In First blood d’Amelia Nothomb, Patrick, fatherless when he was only eight months old, was raised by his mother and maternal grandparents. It was only at the age of six that he discovered the other part of his family: the Nothomb clan. The Belgian author puts herself in the shoes of her father (who died last year), and tells us about the time of conflicts, love and a passion for diplomacy.
Here is the first episode of our series revealing excerpts from novels of the literary school year 2021.
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“I am led in front of the firing squad.
Time stretches, each second lasts a century longer than the last. I am twenty eight years old.
In front of me, death has the face of the twelve performers. The custom is that among the weapons distributed, one is loaded blank. Thus, each one can believe himself innocent of the murder which is going to be perpetrated. I doubt that tradition has been kept today. None of these men seem to need the possibility of innocence.
About twenty minutes ago, when I heard my name scream, I immediately knew what it meant. And I swear I sighed in relief. Since I was going to be killed, I wouldn’t need to talk anymore. It’s been four months that I negotiated our survival, four months that I launched into interminable palaver in order to postpone our assassination. Who will defend the other hostages now? I ignore it and it distresses me, but a part of me is comforted: I will finally be able to shut up.
In the vehicle that took me to the monument, I looked at the world and began to notice its beauty. Too bad to have to leave this splendor. Too bad, above all, to have taken twenty-eight years of existence to be there at this sensitive point.
I was thrown out of the truck and the contact with the earth enchanted me: this soil so welcoming and tender, as I love it! What a lovely planet! It seems to me that I could appreciate it so much more. Again, it is a bit late. For a bit, I would be happy to have my corpse left there without burial in a few minutes.
It is midday, the sun draws an uncompromising light, the air gives off maddening odors of vegetation, I am young and full of health, it is too stupid to die, not now. Above all, not to utter historical words, I dream of silence. The noise of the detonations which will massacre me will displease my ears.
To think that I envied Dostoyevsky the experience of the firing squad! It is my turn to experience this revolt of my intimate being. No, I refuse the injustice of my death, I ask for one more moment, each moment is so strong, just to savor the passing of the seconds is enough for my trance.
The twelve men aim at me. Do I see my life passing by before me? The only thing I feel is an extraordinary revolution: I am alive. Each moment is infinitely divisible, death will not be able to reach me, I plunge into the hard core of the present.
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In First Blood, Amélie Nothomb puts herself in her father’s shoes and tells us about the time of conflict, love and a passion for diplomacy. © Albin Michel
The present began twenty-eight years ago.
In the beginnings of my consciousness, I see my unusual joy in existing.
Unusual because insolent: around me sorrow reigned. I was eight months old when my father died in a mine clearance accident.
It just goes to show that dying is a family tradition.
My father was a soldier, he was twenty-five. That day he had to learn to demine.
The exercise was cut short: by mistake, a real mine had been placed in place of the false one. He died in early 1937.
Two years earlier, he had married Claude, my mother. It was the great love as we experienced in this Belgium of good circles which so singularly evokes the nineteenth century: with restraint and dignity. The photos show a young couple on horseback in the forest. My parents are very elegant, they are beautiful and slim, they love each other. They look like characters from Barbey d’Aurevilly.
What amazes me about these photos is the happy look of my mother. I have never seen her like this. Their wedding photo album ends with photos of a funeral.
Obviously, my mother had planned to write the captions for the photographs later, when she had time. In the end, she didn’t have the desire. Her life as a fulfilled wife lasted two years.
At twenty-five, she found her widow’s expression. She never took off that mask. Even his smile was frozen. Hardness took hold of that face and robbed it of its youth.
His entourage said to him:
– At least you have the consolation of having a child.
She turned her head towards the cradle and saw a cute, happy-looking baby. This joviality discouraged her.
When I was born, however, she had loved me. Her first child was a boy: she had been congratulated. Now she knew that I was not her first but her only child. The idea that she had to replace her love for her husband with the love of a child outraged him. No one, of course, had offered it to him in those terms.
That is how she understood it, however.
Claude’s father was a general. He found his son-in-law’s death very acceptable. He didn’t comment on her. La Grande Muette had in him her great mute.
Claude’s mother was a tender and gentle woman. The fate of his daughter terrified him.
– Confide in me your sorrow, my poor darling.
– Stop it, Mom. Let me suffer.
– Suffer, suffer a good blow. It will only have a time. After you will remarry.
– Shut your mouth ! Never, do you hear, I will remarry. André was and is the man of my life.
– Sure. Now you have Patrick. “
First Blood, by Amélie Nothomb, 180 p., € 17.90. © Albin Michel. In bookstores on August 18.
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