We started for the station… We slipped away quietly while he was still warbling… But my father wasn’t happy… especially when he thought it over… He was burnt up inside. He was furious with himself for not having spoken up… He’d been lacking in firmness. We went out to see him one more time. Arthur had a new boat with a real sail… and even a little jib up front… He tacked about singing ‘O sole mio’. The gravel pits echoed with his singing… He was as happy as a lark… My father couldn’t stand it… This couldn’t go on… Long before the aperitif we slunk away with our tails between our legs… Nobody saw us leave… We never went back… It was impossible to associate with him any more… He would have debauched us…
* * *
My father had been working for La Coccinelle exactly ten years. That entitled him to a vacation, two weeks with pay…
It wasn’t very sensible for the three of us to go away like that… it cost a fortune… But that was a terrible summer, the heat was killing us in the Passage, especially me, I looked the greenest, I was growing too fast. I was so anaemic I could hardly stand up. We went to see a doctor, he was alarmed. “What he needs isn’t two weeks, but three months of fresh air!…” That’s what he said.
“Your Passage,” he went on, “is a pesthole… You couldn’t even get a radish to grow there! It’s a urinal without doors or windows… You’ve got to get out of there!…”
He was so outspoken about it that my mother came home in tears… We needed more money… They didn’t want to dig too deeply into the three thousand francs we had inherited… So they decided to try the markets again: Mers… Onival, and especially Dieppe… I had to promise to watch my behaviour… to stop bombarding clocks… to stop going with hoodlums… not to stir from my mother’s side… I promised the moon and the stars… I’d be good, I’d even be grateful… and I’d work hard for my school diploma when we got back…
That reassured them and they decided we could go. We closed the shop. First my mother and I would spend a month in Dieppe and look around… Mme Divonne would come in from time to time to see that nothing went wrong while we were gone… Papa would join us later, he’d make the trip on his bicycle… He’d spend two weeks with us…
Once we were there, the two of us got settled very quickly, we really didn’t have too much trouble. We found lodgings in Dieppe over a café, The Tomtits, in an apartment that belonged to a clerk in the post office. We had two mattresses on the floor. The only trouble was the sink. It didn’t smell good.
When it came time to unload our stuff on the main square, my mother got jittery. We had brought a complete collection of embroideries, frills and baubles, all very light and airy. It seemed awfully risky to display all those things out in the open in a strange city… After thinking it over, we decided it would be better to go straight to the customers, it was a lot of trouble of course, but there was less chance of being taken… We did the whole length of the Esplanade, along the ocean front, from door to door… It was hard work. Our stuff was heavy. We’d wait outside the villas, on a bench across the way. The best time to go in was when they’d just filled their bellies… You had to hear the piano… Now they’re moving into the drawing room!…
My mother would jump up and race to the doorbell… The reception could be good or bad… Anyway she managed to sell a certain amount…
I got plenty of air. There was so much of it and so strong that it made me drunk. It even woke me up at night. I saw nothing but cocks and arses and boats and sails… The laundry floating on the clothes lines gave me a terrible hard-on… It swells out… it drives you crazy… all those women’s panties…
At first we were afraid of the sea… We’d stick to the little sheltered streets as much as we could. The gale makes you delirious. I never stopped playing with myself…
A travelling salesman’s kid lived in the room next to ours. We did all our homework together. He felt me up a little, he jerked off even more than I did. He came to Dieppe every year, so he knew all the different kinds of boats. He taught me all about their rigging and their sails… Three-master barks… square-riggers… schooners… I studied the ships with passion while my mother was doing the villas…
She got to be as well known on the beach as the coconut man… always hobbling around with her bundle… Inside there were embroideries, patterns, needlework sets to keep the ladies busy, and even irons… She’d have sold kidneys, rabbit skins, hot air, anything, to help us last out the two months.
In our comings and goings we also had our qualms about the port. We were afraid to go too close to the edge on account of the bollards and ropes that are so easy to trip over. It’s a mighty treacherous place. If you fall into the muck, it sucks you down, you sink to the bottom, the crabs eat you, they never find you again…
The cliffs are dangerous too. Every year whole families get squashed under them. A moment’s carelessness, a false step, a thoughtless remark… and the mountain falls down on top of you. We took as few chances as possible, we seldom left the streets. In the evening, right after supper, we’d start ringing bells again. We’d make a grand tour… starting first at one end, then at the other… We’d do the whole Avenue du Casino…
I’d wait on a bench outside the villas… I’d hear my mother shouting herself hoarse inside… She really knocked herself out… I knew all her arguments by heart… I knew all the stray dogs… They turn up, they sniff, they beat it… I knew all the peddlers, that’s the time when they come home with their carts… They pull, they push, they run themselves ragged… Nobody takes any notice of them. They’re free to curse and swear all they like… They grunt and groan and tug at the shafts… One more pull… just to the next corner… The lighthouse blinks its big eye in the night… The flash passes over the old man… On the beach the surf sucks up pebbles… crashes… rolls… crashes… breaks…
* * *
On the posters we saw there was going to be an automobile race after the fair on 15th August. That would be sure to attract a lot of people, especially the English. My mother decided we’d stay on a while. We hadn’t had much luck. The weather had been so bad in July that the ladies stayed home with their embroidery… That didn’t help us to sell our bonnets and boleros, or even our needlework sets… If at least they had worked at it!… But they never got through mending their drapes!… They yacked even worse at the seashore than in town… like all society women, always about maids and bowel movements…
They took it easy, they wallowed in idleness, they’d dawdle over our merchandise… pick things up a dozen times…
My father had lost hope. His letters were full of worry. We were done for in his opinion. We’d lost more than a thousand francs. My mother wrote to him to dig into the inheritance. That was real heroism, all this could end very badly. I could already see myself getting blamed for the whole mess. He wrote back to say he was coming. We waited for him in front of the church. He finally hove in sight with his bike all covered with mud.
I expected him to bawl the hell out of me, blame everything on me. I was all prepared for one of his headlong corridas… but not at all!… Actually he seemed glad to be alive and glad to see us. He even congratulated me on my conduct and my red cheeks. I was really moved. He himself suggested a little walk in the port… He knew all about boats. He remembered his whole childhood… he was an expert on navigation. My mother went off with her bundles and we made for the docks. I remember a Russian three-master, all white. She had made for the harbour mouth on the afternoon tide.
For three days she’d been fighting the storm off Villers, rolling in the swell… her jibs were full of foam… She had an awful cargo of loose lumber, mountains of it, piled every which way on every deck. In the holds there was nothing but ice, enormous dazzling blocks, the top of a river. She’d brought it all the way from Archangel to sell in the cafés… She was listing badly and the crew weren’t happy… My father and I and a lot of other people went over and follo
wed her in from the harbour light to her berth. She was so drenched with spray that her main yard was dragging in the water… I can still see the captain, an enormous roly-poly, shouting into his funnel, ten times louder than even Papa! His monkeys climbed up in the shrouds to roll up all the spars and canvas, all the gaffs and yards up to the big St Andrew’s cross at the masthead… During the night they’d expected her to be smashed against the rocks… The rescue squads had refused to put out, God had taken the day off… Six fishing smacks had been lost. Even the big buoy off the reef of Trotot had taken too much punishment and broken loose from its chain… That gives you an idea of the weather.
In front of the Saucy Trollop café they manoeuvred her round the mooring buoy… The drift wasn’t bad. But the hauling crew were so drunk they couldn’t see straight… They hauled in the wrong direction… The bow smashed into the customs wharf… The “lady” on the prow, the beautiful sculptured figurehead, stove her tits in… It was a shambles… The sparks flew… The bowsprit went through the window… straight into the café… The jib scraped the bar.
Everybody was screaming and yelling… People came running. The curses volleyed and thundered… Finally, as gently as you please, the fine ship pulled alongside… Bristling with cables, she tied up at the dock… After a great deal of activity the last sail fell from the foremast… spread out on the deck like a seagull.
The stern hawser gives a last deep groan… The land embraces the ship. The cook comes out of his galley and empties out an enormous bowl for the squawking birds. The giants on board stand at the rail shaking their fists, the drunken longshoremen aren’t in the mood to go up the gangplank… The companion ladders are dangling alongside…
The harbour master’s clerk in a frock coat is the first to go aboard… The pulley swings a plank overhead… More insults fly… The rumpus goes on… the longshoremen swarm over the rigging… The hatch covers are taken off… Now we see the iceberg in sections!… After the forest!… Faster, coachman!… Here come the wagons… There’s nothing more to see, the excitement is elsewhere.
We go back to the semaphore, they’re expecting a collier. She comes in past Guignol Rock with her flag at half-mast.
The pilot in his boat dances and splashes from one wave to the next. He’s fighting every inch of the way… he’s thrown back… finally he grabs the ladder and climbs up the side. The old tub has been hammering into the storm all the way from Cardiff… She’s rolling from rail to rail in a mountain of foam and spray… She’s caught in the current, carried towards the breakwater… Finally the tide shifts a bit, sets her right, and drives her into the harbour mouth… Her whole hull is trembling as she pulls in, the waves are still chasing her. She grunts and rumbles and blows out steam. Her rigging screeches in the gale. Her smoke falls back on the crests of the waves, the ebb tide beats against the jetties.
Now you can make out the “helmets” in the Emblemeuse narrows… the little rocks come up at low tide…
Two cutters in trouble are trying to feel their way through… There’s going to be a tragedy; we mustn’t miss a mouthful… The fans collect at the end of the breakwater by the bell… They study the situation through binoculars… A man beside me lends me his. The squalls are getting so thick they gag you. You can’t breathe… The wind blows up the water rougher than ever… it splashes in streams high up against the lighthouse… way up to the sky.
My father pulls his cap down… We wouldn’t be going home before nightfall… Three dismasted fishing boats come in… You can hear the voices from the channel… They’re calling each other… They get tangled up in each other’s oars…
Mama was beginning to worry, she’s waiting for us at the Little Mouse, the fishmongers’ hangout… She hasn’t sold much… But the two of us aren’t interested in anything but ocean voyages.
* * *
Papa was a good swimmer, he was crazy about bathing. It didn’t appeal to me. The beach at Dieppe is no good. But after all, this was vacation! And besides I was even filthier than in the Passage.
At the Tomtits we only had one little basin for the three of us. I got out of washing my feet. I was beginning to smell very bad, almost as bad as the sink.
Sea bathing takes a lot of courage. The crest of the wave seethes and foams, rises high in the air, roars, descends reinforced with thousands of pebbles. It catches me.
Chilled to the bone, bruised, the child totters and falls… A universe of pebbles beats my bones amid the flaking foam. First your head wobbles, sways, staggers, and pounds into the gravel… Every second is your last… My father in a striped bathing suit, between two roaring mountains, is shouting like mad. He bobs up in front of me… he belches, thrashes about, makes wisecracks. A roller knocks him over too, turns him upside down, there he is with his feet in the air… He’s wriggling like a frog… He can’t straighten himself out, he’s done for… At this point a terrible volley of pebbles hits me in the chest… I’m riddled… drowned… It’s awful… I’m crushed under the deluge. Then the wave carries me back and lays me down at my mother’s feet… She tries to grab me, to rescue me… The undertow catches me, carries me out… She lets out a terrible scream… The whole beach comes running… But it’s no use… The bathers crowd round, all hysterical… The raging sea pounds me down to the bottom, then lifts me gasping to the surface… In a flashing moment I see that they’re discussing my agony… There they are, every imaginable colour: green… blue, parasols, lavender ones, lemon-yellow ones… I whirl about in pieces… And then I don’t see a thing… A life preserver is strangling me… They haul me up on the rocks… like a whale… Brandy scorches my throat, they cover me all over with arnica… and those terrible rub-downs… I’m burning under the bandages… I’m strangled in three bathrobes…
All around me people are saying the sea is too rough for me! OK! That suits me fine! I hadn’t expected as much… It was a sacrifice… on the altar of energetic cleanliness…
* * *
Already ten days had passed. Next week it would all be over. My father would have to go back to the office. It made us sick to think about it. There wasn’t a single minute to waste.
We weren’t selling much. All of a sudden business had got so slow that only a real moment of panic could have made us decide to go on that excursion… to take the boat to England, all three of us… It was the idea of going back so soon that sent us off our rockers, that drove us to extremes…
We started off at daybreak, hardly time for a cup of coffee… Grandma’s nest egg… well… we’d already gone through half of it!…
We went on board ahead of time… We had the cheapest seats, in the bow… they were fine… We had a wonderful view of the whole horizon… It was agreed that I’d be first to point out the foreign shores… The weather wasn’t bad, but even so, as soon as we were a little way out and had lost sight of the lighthouses, it began to be kind of wet… The ship started to seesaw; this was real seafaring… My mother took refuge in the shelter where the life jackets were kept… She was the first to vomit across the deck and down into third class… For a moment she had the whole area to herself…
“Watch out for the child, Auguste!” she had barely time to yelp… That was the surest way to infuriate him…
Some of the others began straining their guts over the side… In the rolling and pitching, people were throwing up any old place, without formality… There was only one toilet… in one corner of the deck… It was already occupied by four vomiters in a state of collapse, wedged in tight… The sea was getting steadily rougher… At every rising wave, spew… In the trough a dozen spews, more copious, more compact… The gale blows my mother’s veil away… it lands wringing wet on the mouth of a lady at the other end… who’s retching desperately… All resistance has been abandoned! The horizon is littered with jam… salad… chicken… coffee… the whole stew… it all comes up!…
My mother is down on her knees on the deck… she s
miles with a sublime effort, she’s drooling at the mouth…
“You see,” she says to me in the middle of the terrible plummeting… “You see, Ferdinand, you still have some of that tuna fish on your stomach too!…” We try again in unison. Bouah! And another bouah!… She was mistaken, it was the pancakes!… With a little more effort I think I could bring up French fries… if I emptied all my guts out on deck… I try… I struggle… I push like mad… A fierce wave beats down on the rail, smacks against the deck, rises, gushes, rolls back, sweeps the steerage… The foam stirs up the garbage and spins it around between us… We swallow some of it… We spit it up again… At every plunge the soul flies away… at every rise you recapture it in a wave of mucus and stink… It comes dripping from your nose, all salty. This is too much!… One passenger begs for mercy… He cries out to high heaven that he’s empty!… He strains his guts!… And a raspberry comes up after all!… He examines it, goggle-eyed with horror… Now he really has nothing left!… He wishes he could vomit out his two eyes… He tries, he tries hard… He braces himself against the mast… he’s trying to drive them out of their sockets… Mama collapses against the rail… She vomits herself up again, all she’s got… A carrot comes up… a piece of fat… and the whole tail of a mullet…
Up top by the captain, the first- and second-class passengers were leaning over the side to puke, and it came tumbling down on us… At every wave we caught a shower with whole meals in it… We were lashed with garbage, with meat fibres… The gale blows the stuff upwards… it clings in the shrouds… Around us the sea is roaring… the foam of battle… Papa in a cap with a chin strap supervises our misery… He’s in the pink, lucky man, he’s a born sailor!… He gives us good advice, he wants us to lie even flatter… to crawl on the floor… A woman comes staggering… she wedges herself in beside Mama so as to throw up better… There’s a sick mutt, too, so sick he shits on the ladies’ skirts… He rolls over and shows us his belly… piercing screams are heard from the shithouse… Those four are still jammed in, they can’t puke any more, they can’t piss, they can’t shit… They’re leaning over the toilet, pushing… They bellow, begging someone to shoot them… And the tub pitches still higher… steeper than ever… and plunges into the depths… into the dark green… And she rises again, the stinker, she picks you up again, you and the hole in your stomach…
Death on Credit Page 14