“Witch, old witch with your coconuts!”
Or again:
“Witch, old witch with your rubber jewellery!”
Instantly, Monsieur Pierre would throw off his disguise and become what he really was: he would wrap his old raincoat around his head, leaving only his face uncovered, let his thick glasses slide down to the end of his crooked nose and scowl frightfully. Then he would pounce on the kids, with all his claws out, giving a high, shrill, nasal cackle, something like the bleat of an old nanny goat.
The children would run away as if they were dreadfully afraid—but really they weren’t as frightened as all that, for when the witch got hold of any of them, they would wriggle around and beat her off with their fists; and they were quite right to do so, for that is how we should treat old witches. They are only dangerous when we are afraid of them. Unmasked and shown who’s in charge, they become rather good fun. At this stage, they can be tamed.
So it was with Monsieur Pierre. Once the children had forced him to reveal his true identity, everyone (starting with Monsieur Pierre himself) was greatly relieved, and normal relations were soon established.
One day when Monsieur Pierre was sitting at a table, enjoying one of his endless milky coffees, with the children clustered around, he began, of his own accord, to tell them a story. The next day, at their request, he told another one, and then on the days that followed, he told still more stories. The more he told, the more the children asked him to tell. Monsieur Pierre was obliged to start rereading all the collections of stories that he had ever read since his own childhood, simply in order to satisfy his audience. He told them stories from Charles Perrault, the tales of Hans Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, Russian stories, Greek, French and Arabic tales… and the children are still asking for them!
After a year and a half, having no more stories left to tell, Monsieur Pierre made the children a proposal: they would all meet every Thursday afternoon and together they would make up brand-new stories. And if they could come up with enough stories, the stories could be put into a book.
Which is what they did, and that is how this collection came about.
The stories in the collection were, thus, not written by Monsieur Pierre alone. They were improvised by him* in collaboration with his listeners—and whoever has not worked in this way may struggle to imagine all that the children could contribute, from solid ideas to poetic discoveries and even dramatic situations, often surprisingly bold ones.
I’ll give a few examples, so first of all the first sentences in ‘The Pair of Shoes’:†
“There once was a pair of shoes that got married. The right shoe, which was the man, was called Nicolas, and the left shoe, which was the lady, was called Tina.”
These few lines, which form the seed for the story that follows, come from young Nicolas Riccardi, whose little sister’s name does indeed happen to be Tina.
Scoobidoo, the doll who knew everything, really existed, as did the guitar that became firm friends with the potato. And even as I write these words, the cunning little pig is still making himself useful as the piggy bank in Papa Sayeed’s cafe.
On this same cafe’s counter, in 1965, there was also a glass bowl that held two little fish, one red, the other yellow with black spots. It was Bashir who first realized that these fish could be “magic”, and this is why they appear in ‘The Witch in the Broom Cupboard’.
As for those who will say that these stories are too serious for children, I offer the following reply in advance, with the help of one last example:
In an early version of the tale titled ‘Uncle Pierre’s House’, my ghost only realized that he was a ghost thanks to the little girl amusing herself by putting her hand through his ethereal leg. It was Nadia, Papa Sayeed’s eldest daughter, who had the inspired idea of having the little girl sit in the same armchair as the ghost, so that, on waking, the ghost discovers her sitting “right inside Uncle Pierre’s tummy”. These last few words are Nadia’s own. Can grown-ups appreciate the symbolic value and moral beauty of this marvellous image? Our poor old ghost, a perfect specimen of the hardened, shrivelled-up, embittered old bachelor, is suddenly able to see himself as he really is. Suddenly liberty is within his reach, and truth, and generosity; he is—in short—set free, and his new freedom begins from the very moment when he symbolically becomes a mother. My friend Nietzsche also writes, I don’t recall exactly where, of men as mothers… Yet it took a little girl to come up with this perfect idea!
But I’ll stop here, for it would after all be a bit much if, in a book intended for children, the afterword meant for the adults were itself to take up more space than your average fairy tale!
In any case, I haven’t much else to add, except to wish my young friends from rue Broca happy reading, and the same to all who live on other streets in other towns, everywhere.
Pierre Gripari, 1966
* Apart from ‘The Witch in the Broom Cupboard’, which is inspired by Russian folklore.
† Pierre Gripari originally wrote this afterword for a larger collection, which is why you may not recognize this story name or some of those that follow. If you want to read all the stories mentioned here, you can find them in The Good Little Devil and Other Tales!
Translator’s Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Audrey Stanton and Etty Bo Tedman specially for their very helpful reading, also Michelle Stanton and Kerry Bell for their interpretation and comments, and Harold Lewis, who is always a trusty reader.
Sophie Lewis
Pierre Gripari, the Author
Pierre Gripari was born in 1925 in Paris, to a French mother and a Greek father. He studied at the prestigious Louis-le-Grand lycée, and tried his hand at various jobs, including serving in the army and acting as a trade-union delegate for an oil company.
He resigned in 1957 in order to become a writer, but it was not until the 1970s that he became famous, with the publication of his Contes de la rue Broca, translated in this volume. In these tales, the giants, witches and mermaids of traditional fairy tales leap from the page, animated by a very modern spirit. Blessed with a healthy disrespect for authority, the author took great pleasure in upsetting the natural order of the fantastic.
Pierre Gripari died in Paris in 1990.
Puig Rosado, the Illustrator
Puig Rosado was born in Spain on April Fools’ Day, 1931—a date of birth that is surely not entirely free of responsibility for the course the rest of his life then took. His humorous posters, drawings and cartoons have been published in numerous countries, his work is on display in museums across Europe, and he has been honoured with many prizes. Puig Rosado is absolutely convinced that people with no sense of humour go, without exception, to hell!
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Copyright
Pushkin Children’s Books
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London, WC2H 9JQ
Original Text © Éditions de la Table Ronde, Paris, 1967
Illustrations by Puig Rosado
Translation © Sophie Lewis 2013
This ebook edition published by Pushkin Children’s Books in 2014 These translations were first published by Pushkin Children’s Books as part of The Good Little Devil and Other Tales in 2013
ISBN 978–1–7826907
–88
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The Witch in the Broom Cupboard and Other Tales Page 7