Death on the Installment Plan (57 page)

After lunch, while waiting for me to worry the coffee through the strainer, he’d squeeze the end of his nose … he’d make little drops of grease ooze out. They came out like worms, then he’d squash them between his filthy, pointed nails … That was some schnozzola he had … a regular cauliflower … wrinkled … browned … and wormy … Besides, it was getting still bigger … I told him so.

We’d drink our mud and wait for the horde of lunatics to come back … those feverish Archimedeses … for them to begin cussing us out … lurching into the joint … On these occasions Courtial would light into me and try to humiliate me … That seemed to relieve him … He’d start in out of a clear sky … “One of these days, Ferdinand, I’ll have to teach you something about certain major trajectories … certain essential ellipses … You don’t know one thing about Gemini … or even the Big Dipper! Not a solitary thing! … I noticed it this morning when you were talking to that little louse … It was pitiful, shocking … Just imagine if some fine day one of our contributors, in the course of an interview, were to ask you a few questions about the Zodiac and its signs? … about Sagittarius … What would you have to say? Nothing, or just about. Nothing at all would be better… We’d be discredited, Ferdinand! And under the sign of Flammarion … That’s right! It’s too much! It’s a howling mockery! Your ignorance! What’s the sky to you? A hole, Ferdinand! One more hole! There you have it. That’s what the sky is to Ferdinand!” He clutched his head in both hands … He’d swing it from left to right, he couldn’t get over it … as if, sitting there with me, such a revelation, such an aberration, had suddenly become just too painful … as though he couldn”t stand it another minute … He sighed so loud I could have knocked his block off.

“But let’s get down to more pressing business,” he’d snap out … “Hand me fifteen or twenty of those files. At random. Just reach in. I’m going over them right away … I’ll annotate them tomorrow morning. We’ve got to get started, dammit. And don’t let anybody disturb me, that’s the main thing. Put a sign over the door: ‘Preliminary meeting of the Prize Committee’ … I’ll be up on the second floor, do you hear me? … As for you, it’s a nice day … go drop in on Taponard … Ask him how our supplement is coming along … First pass by the Insurrection. But don’t go in. Don’t let them see you. Just look into the back room and see if Formerly’s there … If he’s gone, go ask the waiter, but absolutely on your own hook … you understand … not a word about me … how much Siberia won last Sunday in the fourth of the Drags. Don’t come back the front way. Slip around through the rue Dalayrac … And whatever you do don’t let anybody disturb me … I’m not home to a million … I want to work in absolute silence and quiet …” He went up and settled down in his Tunisian office. He’d eaten too much and I knew damn well he was going to sleep … I still had addresses of small-town notables to make out … and letters to finish … I left the shop and sat down under the trees across the way … I hid behind the kiosk. The idea of going to the printer’s didn’t appeal to me … I knew in advance what he’d say … I had more urgent things to attend to. I had the two thousand labels and all the wrappers to stick for the next issue … if the printer released it … which we couldn’t bank on … We’d taken in money in the last two weeks … the money orders for the contest … But we owed a lot more! … Three rent bills … gas bills for the last two months … and especially the shipping office …

As I was laying low out there, I saw the procession of contestants coming … They stormed the shop … They jumped up and down in front of the showease … They shook the door in their fury … I’d taken the handle with me … They’d have broken the whole place down … They exchanged information … and indignation … They hung around a long time … grumbling outside the door … Four, five hundred yards away, I could hear the hum … I gave no sign of life … I didn’t show myself … They’d have all come galloping … They’d have drawn and quartered me … At seven o’clock new ones were still turning up … That punk up there in his sook must still have been sawing wood … Unless he’d shoved off … at the sound of the pack … through the handy little door on the street side …

Anyway, there was no hurry … I had time to think a while … It had been years since I left Berlope’s … and little André … The little stinker must have grown … He must be working someplace else … for other bosses … Maybe he wasn’t even in ribbons anymore … The two of us had come around here together quite a few times … right here by the fountain, on the bench on the left … waiting for the cannon to go off at noon … It was a long time since we’d been apprentices together … Hell! Doesn’t a kid grow up fast! I looked around to see if little André might be somewhere around … One of the salesmen had told me he was working in the Sender quarter … as a junior clerk … Sometimes I thought I recognized him under the arcades … and then no, it wasn’t him … Maybe he wasn’t close-cropped anymore … his dome, I mean, like in those days … Maybe he’d lost his aunt … He was bound to be someplace, chasing after his pittance … and his fun … Maybe I’d never see him again … maybe he’d gone for good … swallowed up, body and soul, in the kind of stories you hear about … Ah, it’s an awful thing … and being young doesn’t help any … when you notice for the first time … the way you lose people as you go along … buddies you’ll never see again … never again … when you notice that they’ve disappeared like dreams … that it’s all over … finished … that you too will get lost someday … a long way off but inevitably … in the awful torrent of things and people … of the days and shapes … that pass … that never stop … All these assholes, these pests … all these bystanders and extras strolling under the arcades, with their pince-nez, their umbrellas, and their little mutts on the leash … you’ll never see them again … Already they’re passing … they’re in a dream with the others … they’re in cahoots … soon they’ll be gone … It’s really sad … it’s rotten … all these harmless people parading along the shop fronts … A wild desire took hold of me … I was trembling with panic … I wanted to jump out on them … to plant myself in front of them … and make them stop where they were … Grab them by their coats … a dumb idea … and make them stop … and not move anymore … stay where they were, once and for all … and not see them going away anymore.

Maybe two three days later Courtial was called to the police station … A cop came to notify him … That happened fairly often … It was kind of a nuisance … But things always straightened out … I’d brush his clothes with great care for the occasion … He’d reverse his cuffs … Then he’d go off to clear himself … He’d be gone a long time … He always came back delighted … He had confounded them … He knew all the laws by heart … he had all the alibis up his sleeve, all the dodges of the chase … But this little joke wasn’t so funny … It wasn’t in the bag by a long shot … Those low perpetual-motion characters were pestering the
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… The one on the rue des Francs-Bourgeois was getting a dozen complaints a day … and the one on the rue de Choiseul had lost all patience … he was completely exasperated … he was threatening to raid us … He was new, they’d put him on in January … the old one, who’d been so obliging, had been transferred to Lyons … The new one was a bastard. He’d warned Courtial that if we started any more contest rackets, he’d issue a warrant that wouldn’t be any joke at all … He wanted to make a name for himself with his vigilance and zeal … He came from some one-horse town at the end of the world … He was full of beans … Hell, he didn’t have to pay our printer’s bill, our rent, and the rest of it … All he wanted in life was to terrorize us … We didn’t even have the phone anymore … They’d stopped it, I kept having to run over to the post office … It had been cut off for the last three months … Inventors with complaints had to come in person … We’d stopped reading our mail … There was too much … We’d been getting too nervous with these legal threats … When we opened a letter, we just took out the banknotes … We let the rest ride … It was each man for himself … It’s easy to panic! …

Courtial could say what he pleased … The Choiseul
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had spoiled his appetite, this was a real ultimatum … He’d come back white as a sheet …

“Never, I tell you, never, Ferdinand! Never in all the thirty-five years I’ve been laboring in the sciences! … crucifying myself! yes, that’s the word … to educate … to elevate the masses … never have I been treated like that scum treated me … It surpasses all indignation! That greenhorn! … That whippersnapper! … What does that crumb take me for? … A crooked cabdriver? … A ticket speculator? The blackguard! The insolence! He wants to raid us! Like a whorehouse! Raid, raid, that’s all he can talk about! All right, let him come, the jackass! What will he find? Ah, it’s easy to see that he’s new. A greenhorn in the region! A provincial, I tell you! Must be a hayseed! Ambitious, that’s what he is, the damn fool! Trying to show imagination! He can’t control himself! Imagination! Ah, this will cost him more than it will me … That’s right, dammit … The fellow on the rue d’Aboukir! He thought he’d come around! He had to have his raid! He came! He looked! They turned the whole place inside out! The rotten scum! … They wrecked the joint and then they left …
Veni, vidi, vici!
The stupid bastards! That was two years ago. I remember all right. And what did that two-bit Vidocq
^*
find … papers and plaster … My boy, they were covered with rubbish! The despicable bedbug! It was pitiful … They’d dug all over! They hadn’t understood a word … The crawling cockroach! … Ah, the cocksuckers! … the poor bedraggled nitwits! … The legal donkeys … Shitass donkeys if you ask me …”

He pointed to the piles and piles of junk reaching up to the ceiling … the prodigious mounds … regular ramparts, menacing promontories! Tottering! … He was probably right … that Choiseul
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was bound to be dismayed at the sight of those mountains … those suspended avalanches …

“A raid! A raid! Will you listen to them talk! Poor boy! Poor infant! Poor larva! …”

He put on a front, but just the same those threats got him down … He was plenty upset … He went back to see the young whippersnapper next day … To try to convince him that he’d got him wrong … From beginning to end! Completely! … That he’d been slandered … It was a matter of pride with him … That ape’s tirade ate him up … He didn’t even go near his dumbbells … It stuck in his craw … He sat there mumbling … He didn’t talk to me about anything but that raid … For once he even neglected my scientific education … He wouldn’t see anybody … he said it was no use. I hung up the little sign about the “Committee Meeting” and left it there.

It was about this time, when this talk about the place being searched came up, that he started in again about his future … About how overworked he was … that it was getting him down more and more …

“Ah, Ferdinand,” he said while looking for files to take up to his little crow’s nest … “You can see what I need … Another day lost! Sullied! spoiled! absolutely corrupted! annihilated by muddles! … by idiotic worries … If I only had a chance to meditate! … Really and truly … To get away from all this! … do you understand? … I’m tied hand and foot by the externals of life … corroded! scattered! dispersed! … My grandiose plans are clouded over, Ferdinand! I hesitate … That’s right, clouded over! I hesitate … It’s terrible! Don’t you see? It’s the worst of disasters … It’s like going up in a balloon, Ferdinand … I rise … I’m crossing a little piece of infinity! I’m going to break through! … I pass through some more clouds … At last I’m going to see … Clouds again! … The lightning bewilders me! … More clouds! I’m frightened! … I don’t see a thing! … No, Ferdinand! … I can’t see one thing, I try my best … I’m distraught, Ferdinand … I’m distraught!” He poked around in his goatee … He straightened out his moustache … His hand was trembling … We’d stopped opening to anybody … even to the perpetual-motion maniacs … From banging on the door so much they’d given up hope … They .began to leave us alone … There wasn’t any search … They didn’t start any proceedings … But we’d had a good scare …

By now Courtial des Pereires was suspicious of everything … of his Tunisian office … of his own shadow! His private mezzanine was still too exposed, too easily accessible … They could creep up unexpectedly and jump him … He wasn’t taking any more chances … At the mere sight of a customer, his face would turn to wax … he’d almost reel … This last Trafalgar had really affected him … He was much happier in his cellar … He spent more and more of his time down there … There he had a little peace … He could meditate at his ease … He holed up in the cellar for weeks on end … I kept the paper going … It was all routine … I took pages out of his handbooks … I cut them out carefully … I touched them up in spots … I fixed up the titles a little … With scissors, eraser, and paste I did all right. I left plenty of blank space for “letters from subscribers” … reproductions, I mean … I skipped the complaints … I stuck to the enthusiastic passages … I drew up a list of subscribers … I dressed it up good … Four loops after the zeros! . . I put in photographs. The one of Courtial in uniform, half-length with medals all over his chest … another of the great Flammarion, picking roses in his garden … That made an amusing contrast … If any inventors came around asking for information again and disturbing me at my work, I’d found a new stall …

“He’s with the minister,” I’d say before they could get a word in. “They sent for him last night … It must be for an expert opinion …” They didn’t entirely believe it, but it gave them pause. Time enough for me to beat it to the gymnasium … “I’ll go see if he’s back.”

That was the last they saw of me.

Misfortunes never come singly … We had new headaches with the
Enthusiast
… she was getting so ripped and patched, so crippled, leaky and beat-up, she’d just lie down on her ropes.