"LA FRANCE EST POURRIE"
173
Severai· days later the following conversation took place at our
gardener's.
Brother:
Today we found two black ·men
(no-aires in dialect).
Hostess:
What are you talking about. Louis? You always talk such
nonsense.
Brother:
It's true. We found two black men. They already smelled bad.
They had melted in the sun.
Et pis, c'est
tout.
Hostess: (loudly)
What are you talking about? What black men?
Brother:
Two dead ones
(deux macchabes)
.
In the field, hihi. We
smelled them out because they stank so.
Hostess:
What field?
Brother:
Mother Quatsous', hers. Just inside it. · They had been wounded,
and they had hid in the field.
It
was too hot and they melted. They
almost poured out of our hands, they were so soft.
I:
Did anyone find out who they were?
Brothers
C'
etait deux no-aires!
I:
Two soldiers?
Brother: Ben oui, deux soldats, quo-e; deux no-aires!
I:
Well, what did you do with the bodies?
Brother:
We shoveled dirt over them. They stank so.
I:
Didn't you find out who they were?
Brother:
But I tell you, they were two black men.
I:
But being soldiers, they must have had .identity discs. Did you look
for them?
Brother: Tiens,
we didn't know that the blacks have
plaques d'idiotie.
(
This was the man's literal reply. He was not a bad man;
it
was
simply that it had not penetrated his head that a Senegalese was also
a French soldier and a man. That he said plaque d'idiotie instead of
plaque cfidentite was perhaps only a characteristic speech defect of
this weak-minded man.)
I:
Don't you think that these two soldiers have parents or relatives in
Africa who expect news of them?
Hostess: Tiens,
do 'you really think so?
I:
Of course.
Hostess:
I saw three Germans today. One of them said to me,
'Pon Clwur,
Madame.' (She imitated a German accent.)
And another said,
'Guerre
finie, Madame, retour Allemagne, femme, gosses!'
They have children
in
Germany, the poor things. Their relatives probably haven't heard
from them for a long time. Isn't that terrible? But neither have I had
any news of Jean and Georges. I hope they weren't captured.
(These
were her two sons.)
Brother:
The two black men were already l>tinking. There are supposed
to
be
three others still in the field there, further back, in Mother
Quatsou's field. We'll soon smell them out. It's terribly hot.
Et pis,
c'est
tout.
(Translated from the German)
