Death on the Installment Plan (17 page)

Before we started back for the village, he stashed everything away in three or four big crocks, the food, and the white wine, as though burying treasure in a furrow … He didn’t want to leave a trace. He was suspicious of the people who came by. On his door he’d written in chalk: “Never coming back.”

We went down to the locks, he knew the bargemen. It was a long hike on steep paths, my mother limped along behind us. When we got there, she felt dizzy and sat down on a stone. We watched the tugboats maneuvering barges through the locks, they looked so frail and delicate against the walls … they don’t dare to touch the sides …

The pudgy lockkeeper spits tobacco juice three times, takes off his coat, clears his throat, and curses over his windlass … The gate trembles on its pivot, groans, and starts moving in little jerks … The whirlpools hold it back … a trickle of water and finally she opens … the
Artémise
lets out a long whistle … the string of barges pulls in.

Further on you see Villeneuve-Saint-Georges … Little hills and then the gray bridge over the Yvette … Down below, the country … the plain. The wind starts up, stumbles over the river, whips up water in the floating washhouse … an endless lapping … branches beating triplets in the water … From the valley … from all sides … The modulated song of the breezes … Forgotten the debts … we don’t even mention them … The air has gone to our heads … We bat the breeze with Uncle Arthur … He wants to take us across. My mother won’t let us go … He jumps into a scow all by himself. He wants to show us his talents. He starts rowing against the stream. My father jumps with excitement and fires advice at him, exhorts him to be careful. Even my poor mother’s interest is aroused. She fears the worst. Limping, she follows us up the bank …

The shore is lined with fishermen casting worms through the air … Uncle Arthur gets in their way … They give him hell … He gets caught in the water lilies, he flounders … He starts up again, sweating like a whole football team. He turns, slips into the narrows, he has to row like hell toward the gravel pits, “the big eggbeater” is coming, the
Pride of the Quarries
, you can hear her in the distance, grinding up the river with a terrible clanking of chains … She drags at the bottom, bringing everything to the surface … every known kind of mud and corpses and pike … She kicks up waves that hit both banks at once … Wherever she goes, she spreads terror and disaster … The boats by the shore toss furiously and crash into the stakes … All three basins are rocking at once … It’s death on the boats. There she is, the
Pride of the Quarries
, coming out from under the bridge. All the hardware, all the catapults and steering gear in hell are rattling inside her carcass and on her balconies. She’s dragging at least twenty barges loaded with clinkers … This is no time to show off … My uncle gets tangled in a rope … He hasn’t time to reach the shore … His boat rises on the swell … his beautiful lid falls in the soup … He bends forward, this is going to be the great stroke … He loses his oar … he loses his head … He tries again … He tips … He falls flat on his ass in the drink, exactly like a water fencer. Luckily he knows how to swim! … We all come running, we comfort him, we congratulate him … the Apocalypse has passed … By now she’s sowing havoc up by Ris-Orangis.

We all repair to the Lost Minnow, where the lockkeepers hang out, we congratulate each other … It’s aperitif time … Hardly taking the time to dry, Uncle Arthur gathers all his friends around him … He has an idea! … Wants to start a club called the “Brethren of the Sail.” The fishermen are less enthusiastic. He takes up a collection … His little girl friends come over and kiss him. We stay on for supper … Under the Japanese lanterns, between soup and mosquitoes, he breaks into song: “A poet once told me …” Nobody wants Uncle Arthur to go back to his pond … Everybody wants his company … He doesn’t know whom to please first …

We started for the station … We slipped away quietly while he was still warbling … But my father wasn’t happy … especially when he thought it over … He was burnt up inside. He was furious with himself for not having spoken up … He’d been lacking in firmness. We went out to see him one more time. Arthur had a new boat with a real sail … and even a little jib up front … He tacked about singing “O Sole Mio.” The gravel pits echoed with his singing. He was as happy as a lark … My father couldn’t stand it … This couldn’t go on … Long before the aperitif we slunk away with our tails between’our legs … Nobody saw us leave … We never went back … It was impossible to associate with him anymore … He would have debauched us …

My father had been working for La Coccinelle exactly ten years. That entitled him to a vacation, two weeks with pay …

It wasn’t very sensible for the three of us to go away like that … it cost a fortune … But that was a terrible summer, the heat was killing us in the Passage, especially me, I looked the greenest, I was growing too fast. I was so anemic I could hardly stand up. We went to see a doctor, he was alarmed. “What he needs isn’t two weeks, but three months of fresh air! …” That’s what he said.

“Your Passage,” he went on, “is a pesthole … You couldn’t even get a radish to grow there. It’s a urinal without doors or windows … You’ve got to get out of there.”

He was so outspoken about it that my mother came home in tears … We needed more money … They didn’t want to dig too deeply into the three thousand francs we had inherited … So they decided to try the markets again: Mers … Onival, and especially Dieppe … I had to promise to watch my behavior … to stop bombarding clocks … to stop going with hoodlums … not to stir from my mother’s side. I promised the moon and the stars … I’d be good, I’d even be grateful … and I’d work hard for my school diploma when we got back …

That reassured them and they decided we could go. We closed the shop. First my mother and I would spend a month in Dieppe and look around … Madame Divonne would come in from time to time to see that nothing went wrong while we were gone … Papa would join us later, he’d make the trip on his bicycle … He’d spend two weeks with us …

Once we were there, the two of us got settled very quickly, we really didn’t have too much trouble. We found lodgings in Dieppe over a café, the Tomtit, in an apartment that belonged to a clerk in the post office. We had two mattresses on the floor. The only trouble was the sink. It didn’t smell good.

When it came time to unload our stuff on the main square, my mother got jittery. We had brought a complete collection of embroideries, frills, and baubles, all very light and airy. It seemed awfully risky to display all those things out in the open in a strange city … After thinking it over, we decided it would be better to go straight to the customers, it was a lot of trouble of course, but there was less chance of being taken … We did the whole length of the Esplanade, along the ocean front, from door to door … It was hard work. Our stuff was heavy. We’d wait outside the villas, on a bench across the way. The best time to go in was when they’d just filled their bellies … You had to hear the piano … Now they’re moving into the drawing room …

My mother would jump up and race to the doorbell … The reception could be good or bad … Anyway she managed to sell a certain amount …

I got plenty of air. There was so much of it and so strong that it made me drunk. It even woke me up at night. I saw nothing but cocks and asses and boats and sails … The laundry floating on the clothes lines gave me a terrible hard-on … It swells out … it drives you crazy … all those women’s panties ….

At first we were afraid of the sea … We’d stick to the little sheltered streets as much as we could. The gale makes you delirious. I never stopped playing with myself…

A traveling salesman’s kid lived in the room next to ours. We did all our homework together. He felt me up a little, he jerked off even more than I did. He came to Dieppe every year, so he knew all the different kinds of boats. He taught me all about their rigging and their sails … Three-master barks … square-riggers … schooners … I studied the ships with passion while my mother was doing the villas …

She got to be as well known on the beach as the coconut man … always hobbling around with her bundle … Inside there were embroideries, patterns, needlework sets to keep the ladies busy, and even irons … She’d have sold kidneys, rabbit skins, hot air, anything, to help us last out the two months.

In our comings and goings we also had our qualms about the port. We were afraid to go too close to the edge on account of the bollards and ropes that are so easy to trip over. It’s a mighty treacherous place. If you fall into the muck, it sucks you down, you sink to the bottom, the crabs eat you, they never find you again …

The cliffs are dangerous too. Every year whole families get squashed under them. A moment’s carelessness, a false step, a thoughtless remark … and the mountain falls down on top of you. We took as few chances as possible, we seldom left the streets. In the evening, right after supper, we’d start ringing bells again. We’d make a grand tour … starting first at one end, then at the other … We’d do the whole Avenue du Casino …

I’d wait on a bench outside the villas … I’d hear my mother shouting herself hoarse inside … She really knocked herself out … I knew all her arguments by heart … I knew all the stray dogs … They turn up, they sniff, they beat it … I knew all the peddlers, that’s the time when they come home with their carts … They pull, they push, they run themselves ragged … Nobody takes any notice of them … They’re free to curse and swear all they like … They grunt and groan and tug at the shafts … One more pull … just to the next corner … The lighthouse blinks its big eye in the night … The flash passes over the old man … On the beach the surf sucks up pebbles … crashes … rolls … crashes … breaks …

On the posters we saw there was going to be an automobile race after the fair on August 15. That would be sure to attract a lot of people, especially the English. My mother decided we’d stay on a while. We hadn’t had much luck. The weather had been so bad in July that the ladies stayed home with their embroidery … That didn’t help us to sell our bonnets and boleros, or even our needlework sets … If at least they had worked at it! But they never got through mending their drapes! … They yacked even worse at the seashore than in town … like all society women … always about maids and bowel movements …

They took it easy, they wallowed in idleness, they’d dawdle over our merchandise, pick things up a dozen times …

My father had lost hope. His letters were full of worry. We were done for in his opinion. We’d lost more than a thousand francs. My mother wrote him to dig into the inheritance. That was real heroism, all this could end very badly. I could already see myself getting blamed for the whole mess. He wrote back that he was coming. We waited for him in front of the church. He finally hove in sight with his bike all covered with mud.

I expected him to bawl the hell out of me, blame everything on me. I was all prepared for one of his headlong corridas … but not at all … Actually he seemed glad to be alive and glad to see us. He even congratulated me on my conduct and my red cheeks. I was really moved. He himself suggested a little walk in the port … He knew all about boats. He remembered his whole childhood … he was an expert on navigation. My mother went off with her bundles and we made for the docks. I remember a Russian three-master, all white. She had made for the harbor mouth on the afternoon tide.

For three days she’d been fighting the storm off Villers, rolling in the swell … her jibs were full of foam … She had an awful cargo of loose lumber, mountains of it, piled every which way on every deck. In the holds there was nothing but ice, enormous dazzling blocks, the top of a river. She’d brought it all the way from Archangel to sell in the cafés … She was listing badly and the crew weren’t happy … My father and I and a lot of other people went over and followed her in from the harbor light to her berth. She was so drenched with spray that her mainyard was dragging in the water … I can still see the captain, an enormous roly-poly, shouting into his funnel, ten times louder than even Papa. His monkeys climbed up in the shrouds to roll up all the spars and canvas, all the gaffs and yards up to the big St. Andrew’s cross at the masthead … During the night they’d expected her to be smashed against the rocks … The rescue squads had refused to put out, God had taken the day off … Six fishing smacks had been lost. Even the big buoy off the reef of Trotot had taken too much punishment and broken loose from its chain … That gives you an idea of the weather.

In front of the Saucy Trollop café they maneuvered her around the mooring buoy … The drift wasn’t bad. But the hauling crew were so drunk they couldn’t see straight … They hauled in the wrong direction … The bow smashed into the customs wharf … The “lady” on the prow, the beautiful sculptured figurehead, stove her tits in … It was a shambles … The sparks flew … The bowsprit went through the window … straight into the café … The jib scraped the bar.

Everybody was screaming and yelling … People came running. The curses volleyed and thundered … Finally, as gently as you please, the fine ship pulled alongside … Bristling with cables, she tied up at the dock … After a great deal of activity the last sail fell from the foremast … spread out on the deck like a seagull.

The stern hawser gives a last deep groan … The land embraces the ship. The cook comes out of his galley and empties out an enormous bowl for the squawking birds. The giants on board stand at the rail shaking their fists, the drunken longshoremen aren’t in the mood to go up the gangplank. The companion ladders are dangling alongside.