Once in Europa Read Online Free

me to do something else, so what am I to do? Just tell me clearly what you want and I’ll do it! Soldier Berthier! Clean out this room! One of you tells me to do this, another one tells me to do that … To every order, his father replied in the same way. Soldier Berthier, one month’s detention! He was put in a cell. Prisoner Berthier, are you a good shot? You tell me clearly what you want, and I’ll do it. The Company needs a good marksman, Berthier! He was taken out and given a rifle and five bullets. He scored five bull’s-eyes. For the rest of his military service he had no duties and no fatigues. All he had to do was go occasionally and shoot in the regimental competitions on the rifle range. When his father finished the story, he always added: On this earth, Felo, you need to be clever.
    In April he planted his potatoes. It was as hot that year in April as it usually is in June. Walking slowly along the drill, he dropped a potato between his legs every twenty centimetres. Sometimes the potato fell badly and he was forced to bend down to place it properly.
    There are some who know where to go, Mick, and some that have to be put in their place!
    Each time he chose with his eyes the exact place between the clods where he hoped the potato would fall. If he did not do this, it fell badly.
    The last potato planted, he climbed towards the house. It was almost noon. Suddenly he stopped in his steps. High above the roof a swarm of bees was flying away from the sun towards the north.
    Rushing into the kitchen, he came out with a large saucepan and a metal soup ladle. He ran through the orchard rattling theladle in the saucepan. Mick was barking at his heels. When he was ahead of the swarm, he drummed harder than ever, and held the saucepan so that it glinted in the sun and flashed like a mirror. The swarm, subject to a single will, made straight for the nearest plum tree and settled on one of its branches.
    Now he could take his time. He found an empty hive and rubbed its inside with plum leaves. He strolled over to the outhouse to fetch a saw. He sawed off the branch on which the bees were settled and carried it over to the hive. There he tapped the branch smartly with a plank and the swarm fell off like a wig.
    If the Queen is there, they’ll stay. If not, they’ll leave tomorrow.
    It was then that he heard his mother’s voice calling him by name. The sound the bees were making gave birth to her voice, and at the same time muffled it. The voice went on repeating his name as if the solitude of his days were now in the name itself.
    Each season loads up men as if they were wheelbarrows and then wheels them forward to do its tasks. Félix ploughed the field for the alfalfa. One day, when he was twelve, in the field he was now ploughing, his father had said to him:
    Do you want to come hunting with me?
    They climbed, both of them, to the forest below Peniel.
    We’ll wait here, Felo, and do nothing. Shut your mouth and keep your eyes skinned.
    His father cut some branches from a beech tree and arranged them like a light screen in front of them. The beech leaves, just unfurled, were as fresh-looking as lettuces. They waited behind the screen for what seemed to Félix an eternity. The bones in his body began to ache one by one because he didn’t dare move a limb. His father sat there as patient as if he were listening to music, his gun between his knees. From behind a spruce twenty metres away, a wild boar appeared, hesitated, and then walked, like a confident habitué, across their vision. The father fired. The boar keeled over and lay down as if inexplicably overcome by sleep.
    Do you know what’s important in this life, Felo?
    No, Papa.
    Good health. And what does good health give you? It gives you a steady hand.
    The father prodded the animal with his boot.
    Guard him! he said and disappeared down the path to the village. Félix sat on his heels beside the dead boar, whose small