Toby and the Secrets of the Tree

by Timothee de Fombelle

  The night school had, however, given them back a little hope and dignity.

  During those long days, Maya inevitably thought about Toby. She remembered him as a two-year-old, running around in their first house in the Treetop. The muffled sound of his feet in the hallway had never left her, and part of her still expected to see him push the door open and walk in.

  At the time, she used to say, “The world belongs to toddlers.” Now she knew that the world belonged to other people. Her son had been cast aside and devoured by this world. But Maya Lolness had decided to survive.

  She and Sim always said, “We’re living for three.” Their existence had become all the more precious. They had to hold on.

  Sim had secured a less exhausting job for Maya than breaking wood with a pickax. She knitted socks for the guards. From the outside, these socks looked very comfy, but Maya had developed the “breeze stitch” especially for the occasion, which lets the cold and damp in but doesn’t let the sweat out. Thanks to her, the guards always had frozen feet that stank of cheese.

  Among themselves, the prisoners referred to this kind of indirect action as sabotage. It had started when one aged detainee, Lou Tann, an ex-shoemaker, produced clogs that were hobnailed on the inside and gave them to Joe Mitch’s men.

  Sim passed between the rows of students and stopped in front of Zef.

  “Perhaps what I should say is that we’re all parasites, Mr. Clarac. . . .”

  Zef smiled. He was still as famously ugly as ever, but his humor and charm had grown with the years.

  “When we understand the state our Tree is in,” Sim continued. “The way the lichen is taking over, the layer of leaves that diminishes from spring to spring, bees becoming increasingly rare . . . all the signs are alarming. Perhaps, Zef, we are the parasites you’ve been talking about. In the old days, I used to say to my son —”

  He stopped. His chin trembled a little. Maya’s knitting needles had slowed down.

  “One day . . . I said to my son,” he went on in a fragile voice, “that the greatest discovery I ever made in my life was that dead leaves don’t fall by themselves. They fall when they’re pushed by the bud of the future leaf. It is life itself that pushes them. Life! But today, dear colleagues, the leaves that fall are not replaced.”

  The professor’s voice broke. He knew that he was also speaking about his own life and about Toby. He and his wife would die one day, and the bud that should have been behind them, full of life and hope, the bud that would have pushed them aside, well, that bud was no longer there. Their son had disappeared.

  In the passageway outside the room, two guards were doing their rounds. They came and went, passing in front of the windows.

  “Will you excuse me for a moment, please?” asked the professor, and he took the glass of water that Plok was holding out to him.

  In the silent classroom, two small taps were heard on the crate that functioned as the professor’s desk. Instantly, Zef Clarac glanced over at the window, slid from his chair to the floor, and started walking on all fours under the tables, between his colleagues’ legs.

  It made for a very bizarre sight.

  The others pretended they hadn’t seen anything.

  “Any questions?” Sim asked loudly.

  Zef Clarac, still down on all fours, had reached the crate in front of the professor. A guard passed by the window without noticing anything.

  Zef knocked twice on the crate. A trapdoor opened. A little old man emerged, covered in sawdust and wood shavings, and Zef went inside in his place. The trapdoor closed behind him. The little old man shook his clothes and crawled over to Zef’s chair. He heaved himself up onto it. The old man answered the few glances that were cast in his direction with a smile that made his white mustache rise up.

  The night school was no old men’s folly. Since it had been set up, two months earlier, it had served as a cover for an enormous escape plan: Operation Liberty. Under the professor’s desk every evening, the old men took turns digging. They had already triumphed over five centimeters of hard wood.

  The hut had been chosen because it was above the Crater, a few dozen paces from the Enclosure. According to Tornett, who knew all about escaping, and by Sim’s calculations, there were no more than two centimeters left to dig. In a few days, the tunnel would be finished.

  Since Pol Colleen’s escape a year ago, they knew this dream was possible.

  Suddenly, Sim froze. All the students strained their ears.

  A procession in the distance was making the floor vibrate. Guards ran past the windows. The floor was creaking. Sim glanced at his assistant. Plok Tornett’s face had turned white. The great door opened, and a figure that was immediately recognizable appeared.

  This figure nearly got stuck in the doorway. A wobble of his backside tore the door from its hinges and allowed him to enter.

  Joe Mitch’s dull stare covered the room. He was exhausted from having climbed all the way, and his jacket was stained with greasy sweat that looked like meat broth. From the smell that hung around him, he must have been wearing the “breeze stitch” socks knitted by Maya. His cigarette butt rolled around his lips.

  He took three steps as wearily as if he were on a high-altitude hike.

  Joe Mitch hadn’t changed much over the past three years. His clothes were still the same, although he’d easily gained a gram. His rolls of fat were fully exposed around his belt. His chunky calves made his trousers ride up.

  The skeletons in striped suits that followed behind him were none other than Razor and Torn, his two right-hand men. Neither of them had gained any wrinkles, since they barely had any skin left on their bones.

  Joe Mitch went straight to the professor’s desk. He put down a knee-size elbow, pushed aside two glass beakers on the crate, and looked at the dignified assembly before him. These gray heads, honest gazes, and intelligent minds represented everything he hated. He continued to face them for some time, using his finger to try to fish out the cigarette butt that had apparently gotten stuck in his gums.

  Sim Lolness had stepped to the side to hide his assistant, Plok Tornett. Plok was trembling in his corner. Joe Mitch noticed him and pushed Sim out of the way.

  “Plook,” he said.

  From the moment he’d first arrived at the Crater, Plok had been terrified of Joe Mitch. This clearly wasn’t the same fear felt by the others: just the tiniest glimpse of the Friendly Neighbor, and he was beside himself. Even his uncle Vigo Tornett couldn’t understand why Plok was quite so scared stiff. What dreadful memory did the sight of Mitch trigger?

  Joe Mitch was thrilled to discover the effect he had on Plok. He had a great deal of fun making nasty faces and baring his teeth. He called him Plook. Occasionally he took him for a walk, on a leash. When Plok came back from these sessions, his teeth wouldn’t stop chattering. He would lie limp in his uncle’s arms. Plok, who was mute, would wake up shouting in the middle of the night.

  Mitch took a step toward his toy. He brought his face close to Plok’s. The boy wasn’t far from fainting. His eyes rolled upward in terror.

  “P-Pl-Plook!” Mitch exploded, grabbing him by the ear.

  But Joe Mitch had no time to lose. He stood up, making his quadruple chin flap in the direction of one of his sidekicks.

  Razor began translating: “The Friendly Neighbor is very interested in your school. He can see that you like to work.”

  “How kind of him,” said Sim mischievously. “For us, work is a way of escaping from . . .”

  Sim was half smiling. Razor coughed and added, “Professor, if you don’t mind, I believe Mr. Mitch is asking you to follow us.”

  Maya looked at Sim, who reassured her with a wrinkle of his nose. Sim Lolness was often summoned in this way, and he always returned safe and sound.

  He grabbed his beret and headed for the door. He didn’t want these brutes hanging around here. They must not find out that Zef Clarac was missing. The professor wrinkled his nose once more at his wife, who returned
the sign.

  Mitch was starting to stir into motion, but he stopped in front of the desk. The floor felt slippery under his feet.

  Joe Mitch bent down painfully. He collected a bit of sawdust from the floor. His head was virtually touching the trapdoor to the tunnel.

  Between his fingers was the fine dust that had come off the clothes of the old digger with the white mustache. Mitch raised his head to see if the sawdust could have come from the ceiling, then he sniffed.

  A terrible silence hovered over the rows of students. Mitch was pressing the sawdust to his nostrils and frowning.

  The only sound was the Friendly Neighbor’s sniffing.

  “It’s fresh,” Sim Lolness called out from across the room. “It’s fresh sawdust.”

  Mitch was still sniffing his hand. When he was suspicious, his animal reflexes took over and his eyes rolled in their sockets.

  Maya no longer dared to breathe. She sent her husband an imploring look.

  Sim’s face lit up. “Wood powder,” he said, cleaning his glasses. “I . . . I grated some sawdust just now, to demonstrate to my colleagues the decomposition of dead wood caused by molds. A simple experiment. Are you interested in the subject, Mr. Mitch?”

  Sim put his glasses back on his nose. He added, “A mold that eats wood. Does that remind you of anyone?”

  A big smile passed from student to student. A smile of relief and pride. In a few words, Sim had just saved Operation Liberty and managed to find a subtle way of insulting the Friendly Neighbor.

  Two guards pushed him outside. Mitch followed, gasping for breath.

  Razor and his men led the professor to the Grass people’s prison.

  Each time a new convoy arrived, it was the same story. The most recent captives would be presented to Sim Lolness. Supposedly, the Grass person who declared that he recognized Sim would be set free immediately.

  The aim was to prove that Sim was in league with the enemies from the Grass. Joe Mitch had long claimed that Sim had sold the secret of his invention to them. If a Grass person recognized him, this would provide official proof of the professor’s guilt.

  To Sim’s great surprise, not one of the Grass people had ever succumbed to this blackmail. This fascinated him. It would have been so easy for them to pretend they recognized him. Who were these people who preferred to be prisoners than to lie? He himself might not have been capable of such integrity.

  Sim felt friendly toward these intriguing people who kept saving his life.

  On this particular evening, nine Grass people had arrived at the Crater. Among them was a ten-year-old boy.

  Moon Boy was staring at the man who sat in front of him. He didn’t look like the other hunters he’d come across since his arrival in the Tree, with that funny flat object on top of his head and see-through disks in front of his eyes. Behind those windows were handsome eyes with a bit of a dreamy, far-off look about them.

  Each of the eight other Grass prisoners passed in front of the man with the disks on his eyes. One of the guards would say again, “Look harder, look harder! Just one word and you’ll be able to go back home!”

  Jalam, like the others, declared that he didn’t know the man.

  Then it was Moon Boy’s turn.

  Pretending to be nice, the guard stroked his neck and said, “It’s your last chance, little one. I’m going to step back. I’ll leave you for a minute to have a good look. Tell us if you recognize him. Otherwise we’ll put you in a hole and you’ll come out in fifty years, walking on your white beard.”

  But the young Grass boy didn’t know the man in front of him, who was looking at him curiously. Moon Boy could feel how much goodness there was in his gaze. Despite being dreamy, it was clear and bursting with intelligence.

  All of a sudden, the transparent disks steamed up. The man took off his windows, and his cheeks were shiny with tears. He checked that the guard wasn’t listening before whispering, “Where did you find that, little one?”

  Moon Boy didn’t understand. The man repeated himself as quietly as possible.

  “Tell me where you found what you’re wearing around your neck.”

  The boy put his hand on the bit of wood carved by Little Tree. Was this a trap? Should he answer this question? He instinctively trusted the man.

  The guard didn’t leave him enough time. He headed back over and asked, “Well?”

  “No,” Moon Boy said quickly.

  He was shoved roughly toward the others.

  Sim Lolness didn’t really believe in chance; he believed in life. But how had the emblem of the Lolness family ended up around the neck of this young Grass boy?

  He rejoined his companions in the dormitory.

  “Piece of cake!” he said as he walked in.

  He always said this after he’d exerted himself. He could dig for three hours in the mine and still come out saying, “Piece of cake!”

  Sim didn’t tell Maya what he’d seen hanging around the young Grass boy’s neck, but over the next few days, he felt a hope brewing. A tiny hope, almost invisible, that lit him up from inside.

  “Are you all right, dear Sim?”

  “Yes, Maya.”

  “Are you thinking about something?”

  She always smiled when she asked that, because in more than thirty years, she’d never once seen him think about nothing.

  “Possibly, Maya. Possibly.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  They were half starved, exhausted, frozen stiff, their hands were injured, and they were trying to sleep on the plank of wood they’d been given as a bed. And yet when they talked at night, they sometimes sounded as if they were still on their honeymoon.

  Lou Tann, the old shoemaker who slept on the plank above them, was amazed by the Lolness couple.

  Listening to them, Lou Tann sometimes thought of his own family.

  When things had turned nasty for the Tree Council, Lou had tried to hide Councillor Rolden in his workshop. He had made this his job for a few days. Rolden lived in the shoemaker’s leather storeroom.

  The soldiers had turned up after a week.

  “Smells like old clogs in here,” the Patrol Chief had said.

  Lou Tann had looked at his wife, who averted her eyes. In a flash, he understood.

  “You?” he said to his wife.

  The men dragged Rolden out from the lean-to, removed his shoes, and put them on his hands to make fun of him.

  Lou Tann had been denounced by his own wife and by his three children. The two men were imprisoned in the Crater that same day.

  “What are you thinking about?” Maya asked again in the dark.

  “I can see some light, Maya.”

  She thought Sim was talking about a glimmer of moonlight on the dormitory ceiling. But there was only one light in Sim Lolness’s mind.

  The possibility that Toby was alive somewhere.

  Nils Amen was settled comfortably in his hut perched high above a clump of old lichen, looking at the huge map spread out before him.

  Each day, the green gained more ground. Each evening, he had to add new lichen forests to his map. His one thousand woodcutters were no longer enough; he just kept on recruiting more.

  Nils looked out of the window at the snow-covered cluster of lichen and remembered it was Christmas. He wiped his hand across his face.

  Nils had succeeded in life. He’d made his fortune in just a few years, winning his father’s confidence, his woodcutters’ loyalty, and his territory’s independence.

  Fortune was on his side. The lichen had started to invade the branches, taking over the heart of the Tree. So the whole Tree relied on Amen Woods, which now brought together all the woodcutters.

  Nils paid his men well. He had set them up, with their wives and children, in the kinds of remote villages that no longer existed anywhere else. People said, “Happy as a woodcutter,” “A smile bright enough to chop wood,” and “Plump as a woodcutter’s baby.”

  It was widely recognized that the y
oung Nils Amen looked after his own and resisted pressures from the Treetop Nest or Joe Mitch’s Crater. Nils Amen didn’t depend on anybody, but many depended on him.

  Nils had succeeded in life. And like many others who have succeeded, he was all alone on Christmas morning.

  “Can I go home now?”

  “Of course,” said Nils.

  He had forgotten about this last man, who had come specially to sharpen Nils’s ax.

  “That boy came to see you again — woodcutter 505.”

  “Doesn’t he have a name?”

  Nils didn’t like his woodcutters being called by their number.

  “I told him you weren’t here.”

  “Thanks. That’s the third time he’s stopped by,” said Nils. “I don’t have time. You can go now — close the door tightly. Merry Christmas. Give your wife a kiss from me.”

  “You too,” said the man, heading out.

  Nils smiled. He didn’t have a wife to kiss.

  He could have given his dad a kiss, but for the last few weeks, Norz had been working at the other end of the Tree, in a logging yard.

  Norz Amen was a great support to his only son. It hadn’t always been this way, but all he’d had to do was change the way he looked at Nils for his son to blossom and reach his full potential. Norz advised Nils and tried to pass on to him his obsession that Amen Woods remain independent.

  Nils was the last in a long line of woodcutters. Some time ago, his father had betrayed the independence of Amen Woods in order to work for the great estate owners. At the time, he had worked for Mrs. Alnorell, Toby Lolness’s rich grandmother. But now, like all those who have once made a mistake, Norz was ready to do anything to defend his newfound freedom.

  His refrain had become almost tiresome. “Remember, Nils: you’re either free or you’re dead.”

  Norz adopted a stern expression when he said these words, but Nils acted like a saint and knelt down in front of his father, whispering, “Amen!”