The Bark Tree (6 page)

Théo goes up to the unfinished first floor of the paternal house; this is his favorite place; he observes how the bricks are crumbling, how the walls are disintegrating, the effects of the wind and rain, the construction of a ruin. He takes with him the second volume of
Les Misérables.
When it bores him, he looks round at the other houses.

In general, there’s nothing interesting to see. Backs bent over lawns, men tomatoeing or onioning. From time to time, the woman suddenly comes out and throws a big bucket of water, splosh! over the gravel, and goes in again. Over there, a little girl is running round in circles. Over there, the druggist’s son is fixing his bike; over there, Mme. Pigeonnier, draped in her kimono, is taking the air and sucking candies. Mme. Pigeonnier is forty-five, but it’s known that she has a past. Théo suspects a good many things about Mme. Pigeonnier. But Mme. Pigeonnier goes in, proudly draped. Théo once again immerses himself in
Les Misérables.

The father, down below, is pretending to be interested in string beans, but it’s not convincing. He straightens himself up and yawns, then moves on a bit; really, he isn’t doing a thing, the father. The mother comes in with the shopping. Confusion (and how!) in the kitchen. The father grinds the coffee. It’s nearing twelve. They’re going to have lunch in the garden. His father is just about to call him to take the table out. How right he was.

“Théoooooooo;” Théo comes down from his roost. They put the table under the Lime Tree. It’s very hot. The water has to be cooled. Today, it’s cucumber salad; meat and vegetables; cheese, fruit. It’s Sunday. The two males attack the salad. The wife sits down quickly, eats a few slices and hurries off to see to the meat. With the meat, there’s a bit of peace. Théo, his nose dug into his plate, guzzles; that’s because he’s growing. Fifteen years old, I think. Next year, Théo is going to take his baccalaureate. They’re quite optimistic; they slave enough for him.

With the coffee, Etienne opens the
Journal,
and Théo the
Sunday Excelsior;
the wife clears the table. When she’s finished, she reads the short story; Etienne has finished the paper a long time ago, and is dozing. Théo does the crossword puzzle.

The sun easily pierces the consumptive leaves with which the Lime Tree is trying to resist it. The Sunday calm is steeped in the lukewarm air. They can hear Mme. Pigeonnier’s maid singing a sentimental song. The druggist’s son goes off on his bicycle; he’s going to watch the E.C.F. team play the A.S.T.V. In the distance, the trains whistle. The flies apathetically drag themselves through the tired air; here and there they hold conferences around various sorts of refuse. Etienne comes out of his doze and goes and fetches his Sunday meerschaum; he fills it, he lights it, he puts it in his mouth, he pulls at it (not the way people pull in a tug of war), and the smoke spreads out around his head, but hasn’t enough energy to climb even up to the lowest branches of the Lime Tree.

At about 2 o’clock, they decide to go for a walk in the woods around the old castle, in Obonne. Dressing operations. Théo thinks up various methods of escape; next year, he’ll start playing games; that’ll save his Sundays for him. He incidentally touches his genitals, but doesn’t insist. He’s the first to be dressed in his Sunday best. Etienne next; he’s put on his beautiful straw hat with the serrated edges, and is whistling. He’s certainly not there.

At last, the mother’s ready; very elegant, the mother. Théo and Etienne don’t say anything, but they don’t conceal their pride. She works well and, when they take her out, what a beauty! She’s still fussing around quite a bit because everything isn’t just as it should be; at last it’s all right, and they start. The gate squeaks, once, twice, and the three beings make their way to the woods.

The woods, naturally, are teeming. People have been picnicking, and there are bits of greasy paper all over the place. People are sleeping here and there, couples are tickling each other and women are laughing very loudly. Théo takes a sly look at a girl lying on the ground somewhat immodestly. This gets him into a terrible state; his day hasn’t been wasted. Etienne, on his arm, feels his wife hanging. He takes his family along their habitual route. They’ll go as far as the old castle, rest there, and then go down to the river again; a lemonade at the little café, and then back home.

The walk takes three hours and is accomplished without a hitch. In any case, it’s a famous walk. The river is charming, at the bottom of the hill and the castle; people come all the way from Paris to see it. They drink the tepid lemonade under the cool arbor. Etienne tells them about the intrigues of the assistant manager in his office. At the next table, a man on his own is drinking the tepid lemonade and listening closely to their conversation; every so often, he casts an admiring eye at Etienne’s wife, but she doesn’t catch it, seeing that she’s got her back turned to him.

Théo, whose father bores him, has spotted what’s going on, of course; suddenly, he begins to wonder whether that fellow isn’t by any chance? He immediately forgets the woman’s thigh he got a glimpse of just now and becomes passionately interested in this adventure. He’s jubilant, he’s got a secret; now he knows; no more doubt about it, it’s the fellow of the other evening, the day when the train was late. The fellow sees that the brat it watching him and is a bit embarrassed. His embarrassment increases. He blushes. He goes away. Théo is now very annoyed; he shouldn’t have stared at him so obviously. Maybe something would have happened.

But it’s time to go home. The crowd is starting to make its way to the station. 6:30. They’ll wait half an hour for dinner, then a pipe, then a last walk around the garden, night, sleep. Tomorrow, work begins again.

—oooooo—oooooo—

Here, the body is curled up like a fetus, turned in on itself, its fists clenched, it’s met a childhood friend. The friend is dressed as an ambassador. “What are you doing these days?” He doesn’t make excuses for himself. Here’s another childhood friend, a dentist; he tried to combine this position with that of inspector of weights and measures, so he went broke. They are all three naked, now. Etienne takes them to the art students’ ball. His right leg is relaxing a bit.

Here, on his back, his mouth opens wide. He’s trying to buy an amusing children’s paper. He doesn’t dare, with any of the paper sellers he goes to, because there are customers. He goes to a lot of paper sellers like that. In the end, he finds himself at a butcher’s, he’s sharpening some long knives, he turns around, it’s his father. He starts. Agony. Théo gets a bit restless; sleep wins; he subsides.

Here, a naked body is lying peacefully outstretched, windows wide open. He sees himself at his grandmother’s in the country; they’re going to kill an old cock; his mother, he can hardly make her out, is against this execution. The word execution somehow weaves the woof of a canvas on which before long an old cock is painted, a cock of the species that has a featherless red neck. He walks a bit crookedly, in a very particular way that Pierre recognizes. He’s the one who’s going to kill the cock, he’s aware of that. He wakes up very gradually, smiling. He feels marvelous; he looks at the time. Through the darkness, he makes out 4:20. He turns over and, on his other side, goes back to sleep.

Here, a globulous, greasy mass is wrapped around dirty sheets; only a few grey hairs emerge from the conglomeration. The conglomeration is reviewing a regiment, a regiment of grenadiers. She’s their general. The grenadiers are singing as if they were in an operetta. Aren’t they handsome! Suddenly, she’s a little embarrassed; the trousers of one of them are open. She’ll have him shot. Her embarrassment increases and increases until an enormous white louse comes out of her mouth and flies away. The grenadiers cheer the unspeakable animal. Ma Cloche is dreaming.

Here, a man is tossing and turning; he’s in a sweat; he’s stifling; what a hot night, what a warm night. He looks at the time, 4:20. He gets up, goes and drinks a glass of water. Walks around a bit, rubbing his forehead. He falls back onto the bed, which groans. He wrings his hands, in a way that he himself finds grotesque. Narcense isn’t going to get any more sleep tonight.

The office is finished; she goes to the grocery store at the corner of La Fayette Street, to buy several things. Just as she’s crossing the street she realizes she’s forgotten the strawberries. She goes back to buy them. As she is coming out of the grocery store someone bumps into her and the bag of strawberries gets squashed against her white dress. That’s what she was dreaming.

Meussieu and Mme. Belhôtel aren’t dreaming. They are carrying down to the river a little parcel that contains nothing other than the corpse of a dead child, that of the waitress and Meussieu Belhôtel. The waitress is called Ernestine; she has a snub nose and greasy hair. Whereas Meussieu Belhôtel, he, from time to time, makes himself useful to the local cop-shop.

“
H
UH
, here comes your sister,” says Mme. Belhôtel. “I’m off up to the fif floor.”

“Or right, or right, you do that. If she annoys you, well, let her be.”

“Sjust what I’m going to do, don’t you worry!”

When Mme. Cloche arrives, she finds her brother Saturnin huddled up at the back of his lodge, like a spider; he’s examining the mail, which, today, is confined to one post card.

“Your wife all right?”

“Oh yes, she’s busy.”

“Znever there when I arrive.”

“Just the way it happens, you know. How’s our brother?”

“Things aren’t too bad. Isn’t too much unemployment out that way. Sa good position, where he is. And then, with two bistros, he can get by.”

“And the waitress?”

“I fixed that.”

She smiles.

Saturnin gets up and puts the post card back in a pigeon hole. He spits skillfully into a receptacle for that purpose, and stretches his arms. He takes a few shambling steps.

“Want summing to drink?”

“If you ask me.”

“Some marc.”

Slowly, he gets the bottle, and brings it over. All his actions seem ponderous: all his looks, heavy with thought.

“Still not ezactly overworked?”

“Still no one. Just one tenant for an eight-floor apartment house with all mod. convs.; and what’s more, he doesn’t even pay, the one and only tenant. It’s an uncle who arranges for him to be here.”

“You’ve already told me that. The one who was a musician.”

“Mm; at the moment, hasn’t got any work. No idea what he does. He looks very weird, at the moment.”

“Zthat a card for him?”

“Mm; comes from the suburbs. Says: ‘Alberte doesn’t read your epistles; if you don’t mind too much, send them straight to me, then I won’t have to stick the bits together. Best wishes, Théo.’ It’s postmarked Obonne, 3:45 yesterday.”

“Tsit mean?”

“Way I work it out, Théo, he must be Alberte’s husband, and a friend of Narcense’s. He’s writing to tell him to stop importuning his wife with his assiduities. Tsas plain as the nose on your face.”

“What’s he going to look like when he reads that, eh, your tenant?”

She laughs.

“Yaren’t half lucky to be able to take it easy all day.”

“Oh, I don’t take it easy all the time. I’ve got work to do.”

“Your thing you’re writing.”

“Yes, my thing I’m writing. Makes a lot of work for me. But it’s getting on.”

“You’re a bit nuts, you know. For a concierge, working as a penman, snot right.”

“Tcha, can do what I like, can’t I? If you don’t understand, just too bad.”

“What if I started to write?”

“Write then, write then, my beauty. Well—seen anything nice recently?”

“Oh yes! I saw a horrible accident outside the Gare du Nord. And another the next day.”

“Nice—accidents?”

“The first wasn’t bad. There was brains all over the shoes of the people standing round. A guy squashed by a B bus. The other—wasn’t anything to it; but the following Saturday, it was the Thursday it happened, the guy who nearly got run over, I saw him at Dominique’s. He came to have some French fries. Scalled Etienne Marcel.”

“Like the street?”

“Mm, Dominique even passed the same remark.”

“And what sort of guy?”

“Looks like a meussieu. Probably works in an office. But it was funny meeting him like that. And then, I just wonder what he was doing at 4 in the afternoon, at Dominique’s; and a Saturday, at that! Eh, what do you think?”

“Maybe he lives thereabouts.”

“Aren’t any houses for that sort of people round there. Zonly the factory, and a few huts for people who come and dig in their garden patches. After that it’s the railroad sidings, and then old Taupe’s shack. It certainly couldn’t have been old Taupe he wanted to see.”

“Maybe’s a cop. On account of your whatsit.”

“Oh, go on. Dominique’s not worried, he’s too useful to them. Me neither, I look after one of the local superintendent’s wives; I’m not worried.”

“Never know.”

“What I thought: maybe it’s on account of Ernestine. Za pretty girl, Ernestine. Maybe she’s scored.

They laugh.

“Your marc’s better than Dominique’s.”

“So he’s doing all right, Dominique?”

“Oh yes; course there’s the depression, but even so he reckons he’ll be able to buy a brothel soon. In which case his kid, he’ll be able to go to the lycée. Dominique’d like Clovis to be an engineer.”

“I’sa good trade.”

“And how.”

“But if his father keeps a brothel, that’ll count against him later on.”

Mme. Cloche considers that Saturnin is no fool; yes but it’s a pity he’s a little nuts; what an idea, taking it into his head to be a writer; it’s not for the likes of him. Ah, if he’d only wanted to, he could really have done something! But it’s time for her to go. Her work is calling her.

Her brother says into her ear:

“Tell Dominique to watch it, though; snitching on people, that can make trouble for you; you never know what you’re letting yourself in for; tell him that.”