Short Stories in French

by Richard Coward

  In several rows, as deep as my arm can reach and even further (the bookcase is deceptive, one would have said that it was not so deep), an infinite number of books offer themselves to me. Seeing, touching, smelling this smooth leather and musty paper, I lose all my common sense and I clap my hands, as I jump on the spot, uttering brief cries (my springy leaps lift me ever further off the ground) and it is only the fear of going through the ceiling in an explosion of plaster and a clatter of small stones (wild-eyed in the attic as the mice run up to gnaw at my head) that keeps me within the bounds of reason.

  Solemnly, I leaf through thousands of volumes without seizing on a single one, that is with the exception of a slender volume, late into the night, the last that I grasp, a delightful, small tome which does not bear the name of its author, barely more than a few pages, beautifully and clearly printed, that I am easily going to be able to read from the first letter to the last.

  I begin to read.

  Self-destruction

  I am on a long journey between two capital cities.

  Before I set off, a female friend, who knows my intense dislike of hotels, which is even more insuperable than my fear of being alone, handed me the keys to a house she owns, which is situated, a long way from any town or road, halfway between my point of departure and my destination. I will therefore be able to …

  How strange! Here is my story told down to the smallest detail. With great difficulty I tear myself away from the sentence: this break, this pause, this mere effort to think prevents me, I know, from sinking into the dizziness of perpetually restarting and allows me to continue without any worry interfering with my lofty pleasure: this coincidence, this game: how strange.

  … sleep as much as I like – to break the journey – and to give my car a rest …

  The uselessness of my car, the harsh rain, my life in the house, my memories, the flight of sleep, my desire to read: how precise, heavens above! What has made this coincidence possible? This initial question creates an opening through which creeps my wandering, watchful distress. Everything is there, and when I come to the following extract:

  … I leaf through thousands of volumes without seizing on a single one, that is with the exception of a slender volume …

  the illusion of escaping from the infinity created by the words counts for nothing, I tell myself, compared with the eternal trap that they are setting for me, and my ill-defined discomfort takes form and hardens and becomes FEAR, and I look up, for what I am reading recalls a past that is getting ever closer, that will soon recall my movement, my thoughts, what I am doing now – as a glance cast and immediately returned assures me – from which I conclude that my future lies in these pages, my life, and will it be completely over at a single moment in time?

  Wretched text, I am going to trample on you, throw you from the top of a tower, sully you more than I can adequately express, tear out your pages one by one and pile them up in a mortar of burning tar, maltreat each of your characters (I’ll come back to this) and give them the inhuman form of undecipherable hieroglyphics!

  Or rather, should I read you calmly, word by word, and thus render you harmless, by a mental process that I cannot yet manage to convey adequately?

  Alas, terror imposes on me its incomprehensible law: I want to know, a little, not too much, no I will not rush to the last page, the last word, but I will take darting glances, make brief explorations, lightning soundings that will dislocate my body, my limbs and my face with feverish, wild curiosity before I stiffen my resolve like those characters with string skeletons that one works with one’s thumb – paralysed by what I will have seen.

  A sentence immediately catches my eye, perhaps because of the speech marks, which make it stand out: ‘It was then that I heard footsteps on the staircase.’ Damnation! I can hear footsteps on the staircase! What else could make me so afraid? I listen and I can clearly make out muffled, heavy, regular steps! And these are not sounds made by a human tread! I turn a page of the tiny book on which the fingers of my left hand are tense and pale, and these other words dazzle me, separated by two blank lines:

  No, it is not a man who is moving gracelessly on the staircase: it is a despicable, slow monster. There it is now, outside my bedroom door. It is about to come in. My only hope of a perilous escape is to jump through the window, then not to run to the road in the open countryside but to go round the house and get lost in the forest.

  Silence.

  Never was a silence more unbearable. Nothing could terrify me as much as a monster.

  I rushed towards the door (and the hand of madness closed with the screech of hard fingernails at the precise point in space occupied by my head a moment before) and I opened the door.

  I opened the door. Oh, what a dreadful sight!

  The monster was standing there, before me, huge and quivering, swollen with slimy abscesses from which oozed – and slid to the ground, and flowed at my feet! – a fetid, fuming liquid, and its eyes! its eyes! if it is possible to call eyes those vast asymmetric cavities, which looked filled with a fatty purée on the surface of which had just burst small, greenish bubbles! Ah! a monster indeed.

  I stepped back towards the window and it came towards me, letting out a long, joyless laugh.

  My clothes were on a chair, carefully folded in the order in which I had taken them off. I would nearly have time to slip them on before I fell (cold, fever, the damp room – memories of evil and a soul delivered, out of my mind!) so slowly did it move – no less unrelenting for all that – but fear prevented me. Without bending down, I merely slipped on those shoes, which brought back that happy time when I bought them in a sale in the busy streets of the old town.

  The monster moved forward and stretched out a hand towards me, if it is possible to call a hand …

  I opened the window and I jumped, the book held tight against my chest, a finger slipped inside like a bookmark.

  I ran in the moonlight through the cold forest, groaning from my fall and yearning for a warm cape, such as I had worn long ago in a mountainous area, I remembered it as if it were yesterday, and even today I wonder if it was not indeed yesterday, those glorious holidays – children of my own age, whisperings, long days, short nights, jam licked and bread thrown away, an unchanging world – everlasting holidays when I went about, dressed in a cape which swept the gravel on the road, walking behind the flock of sheep, walking to the grazing grounds, September had come, and already dreaming of the baking hot hay-making season, perched on the cart in which I arranged the hay and trampled it, full of pride at all the forks I had avoided, imperial return journeys to the farm, an unchanging and submissive world, where words remained unspoken – blind, numb, I ran through the forest until I was out of breath.

  I had to stop. Before me lay a deep river.

  Panting.

  I had forgotten the monster but I had not lost my fear.

  Noises at my back: shivers in the tall ferns, squirrels stamping, whirls of pine needles.

  I turned and I saw.

  The trees were swelling at their bases, as if they were unfolding. Curses! Each one hiding a monster, there were hundreds of the vile creatures! An infinite number of monsters were cutting off all chance of escape!

  The time had come to be daring.

  I opened the small tome at the last page. My eyes were bulging as I read the last sentence, made more appealing by its sardonic speech marks.

  Yelling with anger, cursing this cruel, unsurprising but inevitable ending, I rushed towards the river, threw in the book, which the water swallowed, and the last words continued to inscribe themselves painfully into my brain, where they set and grew hard: ‘I preferred the black water of the river to the unspeakable death they reserved for me!’

  Alain Gerber

  YOU NEVER DIE

  On ne meurt jamais

  Laurentides1 (Québec), octobre 1953

  J’avais prévenu l’institutrice. Elle n’a pas fait de difficultés: nous sommes amies d’enfance, Mari
e-Jeanne et moi.

  J’ai essayé de lire un peu, mais je n’avais guère la tête à ça. Pour me calmer, je n’ai rien trouvé de mieux que de tourner en rond, ne lâchant le réveil des yeux que pour consulter la pendule. Dans la cuisine, un linge de toile écrue protégeait la jatte où la pâte était en train de reposer.

  J’ai quitté si tôt la maison qu’au magasin, j’étais à peu près la seule cliente. Mon sac de guimauves sous le bras, j’ai flâné entre les rayons, détaillant les étiquettes de produits que je n’avais nulle intention d’acheter. Pour finir, j’ai failli oublier mon paquet à la caisse.

  La petite mère m’attendait sur le perron de l’école, les pieds joints dans une flaque de soleil qui commençait à roussir.

  L’air était imprégné d’une senteur d’écorce. Il y avait aussi des fragrances de feu, de sciure, de toile humide et de labours. Puis un vague fumet de bêtes sauvages, que j’imaginais sans doute.

  Tout le long du chemin, j’avais exposé mon coude à la portière afin de sentir sur moi cette chaleur capiteuse et fragile des automnes. Au seuil de la saison indienne, la forêt se préparait à une éblouissante agonie – la forêt de chez nous, pleine de secrets modestes.

  On s’est souri, avec Céline. Moi tout émue, tâchant que ça ne paraisse pas trop. Elle presque grave, à sa façon d’enfant. On a ramené l’auto. Elle a soulevé un coin du linge. Elle était ravie; elle a battu des mains. On a mangé une ou deux guimauves avant de prendre nos vestes et de boucler la maison.

  On a marché sur le chemin de terre, jusqu’au ponton, près des bouleaux dont la ramure, tôt le matin, étincelle dans la lumière rosée, comme un précieux métal.

  Sous notre nez, toute une famille de corneilles s’est arrachée d’un buisson dans un bruit de papier qu’on froisse. On a eu un petit sursaut. Riant de notre frayeur, on leur a fait des signes une fois qu’elles étaient en l’air. Céline est restée un moment la nuque à la renverse, baignant son visage dans le ciel, les paupières closes. Ses lèvres formaient des mots que je n’entendais pas.

  Depuis le jour de ma naissance, la vieille barque de mon père porte mon nom. Il se devine encore bien que les lettres, au fil du temps, aient pris la teinte de la cendre. J’ai installé Céline à l’arrière, sur une couverture pliée. J’ai boutonné sa veste. J’ai enfilé la mienne. Sur l’eau, il fait toujours un peu frais, et puis le soir n’allait plus tarder à venir.

  Dans ces instants-là, parler n’est pas nécessaire. Le dos au lac, je me suis mise à ramer. Une grosse truite mouchetée a glissé tout contre notre bord, entre deux eaux.

  On n’oublie pas. On n’oublie rien. Peser sur les poignées, enfoncer les pelles, aller sur les pistes de jadis, garder ses mots pour soi, reconnaître les arbres et les oiseaux: en toutes ces matières, Papa était un merveilleux professeur.

  «Laure, disait-il pourtant, tu n’as pas besoin d’apprendre ces choses. Elles sont en toi. Il faut seulement que tu les retrouves.» Et aussi: «Regarde le monde: il est à toi.» Pour me taquiner, enfin, il ajoutait souvent: «Le monde a le goût des jolies filles. Regarde-le comme un amoureux.»

  Nous voici au milieu de l’eau, au centre de notre infini à nous. Rien qu’un instant, je lâche les avirons.

  «Écoute!»

  Des oiseaux s’interpellent. Ils chantent autour du silence, mais sans le troubler. Leur musique lui servirait plutôt de faire-valoir.

  «Laisse traîner ta main dans l’eau. Hein donc, que c’est bon froid?» Combien de fois ai-je entendu cette phrase? Maintenant, il m’appartient de la prononcer. Un jour, ma Céline, tu diras ces mots à quelqu’un. Mot pour mot les mêmes, de façon que ce monde n’ait jamais l’idée de finir. Jamais de la vie.

  Chaque jour, chaque minute est une saison. Unique et vieille comme le monde. Il y a, il y aura des millions d’automnes rien que pour nous. Les feuilles reviennent sur les arbres, on revient sur la terre, éternellement.

  Regarde, ma fille. Regardons-nous. «Ce qu’on ne dit pas, ce sont les plus beaux mots, ma Laure. On n’a pas besoin de les apprendre; on n’est même pas capable de les oublier. On est capable d’être là. Comme ça d’être bien. La raison? Oh! la raison, on s’en fiche.»

  Là-bas sur l’autre rive, un pêcheur s’est installé. Costumé en pêcheur. Immobile comme un pêcheur. Chaque chose est à sa place.

  Regarde bien tout, tout doucement. Moi je te regarderai – tu n’en sauras même rien. Le reflet d’argent, paisible au milieu des érables, c’est le clocher de notre église. Le vois-tu?

  Maintenant la Laure ne bouge plus. Tout s’est arrêté. Quelque chose d’invisible et de lent descend du haut des arbres et se laisse glisser au fond de notre lac. Alors les oiseaux se taisent. C’est l’heure où les échos de la vie se baignent avant d’aller dormir. Le paysage retient son souffle. Le miroitement de l’eau s’est figé, les ronds à la surface, la glissure des nuages, les nuances des couleurs, les ombres, le pourtour de chaque chose … Le monde est une belle image dans un livre: on est dessus.

  Bientôt, tu entendras comme un soupir. L’image sera brouillée. Les arbres se balanceront, une fine brise ridera le miroir du lac, depuis cette pointe jusqu’à cette autre, et l’on repartira. En tirant un peu plus sur les rames, cette fois, tandis qu’entre les troncs, dans le plus creux du monde, s’avancera la noirceur encore timide, dissimulée dans une espèce de poussière assoupie, suspendue au-dessus du rivage comme une haleine de miel.

  Nous rentrons, ma Laure. Ma Céline, on s’en revient. Encore une fois on a tout vu. Tout reste à voir. On reviendra. Jamais la nuit ne tombe pour de bon. Un jour, toujours, l’hiver s’en va, la neige s’envole, les voisins donnent une fête, on s’endort au matin.

  Le pêcheur a rassemblé ses affaires. Il accroche son pliant à son bras et se met en route. On dirait qu’il va du même côté que nous. C’est peut-être un père qui ne cache pas un cœur lourd sous une chemise rouge et que sa fille, aucun soir, n’attendra en vain.

  As-tu froid? Veux-tu ma veste? Moi, j’ai chaud de ramer, je n’en ai pas l’usage. C’est encore un beau jour. Les jours devraient tous être plus beaux les uns que les autres. Quand le brouillard montera du lac, on sera rentrées depuis longtemps. Nous arrivons déjà près du bord.

  Je souris. Toi, tu lui tournes le dos, tu ne te doutes de rien, mais moi, j’ai aperçu sa silhouette sur le ponton. Il est venu nous chercher. Il a mis le blouson que tu aimes tant.

  Nous sommes rendues. Il te saisit sous les aisselles. Il nous embrasse. Il nous serre. Il dit: «Voilà ma Céline!» Plus bas, il prononce mon nom. Il t’assied sur son bras. Il verse ta figure sur sa joue. «Ma Laure ! Ma Céline ! Mes filles. Mes femmes.» Tu ne peux pas voir l’air qu’il a.

  Il t’embrasse encore. Il met son autre bras autour de moi. Il frotte son nez contre le tien et, tout de suite après, l’enfouit dans mes cheveux. Il n’y a rien à dire, alors on fait semblant de se taire.

  A notre gauche, derrière les bouleaux, le lac est un murmure sans rives. On marche, les trois tout emmêlés, sur le chemin de terre. On s’éloigne dans cette vapeur transparente du soir, où flotte une odeur de fumée.

  You Never Die

  Laurentides (Quebec), October 1953

  I had warned the primary-school teacher. She did not raise any objections: Marie-Jeanne and I have been friends since childhood.

  I tried to read a little, but my mind could hardly focus. I could not find anything better to calm myself down than to walk around, only taking my eyes off the alarm to consult the clock. In the kitchen, an unbleached linen cloth was covering the bowl in which the dough was resting.

  I left the house so early that I was just about the only customer in the shop. With my bag of marshmallows under my arm, I strolled up and down the aisles, examining the labels on produce that I had no intention of buying. In the end I nearly left my packet behind at the check-out.

  The little mother was waiting for me on the stone staircase to the school, her feet touching in a pool of sunlight that was beginning to glow red.

  A
smell of bark filled the air. There were also wafts of fire, saw-dust, damp cloth and ploughing. Then a vague aroma of wild animals, which I probably imagined.

  Throughout the journey I had had my elbow out of the window in order to feel on me the heady, fragile warmth of autumn. On the threshold of the Indian summer, the forest was getting ready for its dazzling death throe – the forest near where we live, full of modest secrets.

  Céline and I smiled at each other. I was quite moved, though I tried not to show it too much. She was almost serious, in her childish way. We took the car back. She raised a corner of the cloth. She was delighted; she clapped her hands. We ate one or two marshmallows before taking our jackets and locking the house.

  We walked down the earth path, as far as the landing-stage, near the silver birches whose foliage, in the early morning, twinkles with the light from the dew, like a precious metal.

  Before our eyes, a whole family of crows burst out of a bush with a noise like the rustling of paper. It startled us a little. Laughing at our fright, we gestured to them as soon as they were in flight, Céline stood for a moment, head bent backwards, bathing her face in the open sky, her eyelids closed. Her lips formed words that I could not hear.

  Since the day I was born, my father’s old boat has borne my name. You can still make it out, though the letters have become the colour of ash as the years have gone by. I settled Céline down at the stern, on a folded blanket. I buttoned up her jacket. I slipped mine on. It is always a little cool on the water and at that time evening would not be long in coming.

  You do not need to speak at times like these. With my back to the lake, I began to row. Close up, a fat speckled trout slipped past, in the shallows.