The Enormous Room | Page 9

"Because the excellent sous-lieutenant who translated when Mr. Lieutenant A. couldn't understand advised us to do so."
Following up this sortie, I addressed the mustache: "Write this down in the testimony--that I, here present, refuse utterly to believe that my friend is not as sincere a lover of France and the French people as any man living!--Tell him to write it," I commanded Noyon stonily. But Noyon shook his head, saying: "We have the very best reason for supposing your friend to be no friend of France." I answered: "That is not my affair. I want my opinion of my friend written in; do you see?" "That's reasonable," the rosette murmured; and the moustache wrote it down.
"Why do you think we volunteered?" I asked sarcastically, when the testimony was complete.
Monsieur le Ministre was evidently rather uncomfortable. He writhed a little in his chair, and tweaked his chin three or four times. The rosette and the moustache were exchanging animated phrases. At last Noyon, motioning for silence and speaking in an almost desperate tone, demanded:
"Est-ce-que vous détestez les boches?"
I had won my own case. The question was purely perfunctory. To walk out of the room a free man I had merely to say yes. My examiners were sure of my answer. The rosette was leaning forward and smiling encouragingly. The moustache was making little ouis in the air with his pen. And Noyon had given up all hope of making me out a criminal. I might be rash, but I was innocent; the dupe of a superior and malign intelligence. I would probably be admonished to choose my friends more carefully next time and that would be all....
Deliberately, I framed the answer:
"Non. J'aime beaucoup les fran?ais."
Agile as a weasel, Monsieur le Ministre was on top of me: "It is impossible to love Frenchmen and not to hate Germans."
I did not mind his triumph in the least. The discomfiture of the rosette merely amused me. The surprise of the moustache I found very pleasant.
Poor rosette! He kept murmuring desperately: "Fond of his friend, quite right. Mistaken of course, too bad, meant well."
With a supremely disagreeable expression on his immaculate face the victorious minister of security pressed his victim with regained assurance: "But you are doubtless aware of the atrocities committed by the boches?"
"I have read about them," I replied very cheerfully.
"You do not believe?"
"?a ce peut."
"And if they are so, which of course they are" (tone of profound conviction) "you do not detest the Germans?"
"Oh, in that case, of course anyone must detest them," I averred with perfect politeness.
And my case was lost, forever lost. I breathed freely once more. All my nervousness was gone. The attempt of the three gentlemen sitting before me to endow my friend and myself with different fates had irrevocably failed.
At the conclusion of a short conference I was told by Monsieur:
"I am sorry for you, but due to your friend you will be detained a little while."
I asked: "Several weeks?"
"Possibly," said Monsieur.
This concluded the trial.
Monsieur le Ministre conducted me into room number 1 again. "Since I have taken your cigarettes and shall keep them for you, I will give you some tobacco. Do you prefer English or French?"
Because the French (paquet bleu) are stronger and because he expected me to say English, I said "French."
With a sorrowful expression Noyon went to a sort of bookcase and took down a blue packet. I think I asked for matches, or else he had given back the few which he found on my person.
Noyon, t-d and the grand criminal (alias I) now descended solemnly to the F.I.A.T. The more and more mystified conducteur conveyed us a short distance to what was obviously a prison-yard. Monsieur le Ministre watched me descend my voluminous baggage.
This was carefully examined by Monsieur at the bureau, of the prison. Monsieur made me turn everything topsy-turvy and inside out. Monsieur expressed great surprise at a huge shell: where did I get it?--I said a French soldier gave it to me as a souvenir.--And several _têtes d'obus_?--also souvenirs, I assured him merrily. Did Monsieur suppose I was caught in the act of blowing up the French Government, or what exactly?--But here are a dozen sketch-books, what is in them?--Oh, Monsieur, you flatter me: drawings.--Of fortifications? Hardly; of poilus, children, and other ruins.--Ummmm. (Monsieur examined the drawings and found that I had spoken the truth.) Monsieur puts all these trifles into a small bag, with which I had been furnished (in addition to the huge duffle-bag) by the generous Red Cross. Labels them (in French): "Articles found in the baggage of Cummings and deemed inutile to the case at hand." This leaves in the duffle-bag aforesaid: my fur coat, which I brought from New York; my bed and blankets and bed-roll, my civilian clothes, and about twenty-five pounds