The Red Collar (13 page)

“Do you think so? You made people laugh, granted. But of all those who applauded you, how many would take up arms to defend you? If you hadn't done anything, the same people would have cheered the parade. The people you put so much confidence in are tired of fighting, even against the war. Soon they'll be walking past the monuments to the dead with complete indifference.”

“The revolution will come.”

“Let's say you're right and that it's a necessary thing. How do you think the establishment is toppled? By decorating a dog in front of a prefect?”

There was no contempt in Lantier's voice. Which made the insult all the more caustic.

“I believe in individual examples,” Morlac replied, but without conviction.

His cheeks were red, with shame, with fury, there was no telling. The major left a long pause. A horse's footfalls could be heard on the cobblestones of the square, then everything fell silent.

“Let's have a serious talk, shall we? Now, let me tell you why you committed this act and why you want to disappear.”

“I'm listening.”

“After your convalescence you were evacuated to Paris. You lived there for a few months without working. Your pension was enough. Throughout this period there were many occasions when you could have established contact with activists. But you didn't. If you were so preoccupied with a revolution, it would be fair to assume you would have grasped the opportunity of being in the capital to sign yourself up.”

“How do you know this?”

“It's simple. When I was appointed to investigate your case, headquarters sent me your file. Veterans from the Eastern Front are fairly closely monitored by the police. Your friendliness with Russian soldiers didn't go unnoticed, would you believe. On your return, the intelligence services made sure you didn't have any undesirable contacts.”

Morlac shrugged his shoulders but made no contradiction.

“You arrived here on June 15. You took up residence with a widow who hires out rooms. You proved very discreet. You didn't even go to see your brother-in-law who's taken over your family farm.”

“I don't like him and the feeling's mutual. He's lazy and a thief.”

“I'm not passing judgment. Just stating a fact. On the other hand, you frequently went to see your son.”

This came as a bolt out of the blue and Morlac couldn't disguise his surprise.

“You hid so that you could watch him. One day you tried to talk to him and you frightened him. You still came back, though, but now you were even more cautious.”

“So what? That's not a crime.”

“Who said anything about a crime? Once again, I'm not passing judgment. I'm trying to understand.”

“What is there to understand? He's my son, I want to see him, that's all there is to it.”

“Of course. But why not see his mother?”

“We had a . . . misunderstanding.”

“Oh, well said! Now, you see, Morlac, you're an intelligent man but I'm afraid that here, as with many other things, you're lying to yourself.”

Lantier stood up and opened the window wide. There were no bars across it and, outside, Dujeux stepped forward to see what was going on. The major waved him away and leaned against the windowsill, looking out over the square. The dog, still in the same place, had sat up on his haunches.

“You're very unfair to that poor animal,” the major said thoughtfully. “You resent him for his faithfulness. You say it's a stupid, animal quality. But we all have it in us, starting with you.”

He turned toward Morlac and added, “In fact, you value this quality so highly that you've never forgiven Valentine for lacking in it. You're the most faithful man I know. And the proof is that you haven't forsaken the love you feel for her. It was for her that you came back here, wasn't it?”

Morlac shrugged again. He was looking at his hands.

“I think the real difference between us and animals,” the major went on, “isn't faithfulness. The more strictly human characteristic that they completely lack is a different emotion, and one that you have as it happens.”

“What's that?”

“Pride.”

Lantier had hit the mark and Morlac might well have been a veteran who'd faced many ordeals, but his self-assurance was crumbling.

“You opted instead to punish her and punish yourself by staging this simulated rebellion under her nose, rather than talking to her and finding out the truth.”

“It wasn't simulated.”

“Either way, it was tailor-made for her. It was her you were doing it for.”

Morlac attempted one last objection but Lantier had cut off his access to pride because of what he'd said, so the prisoner's words were pronounced without the tone of voice that would have given them any menace.

“Good for her if she got the message.”

“Unfortunately, you didn't hear her reply.”

The sound of children playing reached them, coming from a neighboring yard. The hot, still air seemed to carry only high sounds, like the chapel bell which rang every quarter of an hour.

“In any event,” Lantier concluded firmly, “I won't be an accomplice to your provocation. As I am expected to punish you, I know what punishment I shall inflict upon you. And it is one which will most hurt your pride. You're going to go and see her, and listen to her. Listen right to the end, and gauge how wrong you were. That will be your condemnation. But beware! I won't accept any prevarication.”

“Do I have the option to refuse?”

“No.”

One by one Lantier did up the buttons on his vest that he'd left open during the interview. He picked up his jacket, which he'd draped over the back of the chair behind the desk, and put it on. He ran his hand through his hair to tidy it, and smoothed his narrow moustache. He stood up tall, resuming the bearing typical of an officer.

“This case is closed. I won't hear any of your objections.”

But this assertiveness masked a coyness, a shyness connected to what he had decided to say before he left. He was no longer a military investigating officer but just another ordinary man when he added:

“And now, actually, well . . . I have a favor to ask you.”

T
he military investigating officer had gone straight back to his hotel because he knew Valentine was waiting for him there.

She was in the large lounge, sitting self-consciously under a vast painting depicting a stagecoach. She'd positioned herself near the right-hand corner, where the artist had put a country inn, as if she found the company of farmers' wives on their doorsteps less intimidating than the fine women peering out of the coach. She jumped to her feet when she saw the officer.

“Well?” she asked, taking his hands.

“Go and see him straightaway. He's expecting you.”

And, as he climbed the stairs without looking back so as not to witness the young woman's emotion and perhaps also to hide his own, he added:

“He's a free man.”

T
he car threaded its way across the countryside. It was a military sedan with big chrome headlights and glossy black mudguards. The sun was warming the hood and Lantier had lowered the windscreen to get some air.

He drove through villages to the cries of children, and raised his hat to greet men working in the fields. Storms had raged the previous day and they had to be quick to harvest the last parcels of wheat. The smell of autumn was already in the air, and in places the woods were adopting their first hints of brown.

He'd wanted to travel in civilian clothes, to start getting used to this new life that was beginning. After Orléans he was impatient to reach Paris, and be reunited with his wife and children. How would they take the present he had for them? It was easier convincing himself they'd be happy just seeing him happy. Because, truth be told, it wasn't a very handsome present. And Morlac hadn't made any fuss about handing it over to him . . .

Every now and then Lantier turned toward the rear seat and glanced over to check: No, it really wasn't a very handsome present. Or rather it was to himself that he was offering it.

He reached out his arm and felt the old jowls with his hand.

“Isn't that right, Wilhelm?” he whooped.

And the dog seemed to be smiling, too.

It was in 2011. A French weekly had sent me to Jordan to cover the Arab Spring. Unfortunately for me, this was the only country where absolutely nothing was happening. I had the photographer Benoît Gysembergh with me, and we spent our time sipping beers and telling each other stories.

Benoît was a very talented man with a lot of imagination. His life had allowed him to witness much of the century and to watch at close quarters many eminently book-worthy events.

And yet of all the adventures he described to me during those leisurely days, I've remembered only one. It was a very short, simple anecdote, but I immediately sensed that it constituted one of those rare tiny crystals of life from which the edifice of a whole book can be built.

This story was about his grandfather. He returned a hero from the Great War and was decorated with the Légion d'honneur, but after having a few drinks one day he committed what was at the time an unprecedented act, a transgression which led to his an arrest and a trial. It is this episode that is recreated at the end of this book.

I never stopped thinking about Benoît as I wrote this book. His illness was diagnosed while I was writing. Sadly, he never read the book because sickness claimed him just as I was finishing it.

I only had time to tell him I would dedicate it to him.

 

These pages are for him, for his memory.

He was a dear friend and a great photographer.

Jean-Christophe Rufin is one of the founders of Doctors Without Borders and a former Ambassador of France in Senegal. He has written numerous bestsellers, including
The Abyssinian
, for which he won the Goncourt Prize for a debut novel in 1997. He also won the Goncourt Prize in 2001 for
Brazil Red
. He is the author of
The Dream Maker
(Europa Editions, 2013).