Death on the Installment Plan (49 page)

One day he finally screwed up his courage … As they were batting the breeze, he slipped in his little question … Wouldn’t he by some chance need a young secretary, just starting out in life, for his Bureau of Inventors or his aeronautics? … Uncle Édouard had no illusions about my aptitudes. He realized that I wasn’t very hot at the usual kind of job … he had a pretty keen eye … that my type and temperament required something out of the way, some kind of fly-by-night racket, something on the screwy side … With Courtial’s hare-brained schemes, his long-distance deals, I’d have a chance to make out … That was his idea.

Courtial dyed his hair jet-black and left his moustache and his goatee gray … His hair and his whiskers bristled like a cat, and his bushy rebellious eyebrows were even more ferocious, they were distinctly diabolical, especially the one on the left. He had small restless eyes, his pupils were always darting about deep in their caverns and then suddenly stopping dead when he had a bright idea. Then he’d laugh out loud, his whole belly would shake, he’d slap his thighs hard and then suddenly subside as though transfixed by thought, lost in admiration of his idea …

It was he, Courtial des Pereires, who had obtained the second driving license for racing cars issued in France. Over the desk we had his diploma in a gold frame and his photograph as a young man at the wheel of a monster, with the date and the rubber stamps. The end had been tragic … He often told me about it:

“I was lucky,” he admitted. “Take it from me. We were coming into Bois-lc-Duc … the carburation was perfect … I didn’t even want to slow down … I catch sight of the schoolteacher … she had climbed up on the embankment … She motioned to me … She’d read all my books … She waved her parasol … I didn’t want to be rude … I threw on my brakes outside the school … In a minute I’m surrounded, feted … I take a drink … I wasn’t supposed to stop again before Chartres … another ten miles … The last control station … I invite the young lady to come along … ‘Climb in, mademoiselle,’ I say … ‘Climb in beside me. Come along.’ She was cute. She hesitated, she shilly-shallied, she coquetted some … I pressed her … So she sits down beside me and off we go … All day long, at every control station, especially all through Brittany, there’d been cider and more cider … My machine was really humming, running fine … I didn’t dare to make any more stops … But I needed to bad … Finally I had to give in … So I throw on the brakes … I stop the car, I stand up, I jump, I spot a bush … I leave the chick at the wheel. ‘Wait for me,’ I sing out, ‘I’ll be back in a second …’ I’d hardly touched a finger to my fly when so help me I’m stunned! Lifted off my feet! Dashed through the air like a straw in a gale! Boom! Stupendous! A shattering explosion! … The trees, the bushes all around, ripped up! mowed down! blasted! The air’s aflame! I land at the bottom of a crater, almost unconscious … I feel myself … I pull myself together … I crawl to the road … A total vacuum! The car? … Gone, my boy … A vacuum! No more car! Evaporated! Demolished! Literally! The wheels, the chassis … oak! pitch-pine! All ashes! … The whole frame … Oh well! … I drag myself around, I scramble from one heap of earth to the next … I dig … I rummage … A few fragments here and there … a few splinters … A little piece of fan, a belt buckle. One of the caps of the gas tank… A hairpin … That was all … A tooth that I’ve never been sure about … The official investigation proved nothing … explained nothing … What would you expect? … The causes of that terrible conflagration will remain forever a mystery … Almost two weeks later in a pond, six hundred yards from the spot, they found … after a good deal of dredging … one of the young lady’s feet, half devoured by the rats.

“For my part, though I can’t claim to be absolutely certain, I might in a pinch accept one of the numerous hypotheses advanced at the time to explain that fire, that incredible explosion … it’s possible that imperceptibly, little by little, one of our ‘long fuses’ shook loose … When you come to think of it, it would suffice for one of those thin minium rods, shaken by thousands of bumps and jolts, to come into contact for only a second … for a tenth of a second … with the gasoline nipples … The whole shebang would explode instantly! Like melinite! Like a shell! Yes, my boy, the mechanism was mighty precarious in those days. I went back to the place a long time after the disaster … There was still a charred smell … At that critical stage in the development of the automobile, I might add, a number of these fantastic explosions were reported … almost as powerful! Everything pulverized! Horribly scattered in all directions! Propelled through the air for miles! … If pressed for a comparison, the only thing I can think of is certain sudden explosions of liquid air … And even there I have my reservations … Those things are commonplace! Perfectly easy to explain … from start to finish … beyond the shadow of a doubt. No mystery at all! Whereas my tragedy remains an almost complete mystery … We may as well admit it in all modesty. But what importance has that today? None whatever. Fuses haven’t been used in ages. Such speculation only impedes progress … Other problems demand our attention … a thousand times more interesting! Ah, my boy, that was a long time ago … Nobody uses minium anymore … Nobody!”

Courtial hadn’t, like myself, adopted the celluloid collar … He had his own method of making ordinary cloth collars wear-proof, dirt-proof, water-proof … It was a kind of varnish that you put on in two or three coats … It lasted at least six months … offering protection against the dirt in the air, fingermarks, and perspiration. It was a first-class product with a pure cellulose base. He’d been wearing the same collar for the last two years. Out of sheer coquetry he’d touch it up once a month … just a stroke of the brush. That gave it the patina, the tone, you could even say the orient, of old ivory … The same with his shirt front … But contrary to what it said in the prospectus, the fingers left distinct marks on the glazed collar … big spots one on top of the other … The result was a regular Bertillon
^*
collection, the process wasn’t quite perfected. He himself admitted it occasionally. Besides, he didn’t have a name yet for this wonder product. He said he’d get around to it when the time was ripe.

When it came to height, Courtial wasn’t too well fixed … He hadn’t a quarter of an inch to spare … He wore very high heels … altogether, he was particular about his shoes … tan cloth uppers and little mother-of-pearl buttons … Only he was like me, his feet stank something awful … By Saturday afternoon the smell was rough … He’d wash on Sunday morning, he told me so. During the week he didn’t have time. I knew all those things … I’d never seen his wife, he told me all about her. They lived in Montrctout … He wasn’t the only one that had smelly feet … they were the curse of the period … When the inventors came around all in a sweat, usually from the other end of town, it was hard to listen till they were through, even with the door wide open on the big gardens of the Palais-Royal … The smells that came your way at times were inconceivable … They made me feel disgusted with my own dogs.

The disorder in the offices of the
Genitron
was something monstrous, in a class by itself … the place was a junk shop, absolute chaos … From the door of the shop to the ceiling of the second floor, every step of the stairs, every ledge, every piece of furniture, the chairs, the cupboards, were buried under papers, pamphlets, piles of returns, all topsy-turvy, a desperate hodgepodge, creviced and lacerated, the complete works of Courtial helter-skelter, in pyramids, a fallow field. In that loathsome muddle it was impossible to lay hands on the dictionary, the historical maps, the oleographed dissertations. You’d dig in at random, groping your way … sinking into garbage, a leaking bilge … a teetering cliff … Suddenly it would cave in … you were caught in a cataract … a landslide of blueprints and diagrams … ten tons of printed matter would fall on your face … That would start new avalanches, a frothing torrent of paper … a dust storm … a volcano of stinking filth … Every time we sold five francs’ worth of merchandise the dikes threatened to burst …

But that didn’t bother him … He didn’t even sec anything wrong with it, he felt no desire to change things, to modify his methods … Not at all … He felt perfectly at home in the dizzy chaos … He never had to look very long for the book he was after … He’d reach in and there it was … He’d dive into any old pile … The tatters would go flying, he’d burrow vigorously into the heap and drill to the exact spot where the book was concealed … The miracle happened every time … He seldom went wrong … He had a feeling for disorder … He was sorry for anybody who didn’t … Order is entirely in our ideas! In matter there’s no trace of it! … When I ventured to remark that it was absolutely impossible for me to find my way in that chaos, that bedlam, he’d get mean … he’d blast me. He didn’t even give me time to breathe … He’d attack instantly … “I’m not asking the impossible of you, Ferdinand. You’ve never had the instinct, the essential curiosity, the desire to learn … After all, you can’t claim to be deprived of books around here … Did you ever wonder, my poor young friend, what the human brain looks like? … The mechanism that makes you think? Did you? No. Of course not. That doesn’t interest you one bit … You’d rather look at girls. So of course you don’t know. Because the first honest glance would convince you that disorder, yes, my boy, disorder, is the quintessence of your very life! of your whole physical and metaphysical being! Why, it’s your very soul, Ferdinand! millions, trillions of intricate folds … plunging deep down into the gray matter, complex, subjacent, evasive … limitless! That’s Harmony. Ferdinand. All nature! A flight into the imponderable! And nothing else! Put your wretched thoughts in order, Ferdinand! That’s where to begin. Not with grotesque, material, negative, obscene substitutions, but with the essential, that’s what I’m getting at. Are you going to assault the brain, correct it, scrape it, mutilate it, force it to comply with an assortment of stupid rules? carve it up geometrically? recompose it according to the rules of your excruciating idiocy? … Arrange it in slices? like an Epiphany cake? … With a prize in the middle. Tell me that. I’m asking you. Frankly? Would that be any good? Would it make sense? Heaven help us! There’s no doubt about it, Ferdinand, your soul is overwhelmed by errors. It makes you, like so many others, a unanimous nonentity. Great instinctive disorder is the father of fertile thoughts! It’s the beginning of everything … Once the propitious moment has passed, there’s no hope … You. I’m afraid, will spend your whole life in the garbage pail of reason … So much the worse for you! You’re a numbskull, Ferdinand, a nearsighted, blind, preposterous, deaf, one-armed dolt! … befouling my magnificent disorder with your vicious reflections … In Harmony, Ferdinand, resides the world’s only joy! The only deliverance! The only truth! … Harmony! Find Harmony, that’s the ticket! … This shop is in Har-mon-y … Do you hear me, Ferdinand? Like a brain, neither more nor less! Order! Pah! Order! Rid me of that word, that thing! Accustom yourself to Harmony and Harmony will reward you. You’ll find everything you’ve been looking for so long on the highways of the world … And far more! Many other things, Ferdinand! A brain, Ferdinand, that’s what the whole lot of you will find! Yes! The
Genitron
is a brain. Have I made myself clear? That’s not what you’re after? You and your kind? An inane ambush of pigeonholes! A barricade of brochures! A house of the dead! A Chartist necropolis! No, never! Here everything is in movement! Swarming with life! You’re not satisfied? It stirs, it quivers! Just touch it! Put out your little finger. Everything comes to life. Everything trembles instantly. Asking only to surge up! to blossom! to shine! I don’t live by destroying. I take life as it comes! Do you take me for a cannibal, Ferdinand? Never! … Bent on reducing it to my chickenshit concepts? Pah! Everything shakes? Everything topples? Splendid! I have no desire to count stars 1! 2! 3! 4! and 5! I’m not the kind that thinks he’s entitled to do anything he pleases. The right to shrink! rectify! corrupt! prune! transplant! … No! … where would I get it? … From the Infinite? … From life itself? It’s not natural, my boy! It’s not natural! It’s infamous meddling! … I prefer to keep on good terms with the Universe! I take it as I find it! … I’ll never rectify it! No! The Universe is master of its own house! I understand it! It understands me! It gives me a hand when I ask it! When I’m through with it, I drop it! That’s the long and the short of it … It’s a cosmogonie question! I have no orders to give! You have no orders! He has no orders! … Bah! Bah! Bah! …”

He got sore as hell, like somebody who’s definitely in the wrong … 

Courtial’s little handbooks were translated into a good many languages, they were sold even in Africa. One of his correspondents was a real nigger, the chief of a sultanate in Upper Ubanghi Shari-Chad. That boy was wild about elevators of every kind. They were his dream, his mania … We’d sent him all the literature … He’d never actually seen one. About 1893 Courtial had published a regular treatise,
On Vertical Traction
. He knew all the details, the many varieties, hydraulic, balistic, ‘“electro-recuperative” … It was an excellent work, absolutely irrefutable, but it constituted only a slight and modest fraction of his opus as a whole. His knowledge definitely embraced every possible field.

The official world disapproved of him, looked down its nose at him, but the crustiest pedant couldn’t very well do without his handbooks. In a good many schools they were actually a part of the curriculum. You couldn’t imagine anything handier, simpler, easier to assimilate, all pre-digested! You could remember it, you could forget it without the slightest effort. We reckoned by and large that in France alone, at least one family out of four owned a copy of his
Family Astronomy, Economy Without Usury, and How to Make Ions
… At least one in twelve had his
Color Poetry
, his
Roof Gardening
, his
Poultry Raising at Home
. So far I’ve been speaking only of his practical works … But he had to his credit a whole series of other volumes (in numerous fascicles) that were real classics.
Hindustani Revelation, The Story of Polar Voyages from Maupertuis to Charcot
. Ponderous tomes. Reading matter for several winters, pounds and pounds of stories …