“But how long will that take?” asked Herman, dumbfounded.
“Oh, a long time, surely. You can’t very well change your skin in two days, can you?”
“I haven’t got that kind of time! The gendarmes…”
“I’m telling you, the gendarmes will only pretend to look. You’re the one who will find your loved ones again, and for the moment no one here will want to help you, not even the mayor.”
“What a horrible place this is!” cried Herman.
“No one will say it to your face, but they despise Parisians here.”
The president leaned back almost proudly in his chair.
“I used to be one myself. And then, as it happened, purely by coincidence I stayed here till fall came, fifteen years ago it was, and I haven’t left since. It all worked out beautifully, I became president of the Chamber of Commerce, head of the festivities committee, and now no one knows or remembers I belong to that hated race. I live in the Hôtel du Relais, where I advise you to take a room at once, because obviously you’re going to move out of your house on the plateau.”
“I wasn’t planning on setting foot in it again,” said Herman loftily.
“Good. In fact I recommend you forget it entirely, forget everything that attaches you to the life you led here as a Parisian vacationer. Watch what you say. And you’ll find that, little by little, without your even knowing it’s happening, you’ll be led to your wife and child, and then, who knows, then maybe you won’t be too happy.”
Herman shrugged, too outraged to answer. The president’s unmistakable pleasure in taking on his case, the almost carnal delight illuminating his sly little eyes, left Herman dubious and wary. But he felt too weak, too alone, too helpless to spit out a scornful dismissal of the plan this man was urging on him. Besides, he had to admit, he had no particular grounds for thinking the president was trying to hoodwink him. On the contrary, it was a kind of humility, he thought, the humility of a man deeply committed to his cause, ready to make any number of personal sacrifices, that radiated from the president’s ardent manner.
The president delightedly rubbed his hands. In his joy, he hurried on:
“As a former Parisian myself, and so, shall we say, a compatriot of yours, allow me to take possession of you just a little, to make of you, just a little, my work, my son! You mustn’t hold anything back from me. I know everything there is to know about the village; in fact, I’d go so far as to say I’ve acquired a power here that can’t be questioned. If you have a problem, listen to no one but me. Oh, speaking of power…”
He put on an anxious face and tapped one finger against his forehead. To his own disgust, Herman felt himself meekly slipping into acquiescence. After all, who was this man sitting before him? A nobody, an underling—once summer’s over, he probably does nothing but head the festivities committee. And what festivities could anyone possibly organize in this endless rain? But at the same time, it wasn’t unpleasant to have unburdened himself to someone. Suddenly Herman was so tired that he might not have gotten up from his chair, scarcely would have turned his head, if someone told him the mayor was walking by in the hallway. He listened with a distracted ear, as if his case had just been brought to a happy conclusion.
“I forgot to tell you about the merchants. They’re the largest and most influential body in our village. Some say they’ve run the whole village for the past hundred years. They’re holding their little weekly meeting today, right in this very building, on this very floor. You have to be a merchant to attend, and since they’re smart and careful no one ever knows what gets said in there, everybody just assumes they’re devising new ways to increase their power and profits. They’ve got a stranglehold on the mayor, almost all of them have a seat on the town council. They place their children in all the region’s key positions, for instance the bakers’ son is now secretary to the prefect, fifty kilometers from here, and the owners of the Relais have a son who plays tennis with the district councilor every week, not to mention that many of them have special connections, close or distant, with the heads of the gendarmerie or the fire brigade. For your own safety, I’ll tell you straight out what I think: the merchants of this place are a bad lot, dangerous, cunning, their tentacles go everywhere; they’re as rich as kings but plead poverty and sigh and wring their hands as soon as someone says the word ‘money.’ Be careful, but be smart: try to make friends with a few of them, but steer clear of their indecipherable, infinitely varied, ever-changing rivalries. I wouldn’t be surprised if, without breathing a word of it to you, the merchants lead you to the very people you’re looking for; I wouldn’t be surprised to have it confirmed that they’re up on all the deepest, darkest things that go on in the village. Who knows? Maybe they’re talking about you at this very moment!”
The president erupted into a merry laugh. Herman shivered.
“All right, enough of this,” he thought, but he didn’t move, as if bound to his chair by weariness and an undefined fear of what awaited him outside.
But his host got up from his desk, came and stood before Herman, and clasped his hand between his own two hands, which were shaded by a dense mass of long hairs.
“I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this opportunity,” he said in a genuinely moved voice, “to take on a worthy project, serving as your guide and at the same time testing the observations I’ve made here the past fifteen years. Please don’t let me down. Please, in a sense, be faithful to me. Be docile, learn from me, practice doing as I do. Nothing here is like what you know in Paris, people don’t speak the same way, there are other laws, other customs. I don’t miss it. Such a beautiful life I’ve made for myself here!”
Tightly encased in a pair of corduroy pants, the president’s thighs twitched and jerked in what seemed a slightly overheated delight. Each thigh was as thick as both of Herman’s, which were excessively slender and weedy under the linen of his summer suit. Herman was stifling in the airless little room, oppressed by the president’s fervor. No one had ever given him such an effusive, heartfelt handshake, never had anyone but intimate acquaintances stood so close to him, knee to knee, and as a math teacher Herman never did anything to encourage such impulses.
“All right, let’s get out of here,” he told himself.
He disengaged his hand, finally stood up. His legs were trembling with fatigue. The president stepped back toward his desk, still smiling with confidence and affection, and Herman thought he’d noticed his exhaustion and was glad about it. He picked up the receiver of his desk phone.
“I’ll have the Relais people send their little Charlotte to come get you,” he said with a wink.
“What? Why is that?”
“Because you’re going to take a room this morning, and then we’ll see.”
“I have other things to do at the moment,” said Herman peevishly.
“No, you don’t. What could you possibly have to do? I’ve told you, you won’t get in to see the mayor, and there’s no point to knocking at the gendarmes’ door. It’s very simple: you have to begin your life as a villager. And for that you need a room.”