The Deserters

0

I.
He sets down his weapon, then with difficulty takes off his boots, their smell (excrement, musty sweat) adds even more to his exhaustion. His fingers on the frayed laces are dry matchsticks, slightly burned in places; the nails are the same colour as the boots, he’ll have to scrape them with the tip of the knife to remove the filth, mud, dried blood, but later, he doesn’t have the strength now; two toes, flesh and earth, emerge from the sock, they’re fat spattered worms crawling out of a dark trunk, knotted at the ankle.

Suddenly he wonders, as he does every morning, as he does every evening, why these shoes stink of shit, it’s inexplicable,

you can rinse them all you like in the pools of water you pass, rub them on tufts of grass that squeak, nothing to be done,

there aren’t so many dogs or wild animals, not that many, in these rocky slopes sprinkled with holm oaks, pines and thorn bushes where the rain leaves a fine light mud and the smell of flint, not shit, and it would be easy for him to believe it’s the whole countryside that’s mucid, from the sea and the hills of orange and then olive trees to the far mountains, these mountains, even himself, his own smell, not the smell of shoes, but he can’t find an answer and throws the boots against the edge of the culvert that hides him from the path, a little higher up on the slope.

He lies down on his back on the gravel, sighs, the sky is purplish-blue, the gleams of the setting sun illumine the swift clouds from below, a canvas, a screen for a firework display. Spring is almost here and with it the often-torrential rains that transform the mountains into tin cans pierced by bullets, powerful springs spouting from the slightest hollows, when the air smells of thyme and fruit tree flowers, white flakes scattered between the low walls by the violence of the downpour. All hell would break loose if it started raining now. But then at least it would wash his boots. His clogs, his uniform, his socks, the two pairs he owns are just as stiff, rigid, tattered. Betrayal begins with the body,

how long has it been since you last washed yourself?

four days spent walking near the ridges to avoid villages,

the last water you sprinkled yourself with smelled of petrol and left your skin oily, you’re a long way from purity, alone under the sky ogling the comets.

Hunger forces him to straighten up and swallow without pleasure three military biscuits, the last ones, hard brown slabs, no doubt a mixture of sawdust and horse glue; for an instant he curses the war and soldiers,

you’re still one of them, you still carry weapons, ammunition, and memories of war,

you could hide your gun and cartridges somewhere and become a beggar, leave the knife too, beggars have no daggers,

the boots that stink of shit and set off barefoot,

the jacket with its colour of misery and go bare-chested,

meal over he empties his flask and plays at pissing as far as possible towards the valley.

He lies down again, this time right up against the wall of the slope, the bottom part of his bag under his head; he is invisible in the shadow, never mind the critters (red spiders, tiny scorpions, centipedes with teeth as sharp as remorse) that will gambol on his chest, slide across his almost shaven skull, walk over his beard as rough as a bramble bush. The rifle leaning against him, the butt under his shoulder, muzzle towards his feet. Rolled up in the piece of oiled canvas that serves as blanket and roof.

The mountain rustles; a little wind overtakes the summits, descending into the combe and vibrating between the bushes; the cries of the stars are chilling. There are no more clouds, it won’t rain tonight.

Angel, my holy guardian, protector of my body and soul, forgive me for all the sins committed on this day and deliver me from the works of the enemy, despite the warmth of the prayer the night remains a beast fed on anguish, a beast with breath of blood, cities in ruins full of mothers brandishing the mutilated corpses of their children faced with scruffy hyenas that will torture them, then leave them naked, dirty, their nipples torn with teeth under the eyes of their brothers raped in turn with truncheons, terror stretched over the country, plague, hatred, and darkness, this darkness that always envelops you and urges you towards cowardice and treason. Flight and desertion. How much time is there left to walk? The border is a few days from here, beyond the mountains that will soon become hills of red earth, planted with olive trees. It will be difficult to hide. Many villages, towns, farmers, soldiers,

you know the region,

you are home here,

no one will help a deserter,

you’ll reach the house in the mountain tomorrow,

the cabin, the hovel, you’ll take refuge there for a little while,

the cabin will protect you with its childhood,

you’ll be caressed with its memories,

sometimes sleep comes by surprise like the bullet of a marksman lying in ambush.

II.
I have to go back over what happened over twenty years ago, on 11 September 2001, near Potsdam on the Havel, on board the cruise boat, a little river liner christened with the fine pompous name Beethoven.

Summer seemed to be wavering. The willows were still green, the days still warm, but a freezing fog would rise from the river before dawn and immense clouds seemed to be gliding over us, from the distant Baltic.

Our floating hotel had left Köpenick east of Berlin very early in the morning, on Monday. Maja was always alert, spry. She would go up to the top deck to walk, a stroll between showers, deck chairs and deck games. The green domes and golden spire of the Berlin cathedral captivated her, from afar, when we arrived. She was imagining, she said, all the little gilt angels leaving their stone prison to fly off into a cloud of acanthus leaves blown by the sun.

The water of the Spree was sometimes a dull, dark blue, sometimes a glowing green. During the preceding weeks, all of Germany had been rocked by storms; their aftermaths swelled the Havel and the Spree, which usually were quite low at summer’s end.

We navigated through the swirling water.

I remember the confluence of the Spree, the little wooded islands, the salt light that dusted the tall dark poplars and the muddy stream of the canal that the ship’s wake mixed with the polished water of the river.

Maja and I were sitting in canvas chairs, in the sun on the aft deck, astern as one should say, and we were watching as everything fled: the landscape opened up as if the ship’s prow were spreading wide the green substance of leaves.

 

We were celebrating (a few months late) the tenth anniversary of Paul’s radical reform of the Institute, as well as paying homage to the founder himself. Or, more precisely, we were celebrating the tenth anniversary of the Institute’s ‘unification’, in spring 1991, and the fortieth anniversary of its creation in 1961. But mostly we were celebrating Paul’s work as a whole. I don’t think anyone was missing – among the historical ones, the ones from the East, they were all there; almost all of the new members, the colleagues from Berlin and elsewhere, were in attendance. Some, including Linden Pawley, Robert Kant
and a few of the French scholars, even came from abroad. This floating conference was called the ‘Paul Heudeber Days’; two sessions a day were scheduled: number theory and algebraic topology, along with one discussion of the history of mathematics in which I was slated to take part.

The only person absent was Paul himself.

Maja had just celebrated her eighty-third birthday.

Maja drank litres of tea.

Maja was cheerful and sad and silent and talkative.

We all knew she had nothing to do there, on board the Beethoven for a mathematics conference; we all knew she was indispensable to it.

(…)