As he left the property, the man headed toward the crossroads from which they had first seen the lights of the village. They were shining now with a more dazzling light, the rain had stopped falling and the road, to the right, that led toward the village was laid out straight through the vineyards where the trellis wires glistened here and there. About halfway, the horse slowed down to a walk. He was nearing a sort of rectangular shanty; one part was a room made of masonry, and a second, larger part was built of wooden planks.
Projecting from this second part was a kind of counter with a big matting pulled down over it. On a door recessed in the masonry one could read: “Mme. Jacques’s Farm Canteen.” Light seeped under the door. The man stopped his horse right by the door, and knocked without dismounting. Immediately a firm resonant voice asked from inside, “What is it?”
“I’m the new manager of the Saint-Apôtre property. My wife is giving birth. I need help.”
No one answered. After a moment bolts were drawn, bars were lifted, then dragged away, and the door opened partway. He could make out the black curly head of a European woman with plump cheeks and a flattish nose above full lips. “My name is Henri Cormery. Can you go to be with my wife? I’m going to get the doctor.”
She gazed at him with the eye of one accustomed to weighing men and misfortune. He met her look squarely, but without adding a word of explanation. “I’ll go,” she said. “You hurry.”
He thanked her and kicked the horse with his heels. A few moments later he entered the village by passing between rampart-like walls made of dried mud. Stretching before him lay what seemed to be the only street, bordered with small one-story houses, all alike; he followed it to a small hard-surfaced square where, surprisingly, he found a metal-framed bandstand. The square, like the street, was deserted.
Cormery was already headed toward one of the houses when the horse shied. An Arab, in a torn somber-colored burnoose, appeared from the shadows and came toward him. “The doctor’s house,” Cormery immediately asked. The Arab studied the horseman. “Come,” he said after he had looked him over. They went back up the street. Written on a building with a raised ground floor reached by whitewashed stairs were the words: “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.”
Next to it was a small garden surrounded by roughly finished walls; at its far end was a house, to which the Arab pointed. “That’s it,” he said. Cormery jumped down from the horse, and, at a pace that showed no sign of fatigue, he crossed the garden, where all he noticed was, at the exact center, a dwarf palm with withered leaves and a rotted trunk. He knocked at the door. No one answered.g He turned around. The Arab was waiting in silence. The husband knocked again. From inside could be heard footsteps that stopped behind the door. But the door did not open. Cormery knocked again and said, “I’m looking for the doctor.”
At once the bolts were drawn and the door was opened. A man appeared. His face was young and chubby, but his hair was almost white. He was tall and well built, and his legs were squeezed into leggings. He was putting on a sort of hunting jacket. “Well! Where did you come from? I’ve never seen you before,” he said, smiling. The husband explained. “Oh yes, the mayor told me. But, you know, this is a strange place to come to have a baby.” The husband said he had been expecting the event later and that he must have made a mistake. “Well, that happens to everyone. Go ahead, I’ll saddle Matador and follow you.”
Halfway back, and through the rain that had begun to fall again, the doctor, mounted on a dappled gray horse, caught up with Cormery, who was now soaked through but still erect on his heavy farm horse. “Strange way to arrive,” the doctor called out. “But you’ll see, there’s good in this place, not counting the mosquitoes and the bandits in the bush.” He stayed alongside his companion. “About the mosquitoes, you know, you don’t have to worry till spring. As for the bandits …” He laughed, but the husband rode on without a word. The doctor looked at him with curiosity. “Have no fear,” he said, “it will all go well.”
Cormery turned his straightforward gaze on the doctor, and, looking calmly at him, said with a touch of warmth: “I’m not afraid. I’m used to hard knocks.”
“Is this your first?”
“No, I left a four-year-old boy in Algiers with my mother-in-law.”
They came to the crossroads and took the road to the property. Soon the cinders were flying under the horses’ hooves. When the horses stopped and silence fell once more, they heard a loud cry from the house. The two men dismounted.
Awaiting them was a shadowy figure sheltered under a vine that was dripping water. Drawing closer, they recognized the old Arab wearing an improvised hood made of a sack. “Greetings, Kaddour,” said the doctor. “How is it going?”
“I don’t know, I especially don’t go in where the women are,” the old man said.
“Good rule,” said the doctor. “Particularly when women are crying.” But no cries were coming now from inside. The doctor opened the door and went in, Cormery behind him.
In front of them a big fire of vine branches flaming in the fireplace lighted the room more than did the kerosene lamp, with copper and bead trim, that hung from the middle of the ceiling. To their right, the sink was now all covered with towels and metal pitchers. The table in the middle of the room had been pushed over to the left, in front of a rickety sideboard made of unfinished wood. On it were an old traveling bag, a hatbox, and various bundles.
Pieces of old luggage, including a big wicker trunk, filled all the corners of the room, leaving a space only in the middle, not far from the fire. In that space, on a mattress set at right angles to the fireplace, the wife lay stretched out, head laid back on a pillow without a case, her hair let down. The blankets now covered only half the mattress. The uncovered part of the mattress was hidden from sight by the owner of the canteen, who was on her knees to its left.
She was wringing out, over a washbasin, a towel dripping reddish drops of water. To the right, sitting cross-legged, an unveiled Arab woman held out, as if making an offertory, a second, somewhat flaking enamel basin full of steaming hot water. The two women were on either side of a folded sheet that lay under the wife. The shadow and light of the fireplace rose and fell on the whitewashed walls, on the baggage that cluttered the room, and, still closer, glowed red on the faces of the two nurses and on the form of the wife, bundled up under the blankets.
When the two men entered, the Arab woman glanced quickly at them, gave a brief laugh, then turned to the fire, her thin brown arms still offering the washbasin. The owner of the canteen looked at them and joyfully exclaimed: “No more need for you, Doctor. It happened by itself.” She got to her feet and the two men saw, near the patient, something shapeless and bloody stirring with a sort of still movement and making a continuing, barely perceptible sound like a muffled screeching.h
“So they say,” said the doctor. “I hope you haven’t touched the cord.”
“No,” said the woman, laughing. “We had to leave you something to do.”
She got up and gave her place to the doctor, who again blocked the newborn from the sight of Cormery, still at the door, his head uncovered. The doctor squatted and opened his case; then he took the basin from the hands of the Arab woman, who immediately withdrew from the circle of light and took refuge in the dark angle of the fireplace. The doctor washed his hands, his back still to the door, then poured on those hands some alcohol that smelled a bit like grape liquor; its odor at once filled the room. At that moment, the wife lifted her head and saw her husband. A marvelous smile transfigured that exhausted beautiful face. Cormery went over to the mattress. “He came,” she said under her breath, and she reached out her hand to the infant.
“Yes,” said the doctor. “But stay still.” The wife gave him a questioning look.
Cormery, standing at the foot of the mattress, made a quieting gesture. “Lie down.”
She lay back down again. The rain began to come down twice as hard on the old tile roof. The doctor went to work under the blanket. Then he straightened up and seemed to shake something in front of him. A small cry was heard. “It’s a boy,” the doctor said. “And a good sturdy one.”
“There’s one who’s getting off to a good start,” said the owner of the canteen. “By moving to a new home.”
The Arab woman in the corner laughed and clapped her hands twice. Cormery glanced at her and she turned away, embarrassed.
“All right,” said the doctor. “Now leave us for a
