Funeral Rites (22 page)

He thought to himself, “He must feel my hard-on.”

Then he couldn't get rid of the idea. He hoped and feared that the child would feel it. He dared not press too much and at the same time he pushed very hard, for he retained the image—more exciting in the dark—of the slender, slightly curved neck which he managed to catch a glimpse of at each station.

“Even if he doesn't like it because I'm a German, he won't dare make a scene.”

The stations rolled by. Erik tried to dig his left arm (which he held above the passengers) into the human mass. The arm slowly descended. The hand sought a hollow between two shoulders with the cautious intelligence of the head of a snake that seeks a cavity. Riton wiggled his hips again. He was almost not thinking. He was letting himself be carried along by a happiness that at bottom was a kindly torpor. The male, the soldier, and the German dominated him. There was a luminous
pause. It was Jaurès Station. Passengers got off. By virtue of an understanding that had already been reached, neither Riton nor the Fritz stirred, except that Riton took his right hand out of his pocket.

The train rolled into the darkness. He did not move. For the first time since that morning he felt somewhat peaceful. What the German soldier was granting him was perhaps not yet affection. Nevertheless, Riton rested in that warmth and physical force, forgot his heinous crime.

“He'd understand me.”

Holding his cock horizontally—but behind his buttoned fly—Erik withdrew his belly from Riton's behind and let his tool be guided by the movements of the car. Thus, each jolt made him ram it into the kid's buttocks. And each time the contact was broken Riton grew aware of his solitude. Renewed, it calmed and reassured him, made him feel at peace with the world.

“The thing is, how far's he gonna go?”

And Erik: “I'll follow him when he gets off.”

The subway went on with the speed and sureness of a frieze around a Greek temple. The train gave a violent jolt and in order to regain his balance Erik put his left hand—the one that was holding his gloves—on Riton's shoulder. The boy felt he was bending under the weight of Germany. He leaned his head forward a little so that his cheek would graze a finger of the gloves.

Erik wondered: “Is he smiling or does he look annoyed?”

He would have liked Riton to make a little pout. Yet, from almost imperceptible signs, from a land of increasing force that was mounting within him, from a certainty, from the greater effort, from beads of sweat on his temples, and also from less sureness in his rod, Erik felt that he was winning. The kid was caught. He was granting
his dearest treasures. If he hoped for a peevish pout on Riton's face, it was in order to tear away a last veil of modesty, and because a pout would have gone well with the grace of such hair, with the beret that hung way down on one side like a big ear of a hunting dog. There was another jolt, of which Erik took advantage to flatten his chest squarely against Riton's back.

“The boy's letting himself go. What'll they take me for if the light goes on?”

This thought did not trouble him. In fact, it gave him a kind of joy, for he hoped he would be compromised and have to brave additional disgust. Another jolt and the German's thighs stuck to his neatly.

“The guy must be having a great time in his mourning outfit. And I don't know where he's getting off!”

The light went on. The car was almost empty, and all the faces were looking at the two soldiers, whom fear prevented anyone from chiding and who were stuck together back to belly, caught in their amorous adventure and as impure and serene as dogs on a public square. Both Eric and Riton immediately saw their immodesty. Without a word between them, they got off. It was Parmentier Station. Certainty of your beauty gives great assurance, as do muscular strength and, behind you, like a protecting wall against which you lean, the dark, gloomy mass of the Reichswehr. Yet as soon as he stepped out of the train and onto the platform, Erik felt a slight shyness. It was Riton who took the initiative and spoke first. He had jumped off the train while it was still moving. The jump and a brief run on the platform made him feel at ease and then made him joyful. He took off his beret with a laugh, tossed his head as he ran his hand through his hair, and said, looking at Erik, “It's warm, eh?”

“It is.” And Erik smiled. He spoke perfect French, with
a somewhat heavy accent. Walking at Riton's side, he readjusted his short black jacket, his belt, and his revolver. He passed a candy-vending machine and saw his black sleeve in the narrow mirror: to the already sublime fact of being a tank driver in the German army was added the brilliance of his name. Deep inside the dark block of his funereally garbed body he guarded that name: Erik Seiler, followed by a magical expression, and around them, though less precise, for it was only the pretext for the scintillating of the name, a whole amazing adventure that was set in Berlin. The expression: the executioner's lover. Erik had no vanity. His reputation for scandalous love affairs had satisfied him in the past, but this was because they prevented his diverging from his singular destiny.

“I alone am Erik Seiler.” This certainty exalted him. He was sure that no one recognized him in the street, but he knew that the crowd knew of the existence of Erik Seiler, whom he alone could be. Renown suffices, even if it be of an ignominious kind and thus the opposite of glory, if
fama
is glory. To have been the executioner's lover sufficed for his glory. He was famous, young, handsome, rich, intelligent, loving, and loved. In short, he had everything that is implied, everything that is specified, when people say: “He had everything to make him happy.” The unhappiness or sufferings of that exceptional being could therefore have had only a noble source. His; sufferings were of metaphysical origin. As others are isolated by an infirmity, so he was isolated by that bouquet of multiple gifts. From his solitude sprang his qualms about the problem of evil, and he had opted for evil out of despair. His having seen himself—though just a glimpse—in the mirror of the candy-vending machine fortified him against his image of himself. He was under the protection
of the headsman of Germany, of the executioner with the ax, and when he emerged from the subway into the darkness of the street, he stroked the militiaman's delicate neck, and the boy nimbly turned halfway around and placed one of his legs between Erik's.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Pierrot was not the administrator of justice but a merchant. He was afraid of what Paulo would think if he heard about the adventure. And he
would
hear about it. Little by little he lost altitude. He was being abandoned by his sublime rectitude. Death was withdrawing. He was walking on earth. At the same time, his mind got busy, and his intelligence told him that it was impossible for anyone to check upon his choice. He pointed to faces that he hated then and there, and, as he himself was a minor, in the minor section he pointed out only the younger ones. The contempt of all the men—and chiefly that of the adults who saw squealing pass by in the garb of youth and beauty—was more and more evident. In order to appear casual, indifferent to his role and to the contempt he aroused when he went to point out the victim, he forced his way through the herd of brutes with his hands in his pockets. To escape their gaze, that is, in order that his own not be caught in that of someone sterner, tougher than he, he drew his hands together in his pockets till they almost met over his belly, so that the cloth of his trousers tightened around his behind and made him pivot on one heel with so nimble a movement that his locks got mussed and the flap of his muffler slapped an old man in the face. As he progressively lost his haughty rigor, the captain's blind confidence in him declined. A bit of hesitation, a more bullying manner, gestures that were more
insolent because of the contempt that had to be pushed aside, were perhaps signs warning the officer that the kid was lying. For a moment he thought of checking, but his laziness, first of all, and his indifference to the lives of others made him more or less drop the idea.

“What a little bitch the kid is!” he thought to himself. And he could not refrain from loving him, from secretly forming an alliance with him. He was even grateful to the boy for reminding him that the Militia played the same role in the life of France that the kid was playing in the present life of the prison. He more than anyone else knew that the Militia existed in order to betray. It bore a burden of shame. Every militiaman had to have the guts to despise courage, honor, and justice. It's hard at times, but laziness helps us just as it does the saints. The kid is worthy of a militiaman. While he was pursuing these thoughts, with one hand immobilized in his pocket on his keyring and the other resting on his yellow leather holster, a kind of grin twisted his mouth, but actually the laugh continued inside the closed mouth with a slight ironic sound in mockery of that thought, and his eyes suddenly grew fixed so that his mind could see it more clearly in a crueler light.

“And what the hell does it matter if we do shoot innocent ones?” He had this thought the moment preceding the choice of the twenty-eighth victim, whom the kid had just designated by standing in front of him and repeating for the twenty-seventh time the following words: “He's one too.” The kid was leaving the cell. The turnkey was about to lock the door, but the captain turned to Pierrot and asked, “Did you look carefully? Are you sure he's the only one in that bunch?”

An unexpected gentleness in the captain's voice disturbed the kid, who thought it had been feigned. He
had spoken in a theatrical tone in which the kid thought he detected a fierce irony. He was seized with fear lest his imposture be discovered. He turned pale. If after such a betrayal the power that had demanded it on pain of death turned against him or even abandoned him to the hatred of the prisoners, he would have to swallow his tears and, bent endlessly over the rag with which one washes the steps of a staircase, endure eternal humiliation. And it was a poor, humble little housemaid, subjected to all kinds of whims, who, trembling like a dog, answered:

“No, sir, no. . . .” His voice remained suspended, not daring to say “He's the only one,” for that sentence contained the statement “He's one,” which he had not the courage to proclaim, for fear of suddenly hearing a frightful burst of laughter in the sky, that is, in all things, in doors and walls, in eyes, in voices, when they heard so monstrous a statement. And he quickly calmed down, for he told himself that such monstrousness had been possible because fate had made an error and had used him to commit that error. “And if heaven recognizes the error,” he thought to himself, “there will be such joy in our Father's dwelling that my reconciliation with the order of the world will take place by itself.” In short, that's how I express what he felt.

Then he came down to earth. He was afraid and did not want to find a single condemned face in any of the four remaining cells. He went up to a kid of about sixteen whose jacket, which was simply thrown over his shoulders, fell to the floor. Pierrot picked it up very politely and helped him slip it on. Souls have been saved for less than that. For a caterpillar that has fallen from a tree and that is put back on a leaf, for a little blue flower that the foot refuses to crush, for a kindly thought
about a toad, nature sings a hymn of joy, all the censers swing in your honor. A child was sure that no harm would befall him because one afternoon, in the empty church where he was about to break open the poor box, he was so kind as to close the open door of a stall, thereby re-establishing the destroyed order, repairing an error, perhaps a tiny one, but there is nothing to which one does not cling, and Pierrot knew that he would be forgiven everything for that one charitable gesture. It is not surprising that he has such difficulty in climbing the rungs of evil and that he seeks help. He did not cheat. When the Yogi makes his way to knowledge, he is always accompanied by a master who guides and helps him. It is right for the murderer to help himself along however he can.

Pierrot, the captain, the warden, the chief guard, and three other guards (for one of the three turnkeys led each chosen victim to a cell elsewhere) formed a group which at that moment was at the end of the fifth section. With his soul utterly distraught, Pierrot stood stock-still and awaited the announcement of a frightful judgment. The captain went up to him and put out his hand, which the kid shook. He said: “My boy, you've done your duty. You've just performed an act of courage, and I congratulate you.”

Then, addressing the warden, he demanded that the guards treat the squealer decently. And then he asked what would be done to protect him from the prisoners’ revenge and persecution. It was quickly arranged that he would be a librarian until he was freed by an early pardon. A guard escorted him to the library. Two hours later, another guard, whose voice he could feel was charged with hatred and disgust, informed him that an emergency court composed of the warden, the captain,
and an official delegated by the secretary to keep order had just issued a blanket verdict sentencing the twenty-eight child victims, minors all, to death by a firing squad.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The prison chaplain suffered from aerophagia, and, in order to release his gases in silence, he would squeeze his buttocks together with one hand. The farts, instead of exploding, would fizz without making a loud noise. Being close to fifty, he was almost bald and his pudgy face was grayish, not because of the color of the skin but because it was completely expressionless. On the morning of the execution, as soon as he got up, he ran to the crapper at the far end of the garden without buttoning his cassock. All went well, and when he wanted to wipe his ass, he reached out mechanically for the tissue paper. But his housekeeper had once again hung the pages of
The Religious Weekly
on the nail. Usually he didn't give much of a damn. That morning he dared not drag the name of Jesus or Mary through the shit. He ran his forefinger over the shitty hole and tried to wipe it, as he often did, on the door (the swimmer does it on the rocks, as the athlete on the boards of fences). Whereupon he noticed that the comma which his finger had just shaped there formed, at the top of the heart bored in the door, a bouquet of flames that made a Sacred Heart of Jesus out of the empty heart through which could be seen in the dawn a priest's garden and, to be more exact, a clump of white phlox. The heart, suddenly consummated by the sublime distinction of its flame, burst into a blaze, and the abbé thus received the baptism of fire. He did not reflect upon what he should do in the presence of that simple prodigy. He did better than think, he acted.
Frightened by the sight of God—and not because God manifested himself in the crapper by transfiguring an image of emptiness and shit—but because of the suddenness of the grace that had been granted and because his soul was not, he thought, quite ready to receive God, on account of a terrible sin—whereas that sin alone had put him in a state of grace—the priest tried to kneel, but his knees banged against the door, which opened and presented in the trivial daybreak the shit-adorned heart that had gleamed in the darkness of the outhouse but that was dismally dirty in the morning light. Confronted with this new miracle—the disappearance of the first—his agitation increased. He rushed out and did violence to his feelings in order not to slam the holy door. He ran through the garden, which had been dampened by the night mist. He stepped over a lane of strawberry plants and entered the presbytery, which was on the street. Three minutes later he was at the Militia barracks. In a few amazingly supple strides he dashed upstairs to the captain's office and opened the door without knocking. Then he stopped, out of breath. “God,” he said to himself, “is first making me perform a little act that has a social meaning.”