The Bark Tree (20 page)

“Hallo, Saturnin. Haven’t you gone to the country this beautiful Sunday?”

“Oh, Meussieu Narcense, I muss tell you the latest about my sister. She’s still got the idea that that young man from Obonne and his friend are gangsters she’s got to be leery of; she found out, no idea how” (here Saturnin is just slightly embarrassed; very slightly) “that they’ve gone to X
...
for their holidays. And do you know what she’s done? She’s persuaded my brother to send his son there, to stay with a lady she knows, a midwife, to spy on em.”

“Now that’s very nasty,” says Narcense.

“Don’t you think she’s becoming very alarming, my sister?”

“Mm, hm, Ida know, Ida know.”

“Meussieu Narcense, you don’t look very well.”

“Too true; but what d’you suggest I should do?”

“If you’d let me, I might maybe help you a little.”

“No thank you, Saturnin, no thank you.”

“Bet you haven’t had anything to eat today.”

“What an idea, what an idea. By the way, am I still a gangster too?”

“Of course! There’s no shaking her on that one.”

“I hope, Saturnin, that you aren’t spying on me on her behalf.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t tell her anything. Zit true you’ve had summing to eat today? You look so pale.”

“Saturnin, you’re getting to be a damn bore. Good night.”

Narcense is invited to Théo’s funeral, he gets a big letter with a black border; your presence is requested, etc. He borrows some money from his concierge and goes off to X
...
. Etienne and Alberte are crying: he offers them his condolences. He can see the little room where the scene takes place. As for Mme. Péponas (mustn’t forget her), she’s been hung.

He opens the door and goes into his apartment.

Théo’s funeral is going to be magnificent; the general has sent a squadron of hussars; a battleship is going to fire thirty-six cannon shots; the bishop
in partibus
of Pharmacopolis is going to come especially for the occasion; he’s going to follow the cortege on horseback and the coffin-bearers will be soldiers. The children will be given lollipops, and every adult will be entitled to a lottery ticket.

Narcense undresses; he’s going to bed; 8 o’clock, that’s a good time when your stomach is cracking.

On the appointed day, everything goes smoothly; bishop on horseback, hussars, lollipops, etc
...
. Théo’s tombstone has been temporarily made out of gasoline cans. In short, everyone expresses satisfaction. After the ceremony, a great banquet with the bishop, the hussars, the general, etc. On the menu: sheep’s brains and pig’s feet.

Narcense shivers; he changes the subject.

He is at the banquet, too, as are Etienne and Alberte; at a certain moment the latter gets up and disappears; without anyone noticing, he does the same; he looks for her. He finds her: she’s stopped halfway up the stairs and is doing up her garter. The most beautiful leg. The most beautiful thigh. Narcense’s mind starts wandering.

—oooooo—oooooo—

After two weeks, Pierre came back to X
...
. He was only passing through, because, he said, he had to go to Paris on important business. The Marcel family, to which were agglomerated Mme. Pigeonnnier, Sensitif junior and young Nécessaire, gave him a warm welcome; he amazed this little group with marvelous tales about the other resort, Y
...
, which was frequented by the Prince of Wales, the Aga Khan, the Trouvadja of Bizère and the Duke of Sentinel; where you could count yachts by the dozen, Rolls Royces by the hundred, and thousand-franc notes by the thousand. He also told them about his brother, the mathematician; he lived, so he said, in a little castle on the banks of a river which were overgrown by reeds; near it was a farm where, every morning, they drank fresh milk; then they rode through the fields and forests; the fruit was ripening, they were bringing in the harvest, and they would soon be picking the grapes. His brother was putting the finishing touches on a big article for
Acta Mathematicas,
in which he proved that the cardinality of the continuum is aleph one.
{12}
An admiring silence followed this revelation. Young Nécessaire timidly alluded to Pythagoras and Henri Poincaré; Sensitif junior, much impressed, there and then conceived a poem about the square of the hypotenuse which is equal, if he is not mistaken, etc.;
{13}
Mme. Pigeonnier started to say something about Inaudi,
{14}
but Théo shut her up with an insolence that surprised the assembled company. Etienne wanted to know what the cardinality of the continuum was. But Pierre admitted that he had no idea. Later, the two of them went for a walk along the path leading to the cliffs.

“When you’re back in Obonne, will you sometimes go to Blagny?” asked Pierre.

“Probably. I don’t know why, but there’s something in me that is attached to that horrible place, now. Because it is horrible, isn’t it, that bistro?”

“Yes, it’s a sinister place.”

“And those people! the owner, Belhôtel, he seems to be a brute and a boor. And his sister, Mme. Cloche, seems to be a terrible virago.”

“She doesn’t only seem to be one,” Le Grand corrected him, “she undoubtedly is one.”

“It isn’t because those people got mixed up in that strange incident at Les Mygales that I feel attached to that shanty. That’s got nothing to do with it. To tell you the truth, it isn’t I who have become attached to the place, but the place that has become attached to me. It extends me, mysteriously.”

“Do you remember,” said Pierre, “that blue door the local junk dealer didn’t want to sell us?”

“It’s odd, eh,” said Etienne, “I sometimes think of it. That door intrigues me terribly.”

“And me too! I dream about it! I suspect it of being of uncommon value, I imagine it to be inestimable—and in particular, I’d like to see—the other side.”

“That’s it; that door ought to be opened.”

“We’ll go back there together,” suggested Pierre, and Etienne agreed.

Pierre went on:

“What about Narcense, you don’t know what’s become of him?”

“Not at all. How would I? I’m not on any sort of terms with him. I know him far less than you do.”

“How’s that?”

“Listen, Le Grand, I’d like to speak frankly to you, and I’d like you to do the same. When, in the Langlumet restaurant, you pointed Narcense out to me as someone who was going to play a part in my life, you already knew him, didn’t you? He told me so himself.”

“And did he also tell you that it was I who drove him to Obonne wood, that evening?”

“He didn’t tell me that,” replied Etienne, profoundly astonished.

No, that he didn’t know; he couldn’t even have suspected it. This revelation upset him. He thought he knew, and he didn’t know. He thought he understood, and he didn’t understand. The world, like a game of hide-and-seek—again he had this vision. Was life a continual surprise, then? He had a coherent, definite memory of the night at Les Mygales, a global representation of which he had thought he could say: that’s how it was—and yet there had been something missing in it, a vital intervention had remained hidden. Then Etienne began to doubt everything he thought he knew, everything he thought he understood, everything he thought he saw and heard.
Naturally,
Etienne doubted the world. The world was playing with him. There was a secret behind this fishing port, there was a mystery behind this cliff, behind that milestone, behind that cigarette butt.

“Yes,” he said, “even a cigarette butt hides its own truth.”

“What did you say?” said Pierre, who had just seen, on the road, coming toward them, Catherine, on the arm of Alexis Considérable.

“I was saying that even a cigarette butt, you don’t know what it is. I don’t know what it is! I don’t know! I DON’T KNOW!” he shouted.

Catherine and Alexis turned around, surprised.

“Ah yes, that’s the one who, you think, might have had something to do with Théo running away?”

“Oh, I have no theories,” Pierre rejoined.

“It’s possible, isn’t it? Everything is possible. Do I know anything about Théo’s flight? No, I don’t know anything. There again, I don’t know anything. Even Théo, perhaps you think I know who he is? Well, I don’t. Théo? Who is he? It’s very simple: I don’t know anything about him. Even if I were to ask him, that wouldn’t get me any further; obviously. Even if I were to think about him all my life, I wouldn’t know in the end. And what about me, eh, who am I? I’ve already told you, I don’t know who I am. And in any case, has that question any meaning? Does it mean anything, to demand like that: who am I? has it the slightest meaning? Who am I? But I’m Etienne Marcel, born in Besançon on the 23rd of May, 1905, clerk at the Audit Bank, living in Obonne, in an unfinished house, et cetera, et cetera. I have such and such a character, I have such and such feelings, I live in such and such a way. The psychologists ought to be able to analyze me, oughn’t they? And after all that, I’m still asking who I am! But that’s what I am! and in spite of everything, I can still persist in asking this sempiternal question. It torments me; that’s stupid, isn’t it? And that’s not the whole of it. This question—has it, in itself, any meaning? has the verb
to be
any meaning?”

“You’ve made great progress in metaphysics,” said Pierre.

They had got to the top of the cliff; that was the end of their walk; they went down to the town again.

—oooooo—oooooo—

Saturday

Dear Aunt Sidonie,

I’m very grateful to you for having had me sent on vacation to the seaside, and I like the sea very much. If you hadn’t told Dad, I’m sure I wouldn’t have come to the sea this year, because Dad makes out that business is bad, but you know as well as I do that that’s because he doesn’t want to part with his cash. So there it is, dear Aunt Sidonie, I’ve settled down with Mme. Corcoran, she’s very nice to me, my room is a little attic where it’s very hot during the daytime, but that doesn’t bother me because I’m never there then. I go out with my pals, we go shrimping and then we go bathing and then we go and climb the cliffs, in short, we enjoy ourselves. What I don’t like, it’s because we have fish every day, I don’t like that because of the bones, but Mme. Corcoran, she says that teaches you to be patient, so she makes me eat it, but I don’t like it.

It didn’t take me a minute to recognize the Monsieur that you say is called Marcel. He’s staying in a hotel with his wife and son who looks about the same age as him; no one says anything against them except about the son, people say things about him, but I’m too young to understand them. They spend all their time with a lady that they call Mme. Pigeonnier and a couple of gigolos who look a bit dopey and who call themselves students. In short, they all seem to be respectable sort of people and they do the same as everyone else; they go bathing, they play tennis and all that, and there’s nothing you can say about them.

That’s why, dear Aunt Sidonie, I haven’t written to you, because I didn’t have anything to say. But yesterday there was something new: the fair-haired young man with the sports car, the one that’s called Le Grand, he arrived and started telling heaps and heaps of stories. And after that, the two of them went for a walk on the cliffs; I followed them, and I heard everything they said. Le Grand asked Marcel whether he remembered the door? And then the other one replied that there was a fortune behind it and that he wouldn’t forget it so easily as all that. Then Le Grand said that they had to get hold of the fortune, and for that the door would have to be opened. Marcel replied that they’d get hold of the fortune that’s behind old Taupe’s door and that nobody would stop them. Then Le Grand said that old Ma Cloche, that’s what he said, if she started interfering, she’d have him to deal with, and the other man added: She’d better look out. After that they said that they’d go to America and have a good time there on old Taupe’s money, they’d buy a big house with tons of servants, and cars, and a swimming pool, like in the movies, and they’d invite all the gangster friends they know there.

There, dear Aunt Sidonie, that’s what I heard that day, that’s to say yesterday. So you see how careful you’ve got to be with these people that’s such terrible gangsters. I’d like to know whether the date of Ernestine’s marriage is fixed, becaues I’d certainly like to be there; there’s sure to be some fun. I like it very much here where I am, but I wouldn’t like to miss Ernestine’s wedding. So, if you know about it, see that I come back so’s I can be there.

Very soon, dear Aunt Sidonie, you’ll be able to stand me the trip around the world you promised me. Aren’t I just pleased, to say the least.

With love,

your nephew,

Clovis Belhôtel.

Sunday evening

Dear Aunt Sidonie,

I’m writing in haste to tell you that a lot of things have happened here since the last time. Yesterday evening, Saturday, an extraordinary sort of man arrived and started by doing lots of peculiar things. In the café, he drank five or six aperitifs: when Marcel and Le Grand arrived he went and said hello to them, and they looked very surprised. Then he sat down with them and drank another aperitif; he was completely boozed. Then he wanted to fight the one that’s called Le Grand, but they calmed him down, only when the Marcel kid turned up he started yelling and breaking glasses and saying a lot of things you couldn’t make head nor tail of. It was a terrific scandal. People were scared; in the end they shut him up in a room where he wrecked everything. Naturally, you can imagine the commotion it caused around here. Everyone was talking about it. People were asking who the man was, but no one knows anything about him, not even his name. This morning, at about 7 in the morning, Le Grand came to fetch him in his car and took him away, I don’t know where. We haven’t seen them since. In any case, the Marcels seem very fed up on account of the scandal, because every one looks at them now. It’s attracted attention to them, so they aren’t pleased.

If I find anything else out I’ll write to you; in any case, don’t forget me for Ernestine’s wedding. I’m always thinking, dear Aunt Sidonie, about the beautiful trip your promised me.