Palafox (13 page)
Authors: Eric Chevillard
It’s over, they separate, parting forever and for good, without a glance, they couldn’t care a whit about each other, memory of the moment they shared already beginning to fade, older images rush up to fill the void, it all clouds over, they forget, dates and places get mixed up, verses from other songs get sung, they pass each other on the street without recognition - Palafox groans, braces himself, Queen tugs, nothing will separate them, it’s laughable and pathetic, two dogs stuck together have found themselves in a fine mess. Things slow down with age: elevators, public gardens, civil aircraft, carriage entrances lose their power of erotic suggestion, one suddenly comes to understand the smallness and discomfort of these places, the risk of being surprised by a policeman or by a stewardess does not add the least spice to the situation, hereafter nothing beats a bed between two naps for those things, besides less and less often, let’s be honest, the frenzy of passion and desire is followed by the complicated tenderness and fidelity of male menopause, a purer and more enduring attachment - Queen and Palafox spin on the spot, without succeeding to break the engagement, Philemon and Baucis certainly experienced this as well. For the years pass, the resentments take root and grow, a festering rancor, they are so old and so sick, too thin and bumbling to touch each other without hurting each other, still they stay together, they haven’t legs left to walk away, the mountain begins just beyond the threshold of their little house, so they tolerate each other, they remember, sitting side by side, silently, language forgotten, two hands crumbling into each other, eyes see only their own tears, the world swallowed up inside them, the sole survivor, the widow or widower, taking turns with death - there is no question that we must rescue these unfortunates, but how? Chancelade imagines a bucket of water, why not, which will lubricate one and soften the other. That was how he’d always seen it done in his family. Do we have a bucket, yes Chancelade will plunge it into the stream, bring it unsteadily back and, just like that, toss its contents onto the entwined pair, Queen and Palafox inseparable despite mutual consent - you will forgive us the tangents that punctuate this story, or make it unravel, since we always manage to make our way back to the point.
So they come apart, sweet victory, laurels to Chancelade. Queen bolts, of course, and disappears. Her future is all laid out, for those interested, first find a forked branch, gather the materials necessary for the building of a nest, branches, twigs, mosses, pieces of wool and cloth, sacrificing a bit of her duvet to the task at hand (when they run low on nails, our carpenters prefer to overlook that they have heavy hairs on their chests), then build it, this nest, without her hands, already with an intense desire to lay, to lay it, this egg, this second egg, this third egg, lay them, these fourth and fifth eggs, cover them, alone, patiently, cautiously, knowing that an egg is never truly safe, even in a tree, then clearing the nest of shells after the sensational birth, feed her brood, five fledglings less one the three others forced out, four fledglings less one that the three others forced out, three insatiable insectivorous fledglings, who no sooner have they swallowed a mosquito whole are they clamoring for the whole swarm, who no sooner have they swallowed a worm than are they clamoring for an acreful, reminding us not a little already in certain respects of our Palafox, their presumptive father.
Who didn’t appreciate Chancelade’s meddling, at all, we know how he hates water, how he prefers dry dusty land, burning rocks burning still beneath a midnight sun, where feet smoke, where you turn to stone if not wax, if not snow, where he basks in the sun anyway, flat as though flattened, happy, the least shadow sufficient to quench his thirst. In anger, he deploys a strange annulus approximately ten inches in diameter, iridescent on a background of old gold, lacey, ribbed, usually folded into its neck as we watch, when not angry almost invisible, reinforcing, one might recall, professor Pierpont’s thesis stated long ago, that Palafox was an annulated lizard, but let’s not get carried away. He charges at Chancelade, the universe wavers, Chancelade in midair instinctively drops into a fosbury flop, far more efficient than the scissor-kick disdained by the modern athlete, and which allows each new generation to rise higher than the one before it, even if the goal they are reaching for always remains unclear even for those involved, or grows increasingly distant in direct proportion to the closer they are to it, but the beauty is in the trying, in the surpassing of oneself, of one’s limits, then Chancelade falls. The second bucking of the mustang propels him into the air but not as high as the first, he’s on his back now, arms crossed, face rearranged, eyes reversed, ears fused into one, finally listening to each other, the nose, as for the nose, no more nose, lips swollen but smile imperceptible - we’re suppressing certain unbearable details, in the interest of protecting those sensitive souls among us, not to say various houseplants listening in - lucid enough nonetheless to count the fingers of his right hand on the fingers of his left and vice versa, the fingers of his left hand on the toes of his right foot. But already Palafox charges in his direction. Algernon, we can see, isn’t taking this lying down. As soon as it’s clear,
primo,
that Palafox isn’t playing, secondo, that Chancelade isn’t having any fun either, our friend leaps into action, reed in one hand and knife in the other, he undertakes to carve a flute, a perfunctory little flute, the reed pipe we now see before us.
primo,
that Palafox isn’t playing, secondo, that Chancelade isn’t having any fun either, our friend leaps into action, reed in one hand and knife in the other, he undertakes to carve a flute, a perfunctory little flute, the reed pipe we now see before us.
Let us be clear - the instant if not self-explanatory is at least well-chosen - that elephants’ graveyards do not exist. One sometimes finds, in essence, three or four skeletons in a clearing, or more, but here’s why: old, sick or wounded, elephants swear off roaming the earth and remain near a water source, where food abounds, it’s wise, thus our widows clattering with ivory, instinctively or without thinking, end their days along the Riviera. No serious zoologist now believes in some occult force leading them to these wild gardens. Another myth, please note, is the supposed appreciation of music by rattlesnakes. In reality, Palafox is only attracted to the movements of the flute. He follows Algernon through the fields, as if hypnotized, Maureen and Olympia helping Chancelade along, and we’re back in La Gloriette again.
We are at war, lest we forget. The battles are intensifying. The outcome of the conflict grows uncertain. Of course, our collections of Egyptian art have been enriched by ten sarcophaguses, four superb blue earthenware hippos, statuettes and canoptic jars, an obelisk, various rare papyri, above all a large number of mummies of cats and ibex, but the enemy has certainly helped itself to most of our cubist and post-impressionist paintings. And if we have been able to recoup the Renaissance masterpieces they took from us during a previous conflict - two Fra Angelicos, a fine Arcimboldi among others - it would seem that the enemy had, for his part, made off with all our Flemish masters, including those which never belonged to him. That is all the information we have available to us. Status quo, really. Hard to say who will win. But things can change quickly, one way or the other. Lieutenant Chancelade will be indisposed for a few weeks, we’ll have to manage without him.
Palafox wanders in the pit dug and paved for him in the middle of the park, appointed according to his taste. A rock symbolizes a mountain. The plantigrades need this minimum of space, without which they perish. While fighting him, Chancelade tore off his tail, but Palafox remains dangerous, and anyway it’ll grow back. Algernon filed down his claws and canines, we cut down his horns, he remains dangerous despite it all, his electrical discharges attain an intensity of 600 volts, could stop a steer, even more so a cowboy, in this instance our poor old Olympia. Doubtless it is sad to arrive here, at this end, but there is no other solution, gelding him, neutering Palafox, all his aggression comes from there, from that end. Palafox in rutting season cannot be controlled, cannot control himself, Algernon’s attempts to civilize him are for naught, he once again becomes the man-eater who Sadarnac, lying, claims to have fished out of the Pacific, but who lived in all likelihood in a Bengali forest, where he was captured before being sold to a zoo, escaped, burst in chez the Buffoons as we all recall who took him in, pampered him, very nearly domesticated him, and unthinkable that all this should be for naught - so we neuter Palafox. First thing, hobble the animal, done, then wash the belly with warm water. Sharpen a razor and make an incision a hair longer than an inch at the base of the scrotum. With two fingers, as if you were digging for a dime lost in the lining of a jacket, nudge the nut towards the tear, ibid ball two, then pull until it releases from the spermatic cord, it will release, it must release, it releases. Apply an antiseptic healing salve to the wound, repellant to flies - maggots be hanged - and leave the pit without dragging your feet. Prudently Algernon undoes Palafox’s ties.
10.
They did not hesitate to ditch every one and thing to join us, their students, their families, their workbenches, as soon as they received Algernon’s alarming letter they packed their bags, professors Baruglio, Pierpont and Zeiger are La Gloriette’s invitees. You come in too, Cambrelin, since you’re here. The four zoologists lean forward. Baruglio moves aside to let Pierpont pass who moves aside to let Zeiger pass, Cambrelin didn’t have to be asked twice, behind him the three others bump into each other and curse, recall that Pierpont can’t stand Zeiger who can’t stand Baruglio, he who allied himself with the entomologist against the ornithologist, it’s all perfectly clear, it would be unfortunate that a simple question of entrance protocol condemns us to interrupt this story, whatever one might think of it, so close to the end. But Cambrelin steps back out to press on his colleagues, and it’s the same melee all over again. Just as we are on the brink of throwing this manuscript into a drawer, bitterly, to accommodate the touchiness of four professors - indeed, why introduce this one before that one? - Maureen holds us back (inspiration therefore is a pale little face with shimmering eyes), closes the drawer, then leans to open another door by the window and the pace of our story picks up, our invitees barrel into the hall where Olympia waits for them, so there you are, who gives each of them a copy of the preceding chapter. You should know, adds Algernon while they bring themselves up to date on the latest events, you should know, I, in essence, am telling them, that the castration of Palafox has done nothing to modify his anti-social behavior. Yesterday, he bit the mailman and the milkman. As a result, neither milk nor mail this morning, sad breakfast that. Later, a vendor of marble headstones who’d heard about Chancelade’s misadventures came to see what had happened, we reassured him, Chancelade will pull through, the state of my health seemed to concern him, Maureen’s lack of appetite, Olympia, her fear of water in particular, it all interested him. And then Palafox charged and began making loops around his head, cawing, the little guy didn’t take it very well, summer or winter you can count on him, day as night, one cry and he’ll be there. But not all our visitors have his patience, someone will end up trampling Palafox underfoot. We had him well in hand however, he obeyed our orders, pooping in the sawdust at last, and only in the sawdust, no longer eating his fleas, walking upright on two paws, even beginning to talk.
Algernon’s discouragement and discomfort are justifiable, the date of the exhibition approaches, but Palafox has never been less presentable. Now, he barely recognizes us. He won’t give us his paw. He doesn’t come when we whistle. He flees our company, as if he were suddenly afraid of us, takes off as if spooked, flies into the windowpane, tries to hide under the furniture, between the floorboards, comes to rest on the ceiling and stays glued there until dark. Thanks to darkness - rabble finds a friend in darkness - he steals into the cellar and dips into our stores of sugar, rice, coffee, cookies, you never know with this war, he eats his way into our hams, this must end.
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