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  Meanwhile La Maheude just stood there, unable to tear herself away. The penetrating warmth of the fire felt so good that it almost hurt, and the thought that people had been eating here made her stomach feel even more empty. Obviously they had sent the old woman off and then locked up the girl so that the pair of them could feast on the rabbit. Ah, indeed, there was no denying: when a woman strayed, it brought good fortune on her home!

  ‘Good-night,’ she said abruptly.

  Night had fallen outside, and the cloud-decked moon shed a strange light over the earth. Instead of going back across the gardens, La Maheude went the long way round, sick at heart and unable to face going home. But there was no sign of life coming from the line of houses, and every door spoke of famine and empty stomachs. What was the use of knocking? This was the village of Misery For All. After weeks of starvation even the reek of onion had disappeared, that pungent aroma which meant that one could smell the village from far away in the countryside. Now there was just a smell of old cellars, of dank holes where nothing lives. Vague sounds died away, stifled sobs and curses that faded on the air; and in the deepening silence one could sense the approach of famine’s rest, the slumber of exhausted bodies sprawled on their beds and racked by the nightmare visions that feed on empty stomachs.

  As she was passing the church, she saw a shadowy figure hurrying away. In a moment of hope she quickened her step, for she had recognized Father Joire, the parish priest in Montsou, who came each Sunday to say Mass in the village chapel: he must have had something to see to in the vestry. He scurried past, head bowed, with that air of a plump and kindly man whose only wish is to live in peace with everyone about him. No doubt he had run his errand at night for fear of compromising himself among the miners. Not that it mattered. It was said that he had just been promoted, and even that he had already shown his successor round, a thin man with eyes like burning embers.

  ‘Father, Father,’ La Maheude gasped.

  But he did not stop.

  ‘Good-night, my dear, good-night.’

  She found herself standing outside her own house. Her legs would carry her no further, and so she went in.

  Nobody had moved. Maheu was still sitting slumped forward on the edge of the table. Old Bonnemort and the children were huddled together on the bench, trying to keep each other warm. Not a word had been exchanged, and the candle had burned so low that soon there would be no more light. As they heard the door open, the children looked round; but when they saw that their mother had brought nothing back with her, they stared at the floor once more, choking back a strong desire to cry in case they got scolded. La Maheude sank down into her former place beside the non-existent fire. No one asked her how she had got on, and the silence continued. Everyone had understood, and they saw no point in tiring themselves with talk. So now they waited in complete dejection, drained of courage, waiting on the one last chance that Étienne might have found something, somewhere. The minutes went by, and eventually they gave up hoping even for that.

  When Étienne did reappear, he was carrying a dozen cold potatoes wrapped up in a cloth.

  ‘This is all I could find,’ he said.

  At La Mouquette’s they were short of bread too: this was her dinner, and she had insisted on wrapping it in a cloth for him, kissing him passionately as she did so.

  ‘No, thanks,’ he said to La Maheude, when she offered him his share. ‘I had something earlier.’

  He was lying, and he watched despondently as the children attacked the food. Maheu and La Maheude held back also, to leave more for them; but the old man greedily devoured all he could. They even had to retrieve a potato for Alzire.

  Then Étienne announced that he had news. Goaded by the strikers’ obstinacy, the Company was talking of firing the miners responsible. Clearly it wanted war. And there was a still more serious rumour going round about the Company claiming to have persuaded a large number of workers to go back to work: tomorrow La Victoire and Feutry-Cantel would be at full strength, and there was even talk of a third of the men going back at Madeleine and Mirou. The Maheus were beside themselves.

  ‘God Almighty!’ Maheu exclaimed. ‘If there are traitors, then we must deal with them!’

  Now standing, he gave vent to his pain and fury:

  ‘Tomorrow night, in the forest!…Since we’re not allowed to meet in the Jolly Fellow, we’ll use the forest as our local.’

  His cry had roused old Bonnemort, who was sleepy after all his eating. It was the old rallying cry, and the forest was where the miners of old used to plot their resistance to the King’s soldiers.

  ‘Yes, yes, Vandame! If that’s where you’re going, you can count me in!’

  La Maheude gestured vehemently.

  ‘We’ll all go. There has to be an end to this injustice and treachery.’

  Étienne decided that notice would be given in all the mining villages of a meeting to be held the following night. But by now the fire had gone out, as it had earlier at the Levaques’, and the candle suddenly guttered into darkness. There was no more coal and no more paraffin, and so they had to feel their way up to bed in the biting cold. The little ones were crying.

  VI

  Jeanlin was better now and able to walk again, but his bones had been so badly set that he limped with both legs. He made quite a sight waddling along like a duck, though he still had the agility of a predatory vermin and could run just as fast as before.

  That evening at dusk, Jeanlin, accompanied by his trusty followers Bébert and Lydie, was out on the Réquillart road keeping watch. He had chosen their hiding-place behind a fence on a piece of waste ground, opposite a seedy grocer’s shop, which stood at an angle on the corner of a side-path. It was run by an old woman who was almost blind, and her display consisted of a few sacks of lentils and haricot beans, each one covered in black dust. Jeanlin’s narrow eyes were fixed on an ancient, fly-blown dried cod hanging in the dorrway. Twice already he had dispatched Bébert to go and unhook it, but both times somebody had chanced to come round the corner. How was a fellow supposed to get on with his business with all these people in his way!

  A man on horseback emerged from the side-path, and the children threw themselves flat on the ground by the fence: they had recognized M. Hennebeau. Since the beginning of the strike, he was often to be seen out on the roads like this, riding alone through the hostile villages and displaying quiet courage in coming to ascertain in person how things stood. No stone had ever whistled past his ears; the men he passed were simply silent and slow to return his greeting, while more often than not it was lovers he came across. They didn’t give a damn about politics and took their fill of pleasure where they could. He would trot past on his mare, eyes front so as not to embarrass anyone, while his heart would pound with unfulfilled desires in the presence of a sexual freedom so greedily enjoyed. He could see the three children perfectly, two young lads in a heap on top of the girl. God, even the kids were at it now, forgetting their poverty as they happily rubbed against each other! There were tears in his eyes as he rode on, ramrod straight in the saddle, his coat buttoned up like a uniform.

  ‘Just our bloody luck!’ said Jeanlin. ‘It never stops…Go on, Bébert, grab it by the tail.’

  But once again two men were coming, and Jeanlin suppressed a further oath when he heard the voice of his brother Zacharie, who was busy telling Mouquet how he’d found a two-franc piece sewn into one of his wife’s skirts. The pair were laughing cheerfully and clapping each other on the back. Mouquet suggested a full-scale game of crosse the next day: they would set out from the Advantage at two and head for Montoire, near Marchiennes. Zacharie agreed. What did they want to be bothered with this strike for, anyway? May as well have fun since there was nothing else to do! And they were just turning the corner when Étienne appeared from the direction of the canal and stopped to talk to them.

  ‘Are they going to stay all night?’ Jeanlin groaned again in exasperation. ‘It’s getting dark, the old woman’s taking her sacks
in.’

  Another miner came past on his way to Réquillart. Étienne joined him, and as they were passing the fence Jeanlin heard them talking about the forest: they’d had to postpone the meeting till the following day for fear of not being able to alert all the villages within twenty-four hours.

  ‘Hey,’ he whispered to his two comrades, ‘the big do’s on for tomorrow. We should go, eh? We’ll leave in the afternoon.’

  Now that the road was completely clear, he dispatched Bébert.

  ‘Go on. And mind you grab it by the tail!…And watch out, the old woman’s got her brush.’

  Fortunately it was getting very dark. In a split second Bébert had leaped at the cod and started pulling on it. The string broke, and away he raced, trailing it like a kite, while the other two dashed after him. The old woman emerged bewildered from her shop, not understanding what had happened and unable to make out the gang disappearing into the darkness.

  These young scamps had become the scourge of the region, gradually overrunning it like some alien horde. At first they had stuck to the pit-yard at Le Voreux, scrapping on the coal-stacks from which they emerged looking like negroes, or playing hide-and-seek among the wood stores, where they could lose themselves as in a virgin forest. Then they had stormed the spoil-heap, sliding down the smooth parts on their bottoms while it continued to smoulder away underneath; or else they would disappear among the brambles that grew in the older parts of the mine, vanishing from sight for the entire day and occupying themselves with quiet little games like mischievous mice. And gradually they extended their empire. They fought till they bled among the piles of bricks, they roamed the fields and ate all kinds of lush grasses, just as they came, without bread, or they grubbed along the banks of the canal where they caught fish in the mud and swallowed them raw. Then they ventured even further afield, whole kilometres away, as far as the woods at Vandame, where they feasted on strawberries in the spring, in summer on hazelnuts and bilberries. Little by little they had made the vast plain their own.

  But if they were now to be found prowling round the paths between Montsou and Marchiennes with the look of young wolves in their eyes, it was because of their growing compulsion to plunder. Jeanlin was always the leader of these expeditions, ordering his troops into battle against all manner of target, laying waste onion fields, pillaging orchards, swooping on shop displays. People round about accused the striking miners, and there was talk of a huge, organized gang. One day he had even forced Lydie to rob her mother, making her bring him two dozen sticks of barley sugar that La Pierronne kept in a jar on a shelf in one of her windows; and though she was beaten for it, the little girl had not betrayed him, so much did she fear his authority. The worst of it was that he kept the lion’s share of everything for himself. Bébert, too, had to hand all booty over to him, happy just not to be hit and that Jeanlin didn’t keep the lot.

  For a while now Jeanlin had been overstepping the mark. He would beat Lydie as if she were a regular wife, and he exploited Bébert’s gullibility in order to involve him in various unpleasant escapades. It amused him greatly to lead this big lad by the nose when he was much stronger than he was and could have laid him out with a single blow. He despised them both, treating them like slaves and telling them that he had a princess for a mistress and that they were not worthy to appear before her. And indeed for the past week he had taken to leaving them suddenly at the end of a street or a turning in the road, wherever he happened to be, having ordered them with a terrifying air to return at once to the village. First, though, he would pocket their plunder.

  And this was what happened on this particular evening also.

  ‘Give it here,’ he said, grabbing the cod out of his comrade’s hands when the three of them stopped at a bend in the road just outside Réquillart.

  Bébert protested.

  ‘I want some, too, you know. It was me that took it.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Jeanlin shouted. ‘You’ll get some if I say so, but not now, that’s for sure. Tomorrow, if there’s any left.’

  He punched Lydie and lined the pair of them up like soldiers at attention. Then he went behind them:

  ‘Now you’re both going to stand like that for the next five minutes, and you’re not to turn round…And, by God, if you do turn round, wild beasts will come and eat you…After that you’re to go straight home. And if you, Bébert, so much as lay a finger on Lydie on the way, I shall know all about it, and I’ll thump the pair of you.’

  Then he slipped away into the darkness, so quietly that they didn’t even hear the sound of his bare feet as he left. The two children stood quite still for the whole five minutes, not daring to look behind them in case they received a clout from the blue. A deep affection had slowly grown up between them, born of their common terror. Bébert, for his part, thought constantly about taking Lydie and holding her very tightly in his arms, the way he had seen others do; and she would have liked him to, for it would have made a nice change to receive a kind caress. But neither would have dared to disobey. When they set off for home they didn’t even embrace, despite the fact that it was pitch dark, but simply walked along side by side in loving misery, certain that if they were to touch each other, their leader would come and clout them from behind.

  At the same moment Étienne had reached Réquillart. The previous evening La Mouquette had begged him to come back and see her again, which he was now rather ashamedly doing, for though he refused to admit it to himself, he had taken a fancy to this girl who worshipped him like the Lord and Saviour. Anyway he was coming to break things off. He would see her and explain that she was to stop chasing after him, because of the comrades. Times were hard, and it didn’t do to indulge oneself when people were dying of hunger. But not finding her at home, he had decided to wait, and now he was keeping a watchful eye over every passing shadow.

  Beneath the ruined headgear yawned the entrance to the old mine, which was half blocked up. A beam stuck up into the air with a piece of roof attached to it, looking like a gibbet suspended over the black hole; and two trees were growing out of the crumbling masonry that encircled the lip of the shaft, a plane and a rowan, which looked as if they had sprung from the very depths of the earth. Nature had been allowed to run wild here, with thick tangles of grass surrounding the entrance to the chasm, which was full of old timbers and overgrown with sloe and hawthorn where warblers nested in the spring. Reluctant to incur heavy expenditure on its upkeep, the Company had been planning for the past ten years to fill in the disused mine; but it was waiting until it had installed a ventilator at Le Voreux, because the furnace that drove the ventilation system for the two interconnecting pits was located at the bottom of Réquillart, where what was formerly a ventilation shaft now served as a flue. In the meantime they had simply reinforced the shaft’s lining by installing cross-stays, which prevented coal from being extracted; they had abandoned the upper roadways and now maintained only the bottom one where the hellish furnace blazed, an enormous brazier of coal, which created such a powerful draught that the air blew like a tempest from one end of the neighbouring mine to the other. As a precaution there had been an order to maintain the ladders in the escape shaft so that people could still go up and down, but nobody had bothered; the ladders were rotting, and some of the staging platforms had already collapsed. At the top an enormous bramble blocked the entrance to the shaft; and because the first ladder had lost some of its rungs, in order to reach it you had to dangle from a root of the rowan tree and let yourself down into the blackness below, hoping for the best.

  Étienne was waiting patiently behind a bush when he heard a prolonged slithering through the branches. He thought he might have disturbed an adder. But the sudden flaring of a match startled him, and he was astonished to see Jeanlin lighting a candle and disappearing below ground. Full of curiosity he approached the hole: the child had vanished, but a faint gleam of light could be seen coming from the second platform down. After a moment’s hesitation Étienne grabbed some root
s and lowered himself, wondering if he would fall the full five hundred and twenty-four metres of the shaft’s depth, but eventually feeling a rung beneath his foot. And then gently he descended. Jeanlin could not have heard him because the light continued to recede beneath him, and the huge menacing shadow cast by the small boy flickered on the walls of the shaft as his hips swayed wildly on account of his damaged legs. He was swinging downwards like a monkey, using hands or feet or chin to hold on whenever rungs were missing. Ladder followed ladder, each seven metres long, some still solid, others loose or cracking and ready to break; and platform followed narrow platform, each one rotting and green with mould, which made it like stepping on moss; and as they descended, the heat became suffocating, because of the fumes coming up the shaft from the furnace. Fortunately it had barely been fired since the strike began, because under normal working conditions, when the furnace consumed five thousand kilograms of coal per day, no one could ever have risked such a descent unless he was ready to be roasted alive.

  ‘Bloody little toad!’ Étienne swore as he gasped for breath. ‘Where the hell’s he going?’

  Twice he had nearly fallen. His feet kept slipping on the damp wood. If only he’d had a candle like Jeanlin; but as it was, he kept banging into things, and his only guide was the faint glimmer of light vanishing beneath him. He was already on his twentieth ladder, and still they were going down. Then he began to count them one by one: twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, down he went, down and down. His head was nearly exploding in the boiling heat, it was like sinking into an oven. At last he reached a loading-bay, where he caught sight of the candle disappearing at the far end of a roadway. Thirty ladders: that meant about two hundred and ten metres.

  ‘How long’s this going to go on?’ Étienne wondered to himself. ‘I bet he holes up in the stable.’

  But the road that led away on the left towards the stable was blocked by a rock-fall. They were off again, and this time the terrain was even more difficult and dangerous. Startled bats flitted about and clung to the roof of the loading-bay. He had to hurry so as not to lose sight of the light, and rushed into a roadway after it; but where the child was able to wriggle through easily with the suppleness of a snake, he could only squeeze past, bruising his arms and legs as he went. Like all old mine workings, this particular roadway had narrowed and was continuing to get narrower by the day from the constant pressure of the earth; and in places it was no bigger than a tube, which would eventually disappear of its own accord. As a result of this gradual strangulation the timbering had split and its jagged edges presented a real danger, threatening to saw through his flesh or to impale him on the points of its sword-like splinters as he went by. He had to exercise the greatest care as he edged forward on his knees or stomach, groping in the darkness ahead of him. Suddenly a swarm of rats ran over the top of him, dashing the length of his body in terrified flight.