The Priest

The following Saturday, we go back to have our bath. Afterward, the housekeeper says to us:

"Come to the kitchen. I'll make some tea and we'll have some bread and butter."

We are eating the bread and butter when the priest comes into the kitchen.

We say:

"Good morning, sir."

The housekeeper says:

"Father, these are my protégés. They're the grandsons of the old woman people call the Witch."

The priest says:

"Yes, I know them. Come with me."

We follow him. We go through a room in which there is nothing but a big round table surrounded by chairs, and a crucifix on the wall. Then we go into a dark room whose walls are lined with books from floor to ceiling. Opposite the door, a prie-dieu with a crucifix; near the window, a desk; a narrow bed in a corner, three chairs in a row against the wall: that's all the furniture in the room.

The priest says:

"You've changed a lot. You're clean. You look like two angels. Sit down."

He pulls two chairs up opposite his desk; we sit down. He sits down behind his desk. He hands us an envelope:

"Here's the money."

As we take the envelope, we say:

"Soon you'll be able to stop giving these. In the summer, Harelip manages by herself."

The priest says:

"No. I shall go on helping these two women. I'm ashamed that I did not do so earlier. And now, let's talk about something else, shall we?"

He looks at us; we say nothing. He says:

"I never see you in church."

"We don't go there."

"Do you pray sometimes?"

"No, we don't pray."

"Poor lost lambs. I shall pray for you. Can you read, at least?"

"Yes, sir. We can read."

The priest hands us a book:

"Here, read this. You will find in it beautiful stories about Jesus Christ and the lives of the saints."

"We know these stories already. We have a Bible. We have read the Old Testament and the New."

The priest raises his dark eyebrows:

"What? You have read all of the Holy Bible?" "Yes, sir. We even know several passages by heart."

"Which ones, for example?"

"Passages from Genesis, Exodus, Ecclesiastes, Revelation, and others."

The priest is silent for a while, then he says:

"So you know the Ten Commandments. Do you obey them?"

"No, sir, we do not obey them. Nobody obeys them. It is written, 'Thou shalt not kill,' and everybody kills."

The priest says:

"Alas… it's the war."

We say:

"We would like to read other books besides the Bible, but we don't have any. You have a lot of books. You could lend us some."

"These books are too difficult for you."

"Are they more difficult than the Bible?"

The priest looks at us. He asks:

"What kind of books would you like to read?"

"History books and geography books. Books that tell true things, not invented things."

The priest says:

"By next Saturday, I shall find some books that will be suitable for you. Leave me now. Go back to the kitchen and finish your tea."

The Housekeeper and the Orderly

We are picking cherries in the garden with the housekeeper. The orderly and the foreign officer arrive in the jeep. The officer walks straight past us and goes into his room. The orderly stops near us and says:

"Good morning, little friends. Good morning, pretty maiden. Cherries already ripe? I love much cherries, I love much pretty young lady."

The officer calls from the window. The orderly has to go into the house. The housekeeper says to us:

"Why didn't you tell me there were men in your house?"

'They're foreigners."

"So what? What a handsome man he is, the officer!"

We ask:

"Don't you like the orderly?"

"He's short and fat."

"But he's nice and amusing. And he speaks our language well."

She says:

"I don't care. It's the officer I like."

The officer comes and sits on the bench in front of his window. The housekeeper's basket is already full of cherries, she could go back to the priest's house, but she stays. She looks at the officer and laughs very loudly. She hangs from the branch of a tree, she swings, she jumps, she lies in the grass, and finally she throws a daisy at the officer's feet. The officer gets up and goes back to his room. Soon afterward, he comes out and goes off in his jeep.

The orderly leans out the window and shouts:

"Who come help poor man clean very dirty room?"

We say:

"We'll be glad to help you."

He says:

"Need a woman to help. Need pretty young lady."

We say to the housekeeper:

"Come on. Let's help him a bit."

All three of us go into the officer's room. The housekeeper picks up a broom and starts to sweep. The orderly sits down on the bed and says:

"I dream. A princess, I see in dream. Princess must pinch me to wake up."

The housekeeper laughs and pinches the orderly's cheek very hard.

The orderly shouts:

"I awake now. I also want pinch wicked princess."

He takes the housekeeper in his arms and pinches her bottom. The housekeeper struggles, but the orderly holds her very tight. He says to us:

"You, outside! And shut the door."

We ask the housekeeper:

"Do you want us to stay?"

She laughs:

"What for? I can take care of myself."

So we leave the room and shut the door behind us. The housekeeper comes to the window, smiles at us, draws the shutters, and closes the window. We go up to the attic and watch what is happening in the officer's room through the holes.

The orderly and the housekeeper are lying on the bed. The housekeeper is completely naked; the orderly has just his shirt and socks on. He's lying on the housekeeper, and they're both moving back and forth, right and left. The orderly grunts like Grandmother's pig, and the housekeeper screams as if in pain, but she also laughs at the same time and cries:

"Yes, yes, yes, oh, oh, oh!"

From that day on, the housekeeper comes back often and shuts herself up with the orderly. We sometimes look at them, but not always.

The orderly prefers the housekeeper to bend over or squat on all fours, and he takes her from behind.

The housekeeper prefers the orderly to lie on his back. Then she sits on the orderly's belly and moves up and down, as if she were riding a horse.

The orderly sometimes gives the housekeeper silk stockings or eau de cologne.

The Foreign Officer

We are doing our immobility exercise in the garden. It's hot. We are lying on our backs in the shade of the walnut tree. Through the leaves, we see the sky and the clouds. The leaves of the tree are motionless; the clouds also seem to be, but if we look at them for a long time, very attentively, we notice that they change shape and stretch out.

Grandmother comes out of the house. As she walks past us, she kicks sand and gravel into our faces and over our bodies. She mutters something and goes into the vineyard for her nap.

The officer is sitting, stripped to the waist, his eyes shut, on the bench in front of his room, his head leaning against the white wall, in full sunlight. Suddenly he comes toward us; he speaks to us, but we don't answer, we don't look at him. He goes back to his bench.

Later, the orderly says to us:

"The officer want you come speak to him."

We don't answer. He says again:

"You get up and come. Officer angry if you not obey."

We don't move.

The officer says something, and the orderly goes into the room. We hear him singing as he cleans up.

When the sun touches the roof of the house beside the chimney, we get up. We go over to the officer. We stop in front of him. He calls the orderly. We ask:

"What does he want?"