Where I Left My Soul Page 9

  29 MARCH, 1957: THIRD DAY

  John ii, 24–25

  His perfect poise is an intolerable insult. The left foot positioned to the rear, resting on the heel, enables the body to pivot gracefully in a single fluid movement. The back is impeccably straight, the shoulder blades project like knives, the back of the neck, close cropped beneath the line of the beret, and Capitaine Degorce would like to empty the magazine of his automatic pistol into this detested neck. But it is too late and he remains seated behind his desk, shaking with humiliation and despair. The previous night there had still been time, but the previous night he was so naive. He had walked slowly alongside Tahar past the soldiers who, on Adjudant-chef Moreau’s orders, had just presented arms to him and was so completely filled with the delightful feeling of a duty done that he had not even reacted when Lieutenant Andreani allowed himself to murmur with a sad toss of his head, “Oh! André! My God … André …” It seemed to him that nothing this man thought could affect him, but that was the moment when he should have taken his pistol from its holster and shot them all down like mad dogs, Horace Andreani, his little weasel of a seminarist and Belkacem. But he did nothing, did not think of it even for a moment, of course, because his eyes were firmly fixed on Tahar as Belkacem thrust him brutally into the car, muttering something in Arabic, and he would have liked Tahar to look back at him one last time and smile at him, but he did not do so and Capitaine Degorce simply mused that this was not how they should have taken their leave of one another, even if they were due to meet again sometime in the full light of day. And now it is forever too late. At the moment when a rope was being put around Tahar’s neck Degorce had been enjoying the most peaceful sleep that had been granted him for a long time, nor was he woken by his convulsive death throes. In the morning he drank his coffee and smoked calmly before the open window without knowing that he had become complicit in a crime it would never be possible for him to atone for.