Palafox (7 page)
Authors: Eric Chevillard
Our strategy, designed for the carnage of rock partridges, a crowning success well beyond our expectations (haven’t we all pheasant feathers in our caps?) shows its limitations. With certain game, it is awkward to use the same strategy, as with killing one’s grandmother. This is the first major lesson the learning of which we owe to Palafox. And we’ll reiterate: there are many things to learn from him, certainly in the wooded domain of the hunt but not only there, not only, he knows the grasses that cure and, by instinct, before everyone, before the clouds, what the weather will be the next day. And better than anyone, adds Sadarnac - the coral massifs of the Sargasso. But do not listen to him.
I have an idea, Swanscombe shouts and, interrupting himself - draws on his pipe, allows his stare to stray, wins all the prizes for best male lead, becoming a teenage heartthrob - at last continues: the success of my plan depends upon choosing the proper decoy. That steel whistle does nothing for the linnet or the skylark (you have to use one made of silver or copper) which works wonders on warblers and wagtails. With a split cherry branch, a bit of silver birch bark, a cherry pit and quill from a feather, beech leaves, ivy, scrub brush and two serrated teeth, I would be able to reproduce the cry, the song, the groan or the gallop of every animal in the forest -
tipi-ti, tipi-ti, fioiu-fiou-frou, krr-ek, chchch-st, tuituitui, kyac, tirlitt, gah-onk-aa-onk, ou-rou-rou, piap, di-del-di-o, zizibeh-zizi-beh, et cetera.
Because the onomatopoeias that we commonly use to beastify among men, that we teach to young children before the alphabet and the colors, belong to the lexicon of a dead language, extant perhaps on Noah’s Ark, but that is hardly used today or even understood by the mules of today, the cows and cocks. Cock-a-doodle-do may as well be the sound of pots falling to the floor, heehaw when they hit the earth. Exhaling gently onto a beech leaf chosen from among more than one hundred thousand trembling candidates, Swanscombe bleats out, then croons, groans, ululates, growls. Here is a nannygoat, a ringdove, a woodcock, an owl, and a cat which all and each one by one are calling Palafox, singing themselves hoarse, shouting at the top of their lungs, and, panting, fall silent as their voices are carried away by the wind.
tipi-ti, tipi-ti, fioiu-fiou-frou, krr-ek, chchch-st, tuituitui, kyac, tirlitt, gah-onk-aa-onk, ou-rou-rou, piap, di-del-di-o, zizibeh-zizi-beh, et cetera.
Because the onomatopoeias that we commonly use to beastify among men, that we teach to young children before the alphabet and the colors, belong to the lexicon of a dead language, extant perhaps on Noah’s Ark, but that is hardly used today or even understood by the mules of today, the cows and cocks. Cock-a-doodle-do may as well be the sound of pots falling to the floor, heehaw when they hit the earth. Exhaling gently onto a beech leaf chosen from among more than one hundred thousand trembling candidates, Swanscombe bleats out, then croons, groans, ululates, growls. Here is a nannygoat, a ringdove, a woodcock, an owl, and a cat which all and each one by one are calling Palafox, singing themselves hoarse, shouting at the top of their lungs, and, panting, fall silent as their voices are carried away by the wind.
The punitive raids of peasants also fail, despite the importance of their land and air forces, mobilized. Airplanes spray the region with copper sulphate on hedgehopping flights, methodically, and spread upon the cultivated land a terrible mixture made of pulverized chrysanthemums and pimpernel - excellent against certain pests, efficacious when it comes to melons and cabbage which we would willingly send away for three weeks to a mountain sanatorium before allowing on our table but which Palafox, our Palafox, laughs at. The field of his exactions has expanded. He no longer hesitates to push in greenhouse doors, breaking windows and frames, hindering the ripening - just like the unfortunate irruption of the amateur photographer’s wife in the toilet-cum-darkroom, go on, go on, I just have to powder myself and then I’m gone - of the tomatoes which will remain an unwavering yellow. And of course he avails himself of tangerines and oranges, and strawberries, strawberries above all, how couldn’t one prefer them to all other fruits, to apples that bump into the glutton’s nose and to bananas that poke his eyes, whereas the strawberries kiss one’s lips before being swallowed? As for the wolf traps hidden in bushes and ferns, that manage to trap a few field mice, Palafox has evaded them all. Fooled by a few chunks of weasel, it happens that the peasants think themselves well rid of him at last. Congratulations abound, the carcass is thrown onto the pyre. By the flicker of flames, we notice Palafox passing through, hugging the ground, gosling between his teeth. Others found him slow. He limped slightly, they claimed. He is wounded. He was the gosling. Too much talk, overhead. In truth, it isn’t unusual for animals caught in a trap to mutilate themselves to gain their freedom. Badgers and flying squirrels gnaw on their trapped paws, chew until it gives, it gives, three bites by a fox are enough, does, hares and birds of prey make the same sacrifice - all of them do it with the exception, however regularly chained to an unfriendly policeman, of man, who never has the courage or even the imagination to do this.
Perhaps one of these paws belonged to Palafox. A poacher is speaking. He dumps his game bag onto the grass, with a sinister smile, as if he were the incarnation of a critic in a choreographer’s nightmare. This poacher has forgotten one thing, or overlooked it, ophidians in general and Palafox in particular lack limbs. Consequently, when we happen upon his sinuous trail in the sand or in the dust, how can we know if we should take our own steps towards the Arctic or the Antarctic? There, his fur would within days develop a pallor sufficient to mask him within the whiteness of those lands. Meager would be our chances of spotting two black pupils in all that snow. Whatever it takes, Palafox mustn’t be allowed to reach such parts.
Once in a while a hunter boasts that he has killed him. In the minute that follows, this dark man emerges from anonymity. The wildlife photographer from the local newspaper immortalizes him, seated on the creature or gripping it by the gills, his son beside him seems so small, or by the ears, but preferably by the wings, so as to show to all the extraordinary wingspan and as if to say he’s become somebody. And these are in effect good little catches, dappled deer, wild rabbits, pike-perch, magnificent briar cocks that share the front page with General Fontechevade. (Heartening news from the front. The enemy is in retreat. Our brave boys are gaining ground for our cows. We harvest the hills.) Algernon, pensive, folds the paper, a fly-fisherman kisses the general on both cheeks, and then bites him on the nose, Fontechevade frowns, punches his attacker, tears the tremendous carp from his grasp and secrets it on his person, the other retaliates, tries to strangle him, twist off his head, throw him over his shoulder, the earth trembles and cracks around them, then Algernon abandons them to their fate. My friends, he concludes, change of plans. Since Palafox is deaf to your cooings, my poor Swanscombe, we will need to supply him with different temptations. Can we lure him? It’s a tried and true tactic, the corncob delivers the rat, the lamb the wolf, the bee need only claim the bear tempted by a honeycomb. Sadarnac offers worms, larvae, flies, grasshoppers, balls of cheese, pieces of apple or raw meat. It has got to stink, bleed or wriggle. Or at least shine, and Sadarnac draws golden spoons from his boots, gilded with black dots, gilded with red dots, silver-plated, silver-plated with black dots, silver-plated with red dots, and others, gilded or silver-plated, with stripes, red or black, and feathered hooks, glittering lures, glass pearls ...
Sides of beef, chicken giblets, wildflowers, marrow bones, buckets of oats, hazelnuts, berries, chicory, carrots, lights, bran, salt, milk ... our trap is simple: victuals kept in plain sight at the foot of a tree; between the branches, a large net hung on two hoops crossed and manipulated from afar with the aid of a rope that will require one firm tug at the right moment to trap: Palafox. This hiding is a new exercise for us, men of action, it would be more natural for us to be seated in an arena. Beneath the shelter of a hedge we wait. We wait. We wait several days, the sting of the nettle is more painful but less lasting than that of the mosquito. At dawn, the humidity sticks you to your bed of leaves, fingers interlaced, a bronze lamp-base twisted tastelessly for a neck, eyes extinguished behind the head. The birds also tell their dreams to each other, in his a jay was a sow with a slit throat. A thousand nights’ other observations of general interest. No Palafox. We throw stones at crows, rodents and little carnivores that whirl around the buffet.
Pssch,
we’re scaring off the vipers. Flies land on our pâté, briefly, as if afraid of the snap of a tail. The sun sets - at the antipodes we do all our business with this bright fat coin darkly in hand: here is night that comes at such a cost, came with only a dime change, risen, there, the moon.
Pssch,
we’re scaring off the vipers. Flies land on our pâté, briefly, as if afraid of the snap of a tail. The sun sets - at the antipodes we do all our business with this bright fat coin darkly in hand: here is night that comes at such a cost, came with only a dime change, risen, there, the moon.
And there, Palafox. At last he appears, unhurried, to the feast. He was skinning a fly when the net fell on him. His buckings and gesticulations are to no greater effect than to ensnare him more deeply. We approach, he recoils, frightening, he beats his chest with his enormous fists, as if he was trying to hammer out armor in a hurry. We draw back. Palafox takes advantage of our hesitation, and wriggling around he attempts to slip through the netting - he has already managed to get his head and one of his paws through, three, seven, then twelve of his paws, but already we are on him. Franc-Nohain winds rope around his ankles. Swanscombe muzzles him and Algernon, Algernon chloroforms him. Two fat balls of cork borrowed from Sadarnac take the treachery out of those horns. Let us be sure we make him exhaust his venom: be careful not to make him spit his poison. Then Algernon slips him gingerly into a crystal-clear paper pouch and gives free reign to his joy. We have him, hooray. Frankly, there are few trophies on our walls of which we are as proud (Franc-Nohain nonetheless asks that we not overlook the lone lunatic that he finished off with a knife the year before, nor the courage and the cold-bloodedness which he was able to prove in such circumstances, but this goes without saying). Is it necessary to mention that Sandarac’s version of these events differs from those already reported? In this version, Palafox was caught by the light rod and reel method - he opposed a protracted resistance, twice broke the line, unwound up to a hundred and twenty meters of line, and bit the hook and bait with such force that I had to shove my hand inside his mouth to unhook him, you can imagine the hazard, knowing that a pike’s jaw sports no fewer than seven hundred teeth. But Sadarnac tells tall tales, you know him, what really was at risk given he had a gutting knife? A child of five years, his little brother of four would have been able to withdraw the spoonbait.
6.
So your life unfolds without other concerns but the search for a little food and a shade, without other activities than the seasonal harvest of berries and mushrooms, the hunt for butterflies, the fishing of crayfish, without worse predator to fear than a female post-coitum. And then they arrive with their dogs, their weapons, their traps. They hunt you. They capture you. Put yourself in the place of Palafox. They rip you by the roots from your sylvan existence. Palafox paws the ground, you’d paw too in this narrow box. He snorts, relax. Calm down. Maureen appeases him, her fingers play along his nape, creep up between his ears and, lower, her hand rests flat on the nearly perfect white star near his nose. Be a good little Palafox, behave now. He doesn’t reject a fist full of grass. His teeth are yellow and uneven, his tongue is rough. Blinders keep him from seeing the professors Cambrelin and Baruglio to his right, Zeiger and Pierpont to his left. This new consultation was obviously necessary. We cannot pretend to be unaware of the savage acts he has committed, or so it would seem, while he has been on the run. Before starting to train him again, Algernon wants to know if he is or isn’t salvageable, whether he can or can’t be broken. In addition to the misdemeanors about which we know, or think we know, innumerable tragedies past are bubbling up to the surface again, those that preceded Palafox’s first appearance amongst us and for which the true culprit was never identified: whenever the field mouse was implicated in a case, the wolf came out pure and white, and vice versa, the wolf being implicated, white became the mouse. In brief, Palafox is suspected of having slit the throats of many thousands of our fellow creatures. And of having horned many thousands of others. Suffocated still more. Strangled others. Crushed others still. Poisoned countless. Through the centuries. For motives that remain uncertain. Of having mutilated, well yes, millions and millions more, ripping a finger or two from the hand extended only to pet him or bully him, never to give. If that were all it had been, but tearing the arm with it, and with the arm the shoulder, with the shoulder the breast, with the breast the infant, rending a foot here and there, tearing away leaden limbs of swimmers weak at the knees - those, pitiful in the water, diminished on the banks, unfortunate wherever they fall, sinking into despair in a balloon or along a line. To this list of crimes please add the decimated herds, the pillaged granaries, the emptied ponds, the poultry yards, the sheep barns, the sacked pigsties and vines, the devastated orchards, because pig doesn’t make for good dessert (hors d’œuvres variés, asst. cold meats, plate upon plate, nutritious, filling, but nothing sugary to bring it all to a close, no chocolate, no sweetness). Let us then list, in the hosts of houses where Palafox, doubtless, by turns, served as pet, or companion animal, the soiled carpets, the confettied curtains, splattered ceilings, debased baseboards, compromised couches, marked mirrors, furniture befouled, sweaters unraveled, knickknacks paddywacked, spools tangled, books unbound, cooling pies pinched from sills, plants phylloxerized, stolen diamonds, nights ruined, sons stripped bare, trashcans upended, endlessly....
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