3
But I can honestly say that the time from summer to
summer went very quickly. And I knew as soon as the
weather turned hot that something new was in store for
me. My case was set down for the last session of the
Court of Assizes, and that session was due to end some
time in June. The trial opened with the sun glaring outside. My lawyer had assured me that it wouldn’t last more
than two or three days. “Besides,” he had added, “the
court will be pressed for time. Yours isn’t the most important case of the session. Right after you, there’s a
parricide corning up.”
They carne for me at seven-thirty in the morning and
I was driven to the courthouse in the prison van. The
two policemen took me into a small room that smelled
of darkness. We waited, seated near a door through
which we could hear voices, shouts, chairs being dragged
across the Roor, and a lot of commotion which made me
think of those neighborhood fetes when the hall is
cleared for dancing after the concert. The policemen
told me we had to wait for the judges and one of them
offered me a cigarette, which I turned down. Shortly after that he asked me if I had the “jitters.” I said noand that, in a way, I was even interested in seeing a trial.
I’d never had the chance before. “Yeah,” said the other
policeman, “but it gets a little boring after a while.”
A short time later a small bell rang in the room.
Then they took my handcuffs off. They opened the door
and led me into the dock. The room was packed.
Despite the blinds, the sun filtered through in places
and the air was already stifling. They hadn’t opened the
windows. I sat down with the policemen standing on
either side of me. It was then that I noticed a row of
faces in front of me. They were all looking at me : I
realized that they were the jury. But I can’t say what
distinguished one from another. I had just one impression : I was sitting across from a row of seats on a
streetcar and all these anonymous passengers were looking over the new arrival to see if they could find something funny about him. I knew it was a silly idea since it
wasn’t anything funny they were after but a crime.
There isn’t much difference, though-in any case that
was the idea that came to me.
I was feeling a little dizzy too, with all those people
in that stuffy room. I looked around the courtroom again
but I couldn’t make out a single face. I think that at
first I hadn’t realized that all those people were crowding
in to see me. Usually people didn’t pay much attention
to me. It took some doing on my part to understand that
I was the cause of all the excitement. I said to the policeman, “Some crowd!” He told me it was because of the press and he pointed to a group of men at a table just
below the jury box. He said, “That’s them.” I asked,
“Who?” and he repeated, “The press.” He knew one of
the reporters, who just then spotted him and was making
his way toward us. He was an older, friendly man with
a twisted little grin on his face. He gave the policeman a
warm handshake. I noticed then that everyone was
waving and exchanging greetings and talking, as if they
were in a club where people are glad to find themselves
among others from the same world. That is how I explained to myself the strange impression I had of being
odd man out, a kind of intruder. Yet the reporter turned
and spoke to me with a smile. He told me that he hoped
everything would go well for me. I thanked him and
he added, “You know, we’ve blown your case up a little.
Summer is the slow season for the news. And your story
and the parricide were the only ones worth bothering
about.” Then he pointed in the direction of the group
he had just left, at a little man who looked like a
fattened-up weasel. He told me that the man was a
special correspondent for a Paris paper. “Actually, he
didn’t come because of you. But since they assigned him
to cover the parricide trial, they asked him to send a dispatch about your case at the same time.” And again I
almost thanked him. But I thought that that would be
ridiculous. He waved cordially, shyly, and left us. We
waited a few more minutes.
My lawyer arrived, in his gown, surrounded by lots
of colleagues. He walked over to the reporters and shook
some hands. They joked and laughed and looked completely at ease, until the moment when the bell in the
court rang. Everyone went back to his place. My lawyer
walked over to me, shook my hand, and advised me to
respond brieRy to the questions that would be put to me,
not to volunteer anything, and to leave the rest to him.
To my left I heard the sound of a chair being pulled
out and I saw a tall, thin man dressed in red and wearing a pince-nez who was carefully folding his robe as he
sat down. That was the prosecutor. A bailiff said, “All
rise.” At the same time two large fans started to whir.
Three judges, two in black, the third in red, entered with
files in hand and walked briskly to the rostrum which
dominated the room. The man in the red gown sat on
the chair in the middle, set his cap down in front of him,
wiped his bald little head with a handkerchief, and announced that the court was now in session.
The reporters already had their pens in hand. They
all had the same indifferent and somewhat snide look on
their faces. One of them, however, much younger than
the others, wearing gray flannels and a blue tie, had left
his pen lying in front of him and was looking at me. All
I could see in his slightly lopsided face were his two
very bright eyes, which were examining me closely
without betraying any definable emotion. And I had the
odd impression of being watched by myself. Maybe it
was for that reason, and also because I wasn’t familiar
with all the procedures, that I didn’t quite understand
everything that happened next : the drawing of lots for the jury; the questions put by the presiding judge to my
lawyer, the prosecutor, and the jury (each time, the
jurors’ heads would all turn toward the bench at the
same time); the quick reading of the indictment, in
which I recognized names of people and places; and
some more questions to my lawyer.
Anyway, the presiding judge said he was going to
proceed with the calling of witnesses. The bailiff read off
some names that caught my attention. In the middle of
what until then had been a shapeless mass of spectators,
I saw them stand up one by one, only to disappear
again through a side door : the director and the caretaker
from the home, old Thomas Perez, Raymond, Masson,
Salamano, and Marie. She waved to me, anxiously. I
was still feeling surprised that I hadn’t seen them before
when Celeste, the last to be called, stood up. I recognized next to him the little woman from the restaurant,
with her jacket and her stiff and determined manner.
She was staring right at me. But I didn’t have time to
think about them, because the presiding judge started
speaking. He said that the formal proceedings were
about to begin and that he didn’t think he needed to
remind the public to remain silent. According to him,
he was there to conduct in an impartial manner the proceedings of a case which he would consider objectively.
The verdict returned by the jury would be taken in a
spirit of justice, and, in any event, he would have the
courtroom cleared at the slightest disturbance.
It was getting hotter, and I could see the people in the courtroom fanning themselves with newspapers,
which made a continuous low rustling sound. The
presiding judge gave a signal and the bailiff brought
over three fans made of woven straw which the three
judges started waving immediately.
My examination began right away. The presiding
judge questioned me calmly and even, it seemed to me,
with a hint of cordiality. Once again he had me state
my name, age, date and place of birth, and although it
irritated me, I realized it was only natural, because it
would be a very serious thing to try the wrong man. Then
he reread the narrative of what I’d done, turning to me
every few sentences to ask “Is that correct?” Each time
I answered “Yes, Your Honor,” as my lawyer had instructed me to do. It took a long time because the
judge went into minute detail in his narrative. The
reporters were writing the whole time. I was conscious
of being watched by the youngest of them and by
the little robot woman. Everyone on the row of streetcar
seats was turned directly toward the judge, who coughed,
leafed through his file, and turned toward me, fanning
himself.
He told me that he now had to turn to some questions that might seem irrelevant to my case but might in
fact have a significant bearing on it. I knew right away
he was going to talk about Maman again, and at the
same time I could feel how much it irritated me. He
asked me wh) I had put Maman in the home. I answered
that it was because I didn’t have the money to have her looked after and cared for. He asked me if it had been
hard on me, and I answered that Marnan and I didn’t
expect anything from each other anymore, or from anyone else either, and that we had both gotten used to our
new lives. The judge then said that he didn’t want to
dwell on this point, and he asked the prosecutor if he had
any further questions.
The prosecutor had his back half-turned to me, and
without looking at me he stated that, with the court’s
permission, he would like to know whether I had gone
back to the spring by myself intending to kill the Arab.
“No,” I said. Well, then, why was I armed and why
did I return to precisely that spot? I said it just happened
that way. And the prosecutor noted in a nasty voice,
“That will be all for now.” After that things got a little
confused, at least for me. But after some conferring, the
judge announced that the hearing was adjourned until
the afternoon, at which time the witnesses would be
heard.
I didn’t even have time to think. I was taken out,
put into the van, and driven to the prison, where I had
something to eat. After a very short time, just long
enough for me to realize I was tired, they carne back
for me; the whole thing started again, and I found
myself in the same courtroom, in front of the same
faces. Only it was much hotter, and as if by some
miracle each member of the jury, the prosecutor, my
lawyer, and some of the reporters, too, had been provided with straw fans. The young reporter and the little robot woman were still there. They weren’t fanning
themselves, but they were still watching me without
saying a word.
I wiped away the sweat covering my face, and I had
barely become aware of where I was and what I was
doing when I heard the director of the home being
called. He was asked whether Marnan ever complained
about me, and he said yes but that some of it was just a
way the residents all had of complaining about their
relatives. The judge had him clarify whether she used
to reproach me for having put her in the horne, and the
director again said yes. But this time he didn’t add anything else. To another question he replied that he had
been surprised by my calm the day of the funeral. He
was asked what he meant by “calm.” The director then
looked down at the tips of his shoes and said that I
hadn’t wanted to see Marnan, that I hadn’t cried once,
and that I had left right after the funeral without pa·ying my last respects at her grave. And one other thing
had surprised him : one of the men who worked for the
undertaker had told him I didn’t know how old Marnan
was. There was a brief silence, and then the judge
asked him if he was sure I was the man he had just been
speaking of. The director didn’t understand the question,
so the judge told him, “It’s a formality.” He then asked
the prosecutor if he had any questions to put to the
witness, and the prosecutor exclaimed, “Oh no, that is
quite sufficient!” with such glee and with such a triumphant look in my direction that for the first time in years I had this stupid urge to cry, because I could feel
how much all these people hated me.