Trio

by Robert Pinget

  The neighbor the previous evening had been tinkering with his engine by the light of a torch and a storm-lantern which he’d first put on the seat of the tractor and then balanced on the nearside front wheel.

  But the goatherd bending over her knitting had started visibly when he came up, he’d teased her saying something like you must have a guilty conscience, you couldn’t hear very well, the woman had laughed, toothless mouth, cheeks as red as a lady-apple, little eyes of different colors, they say she’s pretty wily.

  Went over, then, towards the forest by way of the mud paths and came to a halt because of the exceptional level of the water in the marsh, had to make a detour of something over half a mile to get to the wood and coming out by the pine-knoll apparently caught sight on his left about a hundred yards farther on of the tractor stuck in the mud and then coming along on the road the mechanic’s breakdown van. An instinctive step backwards. Fear of being seen.

  Then went back to his reading, for hours, numb with cold, in that enclosed room, it was a dark night, no one unless he had his nose right up against the slit in the shutter would have suspected that he was there in this season, the goatherd had long gone home with her animals, the neighbor too had come back from the village, it was winter, it was beginning to rain, the first drops could be heard hitting the cobblestones in the courtyard.

  That corpse on the dunghill.

  Something broken in the engine.

  The grassy courtyard today, no trace of the old cobblestones but the proportions between the buildings are still harmonious, very little change unless it’s a corrugated iron shed on the north side, a few more young elms to the east and fewer stones on the cover of the well, nothing much, if you didn’t know you wouldn’t have noticed anything but a conscience can’t be prevailed upon to cheat, he’d had his day, the solitude which was supposed to be inconsiderable had become intolerable, the old-fashioned illustration in the book, through the enlarged slit in the shutter anyone outside would have seen distinctly that cold room in the lamplight and the reader leaning his elbows on the table, he’s stopped moving, the hands have fallen off the clock-face.

  Then they came with the mayor and the doctor, the door was still open, and they saw the man sprawling over the table, the book had fallen on to the floor, they decided to lift up the corpse which was already stiff, they put it as best they could on the armchair by the fire, huddled up, askew, they would wait for it to become more malleable, thanks to the cold it hadn’t started to smell yet, the neighbor’s wife prepared the bed, they would put it on it for a few hours just time for the formalities which would be simplified as there was no survivor, in the drawer in the table they found a will to be given to the coroner, they wondered what on earth could be in it, the buildings weren’t of any value, one more ruin in the district which already had its fair share.

  The sentry seems to have seen something over by the elms, apparently waited, watching the path leading out of the wood to the barn, but nothing appeared, apparently went to look, not a sign of anyone, night was about to fall accompanied by its phantasms, who knew that evening how far their enticement might go, you had to be on your guard, not flinch.

  There’d been that great friendship with the doctor, for years, they couldn’t do without each other, walks in the forest until nightfall, conversations by the fireside, boring things like that but they understood perfectly well, they’d gone halfway along the road together and suddenly one died and suddenly the survivor was a stranger to himself, lost all interest, there’d never be a fire in the hearth again.

  The peasant stationed at the corner of the hedge explained that he’d seen the mechanic coming with his breakdown van, he was going along the road towards the marsh, and he’d wondered whether it wasn’t the neighbor’s machine again which had seen better days, he’d bought it secondhand the previous year and had had nothing but trouble with it, which only goes to show that nothing’s ever as good as new, anyway it was sheer stinginess, he knew him, even when he was quite young, you couldn’t get him to part with a sou, he needn’t go complaining then, as for the mechanic, he isn’t grumbling, he makes his living out of breakdowns, apparently he waved to him, he had his apprentice with him.

  A few pictures that needed amplifying, extricating from their dross, obscuring until the moment when, having become interchangeable, their profound difference would give rise to a world of aggression and rout, that was the task he’d set himself at this very table, in this cold house haunted by years of insouciance, here everything took on the accents of nostalgia and on some evenings of terror, phantasms of the night that leave nothing of memory’s suggestions intact.

  Working on marginal notes.

  But the doctor continued, he had gone to the master’s that day in the morning round about ten o’clock to spend the day with his comrade, even at that time he hardly had any patients left, practically retired, he hadn’t found anyone, sat down on the terrace, on the south side that is, behind the house, he couldn’t be seen from the gate, thinking that the master must have gone for a stroll in the wood by the marsh or in the forest and would be back before noon, the peasant who claims to keep guard on certain days must have gone down the lane at about half past ten and not seeing anyone in the courtyard must have walked round to the kitchen, gone in and put a duck that the maid had ordered on the table, he apparently stayed some time in the kitchen and searched the drawer in the table and even the big cupboard in the dining room where the master kept his papers.

  So calm. So gray. Crows or magpies fly up, startled by the noise of the breakdown van going down the narrow road. Leaden sky, traces of hoarfrost.

  At his table in the cold house the master going back to his book was making a marginal note by the side of a murmured phrase, you couldn’t hear very well, shadows, phantasms of the night, the story will never come to light, no visible flaw. Something broken in the mechanism.

  But his maid at about seven in the evening went into the dark room and said as she lit the lamp that’s you all over, don’t tell me you were working, it isn’t right to daydream like that, will monsieur kindly allow me to lay the table, she pushed his papers over to the left, he got up and poked the fire.

  A few pictures to extricate from their dross in order to discover beneath their weft disorder, distress, and then progressively a lull, so many years of this work, shadows never so dense, phantasms reduced to hiccups, night would only come impromptu when it was no longer desired.

  Told the story of his death that he had imagined in detail, amplified over the years, tragic or touching according to the evening, by the fire, the bottle of spirits on the table, so that the doctor fell asleep to the swaying of the hearse while his companion introduced into his memories new episodes which would be the object of comment the next time or which would be deleted from the definitive version shortly before he went to bed but his dreams recast everything, upset the order and it would take the narrator till tomorrow and even longer to restore the verisimilitude to his story.

  The sentry had seen the mechanic go by, he wasn’t going towards the marsh but in the opposite direction, the doctor before he settled down on the terrace had walked right round the house, he’d tried to go in through the kitchen but the door was locked, it was probably the maid’s day off, it was harvest time, the terrace which faced south was already stifling at that hour and the doctor opened the umbrella in the center of the iron table, he lay back in a blue-striped deck chair, he had taken the book with the old-fashioned illustrations from the room and was looking through it when it seems that the man with the duck called out from the courtyard, the doctor would have answered and the man must have gone up to him and put the bird on the table.

  As you went down from the terrace to the river you crossed a garden in tiers, on the top level on either side of the steps there were rose beds in the middle of which a pedestal formed the base for a vase decorated with mythological bas-relief, each bed had a box border, and yew-trees occupied the angles of the squares, a b
alustrade separated this first level from the next, in which ornamental lakes replaced the flower beds, the center of each being adorned with a fountain, at either end were orange trees round a bust of a satyr or a tree-nymph.

  At his table was making a marginal note by the side of an empty phrase on happiness to be dispassionately revised, as if in all logic …

  The maid brought in the soup, the master helped himself absent- mindedly, he’d got up to his removal from the town, hundredth repetition, when there was a knock at the outside door, he goes to open it, it’s the child bringing a duck, he gives him a couple of sous for his trouble and the child leaves, he calls the maid and gets her to put the bird in the fridge, after that she cleared the table and the master was noting in the margin of the book …

  A handsome facade on the garden side, six windows upstairs, slate roof and turrets of the same material flanking the corners of an almost stately home in which the neurotic, stingy owner was moping.

  So calm. So gray. Crows or magpies fly up from the beetroot field and go and perch on an elm.

  The master on the terrace at the iron table was writing his memoirs, he’d got up to his removal from the capital into a largish village on the hill or by the forest, you couldn’t hear very well, the doctor was walking up and down in the lower garden, autumn weather, blueness of the air.

  If I’d known, he said, that all that effort was going to have such a miserable result, writing my memoirs for a monthly magazine, but the doctor comforted him, it was just as good an activity as any other and it even had an extra something, the literary aura, there was nothing to mope about, a good many existences he knew of finished in a less satisfactory fashion, he definitely had everything he needed and the leisure, that was important, leisure, what would he do without the delightful fireside chats, without the care his maid took of him, in short hundredth repetition on the terrace one fine autumn day, they’d got to the coffee, the doctor was just about to fall asleep and his companion was calculating the cost of building a greenhouse at the bottom of the French garden.

  Or else alone, sprawling over the table in that cold room one winter’s day, the fire out, door open on to the grassy courtyard in the center of the dilapidated buildings, the wind was whistling in the elms, the neighbors’ child was home from school, night was failing.

  Then she said monsieur could at least mend the clock, I never know the time, my alarm’s always slow, to which he replied get your alarm mended, I know, ask the doctor after all, an old joke, the maid went back to her kitchen, she would be dishing up at any moment, he went back to his reading.

  Those years spent waiting for no one knew what and then not waiting for anything anymore, in the end people started making fun of him and mothers used to tell their brats that they’d get the old man to eat them up if they weren’t good, his hat on his head and his leather boots, were they yellow or red, you couldn’t quite tell, he was going towards the marsh again and disappeared round the corner of the quarry.

  He had long pondered over this story of the corpse and had given it his assent, though still hesitating about the time and about the child but they weren’t of any great importance, a dunghill, what could be more suitable.

  He had arrived one gray day, had come in through the kitchen, hadn’t opened the shutter because night was about to fall, he had crossed the big room and seen the faded bunch of flowers and the book on the table, must have decided to postpone his reading and gone out again into the courtyard, then walked round the garden and saw on the dunghill … everything perfectly logical, no discrepancies.

  Was writing his memoirs between two inebrieties, source of information deficient, the period in town and meetings on the promenade, springtimes are so short, those endless removals in pursuit of no one knew what and now nocturnal terrors, murmured appeals, phantasms that loom up in spite of the lamplight, infinite distress.

  From one year to the next these great changes in depth.

  The marsh with its birds’ carcasses.

  The goatherd had gone out round about ten o’clock with her flock, six pepper-and-salt-colored animals, she’d gone limping down the lane leading to the marsh, her camp stool under her arm, her black shawl on her head, the dog was frisking about by her side, a ratter that snaps at the animals’ hocks but doesn’t know its job, they’ve disappeared round the corner of the quarry, it was bluish, glacial December weather, hoarfrost, frozen mud, the mechanic coming from the opposite direction with his breakdown van apparently met them a good deal farther away than the marsh, which was hard to explain given the pace the old girl was going but these things happen in the country, a few moments’ inattention are enough to confuse your sense of time, even perhaps to change the pace people walk at, you’ve just seen them dragging their feet or dawdling along the road, a few moments later you can’t see them anymore.

  She stopped for a second to get her breath, looking in the direction of the village which you can’t see from there, a gently-sloping field meets the horizon, crows or magpies flew up and perched on an elm, lapwings were foraging in a ploughed field, others going over towards the marsh, the little dog started barking when it saw the breakdown van appearing about half a mile away, movements are as rare as noise in this part of the world, it ran something like twenty yards, the old woman called it back and started walking again, the breakdown van then disappeared round the other end of the quarry where the road slopes down again, the goats which were beginning to graze all along the lane started off again too with sudden little jumps, strings of droppings and bleats.

  In the garden the doctor after he’d walked round the flower beds settled down in his deckchair and started to read the old-fashioned book with a pastis in his hand, the duck man arrived by way of the lower garden which gives on to a little gate, he’d come from the direction of the marsh because he said to the doctor I saw the mechanic coming up with his breakdown van, the neighbor’s tractor again I’ll bet, why does he always buy such junk, he’ll never change, a wasp fell into the glass of pastis, oh, go and get another glass you know the way, it was probably then that the man went into the kitchen and he comes back with his glass saying how is it that the maid isn’t there, it isn’t Thursday so far as I am aware, it’s explained to him that she’s at the postman’s funeral, he’d been found dead on the dunghill three days earlier, the duck man said I thought as much I mean that he’d finish like that, he was drunk from morning to night, because this was the first he’d heard of the demise on account of his recent rounds on the borders of our region, he’s a breeder and calls with his van every Wednesday to take or deliver orders, corn-fed, very good poultry, he was sipping his aperitif and saying it’s strange, just think with all this scouring the countryside there are times when how can I put it I get the feeling that I’m not there, I sometimes think I’m somewhere else or it’s another time of year, just like that all of a sudden, only the other day I was driving along a road in the middle of winter, it doesn’t last but should I do something about it, what do you think doctor, the doctor replied watch your liver and come and see me, I’ll take your blood pressure.

  The feeling of not being there, yes, something broken as if what he’d just said had happened at some other time or that he wasn’t himself at the moment of speaking, God how complicated it is, or that because it’s such a long journey, because he does it so often or because he doesn’t pay enough attention or that anyone could do the same journey blindfolded anywhere else with anyone’s van, come and see me the doctor repeated, and they sipped their pastis the one tormenting himself on account of this strange illness, the other blinking in the admirable light, the blueness of the landscape in the distance, the forest on the horizon, the fields of rapeseed and the green walnut trees.

  The master must have got home at about one o’clock, he walked up the different tiers of the garden and saw the two of them on the terrace, after greeting them he too sat down, poured himself out a pastis and was amazed to find the doctor there at this hour on this day, he hadn’
t done anything about providing lunch but never mind, they’d have yesterday’s leftovers with a good salad, the poulterer must have left at about a quarter past one and the others went on drinking for a good half-hour, the master said he’d been down to the marsh and had seen the breakdown van, the doctor smiled, no doubt about it you really are a happy lot, the only thing that happens in a whole morning, a tractor stuck in the mud or I don’t know what and everyone’s talking about it as if it were a great event, because he’d met another neighbor on his way there.

  Then fed up with waiting for the two drunks the servant came out on to the terrace and said monsieur is served, an antiquated expression that amused the doctor, the duck will be burnt and it won’t be my fault.

  In the glacial room was leafing through the book, December evening, the clock was showing the maid’s time, the rain was beating down on the cobbles in the courtyard.

  An April shower, the garden swamped, the plan for the greenhouse on the lower level, two notes from a blackbird resuscitated his childhood, everything would start again in the spring.

  That murmur interrupted by silences and hiccups.

  Then the other man left and towards the end of the day someone apparently saw him over by the marsh, they heard about it at the café where conversations intersect and intermingle, anyone who isn’t really listening doesn’t follow what’s being said and with the help of the booze everything merges into a sort of monotonous drone which is always the same, come winter, come summer, so that you could …

  Or the goatherd on that pink and blue morning may have branched off a good way before the quarry and gone down the road to the village, probably sat herself down in the sheltered corner between the orchard wall and the neighbor’s barn, out of the wind, and started knitting while the ratter was frisking about in the stubble, he can amuse himself with a mouse, an insect, a shadow, with his own tail, sometimes he suddenly starts rushing round in a circle as fast as he can go, another circle, another half one, he stops abruptly, sniffs at something and then goes running up to his mistress who gives him a little slap on the nose, he’ll never learn anything, the goats are grazing the hedge, the old woman stands up and shouts, she waves her stick threateningly, she limps off and drops some stitches in her knitting.