His anger kept him going at the same furious pace until the top of the hill, but as he reached the threshold of the chapel he collapsed in a heap, red-faced and short of breath. Seen from a distance through binoculars, the chapel appeared larger than it was. Never could a donkey, an ox and a family of Palestinian émigrés have fitted inside at the same time. Besides, there was no longer any roof, or a cross, only the façade to deceive you. The whole sky was visible through it. He lay flat against the stone slabs with his mouth wide open. He felt the urge to graffiti that stupid blank sky, to spray-paint, ‘Piss off, the lot of you’. Not a trace of the divine, damn all, nada.
There was a smell of damp earth, mossy stone, mushrooms. His right hand skimmed a clump of heather. It was soft. The first time he had put his hand in a girl’s knickers had been at the Kursaal, his local cinema. The Ten Commandments, three hours of film. That was how long it took to achieve your ends in those days. Just as old Moses was parting the Red Sea with his staff, Brice had managed to get his finger in Sylvie’s pussy. The Promised Land was no longer terra incognita.
He wiped his penis with a tissue. The heather was barely ruffled.
‘Not many people like Viandox.’
Blanche was stitching an Alsatian’s head on a canvas. It was freezing in the room; the electric heater was not plugged in and there was no flame dancing in the grate. Brice was warming his numb fingers round the cup of boiling-hot beef stock.
‘Do you like dogs, Blanche?’
‘No, they smell. Martine gave me this design; her mother has a needlework shop. From time to time she gives me them because she knows I love embroidery. I’ve already done one of Claude François in a disco outfit, and a peasant scene. The problem is I don’t always have the right colour wool. It’s kind of you to come and see me.’
‘I was on my way down from the chapel and since I was passing, I thought …’
‘You did the right thing. Do you see how good your Camillo looks on the mantelpiece?’
Beneath his bushy eyebrows, the crooner surveyed the frozen wastes of the living room.
‘He looks far better here than in my house.’
Sitting by the window in the half-light like a girl in a Flemish painting, Blanche suddenly stopped moving her needle to and fro.
‘I wanted to ask you …’
‘Do, please …’
‘Could I come and watch television at your house tomorrow morning?’
‘But … Of course.’
‘I noticed the other night that you own one. My father didn’t like television. He used to say it made people stupid. But I’m very fond of television. I’m not afraid of being stupid. I’ll be there at half past eight. Martine’s told me about a programme where they show you things.’
‘All right then, eight-thirty tomorrow.’
‘That’s very kind. Would you mind lighting the fire?’
‘Not at all, I’d be glad to.’
In the fireplace Brice heaped an armful of vine stalks, which caught light straight away, and then he placed two fine oak logs on top. In winter, there is something reassuring about hell.
‘That Alsatian’s very handsome, Blanche, especially with its red eye.’
‘I had no blue left.’
The fire crackled. Crouching in front of the hearth, he bathed his hands in the warmth of the flames. For the first time in ages he felt at home, as if he had always belonged here. They stayed like that, in wordless intimacy, until a log slipped as the bell rang for half past seven.
‘Tomorrow evening Élie’s releasing pheasants. Do you feel like coming?’
‘Releasing pheasants?’
‘For shooting. They call them surprise releases. Around one hundred cocks and hens. It’s a wonderful sight. The crates are opened and the birds take flight, flapping their wings. You’d think they were applauding.’
‘Applauding what?’
‘I don’t know. Freedom … their impending death … Who knows why people applaud? Élie could tell you the whereabouts of every last fox and badger den, the quails’ nests, coypu burrows in the riverbank, the hiding places of perch, eels and carp. All the secrets … in holes …’
Blanche had put down her needlework. The dog’s head was hanging over her knees. She stared into the fire. A deep furrow lined her brow.
‘What’s the use of taking short cuts if you’re going nowhere? What’s the point of going away, leaving those you love? Why do they all go away? They know they’ll hurt us, so why d’they do it? Go and hide in their dirty dark holes. They chuck us away like cast-offs … They’ll never come back, never!’
With these last words she had stood up so abruptly that her chair toppled over, scraping against the floor. Brice reached towards her shoulder but thought better of touching it for fear of electrocution. It was like being near an exposed wire. For several long minutes the room seemed alive with electricity. Then the church bell shook the walls eight times, and Blanche relaxed.
‘Blanche, can I do anything for you?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Would you like me to call a doctor?’
‘For what?’
‘You seem so … nervous.’
‘It’s nothing. It happens to me sometimes … Forgive me, I’m tired.’
‘I’ll leave you then. See you tomorrow at half past eight, for your programme.’
‘Oh yes, the programme … Yes, of course. Good-night.’
He went home feeling he had narrowly escaped being struck by lightning, yet already with a sense of loss.
Élie’s van smelled of scrap metal, engine grease, chicken shit and other rotting organic matter. In the back, Blanche and Brice were being jolted about like parachutists in an aircraft cabin, seated opposite each other, he on a tyre, she on a heap of grey blankets. Blanche looked in seventh heaven. The angels were shut up in groups of four inside a dozen perforated crates from which occasional rustling of feathers and muffled clucking could be heard. Three hens and one cock pheasant to a crate.
Élie had not seemed exactly thrilled to have Brice there too, but had nonetheless offered him the tool which served him as a hand, while trading pointed glances with Blanche. The light was fading gently above the hills. All that could be seen was lavender blue, and purple streaks in a weary sky. Turning off into a side track, the van stopped at the edge of a field of maize. The noise of its sliding door was like a guillotine. Blanche leaped out, alert and fresh as a trout, while Brice struggled to extricate himself from his tyre under Élie’s mocking gaze. The gamekeeper took out a crate and set it down at the edge of the field.
‘Blanche, come and do the honours.’
‘No, Brice and I will do it together. Come on, it’s very simple. You undo the wire hooks and … Are you ready?’
The inside of the crate was humming like the wings of a theatre before curtain up.
‘I’m ready.’
‘One, two, three.’
Once the lid was lifted, the birds burst out, the deafening beating of their wings sounding more like slaps than applause. In a split second, at a height of three metres, each of them chose its direction, some opting for the forest, some the field, others the main road. One of them refused to leave the crate and had to be persuaded with a kick. A fraction of a second to choose your destiny, or rather the place where the huntsman would put an end to it, forest, field, main road … The one which had refused to come out of the