The Notebook + The Proof + The Third Lie (21 page)

"What are these notebooks in the chest?"

Lucas closes the chest.

"It's nothing. Thank God you can't read yet!"

The child laughs. "Oh yes I can. I can read if it's printed. Look."

He opens the chest and takes out Grandmother's old Bible. He reads words, entire phrases.

Lucas asks, "Where did you learn to read?"

"From books, of course. From mine and yours."

"With Yasmine?"

"No, on my own. Yasmine doesn't like reading. She said she'd never send me to school. But I'll be going soon, won't I, Lucas?"

Lucas says, "I could teach you everything you need to know."

The child says, "School is compulsory from the age of six."

"Not for you. You can get a dispensation."

"Because I'm a cripple, you mean? I don't want your dispensation. I want to go to school like the other children."

Lucas says, "If you want to go, you can. But why do you want to?"

"Because I know I'll be the best at school, the most intelligent."

Lucas laughs. "And the most vain, no doubt. I always hated school. I pretended to be deaf so I wouldn't have to go."

"You did that?"

"Yes. Listen, Mathias. You may come up here whenever you want. You may also go into my room, even when I'm not there. You may read the Bible, the dictionary, the entire encyclopedia if you wish. But you must never read the notebooks, you son of a bitch."

He adds, "Grandmother called us that: sons of a bitch."

"Who's 'us'? You and who else? You and your brother?"

"Yes. My brother and me."

They climb down from the attic, they go into the kitchen. Lucas prepares the meal. The child asks, "Who'll do the dishes, the washing, the clothes?" "We will. Together. You and I."

They eat. Lucas leans out the window, he throws up. He turns around, his face bathed in sweat. He loses consciousness and falls to the floor of the kitchen.

The child cries, "Don't do that, Lucas, don't do that!"

Lucas opens his eyes. "Don't cry, Mathias. Help me to get up."

The child pulls him by the arm. Lucas clings to the table. He staggers out of the kitchen, he sits on the garden bench. The child stands before him, looking at him.

"What's wrong, Lucas? You were dead for a moment!"

"No, I just felt faint because of the heat."

The child asks, "It doesn't matter that she left, does it? It's not so serious, is it? You won't die because of that?"

Lucas doesn't answer. The child sits at his feet, hugs his legs, lays his head with its dark, curly hair on Lucas's knees.

"Maybe I'll be your son later."

When the child goes to sleep, Lucas goes back into the attic. He takes the notebooks from the chest, wraps them in a jute cloth, and goes into town.

He rings at Peter's.

"I'd like you to keep these for me, Peter."

He puts the packet on the living-room table.

Peter asks, "What is it?"

Lucas pulls open the cloth. "Some school notebooks."

Peter shakes his head. "It's like Victor said. You write. You buy huge quantities of paper and pencils. For years now, pencils, lined paper, and large school notebooks. Are you writing a book?"

"No, not a book. I simply make notes."

Peter feels the weight of the notebooks. "Notes! Half a dozen thick notebooks."

"It accumulates over the years. Even so, I reject a lot. I only keep what's absolutely necessary."

Peter asks, "Why do you want to hide them? Because of the police?"

"The police? Of course not! It's because of the child. He's beginning to learn to read and he gets into everything. I don't want him to read these notebooks."

Peter smiles. "And you don't want the child's mother to read them either, do you?"

Lucas says, "Yasmine is no longer living with me. She's gone away. She has always dreamed of going to the big city. I gave her some money."

"And she left her child with you?"

"I insisted on keeping him."

Peter lights a cigarette and looks at Lucas without speaking.

Lucas asks, "Can you keep these notebooks here, yes or no?"

"Of course I can."

Peter wraps up the notebooks, carries them into his bedroom. When he comes back he says, "I've hidden them under my bed. I'll find a better hiding place tomorrow."

Lucas says, "Thank you, Peter."

Peter laughs. "Don't thank me. Your notebooks interest me."

"You intend to read them?"

"Of course. If you don't want me to read them you should take them to Clara."

Lucas gets up. "Certainly not! Clara reads everything there is to read. But I could give them to Victor."

"In which case I would read them at Victor's. He can't refuse me anything. Anyway, he's leaving soon. He's going back to his hometown to live with his sister. He intends to sell his house and the shop."

Lucas says, "Give me the notebooks back. I'll bury them somewhere in the forest."

"Yes, bury them. Or better still, burn them. It's the only way of preventing people from reading them."

Lucas says, "I have to keep them. For Claus. These notebooks are for Claus. For him alone."

Peter turns on the radio. He fiddles with the dial until he finds some soft music.

"Sit down, Lucas, and tell me, who is Claus?"

"My brother."

"I didn't know you had a brother. You've never mentioned him. Nobody has, not even Victor, and he's known you since childhood."

Lucas says, "My brother has been living on the other side of the border for several years."

"How did he get across the border? It's supposed to be impossible."

"He got across, that's all."

After a silence, Peter asks, "Do you keep in touch with him?"

"What do you mean, keep in touch?"

"What everyone means. Do you write to him? Does he write to you?"

"I write to him every day in the notebooks. Undoubtedly he does the same."

"But don't you get any letters from him?"

"He can't send letters from over there."

"Lots of letters arrive from the other side of the border. Your brother hasn't written since he left? He hasn't given you his address?"

Lucas shakes his head. He gets up again.

"You think he's dead, don't you? Well, Claus isn't dead. He's alive and he will return."

"Yes, Lucas. Your brother will return. As for the notebooks, I could have promised not to read them, but you wouldn't have believed me."

"You're right, I wouldn't have believed you. I knew you wouldn't be able to prevent yourself from reading them. I knew when I came here. So read them. I'd rather it were you than Clara or anyone else."

Peter says, "That's something else I don't understand: your relationship with Clara. She's much older than you."

"Age doesn't matter. I'm her lover. Is that all you wanted to know?"

"No, that's not all. I knew that already. But do you love her?"

Lucas opens the door.

"I don't know the meaning of that word. No one does. I didn't expect that sort of question from you, Peter."

"Nevertheless, you will be asked that sort of question many times in the course of your life. And sometimes you will be obliged to answer it."

"And you, Peter? One day you will also be obliged to answer certain questions. I've been to some of your political meetings. You make speeches, the audience applauds. Do you really believe in what you say?"

"I have to believe it."

"But in your deepest self, what do you think?"

"I don't think. I can't allow myself the luxury. I've lived with fear since I was a child."

***

Clara is standing in front of the window, looking out into the garden engulfed in darkness. She doesn't turn around when Lucas comes into the room.

She says, "The summer is frightening. It is in the summer that death is closest. Everything dries out, suffocates, comes to a standstill. It's already been four years since they killed Thomas. In August, very early in the morning, at dawn. They hanged him. The disturbing thing is that they start again every year. At dawn, when you go home, I go to the window and I see them. They are starting again, but you can't kill the same person over and over."

Lucas kisses Clara on the neck.

"What's wrong, Clara? What's wrong with you today?"

"Today I received a letter. An official letter. It's there on my desk, you can read it. It exonerates Thomas, proclaims his innocence. I never doubted his innocence. They write: 'Your husband was innocent. We killed him by mistake. We killed many people by mistake, but at present everything is being sorted out. We apologize and promise that such mistakes will not be allowed to happen in the future.' They murder and they exonerate. They apologize, but Thomas is dead! Can they bring him back to life? Can they wipe out that night when my hair went white, when I went mad?

"That summer night I was alone in our apartment, in Thomas's and my apartment. I'd been alone there for several months. Since they had imprisoned Thomas no one wanted to visit me, no one could, no one dared. I was already used to being alone, it wasn't unusual that I was alone. I didn't sleep, but that wasn't unusual either. What was unusual was that I didn't cry that night. The previous evening the radio announced the execution of a number of people for high treason. Among the names I clearly heard Thomas's name. At three o'clock in the morning, the time of the executions, I looked at the clock. I kept looking at it until seven o'clock, then I went to my job in a large library in the capital. I sat at my desk. I was in charge of the reading room. One after the other my colleagues came up. I heard them whisper, 'She's come!' 'Have you seen her hair?' I left the library, I walked around the streets until evening, I got lost, I didn't know which part of town I was in, even though I knew the town well. I came home in a taxi. At three o'clock in the morning I looked out the window, and I saw them: they were hanging Thomas from the front of the building opposite. I screamed. Some neighbors came. An ambulance took me to the hospital. And now they say it was just a mistake. Thomas's murder, my illness, the months in the hospital, my white hair were just a mistake. Well, let them bring me Thomas alive, smiling. The Thomas who took me in his arms, who stroked my hair, who held my face in his warm hands, who kissed me on the eyes, the ears, the mouth."

Lucas takes Clara by the shoulders, he turns her to face him.

"Will you never stop talking to me about Thomas?"

"Never. I'll never stop talking about Thomas. And you? When will you start talking to me about Yasmine?"

Lucas says, "There's nothing to say. Especially since she's no longer here."

Clara punches and scratches Lucas on the face, the neck, the shoulders. She cries, "She's no longer here? Where is she? What have you done with her?"

Lucas drags Clara onto the bed, he lies on top of her.

"Calm down. Yasmine has gone to the big city, that's all."

Clara grips Lucas in her arms.

"They will separate me from you as they separated me from Thomas. They will put you in prison, take you away."

"No, that's all over. Forget Thomas, the prison, and the rope."

At dawn, Lucas gets up.

"I have to go home. The child wakes up early."

"Yasmine left her child here?"

"He's crippled. What would she have done with him in a big city?"

Clara says, "How could she have left him?"

Lucas says, "She wanted to take him. I forbade her."

"Forbade her? By what right? He's her child. He belongs to her."

Clara watches Lucas get dressed. She says, "Yasmine left because you didn't love her."

"I helped her when she was in trouble. I never promised her anything."

"You've never promised me anything either."

Lucas goes home to prepare breakfast for Mathias.

Lucas goes into the bookshop. Victor asks him, "Do you need any paper or pencils, Lucas?"

"No. I'd like to talk to you. Peter said that you wanted to sell your house."

Victor sighs. "These days nobody has enough money to buy a house with a shop."

Lucas says, "I'd like to buy it."

"You, Lucas? With what, my boy?"

"By selling Grandmother's house. The army has offered a good price for it."

"I'm afraid it wouldn't be enough, Lucas."

"I also own a good plot of land. And other things besides. Very valuable things that I inherited from Grandmother."

Victor says, "Come and see me this evening at the apartment. I'll leave the front door open."

That evening, Lucas goes up the narrow, dark stairway that leads to the apartment above the bookshop. He knocks at the door, below which there is a crack of light.

Victor shouts, "Come in, Lucas!"

Lucas enters a room filled with a thick cloud of cigar smoke, in spite of the open window. The ceiling is stained a dirty brown color, the net curtains are yellowed. The room is crammed with old furniture, divans, sofas, small tables, lamps, trinkets. The walls are covered with paintings, etchings, the floor with layers of threadbare rugs.

Victor is sitting next to the window at a table covered with a red plush tablecloth. On the table are boxes of cigars and cigarettes. Ashtrays of all shapes and sizes full of cigarette butts stand next to glasses and a half-empty carafe of yellow liquid.

"Come in, Lucas. Sit down and have a drink."

Lucas sits down; Victor pours him a drink, drinks up his own glass, refills it.

"I wish I could offer you a better brandy than this, some of the stuff my sister brought on her last visit, for example, but I'm afraid there's none left. My sister came in July. It was very warm, if you remember. I don't like the heat, I don't like summer. A cool, wet summer, fine, but these dog days make me feel positively ill.

"When she came my sister brought me a liter of apricot brandy such as we drink at home in the country. My sister probably thought the bottle would last all year, or at least until Christmas. In fact I'd already drunk half the bottle by the first evening. I was ashamed, so I hid the bottle, then I went to buy a bottle of cheap brandy—it's all you can get in the shops—and used it to top off my sister's bottle, which I left out in an obvious place, there on the sideboard in front of you.