People give birth to tomorrow: Régis Jauffret and Hitler's mother

All families have a history. Certain parts of the cells are also exposed to the coin of the fire in the illetted camps and sources. The contes brumeux dont chacun dévide sa version au fil des veillées. Les personnages are ressemblent chaque soir un peu moins, portent des noms en perpétuelle métamorphose, gagnant une syllabe, perdant une diphtongue et certains grossiers patronymes de sortir soudain de leur chrysalide pour devenir, comme celui qu'inventa Uncle, élégants comme des dandies.

A tour, a magma, a mare d'ancêtres incertains.

Régis Jauffret, Clara's belly.

All families have a story. Some are like the stories that used to be told around the fireside in the uneducated countryside, stories to which I once had the vanity to compare my pitiful words. They are misty tales, each one telling their own version as the night watch progresses. The characters resemble each other a little less each evening, their names are in constant flux, a syllable more, a diphthong less, and some rough surnames suddenly emerge from their puppets, becoming as elegant as dandies, like the one Uncle invented.

A moor, a magma, a pool with uncertain ancestors.

Je n'avais pas le cœur ce soir-là de la soumettre à un interrogatoire vigoureux. Elle me tourmentait pour mon salut et celui du pécheur que je portais en moi et je suis grosse du prochain siècle et un coup de scalpel du doctor Bloch sauverait son peuple et il veille sur cet enfant comme s'il était le Messie que les siens attendent depuis deux mille ans et tout est grossesse et à chaque instant les humans accouchent de main et ils jettent un regard vitreux à la catastrophe dont ils viennent de mettre un fragment au monde et ils espèrent n'être plus quand elle surviendra et le present ne peut plus rien

et le passé ne savait pas

et vogue l'humanité sur l'éternel radeau fabriqué de bric et de broc avec les planches de l'arche de Noé et on n'expie jamais assez de vivre et d'avoir vécu et même simplement de nourrir le project de naître et la joie d'exister et l'ivresse de multiplier la vie et cet The children are very happy and have a good time and they have a variety of children who have had a great coup on their bodies and the sounds of their corps and their aura plus for playing the world and the net of the son of the sanglante and laver the pieds of their victims with the sanglots and embrassed Joanna sur le front et elle a rougi et elle est partie en courant s'enfermer dans sa chambre et j'ai senti mes lèvres former un sourire et je me suis demandé si ce n'était pas l'enfant qui du fond de mon ventre l'avait propulsé pour montrer au Ciel notre confiance et notre amour.

Régis Jauffret, Clara's belly.

That evening I couldn't bring myself to interrogate her forcefully. She tormented me for my salvation and that of the sinner I carried within me, and I am carrying the next century, and a scalpel incision by Dr. Bloch would save his people, yet he guards this child as if it were the Messiah his people have been waiting for for two thousand years, and everything is pregnancy, and in every moment people give birth to tomorrow, and they cast a glassy-eyed glance at the catastrophe of which they have just brought a fragment into the world, and they hope not to be alive when it breaks, and the present can save nothing more.

and the past knew nothing

And humanity sails on the eternal raft, cobbled together from the planks of Noah's Ark, and one can never atone enough for living and having lived, if only for nurturing the process of birth and the joy of life and the intoxication of procreation, and this child who will love me and be my happiness, and who, scarcely out of childhood, will suddenly shed all the tears of its body at my grave, and it will have none left to weep for the world and cleanse its bloody soul and sobly wash the feet of its victims, and I kissed Johanna on the forehead and she blushed and ran away to lock herself in her room, and I felt my lips form a smile, and I wondered if it wasn't this child who, from the depths of my womb, was the driving force to show heaven our trust and our love.

Je ne m'étais jamais rendue chez the doctor Bloch. The s'était toujours déplacé car d'ordinaire quand nous avions recours à lui nous étions trop mal en point pour quitter notre lit. Je suis arrivée essoufflée et suante sous le cagnard d'août. I'm from the fontaine that makes the portail grand ouvert de sa maison en pierres blanches. J'ai traversé une allée plantée d'ormeaux et l'herbe parsemée de têtes tranchées champignons humains poussés dans la nuit et les éclats d'ossements blancs comme des coquillages quand on eut noyé les cendres dans la terre gorgee de sang de pleurs de hurlements et Le calme et le silence et l'odeur de néant et quatre-vingts ans après la dernière crémation les chambres à gaz remontent des abîmes et apparaissent çà et là toujours brilliantes comme les carreaux de faïence rouges et blancs qui recouvraient leurs parois et j'ai avancé en regardant devant I pour demeurer dans the axe de this journée radieuse. The design of the wood doesn't have the juices added to the portes that are visible from the entrance room. D'après Oncle chacun contained a parchemin où sont inscrites des formulaes tirées de la Kabbale - a livre magique plus puissant encore que l'Apocalypse de Saint Jean.

Régis Jauffret, Clara's belly.

I had never been to Dr. Bloch's before. He had always come to me, because we were usually too ill to leave our beds when we called him. I arrived breathless and sweating in the August heat. I refreshed myself at the fountain that stood beside the wide-open gate of his white stone house. I walked through an avenue planted with elm trees, and the grass was littered with severed heads, human fungi that had grown in the night, and bone fragments that were white as shells after the ashes had been drowned in the blood-soaked, weeping, screaming earth, and the peace and the stillness and the smell of nothingness, and eighty years after the last cremation, the gas chambers rise from the depths and still appear here and there, shining like the red and white tiles that covered their walls, and I walked on, looking ahead, to stay on track in this bright day. A kind of wooden case, used by Jews to decorate their doors, was screwed to the door frame. According to my uncle, each one contained a scroll with formulas from the Kabbalah – a magical book even more powerful than the Book of Revelation.

A complete history of domestique idiote, illettrée, naïve, aimant sa maîtresse qui lui verses un salary de misère, aimant de surcroît les mioches de these femme comme ceux qu'elle n'aura jamais. Une pauvre fille heureuse de sa condition abjecte à qui, même en rêve, ne viendrait pas à l'esprit de revendiquer meilleur sort - voilà bien de quoi abrutir convenablement le lecteur. […]

On n'a jamais écrit plus beautiful texts. The language of French atteignait là son acmé. After Flaubert, the serait temps de la dévoyer comme le firent with the genius Proust and Céline. Elle connut par la suite une period de stagnation. A period of glaciation. The authors used it as a millennium tool, a model, and a chignole don't have to worry about the origin and imagine it.

Régis Jauffret, Dictionnaire amoureux de Flaubert, “Loulou et Félicité”.

A story about a completely idiotic, uneducated, naive maid who loves her mistress, who pays her a pittance, and who, moreover, loves this woman's children as if they were her own, children she will never have. A poor girl who is content with her lowly situation and wouldn't even dream of demanding a better fate—that's a good basis for dumbing down the reader. […]

A more beautiful text has never been written. The French language reached its zenith here. After Flaubert, it was time to misuse it, as Proust and Céline did so brilliantly. Afterwards, it experienced a period of stagnation, a period of icy realism. Writers used it like a timeless tool, a hammer, a crutch, which they wielded without questioning its origins or imagining how it could be improved.

Au mois de Mars, à plusieurs reprises je fus la proie de malaises. Je parvenais difficilement à assurer la tenue du ménage, à faire les courses, la cuisine et à m'occuper sans relâche des enfants. Oncle engagea une soul qui gâcha un rôti. The écrivit alors à mon père pour qu'il lui envoie ma sœur. When you arrive, you will have to listen to the accord and then touch it again and return it to the hospital après mes couches.

My parents rechignèrent à la récupérer after the naissance of Gustav. Son infirmité ne permettait pas de la marier et il était difficile de la faire engager comme domestic. Dans les campagnes beaucoup croient que les bossus portent malheur et les estropiés et les fous que des ambulances à rideaux blancs amènent sur les lieux de leur execution dans les premières chambres à gaz du Reich et des camions bâchés empportent les cadavres et la population qui protestse and the Vatican qui trop tard condamne et à son arrivée chez nous Johanna avait quinze ans et on lui en aurait donné trois de moins car elle était malingre et pas encore formée et elle était triste d'avoir été exilée du jour au lendemain sans qu'on lui demandât son advice.

Oncle la rudoyait car elle avait un vocabulaire réduit, faisait des fautes d'allemand et ne comprenait pas toujours ce qu'on lui demandait. Elle n'a jamais été d'un tempérament docile mais il savait se faire crindre et elle courbait l'échine.

Elle ne s'était jamais occupée d'enfants. Elle s'est pourtant entendue avec eux dès le premier jour. A proximity with these two devices is not connected to the language of adults. Quant à eux, ils se frottaient à elle comme des chats, et puisqu'elle n'avait pas son pareil pour les consoler, Oncle décida qu'elle dormirait dans leur chambre.

Régis Jauffret, Clara's belly.

In March, I was plagued by recurring bouts of illness. I could barely manage the household, the shopping, the cooking, and the tireless care of the children. My uncle hired an old crone who ruined a roast. He then wrote to my father, asking him to send my sister. When she arrived, he reminded her that, according to their agreement, she wouldn't receive a salary and would have to return to the hospital after my births.

My parents hesitated to bring her back after Gustav's birth. Because of her disability, marriage was impossible, and it was difficult to employ her as a maid. In the countryside, many believe that hunchbacks bring bad luck, as do cripples and the mentally ill, who are taken by ambulance with white curtains to the site of their execution in the first gas chambers of the Reich, and whose bodies are transported away by trucks covered with tarpaulins. The population protests, and the Vatican condemns it too late. When Johanna arrived, she was 15 years old, and people would have thought she was three years younger because she was sickly and underdeveloped. She was saddened to be sent into exile overnight without having been asked for her opinion.

Her uncle bullied her because she had a limited vocabulary, made speech impediments, and didn't always understand what was expected of her. She was never submissive, but he knew how to inspire fear, and she cowered.

She had never cared for children before. Yet she got along with them from the very first day. A closeness to these growing beings, whose language she understood better than that of adults. The children cuddled her like cats, and since no one surpassed her at comforting them, Uncle decided she should sleep in her own room.

The tent now has a chance to meet the man and the book is destined to come to the baby as soon as he arrives in a long package with a voyageur who is surprised at the front of the station that the police officers don't have a carriage in a bestiaux où fleet l'odeur des Humains morts debout lors du precédent voyage et à la traîne de Jésus en ce samedi saint le fruit est descendu visiter l'enfer et je suis la rampe de lancement du massacre et à l'instant de la ponte s'est déclenché le compte à rebours de la bombe que j'abritais dans mes entrailles

A baby, a bambin, and a cherubim

And grace with my soins attentifs mes câlins mes baisers mes caresses il ne fera que croître et embellir et je serai morte au moment de la déflagration et ce sera le plus grand attentat de l'Histoire jamais perpétré contre le peuple élu et les Tziganes et les handicapés and les homosexuals et les témoins de Jehovah et les oubliés des lists et à tout moment j'aurais pu l'étouffer l'empoisonner le poignarder dans son sommeil au lieu de le couvrir d'amour le couver le veiller la nuit quand il avait pris froid et je demeurerai à jamais coupable de The porté fabriqué créé et les flammes des fours jettent leur clarté sur mon visage et je la prends pour celle de la bougie parfumée que vient d'allumer Johanna pour purifier l'atmosphère et sur le parking une nuée d'enfants multiethniques vêtus d'habits multicolores sautent des cars scolaires bien alignés sur le macadam et la joie d'avoir évité une matinée de cours et les moniteurs les professeurs les parents qui les chaperonnent en causant et la marche enthousiaste vers le Mémorial et les cris et les rires et les bousculades et les chahuts

and the illumination can be seen in the blue mirror of the sky

and on the armchair in a beautiful gosse also manquent les jambes fait la course avec a petit crépu en claquettes qui porte la kipa et a young black girl comme un soleil joue les funambules sur les rails qui menaient à l'abattoir et là-bas un guide haut-parleur sur le dos s'empare de la troupe et les mots s'échappent trop vite de sa bouche et son commentaire poursuit la réalité sans jamais parvenir à la rattraper et Arbeit macht frei et on passe sous le portail et on court devant les petites maisons inertes jadis bruissant de soupirs de plaintes de cris et le laboratoire avec la rigole pour évacuer le sang des opérés torturés mutilés moribonds devenus infirmes débiles simples cadavres pauvre fumée et l'heure advance et on court le long de l'interminable vitrine où sont exposés des quintaux de lunettes de bagages de longues chevelures et les papillotes des Hassidim et on traverse au pas de course les chambres à gaz maintenues dans la pénommbre par de maigres néons et la muraille griffée et imbibée de sang noir et le lent return verse le parking et ceux qui ont subi la plus éprouvante épreuve de leurs quinze années d'existence

Régis Jauffret, Clara's belly.

He is trying again to reach manhood, and I surrender it to fate, like the baby tossed by its mother like a bundle of diapers to a stunned traveler on a platform before the police shoved it into a cattle car lingering with the smell of people who died standing on the previous journey, and in Jesus' wake on this Holy Saturday, the fruit has descended to visit hell, and I am the launching pad of the massacre, and at the moment of egg fertilization, the countdown began for the bomb I harbored within me.

a baby a toddler a cherub

And thanks to my careful nurturing, my hugs, my kisses, my caresses, he will continue to grow and become more beautiful, and I will be dead when the explosion occurs, and it will be the greatest attack in history ever perpetrated against the chosen people and the Roma and the disabled and the homosexuals and Jehovah's Witnesses and the forgotten of the lists, and I could have suffocated him at any time, poisoned him, stabbed him in his sleep, instead of showering him with love, nurturing him, watching over him at night when he caught a cold, and I will forever be guilty because I created him, and the flames of the ovens cast their bright light on my face, and I mistake it for the light of the scented candle that Johanna just lit to purify the air, and in the parking lot, a swarm of multi-ethnic children in colorful clothes jump out of the school buses lined up on the asphalt, and the joy of having spent a morning had no lessons, and the chaperones, the teachers, the parents supervising them and chatting, and the enthusiastic march to the memorial, and the shouting, the laughing, the pushing, and the romping.

and the enlightened one, who drools helplessly when he sees himself in the blue mirror of the sky.

and in his armchair sits a handsome young man who is missing both legs, and he is racing a small, curly-haired fellow in a kippah and flip-flops, and a young girl, black as the sun, is playing tightrope walker on the tracks that led to the slaughterhouse, and over there is a tour guide raising his voice, and the words escape his mouth too quickly, and his commentary follows reality without ever approaching it, and Arbeit macht freiAnd we go under the gate and run past the small, lifeless houses that were once filled with sighs, laments, and cries, and past the laboratory with the trough through which the blood of the tortured, mutilated, moribund, crippled, bare corpses flowed, poor smoke, and the hour marches on, and you run along the endless display case in which tons of eyeglasses, luggage, long hair, and the curls of the Hasidim are exhibited, and you cross at a run the gas chambers, kept in semi-darkness by sparse neon tubes, and the scratched and black-blood-soaked wall, and the slow way back to the parking lot and to those who have endured the worst ordeal of their fifteen-year existence