So, one morning after our captain whistled for the attack, when we leapt shrieking from the belly of the earth, the blue-eyed enemies didn’t fire immediately. The blue-eyed enemies waited twenty breaths before firing on us, the time it took to identify Jean-Baptiste. God’s truth, to identify him, at least twenty breaths. I know, I understood, we all understood why they waited before firing on us. The blue-eyed enemies, the captain said, held a grudge against Jean-Baptiste. God’s truth, they’d had enough of hearing him shout “Up yours, Krauts!” with their friend’s hand stuck to the end of a Rosalie bayonet, waving in the sky above our trench. The enemies on the other side were intent on killing Jean-Baptiste the next time the French attacked. They said to themselves, “We’re going to kill that one in a particularly disgusting way, to set an example.”
And that idiot Jean-Baptiste, who’d made it clear that he wanted to die at any cost, did all he could to facilitate the task. He attached the enemy hand to the front of his helmet. And as it continued to rot, he wrapped it in gauze—he “turbaned” it, as the captain said—in white gauze, one finger at a time. And Jean-Baptiste did a very good job because you could see it very clearly, the hand attached to the front of his helmet, its middle finger up in the air, the others folded down. The enemies with matching blue eyes didn’t have a hard time identifying him. They had binoculars. In their binoculars they saw a white spot on the top of a slender soldier’s helmet. That must have taken five breaths. They adjusted their binoculars and they saw that the small white spot was giving them the finger. Five more halting breaths. But to perfect their aim must have taken longer, ten slow breaths at least, because they were so angry at Jean-Baptiste for mocking them with their friend’s hand. But they were ready. And as soon as they saw him in their cannon’s scope, twenty breaths after our captain’s whistle, they must have been happy, the enemies on the other side. And they must have been very, very happy when, through their binoculars, they saw Jean-Baptiste’s head fly off. His head, his helmet, and the enemy hand he had attached to it: pulverized. That must have made them so happy, the enemies with their matching blue eyes, to see their dishonor pulverized along with the culprit’s head. God’s truth, they must have offered tobacco to whoever pulled off such a beautiful feat. As soon as our attack was over, they must have slapped him on the shoulder, passed him a drink. They must have applauded him for his perfect shot. They might even have written a song in his honor.
God’s truth, it might have been this song in his honor that I heard rise from their trench, the evening of the attack in which Jean-Baptiste died, the evening when for the fourth time I severed the hand of an enemy from the other side, after placing the insides of his body outside, in the heart of la terre à personne, “no-man’s-land,” as the captain said.
XII
I HEARD THE SINGING OF THE ENEMIES with matching blue eyes very clearly, because that evening I happened to be right next to their trench. God’s truth, I had crawled right up to them without their seeing me, and I waited until they’d finished singing before I caught one. I waited until silence fell, until they had relaxed, and I extracted one like you’d extract a tiny baby from its mother’s belly, with a violent tenderness to minimize the shock, to minimize the sound. I did it this way because I wanted to catch the master artilleryman who had killed Jean-Baptiste. That evening, God’s truth, I took many risks to avenge my friend Jean-Baptiste, who had wanted to die because of a perfumed letter.
I crawled for hours beneath the barbed wire to get right next to their trench. I covered myself in mud so they wouldn’t see me. Immediately after the shell that decapitated Jean-Baptiste, I threw myself on the ground and crawled for hours in the mud. Captain Armand had long since whistled for the attack to end when I arrived right next to the enemy trench, which was also open like the sex of an enormous woman, a woman the size of the earth. So I moved even closer to the edge of the enemy’s domain and then I waited, waited. For a long time they sang the songs of men, the songs of soldiers, beneath the stars. I waited, waited until they fell asleep. Except one. Except one who’d leaned up against the wall of the trench to smoke. You shouldn’t smoke in a war, the enemy will spot you. I spotted him because of his tobacco smoke, thanks to the blue smoke that rose into the sky from his trench.
God’s truth, I took an enormous risk. As soon as I noticed, a few steps to my left, the blue smoke rising into the black sky, I slid like a snake along the side of the trench. I was covered with mud from head to toe. I was like the mamba snake that takes on the color of the earth on which it slithers. I was invisible and I slid, slid, slid as fast as I could to get myself right next to the blue smoke the enemy soldier was blowing into the black air. I really took a big risk and that’s why what I did that night, for my white friend who wanted to die at war, I did only once.
Without knowing what was happening in the trench, without being able to see a thing, I slung my head and my arms into the enemy trench. I blindly dangled the top half of my body into the trench to capture the blue-eyed enemy who was smoking below me. God’s truth, I was lucky the trench had no roof in that spot. I was lucky the enemy soldier who was blowing blue smoke into the black sky was alone. I was lucky to be able to clap my hand over his mouth before he had a chance to scream. God’s truth, I lucked out that the proprietor of my fourth trophy was small and light, like a child of fifteen or sixteen. In my collection of hands, he gave me the smallest one. I was lucky that night not to be spotted by the friends, by the trench-mates of the little blue-eyed soldier. They must all have been sleeping, worn out by the day’s attack, in which Jean-Baptiste was killed first by the master artilleryman. After Jean-Baptiste’s head fell, they had continued to fire, enraged, without stopping to breathe. Many of my trench-mates died on that day. But I managed to run, to fire, to throw myself on my belly and crawl beneath the barbed wire. Firing as I ran, throwing myself on my belly and crawling into la terre à personne, “no-man’s-land,” as the captain said.
God’s truth, the enemies on the other side were very tired. That night, they lowered their guard after singing. I don’t know why the little enemy soldier wasn’t tired that night. Why he went to smoke his tobacco after his trench-mates had gone to sleep. God’s truth, it was fate that made me capture him and not someone else. It was written on high that it would be him I would find in the middle of the night in the hot pit of the enemy trench. Now I know, I understand that nothing is simple about what’s written on high. I know, I understand, but I don’t tell anyone because now I think what I want, for no one but myself, ever since Mademba Diop died. I believe I understand that what’s written on high is only a copy of what man writes here below. God’s truth, I believe that God always lags behind us. It’s all He can do to assess the damage. He couldn’t have wanted me to catch the little blue-eyed soldier in the hot pit of the enemy trench.
I don’t believe the proprietor of the fourth hand in my collection had done anything wrong. I could read it in his blue eyes when I gutted him in la terre à personne, “no-man’s-land,” as the captain said. I could see in his eyes that he was a good boy, a good son, still too young to have known a woman, but a good future husband, certainly. And here I had to fall on him, like death and destruction on innocence. That’s war: it’s when God lags behind the music of men, when he can’t untangle the threads of so many fates at the same time. God’s truth, you can’t blame God. Who’s to say He didn’t want to punish the parents of the little enemy soldier by making him die at war by my black hand? Who’s to say He didn’t want to punish the little enemy soldier’s grandparents because He’d run out of time to redress the suffering they’d caused their own children? Who’s to say? God’s truth, God may have lagged behind in his punishment of the little enemy soldier’s family. I am well positioned to know that he did punish them, gravely, by punishing their son or grandson. Because the little enemy soldier suffered as did the others when I extracted the insides of his body to expose them to the air outside, in a little pile next to his still-living body. But I really did come to pity him, very, very quickly. I minimized the punishment, through him, of his grandparents or parents. I let him beg me only once, tears in eyes, before I finished him off. He could not have been the one who disemboweled my more-than-brother Mademba Diop. He also could not have been the one who pulverized, with a single shell, the head of my friend Jean-Baptiste, the joker driven to despair by a perfumed letter.