At Night All Blood Is Black Read online

  Captain Armand told him to stop. To act out like Jean-Baptiste wasn’t good for anyone. Jean-Baptiste might as well be setting fires inside the trench. His insults had the power of smoke. The power to help the enemy from the other side adjust their aim. It was as if he had given himself over to the enemy. There was no point in dying if it wasn’t at the captain’s command. God’s truth, I knew, I understood, as did the captain and the others, that Jean-Baptiste wanted to die, to torment the blue-eyed enemies and become their target.

  So, one morning after our captain whistled for the attack, when we leapt shrieking from the belly of the earth, the blue-eyed enemies didn’t fire immediately. The blue-eyed enemies waited twenty breaths before firing on us, the time it took to identify Jean-Baptiste. God’s truth, to identify him, at least twenty breaths. I know, I understood, we all understood why they waited before firing on us. The blue-eyed enemies, the captain said, held a grudge against Jean-Baptiste. God’s truth, they’d had enough of hearing him shout “Up yours, Krauts!” with their friend’s hand stuck to the end of a Rosalie bayonet, waving in the sky above our trench. The enemies on the other side were intent on killing Jean-Baptiste the next time the French attacked. They said to themselves, “We’re going to kill that one in a particularly disgusting way, to set an example.”

  And that idiot Jean-Baptiste, who’d made it clear that he wanted to die at any cost, did all he could to facilitate the task. He attached the enemy hand to the front of his helmet. And as it continued to rot, he wrapped it in gauze—he “turbaned” it, as the captain said—in white gauze, one finger at a time. And Jean-Baptiste did a very good job because you could see it very clearly, the hand attached to the front of his helmet, its middle finger up in the air, the others folded down. The enemies with matching blue eyes didn’t have a hard time identifying him. They had binoculars. In their binoculars they saw a white spot on the top of a slender soldier’s helmet. That must have taken five breaths. They adjusted their binoculars and they saw that the small white spot was giving them the finger. Five more halting breaths. But to perfect their aim must have taken longer, ten slow breaths at least, because they were so angry at Jean-Baptiste for mocking them with their friend’s hand. But they were ready. And as soon as they saw him in their cannon’s scope, twenty breaths after our captain’s whistle, they must have been happy, the enemies on the other side. And they must have been very, very happy when, through their binoculars, they saw Jean-Baptiste’s head fly off. His head, his helmet, and the enemy hand he had attached to it: pulverized. That must have made them so happy, the enemies with their matching blue eyes, to see their dishonor pulverized along with the culprit’s head. God’s truth, they must have offered tobacco to whoever pulled off such a beautiful feat. As soon as our attack was over, they must have slapped him on the shoulder, passed him a drink. They must have applauded him for his perfect shot. They might even have written a song in his honor.

  God’s truth, it might have been this song in his honor that I heard rise from their trench, the evening of the attack in which Jean-Baptiste died, the evening when for the fourth time I severed the hand of an enemy from the other side, after placing the insides of his body outside, in the heart of la terre à personne, “no-man’s-land,” as the captain said.

  XII

  I HEARD THE SINGING OF THE ENEMIES with matching blue eyes very clearly, because that evening I happened to be right next to their trench. God’s truth, I had crawled right up to them without their seeing me, and I waited until they’d finished singing before I caught one. I waited until silence fell, until they had relaxed, and I extracted one like you’d extract a tiny baby from its mother’s belly, with a violent tenderness to minimize the shock, to minimize the sound. I did it this way because I wanted to catch the master artilleryman who had killed Jean-Baptiste. That evening, God’s truth, I took many risks to avenge my friend Jean-Baptiste, who had wanted to die because of a perfumed letter.

  I crawled for hours beneath the barbed wire to get right next to their trench. I covered myself in mud so they wouldn’t see me. Immediately after the shell that decapitated Jean-Baptiste, I threw myself on the ground and crawled for hours in the mud. Captain Armand had long since whistled for the attack to end when I arrived right next to the enemy trench, which was also open like the sex of an enormous woman, a woman the size of the earth. So I moved even closer to the edge of the enemy’s domain and then I waited, waited. For a long time they sang the songs of men, the songs of soldiers, beneath the stars. I waited, waited until they fell asleep. Except one. Except one who’d leaned up against the wall of the trench to smoke. You shouldn’t smoke in a war, the enemy will spot you. I spotted him because of his tobacco smoke, thanks to the blue smoke that rose into the sky from his trench.

  God’s truth, I took an enormous risk. As soon as I noticed, a few steps to my left, the blue smoke rising into the black sky, I slid like a snake along the side of the trench. I was covered with mud from head to toe. I was like the mamba snake that takes on the color of the earth on which it slithers. I was invisible and I slid, slid, slid as fast as I could to get myself right next to the blue smoke the enemy soldier was blowing into the black air. I really took a big risk and that’s why what I did that night, for my white friend who wanted to die at war, I did only once.

  Without knowing what was happening in the trench, without being able to see a thing, I slung my head and my arms into the enemy trench. I blindly dangled the top half of my body into the trench to capture the blue-eyed enemy who was smoking below me. God’s truth, I was lucky the trench had no roof in that spot. I was lucky the enemy soldier who was blowing blue smoke into the black sky was alone. I was lucky to be able to clap my hand over his mouth before he had a chance to scream. God’s truth, I lucked out that the proprietor of my fourth trophy was small and light, like a child of fifteen or sixteen. In my collection of hands, he gave me the smallest one. I was lucky that night not to be spotted by the friends, by the trench-mates of the little blue-eyed soldier. They must all have been sleeping, worn out by the day’s attack, in which Jean-Baptiste was killed first by the master artilleryman. After Jean-Baptiste’s head fell, they had continued to fire, enraged, without stopping to breathe. Many of my trench-mates died on that day. But I managed to run, to fire, to throw myself on my belly and crawl beneath the barbed wire. Firing as I ran, throwing myself on my belly and crawling into la terre à personne, “no-man’s-land,” as the captain said.

  God’s truth, the enemies on the other side were very tired. That night, they lowered their guard after singing. I don’t know why the little enemy soldier wasn’t tired that night. Why he went to smoke his tobacco after his trench-mates had gone to sleep. God’s truth, it was fate that made me capture him and not someone else. It was written on high that it would be him I would find in the middle of the night in the hot pit of the enemy trench. Now I know, I understand that nothing is simple about what’s written on high. I know, I understand, but I don’t tell anyone because now I think what I want, for no one but myself, ever since Mademba Diop died. I believe I understand that what’s written on high is only a copy of what man writes here below. God’s truth, I believe that God always lags behind us. It’s all He can do to assess the damage. He couldn’t have wanted me to catch the little blue-eyed soldier in the hot pit of the enemy trench.

  I don’t believe the proprietor of the fourth hand in my collection had done anything wrong. I could read it in his blue eyes when I gutted him in la terre à personne, “no-man’s-land,” as the captain said. I could see in his eyes that he was a good boy, a good son, still too young to have known a woman, but a good future husband, certainly. And here I had to fall on him, like death and destruction on innocence. That’s war: it’s when God lags behind the music of men, when he can’t untangle the threads of so many fates at the same time. God’s truth, you can’t blame God. Who’s to say He didn’t want to punish the parents of the little enemy soldier by making him die at war by my black hand? Who’s to
say He didn’t want to punish the little enemy soldier’s grandparents because He’d run out of time to redress the suffering they’d caused their own children? Who’s to say? God’s truth, God may have lagged behind in his punishment of the little enemy soldier’s family. I am well positioned to know that he did punish them, gravely, by punishing their son or grandson. Because the little enemy soldier suffered as did the others when I extracted the insides of his body to expose them to the air outside, in a little pile next to his still-living body. But I really did come to pity him, very, very quickly. I minimized the punishment, through him, of his grandparents or parents. I let him beg me only once, tears in eyes, before I finished him off. He could not have been the one who disemboweled my more-than-brother Mademba Diop. He also could not have been the one who pulverized, with a single shell, the head of my friend Jean-Baptiste, the joker driven to despair by a perfumed letter.

  And maybe the little blue-eyed enemy soldier was standing guard when I threw myself headfirst into the hot trench, arms outstretched, without knowing who I would catch. I carried him out with his gun hitched to his shoulder. A soldier standing guard shouldn’t smoke. Any blue smoke, in the darkest night, is visible. That’s how I spotted him, my little blue-eyed soldier, proprietor of my fourth trophy, of my fourth hand. But, God’s truth, I pitied him in no-man’s-land. I killed him as soon as he begged me, once, with his blue eyes filled with tears. It was God who’d made him stand guard.

  It was after I returned to the trench that was our home with my fourth small hand and the gun it had cleaned, oiled, loaded, and fired that my soldier-friends, white and black, avoided me like the plague. When I returned home crawling in the mud like a black mamba returning to its nest after rat-hunting, no one dared touch me anymore. No one was happy to see me. They must have believed that the first hand brought bad luck to that little fool Jean-Baptiste and that the evil eye would fall on anyone who touched me or even looked at me. And Jean-Baptiste wasn’t there anymore to rally the others to rejoice at seeing me return alive. Everything is double: one side good, one bad. Jean-Baptiste, when he was still alive, showed the others the good side of my trophies: “Look, here’s our pal Alfa with another hand and the rifle that goes with it. Let’s celebrate, friends! This means fewer Kraut bullets aimed at us! Fewer Kraut hands, fewer Kraut bullets. Glory to Alfa!” That’s how the rest of the soldiers, black or white, Chocolat or Toubab, were rallied to congratulate me for having brought back my trophies to our dark trench, open to the sky. They all applauded me up to the third hand. I was courageous, I was a force of nature, like the captain said many times. God’s truth, they gave me good things to eat, they helped me clean up; above all Jean-Baptiste, who liked me. But on the night Jean-Baptiste died, when I returned to our trench the way a mamba slithers back into its nest after the hunt, they avoided me like the plague. The bad side of my crimes had won out over the good side. The Chocolat soldiers began to whisper that I was a soldier sorcerer, a dëmm, a devourer of souls, and the white Toubab soldiers were starting to believe them. God’s truth, each thing carries its opposite within. Up to the third hand, I was a war hero, beginning with the fourth I became a dangerous madman, a bloodthirsty savage. God’s truth, that’s how things go, that’s how the world is: each thing is double.

  XIII

  THEY THOUGHT I WAS AN IDIOT, but I’m not. The captain and the old Chocolat Croix de Guerre infantryman Ibrahima Seck wanted my seven hands so they could trap me. God’s truth, they wanted proof of my savagery so they could lock me up, but I would never tell them where I’d hidden my seven hands. They would never find them. They couldn’t imagine the quiet spot where they’d been laid to rest, dried and wrapped in cloth. God’s truth, without these seven pieces of proof, they would have no choice but to send me temporarily to the Rear to rest. God’s truth, they would have no choice but to hope that upon my return from the Rear the soldiers with matching blue eyes would kill me so they would be rid of me without too much bother. In war, when you have a problem with one of your soldiers, you get the enemy to kill him. It’s more practical.

  Between my fifth hand and my sixth hand, the Toubab soldiers stopped wanting to obey Captain Armand when he whistled for the attack. One fine day they said, “No! We’ve had enough!” They even said to Captain Armand, “You may as well be whistling for the attack so the enemy on the other side will be ready to gun us down as soon as we leave the trench. We won’t leave it anymore. We refuse to die for your whistle!” And then the captain replied, “What, just like that, you won’t obey orders?” The Toubab soldiers replied immediately, “No, we don’t want to obey your whistle of death!” When the captain was very sure that they wouldn’t obey anymore, and when he saw that it was now only seven of them and not the fifty it had been at the start, he made the seven culprits stand in the middle of the rest of us and commanded, “Tie their hands behind their backs!” Once they had their hands tied behind their backs, the captain yelled at them, “You are cowards, you are the shame of France! You are afraid to die for your fatherland, and yet you are going to die today!”

  What the captain made us do then is very, very ugly. God’s truth, we never would have believed that we’d be treating our fellow soldiers like enemies from the other side. The captain told us to hold our loaded rifles to their jaws and to kill them if they didn’t obey his final order. We were on one side of the trench, where it was open to the skies of war, and our traitorous friends were on the other, a few paces from us. Our traitorous friends turned their backs to us, so they were facing the little ladders. Seven little ladders. The little ladders we climbed to rise out of the trench when we would launch an assault on the enemy from the other side. So, once everyone was in their place, the captain shouted at them, “You have betrayed France! But those who obey my final order will be given a posthumous Croix de Guerre. For the rest of you, we’ll write to your families that you are deserters, traitors who sold out to the enemy. For traitors, there is no military pension. Nothing for your wives, nothing for your families!” Then the captain whistled for the attack so that our friends would climb out of our trench and be gunned down by the enemy from the other side.

  God’s truth, I’ve never seen anything so ugly. Even before the captain whistled for the attack, some of our seven traitorous friends clattered their teeth, others pissed their pants. As soon as the captain whistled, it was terrible. If the moment weren’t so dire, you could almost have laughed. Because with their hands tied behind their backs, our traitorous friends had a hard time climbing the six or seven stairs of the attack ladders. They stumbled, they slid, they fell on their knees and screamed in fear because the enemies with matching blue eyes understood almost at once that our captain was delivering them their prey. God’s truth, as soon as the master artilleryman who had killed my friend Jean-Baptiste saw the gift he was being offered, he launched three small malicious shells that all missed their intended target. But the fourth one exploded on one of our traitorous friends who had just emerged from the trench, a traitorous friend who was being brave for his wife and children, whose insides flew out of his body to splatter us with black blood. God’s truth, though I was already used to it, my white and black fellow soldiers were not. And we cried a lot, especially our traitorous friends who were condemned to climb out from the trench to be massacred one by one, or else no Croix de Guerre, the captain had said. No pension for their parents, no pension for their wives or for their children.

  God’s truth, the leader of the traitorous friends was brave. The leader of our traitorous friends was named Alphonse. God’s truth, Alphonse was a real warrior. A real warrior is not afraid to die. Alphonse climbed out of our trench stumbling like an invalid and crying, “Now I know why I must die! I know why. I am dying for your pension, Odette! I love you, Odette! I love you, Ode…” And then a fifth small malicious shell decapitated him just like Jean-Baptiste, because the master artilleryman from the other side had begun to hit his marks. His brains rained on us and on the other traitorous friends
who screamed with terror because they had to die like their traitorous leader, Alphonse. God’s truth, we all wept at the death of the leader of our traitorous friends. The elder Chocolat Croix de Guerre infantryman Ibrahima Seck translated what Alphonse had cried out. Odette was lucky to have had him as a husband. That Alphonse was really somebody.

  But after Alphonse, there were five left. Five more had to die after the leader of our traitorous friends. One of them turned toward us, weeping and crying out, “Have pity! Have pity! Guys … guys … pity…” This traitorous friend was Albert, who couldn’t care less about the Croix de Guerre, about the captain’s posthumous pensions. This one didn’t think about his parents, his wife, his children. Maybe he didn’t have any. The captain yelled “Fire!” and we fired. There were four left. Four temporarily surviving traitorous friends. These four traitorous friends were brave for their families. These four traitorous friends leapt one by one from the trench, flailing like chickens who have just been decapitated and keep running for a while. But the master artilleryman from the other side seemed, for the duration of about thirty breaths, to be done with wasting those little shells. He seemed to be waiting, for about thirty breaths, while looking through his binoculars at the sacrifices we were sending. He had already downed two, after three missed shots. Five small shells, that was enough. In war, you can’t waste heavy munitions just to impress the enemy, as the captain said. So the last four traitorous friends had to die by vulgar machine-gun fire, all together, their final screams stuck in their throats.