The Bark Tree (16 page)

Ernestine saw only the comic side of these goings-on, and turned around, to stifle her laughter. The sound of breaking china made her turn back again; the old man didn’t like people making fun of him, he’d just broken the rosy shepherd and the mauvish shepherdess.

“Oh! my vase,” said Ernestine, suiting the appropriate mimicry to these words.

Old Taupe regretted his gesture.

“It’s not right to make fun of me, my dear,” said he.

And she understood at once what he was referring to.

The good fellow then heard some surprising words; the girl wasn’t rejecting his advances any more, but she seemed to attach a condition to them whose meaning he couldn’t quite grasp yet. He went and fetched her another vase, adorned with a Neapolitan moon, which he sold her for three francs fifty; she left, smiling pleasantly. She had said some things to him which, if she really meant what she said, well, there was no getting over them.

—oooooo—oooooo—

Sidonie sat down on the terrace of her favorite café, opposite the Gare du Nord. It was there, three weeks before, that she’d seen a bus run over a young man in a hurry; it was there that she’d first seen the two accomplices, Etienne Marcel and X
...

They had then acted, before her very eyes, a mysterious scenario whose exact meaning she hadn’t succeeded in understanding, any more than she had understood the exact meaning of the conversation she’d just had with Narcense.

At first, her brother Saturnin had made a terrible fuss: out of the question for her to go and see Meussieu Narcense.

What did she want with him? What business was it of hers? Ek cetra, ek cetra. Summing streamly important, she’d replied, and then, sit got to do with you? Her brother, he’d had to shut his trap. No but
...
an anyway, he was the youngest. Another good thing was that the meussieu in question was in. He’d looked surprised to see her, course he had, and he’d asked her nice and politely to sit down. Wasn’t anything ticularly interesting to look at in his apartment. Wz a piano, and then a jazz-band whatsit, and then some photos, and then he was in the middle of writing some music. All for show, of course. It was the first time she’d seen him. He had a scar on his forehead, and he looked a tough customer. Wasn’t wearing a tie, and he was in his shirtsleeves. So he asked her: Watch want me to do for you? Just like that, abruptly. So she’d answered: I’ve come to suggest doing a deal, and he’d said: Well, well! Whereupon there’d been a silence. Then she’d gone on: You do know M’sieu Marcel, Etienne Marcel? “Yes,” he’d answered. “And his pal, oh beg yours, his friend, the fair-haired meussieu that’s got a car,” and he’d said: Pierre Le Grand. So that was what that one’s name was. Certainly not a real name; it’s like Narcense, odd sort of name that is. Ah well, duh matter.

N then she said: You had some matters to settle, the two of you, and she gave him a wink. The fellow, he said he din understand. “What about Théo,” says she. “Don’t know ’im,” says the fellow, looking furious. “Oh, beg yours,” says she. She hadn’t been going about it the right way.

There wz another silence; Narcense was the first to break it, and he said: I haven’t the vaguest what you want from me, Madame. Natch it was difficult to explain it to him. “The other two, they’re hatching summing up,” she finally made up her mind to say. “Watch mean, the other two?”

“Well, Marcel and Le Grand.”

Then he’d said: “What the hell d’you think I care?” Then she’d said: “You and me together, we can stop them.” Then he’d laughed like anything and said: Why should we stop them? And there wasn’t any answer to that. “Oh, it’s a big deal,” says she, and Meussieu Narcense had said: You don’t say, and he gave her a peculiar look.

Then he asked her: Do you know them well, those messieus? “Do I know them? Course I do,” she’d replied. “They’re always coming to have a drink at my brother’s, not the one that’s the concierge here, but the yuther one that’s got a bistro at Blagny, you know, on the Obonne line.”

“Then Saturnin, he’s your brother,” says he. “Yes, M’sieu,” she’d replied. “And those two messieus are always going to have a drink at Blagny?”

“Oh yess, M’sieu,” she’d again replied. “Well, that takes the cake,” says he. “And is that all they do at Blagny?” he asks.

She winked: No, that isn’t all, it’s just precisely there that they’re getting ready to do the deal. “A big deal?” says he. “At least a million,” she answered. “Well, well,” says he, and she added that if he liked, the two of them could stop them. “Yess, M’sieu Narcense, I can see what they’re after, but then I know all about it. Me, I’m only a weak woman, I can’t risk it all by myself; sa question of at least a miyun, think of that, eh, so it’d be better for it to be me and you rather than them, doncha think? That’s what she’d said to him. Then he’d answered: Who d’you think I am? And she’d told him what she thought: that his music, it was all for show, wasn’t it? Slike Marcel, that makes out he’s a bank clerk. Believe me, M’sieu Narcense, I know very well who you are. I’m not from the police, believe me. It’s on the up and up, the deal I’m offering you, and there’s no big risk. It’s a profitable deal, believe me, and it’s in the bag if you’ll only do something about it.”

She’d said all that to him, and all that time he’d been walking up and down. “How d’you know that Marcel and Le Grand are cooking something up?” says he. “Ah, now that I can’t tell you.” Natch, she couldn’t tell him that just like that. And then he’d said: Msorry, Madame, but I can’t do anything about your business, at the moment I’m busy smuggling cream cheese in North Africa; you understand, that takes a lot of my time, and then, at the same time, I’ve got a lawyer to liquidate not far from Castelsarrazin, a little business which ought to bring me something like two million, not counting the extras, so, you understand, I’m extremely busy; naturally, this is just between you and me.

Yuh, tswot he’d said, and after that he’d said: Good-by, mso sorry, Madame.

But what did he mean, not counting the extras? And then, smuggling cream cheese, do people do that? It was certainly international gangsters’ slang. Like the correspondence with Théo in code, it meant something different from what was written. A guy like that who goes about hanging little children and smuggling cream cheese, better watch out. Maybe Ernestine isn’t so wrong not to get mixed up with all that. Guys like that are danjrous, they do in the people that get in their way, and they, well they never get caught. Two mijun not counting the extras, Lord, that’s something. Old Taupe certainly hasn’t got that much. You never know, though, if the yuthers are mixed up in it, then it must be a deal that’s worth something like that.

“Yes, Madame?”

“A Cointreau,” replied Mme. Cloche, “and make sure you fill the glass up full, I don’t want any of your half measures.”

“Well, there’s a vulgar one for you,” said the waiter to himself, wiping his nose with his napkin.

—oooooo—oooooo—

“Here, Saturnin—is that your sister, the old girl who just left?”

“Yes, M’sieu Narcense. What on earth did she have to say to you?”

“Didn’t she tell you?”

“Not a word. As she left, she said: If the meussieu wants to see me, give him my address.”

“Hm! And she didn’t tell you anything about me?”

“Not a word.”

“Is she drunk or mad or drugged?”

“Nothing like that, M’sieu Narcense. She’s in her right mind, my sister is. And she didn’t touch a drop today, my sister didn’t.”

“Saturnin, do you know who I am?”

“M’sieu Nar
...
”

“Not at all. I’m a crook, a thief, a dangerous gangster. Your sister just told me so.”

“Dnever’ve thought it.”

“Nor would I.”

“If she said that, it’s because she had a reason for saying it.”

“Obviously, Saturnin. Etienne Marcel is a crook, too.”

“The guy from Obonne?”

“That’s the way it is. He’s cooking up a scheme involving a million.”

“Jesus,” said Saturnin.

“I fear you may be carried away by fraternal love, Saturnin, when you say that your sister is in her right mind. Watch her closely. Examine her attentively. Ask her, for instance, if she knows anything about the traffic in cream cheese. You’ll see what she’ll answer. In any case, come what may, I don’t ever want that individual of doubtful cleanliness and repugnant aspect to set foot on my premises again.”

“Right, M’sieu Narcense.”

“And you can also tell her not to count the extras when she adds things up.”

“Right, M’sieu Narcense, If I get a chance, I’ll tell her.”

Narcense hasn’t heard from Shibboleth yet; too soon; Le Grand couldn’t have had time to get around to it; it can’t be long now, though. Once again, he thinks about the old madwoman and wonders how she managed to come to such conclusions; and the frequent visits to the bistro, as she said, at Blagny. Was that true or false? What on earth could Marcel and Le Grand do there? That must be just as imaginary as all the rest. Blagny, on the Obonne line. Obonne—Narcense hadn’t been there since the Mygales business. That was five days ago—only five days.

In the train, he looked out of the window at a landscape which he found atrociously hopeless. He liked the engines, but those hovels, those shanties. Now a row of conventional houses. This goes on for some time; there are a few trees here and there; then some waste ground, some workmen’s tenements, some more allotments studded with sheds, a factory here and there, we’re coming to Blagny. No animation in the square at this time of day. The train starts off again. More allotments studded with rabbit hutches, more wasteland and there, just before the chemicals factory, he can read
CHIPS
in enormous letters, and underneath, modestly,
D. Belhôtel.
That’s the famous bistro, then, and
D. Belhôtel
is certainly Saturnin’s brother. At least that much was true in the old girl’s tale. Suddenly, he catches sight of the very same old girl. In person. On the path that runs along the factory wall, just by the railroad line, she’s shuffling along with decision. She certainly knows where she’s going. Narcense can’t resist it. He puts his head out of the window and shouts : Belhôtel! Belhôtel! and waves a handkerchief. The old girl finally sees him; she stops dead, petrified, salted, desiccated. So long as the train remains in sight, she doesn’t budge. He sits down again, highly pleased.

Obonne, houses, houses and more houses. There’s only one touching one, it’s only half finished and the paint on the gate is flaking off. He prowls around. From a neighboring “Mon Désir” come the yells of a toothless baby; at “Dun Romin” a miserable dog is howling in a destitute voice; at “Mon Repos” a duck is screaming because it just broke its foot on the flying trapeze (it’s not true); at “Mon Rêve” you can hear Rome, unless it’s Madrid or Toulouse (in any case it’s Latin, they’re playing Tortoni’s serenade, oh, to hell with it!).

In the half-house, nothing stirs. The shutters over all the windows are closed. Meussieu Exossé watches Narcense out of the corner of his eye from his doorway. Abandoned houses provoke the immoral desires of burglars, thinks Meussieu Exossé.

Narcense looks at the house for a long time. Then he finds he’s near the little café; will he go in? He hesitates; the door half opens, he hears: “the last time I went to Singapore,” and goes back to Paris.

—oooooo—oooooo—

Saturnin was trying to write; but it wouldn’t come. He wasn’t in form. His pen in the air, he was staring with a baleful eye at the pigeonholes with not a letter in them. Then, lowering his pen, he committed this sentence to paper:

the bird flue a way,

and replaced the instrument on the inkstand. Very ill at ease, Saturnin, very ill at ease. Lurking at the back of his lodge, the shutters tight shut on account of the heat, he has opened a little exercise book, a third of which has already been written in, uncorked a little bottle of ink and picked up a slightly nibbled pen. He intended to write something. But it isn’t so easy as all that to write something when you haven’t anything to say. All the more so as Saturnin doesn’t write any old prose or romantic stuff. No no; what he writes has been thought out; so when he doesn’t write, it becomes painful. Your stomach gets hollow, like when you’re hungry; this is especially odd. Your eyes blink and your temples get hollow like your stomach; a slight pain moves down from the fontanel to the cerebellum, and vanishes.

Saturnin picks up his pen again and crosses out

the bird flue away

He hadn’t had the slightest intention of writing that; all the more uninteresting. He continues his stroke, and finishes it in a most effective doodle. He puts down his pen.

There are some days when his head is full of things, when he makes judicious, original, profound observations, there are some days when he sees clearly that this is that, and then that, and other days when he understands this and that, and then that, and others days when he feels a little spasm at his heart because he perceives that this is not this, but that, and still other things. He often gets ideas, or if he doesn’t get ideas, there are things that can be written; then it seems so funny. Where does it come from? You really don’t know. He often gets the impression that what he has to say is very important; sometimes, even, that it’s the most important thing in the world what he’s first written or what he’s going to write, what’s in his head, huh. Yes, sometimes, the most important thing in the world is there—staring him in the face; yes, that’s how he sometimes thinks, Saturnin the concierge, whether he’s sitting on a chair, or lying in his bed, whether he’s in his lodge or at the door of the apartment building he has been entrusted to look after, whether it’s day or whether it’s night, whether he’s alone or whether he’s in the company of his wife, who detests sewer rats and prawns that are still alive; yes, Saturnin, sometimes, that’s how he thinks.

But at other times, Saturnin the concierge, he isn’t at all like that. As we were saying just now, his head is empty and his eye baleful, he doodles on his paper and he nibbles at his pen. But he doesn’t have anything to say; it isn’t that that’s what’s painful, but that he’d thought the contrary. For, as we mustn’t forget to say, there are some times when he wouldn’t be capable of writing anything, but when that wouldn’t make him in the slightest uneasy, because he doesn’t in the least feel like it. That’s the difference, there’s the tra-la-lacuna. Spose he wz to take his feather duster and move the anonymous dust in the elevator from one place to another, then he wouldn’t suffer. Spose he wz to get some polish and a brush and make himself look so handsome in a parquet floor, then he wouldn’t suffer. Spose he had a lot to do, spose he had a lot to keep him busy, then he wouldn’t suffer. But he wants to write, and so he suffers, because there’s someone, behind him, who’s thinking. That, at least, is what he believes. He had been scratching his shoulder for some minutes and thinking vaguely of various incidents in his past, when he gradually realized that, behind him, someone was thinking. Then, immediately after, that there was really no one there, thinking.