“Sudden violence paralyzes him,” Otto had replied.
“It may not be the same when he’s given time to think.”
This remark was sufficiently shrewd to have made Gleicher pause to consider it for a moment. He realized that his assistant was making some progress in the particular field to which he himself attached so much importance, namely psychology. But he could not accept the views of a subordinate on this subject.
“Not on your life,” he retorted scornfully. “He’s one of those people who are physically incapable of shedding blood, even to save their own lives.”
“Yes, I agree, Herr Doktor, but there could be an even more powerful motive. . . . And talking about that Gestapo business, there’s one point I still don’t understand.”
It seemed so very strange of Otto to pursue this argument, at the risk of incurring his chief’s displeasure, that Gleicher asked him to explain himself.
“It’s a detail that has always puzzled me and I’ve been thinking about it a great deal these last few days. How did his operator, Morvan, die? We’ve always assumed the Gestapo killed him. Well, now, I got in touch again with my agent, who interrogated the survivors all over again, and they still seem quite convinced about it.”
“About what?”
“They swear that Morvan was already dead when they got back to the farm.”
“As a result of the torture?”
“Not at all, Herr Doktor—as a result of several bullets in his heart.”
Otto had made no further comment. Gleicher had given some thought to the matter, then shrugged his shoulders and dismissed his assistant, having made up his mind not to alter his plan.
The memory of that conversation made him feel slightly uneasy, but his pride would not allow him to heed the implicit warning.
“Very well, then,” he said. “Since your chief’s frightened, I’ll come over to your place.”
He glanced at the forest and shivered.
“Hang on a moment. I’m just going to get a coat.” He shut the door in Arvers’ face and went back into the living room. Colonel von Gleicher’s rheumatism did not take kindly to nocturnal walks in the country. He had lit a big log fire, in front of which he had planned to spend the rest of the evening listening to his favorite records, and he sighed at the prospect of leaving this warmth. He bundled himself up and re-luctantly dragged himself away from the hearth. Before leaving the room he paused, retraced his steps, and, with a gesture of irritation, slipped a revolver into his pocket.
No sooner had Gleicher disappeared inside than Arvers grasped the handle of the door. He opened it without making a sound and slipped into the house close on the German’s heels. His physical appearance had undergone a change, as always happened when he did violence to his nature. The blood had drained away from his face. His movements were those of an automaton controlled by an alien will that seemed out of proportion to his own and to which he surrendered himself with a sense of pleasant abandon. In spite of his fear, he was delighted to see that his muscles obeyed the imperative commands of his mind and that he was behaving like a man of
exceptional courage. He knew that nothing would stop him now, and already regarded the act he was about to perform as over and done with.
This was not the first time he had let himself be guided by a sovereign power that overcame all his inner resistance. He concentrated on the vision that had obtruded on his mind’s eye a moment before and that revealed itself as a source of inexhaustible energy. He savored it in every detail and once again exultantly relived the scene of that heroic precedent.
31
When the Gestapo men had brought him back to the room where Morvan was lying and left him under the guard of two of their colleagues, Cousin had spent what were undoubtedly the worst hours of his life. He had said as much to Dr. Fog and, like many of his statements, this one was perfectly true.
Sprawled in an armchair, he forced himself to keep absolutely still and to make his mind a complete blank. He made a desperate effort to divorce himself from reality by assuming the immobility and rigidity of a corpse. The only hope he allowed himself to cherish was an indefinite prolongation of this semiconscious state into which he had managed to submerge himself, thanks to the respite his executioners had granted him. He was afraid of the most commonplace manifestation of external activity that threatened to snatch him from this blessed and relatively painless inertia. The sound of a cock-crow in the middle of the night caused him an almost unbearable twinge.
He shut his eyes so as not to see Morvan, who was stretched out on the bed. The Gestapo men had bandaged him up casually, after treating his wounds with oil and actually uttering a few words of sympathy. Their task accomplished, there was no reason for them not to show a certain amount of pity. Reckoning there was nothing more to fear from him, they unloosened his fetters. Then, after testing Cousin’s handcuffs and turning the key in the door, they sat down to a game of cards and opened the brandy they had come across while searching the house.
During the spells of anguish, when he could not prevent himself from thinking. Cousin presumed they would send a car in the morning and take him and Morvan off to prison. He dreaded the idea, not for fear of solitary confinement—on the contrary, he hoped he would have a cell to himself—but because of the ordeal to which he would be subjected in resuming contact with the material world.
A reflex, however, compelled him to open his eyes from time to time. Morvan had stopped groaning; he, too, lay quite still, his eyes shut tight. Yet they had been wide open when Cousin had come in and, though glazed with pain, had stared at him fixedly. Cousin had even succeeded, by means of a heroic effort, in dropping his servile manner; he straightened his back and held his head high. But a terrifying thought flashed through his mind at the very moment he adopted this pose—Morvan knew. The doors of both rooms had been left open and he himself had heard every scream. Morvan, therefore, was fully aware of his treachery; he had not lost consciousness in spite of his suffering. This was clear from the glint in his eyes; Cousin merely had to glance at them to recognize their piercing look of contempt, that manifestation of hostility that he dreaded more than anything. He detected yet another sentiment, equally odious to him—pride triumphant. The combination of these two expressions caused him intense pain, which became almost unbearable when Morvan added to it by smiling faintly—the same hateful token of derision he was to see later on Claire’s lips.
Now at last Morvan had closed his eyes on his triumph and his contempt. They waited together like this for several hours, apparently forgotten by an enemy who had better things to attend to than them. Grateful for this unexpected period of leisure, their guards felt there was no immediate danger and gradually relaxed their vigilance.
Cousin struggled to maintain the same position of rigidity, hoping against hope that this respite would last forever. Suddenly, in one of those irresistible reflexes that compelled him to look at Morvan, he noticed a slight change in his posture: he had rolled over onto his side and was facing the Germans. The latter had finished their game and were now slumped in their chairs half asleep. Cousin noticed that his companion’s gaze was fixed on the submachine gun that one of them had placed beside him. With slow, almost imperceptible movements, he drew back his blanket, while his eyes judged the distance between him and the weapon.
He was clearly preparing to perform some desperate act. He tested the strength of his arms to see if they could supplement the thrust of his crippled legs. Cousin hated him even more for making this attempt: he regarded as sacrilege anything that threatened to drag him out of his voluntary torpor. He was filled with rage at the idea of being snatched out of the only state he found bearable, and especially by Morvan, who only wanted to humiliate him further by a gesture of absurd temerity.
If he did not cry out to warn the guards, it was only because he was once again completely paralyzed. The prospect of violence had deprived him of the power of speech. Dumfounded and petrified, he could only look on as Morvan made his final preparations. He did not move a muscle when the latter threw back his blanket and, shoving himself forward with his arms, snatched up the submachine gun and mowed down the guards with a couple of bursts before collapsing himself, overcome with pain.
The sound of the firing was succeeded by a long period of silence. The Germans, shot at point-blank range, lay dead on the floor. Sprawled diagonally across the bed, Morvan also lay motionless. Cousin sat in a similar state of complete immobility; he was waiting for his paralysis to lessen.