The Tenth Man

16

CAROSSE LEANED ON THE FENCE GAZING TOWARD THE SMALL figure that approached across the fields from St. Jean. He leaned like a man taking his ease in his own garden: once he gave a small quiet giggle as a thought struck him, but this was succeeded, as the figure came closer and became recognizably Charlot, by a certain alertness, a tautening of the intelligence.

Charlot, who remembered the revolver in the pocket, stood a little distance away and stared back at him. “I thought you’d gone,” he said.

“I decided to stay.”

“Here?”

Carosse said gently, “It’s my own place, after all.”

“Carosse the collaborator?”

“No. Jean-Louis Chavel the coward.”

“You’ve forgotten two things,” Charlot said, “if you are going to play Chavel.”

“I thought I’d rubbed up the part satisfactorily.”

“If you are going to be Chavel you won’t be allowed to stay-unless you want more spittle in your face.”

“And the other thing?”

“None of this belongs to Chavel any more.”

Again Carosse giggled, leaning back from the fence with his hand on the revolver “just in case.” He said, “I’ve got two answers, my dear fellow.”

His confidence shook Charlot, who cried angrily across the grass, “Stop acting.”

“You see,” Carosse said gently, “I’ve found it quite easy to talk the girl around to my version of things.”

“Version of what?”

“Of what happened in the prison. I wasn’t there, you see, and that makes it so much easier to be vivid. I’m forgiven, my dear Charlot, but you on the contrary are branded-forgive my laughing, because, of course, I know how grossly unfair it is-as the liar.” He gave a happy peal of laughter: it was as if he expected the other to share altruistically his sense of the comedy of things. “You are to clear out, Charlot. Now, at once. She’s very angry with you. But I’ve persuaded her to let you have three hundred francs for wages. That’s six hundred you owe me, my dear fellow.” And he held out his left hand tentatively.

“And she’s letting you stay?” Charlot asked, keeping his distance.

“She hasn’t any choice, my dear. She hadn’t heard of the Decree of the 17th-nor you either? You don’t see the papers here, of course. The decree which makes illegal all change of property that took place during the German occupation if denounced by one party? Do you really mean to say you never thought of that? But there, I only thought of it myself this morning.”

Charlot stared back at him with horror. The fleshy and porky figure of the actor momentarily was transformed into its own ideal-the carnal and the proud, leaning negligently there on the axis of the globe offering him all the kingdoms of the world in the form of six freehold acres and a house. He could have everything-or his three hundred francs miraculously renewed. It was as if all that morning he had moved close to the supernatural: an old woman was dying and the supernatural closed in. God came into the house in an attache case, and when God came the Enemy was always present. He was God’s shadow: he was the bitter proof of God. The actors silly laugh tinkled again, but he heard the ideal laughter swinging behind, a proud and comradely sound, welcoming him to the company of the Devil.

“I bet you Chavel thought of it when he signed the transfer. Oh, what a cunning devil,” Carosse giggled with relish. “It’s the nineteenth today. I bet he won’t be far behind the decree.”

The actual trivial words made no impression on Charlot’s mind. Behind them he heard the Enemy greeting him like a company commander with approval-“Well done, Chavel”-and he felt a wave of happiness: this was home and he owned it. He said, “What’s the good of your pretending to be Chavel any longer, Carosse? It’s as you say. Chavel will be on his way home.”

Carosse said, “I like you, old man. You do remind me of good old Pidot. I’ll tell you what-if I pull this thing off you need never want for a few thousand francs.”

The grass was his and he looked at it with love. He must have it scythed before winter, and next year he would take the garden properly in hand… The indentation of footmarks ran up from the river: he could recognize his own narrow shoe marks and the wide heavy galoshes of the priest. By this route God had moved into the house, where it was suddenly as if the visible world healed and misted and came back into focus, and he saw Carosse quite clearly again, porky and triumphant, and he knew exactly what he had to do. The Decree of the 17th-even the gifts of the Enemy were gifts also of God. The Enemy was unable to offer any gift without God simultaneously offering the great chance of rejection. He asked again, “But what’s the good, Carosse?”

“Why,” Carosse said, “even a day’s shelter, you know, is a gain to a man like me. People will come to their senses soon, and the right ones will get on top. One just has to keep on hiding.” But he couldn’t resist a boast. “But that’s not all, my dear man. What a triumph if I married her before Chavel came. I could do it. I’m Carosse, aren’t I? You know your Richard III. ‘Was ever woman in this humour wooed?’ and the answer of course is Yes. Yes, Charlot, yes.”

It is always necessary to know one’s enemy through and through. Charlot asked a third time, “Why? What’s the good?”

“I need money, my dear. Chavel can’t refuse a split. That would be too abominable after swindling the brother of his life.”

“And you think I won’t interfere? You said last night that I loved the girl.

“Oh, that!” Carosse breathed the objection away. “You don’t love her enough, my dear man, to injure your own chances. You and I are too old for that kind of love. After all, if Chavel comes back you get nothing, but if I win, well, you know I’m generous.” It was quite true: he was generous. His generosity was an integral part of his vulgarity. “And anyway,” he added, “what can I do? You’ve told her I’m Chavel.”

“You forget I know who you are: Carosse the collaborationist-and murderer.”

The right hand shifted in the pocket: a finger moved where the safety catch should be. “You think I’m that dangerous?”

“Yes.” Charlot watched the hand. “And there’s another thing-I know where Chavel is.”

“Where?”

“He’s nearly here. And there’s another thing. Look down there across the fields. You see the church?”

“Of course.”

“You see the hill behind, a little to the right, divided into fields?”

“Yes.”

“In the top right-hand corner there’s a man working.”

“What about it?”

“You can’t tell who he is from this distance, but I know him. He’s a farmer called Roche, and he’s the Resistance leader in St. Jean.”

“Well?”

“Suppose I went down there now and up the hill and told him he’d find Carosse at the big house-not only Carosse but the murderer of a man called Toupard.” For a moment he thought Carosse was going to fire: an act of recklessness and despair in this exposed place. The sound would carry right across the valley.

But instead he smiled. “My friend,” he said, “we seem to be inextricably tied together.”

“You have no objection then if I return with you to the house.” Charlot approached slowly as one would approach a chained dog.

“Ah, but the lady may.”

“The lady, I feel sure, will take your advice.”

The right hand came suddenly and cheerfully out of the pocket and beat twice on Charlot’s back. “Bravo, bravo,” Carosse said. “I made a mistake. We’ll work together. You’re a man after my own heart. Why, with a little skill we’ll both have a nibble at the girl as well as at the money.” He passed his arm through Charlot’s and urged him gently homeward.

Once Charlot looked back at the tiny figure of Roche on the hillside: he remembered the period when they had not been enemies, before sickness had tipped Roche’s tongue with venom… The little figure turned his back and marched up the field behind the plow.

Carosse squeezed his right arm. “If this Chavel,” he said, “is really on his way, we’ll make a stand against him-you and I. And if the worst comes to the worst, you know I’ve got my gun.” He squeezed his arm again. “You won’t forget that, will you?”

“No.”

“You’ll have to apologize for the lies you’ve told her. She feels badly about those.”

“The lies?”

“That her brother died in the morning.”

The sun flashed at him from a window of the house. Charlot lowered his dazzled eyes and thought, What am I to do? What am I trying to do?