We pick the apples up from the dusty road. We put them in her apron.

The cloth has fallen from Grandmother's forehead. Blood is trickling into her eyes. She wipes it away with a corner of her shawl.

We ask:

"Are you hurt, Grandmother?"

She sniggers:

"It'll take more than a blow from a rifle butt to kill me off."

"What happened, Grandmother?"

"Nothing. I was picking apples. I came to the gate to watch the procession. My apron slipped; the apples fell and rolled into the road. In the middle of the procession. That's no reason to hit someone."

"Who hit you, Grandmother?"

"Who do you think? You're not fools! They hit them too. They hit people in the crowd. But all the same there were some who were able to eat my apples!"

We help Grandmother get up. We take her into the house. She starts peeling the apples to make a compote, but she falls down, and we carry her to her bed. We take off her shoes. Her shawl slips off; a completely bald skull appears. We put her shawl back on. We stay by her bedside for a long time, holding her hands and watching her breathe.

The Policeman

We are having our breakfast with Grandmother. A man comes into the kitchen without knocking. He shows his police card.

Immediately, Grandmother starts shouting:

"I don't want the police in my house! I've done nothing!"

The policeman says:

"No, nothing, never. Just a few little poisonings here and there."

Grandmother says:

"Nothing was ever proved. You can't do anything to me."

The policeman says:

"Take it easy, Grandmother. We're not going to dig up the dead. We've got enough to do burying them."

"Then what do you want?"

The policeman looks at us and says:

"The acorn doesn't fall far from the oak."

Grandmother looks at us too:

"I should hope not. What have you been doing now, sons of a bitch?"

The policeman asks:

"Where were you yesterday evening?"

We answer:

"Here."

"You weren't hanging around the cafés as usual?"

"No. We stayed here because Grandmother had an accident."

Grandmother says very quickly:

"I fell going down to the cellar. The steps are all mossy, and I slipped. I banged my head. The kids brought me back up and looked after me. They stayed by my bedside all night."

The policeman says:

"You've got a bad bump there, I can see. You must be careful at your age. Very well. We're going to search the house. Come with me, all three of you. We'll start with the cellar."

Grandmother opens the cellar door, and we go down. The policeman moves everything, the sacks, the cans, the baskets, and the pile of potatoes.

Grandmother asks us in a whisper:

"What's he looking for?"

We shrug our shoulders.

After the cellar, the policeman searches the kitchen. Then Grandmother has to unlock her room. The policeman strips her bed. There is nothing in the bed or in the straw mattress, just a bit of cash under the pillow.

At the door of the officer's room, the policeman asks:

"What's in here?"

Grandmother says:

"It's a room I rent to a foreign officer. I don't have the key."

The policeman looks at the door to the attic:

"You don't have a ladder?"

Grandmother says:

"It's broken."

"How do you get up there?"

"I don't. Only the kids go up there."

The policeman says:

"Well, let's go, kids."

We climb up to the attic by the rope. The policeman opens the chest where we keep the things we need for our studies: Bible, dictionary, paper, pencils, and the Notebook in which everything is written. But the policeman hasn't come to read. He rummages through a pile of old clothes and blankets one more time, and we go down again. Back downstairs, the policeman looks around him and says:

"I obviously can't dig up the whole garden. Right. Come with me."

He takes us into the forest, to the edge of the big hole where we found the corpse. The corpse isn't there anymore. The policeman asks:

"Have you ever been here before?"

"No. Never. We would have been afraid to go so far."

"You've never seen this hole or a dead soldier?"

"No, never."

"When they found that dead soldier, his rifle, his cartridges, and his grenades were missing."

We say:

"He must have been very absentminded and careless, that soldier, to have lost all those things so indispensable to a soldier."

The policeman says:

"He didn't lose them. They were stolen from him after he died. You often come into the forest, don't you have any ideas on the matter?"

"No. No ideas at all."

"Yet someone certainly took that rifle, those cartridges, and those grenades."

We say:

"Who would dare to touch such dangerous things?"

The Interrogation

We are in the policeman's office. He is sitting at a table, we are standing in front of him. He gets paper and pencil. He is smoking. He asks us questions:

"How long have you known the priest's housekeeper?"

"Since the spring."

"Where did you meet her?"

"At Grandmother's. She came for potatoes."

"You deliver wood to the priest's house. How much are you paid for that?"

"Nothing. We take wood to the priest's house to thank the housekeeper for doing our washing."

"Is she nice to you?"

"Very nice. She makes bread and butter for us, cuts our nails and hair, and lets us have baths there."

"Like a mother, in fact. And the parish priest, is he nice to you?"

"Very nice. He lends us books and teaches us a lot of things."

"When did you last take wood to the priest's house?"

"Five days ago. On Tuesday morning."

The policeman walks up and down the room. He closes the curtains and turns on his desk lamp. He draws up two chairs and tells us to sit down. He shines the lamp in our faces:

"You're very fond of the housekeeper?"

"Yes, very."

"Do you know what's happened to her?"

"Has something happened to her?"

"Yes. Something horrible. This morning, as usual, she was lighting the fire, and the kitchen stove blew up. It hit her full in the face. She's in the hospital."

The policeman stops talking; we say nothing. He says:

"You have nothing to say?"

We say:

"If something blows up in your face, you're bound to end up in the hospital, or even in the morgue. She's lucky she isn't dead."

"She's disfigured for life!"

We are silent. The policeman too. He looks at us. We look at him. He says:

"You don't look particularly sad about it."

"We're glad she's alive. After such an accident!"

"It wasn't an accident. Someone hid an explosive in the firewood. A cartridge from an army rifle. We've found the case."

We ask:

"Why would anyone do that?"

"To kill her. Her or the priest."

We say:

"People are cruel. They like to kill. It's the war that has taught them that. And there are explosives lying around everywhere."

The policeman starts to shout:

"Stop trying to be clever! You're the ones who deliver wood to the priest's house! You're the ones who hang around all day in the forest! You're the ones who strip the corpses! You're capable of anything! You have it in your blood! Your Grandmother has a murder on her conscience too. She poisoned her husband. With her it's poison, with you it's explosives! Admit it, you little bastards! Admit it! It was you!"

We say:

"We aren't the only ones who deliver wood to the priest's house."

He says:

"That's true. There's also the old man. I've already questioned him."

We say:

"Anyone can hide a cartridge in a pile of wood."

"Yes, but not anyone can have cartridges. I'm not interested in your housekeeper! What I want to know is where the cartridges are. And the grenades? And the rifle? The old man has admitted everything. I've questioned him so well that he's admitted everything. But he couldn't show me where the cartridges, the grenades, and the rifle are. He's not the guilty one. It's you! You know where the cartridges, the grenades, and the rifle are. You know, and you're going to tell me!"