Original subtitles

He was an only child at a time when the country was poor, the families many,

but he, without brother or sister, had felt apart, at the beginning in any case,

then he had accepted the situation, perceiving too

that there would be for him no necessity to leave his village on the edge of the lake.

He was of the lake

and, thanks to it undoubtedly, had never had the impression of having an empty head.

When he went to fish with his father boss, he watched its rhythms,

observed the water the better to understand its mobility; announcing himself to it, he made it an ally.

Fortunately, papa had a large boat with a deep, reassuring hull.

On the water it was necessary to hold on in all weather,

the chief had told him carefully, to transmit to him hid knowledge,

reminding him several times that the lake was a demanding element, to be respected;

this affirmation had remained with him,

he'll remember it when he'll see the schools of dead fish floating on the surface.

Very early the boy had felt a kind of excitation of his imagination,

a shudder suggested by the lake, on condition of welcoming with benevolence

the unexpected that he detected, when day disputed its place with night.

He felt in his heart a mystery which he wondered

if one life would be enough to solve.

He'd barely finished growing when, foreseeing change in the air,

his father woke him in the deep of night to take in the nets.

The boy had learned to control his fear, when it seemed the waves were mixed

with cries from lost souls rejected by a world without joy.

Work completed, papa set him on a pontoon near the school, where he joined his class, stomach empty;

he only had to wait till noon to fill himself up, as mama had accustomed him to.

And if anyone protested, she'd have objected to anyone daring to contradict her,

that children have to learn to bend to adults to understand the hard lessons of life.

From these noctural and sudden adventures, Paulus had learned to be wary of sleep.

Very interesting things happened at night

when fishermen coming from the two shores met

inevitably in the middle of the lake, deep at this point 300 meters;

they laid or pulled in the pics, the nets that descended 30 meters beneath the water,

twisted in the waves, got tangled up too.

If the border had a precise line on the geography maps, on the water it was invisible:

Swiss and French, Vaudois and Savoyards, converged there, in straight lines from where they lived,

there where trout, feras, or whitefish were found,

and men were forced to act in accord with the animation of the fish.

The fishermen talked to one another about their preoccpations, like their fathers before them:

people exercising the same craft are colleagues, its practice had made them brothers.

And as if to give a natural continuation to these noctural encounters,

the father and son had engaged themselves since 1942 in favor of the Resistance,

They did it their way: without fuss, without bragging, not talking about it with anyone;

nothing was to come to light about what had happened by night.

When they left the Swiss shore, they carried medicines and food and, on the return,

took away resisters pursued by the Gestapo, Jews being chased, or more of the wounded.

Exchanges took place in these waters, at the same time the nets were raised.

Each one knew what he had to do:

the fugitives carried a flask, simple precaution in case they'd have to stay hidden.

Above all they kept quiet.

Everyone kept quiet to avoid attracting attention.

From a friend of Thonon, the two Amis were not unaware that Pierre Mendès-France, after his escape in June 1941,

had crossed the lake in the same conditions

except that the smuggler had led him personally to the coast opposite Allaman.

This information had been whispered to them by Paul, the fisherman they'd already known before the war;

knowing they were from the same shore, he'd asked their help for the resisters from the Glières plateau.

All three knew they didn't each think the same way,

maybe among the boats crossing the lake at night there were intruders selling their services,

but the area was important enough to group by affinity:

the darkness, unfailing friend, absorbed their differences, and when they spoke aloud

it was to comment on the quality of the mesh in their nets, which held, which came undone,

the abundance or scarcity of fish,

their size and, after this, the food conveyed to shore.

Shadow and light went together:

this truth had struck them on their entry into fishing, the profession of free men.

And in the middle of the years beginning in 1942,

they'd seen and heard things which didn't have immediate explanation:

the frightened look on the Jews they transported, the rumors circulating of harsh treatment of them.

And the flasks, why were these flasks,

like those carried by the fugitives, being caught by their nets,

and what were they doing in the water?

After the war, they'll find even more of them, will be astonished, will keep quiet,

because they'll know that what comes back up from the deep, won't offer answers to the questions.

Intrigued, the son will foresee signs of treason, without passing them on:

people will get used to the silence recommended during the hostilities.

people will also know that, in the villages on the two sides of the lake,

some individuals were enthusiastic for the Germans.

Born in 1909, Paulus was five when Jaurès died.

As a young adult, he became interested in this man,

whom he thought just, like few he knew around him.

From his lakeside village surrounded by vines, he perceived --

despite the conservative spirit of the place, linked perhaps to the pleasant, even soothing landscape --

yes, he foresaw the acceleration of the world producing visible progress, difficult to imagine without peace.

He simply reasoned that

if humanity could be drawn by the good, people wouldn't talk of war.

But isn't every creature linked to daily murder?

Neither fish nor meat is eaten without being put to death,

he noted, while suppressing the life of a pike or a trout.

He was careful not to express his feeling, in order not to irritate his father or mother.

his parents saw their welfare only in work

and distrusted those who prattled loud and long

or those who waxed sentimentally about the origins of food.

And this he'd understood early on, maybe the day when the minister

who reigned over the protestant souls in the village

had visited his parents to remind them of their duty: to send their son to Sunday school,

the boy had to hear talk of God.

Were madame and monsieur aware that this boy was growing up

in a country whose Constitution began with the invocation

"In the name of God Almighty"?

And then there'd been the war, muddling the habits of the peoples of the lake:

on the Swiss side, the coast was watched by territorial soldiers.

Which didn't at all stop the professional fisherman from both sides

from meeting at night, there where the fish played.

They were left the right to exercise their profession.

In the first communal elections of the war, in 1941,

some personalities of the city, mavericks annoyed by the liberal-radical alliance,

which presented to the citizens only a single list,

had founded an independent part proposing candidates outside the inner circle,

an audacity greeted by questions why are they splitting off?

aren't they happy among us, don't they earn their living well enough?

whereas elsewhere in Europe many were wondering what would happen tomorrow...

No one had seen this rebellious spirit coming, which had won over their fellow citizens too

for in an historic upset all the candidates on the independent list were elected.

It was thus that Ami, called "Paulus," had made his entry into the communal legislative assembly.

After the war he'd go even further, founding with other workers the Socialist Party,

daring to clash with the municipal potentates clinging to their radical helm, who were alarmed at the same time

by the resignation of a Swiss minister of state under Soviet pressure,

the presence of the Red Army in Vienna, and the total victory

of the Social-Communist left in the Lausanne executive,

certain that Stalin hated them personally, and

along with him, the Communists whose presence had to be put up with!

Communists in the home town of Frédéric César de La Harpe!

Seven of them will sit here, in our city's legislative council, yes, my good sir, seven.

O ungrateful people ready to have Stalin disembark

in our vineyards to stamp on the heritage of the champion of our independence!

And with them, seven socialists, more respectable perhaps, but just as complaning.

The "ah!" of regret was overwhelming, turned into jeremiads, lugubrious lamentations:

what consideration have they for everything we've done before them?

We've taken care of the people, we made primary school obligatory!

Do they know this?

And let us beware, pink is close to red and with it, patriotism falls apart.

And us, what is our fate?

Our great old party collapsed, our beautiful community accord eroded!

We are disappearing from the executive like scumbags!

Fortunately damages were limited, the left had not crushed everyone like in Lausanne,

the center had the majority,

the executive seats came back to them, with them one could dialog without losing temper,

spread of the red was avoided,

and the local paper, in the hands of the right, said as little possible about the tidal wave that had destabilized

their so beautiful accord, absent consequently from the executive and for how long?

"Ach! Russenshreck!" one of them couldn't help muttering,

a speaker of Alemannic origin, worried by the prevalent anxiety,

as if the four horseman of the Apocalypse, in full power, were bursting through the clouds,

out of the lightning, riding over the violent lake and brandishing their mission orders:

the first of them on his white horse menaced them with the total victory of Communism;

the second of his fire-red horse called for liquidation of their social class;

the third on his black horse promised them a regime of bread and water and finally,

the fourth on his pale horse their certain end...

However the speaker of Alemannic original amused himself

noting that, in the name of freedom of thought, the bourgeois of the city

considered themselves injured by the presence of these Communists in the legislature;

they were attached to this city they'd administered for decades, and put everything to work to stop

the spread of jabber and prattle, twisted gossip.

There was nothing to laugh about because in France,

just next to us or in front, depending how one turned, the Communists in the government

were making rain and good weather, and indeed the mayor of Thonon was a Communist,

which was frightening, no?