Death on the Installment Plan (43 page)

Very gently, in small doses, I let my mother in on the ideas I’d been piling up … I told her my prospects didn’t look too brilliant … She wasn’t one to be discouraged … She’d begun to make other plans, this time for herself, something new, something more backbreaking than ever. She’d been thinking about it a long time and now she made up her mind … “You see, my boy, I won’t tell your father, so keep this to yourself … The poor man, it would come as a terrible disappointment … He’s suffering enough already to see me miserable … But between you and me, Ferdinand, I don’t think our poor shop … sh-h … will ever pick up again … Hum, hum, I fear the worst. In our lace business … there’s no denying it … the competition has become impossible to meet … Your father doesn’t understand … He’s not right in the thick of it, day in day out … luckily, thank God for that … What you need nowadays isn’t a few hundred francs, but thousands and thousands, if you want to lay in a really up-to-date stock! Where can we find that kind of money? Who’s going to give us credit, I ask you? It’s only the big businesses that can afford it, the enormous stores … Our little shops are doomed … It’s only a question of time … a few years … or months maybe … It’s a desperate struggle for nothing … The big stores are crushing us … I’ve seen it coming for a long time … Even in Caroline’s day things were getting harder and harder … it’s nothing new … The slack season went on forever … longer each year … worse and worse … Well, my boy. one thing I’ve got is energy … you know that … We’ve got to get out of this mess! … Now here’s what I’m going to try as soon as my leg is better … if I could even go out a little. I’m going to one of the big firms and ask for a card … I won’t have any trouble … They’ve known me for years … They know I’m a go-getter … they know I’ve got plenty of gumption … They know your father and I are the soul of honesty … that they can trust us with anything … no matter what . . Yes, I don’t mind saying it … Marescal! … Bataille! … Roubique! … they’ve known me for thirty years … as a saleswoman and shopkeeper … I won’t have any trouble finding something … I don’t need any other references … I don’t like working for other people … But at present I have no choice … Your father won’t suspect … not a thing … I’ll tell him I’m going to see a customer … He won’t be any the wiser … I’ll go out as usual and I’ll always be back on time … Poor man, he’d hang his head for shame to think I was working for somebody else … He’d be humiliated … I want to spare him that … at all costs … He’d never get over it! … I wouldn’t know how to buck him up … His wife working for strangers! … Good lord! Even with Caroline it was almost more than he could bear … Anyway, he won’t know a thing! … I’ll make my rounds regularly … One day one street, the next day another … It’ll be a good deal simpler than this eternal balancing act … this acrobatics that’s killing us … Always batting our brains out … figuring out how to stop up holes … It’s infernal! It would be the end of us! We won’t have nearly as much worry … Pay here! Pay there! Will we make it? How awful! It’s torture … We won’t make much, but it’ll be regular … no more surprises, no more nightmares! That’s what we’ve always needed … A steady income! It’ll be a change from the last twenty years! What a rat race! Heavens above! Always running after five francs! … And the customers that never pay! You’ve hardly paid one bill when another one comes in … Oh yes, independence is all very fine! It was my dream, my mother’s too! But I can’t go on … We’ll make ends meet, you’ll see, if we all put our shoulders to the wheel … We’ll have our cleaning woman! since that’s what he wants … Besides, I need one. You couldn’t call it a luxury.”

That was just what my mother wanted … some horrible new thing to do … something inconceivably difficult … Nothing could be too hard, too grueling! If she’d had her own way she’d have done everybody’s work. Run the shop … kept the whole family going all by herself … and the seamstress too …. She never tried to draw comparisons, to understand … As long as it was lousy work, as long as there was plenty of sweat and heartache, she was satisfied … That was her nature … Whether I ran myself ragged or not, it wouldn’t make a particle of difference … With a maid I was positive she’d work fifty times harder … She was really attached to her horrible fate … It wasn’t the same with me … I had a little worm in my conscience. But next to her I was a parasite … Maybe that came from my stay in Rochester, from doing nothing at the Merrywins … I’d got to be frankly lazy. Instead of chasing after work I’d just sit and think … When you come right down to it, my job hunting was pretty feeble … But when I saw a doorbell, I’d fold … I had no martyr’s blood in my veins … Hell no! I didn’t have the right attitude for a poor bastard … I kept putting things off till next day … I’d try a different neighborhood, not quite so hot, a little breezier … a little shadier … for my little bit of job hunting. I took a gander at the shops around the Tuileries … under those beautiful arcades … on the broad avenues … I thought I’d ask the jewelers if they could use a young man … I was baking in my jacket … They didn’t need anybody … In the end I stayed in the Tuileries … I’d pass the time of day with the floozies that were wandering around … I spent hours in the greenery … not doing a damn thing, just like in England, except I’d have a cup of water now and then and work the waffle machines, the little dials on cylinders … There was also the fellow with the cocoanut drink and the mechanical band by the hobbyhorses …

That was all a long time ago … One evening I caught sight of my father … He was on the other side of the fence on his way to make his deliveries … To play it safe I stayed in the Carrousel … I hid between the statues … Once I went into the Louvre … It was free at the time … I didn’t dig the pictures, but up on the fourth floor I discovered the Navy Museum. I couldn’t drag myself away. I went regularly. I spent whole weeks there … I knew all the ship models by heart … I stood all alone by the showeases … I forgot all my troubles, all about jobs and bosses, the whole mess … There was nothing in my head but boats … Sailboats, even models of sailboats, send me frankly off my rocker … I’d have really liked to be a sailor … Papa too in his time … Our lives hadn’t panned out right … I had a pretty fair idea of what was what …

When I came home at suppertime, he asked me what I’d been doing … why I was so late … Job hunting, I said … Mama had resigned herself. Papa grunted into his plate … He didn’t press the subject.

They’d told my mother she could try her luck right away at the market in Le Pecq or even Saint-Germain, that now was just the time because of all the rich people … it was the new style … who were renting villas all over the hillside … They’d be sure to appreciate her lace for their bedroom curtains, their bedspreads, and those pretty little blinds … A golden opportunity …

She hightailed it out there quick. For a whole week she traipsed up and down all the roads with her whole caboodle … From Chatou station almost as far as Meulan … always on foot and limping … Luckily the weather was marvelous! Rain would have been a disaster. She was delighted, she’d sold a good part of her white elephants, fringed point-lace and heavy Spanish shawls that had been in drydock since the Empire. The people in the villas were developing a taste for our genuine curios. They were in a hurry to furnish their houses … They kind of lost their heads … The view of Paris from the hillside made them optimistic, enthusiastic … My mother pushed hard, she followed up on her luck. Except one fine morning her leg wouldn’t move at all … That was the end of her foolishness, of her heroic treks … Even the other knee was on fire … It swelled up double …

Capron came running … All he could do was take note of her condition … He threw up his arms to high heaven … An abscess was forming, there was no room for doubt … The joint was affected, it was swollen … Her fighting spirit was no use at all … She couldn’t move her rear end, she couldn’t change sides or lift herself, not even an eighth of an inch … She let out piercing screams … She sighed the whole time, not so much from the pain, she was as tough as Caroline, but because her ailment had got her down.

It was a terrible defeat.

Naturally we had to take on a cleaning woman … Our habits changed … Everything was at loose ends … Mama lay on her bed, my father and I did most of the work before we left in the morning, the sweeping, the carpets, the sidewalk outside our door, the shop … All of a sudden my dawdling, my hesitation, my squirming were over … I had to get a wiggle on, to find some work in a hurry and p.d.q.

Hortense, the cleaning woman, came in for an hour in the afternoon and for two hours after supper. She worked all day in a grocery store on the rue Vivienne next to the post office. She was a reliable soul … She made a little extra working for us … She was down on her luck, she had to sweat double, her husband had lost all their money trying to set himself up as a plumber. Besides she had two kids and an aunt dependent on her … She couldn’t ever sit down … My mother was riveted to her bed and had to listen to her whole story. One morning my father and I carried her down. We put her in a chair. We had to be very careful not to bump her on the stairs or drop her. We set her up in a corner of the shop, wedged in with cushions … so she could answer the customers … It was rough … And having to attend to her knee … and put on “vulnerary” compresses …

As for looks, Hortense, even though she worked like an ox, was pretty crunchy … She herself always said that she denied herself nothing, especially in the way of food, her trouble was sleep! She had no time to go to bed … It was eating that kept her going, especially café au lait … She’d take at least ten cups a day … In her grocery store she ate enough for an army. Hortense was a card, her stories even made my mother laugh on her bed of pain … It made my father mad to find me in the same room with her … He was afraid I’d lay her … It’s true that I jerked off on account of her … who doesn’t? … but it really didn’t amount to much, nothing like England … I didn’t put the same frenzy into it, the flavor was gone, we were really too miserable for me to do things right … Hell and damnation! … I wasn’t in the mood anymore … It was awful to be on the rocks with the whole family … My head was pack-jammed full of worries… It was a worse headache finding me a job than before I went away … Seeing my mother’s distress, I started out again … I went looking for more addresses … I did the Boulevards inside out, the Sen-tier quarter, the streets around the stock exchange … Around the end of August that’s certainly the worst of neighborhoods … There’s none stinkier, more stifling … I pounded the stairs again with my collar, my tie, my butterfly bow, my armored boater … I haven’t forgotten a single nameplate … coming or going … Jimmy Blackwell and Careston, Exporters … Porogoff, Merchants … Tokima, Traders with Caracas and the Congo … Herito and Kugelprunn, commission merchants for India and the East Indies …

Once more I was knocked out, fed up, resolute. I ran my comb through my hair on my way into the building. I attacked the stairs. I rang at the first door and then at another … But all of a sudden everything went wrong when I had to answer questions … If they asked me for my references … or what kind of work I wanted to do … my actual aptitudes … my demands … That knocked the stuffings out of me … I stammered, I made bubbles … I panicked … I mumbled vague apologies and began to back out … The faces on those inquisitors scared me green … All of a sudden I had this queasy feeling … All the nerve trickled out of me. I was drained … I took my bellyache out of there … Even so, I started in again … I rang at the door across the way … It was always the same monsters … I’d do twenty like that before lunch … I even stopped going home to eat. I just had too much on my mind … My appetite was gone in advance … I was too fiendishly thirsty … For two cents I wouldn’t have gone home at all. I knew by heart the scenes that were waiting for me. My mother and all her suffering. My father all tangled up in his typewriter, with his rages, his screwball ideas, his insane bellowing … A gloomy prospect … I knew the kind of compliments to expect … It caked my shit to think about it … I stayed out by the banks of the Seine, waiting for it to be two o’clock … I watched the dogs swimming … I didn’t even have a system anymore … I just looked around at random … I searched the whole Left Bank … At the rue du Bac my Odyssey would start in again … rue Jacob, rue Tournon … I ran across businesses that were almost shut down … agencies for textile mills that had gone out of existence … in provinces that maybe France would recover some day … dealers in objects so dismal they left you speechless … Even so I put on the charm … I plugged for an interview at a shop that sold religious articles … I attempted the impossible … I put on a good show in a wholesale house for chasubles … It looked like they were going to hire me in a chandelier factory … I was out of my mind with joy … I was even beginning to like the stuff … And then everything collapsed! In the end the Saint-Sulpice quarter was a big disappointment to me … They were having their troubles too … Everybody turned me out …

From pounding all those pavements my tootsies were on fire … I took my shoes off wherever I could … I’d give them a quick dip in the toilet … I could slip out of my shoes in one second flat … That way I made the acquaintance of a waiter in a café whose dogs hurt him even worse than mine. He worked all day until past midnight on the enormous terrace of the German brasserie in the Cour de la Croix-Nivert … Sometimes his shoes hurt him so bad he stuck little pieces of ice inside … I tried it … It helps for a little while, but then it’s even worse.

My mother stayed like that in the back of her shop with her leg stretched out for three weeks. There weren’t many customers … That gave her one more reason to eat her heart out … She couldn’t go out at all …

There were only the neighbors that came in now and then to bat the breeze and keep her company … They brought her all the gossip … They worked her up good … Especially in connection with me they dreamed up the stinkingest stuff … Those bastards couldn’t stand to see me doing nothing. Why couldn’t I find a job? they kept asking … It was inconceivable that I should be getting nowhere so fast after such efforts, such extraordinary sacrifices … It surpassed the understanding! It was a mystery! Seeing me on the rocks like that gave them a pain … Oh-ho, not on your tintype! They wouldn’t be saps like my parents … They wouldn’t make that mistake … They made that perfectly plain … You wouldn’t catch them working their fingers to the bone … for kids that didn’t give a shit … They wouldn’t bleed themselves white for their brats … Hell, no! Where did it get you? … Especially teaching them languages! Christ almighty Jesus, some joke! It only turned them into tramps, that’s all … it certainly didn’t do any good … There’s the living proof, one look at me was enough … A job? I’d never find one! … I didn’t inspire confidence … I just didn’t look right … They knew, they’d known me all my life … And that’s a fact.