest, because he is lying when he says he is. That is not true of me. I am not an impostor. My ministry is underwritten by the faith of the believers who elected me. I am the emanation of their faith. Which is why I regard the religious acts they expect of me with the utmost seriousness.”

  Thomas gaped at me. “But you yourself,” he said after a moment, “you’re not a believer.”

  I said curtly, “We have never discussed my religious beliefs that I know of. But in any case, what I believe or what I do not believe has nothing whatever to do with the authenticity of my functions.”

  There was a silence, then he said in a shaky voice, “And are you going to refuse to marry us because I am an atheist?”

  That stung me. “No, Thomas, of course I’m not. Don’t be ridiculous. Your marriage will be made valid by the very fact that you want it. It is Catie’s and your will to enter into it that creates the union.”

  And after a moment I went on: “So you can put your mind at rest. I’ll marry you. It’s a folly, but I’ll marry you.”

  He looked at me, deeply shocked. “A folly?”

  “Of course it’s a folly. You’re getting married because Catie, being still faithful to the ideas of the world of before, cannot conceive of herself other than as married, even though she has no intention of remaining faithful.”

  He started, and jerked so hard on the reins that Morgane came to a stop. Mélusine immediately halted too.

  “I’d like to know what makes you say that.”

  “Nothing in particular. What’s the matter? It’s just a hypothesis.”

  I touched my heels to Mélusine’s flanks. Thomas followed suit. “So in your opinion then, it’s a folly because she’s going to be unfaithful to me?” he said, with more apprehension than irony.

  “I think it’s folly anyway. You know my position on the matter. There is no place for monogamy in a community where
there are two women to six men.”

  There was a silence.

  “I love her,” Thomas said.

  If I hadn’t been holding reins I would have lifted my arms to heaven. “But so do I love her! So does Colin! So will Meyssonnier and Peyssou as soon as they see her!”

  “I don’t mean it in that sense,” Thomas said.

  “Oh, yes you do! You mean it in exactly that sense! What other sense could you mean it in? Since you’ve only known her for two hours!”

  I waited for him to reply. But for once our great debater had no wish to continue the debate. “Well, let’s settle it then,” he said sullenly at last. “Are you going to marry us or not?”

  “I’ll marry you.”

  At which he said a very curt thank you and closed up like an oyster. I glanced across at him. He didn’t want to talk any more. All he wanted was to be left alone to think about his Catie, since Malabar was preventing him from being near her. I could see a sort of light in his face, oozing out from every pore. I was deeply impressed by that great inward effusion. I envied him, my young Thomas, and at the same time I felt a little sorry for him. He couldn’t have known a great many girls in his life for Catie to make an effect like that. Let him have his moments of bliss. His heart would be paining him soon enough. I urged Mélusine on and cut in front of Thomas on the pretext that I wanted to let my mare trot on the shoulder instead of on the road. Thomas rode behind me from then on, also on the shoulder.

  For a good hour there was no other sound but the heavy beat of the mares’ hoofs on the earth, and behind us, at a varying distance, the sharper clattering of Malabar’s hoofs on the metaled road and the rumbling of the cart.

  Why did my heart always begin to beat so wildly whenever I saw Malevil again? About five hundred feet from the gate tower I saw Peyssou standing in the middle of the road, gun slung over his shoulder, great face split in a broad grin.

  I stopped. “And what do you think you’re doing there? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing that you won’t be glad to hear,” he said. The grin broadened still further. Then he said in a tone of triumph, “The wheat is up!”