PAitTTWO

1
Right after my arrest I was questioned several times, but
it was just so they could find out who I was, which didn’t
take long. The first time, at the police station, nobody
seemed very interested in my case. A week later, however, the examining magistrate looked me over with
curiosity. But to get things started he simply asked my
name and address, my occupation, the date and place of
my birth . Then he wanted to know if I had hired an
attorney. I admitted I hadn’t and inquired whether it
was really necessary to have one. “Why do you ask?”
he said. I said I thought my case was pretty simple. He
smiled and said, “That’s your opinion. But the law is
the law. If you don’t hire an attorney yourself, the court
will appoint one.” I thought it was very convenient that
the court should take care of those details. I told him
so. He agreed with me and concluded that it was a
good law.
At first, I didn’t take him seriously. I was led into a
curtained room; there was a single lamp on his desk
which was shining on a chair where he had me sit while
he remained standing in the shadows. I had read descriptions of scenes like this in books and it all
seemed like a game to me. After our conversation,
though, I looked at him and saw a tall, fine-featured
man with deep-set blue eyes, a long gray moustache, and
lots of thick, almost white hair. He struck me as being
very reasonable and, overall, quite pleasant, despite a
nervous tic which made his mouth twitch now and then.
On my way out I was even going to shake his hand, but
just in time, I remembered that I had killed a man.
The next day a lawyer came to see me at the prison.
He was short and chubby, quite young, his hair carefully slicked back. Despite the heat (I was in my shirt
sleeves) , he had on a dark suit, a wing collar, and an
odd-looking tie with broad black and white stripes. He
put the briefcase he was carrying down on my bed, introduced himself, and said he had gone over my file.
My case was a tricky one, but he had no doubts we’d
win, if I trusted him. I thanked him and he said, “Let’s
get down to business.”
He sat down on the bed and explained to me that
there had been some investigations into my private life.
It had been learned that my mother had died recently at
the horne. Inquiries had then been made in Marengo.
The investigators had learned that I had “shown insensitivity” the day of Marnan’s funeral. “You understand,” my lawyer said, “it’s a little embarrassing for me
to have to ask you this. But it’s very important. And it
will be a strong argument for the prosecution if I can’t
come up with some answers.” He wanted me to help him. He asked if I had felt any sadness that day. The question caught me by surprise and it seemed to me that I
would have been very embarrassed if I’d had to ask it.
Nevertheless I answered that I had pretty much lost the
habit of analyzing myself and that it was hard for me to
tell him what he wanted to know. I probably did love
Maman, but that didn’t mean anything. At one time or
another all normal people have wished their loved ones
were dead. Here the lawyer interrupted me and he
seemed very upset. He made me promise I wouldn’t say
that at my hearing or in front of the examining magistrate. I explained to him, however, that my nature was
such that my physical needs often got in the way of my
feelings. The day I buried Maman, I was very tired and
sleepy, so much so that I wasn’t really aware of what
was going on. What I can say for certain is that I would
rather Maman hadn’t died. But my lawyer didn’t seem
satisfied. He said, “That’s not enough.”
He thought for a minute. He asked me if he could
say that that day I had held back my natural feelings. I
said, “No, because it’s not true.” He gave me a strange
look, as if he found me slightly disgusting. He told me
in an almost snide way that in any case the director
and the staff of the home would be called as witnesses
and that “things could get very nasty” for me. I pointed
out to him that none of this had anything to do with my
case, but all he said was that it was obvious I had never
had any dealings with the law.
He left, looking angry. I wished I could have made him stay, to explain that I wanted things between us to
be good, not so that he’d defend me better but, if I can
put it this way, good in a natural way. Mostly, I could
tell, I made him feel uncomfortable. He didn’t understand me, and he was sort of holding it against me. I
felt the urge to reassure him that I was like everybody
else, just like everybody else. But really there wasn’t
much point, and I gave up the idea out of laziness.
Shortly after that, I was taken before the examining
magistrate again. It was two o’clock in the afternoon,
and this time his office was filled with sunlight barely
softened by a flimsy curtain. It was very hot. He had me
sit down and very politely informed me that, “due to
unforeseen circumstances,” my lawyer had been unable
to come. But I had the right to remain silent and to wait
for my lawyer’s counsel. I said that I could answer for
myself. He pressed a button on the table. A young clerk
came in and sat down right behind me.
The two of us leaned back in our chairs. The
examination began. He started out by saying that people were describing me as a taciturn and withdrawn
person and he wanted to know what I thought. I answered, “It’s just that I don’t have much to say. So I
keep quiet.” He smiled the way he had the first time,
agreed that that was the best reason of all, and added,
“Besides, it’s not important.” Then he looked at me
without saying anything, leaned forward rather abruptly,
and said very quickly, “What interests me is you.” I
didn’t really understand what he meant by that, so I didn’t respond. “There are one or two things,” he
added, “that I don’t quite understand. I’m sure you’ll
help me clear them up.” I said it was all pretty simple.
He pressed me to go back over that day. I went back
over what I had already told him : Raymond, the beach,
the swim, the quarrel, then back to the beach, the little
spring, the sun, and the five shots from the revolver.
After each sentence he would say, “Fine, fine.” When I
got to the body lying there, he nodded and said, “Good.”
But I was tired of repeating the same story over and
over. It seemed as if I had never talked so much in my
life.
After a short silence, he stood up and told me that he
wanted to help me, that I interested him, and that, with
God’s help, he would do something for me. But first
he wanted to ask me a few more questions. Without
working up to it, he asked if I loved Maman. I said,
“Yes, the same as anyone,” and the clerk, who up to then
had been typing steadily, must have hit the wrong key,
because he lost his place and had to go back. Again
without any apparent logic, the magistrate then asked if
I had fired all five shots at once. I thought for a minute
and explained that at first I had fired a single shot and
then, a few seconds later, the other four. Then he said,
“Why did you pause between the first and second shot?”
Once again I could see the red sand and feel the burning
of the sun on my forehead. But this time I didn’t answer.
In the silence that followed, the magistrate seemed to be
getting fidgety. He sat down, ran his fingers through his
hair, put his elbows on his desk, and leaned toward me
slightly with a strange look on his face. “Why, why did
you shoot at a body that was on the ground?” Once again
I didn’t know how to answer. The magistrate ran his
hands across his forehead and repeated his question with
a slightly different tone in his voice. “Why? You must
tell me. Why?” Still I didn’t say anything.
Suddenly he stood up, strode over to a far corner
of his office, and pulled out a drawer in a file cabinet.
He took out a silver crucifix which he brandished as he
came toward me. And in a completely different, almost
cracked voice, he shouted, “Do you know what this is?”
I said, “Yes, of course.” Speaking very quickly and passionately, he told me that he believed in God, that it
was his conviction that no man was so guilty that God
would not forgive him, but in order for that to happen
a man must repent and in so doing become like a child
whose heart is open and ready to embrace all. He was
leaning all the way over the table. He was waving his
crucifix almost directly over my head. To tell the truth,
I had found it very hard to follow his reasoning, first
because I was hot and there were big Hies in his office
that kept landing on my face, and also because he was
scaring me a little. At the same time I knew that that
was ridiculous because, after all, I was the criminal. He
went on anyway. I vaguely understood that to his mind
there was just one thing that wasn’t clear in my confession, the fact that I had hesitated before I fired my
second shot. The rest was fine, but that part he couldn’t
understand.