Death on the Installment Plan (75 page)

It wasn’t funny anymore … Courtial said so to the postman when he came … It was perfectly natural that this bikeless Eusèbe should spew a little poison … “It’s damn-well fucking possible,” was his answer. He added nothing. Anyway that stinker was getting more and more stinking. We didn’t have a drop of anything left … we had nothing to offer him … He was really pissed off … Ten miles without a drink! … He was probably putting the evil eye on us … He came out from Persant three times a day! Just for our mail! … People were writing us from all over, it wasn’t our fault …

Our mail had multiplied by ten … People who wanted to know all about it … who wanted to come out for an interview … And rafts of anonymous characters who told us off good for the price of a stamp … Cartloads of insults …

“OK, OK, the spirit’s fermenting … Look at all those lovely letters! A hundred thousand times more verminous than all the soil in the planet … And God knows it’s crawling … It’s lousy with them. You want to know what putrefaction is? You want me to tell you? It’s all the shit we have to put up with …”

We thought maybe if we cooked them over a very slow fire … putting cheese on them … frying them in fat … if we cajoled them … in some clever way, we’d gradually be able to make them edible after all … We tried all the stratagems of cookery … Absolutely nothing worked … The whole mess turned to jelly at the bottom of the pot … At the end of an hour … maybe an hour and a half … all we had was one enormous grub cake … And still that terrifying smell … Courtial spent a long time sniffing at the result of our cooking …

“It’s ferrous hydrate of alumina! Make a note of that name, Ferdinand. Remember it well … You see that meconium-like substance? … Our land is saturated with it … literally! … I don’t even need an analysis … Precipitated by sulphides … That’s our main trouble … undeniably … Look at that yellowing crust … I’d always suspected as much! … Those potatoes … that’s an idea! … they’d make a splendid fertilizer … Especially with the potash in them … You see the potash? That’s our salvation! Potash! Potash! It’s remarkably adhesive … They’re all supercharged with it … See how they glisten … you observe the scales? That coating on every radicle? … All those infinitesimal crystals? … shimmering green? and violet? … Do you see them clearly? … Those, Ferdinand, my dear boy, are the transfers … Yes! … The transfers of hydrolysis! … Yes, yes indeed … neither more nor less … conveyed by our currents … Yes, my boy! … Absolutely! … The telluric signature! … That’s it all right … Take a good look now … Open your eyes to the maximum! No clearer demonstration is possible! No need of further proof! What proof? There it is … the best! Exactly as I foresaw! … This is a current that nothing can stop, disseminate, or refract! But it shows … I’ve got to admit that … a slight excess of alumina … And there’s another little drawback … but it’s temporary … very temporary! … The question of temperature! The optimum for alumina is 12.05 degrees centigrade … Aha! Remember that, O-five … For our purposes! You follow me?”

Another two weeks passed … We rationed our bit of fat so strictly that we only made soup once a day … There was no question of going out … It rained enormously … The country was having a rough time too … flattened out by winter … The trees had the shivers… like ghosts rowing in the wind … As soon as we’d emptied our plates, we went back to our straw ticks to keep warm … We lay sprawled for whole days … all bunched up together … without opening our mouths … without saying a word … Even a wood fire doesn’t help when you’re that cold … We had terrible coughing spells … And we were getting thin … our legs were like matchsticks … and so weak we couldn’t move … or chew … or anything … Starvation is no joke … The postman stopped coming … He must have had orders … We wouldn’t have been so depressed if we’d had some butter … or even a little margarine … It’s indispensable in the winter … About then Courtial began to have terrible nausea … when the cold got so intense and we were eating less and less … He had some kind of enteritis, really very bad … He had awful bellyaches … He writhed in the straw … It wasn’t from food … He talked it over with the old girl and they took up the question of enemas … Should he take one? … or mightn’t it be better if he didn’t? … “But you haven’t got anything in your bowels,” she said … “How can you have rumblings? Colic doesn’t start up all by itself.”

“I tell you I can feel it going through! Jesus! It was twisting my bowels all night … It’s a dry colic … It ties my guts up in knots … Oh! Oh! …”

“It’s the cold, you poor dope!”

“It’s not the cold …”

“Then it’s hunger …”

“No, I’m not hungry … I feel like throwing up …”

“Oh, you don’t know what you want …”

He didn’t answer … He burrowed into his straw … He didn’t want to be talked to …

In the agricultural line there was really nothing more he could do … There was no more gas in the shed, not even a single can to start the thing up with …

Two more days passed … in waiting and prostration … Our old ladylove, huddled in a corner, muffled in curtains, couldn’t stand it anymore, her teeth were chattering fit to crack … She climbed up to the loft and got some more sacks … She cut herself out a kind of smock like the kids wore and a good stiff kilt. She put them on over her pants and padded herself out with cotton waste … It made her look like a Zulu … She thought it was funny-looking herself … The cold makes you laugh something awful … She was still cold, so she started cavorting around … clattering her wooden shoes, hey nonny nonny, around the big heavy table. The kids split a gut watching her … They joined her in a kind of snake dance … They ran after her … They hung on her shirttails … She sang a little song:

See the miller’s daughter
Dancing with the boys—
The poor thing’s lost her garter,
Her garter, her garter …

These kittenish spells didn’t come over Ma Courtial very often … It took a special occasion … She had nothing left to chew … Courtial had taken all the tobacco … She started griping a little about her pipe … The kids tore her apart at the seams … They pushed her down in the straw …

“Godammit to blazes!” she hollered at them: “Shove off, the whole lot of you! You swivel-eyed, mangy snot-noses! Leeches … floozies! …” That made them laugh still harder …

“Courtial, listen …” He wouldn’t listen … He burrowed his head in his hole … He sighed … He groaned … it was his belly and the roughhouse … The kids jumped on him, the four boys and the three girls … He still wouldn’t answer.

A little later we began wondering what had become of Dudule … He’d been out a good two hours … supposedly relieving himself … We were all good and worried … It was nightfall by the time he got back … He was loaded to the gunwales … He’d covered seven miles … to Persant station and back in high … He’d raised a real windfall on the freight platform … What a deal … A shipment of groceries … He’d brought us butter, a huge chunk … two complete strings of sausages … three baskets of eggs … bologna, jam, and
foie gras
… He’d even taken their wheelbarrow … He’d snaffled the whole business outside the baggage room while the men were over in the switch house trying to get warm … It hadn’t taken Dudule two minutes to walk off with his whole cargo … The only thing missing was bread … but that didn’t keep us from throwing a banquet … a real spread! … We built our fire way up high … We threw on pretty near a whole tree …

When he heard what was going on, des Pereires woke up completely … He got up to eat … He started guzzling so fast it took his breath away. He was holding his belly in both hands … “Oh my oh my oh my!” he sighed from time to time … The old cutie didn’t need to be asked twice either … In a few minutes she was so stuffed she had to lie down … She rolled over on the ground … from her belly to her back … very slowly … “Oh, gracious goodness, goodness gracious, Courtial! It won’t go down! Mm, was I hungry! …” The kids kept going off to vomit in the corners … Then they came back and funneled in some more … Dudule’s dog was so bloated up he was howling blue murder … “Ah! my children!” des Pereires kept saying, “Ah, the dear little angels! Ah, my dear darlings! Oh my oh my! It was high time! Ah, there’s nothing like it …” He was in seventh heaven … “Ah, it was high time! Oh my oh my! … There’s nothing like it! …” That was all he could say. He couldn’t get over the miracle …

It must have been about five o’clock … there was no sign of daylight … when I heard Courtial stirring in the hay … He was getting up … I figured the time by the fireplace … the fire was almost out … I says to myself: “There he goes, he’s hungry … He can’t take the cold … He’s going to make himself some coffee … We’ll all have some …
Bueno!
…” He actually did make for the kitchen … That was perfectly natural … I hear him fiddling with the coffeepots … I felt like joining him and tossing down a cup … But between my nest and the door the kids were all sleeping … bunched up together, with their heads every which way … I was afraid of stepping on them … So I stayed in my hole … After all I wasn’t too cold … I was sheltered by the wall … I was catching less breeze than the old-timer. I was only frozen stiff. I waited for him to come back with the coffeepot, I’d stop him on the way … But he was taking his time … He was padding around in the distance … For a long time I heard him clattering pots and pans … And then I heard him opening the door onto the road … The thought passed through my mind: “He’s gone out to take a leak …” I didn’t get it … I kept waiting for him to come back … I was worried for a second … I almost got up … And then I fell back asleep … I was in a torpor …

And then I had a nightmare … Deep in the bottom of my sleep I was fighting with the old bag … She was having things her own way … I broke loose … She grabbed me again … What a battle! … What a ruckus! … I couldn’t disentangle myself … The noise was awful … She had me in a drowning-man’s grip … She was cracking my head with her questions … I tried to shake her off, to cover up with straw … but the bitch was holding me, she latched onto my head … And she yelled! And she bellowed! … She twisted my ears in her fists … She wouldn’t let go … Where was her Courtial? she yelled in all fifteen keys … She’d just come back from the kitchen … she’d wanted some coffee … There wasn’t a drop left … So she’d started raising hell … Everything was empty … He’d swilled it all up, the swine! … every last cup, the three coffeepots, all by himself … before going out … Hadn’t he said anything to me? She kept at me …

“No, no! Not a word!”

“Which way did he go?” Had I seen him in the yard?

“No! No!” I hadn’t seen a thing … Mésange jumped up with a bang and started blubbering … She’d had a crazy dream … She’d seen the boss, Courtial, riding on an elephant … This was no time to fall for such hooey … We tried to remember what he’d said that evening … He’d eaten enough for a regiment … we remembered that … Maybe he’d been sick … maybe he’d passed out … It was mighty cold out there … We started listing the possibilities … A stroke? … We didn’t waste any time, we went looking for him with the kids … We searched all through the straw … every corner of the house … the outbuildings, the two barns … and the experiment shed … He wasn’t anywhere … We went out across the fields … the immediate vicinity … and then a little farther … Some went up toward the hillside, searching every gully and clump of trees … The rest combed the plateau like they were picking berries … We sent out Dudule’s dog … No hair or hide of Courtial … We reassembled … We searched the little woods, bush by bush … He often went roaming around through there … Just then one of the kids noticed something written on the big panel of the front door … “Good luck! Good luck!” … in chalk … in big capital letters … That was his handwriting all right …

At first the old lady couldn’t make head or tail of it … She kept mumbling: “Good luck! Good luck!” She couldn’t stop …

“What does it mean? … Why, good Lord! Why, he’s blown!” Suddenly it hit her between the eyes. “Say, who does he take me for! … Heavens above! … Good luck! … What’s that again? Good luck? He wishes me … good luck? … He says that to me? … Say … that’s stinking! Oh!” She was outraged … absolutely furious …

“Why, it’s monstrous! … His highness blows … He steps out … He takes a little trip … His highness trots off to town for a binge! The skunk! The scoundrel! The no-good! … Good luck and that’s that! … And I’m supposed to shut up and like it! … So the eight ball’s all for me, is that it? … So I’m knee-deep in shit? … Well, climb on out, you old bag! … Just shake your ass! And good luck! And I’m expected to take it lying down! … What do you say, Ferdinand? What do you think? … Of all the rotten stinking gall! …”

The kids were doubled up listening to her raving … I didn’t want to stir up the explosion … I let her cool off some … But I says to myself inside … “The poor bastard was sick of us … He was fed up on farming too … He’s cleared out fast and far … We won’t be seeing him again so soon …” That was my hunch … I remembered some of the things he said … They pinched me hard … Sure he talked a lot of hooey … But maybe all the same he’d finally gone through with his Great Decision … the skunk … leaving us to sink … up to our necks in shit … That was his way … He was plenty underhanded, vindictive, deceitful … worse than thirty-six bears … It was no surprise to me … I’d always known it … “The details are unimportant … They clutter up our lives … Decision is what counts … The Great Decision, Ferdinand! The Great Decision! You hear me? …”I heard him … It was all a lot of gas … But suppose he’d really cleared out once and for all! … Wouldn’t that be stinking! Wouldn’t that below-down! … How were the rest of us going to get out of this mess? … The old lady was dead-right … What could we do with this telluric junk? … Not a thing! … If they all came around accusing us of stinking up the whole earth … what would we have to say for ourselves? … We’d be out on our ass! … He with his glib tongue … maybe he could bamboozle the cannibals … maybe he could spellbind them … But us? … We didn’t have a chance.