Of what? Not of anything that Maître Fagonet talked about. And already, as his lawyer flourished his black robe, Jean had wanted to shake his head.
One … two … three … four … five …
The drops of liquid kept falling from the bag of cheese. He would have liked to cry out, because his brain was still functioning, because images were passing through his head, images that were all too clear, one on top of another, accompanied by voices and sensations, like the ray of sunshine in the courtroom that had alighted on his left hand, nowhere else, just his left hand, as a little trembling disc of light.
None of that was true, nor what he had told Tati. The truth, and he was the only one who knew this, was that it had all begun when he was fourteen years old, and the real culprit, in the end, was his English teacher.
He had forgotten his name. That was odd, since all the other details were so present. A ramrod-stiff man, with pale skin, big, dark eyes and a black moustache, who wore jackets as long as overcoats.
‘Monsieur Passerat-Monnoyeur …’
Whenever he pronounced Jean’s name, he used a different voice, and all the pupils felt a little shiver in their back. The window was open on to the gardens of the lycée. A woman was beating a carpet from a second-floor room.
‘I suppose it is pointless to ask you anything, isn’t it? The son of Monsieur Passerat-Monnoyeur senior is rich enough never to need to earn his living, and is not obliged to be intelligent.’
Little pointed teeth flashed for a moment under the moustache. The teacher was pleased with himself. He had raised smiles from some of the class.
‘You may sit down, Monsieur Passerat-Monnoyeur. I’m sorry the rules do not allow me to send you out for a walk during my lesson. But I shall nevertheless consider you as absent.’
And when he took in the pupils’ homework, he separated Jean’s and walked slowly over to the fire, where he threw it in, pointedly, while pretending to warm his hands.
Whose fault was this? His father’s. His father: a man who was too elegant, a man the English teacher could see any day of the week driving his big car, usually with a pretty girl beside him.
His father took no notice of his son. If Jean happened to get up late, he had only to drift into the office:
Monsieur,
Would you please excuse my son, who was unable to go to school yesterday, as he was in bed with a slight indisposition.
That year, Jean had made himself sick so as not to have to do his exams. He had spent the month of July in the garden of their house, up on the hill, and had ended up dragging himself around feebly, as if he really was ill, and moving cautiously.
The following autumn, he enrolled at the lycée to repeat the year. He didn’t do any studying. He knew it would be pointless. He had given up.
He was taller and slimmer than his schoolfellows, he dressed more elegantly than they did, and since he had plenty of pocket money, he would buy ice-creams for them.
If by chance his wallet was empty, he would take a few banknotes out of the till, and only the old accountant would notice.
He had given up trying to achieve anything. He twice failed his baccalaureate, and if he passed it in the end, it was because someone put a word in for him.
And that was how it had happened. He liked to lounge around the streets with his friends, eating ice-creams, or later drinking beer on café terraces.
Sometimes, he would feel his throat contract. What was to become of him if …
Nothing! He would never achieve anything. He had given up. It was too late.
He stood up, barefoot, in the middle of the attic to cool down.
Every person condemned to death …
It was piercing, painful and unexpected. When he had been living through the drama, the trial, prison, he had hardly been aware that all this was happening to him. He heard the presiding magistrate asking questions of the witnesses:
‘Raise your right hand. Swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth. You are neither a relation …’
A feeling that this whole procedure was disproportionate to himself. How could they go to such lengths over nothing at all?
They were discussing his case as if he were a grown man, a man responsible for his actions, but as he sat on the bench between two gendarmes, he thought he was still at school!
His father had not attended. Neither had his sister. True, at that time, she was under twenty.
‘Raise your right hand. Swear …’
During the break, other people went out to smoke cigarettes in the corridors or drink a glass of beer at the canteen! In the evening they could go home!
Every person condemned to death …
He bit his lip. He ached all over.
The anguish started at some vague place, but spread throughout his body, to his fingers and toes, which clenched as if in an attack of cramp.
Why had Tati looked at him like that? Sometimes, it was as if she had understood, other times as if she were still trying to understand.
No one had expressed any pity for the businessman of Le Mans, yet he had two young children. Jean had felt no pity either. He had never felt remorse. He could hardly even remember the man: a looming shape because of his heavy ratine overcoat.
‘It should not be forgotten, gentlemen of the jury, that when my client made this unfortunate move, he was under the influence of a considerable amount of alcohol …’
That was not true either. Yes, he had been drinking, but he was perfectly lucid. Even more lucid than usual.
Worse! As he left Le Mandarin, to follow the businessman, he had stopped abruptly and said to himself: ‘You’re going to do something stupid.’
