«Blood», extract no. 6

Le Regard Libre N° 30 - Sébastien Oreiller

Chapter II: Arrival of the son

There were a few alterations to make. Hardly. She ran her hands over the soft fabric, hips and ribs, with an expert eye, she thought. As if he wouldn't notice. She was trembling. These were her son's clothes, the one that would soon arrive. Long black boots, riding pants and a wide shirt. Around his neck, a tie, rather loose, almost a scarf. They were almost the same size; he was just a little shorter and thinner. She was going to take them back. She'd had enough of these garden clothes, old rags of coarse canvas. He, too, found himself handsome in the mirror, almost too tanned in these clothes that smacked of man, especially rich man, the man who denies himself nothing.

He could keep them, but only here. Taking them to the village was out of the question. Why not? No, we'd have seen him, we'd have understood, we might not have said anything, but the other women would have found him handsome too. No, it was better not. What about his son? He'd be jealous, of course, but who cares? He didn't wear those clothes anymore; that's why he'd left them there. He grimaced.

On his way home, he saw that the vines had turned bright green, almost fluorescent. It was the warmest time of the year, and the most pleasant, at least for those who weren't working. Even the grapes were green, drinking in the sun, icy snakes between the hot walls. He blossomed in his strength, dry and hot, like the air that rose from the plain to form storms, shadows running against the slopes, like him not knowing where to run to burst. He sat down on a low wall above the road, his feet in the earth, fragrant with life, like a vine with rising sap, and lit himself a little cigar. She had given it to him as a gift. In the past, he'd hardly smoked a pipe, using bad tobacco that he saved by mixing it with herbs. This one was better, like anything from far away. Between the wisps of smoke, he could make out the plain, and enjoyed as if in a dream what he had become, his skin dirty and ragged. Below him, they passed into a small, roofless Ford. This made him laugh. He threw the cigar on the road and drove off.

The mother asked him to look after the little one; she wanted to rest a little, it was difficult at the moment. He took the little girl under his arms and put her on his shoulders. He heard her laughing up there, just because she was playing with her big brother, and she loved him. He wondered why he didn't laugh like that anymore. The way he used to laugh in the vineyards, almost a wicked laugh. And yet the little girl's laugh, that most beautiful laugh, how insipid it must have been, without tears or blood. He would never again know that joy of being weak and not caring, just because there's nothing you can do about it, and enjoy it. And as always, he began to hate what he couldn't have. A fool's laugh, a happy fool's laugh. He didn't depend on anyone, he thought as he set the kid down, almost throwing her away, while he tried to forget that now it was the others who depended on him. The smell of her loving kisses stuck to his skin. He left to wash up.

Write to the author : sebastien.oreiller@netplus.ch

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