Death on the Installment Plan (22 page)

Say what you like, that makes an impression. Little André would really have liked me to go on … to throw in some more details … He liked nice stories … But he was afraid I’d begin to influence him … He fished around in his box … He jiggled his little pieces of zinc … his brushes … he didn’t want me to cast a spell on him … he didn’t want us to be friends like before …

The same afternoon I came back up again with another load … He still wouldn’t speak to me … I was good and tired, I sat down … I really wanted him to talk to me. “Say, André,” I said, “I know the next chapter too, when all the merchants go off to Palestine … With Thibaut on the crusade … And they leave the troubadour behind to guard the castle … and Wanda, the princess … You never heard about that? It’s marvelous … especially Wanda’s vengeance, the way she washes away her affront in blood … the way she humiliates her father …”

Little André pricked up his ears. He didn’t want to interrupt me, but I heard faint sounds in the corridor … I didn’t want to break the spell. Suddenly I saw Lavelongue’s phizz in the little window … I jumped … He must have come up that very second to catch me … Of course somebody had tipped him off … I shot up … I put my shoes on … He just gives me a little sign …

“Splendid, Ferdinand. Splendid! We’ll attend to this later. Stay right where you are, my boy!”

I didn’t have to wait long. The next day I come home for lunch and my mother gives it to me …

“Ferdinand,” she starts right in … already resigned, absolutely convinced … “Monsieur Lavelongue has just left … Yes, in person! … Do you know what he said? … He doesn’t want you on the job anymore. Isn’t that a fine how-do-you-do? He was dissatisfied before, but this was the last straw. He tells me you hide in the attic for hours on end! … Instead of getting ahead with your work! … And giving little André bad ideas … He caught you … Don’t deny it … telling stories … disgusting stories … Don’t try to tell me any different! … With a common child like that! A guttersnipe! Monsieur Lavelongue has known us for ten years, luckily, thank goodness! He knows we’re not to blame. He knows how we work our fingers to the bone. Both of us, your father and I, to give you everything you need. He knows the kind of people we are … He respects us. He wants to treat us kindly. He’s asked us to take you back. Out of consideration for us he won’t dismiss you … He’ll spare us the shame of it … Ah, when I tell your father … he’s going to be sick! …”

Just then he comes home from the office. The moment he opened the door, she starts telling him the story … As he listened, he clutched the table … He couldn”t believe his ears … He looked me up and down and shrugged his shoulders … The two of them collapsed with dismay … A monster like me was past understanding … He didn’t bellow … he didn’t even hit me … He only wondered how he could bear it … He gave up. He rocked his chair … “Hm! … Hm! … Hm!” was all he said … back and forth … Then finally he spoke …

“So you’re even more unnatural, more underhanded, more abject than I imagined, Ferdinand?”

Then he looked at my mother and called her to witness that there was nothing more they could do … that I was incorrigible …

I myself was crushed, I searched the depths of my soul, trying to figure out what enormous vices, what unprecedented depravities I could be guilty of … I couldn’t get it straight … I couldn’t make up my mind … I found a whole raft of them, but I wasn’t sure of anything …

My father closed the session. He went up to his room, he wanted to be alone to think … I slept in a nightmare … The whole time I saw little André telling Monsieur Berlope awful things …

The following afternoon my mother and I went to get my reference … Monsieur Lavelongue gave it to us in person … Besides, he wanted to speak to me …

“Ferdinand,” he said to me. “Out of consideration for your worthy parents I’m not going to dismiss you … They are taking you back … of their own free will! You see the difference? Believe me, I’m sorry to see you leaving us. But I’ve got to face the facts: your misconduct has undermined discipline in every department … And I’m responsible, you see … I have had to take measures, what’s right is right! … But let this setback be a lesson to you. What little you’ve learned will surely be of use to you somewhere else! Experience is never wasted. You’ll have other employers, maybe some will be even less indulgent … It was a lesson you needed … Well, Ferdinand, now you’ve had it … I only hope you benefit by it … At your age you can always make up for lost time …” He shook my hand with a good deal of conviction. My mother’s emotion was indescribable … She dabbed at her eyes.

“Apologize, Ferdinand,” she ordered me as we were getting up to go. “He’s young, monsieur, he’s young … Thank Monsieur Lavelongue for giving you an excellent reference after all you’ve done … You don’t deserve it, you know!”

“Don’t mention it, madame, it’s nothing, nothing at all, I assure you. It’s the least I could do. Ferdinand is not the first young man to start out on the wrong foot. Oh, no, far from it. Ten years from now he himself … I can assure you … will come to me and say: ‘Monsieur Lavelongue, you did the right thing. You are a good man! Thanks to you, I found out what’s what!’ … But today he has it in for me … It’s only natural.” My mother protested. He tapped me on the shoulder. He showed us out.

The very next day they took on another apprentice for the stockroom … I heard about it … He didn’t last three months … He flopped down on every landing … The work killed him.

But innocent or guilty, a lot of good it did me. I was getting to be a real headache for the whole family. Uncle Édouard began to look for another job for me, as a salesman, I’d have to start all over again. But it wasn’t so easy for him this time … I’d have to try a different line …

I already had a past … It would be best not to mention it. And that’s what we decided.

Once he’d recovered from the shock, my father started raving again … He drew up a complete inventory of all my faults, one by one … He searched for the vices hidden deep down in me like a scientist looking for mysterious phenomena … He let out diabolical screams … He was having his fits again … He was being persecuted by a whole carnival of demons … He really turned on the gas … He dragged everybody into it … Jews … schemers … social climbers … And most of all the Freemasons … I don’t know what they had to do with it … He tracked his enemies to the ends of the earth … He got so lost in his apocalypse that in the end he forgot all about me …

He laced into Lempreinte, the monster with the stomach trouble … And Baron Méfaize, his managing director … Anybody and anything would do, as long as he could rave and splutter … He made a terrible hullabaloo, the neighbors were in stitches.

My mother dragged herself at his feet … He wouldn’t stop bellowing … He remembered me and my future … He discovered the worst symptoms in me … The most abominable profligacy! … Oh well, he washed his hands of me … Like Pontius Pilate … That’s exactly what he said … His conscience was clear …

My mother looked at me … her “cross”… It was sad, but she resigned herself … She’d never abandon me … Obviously I was going to end on the gallows and she’d stick by me all the way …

We had only one thing in common in our family in the Passage, and that was our terror of going hungry. We all had plenty of that. It was with me from my first breath … They passed it right on to me … We were all obsessed with it … As far as we were concerned, the soul was fear. In every room the walls sweated fear of going without … It made us swallow the wrong way, it made us bolt our meals and run around town like mad … we zigzagged like fleas all over Paris, from the Place Maubert to the Étoile, for fear of being auctioned off, for fear of the rent, of the gas man, the tax collector … We were always in such a hurry I never had time to wipe myself properly.

Since my dismissal from Berlope’s, I had in addition, all to myself, the fear of never getting anywhere in the world … I’ve known poor unemployed bastards, hundreds of them, here and all over the world, people who were only half a step from the poorhouse … They hadn’t managed right.

To tell the truth, my main pleasure in life is being quicker than the boss when it comes to getting fired … I can see that kidney punch coming … I can smell it a mile off … I can tell when a job is folding … I’ve got some other little racket sprouting in my other pocket. Bosses are all stinkers, all they think about is giving you the gate … There’s only one kind of real lowdown fear, the fear of being out on your ass, flat broke and no job … I’ve always had one on hand, some lousy meal ticket, it doesn’t matter what kind … I nibble at it, kind of like vaccinating yourself … I don’t give a shit what it is … I lug it through the streets, the mountains, and the muck … I’ve had such cockeyed ones they had neither shape, size, nor taste … It’s all one to me … It’s no skin off my ass. The sicker they make me, the less I worry …

I hate all jobs. Why should I make distinctions? … You won’t catch me singing any hymns of praise … I’d shit on the whole lot of them if I could … That’s what it is to work for hire …

Uncle Édouard was doing better and better in his hardware business. He mostly sold stuff for automobiles in the provinces, headlights and accessories. Unfortunately I was too young to go on the road with him. I’d have to wait a while … Besides, after what had happened I needed watching.

Uncle Édouard wasn’t so pessimistic about me, he didn’t think my case was so hopeless. If I was no good at a sedentary job, he said, maybe I’d make a first-class traveling salesman.

It seemed to be worth trying … Appearance was important, you had to have the right clothes … To make me really acceptable they added a couple of years to my age, they got me an extra-stiff collar, I’d wrecked all the others. They got me spats too, nice and gray over my shoes, so my feet wouldn’t look so enormous, so they wouldn’t clutter up people’s doormats. My father was skeptical, he had given up hope in my future. The neighbors put in their two cents’ worth, they all gave advice … Not that they expected much of my career … Even the Passage caretaker was against me … When he went around lighting the lamps, he’d drop in at all the shops and bat the breeze. I’d turn out to be a screwball, that’s what he told everybody, sort of like my father in his opinion, good for nothing except pestering people … Luckily there was Visios, the sailor, he had a soft spot for me, he realized I was doing my best and contradicted everybody. He said I wasn’t a bad kid. There was a good deal of talk … but I was still high and dry … They still had to find me a job.

At that point they began to wonder what they should have me sell … My mother wanted me to be a jeweler. That was her fondest hope … It struck her as eminently respectable. A jeweler’s staff had to be more than neat and spruce, they had to look really smart … And they handled treasures behind gleaming counters. But jewelers are tough when it comes to trusting anybody. They’re always trembling for their jewels. They can’t sleep, they’re so scared of being burgled, strangled, and set on fire! … Christ!

One thing that was indispensable was scrupulous honesty! On that score we had nothing to fear. With parents like mine, so meticulous, so strict about honoring their business obligations, I had a terrific reference! … I could apply to any employer … the most obsessed … the most suspicious … With me he could rest easy. Never, as far back as anybody could remember, had there been a thief in our family, not a single one.

Once that was settled, we began to look around. Mama reconnoitered some, she went to see the people we knew … They didn’t need anybody … In spite of my good intentions it was no cinch landing a job, even on trial.

They outfitted me again to make me more attractive. I was getting to be as costly as an invalid. I’d worn out my suit completely … I’d gone through my shoes … In addition to my matching spats they got me a new pair of shoes, Broomfields, the English brand, with enormous jutting soles … they looked like submarines. They got them twice too big, so they’d last a couple of years at least … They were awfully narrow, I thought I’d sprain my ankle, but I bore it with grim determination. I hobbled along on the Boulevards like a deep-sea diver.

Once I was patched up, my mother and I headed for the addresses we had. Uncle Édouard gave us the ones he got from his friends, we found the rest in the directory. Madame Divonne kept the shop every morning until noon while we went out job hunting. Believe me, we had no time for dawdling … We combed the whole Marais, door after door, and then the cross streets, rue Quin-campois, rue Galante, rue aux Ours, rue Vieille-du-Temple … We did the whole neighborhood, take my word for it, floor by floor …

My mother hobbled along behind … Tip-tap-plunk! Tip-tap-plunk! … She’d offer my services to every family, to little home artisans huddled behind their globes … She offered me ever so kindly … as an extra tool … a useful little drudge … not at all demanding … clever, eager, energetic … and best of all, a fast runner! All in all a good bargain … Well trained, obedient … At our timid ring on the bell, they’d open the door a crack … at first they were suspicious … Cigarette immobilized, expectant … they’d peer at me over their spectacles … They’d take a good look … Not very appetizing, they decided … In the face of their blousy wrinkled smocks, my mother would start her song and dance:

“You wouldn’t be needing a young salesman, monsieur? … I’m his mother. I thought I’d better come along … all he asks is to give satisfaction … He’s a very well-behaved young man … You can easily make inquiries about him … We’ve been in business for twelve years in the Passage des Bérésinas … The child has been raised in business … His father works for the Coccinelle Fire Insurance Company … You must have heard of it … We’re not rich, either one of us, but we don’t owe anybody a single penny … We honor our obligations … His father in the insurance company …”