The Notebook + The Proof + The Third Lie (33 page)

I hand my wallet with its foreign money to him. "I beg you."

The driver goes into the station building, comes back with my wallet, helps me out of the car, takes me by the arm, carries my suitcase, accompanies me to Track One, and waits for the train with me. When it comes he helps me in, sets my suitcase down beside me, and asks the conductor to look after me.

The train leaves. There is almost no one in the other compartments. Smoking is forbidden.

I close my eyes and my pain fades away. The train stops nearly every ten minutes. I know that I once made this journey forty years ago.

The train had stopped before it arrived at the station in the little town. The nun grabbed my arm and shook me but I didn't move. She jumped out of the train, ran, and lay down in a field. All the passengers had run out and lain down in the fields. I was alone in the compartment. Planes flew over us and strafed the train. When silence returned the nun returned too. She slapped me and the train started moving again.

I open my eyes. We will arrive soon. I can already see the silver cloud over the mountain, and then the castle walls and the bell towers of many churches appear.

On the twenty-second of the month of April, after an absence of forty years, I am again in the small town of my childhood.

The station hasn't changed. Except that it's cleaner, even flower-filled, with the local flowers whose name I don't know and that I have never seen anywhere else.

There is also a bus, which pulls out filled with the few travelers from the train and workers from the factory across the street.

I don't take the bus. I stay here, in front of the station, my suitcase on the ground, and I look at the avenue of chestnut trees along Station Street, which leads into town.

"May I carry your suitcase, sir?"

A child of about ten is standing before me.

He says, "You've missed the bus. There won't be another one for half an hour."

I say to him, "No matter. I'll walk."

He says, "Your suitcase is heavy."

He picks up my suitcase and doesn't let go. I laugh. "Yes, it's heavy. You won't be able to carry it very far, that I know. I've done your sort of work before."

The child sets the suitcase down. "Really? When?"

"When I was your age. A long time ago."

"And where was that?"

"Here. In front of this station."

He says, "I can carry this suitcase. No problem."

I say, "Fine, but give me ten minutes' head start. I want to walk alone. And take your time, I'm in no hurry. I'llwait for you at the Black Garden. If it still exists."

"Yes, sir, it exists."

The Black Garden is a small park at the end of the avenue of chestnuts, and there's nothing black in it except the cast-iron fence that encloses it. There I sit on a bench and wait for the child. He soon arrives, puts my suitcase down on another bench across from me, and sits, out of breath.

I light a cigarette and ask, "Why do you do this?"

He says, "I want to buy a bike. A dirt bike. Would you give me a cigarette?" "No. No cigarettes for you. I'm dying because of cigarettes. Do you want to die of cigarettes too?"

He says to me, "We're all dying of one thing or another. That's what all the experts say, anyway."

"What else do they say, the experts?"

"That the world is fucked. And that there's nothing to do about it. It's too late."

"Where have you heard all this?"

"Everywhere. At school. Especially on television."

I toss away my cigarette. "You're not getting a cigarette, no matter what."

He says to me, "You're mean."

I say, "Yes, I'm mean. So? Is there a hotel somewhere in this town?"

"Sure, there are a couple. You don't know? And you seem to know the town so well."

I say, "When I lived here there weren't any hotels. Not one."

He says, "That must have been a long time ago then. There's a brand-new hotel on Central Square. It's called the Grand Hotel because it's the biggest."

"Let's go."

In front of the hotel the child sets down my suitcase.

"I can't go in, sir. The woman at the reception desk knows me. She'll tell my mother."

"What? That you carried my suitcase?"

"Yes. My mother doesn't want me carrying suitcases."

"Why?"

"I don't know. She doesn't want me doing it. She just wants me to study."

I ask: "Your parents—what do they do?"

He says, "I don't have parents. Only a mother. No father, I've never had one."

"And what does she do, your mother?"

"She works right here at the hotel. She cleans the floors twice a day. But she wants me to have an education."

"An education as what?"

"That she couldn't say, since she doesn't know what educated people do. She thinks professor or doctor, I guess."

I say, "Good. How much for carrying the suitcase?"

He says, "It's up to you, sir."

I give him two coins.

"That enough?"

"Yes, sir."

"No, sir, that's not enough. Don't tell me you've carried that heavy suitcase all the way from the station for as little as that."

He says, "I take what I'm given, sir. I don't have the right to charge more. And then there are poor people. Sometimes I end up carrying suitcases for free. I like the work. I like waiting at the station. I like seeing the people who arrive. The people from here, I know them all by sight. I like seeing the people who come from other places. Like you. You've come from far away, haven't you?"

"Yes, very far. Another country."

I give him a banknote and enter the hotel.

I choose a corner room from which I can see the whole square, the church, the grocery store, the shops, the bookseller's.

It's nine at night and the square is empty. Lights are on in the houses. Blinds are being lowered, shutters closed, curtains pulled; the town is going to bed.

I settle down at one of the windows in my room and watch the square, the houses, late into the night.

During my childhood I often dreamed of living in one of the houses on Central Square—it didn't matter which one—but most of all the blue house where there was and still is a bookseller's.

But the only one I lived in when I was here was the ramshackle one belonging to Grandmother, far from the center of town, at its very limits, near the frontier.

At Grandmother's I worked from morning till night, as she did herself. She fed me and housed me, but she never gave me money, which I needed to buy soap, toothpaste, clothes, and shoes. So at night I came to town and played the harmonica in bars. I sold the wood that I gathered in the forest along with mushrooms and chestnuts. I also sold eggs that I stole from Grandmother, as well as fish, which I quickly learned to catch. I also did all sorts of work for anyone who would pay. I delivered messages, letters, and packages; people trusted me because they thought I was a deaf-mute.

In the beginning I didn't speak, not even to Grandmother, but soon I had to talk numbers in order to sell my wares.

I spent much time at night on Central Square. I looked through the window of the bookseller-stationer's, at the white paper, the school notebooks, the erasers, the pencils. All of it was too expensive for me.

To make a bit more money, whenever I could I went to the station and waited for travelers. I carried their suitcases.

And so I was able to buy paper, a pencil and eraser, and a big notebook in which I wrote down my first lies.

Several months after the death of Grandmother some people came into the house without knocking. They were three men, one in the uniform of a border guard. The other two were in civilian dress. One of these two didn't say anything but only noted things down. He was young, almost as young as I. The other had white hair. It was he who questioned me.

"How long have you lived here?"

I say, "I don't know. Since the hospital was bombed."

"Which hospital?"

"I don't know. The center."

The man in the uniform interrupts. "He was already here when I took command of this unit."

The civilian asks, "When was that?"

'Three years ago. But he was here before that."

"How do you know?"

"It's obvious. He worked around the house like someone who had always been here."

The white-haired man turns to me. "Are you related to Mrs. V.,
née
Maria Z.?"

I say, "She was my grandmother."

He asks me, "Do you have documents proving the relationship?"

I say, "No, I don't have any papers. All I have are the sheets I buy at the bookseller's."

He says, "This is the situation. Take this down!"

The younger civilian writes: "Mrs. V.,
née
Maria Z., is deceased without heirs, and so all her possessions, house, and lands will become state property belonging communally to the town of Z., which will make use of them as it deems fit."

The men stand up and I ask them, "What should I do?"

They look at one another. The uniformed man says, "You must leave."

"Why?"

"Because this place doesn't belong to you."

I ask, "When do I have to leave?"

"I don't know."

He looks at the white-haired man in civilian clothes, who says, "We'll inform you soon enough. How old are you?"

"Fifteen, nearly. I can't leave before the tomatoes ripen."

He says, "Of course, the tomatoes. You're only fifteen? Well, then, there's no problem."

I ask, "Where should I go?"

He is silent for a moment and looks at the man in uniform; the man in uniform looks back at him. The civilian lowers his eyes. "Don't worry. You'll be taken care of. Above all, don't be scared."

The three men go outside. I follow them, walking on the grass to make no noise.

The border guard says, "Can't you leave him alone? He's a good little fellow and he works hard."

The man in civilian dress says, "That's beside the point. The law is clear. The property of Mrs. V. belongs to the commune. Your little fellow has been living on it illegally for almost two years."

"And who's been harmed by it?"

"No one. But come on—why are you defending that little good-for-nothing?"

"For three years I've watched him tending his garden and his animals. He's not a good-for-nothing, in any case no more than you are."

"You dare call me a good-for-nothing?"

"I didn't say that. All I said is that he's no more of one than you are. And anyway I don't give a damn. Not about you, not about him. In three weeks I'll be out of the service and tending my own garden. You, sir, will have a soul on your conscience if you turn that child out into the street. Good night, and sleep well."

The civilian says, "We won't be turning him out. We'll take care of him."

They leave. Several days later they come back. The same man with the white hair and the young man; they have brought a woman with them. She is older and wears eyeglasses; she looks like the director at the center.

She says to me, "Listen to me carefully. We don't want to hurt you; we want to take care of you. You're coming with us to a nice house where there are children like you."

I say to her, 'I'm not a child anymore. I don't want to be taken care of. And I don't want to go to a hospital either."

She says, "It isn't a hospital. You'll be able to study there."

We're in the kitchen. The woman speaks but I don't listen. The white-haired man speaks too. I don't listen to him either.

Only the young man who writes everything down doesn't speak; he doesn't even look at me.

As she leaves, the woman says, "Don't worry. We're on your side. Everything will be better soon. We won't abandon you; we're going to take care of you. We're going to rescue you."

The man adds, "You can stay here for the summer. The demolition will begin at the end of August."

I'm scared, scared of going to a house where I will be taken care of, where I will be rescued. I must leave here. I ask myself where I could go.

I buy a map of the country and one of the capital. Every day I go to the station and consult the schedule. I ask how much tickets are to this or that town. I only have a very little bit of money and don't want to use what Grandmother left me. She had warned me: "No one must know that you have all this. You'll be questioned, locked up, and everything will be taken from you. And never tell the truth. Pretend you don't understand the questions. If people take you for an idiot, so much the better."

Grandmother's legacy is buried under the bench in front of the house, a canvas bag that contains jewels, gold pieces, and money. If I tried to sell it all, I would be accused of having stolen it.