On Leave - Softcover

Anselme, Daniel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865478252 ISBN 13: 9780865478251

Verlag: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3PL, 2015

Inhaltsangabe

A long-lost French novel in which three soldiers return home from an unpopular, unspeakable war

When On Leave was published in Paris in 1957, as France's engagement in Algeria became ever more bloody, it told people things they did not want to hear. It vividly described what it was like for soldiers to return home from an unpopular war in a faraway place. The book received a handful of reviews, it was never reprinted, it disappeared from view. With no outcome to the war in sight, its power to disturb was too much to bear.
Through David Bellos's translation, this lost classic has been rediscovered. Spare, forceful, and moving, it describes a week in the lives of a sergeant, a corporal, and an infantryman, each home on leave in Paris. What these soldiers have to say can't be heard, can't even be spoken; they find themselves strangers in their own city, unmoored from their lives. Full of sympathy and feeling, informed by the many hours Daniel Anselme spent talking to conscripts in Paris, On Leave is a timeless evocation of what the history books can never record: the shame and the terror felt by men returning home from war.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Daniel Anselme; Translated from the French by David Bellos

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

CHAPTER ONE


One December morning a train gave three blasts on its whistle as it plowed through white mist, pierced here and there by poplar trees quivering like arrows stuck in the gray flesh of the Department of Yonne. In an overheated compartment a young infantry corporal gazed through the patch of window he’d demisted at the gloomy and monotonous landscape, grinning from ear to ear.
His two fellows, a sergeant and a plain infantryman, were drowsing, with their jackets unbuttoned, in the two corners of the bench seat opposite, using their caps as pillows.
“Look at that fog!” the corporal exclaimed, slapping the bench seat with the flat of his hand. “Take a good look at that fog!”
The infantryman was the only one to raise an eyelid.
“What’s up now?” he drawled. “What are you fussing about?”
“Just look at the fog,” the corporal said. “You know how long it’s been since you clapped your eyes on anything like it? Do you know how long it’s been?”
The infantryman rubbed his eyes and shrugged. He was a short, dark man with a pencil mustache and tapered sideburns. He nodded as he looked out of the window.
“Can’t disagree with you there. It’s a treat to see lousy weather again.”
“But how long has it been?” the corporal went on. “How long since you saw stuff like that? I’ll tell you, Lasteyrie. We ain’t seen it since Koblenz. When we got lost in Castortrasse, in the jeep.”
“That was a long time ago.”
“Thirteen months,” the corporal added.
“Fuck that,” Lasteyrie said, with a yawn. He stretched out and let his eyes nearly close.
“How long till we get in?”
“One hour forty,” the corporal said, doing the sum on the dial of his wristwatch.
“As much as that!” He tried to snuggle up in the corner and jiggled around until he found a comfortable position. “I’m going to sleep. Good night. I need to be in good shape for this evening.”
“This evening?” the corporal queried.
“You bet!” said Lasteyrie. “This evening I’m having a ball, and you won’t see me again until the third, at the railroad station, if I get there! See if I care…”
“What about your folks?”
“I’m not asking them for anything. If they hassle me, I’ll move out. I’m not exactly short of cash. In any case, I don’t owe them anything. It’s not as if the old’uns ever fussed over me!… C’mon, shut-eye.” And he settled back into the corner, using his cap as an eyeshade.
The corporal said nothing for a while, smiling at the thought that his own folks, right now, were thinking of him, just as he was thinking of them. He sank into the rhythm of the train wheels’ clackety-clack and the hissing of the wind as it rushed past the carriage. He looked at Lasteyrie, who kept shifting in his seat, then slowly turned his attention to the sergeant sleeping at the other end of the bench with his right hand inside his loosened jacket, near his heart. He’d crossed his legs and was sticking them out obliquely, with his heels on the floor. Now and again he scowled in his sleep and took a deep breath with a facial twitch that made his sharp and dented nose look even more angular.
“You’re just showing off,” the corporal said. “If you didn’t still have your parents, you’d take a different view.”
“For Christ’s sake, Valette, let me have a sleep!”
The corporal burst out laughing.
“Just let me sleep!” Lasteyrie repeated, breaking into a laugh as well.
The game was on. To stop Lasteyrie from sleeping now was to stop him from sleeping with the girl he hoped to pick up that evening, and thanks to the game, she was taking on a real existence. He’d already picked her up, she was waiting for him, and Valette had turned into a spoilsport. The soldiers started scrapping with each other out loud.
“You two, shut up!” the sergeant ordered as he opened his eyes.
“Sabah el kheir,” Lasteyrie responded, making a little bow, with his palm on his chest.
“Who closed the window?” the sergeant grunted. “We’ve been baking all night long. Open it.”
Valette lowered the window a little.
“You’re a hard bunch, you are,” Lasteyrie said as he buttoned up his jacket. “Valette stops me from sleeping and now you’ll make me catch my death. You’re trying to wreck my leave, you swine!”
But the sergeant had turned away and leaned his head against the compartment wall.
“Did you see the fog?” Valette asked him.
“Fuck that,” the sergeant said, without stirring.
“Lachaume! Lachaume! We’ll be there in an hour!” Valette declared, rounding down to make an impression.
“Fuck that,” Lachaume repeated, without opening his eyes.
Valette nodded as if he could see the light.
“Bah! When he gets to see her in the flesh, it’ll sort itself out,” Lasteyrie mumbled after a pause. “Being there is what matters. Chicks are all the same, if you ask me…” He made a swipe with his hand as if he were slapping a buttock.
The train screeched, slowed down, gave a blast on the whistle, drew into the station at Sens, and then stopped.
“Want a coffee?” Valette asked the sergeant, giving him a shake.
“No thanks. I’m asleep.”
When Valette and Lasteyrie came back into the compartment, there were two extra passengers: a woman from the countryside, dressed in black, hair neatly drawn back, sitting up straight and pursing her lips; and a round-eyed man of about sixty whose square-cut mustache quivered beneath a shiny nose as he got his wind back. He greeted the soldiers with a knowing wink. He had a clutch of medals on his lapel.
Valette brought in a plastic cup of milky coffee, with Lasteyrie ceremoniously bearing the croissant. Lachaume was jolted out of his sleep as Lasteyrie burst into song in falsetto:
Ah! Que c’est bon
Ah! Que c’est chouette
Le café au lait au lit (repeat)
“You’re a pal,” Lachaume said to Valette, taking the cup from his hands.
“What about me, then?” Lasteyrie protested as he waved the croissant under the sergeant’s nose. “Am I not a pal, too? If you’re going to be like that, I’ll eat it myself.”
But Lachaume grabbed the croissant as it passed and dipped it straight into the coffee, saying “Slam dunk!” as if he were playing basketball. Valette and Lasteyrie immediately put their hands above their heads and their legs apart as if they were players waiting for the quarter to start. But Lachaume wasn’t playing. He took little sips of his coffee, looking glum, with his elbows on his knees. Then he settled back into his corner with half a cigarette between his lips.
The train was traveling slowly across a sad and sodden plain, which the lifting fog now revealed. It seemed to be losing speed as it neared the end of its journey. The wheels rattled at a slower tempo, like the wheel of chance at a fairground booth clicking ever more slowly until it stops. An hour or two from now, I’ll know how things stand, Lachaume thought. He was overcome by a strange kind of weariness as he dozed off. What did it matter, winning or losing this time around? For him the wheel hadn’t stopped turning. Someone was forever putting it back into motion. All he could see was an icy hand emerging from the darkness, like an ivory hand on the pommel of a...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux-3PL
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2015
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0865478252
• ISBN 13: 9780865478251
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 224
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland