Death on the Installment Plan (74 page)

Two of our pioneer girls, aged eleven and twelve, had brought home pretty near fourteen cans of gasoline for the boss’s motor. He was beaming. The next day was his birthday, the other kids came back from Condoir-Ville, five miles away, with a big basket of babas, éclairs, and wafers … all kinds of cream buns and an assortment of aperitifs! In addition, to make it even funnier, they brought us stamped receipts … That was really sharp … They’d paid cash for the whole business … our clever little angels! They were swiping money now in the open fields … where it doesn’t lie around. It was kind of miraculous! This time again we didn’t say boo. We’d lost our authority. But those little tricks leave traces … Two days later the cops came around asking for big Gustave and little Leone … They hauled them off to Beau-vais … We couldn’t protest … They’d got themselves pinched picking up a billfold … It was a common ordinary trap … on a windowsill … An ambush if ever there was one … A report had been made on the spot … There’d been four witnesses … The thing couldn’t be denied … and it couldn’t be fixed … The best was to make a show of surprise, amazement … horror! We made a show.

They arrested our Lucien, the curlyhead, four days later … on pure hearsay … Something about a chicken coop … the farmer had turned him in … The following week they came for Glass-eye Philippe … But there were no proofs against him, they had to return him to us … Even so it was a hecatomb … It was getting pretty plain that those hicks, always so slow to make up their minds, had finally sworn to wreck our whole business … They hated our guts! … Actually they were threatening to burn the whole house down with us in it … Eusèbe had tipped us off … To be roasted like rats, wouldn’t that be nice? … They wanted to stop our racket …

The old cutie was the first to feel the fury of the insurgent populace … They’d run her out of the market in Persant … She’d tried to do a little business, to pass off a whole basket of lovely “secondhand” eggs … It didn’t wash … They’d recognized where they came from … They got mean, they were delirious with hate and rage … She beat it out of there fast! In another minute they’d have beaten the shit out of her … She was in a terrible state when she got home … Right away she cooked herself up a big coffeepot full of her mixture, a concoction of verbena and mint plus pretty near a third of banyuls … She was developing a taste for strong stuff … especially distilled wines … sometimes she even drank liniment … That set her up quickly … It was a mixture recommended by a number of midwives at the time … they said it was the best thing for night nurses …

We were all gathered around her, talking about this assault, examining the consequences … The bottles were out on the table … In comes the sergeant … Right away he starts cussing us out … He tells us not to move.

“We’ll come and get you at the end of next week. This circus has been going on long enough … We’re fed up and then some. You’ve been given plenty of warning … Saturday we’re taking you up to the county seat … we’ve got a clear case against the whole lot of you … If I catch a single one of your little gallows birds on the loose … If they set foot outside this village … they’ll be picked up immediately! Immediately! Understand? Have I made myself clear?”

It seems the public prosecutor had enough evidence against us to put us in the pen for twenty years … Courtial, Madame, and myself … There were plenty of charges: Kidnapping … moral turpitude … obscene practices … illegal gambling … fraudulent tax returns … vice … burglary … abuse of confidence … nocturnal marauding … concealment of minors … Anyway a whole waterfall, a complete assortment … That sergeant was giving us a pain in the neck … Only Madame des Pereires, though shaken at first … what would you expect? … perked up pretty soon … She didn’t bat an eyelash … She bounced up like one man … She stood right up to him … She leapt to her feet with an impetus so violent, so bristling with indignation, so fired with rage, that the sergeant wavered under the charge … He couldn’t believe his ears … He blinked … She had him hypnotized, there’s no other word for it. She answered in terms that nobody could have refuted. That dumb farmer couldn’t have imagined … She came back at him, she accused him of personally fomenting the whole yokels’ rebellion … the whole abominable
jacquerie
. He was the guilty party. Flummoxed! lashed! flayed, he was trembling in his boots … Contemptuous and sardonic, she called him a “poor bastard” … He was on the defensive … He hadn’t one word to say for himself … She put her hat on … High above him she swayed from side to side, glaring like a cobra … She forced him backward … she threw him out. He skedaddled like a canary. He climbed on to his bicycle and rode away, zigzagging all over the road … He reeled through the night with his little red lamp … We watched him disappearing … He couldn’t keep straight.

One of our campfire girls, Camille, for all she was a smart little number, got nabbed three days later in the garden of the presbytery in Landrezon, a stinkhole on the other side of the forest. She was just slipping out of the kitchen with a parmesan cheese, a couple of crawfish, and some sloe gin … two bottles … She’d taken everything she could lay hands on … Plus the altar cruets … That was the most serious, they were solid silver … She’d been caught in the act … They’d all chased her … They’d cornered her on the bridge … Poor little kitten, she’d never be back. They’d locked her up in Versailles! … That snake-in-the-grass postman hurried over with the news … He’d gone out of his way … Our situation was getting cock-eyed … a mean balancing act … You didn’t need to be very smart to realize at that point that all the kids in our phalanstery were sunk … one by one they’d be caught foraging … even if they were ten times as careful … even if they went out only at night …

We tightened our belts, we were more and more cautious … We didn’t have much margarine or oil or sardines … we were nuts about sardines … It was the shortage of tuna fish and sardines that really got us down … We couldn’t make any more French fries … We holed up behind the blinds … We watched the approaches … We were afraid some hayseed would try to pick us off in the dusk … They came around now and then … They passed outside our windows on bikes with their guns … We had a blunderbuss too, an old double-barreled shotgun … and a police pistol … The former tenant had left them … They were still hanging in the kitchen, on a nail over the fireplace.

One night when there was nothing to do and we couldn’t even go out, des Pereires took down the old blunderbuss … He started cleaning it … running a rag dipped in kerosene through the two barrels with a string … working the trigger … I could feel the state of siege coming.

We had only seven left … four boys, three girls … We wrote their parents, asking if they wouldn’t like to take them back … our agricultural experiment had been disappointing in certain respects … unforeseen circumstances obliged us to dismiss some of our pupils … temporarily …

Those crummy parents didn’t even answer … Absolutely no conscience … Only too glad to leave their headaches to us … So then we asked the kids if they wouldn’t like us to deposit them in some charitable institution … at the county seat maybe … Hearing those few words, they came back at us so aggressive, so absolutely furious, for a minute I expected a massacre … They wanted no part of it … We threw in the sponge right away … We’d given those brats too much freedom and initiative … it was too late to get them back in line … Hell! … They didn’t mind running around in rags and eating once in a blue moon … but they wouldn’t stand for interference … they got nasty mean … They didn’t even try to understand … They didn’t give a shit about the circumstances … We tried to explain that life is like that … that we all have our obligations … that law and order screw you in the long run … that if you go snaffling right and left you always get caught sooner or later … that one fine day you come to a very bad end … They told us to jerk off with our rotten bullshit … For their money, we were pisspots … miserable drips … They wouldn’t do anything we said … they wouldn’t listen … Some New Race they turned out to be. Dudule, the youngest of the gang, went out looking for eggs … Raymond was afraid, he was getting too big … Little Dudule was our “Raft of the Medusa” … We hoped, we prayed … all the time he was out … that he’d come home safe, sound, and bringing something … He brought back a pigeon, we ate it practically raw with carrots … He knew the country better than any hunting dog … You couldn’t see him six feet away … He’d lie in wait for hours to nab his bird … Without cord, ball, or string! With two little fingers … Crick! Crick! … He showed me how he did it … It was subtle, it was neat … “Betcha a dime I catch her … and you won’t hear nothing! …” It was true. You didn’t hear a thing.

Two of our windows were smashed the same week … Yokels passing lickety-split on their bikes … They stoned us more and more … They’d hide, they’d come back again … Christ, were they mean! … And we were on our good behavior … We didn’t fight back … And we should have … they gave us plenty of provocation … A good volley of buckshot in the ass … Our pioneers were keeping out of sight … They only went out before dawn, maybe an hour or two in the gloaming … in the first streaks of daylight, so’s to have some idea what they were doing … The farmers had stationed mutts in every yard in the county … wild, vicious, ferocious monsters! …

In addition we were sadly lacking in shoes for those awful hikes over rocky paths … It was torture … With all their practice the kids often cut themselves … At daybreak in the rain, especially now it was coming on November, their rags looked like comical patches of bandages … They were coughing more and more … Sure, they were tough little bandits … but they weren’t immune to bronchitis … They sank in up to their ass in the deep furrows … When the dry cold set in, they were through … They couldn’t make it without shoes … Their feet would have fallen off … In the winter our plateau came in for plenty of gales … it was swept by the north wind … We warmed up all right at night, but it was stifling in the room, the smoke came back at us from the fireplace … We had nothing but damp wood, there hadn’t been any coal for weeks … We couldn’t stand it … we put the whole business out … We were afraid it would start up again … we threw water on the coals … There was nothing for the kids to do but go to bed …

Pretty often around midnight Courtial would get up … He couldn’t sleep … He’d take his muffled lamp and head for the barn, he’d fiddle around with his contraption … he’d start it up for a few minutes … His wife would jump up in her straw and go out too, to see for herself … I could hear them cussing each other at the far end of the yard …

She’d come running back … She woke me up … She wanted to show me the spuds … They weren’t pretty … Those spuds growing in the waves … They were pimply, repulsive … Hell! She called me to witness … They weren’t getting very fat … that was plain as day … I didn’t dare to say so, to agree with her too much … but I couldn’t disagree either … They were gnawed, shriveled, loathsome, and putrid … and in addition they were full of maggots … Courtial’s potatoes … We couldn’t even eat them ourselves … not even in our own soup … And we weren’t hard to please … Madame des Pereires was dead sure the experiment had been a failure …

“And that, Ferdinand, is what he thinks he’s going to send to market! What do you think, eh? … Who’s he expect to sell them to? … It’s too much. It’s a disaster! … What I’d like to know is … where’s the sap that’s going to buy such garbage? … Just tell me where that nitwit is keeping himself so I can send him a basket of flowers … My oh my, there’s a man I want to see … That dodo of mine is nuts … Say, come to think of it, who does he take me for?”

It’s true they were disgusting … Yet those spuds were meticulously cared for … choice seeds … coddled day and night … They were completely moldy … crawling with vermin, with grubs and centipedes … and the smell was really nasty, infinitely sickening in spite of the bitter cold … That wasn’t normal either … an unusual phenomenon … It was the smell that stymied me … A stinking potato is something very rarely seen … This was a very strange variety of hard luck …

“Sh-sh,” I went … “You’ll wake up the kids …”

She went back to the experimental field … She took her lantern and her spade … The temperature was around fifteen … She picked out the wormiest, she dug them up one by one … as many as she could, until dawn …

It was really impossible to keep that invasion of vermin a secret very long … The whole field was alive, even on the surface … The rot was spreading … we weeded, uprooted, hoed more and more, it didn’t do a bit of good … In the end the news got around … The hicks came snooping … They dug up our potatoes to see for themselves … They sent samples of our produce to the prefect … with a police report on our strange goings-on… They even sent whole basketfuls, completely chock-full of grubs, to Paris, to the Museum Director … It was getting to be big news … Horrible rumors started up … we were the criminal originators of a brand-new agricultural pestilence … an unprecedented garden blight! …

By the effect of intensive waves, of malignant “inductions,” by the diabolical instrumentality of a thousand wire networks, we had corrupted the earth … stirred up the jinni of the grubs … in the innocent bosom of nature … There, in Blême-le-Petit, we had given birth to a special race of absolutely vicious, unbelievably corrosive maggots, which attacked every kind of seed, every conceivable plant and root … trees! harvests! the peasants’ houses! the very structure of the land! even dairy products! sparing absolutely nothing … Corrupting, sucking, dissolving … encrusting the plowshares! … absorbing, digesting stone, flint as well as beans! demolishing everything in their path! on the surface, under the ground! Corpses and potatoes alike! Everything without exception! And thriving, mind you, in midwinter … Drawing strength from the bitter cold … propagating in swarms, in vast myriads! … more and more insatiable … crossing mountains! plains! valleys … with the speed of electricity! … thanks to the waves generated by our machines! … Soon the whole district around Blême would be one enormous field of rot … a noisome bog! … an immense sewer of maggots! … a seism of swarming grubs! … Then it would be the turn of Persant! … and then of Saligons! … Such was the outlook … It was still too soon to predict how and when it would all end! … whether it would ever be possible to circumscribe the disaster! … Only the analyses would show … It might perfectly well spread to all the roots in France … consume the whole countryside … until our national soil in its entirety was nothing but stones … Our maggots might well make the whole of Europe unfit for cultivation … one big desert of rot! … Well, if that happened, believe you me, they’d talk about the Great Plague of Blême-le-Petit down through the ages … the way we nowadays talk about the ones in the Bible …”