The Bark Tree (30 page)

Etienne smiled to himself. He looked at the people around him and saw nothing but newspapers; the fat man, who had no doubt not had enough sleep, was the only one snoozing, and was puffing away in fetid fashion. Etienne smiled. He saw, through the window, the minute houses of Coquette-sur
-
Seine go by, and then the market gardens that meant they were coming to Blagny. Then there were the bits of wasteland, then the chemicals factory, then the
CHIPS
. Etienne looked away, and stared at the darn in his trousers, near the knee.

“So Mme. Cloche imagines I’m a crook. What an extraordinary thing. I don’t look like one, though. Oh, hell.”

Etienne paled. His heart had just missed a beat. Two or three newspapers were then folded, and if anyone there had been inquisitive, he would have been able to see the faces of their owners. But Etienne was far from bothering to be inquisitive. For he had just paled.

So Mme. Cloche might be right, then. She doesn’t restrict herself to appearances. I make out I’m a bank clerk, honest, scrupulous, married, a stepfather and all the rest of it; in short, like the right shoe of the fellow opposite. But Mme. Cloche isn’t taken in by it. She looks further. And she discovers I’m a gangster. Which means that my appearance is that of a gangster. Well, I don’t know, it’s funny that anyone could take me for a gangster. It’s unexpected. It’s comic. Pierre drew my attention to it; it must be because of the French fries. The French fries have given me a new appearance—and when I wasn’t asking anything from anyone!

Etienne smiled again. The train had just passed the outer circle station and was entering a lacework of rails punctuated by switches. Etienne had smiled.

So you could doubt some appearances, and be wrong, for everything has a multiplicity of appearances, an infinity of appearances. That right shoe possesses an infinity of pretensions. Which are all false. There are pretensions, and there are disguises. This, of course, is all for the Meussieu who looks. The other one, the one opposite me, carefully folding up his
Petit Journal,
that one
uses
his shoe; what does he care about appearances. But what if he hadn’t noticed that his shoe was made of a material that was soluble in water, and if one rainy day he found himself paddling in the mud in his socks? That would teach him to take everything for gospel truth. There isn’t any gospel, there are only works of fiction.

Etienne tumbled out of his compartment. No doubt about it, he was getting very good at this. And it was so amusing. He hurled himself into the crowd and, carried with it to right and left, allowed himself to be led into a sort of tunnel, illuminated here and there, in which circulated various series of five vehicles linked one to the other and moving with a certain rapidity, a rapidity which naturally didn’t equal that of the ourlouri in full flight when it is fleeing before the storm, but which, however, was greater than that of a legless man going up a hill. Compressed by neighbors without number, Etienne pursued his meditations.

I must see that old woman. I’ll speak frankly to her. She may tell me what made her suspect me, and also, perhaps, what she’s aiming at. And her nephew, the little spy, we certainly frightened him! Two days later, he was gone. That must have confirmed the old girl in her suspicions. Yes, I’ll go to Blagny and I’ll talk to her, or to her brother. But does her brother know what’s going on? And what if I went to see his brother? Narcense’s concierge? Perhaps Narcense might be able to tell me something worth knowing. What’s become of him? And Pierre? What’s he doing? I don’t see him any more.

He began to look worried and anxious; a superficial thinker might perhaps have attributed its cause to the force of the compression of a hundred and seventy adult passengers of both sexes. At Saint-Denis, the perpendicularity of the new direction in nowise changed the intensity of this force. Etienne still looked worried and anxious.

That’s plenty of things to do: Blagny primo, and secundo the Boulevard of the Unknown Officer. As for Pierre, he’s never given me his address. That’s odd. Why not? And why does he bother with me? And what if Madame Cloche were right—about him? Why did he drive Narcense to Obonne wood?

Worried and anxious, he started his eight-hour (working) day.

—oooooo—oooooo—

Daddy and Mommy are at work; the child is in possession of the house, the garden, the furniture and his liberty. He is doing what he likes. He’s promised to work on his German. So, having climbed up to the ruins of the first floor, he is working on his German. He is learning a list of words by heart, but his memory is a bit shaky; he toils away, and finds he has to repeat the same noun a hundred and five times and then some before he can get it encrusted in his memory. And then he’s forgotten it by the next day.

Sitting on a little wall, his feet in thick, plastery dust, he rereads and reads his enumeration of various terms relative to agriculture. Axe, hatchet, wedge, billhook, saw, watercan, hod, sieve, plough, ploughshare, harrow, goad, yoke, scythe, sickle, flail, winnowing basket, wine press, that’s die Kelter. How’s he going to remember that? He repeats winepressdiekelter three and sixty times, then watercan, die Giesskanne also three and sixty times. Good. Now, wine press? How’s he ever going to know it—Wine press? Wine press? Wine press?

It’s 3 o’clock in the autumn. Calm reigns over the housing development. The neighboring houses can’t be heard. Now and then Meussieu Exossé’s dog barks; Mme. Caumerse’s hens croak; a car goes quack-quack, the postman’s bicycle cheep
-
cheep and the gardener’s wheelbarrow squeak-squeak. These diverse and discreet sounds give the greenery of the plane trees a charm that only distinguished minds are able to appreciate. Théo appreciates them.

At this very moment he hears the bicycle cheep-cheeping like a sparrow. The brief-trayger plunges his nose into a big bag full of folded papers, pulls out an envelope and throws it, pulling at a bell. This series of disjointed acts greatly interests the perching philosopher. He repeats kelterwinepress eight and forty times before deciding to go down and see wotitiz.

With his finger in the book to keep his place, he looks carefully at the brief. A fifty centimes French stamp; posted in the rue des Sardines, today at 7:15. Address: M. Etienne Marcel, rue Moche, Obonne. On the other side: Obonne date stamp. Thickness: thin. Transparency: you can’t see a thing. Conclusion: wotizit?

If you can say wine press in German, I give myself permission to open it. Wine press in German is die Giesskanne. Very good. You have permission to open this letter. All work should be rewarded.

Théo was still standing behind the gate, his geshprakeshtoff in his left hand and the brief in his right hand. He was just going to turn around and go into the kitchen to boil a sauce
-
panful of water, thanks to the steam of which he would be able to be informed more rapidly than his stepfather as to the contents of the envelope, when he heard a voice; and the voice said:

“Wouldn’t have a cigarette to give me, would you?”

Théo looked around. No one was there. He turned pale. He didn’t like this sort of joke much. Sure as shootin’, there wasn’t anyone there; which didn’t make it any the less alarming. He took a deep breath, to reequilibrate his coenesthesis, and heard the voice again; the voice said:

“A cigarette, please.”

His throat dry, his liver curdling, Théo examined his surroundings. The result of this examination disconcerted him: the garden was empty, and so was the road. He turned from pale to livid. He felt an urgent need to go somewhere. The voice went on:

“You’re surprised you can’t see me, aren’t you? Don’t be afraid, little boy. Just open the gate and give me a cigarette.”

Théo totters between these two alternatives: either to give vent to his evacuatory project, or to follow the voice’s advice and open the gate. Both these acts offering certain advantages, it was difficult for him to make up his mind; but as he had to put an end to this untenable situation, he decided to leave it to chance; to what he called chance, but which, as we shall see in a moment, was just cheatery. In fact, he decided that he’d open the gate if he could remember how to say ladder in German and, if not, to turn on his heel. He remembered the word “floog,” and was satisfied with it. So he opened the gate; but how would the fact of opening the gate cause the mysterious beggar to appear? He didn’t give it a moment’s thought.

“Come come, my child, don’t be frightened,” the voice encouraged him.

Théo moved forward. He put his book down on the little wall. The gate started to squeak and, the moment it was half open, Théo saw his interlocutor.

“Then you’re not frightened any more?”

No, he wasn’t frightened any more. He felt more like laughing, stupidly.

“How is it that you live in a house that’s being pulled down?” the ex-invisible one went on.

“It’s not being pulled down, it’s being built. My father hasn’t got the money to have it finished.”

“Aha. And what does your father do?”

“Huh, you’re very inquisitive.”

“Don’t get angry, my child; this house intrigued me.”

“Sjust what I was saying: you’re inquisitive.”

“And you’re rude, my child. Have some respect for my white beard.”

“I respect it all right, your beard; but watch want with me?”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of, young man. I simply wanted to visit this extraordinary house.”

“Whydge ask me for a cigarette?”

“To have one, my boy. Do you have one on you?”

“Don’t smoke.”

“Never mind; what I particularly wanted was to come in. I would be interested to visit this strange abode.”

“Znothing strange about our ‘abode.’”

Théo shut the gate again.

“You’re very suspicious, young man. What do you have to fear from me?”

“Howshd I know?”

“From a feeble old man?”

“Hm.”

Théo frowned anxiously, which gave him a constipated look.

“Come, my child, think a little. What do you have to fear from me? Do I look dangerous? Evil?”

“You give me the shit-squitters.”

The dwarf burst out laughing, triumphantly.

“Open the gate, triple idiot.”

“What’s your name?”

“Bébé Toutout. Open the gate, stupid coward.”

“You won’t stay long, eh?”

“Of course not.”

Théo, very ill at ease, opened the gate a little. The dwarf insinuated himself into the garden, like a cat. He was shabbily dressed, but his white beard made him into a person of some respectability. His big head was covered with a sort of cap, with earflaps of an unusual sort, and in his hand he was carrying a little traveling bag. He couldn’t have been more than two-foot-three tall. He crossed the garden rapidly and went into the house without any hesitation.

—oooooo—oooooo—

Old Taupe was sitting outside his hovel, smoking. He had the stupid look of a goat that has strayed into a chick-pea plantation. Every so often, he took his pipe out of his mouth and spat a little. Then replanted the object between his lips, and rings of vacuity went floating all around the old man, who was drying up in the sun.

Somewhere around 4 o’clock, there was a knock at the gate. Taupe dragged himself over to it and, in a toneless voice asked :

“Who is it?”

He was answered:

“Vcome from the Abbé Leslaines.”

“And you; who’re you?”

“The Abbé Rounère,” he was answered.

Amazed, Taupe opened the gate, and the Abbé Rounère came in.

“You
are
Meussieu Taupe, I suppose?” says he.

And, confirmation of this identity having been vouchsafed, he walked over toward the hovel, followed by the highly amazed old man.

“What’s he want with me?” he was thinking.

The curé, who was very fat, very broad, very red, and who was wearing dark glasses and a cassock that was turning green, sat down on a stack of packing cases and looked around him intently.

“The Abbé Leslaines sent me.”

It started like that and it went on like this :

“What’s he want from me, the Abbé Leslaines?”

“He dunt want anything from you,” replied the curé. “I’m the one what wants something from you.”

“What is it?”

“Vcome twask you for some money for a new church to be built.”

“Twask me
what
?
”

“The new church. Sgoing to be built down by the river, behind the Northern line workshops.”

“And you want?”

“In this area, where we have so much trouble saving people’s souls, an extra church won’t do any harm.”

“But what cn I do about it?”

“You could add your mite, M’sieu Taupe. The whole church sgoing to be made of reinforced concrete; inside sgoing to be cubic frescoes and the whyliss so’s to listen to the pope. And at the entrance, sgoing to be hot an cold holy water.”

“My mite!”

“In the vestry, sgoing to be a telephone, some showers and a fridge. And the bells’ll work by electricity. And right next to the church, there’ll be toilets with seats; it’ll be the finest church in all the suburbs, sgoing to be dedicated to Saint Squit.”

“But I can’t do anything about it.”

“You can give your mite, M’sieu Taupe.”

“Is that what you’ve come to ask me for? But I don’t have a sou! Everyone knows that. I can give you twenty sous, that’s all I can do for you!”

“Ha ha! twenty sous! one franc! But I’m expecting you to give me at least twenty thousand francs.”

“How come?”

“Twenty thousand, I say, thass what I’m specting you to give me.”

“Come again?”

“You’re getting deaf, old Taupe.”

“Just a moment. In the first place, I won’t have you calling me old Taupe like that, we never kept pigs together. Eh? Segondo, where’d I get them, your twenty thousand francs?”

“Avarice is a mortal sin, M’sieu Taupe.”

“Avarice, avarice! How can you be avaricious when you don’t have a bean?”

“And lying, that’s a mortal sin, too.”

“Oh, go on. M’sieu the curé, you’re beginning to annoy me. When I tell you I don’t have a bean, that means I don’t have a bean; and I just wonder who could have put that idea into your head.”