Death on the Installment Plan (69 page)

Courtial came back from the post office. Me and Madame des Pereires went to the bedroom to empty the last cupboards … Now it was his turn to argue with that drip … who kept protesting that we were breaking the contract … We almost had to fight to recover our clothes and a few extra towels … Taking possession had made him bumptious. We threw him out again to teach him good manners. Then the lug begins shaking the bars so hard that the whole gate fell down … He got wedged under it … He was caught like a rat … I’d never seen a man in such awful convulsions! He was some buyer! … He was so fouled up he didn’t even notice when the old lady and I shoved off … We took a local …

It was very late when we got to Paris … We made it fast … We didn’t see a soul in the arcades of the Palais … The neighboring shops were all closed up tight … Ours was nothing but a hole … an enormous yawning chasm … a pit with big wobbly beams across it … Finally the old lady got it through her head that this was a real disaster … that nothing was left of the
Genitron
… that we hadn’t been kidding … All a rotten stinking mess … We bent down over the hole and took a good look at the wreckage … We even managed to recognize some big chunks of our Alcazar … the investors’ corner … under the huge avalanche of cardboard and garbage … That terrible bell was there to! The catapult! It had sunk in sideways … between the scaffolding and the cellar … Actually it plugged up the whole crevasse … When old lady Courtial saw that, she still wanted to go down under and take a look … She was sure we’d find something worth saving … I warned her of the danger … one touch could bring down the whole mountain, she’d be squashed flat … She insisted … She did a balancing act on a loose joist … I held her by the hand from up top … Watching her swaying over the void, my cock went limp … She’d hiked up her skirts and tied them around her waist. She saw a crack between the wall and the bell … She slipped in all by herself … She disappeared in the darkness … I heard her rummaging around at the bottom of the abyss … Then I sang out … I was too scared … My voice echoed like in a cave … She didn’t answer … Half an hour later she appeared in the opening … She called me to come and help her … Luckily I managed to grab her by the handles of her smock … I hoisted with all my might … She came up. She was tangled up in a pile of truck … all one enormous bundle … I hoisted the whole thing up on the edge … It was very hard going … There was plenty of resistance … I saw she was pulling one more thing behind her … A big chunk of balloon, a whole slice of the
Archimedes
… a big wide flap … the red strip I’d taken patches out of … I knew that rag well … I’d hidden it myself between the gas meter and the transom … She had a wonderful memory … She was as happy as a lark …

“It’ll come in handy, you know,” she said briskly. “It’s real rubber, no cheap imitation … you can’t imagine how strong it is …”

“Sure,” I said, “of course …” I knew all right. I’d taken enough hunks out of it to patch up the other one with … In any case it was heavy and bulky … Even folded as small as it would go, it was quite a package … as tall and almost as heavy as a man … She refused to abandon it … We had to take it with us …

“Well anyway, we’d better hurry,” I say … She was mighty strong, she hoisted it up on her back and carried it … I took her as far as the rue Radziwill in a big hurry … When we got there, I said:

“You go ahead, madame, but don’t hurry anymore. Take your time … Stop on every corner. Watch out for the traffic. You’ve got plenty of time. I’ll join you on the rue Lafayette. I’ve got to look in at the Insurrection … It’s just as well they don’t see you … I left a key with the waiter … the key to the attic … I’d like to take another look up there …”

This was only a pretext for going back awhile … I wanted to look around under the arcades … I thought maybe I’d run across Violette … Lately she’d been hanging out mostly over by the Galerie Coloniale … past the scales … She sights me from a distance … “Yoo hoo,” she goes and comes running over … She’d seen me with the old lady … She’d been afraid to show herself … So then we had a good chance to talk and she told me all the dirt … everything that had been going on since we left … since the disaster … What a mess! … Trouble trouble the whole time … The cops had been asking thousands of questions … even of the whores … the screwiest stuff about our habits … Did we sell junk? … Did we get ourselves buggered? … Were we taking bets? … Did we sell dirty pictures? Did foreigners come around? Did we have any revolvers? Were we seeing anarchists? … The girls were scared pink … They were afraid to hang around near our wreckage … They were doing the other Galeries now … They were scared of having their cards taken away … That’s what it meant to them … Everybody was complaining … All the shopkeepers in the neighborhood were sore too … They really had it in for us … you can’t imagine … they were in a boiling lather … A petition had been sent to the prefect of the Seine department … to have the Palais-Royal cleaned up … They were sick of living in a hotbed of debauchery … Their business was ruined already … They didn’t want to be corrupted by extra-bad eggs like us … Violette liked me fine, she’d have liked me to stay on … But she was convinced that if we came back in the neighborhood there’d be an awful stink and we’d be snagged in two seconds flat … that was definite and no use arguing … The only thing we could do was clear out, make ourselves scarce … Why ask for trouble? … That’s what I thought too … We just had to blow … But what about me, what was I going to do? What kind of work? She was kind of worried about that … I couldn’t tell her much … I didn’t know myself … Except it would be in the country, that was sure … when she heard that, she said right away that she’d manage to come and see me … especially if she got sick again … It happened now and then … Then she always had to go away for at least two three weeks, not just on account of her sickness, but for her lungs too … She’d been spitting blood … In the country she stopped spitting … It was perfect … She gained a couple of pounds a day … So that’s how we left it … that’s what we agreed between us … But I was to write her first in care of General Delivery … Circumstances prevented me … We had so much trouble … I didn’t keep my word … I always kept putting off my letter until the following week … I didn’t go back to the Palais until years later … That was during the war … I didn’t find her with the other girls … I asked them all … Even her name, Violette, didn’t register … Nobody remembered … They were all new …

So that night I left her on the run … I had to make it fast, that’s a sure thing … I wanted to drop by the Passage Bérésinas to tell my folks I was leaving town with des Pereires … so they wouldn’t start acting up and put the bulls on my trail …

When I got there, my mother was still in the shop straightening out her junk, she’d come home from peddling her selection around Les Ternes … My father came downstairs … He’d heard us talking … I hadn’t seen him in two years … Gaslight always makes people look green, but his pallor was something awful … On account of the surprise maybe, he began to stammer so bad he had to stop talking … He couldn’t say a single word more … He couldn’t understand either … what I was trying like mad to explain. That I was going away to the country … He wasn’t against it … Not in the least! … They didn’t care what happened … As long as I didn’t go broke on their hands … As long as I made some kind of a living, here or somewhere else, it didn’t matter how! It was all one to them, in the île de France or the Congo … It was no skin off their ass …

My father looked lost in his old clothes … Especially his pants had nothing to hold on by … He’d got so thin, his head was so shrunk his big cap floated around on his bean … it slid down over his eyes … He looked at me from underneath … He couldn’t catch the meaning of what I was saying … I kept repeating that I thought there was a future for me in farming … “Ah! Ah!” he said … He wasn’t even surprised …

“Say, Clémence … I had a bad headache this afternoon … That’s a funny thing … It wasn’t hot, was it?”

That still had him puzzled … He thought of nothing but his ailments … He couldn’t take any interest in whether I stayed or went, or where to … He had trouble enough … especially since his bad setback at Connivance Fire Insurance … He couldn’t stop mulling it over … He was still going through hell at Coccinelle … they were always stepping on his feet … it was as bad as ever … He was so miserable that some weeks he didn’t shave at all … He was too shaken … He refused to change his shirt …

They hadn’t eaten yet when I got there … She told me about the hard times, the trouble they were having in the store … She set the table … She limped kind of differently, maybe a little less … Even so she had a good deal of pain but mostly in the left leg now … She kept sniffling and making sounds with her mouth … the minute she sat down to ease her pain. He’d just come back from his errands, from making a few deliveries … He was very weak … He was sweating more and more … He sat down with us … He didn’t talk, he didn’t burp; all he did was eat very slowly … There were leeks … From time to time, by fits and starts, he’d come to life a little … Actually it happened only twice while I was there … He’d start muttering hoarse, low curses into his plate … “Christ almighty! Shit, piss, and corruption! …” He’d grumble some more … He’d get up … He left the table, he went off teetering … as far as the little partition that separated us from the kitchen … It was as thin as an onion peel … He’d haul off and hit it two three times … That was the best he could do … He’d retreat backward … He’d flop on his stool, looking down at the tiles … way down below … his arms dangling … My mother gently put his cap straight … She motioned me to look away … She was used to it now. Actually it couldn’t have bothered him anymore … He didn’t really catch on … He was too wrapped up in his troubles at the office … There was no room in his dome for anything else … For the last two months he hadn’t been sleeping more than an hour a night … His head was all tied up with worry like a bundle … he wasn’t interested in anything else … He didn’t even care what went on in their business … He didn’t want to hear about it … That suited my mother fine … I really didn’t know what to do … I felt like a sore finger, I was afraid to move! Even so I tried to tell them a little about myself … my little adventures … Not the whole truth … just a few things to entertain them, a little innocent horseplay to break the embarrassment … Christ, what a face they made … just because I was joking … The effect was exactly the opposite … Hell, that griped me … I was beginning to get sore too … I had my troubles too, dammit all! I was in a jam too, just as bad as they were … I hadn’t come to beg … either for dough or for food … I wasn’t asking them for anything … Only I didn’t want to join in their lousy bellyaching . . I didn’t feel like crying into the soup or grazing on their troubles … I hadn’t come to be comforted … Or to complain either … I’d simply come to say good-bye … Shit and period! … They might have been pleased …

One time just as a joke I said: “I’ll send you some morning-glory seeds from the country … They’ll grow fine up in the attic … they’ll climb over the glass roof …”

I was saying anything that came into my head …

“Ah, it’s easy to see that you’re not the one that toils and struggles around here … that you don’t have to work your fingers to the bone trying to meet our obligations. Ah, it’s a fine thing to be carefree …”

Balls! Ah the hardship and misery, all the sickening trials were for them. Mine didn’t exist by comparison. If I got into a jam it was all my fault … according to them, the stinkers … oh, the shame of it! They had their nerve with them! Balls and counterballs! Whereas they were innocent victims! Martyrs forever … There was no comparison … It was all very well to be young, but I’d better watch my step … or I’d go wrong for good … My business was to listen … and to profit by their example! … Forever and ever! Hell’s bells and never a moment’s doubt! … Just watching me there at table in front of my beans (there was Swiss cheese afterwards) the whole past came back to Mama … She had a hard time holding back the tears, her voice cracked … and anyway she preferred not to say anything … That was a real sacrifice … I’d have gladly asked forgiveness for all my faults, my capricious behavior, my unspeakable debauchery, my disastrous crimes! … if that could have cheered her up … if that was the only thing that made her start moaning again … if that was all that was breaking her heart … I’d have begged her forgiveness and shoved off right away … I’d have ended up by admitting that I was incredibly lucky, that I was too spoiled for words, that I spent my time having fun … Sure! I’d have said anything at all to get it over with … I was looking toward the door … But she motioned me to stay … He went up to his room … He wasn’t feeling at all well … He clutched the banister … It took him at least five minutes to climb the three flights … And then, once we were alone, her miseries started up worse than ever … She gave me all the details … What she was doing now to make ends meet … Her new racket … She went out every morning for a lace house … in three months she’d made almost two hundred francs in commissions … In the afternoon she doctored herself, she stayed in the store with her leg on a chair … She wouldn’t see Capron anymore … He went on telling her to keep still … Why, she had to keep moving … It was all she had to live for … She preferred to treat herself by the Raspail method … She’d bought his book … She knew all the herb teas … all the mixtures and infusions … And she had oil of mignonette to massage her leg with at night … She got boils even so, but the pain was bearable and the swelling wasn’t too bad. They burst almost immediately. They didn’t keep her from walking, that was the main thing … She showed me her leg … The flesh was all creased, as if it had been wound around a stick, from the knee down … and yellow … with big scabs and places that were running … “It’s nothing once they begin to drain … It’s a relief, it feels better … but before that it’s terrible, while they’re still all purple … while they’re closed … Luckily I have my poultice … without it I don’t know what I’d do … You can’t imagine what a help it is … Without it I’d be an invalid …” And then she told me some more about Auguste … how he was making a wreck of himself … he’d lost control of his nerves … and his terrors at night … The worst was his fear of being fired … it woke him up in a panic … He’d jump out of bed … “Help! Help!” he’d scream … the last time so loud that all the people in the Passage had started up … For a moment they’d thought it was a fight … that I’d come back to strangle him … They’d all come running! … When Papa had his fits, he didn’t know what was going on … They’d had a time getting him back into bed … They’d had to put cold towels on his head for several hours … Ever since he began having those fits … they were getting more and more exhausting … life had been a torment! … He never came out of his nightmare … He didn’t know what he was saying … He didn’t recognize people anymore … He couldn’t tell the neighbors apart … He was terribly afraid of cars … Often in the morning when he hadn’t slept at night, she’d take him to the door of the insurance company … at 34 rue de Trévise … But her troubles weren’t over … She’d have to go in and ask the concierge if there was anything new … if he hadn’t heard anything … about my father … if he hadn’t been dismissed … He couldn’t distinguish between real and imaginary anymore … If not for her it was perfectly certain … he’d never have gone back … But then he’d have gone crazy … loony with despair … beyond the shadow of a doubt … It took a terrible balancing act to keep him from going under completely … And she did all the acrobatics … screwing his knob back on again … She couldn’t let the grass grow under her feet … And what with the meals in addition … they didn’t cook themselves … And then she had to go running to the other end of Paris … with her lace … finding customers, hurry-hurry … With all that she still managed to open our store … for a few hours in the afternoon … She didn’t mind if things were slow in the shop, as long as it didn’t go under completely … And at night the whole thing to start over again … So his fears wouldn’t get any worse, so his terror wouldn’t increase … she put a little lamp on a table in the middle of the room, turned down low. And besides, so’s he could go to sleep a little faster, she plugged his ears with little wads of cotton dipped in vaseline … He started up at the slightest sound … if anybody walked through the Passage … And it started in again early in the morning with the milkman … It echoed terribly on account of the glass roof … But with the wads of cotton it was a little better … He said so himself …