2
There are some things I’ve never liked talking about. A
few days after I entered prison, I realized that I wouldn’t
like talking about this part of my life.
Later on, though, I no longer saw any point to my
reluctance. In fact, I wasn’t really in prison those first
few days : I was sort of waiting for something to happen.
It was only after Marie’s first and last visit that it all
started. From the day I got her letter (she told me she
would no longer be allowed to come, because she wasn’t
my wife), from that day on I felt that I was at home in
my cell and that my life was coming to a standstill
there. The day of my arrest I was first put in a room
where there were already several other prisoners, most of
them Arabs. They laughed when they saw me. Then they
asked me what I was in for. I said I’d killed an Arab
and they were all silent. A few minutes later, it got dark.
They showed me how to fix the mat I was supposed to
sleep on. One end could be rolled up to make a pillow.
All night I felt bugs crawling over my face. A few days
later I was put in a cell by myself, where I slept on
wooden boards suspended from the wall. I had a bucket for a toilet and a tin washbasin. The prison was on
the heights above the town, and through a small window
I could see the sea. One day as I was gripping the bars,
my face straining toward the light, a guard came in and
told me I had a visitor. I thought it must be Marie. It
was.
To get to the visiting room I went down a long corridor, then down some stairs and, finally, another corridor. I walked into a very large room brightened by a
huge bay window. The room was divided. into three
sections by two large grates that ran the length of the
room. Between the two grates was a space of eight to
ten meters which separated the visitors from the prisoners.
I spotted Marie standing at the opposite end of the room
with her striped dress and her sun-tanned face. On my
side of the room there were about ten prisoners, most
of them Arabs. Marie was surrounded by Moorish women
and found herself between two visitors : a little, thinlipped old woman dressed in black and a fat, bareheaded
woman who was talking at the top of her voice and
making lots of gestures. Because of the distance between
the grates, the visitors and the prisoners were forced to
speak very loud. When I walked in, the sound of the
voices echoing off the room’s high, bare walls and the
harsh light pouring out of the sky onto the windows and
spilling into the room brought on a kind of dizziness.
My cell was quieter and darker. It took me a few seconds
to adjust. But eventually I could see each face clearly,
distinctly in the bright light. I noticed there was a guard sitting at the far end of the passage between the
two grates. Most of the Arab prisoners and their families
had squatted down facing each other. They weren’t
shouting. Despite the commotion, they were managing to
make themselves heard by talking in very low voices.
Their subdued murmuring, coming from lower down,
formed a kind of bass accompaniment to the conversations crossing above their heads. I took all this in very
quickly as I made my way toward Marie. Already pressed
up against the grate, she was smiling her best smile for
me. I thought she looked very beautiful, but I didn’t
know how to tell her.
“Well?” she called across to me. “Well, here I am.”
“Are you all right? Do you have everything you want?”
“Yes, everything.”
We stopped talking and Marie went on smiling. The
fat woman yelled to the man next to me, her husband
probably, a tall blond guy with an honest face. It was the
continuation of a conversation already under way.
“Jeanne wouldn’t take him,” she shouted as loudly as
she could. “Uh-huh,” said the man. “I told her you’d
take him back when you get out, but she wouldn’t take
him.”
Then it was Marie’s turn to shout, that Raymond
sent his regards, and I said, “Thanks.” But my voice was
drowned out by the man next to me, who asked, “Is he
all right?” His wife laughed and said, “He’s never been
better.” The man on my left, a small young man with
delicate hands, wasn’t saying anything. I noticed that he was across from the little old lady and that they were
staring intently at each other. But I didn’t have time to
watch them any longer, because Marie shouted to me
that I had to have hope. I said, “Yes.” I was looking at
her as she said it and I wanted to squeeze her shoulders
through her dress. I wanted to feel the thin material and
I didn’t really know what else I had to hope for other
than that. But that was probably what Marie meant,
because she was still smiling. All I could see was the
sparkle of her teeth and the little folds of her eyes. She
shouted again, “You’ll get out and we’ll get married!” I
answered, “You think so?” but it was mainly just to say
something. Then very quickly and still in a very loud
voice she said yes, that I would be acquitted and that we
would go swimming again. But the other woman took
her turn to shout and said that she had left a basket at
the clerk’s office. She was listing all the things she had
put in it, to make sure they were all there, because they
cost a lot of money. The young man and his mother
were still staring at each other. The murmuring of the
Arabs continued below us. Outside, the light seemed to
surge up over the bay window.
I was feeling a little sick and I’d have liked to leave.
The noise was getting painful. But on the other hand, I
wanted to make the most of Marie’s being there. I don’t
know how much time went by. Marie told me about her
job and she never stopped smiling. The murmuring, the
shouting, and the conversations were crossing back and
forth. The only oasis of silence was next to me where the small young man and the old woman were gazing at
each other. One by one the Arabs were taken away.
Almost everyone stopped talking as soon as the first one
left. The little old woman moved closer to the bars,
and at the same moment a guard motioned to her son.
He said “Goodbye, Maman,” and she reached between
two bars to give him a long, slow little wave.
She left just as another man came in, hat in hand,
and took her place. Another prisoner was brought in and
they talked excitedly, but softly, because the room had
once again grown quiet. They came for the man on my
right, and his wife said to him without lowering her
voice, as if she hadn’t noticed there was no need to
shout anymore, “Take care of yourself and be careful.”
Then it was my turn. Marie threw me a kiss. I looked
back before disappearing. She hadn’t moved and her face
was still pressed against the bars with the same sad, forced
smile on it.
Shortly after that was when she wrote to me. And
the things I’ve never liked talking about began. Anyway,
I shouldn’t exaggerate, and it was easier for me than
for others. When I was first imprisoned, the hardest
thing was that my thoughts were still those of a free man.
For example, I would suddenly have the urge to be on a
beach and to walk down to the water. As I imagined the
sound of the first waves under my feet, my body entering the water and the sense of relief it would give me,
all of a sudden I would feel just how closed in I was by
the walls of my cell. But that only lasted a few months.