A Life on Paper: Stories

by Georges-Olivier Chateaureynaud

  I laid her on the unmade bed. Moistening a corner of the bedsheet with a bottle of gin forgotten on the nightstand, I cleaned every trace of dust and vomit from her face, her hair, even her shoulders. But her lingerie was stained. How could I leave her like this? Piece by piece, I stripped away her faded finery and bathed her body with liquor. Then, from the jumbled crates I picked an outfit she'd never worn before, weightless and maiden-white. Did we have white shoes, too? I finally found a pair buried in a closet. I sat her up to wait, like a doll, in an armchair while I remade the bed with fresh sheets. And mad with activity, I cleared the room of everything cluttering it up-crates, trinkets, bottles, clothes-tossing jewels out the window by the handful except for a blue ring I slipped onto her finger with great difficulty. I even grabbed a broom to make it go faster, pushing objects and dust bunnies out the door all at once. When the room was clean, I went looking for her makeup kit and clumsily applied a little lipstick, a little eyeliner, some powder foundation, and everything I could find in the way of flowers for a corsage: two withered satin roses from a hatband. Then, and only then, with one final look around the room to make sure I'd forgotten nothing, and really done the best I could-emptied the ashtrays, dusted the furniture, laid Marie out nice and straight in her Sunday best on the bedspread, dolled up, perfumed, hair neat, arms stretched out beside her body, eyes closed-I left.

  In a shed I found two jerricans of fuel I'd been careful enough to store up and more bourbon than it took to get me drunk as I wanted. The sun was going down. The peacocks continued their idiotic circling. Seated on a jerrican in the middle of the yard, across from the front steps, I threw them feed from time to time, taking small sips and waiting for nightfall. The hour came. I'd given it a lot of thought, and it was better to start with the peacocks, take them by surprise instead of chasing them around in the dark with a full jerrican. Luring them over with one last handful of grain, I had no trouble dousing them with fuel. Next I set methodically about the house. First the roof. I climbed up. Hauling up the unopened jerrican with a rope was a bit harder. Still, I managed. Once the shingles were soaked, I got down again and started splashing the front and sides.

  Everything was ready. I took my clothes off and drenched them in fuel. One after the other, I threw the jerricans, almost empty, through the window of the room where Marie lay. Naked as a jaybird and shivering, I set fire to my pile of clothes. The terrified peacocks ran around me faster and faster. I grabbed my burning shirt by the sleeve and hurled it at the house, which burst into flames in under a second. I didn't even need a torch to light the peacocks. Dazzled, they stumbled right into the flames in panic and then ran around a few more minutes, zigzags of light, before collapsing.

  I opened the gate and started walking. Right from my first tottering steps, the gravel on the roadbed and the cracks in the asphalt cut into my bare feet. Then came the rocks, the twigs, the razor grass along the embankment and, farther off, the high and spoiled wheat among the brambles.

  Paris, Jan. 1973-Apr. 1974

  Unlivable

  ccommodations obsess me. I have what you might call a housing neurosis. Most of my childhood was spent in cramped quarters (my mother sublet the cellar to me and my father), leaving me with a tendency toward claustrophobia no less crippling than the legacy of agoraphobia bequeathed me on visits to my grandparents (father's side), a pair of fanatical balloonists. I'd rather not discuss my other grandparents' house; my asthma specialist says it's best not to think about it.

  Without making too big a deal of things, suffice it to say I've gone through a few rough patches. If I tallied them up, the lows of my life as a renter would vastly outnumber the highs. For a while I lived in flames. Well, I exaggerate. They were flamelets, but annoying all the same. At all hours of the night and day, fires would break out spontaneously in my apartment, here or there, behind a painting, inside a closet, under a chair, in the laundry hamper… None of my belongings were safe. How often did I find myself penniless, needing a new driver's license, all because my wallet had gone up in smoke along with my jacket while I was asleep? I'd be getting dressed when I'd find my pants scorched to knee shorts, my shirts burned to a crisp, my shoes charred and blistered, my gloves in ashes at the back of the drawer where I kept them. My life was a miniature living hell; I always smelled slightly singed; In fact I was slightly singed.

  But you can get used to anything; after a while the continual catastrophes became routine. I kept buckets full of sand and water around, wet rags and even a blanket; when a blaze began, I no longer called the firemen, but set to it myself with the jaded efficiency of a seasoned veteran. I could just as well have sat back and done nothing; the fires always wound up burning themselves out. I'd walk in or wake up only to find evidence of fires that started while I was out or asleep: rugs full of holes, blackened walls or doors, furniture it seemed some quickly sated creature had gnawed. I settled for airing the place out.

  I could've complained to the landlord, but didn't dare. I hate complaining. An absurd point of pride! But as I've been told often enough, everything about me is absurd. Besides, had I brought up the subject with him, wouldn't he have had good reason to turn against me? After all, could these sporadic flare-ups really be chalked up to the apartment, or just to me, to some incendiary element I didn't know I had inside? I don't think of myself as having an especially fiendish or flammable temperament, but these things aren't always easy to prove. We could've fought it out in court, but justice costs a lot. I opted to keep quiet and moved without asking for my deposit-three months of rent that might've been enough to get the place back in shape after I left.

  Thus it was that one morning I put on my least-damaged suit. I decided against slipping my toothbrush into my pocket: although practically new, its handle had melted the night before. Using the first excuse that came to mind, I left the key with the super and, walking out on bits of burnt wood and sooty rags, strode determinedly toward a new life. An opportunity soon presented itself: a burrstone house on the outskirts, nestled behind a wall of lilac and wisteria. What a dream!

  I signed without even looking. A rash and reckless thing to do, you might say, and you wouldn't be wrong. But I was afraid that by hemming and hawing I'd let it get away from me. By all appearances it was a fabulous deal. A real house-two floors over a cellar, surrounded by a yard and within walking distance of shops and the train-and all for the price of a studio! It had to be jumped on, and I Jumped. I admit my heart was pounding. Until then, I'd only lived in efficiencies and onebedrooms. I'd had countless disappointments-the aforementioned episode being the most flagrant, if not the most atrocious. I remember spending one winter in a garret haunted by an entire family of ghosts. Every night the whole damnable clan would show up and argue in Croatian around my bed. The super filled me in on the story. A few years ago, a family of Yugoslavian immigrants had been living in my room. One winter's night, the father forgot to check the stove before going to bed. He, his wife, his in-laws, and his three children died of suffocation in their slumber. If you've never heard six people hurling insults at a seventh in Croatian at midnight in a room the size of a pocket-hanky pocket, you've never known true noise, the gift of sleep, or impotent homicidal fury.

  But a house-even a haunted one-had to be something else altogether. You'd be able to sequester yourself, get some distance from the tiresome quarrels of shades. These were my thoughts as I hurried toward my new home-carefree, for it came furnished.

  I was there in a jiffy: less than ten minutes from the station! I'd passed by several stylish boutiques on the way. A well-known wine shop, an attractive deli, a promising bakery. It's easy to tell a quality cake: they're smaller and pricier. I rubbed my hands together. It was all just like the lady at the agency had said!

  I went up the Dawn Lane-from now on, my street-and stopped in front of number 40. It was high summer. The lavish wisteria (I go gaga for wisteria!) adorned the garden gate. Behind its festoons of soft mauve stood the house. Okay, so it wasn't Versaill
es-but it still looked neat and tidy, cute and cozy, dependable and down-to-earth. At first glance, it had a well-cared-for, even pampered air about it. The woodwork and metal had that dense gleam of new paint. I opened the garden gate, stepped inside, and closed it behind me with a feeling of… serene triumph, I suppose. Never having prevailed over anything, or even really had a taste of serenity, I had nothing to compare it to. I advanced toward my home. A white gravel path skirted potential puddle spots. A few more yards… a dozen or so meticulously tiled concrete steps lifted me above life's mire. A glass canopy sheltered me from whatever cruelty the skies might rain down, which seemed distant indeed on this fine summer day. With a trembling hand I opened the glass door, embellished with the most delightfully petit-bourgeois castiron grille. The door swung quietly on its hinges. My heart swelled with joy. From now on, my life would be the very picture of what I'd already seen of this house and what I had vet to discover. Well-oiled. Well-insulated. Muffled and padded. Fleece-lined. Downy… without a single squeaky or protesting part. From now on, I would come home with the firm and easy step of a man who has a safe haven. I, too, would have a castle, a homestead, a sanctuary.

  I went inside. I felt around for a light switch, then paused. Of course the electricity would be off. I had to switch on the current first. The lady at the agency had warned me. The meter was in the cellar, but matches and a candlestick had been left for me in an obvious spot, on the table in the living room, to the left of the foyer. I pushed open the first door to my left and walked into a vast room sunken in shadow. A single detail struck me at that moment. Something we quickly forget when we live somewhere is that all houses, no matter how well ventilated, no matter how well kept, have a smell. This one had none. And yet all things steeped in time-rugs, curtains, even an empty chair or an electrolier-soak up the exhalations of those that live and decay… I bumped into the edge of what felt like a marble table, and forgot what I was thinking. Holy-a marble table! I'd only ever known formica and oilcloth. I almost fainted at the thought of setting down my latte every morning on a marble table. In the low light, a coppery glint caught my eye: the candlestick. Feeling along the tabletop, I found a box of matches. I struck one and lit the candle in the holder. The shadows shrank back. The living room, which took up most of the ground floor, had windows on two sides. I drew the blind on the closest one, and daylight poured in.

  I turned back to the table. Its legs, too, were made of marble. They weren't the only thing: the chairs all around were marble, too, all neatly arranged except for one, slightly pulled out as if someone had sat down for just a moment to jot a note and forgotten to push it back in. I was breathless with delight. Marble chairs… how chic! But how fragile those dainty legs-slender cylinders of gray marble delicately veined with white-must have been!

  I approached the pulled-out chair and caressed its smooth, chill back with my palm. I pulled my hand away and took a step back. Did I dare-clumsy old me-make use of such marvels, sit on them, move them around at the risk of smacking them into things, tipping them over, or breaking them? They had to be heavy. I moved back and, hesitantly, tried to weigh the one I'd already touched. It resisted my efforts. Surprised, I tried again, this time with both hands, but without success. I braced myself and strained my muscles, grunting like someone rooting up a stump, but all in vain. The same thing happened with the next chair, the one after, and the one after that. The eight chairs were one with the marble-slab floor. They wouldn't lift or even budge an inch. Taken aback by this anomaly, I knelt down to take a closer look at where their legs met the floor. As far as I could tell, it went seamlessly from floor to chair without a break.

  I was filled with an immense bewilderment. I sat down on the partly pulled-out chair, perching there on a single cheek, since it was too close to the table to sit in comfortably, and let my gaze roam about the room. Only then did I become aware of the radical strangeness of the place where I found myself. In addition to the table and its two rows of chairs, the furniture consisted of a large dresser, a sofa, two recliners, and a coffee table. With the exception of the windowpanes, a mirror, and a few fixtures like doorknobs and window latches, everything in the room was made of gray marble.

  I stood up and walked toward the sofa. It was less furniture than sculpture representing a piece of furniture. The artist had done his utmost to mimic the little particularities and imperfections of an actual sofa: a slight droop to the cushions, dull and shiny spots, the almost invisible scratches of a cat startled by a child's sudden entrance… I bent over and saw that the sofa was also one with the floor. In reality, they weren't so much a table, chairs, a sofa, two recliners, etc., but a single "sculpture" The dresser, too, was but an outcrop of the primary deposit, and when I tried to lift a vase on the mantel, it wouldn't move. It clung, if that is the word, to its base like the stub of a sawn-off branch to a tree, or like a finger to a hand. The complete eccentric who had built this house had patiently freed the chimney, the vase, and all the rest from a single enormous block of marble. The room, perhaps even the entire house, formed a whole under a layer of wood, burrstone, and roof tiles.

  When I'd switched on the electricity and toured all the rooms, I returned to the living room and stood before the mirror over the mantle. I looked so pitiful I couldn't help sticking out my tongue. Just my luck! I'd rented an inimitable work of art. But all I'd needed was a place to live, and art was unlivable. While exploring the house, I'd come across a kitchen fit for a power-mad prince, with a stove and a sink Michelangelo would've been proud of, a bathroom cut from the same quarry, and a bedroom to go with it. On a bare mattress, a stack of sheets and blankets awaited the prophesied hero able to unfold them and make the bed. In the cellar, beside a misleading boiler, the handle of a coal shovel would stick out at the same angle forever from a pile of fireproof pellets. Beneath the roof, the attic was cluttered with picturesquely decrepit old toys, sewing dummies with their shoulders pocked by fake needle holes, steamer trunks thrown open on a jumble of treasures and inextricable relics. Everything was light gray, veined with white, and cold as the grave.

  I lasted three days in my marble house. I'd bought a comforter and slept on the floor. I ate cold meals and didn't shower, since nothing worked besides the lights. Even the bulbs, in their hollow marble globes and housings, only gave off a dull and gloomy glow.

  When I got up the third day, it seemed my skin had taken on a grayish, white-veined tint-marbled, so to speak. I've often thought I was too sensitive, but what could I do about it? I ran out to the yard. I didn't look gray in the daylight. I was the same as I'd always been-a bit pale, perhaps, as if I'd just suffered a slight onset of anemia. Suddenly I craved sunshine. Burning sands. Blue water. Tanned bodies. Thatched huts beneath the trees. A thatched hut, I thought, how marvelous! A house of leaves and straw, open to every passing breeze. A house alive with the hum of insects, geckos on the walls and hens getting tangled up in your legs and a dog snoring under the table. Ah, the good life in a grass cabana! No worries, no cleaning, no upkeep… When the thatch rots, you set the whole thing on fire and build another a bit farther off. Friends come and help, and when the work's done you sing, drink, dance…

  That same afternoon I left the travel agency and stopped by to give the keys to the house back. As per the contract, I had to forfeit my deposit. No matter what I do, I always end up losing my shirt. Bah! My head was full of thatch-roofed huts, sarongs, and leis. Maybe one day I'll tell you the story of my grass cabana and Hurricane Julia.

  Lozere, October 1988

  A Room on the Abvss

  ox is life's chosen one; he's six and always losing his balaclava. In such cases, the rules say to go bother Mrs. Bernard, the matron, and get bawled out. Boarding school is tough when you can't even tie your own shoes. Life's chosen one finds himself in tears so often he hasn't time to forget how they taste.

  He doesn't know why life has chosen him, and what role it has in store. It'll do what it wants with him. Six isn't the age to be asking such
questions. But chosen him it has. He doesn't doubt it for a moment. When he thinks about it, too many signs confirm his intuition. First off, he's almost died three times, and he's only six! Ordinary little boys don't waver so often between river and shore. Next, his papa left. Not to work far away, or wage war, or recover from some illness-all valid reasons for a father's absence-but just up and left, for good, forever. That, if nothing else, is a sign of election: a phantom father, alive and well God knows where, but always referred to in the past tense, as if already dead. And then there's his red hair. Funny, having red hair when your name is Fox, right? Hardly: every recess ends up a foxhunt. But his mother once showed him a book, written by a certain Mr. Fox, whose hero also has red hair and is named Carrot Top. Carrot Top is precisely what the young boarder's bullies call him. So elsewhere, in a world beside our own, he'd be the hero of a story? Perhaps one day, when he's learned to read, opening the book like the door to the house where he was born, he'll go home.

  At school, night has fallen. Wind bends the branches of the courtyard's chestnuts to the windows of the study hall. The housemaster is reading the paper. From time to time, he casts a weary gaze over the class. Everything is peaceful. Comics are passed around, games of hangman and tic-tac-toe are carried on in low voices. A few students from the provinces are writing their parents. At the back of the room, not far from Fox, the son of the king of Tanganyika is dreaming of savannahs and gazelles. In truth, no one's sure if that blackamoor is really the king's son, or if he's even from Tanganyika. Rumor has it, is all, and the boy in question neither confirms nor denies a thing. In his indifference, or the daze of the uprooted, one detects a wholly royal reserve. The purported prince in fact numbers among the institution's disinherited, who get to go home only three times a year: Christmas, Easter, and summer. A well-dressed black man always comes to pick him up out front.