Death on the Installment Plan (38 page)

For my part, I am trying to hold my own as long as possible … without losing all dignity and self-respect … I am doing my best to minimize the chances and risks of a scandal whose consequences I dread … all the consequences … I control myself … I restrain myself … I contain myself to avoid any possibility of a scene, a skirmish! Unfortunately, I am not always successful … In their misguided zeal these young opportunists provoke me deliberately … I have become the target, the butt of their malice … I feel pursued by their plots, their sarcasms, their incessant jibes … They amuse themselves at my expense … Why? … I am lost in conjectures … Is it the mere fact of my existence? As you can imagine, this persistent hostility, their very presence, is bitterly painful to me. Moreover, all things considered, I feel myself defeated in advance in this contest of smoothness, skulduggery, and malice! … What weapons have I to defend myself with? Without a fortune or family, with nothing more to my credit than a record of service honestly, scrupulously, rendered La Coccinelle over a period of two and twenty consecutive years, my blameless conscience, my perfect probity, my meticulous and unswerving sense of duty … What have I to expect? Obviously the worst … This ample inventory of sincere virtues will, I fear, be counted rather against me than to my credit on the day when my accounts are settled … Of that, my dear son, I have a clear presentiment! …

If my position proves untenable (as it is rapidly becoming), if I am discharged once and for all (any pretext will do, there is more and more talk of reorganizing the whole office)—what will become of us then? Your mother and I cannot think of this eventuality without a sense of the most terrible and justified anguish, without positive terror!

On an off chance, in a last impulse of self-defense, I have undertaken (a desperate measure) the task of learning to operate a typewriter, outside the office of course, taking advantage of the little time I can spare from deliveries and errands for the shop. We have rented the machine (an American make) for several months (one more expense). But here again I harbor no illusions … At my age, as you can well imagine, it is not easy to assimilate so novel a technique, new methods, new habits, new ways of thinking! Especially crushed as we are by continual misadventures … mercilessly tormented! … All this, my dear son, leads us to take the darkest view of our future. And beyond the slightest doubt or fear of exaggeration, we cannot afford the least mistake … not even the most trifling imprudence … if we, your mother and I, are not to end our existence in the most utter destitution!

We send you our love, my dear child. Once again your mother and I exhort you, adjure you, implore you, before your return from England (if not in our interest or for love of us, then at least in your own interest) to make a brave decision, to resolve above all to apply yourself body and soul to the success of your undertakings.

Your affectionate father, 

Auguste.
 

P. S.  Your mother asks me to inform you of the death of Madame Divonne last Monday at her haven in Kremlin-Bicêtre.

She had been confined to her bed for several weeks. She was suffering from emphysema and a heart ailment. She suffered little. The last few days she slumbered constantly … She was not aware of the approach of death. We had been to see her the day before, in the afternoon.

The next day, it must have been about noon, Jongkind and I were in the garden waiting for lunchtime … The weather was beautiful … Along comes a character on a bicycle … He stops, he rings at our gate … It was another telegram … I ran to take it, it was from my father … “Return immediately, mother worried. Auguste.”

I run upstairs, I meet Nora on the landing, I pass her the wire, she reads it, she comes down, she dishes out our soup, we begin to eat … Bingo! She bursts into tears. She’s bawling, she can’t stop, she gets up, she leaves the room, she runs into the kitchen. I hear her sobbing in the hall … it threw me to see her acting like that. It wasn’t her way … she never did that … Just the same, I didn’t bat an eyelash … I stay where I am with the idiot, I finish feeding him … It was time for our walk … I wasn’t in the mood … That incident had cramped my style.

And then I thought of the Passage. All of a sudden the idea began to haunt me … my arrival, all the neighbors … the search for some wonderful job … No more independence … no more silence … No more roaming around … My childhood would be starting in again, the whole stinking business, I’d have to start in again where I left off … I’d have to show enthusiasm! Oh, the lousy luck, the slimy horror of it all … The misery of working for people! The deserving young man! … Twelve dozen crappers! I couldn’t stand thinking about it … The mere thought of my parents and my mouth was full of birdshit. My mother, her skinny stilt leg, my father with his bacchanalias, his hysterical damn foolishness …

Kid Jongkind was tugging at my sleeves. He didn’t catch on. He still wanted us to go out. I looked at him:
“No trouble.”
We’d be leaving each other soon … This little screwball that swallowed everything in sight … I guessed he’d miss me out of his world … I wondered how he actually saw me … As an ox? As a lobster? … He’d got really used to having me take him out, with his big round eyes, his perpetual cheerfulness … He was lucky in a way … He was pretty affectionate if you were careful not to get his goat … He didn’t really like to see me thinking … I went over and looked out the window a second … Before I could turn around the little joker had jumped up on the table … He calms down, he pees! It splashes in the soup … He’s done it before, I run over, I grab him, I make him come down … Just then the door opens … Merrywin comes in … He moves mechanically, his features are frozen … He walks like an automaton … First he goes around the table … twice, three times … He starts in again … He’s wearing his fancy rig, the black lawyer’s robes … but underneath he has on a whole sport outfit, golf pants, binoculars … a nifty nickel-plate flask, and a green smock belonging to his wife … He’s still walking the same way, like a somnambulist … he goes down the steps in jerks and jolts … He roams around the garden a while … he even tries to open the gate … he hesitates, he comes back, he heads for the house … still completely in a dream … He passes in front of Jong-kind again … He salutes us majestically, with a sweeping gesture … His arm rises and falls … He bows a little each time … He’s addressing a crowd far in the distance … He seems to be responding to a tremendous ovation … And then finally he goes back upstairs … very slowly … with perfect dignity … I can hear him closing the door …

These weird goings-on … this mechanical man … had frightened Jongkind … He couldn’t keep still. He had to get out of there, he was in a panic. I clicked my tongue at him and shouted whoa! whoa! … like you talk to a horse. Usually that quieted him … I finally had to give in … We went out across the fields …

Near the Scottish barracks, we ran into the Hopeful College kids who were out for a walk. They were on their way to the cricket field on the other side of the valley. They were carrying their bats and their wickets … we recognized all our old boys, they waved to us, all very friendly … Naturally they had filled out and grown … They were very gay … They seemed glad to see us … their new rig was orange and blue … their caravan looked mighty bright against the horizon.

We looked after them … We came home very early … Jongkind was still trembling.

We were at the top of Willow Walk, the path leading to the school, when we passed the truck, the big van with three horses … more movers …

They avoided the steep hill, they went all the way around by the garden, they took more things away. This time they really cleaned the place out … they took the scrapings … We looked inside, the flaps were rolled up … They had the two maids’ beds, one of the kitchen cupboards, the little china closet, and the old geezer’s tricycle … and a lot of other junk … They must have emptied the attic! The whole joint! There wouldn’t be anything left! … They even took the bottles, you could hear them rolling around in the bottom of the crate … There wouldn’t be much left the way they were going about it…

I began to be worried about my two or three scraps and my shoes. If they kept on looting this way, there was no limit, anything could happen … The inside of that van looked like a regular auction room. I took the stairs four at a time, I wanted to see the extent of the damage. And besides it was time to eat … The table was laid sumptuously … with the best silver … and the dishes with the flower patterns, and all the cut glass … It stood out beautifully in the naked room …

The meal consisted of potato salad, artichokes vinaigrette, cherries in brandy, a luscious cake, a whole ham … Real abundance, and in addition there were daffodils strewn over the tablecloth, in between the cups … It was really something. It was a real surprise.

I was amazed. Jongkind and I stood looking at the marvels … neither he nor she came down … We were both famished … First we take a little taste of everything … And then we make up our minds … we dive in, we gobble … we dig in with our fingers … nothing to it once you’re started … It’s delicious! Jong-kind was beside himself with pleasure, he was as happy as a king … We didn’t leave much … Still nobody came down …

Once we were full, we went out into the garden … It was time for his business … I look around a little … Nothing but night, not a living soul … It was really weird … Upstairs I saw only a single light in the whole housefront, in the old geezer’s room … He must have locked himself in again … I says to myself, I’m not going to waste any time, I’m sick of all this hanky-panky … As long as I’ve got my ticket, I’ll pack up … Tomorrow morning I’ll skedaddle by the first train at seven-thirty. Sure! Just like that! I won’t wait for the end of the song. I never could stand good-byes.

Still, I’d have liked to lay my hands on a little dough, maybe a shilling or two for some ginger beer, it’s good on a trip … First I put my idiot to bed, so he’ll leave me alone … I jerk him off just a little, that usually kept him quiet … it sent him off to sleep … But that night he was frantic with all his fears of the day, he wouldn’t close his eyes … I tried shouting whoa whoa! … He kept thrashing around, he jumped up and down in his cage, he growled like a wild animal. He may have been nuts, but he suspected something unusual was up … He suspected I was going to leave him in the middle of the night … He didn’t like that. It scared him out of his wits to be left alone … Hell!

It’s true the dormitory was a big place … For him that was an awful lot of space … There were only two of us left where there’d been twelve of us before, or even fourteen …

I collected my socks, hunted up my handkerchiefs, picked up my lousy underwear, it was all holes and tears … They’d have to outfit me again. There’d be another riot … A lovely prospect … my troubles weren’t over … The future is no joke … The thought of the Passage, so close to me now, sent the grimy shivers through me …

I’d been gone for eight months … What would they be like now down there under the glass roof? … That wasn’t hard to figure out … They’d be even dumber … worse pains than ever … The Rochester characters … well, probably I’d never be seeing them again! I took a last look at the view out the window, the big one that opens up and down like a guillotine … The weather was clear, marvelous … You could see all the paths on the hillside and the docks all lit up … the crisscrossing lights of the ships … all the colors moving in and out … like dots looking for each other at the end of the darkness … I’d seen lots of ships and passengers leaving … sailboats … steamboats … God knows where they were now … in Canada … and some in Australia … all sails unfurled … They were chasing whales … I’d never see all that … I’d be going to the Passage … to the rue Richelieu, the rue Méhul … I’d see my father cracking his collar … my mother picking up her leg … I was going looking for jobs … I’d have to talk, to explain why and how … I’d be cornered like a rat … They’d be waiting for me, lousy with questions … I’d have to take my medicine … It gave me the golly wobbles to think of it …

It was pitch-dark in the room, I’d blown out the candle … I stretched out on the bed all dressed, I relaxed … I decided to sleep as I was … I said to myself: “Don’t peel, kid, that way you can beat it at the crack of dawn …” There was nothing more for me to do … all my junk was ready. I’d even taken some towels … Jong-kind finally falls asleep … I can hear him snoring … I won’t say good-bye to anybody … Just beat it on the q.t… . No effusions for me! … I’m beginning to doze … I play with myself just a little … I hear the door opening … My blood froze … I says to myself: “Watch out, kid. It’s ten to one they’re coming to say good-bye … You got your nerve with you, baby doll …”

I hear a light step, somebody slipping across the floor … It’s her … breathing … I’m cooked … No time to run … she won’t wait … She’s down on me like a cyclone … she’s on the bed in one jump … A fine kettle of fish! … I take the shock full in the ribs … She clutches me … I’m crushed, flattened under her caresses … I’m all ground up, there’s nothing left of me … The whole weight of her has come down on my head … it’s sticky … My face is wedged in, I’m suffocating … I protest … I implore … I’m afraid to yell too loud… The old geezer might hear! … I struggle … I try to wriggle out from under … I contract … I strain my muscles … I crawl under my own ruins … I’m caught again, flattened out, crushed again … An avalanche of tenderness … I collapse under her wild kisses, her licking, her tugging … My face is a mash … I can’t find my openings to breathe by … “Ferdinand! Ferdinand!” she implores me … She sobs down my windpipe … She’s out of her mind … I jam all the tongue I can produce down her throat to make her stop yelling like that … the old geezer in his room is bound to wake up … I’m terrified of cuckolds … some of them are ferocious …