Zone (41 page)

Adriatisches Küstenland
early in 1945, who had the idea first, back then, Kalterweg, Rösener, or Globocnik the swine, we’ll never know, Mme la Duchesse maybe, maybe the mother of Rolf the cynic asked the same question as Stéphanie, the great question with no answer, as the soldiers in black uniforms told them about their feats of arms,
what is it like to kill a man?
Globus hooted outright with laughter, he answered you’re about to see, Madame, after you, and all the guests blind drunk thought it was an excellent idea, a demonstration, a demonstration, the women hitched up the bras on their breasts, rearranged their creased dresses to head for the cellar where the ten Slovenians were piled up behind respectable iron bars, the prisoners saw the charming company coming down towards them without understanding, pausing at the bottom of the steps, a meter away from the grille, they got up, Rösener took out his P38, Kalterweg too, the panic-stricken Resistants huddled against the walls like insects Rösener said who wants to begin? and a very drunk lady answered me! me! Rösener took her by the waist put the weapon in her hand feeling her up a little they went over to the bars Rösener guided her arm she saw a shadow in the right corner she pulled the trigger the shot resounded under the beautiful vault the wounded Slovenian shouted and collapsed the audience cried bravo! bravo! encore! And the four pieces that belonged to the SS present were emptied onto the poor guys like the bottles of champagne before everyone wanted to try their hand at death the explosions vibrated in the powder-heavy air the blood spattered the whitewashed walls the women quivered with fear and pleasure, sobered up fast by the adrenaline, the dying men twisted onto the corpses of their companions, the guests’ ears whistled in the great silence that always follows massacres: everyone went back upstairs without saying a word, Globus the rational gave orders for the bodies to be collected and burned at La Risiera which they should never have left, the women were pale, Hohnstetter too, Globocnik himself felt a little melancholy, he shouted
cognac! cognac!
and the trembling majordomo immediately brought him a bottle of grappa, Rolf’s mother asked to be excused, she wasn’t feeling very well, and she went back to her apartments to take refuge in her son’s room, next to the heavy sleep and tender perfume of unattainable childhood—the young Eppan had of course no memory of this, he was sleeping piously in his bed, but his mother’s diary is very clear, he says, that’s what happened, even though the duchess certainly minimizes her own role, unable to confess, even alone in the intimacy of her journal, what might really have happened that night, as an epitaph she notes that she walled up the part of the cellar where “the events” as she calls them took place, so as never to see the place again, Rolf recently added a brass plaque to it engraved,
here died ten Slovenian heroes killed by the Nazis
, a commemorative plaque in his own house, a memorial that he alone can see, when he goes downstairs to look for a good bottle for his guests: when we leave the restaurant the day is beginning to come to a close, the sea has very soft, very smooth grey tones, Rolf is in a nostalgic mood, he would readily order a cognac or a grappa like Globus but he is in a hurry to come to an end, the documents are in the trunk of my car he says, we walk over to the parking lot, Rolf strides a little hunched over, I feel as if he’s hesitating about whether to tell me something, he pulls up the neck of his tweed jacket to protect himself from the breeze, his noble Daimler is bottle-green, with a Liechtenstein license plate, even the trunk gives off a scent of leather and luxury, Rolf grabs an elegant bag, he hands it to me saying it has no value, you know, I nod, it has no more value than a corpse or a name on a grave, poor Rolf the noble from whom the Nazis took away his title, from whom history took away his title, he is getting revenge by giving me these documents, the reports from Globocnik to Himmler between 1942 and 1945, all the activities of the Aktion Reinhardt in Poland and Italy, he is getting rid of a weight, Rolf, he looks relieved at contributing to the filling of the suitcase, he shakes my hand, I thank him for lunch, he sketches a smile and gets into his car, Rolf doesn’t know that I know his dilemma, I know that vengeful Fate wanted him to be born Duke of Auschwitz, Duke of Auschwitz and Zator, Rolf von Auschwitz und Zator, an ancient princely title going back to the eleventh century, that is his name, the name of his ancestors which the Nazis tarnished, forcing his coat of arms to remain in shadow forever, Rolf whose fief is today linked to the largest death factory ever built bears the weight of history more than others, I wonder if one should laugh or cry at his heraldic scruples and his mother with the troubled friendships, the sun has set, I walk slowly up the seafront, two million dead aren’t so heavy, in fact, words and numbers on paper, men are great technicians at taking notes, at keeping things brief, ever since well-guarded Troy the bearded bard and Schliemann the archeologist great spotter of warriors, I’m going to arrive in Rome very soon, very quickly, render unto Caesar, render unto eternity, get hold of the ransom for my cowardliness and then what, then what, find Sashka again the only female painter of icons, in her closed world, Sashka the blind with the big light-colored eyes and her apartment in Trastevere, I don’t know if I want to see her again, she doesn’t have the power to reach me, to cure me, or the will to either, I feel I’m going to destroy her like Marianne, torment her like Stéphanie, who will take me out of myself, who like Intissar will come to look for the corpse of Francis fallen between the lines, who will look into the eyes of my murderer, observe my ghost in the distance through the gunman’s sights, Sashka is a dream of ice, one of those mirrors that do no good since they always enclose us in our own image, in our future grave, what will I do when this train arrives in the station, when its brakes wheeze against the Termini platform, I met Sashka by chance she doesn’t know me I don’t know her any better than her brother the volunteer for the savage Serbs, front against front waiting for the angel to inspire us, despite the signs that the unpredictable gods have placed on our pathway, Jersualem lost in history, Nathan the busy survivor promptly cutting off Palestinian lives, the bullets the shells exchanged in Slavonia, and Rome, Rome where all roads lead before being lost in the night what will I do you’re always tempted to retrace your steps to go back to where you lived, the way Caravaggio painter of decapitation wanted to see Rome again, despite the luxury of Malta the rotting beauty of Naples, constantly and ceaselessly Caravaggio desired the Eternal City the shady neighborhoods the cutthroats around the mausoleum of Augustus the casual lovers games brawls laughable life where will I go back to, me, to Mostar crushed by the shells to Venice with the handsome Ghassan and Ezra Pound the mad, to Trieste to the cursed villa of the
Herzog
von Auschwitz, to Beirut with the fierce Palestinians to Algiers the white to lick the blood of martyrs or the burnt wounds of the innocent men tortured by my father, to Tangier with Burroughs the wild-eyed murderer Genet the luminous invert and Choukri the eternally starving, to Taormina to get drunk with Lowry, to Barcelona, to Valencia, to Marseille with my grandmother in love with crowned heads, to Split with Vlaho the disabled, to Alexandria the sleeping, to Salonika city of ghosts or to the White Island graveyard of heroes, what would Yvan Deroy the mad do where would he go I watch the Americans having fun talking loudly in the restaurant car, outside the countryside is still just as dark Antonio the bartender is preparing to close his mobile bar we’re going to be there soon, we’re going to be there soon, and then what, what are you going to do Yvan where are you going with your thirty pieces of silver in your pocket find a welcoming tree a rope not too rough for your delicate neck, rejoin Sashka the unreachable and her turpentine smell, the turpentine of Chios or Cyprus thick blood of the pistachio tree, throw yourself once again into a river look for a weapon to put in your mouth or one bottle too many, nothing very original my old pal Yvan you who were destined for great things in the kingdom of shadow, now you want to find the light again, and it’s a dark night, it’s a dark night on December 8
^th
on the verge of winter the rain is going to pour down in Rome the furious Tiber will carry thousands of plastic bags tons of the various species of junk that will decorate the trees at Christmas when the water level drops, Joyce the unusual detested Rome and the Romans, I picture him with Nora eating a soft lukewarm pizza behind the Piazza Navona, swearing, Joyce has a beautiful grave in Zurich next to Elias Canetti’s, that’s an idea, Yvan, a handsome tomb in Zurich, a stone’s throw from the zoo, an isolated place to enjoy the ballet of the monkeys and the lions’ roars, lying down quietly with your hands behind your head—just an hour now till Rome say the Americans good news or bad, I don’t know the train is moving at top speed now we’re rocked from right to left depending on the tunnels I sit back down, it’s long, an hour, it’s long and it’s short opposite me the lady who got on in Florence doesn’t even glance at me absorbed in her book, I’ll pick mine up again, I want to know what will happen to Intissar, maybe she can save me, she was washing Marwan’s body in the hot Beirut night, and now:

XX

And now, defeat, the heavy boots no longer move forward. Marwan who didn’t run fast enough to avoid the bullets. Martyrs abandoned on a sidewalk corner. Bodies washed in apartment bathrooms. The city falling and, at the end, exile.

Intissar caresses Marwan with her sponge, one last time. She has never felt so close to him as in this final touch. Half-light and solitude, though. The lives that the Israelis have destroyed, Beirut that the Israelis have destroyed. Sometimes weapons turn against you. You always end up washing corpses. Marwan had promised to be by her side forever. He lied. Rubbing his torso, Intissar guesses why he went on a dangerous sortie with Ahmad the coward. He wanted to know. He was eaten away by doubt. He might have died because of her. He wanted to know. Ahmad the hero of their cause desired her. A year ago, when Ahmad had come home victorious from his ambush in the South, and when Marwan had left to go over to Tyre, she had been a little dazzled by Ahmad’s attentions. He courted her discreetly, always waiting on her hand and foot. He was watching over her in Marwan’s absence, he said. Marwan is dead, his body gleams from the reflections of water on his chest. She never betrayed him. Know that, Marwan, I never betrayed you. She couldn’t tell him, it was impossible to talk about. If he had known Marwan would have taken a gun and killed Ahmad. Now he’s the one who’s dead, dead along with his suspicions.

Intissar’s hand shakes, her eyelids quiver, the memory of shame, so powerful, draws tears from her. She tries to remember a prayer for Marwan.
Bismillah ar-rahman ar-rahim
, and what else? She sees Ahmad that night. Ahmad the coward who gets her to drink beer on the Corniche, in the early summer, when Beirut is so beautiful. They talk of this and that, the war little by little grows more remote. Marwan little by little grows more remote, why not acknowledge that, with the effect of the alcohol and the calm night. Let’s go get a bite to eat, says Ahmad. He takes her supposedly to find comrades who won’t come. Leaving the restaurant, Intissar is a little drunk. She drinks very rarely. Ahmad accompanies her back to her place, did she sense the trap, did she know unconsciously what was going to happen that’s making her cry from rage today, why, why, do we know what’s hidden inside us, what we’re capable of, Ahmad pressed her against the wall in the entryway to her apartment building, he kissed her for a long time, she was so surprised, so surprised that she let him do it, or maybe it was desire, she was no longer Intissar the determined combatant, she had disappeared, her will destroyed by alcohol and the confidence she had in Ahmad, it was the image of Marwan that woke her, the difference in the sensation of the kiss, the lips less soft, less pleasant, more violent, she shook herself, she shook herself violently pushed away the man in front of her before climbing the stairs four at a time and locking herself up in her apartment, ashamed, ashamed of her desire for Ahmad the coward, her physical desire, impossible to hide, especially from herself in the intimacy of a deserted bedroom.

•

Defeat has beginnings. The fissures presage collapse, fine cracks predict catastrophe. The will begins to give out, hope wavers. Intissar watches her tears falling onto the dead man’s chest. Her desire had soon changed into hatred. She hated Ahmad. When Marwan returned he guessed something. Her hatred was too visible. The silence. She hadn’t said anything, he had promised to be by her side forever. The war, the front, and disaster. Intissar takes Marwan’s stiff hand as if it were alive. Now you know. She strokes the dead fingers. Her sorrow is so great that it covers everything. Marwan spoke to her often about his mother, his mother’s tenderness, her generosity. So pure. So perfect. She who had loved her husband passionately, always near him, she took care of him when he was wounded, fed him when he was hungry. She cuddled her children, embroidered and sewed for them. She tried not to think about Palestine, not to think about going back. Her country was her family, nothing more. Marwan was like Abu Nasser. He would fight to the end, he said. Die standing up. Like a tree. Not let himself be demeaned by the Israelis. Now he was lying there, beneath Intissar’s last caresses, before joining the roots of trees felled by the bombs.

Urgent knocking on her door snaps her out of her funereal daydream. Probably someone alerted by the smoke in the kitchen. She puts the sponge down and tears herself away from Marwan’s body. She picks up the lamp. The neighbors have to be reassured that the building isn’t on fire. There are so many corpses in the city that no one would be surprised to find one here. But flames make them anxious. She opens the door halfway. A violent shove of a shoulder on the door sends her sprawling onto the floor, half unconscious. She glimpsed Ahmad in the opening. She tries to gather her wits, she has tears of pain in her eyes, her nose aches. Ahmad has closed the door behind him.