Palafox (15 page)
Authors: Eric Chevillard
Pluck Palafox while he’s still warm, begins the letter from the general’s wife, without beating around the bush. Clip fins and tail. Put him on his back and cut into the underside of the rump. Remove the air bladder, the intestines and other viscera and make sure not to puncture the sac of venom. Roll him back over, cut the neck, scald the paws to remove the skin. Bone, dress, stuff with garlic bread, baste with lard and braise. Allow it to brown. Then add butter and diced onion to it and allow that to brown. Collect the soft roe in a bowl. When Palafox’s redness is gone, add salt and dust with flour. Add white wine and bouillon, an equal amount of cider, pick it up with thyme, horseradish, spices, ground pepper and a pinch of cayenne. Figure an hour and a half cooking time (stir regularly from right to left). Add pitted olives, sliced pickles, a teaspoon of mustard and twelve little quartered mushrooms. Return the casserole to full boil for ten minutes. Skim off the fat, bind with starch from the refrigerator. Turn it out of the pan, glaze it with the cooking liquid and the roe, sprinkle parsley, garnish with halved hard-boiled eggs and send to the table with tomato puree or boiled potatoes (serve a ravigote sauce on the side). Another suggestion, submerge Palafox alive in a pot of boiling water. Add shallots, bouquet garni, lemon zest, sweet pepper, saffron, chervil and a finger of Madeira. Beat with a whisk. Cover. Let it cook over a high flame for a good two hours. Then coarsely dice Palafox (carefully remove all the small bones), thicken the juice, marinate. When the pieces are golden, season with sweet peppers, shaved truffles, tarragon and ground nutmeg (optionally cinnamon and clove). Cover it all in small bards of lard. Serve with Creole rice. Or.... Madame Fontechevade lists a dozen such recipes. In the pan, on the spit, in the oven, braised, court-bouilloned, on coals or under embers, such that one would believe Palafox equally succulent grilled, breaded, minced, raw or spiced. Finally she recommends, should we wish to eat him later, that we first salt and then smoke the animal, you never know with this war, you just might find yourself very thankful to have stocked provisions. Start by curing the meat in a bath of spiced vinegar (7 oz) and crushed juniper berries (.7 oz), submerge it in a bucket of brine with a pinch of saltpeter for every pound of salt, do whatever else you can think of during the next three weeks, then take it out, drain it, hang it in your chimney and smoke it under beech or laurel, wait a few more days, take it out, rub it with ashes, wrap it in a thick cloth, dear friends, be well, be careful, cover yourselves when you get out of the bath.
Algernon exults, we’ll have to figure on a month if we prepare Palafox according to Madame Fontechevade’s recipe, and since the reception is going to take place in exactly one month, everything is going according to plan, our job will have been to adjust the various gears in this delicate chronometrical instrument, with patience and meticulousness, without throwing a wrench into the rhythm of the saga. Slaughter Palafox immediately. This morning, he slit the throat of Olympia’s parakeet, the little bloody ruffled body which he didn’t devour right away, that he toyed with for hours, of which he grew bored, to which he returned, the little green bird intriguing him much as ram’s testicles intrigue us when served in white sauce announced coldly by that mistress of the house however little inclined she is to salacious asides, we’ve all been there, what do you do? - what face to put on, what place setting to use, is this really edible? - and we decide to adopt the same behavior of the other guests before trying whatever it is, they seem neither surprised nor amused nor disgusted, use the fork, and it seems excellent, Palafox drove the cat away that had claimed the corpse but then Palafox ate the rest. Olympia, for her part, despite her resentment, refuses to wring his neck. Chancelade volunteers. Chancelade is still suffering from the wounds Palafox inflicted. He grabs a knife in his fist and heads towards Palafox, bound. Seeing Chancelade approaching, the animal changes color, reclothed in the livery of ferocious animals and venomous insects, alternating yellow and black stripes-a disarming defensive strategy - Chancelade blanches, how typical, and drops his weapon. Console yourself, Cambrelin says, with the knowledge that his drab flesh would have left you with little more than the aftertaste of silt and worms, a mouthful of bones, tough and riddled with nerves, adds Zeiger, somewhat fermented, adds Baruglio, and very toxic, concludes Pierpont, and anyway the flagellate protozoans are hell on your system, Palafox included, be consoled: he was inedible.
11.
And then there’s the matter of our becoming attached to these creatures despite ourselves, it is possible, after so long, Palafox is like a member of the family by now, neither more nor less, he’s a part of the furniture, his death would bring sadness, and that sadness would be relayed by faint nostalgia on the second step of this spiral staircase leading to the dungeon of oblivion where he would be forgotten. And while abandoning him is very tempting, he would surely find us again, whether he had to cross oceans or deserts, he would make his way back to La Gloriette, mangy, scabby, skinny, he would roll around at our feet, he would lick our fingers, no, Chancelade, find another way.
Maureen’s idea, on the other hand, let Maureen have the credit since she hasn’t had much of an opportunity to talk, Maureen’s idea is altogether tenable - what if we were to offer him to a public park to decorate its main pool? Maureen’s idea is altogether tenable, anyone who has seen Palafox slide down a wave would agree with us that his place is there. He swims, one wonders how, without breaking ice or ruining anything. Stately, aware of his standing, he bows to his reflection. Here, Palafox fears no one. He is his own master, his own humble servant. In the background, leaves and fountains, you wouldn’t find him in some hovel with crumbling walls. His two profiles are equally beautiful. A sketch artist would begin by tracing the upper part of the beak, without lifting his charcoal pencil the curve of his skull, the undulating line of his neck, the curve of his back, without lifting his charcoal pencil the contour of his curled tail, a line like the calm surface of a lake, then the bulge in his belly, the curve of neck up to the beak, which he will be able to close at last, but no, he drops his charcoal pencil, he gives up, he’s sprained his wrist, and anyway we don’t like his drawing at all, it looks like a fan in a saxophone, let him keep it. Palafox is oblivious. He floats. He picks up no passengers. He takes silence for a sail. His plumage is white (subject verb complement, we would prefer to stop there, believe us, but were we to do so we would be endlessly referring our readers to notes at the bottom of the pages, to addenda at the end of the book, where we would develop, elaborate, explicate each of our comments, that’s no life either. White, for example, white means nothing, an empty notion, a suspicious tint, beware of optical illusions, of false witnesses, get past it, double-check everything, a trained eye never is fooled, snow is blue, pale, very pale, but blue, sheep are beige, teeth yellow, milk pistachio, gun red, the race pink, nights of insomnia the color of ink and all these translucid pages to blacken still, Palafox’s plumage is white). Two short webbed feet, poorly suited, as our shoulder blades are to gliding, Palafox when out of water yomps, suddenly disgraceful, ridiculous. Take pity on him, you see that he has trouble breathing, put him back in the pool. When half asphyxiated he can’t move, or a little, a convulsion. His swollen lower lip is distended, trembling, his eyes are glassy. Get him something to drink, quick. Like a crumpled carnation in the boutonniere of a dead man, his bronchia. Another convulsion. He’s going to die, help him. Palafox makes hands sticky, impregnates your clothes with his stubborn scent (you’re seeing someone else and don’t even try to deny it). Easy does it, release him above his pool. Splash, so-called splash. Palafox breathes. Weak motions of his tail to begin, swimming on his side, Indian-stroke; back to life, he dives for the bottom, Palafox red in the limpid pool, easy to follow with your eyes. He does not stray far from the edge, reduced to begging. Children lure him with crusts of bread. Palafox hereafter, summer as winter, an autumn leaf, decorates the great pool. That’s all they ask of him. He does what he wishes with his time. From morning to night, then, this wisher shares his leisure with dead rats and other souls in torment. He swells, he floats, he wastes away. His scales grow yellow. A scrawny cat leaps onto the cement rim, he hides a fork in his sleeve, Palafox will not escape him, Maureen, is this really the end you would want for him?
Maureen cannot understand her father’s reproaches. She swears it wasn’t her idea. Someone has slandered me. Algernon is willing to believe her. Anyway, if it were up to Maureen, we’d keep Palafox. She climbs onto his back, she pretends to take his bone, Palafox doesn’t hurt her at all. But if Chancelade tries to play with them ... Chancelade is acting on our orders, he immediately ties one, two, three pans to Palafox’s tail, as a joke, and then a ladle. Palafox registers the change. First, the good news: Chancelade isn’t going back to the front - where, it seems, right now, sparks are flying - tomorrow as planned. The bad news, once again he has lost a lot of blood.
Be not the producer of effects that should neglect the bidding of the beastie,
professor Zeiger quotes his master Guillaume Tardif, author of the treatise
The Art of Falconry,
a remarkable work in every way but which nonetheless sold not altogether well in its day, 1492, because of the simultaneous appearance of a collection of indiscreet remarks and gossip, more commercial of course, History of the Wrangles Between Pope Boniface VIII and Philippe the Handsome, King of France (out of print). Zeiger was able to find the passage where Tardif described Palafox, according to him, Palafox exactly - here:
rounde heade high and talle; a fat short beake; longue neck; broade plumpe breast, skeetish, harde and stong of bone. And, for them among their kinde with thighs slight and weake, they fight with clawes; their haunches
high; longues winges that at rest lay crossed upon the taile; a shorte and shorte-tempered taile; nimble faethers, cacheted, spaerse and sublime; a ready red beneath the winges, well spread, fingers longue as well, fine aflight, bold to attackerie toward all manner and prey of means. Yes, admittedly, somewhat disturbing, but how can we be sure it refers to our Palafox? Tardif’s falcon shares its traits, but we can’t really say much more. Call up your memories, you are still a child, you are walking with an uncle in the country. The fine fellow is teaching you the names of flowers, pointing out the cepes, the chanterelles, the morels, and never touch the death caps, you moron, he slaps you and regrets it immediately, wiggles his hips; like a golfer he hits a puffball with his cane which explodes strangely as it takes off from the ground and spits behind it its smoke of red spores, you laugh between your tears, at that moment your uncle stifles a cry, you search out the bird he’s pointing at with his index finger, up there, look, immobile in the sky, above the field, it’s a buzzard. Your uncle enthrones himself on a stump, thumbs under his armpits, he has a belly, you believe everything he says. You’ll swallow anything. Perhaps it is a buzzard. Or a harrier, or an osprey, or a merlin, a sparrowhawk, a goshawk, a kite, or perhaps a falcon after all, and beware of the mushrooms he pointed out, at this distance, how can one be sure that that one is a buzzard? Another thing, Tardif’s falcon never let’s his prey escape. He collapses on the desperate bird and carries it away, plucked, gutted, to his master. Palafox, you know, would more likely marry the dove.
professor Zeiger quotes his master Guillaume Tardif, author of the treatise
The Art of Falconry,
a remarkable work in every way but which nonetheless sold not altogether well in its day, 1492, because of the simultaneous appearance of a collection of indiscreet remarks and gossip, more commercial of course, History of the Wrangles Between Pope Boniface VIII and Philippe the Handsome, King of France (out of print). Zeiger was able to find the passage where Tardif described Palafox, according to him, Palafox exactly - here:
rounde heade high and talle; a fat short beake; longue neck; broade plumpe breast, skeetish, harde and stong of bone. And, for them among their kinde with thighs slight and weake, they fight with clawes; their haunches
high; longues winges that at rest lay crossed upon the taile; a shorte and shorte-tempered taile; nimble faethers, cacheted, spaerse and sublime; a ready red beneath the winges, well spread, fingers longue as well, fine aflight, bold to attackerie toward all manner and prey of means. Yes, admittedly, somewhat disturbing, but how can we be sure it refers to our Palafox? Tardif’s falcon shares its traits, but we can’t really say much more. Call up your memories, you are still a child, you are walking with an uncle in the country. The fine fellow is teaching you the names of flowers, pointing out the cepes, the chanterelles, the morels, and never touch the death caps, you moron, he slaps you and regrets it immediately, wiggles his hips; like a golfer he hits a puffball with his cane which explodes strangely as it takes off from the ground and spits behind it its smoke of red spores, you laugh between your tears, at that moment your uncle stifles a cry, you search out the bird he’s pointing at with his index finger, up there, look, immobile in the sky, above the field, it’s a buzzard. Your uncle enthrones himself on a stump, thumbs under his armpits, he has a belly, you believe everything he says. You’ll swallow anything. Perhaps it is a buzzard. Or a harrier, or an osprey, or a merlin, a sparrowhawk, a goshawk, a kite, or perhaps a falcon after all, and beware of the mushrooms he pointed out, at this distance, how can one be sure that that one is a buzzard? Another thing, Tardif’s falcon never let’s his prey escape. He collapses on the desperate bird and carries it away, plucked, gutted, to his master. Palafox, you know, would more likely marry the dove.
Broaches, ornaments, bookends, piggybanks, buoys, stuffed animals, toys on wheels or whatever, let us end there our enumeration of articles that could be made in Palafox’s image and that we could mass-produce and unleash on the marketplace, our profits would be considerable, but Algernon wouldn’t have his heart in that kind of business (the kind of heart, let it be said between us and in passing as with everything else, the kind of heart at the mercy of an able pick-pocket). Algernon cares for the rosebushes. Algernon collects old earthenware.
Straight and curved scissors, thinning shears, brush, wool card, three hand clippers, #00 (
of an inch), #0 (⅛ of an inch), #1 (
of an inch), Olympia outfits herself. The Modern Style is accepted but a Lion Style, of equal quality, will be given preference. Go for the Lion Groom. Maureen will help Olympia, Algernon will keep Palafox on the kitchen table. The standard of the Lion Groom is very specific, disqualifies those who stray from it, the subject will be shaved on his hindquarters up to his sides. Also shaved will be: the snout, above and below, beginning with his lower lids; the cheeks; front and rear legs, except the cuffs or wristbands, and the optional patterns on the hindquarters; the tail, with the exception of an oblong pompon at the end. Moustache is required for all contestants. The shaping of the fur around the front paws, referred to as bloomers, is allowed. Palafox primped and groomed into such a shape will thus make his appearance in tomorrow’s competition, and if he wins the title we’ll keep him. Everything was decided quickly. Olympia, therefore, was changing the creature’s litter - yesterday’s scoops tossed onto the dump heap, fresh news from the morgue and the stadium - when her stare fell on an ad slipped into the local paper: major exposition-competition, sponsored by c.i.b.i. (Certified by the International Beauty Institute). Maureen and Olympia knew how to persuade us, understood, agreed, if Palafox carries the day we will keep him. Only on that condition. Algernon plays fair. If he is beaten, shoot! One shot from a pistol held behind the ear, we whack him. We will put ourselves at the mercy of the judges. Without their knowing it, they will rule on Palafox’s fate. All things considered, it is normal for judges to have the last word in this matter.
of an inch), #0 (⅛ of an inch), #1 (of an inch), Olympia outfits herself. The Modern Style is accepted but a Lion Style, of equal quality, will be given preference. Go for the Lion Groom. Maureen will help Olympia, Algernon will keep Palafox on the kitchen table. The standard of the Lion Groom is very specific, disqualifies those who stray from it, the subject will be shaved on his hindquarters up to his sides. Also shaved will be: the snout, above and below, beginning with his lower lids; the cheeks; front and rear legs, except the cuffs or wristbands, and the optional patterns on the hindquarters; the tail, with the exception of an oblong pompon at the end. Moustache is required for all contestants. The shaping of the fur around the front paws, referred to as bloomers, is allowed. Palafox primped and groomed into such a shape will thus make his appearance in tomorrow’s competition, and if he wins the title we’ll keep him. Everything was decided quickly. Olympia, therefore, was changing the creature’s litter - yesterday’s scoops tossed onto the dump heap, fresh news from the morgue and the stadium - when her stare fell on an ad slipped into the local paper: major exposition-competition, sponsored by c.i.b.i. (Certified by the International Beauty Institute). Maureen and Olympia knew how to persuade us, understood, agreed, if Palafox carries the day we will keep him. Only on that condition. Algernon plays fair. If he is beaten, shoot! One shot from a pistol held behind the ear, we whack him. We will put ourselves at the mercy of the judges. Without their knowing it, they will rule on Palafox’s fate. All things considered, it is normal for judges to have the last word in this matter.Other books
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