Palafox (16 page)
Authors: Eric Chevillard
Olympia starts with his head, clipper #0, going against the grain of the fur over his muzzle, cheeks from ears to lips, the underside of the snout, the neck, the throat, shouts a curt order to Maureen, clipper #1, with which she shaves the slightly faded perimeter around the eyes, above all do not emphasize his ungainliness, then, scissors straight, she evens out the hairs of the short mustache, card, yes, she untangles the frizzy mane on his head, curved scissors, and clipping it along the shape of the head, careful, neither too flat on the top nor too low along the nose, so, at last, she grooms the ears, thinning shears, thin without shearing, and the hair around the ears is long, better that way, the head’s done. Clipper #00, onto the body. A cakewalk. Beginning at the tail, Olympia shaves the small of his back, his behind, the thighs, the belly and the flanks up to the middle of the body - stop! - the mane should cover the sides, a dense and furry muff flexible under your fingers, scissors straight, keep it to two inches thick, curved scissors, Olympia nonetheless rounds the angles, and cheats a little when cutting the hair on the chest, in such a way as to obtain an ideal curve from the sternum to the last rib, so the body’s done, we see that Olympia has given up on the patterns on his behind, vulgar according to her, and in terrible taste. For the same reason, she’s against grooming the bloomers on the front legs, clipper #00, she shaves the four legs one after another, then the four feet, sparing nonetheless the fur around the ankles, curved scissors, she trims them into bowls, highlighting the incredible finesse of the feet and their bluish nudity. Now only the tail remains, clipper #00, Olympia shaves it along two thirds of its length, opting at its end for the oblong pompon, it’s done, Algernon can let the animal go. Palafox wriggles his tail. It looks like he’s cleaning a baby’s bottle. The orphan and the dame smile sadly.
With that, as every evening, restful night - the sound of the sea, the only known variant of silence, diffused by a favorable wind yours for the taking, the grain of salt added by a nightingale, only a half-moon, but the prettier half, billions of stars both dead and alive, shimmering, darkness in the house, the regular exhalation of sleepers, their extravagant dreams - as every evening, night without trouble. At the moment when our story starts up again, Algernon pushes open the door to the registration office. We haven’t missed much: rising early, washing absent-mindedly (left to right, then right to left, then low to high, then high to low), scalding hot coffee drunk standing up, one gulp, like a sword it went down, and then out, Palafox on a leash, the sandy roads bordered by bushes and gorse one shouldn’t confuse, the barking of dogs from far off, from nearer still, the tents of the exhibitors in the distance, nearer still, the cages, the dogs in the cages, the bungalows of the officials, we rejoin Algernon at the moment when, understanding that he must pull and not push this goddamn door, he enters the office of the registrar. Palafox is in order, here are his vaccinations for rabies, Carré’s disease and contagious hepatitis. The official responsible for registration - quickly inflate a chubby flat character with rosy cheeks - notes the registration number, x366, tattooed on the inside of his right ear. (Scenes of vaccination and tattooing, whether forgotten or ignored, do not figure in this story.) Make your way to the veterinary checkpoint, hisses the functionary, suddenly less chubby cheeked and who seems to lose his composure in direct proportion to each step towards the door we take, stoops, withers, fades, who still finds enough breath to indicate the adjoining bungalow, then he passes away and rises to heaven, in a zigzag course, crushed against the ceiling and falling again, henceforth useless, in a wastebasket.
The veterinarian, but instead read the bill that concerns him, is alone responsible for allowing or rejecting a participant, before or even during the exposition: those specimens that appear sick or afflicted with skin conditions, blind specimens, crippled or deformed, those with one testicle or none at all, females that are visibly pregnant, lactating or accompanied by their pups, and those females in heat. The decision of this corpulent personage with rosy cheeks is without appeal. He examines Palafox, pure formality, and countersigns the registration form while whistling to himself, he wasn’t whistling, he was exhaling. We take Palafox to the cage he has been assigned. He will not leave it again but to be brought before the judges. Any infraction at this point can keep the animal out of the competition and any reward he might have earned be revoked. The organizers decline all responsibility in the instance of theft, loss, flight, sickness, death of animals on display, bites from those animals, whatever the circumstances. In other words, the exhibitors are alone responsible for any accidents or damages that are the result of their animals’ actions, whether involving a third party or the animals themselves, the organizers would be in no way liable. All the toy poodles are in the same boat, we count twenty-one, black, gray, white or brown, shorn into lions, with or without bloomers, bibs around their necks. There are some pretty creatures, but Palafox seems to be the only one apricot in color, an easy trump since the objective of all is to look most like a lion, and therefore as little like a little sheep.
A loudspeaker announces the arrival of the three official judges. They are accompanied by a secretary, two magistrate’s assistants and a ringmaster (a pretty bunch of pink balloons that we will soon release into the blue). The ring, we’re not exaggerating, consists of a space approximately four hundred square feet, the edges of which are indicated by cords, where the masters maneuver their animals. The judges proceed by process of elimination. They confer in hushed tones then convey their decisions to the assistants who carry them out. The disappointed candidates leave the ring, only thirteen remain, twelve, eleven, ten, there are only nine now who have a chance, three black, two white, two gray, a brown and Palafox. The judges deliberate. Deliberate. The sky clouds over, blusters, false star a token in the clouds, it will rain. An anecdote to kill some time: once upon a time in a bourgeois salon containing a housewife and an elephant, a white mouse appeared, the housewife and the elephant scared to wits both hopped onto piano bench, the moral is, women have a reason to be afraid of mice. No news yet, the judges are deliberating. It is raining. A helpful hint while waiting: looking to get rid of a bulky or aesthetically displeasing stone? Stick it in a sack with a bunch of kittens and throw the sack into a pit. In Latin
deliberate,
endlessly deliberating. Deliberating at length, then award a yellow ribbon to two white poodles and one brown (Not Bad), decided via their rigorous system of evaluation that recognizes their characteristic but not notable features; a green ribbon (Good) goes to two blacks and gray which possess all the characteristics of the breed, certain of which nonetheless might be identified as less than perfect; a blue ribbon (Very Good) to the last black and the last gray, worthy of each other, despite a few pardonable flaws, to be used as breeders; and the red ribbon at last (Excellent) and the title of Champion to our hero, Palafox, presented in perfect condition, manifesting a perfectly balanced and harmonious whole, approaching as best one can the ideal of the breed.
deliberate,
endlessly deliberating. Deliberating at length, then award a yellow ribbon to two white poodles and one brown (Not Bad), decided via their rigorous system of evaluation that recognizes their characteristic but not notable features; a green ribbon (Good) goes to two blacks and gray which possess all the characteristics of the breed, certain of which nonetheless might be identified as less than perfect; a blue ribbon (Very Good) to the last black and the last gray, worthy of each other, despite a few pardonable flaws, to be used as breeders; and the red ribbon at last (Excellent) and the title of Champion to our hero, Palafox, presented in perfect condition, manifesting a perfectly balanced and harmonious whole, approaching as best one can the ideal of the breed.
Palafox’s victory - Palafox who flutters around the lamp while we put down these lines - was able to surprise Pierpont, delight Maureen and Olympia, disappoint Chancelade and flatter Algernon, my lessons beginning to bear fruit, at last. Despite the shadow of Palafox dancing across the page, his tiresome and ineffectual buzzing, as if he were imitating with astonishing accuracy that of the famous universal machine tool conceived to execute every manufacturing operation, drilling, milling, cutting, sanding suddenly set in motion, this shadow and this buzzing once again bothering our work today. We have no desire to invent excuses, but is it sheer chance that the most questionable passages in this treatise were written in Palafox’s presence, and if our phrases become tangled each time that he hangs around our lamp?
The bug has come to rest on the notebook. It is walking between the lines, either ahead of or behind the pen we handle happily with enough virtuosity to avoid a shock which would prove fatal to it, alas! We would have to elect to consider this ugly blot of blood and ink as the last period of our story. We blow on the page to chase Palafox away, he topples onto his back, flimmering without rhyme or reason his three sets of legs, pathetic, this driver caught beneath his immobilized vehicle, tightening this, unscrewing that, infuriated by his powerlessness and the uselessness of his efforts, nailed there until the tow truck arrives, the finger to which he now clings, elytra disjointed, little wings all creased. He crawls the length of the finger to its tip, knuckle, phalanx, changes its mind, frightened by the moist depths of the palm, half turn, phalanx, knuckle, tip, he halts on the nail, there’s no way around it. It’s our turn to decide-a flick ends this episode.
The reception is tomorrow. Palafox does not know the first word of the text written in his honor by Algernon, he has not perfected any of the routines or magic tricks that he should perform, he is barely able to perform the simplest addition problems by stomping the ground with his hoof. Algernon comes to his senses. He gives up on the idea of the show. Anyway, Palafox showing his face will be enough to satisfy the curiosity of those among our invitees, exhausted by all the talk, who have never even seen him. His somewhat unsophisticated manners may be a source of shock to Madame Franc-Nohain, the wife of the president having withdrawn from the world with her hairdresser, her doctor, her Scottish-terrier and a string-quartet, she only frequents her sycophantic courtiers, so reverential that they have never seen her face, and only tolerates around her housekeepers afflicted with scoliosis, as if petrified by respect, another advantage, they fit perfectly into attics. But let’s not exaggerate, Madame Franc-Nohain is also a noble spirit, she doesn’t hesitate to get her hands dirty when the moment requires it, as, say, when it comes to giving aide poor countries require, she devotes hours stolen from her own personal hygiene to embroidering the altar linen for the missions. Palafox’s unsophisticated manners could offend her, if he were to nibble her wig, or if he were to fly directly into her ear, such signs of affection would seem out of place, or at the very least premature. You can’t just suddenly be a courtier (except in enemy territory, where bodily punishment is inflicted on women without waiting for a second date. In this respect, all freedom is left to privates, all latitude, it is right that they should feel personally involved in the murderous war in which they figure and disfigure others, first as murderers then as murdered: it makes them brave. Then, they only better defend the interests of their country. Of course as soon as they’ve dishonored the old mother and daughter of the enemy, the privates finds his way back to their battalion, end of story, their shore leave is scuttled if they’re missing a button).
Our invitees will want to pet him, pick him up, we should dress him up, his scaly nudity will induce in them a very human repulsion. Who can explain why, in a few days, his skin has become rough, has lost its luster. So, Palafox is barely presentable. Olympia tries a series of hats, cotton coats, cardigans. The imperative for elegance seems secondary to all others, not to say reprehensible, we voluntarily ridicule those who can’t try on a tie without being before any one of a number of mirrors. One forgets that pants were invented or discovered by a man who clothed himself elegantly; they made their way into the collective consciousness and now sell better than loincloths. Olympia moans about it. Nothing suits Palafox. He slips on a coat, fine, then slips out of the right sleeve before disappearing into a pocket. Olympia is at wits end. According to professor Baruglio, however, these fittings, all these manipulations have led to the exceptional event that we are witnessing now. Nothing extraordinary, Baruglio retracts. Palafox is writhing on the ground, his old skin slipping from him like a stocking. He is molting, Baruglio says. We immediately lose interest in the cloth and direct our gaze on the stripper’s skin, Palafox regenerated, as if new, with his smooth glittering scales, his almond-green back decorated with black lozenges which form a perfect zigzag from head to tail, the red stripes along his sides, his immaculate cream-white belly. Dressing him is no longer an issue, this goes without saying. A little pink bow between his ears perhaps, because Olympia insists, a few little bells in his mane.
12.
Palafox blows his entrance. We give a reception in his honor, to present him to the world, put ourselves out for him, all the leading experts are there, stately, at their peaks, footmen by their sides, all gathered to celebrate him, and just moments after getting there, Palafox decapitates Madame Franc-Nohain’s Scottish terrier with one bite, the last thing he should have done. Her Scottish terrier meant the world to her. Métalo, she had called him Métalo, derisively, Métalo followed her everywhere, he ate from her plate, one pea for each of hers, he slept in her room, quite a loss for the president’s wife. And if he had stopped there it might have been forgotten, but Palafox made more mistakes, as if at will, many faux pas, upending chairs and side tables, without releasing Métalo’s head from which a mischievous eye hung, someone should wipe up all this blood.
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