Death on the Installment Plan (27 page)

I tried to put things together … words … snatches of talk … incidents. It all came to me little by little … Suppose Antoine had engineered it? And what about little Robert? … Maybe they were both in on it … in cahoots with the bitch … When I stood up, I couldn’t feel my two legs … I went down the street like I was drunk … The people noticed me … I stayed a while in the little tunnel by the Porte Saint-Denis. I was afraid to come out … I saw the buses in the distance, swaying in the heat … I felt dizzy … I didn’t get back to the Passage until late … I said I had a bellyache … That stopped them from asking questions … I had such cramps I didn’t sleep all night … Next day I was out at the crack of dawn, I was in such a hurry to know …

When I got to the shop, I took a good look at all three of them … They didn’t seem to be thinking anything … neither the bitch … nor Antoine … nor the kid … When I told them the pin had been lost, they gaped at me … they were flabbergasted …

“What’s that, Ferdinand? You’re sure? Have you taken a good look at home? … Turn your pockets inside out … We haven’t found anything here … How about it, Robert? … You didn’t see anything?” It was the kid who swept … “You’d better sweep again… .”

The way they talked, they seemed so savage, so villainous that I began to bawl … I could see them in the mirror, making little signs to each other … Antoine avoided looking at me … He kept his back turned, he pretended to be cleaning his emery stone … She went on blowing hot air … trying to trip me up, to make me contradict myself.

“You don’t remember at Tracard’s … Didn’t you say you were going there? … Maybe you left it there … Are you sure? …”

I was floundering in the soup … What a vicious rotten trick! … There wasn’t a thing I could do … I was cooked … Nobody’d believe me if I told the truth … What was the use?

“The boss will be back the day after tomorrow … Try to find it before then … Robert will help you …” She was full of ideas. Any way you looked at it I was screwed … If I went into details, they’d call me an impostor, a horrible abject monster … trying to wriggle out by slandering the boss’s wife, so good, so kind … Had I no shame? … What colossal gall! … what a preposterous calumny! … what monumental villainy! … I didn’t even try to defend myself … I didn’t even feel like it anymore … I couldn’t eat … My head was all stuffed up … my mind, my mouth, my whole face …

My mother thought I was looking odd, she wondered what ailment I could be coming down with … My guts were all tied up with fear … I wanted to disappear … to get so thin there’d be nothing left …

My father made caustic remarks … “You wouldn’t be in love by any chance? It wouldn’t be spring fever? … You got pimples on your ass? …” He took me off to one side and asked me: “You wouldn’t have a dose of clap? …” I didn’t know which way to squirm.

Gorloge, who was late wherever he went, had come back by a route of his own, he had dawdled from one town to the next … He arrived on a Wednesday, we’d been expecting him since Saturday … The next morning when I went to work, he was in the kitchen, sharpening his files. I stood behind him for quite a while … in the hallway, I was afraid to move … I waited for him to speak to me. I had a shitless lump in my throat. I’d forgotten what I meant to say. He must have been told by then. I hold out my hand just the same. He kind of squints at me from the side … He doesn’t even turn around … He goes back to his work. I wasn’t even there anymore … So I run into the shop. I was so scared I left half my collection in the bottom of the closet so as to get out faster … Nobody called me back … They were all there in the room, concentrating on their thingamajigs … I left without a word … I didn’t even know where I was going … Luckily I was used to that … I walked along in a dream … On the rue Reaumur I was in a terrible cold sweat … On the big terrace I went from one bench to another … In spite of everything I tried to go into a shop … But my hand trembled so on the door handle I never made it inside … I thought everybody was following me.

I spent hours like that … the whole morning. And the afternoon too, the whole time from one bench to another and so on, as far as the Square Louvois … always leaning against the house fronts … I couldn’t walk anymore … I didn’t want to go back to Gorloge’s … Even my parents were better than that … It was just as awful … but at least it was nearer … Only a step from the Square Louvois … It’s funny when you’ve got no place to breathe in but places that are all equally horrible …

I walked around the Bank of France once, twice, very slowly, with my disgusting junk … Then suddenly I pulled myself together and went back to the Passage … My father was on the doorstep … obviously waiting for me … The way he told me to go upstairs left no room for doubt … The storm was on … He began right away to stammer so bad and so loud that steam came out instead of words … I couldn’t understand a thing … Except that he was blowing off rockets … His cap was buffeted by the storm … It flew in all directions … He rained blows on it … He jammed it down on his noodle … His face swelled up still worse … absolutely crimson … with livid furrows … He changed color. He went violet.

I was fascinated. Was he going to turn blue? … and then yellow? I was so drenched in his fury that I couldn’t feel anything … He picked up some dohicky on the sideboard. He brandished it with a view to breakage … I thought he was going to tear the whole place to pieces … He bit his tongue so hard, so furiously, it swelled up like a stopper, a big lump of meat, wedged into his mouth and like to burst … But it didn’t … He put down the hot plate … He gagged … He couldn’t go on …

Suddenly he dashed out, he headed for the street, he ran through the Passage. I thought he was going to fly away, he was so blown up … so irresistible … so horrible …

My mother stayed with me … She trotted out the whole fool story, every detail of the disaster … And all her own little ideas … her timeworn certainties …

Monsieur Gorloge had been there, he had talked to them for two hours … He knew all about it … He’d told them everything … he had prophesied the whole Future. “That child will be your ruin … he’s corrupt to the marrow … A wretch … I trusted him … He was beginning to get ahead …”

Those were his parting words … Mama had been scared he’d turn me in … that he’d have me arrested right away … She hadn’t dared to answer … As far as she was concerned, there were no two ways about it … I’d been taken in … Why didn’t I own up right away … at least that I’d lost it … instead of prevaricating … and turning my boss against me … That was the least revolting possibility … They’d pay him back little by little … and in any case my parents … That was already settled …

“Who set you such an example?” she asked me in tears. “What did you do with the pin? … Come, tell me, my boy. We won’t eat you … I won’t say a word to your father … I swear I won’t! … There, you do trust me? We’ll go see her together … If you gave it to a woman! Tell me right away, before he comes home! Maybe she’ll give it back in exchange for a little money? … Do you know her well? … Don’t you think so? … That way it’ll all come out all right in the end! We won’t say a word to anybody!”

I waited for her to calm down some, then maybe I’d be able to explain … Just then my father comes in … He hadn’t cooled off at all. He begins to pound the table and bang at the partitions as hard as he can … with both fists … all the time letting off jets of steam … When he stops for a second, it’s only to kick at the furniture … His anger lifted him up, he was like a horse galloping through the air … bashing into the walls … The whole place was shaking … What an onslaught, the sideboard capsizes … From blast to crash the scene went on all night … He’d bounce into the air in his fury and fall on all fours … He barked like a mastiff … Between fits and frenzies they bellowed the pros and cons … It was no time for me to try to say anything …

When she ran out of arguments, my mother came upstairs to see what she could do with me … I didn’t answer … She wanted me to confess … She went down on her knees by my bed and cried as if I were already dead … She mumbled prayers … She went on imploring me … She wanted me to own up right away … to tell her if it was a woman! … We’d go and see her together …

“I tell you it was the boss’s wife,” I finally vomited up. I couldn’t stand it anymore. Hell and damnation!

“Ah, be still, you little wretch … You don’t realize how you’re hurting us!”

It was no use insisting … How could you talk to such mugs! … They were stopped up worse than all the shithouses in all Asnières! That’s my opinion.

It was a terrible blow all right. I stayed in my room a long time, five or six days without going out. They forced me to come down and eat … She called me a dozen times. In the end she came up and got me. I didn’t want anything at all. Especially I didn’t want to talk. My father talked to himself … He went off into monologues …

Raging and fuming … he went on and on … about the forces of evil … his whole repertory … Destiny … The Jews … his rotten luck … The Exposition … Providence … The Freemasons …

As soon as he got home from his deliveries, he’d climb up to the attic … He’d started doing watercolors again, he really had to … We had pressing needs, Gorloge had to be paid back … But he couldn’t concentrate … His mind wandered … The moment he picked up a brush he was so exasperated the stem would snap in his hands. He was so jumpy he’d smash his little India-ink pen to bits … and his paint pots too … the colors flowed all over … It was hopeless … The mere feeling that I was anywhere near him made him want to smash everything to pieces … And as soon as he was with my mother, he started up again … he redoubled his alarms and excursions.

“If you let him bum around the street all day on the pretext of learning the business, we haven’t seen the end of our troubles. Believe you me. This is only the beginning. He won’t content himself with being a thief. He’ll be a murderer, see? … A murderer! I wouldn’t give him six months before he murders some old woman for her money. He’s on the downgrade all right. He isn’t slipping. Take it from me. He’s hurtling, he’s galloping. Headlong. I can see it plain as day. Can’t you? You don’t believe me? You’re blind! But not yours truly. Not on your life … not me …”

Here he took a deep breath. He was hypnotizing her …

“Will you finally listen to me? … You want me to tell you what’s going to happen? … No? … You don’t want to know …”

“No, Auguste, I implore you …”

“Ha! So you’re afraid to listen? … So you know?”

He seized her by both wrists, he wouldn’t let her get away … she had to listen to the bitter end.

“It’s us, see? It’s us he’s going to rub out … one of these days … Yes, my dear, he’ll settle our hash … That’s the kind of gratitude you’ll get from him … Don’t say I didn’t predict it … Don’t say I didn’t warn you … Christ almighty … My conscience is clear … Ah, godammit, godammit to hell! I’ve warned you in every key … I’ve shouted it from the rooftops! For years! Oh well!
Alea jacta!
…”

He got my mother so scared she began to foam at the mouth and bleat … and blow bubbles … she was out of her mind … He really knocked her for a loop …

“I don’t mind being strangled … OK. But you can’t pull the wool over my eyes, godammit … Do what you like … You’ll be responsible!”

In the face of these savage predictions, she didn’t know what to say or do. Convulsed with grief, she kept chewing at her lips, she bled profusely. I was damned, there was no doubt about that. He started his Pontius Pilate act again, he splashed up the whole floor, I was dirt, and he washed his hands of me … the water flowed in jets … at high pressure … He said whole sentences in Latin. It came back to him at dramatic moments. Just like that, standing in the little kitchen, he’d hurl the anathema at me, he’d declaim in the ancient manner. He’d break off occasionally, pause to explain … because I had no education, no feeling for the “humanities” …

He knew everything. All I really knew was one thing, that I was untouchable, not fit to be handled with a ten-foot pole. I was despised on all sides, even by the Roman moralists, by Cicero, by the whole Empire, by all the Ancients … My papa knew all that … He didn’t have a single doubt left … His certainty made him bellow like a polecat … My mother went right on bawling … He played the scene so often it got to be a regular act … He’d pick up the laundry soap, the big heavy cake, and brandish it like mad … with wild, sweeping gestures … Now and then he’d put it down … perorating all the while … And pick it up again … And brandish it some more … The soap would slip out of his hand … and go bouncing under the piano … We’d all dive for it … We’d rummage around with the broom … we’d fish with the handle … Shit, piss, and corruption! … We’d bash our heads against the corners … There were wild collisions … We’d stick the broom handle in our eyes … It would end in a battle. They’d call each other every stinking name in the world. He’d make her hop around the table on one foot.

They’d forget me for a minute.

My mother was so terrified she lost all shame. She went all over the Passage retailing my villainies … she asked the other parents for advice … the ones that had trouble with their brats … that had got into messes on their jobs … How had they managed? …

“I’m perfectly willing to make more sacrifices,” she added. “We’ll see this thing through to the bitter end …”

All very eloquent, but it didn’t get me out of the soup. I still had no work.

Even Uncle Édouard, so ingenious, with so many strings to his bow, was beginning to get upset. He found me a bit of a nuisance … He’d already pestered just about all his friends with my shenanigans, my hard luck … He was getting kind of sick of it … I stumbled over every obstacle … There was something wrong with me … I was beginning to get his goat.